Georgia pours cold water on DNC election plan to move voting contest
Jack Birle
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Democrats had hoped for Georgia to be one of the first contests in next year’s presidential primaries, but state officials poured cold water on that proposition on Thursday.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the Peach State will hold its presidential primary on March 12, 2024, nearly a month after the Democratic National Committee had hoped for.
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The DNC had Georgia holding its presidential primary on Feb. 13, 2024, in its restructured schedule announced in February, which would have made it the fourth contest in the nominating process. Officials in Georgia were given until the middle of June to modify the primary to comply with the DNC schedule, but they elected not to do so.
The proposal would have moved Iowa and New Hampshire out of their lead spots, replacing them with South Carolina, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada holding their contests on the same day, followed by Georgia a week later. The new schedule was met with backlash by officials in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The mid-March date for the 2024 Georgia presidential primary falls roughly in line with when the Peach State has held its primary in recent elections. The primary was originally scheduled for March 24 in 2020, and in 2016 it held its presidential primary on March 1. The 2020 primary was moved back to June 9 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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Georgia is expected to be a key swing state in the 2024 election. President Joe Biden narrowly won the state in 2020, after Republican candidates had won the state in every presidential election since 1996.
The primary in Georgia is expected to fall in the middle of the various primaries nationwide, on the same day as primaries in Idaho, Mississippi, and Washington. Several larger states, including Texas and California, are currently scheduled to hold their primaries a week before the Peach State’s primary.