On ABC's This Week, frontrunning Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden told host George Stephanopoulos that the Democratic National Convention, which has already been postponed until mid-August, might not happen at all—at least, not as the mega-gathering of past years.
"We may have to do a virtual convention. I think we should be thinking about that right now. The idea of holding the convention is going to be necessary. We may not be able to put 10, 20, 30,000 people in one place and that's very possible. Again let's see where it is, and what we do between now and then is going to dictate a lot of that as well."
Biden is for the moment only floating the idea of a "virtual" convention, but in practice it seems all but certain that the convention will not take place as a tens-of-thousands gathering collected from across the nation and territories. Whatever the spectacle of the convention might look like, it will look different, and smaller, than in past years.
There have also been calls to cancel the convention outright. This doesn't seem likely; despite the perhaps-maybe-archaic nature of the gathering, each party's national convention is used as showcase for the party's brightest stars, desired narratives, and policy prescriptions. It is advertising, for the parties; each year's pageantry tends to provide a measurable boost in the polls, as well. There will be resistance to cancelling it outright—but a virtual convention? It seems all but certain.