Democrats are set to make South Carolina its first 2028 primary state.
The Democrat National Committee panel on Friday voted to make South Carolina – a state with a large black voting bloc, their first presidential primary state.
“So they will emerge as the first contest in a body of work that will have a plethora of good contests for these candidates to really vie for,” the panel said.
This is a major shift away from Iowa and Nevada – states with fewer black voters.
Democratic National Committee panel votes for South Carolina to hold the first 2028 presidential primary contest: “So they will emerge as the first contest in a body of work that will have a plethora of good contests for these candidates to really vie for.” pic.twitter.com/zK89PyZF9z
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 24, 2026
Recall that Joe Biden pushed for the Democrats to move its first voting state to South Carolina because that is where he made his ‘come back’ in 2020.
Joe Biden requested the change going into the 2024 election after he took a punch to the gut in Iowa and came in 5th place in the New Hampshire 2020 primaries.
Kamala Harris will benefit from this since she is leading in some 2028 polls in a matchup against California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Politico reported:
Democrats voted to make South Carolina their first presidential primary state for 2028 — a significant shift from past election cycles, and one that prioritizes a state with a significant Black voting bloc.
The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted Friday to make the Palmetto State the first contest in the 2028 primary calendar.
The decision to choose South Carolina over Nevada, another historic early state in contention for first place, came down in part to concerns about Nevada’s ability to process election results quickly.
Democrats said they were also looking to strengthen Black voting power in the South after the Supreme Court significantly restricted the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, which triggered redistricting efforts.
Michigan bested Iowa in the vote to be the Midwest’s early state, meaning Iowa will not be an early state in 2028 after leading the calendar for decades through 2020. New Hampshire, which has gone second on the nominating calendar in most past cycles, finished a distant third in voting to be Democrats’ first primary state.
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