In 2023, the Democratic National Committee approved a plan to move the party’s first presidential primary to South Carolina, replacing New Hampshire’s coveted first-in-the-nation spot, which it has held since 1920.
This transition has been anything but smooth. New Hampshire law requires its primaries to be held at least seven days before any other state, and in 2024 state party officials did just that. New Hampshire held its traditionally scheduled presidential primary before South Carolina — and though then-incumbent Joe Biden declined to appear on its ballot, he won as a write-in candidate regardless.
While this act of rebellion by New Hampshire Democratic Party officials against the DNC was of little consequence in a primary cycle with an incumbent president seeking renomination, the stakes will be far higher in 2028.
At first glance, this decision appears logical. Neither New Hampshire nor Iowa, which held its nominating caucus a week earlier, have demographics that represent the modern Democratic voting bloc, which has been helmed by African Americans for over six decades. Both states are overwhelmingly white, with over 80% of Iowans and a whopping 90% of New Hampshirites identifying as such. Having two racially-homogenous states as the most visible in the party’s primary process has understandably grown increasingly more difficult to justify over time.
While the need for reform is clear, moving the first Democratic primary to South Carolina is not the progressive leap it appears to be. It is a deceptive maneuver that further concentrates nominating power in the hands of a few Democratic heavyweights who favor establishment candidates over the broader interests of the party’s electorate.
Though the 2020 Democratic primary was overshadowed by the sudden emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of that year, its early contests were indelible. Biden, then the former vice president, had a decisive victory in the South Carolina primary after lackluster performances in Iowa and New Hampshire following an endorsement by Representative Jim Clyburn, D-State, then the highest ranking African American member of Congress. Biden’s win dramatically shifted the momentum away from the far more progressive frontrunner Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Today, Clyburn, at 86 years old and running for an 18th term, remains the most influential Democratic politician in South Carolina. In 2028, Clayburn’s endorsement could plausibly swing the first primary race to the Democratic candidate of his choosing. While endorsing Biden, arguably the most electable Democrat of the 2020 primary cycle, may have been a prudent decision at the time, this propensity for the status quo may not be as well received in 2028.
Beyond the ethical concerns of granting a single octogenarian congressman outsized influence over presidential elections, South Carolina presents a deeper structural drawback — one that will persist long after Clyburn leaves office. By altering the calendar, the DNC has made a socially conservative, ruby-red state the first to shape the Democratic nominating contest.
The state’s racial and political dynamics make for a predictable conservative tilt. Over 60% of South Carolina residents are white, while Black residents make up the vast majority of the remainder. Because white South Carolinians vote overwhelmingly Republican while Black residents vote overwhelmingly Democratic, the state reliably tilts red in general elections, culminating in a roughly 58-40 victory for Donald Trump in 2024.
While South Carolina’s diverse Democratic electorate tends to lean more ideologically moderate than the national party, its political character is heavily shaped by strong religious traditions. South Carolina Democrats generally are more apprehensive on supporting key party platform issues like reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ rights. This disconnect threatens to advance a Democratic primary candidate that does not necessarily have the interests of most Democratic voters at heart and grant the conservative wing of the party an outsized voice.
Moreover, while debates over the Democratic Party’s ideological identity remain open to interpretation, the political logic of the DNC’s calendar change — advancing a state they are not remotely competitive in — is indefensible. In contrast, prioritizing a true battleground state like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan or North Carolina offers immense strategic value. A candidate who proves capable of mobilizing Democratic voters in one of these fiercely competitive states enters the general election with a distinct advantage, where control over the presidency is all but certain to come down to their performance in one battleground state or another.
Clyburn and other business-as-usual leaders in the Democratic Party may favor this new calendar to ensure the nomination of establishment candidates, driven by the fear of another Trump-era presidency. Yet we must remember that a similar establishment-first strategy elevated Hillary Clinton over the less politically vulnerable Sanders in 2016 — a decision that has partly led to a decade of intense political volatility we still find ourselves in.
South Carolina’s first-in-the-nation primary may be a step forward for minority representation in the presidential nominating process, but it severely hampers the party’s progressive wing, which has been revitalized in the months following then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s gut wrenching defeat in 2024, chiefly by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and more recently Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Both men defeated well-funded, status quo candidates with strong name recognition in Democratic primaries. In the future, similar candidates with grassroots momentum will face a nearly insurmountable obstacle in the form of the South Carolina primary. The revised primary calendar is another power grab attempt by an overcautious old guard to block a bolder, unapologetically liberal future. It must be reversed.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
