WEWS reporter Jay Bacchus looked back at Cleveland’s place in presidential history as part of series of stories done when a presidential debate took place in Cleveland.
The only face-to-face presidential debate of the 1980 election between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan took place here in Cleveland on Oct. 29, 1980 at the Music Hall.
Bacchus looked at old Cleveland newspaper clippings with help from the Western Reserve Historical Society.
Cleveland has hosted two national political conventions, one in 1924 and the other in 1936. Both of those were Republican conventions and both took place at Cleveland’s Public Hall.
Calvin Coolidge was nominated and won the 1924 election. Coolidge had been Warren Harding’s vice president and assumed the office upon Harding’s death in 1923.
Kansas governor Alf Landon didn’t fare as well in his attempt to become the second Republican nominated to become president from a Cleveland convention. Landon managed just eight electoral votes.
I can't find any evidence Cleveland ever hosted a Democratic convention.
In 2010, I wrote a story on the 1980 debate. You can click here to see that story, which includes Jimmy Carter jogging at Tri-C and Reagan giving his signature wave as he entered Stouffer’s Inn on the Square.
