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Oh, no, there's a winter storm advisory in Texas right now. Oh, no. But I'll be in Cabo this coming weekend, so best of luck to everyone else. Okay, Heidi Cruz. Wow! Boom! That was a very, very specific burn.
Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. In our line of work, non-election years mean more vacation, better sleep, and Labor Days actually spent barbecuing. There's just one problem. Non-election years are a myth.
Although much of our elections-based attention span is already trained on 2024, there are consequential elections happening this very calendar year. And today, we're going to take some time to talk about them.
Okay, and yes, acknowledging that 2024 already looms large, we will also turn our attention there. Last week, the Democratic National Committee voted to give New Hampshire and Georgia more time to change their presidential primary dates amid an effort to prioritize Black voters within the party primary. Today, we're going to ask whether moving South Carolina to the front of the pack would actually accomplish that.
and the Republican National Committee met to select a new chair last week. They chose the current chair, Ronna McDaniel. More relevant to us, though, the meeting of party leaders provided the New York Times with a sample of GOP elites to poll. Of course, our question is, was it a good or bad use of polling? Here with me to discuss our senior writer, Amelia Thompson-DeVoe. Hey, Amelia. Hey, Galen. Also here with us is politics reporter Alex Samuels. Hey, Alex.
Hey, Galen. And senior elections analyst Jeffrey Skelly. Hey, Jeff. Hey, Galen. Okay, so we got a lot to cover today. We're going to dive right in. Let's begin with our good use of polling or bad use of polling. The Republican Party is at something of a crossroads, and we're all waiting to see whether the party's next presidential nominee will be the same as its last.
And so the New York Times wanted to gauge the feelings of the party's decision makers and found that, quote, an RNC remade by Trump backs away from his 2024 campaign, according to the Times headline. The data behind that headline is as follows. The New York Times called, emailed, or texted 168 RNC members. Just four offered an unabashed endorsement of Mr. Trump's 2024 campaign. Twenty.
20 said the former president should not be the party's nominee, and an additional 35 said they would like to see a big primary field or decline to state their position on Mr. Trump. The remainder did not respond to messages.
This is a poll of sorts for our purposes today. It's a poll and it is worthy work that The New York Times is doing here, of course, sort of getting a whip count of folks at the RNC meeting. The question is, is it a good or bad use of polling to say, based on those statistics, that an RNC remade by Trump is backing away from him?
I mean, I'll go ahead and say that I think it's a bad use of polling. Basically, what it comes down to is it sounds like roughly half the people didn't respond. More than half. I think only 60 people responded out of 168. So two-thirds didn't respond, give or take. And...
I'd like to know the opinions of those people. I also think it's important to note that the majority of the people that they even got answers from were sort of TBD on their opinions. And I feel like some of that's probably owing to the fact that they don't want to stake out too early of a position. And they may like Trump personally, but they want to see how things develop because –
They're trying to sort of both lead but also be in tune with their party membership because these people got elected to the positions they hold now. So by fellow members of their parties. So I think it's kind of difficult to necessarily take everything they say entirely at face value.
I would agree with Jeff there. There is a part of the New York Times article that stood out to me, which was they said in interviews, some RNC members estimated that between 120 and 140 of them preferred someone else besides Mr. Trump to be their party's presidential nominee.
But the fact that that 120 to 140 group was not lumped in with the never Trumpers tells me that they're either kind of like on the fence or maybe Trump is not their first choice, but they might support him if he is the eventual nominee. And I think we saw some of that in 2016, too, where there was, you know, some grumbling from Trump.
people in the party about whether they wanted to support Trump. But then once it became clear that he was the nominee, people quickly coalesced around him. So I think it makes sense to kind of see where the field is and what the field looks like before making an opinion on who you're going to support in 2024. But I agree with Jeff, with what Jeff said about this being a bad use of polling. All right, Amelia, are you going to stick up for this poll?
No. I mean, I think, look, like as you were saying, I think the fact that they did this is good and they told us how many people got back to them and sort of generally what those responses were. The thing that I think is they just went too far with the conclusion that they drew, because as Jeff was alluding to, this is likely a case of in polling what would be called non-response bias, where the
a certain group of people or likely, I guess we don't know for sure, but it's possible that the people who chose not to respond to the New York Times hold views that are not represented by the group that did respond to the New York Times. And so we just like,
It just seems hard to conclude anything solid from this other than the actual numbers that were reported, which is that four of them endorsed Trump and 20 said he shouldn't be the nominee. And 35 of them are basically trying not to take a position for the reasons that Alex said. And I mean, like, that's interesting. That's newsworthy. Does that tell me much of anything about Trump's chances? No, no.
But also like, so are people trying to conflate a McDaniel loss as like this would be a rebuke, like an implicit rebuke of Trump because Trump had tapped her for that role back in 2016? And Ronald McDaniel won for one year. Yeah.
But the other, the woman who was running against her was also a Trump supporter. Yeah. So like that, that's what I didn't get. It really feels like people are trying to like create some drama out of this that, that wasn't really there. DeSantis said that like, you know, it was time for new blood type thing. And he didn't offer like a full throated endorsement of another candidate. But the fact that McDaniel won and has been in this position for many years, is this now seen as, is DeSantis now a weaker candidate because McDaniel won? Yeah.
I don't know. I feel like this could go into like territory where it's just like we're grasping at straws. And I don't think we can make too much of a conclusion about anyone's viability as a presidential candidate based on the results of this one particular race. Oh, yeah, for sure.
