Over at FHQ:

• DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee Proposes Early States for 2028 Democratic Presidential Nominating Calendar

• South Carolina to be first-in-the-nation for Democrats’ 2028 presidential primary calendar

• Nevada Democrats won’t vote for president first in 2028. Here’s what it means.

• New Hampshire politicians defiant after DNC picks South Carolina for first-in-the-nation presidential primary

• National Democratic committee recommends New Mexico move up on the calendar for presidential primary

• Michigan Selected for Early Window of DNC’s 2028 Primary Calendar

• Democrats move Va. up to 6th state for presidential primary

• Iowa Dems call 2028 presidential calendar snub a ‘slap in the face’

So, the Democrats have a calendar for 2028.

Well, the Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) has adopted calendar rules and waivers for six states to hold early presidential primaries on the following dates:

• South Carolina, January 22, 2028

• Nevada, February 1, 2028

• New Hampshire, February 8, 2028

• New Mexico, February 15, 2028

• Michigan, February 22, 2028

• Virginia, February 29, 2028

Now those rules, as part of the amended delegate selection rules, the early state waivers, an updated Call for the Convention and amendments to the Charter and Bylaws all head to the full Democratic National Committee (DNC) for final approval next month at the party’s summer meeting in Austin, TX. Yes, that is another hurdle the complete rules package for 2028 has to first clear.

No, it is unlikely that there will be much resistance or that any that arises will be enough to derail the rules package the RBC will report to the full body. For example, the 2024 calendar rules and waivers were brought before the DNC in February 2023 and while the package was opened to discussion on the floor of the meeting, the rules were adopted as is.

A cycle earlier, in 2018, when the proposed delegate selection rules came before the full DNC, the calendar process was operating under the old (pre-2024) rules — the early calendar positions of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina were written directly into the rules — there was more discussion than there was in 2023. But it was not over the calendar. Rather, the heated discussion at the DNC meeting that adopted rules that cycle was over the superdelegate changes recommended by the Unity Reform Commission with language later crafted by the RBC. There, some amendments were heard and adopted, but they were minor in scope.

A similar discussion, if not debate, may arise in Austin. There may even be some subtle changes made to the rules package. But, again, that is unlikely to include changes to the calendar proposal above. That, or something close to it, will be the schedule that commences the voting phase of the Democratic presidential nomination process in 2028.

But before weighing on the impact of that calendar of primaries and caucuses for 2028 (the future part two of this series of posts), I want to talk some about the Friday session of the RBC meeting. There were a number of state-level responses, both jubilant and defiant, from state parties and the local media and a number of national accounts that mainly focused on the divisions on the committee (and in the broader party coalition) over which state should be first. However, to FHQ’s mind, there were, big surprise, a few things that flew under the radar that deserve some attention. I will focus on those items below the fold.

Let’s dig in…

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Over at FHQ:

• South Carolina and Nevada Fight to Kick Off Democrats’ 2028 Presidential Calendar

The Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) of the Democratic National Committee opened up the first of two days of meetings on Thursday, July 23 and it looks as if the panel has cleared the way for further, if not final, consideration of the states that will make up the early calendar lineup on the party’s 2028 presidential primary calendar. With work on the delegate selection rules and Call for the Convention now done, the RBC can now return its focus to determining which states will kick off the presidential primary process in a year and a half or so.

Over at FHQ yesterday, I shared some quick thoughts on where the process is and what seems to be coming in reaction to Shane Goldmacher’s reporting at The New York Times. But DNC Chair Ken Martin led off day one of this RBC meeting in Washington with some remarks that are worth incorporating into how one might approach any calendar vote that might be coming on Friday.1 I dig into all of that below the fold.

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Over at FHQ:

• Are they or aren’t they? Not so fast on those 2028 DNC calendar rules.

In researching the recent post on the Republican early calendar rules for 2028, FHQ ran across a couple of items that, while neither fit in there, merit some mention in this space. One is minor and the other, one that will likely ultimately fall into the same minor category, has major implications as things stand now. I explore both below the fold.

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Over at FHQ:

• A vote may be coming this week on the Democrats’ early primary states for 2028

The early 2028 calendar: Democratic change, Republican stability

The running assumption with respect to the 2028 presidential primary calendar — the early window of it anyway — is that the Democratic National Committee will reprise its 2024 calendar process and, at a bare minimum, explore changes to the states that will comprise the lineup of early contests in the presidential nomination process for the coming cycle. Actually, that is not an assumption at all. Democrats are in the midst of that review process with pitches for early state status from state parties involved now in the rearview. And a decision could come this week.

To the extent there is one, then, the assumption is across the aisle with Republicans and their calendar maneuvering — or lack thereof — ahead of the 2028 cycle. Reporting thus far has indicated that the GOP has adopted and appears to be sticking with a calendar rules package that is more traditional than that of their Democratic counterparts. In other words, the assumption has been that the Republican National Committee is very likely to sign off on and stick with the traditional lineup of early state contests: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

The ultimate Republican rules will not likely specify it — they have not in past cycles and do not in the current (convention-adopted) rules for 2028 — but the expectation is that Iowa’s caucuses will precede the New Hampshire primary and that the Republican contests in Nevada and South Carolina will follow thereafter in some order.1 Yet, that expectation may not match reality in the end and for a variety of reasons. Below the fold FHQ will explore those reasons that rules-based expectations may or may not be reflected in the eventual lineup of states on the 2028 presidential primary calendar.

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Over at FHQ:

Nevada Democrats are not without their supporters in push for first 2028 contest

Ranked choice voting?

Again? Come on, FHQ. Didn’t you already write — at length — about Democrats and RCV not all that long ago?

I did.

However, while the national party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) voted in late May to restrict the use of RCV in the delegate allocation portion of the presidential nomination process, the panel left open the door for reconsideration of the decision before the 2028 rules are finalized. And the RBC revisited the changes to Rule 14.A at their most recent meeting in Pittsburgh at the end of June.

