President Joe Biden calls for Democrats to act on the presidential primary calendar. Biden wants to elevate South Carolina to the top spot and move swing states like Georgia and Michigan up in the lineup. Iowa will be transferred to the back with the new proposal.
The Democratic Party is set to gather soon to vote for the 2024 nomination calendar, so Biden released a proposal Thursday evening on how he would like things reconfigured. The president is calling for states with a sizable African American population to go first in the race. Scott Brennan, an Iowan member of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws sector, confirmed the proposed changes on a podcast before it was released publicly.
President Biden is calling for an upending of Democrats' presidential primary calendar, elevating South Carolina to the first spot, moving Georgia and Michigan up to the early slate, and putting Iowa back in the pack.https://t.co/LHYcGA3lNv
— NPR (@NPR) December 2, 2022
The president ordered South Carolina first in the early race, followed by New Hampshire, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan. Biden stressed diversity in the calendar overhaul as he acknowledged that the tests for presidential voters come from “heavily White states” like Iowa and New Hampshire. His letter mentioned to the DNC that voters of color should be the main priority in early voting.
“For decades, Black voters have been the backbone of the Democratic Party. We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar. It is time to stop taking these votes for granted,” he wrote.
