DNC to finalize controversial 2028 primary calendar, elevating South Carolina

Some within the party have praised the elevation of South Carolina.

The Democratic National Committee is expected to vote on Saturday to approve the new order of states for the 2028 presidential nominating process as progressives and moderates grapple over the party's direction in the midterms.

In late July, the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to recommend that South Carolina be the first state to hold a presidential nominating contest in 2028, while recommending greenlighting New Hampshire, Michigan and Nevada as well to go in the early period of the primaries and caucuses before the "Super Tuesday" batch of primaries on March 7, 2028.

The party is expected to give a final vote on Saturday, during its scheduled meeting, to finalize the 2028 calendar order, which would have South Carolina's primary on Jan. 22, Nevada on Feb. 1, New Hampshire on Feb. 8, New Mexico on Feb. 15, Michigan on Feb. 22 and Virginia on Feb. 29.

The proposed order puts South Carolina at the top of the list -- similar to how it was the first state in the party's official calendar in 2024, although New Hampshire still held primaries earlier in violation of the DNC’s calendar. Because of that, then-President Joe Biden stayed off the 2024 primary ballot in New Hampshire. It also moves up Nevada and Michigan's primaries and moves back New Hampshire's.

The change in the early nominating line-up also signals an effort by the party to be more reflective of the voting demographics in their coalition, specifically Black voters and Latino voters in states such as South Carolina, Nevada and New Mexico, respectively.

Some within the party have praised the elevation of South Carolina as a key overture to Black voters, a major constituency within the Democratic Party, amid mid-decade redistricting and administration actions that advocates say are furthering racial discrimination.

The new order also puts a focus on Latino voters, with Nevada going second in the line-up , after Democrats lost ground with the key demographic in the 2024 presidential election. Analysis conducted by the Pew Research Center found that while Biden won among Hispanic voters by 25 points in 2020, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris only won among them by 3 points in 2024.

The suggested line-up also features two battleground states -- Michigan and Nevada -- that are critical to deciding the next president. President Donald Trump won both Michigan and Nevada in the 2024 election; Biden won both states in the 2020 election.

Beyond the regional and demographic dynamics, the states set to go first also reflect broader ideological debates within the party that have animated many races in 2026 and may be set to continue to 2028, including whether the party should field more moderate candidates in swing states to have more crossover appeal, or nominate progressives promising change that many Democrats feel people want.

For instance, Michigan being in the early window could mean that the ideological debate that played out in the recent Senate primary there, where progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed won by a slim margin over the moderate Haley Stevens, will likely continue -- and could be impacted by whether El-Sayed wins or loses against the Republican candidate in November.

Some controversy arose when New Hampshire was not proposed to be in the first spot, despite a state law requiring the state hold first-in-the-nation primaries. State party officials have openly criticized the DNC's calendar and indicated New Hampshire's DNC members will vote against it, but have been quiet over what sort of compromise they might be able to come to with the DNC to avoid the state party being given penalties if the primaries are held on a different date than the DNC’s calendar.

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Raymond Buckley said the Rules and Bylaws Committee's July decision to not make the state the first presidential primary showed that "many party insiders have learned nothing from 2024."

"New Hampshire has a proven track record of testing our candidates with a rigorous, fair, and efficient process, yet those qualities did not prevail,” Buckley said in a statement last month.

Iowa Democrats have similarly criticized the calendar given that it bumps the key political state from the early window -- although the Iowa caucuses are party-run, not state-run, and in 2024 the state party came to a compromise with the DNC over the calendar.

The DNC has said that penalties that could be levied on state parties, such as fines and loss of delegates; and on presidential candidates, such as potentially losing access to DNC-sanctioned debates if they campaign in states out of order, will serve as enough of a deterrent for states to follow the order and for candidates to not campaign in states conflicting with the calendar.

While the Republican National Committee has not yet unveiled its own 2028 presidential nominating contest calendar, the party’s Presidential Nominating Process Committee voted in January to advance a presidential nominating calendar that matches the one the party used in 2024, including having Iowa and New Hampshire at the front of the line.

The DNC meeting comes amid many Democrats' frustrations with DNC Chair Ken Martin’s leadership and concerns about the national party's fundraising, which continues to lag significantly behind Republicans'. However, no major movement to pressure Martin to step down as DNC chair has materialized.

Martin and the DNC have defended his leadership, citing the party’s success in the 2025 elections and renewed enthusiasm among Democrats.

"The DNC has a clear job: win elections so we have the chance to improve people’s lives. With Donald Trump dismantling both our economy and our democracy, that job is more important than ever," Martin wrote in a post on Substack in July . "Judged on that metric, our candidates’ results have been historic, with victories or overperformances in 90 percent of key races since Trump was elected. And at the DNC, we are raising and deploying the resources necessary to continue that trend and take back Congress."

Democrats also lack a formal mechanism by which to remove Martin from his position, sources told ABC News.

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