So think of this update as the next chapter (if not coda for the 2028 cycle) to the story.

What exactly happened in Pittsburgh, how does it affect the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination process and how does this compare to what Republicans are doing with regard to RCV for 2028? FHQ will dive into those questions below the fold.

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Over at FHQ:

DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee Votes to Strengthen Penalties for Violations of Early Window of Presidential Nominating Calendar

June 25, 2026.

Yes, it is a date like any other, but in FHQ’s estimation, it is a date worth marking on your, ahem, calendar. No, it was not the date of some presidential primary, the sort of calendar marking we do around here. Instead, it was the date of another in a long line of DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) meetings. However, depending on how the party finalizes its decisions on waivers for states to conduct early window (pre-March) primaries or caucuses in 2028, it is a meeting and a date that stand to be referenced often in 2027, 2028 and, perhaps, even beyond.1

And that is because this was a meeting where the RBC once again took up and considered the punishments for 1) state parties that violate the timing rules laid out in Rule 12 and 2) the candidates who campaign in those states that have held primaries or caucuses too early. Yes, the RBC does this every cycle and even made incremental changes to the severity of the punishments described in Rule 21 for the 2024 cycle. But the panel did not rest on its laurels, merely carrying over the 2024 language for use in 2028. And it probably is not accurate to say the changes adopted by the RBC for 2028 were incremental because the degree to which the sanctions were increased in this case was fairly substantial.

How substantial? Below the fold, FHQ will delve into the amendments made to the Rule 21 penalties and size up just how the changes might impact how easily (or not) the early calendar comes together for Democrats for 2028.

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Over at FHQ:

• The Rhode Island presidential primary moves to Super Tuesday

• New Jersey plots a modest primary move

• Idaho Republicans consider going all in on caucuses over state-run primaries

The Democratic Party has not always had a threshold candidates have had to surpass in order to qualify for delegates in its post-reform presidential nomination process, but it has operated under a flat 15 percent threshold since the rule was clarified for the 1992 cycle. That is nine cycles — six of them competitive — in which the 15 percent threshold has been utilized in the Democratic process. And it looks like that will extend to a tenth cycle in 2028.

Although, at a recent Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) meeting in Washington, DC there were some questions raised about where the qualifying threshold has been set. And that is something that stood in fairly stark contrast to the rules-crafting sessions the panel has undertaken during cycles of the recent past. No, nothing changed for 2028, but the idea of either raising or lowering the threshold was broached (in what turned out to be an aside) in the nation’s capital at the end of May.

Now, the May meeting was ostensibly for the RBC to hear pitches from the 12 state parties vying for spots in the early window of the party’s 2028 presidential primary calendar. But a third day — well, half a day really — was devoted to continuing the process of going line by line through the DNC delegate selection guidelines, making any amendments along the way to the rules that will govern the party’s 2028 nomination process. The threshold discussion that followed came when the panel got to Rule 14.B. Here is how that rule read going into the May meeting (before any amendments):

States shall allocate district-level delegates and alternates in proportion to the percentage of the primary or caucus vote won in that district by each preference, except that preferences falling below a fifteen percent (15%) threshold shall not be awarded any delegates. Subject to section F. of this rule, no state shall have a threshold above or below fifteen percent (15%).1

It was there that DNC member Wendy Davis (Georgia) interjected to inquire about possibly lowering the 15 percent threshold in view of the fact that the party is likely to see another logjam of candidates similar to the 2020 cycle.2 [The following is a transcript of the discussion lightly edited for clarity.]

Davis: So this is to my recollection the first instance we’ve talked about the 15 percent threshold. Would this be the place for us to discuss whether we wanted to maintain a 15 percent rule or potentially lower the threshold since there going to be so many candidates? It seems pretty high to me when we’re gonna…the early states will have [so many candidates].

After RBC co-Chair Minyon Moore responded, she yielded the floor to longtime DNC member Elaine Kamarck (Virginia) to provide some context on the history of the 15 percent rule and to subsequently make a case for potentially raising the threshold to 20 percent. [Again, and for transparency, this has been edited slightly for clarity.]

Kamarck: I can talk a little bit about that. I mean we’ve had thresholds as high as 25 percent at some point. There was a lot of support for [a] 20 percent threshold which I personally would favor: a slightly higher threshold. Here’s the problem I see with the 15 percent threshold. I want to go right to the content of this. There are many delegate districts that have only three delegates, okay? Or four delegates. That’s because there’s a lot of congressional districts that are Republican districts and they just don’t have enough of a Democratic vote to get a lot of delegates. And in those districts, nobody with 16 percent ever gets a delegate.

So we have this idea that somehow if you get 15 percent, you’re going to get a delegate. It just doesn’t happen, you know? It just doesn’t happen mathematically unless you’re maybe in the handful of districts that get nine delegates. And those are almost all majority minority districts, which, thank you Republican Party, they’ve now busted up. So the illusion of 15 percent is just an illusion. It just never happens. So, I think it is much more realistic to move it to, say, a 20 percent threshold, particularly when we’re looking at races that there’s going to be just a ton of candidates.

So I like this. It has always been argued that this [the 15 percent threshold] would be greater inclusion, right? And that was the rationale for 15%. The problem is that nobody ever gets included under a 15 percent in a multi-candidate race anyway.

Davis: Not even at the at-large level?

Kamarck: No, it doesn’t even work out at the at-large [level]. But at the district level, it really doesn’t work out. So, I would love to have, I would love to see a 20 percent threshold. I think of all the years when we should do it, this is the time. So, I thank you for bringing it up.

Now, FHQ’s initial reaction to Kamarck’s case was that it sounded right. Honestly, I do not often make a habit of contradicting her in this area.3 And my recollection was (and is) that a five percent shift up to 20 percent probably would not make much of a difference anyway. Yes, there is the math of it that Kamarck notes (more on that below), but also the reality is that, beyond a contest or two into the sequence of primaries and caucuses, there just are not that many candidates who clear the 15 percent threshold to claim many delegates.

