The 2024 Democratic Presidential Primary Failed Miserably. I Have a Solution for 2028. |
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I am one of fewer than 25,000 people who share the distinction of having voted in the unsanctioned 2024 New Hampshire Democratic primary for a man whose name I had to Google before I could finish writing this sentence (former Rep. Dean Phillips). In that bitter January darkness of a Manchester elementary school parking lot, several dozen voters clustered in line beside me to get into the gym just as the polls opened.
Then-President Joe Biden had demanded South Carolina jump New Hampshire into the first primary position, and the Democratic National Committee dutifully complied. But New Hampshire being New Hampshire, the state moved forward with its legally required first-in-the-nation primary election date anyway. So the party stripped New Hampshire of its awarded delegates, and Biden made a show of withholding his name from even appearing on the ballot, making Vermin Supreme perhaps the most famous candidate in the race. Phillips, a nondescript and mostly unknown Minnesota congressman, was the most serious protest vote option. As I waited in line before dawn, I wondered how many of my fellow voters were also there to cast their ballots against the DNC’s cloying affirmation of Biden’s doomed reelection campaign.
Uh, not very many, apparently. Thanks to a well-orchestrated write-in campaign, Biden still received more than 63 percent of the vote, then he secured 96.2 percent in the party-sanctioned first contest in South Carolina. The 2024 “Democratic presidential primaries” were effectively over by the evening of Feb. 3—but it turns out the party wasn’t done picking a nominee to run against Donald Trump, as some interesting things happened, you may recall, over the six to nine months that followed. Last primary season’s calendar debacle is central to how we got here. The decree that South Carolina go first in 2024 effectively guaranteed that Biden faced no real test until his shocking debate flameout. That disaster was a crucial ingredient for the dystopian stew in which we find America simmering today.
The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is in the thick of a drawn-out process to decide who is actually going to get primary election positions in 2028. It’s considering formal bids from 12 states, some familiar contenders like Iowa and New Hampshire, and others newcomers. (The legal semantics of Iowa’s holding caucuses has in the past allowed for New Hampshire to lawfully follow it in the primary calendar; in 2024, however, even though Iowa law technically sets its caucuses first, state Democrats complied with the DNC schedule by using later mail voting for the actual tally to assign delegates.) The ultimate DNC decision on a potential primary calendar will have to navigate a minefield of legal and political dog shit. The committee should debate, wrestle, have it out, all that. But it shouldn’t let South Carolina or any of those 12 states be the first presidential nominating contest. Instead, there is a minimally painful compromise option that is not currently under consideration in any Democratic circle I’m aware of but should be: Keep New Hampshire as the first-in-the-nation state to hold its Democratic primary election, but have the District of Columbia vote first.
Why give in to New Hampshire? For one thing, the state will absolutely not budge. It has held its first-in-the-nation presidential primaries continually for over 100 years and has for over 50 years had a state law on the books requiring that these elections be held “7 days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election.” Local fanaticism for this........