Does Moving South Carolina First Actually Give Black and Latino Voters More Power?

The Democratic National Committee approved a new primary calendar for 2028, with South Carolina voting first on January 22 and Nevada following on February 1. The stated aim is to give Black and Latino voters a bigger voice in picking the party's presidential nominee.

It's a sincere instinct. Presidential campaigns have real consequences for real people. If candidates have to earn votes from communities that have been overlooked, they'll actually show up, listen, and commit to policies that matter to those communities. That's how it's supposed to work.

But there's a harder question underneath: Does the order of the calendar actually determine whose priorities shape the race? Or do the voters who show up earliest just get more attention from candidates with money and staff?

What the Change Actually Does

For decades, Iowa and New Hampshire voted first, giving those states outsized influence. Both have much smaller Black and Latino populations than the national Democratic electorate. By moving South Carolina to the front, a state where Black voters make up roughly 60 percent of the Democratic primary electorate, the DNC is trying to ensure that the first test of a candidate isn't just white rural voters in the Midwest.

Nevada, with its significant Latino population and union influence, follows a week later. In theory, candidates can't ignore issues that matter to these communities and still win the nomination.

In practice, that depends on whether candidates have the resources to compete in South Carolina from day one. It depends on whether media covers those communities fairly. It depends on whether the candidates actually show up, not just in a swing-state rally, but in the neighborhoods where people live.

The Deeper Problem: Access and Money

This touches directly on why the Common Good Party exists. The machinery of democracy, how votes are counted, when they're counted, which votes get media attention, matters enormously. But so does who can afford to compete in that machinery.

A candidate with a billionaire backer can build an operation in South Carolina from the start. A candidate without one can't. Moving the primary doesn't fix that. It just moves the problem to a different state.

Real change in whose voice gets heard requires fixing the money problem first. When campaigns depend on small-dollar donations from real people instead of corporate bundlers and mega-donors, candidates have to answer to voters, not donors. That's when calendar order actually matters.

The DNC's calendar change is a real attempt to fix a real problem. But without tackling the bigger issue, that money drowns out voters, it's like rearranging deck chairs. The ship's still the same.

Read the full reporting at the Washington Post.