Democrats in the United States approved a reorganization of their 2028 presidential primary calendar, as the party seeks to regain the White House. During a meeting Saturday in Austin, Texas, members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted to review which states have the first say in choosing the party’s presidential candidate. February 22, 2028. Nevada will take second place on February 1, followed by New Hampshire on February 8. New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia will complete the first states later that month. The new calendar formalizes a shift that began during the last presidential election cycle in 2024, when the national Democratic Party also put South Carolina at the front of its primary lineup. The 2028 primaries set a more competitive schedule for Democrats, giving greater influence to racially charged states. diversity, in an effort to better represent the party’s key constituencies. Debate over primary calendar But plans to reshape the primary calendar have been met with controversy in the past. In 2024, for example, local leaders in New Hampshire challenged party leaders by holding a state primary before the first party-led vote in South Carolina. As justification, New Hampshire officials cited a state law requiring its primaries to be the first in the nation. There was also pushback in Iowa, whose state caucus had ushered in the primary season for decades. Iowa Democrats warned that moving the state lower on the party’s calendar could send the wrong signal to rural voters, who often feel ignored in national politics and tend to lean right. Still, advocates of the calendar change argue that it will help the Democratic primaries better reflect the overall U.S. population. South Carolina has typically been the top Democratic race in the southern United States and has a significant population of black voters. About a quarter of the state identifies as black, according to census estimates. Meanwhile, Nevada and New Mexico have large Latino or Hispanic populations, with 31 percent and 49 percent of their residents identifying as such, respectively. All three states will be at the forefront of the primary calendar in 2028. Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin took to social media Saturday to tout the changes as a snapshot of demographic shifts in the country. “These states reflect the diversity of America and will help ensure our candidate is best positioned to recapture the White House in 2028,” Martin wrote in Achieving early victories in party primaries can help a candidate gain momentum and that, in turn, can help presidential hopefuls secure party nominations. Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who led the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009, told The Associated Press (AP) news agency that the changes to the calendar will lead to a more representative nomination process. “These states are more like the country,” Dean said, pointing to places like the South. Carolina and Nevada, “while Iowa and New Hampshire do not.” But it remains uncertain how the new calendar might affect the growing dispute within the party between progressive and more moderate establishment candidates. Democrats in Michigan, one of the states that received a boost in calendar realignment, voted narrowly earlier this month to select progressive Abdul El-Sayed as their Senate candidate. Since Michigan will now have an earlier say in the voting process, some experts have speculated that the swing state could help progressives exert greater influence over the party. Overall, but other states that were given more prominence in the 2028 lineup have a more moderate streak. South Carolina, for example, favored then-candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 primary over his more progressive opponents, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. 2028 Democratic Presidential Primary: South Carolina: January 22, 2028 Nevada: February 1, 2028 New Hampshire: February 8, 2028 New Mexico: February 15, 2028 Michigan: February 22, 2028 Virginia: February 29, 2028