I think they were trying to just show a poll of, you know, party deciders. Like if the RNC tried to use its power potentially through endorsement or the way that the primary is designed to help a candidate or hurt a candidate, would that candidate be Trump that they would try to help or hurt? I think that's what they're trying to get at the bottom of here. But again, to your point about what does it mean to come into power during the Trump era?
What does it mean to have had Trump's backing? It's not always clear because Trump backs people who then, you know, he endorsed Glenn Youngkin, for example. Would I assume that Glenn Youngkin wants Donald Trump to be the next Republican presidential nominee? Probably not. So it's hard to deduce what people's relationships to Trump mean when it comes to whether they want him to be the next nominee.
I do think that one of the ways we can sort of read into this, if you want to have any takeaways, is that this does what people said who actually responded would sort of align with the view that the Republican National Committee is trying very hard to be neutral during this process. And we have seen reporting about that in terms of their efforts to remain neutral because they know that there will be other candidates besides Trump running. And
At least in that sense, I can see that. And I think for a party organization that doesn't have an incumbent president, it's probably important for them to come across as neutral, fair arbiters of a process to select the next presidential nominee. That, I think, might be a fair takeaway from this conversation.
But it also seems like this is a sign that, you know, at least these people, some of them are a little bit concerned about whether Trump can win. And there was a lot of that kind of like electability language that was ubiquitous in the Democratic primary in 2020. So, yeah.
I think it's also reflective of just the fact that like they kind of want to see how Trump does before they come down on this. Because also, you know, if they come down on saying Trump shouldn't be the nominee and then it turns out Trump does really well, like Trump is not kind to the people who do not support him. So I think there's a real incentive if people are not sure about how Trump is going to do to just kind of keep your cards close to your chest and see how things play out.
Yeah.
Most of them found themselves walking it back at some point or they essentially left the party or sort of rode off into the sunset not too far after the 2016 Republican presidential primary. So the fact that these individuals would want to be careful about putting a position out there also makes sense for that reason.
Yeah, I think the tricky part about 2016 was that, like, the lesson it taught me was not the party decides theory is totally wrong, like that the party has no power over these things. But it's that the party has tools, if they use them that can affect the outcome. The Republican Party never really used the tools that it had to affect the outcome. It's like,
you know, saying like, um, okay, there's a shovel sitting on the porch. Shovels don't work because the sidewalk still has snow on it. Well, you never picked up the shovel and tried to remove the snow from the sidewalk, right? Like, so I think it is important still what the party elites think, because if they decide to use the power that they have, they might be able to get the snow off the sidewalk. However, I already abdicated Galen, the party abdicated. Um,
However, my question here is, let's put this mini survey that the Times did to the side because you all said it was a bad use of polling. So I don't want to beat a dead horse to add another metaphor to the list. And I don't think they're like I was trying to come up with a way to defend it. What I can defend is that the Times was doing good work here, but I can't, like Amelia said, defend the outcome. But is there evidence apart from this that either the party or the voters are moving away from Trump setting all this aside?
There's definitely evidence that voters are. So there was a December Quinnipiac University poll that found just 31% of registered voters had a favorable view of Trump, while 59% had an unfavorable opinion of him. And Quinnipiac noted that this was the lowest favorability rate that Trump has received among registered voters since July 2015. And then among Republicans specifically, 70% had a favorable view of Trump,
20% had an unfavorable view of him. And again, they note that that was the lowest favorability rating among Republican voters in a Quinnipiac survey since March of 2016. So when I was just like seeing those numbers as is, I was like, well, you know, 70%, it's not nothing. But when you compare it to President Biden in the same poll, 86% of Democrats approved of the way he was handling his job as president and just 8% disapproved. So you can definitely see, um,
I think that shows at least some voters are moving away from Trump in some ways. But I don't know if that'll actually what that'll mean a year from now. Yeah, I mean, I think Alex is exactly right. I mean, we look at early presidential primary polls, which I think we all have to be a little cautious about. But if you look at sort of polls over the last year, Trump was hanging out in the low 50s in
most presidential primary polls of the country as a whole among Republicans. And after the midterm, it slid. His figure slid. And he's sort of been in the mid-40s, I would say, on average, although different polls have had him down in the 30s at times, with Ron DeSantis going up, particularly since the midterm. So I do think that there is evidence that voters are
less supportive of Trump than they were. But I think we're so long way from that meaning a ton.
Right. I mean, I think the challenge right now is that it's like just Trump out there. And they're the idea of all of these other candidates, you know, everyone is talking about Ron DeSantis, but Ron DeSantis, like is not, you know, he just hasn't gotten the years and years of attention that Trump has gotten. And it's much easier to like someone in the abstract than when they're actually out there running for the thing that you were going to vote for them on. So I think
in a way it makes sense. Um, but it is concerning for Trump. I mean, I, I found, um, uh, USA Today Suffolk series of surveys, um, that the latest one was conducted in early December and it found that in July, 60% of Republicans wanted Trump to run again. It fell to 15, 56% in October.
And then by early December, it was 47%. So that's not a good trend for him. But I think a lot does depend on how many other Republicans get into the race, who those people are, and how the country actually likes someone like Ron DeSantis when he is actively running for president, as opposed to just sort of being a
floated as this nebulous alternative to the person that everyone in the country knows very, very well. There are also a number of current and former Republican officials, you know, Paul Ryan, Bill Cassidy, Mo Brooks, Larry Hogan, to name a few, who have gone on record saying they either won't back Trump or that it would be harmful to the party to have him as their nominee. So I
But I don't know how much, you know, their statements will translate into voters necessarily turning away from Trump.
