Dem
47
GOP
53
Alexander O'Neill, writing for Slate, has a very interesting idea. He suggests that the first primary on the Democrats' calendar in 2028 should be... Washington, DC.
There are, broadly speaking, four strong arguments for moving D.C. to the head of the line. The first is that its demographics are a much better match for the Democratic Party than any of the other "early" states. What are the blue team's most important constituencies? We would say that the top three, in some order, are Black voters, women and college-educated people. Well, D.C. is 43.4% Black (considerably Blacker than South Carolina) and 52.6% women. And among people 25 or older, 64.2% have at least a bachelor's degree. As a bonus, about 15% of D.C. residents are veterans, and about the same percentage are immigrants. The District has a sizable population of wealthy people, while 17% of residents are living below the poverty line.
Second, there are logistical advantages to making D.C. the key early primary. To start with, a lot of the people running for president are already living and working there. It is true that a sitting U.S. Senator would benefit a lot more from this than a sitting California governor, but... that's also true with New Hampshire, which is far closer to the Capital than to the Golden State. D.C. is also relatively compact and is well-served by public transit, which makes it much more efficient to campaign in than, say, Iowa. The Democratic Party says that it doesn't want money to dictate its nominee; well, D.C. campaigning is going to be cheaper. Plus, think of the messaging opportunities. A candidate could hold one kind of event at the Lincoln Memorial, and a very different kind of event at the Arc de Trump. How many sites in New Hampshire offer that kind of opportunity? We don't seem to recall too many campaign events held at the Franklin Pierce Homestead.
Third, everyone knows that D.C. is getting the shaft, statehood-wise and representation-wise, because the GOP doesn't want to grant the Democrats two more senators. This would make up for that, on some level. Certainly, D.C. is more worthy of having an outsized role in the nomination process than any of the 50 states that DO get representation in Congress.
And finally, everyone also knows that New Hampshire has a state law that says that its primary must be held "7 days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election." And the New Hampshirites have shown they'll do whatever it takes to defend their place in line. However, one exception to the New Hampshire law is caucuses. Since those are not primaries, they don't trigger the New Hampshire law. This is why Iowa, with its badly run caucuses, is always able to be first in line. Putting D.C. before New Hampshire would, in effect, exploit a different loophole. The D.C. event would be a primary, but... D.C. is not a state. Reread the law, and it's clear that New Hampshire might be unhappy, but they can't claim their rule has been violated.
The biggest obstacle here is that anything D.C. does is subject to Congressional review. If D.C. tries to move its primary (and if the DNC told the deep-blue city council to do it, they surely would), then the decision could be canceled by a joint resolution from both chambers of Congress, and the signature of the president.
O'Neill spends a fair bit of verbiage arguing that Republicans in Congress might not actually object. We are skeptical, if for no other reason than objecting would be a form of rat**cking. As we note above, there could be a critical mass of Senate Republicans not interested in doing Trump's bidding anymore. So, they might withhold support for a resolution just to poke him in the eye. But, we doubt it.
However, we don't actually think that is an issue. If the Democrats did want to do this, then all they really have to do is wait until January 3, 2027. At that point, the blue team will likely control at least one chamber of Congress. In that case, there will be no resolution. Alternatively, if push came to shove, the Democrats could decide that D.C. will have a caucus rather than a primary. Parties are welcome to hold their own caucuses as they see fit. And while the Democrats don't love paying for something like that, it's way cheaper when it covers an area of 68 square miles, as opposed to 56,272 square miles (Iowa).
Incidentally, moving D.C. to the front of the line would make zero sense for Republicans. There are only about 2,000 registered members of the Party in the entire district, and they aren't remotely representative of the larger party. However, there's also no reason that the two parties need to have the same exact schedule for primaries and caucuses. In fact, they already have differential schedules for some states. This would just be a differential schedule at the very front of the line.
Obviously, this is an idea that we think is seriously worth considering. We pass it along because many readers may feel the same (or, alternatively, may decide that we, and O'Neill, are off our rockers). (Z)