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democratic primary
AOC Dismisses Premature 2028 Polls, But Says ‘I Would Stomp’ JD Vance
A survey this week showed the congresswoman leading the vice president 51-49 in a hypothetical presidential matchup.
Dec 18, 2025
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave a cheeky reaction after a poll suggested that she'd slightly edge out Vice President JD Vance in a hypothetical presidential election in 2028.
The survey of over 1,500 registered voters, published Wednesday by The Argument/Verasight, showed Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) leading Vance 51-49 and winning back several key voting demographics that propelled Trump's return to the White House last year.
As she walked out of the Capitol building Wednesday evening, the Bronx congresswoman was asked about the poll by Pablo Manríquez, the editor of Migrant Insider.
She responded to the question with a laugh: "These polls three years out, they are what they are. But, let the record show I would stomp him! I would stomp him!" she said before getting into her car.
Neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Vance has officially announced a presidential run. But Vance is considered by many to be a natural successor to President Donald Trump. The president and his allies have suggested he could run for an unconstitutional third term.
Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, is reportedly mulling either a presidential run or a bid to take down the increasingly unpopular Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
More than two years out from a Democratic primary, Ocasio-Cortez is considered a likely choice to fill the progressive lane in 2028, with support for increasingly popular, affordability-focused policies, including Medicare for All.
However, despite her strong support among young voters, early polls show her behind California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination.
Wednesday's poll showed that in a hypothetical contest against Vance, Newsom had a 53% to 47% edge, a margin only slightly larger than Ocasio-Cortez's.
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Grassroots Dems Pushing DNC to Adopt Ranked-Choice Voting After Mamdani's Win
One pollster argued that ranked-choice "gives a better chance to new faces, outsider candidates, people with grassroots movements, people who run positive campaigns, people who have something new to offer."
Nov 24, 2025
Progressives are hopeful that a new push for ranked-choice voting could allow for more primary races in which candidates who accurately reflect the priorities of the party’s voters rise to the top.
Ranked-choice voting (RCV), which lets voters rank candidates in order of preference rather than voting for a single one, was instrumental in the unexpected triumph of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in this summer’s Democratic primary.
Axios reported Monday that Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin has recently met with advocates seeking to implement RCV in the party's 2028 presidential primary.
Among them were reportedly Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), pollster Celinda Lake, organizers with the nonprofit FairVote Action, and several other figures in the Democratic Party.
Raskin is a long-time advocate for ranked-choice voting. In 2019, leading up to what would be a chaotic and crowded 2020 primary, he wrote in Common Dreams, along with political organizers Adam Eichen and Rob Richie, that:
RCV is the best way to allow greater voter choice without wasted votes and unrepresentative winners...
It will help any party gain stronger nominees and provide more clarity about what voters really want going into conventions. Because voters’ backup choices matter, candidates with RCV tend to run more positive campaigns, seek common ground, and respect their opponents’ supporters.
Notably, that scenario is exactly what played out in New York City’s Democratic primary. City Comptroller Brad Lander, another progressive mayoral candidate, was able to encourage his voters to rank the more popular Mamdani without fear of splitting the votes and helping their centrist opponents.
At a time when Democratic voters have historically low levels of trust in their party's leaders, Lake told Axios that "[RCV] gives a better chance to new faces, outsider candidates, people with grassroots movements, people who run positive campaigns, people who have something new to offer. It really meets the moment."
New York City is the highest-profile practitioner of RCV, which it adopted in 2019 for party primaries. But others include Maine and Alaska, as well as cities like San Francisco and Minneapolis.
Republicans have aggressively sought to outlaw ranked-choice voting in states where they have legislative control. In 2024, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Kentucky all passed bills to outlaw RCV—bans that may hinder its implementation as a new nationwide system, even in Democratic primaries.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon, voters rejected RCV during last year's elections following industry-backed pushes against it.
In a letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News on Sunday, a reader pointed out that President Donald Trump's calls for any Indiana lawmakers who vote against redistricting the state in the GOP's favor to be "PRIMARIED" was evidence of why RCV "is important for protecting our democratic process."
“In ranked-choice voting, no one person, nor small group of people, can keep a candidate in their party off the final ballot because they don’t agree with a particular partisan attitude,” he wrote.
In order for the DNC to implement ranked-choice voting, it would need support from its Rules and Bylaws Committee, whose members are appointed by Martin. It would also need majority support from the DNC's roughly 450 members, which include state party leaders and others elected by states. Axios reported that enthusiasm among members is mixed.
Progressive commentators have expressed excitement at the idea: "This would be a fantastic pro-democracy stance," wrote the left-wing Breaking Points co-host Krystal Ball on social media.
