Iowa: 92% white. N.H.: 94%. Why do we Dems frontload 2 of our whitest states

[pnwmom]

into our primary/caucus schedule? (On Feb. 1 and Feb. 9th)

And why is the District of Columbia’s primary (with the highest percentage of minority voters in the US) in the last spot overall, on June 14th?

It couldn’t be that pesky old institutional racism, could it? Not in the Democratic party!


But just for comparison, some other statistics:

Percent “white alone” in the US: 77%.

Percent “white alone,” in various states, followed by date of primary or caucus:

New York: 70% April 19th
Maryland : 60% April 26th
Delaware: 71% April 26th
Puerto Rico: (not listed) June 5th
New Jersey: 73% June 7th
California: 73% June 7th

District of Columbia : 44% June 14



“A quick guide to Iowa and New Hampshire”

From the US census, percent “white alone” in 2014.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/19000.html

Democratic primary/caucus schedule

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016

[mmonk]

1. Did it hurt Obama in 2008?

[pnwmom]

8. He managed to win the states -- but we don't know what his vote counts

in the first two states would have been if they had been more reflective of the general population. Probably higher than they were in Iowa and NH.

[1StrongBlackMan]

21. That doesn't answer the question. eom.

[mmonk]

33. I wasn't answering it.

I would be fine with putting DC first.

[NCTraveler]

41. Remember back in the day, when the process didn't benefit you and benefited others?

Remember that?

"By the time it comes to my state, it will be over. I will not have been able to participate by actually casting a vote that helps decide the outcome. So the primary is not for all of us to participate in (other than trying to influence people in other states." mmonk

[mmonk]

42. Yes I do. Now it is moved upped but still

not that beneficial. But in a tight race, we became the center of attention in 2008. In that case, we benifitted.

[msanthrope]

62. Do we mention President Obama because he is Black?

Or for another reason?

[yeoman6987]

2. I believe it has to do with state law

New Hampshire passed a law that they are first in the nation (primary). I think this was done a very long time ago and don't believe racism was the reason for it. The percentages would have been vastly different when the law was passed in those other states and DC.

[pnwmom]

11. Except Iowa is first now. nt

[Codeine]

14. NH first primary. Iowa first caucus.

Or that's the distinction as I've understood it, anyway.

[yeoman6987]

19. Iowa never was a primary.

[brooklynite]

3. New Hampshire was one of the first Primaries...

(into the 60s, many States picked their delegates through an internal Party process). Because campaigning was important, it became a significant event and they passed legislation mandating that it be schedule to be first in the election year.

NH is followed by SC which has a large black population.

[pnwmom]

9. SC is actually 4th, after Nevada.

[NurseJackie]

4. It certainly provides an obstacle to candidates ...

... that have broad appeal to non white voters.

[rjsquirrel]

5. Ding ding

[mythology]

53. But at the same time the states are both small enough

For lesser known candidates to make headway. It's a trade off, but it does have some advantages.

[morningfog]

6. It is completely arbitrary and should be changed.

And likely a product of institutional racism. I would prefer to see a few states representing a truer cross section of the country vote in the first primary.

[cali]

7. Tradition and size

[firebrand80]

10. It's controlled by the various state legislatures

Last time around, a few other states tried to move up, and IA and NH moved up even further in response. The Parties have something to say about it, but at this point it's a tradition controlled by the states that I don't see changing.

One thing that could change it is if the two major parties got together and agreed on a system that both found preferable. However, I don't see why the Dems would do that; in the last few cycles the GOP has the evangelical's preferred candidate coming out of IA followed a more moderate choice in NH. Right now, the system divides the GOP much more than it does democrats.

[pnwmom]

13. Except "Democrats abroad" is March 1-8 and D.C. is on June 14th.

Who sets those dates?

[firebrand80]

17. I think the DC city council controls the primary date

Not sure about the democratic voters abroad

[RBInMaine]

12. Oh please. Sorry, but this is a needless post. It's tradition and it doesn't matter. Move on.

[pnwmom]

15. It matters if the election is decided before your state votes.

It matters if it misrepresents who would win if all the states voted at the same time.

