Democrats open presidential primary calendar, give Michigan chance to move up

Michigan Democrats, who for decades argued their state should be one of the first to vote for the party's nominee for president, will get their chance to make the case again.

Only this time, it's a wide-open race for everyone.

On Wednesday evening, the party's national Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to toss the existing calendar — which has seen Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada go first in recent election years — in favor of letting them and any other interested states apply to be among the early-state nominating contests.

Politico and the Des Moines Register were among those reporting the change, with Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses perhaps most likely to be moved out of the order.

Michigan is known to be among those states interested in joining the early-state roster, with U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, part of a group that has been leading the effort. Years ago, it was her fellow Democratic National Committee member, the late Sen. Carl Levin, who insisted Michigan was more representative of the nation as a whole and should go earlier than some of those other states.

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That push hasn't always turned out for the best: In 2008, Michigan and Florida unilaterally moved themselves out of the party's preferred order and wound up seeing their votes — which had gone to Hillary Clinton — cut in half as a result after it became clear Barack Obama would win the party's nomination.

Dingell said late Wednesday that she was making the push for Michigan to be among the early states on Levin's behalf and that she was talking to "all of the stakeholders about what we're going to do next."

She declined to name who those people might be. But it's certain that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and state Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes are on the list.

"No state should have a lock on going first. Every state, every region should have the opportunity to have the candidates visit them," Dingell said. "In Michigan, we have urban areas and rural areas, manufacturing and farming, we have (diversity). ... The state of Michigan has studied this issue, we have a rich history of being invested in it. And now we're going to roll up our sleeves and go to work."

And why not? Media attention and campaign spending focus squarely on each early state, with prospective nominees crisscrossing them at times months in advance and giving those states' voters an outsize role in which candidates catch momentum.

What's not clear is whether the Democratic National Committee will, in the end, expand the number of early states from four to five — which is being talked about — or replace any of the current four, since tradition has them as the first four to vote.

Iowa has clearly been a target among many critics of the nominating calendar, however, in part because it is the only one of the states that uses a complicated caucus process, rather than a straightforward vote. Then there is also the fallout from 2020 when it struggled to name a winner with questions about the accuracy of the caucuses.

As the Des Moines Register reported, the final resolution didn't outright bar caucuses from being among the first contests but said the committee would consider whether a state can hold “a fair, transparent and inclusive nominating process.” Measures of the population's diversity and its overall competitiveness are expected to play a role as well.

New Jersey is also said to be looking at entering the early-state sweepstakes. With the committee opening up the application process, it is possible many others will consider looking into it. But there are certain to be hurdles, too: Iowa law says its caucuses will be before any other state's nominating process; New Hampshire law says its primary must come before any other state primary.

And many other states have their presidential primary dates set by statute — Michigan's is required to be on the second Tuesday in March. If the application were accepted, it would require the Republican-led Legislature to agree to change that date.

National Republicans are not looking to upend Iowa's spot in the order, for what it's worth. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Michigan Republicans might not want to go earlier, given the attention it would put on the state.

It's also worth noting that a certain Michigan Republican — Republican National Committee Chairman Ronna McDaniel — might play a role, too.

As reported, the Rules and Bylaws Committee vote will give states until May 6 to provide the DNC a letter of intent to be followed by a formal application to be one of the early states by June 3. Presentations to the DNC would be made and then there would be six weeks before recommendations on an early-state nominating calendar would be made, to be followed by a vote of the full DNC.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan could be one of early Democratic nominating states