But others doubted that party powerbrokers, who worked behind the scenes to stop the insurgent campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2016 and 2020, would ever implement a reform that would cede so much power to outsider candidates.
“This is a great idea,” said Sanders’ 2020 press secretary, Briahna Joy Gray. “They won’t do it.”
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A Day Before the Election, Poll Shows Mamdani Besting Cuomo in NYC Democratic Mayoral Primary
"On the day before the election, we stand on the verge of toppling a political dynasty and winning a city we can afford," wrote Mamdani.
Jun 23, 2025
New poll results released Monday show State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani narrowly ahead of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the city's Democratic mayoral primary, which takes place on Tuesday and will be conducted via ranked-choice voting.
Early voting in the race began on June 14 and has far exceeded early voting turnout from the previous Democratic mayoral primary in 2021, though that contest was impacted by Covid-19.
The final Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill survey of the primary race shows that Cuomo leads Mamdani 35% to 32% (within the plus or minus 3.4% margin of error) when voters are asked about their top pick overall. However, when the two face off in a ranked-choice voting simulation, Mamdani—a democratic socialist—wins with an outright majority in the eighth round with 52% to Cuomo's 48%, according to the poll. The margin of error for the final round is plus or minus 3.6%.
"On the day before the election, we stand on the verge of toppling a political dynasty and winning a city we can afford. But we can only do it with you," Mamdani wrote on Monday, referencing the poll.
The only other candidate who notched above 10% is New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who secured 12.8% when voters were asked to name their top pick in the race. Lander was recently arrested by federal agents at an immigration court in lower Manhattan while escorting an individual out of immigration court.
In New York City's ranked-choice voting system, which is used for certain elections including primary and special elections for mayor, voters rank multiple candidates on their ballots. If no candidate receives more than 50% of first choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and the votes that went to that candidate are reallocated to the voters' second choice. That distribution of votes repeats in subsequent rounds until one candidate wins an outright majority or there are only two candidates remaining.
"Over five months, Mamdani's support has surged from 1% to 32%, while Cuomo finishes near where he began," said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, in a statement published Monday. "In the ranked-choice simulation, Mamdani gains 18 points compared to Cuomo's 12, putting him ahead in the final round for the first time in an Emerson poll."
Cuomo has been the consistent frontrunner in the contest, though some recent polling shows Mamdani eating into his lead or pulling ahead.
"This is an outlier: Every other credible poll in this election—including two released last week—has shown Governor Cuomo with a double digit lead, which is exactly where this election will end tomorrow. Between now and then we will continue to fight for every vote like he will fight for every New Yorker as mayor," a Cuomo spokesperson in a statement sent to multiple outlets.
In a Marist poll published last week, Cuomo broke above the 50% threshold in the seventh round of ranked-choice voting.
Mamdani has become a viable contender in the race in part because of an impressive ground game and his high number of individual small dollar donations.
"The campaign has tapped into people’s belief that things could genuinely be better. The context of [President Donald] Trump is a part of that, where people are feeling in a very dark place politically and feeling the necessity of getting involved," said one Mamdani canvasser who spoke to The American Prospect. Mamdani is “running on hope, possibility, and joy. We really could have a better society and a better city, and I think that has spoken deeply to people.”
Volunteers with his campaign have knocked on over a million doors around the city, according to his campaign website, and nearly 16,000 individual donors have contributed a donation of less than $100, according to The Financial Times. Cuomo has amassed a little over 1,000 donations from individual donors who gave less than $100, per the outlet.
Cuomo has benefited from backers supporting him through super political action committees, which are not limited in how much they raise though they are barred from donating directly to a political candidate. According to the FT, pro-Cuomo super PACS have poured an unprecedented $27 million into the race.
When it comes to high profile political endorsements, Cuomo has the backing of several establishment Democratic figures, including former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.). Meanwhile, Mamdani has earned the endorsement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
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'Wow. Just Wow': New Poll Has Mamdani Ahead of Cuomo in NYC Mayoral Primary
"Everyone who is serious about defeating Andrew Cuomo needs to endorse Zohran Mamdani immediately," wrote one Democratic state senator.
Jun 12, 2025
A June survey from Public Policy Polling shows New York City mayoral candidate and democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani ahead of opponent and former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as the city's Democratic primary draws near. Primary day is June 24 and early voting begins June 14.
Cuomo has been the consistent front-runner in the race, though Mamdani, a state assemblymember who is running on an affordability platform, has risen from long-shot candidate to serious contender.
"All gas, no breaks," wrote Mamdani on X on Wednesday of the poll results.
