Winner-take-???
How the South Carolina Republican presidential primary will look different in 2028
Over at FHQ:
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…