How a New Primary Calendar Changes the Chessboard

“When a panel of Democratic Party insiders endorsed President Joseph R. Biden’s preferred lineup of early presidential nominating states on Friday, they didn’t just shatter the exalted status of Iowa and New Hampshire voters,” the New York Times reports.

“They also formally aligned themselves with a demographic reckoning decades in the making, reflecting the growing clout of the racially diverse coalition that brought Mr. Biden to power — and implicitly rebuking two overwhelmingly white states that rejected him in 2020.”

“For political obsessives, the change — which must still be voted on by the whole committee — feels sweeping and swift.”

Dan Balz: Biden shakes up the primary calendar and insulates himself from challengers.