PHILADELPHIA — Democrats approved a plan to reorder their 2024 presidential primary calendar during a party gathering on Saturday in Pennsylvania.
The national party green-lit a calendar that makes South Carolina the initial contest, elevates Nevada to the second position alongside New Hampshire and welcomes Georgia and Michigan to the early primary window for the first time.
Iowa’s caucus, which has traditionally served as the starting-gun for the presidential election, is being displaced.
Democrats are seeking to amplify diverse voices earlier in their presidential selection process. The calendar Democrats approved on Saturday will only apply to 2024. They have vowed to revisit it before the 2028 election.
“This calendar reflects the best of who we are as a nation,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison told party members before the vote.
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New Hampshire Democrats aggresively fought the shift, arguing ahead of the meeting that they are unable to change a state law that requires them to hold the first primary. They also warned that the changes could harm President Joe Biden’s expected reelection effort.
Democrats are in the minority in the state legislature, and Republicans in New Hampshire are unwilling to adjust the law.
“Respecting our state law and lifting up diverse voices need not be mutually exclusive,” said Joanne Dowdell, a DNC member representing New Hampshire.
Iowa also opposed the calendar. Rita Hart, the newly-elected chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, said her state faces difficulties in changing the date of its caucus and cannot support a calendar that could weaken Democrats in the state.
The eleventh-hour push was futile. Democrats easily approved the calendar, which Biden had personally proposed. It passed by voice
Biden’s intervention
Biden intervened to solve intra-party squabbling over the matter last year after Democrats postponed their decision on the line up until after the midterms. He pressed members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the DNC in a letter to adopt his recommended calendar.
Party officials who sit on the panel acted on Biden’s reccomendations in December. They were unphased heading into Saturday’s vote by New Hampshire’s arguments.
States that stand to gain from the calendar changes also refused to back down.
“You can have a primary (where) nobody shows up,” South Carolina party chair Trav Robertson told USA TODAY. “I mean, if you have a party, and nobody shows up, it’s not a hell of a party.”
Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell argued Saturday during the DNC meeting that no one state should have a lock on the first contest.
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States that go against the DNC will lose delegates to the national convention and Biden, should he run for a second term, would be sanctioned if he appears on their primary ballots.
“New Hampshire will still hold the first-in-the nation primary, whether or not the DNC approves of it or not,” Ray Buckley, the state party chair, told reporters, during a Friday press conference in Philadelphia.
Buckley said the political dynamic in the state leaves New Hampshire Democrats in an “impossible, no-win position.”
Biden pushed for South Carolina to have the first contest and for Georgia and Michigan to receive to be able to hold their primaries earlier.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in an interview that the DNC panel had been discussing changes to the schedule before Biden weighed in.
“Now, clearly, the president had his ideas about what it looked like. But we were committed to having states up front that were representative of our country, representative of people of color, representative of states where the labor movement is strong, where we can bring those folks to the table,” Saunders said. “It didn’t happen overnight.”
Biden steered clear of the dispute as he addressed DNC members during a Friday evening speech, where he was ushered on stage to chants of “four more years” and hinted at a reelection announcement.
At a January meeting prior to the Philadelphia gathering, the Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to give New Hampshire and Georgia more time to meet the requirements to hold early contests after both states missed an initial deadline.
Georiga Democrats are negotiating with Republicans in the state to move up their primary date, but unlike New Hampshire, the only penalty they face for failing to make the change is having a later contest.
Scott Brennan, a DNC member from Iowa who sits on the RBC, said he was opposed to the calendar on that basis. Brennan told members the “continued uncertainty” will almost certainly drag on throughout 2023.
“We will leave here with absolutely nothing settled,” Brennan said.