Dr. Samuel B. Hoff is a George Washington Distinguished Professor Emeritus of history and political science at Delaware State University and a 10-time Independent candidate for U.S. president.
President Joe Biden has opened a can of worms by proposing changes in the order of state contests for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. Good. Let’s hope the worm will turn.
The proposed revision would place South Carolina first, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada, then move to Georgia and then to Michigan. The plan has already been approved by the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee and now goes to the full Democratic National Committee, which will meet in February 2023.
There is an obvious reason for Biden’s preferred order: After coming in fourth in the Iowa caucus in 2020 and fifth in the New Hampshire primary, he was resurrected in the South Carolina primary. His victory there provided the momentum he needed to eventually secure the nomination.
However, there are other valid reasons for changing the sequence of nomination contests, as well. Iowa and New Hampshire have held sway for decades, despite their homogeneous populations. Clearly, there is a need for greater diversity among voters earlier in the delegate-selection process.
Further, Iowa’s caucus procedure is an anachronism. Only three states held Democratic caucuses in 2020. Of all the Republican nomination contests in 2020, only five were caucuses. Both parties were upset that it took two weeks to figure out the Iowa results in 2020.
Too, it’s payback time for Delaware Democrats who will represent the state at the upcoming Democratic National Committee meeting. They will finally have the opportunity to do to New Hampshire what that state did to Delaware. When Delaware switched from caucuses to the presidential primary procedure for selecting delegates to the respective national party conventions in 1996, the state scheduled its contest less than a week after New Hampshire’s primary. New Hampshire’s party leaders subsequently threatened to punish candidates who registered to run in Delaware, leading to only one candidate visiting here. That process was repeated in 2000, with the Delaware parties splitting between caucuses and primaries and making the outcome nonbinding. Since 2012, Delaware has held its primary in April, rendering its impact on the nomination negligible. Maybe displacing New Hampshire will also convince Delaware Dems to move up the state’s primary date.
Presently, the Republicans have committed to the traditional order of presidential nomination contests, with Iowa going first and New Hampshire second. That’s OK, as there is no rule that says that both parties have to follow the same chronology. Chances are that a successful change in the order by Democrats will eventually rub off on Republicans.
There are other ways to keep Iowa and New Hampshire in the political news, while unseating them from their precarious perch. For example, the Democrats could schedule town hall-type events or debates there before the nomination season kicks off.
But, as President Biden said in a letter to the Democratic National Committee, “it is time to update the process for the 21st century.”
