Posted on 08/21/2025 9:11:41 AM PDT by Red Badger
Democratic Party officials are quietly battling over which state will be the first to vote in the 2028 presidential primary — a fight that's set to break into the open next week, when the officials meet in Minneapolis.
* Nevada, New Hampshire, and Michigan are currently the frontrunners to be "the new Iowa," and lead off the 2028 Democratic primary season, according to several people familiar with the Rules and Bylaws committee that will determine the order.
Why it matters:
The candidate who wins the first state primary gets a boost that can help propel them to the nomination — and potential candidates already are looking into which order of contests could benefit them the most.
State of play:
For decades, Iowa's caucuses and New Hampshire's primary kicked off the presidential primary season.
* But the order of contests has become a free-for-all since Iowa botched its caucuses in 2020, and then-President Biden changed the calendar in 2024 to favor his re-election bid by moving up the primary in Biden-friendly South Carolina.
* Potential candidates and their teams have been contacting members of the party's Rules and Bylaws panel to develop relationships before the 2028 calendar is set.
These are the current pitches — and arguments against — the states that appear to be the top contenders to kick off the primary voting, according to several people familiar with them.
* Pro-Nevada: It has a strong union presence, is racially diverse, and has a large working-class Latino population at a time when Democrats are losing ground with such voters. It's also a swing state, and a presidential primary would bring in money and organizing power that could help Democrats there in the November 2028 election.
* Anti-Nevada: Voters there typically aren't as engaged as those in places like Iowa, it takes longer to get around a state that's more than 10 times the size of New Hampshire by square mileage, and it's far away from the political classes in Washington and New York.
* Pro-New Hampshire: It's traditionally been an early primary, and it's a small state with engaged voters who'll give any candidate a shot instead of favoring the one with the most money.
* Anti-New Hampshire: It's more than 60% white, and the Democratic Party is significantly more diverse than that. There isn't a strong union presence at a time when Democrats are trying to win back working-class voters.
* Pro-Michigan: It's racially and regionally diverse with a mix of rural and urban residents, and is an important Midwestern swing state with a strong union presence. To some Democrats, it's the choice most representative of all of America.
* Anti-Michigan: It's too big with too many people (pop. 10 million-plus), which could favor the candidate with the most advertising money rather than one who meets a lot of voters and has a robust organization on the ground. Some Democratic operatives worry that a spotlight on the state's large Arab and Jewish populations could further stoke divisions in the party over the war in Gaza, while other Democrats want that to be part of the debate.
Zoom in:
The new chair of the DNC, Ken Martin, overhauled and expanded the committee in ways that will affect the final vote.
* The committee now includes many current and former state party chairs who are seen as close allies of Martin. That could give him significant influence over the final decision.
* The committee also has expanded from 33 to 49 members. Many of the new members have never served on the Rules and Bylaws panel, which could complicate the process.
What they're saying:
Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan, who joined the committee and is advocating for her state, told Axios she wants to "put the light on important issues early in the primaries, and not in November when we are losing."
* Michigan's party chair Curtis Hertel added that "placing Michigan early in the process is healthy for our democracy and for the country."
* "The DNC is committed to running a fair, rigorous, and transparent process for the 2028 presidential nominating calendar," DNC Deputy Communications Director Abhi Rahman said. "All states will have an opportunity to participate."
* Longtime DNC member Michael Kapp, who is new to the committee, said Martin "is not putting his thumb on the scale," like former chairs did. "It's a very different process than before, and in the right direction."
Reality check:
It's early in the process, and other states will make bids to host the first primary as conversations heat up later this year.
* Iowa, which mishandled the vote counting during its 2020 caucuses, will try to make a comeback. But there are no Iowans on the Rules and Bylaws panel that will meet next week.
* South Carolina, which went first in 2024, also is likely to try to stay first. About one-quarter of South Carolina's residents are Black — a population that leans heavily toward Democrats.
Michigan would be perfect—a wild free for all with Muzzie crazies intimidating all the candidates and showing them to be knee bending weaklings.
Jewish candidates like Shapiro and Pritzger would see their campaigns crash and burn quickly.
The chaos will improve Republican registration in this key swing state.
That was done ON PURPOSE in Iowa so as to keep Bernie Sanders from being declared the winner. Also the same reason the "gold standard" poll declined to release poll results for that primary. Jimmy Dore sometimes shows a funny video of a weirdly grinning Buttigieg walking out of a meeting telling him he "won" but really didn't.
And how important are these first-state-to-primary anyway in a day of early voting and mail-in voting? At least in the Dim run states that still do those fraudulent things.
The chaos will improve Republican registration in this key swing state.
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I like how you’re always strategizing on how to hurt the democrats.
It makes for fun reading.
This is all old political thinking by a dying party.
It is all designed for the DNC to help pick the worst GOP presidential candidate.
Wendell Willkie
Pat Buchanan
Ron Paul
Ted Cruz
John McCain
Jeb Bush
Carly Forina
Michael Bloomberg
Harold Stassen
Mitt Romney
Ross Perot
George Wallice
Everyone of these candidates had zero chance of winning however the MSM and DNC promoted them right to the end.
Just my two cents...
If I got to pick the first primary state, mine would be Missouri.
I have no family or ties to the state. But I see it as far more representative of the US than Iowa. Missouri is rural Midwestern and it’s rural Southern. It has some Rust Belt characteristics around the St Louis area. It’s highly suburbanized around Kansas City and St Louis. It’s urbanized especially in those same cities.
In short, it’s a microcosm of the United States.
They should announce it will be in “Palestine”.
I believe the national GOP still allows Iowa to go first.
In Iowa, the caucuses and primary are run by the parties and not by the state.
Dems have already switched to mail-in primary over many weeks, mostly removing any Iowa influence on Dems.
GOP now has a kind of modified binding primary that requires showing up at caucus meetings to vote. Delegates are bound to support caucus vote-winner. (Used to be the caucus vote was a non-binding straw poll treated casually.)
Well I gotta admit I like the idea of them losing in November. It makes everything else essentially worthless which is what the dims are.
I was thinking along the same lines. They moved up SC so Biden could be anointed by the black voters. I guess the same thing could happen in MI.
I tend to agree, if you are thinking like dems think. MI is muzzy-friendly, union-friendly, BLM-friendly. A dem candidate who wins there would have to embrace all those extreme traits. The hard left loves to double-down on extremism and if you held the primary there, that's what you would get.
Lord help us all if that candidate went on to win the general election...
Yup—New Hampshire Democrats are just boring Karen cat ladies from whitopia suburbs.
Michigan is a totally different game.
There isn’t a strong UNION presence at a time when Democrats are trying to win back WORKING-CLASS voters.
This comment best describes the Democrat dilemma. In 2026-28 Democrats need both the unions and the working class.
But unions no longer reflect the working class. In fact, they are often on opposite sides of heated issues.
Even if a Democrat state should be first to enter the competition, what they would say & do (considering what little-to- nothing they have to offer) I should think would offer little to build any points for them. Of course I admit there are many of us who already know how we’re going to vote & being first in the nominations would not change our minds.
Dingell is a Democrat if I remember correctly. What “important issues” does she think the Democrats have? Everything they seem to cosider important is only what differs completely from Republican ideas.
Like '24? So tell me, how many primaries did Kamala win?
Why go through all that trouble and just have a judge declare who the president is?
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