Trump did get a couple of endorsements, big endorsements in South Carolina. Governor McMaster and then Senator Lindsey Graham endorsed him at a rally over the weekend. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see as people start to take sides how that's going to play out. I don't like I don't think Trump's candidacy is going to live or die on Larry Hogan's endorsement. Sorry, Larry Hogan. Yeah.
But I know. Larry might be running. Yeah, I know. Larry might be running. Yeah, Larry's got a vested interest.
So sorry, proud Maryland resident here. Glad to see Maryland politicians speaking out on the issues of the day. But yeah, but I think it's going to be really interesting to see sort of how those endorsements start to shake out and how much they represent kind of like, you know, like someone like Paul Ryan, I think of as as being part of the Republican Party of five, 10 years ago. And whether that is kind of how the endorsements start to split out to it's obviously very early. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we're not tracking endorsements just yet, but it does look like maybe around 25 House members of the 222 Republicans in the House have endorsed Trump. Two senators have. Two governors have.
And that's way more institutional support than he had the last time, I mean, when he ran in 2016, for instance. But obviously the party looks a lot more like him now. He has reshaped the party, as the New York Times article noted very well. So to me, it's hard to know what to make of that. Does that matter? It didn't matter that much to him the last time. Does it matter now? Because the party looks more like him. So if people are reticent,
I don't know. It's just it's kind of hard to know what to make of him just having a lot more support to start with compared to the last time there was an open primary. I think this is all really good context for both where voters and the party are. When we look across the primary polling, and of course, you know, all the caveats of being a year away from this really mattering, but
We see a trend in that oftentimes when you pit Trump against DeSantis, DeSantis comes out on top and not even always. But that seems to be the trend. But when you look at the full slate of possibilities, Trump will come out ahead with, say, you know, 30 something, 40 something percent. DeSantis is often second, but.
Trump is clearly, you know, the winner in a scenario like that. Of course, recent news is that Nikki Haley, I mean, almost announced her presidency on Fox News. I mean, she said literally everything, but I'm running for president. So I think we can expect her to get in. And you mentioned like Hogan, I think we can expect, you know, maybe Mike Pompeo will get in. There's clearly other folks considering a run, Mike Pence, importantly, how much
should we make of the fact that there's a significant difference between the Republican electorate's preferences in those two different situations? Because I think, you know, like we've written articles like, oh, you know, like, okay, yes, DeSantis might be leading in these scenarios, but really it's going to be an open field. But that's not really true either, right? Because the field is going to winnow and it could win a relatively quickly, especially because people are very cognizant of what happened in 2016 and
And I'll bet you that if Nikki Haley is getting 4% in New Hampshire and knows that she's not going to be the next president of the United States, she gets out and endorses Ron DeSantis and maybe she'll be vice president or if not vice president, maybe secretary of state or whatever, right? Like how much should we make of this distinction? I mean, I think it's really important.
Given what happened in 2016 to just be very aware of the fact that the size of the field could affect Trump's chances. And I also think we shouldn't underrate ego when it comes to people hanging around in a race that they shouldn't hang around in anymore. I mean, you know, the 2016 campaign, there was an incredible failure by a lot of Republicans who didn't like Trump.
to figure it out. I mean, John Kasich stayed in the race with 0% chance of winning, basically. I haven't checked. We didn't actually, I don't think we had a primary model in the 2016 cycle. But if we were calculating his percentage chances of actually winning the nomination, it would have been exceedingly low when he was still in the race. So the idea that Larry Hogan will hang around until...
Maryland votes, I think they usually vote in April, if I recall off the top of my head. So he can go before his home state and win, you keep winning 5% of the vote here and there would not shock me at all. So I think those are sort of my thoughts on that. Yeah. So that's interesting, Jeff, because it's like sort of a contrast with what we saw with the Democrats in 2020, right? Where we saw, you know, that like moment of
Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropping out and saying, guys, it's Biden. Yeah. And so, I mean, I guess that is interesting to think about
With regard to what the Times found, because the sort of wafflers, the 35 people who said that they, you know, either didn't have a position or they wanted a big field, like, do they actually want a big field? Is that actually what the party wants? Like, or are they hoping that they'll kind of be able to corral people a little bit better? Yeah.
Trump wants a big field. Trump wants a big field. Right. He said something positive about Nikki Haley. I think I saw a quote about that. He was like, oh, yeah, sure, she should run. It's like... Trump thrives on chaos. Like, this is well known. So, I mean, that's an interesting question for the Republicans, too. Do they have enough control over the field that if it does turn out to be a big field, can they stop...
Trump from doing what he did in 2016. I don't know.
I'm the kind of person who tends to think that people learn from their mistakes. But, you know, maybe I'm just naive. We're going to find out. But, Amelia, you sort of set us up perfectly to talk about South Carolina, because, of course, that was the turning point in the Democratic primary in 2020, after which everyone dropped out. So let's talk about the Democratic primary calendar in 2024.
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As we discussed on a podcast late last year, at President Biden's behest, the Democratic Party is trying to rearrange its presidential primary calendar. The approved order would be South Carolina first, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire on the same day, then Georgia, and then Michigan. One of the main arguments in favor of the new order is to give Black voters more of a say in the process. Black voters make up the majority of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina and a large portion of it in Michigan and Georgia.