"When you run a disciplined, grassroots campaign relentlessly focused on an agenda to address the crises in working people's lives, these are the results," Andrew Epstein, spokesperson for Mamdani, told Politico, which was first to report on the results of the poll on Wednesday.
Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief and CEO of the outlet Zeteo, wrote on X: "Wow. Just wow."
New York Democratic state Sen. Jabari Brisport reacted to reporting on the poll by writing that "everyone who is serious about defeating Andrew Cuomo needs to endorse Zohran Mamdani immediately."
The poll was conducted for the campaign of candidate for city comptroller Justin Brannan, a Democrat, and surveyed 573 likely Democratic primary voters between June 6-7. On June 9, Mamdani posted a video asking New Yorkers to donate to Brannan's campaign.
The relevant question in the poll lists eight Democratic candidates running in the race and asks respondents who they would vote for among them.
Thirty-five percent of respondents said Mamdani, while 31% said they would support Cuomo. The other candidate options listed did not break above 10%, and 11% of respondents said they were not sure.
The poll, however, does not include how the candidates would fare in a ranked-choice voting simulation. New York City uses ranked-choice voting for certain elections, including primary and special elections for mayor. The system allows voters to rank multiple candidates on their ballots.
"As you know, we have had a poll in the field at the same time and our poll showed a race with us maintaining what has now been a consistent double digit lead for more than three months—which is rare for any NYC mayoral race in recent memory," Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi told Politico. The poll Azzopardi was speaking of is from Expedition Strategies and showed Cuomo leading Mamdani by 12 points after eight rounds of voting.
In response to reporting on the latest survey that shows Mamdani ahead, some observers cast doubt on the quality of Public Policy Polling's polls.
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Bowman’s Loss Reveals the Dangers of Unregulated ‘Dark Money’ Funds in Primaries
If left unchecked, America’s democracy, already distorted by big money, will be swamped and destroyed by billionaires who will make elections their game in which to manipulate voters at will.
Jul 02, 2024
Last week, New York Democratic Representative Jamaal Bowman was defeated in his bid for a third term in Congress. In describing the outcome, newspaper headlines and media analysts only scratched the surface of why and how this happened and the consequences this contest would have on future elections.
For their part, pro-Israel groups, while acknowledging that they spent a combined $25 million dollars to defeat Bowman, tried to play it two ways. On the one hand, they gloated that their involvement was decisive proof that “being pro-Israel was good policy and good politics.” Like gangsters of old they wanted to send a message of fear to other candidates that “if you cross us, we’ll get you too.” On the other hand, they attempted to downplay their role suggesting that Bowman’s loss was due to his “radicalism,” with voters demonstrating their preference for the more “centrist” candidate, negatively comparing Bowman’s passion with the staider demeanor of his opponent, County Executive George Latimer.
The lessons the media deduced from all of this were that pro-Israel groups indeed won, progressives lost, and that supporting Palestinian rights was an electorally dangerous proposition. This, however, ignored the deeper story that played out in this election.
If the party doesn’t address this issue, they may lose a sufficient number of their base who are resentful of the party establishment’s failure to both stop the genocide in Gaza and to defend progressive champions like Jamaal Bowman.
First and foremost, it was about the huge amounts of money spent, why and how it was used, and the impact it had on the contest. The $25 million pro-Israel groups spent to defeat Bowman was by far the most ever expended in a congressional primary, used mainly for negative advertising and direct mail attacks smearing Bowman’s character and criticizing his style. Virtually no mention of Israel was made in these ads.
During some points in the campaign, voters were nightly subjected to more than a half-dozen of these attack ads. The impression created was that Bowman was a flawed individual and an unworthy candidate. One observer told me that “if Jamaal’s mother had stayed at home watching this negative onslaught, she wouldn’t have voted for her son either.” That’s the role of negative ads: to damage the candidates being attacked so that they are defined as so flawed that their supporters are discouraged from voting on Election Day. This tactic is simply an expensive form of voter suppression.
In reality, Latimer outpaced Bowman in “radicalism” by making outrageous, racially tinged comments that could have been used against him. But Bowman didn’t have $25 million to define and destroy Latimer’s character. And so, the impression was created that Bowman was a loose cannon and Latimer was the responsible candidate. To be sure, racism played a role in all of this as the contest became “the angry, frightening young black man versus the calm, thoughtful older white guy.”
How the money was used is one thing, but why it was raised is something else to consider. Pro-Israel groups are running scared. They are losing the public debate over policy—especially among Democrats. Most Democrats are deeply opposed to Israeli policies in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian lands. Majorities want a cease-fire and an end to settlements. And they want to stop further arms shipments to Israel.
