DNC Risks Diluting Southern Black Voter Power

Politico: ”Nearly 40 years ago, the DNC unwittingly elevated Jesse Jackson by frontloading its schedule with Southern states. At the time, committee members hoped the shift would help a moderate white candidate, who they thought could more easily win a general election. Instead, Southern Black voters rallied to Jackson’s history-making candidacy. On Friday, the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee again sought to push its nomination fight to the South.”

”This time, though, the panel’s decision to lift South Carolina to first-in-the-nation status was done expressly with the state’s Black voters in mind. The party wanted to reward their most loyal constituency and those voters who, in the modern era, have invariably determined its nominees.”

”Yet in making South Carolina first overall, rather than keeping the state in its previous role as first in the South, the party risks diluting the influence of Southern Black voters.”