Performing well in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary is vital to a presidential hopeful’s eventual success. Given that these states are the first in the primary cycle, candidates are forced to appeal to their voters. If a candidate struggles to gain support in Iowa and New Hampshire, it is seen as a sign that his or her campaign is doomed, that he or she has no hope of winning the nomination. Given these states’ importance, one would think they should be great representations of the demographics of the United States. After all, if the Democratic Party wants to find a candidate who can appeal to the masses, it would make sense to “test the waters” in states that accurately represent the voters which the nominee will have to sway in November. Iowa and New Hampshire don’t fit this bill. Both are incredibly white states, which causes candidates to appeal more to white voters, leaving the voices of minority voters left behind in the process.

In terms of demographics, New Hampshire and Iowa have the third and fifth highest percentages of white Americans, with 95 and 92.9 percent of the population respectively. Due to this, the concerns of minority voters in these states are essentially left behind, as candidates are forced to appeal to audiences in which at least nine out of ten people are white. If a candidate were to focus on issues that deeply affect people of color, such as unfair conviction rates for nonviolent drug offenders, his or her message would likely fall flat, given that these issues do not personally affect the majority of the audience. Not only is it morally wrong to put candidates in such a position, but it is a terrible way of choosing a candidate who will best appeal to the national electorate. If the Democrats want to win in battleground states with a more diverse population (such as North Carolina, which is only 68.5 percent white, or Florida, 75 percent white), they should force candidates to seriously address the needs of minority voters early in the primaries. Under the current format, only the candidates who successfully appealed to the incredibly white populations of Iowa and New Hampshire (whether they actually finished first there or not) can survive, and those who might have performed better in more diverse states later in the calendar are, in effect, dropped.

To fix this issue, the Democrats could simply combine the current first four states--Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina--into one day. With this new schedule, candidates would have to appeal to a much more diverse audience. Nevada and South Carolina are both 66.2 percent white, and their greater diversity would force candidates to focus more on issues that affect minority voters. In addition, this would make the first primary much more geographically representative, since there would be one in each region on the same day: Midwest, Northeast, South, and West all having importance in helping to determine the nominee. It would not be unprecedented to have multiple states simultaneously: On Super Tuesday, which is March 3 this year, fourteen states will vote on the same day. That’s early as well, but under the current schedule, good performances in Iowa and New Hampshire tend to signal to Super Tuesday voters that a candidate actually has a shot at winning the nomination and is electable. If all of the first four states were to vote on the same day, the opinions of minority voters would probably have much greater influence in that next round of voting.

If the Democrats are serious about winning elections, they must rally more support from non-white voters. As evidence from 2016 shows, when minority voters don’t show up strongly enough at the polls (white voters turned out at 65.3 percent, black voters at 59.6 percent, and Hispanic voters at 47.6 percent), Republicans have a much greater chance of winning. This seems especially true for the coming election, in which President Trump’s base consists overwhelmingly of white voters. While it is too late to change the 2020 primary schedule, a future change to incorporate the voices of minority voters at an earlier stage could benefit the Democratic Party. By forcing candidates to consider the issues which especially affect minority voters, rather than requiring them to appeal to states which are over 92 percent white, the Democrats could successfully maneuver campaigns into a focus on the broad range of issues affecting voters as a whole, not simply those affecting mostly white Americans in Iowa and New Hampshire. For a party that needs racially diverse support to win presidential elections, it makes sense to more strongly prioritize minority voters’ concerns at the start of the primary cycle.