DNC backs Biden plan to remake ’24 calendar

South Carolina could replace Iowa as first contest

Philadelphia— Democrats on Saturday voted overwhelmingly to remake the party’s presidential nominating calendar, embracing President Biden’s push for South Carolina to be the first state to hold its contest in 2024 and replacing Iowa amid calls for greater racial, geographic and economic diversity in the process.

The move by members of the Democratic National Committee was long expected, but it does not guarantee the calendar will ultimately be enacted as designed. In December, Biden asked DNC leaders to move up South Carolina, which sealed his comeback victory in the 2020 Democratic primary, to the first slot.

Under the new plan, New Hampshire and Nevada would hold their primaries a week later, followed by primaries in Georgia and Michigan.

The vote here Saturday morning came at the DNC’s winter meeting, where Biden and Vice President Harris spoke Friday to some of the party’s most active members from across the country. Biden, who has yet to officially announce his reelection plans but has said he intends to run for a second term, was greeted by cheers of “four more years” as he took the stage.

Saturday’s voice vote marked the last formal step in the DNC’s efforts to fundamentally overhaul the nominating calendar, as the committee’s members officially approved the new order set by Biden. But the push to reorder the states still faces some hurdles.

Two states granted entry into the early window — that is, holding contests before a large number of states vote on “Super Tuesday” — have yet to change the dates of the primaries and have until June to do so. Georgia Democrats have lobbied state officials to change the date of their primary, but there appears to be little appetite to do so.

In New Hampshire, where state law mandates they hold the first primary, Democrats say they cannot change the date of the primary. DNC officials have already passed rules that dictate states violating the calendar order will be punished, as will candidates who campaign in states that hold primaries outside their assigned days.

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Raymond Buckley said Friday that the new plan puts Democrats in his state “in an impossible no-win position.”

“We know that New Hampshire will still hold the first-in-the-nation primary, whether or not the DNC approves of it,” he said, citing a state law from the 1970s that requires the state to hold the first primary in the country. New Hampshire has a Republican state legislature and governor, Chris Sununu, who has also said he would follow state law.

Leah Daughtry, a DNC member from New York, dismissed the state law argument in a speech before the vote: “None of that is more important than what the party said it wants in this process.”

Buckley and other representatives of the state argued that the new calendar allows a new line of attack from Republicans in the state, especially as Republicans now descend on New Hampshire to campaign for their party’s presidential nomination.

“We are frustrated because as many times as we say it, no one seems to listen when we say that this will only hurt President Biden in our purple, battleground state,” said Joanne Dowdell, a DNC member from New Hampshire.