WASHINGTON — New Hampshire and Georgia will have slightly longer to make important changes to when and how they hold Democratic presidential primaries under an extension approved by a panel of the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday.
Election officials have until June 3 to move the 2024 Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire to February 13 and Georgia to February 20 if they want to hold snap primary next year.
New Hampshire must also expand access to early voting if it wants to remain one of the first states in the country to vote on Democratic presidential candidates.
The DNC panel in December shook the long-running caucus and primary calendar, ruling that voters in South Carolina would go first in selecting the Democratic presidential nominees, followed by Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia and Michigan.
The proposal would move the earliest date from the long-running Iowa First-in-the-Nation caucuses, though New Hampshire would retain an early roll, voting just a week after South Carolina.
GOP state leaders opposed it
The extension was approved by the Rules & Bylaws Committee Wednesday after a 25-0 vote during a virtual meetinggives New Hampshire and Georgia several months to make their area code changes beyond an original Jan. 5 deadline, though the extra time is unlikely to impact GOP state leaders, who remain opposed to the changes.
That factor has raised concerns among New Hampshire Democrats, who are asking the committee to work with them, since the GOP governor and the Republican-controlled legislature have declined to work with Democrats to implement changes in state law.
“I want to be very clear about one thing — we share the President’s and RBC’s commitment to uplifting the voices of Black, Latino and Hispanic voters,” said panel member Joanne Dowdell of New Hampshire. “And we believe it’s possible to raise diverse voices and keep New Hampshire early in the process. Those two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
“We agree that our goal with the early primary window should be not just to tell the story of a state or a single constituency, but to tell the broader story of our party — both our values and our ability to resonate to voters across the country,” added Dowdell.
The new requirements for New Hampshire to remain an early primary state put the state’s Democrats in a “no-win position.”
If New Hampshire and Georgia don’t make the adjustments, they would have to hold their Democratic presidential primary in the regular window, which runs from the first Tuesday in March to the second Tuesday in June.
If states choose to hold their primary outside of that window without a waiver, they could face national party backlash, including a ban on Democratic presidential candidates from running in the state and the state losing half of its delegates.
Frustration with New Hampshire
Several members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee expressed frustration with some New Hampshire Democrats during the meeting, arguing that some publicly made comments would harm the party.
Leah Daughtry, a panel member representing New York, said it is the committee’s job to “construct a calendar that reflects the voting reality of the 21st century, as opposed to something that happened 100 years ago.”
Daughtry said she was “baffled and frankly shocked” by some New Hampshire Democrats, who said they were surprised by the panel’s decision to overhaul the order of states receiving waivers from holding their primary early in the process.
“Their argument to hang on to this 100-year-old privilege is really quite troubling to me as an African American woman because this law that they passed was passed before black people even had the right to vote,” Daughtry said. Adding was also before women had the right to vote.
Mo Elleithee, who represents the District of Columbia on the committee, tried to remind New Hampshire that the state would still be holding the second day of voting in the process.
“Even as a veteran of several New Hampshire primary elections, I have to admit that this notion that New Hampshire comes first in the nation is a bit of a fallacy,” he said. “New Hampshire was historically the second largest in the nation behind Iowa. That was his role.”
Elleithee said he understands that Iowa is technically a caucus and that New Hampshire state law requires the state’s primary election to be the first of its kind, though he questioned the distinction.
“Let’s face it… it was considered the second largest competition in the nation,” Elleithee said. “Based on our proposal, it’s still the second largest competition in the nation. We have maintained the tradition that New Hampshire has asked us to uphold.”
vote in December
The DNC Rules & Bylaws Panel voted in December to change the order and states obtained special permits to hold primary elections earlier in the year, moving slightly away from the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
In the new 2024 lineup, South Carolina would vote first on February 6, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire on February 13, Georgia on February 20, and Michigan on February 27.
President Joe Biden, who won a primary in South Carolina in 2020, had requested that the party’s presidential nomination process be postponed.
The changes were largely unanimously approved, although Scott Brennan of Iowa and Dowdell voted against the new main calendar.
Election officials in several states and in Iowa have dismissed the decision, saying they simply won’t change if the state holds its primary. Iowa and New Hampshire also have state laws requiring them to vote before other states, which complicates matters.
Minyon Moore, co-chair of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, said during Wednesday’s meeting that the panel remains “firmly committed to seeing Biden’s vision for primary progress in 2024.”
“We want to make sure states have as much time as they need to work through this process,” Moore said.
“South Carolina, Nevada and Michigan have completed all of their waiver requirements to our satisfaction,” she noted. “New Hampshire and Georgia continue to work on their progress. Albeit for different reasons, but we remain committed to seeing the President’s vision, and we want to make sure states have as much time as they need to work through that process.”