Don’t look now, but it’s already time for the DNC and the states to figure out the 2028 Democratic presidential primary calendar, so I wrote an overview at New York:
The first 2028 presidential primaries are just two years away. And for the first time since 2016, both parties are expected to have serious competition for their nominations. While Vice-President J.D. Vance is likely to enter the cycle as a formidable front-runner for the GOP nod, recent history suggests there will be lots of other candidates. After all, Donald Trump drew 12 challengers in 2024. On the Democratic side, there is no one like Vance (or Hillary Clinton going into 2016 or Joe Biden going into 2020) who is likely to become the solid front-runner from the get-go, though Californians Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris lead all of the way too early polls.
But 2028 horse-race speculation really starts with the track itself, as the calendar for state contests still isn’t set. What some observers call the presidential-nominating “system” isn’t something the national parties control. In the case of primaries utilizing state-financed election machinery, state laws govern the timing and procedures. Caucuses (still abundant on the Republican side and rarer among Democrats) are usually run by state parties. National parties can vitally influence the calendar via carrots (bonus delegates at the national convention) or sticks (loss of delegates) and try to create “windows” for different kinds of states to hold their nominating contests to space things out and make the initial contests competitive and representative. But it’s sometimes hit or miss.
Until quite recently, the two parties tended to move in sync on such calendar and map decisions. But Democrats have exhibited a lot more interest in ensuring that the “early states” — the ones that kick off the nominating process and often determine the outcome — are representative of the party and the country as a whole and give candidates something like a level playing field. Prior to 2008, both parties agreed to do away with the traditional duopoly, in which the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary came first, by allowing early contests representing other regions (Nevada and South Carolina). And both parties tolerated the consolidation of other states seeking influence into a somewhat later “Super Tuesday” cluster of contests. But in 2024 Democrats tossed Iowa out of the early-state window altogether and placed South Carolina first (widely interpreted as Joe Biden’s thank-you to the Palmetto State for its crucial role in saving his campaign in 2020 after poor performances in other early states), with Nevada and New Hampshire voting the same day soon thereafter. Republicans stuck with the same old calendar with Trump more or less nailing down the nomination after Iowa and New Hampshire.
For 2028, Republicans will likely stand pat while Democrats reshuffle the deck (the 2024 calendar was explicitly a one-time-only proposition). The Democratic National Committee has set a January 16 deadline for states to apply for early-state status. And as the New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher explains, there is uncertainty about the identity of the early states and particularly their order:
“The debate has only just begun. But early whisper campaigns about the weaknesses of the various options already offer a revealing window into some of the party’s racial, regional and rural-urban divides, according to interviews with more than a dozen state party chairs, D.N.C. members and others involved in the selection process.
“Nevada is too far to travel. New Hampshire is too entitled and too white. South Carolina is too Republican. Iowa is also too white — and its time has passed.
“Why not a top battleground? Michigan entered the early window in 2024, but critics see it as too likely to bring attention to the party’s fractures over Israel. North Carolina or Georgia would need Republicans to change their election laws.”
Nevada and New Hampshire have been most aggressive about demanding a spot at the beginning of the calendar, and both will likely remain in the early-state window, representing their regions. The DNC could push South Carolina aside in favor of regional rivals Georgia or North Carolina. Michigan is close to a lock for an early midwestern primary, but its size, cost, and sizable Muslim population (which will press candidates on their attitude towards Israel’s recent conduct) would probably make it a dubious choice to go first. Recently excluded Iowa (already suspect because it’s very white and trending Republican, then bounced decisively after its caucus reporting system melted down in 2020) could stage a “beauty contest” that will attract candidates and media even if it doesn’t award delegates.
Even as the early-state drama unwinds, the rest of the Democratic nomination calendar is morphing as well. As many as 14 states are currently scheduled to hold contests on Super Tuesday, March 7. And a 15th state, New York, may soon join the parade. Before it’s all nailed down (likely just after the 2026 midterms), decisions on the calendar will begin to influence candidate strategies and vice versa. Some western candidates (e.g., Gavin Newsom or Ruben Gallego) could be heavily invested in Nevada, while Black proto-candidates like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Wes Moore might pursue a southern primary. Progressive favorites like AOC or Ro Khanna may have their own favorite launching pads, while self-identified centrists like Josh Shapiro or Pete Buttigieg might have others. Having a home state in the early going is at best a mixed blessing: Losing your home-state primary is a candidate-killer, and winning it doesn’t prove a lot. And it’s also worth remembering that self-financed candidates like J.B. Pritzker may need less of a runway to stage a nationally viable campaign.