And why should the votes of the residents of D.C. almost never matter in a primary? Why should they matter less than "Democrats abroad" who vote on March 1 - 8?

[yeoman6987]

20. smaller unknow candidates would not have a chance

In fact, president Obama probably would not be in the whit house now if we had same day primary. President Obama won the nomination thanks to Iowa.

[Gman]

43. While I agree with your premise

These dates are set at least a year before the voting and long before all candidates are even known. Therefore it's impossible to structure the schedule in such a way that any candidate that who has a special appeal would be competitive.

There is some misconception about what these primaries are for. The state parties just want to get their delegates picked. They likely have favorites, and may structure things to favor one over another. But the primary purpose is solely to pick delegates and decide how they are apportioned to the candidates.

[pnwmom]

45. That may be but the VOTERS in the states want the delegates to represent their views.

That's why we changed to a (mostly) primary system.

[mmonk]

16. The thematic elements they are trying

is a fail for this election .

[pnwmom]

18. Is there any election in which it's fine that the residents of D.C., for example,

almost always have their primary after the election has already been decided?

And that two of the most heavily white states have the most influence?

[mmonk]

37. Georgia has a sizable minority population.

So does Louisiana or Mississippi. Had you rather they go first? I would like DC to go first.

[NCTraveler]

22. Privilege.

Wealth, race, and arrogance.

[leftofcool]

25. Nailed it!

[Ken Burch]

29. Agreed.

And it's only the left wing of the Democratic Party that has ever fought institutional racism. Not the Beltway wing, and not the Wall Street/corporate wing.

[NCTraveler]

36. O'Malley all the way. Nt

[Tom Rinaldo]

23. D.C. should be moved up to the week after NH.

It makes sense for small states that aren't expensive to campaign in and where folks can actually meet the candidates to be the first up. That allows good candidates who aren't already nationally well known or massively funded a chance to build a following. The District of Columbia fits that profile though. That contest should be one of the first three.

[Ken Burch]

27. Absolutely. n/t.

[Ken Burch]

24. I agree that other states should be in first. D.C. first, them New York and California.

since states that are loyally Democratic should matter more than swing states OR than any of the Southern states of Super Tuesday. We shouldn't have a process that gives special privileges to states we can't ever carry.

It's not as though our nomination should be decided by South Carolina, a state that will never vote Democratic in the fall again, a state where white supremacists hold unchallengable and eternal power, a state which will never be progressive no matter what.

Clearly, though, you are only raising this issue because you think that POC will still vote for your conservative/militarist candidate, even though her lead among them is shrinking and more and more POC are realizing that HRC never cared about them.

[exboyfil]

30. Both Iowa and NH voted

for Obama in the last election (and the one prior to it).

[Ken Burch]

34. narrowly. D.C. should have as much of an early say as they do.

The greater point is that the South, which will never vote for us again, which will never stop being homophobic white supremacist hellholes no matter what, should not have an effective veto over whom our nominee is.

We'd have lost just as badly in '84 and '88 with a conservative(that's what "Southern moderate" means) as we did with Mondale and Dukakis, both of whom essentially ran on Southern moderate platforms anyway.

[TeddyR]

31. Why should NY and CA start?

They might be reliably blue now, and probably for the foreseeable future, but it wasn't that long ago that CA went for a Bush. And the premise that IA or NH are too "white" is simply ridiculous to me - much ado about nothing. Why do "loyally democratic" states matter more than swing states or "Southern states"? I'm pretty sure that Al Gore wished that he carried that "Southern state" Florida, and Colorado (swing), Pennsylvania (swing), Ohio (swing) and Virginia (swing AND Southern) are all pretty important.

[Ken Burch]

32. The only reason for Super Tuesday was to make sure we nominated the most conservative Dem running.

There is no good reason for states that are loyally Democratic to be irrelevant in the nomination process.

