No, you’re not watching ‘Scandal,’ it’s the DNC

Your trusted source for contextualizing Election 2024 news. Sign up for our daily newsletter .

High-profile speakers, musical guests and celebrity hosts will participate in the festivities each night of the Democratic National Convention that runs from Monday to Thursday in Chicago.

This year is different from other conventions as the party will approve its nominee and platform about a month after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign. The Democrats quickly united behind Vice President Kamala Harris , who then named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

Nighttime programming is expected to begin at 6:15 p.m. ET and end around 11 p.m. ET. Each of the celebrity hosts has a history of supporting the Democratic Party and publicly campaigning for candidates. Who are they?

Tony Goldwyn

Goldwyn, an actor who currently stars as a Manhattan district attorney on “Law & Order,” will host on Monday. Notably, Goldwyn spent seven seasons on the television show “Scandal” playing the president of the United States, co-created a legal drama series called “The Divide” and directed “Conviction,” a movie about the real-life exoneration of Kenny Waters, a man who served 18 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.

Goldwyn is also a co-chair of the Innocence Project’s ambassadors program. The Innocence Project, founded in 1992, is a national litigation and public policy organization focused on exonerating wrongfully convicted people using DNA testing and other scientific advancements.

In 2016, he directed a commercial lending support to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. And earlier this summer, when Biden was still the presumptive presidential nominee, Goldwyn attended a reproductive rights event with Biden’s reelection campaign.

Ana Navarro

Navarro, a political commentator and co-host on “The View,” will host the DNC on Tuesday. Though a Republican, Navarro has lent her support to Democratic candidates since former President Donald Trump entered American politics. She has said that the first time she voted for a Democrat was in 2016 when Hillary Clinton ran against Trump — and that she plans to support Harris over Trump in 2024.

Navarro was born in Nicaragua and emigrated to the United States as a child. She was the National Hispanic Co-Chair for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, advised multiple campaigns in Florida and again served as a National Hispanic Co-Chair, but for Republican Jon Huntsman, then the governor of Utah, during his 2012 presidential campaign.

Mindy Kaling

Kaling, an actress and comedian, will host on Wednesday. She has received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Tony Award and six Primetime Emmy Awards nominations. She first gained recognition for her role on “The Office.” She went on to create, produce and star in “The Mindy Project” before creating other shows, starring in films and writing two memoirs.

In 2019, Kaling and Harris cooked together, making a South Indian dish called masala dosa, and spoke about their shared Indian heritage. The video, which has more than 6 million views, got renewed attention in recent weeks after Trump shared it on his social media as part of an attack on Harris’ racial identity .

Kerry Washington

Washington, an actress and political activist, will host on Thursday. Washington spoke at the DNC in 2012 and served as a host in 2020. She played a political fixer for years on the TV show “Scandal.”

After Trump became president in 2016, Washington became much more politically active in real life: speaking at the Los Angeles Women’s March in 2017, publicly supporting Biden and Harris in 2020 and working with Stacey Abrams — who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017  before founding Fair Fight Action in 2019 to fight voter suppression — in 2021 to get out the vote. Washington launched the Vision Into Power Cohort program to support grassroots organizations across the country that empower Black, Latinx, Indigenous, LGBTQ+ and working-class communities.

When Harris announced her campaign, Washington posted a photo of the two of them on X with the caption: “@KamalaHarris can and will win this! I believe in her and I believe in us. Let’s gooooooooooooo!”