Knowing this, pro-Israel groups never make their campaigns a referendum on Israel. Instead, they focus their attention on the character of their opponents. When they win, they claim that it was a victory for Israel and support for its policies, when it most decidedly isn’t and never was.
There was another factor in this contest that was largely ignored by commentators. Bowman’s congressional district had been redistricted last year (by a statewide committee that included Latimer). The new district removed many of the areas that had been more favorable to Bowman and included new areas that were more favorable to Latimer. This made Bowman vulnerable, providing pro-Israel groups with the opportunity to play in this race and make it look like they won on the merits.
Historically this is how they’ve done their work—only going after vulnerable candidates. It’s why they left alone other equally strong pro-Palestinian, but less vulnerable, members of Congress. It’s a cowardly approach, to be sure, but it gives them bragging rights they can use to cower others into thinking they are invincible.
Examining who the donors to these pro-Israel campaigns were, we find that while they are largely supporters of Israel, many of the very large contributors are billionaire Republicans who take great pleasure in meddling in a Democratic primary helping to defeat progressive candidates. The use of unregulated “dark money” that is increasingly playing a role in primaries ought to set off alarms. Twice I tried and failed to get the Democratic Party to ban such “dark money” funds. My warning then was that if this tactic can be used by pro-Israel groups now, why won’t other powerful lobbies make use of this approach in the future. If left unchecked, America’s democracy, already distorted by big money, will be swamped and destroyed by billionaires who will make elections their game in which to manipulate voters at will.
One final observation for Democrats: While Bowman was defeated, support for Palestinian rights continues to grow. And the resentment of voters who favored Bowman and other targeted members of Congress will also continue to grow. These are Democratic voters that U.S. President Joseph Biden will need to win in November. If the party doesn’t address this issue, they may lose a sufficient number of their base who are resentful of the party establishment’s failure to both stop the genocide in Gaza and to defend progressive champions like Jamaal Bowman. Seen in this light, “Israel’s win” in the Bowman contest may negatively impact Democrats’ chances for victory in November.
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Biden Intervention in Democratic Primaries Is a Show of Weakness
Having his way with the Democratic National Committee is a slam dunk because Biden supplies the ball, hires the referees, owns the nets, and controls the concession stands.
Jan 31, 2023
When the Democratic National Committee convenes its winter meeting on Thursday in Philadelphia, a key agenda item will be rubber-stamping Joe Biden’s manipulation of next year’s presidential primaries. There’ll be speeches galore, including one by Biden as a prelude to his expected announcement that he’ll seek a second term. The gathering will exude confidence, at least in public. But if Biden were truly confident that Democratic voters want him to be the 2024 nominee, he wouldn’t have intervened in the DNC’s scheduling of early primaries.
New polling underscores why Biden is so eager to bump New Hampshire from the first-in-the-nation spot that it has held for more than 100 years. In the state, “two-thirds of likely Democratic primary voters don’t want President Joe Biden to seek re-election,” the UNH Survey Center found. “Biden is statistically tied with several 2020 rivals, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, all of whom are more personally popular than Biden among likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire.”
Dismal as Biden’s showing was in the new poll, it was a step up from his actual vote total in New Hampshire’s 2020 primary, when he came in fifth with 8 percent of the vote. No wonder Biden doesn’t want the state to go first and potentially set primary dominoes falling against him.
Keen to reduce the chances of a major primary challenge next year, Biden sent a letter to the DNC in early December insisting on a new schedule -- demoting New Hampshire to a second spot, alongside Nevada, while giving the leadoff slot to South Carolina. Democratic Party energy and funds will be squandered in that deep-red state, which is about as likely to give its electoral votes to the 2024 Democratic ticket as Ron DeSantis is likely to donate the money in his campaign coffers to the Movement for Black Lives.
But South Carolina, the state with the lowest rate of unionization in the country, offers the singular virtue of having rescued Biden’s presidential hopes with its 2020 primary. As the Associated Press explained last week, Biden is “seeking to reward South Carolina, where nearly 27 percent of the population is Black, after a decisive win there revived his 2020 presidential campaign following losses it suffered in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.”
The president’s rationalization for putting South Carolina first is diversity. Yet the neighboring purple state of Georgia, which has an activist Democratic base, is more racially diverse -- and it’s a crucial swing state, where the party’s general-election prospects would benefit from being the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
Biden’s intervention has created a long-term political mess for Democrats in New Hampshire, where he’s now less popular than ever due to undermining the state’s first-primary status. Even New Hampshire’s normally compliant Democratic senators and representatives in Congress have been denouncing the move. Biden’s maneuver has boosted the chances that the Democratic ticket will lose the state’s four electoral votes this time around.
