Yes, the 2024 presidential primary calendar is still taking shape

But with a month to go until Republican state parties have to submit delegate plans to the RNC, most of those pieces are set to quickly fall into place.

As September begins, there are now four and a half months until the Iowa caucuses kick off the 2024 presidential nomination process. Yet, with four and a half months until go time, there remain question marks that surround where a number of states will file in behind Iowa Republicans on the 2024 presidential primary calendar.

In fact, there is still uncertainty as to where Iowa Democrats will fall on the calendar next year. Will the party go rogue and hold early caucuses? Will Iowa Democrats fall in line with their new place on the 2024 Democratic primary calendar? That, in turn, has an impact on the likely landing spot for the New Hampshire primary.

Obviously, FHQ has devoted considerable space to the scheduling of those two contests, but the basic contours of the decision-making calculus in each remains largely unchanged. With a DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) meeting slated for Thursday, September 14, both Iowa and New Hampshire are likely to be on the agenda. What follows from that will likely provide some clarity on the situation in Iowa while the New Hampshire impasse continues. Democrats in the Hawkeye state submitted a delegate selection plan to the DNC that was subsequently found in noncompliance in June because it did not include a date for the party’s proposed all-mail presidential preference vote. While Iowa Democrats had a month to make that addition, the state party’s plan did not come back up at the July DNCRBC meeting. The September meeting will either include consideration of a completed Iowa Democratic Party delegate selection plan for 2024 or at least the beginnings of a discussion on penalties for further noncompliance.

The latter route would leave a lingering loose New Hampshire thread, but even the certainty of a definitive date for when their mail-in process will end from Iowa Democrats would likely not end the standoff between New Hampshire Democrats and the DNC. It will give New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan the information he needs to either schedule the presidential primary in the Granite state for January 23 or push further ahead on the calendar. But it will not resolve the situation on the Democratic side.

All of that is to say that September will likely bring more information about both Iowa and New Hampshire but may not completely settle either or both of them with the clock ticking down to 2024. However, the blanks left on the primary calendar are not just at the beginning. There are a number of states that have yet to finalize their 2024 plans for delegate selection broadly and the timing of the contests in those locales more narrowly. That activity may or may not continue the trend of March-loading the 2024 calendar.¹ But as the October 1 deadline for state parties to submit their 2024 delegate plans to the RNC approaches, many of the remaining contests will fall into positions on the calendar.

Below, FHQ digs into recent calendar activity in a trio of states.