[daleanime]

26. There's tons of changes we need to make.....

to our 'democracy'.

Let's start now.

[brooklynite]

39. How?

[daleanime]

44. By starting to decrease the important of money in our system....

by electing people who don't seek advantage from laws they say should be changed. And by getting more people involved in the process. We can't be afraid to talk to anyone, anywhere, or at anytime.

Your suggestions?

[exboyfil]

28. As someone from Iowa

please change the calendar. I can't stand the phone calls. Jeb, Rand, Marco, Ted, Mike, and Donald are all now my personal friends based upon their calls. I can't stand it.

I would like to see something like a Red/Blue joined primary schedule over the course of 10 weeks (voting every two weeks). Group states based upon results of last five elections to equal about the same number of electoral votes each week. Rotate the order in some fashion. Avoid regional type groupings (such as all New England states voting at the same time)

[cali]

35. There are excellent reasons for small population states to go first, but a rotation

might serve better. And no way should large states go first or should all the primaries be on one day.

[mmonk]

38. Agreed about big states going first unless

the idea is to end the primaries quickly with more people left out of the process.

[Martin Eden]

40. Are the dates controlled at the national level by the Democratic Party, or by the states?

I'm not certain, but I think each state gets to determine when to hold its primary and it is for all political parties.

[Jim Lane]

46. Mostly the states, which is why the charge of institutional racism fails completely.

Each state sets its own date but both major national parties try to enforce some constraints, on pain of a state losing some or all of its delegates.

Because states that go early tend to have more influence, there's a danger of a stampede to the front of the calendar. At one point New Hampshire was threatening to move its primary to December or November if that's what it took to be first. National party rules are aimed at preventing a pile-up in which states try to leapfrog each other and everything ends up in January or February.

On the Democratic side, I'm pretty sure that the first four states are set but after that it's open season. DC could move its primary to March if it chose to. I vote in New Jersey and our June primary will probably also be meaningless, so I feel the OP's pain, but the lateness of some primaries isn't because of racism.

Iowa's early date just happened. It's a multi-level system -- the "big event" on February 1 is just the precinct caucuses, which choose delegates to the county conventions. Then the county conventions choose delegates to the district conventions. Then the district conventions choose delegates to the state convention, which chooses the delegates to the national convention. People need to be able to make plans if they're going to attend a convention, so the schedulers wanted each stage to be completed several weeks in advance of the next stage. Then, IIRC, when they were doing the schedule the first time, the date they wanted for the state convention turned out to be a bad choice because another (non-political) convention had already been booked and would be taking up too many of the hotel rooms, so they moved the state convention to be earlier, which pushed each other stage earlier, which meant that the precinct caucuses happened to fall before the New Hampshire primary.

Now, of course, Iowa and New Hampshire cherish their disproportionate influence, and will fight to keep it.

[pnwmom]

59. As you say, the national party sets rules, and it doesn't have to allow

Iowa and NH to be first. Pointing to NH "tradition" doesn't eliminate the possibility of institutional racism, and neither does the situation with Iowa, really.

They chose that date deliberately, and they were allowed to. Other states with caucuses manage to schedule their line-up more compactly. If the conventions were full, they could have either chosen another city OR they could have decided they didn't need "each stage to be completed several weeks in advance of the next stage."

[Jim Lane]

63. You're overestimating the power of the national parties here.

It was concern about the unrepresentative nature of Iowa and New Hampshire, along with averting a heavily front-loaded primary schedule, that led to the current rules. The parties decided, correctly in my opinion, that it would be extremely difficult to oust Iowa and New Hampshire entirely. Instead, the rule was to add Nevada and South Carolina, giving a greater role to Hispanics, blacks, the West, and the South, and to prohibit any other contests before March 1.