But Biden having his way with the Democratic National Committee is a slam dunk because he supplies the ball, hires the referees, owns the nets and controls the concession stands. While cowed DNC members dribble at his behest, substantial concerns will echo outside the range of officials’ whistles.
As a Don’t Run Joe full-page ad in The Hill newspaper pointed out last week (full disclosure: I helped write it), “There are ample indications that having Joe Biden at the top of ballots across the country in autumn 2024 would bring enormous political vulnerabilities for the ticket and for down-ballot races.”
But so far, like the Democrats in Congress, members of the DNC have indicated much more concern about avoiding the ire of the Biden White House than avoiding the probable grim outcome of a Biden ’24 campaign. By the time the DNC adjourns on Saturday, news reports will be filled with on-the-record statements from members lauding Biden’s leadership with next year’s elections on the horizon. Conformity prevails.
But warning signs are profuse. Among the latest are results of a YouGov poll released days ago: “Just 34 percent of Americans describe Biden as honest and trustworthy -- a new low for his presidency. That's an 8-point drop from when this question was last asked in December 2022, prior to the public revelation that classified documents had been found in Biden's possession.”
This is the electoral horse that Democrats are supposed to be riding into battle against the extremist Republican Party next year. The national Democratic Party is locked into operating at the whim of a president now believed to be “honest and trustworthy” by only one-third of U.S. adults.
How all this will play out at the DNC meeting is hardly a mystery. Yet many members surely know that Biden is likely to be a weak candidate if he goes ahead with proclaimed plans to run for re-election. The hope is that the GOP will defeat itself as an extremist party in disarray. But it would be irresponsible to gamble on such a scenario by rolling dice loaded with Biden.
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Biden, DNC Urged to Make Diverse Swing State--Not South Carolina--First Primary Contest
"Our first priority must be to select states early in the process that help produce the strongest Democratic nominee consistent with our working-class values and agenda," says a new petition from More Perfect Union.
Dec 08, 2022
Progressive criticism of President Joe Biden's move to make South Carolina the first-in-the-nation Democratic presidential primary was given a boost Wednesday when More Perfect Union launched a petition imploring the Democratic National Committee to pick a diverse swing state instead.
"If we really want to pick a diverse primary electorate, look to South Carolina's neighbor to the north--an actual battleground state."
Biden's proposal to raise South Carolina to the first spot on the party's presidential primary calendar was approved by the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee last Friday but is still months away from receiving a green light from the entire panel. If Biden's plan is rubber-stamped by the full DNC, voters in New Hampshire--currently home to the nation's first primary contest following the Iowa caucuses--would be second in line, casting ballots on the same day as their counterparts in Nevada.
In its petition, More Perfect Union applauded other changes sought by Biden, including his proposed elevation of Nevada, Georgia, and Michigan--three general election battleground states that were among the 10 closest races in his 2020 victory over then-President Donald Trump.
The biggest flaw in the president's plan is that he "chose South Carolina to go first and ahead of all those battleground states," said the progressive media outlet. "Biden's proposal to elevate South Carolina to the front gives it incredible power to shape the race."
Doing so would be problematic, More Perfect Union contended, because:
South Carolina is not a battleground state: Donald Trump carried it by double digits in 2020. It is way more ideologically and culturally conservative than the Democratic Party and the rest of the nation. It's also one of the fiercest anti-union, anti-labor states in the country. In fact, South Carolina is already first in the nation with the terrible distinction of being the lowest-density union state in America.
If Democrats are serious about winning the working-class vote, South Carolina isn't the state to get it done.
While Biden has portrayed his preferred reshuffling of the Democratic Party's presidential primary calendar as an attempt to foreground voters of color, the progressive advocacy group RootsAction recently characterized the president's move as "an inappropriate, self-serving intervention dressed up in noble rhetoric."
Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign manager Jeff Weaver, meanwhile, warned Thursday in The Nation that "the schedule put forward by the White House empirically and dramatically diminishes the influence of Latinos on the Democratic presidential nominating process."
"In doing so, this proposed gerrymander will give Republicans more fodder for convincing Latino voters that the Democratic Party is not a home for them," Weaver argued. "Given the erosion of Democratic Party support among the fastest-growing segment of the American population, that's a problem."
Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign manager and current adviser Faiz Shakir--the founder of More Perfect Union and a DNC delegate--has vowed to reject Biden's effort to promote South Carolina, which he sees as a transparent attempt by the White House to reward Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) for his influential endorsement in the last presidential contest.
While Shakir agrees that Iowa should no longer go first, he argued in a New York Times opinion piece published Monday that pushing South Carolina, a GOP stronghold, to the front of the line "would be comical if it weren't tragic."
