South Carolina is on the verge of becoming the first stop on the 2028 Democratic nominating calendar.
The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee gave South Carolina the nod after 26 of its members voted Friday to have the Palmetto State lead off the presidential primary voting.
Nevada received 19 votes, and New Hampshire, which has a state law mandating it hold the first presidential primary, picked up four votes.
The committee was finalizing the rest of the early stops on the calendar, which will include Nevada, New Hampshire and Michigan.
The full DNC will have the final say on the panel’s recommendations next month.
South Carolina was thought to have the upper hand in the battle after helping revive Joe Biden’s presidential bid in the 2020 primary. Mr. Biden returned the favor by pushing South Carolina to be the first primary state in what proved to be a messy 2024 primary season.
The early states will once again wield outsize influence, helping shape the field, set the tone and define the issues that will dominate the race to choose a nominee to run as President Trump’s successor.
“The South is not the past — it is the future,” Christale Spain, chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, told colleagues before the vote. “If we are serious about changing this country, Democrats have to start winning the South.”
Her argument reflected a broader push inside the party to elevate states where Black voters are central to the coalition.
Members said South Carolina’s Black voters deserve recognition for saving the party in past elections — including in 2020, when voters there boosted Mr. Biden’s struggling campaign and put him on a path to victory over Mr. Trump.
April Verrett, president of the Service Employees International Union, said she believes South Carolina should go first in part because of the “economic exploitation that still permeates our society today — built on the fallacies of anti-blackness and White supremacy — that I believe exists in the government that is presiding over this country.”
If the full DNC signs off on the plan, the calendar would lock in the opening battleground for what’s shaping up to be a wide‑open Democratic primary — no incumbent, no clear frontrunner and plenty of candidates looking for an early breakout.
Perhaps signaling what’s to come, Jane Kleeb, a DNC vice chair, told her colleagues before the vote that the first three stops should be South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire, followed by Michigan, New Mexico and Virginia.
Nevada’s advocates made their own case for why they should be first.
Artie Blanco, a prominent labor organizer and vice chair at‑large of the DNC, said the Silver State should go first, pointing to its diverse coalition of Latino, Black, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and White working‑class voters.
“We do remain confident that Nevada offers our 2028 nominee the strongest path to victory, and starting in the West with a battleground state really kicks off the story,” she told the committee.
She also defended Nevada’s election laws, which allow mail ballots to be counted after Election Day — a process that critics say could delay final results.
That became a sticking point for others on the panel, who worried about launching the primary season with an outcome that might not be immediately clear.
Meanwhile, Joanne Dowdell, a DNC member from New Hampshire, said the Granite State should open up the process.
“What New Hampshire has done for decades is battle-test candidates through tough face-to-face conversations that no ad buy can replicate,” she said. “That process matters more now than ever.”
The debate underscored just how much the early calendar matters.
With a crowded field expected, the states that vote first will once again help determine who catches momentum, who attracts donors and who emerges as a viable contender.
It also marked the final nail in the coffin for the party’s traditional path to the nomination, which started in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Those states are primarily White, and members argued that lack of diversity hurts them.
South Carolina, meanwhile, is roughly 25% Black, and in the last contested presidential primary the electorate was 56% Black and 40% White, according to 2020 exit polls. Nevada’s 2020 Democratic electorate was 65% White, 17% Hispanic and 11% Black.
Democrats on the panel stressed that the process must unify the party.
“We are sending a message to America today that we are not business as usual — every voice matters,” said Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell. “And that voice is from the African-American community, the Hispanic community, the Jewish community, the Arab-American community and quite frankly White men, White women — everybody matters.”
