In 2022, President Joe Biden put his thumb on the scale to award South Carolina with the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, foiling Nevada Democrats’ bid to jump to the front of the presidential nominating calendar.

With both Biden and Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Jaime Harrison on the way out, Nevada Democrats are now restarting their campaign, arguing in a memo Thursday that the next chair should elevate Nevada to first-in-the-nation status come 2028. The DNC chose Nevada to go second in 2024.

As in 2022, state Democrats argue that Nevada is the only state that meets the DNC’s professed preferences for a state that is racially and economically diverse, politically competitive and feasible for candidates and the party, both from a cost and technical competence perspective. Given Democratic losses in 2024 with Latino voters and working class voters, state party Chair Daniele Monroe-Moreno wrote that the DNC should elevate a state that possesses those kinds of voters in droves.

“If Democrats want to win back working class voters and rebuild our broad coalition of voters of color, we should elevate the most working class and most diverse battleground state in the nation to be the first presidential preference primary for the 2028 cycle,” Monroe-Moreno said. “Nevada is the battleground state that best reflects our growing nation and the Democratic Party cannot afford to let overwhelmingly college-educated, white, or less competitive states start the process of winnowing the field again in 2028.”

The letter’s emergence, published as the Association of State Democratic Committees meets for the first time since the November election, comes ahead of the upcoming DNC chair election on Feb. 1 — the first opportunity for Democrats to turn the page on the Biden era. The winning candidate will need a simple majority of the 448 voting members of the DNC — a bloc that includes six Nevadans.

The best way to stress-test a Democratic presidential candidate’s appeal among the target voting blocs is to give those voters the first crack at selecting the candidate, the memo argues. More than 20 percent of Nevada voters are Latino, and the state as a whole is majority-minority. More than 70 percent of Nevadans over 25 do not have a college degree. And a relatively high percentage of Nevada’s workers are union members — a key Democratic constituency whose party loyalty has eroded over the years. 

“All of [those demographics are] really important criteria that I think the DNC should be looking at [to determine] who can best narrow down these candidates and reflect how the country feels,” said Tanner Hale, who as Nevada’s DNC committeeman will be among the voters selecting the next DNC chair. 

Buoyed by his strength with non-college educated voters and Latinos, Trump won both the national popular vote and Nevada, becoming the first Republican to win the state in 20 years. Nevada Democrats say it’s even further evidence that the Silver State should be first — and that elevating its position in the calendar will bring the resources needed to flip the state back to blue.

“Nevada is the most consistently competitive battleground state in the country,” the memo says, noting that both senators won their races by small margins in the past two cycles. “Early organizing and Democratic voter registration in the primary is a down payment for winning here in November.”

If Nevada Democrats are successful in moving to the front of the nominating calendar this time around, the state’s Democratic elected officials, power brokers and party allies — chief among them the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 — would have enormous influence in picking the front-runner. And the state would see an even greater influx of political attention, visits and spending.

How we got here

Throughout 2022, the DNC weighed the possibility of re-ordering the traditional pre-Super Tuesday slate of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — in that order — because of mounting concerns over Iowa’s status as a predominantly white state that has become solidly red over the past several election cycles.

Nevada Democrats, including top elected officials, pitched the state as an alternative to Iowa both publicly and privately — including passage of a 2021 law moving the state from a caucus to a primary and moving its date up to the first Tuesday in February, with the explicit goal of leapfrogging Iowa to become the first nominating contest in the nation.

But in December 2023, Biden pushed to make South Carolina — the first state he won en route to the nomination in 2020, after an endorsement from the state’s kingmaker, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), changed the course of the race — first. South Carolina moved to the front, while Nevada was elevated to second along with New Hampshire, and Iowa was dropped entirely.

While Nevada’s bid for 2024 ultimately failed, new circumstances — including the lack of a sitting president and a desire to course-correct after 2024 — could change the outcome. And while the 2024 Democratic presidential primaries were little more than a formality to renominate Biden, the 2028 calendar order — with a wide-open presidential field — will be far more consequential.

What comes next

Several of DNC chair candidates have ties to Nevada — former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley campaigned for president in the state in 2016; strategist Chuck Rocha engineered Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) Latino strategy in Nevada’s 2020 Democratic caucus. 

A pair of Midwestern state party chairs — Minnesota’s Ken Martin and Wisconsin’s Ben Wikler — are expected to be the most competitive candidates. Martin — who appears to be the front-runner —  traveled with Monroe-Moreno and other Democrats during their “Kitchen Table Tour” over the summer, visiting all 17 Nevada counties. 

Whoever emerges as chair will oversee the process to set the 2028 calendar — which is why Nevada’s voting DNC members are planning to gauge the chair candidates’ interest in elevating Nevada — and vote accordingly.

“We want a chair that understands that Nevada being first in the nation is what's good for the country, because we're the most reflective out of all the battleground states,” Hale said.