"We all know why South Carolina got the nod," wrote Shakir. "President Biden, Rep. Jim Clyburn, and many of his top supporters were buoyed by their campaign's comeback in February 2020 when the state delivered Mr. Biden his first victory of the season--and a big one at that."
"The media attention from that victory, and the consolidation of the Democratic field that it yielded, helped catapult him to winning a majority of the following Super Tuesday states," Shakir continued. "And when Covid spread through the nation shortly after, the rest of the primary contests were effectively quarantined, and Mr. Biden iced his victory. None of that story is a reason to put South Carolina first, however."
Soon after the piece was published, DNC Chair Jamie Harrison appeared to baselessly accuse Shakir of disrespecting Black voters. In an ensuing interview with Politico, Shakir said that "it's a very insulting approach to suggest that somehow we don't care about Black voters because we think South Carolina shouldn't go first."
In his essay, Shakir wrote that "if we really want to pick a diverse primary electorate, look to South Carolina's neighbor to the north--an actual battleground state."
More Perfect Union's petition also advocates for prioritizing racially diverse swing states: "As one of the strongest voting blocks in the Democratic coalition, it is essential Black voters get their say early and often throughout the nominating process. Yet Georgia has significantly more Black voters than South Carolina. So do Florida and North Carolina, two more battleground states. In fact, 14 states have larger Black populations than South Carolina."
"Our first priority must be to select states early in the process that help produce the strongest Democratic nominee consistent with our working-class values and agenda," says the petition. "South Carolina isn't even trending in any way toward the Democratic Party."
"Just two years ago, Jaime Harrison--now the chair of the Democratic National Committee--spent the eye-popping sum of $130 million to try to defeat [Republican] Sen. Lindsey Graham. After out-raising and outspending Mr. Graham, Mr. Harrison still lost the 2020 Senate race decisively," the petition adds. "Let's not compel all other Democratic campaigns to waste more money that could be better spent building coalitions in states Democrats need to win."
Adolph Reed Jr., professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and an organizer with the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute's Medicare for All campaign in South Carolina, told Common Dreams that the notion that the South Carolina primary serves as corporate Democrats' so-called "firewall" has "only worked that way because Democratic elites have interpreted it that way when it's been in their interest to do so and because the news media have colluded with them in that view."
"It's just as important to note that South Carolina is a state no Democrat is going to win in November," said Reed, "and that Black voters in South Carolina are not identical to Black voters in Michigan, Illinois, or New York, that there's no such thing as 'the Black vote,' and that South Carolina Black voters' inclinations are shaped significantly by political dynamics within the state as are those of those voters in other states."
Shakir, for his part, called it a "special honor" to go first. "The state chosen for the task is rewarded in myriad ways. Iowa's economy has benefited greatly over the years from the high level of campaign spending and travel. Aware of the process' economic power, many of our Democratic campaigns employed union-friendly hotels, restaurants, and vendors when we were active in Iowa. Good luck finding that in South Carolina."
As RootsAction's Don't Run Joe campaign--an effort to dissuade the incumbent from seeking reelection in 2024--noted last week in a statement:
Biden received a mere 8% of the vote in the 2020 Democratic primary in New Hampshire, finishing fifth. Now he wants to dislodge New Hampshire from its long-standing first-in-the-nation primary role. On the other hand, Biden was the big winner of the South Carolina primary in 2020. Now he wants that state to go first.
Biden's decision to intrude into the Democratic National Committee's painstaking process for setting the 2024 presidential primary schedule appears to be a sign of anxiety in the White House about potential obstacles to his winning renomination. The president has indicated repeatedly that he plans to run again, so how ethical would it be for the DNC to allow a contestant to determine key rules of the game before the race begins?
South Carolina is a state that Biden obviously sees as vital to a renomination bid, but--unlike all other states under consideration for early primaries--it is not a battleground state. Everyone knows that the Democratic ticket will not win the deep-red state of South Carolina in 2024. Georgia, on the other hand, is one of the most important battleground states, and is more racially diverse than South Carolina. If Biden's proposal to supplant the New Hampshire primary as first-in-the-nation were truly about diversity and not about improving his own prospects for renomination, he would be promoting a state other than South Carolina to be first.
The group called on Biden to stop trying "to manipulate the Democratic primary schedule for his own narrow political purposes."
That message is echoed in More Perfect Union's petition, which tells Biden and the DNC: "Don't make South Carolina the first state to vote in the 2024 Democratic primary. Make diverse, battleground states that Democrats need to win in the general election, like Georgia, Nevada, and Michigan, first instead."
