After years of people grumbling about the small, rural, mostly-white states of Iowa and New Hampshire getting an outsized voice in the selection of party nominees -- but nothing ever happening about it -- Joe Biden is pushing his party to finally do something. He's proposing that South Carolina go first, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on the same day, then Georgia, then Michigan. He also wants the party to get rid of caucuses and move entirely to primaries. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/2/23488627/democrats-primary-iowa-michigan-joe-biden The DNC can't dictate when a state has its primary -- that's a state function -- so there could be some showdowns in the works. New Hampshire: Has already said it won't go along with the plan, and no matter when any other state has its presidential primary, New Hampshire law requires that its primary be moved earlier. However, the DNC can play hardball, not only stripping New Hampshire of the ability to seat delegates (which is what they did when Michigan scheduled its primary before New Hampshire in 2008) but penalizing candidates who campaign there. New Hampshire has a Republican governor and state legislature who are unlikely to care. Iowa: If they stick with a caucus, presumably the DNC can strongarm the Iowa Democratic Party into following its schedule. But the DNC would probably rather not have a caucus, and again, Iowa's Republican governor and legislature won't give a shit. South Carolina and Georgia: They also have Republican governors and legislatures, but presumably those governors would like the idea of their states becoming more prominent ... unless they decide to be against the idea out of spite since Biden proposed it. (Or the RNC could decide to double down on Iowa and New Hampshire's supremacy and threaten to unseat Republican delegates to any state that goes against them.) Nevada: Democratic legislature, Republican governor. Also not a major change for Nevada since they'd just be going from third to tied for second. Haven't heard anything about what might happen here. Michigan: Democratic legislature and governor, and Michigan has already made noises in the past about moving earlier. So it's not hard to imagine Michigan ending up as the first state that actually chooses any delegates to the Democratic convention.
This, incidentally, is not what I thought would happen. I assumed that Iowa and New Hampshire would technically keep going first, but at least on the Democratic side, nobody would care anymore and the media narrative would become "OK, that's a cute little beauty contest, but we won't know anything until South Carolina."
I do think there's an advantage to shrinking the size of the playing field, through staggered contests, so that less well-known or well-funded candidates have a chance to be heard.
It's political - Biden wants the early momentum. SC is where he was strongest in the 2020 primaries. But I could give a rat's ass about Iowa and New Hampshire always going first. BTW, I think Uncle Joe just declared.
Whoever wins SC invariably gets the nomination. That’s why Bloomberg picked that state to enter the primary. It enabled him to sandbag Sanders and Warren and once they lost, he quit the race.
Joe Biden and the whole fucking country owe an unrepayable debt to Jim Clyburn and the South Carolina voters who handed Biden a victory that turned his campaign and the media narrative around it completely around, most likely saving us from four more years of Trump. It may be a political payoff, but it's one of which I fully approve.
