The issue is not connected to when the vote is held but to the campaigning that takes place for months - even years - before the vote. Republican candidates have already made significant trips to Iowa. Here’s an article about that from July.
Democrats will pour time, money, and attention into the earliest states. Issues important locally will be emphasized over national issues. (Listen to Republicans in Iowa and take a drink every time agriculture is emphasized. You won’t be able to drive for a week.) Urban states and minority states have a slate of issues that white, agricultural, rural states do not. A full year’s worth of focus on those issues will shape the election in ways that mealy-mouthed fealty to agriculture - which is both important and utterly ignored for most of the rest of the year - never leads to the imperative discussion about cities that Republicans always want to avoid.
Good on the DNC. Iowa shat the bed so badly last time that they don’t deserve first place anymore. IA and NH have too little minority population to keep going first- the nominee should be someone who can carry big states with diverse populations.
The national party doesn’t actually have a huge amount of leverage to make this happen. Iowa and New Hampshire combined account for less than 2% of delegates, and a lot of those delegates end up going to also-rans who flame out quickly after, so stripping them might not be a huge penalty.
Yeah, this is my take. The reason why candidates campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire isn’t because of the (paltry) number of delegates, it’s because having a strong showing in the first caucus/primary can get you a ton of early media exposure, increase your fundraising, etc. When (not if) Iowa and New Hampshire hold their respective contests early anyway, candidates who refuse to participate risk being seen as two-time losers before the first “official” primary has even happened. Obviously not insurmountable (ask Joe Biden), but a risk.
I’ll also point out that while South Carolina may be more “diverse” than IA and NH, it’s not particularly “demographically representative.” Compared to the nation at large, it is more Black and less Hispanic and Asian. It’s also a state that no Democratic presidential candidate has a hope of carrying in the foreseeable future. If they were determined to promote an already early primary state, they should have gone with NV.
Former vice president Joe Biden and senator Bernie Sanders were the only candidates to earn delegates. Biden won 48.7% of the popular vote and notably placed first in every county in the state; it was his first ever win in a presidential primary.
So it is mostly a case of Biden rewarding the state which turned his primary campaign around from losing to winning.
SC was the forth state in the line up, just before Super Tuesday. The other three minor state primaries were small potatoes. Not to mention Biden did get the most delegates from the first primary in Idaho, with Pete #2. Biden then crushed Super Tuesday. Biden wasn’t expected to do well in the first three states.
Noooope. Iowa and New Hampshire have a track record of supporting insurgent challengers to the “establishment” Presidential candidate. While I don’t believe any incumbent President has lost either, having the first primary in SC all but guarantees Biden a big margin of victory in the first primary state in 2024.
Yeah, Clyburn was the first person I thought of, too. Joe Biden wouldn’t be President right now had it not been for his strong support at a crucial point in the 2020 Dem primaries.