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Embracing Medicare for All and Refusing Corporate Cash, Abdul El-Sayed Touted as 'True Progressive' in Michigan Governor's Race
"We have to stand up for a Michigan that embraces our future. That means we have to stand up for a Michigan that's for the people, by the people."
Jul 20, 2018
After Thursday night's final gubernatorial debate in Michigan's Democratic primary race, voters and political commentators alike pronounced progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed the clear winner, praising his universal healthcare plan and refusal to take corporate donations.
El-Sayed denounced former state Senate minority leader Gretchen Whitmer for campaigning on health care reform while allowing health insurance executives to host a fundraiser for her, accusing her of "corruption."
He also touted his plan for a state-level Medicare for All plan, a proposal the former Detroit Health Department director says will save Michigan families $5,000 per year.
"We have to stand up for a Michigan that embraces our future," said El-Sayed. "That means we have to stand up for a Michigan that's for the people, by the people."
"To me, it is about standing up to the dominance of a particular economic elite, about recognizing that real people are suffering every single day and about being willing to stand up for policies that empower real people over the corporations." --Abdul El-SayedIn two separate polls gauging reactions from more than 7,000 Michigan residents, El-Sayed was declared the winner of the debate, gathering 71 percent of the vote in one survey and 59 percent in another. Whitmer trailed behind him in each, losing by dozens of percentage points.
"El-Sayed performed the strongest, he really honed in on values that everyone should have access to economic opportunities, everyone should have access to healthcare," Detroit City Councilwoman Raquel Castaneda-Lopez told WDIV-TV, the local station which hosted the debate. "Those things are really going to resonate with folks who usually don't engage in primaries."
His performance won praise on social media as well.
. @AbdulElSayed was on fire tonight in the #MIDemDebate!!! i have never been so passionate about a candidate before. made my first political contribution at $25 dollars to his grassroots campaign. and i am a proud volunteer! vote vote vote in the primary #ForOurFuture
-- steph (@scr33chh) July 20, 2018
El-Sayed's commitment to fighting for bold reforms has recently won him endorsements from the Justice Democrats--the group that has backed progressive candidates including Ben Jealous in Maryland's gubernatorial race, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, and Laura Moser in Texas--as well as filmmaker and activist Michael Moore.
El-Sayed's refusal to take corporate money has offered a stark contrast to Whitmer, who recently benefited from a $1.8 million ad campaign paid for by donors who may remain anonymous until after the August 7th primary election.
Build a Better Michigan, the 527 organization behind the ads, is required to disclose its donors--but it sent information about its financial backing to the IRS via mail rather than electronically in recent days.
"It can take as long as eight to 10 weeks for the IRS to upload a report submitted by mail to its public website, meaning Build a Better Michigan's full donor disclosure document may not be public until sometime between Sept. 15 to Sept. 30," wrote Jonathan Oosting in the Detroit News.
The lack of transparency is "corrupting our Democratic primary," El-Sayed said during the debate.
"We need to know where the money's coming from," he told the Detroit News. "Especially if it's unlimited corporate contributions."
El-Sayed's website details other aspects of his 20-point plan for Michigan, including a minimum wage of $15 per hour, making college tuition free for families earning under $150,000 per year, and fighting for clean drinking water by shutting down polluting pipelines like the one Enbridge runs through the Straits of Mackinac.
In a recent interview with Jeremy Scahill on the podcast "Intercepted," El-Sayed spoke about his hope that progressive candidates such as himself will remake the Democratic Party and U.S. government as entities that work for working Americans instead of corporate interests.
"The responsibility right now is to pull us as a party to FDR's Democratic Party and to remind ourselves that we have an opportunity about what is morally correct and about fighting for that right now," said El-Sayed. "And, to me, it is about standing up to the dominance of a particular economic elite, about recognizing that real people are suffering every single day and about being willing to stand up for policies that empower real people over the corporations."
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South Carolina: Clinton's 'Firewall' Holds
Feb 29, 2016
Boosted by overwhelming African-American support - particularly that of older African-American women - Hillary Clinton won a commanding victory Saturday in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary.
Sanders and Clinton have essentially split two states - Iowa and Nevada -and traded blowouts in two. Sanders drubbed Clinton in New Hampshire; she repaid him in South Carolina. March 2 is Super Tuesday, with eleven states, many across the South, making their decision. We'll know much more then.
Exit polls reported that 61 percent of the voters in the Democratic primary in South Carolina were African-American. (up from 55 percent in 2008). They went 84 percent to 16 percent for Clinton. Reports had her winning elderly African-American women by more than nine to one margin.
