SomeCalcium t1_j646594 wrote on January 27, 2023 at 4:18 PM

Reply to comment by SameOldiesSong in DNC gives NH new deadline to meet requirements for FITN primary by IBlazeMyOwnPath

I think you overestimate how much voters care about the primary and underestimate how much they care about actual policy. Case in point, the Republicans straight up canceled a bunch of their primaries going into 2020 and voters did not punish them for that.

If Biden is running again, he's the de facto nominee and Democratic primary turn out would be low regardless. If he opts not to run, then maybe this has a small impact. Furthermore, the primary really only impact Democratic voters or Democratic leaning independents, not potential swing voters who don't vote in the primary anyways.

Regardless, whatever small spat happens over the primary will largely be forgotten by the general election. It's actually better to pull off this band-aid now with a sitting Democratic President running for a second term rather than later when the primary actually matters.

SameOldiesSong t1_j64dl8u wrote on January 27, 2023 at 5:04 PM

It may be that primary order is a non-issue for people but the push to move SC first indicates it isn’t a meaningless issue for a lot of other people, its one people put weight on. That people think it is important is why this fight is occurring. And NH’s FITN primary is a part of the political culture of NH, so taking that away is a little more precarious. There’s a reason that all of the State officials felt comfortable coming out strong against this (including state Demparty).

And of those five states you referenced , 3 were deep red so they were never at risk for GOP. The two purple states they played with in 2020, Arizona and Nevada, both went for Biden and both of the toss up Senate seats went blue. Can’t say that the canceled primary was the reason but I don’t think we can say with confidence that voters didn’t tag them for it.

NH has open primaries so it will stop independent voters who want to weigh in on Dem candidates from doing so.

Main point in all of this is that the DNC picked an unwinnable fight and are posturing to significantly reduce the presence of the party in a purple state with an all-blue delegation. And they are doing this in service of something that you say voters don’t care about: primary order. It’s so stupid and is just them shooting themselves in the foot. And it was done in bad faith. This does not strike me as something the DNC really thought through.