The Democratic Party just revised their 2024 primary schedule removing Iowa from the top spot and replacing it with South Carolina on February 3, 2024. I would guess that this is a reward to Jim Clyburn and South Carolina for giving Joe Biden a much needed primary victory in 2020 after three mediocre finishes in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada in 2020.
Let’s face it…..South Carolina will be meaningless in the Presidential race in 2024 for the Democratic nominee. After winning this primary and gaining the momentum to secure the nomination in 2020, Biden lost South Carolina to Trump in the general election 55% to 43%. And so why do we believe that 2024 will be different and why put South Carolina first?
As we all have come to learn….there are Red States and Blue States and approximately a dozen or so Swing States. The presidential election is ultimately determined by which candidate can carry the majority of these dozen Swing States. However, both parties seem to miss this point in their primary process of selecting a candidate for the Fall contest. Both parties have similar primary schedules and systems, but for this essay I am only concerned about Democratic Party. And so we have primaries and a few caucuses in all 50 states and then we select the winner who has won the primaries in major Democratic states of New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and the other Democratic states like Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Now we just hope that this nominee will appeal to the voters in those 12 Swing States. This is ass backwards.
Let’s have a process that determines which candidate can win these Swing States. Let’s have the first primary date in early March consisting of the 5 states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. Let’s have the candidates spend a good part of 2023 and early 2024 traveling to these States so we can which candidate strikes a chord with the blue collar workers of this heavily industrialized region, which candidate can relate to the large minority populations in the big cities in these States and which candidate can relate to the small farmer and small business owners in these regions. The candidate that wins this primary might have a good chance of carrying these Swing States in the general election. The second primary in early April would consist of the 4 states…Florida, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado. The candidate who wins this primary will obviously be a strong candidate with the growing Hispanic population in our country. The third primary in early May would be in the 3 states of Virginia, North Carolina and New Hampshire. The winner of this primary will have to appeal for the white collar worker and “suburban mom” that has become an important part of the Democratic base. Finally, on the first Tuesday in June, we have a real Super Tuesday with all other states holding their primary on that date.
You may say, what is the difference….all voters in all states cast their ballot and we are at the same place as our current system by the end of the primary season. This is NOT true. This primary schedule is set up to determine which candidate can win the Swing States. This is the key to winning the general election. The candidate that does not perform well early will likely lose support in later primaries as voters see their weakness in the Swing States.
With this system in place, Democrats should not be surprised the results of the Swing States and therefore, the outcome of the election.
H O W A R D S B E N D 