The reasons for this are clear. Sanders was a virtual stranger to the state at the beginning of this campaign. Clinton has run here before; she and her husband have long, personal associations. She had the support of the African-American political leadership and of the Democratic Party in the state. Sixty percent of the electorate decided on their vote before the last month and she won three-quarters of those voters. Seeking a knockout blow, she and Bill campaigned vigorously in South Carolina, whereas Sanders moved on to more promising Super Tuesday states. The Sanders campaign's hope that New Hampshire might provide real momentum here proved unfounded.
Clinton surely got her biggest boost by tying herself to Barack Obama. President Obama is popular among Democrats, and particularly among African Americans, who have had his back from the start. Clinton defended her foreign policy judgment by invoking Obama's faith in her, rationalized her Wall Street fundraising by comparing it to that of Obama, framed Sanders's Medicare for All as an attack on Obamacare, and burlesqued Sanders's criticisms of Obama as akin to those of Republicans. Exit polls reported that three-quarters of the voters wanted to continue Obama's policies, and Clinton won those 81 percent to 19 percent. Sanders won a majority of those who wanted more liberal politics than Obama.
In a rout like this, Clinton won virtually across the board - both genders, races, incomes, across the ideological spectrum, on all issues and on all "candidate qualities." But some warning signs were still visible. Turnout was down from 2008 by 31 percent. Sanders won young voters - 17-24 - 60 percent to 40 percent. He won first-time voters (only 13 percent of vote) by nearly two to one (63 percent to 37 percent). Sanders won independents 53 to 46 percent and white men 56 to 44 percent. Doubts about Clinton's honesty and trustworthiness remain; even among voters who gave her a landslide victory, she only edged Sanders out by 51 percent to 49 percent.
South Carolina's voters stand firmly with the president that they helped to elect. But they also carry pretty grim views of this economy and the country's direction. Only one in five (18 percent) thought race relations had gotten better over the last few years; 81 percent thought they had gotten worse or stayed the same. Nearly 80 percent thought the U.S. economic system generally favors the wealthy rather than being fair to most Americans. Eighty-four percent were worried about the U.S. economy (50 percent very worried) as opposed to 15 percent who were not too worried.
Voters across the country are looking for change. Clinton's efforts to present herself as the candidate of continuity worked in South Carolina but may be more costly if she wins the nomination.
The mainstream media used the Clinton victory in South Carolina to start posting funeral notices for the Sanders campaign. In reality, Sanders is still building. He's still introducing himself to various parts of the country and to constituencies beyond the white left. His message has such power that Clinton has chosen to recycle parts of it. After Super Tuesday, the campaign heads into industrial states that surely are fertile territory for him. He's still an underdog, but he's come a long way from where he started in a remarkably small amount of time. And along the way, he is introducing Americans - and young people particularly - to common-sense alternatives that, for too long, have been excluded from our debate. To borrow Mark Twain, reports of his campaign's death have been greatly exaggerated.
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Sanders Says Campaign 'Just Beginning' as Clinton Wins South Carolina
'Now it’s on to Super Tuesday.'
Feb 27, 2016
The race is far from over, Bernie Sanders told his supporters on Saturday night after news outlets projected a big win for Hillary Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary.
"Let me be clear on one thing tonight," Sanders said in a statement just after 7 pm EST. "This campaign is just beginning. We won a decisive victory in New Hampshire. She won a decisive victory in South Carolina. Now it's on to Super Tuesday. In just three days, Democrats in 11 states will pick 10 times more pledged delegates on one day than were selected in the four early states so far in this campaign. Our grassroots political revolution is growing state by state, and we won't stop now."
As of 7:30 pm, according to CBS News:
CBS reported a high turnout among African Americans, who overwhelmingly backed Clinton. According to CBS exit polling, "more than 86 percent of black women and 79 percent of black men supported her over Sanders."
Jane Sanders, Bernie Sanders' wife, told the Guardian about that particular margin of victory: "I think we're getting a lot better [at reaching African American voters]. It's just that they didn't know us. They didn't know us in the South generally."
However, the Associated Press pointed out that this "bodes well for Clinton headed into Super Tuesday contests across the South, where several states have large populations of black voters."
Eleven states hold Democratic primaries or caucuses on Tuesday, March 1, and the stakes are high for Sanders. The U.S. senator from Vermont "needs something to change because frankly, he's losing," Harry Enten wrote at FiveThirtyEight on Saturday.
Among those states is Texas, where Sanders spoke to a "mega-rally" of 10,000 people on Saturday and highlighted his ability to beat GOP frontrunner Donald Trump in the general election.
"I believe that Donald Trump's idea of dividing us up is a horrific un-American idea," Sanders told the outdoor rally in Austin. "I believe that not only can we win this Democratic nominating process, but we can defeat Trump and defeat him soundly."
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