Last week, the party voted to give Georgia and New Hampshire more time to move their primary dates to comply with the schedule. So I want to key in on South Carolina in particular. But before we do that, and Alex, you wrote about this on the website. It's a really good piece. So I encourage folks to go check it out. But let's get the lay of the land first. Like,
where does this whole process stand, Alex? Like, why did Georgia and New Hampshire need more time? Are they even trying to move their primary dates?
I guess the short answer is that they do not want to move their primary dates. In Georgia, Republican officials essentially don't want to hold the Republican and Democratic primaries on different days. They say it would be a strain to workers there. I'm not seeing any type of reporting suggesting that Georgia officials are going to change their mind on that.
And in New Hampshire, they very much want to hold on to their first in the nation primary, which they say is solidified under state law. And I've...
I love their reactions to this, but I've seen also no indication. I know, Amelia's shaking her head no, and Jeffrey is shaking his head yes. That is true. Oh, no, I'm shaking my head because it's so dumb. It's just dumb. Like, why? It's really just like a game of chicken and, like, who's going to bend first.
Because my understanding is that the DNC will meet this coming weekend to approve waivers that will allow the five states that Biden wants to be the five early states to vote before the regular window. The thing is, like, they only get those waivers if they implement the date and policies that the DNC committee detailed during this December meeting.
But if the two states Democrats want, you know, Georgia and New Hampshire don't, in fact, comply, their waivers will become void. And that will move both New Hampshire and Georgia back into the so-called regular window that begins in March. So, yeah.
This debate could really go on for months and months and months. And I haven't seen anything since the story posted signaling that either Georgia or New Hampshire are ready to move their dates. So to add some context to this, South Carolina already has different primary days for Democrats and Republicans. So that's less of a big deal.
Michigan is now controlled by a Democratic trifecta and so therefore could move its date if it wanted to. Georgia, of course, controlled by Republicans. New Hampshire, as you said, constitutional. What about like let's let's not forget here, Iowa. Have they just sort of accepted their fate as no longer going first in the Democratic calendar or are they making an argument for themselves?
So I know Iowa Democrats have asked the DNC to reconsider its decision. But to that, I think for Iowans, the change isn't a complete surprise. You know, there were technical meltdowns that sparked chaos and marred the results of the state's 2020 caucus. But
Even before that, there's been a long push by some top party leaders to start choosing the president in states that are less white, especially given the importance of black voters as Democrats' most loyal voting base. So Iowans, for the most part, from what I've read, are not thrilled by the news, but I think they're taking it a little easier, is my understanding, than those in New Hampshire and Georgia.
So we're going to talk about the significance of the order when it comes to who becomes the nominee. But first, like, because we're talking about the sort of, you know, emotional jockeying chicken part of this process, how much does this matter? Yeah.
Which is to say, are Iowa voters going to be like, well, screw the Democratic Party. They don't think we're important anymore. I mean, and maybe the Democratic Party doesn't actually care if that happens, because I think the party is pretty much arrived at the conclusion that it's no longer going to win statewide general elections there. But for New Hampshire, that's certainly not the case, right? It's a competitive state, a very competitive state that Democrats seem to have been able to pull out victories in the past few elections, but no guarantee. Like,
Would New Hampshire voters feel upset enough about losing their first in the nation status that it would turn them off from Democrats? Like, do real people think about this and feel upset about it?
I think that is a real concern. You know, New Hampshire Republicans, by my understanding, are the biggest roadblock in changing the state's calendar. And the state's Democratic Party chairman has warned that an effort by the larger party or the Biden campaign to withhold resources from the state until after the
primary would affect the state's ability to build a general election coordinated campaign to reelect President Biden, elect Democrats up and down the ballot and give Republicans the chance to out organize the party in a state that has continued to trend blue. But that's like that. That's a motivated actor, right? Like, oh, you got to put more money, you know, like he's a party guy. Like when it comes to the real people, Jeff, what are you thinking?
I mean, I'm highly skeptical that the average voter in New Hampshire cares much about the presidential primary. And part of that is because a lot of people don't actually vote in presidential primaries. Now, I will say New Hampshire has the highest turnout, basically, of any presidential primary as a general rule because it's the first presidential primary and people are very attentive.
In 2016, for instance, about half of the voting eligible population voted in either the Democratic or Republican presidential primaries, and that's extremely high turnout for a presidential primary. So I think people are engaged with the issue, but I also think that what tends to happen with presidential primaries is that the people who are most engaged with them are also the most partisan people.
So the, to me, those are the people who are of course least likely to switch sides. Um, so if you're sort of thinking about who is most attentive to this, it's people who are already more or less in one camp for the most part. Um, and I just, I don't, I'm just skeptical that true independence of which New Hampshire actually has a fair number of, it's got one of the largest shares of independence of any state in the country. Um,
I do – I am skeptical that they're going to make decisions for president based on whether or not New Hampshire went first as a primary. Like I just – that's very hard to imagine. I mean I just – like now, to be fair, it's like motivated reasoning and sort of how your – the order of operations on how you say you decided to vote for someone is complicated. But I just –
I'm thinking presidential primary position is probably not having a big impact on that.
