Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro on Tuesday tweeted a meme invoking a character from the popular streaming series “The Mandalorian” to show his support for moving early primaries to states with more diverse populations that better reflect the Democratic base.
The presidential candidate was responding to a tweet by Nate Silver of the polling website FiveThirtyEight, who tweeted, “If the Democratic Party wants a field that’s representative of its members and its voters, it probably shouldn’t have two states as white as Iowa and New Hampshire vote first every year.”
In response, Castro tweeted an image of a character from the Disney Plus series, depicted sipping tea, who has been nicknamed “Baby Yoda” by fans.
Castro has previously expressed support for changing the primary calendar, telling MSNBC in November, “Demographically, [the early states are] not reflective of the U.S. as a whole, certainly not reflective of the Democratic Party, and I believe other states should have their chance.”
“That doesn’t mean that Iowa and New Hampshire can’t still play an important role,” he added. “But I don’t believe that forever we should be married to Iowa and New Hampshire going first.”
The Iowa caucus has been the first contest in the race for the Democratic nomination since 1972, but the South Carolina primary, the third contest, is the first in a state with a significant African American population.