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

A handful of DNC members, particularly those representing states that participated in the current early window, did voice polite pushback, belying the fury that Biden’s plan prompted Thursday night from a range of early state elected officials.

Artie Blanco, who represents Nevada, requested a “slight adjustment” to the plan, suggesting that South Carolina move its date to Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024, a weekend election day that South Carolina has honored in the past, thereby allowing Nevada to jump ahead of New Hampshire and hold its contest on Feb. 6.

New Hampshire, meanwhile, only lightly echoed the comments of its elected officials, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, who expressed anger and disappointment at Biden’s proposal.

Dowdell, who represents New Hampshire on the committee, emphasized that her state does “have a law, and we will not be breaking our law,” hinting that New Hampshire may ignore the DNC’s new mandates and hold its own unsanctioned primary.

“That is really the position of New Hampshire — we will not be breaking our law,” Dowdell said. “And that’s my comment.”

Suggestions that states might still opt to hold their own unsanctioned primaries were also met with some pushback. Mo Elleithee, another DNC member, said that “the way we empowered the DNC to enforce the decisions we are going to make today” will have “more teeth” than past punishments for out-of-order states.

Earlier this year, the DNC voted to strengthen penalty power over states that jump ahead in line. Not only will they automatically lose half their delegates, the DNC will also punish the candidates who choose to campaign in rogue states.

Democrats also broadly empowered the national party chair to take any other “appropriate steps” to enforce the new early window.

Iowa is not going quietly, either. Brennan, a longtime Democratic operative from Iowa, said he could not support the president’s proposal, arguing that by eliminating a rural, Midwestern state, Democrats were “creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of electoral failure” in that part of the country.

He also said that the DNC rules committee may “vote on this calendar, but we will leave here with nothing settled,” alluding to the logistical challenges that still lie between concept and reality for this plan.

Some DNC members raised concerns about clustering the first three early states so closely together, separated by four days, arguing that it would affect the traditional retail politics of the early window.

“By having three states, one on top of the other, I think causes a little bit of conflict for candidates trying to vie for the attention, get name recognition and also raise money,” Dowdell said.

But aside from some discontent from current early states, the committee broadly backed Biden’s plan. American Federation of Teachers union president Randi Weingarten cast South Carolina’s first place slot as “a message about representation,” while Elaine Kamarck, who wrote a book about the primary process, noted that after South Carolina, “the other four states, every single one, is a swing state.”

“This is a good template for the future,” she said.

DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, who attended the meeting, also called the proposed early window a reflection “of the diversity of our party” and “a more equitable and accessible nomination process that puts our candidates in the best position to win.” Harrison is the former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party.

But David McDonald, another longtime DNC member, did raise light concerns that the committee’s introduction of large states, including Michigan and Georgia, could “effectively [create] a bias toward certain kinds of candidates,” particularly those who enter a presidential primaries with significant financial resources, which would allow them to compete more effectively in expensive media markets.