After all, the winnowing starts well before delegate counting really kicks in. Wins and losses (outright or relative to expectations) are sufficient to separate the wheat from the chaff early on during the momentum phase of the calendar before delegates become the currency of the process. Yet, delegate counting does not begin in earnest until a little deeper into the calendar when more delegates than are typically available in the early window of the calendar are on the line, during any later delegate phase of the process.

But Kamarck’s notion of the limited impact of a change to a 20 percent threshold is a testable hypothesis. So let’s test it.

Below the fold, FHQ will briefly look back at the history of the qualifying threshold in the Democratic presidential nomination process, discuss the purpose of such a mechanism and examine the evidence of what a shift to a 20 percent threshold would have looked like during the Democratic nomination races of the 21st century.

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The meetings of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) are often sleepy affairs. Or rather, they are often sleep-inducing affairs.

…for the uninitiated.

That is not a judgment. It is a statement from someone — yes, your humble newsletter writer — who has often watched folks’ eyes glaze over after asking questions like, “Hi. How are you?” only to invariably get a long-winded answer about delegate selection rules or the primary calendar whether they like it or not. [Yes, I’m a real hit at parties.]

In any event, part of this reaction to rule crafting is a function of the technical nature of the role with which the RBC is tasked: overseeing the rules of the party and the nomination process. But part of it is also the fact that the panel digs, piece by piece, way into the minutiae and then typically makes tweaks by consensus.

But not always. There was a break in the pattern during the course the committee’s meeting this week when the RBC heard spirited pitches from the 12 state parties vying for early window slots on the 2028 presidential primary calendar. [More on that from FHQ to come.] By day three of the latest meeting, however, the committee returned to its work of going line-by-line through the delegate selection rules for 2028, and reverted to the usual pattern.

That is, until the RBC got to Rule 14.

What is Rule 14?

That is the rule that defines what a fair reflection of presidential preferences — that is its literal name — looks like in the Democratic presidential nomination process. This is an important one. Rule 14 defines the proportional delegate allocation process. It does so for each of the three separate pools of delegates in the Democratic formula. It additionally outlines the 15 percent qualifying threshold that determines whether a candidate is even eligible for delegates at any of those levels. In a great many ways, this is arguably the rule in the Democratic nomination process. [One’s mileage may vary on that assertion, but bear with FHQ here.]

What followed with the clock running out on a meeting that was supposed to adjourn at noon on Friday was an amendment proposed to Rule 14.A.

Here is the language of that rule as it existed coming into the meeting (in other words, pre-amendment):

Delegates shall be allocated in a fashion that fairly reflects the expressed presidential preference or uncommitted status of the primary voters or, if there is no binding primary, the convention and/or caucus participants.

Innocuous enough, right?

As goals go, this is a section of the rule that sets up well the process to follow in the remainder of the Rule 14. But it says nothing about ranked choice voting (RCV). No, it does not, but the amendment did. And the lively discussion on the heels of the proposal was not sleepy.

Let’s dig in…

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Over at FHQ…

• Missouri’s attempts to revive its presidential primary are off again until 2027

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Aside from a few legislative actions in the decreasingly small handful of states with active presidential primary scheduling bills, it has grown quiet this spring on the 2028 primary calendar front. That will change over the course of the next week or so as the next DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) meeting approaches. That is especially true considering this is the meeting when the 12 state parties whose primaries (or caucuses1) are finalists for one of the four or five slots in the Democrats’ early window will make their cases to the panel.

In fact, that has already begun to change as Illinois Democrats have rolled out a brief video ahead of the DC meeting touting the Prairie state as ideal. Ideal not only as an early state in 2028 but as the first state in the order.

That’s news.

Up to this point in the Democrats’ early state selection process most of the reporting reflected a smaller subgroup of the 12 applicants as vying for the top spot on the 2028 calendar: Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and South Carolina. But there was never any checklist from the DNC that required applying state parties to check a box if there was a desire to go first or otherwise those states would only be considered for “just” early window status. There was a checklist, but again, it did not mandate applicant state parties declare their intention for the first slot at that time or forever hold their peace.

Granted, some states — the usual early state suspects and North Carolina — made it known from the start, but the process never precluded any of the other state parties among the 12 from staking their own claim to lead off spot in 2028.

And Illinois Democrats appear to be staking such a claim ahead of next week. Will others join them?

—

Below the fold FHQ will look at the Illinois case for the first spot on the 2028 calendar.

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• Super Tuesday primary bill passes Idaho House

• Second May presidential primary bill introduced in Idaho Senate

Change is coming to the early presidential primary calendar on the Republican side.

No, not that kind of change.

Hewing to tradition, the Republican National Committee (RNC) appears poised to once again march out Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina as the states where the first four presidential nomination contests will take place in 2028. But that does not mean that it will be business as usual in the window before Super Tuesday ushers in the heart of the primary calendar’s voting phase.

And where will the bulk of that change occur? It centers once again on first-in-the-South South Carolina. After relative stability during much of the post-reform era, Republicans in the Palmetto state face a second consecutive cycle of transition in the application of their delegate selection rules. Only, this time, the tweaks are out of their control.

Three years ago, the South Carolina Republican Party unilaterally decided to cede their typical third position in the Republican order behind the caucuses in Iowa and the New Hampshire primary to Nevada, opting instead for a marginally later date in the spot on the calendar just before Super Tuesday. As the state’s leading Democratic powerbroker, Jim Clyburn, has subsequently said of questions facing state Democrats’ current calendar maneuvering: Do you lead off the calendar or bat clean-up as Palmetto state Democrats had done a cycle prior. That decision was not on state Republicans’ plates for 2024, but, intentionally or not, they followed the latter route that Democrats chose in 2020.

