An unusually heavy spring snowstorm didn’t dampen the mood inside Denver’s Ball Arena on Wednesday, where Mayor Mike Johnston and other top Colorado Democrats made an ebullient case to party officials and members of the media for the Mile High City to host the 2028 Democratic National Convention.

“I want to thank the mayor for actually making this Minnesotan feel really at home,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, who was elected by party delegates to a four-year term in the post last year. “He ordered up this beautiful snow.”

Martin and a host of other DNC officials were in town for a three-day site visit to evaluate Denver’s bid, after it was named as a finalist alongside four other cities — Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia — earlier this year.

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Johnston rattled off a list of Denver’s advantages as a host city, beginning with the number of flights connecting Denver International Airport with cities around the country, the A Line rail service linking the airport to the city center, and a downtown area ready to host thousands of delegates within a walkable convention zone centered on Ball Arena and the Colorado Convention Center.

“It’s like an Olympic Village, but it’s a convention village,” he said. “You have here, all within a 15-minute walk, the arena where all the nightly events will happen in primetime; the convention center, where all the meetings will happen during the day; and the 13,000 hotel rooms where all of the delegates, and all of the visitors that come as a part of this convention, can all stay.”

Scheduled to be held August 7 to 10, 2028, the convention will follow the Democratic Party’s yet-to-be-finalized schedule of presidential primaries and caucuses throughout the first half of the year, awarding the nomination to the candidate the party picks in its bid retake the White House from Republicans in November 2028.

Democratic Governor Jared Polis — who is set to leave office in January after two terms, and has been intermittently rumored as a potential 2028 candidate himself — touted Colorado’s universal kindergarten and preschool programs, public transit investments, climate-action plans and other accomplishments he said “residents of red states and blue states can be proud of.”

“This is a state (where) we’ve successfully shown not only that Democrats won, and continue to win, but we’re governing effectively,” said Polis.

Recapturing 2008

The 2028 DNC will mark the 20th anniversary of the last time Denver hosted the event, when Barack Obama accepted the party’s 2008 presidential nomination in front of a crowd of more than 80,000 people at what was then known as Invesco Field at Mile High.

Recapturing the hope and excitement that so many Democrats felt in Denver two decades ago featured prominently in the pitch made by Colorado Democrats Wednesday. “Yes We Can… AGAIN!” read signs held up by supporters of the city’s bid.

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib recalled biking to the 2008 convention when he was “just a college kid and a very, very junior staffer,” and feeling energized and inspired by the party’s direction under Obama and Colorado Democrats like former Senator Ken Salazar and then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.

“Something happened to me in that city in 2008, and I’ve spent every year since trying to make sure it happens to someone else,” Murib said. “I think everyone who was there in 2008 feels very similarly. And we have that opportunity again, to inspire the next generation in 2028, by hosting the DNC convention here.”