Iowa and New Hampshire are the first in the nation to make their choices for the 2024 Republican nominee for president. With the race down to just Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, they might also be the last.
The two states, which represent just 3% of the Republican Party’s delegates to their July convention, are also two of the least representative of the country as a whole.
Nearly 8 out of every 10 residents of the two states are white in a country where 59% of Americans are white and not Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. On the other hand, a little more than 50% of Georgia residents are white.
When looking at the race of the voters who actually go to the polls in these elections, the states are even less diverse. Nearly 97% of voters in the Iowa caucus were white, according to the Associated Press’ VoteCast poll.
The dominance of white voters in the the two states was a reason that President Joe Biden wanted to move Georgia’s primary to an earlier date. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger decided not to do so. Democrats wanted the primary to be held on February 13. Raffensperger chose March 12.
According to the most recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll of likely voters, 20% of Georgians are not ready to support either Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Depending on the outcome in New Hampshire, those voters might not have another choice.
Patrick Olwana, 46, is an East African immigrant living in Cherokee County. Although he has not previously wanted to vote for a candidate who dropped out, Olwana thinks the election process doesn’t allow Georgians to have a strong voice in the process.
“I think it’s a little unfair,” Olwana said. “I don’t think that it yields the best candidates sometimes. We did lose out in some sense that some of our interests, some of the interests that we have in Georgia might not make their way up to the top.”
Georgians don’t go to the polls until after at least 21 other states have had their say, leaving Georgia voters with less influence than those voting earlier in other states.
By the time a presidential race gets to Georgia, some candidates drop out. In 2020, Alexander Amos, a 25-year-old voter in Hall County, never got a chance to cast his ballot for Bernie Sanders. By the time of Georgia’s June primary, Biden had already clinched the nomination.
“It was extremely disheartening to not be able to be a part of a primary, and it kind of feels like because I live in Georgia, I’ll never be a part of a primary,” Amos said. “By the time it gets to us, it’s already over.”
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