This time, however, Republicans in South Carolina will not have that same luxury. For 2028, a rules change at the national level will affect how South Carolina Republicans have traditionally handled their delegate selection process during competitive cycles dating back to 1980.

Starting in 2028, that tradition will be broken, barring additional (and unforeseen) RNC rules changes. Let’s examine the change and its impact…

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Missouri House Elections Committee reports amended Super Tuesday primary bill “do pass”

It seems the presidential primary is an issue that will not die in Missouri.

Even before the primary in the Show-Me state was eliminated in the waning days of the 2022 legislative session in Jefferson City, there were attempts to repeal the statute. And since that omnibus elections bill became law, there has been a parade of legislation to bring the presidential preference election back. By FHQ’s count there have been 19 bills since the 2023 legislative session that were either introduced with or, at some point during the legislative process, contained a provision reestablishing a state-run presidential primary in Missouri.

To dredge up some of the language from my research, there has been no lack of willingness to resurrect the presidential primary. However, there has not been an ability to bring about that outcome.

Not yet anyway. Up to this point four years on since the elimination of the primary, all 19 of those presidential primary bills have failed. Two have passed the House along the way but were subsequently stymied in the state Senate. Another got a floor vote in the House, but enough Democrats voted present on the final vote to tank the legislation despite more overall votes in favor of passage.1 Of the remainder, some were merged with other similar legislation, others managed to navigate out of committee with instructions to pass them and another set died quieter deaths, bottled up at the committee stage. And technically, there are two bills still active during the ongoing 2026 session.

Regardless of where any of these bills end up, the roadblocks are seemingly always the same.

There is a formidable enough faction within the Republican supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly in Jefferson City that sees the presidential primary as a “dog and pony show,” a beauty contest. As a result, that faction constantly derails most efforts to restore the primary. And those folks are not wrong. Well, they would not have been wrong if this was a debate held in 2011 or 2013 and not 2026.

FHQ does not choose those past dates at random. There is definitely a before and after to the 2012 cycle for Missouri Republicans. It was a formative cycle for some and continues to have repercussions for the politics around the presidential primary in the Show-Me state.

Below the fold, FHQ will have a look at the legacy of 2012 in Missouri, how primary proponents are attempting to compromise with the filibustering faction and the implications of the current legislation for 2028 (if one assumes passage and the governor’s signature).

Let’s dig in…

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• S. Carolina Dems deploy Biden as they seek early primary

• Pete Buttigieg stays out of fight over NH primary

This is not a new idea or even one unique to FHQ, but over the years I have often talked about how the overlap between the new reforms to the presidential nomination system in the early 1970s and the unified Democratic control of state governments across a wide swath of the United States at the same time greatly helped facilitate the rise in the number of presidential primary elections. In fact, it was often thought that one of the consequences, if not the intent, of the McGovern-Fraser reforms was a more robust caucus system.

It did not turn out that way. And it did not happen all at once. But actors in a number of states found it easier to simply tack a presidential preference line onto the existing state-run primaries for other offices that fit into the window during the front half of the year ahead of the national conventions.

And the tie that bound all of this?

Democrats were largely pulling the strings. The national party had put in place a new and vastly different set of delegate selection rules, and Democratic decision makers on the state level were responding to those changes in order to come into compliance with them. However, the infrastructure that was built did not affect just Democrats. As it was state run, and perhaps more importantly, state funded, it often drew in Republican actors and the Republican presidential nomination process as well.

But again, the infrastructure was built by Democrats and not Republicans. And as a result, the latter found themselves playing catch up in a new system over which it often had little control. It also did not help — or hurt, depending on the perspective — that this formative era for the new system was occurring during a period when Republicans more often than not occupied the White House. So while Democrats tested, retested and tweaked delegate selection rules in an effort to 1) find the proper mix of rules and/or 2) retake the presidency, the stakes were much lower for Republicans. The urgency to put their nomination rules under the spotlight just was not the same as it was for Democrats.

It is not that the Republicans did not make changes to their delegate rules over time. Rather, it was that they often did not face the same incentives or constraints that Democrats did. As a result, there were often disjunctures in how the two major national parties dealt with common issues from within the new system that had been put in place. While Democrats, for example, largely banned winner-take-all contests after the 1970s, Republicans still allow the practice even now. But it was only recently that the RNC curtailed its use in early contests. And it took them a couple of cycles — 2012 and 2016 — to get it “right,” or at the very least stabilize the institution of a proportional window at the beginning of the presidential primary calendar.

Similarly, Democrats created a defined window in which delegate selection events could occur by 1980. Yes, it expanded and contracted some over the years, but it has always been clearly defined in the national party rules since 1980.1

The Republicans?

Well, their window has been less well defined. True to form, the national party traditionally deferred to the states and state parties to determine the contours of their delegate selection processes, including when the contests were scheduled. The rules adopted for the 1996 process at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston gave the barest of instructions, indicating that “the selection process for choosing those who will select delegates or alternate delegates shall not begin before September 1 of the year before the year in which the national convention is to be held.” And that particular guidance was important to the national party because of the chaos that erupted in Michigan during the 1988 cycle where those who selected delegates to the national convention were chosen in 1986.2 The whole process in Michigan devolved into competing state conventions run by different candidate factions within the state party in early 1988.3

But it was not until the 1996 cycle that the Rules of the Republican Party ever set a fully defined window for the selection of delegates, the first Monday in February until the third Tuesday in June.

In both cases, limiting winner-take-all practices and defining the window in which primaries and caucuses could be conducted, Republicans lagged their Democratic counterparts in dealing with a similar issue in their respective delegate selection processes during the post-reform era. And whether one chalks that lag up to deference to the states, a lack of urgency, occupying the White House for the early years of the post-reform era or some combination of them, it has typically been the Republican process that has played catch up with similar rule changes mostly already established on the Democratic side.

Yet, it does not always work in that direction. Republicans actually have an innovation in the rules that emerged from their 2024 convention in Milwaukee that Democrats have not dealt with to this point in the post-reform era. [There is a good reason for that, and we will get to it below the fold.]

