DNC adopts revamped '24 primary calendar with Michigan near front

After months of debate, the Democratic National Committee voted Saturday to place Michigan among the earliest states to cast votes for the 2024 presidential primary election ― a change intended to ensure a more diverse slate of voters is deciding the party's nominee.

During its winter meeting in Philadelphia, the body approved by voice vote a revamped order for its early state primaries, starting with South Carolina on Feb. 3, 2024; New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 6; Georgia on Feb. 13; and then Michigan on Feb. 27.

"This calendar does what is long overdue. It expands the number of voices in the early window, and it elevates diverse communities that are at the core of the Democratic Party," DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said before the vote.

"It puts Black voters at the front of the process in South Carolina. It keeps Nevada, where Latinos have been building power by lifting their voices, and New Hampshire, where we can continue the tradition of small government by and for the people at the front of the process. And it adds Michigan ― the heartland where unions built the middle class of this nation."

The move by the DNC followed a vote last week in the Democrat-controlled Michigan Legislature to change the date of Michigan's presidential primary to the fourth Tuesday in February. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the bill on Wednesday.

A panel within the DNC had endorsed the new early-state lineup in December after President Joe Biden proposed leading off with South Carolina ― the state that gave him a crucial victory in the 2020 primary after losing in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Michigan would go fifth among the state primaries under the new calendar, rather than its current date on the second Tuesday in March, which has traditionally followed about a dozen other states on the presidential nominating calendar.

The reshaped calendar might not matter much in 2024 if Biden runs for reelection, but the move is still significant in effectively breaking with decades of traditional deference to Iowa and New Hampshire as the leadoff states.

The DNC began a process last year of reopening the primary calendar and letting interested states apply for an early spot, drawing bids from 20 states including Michigan.

Michigan Democrats pitched the state as more diverse and reflective of the country at large than Iowa and New Hampshire. In addition to racial and cultural diversity, Michigan has both industrial urban centers with manufacturing and more rural agricultural areas than many other states, they argued. 

"We are overdue in changing this primary calendar to ensure it reflects the range of ideas, thoughts and hopes of Americans throughout this country," U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, told DNC members in Philadelphia Saturday. "By voting for this primary calendar, we will establish a presidential nominating process that truly reflects the diversity of all America."

Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes said it was a dream of the late U.S. Sen. Carl Levin's to move Michigan up in the primary calendar: "That dream is now set to become a reality."

"Throughout this process, we made the case that our state is a place that picks presidents," Barnes said in a statement, adding that the presidential nominating process will now reflect the nation's diversity "and Michiganders' voices will be heard."

Biden in a December message to the DNC also stressed the importance of ensuring that working-class families and union households are represented among the voters of the earliest states to cast ballots.

In the contested bid to represent the Midwest in the early-state window, Michigan ultimately won out over Minnesota, Illinois and other states. The effort won the support of Michigan's agriculture community, former Republican officials and chambers of commerce.

Republican lawmakers in Lansing opposed the bill to move up Michigan's primary, saying it would disenfranchise the GOP. Rep. Ann Bollin, R-Brighton Township, called it a "self-serving political stunt" that placed political parties above other priorities for residents across the state.

"Picking states off one by one to structure to an individual candidate’s advantage is dishonest, disingenuous and disenfranchising," Bollin said last week.

Republicans have warned that the Republican National Committee could penalize Michigan for jumping the line by reducing its voting delegates at the 2024 GOP nominating convention by about 80%.

The RNC unanimously voted last year to maintain the early state order of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada as its four early voting states. RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel of Michigan panned the DNC's action Saturday.

"The DNC has decided to break a half-century precedent and cause chaos by altering their primary process, and ultimately abandoning millions of Americans in Iowa and New Hampshire," McDaniel said in a statement.

When Michigan and Florida held early primaries in 2008, the RNC cut Michigan's delegates by half, and the DNC initially stripped the states of their delegates before reversing course just before the convention.

Under the requirements of a DNC rules committee, the Michigan Democratic Party was required to certify by Feb. 1 that "any such necessary statutory or regulatory changes have been made" to move up the state's primary date.

But how the actual 2024 primary calendar will shake out is uncertain, particularly amid resistance to the new lineup from New Hampshire, where neither Democratic nor Republican leaders want to cede their first-in-the-nation primary that's written into a 1975 state law.

Georgia and New Hampshire both secured an extension until June 3 from DNC officials last month for additional time needed to enact changes required by the committee's rulemaking arm. Given those two state extensions, DNC member Scott Brennan from Iowa, warned his colleagues Saturday that the committee was setting up a 2024 primary calendar that wouldn't be settled until the "last hour."

"I would be remiss if I did not say we are creating a situation of continued uncertainty that will drag on throughout 2023," said Brennan, former chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. "We can vote on this calendar. We can approve this calendar. But we will leave here with absolutely nothing settled."

It's also unclear whether Michigan's new date would actually go into effect by the Feb. 27, 2024, presidential primary.

The Michigan Constitution requires bills to take effect 90 days after the end of the legislative session unless two-thirds of the lawmakers in each chamber vote to give them "immediate effect."

If Michigan Democrats can't get support from enough Republican senators to give the bill immediate effect, Democratic leaders would have to adjourn the session early in November for the law to take effect by Feb. 27, 2024.

mburke@detroitnews.com

Staff writers Craig Mauger and Beth LeBlanc contributed.