Shawn Griffiths
The Dispatch ran a piece Monday titled, New Hampshire Dems Want Their ‘First in the Nation’ Primary Back. The question it asks is: Will the Democratic National Committee (DNC) restore the state’s prestigious spot as the first presidential primary of consequence?
However, the question that should be asked is: Will New Hampshire primary voters matter at all in the 2028 election cycle?
Ultimately, the results of the 2024 Democratic primary didn’t matter because President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in August and handpicked Vice President Kamala Harris to take his spot on the ticket.
This was pointed out to some extent in the Dispatch piece. It explained that both Iowa and New Hampshire lost their spots as the first two presidential preference elections in 2024 because the party wanted South Carolina to be the first consequential contest.
The thing is, New Hampshire Democrats couldn’t move their primary even if they wanted because state law requires the state to maintain its status as the first state in the nation to hold primary elections in any presidential election cycle.
These primaries, after all, are publicly funded and administered.
What the Dispatch piece fails to mention is that despite their hands being tied on the matter, the DNC punished voters in the state by declaring that their votes were “meaningless” and would not determine delegate selection no matter who won in the state.
So even before Biden dropped out, the party told New Hampshire voters that they were meaningless to the process – highlighting the reality that the parties can decide whose votes matter in presidential nomination proceedings.
And according to party leaders, this decision doesn’t have anything to do with rules. In fact, it can violate its own rules if it wants.
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley was quoted saying he is confident the DNC will restore the party’s New Hampshire primary as the first primary of consequence in 2028. He also noted that there isn’t a Democratic incumbent to add pressure to the decision.
The Dispatch piece itself says, “But 2028 will feature an open primary, with possibly several Democrats competing for the right to take on Trump’s GOP successor.”
Whether or not it is an open contest doesn’t matter. The DNC has a track record of putting its thumb on the scale in presidential contests. In fact, the party made the case that it can violate its rules to choose a nominee in response to a 2017 lawsuit brought by Bernie Sanders supporters.
The plaintiffs argued that despite the party’s internal rules that required it to remain neutral in intraparty presidential races, DNC leaders – including then Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz – took actions to give Hillary Clinton an unfair advantage.
Former Interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile confirmed collusion between the DNC and Clinton’s campaign that went so far that Clinton was able to “control the party's finances, strategy, and all the money raised” in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC.
This agreement was signed in 2015 before any nomination contest took place.
The courts recognized that the DNC treated voters unfairly in the 2016 election. However, the lawsuit brought against it was dismissed as it was ruled that the party was a private organization and the courts were not the proper venue to resolve plaintiffs’ grievances.
It’s not just the Democratic Party. Both major political parties in the US can engage in such machinations that decide which votes count and which votes don’t, and what strategies will give their preferred candidate the edge – regardless of what voters think.
IVN has covered this matter extensively over the last decade, including all the ways the Republican and Democratic Parties have written election rules to exclusively benefit them.
Back in 2016, Republican National Committeeman Curly Haugland made the case that the RNC’s rules have always protected the rights of pledged delegates to vote their conscience if they disagree with a primary’s results.
In 2024, the DNC refused to hold debates, place candidates on the ballot, and hold some primary elections even though there were credible challengers to Biden’s nomination -- who again ended up dropping out of the race.
The RNC did the same thing in 2020 to protect Trump.
The presidential nomination process has always been about what the parties want, even though in the last few election cycles it has led to the most unpopular general election candidates in the history of public opinion polling in the US.
No matter which party presents itself as the champion of election integrity or democracy – democracy has never been the point. This raises the question, whose votes will actually matter in the 2028 presidential election?