Are Democrats really considering putting Michigan's primary first for 2028?
The early answer appears to be yes. But why when the Great Lakes state is not a perfect fit for the national party's selection criteria?
Michigan?
First in the nation?
It seems to be a possibility if the reporting from Axios in the lead up to the August meeting of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) is to be believed. Of course, as Alex Thompson noted at the time, the knock on the presidential primary in the Great Lakes state going first is that it is too big. Too many people, too many media markets, too expensive.
However, none of those things seemed to have been a deterrent to the Democrats adding the Michigan primary to the early window of the presidential primary calendar for 2024. Although, slotting the Michigan contest into the last spot in the pre-window period before Super Tuesday is perhaps different than placing it first. That is because both national parties have come to recognize during the post-reform era what the Republican Party called the “on-ramp” in the autopsy report put together following its losses in the 2012 election.
What is the “on-ramp?”
Well, in the words of that GOP autopsy…
“[T]he newly organized primaries would begin only after the “carve-out” states have held their individual elections. It remains important to have an “on ramp” of small states that hold unique primary days before the primary season turns into a multi-state process with many states voting on one day. The idea of a little-known candidate having a fair chance remains important.
— emphasis is FHQ’s
Yes, that is a Republican Party document. No, FHQ does not want to run the risk of putting Republican words to a Democratic Party process, but as I said above, the idea of “a little-known candidate having a fair chance” is not exclusive to the Republican Party. It is a concept that both major parties have nurtured in their delegate selection rules over the years. And both did so during and before the 2012 election that autopsy was authored in response to and have done so in the presidential cycles since then. Call it the Jimmy Carter principle. In their own ways, both the Democratic and Republican parties value fairness in their rules. Each likes the idea of the little guy (or gal) having a chance.
In fact, the RBC recommitted to that concept when it recently adopted the party’s criteria for selecting the four or five states that will make up the early window group for 2028:
“Fairness: the lineup of early states must be affordable and practicable for candidates and not exhaust their resources unreasonably, precluding them from effectively participating in future contests.”
And even that was a carryover from the feasibility guideline from 2024 cycle criteria that saw Michigan elevated to early state status in the Democratic process.
Still, how big is too big? Michigan might have been a feasible enough state to be included among the early states for an incumbent reelection cycle in 2024, wedged in as the final contest in the sequence before Super Tuesday. But is the Great Lakes state fair by the DNC definition in the first slot for 2028?
That is a tougher question to answer and, perhaps, a steeper hill to climb for Michigan Democrats ahead of 2028. There is a reason that FHQ noted that it was “bearish on the notion of Michigan going first” a week and a half before the RBC met in late October to hammer out the early state selection criteria. The reason? On the surface at least, it “[c]onflicts with the party’s proposed efficiency [fairness] criterion.”1
And that makes sense. Michigan was the ninth most delegate-rich state in the Democratic presidential nomination process in 2024. And depending on how things shake out with North Carolina in the delegate apportionment formula for 2028, the Great Lakes state will likely be the ninth or tenth most delegate-rich state next time around.
Is a state that large fair by the letter of the law in the resolution the RBC adopted at the end of last month?
The panel will settle that question in the coming months. But if Michigan is seriously being considered for that spot at the front of the 2028 primary calendar queue then how do Democrats from the state overcome that seeming conflict with the criteria? And why would that pass muster with the national party?
FHQ could not square that pre-meeting in mid-October. However, after some thought and the October 27 meeting itself, there are some interesting answers to “why Michigan.” Let’s walk through it all below the fold.