South Carolina could double as Joe Biden’s coronation and wake-up call

UPDATE (Feb. 3, 2024 8:33 p.m. E.T.): This piece has been updated to reflect that NBC News projects that President Joe Biden has won South Carolina’s Democratic primary.

After spending several election cycles debating a change, Democrats moved the start of their presidential nominating process to South Carolina, which holds its primary today. As you probably remember, Rep. Jim Clyburn helped deliver the state to Joe Biden in 2020, and that was the tailwind he needed as he entered the Super Tuesday primaries that year. Biden won the 2020 Democratic primary in the Palmetto State with 49% of the vote, trouncing second-place finisher Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who received just 20%. It helped that Biden campaigned with Clyburn, the only congressional Democrat in the deeply Republican state.

But the Democrats aren’t holding their primary there as a thank-you to Clyburn. There are multiple reasons the party has picked South Carolina as the place it will kick off its nominating contests for the foreseeable future.

Unlike Iowa and New Hampshire, which have previously gone first and second and have populations of about 3.2 million and 1.4 million people, respectively, South Carolina, with about 5.2 million people, not only boasts a more robust population, but Democratic voters there more closely mirror active participants in the party nationwide. If Black people are the backbone of the Democratic Party — and, dare I say, democracy more broadly — it should come as no surprise that the Democratic Party would hold its first primary in a state that is more than a quarter African American. Iowa and New Hampshire have Black populations of 4% and 2%, respectively.

I’ve previously argued that Democrats should have picked Georgia as their first primary because of that state’s growing Latinx and Asian populations, as well as the reverse migration of African Americans returning to the South from the North. There’s also a strong get-out-the-vote infrastructure built by former Georgia state representative and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and other democracy-oriented organizations throughout the Peach State.

However, I will settle for baby steps. If not the best place, South Carolina is a great place to test the strengths, weaknesses and messaging of a Democratic candidate. States with heterogeneous populations can better equip a Democratic candidate with their articulation of overall ideas and policy proposals.

The Republican Party has an overwhelmingly older and white voting base. So beginning its contests in two states that are 90% white makes more sense. Those homogenous states reflect the homogeneity within the party. But it made little sense for Democrats, a party with significant racial, ethnic and class diversity, to stay there.

Moving the primary to South Carolina not only shows Democrats are aware and respectful of the party’s demographics, but it could also have important economic and federal policy implications.

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Iowa existing so long as the first state for candidates in both parties to campaign gave the state disproportionate attention and power. For example, anybody in Washington with even an inkling of presidential ambition was more likely to support farming subsidies because that’s what a candidate needed to do to ingratiate themself to Iowa voters, the first ones who’d get to register their choice. All 50 states are important and contribute to what late New York City Mayor David Dinkins described as a “beautiful mosaic” of cultures that makes America what she is. But both parties starting in Iowa gave that state, which ranks 30th in population, an outsize importance. It’s good that that’s ending.

Play

Rep. Clyburn warns young voters against Trump: “Think about your futures” January 30, 2024 / 02:17

If the long-held wisdom is correct that “As the South goes, so goes the nation,” then it would behoove Democrats to take advantage of this weekend’s focus on South Carolina to communicate the party’s vision on myriad issues including voting and civil rights, climate justice, poverty, immigration and new sector jobs. The South has, and continues to, set a tone for the rest of the nation. Although the South has traditionally been more conservative on social issues, organizations such Emily’s List have demonstrated that issues such as a woman’s right to choose have significant resonance among Southern Democratic voters.

South Carolina has not chosen a Democrat for president since 1976, when Jimmy Carter won the state. Democrats can’t believe that holding their first primary in South Carolina will mean they’ll win South Carolina in the general election. The point is that the Democratic voter in South Carolina better represents the Democratic electorate than the Democratic voter in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Biden doesn’t face a serious challenge to his bid for the Democratic nomination. Democrats Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson have not gained traction in the press or with funders. And independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and Jill Stein appear to be running vanity campaigns with numerous ill-conceived policy proposals. South Carolina may largely be a coronation for the sitting president, but it could also serve as a wake-up call if Biden’s numbers aren’t what his campaign thinks they need to be for him to win the general election. Polls show an uncomfortably tight race.

If nothing else, this much I am certain of: As Biden campaigns this year and prepares for a likely rematch with former President Donald Trump, he will likely hold fast South Carolina’s motto, “Dum spiro spero.” While I breathe, I hope.