Dems Vote to Drop Iowa from Front of 2024 Primary Calendar Over Lack of Diversity

The 2024 Democratic primary will tee off in South Carolina and not in Iowa, which the Democratic National Committee has deemed not racially diverse enough.

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws panel voted Friday to change the way the party nominates its presidential candidates over complaints there was not enough diversity in the process. The Iowa caucuses have been held before primaries in other states since 1972.

Bloomberg reported:

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.

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

President Joe Biden put his support behind the change earlier this week, writing in a letter that beginning 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,” Biden wrote. “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.”

Biden argued Black voters in particular have long 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,” he stated. “It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”

Biden called for the party to do away with all caucuses claiming they create “barriers to political participation.”

According to the Census Bureau, Iowa is 90% White.