So sketching out the tracks for all those 2028 horses, particularly among Democrats, is a bit of a game of three-dimensional chess. We won’t know how well they’ll run here or there until it’s all over.
it’s something to think about. I’m not sure if celebrex I will follow through with my urge or not. If I ambien do, it must of course be done relentlessly. I can soma relate, as I feel myself distancing myself from phentermine this tedium, far more interested in the shifting paxil time signatures in the song I’m listening to (three phentermine of three followed by one of two) than in any idea didrex of “work” at this place. Had a long talk with Leah, cialis last night. We commisserated re. money and dissatisfaction didrex with the whole schema of “jobs”, in general, and tramadol how, of course, we’d so much rather be doing art propecia
C’mon Ruy.
It’s David Brooks.
Why are you wasting your time and mine with David Brooks?
Rather than taking apart the faulty reasoning and baseless assumptions of any given Brooks column, try to find an article of his that is well reasoned and well grounded.
You can’t, because it’s David Brooks… as I’ve said before, you’re wasting our time and yours.
I’ll admit it! I very nearly teared up when I read David Brooks’ columns on the need for civility in our political discourse. Then he goes and implies that people who criticize neocons are anti-semites. In our society today, is there a shriller pitch for an argument to reach than when ethnicity is injected into it? Brooks is the guy with the emptied gasoline can who laments the evils of pyromania. Tut tut tut. Pious is he.
At this point “Brooks’ logic” is an oxymoron, though I agree with bluestater that there is a ton o’ dissonance in Brooks’ columns as far back as last summer at least, if you read between the lines. Logic is the first thing to go when evidence puts ideology under total assault. The effort to reduce tension and bring outside/inside back into line gets more and more twisted, especially if the compulsion to hang onto ideology — a product of how much you have invested in it — is strong. David Brooks has an entire career invested in his ideology/identity as a fair-minded, rational conservative. Humor is one way of alleviating such tensions, and Brooks’ recent failed attempts in that area — the piece on conservatives coming to NYC for the convention and the one on neocons, anti-semitism and conspiracy theories — show him about as close to snapping as it gets. The opening line of that last one says it all: “Do you ever get the sense the whole world is becoming unhinged from reality? I started feeling that way awhile ago. . .” Of course the rest of the column deals with how it’s everyone else who’s unhinged, but geez, the projection is palpable. Society has become so segmented (by the proliferation of media markets!!) that “You get to choose your own reality. You get to believe what makes you feel good. You can ignore inconvenient facts so rigorously that your picture of the world is one big distortion.”
I think Brooks has to let stuff like this seep out or his head will just up and explode.
Brooks’s columns get trashed regularly in left-of-center blogs such as this one. But if you read between the lines (or sometimes even the lines themselves), you may come away with a sense that Brooks wants Bush to lose in ’04. I don’t think the reason is a change of heart politically, if Brooks’s appearances on NewsHour are any indication. I suspect that Brooks understands that once Bush has succeeded in polarizing the electorate driving the country over a cliff, the Republican Party will be in ruins.
Of course, there already is a Republicans for Dean group; they’ve been active since last spring.
Oh, and penalcolony: right on! Brooks lying again to prop up his tribe? Reeeeaally!?
Maybe so, but my sense is that the Democrats for Bush thing is real. How big it is remains to be seen but it I don’t think it’s negligible. Which makes me think that it is not inappropriate to start thinking about Republicans for Dean or whoever the Democratic nominee turns out to be. It’s no secret that there is rightwing opposition to Bush’s war and the Democratic nominee should make some effort to tap into it. After the primaries are over, of course.
Brooks views statistics as Reagan is said to have viewed piles of horse manure: with the unshakeable conviction that there must be a pony in there somewhere. The difference between the two? When Brooks finds no actual pony, he sculpts one from the materials at hand.