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.
Once again, Democrats are doomed part # 12.
I’ve been involved in Democratic politics as a strategist and campaigner since 1972. You were a ray of light after the 2000 election. I bought your book and read it twice. What you wrote has come true, yet you seem upset about it.
During the bad old 1980’s, I remember us getting buried in high growth suburban areas. I case you forgot in the 1984 Presidential election, Ronald Reagan got a higher % of the vote in Connecticut than he did in Alabama. The real story is how Clinton was able to move northern and western suburbanites into the Democratic Party in 1992 & 1996. Then, how Al Gore & John Kerry kept those gains, and how Barrack Obama expanded them to most of the rest of the country and How Hillary Clinton & Joe Biden expanded this into the deep South and Sunbelt. Dobbs, which you rarely mention, hyper accelerated this trend.
The “populism” of trump is a long-term losing strategy. The republicans are in much the same position as William Jennings Bryan was at the turn of the 20th century. Bryan was the hero of rural voters in the west and plains states and promised what seemed like radical solutions to problems out of what was then the mainstream. Bryan scared the majority in the population centers which caused the Democrats to go to minority status for the next 36 years. Democrats started to take the big cities in 1928 and have never looked back. As you well know change brings some backlash. Democrats may not be able to carry Elliot County Kentucky, or Belmont County Ohio, but they can expand margins in Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta and Charlotte.
Every policy pushed by Democrats has helped isolated rural white rural populations from Obamacare, to child tax credits and caps on medical costs. All we can do is sell what we have done and push for more things that help rural Americans.
I would ask you what have the republicans done for rural white people. Please give us specific examples of what Democrats have pushed that are culturally bad for rural voters. We need more of the optimism of a Simon Rosenberg and a Ruy Texiera circa 2006!
Tom Chumley, you seem to have conflated “rural” with “working class.” Teixeira did not use the word “rural” even once in his discussion of the Democrats’ difficulties with working class voters, yet you used it five times. You did not use the term “working class” once, while Teixeira used it nine times. Rural is a location, working class is a social class. They overlap like a Venn diagram but they are not the same thing.
You are correct. I was thinking more on a county level than demographic level. The rural counties far from big cities tend to match working class stats rather closely.
My problem with Texiera is not his accuracy or information. As usual he is well researched and the details he provides are important. Where he departs from this is saying that over and over again is that Democrats are campaigning on issues that MAGA republicans say Democrats are doing without providing any evidence. republicans have been throwing false narratives at Democrats for 50 years. If the message is how to attack the false narratives aggressively, I’m all for that. Teixeira seem to accept these republican stereotypes as true.
If I didn’t know anything about what has happened in the last three cycles and only read Ruy’s columns, I would think that the Democrats had lost everything and the few victories Democrats had were only due the republican mistakes.
I could compare his columns this year to someone writing an analysis of the 1972 Presidential election and gushing on and on about how well George McGovern did in university counties which were republican voting only a few years previous. That would be a fine article to write, but you have to mention the fact that McGovern only carried about 120 odd counties and lost 49 states, which was far more important.
The good things Democrats have done electorally since 2017 have far outweighed the negatives. A little more of the whole picture would be appreciated.