Even doing that much proved difficult. In 2008, Florida and Michigan went somewhat too early and there was a huge fight about the DNC's attempt to enforce its rules. The DNC initially refused to seat the delegates from the states that were in violation. The DNC has no way to prevent a state legislature from setting an early primary date, but the blunt remedy of not seating delegates is hard to implement. A candidate who stands to benefit from seating those delegates will join with politicians from the affected state(s) in resisting the penalty. Here's how that power struggle played out in 2008, from the Wikipedia article:

On January 25, 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton advocated permitting Florida's delegates (along with similarly situated Michigan's) to be seated and vote at the Democratic National Convention[7][8] despite the DNC ban, stating:

I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan.[9]

Clinton's supporters argued that Michigan and Florida's citizens should participate in the nomination processes, and that it would be a mistake for the Democratic Party to overlook the two huge battleground states that might be crucial in the November general election. They also argued that the Clinton campaign had not had a voice in the decision to strip Florida of its delegates.[1]

Critics charged that changing the rules in this way was unfair and that Clinton's position was motivated purely by political expediency.[10][11][12] Among their arguments was that neither Clinton nor her campaign had made any public protest when Florida's punishment had first been announced in August 2007;[1] that Clinton was adopting this position only after results from the first primaries had made it apparent that the campaign was not running the way she had expected;[1] that Clinton, along with other candidates, had signed the pledge not to campaign or participate in Florida;[1] and that at the time the pledge was signed, Clinton's then-campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle had proclaimed that

We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process...We believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role. Thus, we will be signing the pledge to adhere to the DNC approved nominating calendar.[1]

The party initially ruled that no Florida or Michigan delegates would be seated. As a result of the ensuing brouhaha, the party (through its Rules and Bylaws Committee) backed down to the extent of agreeing to seat all the delegates but giving each only half a vote. At the convention, the surrender was completed, as the convention voted to seat both delegations with full votes.

Despite that history, you seem to imply that the DNC could write a schedule and then inform 50 state legislatures plus the District of Columbia plus Democrats Abroad plus a few other jurisdictions like Puerto Rico that they were all going to change their rules so as to change the date of their primary or caucus. Furthermore, if the DNC agreed with many people (including me) that the fairest thing is to have different states go first in each cycle, then the DNC would also have to dictate to those various legislatures that they would all change their dates again every four years. Look at the 2008 debacle and TELL me that would work.

[Gothmog]

47. Sanders could win both Iowa and NH and still not be favorite to be nominee

A candidate can win both Iowa and New Hampshire on the basis of only white voters and such a victory will not help in other states http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bernie-sanders-new-hampshire/

So why do I still think Sanders is a factional candidate? He hasn’t made any inroads with non-white voters — in particular black voters, a crucial wing of the Democratic coalition and whose support was a big part of President Obama’s toppling of Clinton in the 2008 primary. Not only are African-Americans the majority of Democratic voters in the South Carolina primary (a crucial early contest), they make up somewhere between 19 percent and 24 percent of Democrats nationwide. In the past two YouGov polls, Sanders has averaged just 5 percent with black voters. Ipsos’s weekly tracking poll has him at an average of only 7 percent over the past two weeks. Fox News (the only live-interview pollster to publish results among non-white voters in July and August) had Clinton leading Sanders 62-10 among non-white Democrats in mid-July and 65-14 in mid-August. Clinton’s edge with non-whites held even as Sanders cut her overall lead from 40 percentage points to 19....

But even if you put aside those metrics, Sanders is running into the problem that other insurgent Democrats have in past election cycles. You can win Iowa relying mostly on white liberals. You can win New Hampshire. But as Gary Hart and Bill Bradley learned, you can’t win a Democratic nomination without substantial support from African-Americans.

Sanders is likely to do well in Iowa, New Hampshire, Utah and Vermont but these states combined have less than one-half of the delegates as Texas alone.

Unless Sanders can broaden his appeal, then he will not be the nominee

[AtheistCrusader]

52. The hope is, for a bounce from those three.

Sanders is largely ignored in the media. That will change quickly if he can carry those three states.

If he is close, but loses, that won't be enough. He has to win. Even then, odds not great.

