Deadline day approaches for would-be early Democratic states for 2028
Some thoughts from FHQ now that the deadline has drawn the attention of the media
At FHQ: Inside Democrats’ Brewing Debate Over Which States Should Vote First in 2028
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.
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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