I mean, look, I understand why New Hampshire voters would be upset if the primary were moved. I mean, it's covering these things. If you don't live in one of these states, I think it's hard to understand how much of really a privilege it is for people who care about politics and who's representing them that for months before the election happens, people
All of these people running for president are just, you know, coming to talk in churches and schools and bars even and answering questions from everyday people and everyday people really having this sense of like we are we have a position of power in this incredibly important process for our country. I mean,
It's remarkable. And especially in a small state like New Hampshire, you know, if you want to see all the people who are running for president in person, you can. And that's
Like, I would not want to give that up if I were a voter in New Hampshire. But I also agree with Jeff that like, I don't think that's, I don't think that's going to ultimately change anyone's mind. And I also think it's the kind of thing that is, you know, people might be mad about in 2024. And then by 2028, I mean, God knows what the order would look like in 2028. But this strikes me as the kind of thing that people would forget fairly quickly after a couple cycles. All right.
All right, let's get to the crux of the matter here, which is that the reason the calendar is being redesigned in many ways is to put more of an emphasis on the voice of black voters. And that means South Carolina going first, wanting to add in Georgia and Michigan to the early slate, although TBD on all of that. But Alex, in your piece on the website, you write about whether this new calendar would actually have the effect on black voters that proponents say it
it would. So how did you try to answer that question about what would give influence and power to Black voters?
Yeah, so I tried to look at the power that black voters currently wield, particularly black Democratic primary voters in South Carolina, and compared that to what may or may not shift under Biden's proposal. So I compared the U.S. and Iowa's racial makeup to that of the states that Biden wants to add to their early state lineup. And in doing that, we can see that voters of color might get more of a say in their early vote process, and that's
if all the states with more diverse electorates, so South Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, et cetera, comply with Biden's wishes. But that is a big if, as we just said. I also wanted to look at South Carolina's role in past contested presidential cycles and see how their role could change or stay the same. So in the story, I made the argument that, you know,
In the last three cycles, in the last three contested cycles, 2008, 2016, 2020, I argued that South Carolina was arguably the decisive state. So it's possible that moving it first could streamline the process, but it's also possible that moving it first...
changes it to a position where they're no longer picking presidents, but instead they're winnowing large fields of candidates in the same way that Iowa and New Hampshire have done historically. So I don't know if that necessarily equates to more power for black voters because they already have so much power. And that's kind of what we tried to unfurl in the story.
So our primary forecast weights wins in Iowa and New Hampshire more than wins in Nevada and South Carolina. So I think it's like it is an important distinction, the one between winnowing and picking from that winnowed field.
Arguably, in 2020, South Carolina made the difference. Also, arguably, in 2008, if South Carolina had gone first, it might have actually advantaged Hillary Clinton more than Barack Obama. We can have that debate if we want. And Nate isn't here to defend the primary forecast himself. But should we reconsider...
what we think of how much power each of the first states has? Like, is it not just like, if you go first, you have the most power. If you go second, you have the second most power, third, third most, fourth, fourth most. I think the difficult question here is, is 2020 like the new pattern? And I on the Democratic side, at least. And my thought is, you know, at the end of the day, Bernie Sanders was still the other main candidate. And he did well in Iowa and New Hampshire.
So depending on the candidate, I would imagine that Iowa and New Hampshire, if they were still first and second going forward, which it sounds like Iowa probably won't be, but if they were, however, that a candidate could get a lot out of that. And it would depend in part on the makeup of the field and who the candidate is and how they've gone about appealing to voters. So I
I guess my thought is the 2020 election gives us a reason to reconsider the notion that the initial state is a ton more powerful than, say, the second or third state to go. But I still say at the end of the day, everybody wants to go first for a reason because there is a view that it is the most powerful position ever.
There's a reason New Hampshire wants to defend its position, and it's not just because of history. So it's sort of like, to me at least, it's still really important which state goes first. And, you know, South Carolina, I mean, if Hillary Clinton had won South Carolina's primary and it had gone first in 2008, that could have been a very dramatic change to things. Like Hillary Clinton might have been the Democratic nominee if that had happened.
I think, though, an important distinction and a really sharp distinction that Alex's story makes is between like what gives more power to black voters who make up a large chunk of the South Carolina Democratic electorate and black voters in the U.S. as a whole. Because one of the things that
happens when you put a particular state first is that that state's issues, that state's residents, like the people who live there, are going to get more attention from candidates. They're going to get their questions answered at forums. And that is a form of power on its own. But South Carolina's population is different than
The rest of the country, like they tend to the black voters there as Alex or tend to be older, they tend to be a little bit more moderate. And they, you know, they tend to be the kind of people who support someone like Joe Biden. So I thought that was a really important distinction that Alex made, which is that, you know, arguably, they already have quite a bit of power.
