It wasn’t because they care about offending farmers or removing ethanol subsidies, it was so that Biden can lock down some early primary wins in 2024 with States with a higher percentage of black voters.
I’ve clarified the grandparent: I was referring to the nominating contest (the aggregate of primary elections and caucuses that are addressed by the schedule change being discussed), not the general election.
The volume for 2024 is also so low compared to 2020 so I don't think you can use the current 2024 predictions as evidence.
[1]: https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3698/Who-will-win-t...
him saying they're doing it to lock in Biden (their mainstream/establishment frontrunner) in large early primaries in 2024 (the next election) is not really different from saying they're doing it to lock in their mainstream/establishment frontrunner in large early primaries in future elections to avoid the kind of "self destructive" internecine primary battles with fringe candidates like Bernie Sanders--yes, he was very popular, but his views are to one side of the Democratic party which is to one side of the Republican party which makes his views part of the fringe in the uniform tapestry of views--which have taken place for many years.
Not saying it's right or wrong, just saying GP's analysis holds together as part of the larger analysis everybody here seems to be basing their thinking on.
Yes, it is.
Because it refers to specific geographic strengths that Biden had as a candidate, not strengths that are uniformly typical of establishment-preferred Democratic candidates.
(Now if, instead of referring to Biden’s particular and unique strengths that correlate with the change, they had said that it was to lock in estanlishment candidates by moving some larger, more expensive states to campaign in forward, and that that establishment support was more key in campaigning in those states – a weak but at least superficially plausible argument – that would be different. But “states with a higner percentage of black voters” are…a different thing.
South Carolina Democrats, black and white, are much more toward the center of the overall electorate, which is where the national campaigns shift their focus after running left and right in their respective D and R primaries. It is not Biden's specific strength that matters, because it was also the reason "Super Tuesday" was created many years ago to benefit the establishment candidate (Walter Mondale at the time)* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Tuesday#1984:_Beginnings...
And black voters are (or have been) reliably Democrat, which benefits all Democrat candidates, not particular to do with Biden (or Bill Clinton) though they did enjoy outsized black support. Saying the first primary is being moved "to make the electorate look like America" is designed to shut up the Left, who would scream bloody murder if they said "putting this state first is an establishment move because SC is not so left wing" It takes an "establishment move" to change the primaries because the state parties have to change it in the local places with cooperation or opposition from the other party in those states.
* a much younger Biden was a candidate back then too but when, as an English coalminer's great-grandson, Biden's support was centered in the UK so nobody in the US was doing him huge political favors)**
**this is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Biden plagiarizing Niel Kinnock's speech which knocked him out of the 1992 race https://archive.ph/idkaA
Biden is unlikely to face a primary challenge if he runs. Bernie already said he won't. https://www.axios.com/2022/06/14/bernie-sanders-2024-primary...
Don't forget that the 2020 Iowa caucus was a complete mess, totally botched, and the chair of the Iowa Democratic Party had to resign soon afterward.
E.G. 5 Primary waves (Tuesdays/weeks/months) sorted by the 10 states with the least population to the most population.
Why? It's a better rough approximation for a representative sample over an increasingly large window of voters than the current process, and still keeps any benefit of ramping up from smaller to larger populations to narrow overall selection in the field. Plus the algorithm is so simple that it can be outlined in a sentence.
It is not true that “every other country” has parties select their presidential (or nearest equivalent, whether as head of state or head of government, other countries frequently divorcing those roles) candidate by simultaneous national elections. Sometimes, they don’t even (in a legal sense) choose a candidate at all, though the party may have its own process of deciding and announcing who its members responsible for the leadership election (e.g., MPs in Westminster-style system) will vote for should they secure the necessary majority to decide the outcome on their own.
In fact, I couldn’t off the top of my head name even a single country that uses a national simultaneous primary to select party nominees for election head of government or head of state, can you?
Assuming parties could pick the primary border, I think it’d be most advantageous to pick the States sorted by the absolute value of the win/loss percentage for a given state. That way highly contested States get an earlier say in the process and presumably a candidate that is more favorable in those markets comes out ahead earlier in the process.
I think an established rotation would be better, and at least a medium sized state rotating in the "first wave".
It was payback to Jim Clyburn for the stunt he pulled in 2020 re: Bernie.