California Upends 2020 Democratic Primary Calendar

[mahatmakanejeeves]

The Wall Street Journal. is treating this as some kind of late-breaking news. I don't know why. There was a thread about this in DU twelve days ago:

California primary threatens to change 2020 game for Dems

Anyway, here's the tweet that led me to the article:

After a June primary in 2016, California is moving its 2020 presidential primary to the beginning of March so it can have more influence in picking presidential nominees

Link to tweet

POLITICS

California Upends 2020 Democratic Primary Calendar

By moving its presidential primary to early March, California will force candidates to address West Coast issues

By Reid J. Epstein

https://twitter.com/reidepstein
[e-mail]

Dec. 17, 2018 8:00 a.m. ET

When Iowa Democrats hold their February 2020 presidential caucuses, millions of Californians will already have their primary ballots. ... The nation’s most-populous state has moved its primary to March 3, 2020, so it can have more influence in picking presidential nominees. The move from a June primary in 2016 will press hopefuls to consider a West Coast perspective on issues such as immigration and the environment, empower the state’s growing Latino and Asian populations and drastically increase the amount of money candidates must raise to mount a competitive campaign.

California’s calendar change is one of several developments reshaping Democrats’ primary process. Following the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary—two predominately-white electorates that are the traditional vetters of presidential candidates—at least six of the next nine states on the 2020 calendar will take Democrats through a swath of states where black and Hispanic Democrats dominate primary elections, including Texas.

The anticipated size of the presidential candidate field could also upend traditional primary dynamics. President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton won the 2008 and 2016 Democratic nominations due to consolidated support from Southern black women. In 2020, two African-Americans are planning campaigns, and other would-be candidates have spent parts of the last year stumping with such high-profile black gubernatorial candidates such as Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Andrew Gillum in Florida.

The geography for primaries will likely mean the voters critical to winning the presidential nomination will be considerably different from the electorate that carried the party to sweeping victories in the 2018 midterm elections, when Democrats flipped 40 House Republican seats and regained the chamber’s majority.
....

Write to Reid J. Epstein at [e-mail]

[California_Republic]

1. I like

I will finally see some presidential candidates

[Retrograde]

2. It tales a while for the Pony Express to get the news back east....

The major news media act as if everything important happens in the EST time zone, and the rest of the country is an afterthought.

Actually, the WSJ has no good excuse since they print their west coast edition in California.

[ROB-ROX]

3. CALIFORNIA RULES

We always were served the "table scraps." I think our big population and high economy means we should have a voice in the selection. I think since the state is so big it will be expensive to advertise in the state. We may be able to help select a better candidate versus letting those back east do their thing.