Let’s dig back into the backdoor winner-take-all allocation rules that have been a part of the Republican nomination process for the last few cycles…

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• Senate companion bill would also see Rhode Island presidential primary shifted to Super Tuesday

• Idaho legislators again try to resurrect presidential primary in the Gem state

I had initially planned on a big “rest of the calendar” update today — actually that was planned for last week — but it has gotten bogged down by research and data gathering issues. Never fear, I will have that one soon.

Instead, today I have one that started out as the opening to a piece most of which ended up here. But I did not want that front half to lay fallow any longer, so let’s talk about the limits of calendar crafting power…

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Yes, FHQ already weighed in on the January 31 meeting of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee both here and during the meeting on Bluesky. But those were all quick reactions and after some additional time for reflection, you guessed it, I have a few more thoughts.

Sure, some of it is reaction to the media reaction to the meeting, but the heart of the matter is that folks are still balancing the chatter about the early calendar selection process wrong.

So let’s dig in with some nuance…

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The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) convened on the sidelines of the DNC meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico this weekend to consider the applications of states bidding for one of four or five slots in the early window of the 2028 presidential primary calendar.

The quick take from the morning session was that all twelve states that applied for the honor were advanced to the presentation stage, where each state party will make an in-person case for inclusion in the early window before the full RBC. That differed from the process four years ago when three states were trimmed from a pool of 20 applicants at this point in the process.

None of the 2028 twelve -- Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee or Virginia -- fell into that category at this meeting. None were deemed too large as New York was when the Empire state was cut in 2022. None had the complication of proposing an earlier state party-run caucus in a state with an existing (but later) state-run primary (Nebraska). And Democrats Abroad did not apply this time around as they did during the 2024 cycle.

None of the 2028 twelve had those issues, but that is not to say that there were and are no issues involved.

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So what was the point of the meeting if all the states were going to advance to the presentation stage?

It was to raise those issues that the committee has for all twelve early state candidates collectively and individually address in their presentations to the panel.

Feasibility was key. Basically, how can you get your state in an early position on the calendar? How can barriers be overcome? So, in other words, for the more Republican-leaning states in the pool, how can Republican veto points -- legislatures, governors, secretaries of state -- be circumvented or Republican buy-in won?

Additionally, the RBC appeared intent on approaching the early calendar as a process that will tell a story about the Democratic Party, its constituency groups and priorities. However, given the feasibility issues raised above, the options will be somewhat limited on which states the DNC can actually get into or out of the early window. A lot, then, is going to fall on any would-be fifth state that gets thrust into the mix. That state will likely be the focal point of this “story,” or at least the fifth chapter in it (especially if it is the only one that differs from a mostly carried over lineup of early states).

And another point was raised as well; something FHQ has mentioned previously: just because the southern region had the most applicants does not ensure that any fifth state will come from that regional subgroup. It may, but there is no guarantee if that is not the “story” that the RBC and the Democratic Party as a whole wants to tell.

—

The RBC will next meet at the DNC meeting in New Orleans in early April. It is not clear at this time that the panel will conduct the presentations there or focus on the 2028 delegate selection rules that were placed on the back burner in Puerto Rico in the absence of committee co-chair Jim Roosevelt. If the 2024 process is any guide, then a stand-alone meeting of the RBC will be scheduled outside of any DNC meeting for the early state presentations.

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• These Are the 12 States Vying to Kick Off Democrats’ 2028 Contest

• New Mexico Democrats seek to move up 2028 presidential primary, citing state’s diverse electorate

• What’s in Iowa Democrats’ bid to regain first-in-the-nation status?

• As the DNC chooses the 2028 primary order, NH makes its case for first

• [Illinois] State Democrats looking to push forward 2028 primary

• Virginia Democrats push for earlier spot on 2028 presidential primary calendar

• South Carolina Democrats file formal bid to keep first-in-nation presidential primary spot in 2028

• Nevada Democrats push to host first 2028 primary, highlighting battleground advantages

• Michigan Democrats apply to vote early in 2028 presidential primary

Back in October, the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee adopted rules defining the process by which early window states would be selected by the party to lead off the 2028 presidential primary calendar.

Those rules set a January 16, 2026 deadline for state and territorial parties to apply for the four or five early spots on the national party’s calendar. Now that the deadline has passed, it is clearer what that playing field looks like for the limited number of early calendar slots. Twelve state parties from across the country submitted materials to be considered by the RBC over the coming days, weeks and months.

Below, FHQ assesses the field of states pushing for the honor of occupying one of the four or five early slots on the calendar ahead of Super Tuesday in 2028.

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It is maybe a little early for a greatest hits of the 2028 presidential nomination cycle, but since the same things continue to get rehashed every time a DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting occurs or a new deadline in the process draws near, FHQ finds itself repeating some things that I have already discussed — yes, behind the paywall in some cases — since the 2024 election. So here’s a freebie for FHQ Plus subscribers of all stripes, free and paid, clearing up some of the misconceptions about the Democratic process to name a new slate of early window states for the 2028 cycle.

I shared some thoughts on Shane Goldmacher’s NYT piece — the item that prompted all of this in the first place — over at our sister site, but I also wanted to annotate a few things to provide a bit of color and highlight a few additional tidbits that are all too often overlooked by the media in the 2028 early calendar process.

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On Nevada

Goldmacher writes…

“Nevada’s supporters argue that the Western state has something to please everyone: It’s small. It’s a battleground. It has influential labor unions. It has a diverse population based in Las Vegas. But it also has many rural enclaves across the state.”

