Michael Barone: Will Biden’s Primary Schedule Have Unintended Consequences?

Joe Biden, the president, proudly proclaimed in his annual speech that his policies had made the union strong, betrayed an insecurity when, two days earlier, he caused the Democratic National Committee’s presidential primary schedule to be changed for 2024.

Biden’s insecurity is obvious. According to a Washington Post poll, only 31% of Democrats would like to nominate Biden again for a second term, while 58% would. “like the Democratic party to nominate someone other than Biden.” This is a lower showing among Democratic voters that Lyndon Johnson’s in 1968, two months prior to his retirement.

According to the DNC’s revised rules, the party’s nomination race will no more begin with the Iowa caucuses nor the New Hampshire primaries. Biden was fifth in these contests with 15% and 8.8% respectively. (Actually, the Iowa numbers are a bit questionable since Iowa Democrats do not count voters. “state convention delegate equivalents” Their computer counting process was broken.

Democrats now believe that South Carolina will vote first on February 3. Biden, the only black Democratic representative in the state, won 49% of the vote after a 12-candidate field. Biden won 41 out of 47 primaries, caucuses and elections held after South Carolina.

The rules allow New Hampshire, Nevada, and Georgia to vote on February 6, 2024. Georgia will follow on February 13 and Michigan on February 27. The list does not include Iowa, which is often criticized for its counting errors.

The Democratic Party is the oldest political party in the world and has, from its beginnings, been a coalition of out-groups — people not considered typically American but who, when they hold together, can assemble a national majority. In the past, the primary schedule was rearranged to give one group an advantage over another. In the Vietnam War years for example, Alan Baron, an Iowa-born strategist, promoted the state’s importance due to its historical dovish and pacifist tilt. New Hampshire Democrats were considered pro-environment, despite being nervous about the planned nuclear plant.

Biden’s reschedule gives black voters primacy. In 2020, only 3% and 3% respectively of Iowa Democratic caucusgoers were black. They made up 56% of South Carolina’s Democratic voters, and Biden won 61%. The 2020 Democratic primary electorates in Georgia and Michigan were 28%, 19% and respectively, black.

The Biden reshuffle resulted in the losing Democratic constituency being the gentry Liberals. They are generally white college graduates and isolated. According to Pew Research, they are the most left-leaning Democratic constituency and less supportive of strengthening the military or reducing crime, as well as reducing deficits.

Post-George Floyd Minneapolis saw blacks vote against, while gentry liberals voted in favor of defunding police. “Black voters,” Paul Begala, Clinton counselor, tells Thomas Edsall of the New York Times. “are the most loyal Democrats and the most sensible, practical, strategic and moderate voters.”

A potential candidate who could be hurt by the Biden reshuffle, Pete Buttigieg – his 2020 rival and current Transportation secretary – is Pete Buttigieg. He leads Biden in at most one New Hampshire poll. 2020 “Mayor Pete,” As he was known, he came close (no one knows how close) to Bernie Sanders’s Iowa campaign and lost to Sanders in New Hampshire by 26%-24%. Exit polls indicated that Sanders was the leader among white college grads from both states.

However, black voters have shown less support for gay rights and are more reluctant to vote for openly gay candidates. According to a South Carolina poll, Buttigieg was ranked 0% among black Democrats. Putting South Carolina first threatens to put the kibosh on a Buttigieg candidacy, to the extent that his performance at DOT — on paternity leave during the supply chain crisis, predicting smooth flying during the Christmas holiday — hasn’t already done so.

It is not clear why Buttigieg was elected as the former mayor for South Bend (population 103,000), Indiana. Jared Polis, a gay man, was reelected as governor for Colorado (population 5,840,000) with a margin (20%) that is comparable to Ron DeSantis’ margin in Florida. This margin is larger than the margins of Democratic governors New York, California and Illinois.

It is also uncertain if the DNC’s Biden schedule actually will happen. Because most states had Democratic legislatures in the 1970s, the primary date was set by Democrats. Today, however, most states don’t.

Iowa Democrats, but not Republicans, will likely be prevented from holding a caucus by the DNC. New Hampshire’s Republican governor, legislature, and New Hampshire Democrats want to keep their first in-the-nation primaries. State law requires that they be held prior to any other states. I have wondered for years what would happen if a different state passes a law to schedule its primary week ahead of New Hampshire’s.

New Hampshire polls may not mind DNC penalties such as not seating their tiny number of delegates (32 out of 4,523, according to preliminary estimates), just as Michigan and Florida held earlier-than-permitted primaries in 2008 that threatened to cost them half their much larger delegations.

The selection of America’s presidential delegate is bizarre. It concerns how Iowa and New Hampshire have held the first spot for 50 years, as if they were Constitutional. And how the schedule has been manipulated by those who are not careful.

Biden’s reshuffle was designed to make it easier for him to renomination. But what if in Republican pres-South Carolina contests Ron DeSantis (or another) defeats Donald Trump? According to current polls, Trump is Biden’s weakest opponent and his best chance at reelection. Do you think a single opponent could knock Joe Biden out, just as Eugene McCarthy did Lyndon Johnson’s 1968 election?

Of course, that may not happen — you might have a scenario that will. There is no perfect way to choose presidential nominees. Most voters want the country to do better than the last two times.

Michael Barone is a Washington Examiner senior political analyst, resident fellow at American Enterprise Institute, and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

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