Dems vote to boot ‘too white’ Iowa from 2024 Primary Calendar: ‘It’s time for black voters to actually have a say’

President Joe Biden successfully pushed for South Carolina to replace Iowa as the first primary state to kick off the 2024 presidential election for Democrats due to a lack of diversity, with a former senior adviser to his 2020 campaign asserting that it’s time that black voters had a say.

(Video Credit: CNN)

The Democratic National Committee deemed that Iowa just wasn’t racially diverse enough in what can only be seen as an epic amount of pandering to black voters.

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws panel voted on Friday to change the way the party nominates its presidential candidates following complaints that there was not enough diversity in the process. Iowa caucuses have been held in the primaries before other states since 1972. The Democrats are so desperate to win in 2024, they turned the process on its head hoping to sway the black vote in 2024.

“The full DNC still has to approve the changes in a formal vote, likely in early 2023. Over the years, the Iowa caucuses turned into a crucial but not always decisive battleground, famously elevating Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008. Yet Pete Buttigieg won the 2020 caucuses,” Bloomberg reported.

“Technical snafus marred that year’s contest, and the nomination was ultimately decided by Biden’s come-from-behind win in South Carolina,” the outlet added.

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Biden threw his support behind the dramatic change earlier this week. He wrote a letter contending that the nominating process in Iowa disenfranchises voters of color.

“We must ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process and throughout the entire early window,” he stated. “As I said in February 2020, you cannot be the Democratic nominee and win a general election unless you have overwhelming support from voters of color — and that includes Black, Brown, and Asian American & Pacific Islander voters.”

He charged that black voters have historically been “pushed to the back of the early primary process.”

“We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar,” Biden claimed. “It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”

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The president went on to call for the party to nix all caucuses because they create “barriers to political participation.”

CNN anchors Victor Blackwell and Alisyn Camerota spoke with a former senior adviser to the Biden 2020 campaign on Friday concerning the issue and the response was not surprising in the least.

Biden is “asking the Democratic National Committee to make South Carolina the first state to host a primary beginning in 2024. Iowa, of course, has been the first in the nation since 1920. Joining us now is former senior adviser to the Biden 2020 campaign. Alencia Johnson. Alencia, make the case for us, why does South Carolina deserve to be first and not Iowa?” Camerota asked Johnson, kicking off the interview.

“Well, it’s time for black voters to actually have a say very early in the process. No Democratic president can win without winning a majority of black voters. And we see what happens in South Carolina each and every year. Black voters make a choice that sometimes isn’t reflective of what the Iowa caucuses have showed us,” Johnson replied, making it fairly evident that the pandering came from other top Democrats, not just Biden.

“They ended in 2020 when I was part of the primary process as a senior member of Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign, we felt that a lot of voters left there without confidence and therefore standing. And so if we want to make sure, particularly Democrats want to make sure that their base, the black voters, have a say early in the process and show that we know who could be the next president of the state. South Carolina has to go first,” she continued.

The entire segment was a justification for moving the opening caucuses and it was done on the basis of race and to reelect Biden.

“All right. So let’s look. We’ve got it on the screen now. Let’s put it back up so we can talk people through what the current order is on the left, Iowa first, and New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina. On the right, you have the proposal from the president, South Carolina, first Nevada or New Hampshire, next, then Georgia, Michigan, the states that have been elevated, those states that Biden won. So it could seem self-serving if he’s expecting a primary in 2024 to change the order. Can this happen if he is running for reelection?” Blackwell asked.

“I understand that correlation, however, we think about it. Those voters made the case for who they believe that the nominee should be, and it turned out to be President Biden,” Johnson responded.

She then provided additional cover for Biden.

“Not only did he win the nomination, he won the actual general election. And those states that you listed, not only are majority black voters represented in those states, you also have a lot of Latino voters represented in those states,” she added.

“A lot of young voters in those states. And these are also states that represent rural as well, suburban voters, college-educated and non-college-educated voters. The diversity that makes up the Democratic Party is truly reflected in those states. And a state like Michigan, for example, would be reflective of the Midwest, just a lot more diverse than Iowa,” Johnson noted.

Camerota then addressed the fairness of it all for Democratic candidates in general.

“Well, here’s another argument that I want your thoughts on. Do we want the primary, the first primary, to be a luge shoot straight to the presidency? Isn’t the primary process, part of it is duking it out among all the candidates to see who is the most fit? So one person wins Iowa, one person wins New Hampshire, one person wins South Carolina. And it’s a process,” Camerota commented.

“I do agree that we need a process. We need a robust process. But the Iowa caucuses, I’m going to be very honest, and 2020 was not the most, you know, positive experience for a lot of candidates. And I may have been and I’m on TV talking about this a lot, but a lot of us come out of the Iowa caucus and have a conversation and media a lot of pundits, a lot of news anchors, a lot of journalists,” Johnson remarked.

“We have this conversation about what voters may or may not want. And so by the time a candidate gets to a primary three or four weeks later down the road, the media has kind of already made the case for who the nominee should be and that might influence voters,” she continued.

“So if we shake things up a bit, have some more diverse states go earlier, maybe we’ll have the voters setting the tone in the narrative instead of people like myself or some of the journalists as making the case for who is going to be the nominee based on those early predictions from a state that, quite frankly, doesn’t actually have as much say in the general election,” she concluded.

According to the Census Bureau, Iowa is 90% white, and therefore Democrats no longer see it as a viable launching ground for presidential candidates.

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