Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, seen here October 25, is the final decider on the date of the state’s presidential election. Right Gabriel Sterling, Chief Operating Officer in the Raffensperger office. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images Hide caption
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Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, seen here October 25, is the final decider on the date of the state’s presidential election. Right Gabriel Sterling, Chief Operating Officer in the Raffensperger office.
Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
ATLANTA — When a panel within the Democratic National Committee voted two weeks ago to overhaul the party’s presidential calendar, that was the easy part.
If the entire DNC approves the plan, actually implementing the changes becomes more difficult.
For starters, Iowa and New Hampshire — long the double whammy that started the presidential candidates’ trips — could disregard the Democrats’ proposal and hold contests on their own terms. Michigan, which would finish fifth, would need to change state law, though Democrats took control of the legislature in the interim period.
And in Georgia, which would take fourth place in the lineup, a Republican with his hands tied for now will ultimately decide.
“It would be kind of cool if Election Day for the Georgia primary was earlier, but this office isn’t going to do anything that would affect the number of delegates or violate the rules of either party,” said Gabriel Sterling, chief operations officer at the Office of the Secretary of State from Georgia.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is a Republican who is part of a Republican-controlled state government that works with a Republican-controlled legislature. But Sterling says his boss, who perpetuates the status quo, is not partial. Rather, it is about protecting election workers and following the rules set by the parties.
“We’re not going to have two different primary codes because that creates a lot of stress and strain on poll workers and districts,” Sterling said. “We’re going to have a presidential primary day, and whoever has the most distant rules for that — that’s Republicans right now — we’re going to abide by it, which means we’re going to have a March primary.”
While Democrats are keen to change the calendar and move Iowa later and South Carolina earlier, the Republican National Committee has so far kept its lineup in this order: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. For both parties, a deviation from the current rules could jeopardize the number of delegates at their congresses.
“Center of the Political Universe”
Bernard Fraga, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, says a seismic shift in the nomination calendar brings great rewards for those who would finish earlier than the rest of the country.
“The restructuring that we are now witnessing has really big consequences,” he said. “It really kind of disrupts the order that both parties have really relied on, and it offers a number of incentives for these early states to get a lot more media attention.”
Fraga says Georgia becoming a former state would bring increased investment of political and financial capital to a state no stranger to electoral attention, not to mention more press attention and a higher profile for surrogate mothers, who live in the state, and democratic legislators.
“I like to say that we’re the center of the political universe, and that’s not going to change anything this cycle or the next,” said Georgia US Rep. Nikema Williams, chair of the state’s Democratic Party. “This will continue for years to come, and the fact that we’re being prioritized speaks volumes for both Democrats and Republicans.”
Georgia has hosted some of the most expensive races in U.S. Senate history, including two high-profile runoff elections that were pivotal for a majority of Democrats. In 2020, Georgia narrowly sided with President Biden, turning the state’s electoral votes over for the first time in decades.
And after Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp both won in the 2022 midterm elections on the strength of split-ticket voters, its battleground status was elevated to new heights ahead of 2024.
Williams says a more prominent spot as a presidential candidate would benefit both parties.
“If you look at the last few cycles in Georgia, we’ve been elevated to a leading battleground state in this country, and battleground states have worked for both Democrats and Republicans because we have to make our case to voters,” she said. “And that’s what this is about, it’s about centering the voices of Georgians and showing that we matter in the national history, in the national conversation and that we are worth investment from all sides.”
Fraga said Georgia Republicans might not see the Democratic primary move earlier pay off for them, but there are arguments that the GOP also benefits from a more prominent place to frame its message.
“When you start considering the possibility that Republicans could use an early nominating contest to either show their voters the extremity of some of these potential Democratic candidates or push the Republican Party to make similar changes, you start to see that the Math’s a little harder,” he said. “And there might be a few Republicans who say it’s worth pushing the Democrats up if the GOP brings it along.”
There’s still plenty of time for rule changes and shifts of heart in establishing the primary pecking order, and in Georgia, Raffensperger doesn’t have to set a date until next fall.
But the DNC is asking these early state contenders to provide an update on their status by January 5, 2023.
