The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has approved significant changes to the 2028 presidential primary calendar in an effort to better align with the party’s key constituencies, according to Al Jazeera. The decision was made during a meeting in Austin, Texas, where DNC members voted to restructure the order of early primary states.

South Carolina to Lead the Race

South Carolina will once again hold the first official Democratic primary on January 22, 2028; the state has a significant Black population, with census estimates indicating that roughly a quarter of the state’s population identifies as Black.

Nevada will follow on February 1, 2028, with New Hampshire on February 8, but New Mexico, Michigan, and Virginia will round out the early primary states in February. These changes formalise a shift that began during the 2024 presidential election cycle.

Efforts to Reflect Diversity

The new calendar aims to give greater influence to states with more racial diversity, according to the report; Nevada and New Mexico, for example, have large Latino or Hispanic populations, with 31 percent and 49 percent of their residents identifying as such, respectively.

DNC Chairman Ken Martin highlighted the changes on social media, stating that the selected states reflect the diversity of America, while Martin wrote that the changes would help ensure the party’s nominee is best positioned to win the White House in 2028.

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who led the DNC from 2005 to 2009, told The Associated Press that the calendar changes will create a more representative nominating process. Dean noted that states like South Carolina and Nevada are more reflective of the country’s demographic makeup than Iowa and New Hampshire.

Ongoing Debate and Intra-Party Dynamics

The debate over changing the primary calendar has been contentious in the past; In 2024, local leaders in New Hampshire defied party leaders by holding a state-run primary ahead of the first party-led vote in South Carolina. New Hampshire officials cited a state law requiring their primary to be the first in the nation as justification.

Iowa Democrats have also raised concerns about moving the state lower in the primary calendar, warning that it could send the wrong signal to rural voters who often feel overlooked in national politics and tend to lean rightward.

Some experts speculate that the calendar changes could affect the growing intra-party feud between progressive and moderate candidates; Michigan, one of the states receiving a boost in the new calendar, recently selected progressive Abdul El-Sayed as its Senate nominee. This has led to speculation that the swing state could help progressives assert greater influence over the party.

However, other states in the 2028 lineup have a more moderate streak, but South Carolina, for instance, favoured Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries over his more progressive opponents, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Boyd Brown, a former DNC member from South Carolina, told AP that primary voters in the northern states are likely different from those in South Carolina.

Here is the full list of the six states that will have the first say in the Democrats’ 2028 presidential primaries: South Carolina on January 22, 2028; Nevada on February 1, 2028; New Hampshire on February 8, 2028; New Mexico on February 15, 2028; Michigan on February 22, 2028; and Virginia on February 29, 2028.