The next batch of primaries after New Hampshire on January 27 is a seven-state breakout on February 3. The Democratic National Committee’s site has what appears to be a definitive calendar of the remaining primary schedule. The Feb. 3 lineup:
Arizona
Delaware
Missouri
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Now, let me ask a silly question, since I don’t know the answer to this: why does South Carolina get all the attention when reporters talk about the step after New Hampshire – are some of the others nonbinding or something? Missouri in particular is a swing state right in the heart of the country and bigger than South Carolina (11 electoral votes to SC’s 8), and now its favorite son has dropped out. You’d think that would be a bigger story than a state the Democrats can’t carry in November anyway. New Mexico went Democrat by a hair in 2000, and is a critical state in November; together with Arizona (which has 10 electoral votes and is probably in play if the Democrats are competitive), it provides an early test in the West, where none of the remaining candidates has a regional base. Even Oklahoma is nothing to sneeze at.
So why does the media keep talking only about the primaries as Iowa-New Hampshire-South Carolina?
2 thoughts on “Why Not Show Me?”
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3 words: East Coast Bias
South Carolina is the first primary of the Old South, and therefore an early indicator of how the region, viewed as monolith, will go. More importantly, emphasis on South Carolina allows the media to ruminate on how the candidates will play among Black folks without actually having to appear so unenlightened as to mention a distinct Black vote.
As for East Coast Bias, I don’t think many Easterners think of South Carolina as on the ideological East Coast.