But the pushback to Nevada began at the October DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting and it came from, you guessed it, New Hampshire. The Silver state being situated away from where national news outlets are based on the east coast and the state’s use of mail-in ballots in its presidential primary may hurt the state party’s cause in pushing for the first spot. As FHQ wrote at the time…

Why should a state go first if it takes days, weeks or more to complete the count? By then, the process has moved on in the sequence and actual results from some subsequent state have taken precedence. On one level, that is seemingly meant to raise the inconclusive results from the Iowa Democratic caucuses in 2020. But FHQ did not think [New Hampshire RBC member Joanne] Dowdell’s comments were directed at Iowa, though Democrats in the Hawkeye state may eventually vie for an early spot in 2028. No, I think that was directed at Nevada, its threatening position in the pre-window and its vote-by-mail primary. The Silver state does not take as long to count votes as, say, California, but regardless of how long it takes, when the ballots are due — in by Election Day, postmarked by Election Day, etc. — plays a significant role in the process. Would the results of a lead-off Nevada primary be known on primary night? The next day? The next week?

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On rogue New Hampshire

Goldmacher writes…

“[DNC] Party officials also have to contend with a patchwork of state laws that have already set some primary calendars. New Hampshire, for instance, has a law that it must hold the first primary nationwide — which it did in 2024, even after Democrats threatened to bar the state’s delegation from the party’s convention. (The delegates were eventually seated.)”

<eye roll>

Yes, this narrative is already etched in marble and displayed in national newsrooms post-2024 Democratic primaries, but FHQ will scream this into the void once more. National news outlets continue to describe New Hampshire’s place in and treatment by the national party during the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination process incorrectly. Or at best, many media outlets continue to relate an incomplete story on the matter.

Yes, the New Hampshire Democratic delegation was seated at the national convention, but that did not happen despite the state and state party having gone rogue with a primary that was earlier than DNC rules allowed. No, New Hampshire Democrats were ultimately forced by the rules and the party to conduct a compliant party-run process in April 2024 that was used to allocate delegates in the presidential nomination process.

Now sure, one could potentially (and maybe even persuasively) argue that New Hampshire Democrats only hastily threw a charade of a party-run process together to satisfy the DNC and/or help the national party avoid an uncomfortable situation at the convention (to ignore the rules or change them to accommodate the New Hampshire delegation). One could. However, as FHQ said about the 2024 New Hampshire delegate selection process at that time…

It is likely that this action will be treated as the DNC caving to the defiance of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. That is not what has happened. Some will argue that the state party went along with the January 23 beauty contest primary (with attendant write-in effort on behalf of the president) after all. But the record will show that, while New Hampshire Democrats will have had a full delegation at the national convention in Chicago, it also will have selected those delegates based on a contest other than the state-run (first-in-the-nation) primary. In other words, New Hampshire Democrats have demonstrated that it is possible to break with that tradition. It will not be easy in future cycles to go back on that.

File that one away as the 2028 calendar conversation continues. And also bear in mind that 2028 will be something on the Democratic side that 2024 was not: competitive. That has implications for New Hampshire as well.

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On Georgia

This is just lazy from Goldmacher…

Some states that might want to be considered would need approval from Republican-controlled state legislatures.

“It’s not an answer we can have right now,” Charlie Bailey, the chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party, said of changing his state’s laws. But he urged the inclusion of his state — along with South Carolina — in the kickoff group.

— emphasis is FHQ’s

Georgia Democrats do not have to work with Republican legislators in control of the General Assembly in the Peach state to facilitate an early spot on the calendar for 2028. The state just has to elect a Democratic secretary of state. As in New Hampshire, the secretary of state selects the date of the presidential primary in Georgia. It has been that way since the 2012 cycle.

Sure, the law can be changed too, but it does not have to be. Democrats in the Peach state do not necessarily have to work through a Republican-controlled legislature.

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On what was missing in the absence of Iowa in 2024

Goldmacher includes this quote from Chair Hart…

“Rita Hart, the Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman, said her state was applying to be in the early mix again, and was open to again holding a caucus so it would not conflict with New Hampshire’s law about primaries. The counting of votes in Iowa’s Democratic caucuses in 2020 was a disaster. ‘Lessons learned,’ Ms. Hart said.

“‘It was a mistake in the last go-around that we didn’t include a state in the middle of the country that had a rural electorate,’ she added.”

The Iowa Democratic Party played the rural card in defense of its first-in-the-nation position ahead of 2024. But several members of that iteration of the RBC balked at the notion, arguing that — and this is FHQ paraphrasing — Iowa does not have a monopoly on rural. I can still hear RBC member Leah Daughtry (NY) at one RBC meeting in 2022 making the point that even a state like New York, the namesake city of which is synonymous with urban, has a rural component. And Daughtry was not alone in that thinking at the meeting in question. And in fact, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and South Carolina all have distinctly rural areas and rural voters. They are not corn rural or soy bean rural, but they are rural in their own unique ways.

That often gets missed in coverage. [Note: In his defense, Goldmacher did raise the rural areas in Nevada in his paragraph devoted to the Silver state.]

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On Minnesota

Goldmacher shares…

Minnesota, which applied to be in the early window four years ago, will not apply this year, according to its Democratic chairman, Richard Carlbom.

As I mentioned over at our sister site, this was maybe the one bit of breaking news in all of this from Goldmacher: that Minnesota, one of the most talked about possible additions to the early state lineup for 2024, is not vying for an early spot for 2028. There is probably a pretty good reason for that.

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On Michigan

Goldmacher writes…

Curtis Hertel, the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said no other state would be a better proving ground for an eventual nominee.

“If you’re looking to win in America, it makes sense for states early on that reflect the diversity of America,” Mr. Hertel said. “The states that we have to win at the end of the day, it’s incredibly important to make sure they are early in the process.”

Unlike Democrats in some other states, however, Mr. Hertel isn’t pushing to be at the very front of the line.

“Not saying we have to be first!” he added.

— emphasis is FHQ’s

Michigan may not be fighting for the first spot exactly, but that is an idea — a first-in-the-nation Michigan primary — that was part of the calendar chatter in 2025.

