After a bitter GOP meeting, Democrats look to show unity | NASCAR Racing News

On Saturday, the DNC is expected to approve A New lineup for the party’s presidential primariesand defer to Biden, who He defended The initial inaugural vote is in South Carolina on February 3. New Hampshire and Nevada will jointly follow three days later, on Feb. 6, with Georgia coming in on Feb. 13 and Michigan two weeks after that.

The president argued that replacing the party’s primary caucuses in Iowa, a majority white state, with a presidential primary in South Carolina, where roughly 27% of the population is black, would empower voters of color that the Democrats relied on but took. Of course.

“We’re fighting back a crazy Republican House and actually defending our gains from the early years. Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which endorsed Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, rather than Biden, in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Campaign for Progressive Change Committee.

Warren, like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, says they expect Biden to run again and will support him when he makes a formal bid.

Instead, Sanders is urging the DNC to ban accepting funding from major political action committees and other outside political groups during future Democratic primaries. This is an idea that some Democratic notables have opposed, arguing that Republican candidates will continue to accept such financial support and that their party should not “unilaterally disarm”.

However, most major progressive organizations and grassroots activist groups have also shied away from suggesting that Biden could face a major challenge. President Jimmy Carter’s loss to Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election followed a strong primary challenge from Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Harrison, who rose to national prominence with a failed bid in 2020 against South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, will remain in office until next year’s presidential race. This is in stark contrast to Ronna McDaniel, who won another term as chair of the Republican National Committee during a controversial meeting last week in California. Members have publicly questioned the GOP’s performance in the midterms and former President Donald Trump’s continued grip on the party.

Harrison ripped through a party rules committee meeting in December when the Democrats’ new primary calendar was approved for the first time and predicts he may get emotional again this weekend. He recalled going to vote with his grandfather before his death in 2004 and how the US Constitution once counted his black ancestors in South Carolina as three-fifths of a person.

“They didn’t always think I was a complete man in this situation,” Harrison recalled his grandfather saying, before urging him, “Never let anyone tell you you don’t matter.”

“For this president to meddle with the traditions of the Democratic Party — go to Iowa, go to New Hampshire to say, you know what, now is the time to raise the voices of people like my grandfather, like my grandmother, to let them have a say in who He should be president of the United States.” “For me, I was emotional because of that.”

But the new line-up has its critics. New Hampshire, already a battleground state in the general election, has a law mandating the country’s first presidential primary, which Iowa circumvented only with its caucus. Its Democrats joined the state’s top Republicans in pledging to hold the country’s first presidential primary next year, regardless of the Democratic National Party’s calendar.

That raises the possibility that if Biden passes a rogue New Hampshire primary, he could lose the state to a challenger campaigning there unopposed.

Such a scenario could raise “potential embarrassment” for Biden creating “an opportunity for a recalcitrant candidate — serious or not — who can attract media attention and capitalize on the Granite Staters’ ire about being passed over,” said Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman. He wrote to the DNC Rules Committee.

DNC Rules Committee member Joanne Dowdle of New Hampshire chimed in on the same issue, noting, “This is not how any of us want to start our re-election campaign.”

It is not likely to prevent the DNC from approving the new primary calendar. But the proposal sparked some opposition outside New Hampshire.

Matt Hughes, the DNC member and second vice chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, was the first signatory to a letter released Thursday to DNC members from local officials in his home state, as well as Nevada, Michigan and Georgia. He urged the party to choose its first primary from a competitive state like those four—arguing that doing so would allow Democrats to focus campaign resources on more competitive districts in the general election than deeply Republican South Carolina.

Hughes said such calls should not be seen as challenging Biden. Instead, he said, a party with a sitting president who will not face primary opposition is the perfect time to make changes that will shape future cycles.

“What we have to think about is definitely the long-term impact. In 2024, it makes a lot of sense. That’s a relatively small impact,” Hughes said. “This is the perfect opportunity to talk about the line-up of countries regardless of the potential frontrunners on the field, who benefits and who loses out.” .”