What the Democrats’ new 2024 calendar would mean for diversity

Democrats are set to upend the order of their presidential nomination process, with Iowa falling off the calendar in favor of states such as South Carolina, Nevada and Georgia.

Although the timeline is not final, the proposed changes would create a more diverse primary electorate in the early states. Iowa is a predominantly white state that has leaned toward Republicans over the past decade. South Carolina and Georgia have large populations of black voters, a key part of the Democratic party base, while more than half of Nevada’s population is non-white.

The population breakdowns listed here encompass statewide census data. In these early primary states, voters likely to vote in a Democratic primary tend to be less white than the overall state population.

Under the new presidential primary order, South Carolina – which had the highest share of black voters among early states in 2020 and helped current President Joe Biden make a comeback after underperforming in d other first states – would move from the fourth state to the first . Georgia, a larger state with an equally high share of black voters, would rank fourth, while New Hampshire and Nevada would remain second and third.

Michigan would become the fifth state to vote before the famous Super Tuesday, replacing Iowa as the Democrats’ top state in the Midwest. Michigan is much more populous than Iowa and would also increase representation for black voters.

White voters will still make up the majority of voters in early primaries overall, though that won’t be the case for Democratic primary electors in some individual states. In South Carolina, for example, black voters made up about 56% of voters in the state’s 2020 Democratic primary electorate, according to exit polls, though they undermine just over a half. quarter of the total population of the state.

The cumulative share of nonwhite voters in early primary states will be closer to the national average, according to a POLITICO analysis. Nationwide, 60% of Americans are white. In the first five new primary states, 63% of people are white, compared to 68% in the previous first four primary states.

Use the tool to see how the racial composition of the cumulative percentage of the primary population of the first states changes depending on which states are included. Other states that have sought to join the first primary window include Minnesota, Illinois and Washington.