The Primary Calendar

Too early? Yes, but it’s still interesting to watch the jockeying:

Even though the party has the power to do virtually anything it wants, conversation has once again largely centered on the handful of states that have led the calendar for decades. Iowa Democrats, who appear likely to be shut out of the early-nominating window for the second cycle after a disastrous 2020, are openly discussing the option of going rogue and holding an unsanctioned early caucus. The New Hampshire and Nevada state parties are lobbying to be the first-in-the-nation primary state, and New Hampshire is threatening to hold a meaningless first contest if it doesn’t win the prize. South Carolina, which has represented the nation’s Black Democratic electorate in the early window since 2004 and went first in 2024, wants to stay there, but other southern states—including Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina—are expected to jockey to crowd in on their traditional importance.

At stake is not just a geographic advantage or disadvantage for prospective candidates, but the prospect of windfalls for local-television stations and roadside-hotel chains, as candidates devote tens of millions of dollars to winning early contests in hopes of slingshotting in popularity. The result could also give Republicans, who plan to stick to the traditional early-state order of Iowa and New Hampshire, a general-election advantage in states where Democrats are trying to regain statewide office. Entire campaigns could rise or fall on the outcomes. Quentin Fulks, who worked as the principal deputy campaign manager for the Democratic ticket in 2024 and has been discussed as a potential campaign manager in 2028, described the calendar order as a weight on the scale of the whole contest.

I believe I can speak for everyone when I say “Fuck Iowa, and while we’re at it Fuck New Hampshire, too.” I understand why the state party establishments consider themselves to be sacrosanct (“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”) but their claims to special democratic legitimacy have been shredded, tossed into the dustbin of history, then set on fire.

I don’t have good answers as to which states should go first or what the calendar should look like beyond noting that any decision on scheduling is a decision to support one party faction at the expense of another. Arguments about justice and legitimacy become tiresome in these contexts because at heart we’re really talking about money and media attention. I suppose that my own preference would be to make the process at least somewhat random (I can imagine that an entirely random schedule would generate some foreseeable problems), but even that would soon come under the mercy of intransigent state parties, as well as spoiling efforts in states where GOP controlled legislatures can determine primary schedules.

Photo Credit: By Phil Roeder from Des Moines, IA, USA – Precinct 61, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58008907