For some reason, Democrats are flocking to deep-red South Carolina.
In recent weeks, California Gov. Gavin Newsom; Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.; and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear have all visited the Palmetto State, which favored President Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by almost 20 percentage points.
In May, Tim Walz and Wes Moore, the governors of Minnesota and Maryland, respectively, both spoke at the state’s Democratic convention.
So, what’s drawing these nationally prominent Democrats to a state with a Republican governor, GOP supermajorities in both houses of the state Legislature, two Republican U.S. senators, and just one Democrat in its seven-member congressional delegation?
If you ask Newsom, it’s part of a soul-searching quest to connect with small town, conservative America.
“I think it’s really important for Democrats that we spend time in parts of our states, parts of our country, that frankly, we haven’t spent enough time in, and so that’s why I’m here,” he said July 8 at a coffee shop in Florence, South Carolina.
But one reporter asked Newsom ahead of his visit if the real reason he was going to South Carolina is because it is likely an early state in the 2028 Democrat presidential primaries—the first steppingstone toward the presidency.
“You don’t know that, and I don’t know that, and so that’s why I would suggest it’s what it is,” he said in an apparent deflection.
Democrats made South Carolina the first state in their primary cycle in February 2023 ahead of then-President Joe Biden’s bid for reelection—taking the place of the traditional leadoff states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are predominantly white. About 25% of the population of South Carolina is black.
“This calendar does what is long overdue,” then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison explained at the time. “It puts black voters at the front of the process in South Carolina. It keeps Nevada, where Latinos have been building power … and it adds Michigan, the heartland, where unions built the middle class of this nation. And Georgia, the forefront of the New South.”
Biden himself wrote a letter to the DNC in December 2022 calling for a new caucus schedule to reflect racial diversity.
Weeks after the letter, in January 2023, Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., a veteran of South Carolina politics with great sway in the state’s Democratic Party, said that he was “all in for President Biden,” who had “demonstrated in these two years … that he is deserving of reelection.”
For context, the 2020 endorsement of Biden by Clyburn, who is black, preceded Biden’s first victory in that year’s primary election cycle, as he had already lost in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.
The redrawn 2024 schedule created a favorable situation for the incumbent Biden against any potential Democrat challengers.
In fact, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. questioned its fairness at the time.
“President Biden didn’t do well [in New Hampshire]; he came in fifth. So, they took New Hampshire, and they kicked it out of first place. And now they’re going to say—they’re saying that they’re going to completely remove the delegates from New Hampshire,” Kennedy explained in an April 2023 interview.
He would leave the Democrat race in October of that year, accusing the party of rigging the system against him.
Now, if South Carolina remains the first primary in the 2028 cycle, a Democrat presidential hopeful would be wise to seek Clyburn’s endorsement—since it did so much to help carry Biden to the White House in 2020.
Clyburn already appears to have taken a shine to Newsom.
In fact, Clyburn introduced Newsom as one of “these candidates that are running for president,” which is a narrative Newsom has shied away from.
“I feel good about his chances,” he told the South Carolina crowd after praising him.
Asked later on CNN whether he thought the term-limited California governor would make a good candidate for president, Clyburn replied, “Well, I was with him in Camden this evening, and I went there expecting a modest crowd on a Tuesday afternoon, and this was in fact his, I think, sixth or seventh stop of the day.”
He added, “It was an overflowing crowd of people, some of whom I have never seen at an event like this before, and so I do think people are listening to him, and they are listening to the Democratic Party in a big way.”
It still remains to be seen whether South Carolina stays as the first state in the Democrat presidential cycle.
DNC Chair Ken Martin spoke on the topic in Charleston, South Carolina, shortly before his nomination as chairman in February.
“It’s not up to the next DNC chair to put their thumb on the scale in any way, shape, or form. It’s not one person’s decision. It is the party’s decision,” Martin said. “Any state that wants to have their voice heard and make a bid for this will be heard.”
“The calendar we put forward has to be rigorous, it has to be efficient, and it has to be fair … . It has to battle-test our nominees so we win, and it has to honor the great diversity of this party, and it has to honor the great traditions of this party.”
Newsom’s office did not provide comment for this article.
