Scott Brennan, a longtime Democratic operative from Iowa, said he could not support the president’s proposal.
Nathan Howard/AP Photo

In Georgia, the DNC must work with Republican-controlled state legislatures and governors to change the dates of their primaries. The Republican National Committee, which has an open presidential nominating contest in 2024, voted this year to affirm its current early-state lineup of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

Meanwhile, New Hampshire state law gives election officials the power to make sure its presidential primary is the first in the nation — and the DNC’s traditional method of punishment for breaking ranks, withholding delegates, would hold less weight in a state whose political stature has never stemmed from the small number of convention delegates it gets. Democratic elected officials from New Hampshire reacted furiously to the plan on Thursday, pledging to continue holding the nation’s first Democratic presidential primary.

Nonetheless, DNC rules committee co-chair Minyon Moore called Biden’s plan it “a window worth fighting for.”

Friday’s meeting brings to a close months of public and private lobbying of Democratic leaders from states interested in the prestige and clout that comes with an early presidential primary.

It effectively ended the hopes of Iowa maintaining its first-place seat, after its 2020 caucus debacle piled on top of intense scrutiny for its predominantly white population. Biden’s support for Michigan also closed off early-state hopes for Minnesota, another Midwestern state. Democratic Farmers-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin essentially conceded his effort Thursday night, according to several sources who attended the private meeting.

The DNC reopened its presidential nominating process earlier this year, after it came under increasing pressure inside and outside the party to diversify the slate of early states and to prioritize competing in general election battleground states. And in Biden’s recommendations, he also called on the committee to review the early nominating process every four years, a signal from the White House that it does not want states to have a lock on the coveted positions.

The proposal passed by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee will go before the full DNC for a vote in early 2023.

Committee member Donna Brazile speaks in favor of proposed changes to the primary system during a Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, Dec. 2, 2022, in Washington.