Going first would give them a different kind of power. It's hard to say whether it would be more power or less power. It seems like it would not be like dramatically more power than they already have, but it still seems like just moving a single state forward
from number four to number one is really just kind of shuffling around a group of voters that already has a disproportionate amount of power. And so the question of like whether this move gives black voters within the Democratic Party as a whole more power, I think Alex does answer fairly convincingly that like,
not really. And what really matters is what happens with these other states. And can you get a group of more diverse states closer to the front? And that is what really would give black voters more of a voice in the process. Like everyone seems to be viewing this question through the lens of South Carolina and, um,
I think Alex's piece shows just like how weird that is to do. Yeah. I mean, what comes to mind for me is like, if, if the order had been South Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Michigan, for instance, what happens to Pete Buttigieg's campaign? You know, here's where the thing it's like also about expectation setting for these candidates and those initial contests, like no one, everybody knew Biden wasn't going to do too hot in Iowa or New Hampshire, but,
And so how important was that, right? Just even beyond the question of the demographic makeup of these places and whatnot, like we knew that wasn't going to go very well for him. And so a lot of it hinged on, well, we're looking in the future to South Carolina and maybe Biden will do okay in Nevada. And it's like, well, if Pete Buttigieg had had to go in South Carolina first, he would have been like,
watch what I do in New Hampshire. Just don't, don't really pay attention to what's going on in South Carolina. Like I'm going to put all my energy and focus on New Hampshire because I know I'm not going to do great in South Carolina. And then maybe at the same time, he's like,
I will spend a lot of time in the Detroit suburbs and in Grand Rapids to try to set myself up for a really good performance in the fourth state, Michigan, because I know maybe I'm not going to do that great in Nevada either. So all these choices are going to influence sort of the expectation setting that then gets filtered through the media. Like the candidates do this and then the media is like,
Well, you know, we looking at the polls, we know Buttigieg is probably not going to do too well in South Carolina, Nevada. So understandably, he is paying a lot of attention to New Hampshire and Michigan. And he, of course, is a mayor from a Midwestern state. So, you know, Michigan is an obvious target for him to to kick off things as we head into Super Tuesday, et cetera. Although, you know, Jim Clyburn's nephew, I think it was, worked on Pete Buttigieg's campaign in South Carolina, which, again,
brings up another point that I think was important, Alex, in your piece, which Amelia touched on a bit, which is that this is not just like pure altruistic behavior on Biden's part. Like,
His, I don't know, like his wing of the party, he's also very close with Jim Clyburn, which is not just, you know, the relationship between Biden and Jim Clyburn is not simply about the power of black voters. It's about a certain vision for the Democratic Party, which is more moderate than whatever sort of like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders is offering. And so, yes, it's about black voters, but it's also about a certain view of politics.
Jeff, what you said also just made me kind of laugh is like, if they actually, Democrats manage to have a sort of different state that represents a different part of the party,
go like one, two, three, and four, if then there's like a different winner in each one and the whole early slate of states ends up creating like an almost an even more, like a bigger cluster where like you get into Super Tuesday and everyone's like, I won the early round. I also won the early round of states. I also won the early round of states. Hey, it'll be like the Iowa caucuses, you know? Yeah. It's almost like this system makes no sense.
I thought there
I thought there was an expert, Jennifer Chudy, who's a political scientist at Wellesley, who is quoted in Alex's piece. And I think she makes a really good point, which is that, like, you know, it's possible that if South Carolina gets moved first, then we see, you know, someone does... Someone wins in South Carolina, and then we see the reaction being, oh, well, you know, South Carolina has such a disproportionate share of Black voters that it's really not... It's not representative of the Democratic Party. So, like, let's just write this one off, you know? Like, it's just...
The whole thing is it's just endless spin. It's just like spin on top of spin on top of spin. And I don't know which way it's going to spin. But I also just don't think it really matters where South Carolina is in that first four cards on the table. I think this is a little silly. Alex, what was your ultimate takeaway from all of the reporting that you did?
I think it's that it's clear how moving South Carolina first would benefit the state. You know, lots of dollars flowing in there, lots of campaigning happening. I think it's possible that issues important to black voters again in South Carolina will be, uh,
elevated to national issues versus just state issues. But I wasn't exactly clear that this would benefit black voters overall. I think this might help a certain type of candidate win, like we talked about, a Biden-type candidate. It wasn't clear to me that black candidates would automatically benefit under a system like this. So the real winners I would see are a certain subsect of South Carolina's black Democratic Party electorate, a Biden-type candidate, and then
kind of shrug emoji for who the other winners are. The Charleston media market. Exactly. Yeah. They're the big winners here. South Carolina is really nice. Uh, downtown is beautiful. Highly recommend. You know what? I take it back. I have a very strong vested interest. Yeah. I live right by New Hampshire now. The media would be winners. I would love to go to South Carolina instead of Iowa. That's true. Okay.
Okay, the irony is not lost on me that I started this podcast saying that 2023 matters and that we've spent the entire podcast up until now talking about 2024. I mean, we haven't really like these are all issues that are happening right now. But in essence, we're talking about things that matter for 2024. So listeners, bear with me. You can chuckle at me a little bit if you want. It's fine. Now we're going to talk about 2023.
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As I've mentioned, 2023 is indeed an election year, and a consequential one at that. As Jeffrey wrote on his piece up on the site last week, three states will hold gubernatorial elections, four will decide the makeup of their state legislatures, and two will vote for potentially critical seats on their supreme courts. Additionally, a host of large cities will cast ballots for mayor. So,
Jeff, unpack this a little bit for us. Of all of the elections taking place in 2023, which would you say are the most high profile? Well, obviously the governor's races are going to get a lot of attention in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi. I think these are all Southern states. They're all Republican leaning, but currently Democrats hold two of them, Kentucky and Louisiana. Mississippi has a Republican governor. And to me, it's really a question of can Republicans sort of
when all three they'll be favored probably in Mississippi as things go along. But Louisiana is going to be an open seat race because Democrat John Bill Edwards is term limited.
And in Kentucky, that might be a spot where Democrats can hold on to sort of a foothold here in a deep red southern state because Andy Beshear is reasonably popular, more than reasonably in fact. Morning Consult found in the last quarter of 2022 that he was the most popular Democratic governor in the country. So Beshear might be able to hold on and win reelection in what would otherwise be a very tough state for Democrats.
