Democrats Pick a State to Vote First in 2028

South Carolina has leapfrogged to the front of the Democratic presidential line again. The Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee on Friday voted to make the state the first primary contest in 2028, elevating a place with a large Black electorate and sidelining some of the party's longtime early states, Politico reports. Joe Biden put the state at the start of the primary calendar in 2024 after it helped rescue his 2020 campaign, reports the AP. South Carolina, long the first state in the South to hold primaries, had been locked in a contest with Nevada over who would go first in 2028.

Nevada lost out amid worries about its ability to report results quickly. Democrats said the move was also an effort to bolster Black voting strength in the South after the Supreme Court narrowed the Voting Rights Act this year.

• "Black voters didn't just show up for this party in 2020. They saved us," Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb said in support of South Carolina during debate Friday, per the AP. "They saved our entire country from Donald Trump." DNC Vice Chair Artie Blanco and other Nevada supporters argued that Latino voters are key to the party's future and that Nevada, unlike South Carolina, is a swing state. "We are the battleground state," Blanco said. "We win elections because we leave no voter untouched."

Michigan won the Midwestern early-state slot over Iowa, which had a decades-long run at the front of the calendar before the 2020 debacle. New Hampshire, historically second, finished a distant third in the competition to go first. Republicans, meanwhile, haven't set their calendar yet but they are expected to stick with Iowa first and New Hampshire second.