U.S. President Joe Biden has asked the Democratic National Committee to make South Carolina the first state in the country to hold the party’s primary, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada a week later, Democratic sources have told U.S. media.
Specifically, the US president has asked James Clyburn, the ‘number three’ of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, that South Carolina replaces Iowa as the first contest in the Democratic primaries, as it has been since 1971, Bloomberg agency has reported.
The intention with this change is to give South Carolina, a state with a huge black population — the electoral bloc most loyal to the Democrats — a large financing, since historically the first state where the primaries are held attracts millions of dollars in expenses and attention from the candidates.
In this way, the Biden Administration seeks to win in a state that Republicans have owned for nearly five decades. In fact, not even Barack Obama in 2008 was able to pull off a victory there, losing by eight points.
«We must ensure that voters of color have a voice in the choice of our nominee much earlier in the process and throughout the early period,» Biden wrote in a letter sent Thursday to members of the Democratic National Committee, as reported by ‘The Washington Post’.
«As I said in February 2020, you cannot be the Democratic nominee and win a general election unless you have the overwhelming support of voters of color, and that includes Black, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander voters,» the U.S. president added.
Thus, the South Carolina primary would be held on February 5, followed by Iowa and Nevada on February 12, and Georgia (February 19) and Michigan (February 26).
Biden’s plan must now be ratified by the Rules and Bylaws Committee, which will meet this weekend in Washington, although it will be opposed by Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire.
