The odds that the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee will be socialist-aligned, or affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, just declined. The Democratic National Committee announced on Friday its proposed schedule of the earliest primaries and set up a challenge for the DSA in the first six states.
South Carolina, expected to be the first primary on Jan. 22, 2028, could be the center of the political world for the next two years. This is where Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign came back from the dead and took a lead against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) that he would never relinquish. Biden won the primary, and according to exit polls, 56 percent of South Carolina Democratic primary voters were Black, and they preferred Biden over Sanders, 61 percent to 17 percent.
Black voters in South Carolina potentially just shifted from one of the most important demographics in the Democratic presidential primary to the most important one. Many expect Kamala Harris to run again in 2028; shortly after the DNC announced the likely schedule, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang posted on X, “The Kamala Harris camp is telling people in CA that she’s preparing to run again.” Perhaps Harris sees herself as the candidate most likely to successfully replicate Biden’s South Carolina strategy.
The good news for a DSA-affiliated candidate, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), is that the second and third states are the most socialism-friendly — Nevada, Feb. 1, and New Hampshire, Feb. 8. In 2020, Sanders narrowly won the New Hampshire primary with 25.6 percent of the vote and then romped in Nevada with 46.8 percent of the tally. Yes, electorates change over time, and the fact that a person voted for Sanders in 2020 is not a guarantee that he or she will vote for AOC or another socialist-aligned candidate in 2028. But it does suggest at least an openness to voting for the most leftward serious option.
For what it’s worth, a University of New Hampshire poll this month put AOC narrowly ahead of Pete Buttigieg in the Granite State. The relative “Whiteness” of the New Hampshire electorate is likely to be an advantage to a socialist candidate. Primary exit polling this year suggests that DSA candidates run best among young, college-educated and higher-income demographics.
The fourth state, New Mexico, is new to the early-state process. This one is a little harder to measure; in 2020, Sanders got 15 percent to Biden’s 73 percent, but that primary wasn’t held until June, when it was clear Biden would be the nominee, and Sanders had already dropped out of the race. There was also this little thing called the covid-19 pandemic. But so far, New Mexico hasn’t been particularly fertile territory for the DSA. The state legislature has 70 representatives and 42 senators, and DSA endorsements or affiliations are few and far between. The state’s leading Democrats — outgoing Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Sen. Martin Heinrich and Sen. Ben Ray Luján — are seen as fairly establishment. This doesn’t mean a DSA-style candidate can’t win here, but it’s likely to be an uphill climb.
The fifth state would be Michigan on Feb. 22, and this year’s Senate Democratic primary between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed just took on greater significance. El-Sayed is not a DSA member, but according to Politico, the DSA has “already shifted organizers, volunteers and resources toward battleground Michigan.” He’s been endorsed by Sanders and current and former DSA members of Congress. If El-Sayed wins, it will suggest that a similarly aligned presidential candidate could win this state’s Democratic primary. On Super Tuesday in 2020, Biden beat Sanders there, 52.9 percent to 36.4 percent.
The final state in the early lineup — before the mad dash of what is likely to be Super Tuesday, March 7 — is Virginia on Feb. 29. Home to Democrats Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, Abigail Spanberger and a huge swath of white-collar voters in the Northern Virginia suburbs, this is not natural territory for a socialist upstart.
Add it up, and you have two states that are hostile territory for socialist candidates, two that will likely be more friendly and two that are tough to call at this point. But there’s a catch: The number of convention delegates from each state isn’t finalized, but at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, South Carolina and Virginia combined for 184 delegates, New Hampshire and Nevada combined for 83, and New Mexico and Michigan combined for 183.
Finally, notice that the Iowa caucuses have disappeared from the Democrats’ early-state schedule. The annus horribilis of 2020 began with the embarrassment of Democrats being unable to count the votes because of an untested app, and the close finish between Sanders and Buttigieg left each campaign arguing that its candidate had been the real winner. We will see whether Republicans keep Iowa first or near the front of the line in their primary, but if you’re an Iowa Democrat, you just became much less important in the presidential race.
The front-running “establishment” candidate has good odds of heading into Super Tuesday with a lead in delegates and probably momentum from a big win in Virginia. And as Biden demonstrated, losses in New Hampshire and Nevada can be forgotten quickly. The DNC hasn’t made it impossible for a socialist candidate to win the 2028 Democratic nomination, but it has stacked the deck in favor of an establishment nominee.
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