Unintended Consequences
By now you’re well aware that the Democratic National Committee, the DNC, in accordance with the wishes of the Biden White House, have shuffled the deck in the presidential nominating process, pushing Iowa and New Hampshire to the side in favor of South Carolina, Nevada, Michigan and Georgia.
The idea was to avoid states where Biden traditionally has done poorly—Iowa and New Hampshire—and stack the deck in his favor with the state that saved his failing campaign in 2020—South Carolina.
But a few funny things have happened since that master plan at control was unveiled.
First, the president is wildly unpopular, such that all Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., had to do was announce a challenge and he immediately picked up 20 percent of the Democrat vote. If that many are willing to jump ship, how many more might follow if another Democrat with more of an electoral track record tossed his or her hat into the ring.
Second, the DNC might have decreed an order of states, but that doesn’t square with existing state laws in places like Iowa and New Hampshire which guarantee first-in-the-nation status for caucuses and primaries, respectively. And with those other states being caught off guard about the change…it’s more and more likely that regardless of what the DNC wants, Iowa and New Hampshire will still go first and dare the national party to not seat their delegates. It’s a threat that Iowa ignored and won against in the past, when Dave Nagle was party chair.
But if it’s not an officially blessed proceeding, the Biden folks say they won’t participate…which means you could have someone not named Biden actually win in Iowa and/or New Hampshire. The public perception of that will not be good for Biden, especially if his best response is, “yeah, but I wasn’t competing there so it doesn’t count”.
Granted, Iowa’s Democrats are still doing their best to screw things up by still cow-towing to the national party…because that’s worked so well for them so far in this process. But don’t count out Iowa as being first-in-the-nation for both parties again in 2024.
