WASHINGTON (AP) — New Hampshire is in open rebellion. Georgia is pretty much out.
South Carolina and Nevada are on board, but face strong Republican pushback. Michigan’s compliance may mean cutting off the state legislative session, despite Democrats controlling both chambers and the governor’s mansion.
Then there’s Iowa, which is looking for ways to go first without violating the game rules.
Months after the Democratic Party approved President Joe Biden’s plan to revise his primary order to better reflect a deeply diverse voter base, implementing the revamped order has proven far from straightforward. Party officials now expect the process to continue until the end of the year, even as the 2024 presidential race heats up around them.
“While it seemed like relatively smooth sailing for the president when he proposed it … the kind of reaction you’re hearing, the reactions, are exactly what we would have expected,” said David Redlawsk, chair of the science department policies at the University of Delaware and co-author of the book “Why Iowa? How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process.”
The DNC says it prepared for an arduous process but isn’t too worried about the uncertainty, in part because Biden faces only minor primary challengers in self-help author Marianne Williamson and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Biden’s political advisers say the president does not expect to campaign extensively in the Democratic primary and will instead focus on the general election. However, the drama of the primary schedule could prove a headache for Democrats who want to project unity before 2024 and could spell trouble for 2028, when the party has promised to revisit its primary schedule.
Jim Roosevelt, co-chairman of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, said he was “not surprised” by the objections from Iowa and New Hampshire, as they are losing their leadership positions, and that the committee is “definitely able of solving” the protests of the republicans in places that conform to new rules or new slots of the calendar.
“I think having a sitting president is the most likely time to make a fundamental change to make the process more representative,” said Roosevelt, who also noted that the party last enforced a realignment of its primary schedule before a competitive presidential primary in 2008. .
He will get that chance again, however, as a possible redistricting comes next cycle when, whatever happens in 2024, there will be no incumbent Democratic president seeking re-election.
Another lengthy and contentious new process could mean uncertainty with real electoral consequences, perhaps even making it harder for Democrats running in competitive presidential primaries to know where to campaign, hire staff and advertise. The party may try to mitigate this by starting discussions on the 2028 calendar earlier, possibly even weeks after next year’s election.
The prospect of another protracted fight won’t deter the party, though: “We’ll definitely see it again in 2028,” Roosevelt said.
Meanwhile, the DNC has no plans to change the 2024 plan it approved in February, removing the Iowa caucus from its leadership position since 1972 and replacing it with South Carolina, which will have its first caucus on 3 of February in second place, three days later, it is assumed that it was New Hampshire and Nevada, which discards its caucus in favor of a primary.
The new order was followed by the Georgia primaries on February 13 and the Michigan primaries two weeks later. Those states would precede most of the rest of the country, which would vote on Super Tuesday in early March, giving them enormous influence in deciding which primary candidates can make it that far.
But New Hampshire responded by pointing to its state law requiring the nation’s first presidential primary, which Iowa only avoided for five decades because it held a caucus, and threatened to move forward.
Meanwhile, Georgia likely won’t take its place in the new top 5 because the state’s Republicans rejected calls to move their party’s primary to meet the Democrats’ new date.
Although South Carolina Democrats are scheduled to run first, the state’s Republicans delayed their party’s primary until three weeks later, on February 24. In Nevada, Republicans have sued to keep their presidential caucus even as the state moves to primaries. system Michigan has also approved its new date, but its legislature may adjourn soon to make it work.
And Iowa has proposed holding an early caucus, but may not release the results of its presidential contest until later in deference to new party rules.
This year’s reform followed the collapse of the 2020 Iowa caucus. Iowa responded by proposing new rules allowing Democrats to mail in their presidential choices, breaking with previous caucus rules requiring in-person participation.
Scott Brennan, an Iowa attorney and member of the DNC’s rules committee, said his state “knew the pack was stacked against us” from the start of primary calendar reform, but since then its Democrats have tried to avoid open defiance of the plans of the national party.
“We’re trying to be as flexible as we can,” Brennan said, “to see if there’s a way to fix this.”
Republicans still lead their 2024 primary with the Iowa caucus, and the Iowa GOP could set the caucus date next month. That would allow Iowa Democrats to tell the DNC when it plans to hold its caucus, even if the presidential results aren’t released until later.
Iowa Democrats hope their more flexible attitude will allow the state to return to the top 5 in the Democratic primary, if Georgia and New Hampshire vacate their spots. That would mean Iowa would fill a potential gap between when Nevada votes on Feb. 6 and Michigan does on Feb. 27, though Roosevelt said that scenario is unlikely.
“I give Iowa a lot of credit for trying to work flexibly,” he said. “If Iowa could find a way to fully comply with the new rules, that would be considered. Frankly, I think it’s too late for that.”
Roosevelt also noted that one of the reasons the mostly white state was moved out of first place “was demographics, and that’s not going to change.”
New Hampshire has taken a tougher tone, saying its Republican governor and GOP-controlled legislature will not change the state law requiring it to hold the nation’s first primary.
“We have no choice but to delay the primaries. Maybe Iowa is different,” said New Hampshire Democratic National Committeeman Bill Shaheen.
If New Hampshire moves forward with its plan to go first, and Biden chooses not to campaign there, one of his rivals could see a bump in support. That would be potentially embarrassing for the president, though the DNC has pointed to polls showing Biden with a substantial lead in the state’s primaries.
“I don’t think the DNC is going to do anything that’s going to change what we’re going to do,” Shaheen said of the national party’s continued work to overhaul its primaries. “We just don’t really like being taken away.”
Biden’s re-election campaign has declined to discuss his main rivals or whether they could be boosted by success in a non-sanctioned New Hampshire primary. Iowa Democrats, on the other hand, have suggested they will include Biden among their caucus’s presidential preferences whether he campaigns there or not, possibly sparing the president embarrassment there.
Redlawsk said the fact that Democrats have come this far in changing their schedule means “the battle will continue, but I think it’s much more likely that the change will happen now” and that the impact could be profound.
“These early states really shape the campaign. Early states don’t guarantee a winner, but they tell us who’s going to lose, at least in the early rounds,” Redlawsk said. “It’s very likely that the sale will be different if the first state is South Carolina, Nevada, or some combination, than if it were Iowa or New Hampshire.”
