The Democratic National Committee approved its 2028 presidential nominating schedule, once again prioritizing South Carolina as the first-in-the-nation primary over Iowa and New Hampshire.
South Carolina is set to hold its primary on Jan. 22, 2028, followed by Nevada on Feb. 1, 2028, New Hampshire on Feb. 8, 2028, New Mexico on Feb. 15, 2028, Michigan on Feb. 22, 2028, and Virginia on Feb. 29, 2028.
The DNC’s influential Rules and Bylaws Committee selected South Carolina as the first state to vote in the 2028 presidential primary process during a preliminary vote last month. During its summer gathering in Austin, Texas, this week, the full DNC membership affirmed that vote on Saturday in a voice vote.
“As a result of this calendar, we have a stronger, more representative path to selecting our nominee,” DNC Chairman Ken Martin said on Saturday, touting the work of the Rules and Bylaws Committee. “It will battle-test our nominee. It will require them to earn support from every corner of this coalition. It will make them a better candidate, and it will put them in the strongest possible position-not just to win a primary, but to win back the White House in 2028.”
Martin also urged DNC members to not just support the new calendar but to sell it to their fellow Democrats in their home states.
“I’m asking you to enthusiastically support this, and then when you leave here, to go back to your states and remind folks that you just made history and that this party just made history,” said Martin.
Uncertainty has flared over whether the nominating schedule, which now includes Virginia and New Mexico among the states to hold contests before Super Tuesday, could disadvantage a progressive presidential candidate, although some DNC members dismissed the allegations.
“I actually think that the Democratic Party is in a moment of generational shift too, not just age, but just new faces and the kind of new standard bearers of the party, and I think that this calendar is pretty rigorous,” John McCarthy, a New Jersey DNC member, told the Washington Examiner. “Everyone’s going to be able to compete. These are affordable markets. They’re places you can go and get around. So I think that we will have a very big primary field in 2028, and I think that that’s a really good thing.”
New Hampshire is bound by state law to hold its primary first, but the DNC strengthened penalties against states that jump the primary lineup by stripping them of 100% of delegates and imposing a $270,000 fine.
“States will have to really sit back and think through what that means if they were to try something,” said McCarthy. “But hopefully we can get to a place where we’re all rowing in the same direction on that.”
During the Saturday general session meeting, Donna Soucy, a New Hampshire DNC member, defended the Granite State’s ability to evaluate presidential candidates despite being stripped of its former first-place status.
“New Hampshire has never claimed to be a perfect reflection of this country. No state is,” said Souzy. “New Hampshire has proven, however, time and time again that we are suited, well-suited, to run a rigorous, efficient, and fair election like no other state.”
But Rita Hart, Iowa state party chair and DNC member, publicly stated she opposed the calendar and that Iowa is not happy with the calendar.
“Unfortunately, this calendar fundamentally misses the mark,” she said. “It’s a product of broken promises and excludes huge swaths of the country and the voters that Democrats need to win the kind of majorities it takes to restore democratic principles and reject this misguided and corrupt Trump administration.”
Former DNC chairman Jaime Harrison thanked Iowa and New Hampshire for their past leadership of presidential seasons but pushed for a new path for the party.
“Today, we’re going to welcome new voices and new communities into that early conversation,” said Harrison, a Palmetto State native. “Nevada, New Mexico, Michigan, Virginia, alongside South Carolina, New Hampshire. These states will create traditions of their own. There will be new gathering places, new campaign moments we cannot yet even imagine.”
Several younger candidates of color have become the biggest stars in the party, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate nominee Abdul el Sayed, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), all of whom have pushed the party leftward on several issues.
Elevating South Carolina to the first-in-the-nation status is widely seen as a move to prioritize black voters, the Democrats’ most loyal voting bloc. Black voters in the Palmetto State boosted former President Joe Biden’s struggling campaign in 2020, eventually helping him to capture the nomination. After the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision, which weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and subsequently led Republicans in Southern states to create new congressional maps, DNC members were pushed to elevate an early state with a significant black population.
Nevada and New Mexico are also states with sizable Latino and Native populations that Democrats are hoping to woo back to the party after President Donald Trump made inroads with the voting blocs in 2024.
“Other than probably 1988 when Jesse Jackson ran, I think whoever wins the black vote in the primary tends to be our party’s nominee,” said McCarthy.
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He also claimed the diversity of early states means many communities “will all get to have kind of their key moments throughout this process and make sure that candidates know how to speak to them.”
Martin added, “Our 2028 nominee, whoever they are, will have to earn the support across the full breadth of America, every region, every demographic, every generation, every economic station in life, no shortcuts, no coronation. You want to lead this party? You go earn it.”