Alex and Amelia, what races do you have your eye on in terms of what you think could be consequential as we move through the year? Yes. So piggybacking off of Jeff a little bit, I'm also interested in the governor's race in Kentucky. The dynamics of just a red state with a Democratic governor, again, are very interesting to me. But another reason why it's interesting is if he wins, Cameron would be the first Black Republican elected governor of any state since Reconstruction.
To add some interesting trivia here to that dynamic is that Daniel Cameron is widely considered to be Mitch McConnell's protege in a way. I think that he has been thinking that if he does...
eventually retire, whatever, that he might even take his place in the Senate from Kentucky. So it'll be interesting. He has the backing. Presumably, Mitch McConnell will back him in this race as well. I don't know if he has formally yet. He has Trump support. He has Trump support. But it'll be interesting to see how much, obviously, Mitch McConnell has a lot of connections and can raise a lot of money. Like,
How much will he be able to help his sort of protege in many ways, Daniel Cameron? So I'm also interested in that dynamic. It's like promising, rising Republican star versus popular Democratic governor. It could be an expensive and captivating race to watch. What else do you have your eyes on, Alex?
Of course, I'm watching Texas, specifically the mayoral race in Houston. The election there, we have a while, but there are a lot of big names being thrown into the ring. You know, state Senator John Whitmire, Amanda Edwards, who formerly ran for U.S. Senate, and Harris County Clerk Chris Collins are just a couple of names in the race so far. I would expect that that race will probably heat up closer to the summer, but
So just we'll be keeping an eye there on what issues are important to voters. But it is notable to me that Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner hasn't endorsed a successor so far. So I'm wondering if he's maybe waiting for another name to enter the ring. We maybe don't know who this person is yet. So kind of keeping an eye on that to see what happens.
Which way? Houstonian swing. Love a little local intrigue, Alex. It's exciting. They're just teeing us up to talk more about the Houston mayoral race. We should talk more about mayoral races. These people have a lot of power. Yeah. And also, Houston is a very politically dynamic place. I would say more so, I don't know, a lot of cities are interesting once you dig into them. But
It's a geographically large city with a lot of different political interests. And it's one where the politics of the area have changed rapidly over the past decade or so. Like Harris County went from red to purple to blue, seemingly in the blink of an eye. But I know, Amelia, you're gearing up to talk about what in the short term is going to be, uh,
the most, I think, captivating election of at least the first half of the year. So talk to us about Wisconsin. Yeah, I know this is, yeah. So what I'm watching in the near term is the race to fill a Wisconsin state Supreme Court seat.
And the funny thing about all of this is this is ostensibly nonpartisan. It is in no way... The ostensibly is doing a lot of work there. The ostensibly is doing a lot of work there. Underlined, italicized. Yeah, I know, like asterisk. And I mean, look, this is how states...
Often, state Supreme Court races will be ostensibly nonpartisan, but if you want to figure out the political leanings of these politically elected people, you can. What's happening in Wisconsin is that a conservative-leaning justice is retiring.
So the court is split between three conservatives, three liberals in a state where the makeup of the state Supreme Court has a huge amount of power because the state government, there's a Democrat in the governor's mansion. There's a Republican controlled legislature and Democrats.
They're not just at odds with each other. The Republican-controlled legislature has kind of actively tried to cement its own power through redistricting, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court has been in the middle of a lot of these issues.
because of the makeup, they generally side with Republicans. And so now Democrats are hoping that they can get a liberal into this pivotal position. And that would have huge implications for issues like abortion rights in the state where abortion rights is super up in the air right now. It's one of these states that has a pre pre
pre-Roe 19th century ban that is going into effect. It's being challenged. Nobody really knows if it's the law, but people are acting like it's the law. So obviously who's in control of the state Supreme Court is going to matter greatly for that. Redistricting,
of other issues, you know, going into the 2024 election. The makeup of the state Supreme Court is going to matter a lot for making potentially crucial decisions about the election. So what is happening is that the allegedly nonpartisan entrants into this race are being extremely clear about their politics. It is basically we have two
liberals running against two conservatives. Um, they're going to have an initial vote later in February. And then the top two from that will go to a runoff in April. Um,
And it's going to be really interesting to see what happens when a judicial election, which people normally don't pay any attention to. I mean, I think like if people vote in judicial elections, it's just kind of like, you know, they vote for the D or the R, like the nonpartisan ones. I think people generally have no idea what's happening. But a huge amount of money is going to go into this race. It's going to get a lot of attention and it could be incredibly consequential for
a bunch of issues in the state of Wisconsin for the next several years, at least. Yeah, it's almost like we have our own mini sort of swing. I mean, not it's almost like we do have our own mini swing state statewide election, but
just months away in an off year, it will be interesting to see how so many of the tests that we kind of got answers to in November, we'll see what answers we get to them in April of this year,
Before we wrap up, though, I should say the control of the Virginia state legislature is also going to be decided this year. Jeffrey, as a native Virginian, I know you now live in Vermont, but only recent Vermonter. What's going on there? Yeah. So, you know, most states in the country have the same party has control of both chambers of the state legislature. Right.
Hi, Nebraska. We know you're unicameral, but otherwise this is mostly true. Virginia is one of the few states where Democrats control one. In this case, the state senate and Republicans control the other. In this case, the House of Delegates, the lower house.
