Democrats Vote to Put South Carolina First in 2028 Primary

A powerful panel of the Democratic National Committee voted on Friday to make South Carolina the first state in the party’s fight for the 2028 presidential nomination, after a lobbying push that at times fractured Democrats along racial, geographic and ideological lines.

In addition to putting South Carolina first on the calendar, the party preliminarily approved three other states to vote before Super Tuesday in early March: New Hampshire, Michigan and Nevada. The order of other states had not yet been set, and up to two more states could still be added to the so-called early window.

In the 49-person committee’s balloting on the first state, South Carolina received 26 votes, Nevada drew 19, and New Hampshire earned four.

“The South is not the past, it is the future,” Christale Spain, the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said in her final speech lobbying for her state before the vote.

The panel, the D.N.C. Rules and Bylaws Committee, was meeting inside the Salamander hotel in Washington on Friday and still needed to vote on the full order of states; the full committee must ratify it at a meeting next month.

The fight between South Carolina and Nevada to be at the front of the line was intense, and the outcome is seen as profoundly important in deciding who ultimately emerges as the nominee.

“We’re shaping the proving ground for the next Democratic nominee,” said Maria Cardona, a veteran D.N.C. member who supported Nevada.

For decades, Iowa and New Hampshire kicked off every presidential nomination fight. But in 2024, Joseph R. Biden Jr., then the president, put South Carolina at the front of the line, after the state helped him win the nomination in 2020.

The state lobbied aggressively to keep its slot.

The first states to vote typically winnow the presidential field — and Democrats are expected to have a sprawling set of candidates in 2028. A dozen states had applied, and the party set rules to choose at least one state each from four regions — the West, the Northeast, the South and the Midwest — with a bonus fifth state from any region.

On Friday, the committee moved to add a sixth state that would vote before Super Tuesday.

Committee members debated the importance of the cost of campaigning in these early states, and even the logistics of how they count votes.

Stuart Appelbaum, a D.N.C. member and a union president, said he had backed South Carolina over Nevada in part because Nevada allows for the counting of ballots after Primary Day — which could delay the final results in a close race.

“With the stakes so incredibly high in this election, I feel we need certainty in 2028,” Mr. Appelbaum said.

But some uncertainty remained. Most notably, New Hampshire has a law requiring that the state hold the first primary. New Hampshire did so in 2024, even though the Democratic Party had placed South Carolina first.

Asked immediately after the vote what New Hampshire would do, the party’s longtime chairman, Raymond Buckley, said he did not know.

The debate inside the committee was ongoing on Friday.

This article will be updated.