One hesitates to suggest that the process is beginning, but political actors in New Hampshire are continuing the process of defending the Granite state's first-in-the-nation presidential primary for the 2024 cycle. Typically one of the few bipartisan items in some of the early calendar states is that the state parties are on the same page when it comes to preserving their early and privileged positions on the presidential primary calendar.
That is why it has been so notable that there has not been unity on the topic in Iowa across parties much less within the Democratic Party of Iowa in particular. But in New Hampshire, how the state plays the game of primary defense is a bit different. For all of the talk of the state parties and what they may do in maintaining the status quo, the decision on the presidential primary date ultimately lies with Secretary of State Bill Gardner (D). State law places the presidential primary date-setting power squarely in Gardner's domain and he has been adept over the last nearly half century in waiting out all challengers and scheduling the Granite state primary at the front of the queue.
But that does not mean that the state parties in New Hampshire have no recourse, no role to play. While Gardner has probably the most effective tool at his disposal, it is one that is typically wielded late in the invisible primary process. The state parties, on the other hand, fill a void earlier in the that sequence, serving as liaisons to the national parties. That process is happening anew for 2024 now. And to the extent the two state parties can act in concert (with respect to presidential primary positioning), the better the united front message will potentially play with the national parties, the player in all of this that crafts and sets the rules that guide the nomination process and how the states and state parties act within it.
So, whereas Iowa may not be presenting the usual united front, it looks as if feelers are being sent out between the parties in New Hampshire in order to save first-in-the-nation status there for another cycle. At-large DNC member, Joanne Dowdell (NH) recently pledged to work with and within the DNC and with Granite state Republicans to keep the status quo as it has been for more than a century in New Hampshire.
But there is a process to all of that. And although Dowdell in an address to the New Hampshire Democratic Party state committee recently noted that new DNC chair, Jaime Harrison, will choose members for the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee who will be ratified in a September national party meeting, that is not where the calendar machination begin for 2024. In fact, they began remotely coming out of the 2020 Democratic National Convention last August. It was there that a report on the 2020 nomination process was commissioned. And that report is due at the end of March.
That report is likely key for how New Hampshire (and Iowa for that matter) will approach any attempted defense of their status for 2024. If the report calls for change at the beginning of the calendar in an effort to diversify the early calendar electorate to bring it more in line with the Democratic primary electorate, then the approach will be different than if the report is silent on the matter. New Hampshire (and Iowa) would react differently based on that. Representatives on the DNC from those states would interact differently with their fellow DNC members on the DNCRBC. Now yes, Chair Harrison does have some latitude with respect to who gets named to the RBC, but that is a second order concern at this point behind that 2020 autopsy. Membership on the RBC matters -- and Iowa and New Hampshire will have representation there -- but it will be colored by the forthcoming report.
For now, however, that New Hampshirites of both parties are continuing to band together in defense of first-in-the-nation status is not as surprising as it is typical. But it contrasts with what is happening in Iowa for now.
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