So with the Republican governor and Glenn Youngkin, these both closely divided chambers will have elections on the new maps that were drawn during the redistricting process. So this is the first election on those new maps because things were delayed – because the redistricting process was delayed, the 2021 elections for the House of Delegates took place on the old maps. So the point being –
This will decide whether Republicans get full control of state government. And so for Youngkin, that could decide issues like abortion where he's been pushing, for instance, a 15-week ban on
on abortion and the state Senate where Democrats control things shot that down just just last week in committee. So, you know, issues like that could be decided by by the state legislative elections this November in Virginia. So another, you know, kind of swing state ish. Like what how are you thinking about the likelihood that Republicans get full control of state government?
I think it's very much up in the air. I mean, it could happen. I think part of the problem is that the election's in November and we're here in January, and I have no idea. I mean, who knows what the electoral environment's going to look like. Looking at the new maps, I do think the state Senate map is a bit friendlier to Democrats than Republicans, and the House of Delegates map is just a tad friendlier to Republicans than Democrats. So it's possible that each party will continue to
gain narrow control of the one they already have control of. But there are a number of very swingy seats that are just kind of hard to know for sure. So I think both parties look at it as very up in the air. LESLIE KENDRICK
But it is going to be an interesting test on abortion, like several months from now, which, you know, I think will be helpful for getting a sense of how voters in a swingy kind of purplish blue state are thinking about their Republican governors push to implement a
A ban that, you know, like on its face is actually not that unpopular. If I had to sort of pick like where Americans are, like if you could come to a compromise on abortion, it would be probably a ban around 15 weeks. I think that's the thing that most people would kind of generally be comfortable with. But in this political environment, it's going to be really interesting to see what's going to happen.
whether Republicans going so far in the other direction has made it difficult for other Republicans to argue that even something like a 15-week ban is reasonable and not extreme. I think that has become a much harder argument for folks like Youngkin to make, even though from an objective perspective, they might be right because everyone is looking at
Republicans in all the other states that have straight up banned abortion and said, okay, but like, this is really where you want to go. So I don't trust you anymore. And it will be interesting to get a real test of that in Virginia later this year.
Yeah. To that point, Amelia, there was just a special election in one of the old state senate seats that's going away. But Jen Kiggins, who just got elected Republican, got elected to the US House of Representatives and her state senate seat was open and it was a seat that Youngkin carried by I think four points in the governor's race in 2021.
And the Democrat ran in that special election earlier this month, ran very, very focused on abortion and keeping Republicans from passing a more limiting regulation.
abortion law, and he won by two points in the special election in a very competitive seat. So I think Democrats take that as a sign of like, this is an issue we can win on. This is an issue that could really benefit us. But we're obviously a long way from November. Yeah, there's a lot more to talk about here. And because these elections are going to be happening throughout the year, we'll come back to all of them.
You mentioned that we should talk more about mayoral elections. We talked about Houston. There are plenty this year. So there's also going to be Chicago, Philly, San Antonio. The list goes on. Does anyone want to... We don't have enough time, sadly, to really dig in to all of the interesting ones. But does anyone want to shout out another mayoral race that they are going to have their eye on before we wrap? Yes, Amelia, I see you politely raising your hand. Me, me, me. Me, me, me.
So I don't live in Chicago anymore, but I lived there for six years, and I think I will always love following Chicago politics. And the mayoral race there this year is really interesting because the incumbent mayor, who is Lori Lightfoot, was elected in 2019 as the first black female mayor of Chicago and only the second female mayor of Chicago. It's a very male-dominated role historically. Yeah.
is really in trouble after her first term. I mean, I think it's not just a question about whether she will get reelected. It's possible that she might not even make it into the runoff, right? Like she's really not doing well in polls. And I think this is going to be an interesting election on
on a number of levels. One of the things that she's really struggled with is the issue of crime in Chicago, which is something that always gets a lot of attention. She's made the argument that actually some of the--
worst forms of crime have gone down under her tenure and that her opponents don't really have a different plan to combat crime. But obviously the issue of crime is something that people are really paying attention to because of all the spikes that we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But also, it's just going to be interesting to see how this goes because she's a Black woman who has gotten a lot of criticism for apparently being very aggressive and, you know, just like even profane. There's like a lot of coverage of the language that she's used and how she's sort of acted in what to me seems like a very normal way for a Chicago mayor. Set aside...
whether you want your mayor to be behaving in the way that Chicago mayors typically do. I'm not sure I would if I were making these decisions, but it is really interesting as we talk about
how do sexism and racism manifest in politics, particularly in positions like a mayor, which I think in some ways is more comparable to a president, just in the way that people think about sort of like the qualities that they want those politicians to have. So I think people can have all kinds of
legitimate criticisms of the way that she's governed as mayor. But coming in and seeing all of these negative headlines and criticism about the way that she has kind of approached the more personality driven aspect of the role, I think is really telling. And I think, you know, it's something that I
will be looking to to see how she does, because that's going to inform my coverage of, in general, how issues like racism and sexism are cropping up for politicians in America today, especially in executive level roles like mayor or president. Yeah, Chicago politics and people talking about the way mayors behave or the language they use. And I'm just like,
This city had Richard Daly Sr. as a mayor. So like it's going to be hard to outdo him on the use of bad language. But but anyway. All right. Well, let's leave things there for today. Thank you, Amelia, Alex and Jeff. Thanks, Galen. Thank you. Thanks, Galen.
My name is Galen Druk. Tony Chow is in the control room. Chadwick Matlin is our editorial director. And Audrey Mostek is helping us on audio editing. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, there's a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.
