Jim Clyburn crushed Bernie Sanders with one endorsement three days before the 2020 primary.
Democrats just rigged the same map hoping it buries his successor too.
Whether South Carolina and Democrats’ proverbial smoke-filled backrooms will actually stop Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – or even intend to – is the question the Democrat Party bosses never wanted to answer.
DNC Panel Votes to Crown South Carolina First Again
The Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee gathered in Washington DC on Friday for a vote that was supposed to settle party business quietly.
Instead it blew the lid off a fight Democrats have been trying to hide since Bernie Sanders got steamrolled out of two straight primaries.
The panel voted 26 to 19 to put South Carolina first, edging past Nevada, while New Hampshire trailed with just four votes.
New Hampshire held the nation's first primary for more than a century before this vote knocked it down the calendar entirely.
Nevada goes second on February 1 2028, followed by New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia before Super Tuesday arrives on March 7.
South Carolina's contest is locked in for January 22 2028, and the full DNC still has to ratify the calendar at its August meeting in Austin Texas.
That is the state party leaders are counting on to keep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out of the nomination before she ever gets started.
Clyburn's Machine Delivered Once but Nothing Guarantees an Encore
South Carolina is not a neutral battleground for Democrats, it is Jim Clyburn's backyard.
In February 2020 Clyburn endorsed a fading Joe Biden three days before the primary and watched him crush Sanders in a landslide.
That single endorsement also ended Pete Buttigieg's campaign, buried Amy Klobuchar's, and cleared the field for Biden to sweep Super Tuesday days later.
A majority of South Carolina Democrats told exit pollsters Clyburn's endorsement mattered in their decision, and Sanders never recovered.
Democrats are gambling that the same trick works on a very different opponent, with no guarantee it does.
Former NBC anchor Chuck Todd said on his podcast that "this calendar is intended to make life harder for an insurgent progressive."
Axios reported that one insider on the same rules panel admitted the new schedule was built specifically to knock a progressive contender out of the race.
South Carolina Democratic chair Christale Spain rejected that outright and insisted Ocasio-Cortez "absolutely" could win the state.
Ocasio-Cortez brings a national fundraising machine, a built in Sanders coalition, and a level of celebrity Sanders never had at this stage of a campaign.
Socialist commentators did not wait for permission to say what they thought the vote really meant regardless of whether it works.
Jacobin writer Branko Marcetic called the calendar rationale exactly what it looks like, an attempt at stopping a left wing insurgent before the race even starts.
The Party Cannot Even Enforce Its Own Rules Anymore
Democrats spent ten months and eight public meetings deciding which of their own voters gets to matter first.
They may have spent that time better figuring out how to win the voters they already lost to Donald Trump.
New Hampshire and Iowa are not going to forget getting shoved out of a calendar they controlled for over half a century.
CNN's own reporting suggests several states may simply ignore the new calendar altogether because nobody in the party fears DNC chair Ken Martin enough to comply.
That is the real story hiding under the primary fight, a national party that cannot even get its own members to follow orders.
You have watched Democrats call themselves the party of democracy for a decade while a handful of insiders rearrange the primary calendar behind closed doors.
Jim Clyburn is now betting his kingmaker legacy that the same trick works twice, and South Carolina voters are the only ones who get to decide if he is right.
Sources:
- Fox News Staff, "Chuck Todd Suggests DNC Primary Calendar Intended to Thwart Potential Progressive Insurgent Candidate in 2028," Fox News, July 27 2026.
- Fox News Staff, "South Carolina Recommended as First 2028 Democratic Primary State," Fox News, July 24 2026.
- Newsmax Staff, "Progressives Fume Over Dem Primary Calendar," Newsmax, July 27 2026.
- Washington Examiner Staff, "DNC Panel Advances South Carolina as First State in the 2028 Primary Calendar," Washington Examiner, July 24 2026.
- Mike LaChance, "CNN Reporter Claims Some States May Defy the Democrats' 2028 Primary Calendar Because No One Is Afraid of DNC Chair Ken Martin," The Gateway Pundit, July 27 2026.