It was mentioned as a possibility enough that FHQ decided to take a long look at what a first-in-the-nation Michigan primary might signal about the evolution of the Democratic nomination process.

Friday’s deadline is not a point at which any decisions will be made on the 2028 calendar. It is just a deadline. The list of applicants will be compiled, it will be narrowed, pitches will be made by the finalist state party delegations and then decisions will be made much later in 2026 about which state primaries will populate the early calendar for 2028.

It is still early in this process, folks.

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FHQ has spent considerable time on the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination process thus far this fall. There have, after all, been Rules and Bylaws Committee meetings and related news about the calendar shake ups the national party may attempt to undertake among other things.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, things have been comparatively quiet. Yes, the Republican National Committee named members to the Presidential Nominating Process Committee in accordance with the party rules and the conventional wisdom at this time is that, unlike their counterparts in the Democratic Party, Republicans will stick with the traditional early states on the 2028 presidential primary calendar. But that is about it.

Yet, the nominating rules for Republicans are already different from 2024 even before the party, either at the committee level or in full, has fully begun to consider any additional alterations to how the rules guide the process.

But let’s back up for a minute. The Republican process for setting the nominating rules is not the same as it is on the Democratic side.

Historically, Democrats would come out of the party’s national convention having passed a resolution there forming a commission with a mandate to consider specific changes to the rules for the next cycle (before handing off recommendations to the Rules and Bylaws Committee). Most recently, the Unity Reform Commission explored the rules around caucuses, superdelegates and open/closed primaries (and other delegate selection events) after the 2016 cycle. And while that has been the traditional model for Democrats to initiate any inter-cycle rules changes throughout the post-reform era, the party has skipped the commission stage in recent cycles, opting instead to start, as it has again for the 2028 cycle, with the Rules and Bylaws Committee. There typically are specific rules that are pinpointed for change in the time between the convention and when rules have to be adopted for the next cycle by late summer/early fall of the midterm election year, but the RBC also goes line-by-line through all of the Charter and Bylaws, the Delegate Selection Rules and the Call for the Convention in the process.

Again, however, Republicans have tended to run the process in a different manner. For much of the post-reform era, the GOP practice was to do little to make any changes. What came out of the convention was what stood as the Rules of the Republican Party through the intervening presidential nomination process and until the next convention. But that practice also ran the risk of leaving the national party flatfooted if any need arose to respond to changes the Democratic Party may institute or changes that might arise from the state level, particularly calendar conflicts.

The 2008 Republican convention dealt with this by empowering the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee with a specific mandate. And four years on, the 2012 convention went a step further by adopting Rule 12, which allowed changes to the wide swath of the Rules of the Republican Party outside of those pertaining to the proceedings of the national convention itself.

Coming out of any national convention in recent cycles, then, the Republican Party has emerged with a set of temporary rules for the next cycle. But that document is bifurcated, split between rules that can be amended before October 1 of the midterm election year under the provisions of Rule 12 and those that cannot be changed. The latter are, again, those rules that govern the national convention itself.

And they can be changed too, only, the question is when. The party can amend Rules 1-11 and 13-25 — rules on party organization, delegate selection/allocation/binding, enforcement and contests — between the convention and, in the 2028 cycle, October 1, 2026. Those rules are locked in once September 30, 2026 comes and goes. Then state parties have a year — until September 30, 2027 — to adopt their delegate selection rules in response to those guidelines. It is at that point that the rules governing the delegate selection process are in place for 2028 (barring any rules violations and other challenges on the state level that have to be adjudicated).

But then, once primary season concludes and preparations for the national convention kick into high gear, the RNC reexamines the full set of rules, including those beyond Rule 25. The party sends a rules package to the convention for consideration and adoption that includes tweaks to the previously mentioned rules for the next cycle and to the convention proceedings rules for the current cycle. Again, those are the rules that under Rule 12 cannot be amended until this point in time in the cycle.

So what appears below the fold is a walk through the changes that were adopted at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. They are all set up below as a comparison between 2024 and 2028. But that is only truly accurate for the new baseline set for Rules 1-11 and 13-25. Those are the heart of the delegate selection rules for 2028, the ones that can still be changed up to fall 2026. The remaining rules — those for the proceedings of the national convention — reflect changes that were made to the temporary rules coming out of the 2020 convention in Charlotte for adoption and use at the 2024 convention. They may yet be changed but that will not happen until after primary season in 2028.

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Warning: What appears below is A LOT. FHQ has provided a brief synopsis of what the various changes mean (if there is any to be divined). Some deserve and will in the future get a fuller, separate treatment here at FHQ Plus.

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Let’s talk about New York.

…because CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere is reporting state Senator James Skoufis is set to introduce legislation to move the presidential primary in the Empire state to Super Tuesday for 2028. That is potentially a lot of delegates shifting to a much earlier allocation point on the presidential primary calendar for the next cycle. But more on that below the fold. First, a couple of other New York primary-related items…

Moving on up?

For starters, where is the New York primary moving? Well, possibly to Super Tuesday, right? That is the reporting, sure. But FHQ does not mean the destination, but the starting point, pre-move. Dovere suggests “up” and, heck, FHQ even hinted at that same thing by saying delegate allocation would move “much earlier” above.

However, the answer hinges on the point of reference: 2024 or now. Relative to the position of the New York presidential primary in 2024, a Super Tuesday position for 2028 would be four weeks earlier. That is up.

But the New York presidential primary is not currently scheduled by law to fall on the first Tuesday in April like it was during primary season a year ago. No, that date lapsed at the end of 2024 and the New York primary reverted to the same spot it has after every cycle since 2012: the first Tuesday in February.

Asterisks abound, but based on that reality, technically, the New York primary would be moving back to get to Super Tuesday if Skoufis’ legislation successfully navigates the New York Assembly and is signed into law by Governor Hochul.

