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The way Americans choose their presidential nominees is largely an accident of history.
Some states began holding more open primaries during the Progressive Era in the early 20th century, but the nominating process was substantially democratized after the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
No one set out to give Iowa and New Hampshire so much influence. But after the process opened up, and Jimmy Carter propelled his campaign by camping out in Iowa ahead of the 1976 caucuses, building momentum in the early states became essential to winning a presidential nomination.
The result is a system that some consider nonsensical, or at least unfair. Why give so much power to a handful of states? Why not have everyone vote at the same time, or have groups of states vote together? And what is so bad about letting party conventions choose the nominees in the first place? That would be closer to how political parties in most other democracies select their candidates.
In 2028, the process is getting shaken up again, just not in any of those ways. The early states will retain their outsized influence, but Democrats are reshuffling which states receive the privilege.
Under a newly proposed Democratic National Committee calendar, six states would vote before Super Tuesday, the earliest date on which any other state would be allowed to hold its contest. In the proposed order, they are: South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia.
Iowa has been dropped from the early-state lineup altogether, while South Carolina and Nevada have been placed ahead of New Hampshire — the state that has historically held the nation’s first presidential primary.
To mark the occasion, we are holding our first-ever primary calendar draft. If a select group of states is going to vote first, which states should they be? Nathaniel Rakich and Mary Radcliffe join me for this very nerdy (and genuinely fun) exercise in redesigning the presidential primary calendar.
