WSJ (“Democrats Advance Plan to Make South Carolina First Primary State“):
Democrats moved Friday toward the most significant changes in their presidential nominating process in nearly two decades after a key committee backed a plan put forward by President Biden to allow South Carolina to host the first 2024 primary, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire on the same day, Georgia and then Michigan.
The change would decrease the influence of Iowa, which has held the first nominating contest for five decades, while elevating the role of several states that are typically battlegrounds in general elections. The change would reduce the importance of New Hampshire, the traditional host of the nation’s first presidential primary.
The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee approved a 2024 plan for South Carolina to kick off the process Feb. 3, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and Michigan on Feb. 27. Those dates would come ahead of Super Tuesday in March, when several states typically hold primaries, followed by contests throughout the spring.
The only no votes were cast by members from Iowa and New Hampshire out of roughly 30 members. The proposal, which could face legislative hurdles in Republican-controlled states such as Georgia, is expected to be approved by the full DNC during the its winter meeting in Philadelphia in early February.
The promotion of South Carolina is a reward for a state that helped revitalize Mr. Biden‘s 2020 campaign during the primaries. The state is the home of the DNC’s chairman, Jaime Harrison.
Party leaders from Iowa, where Mr. Biden hasn’t performed well during his political career, and New Hampshire, whose first-in-the-nation primary is enshrined in state law, suggested that they would move forward with their contests regardless of the DNC’s decision. That could trigger penalties from the national party.
“New Hampshire does have a statute, we do have a law, and we will not be breaking our law,” said Joanne Dowdell, a Rules and Bylaws Committee member from New Hampshire. Ms. Dowdell is senior vice president for global government affairs at News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Biden has said he intends to seek re-election and pointed to plans to make a formal announcement sometime next year. If he doesn’t face any significant opposition, some of the changes to the calendar might not be felt until 2028. But the moves have shaken up the calendar process and could set in place future fights over the order of states after Iowa and New Hampshire held the top spots for about a half-century.
AP (“Dems move to make South Carolina, not Iowa, 1st voting state“) adds:
The change also comes after a long push by some of the party’s top leaders to start choosing a president in states that are less white, especially given the importance of Black voters as Democrats’ most loyal electoral base.
Discussion on prioritizing diversity drew such impassioned reaction at the committee gathering in Washington that DNC chair Jaime Harrison wiped away tears as committee member Donna Brazile suggested that Democrats had spent years failing to fight for Black voters: “Do you know what it’s like to live on a dirt road? Do you know what it’s like to try to find running water that is clean?”
“Do you know what it’s like to wait and see if the storm is going to pass you by and your roof is still intact?” Brazile asked. “That’s what this is about.”
[…]
Biden wrote in a letter to rules committee members on Thursday that the party should scrap “restrictive” caucuses altogether because their rules on in-person participation can sometimes exclude working-class and other voters. He told also told party leaders privately that he’d like to see South Carolina go first to better ensure that voters of color aren’t marginalized as Democrats choose a presidential nominee.
Four of the five states now poised to start the party’s primary are presidential battlegrounds, meaning the eventual Democratic winner would be able to lay groundwork in important general election locales. That’s especially true for Michigan and Georgia, which both voted for Donald Trump in 2016 before flipping to Biden in 2020. The exception is South Carolina, which hasn’t gone Democratic in a presidential race since 1976.
The first five voting states would be positioned to cast ballots before Super Tuesday, the day when much of the rest of the country holds primaries. That gives the early states outsize influence since White House hopefuls struggling to raise money or gain political traction often drop out before visiting much of the rest of the country.
Scott Brennan, a rules committee member from Iowa, said “small, rural states” like his “must have a voice in the presidential nominating process.”
“Democrats cannot forget about entire groups of voters in the heart of the Midwest without doing significant damage to the party in newer generations,” Brennan said.
The Republican National Committee has already decided to keep Iowa’s caucus as the first contest in its 2024 presidential primary, ensuring that GOP White House hopefuls — which include Trump — have continued to frequently campaign there.
The optics of moving up the state that turned the tide for the sitting President and punishing a state where he has historically underperformed aren’t great but, in reality, the 2024 nomination is Biden’s regardless unless he decides not to or is unable to run. And serious election analysts, regardless of party affiliation, of argued for years that Iowa and New Hampshire are incredibly unrepresentative states.
This is, therefore, a bold move. I’m not exactly sure how it’s going to work, though, with Republicans not going along. It would be incredibly expensive—not to mention confusing—for each state to hold two primary contests.
It’s not clear from the reports I’ve read whether Biden’s plea for ending “restrictive” caucuses passed. It’s certainly a good idea. How it would be enforced is another question. States have flouted these rules many times over the years and the parties are incredibly reluctant to punish them.
