Rep. Jim Clyburn is credited with rescuing Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Now that he has seemingly picked his next favorite — in California Gov. Gavin Newsom — it’s an open question whether he will be able to play kingmaker once again.
Clyburn heaped praise on Newsom at a South Carolina event this week, saying he feels “good about his chances” as a presidential candidate in 2028. That’s not quite an endorsement — and Newsom hasn’t officially declared he’s running for president — but it is an indication that Clyburn isn’t shying away from putting his thumb on the scale.
But it’s not at all clear that the party is looking toward Clyburn in the same way it did in the run-up to the 2020 election. Biden’s reelection campaign had
a historic unravelling
, even as the veteran
Black leader stood by his side
. More recently, Clyburn’s pick for New York City mayor, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, lost to New York state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani by
more than 12%
.
“Establishment endorsers” like Clyburn “are very disconnected from the people they need at this point,” Democratic strategist Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something, a group that pushes for more young people to run for office, told NOTUS.
“They actually don’t have any power anymore,” she added. “They are all bark and no bite.”
In South Carolina, party insiders are rooting for Clyburn to stay in the circles of power.
“It’s just him representing us on the federal level because he’s the only Democrat (in the South Carolina congressional delegation), so you want that person to have some sort of influence,” strategist Donovan Malloy told NOTUS of conversations he’s had with Democratic Party insiders in his state.
But Donald Trump’s second presidency and Democrats’ recent electoral losses put Clyburn in a very different political environment, Malloy said.
“When I look to the future of what’s going to happen to the Democratic Party, I don’t look to him,” Malloy said. “He’s the same age as my grandad — even though he’s supernatural, unlike some of the folks in Congress, and has all his faculties.”
Malloy’s father, former South Carolina state Sen. Gerald Malloy, argued a candidate would still rather have Clyburn’s endorsement than not.
“He’s a mammoth of a political figure. His record is probably something that will stand for decades going forward and generations,” Gerald Malloy said. Political influence, however, is hard to quantify these days. “The difficulty, now, is that any support of any candidate is hard to measure. We don’t know what our influence is in general.”
Clyburn’s office did not return a request for comment.
Democrats were surprised by Clyburn’s involvement in the New York City mayoral race. Donovan Malloy said he found Clyburn’s endorsement of Cuomo to be a “little strange.” “For my congressman to be up in New York and everything, why should I care about that?” he said.
Georgia-based Democratic strategist Fred Hicks argued that Clyburn’s endorsement in New York City was actually damaging to the former New York governor.
“When someone from so far away jumps into a race like that … all that did in the minds of voters was just substantiating the fact that the establishment would do whatever it has to do to protect itself,” Hicks said.
But Hicks isn’t dismissing Clyburn’s relevance outright. Leveraging Clyburn as a kingmaker is about being strategic, he said. It’s time for the party to turn to younger, emerging lawmakers to connect with some parts of their base, but people like Clyburn can still play a role in those rural, older areas, he said.
“There’s still a role in place for the Clyburns, the Clintons, the old guard, the former kingmakers,” Hicks said. “But there’s also space, and there has to be space, for the AOCs of the world, for the Jasmine Crocketts of the world, for the Maxwell Frosts of the world.”
Clyburn has long been a thorn in the side of the party’s left wing. He backed Rep. Henry Cuellar, who opposes abortion, in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, saying the party shouldn’t have a “litmus test.” He
said
former state Rep. Nina Turner’s embrace of progressive Democrats’ “sloganeering” on defunding the police and other topics was too divisive and instead endorsed Rep. Shontel Brown in an Ohio House race.
Turner said the political climate has changed since her race in 2022; voters want to cast out Democratic leaders whom they perceive as having contributed to the party’s losses.
“That dog is not going to hunt in 2025, and it won’t hunt in the 2028 presidential election,” she told NOTUS.
When Clyburn endorsed Cuomo last month, he
cited
the ties between the New York mayor’s role and the national Democratic Party’s, and praised Cuomo as the candidate to meet the national moment. He also pointed to their long political friendship.
Given his past successes, Clyburn’s closest political allies and advisers argue that Cuomo’s loss and Biden’s exit aren’t a reflection of Clyburn’s status in the Democratic Party.
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“An endorsement doesn’t automatically mean a win. It can mean a boost,” said Antjuan Seawright, Clyburn’s political adviser. “There are people all around the country who are wanting and asking Jim Clyburn to not only endorse them, but to come campaign with them up and down the ballot.”
A faction of the Democratic Party may be keen on doing away with older establishment figures like Clyburn, but Clyburn is around to stay. While he stopped short of outright endorsing Mamdani, he’s continuing to weigh in on the mayoral race and
said
during an appearance on CNN this week that he will support Mamdani because he is the Democratic candidate.
“He just stays connected with real people,” Clay Middleton, a close ally of Clyburn’s, said. “He still goes to places to listen and hear from voters.”
As for Newsom, the South Carolina Democratic Party sounds like it’s in line with Clyburn.
“Oh, absolutely we’re excited,” South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain
told Politico
. “He’s on the national stage fighting against Trump all the time, and I think voters here appreciate that.”
Spain overwhelmingly won her chairmanship with Clyburn’s backing in 2023. Her victory was seen as a sign that “
Clyburn and the old guard still rule
.”
This story was produced as part of a partnership between
NOTUS
— a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute — and
NEWSWELL
, home of
Times of San Diego
,
Santa Barbara News-Press
and
Stocktonia
.
