In an interview, Rep. Clyburn (D-S.C.) stated that he believes President Biden is “avoiding embarrassment” by calling for South Carolina to be the first state in the 2024 Democratic primary.
South Carolina is currently scheduled to open the presidential race on Feb. 3. Nevada and New Hampshire are set to hold their elections three days later, followed by Georgia and then Michigan. The schedule was approved by the Democratic National Committee in February; however, it is still unclear whether or not this scheduled lineup was going to hold up.
Biden, who won the primary in South Carolina in 2020 by double digits, which helped his campaign pick up following the up until then underwhelming results, is the state that the President would like to see open the primary race in place of Iowa. In 2020 Biden had only placed fourth in Iowa which is traditionally considered to be the first-in-the-nation state.
However, in the general election, South Carolina went to then-President Trump with an around 11-point difference. CNN’s Chris Wallace questioned Clyburn on why the Democrats were so focused on South Carolina for the 2024 presidential election. Clyburn stated that the reason was that Biden wanted to ensure that he would be getting the nomination first. He added that why should he wait and allow a state in which he ended up “fifth in being first up?”
Clyburn, the assistant Democratic leader in the House, endorsed Biden in 2020 ahead of the primary in South Carolina. This move is believed by many to have been detrimental to Biden’s successful winning the nomination. He added that he believes that Biden with this move was just attempting to avoid embarrassment, which is something that everybody would do in his place.