Well, does that not mean that the New York primary is currently too early and thus runs afoul of the delegate selection rules of both major national parties? It does! Yet, the protocol that has been established in the Empire state since 2012 has seen the legislature, in coordination with the state parties, set both the date of the presidential nomination contest and the parameters around delegate allocation for both sides.

It turns out that it is handy to have that default noncompliant February date. Not to place any undue calendar pressure on the national parties, but, rather, to force the legislature to revisit the date and delegate allocation rules each cycle in order to adapt to any rules changes made at the national level. Indeed, it is the fact that New York legislators have followed this same pattern every cycle since 2012 that does not raise red flags every time the primary there restarts at February each cycle.

But again, to move up, all New York legislators would really have to do is nothing. The primary is already in February. The Assembly could leave it there and roll the dice, but that is unlikely to happen. The penalties are too steep.

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A change of heart for Skoufis?

Well actuallys aside on the scheduling of the presidential primary, that Senator Skoufis is bringing forth this legislation raised an eyebrow or two over at FHQ.

Why?

This is not his first rodeo. In fact, this would be at least the fourth bill the senator has introduced to move the New York presidential primary. Only, the previous three efforts sought to move the election in the opposite direction, later in the process. In 2021, 2023 and earlier this year, Skoufis authored bills to permanently move — not temporarily divert from the February spot — the New York presidential primary to the fourth Tuesday in June, consolidating the presidential contest with those primaries for federal office in the state.

Yes, the fourth Tuesday in June.

It is a date so late on the presidential primary calendar that it would draw timing penalties from both national parties for being too late. Essentially a late June contest would be too close to the national conventions to get the results certified and delegates credentialed in time for the opening gavel at either national party confab.

But this proposed Super Tuesday bill not only reverses course on where to move the primary, but also abandons the idea of consolidating the primaries, a change intended to save costs, avoiding the hit to the state budget an additional election creates. Potential presidential nomination clout for New York apparently outweighs those savings with a competitive cycle on the horizon.

That is one hypothesis anyway. But it would be nice to know why Skoufis shifted gears from going later to going earlier.

Of course, he and Assemblyman Landon Dais, the sponsor of similar legislation in the lower chamber Assembly — do not address that. No, they fall into the same traps that legislators often fall into on this matter. Basically, “if we move up, we’ll matter.”

Eh, maybe?

Here is how Skoufis and Dais open their op-ed argument for New York moving to Super Tuesday:

“Outside of being an automated teller machine for candidates, New York has next to no say in choosing our presidential nominees. Every four years, the states that vote between early January when caucuses and primaries kick off, and early March when, in one day, over one third of delegates are awarded — are the deciders. New York’s presidential primaries have been all over the calendar since 2016, in mid-April, late June, and early April respectively — after the race was completely or effectively decided without our input.”

So here’s the thing: Legislators, especially some from larger states, tend to lean on this “presidential candidates use our state as an ATM, but we’re an afterthought otherwise” argument a lot. And it is not wrong. But those legislators often fail to reckon with two fundamental things.

First, such a primary move is almost always treated in a given state as if it is made in isolation. It is not. It never is. When states like California and Texas (or New York even) move, it often triggers similar moves in other states, states where legislators similarly do not want their voters left behind, voiceless in the presidential nomination process. Large states, as it happens, have a certain gravity to them in the area of primary movement.

To compound matters, this latest proposed legislation would plop the New York presidential primary into an already-crowded area on the calendar. And since that election would coincide with primaries in California and Texas, three of the four most populous states in the country would all have delegate selection events on the same early March date. That would potentially be an even bigger draw for legislators in other states not wanting to be left behind.

And that raises the other issue legislators often fail to wrestle with in considering these types of moves: history. Every half generation or so, a new crop of legislators has to relearn the lessons of the past when it comes to frontloading. Skoufis and Dais are a prime example. They highlight the positioning of the New York primary in the last three cycles, but fail to acknowledge that the presidential primary in the Empire state has been on Super Tuesday before. In fact, for the first three cycles of the 21st century, the New York primary was scheduled on Super Tuesday. And that included moving even earlier to keep up with the new and even earlier (February) Super Tuesday in 2008.

However, the lesson learned from 2008 was similar to that learned by some southern states after the Souther Super Tuesday in 1988: It was not worth it. The event was too crowded, offered shallow tarmac-based campaigning, did not have the desired influence on the nomination race and/or was not the financial boon advocates thought it would be.

Moreover, New York post-2008 is a great example of that. State-level actors were not making a decision in 2011 to get less attention by moving the primary to April. No, the thinking at the time was that by going later on a unique date and holding the primary alongside neighboring states would be more effective in grabbing the attention — both candidate presence and spending — than to conduct a primary on a crowded earlier date.

Neither of those factors are being considered in this latest push by Skoufis in New York. The New York primary’s past on Super Tuesday is not being considered, nor is the question of why past legislators opted to draw back from that early date in the process.

But that, my friends, is what the legislative process is for: to raise those issues. As Skoufis and Dais go on to argue…

“There is no downside to our legislation mandating New York votes for presidential nominees on Super Tuesday. There is no additional taxpayer burden. There are no onerous complexities.”

All of that may be true, but advocates of these sorts of primary moves, especially in large states, rarely get the upside returns they envision (or promise) up front. Allow FHQ to play a GenX card and cite WarGames:

Moving presidential primaries is a strange game and often the only winning move is not to play.

…if one is talking about large states. As states like California — and New York! — have learned, they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

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But let’s get back to the delegates and some other potential implications of a Super Tuesday move for New York.

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Well, I was going to write about the Republican presidential nomination rules for 2028 this week, but apparently the Democrats are “eyeing” ranked choice voting (RCV) in the presidential primaries.

…or at least that is what Holly Otterbein at Axios is reporting.

So I will take the bait since the lobbying that Celinda Lake, Jamie Raskin and FairVote have done has had the desired effect of getting attention. Only, much of that attention is tackling RCV with very little context. But then, that is often what the bulletpointed highlights at Axios tend to invite.

Here is some of that context…

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