[Gothmog]

56. But under DNC rules, a win will net Sanders only a few more delegates than Clinton

Proportional allocation of delegates means that Sanders may net six to ten more delegates than Clinton. Texas has almost three times the number of delegates as Iowa and New Hampshire combined and Clinton will clean up there in part because there are many districts where Sanders is not likely to break the 15% threshold to get any delegates

[AtheistCrusader]

57. I'm not talking about delegates.

That's problem number B.

First order of business is to carry the state. That will garner media attention. Without that...

Most people don't even know who he is.

[Gothmog]

58. Delegates are important if you want Sanders to be the nominee

As for media coverage, Nate Silver and others are making it clear that a "win" by Sanders in either Iowa or New Hampshire is not that meaningful given the demographics. Why would voters in other states with very different demographics care about what two states with 90+% white voting populations cares. You can hope for a change but the media is aware of the demographics here and I would not expect a big bounce

[AtheistCrusader]

60. I view it as a free advertising opportunity.

Also, it's going to get HUGE play on social media.

[Gothmog]

61. Again, Nate Silver and the rest of the media will probably not buy this spin

Nate Silver and others have done a good job of documenting why Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and Utah really do not represent the Democratic party as a whole. Obama got a bounce from Iowa in 2008 because he was not expected to do well with this demographic base. Sanders on the other hand is expected to do well with base.

You can hope for a bounce but I would not expect any such bounce to survive South Carolina or Super Tuesday

[Doctor_J]

48. remember how the hillarians are always complaining that Sanders supporters don't discuss issues?

[LWolf]

49. I've always wondered that, myself.

It has been explained to me, repeatedly, that we can't just have a single day be primary/caucus day, with results not reported until polls close on the west coast. That would be too much of a burden on the candidates, trying to campaign in all 50 states at once. Or so I'm told.

The reality is, though, that the current system is ripe for corruption, and makes it so much easier to force some out and leave others in long before the rest of the nation gets a chance to weigh in.

It sure makes sense that candidates would focus the bulk of their attention on those 2 small states, knowing that they need the momentum provided. If we can't have a single day, I'd like to see a geographically and demographically diverse group of early states, and I'd like the states with the most delegates to go last, so that every single small state can be heard before those heavy hitters weigh in.

[LexVegas]

50. If it wasn't this way, Bernie would have zero chance at all. nt

[rurallib]

51. it's both parties

if one drops out it will screw the other party and neither state wants to upset such a lucrative and publicity rich set up.

Were it not for the caucuses and first primary you would probably never hear of either state again.

[forest444]

54. California is 73% "white alone"?

Where? In Newport Beach!?

http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/all-states/white-not-hispanic-population-percentage#map

[pnwmom]

64. All the statistics are from 2014 U.S. census bureau numbers.

[forest444]

66. Sorry to have to differ, pnwmom.

But while those numbers may have been accurate once upon a time (1980, perhaps?), it's just not so in this day and age. The 73% figure for California was the red flag; no one who's lived there for at least a few years could have failed to notice it.

The data for non-Hispanic Caucasians (around a third of Hispanics in the U.S. are also white), according to the latest Census Bureau survey (2013) are thus:

New York: 57%
Maryland : 53%
Delaware: 64%
Puerto Rico: 1%
New Jersey: 58%
California: 39%
District of Columbia: 36%

United States: 63%

Here's the official Census table: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk . It's a little cumbersome to use (you have to click 'non-Hispanic' beside the Hispanic Origin tab, then divide by total population, etc.), so luckily the source in my earlier post did the math for us.

[pnwmom]

67. . Are you saying that no Hispanic considers himself to be caucasian?

[pnwmom]

68. I know some who think of themselves as much caucasian as Italians, Greeks,

Spaniards, etc.

[forest444]

69. Certainly not! I believe I made that distinction.

The figures were per Census Bureau's own definitions.

Hispanics can range, in terms of ethnicity, from the blondest of blondes to the darkest Afro-Latinos, and everything in between. It's their having Spanish as a first language that makes them "Hispanic," according to the Census Bureau definition in use since I believe 1970.

