The 2024 Democratic National Convention starts this week, but the date lurking in the back of everyone’s mind is 1968. Comparisons to that disastrous party gathering 56 years ago have been a topic of conversation for the better part of a year, and for good reason. The number of technical similarities heading into the convention have been uncanny. But with a new presidential ticket—and a gigantic surge of excitement—Democrats are holding their breath and hoping that the end result of this convention will be wildly different.

First, the comparisons: The 2024 convention is being held in Chicago, just as it was in ’68. (This year’s event will be at the United Center; then, it was at the International Amphitheatre, which was demolished in 1999.) And the elevation of Harris and Walz to the top of the ticket is part of a political climate that has parallels with 1968’s confab: Both feature a late-breaking vice presidential replacement for an unpopular incumbent president who was driven to step down.

Back then, it was Vice President Hubert Humphrey taking the mantle from President Lyndon Johnson after just one term. Johnson, a Senate stalwart, had passed sweeping, ambitious legislation on domestic issues, expanding the welfare state and committing major resources to infrastructure spending. But his stubborn support for a calamitous war effort abroad in Vietnam led to impassioned public protest, an approval rating in the 30s, and, eventually, his withdrawal from a checkered reelection effort. (Oh, also, he was challenged by one Robert F. Kennedy.)

Swap in Biden for Johnson and Harris for Humphrey, and the stories have identical structure. But there are critical differences as well—not least that this time Democrats are fired up about their late-breaking candidate.

Humphrey arrived at the 1968 convention with the nomination functionally sewed up, having won more delegates than he needed to secure the presidential nod. Harris arrives in the same position, but her road to securing those delegates was much, much smoother. Humphrey’s main Democratic opponent, Robert Kennedy, was assassinated after winning the........

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