“Iowa is the center of the political universe right now,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said confidently on Saturday. “Energy, excitement and enthusiasm exists all across our state.”
It’s the sort of statement almost guaranteed to trigger applause at a meeting of Iowa Democrats, but Hart was speaking at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) meeting in Austin, Texas, and her confidence in Iowa’s place in the political universe did not move the large crowd of DNC delegates, who had their own concerns and had just been through media cycles of intense focus on Democratic politics in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Hart was speaking before the committee’s final vote on the primary schedule for 2028. According to the schedule approved on Saturday, five states have permission to hold primaries before the multiple primaries on Super Tuesday. Iowa is not one of those states.
South Carolina was selected as the first state in the primary calendar, and will hold its primary on Jan. 22, 2028. It will be followed by Nevada on Feb. 1, New Hampshire on Feb. 8, New Mexico on Feb. 15, Michigan on Feb. 22 and Virginia on Feb. 29.
Hart spoke after DNC Chair Ken Martin opened the floor to comment on the calendar.
“Iowa is not happy with the calendar, and they will be voting — we will be voting ‘no’ today,” Hart said.
The IDP chair said she appreciated the work “that individual [Rules and Bylaws Committee] members put into this calendar,” which Martin had explained involved nine meetings in 10 months to produce “a comprehensive report” backed by 70 pages of documents.
“Unfortunately, this calendar fundamentally misses the mark,” Hart told the delegates. “It’s a product of broken promises and it excludes huge swaths of the country and the voters that Democrats need to win the kind of majorities it takes to restore democratic principles and reject this misguided and corrupt Trump administration.”
She did not cite any broken promises in her speech, but has in the past referred to Martin replacing members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, including Iowa’s representative on the committee, as a violation of Martin’s pledge that the process for determining the calendar would be an “open process.” Speaking earlier, Martin has stressed that the nine committee meetings that produced the calendar had been open for input from all DNC members. Representatives from Iowa did speak at those meetings.
“In 2023, I stood before this committee and warned that the 2024 calendar was not feasible, would not stand and it ignored Middle America,” Hart continued. “Today, I share a similar warning. The 2028 calendar has no representation of states with a majority of Central or Mountain time zones. And no Midwest state is among the first four.”
Of course, the 2024 primary process was ultimately meaningless because of Joe Biden’s determination to run for a second term, followed by a quick party affirmation of Kamala Harris as the nominee after Biden dropped out.
Hart’s stated objections to this year’s calendar are narrowed in a more or less deliberate manner. It’s true no Midwestern state is among the first four, but Michigan is fifth, going one week after fourth place New Hampshire. And New Hampshire may not be able to fill its slot, since its state constitution requires its primary to be the first in the nation. If New Hampshire can’t fill its slot, Michigan will be fourth.
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley released a statement on Saturday calling the new primary calendar “disappointing,” but did not indicate what his state’s party might do.
Hart’s point about time zones is only partially correct. Among the early states, only the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is in the Central Time Zone, but all of New Mexico is in the Mountain Time Zone.
Hart pointed out, as Iowa representatives to the DNC have pointed out continually since Iowa lost its first-in-the-nation caucus status in 2024, that Iowa’s Republican caucus maintains its first-in-the-nation status. It was not a persuasive argument in the last presidential election cycle, and it was equally unpersuasive on Saturday.
Speaking from the floor after Hart, a delegate from West Virginia — not one of the early states — said the new calendar addresses rural voters, even without Iowa.
“One thing I want to lift up about this calendar is it invites the presidential candidates to come to the heart of central Appalachia, to southwestern Virginia… [to] the heart of coal fields,” he said. “And when they do that, they’re going to speak not only to those voters, but voters in West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, western Pennsylvania, southeastern Ohio, western Maryland voters… I just think it’s so commendable and it should be lifted up that that’s something this map is doing, and I hope it will pay dividends regionally for our party.”
He was followed by now-first-in-the-nation South Carolina, who, unsurprisingly praised the calendar.
“It shows the Democrats know the road to the White House is through the Deep South. It is through Black and brown communities, the people who are under attack and it is showing that we are going to center those folks and uplift those communities and uplift those issues. And so for all… New Mexico, Michigan and South Carolina going first gives us the runway to put more states in this window, and we’re proud of this work,” she said, as the audience applauded.
Those points were elaborated on by the next speaker, Silvia Martinez, a DNC member from Washington D.C.
“For the first time that I have been in this party, we are representing not just our Democratic coalition, but this country in the strength of its diversity,” Martinez said. “… As a Latina, I could not be prouder, because for the first time we are putting our money where our mouths are. For the first time I feel seen, I feel represented. We’re going to have not just two states that represent the Latino community, but every single state in this calendar represent not only the Latino community, but it represents the Black community, labor, rural, urban, everything and everywhere we need — every single voter, every coalition, every community that we need to speak to, that our nominee needs to.”
Martinez added, “And the thing that I love most about this calendar is that there couldn’t be more of an ‘eff you’ and middle finger to the Republican Party and the Trump administration … and how they have completely disrespected and disregarded the voters that we know to be so core to our country and to the Democratic Party.”
After Martinez concluded, DNC Chair Martin called three times for anyone else who wanted to speak in opposition to the calendar to come to the microphone to address the meeting. No did. Hart was the only person to speak in opposition to the calendar and its accompanying rules packet.
Iowa State Code calls for the major political parties to hold caucus before any state’s primary or caucus. The IDP worked around that in 2024, by holding caucuses for party business as the law required, but using mail-in ballots for choosing presidential nominees. As long as the vote total wasn’t revealed before Super Tuesday, the DNC allowed it. New Hampshire, on the other hand, just went ahead with its early primary on Jan. 23, ignoring the rules that stated states going early would lose 50 percent of their delegates to the Democratic National Convention. There was a state-run primary on Jan. 23, but there was also a party-run primary later on April 27 – post-Super Tuesday, as DNC rules required and the national party recognized the results of the second primary election, which President Biden won. (Ultimately, because of the unprecedented nature of the 2024 Democratic Party presidential nominating process, with Biden quitting the race in July after winning every primary, none of the primaries mattered.)
In the next presidential election cycle, the penalties for defying the DNC-approved calendar will be more severe than 2024. The rules approved Saturday call for an unapproved state going early to lose all its delegates to the Democratic National Convention, and open the offending state party to the possibility of a fine of $270,000. A presidential candidate participating in an unauthorized early primary would become ineligible for DNC-sponsored candidate debates. The new rules also state that the DNC cannot waive or rescind those penalties during the 2028 election cycle.
Some IDP leaders, elected officials and candidates have called for the party to defy the DNC and hold its caucus before the first sanctioned primary. The IDP has not yet said what its plans are.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated since it was originally published to correct its description of the series of events in the 2024 New Hampshire primaries.