A Hispanic Caucasian, therefore, is certainly white - but not non-Hispanic white (unless, of course, he or she chooses to describe himself as such).

I lived in L.A. and Orange County for years. My experience is that white Hispanics for the most part are quite proud of that particular combination: having European immigrants (to Latin America) as their forebears; and at the same time being from Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, etc.

That said, I'm with you on your point: the Census Bureau is still too simplistic (perhaps even insensitive) in how they define ethno-linguistic identity in all its complexity. Nevertheless they have been trying to expand and refine these definitions over the last 40 years, and should be commended for that (especially given all the resentment it's provoked from our Republican friends).

[pnwmom]

70. So what is the meaning of the figures they give on the link I posted?

What are "whites only," do you think?

[forest444]

71. According to the Census Bureau,

they would be "individuals who responded 'No, not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino', and who reported 'White' as their only entry in the race question."

In other words, people with "origins in any of the original peoples of Europe or the Middle East," who don't consider themselves Hispanic (i.e. people, of any race, from Spanish-speaking countries or their direct descendants).

The Census Bureau was, I think, thoughtful to make "Hispanic" an ethno-linguistic, rather than racial, category (i.e. people whose common denominator is the Spanish language, or their direct descendants). People from Spanish-speaking countries, after all, can be of any race (as the Census folks have pointed out in every publication since 1970).

Did this compromise please everyone? As you know, the unfortunate answer is no: some white Hispanics in particular object being "lumped in" with their darker-skinned compatriots (racism is, sadly, still a burning issue in most of Latin America, where being 'white' is often considered a privilege); and, of course, many right-wingers here in the U.S. resent people they view as outsiders calling themselves "white Hispanic" or white-anything.

Such a difficult and touchy subject. When will folks learn we're all entitled to our cultural identity (or to have none at all, if we prefer) - and above all that we're all in this together.

[Scootaloo]

55. You know that the Democratic Party doesn't actually have a say in the matter, right?

That it's decided by the states themselves, and applies to all primaries / caucuses in that state?

Of course you knew that. But you want to sneer that Iowa and new Hampshire "don't matter" because your candidate isn't in the lead there.

[pnwmom]

65. I didn't say that Iowa and NH "don't matter." They don't do a good job representing

the US as a whole, because of their lack of diversity.

[Scootaloo]

74. That's because they are Iowa and New Hampshire, and not the entire nation.

You're kind of making a "duh" statement there.

I am simply assuming that you are trying to actually make a point, rather than just spewing non sequitor factoids. Am I wrong?

[Ferd Berfel]

72. So they can legitimize this

This is methodology from a recent poll that included question on Hillary's honesty

RACE
White 74%
Black 11
Hispanic 8
Other/DK/NA 8

HEre, if you want to check it out: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us12222015_demos_Uhkm63g.pdf

Not many Non-Whites surveyed,

[Bluenorthwest]

73. Those percentages are very obviously not accurate, example NY has 56.5% people who are white

and just white or 'white alone' with the extra 14.5% making up the 70% being white plus Latino or whatnot. CA is the same thing.
The US has 62.1% non Hispanic whites not 77%. 77% includes Hispanic whites.

Next, it is important to know the history of the Primary system, the fact that only 12 States had primaries until 1968 does help explain why some States had better choices of dates but it also demonstrates that we can make progressive changes to that system, primary elections themselves being a progressive idea that took many years to really catch on. Oregon started in 1910. Alabama not until 1972. So if voters had not pushed for change we would not even have primaries, so if we want to shuffle them around that's what we should do.
I strongly favor rotating the order. The States that are always 'important' get to see presidential politics in a way other States do not and I think it benefits the people to have that going on. 08 was the first time I lived in a State that still mattered in a primary and it was very good seeing the two candidates all over the State, in my neighborhood, asking for that vote. We increased the voter roles. Prior to 08, the last Democratic primary contender to visit Oregon was RFK.

It's interesting how many people think the primary system has always been as it is. That is not the case. And it does not have to remain the way it is either.