It’s written in New Hampshire law that the state will hold the first-in-the-nation primary election in a presidential year. But now, the Democratic party has announced its calendar will change to once again put South Carolina as the party’s first primary for the second straight cycle.
The DNC says New Hampshire isn’t the snapshot of the electorate that it once was, and party leaders believe the more diverse South Carolina would be a better representation of the country’s demographics.
“South Carolina does reflect more of the emerging Democratic electorate,” said Ray La Raja, a political science professor at UMass Amherst. “There is a very high percentage of Black voters. There’s also working class voters that [Democrats] want to start appealing to.”
Iowa — traditionally the site of the nation’s first caucus — and New Hampshire have traditionally been where candidates go first when running for president in hopes that a strong showing in that primary will lead to wins in other states. It’s become a point of pride for those states that their residents are more likely to get one-on-one time with the future president.
But now, the Democratic National Committee approved this past weekend that South Carolina will lead off on Jan. 22, 2028, followed by Nevada the next day. New Hampshire will be third.
In 2024, the DNC made a similar change, putting South Carolina’s primary before New Hampshire’s. But New Hampshire went ahead and held its primary first anyway, despite that face that then-president Joe Biden wasn’t on the ticket.
Now, the DNC is threatening that it won’t count any delegates chosen in New Hampshire’s primary if it opts to hold that primary before South Carolina’s.
The Secretary of State David Scanlan told WMUR that the state will move forward with its first-in-the-nation primary plans once again, and that whatever punishment they face will be up to the party.
So what does that mean for delegates?
The national party can punish the state for voting on their usual day by not allowing the delegates to be sat at the National Convention, rendering their votes useless.
“The state party in New Hampshire needs to decide: Are we going to defy the National Party and maybe lose any votes we have in the National Convention, or are we going to switch it around and try to comply?” said La Raja.
If the state once again defies the party, many candidates may opt to keep their names off the ballot in order to preserve their chances later on.
Meanwhile, the national Republican party has said it will keep New Hampshire first, making the state far more significant for one half of the ballot compared to the other.
