SC is the best state for Democrats’ first presidential primary

The African American community in South Carolina has been at the crossroads of America from the very beginning. This is where race has always intersected the economic and political history of our nation. This is the place where too many stories of inhumanity became stories of the unmeasurably heroic.

Our state is where these forces converge in America’s effort to make progress. Some examples: Briggs v. Elliott was the precursor to Brown v. Board of Education. The blinding of Isaac Woodard on his way home, while in military uniform, compelled President Truman to desegregate federal office buildings and the U.S. Army. Sarah Mae Flemming’s refusal, in 1954, to move from the “whites only” section of the SCE&G bus was the quiet spark that ignited a movement. Septima Clark’s citizen education schools were so instrumental that Dr. Martin Luther King believed she was as responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize as he, thus she accompanied him to Norway. Dizzy Gillespie taught himself to play a horn that changed music forever. Physicist and astronaut Ronald McNair inspired us to reach beyond the stars. Chadwick Boseman brought to life the power of a comic book character that continues to inspire people across our world.

You see, President Biden recognized the dichotomy of this relationship – the bad, the good but always-transformative relationship — when he asked the DNC to place South Carolina at the front of the Democratic presidential nominating process.

S.C. is where candidates will have to address the concerns of African American voters nationwide because all political views are here — liberal, moderate, and culturally conservative. The experience of those who make up our citizenry was best expressed when National Geographic wrote, “90% of all African Americans can trace at least one ancestor to the state of South Carolina.”

The goal of the Democratic Party’s presidential nominating process is to maximize our chance of nominating a candidate who will win. Part of reaching that goal is creating a schedule that affords candidates the opportunity to develop a campaign structure, a financial base, a message, and the political skills to deliver that message without bankrupting the campaign — doing so in states that represent the diversity of America. We are just one piece of a calendar designed to nominate a winner. People tend to focus on South Carolina as the first primary instead of the fact that the President and the RBC have put forth a complete calendar that enables candidates to appear in front of a more diverse primary electorate.

Unfortunately, those with a lack of historical perspective find it easy to dismiss the president’s decision. Those who argue that South Carolina’s place in the nominating calendar is a reward to one person are insulting to and dismissive of southern Democratic voters. This archaic thought process operates under the false premise that southern African American voters are nothing more than a monolithic voting bloc subject to the whims of an individual. Campaigns that believe this fail. Campaigns that develop messages that cross urban and rural areas win — in the South and the nation.

This is a small state, as early states should be, with strong participation in our primary process. In 2020, S.C. was roughly 40,400 votes short of surpassing the aggregate number of participants in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

Our people are a mix of rural, urban, and suburban residents with a diversity of socio-economic factors. Every South Carolina county has Democratic primary voters. No candidate can win just one city or one region to carry the day. This state requires a candidate and a campaign to do the real work of relating to people, and S.C. forces those aspirants to build real organizations to win.

South Carolina is a place where a good organization, not just a rich candidate, can win. To reach every possible voter costs 40% less than in our neighboring states. South Carolina has been home to underdog campaigns in primaries before — Clinton ’92, Obama ’08 and Biden ’20. The Palmetto State’s Democrats have a history of picking winners, and our voters take this responsibility seriously.

Mr. Robertson is chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party.