Democrats are about to finalize a decision that will reshape their 2028 presidential race

The new calendar for the 2028 primaries that Democrats are poised to approve later this week will dramatically shake up the race for the party's next presidential nomination.

The Democratic National Committee next Saturday is on track to approve a primary schedule that will replace Iowa and New Hampshire, the small and preponderantly white states that held the first contests for nearly 50 years, with two racially diverse battlegrounds: South Carolina and Nevada.

Under the new calendar, South Carolina, in late January 2028, and Nevada, in early February, will kick off the race for the party's next presidential nomination. New Hampshire, New Mexico, and then Michigan and Virginia will hold the other early contests through February 2028 before the remaining states start voting in March.

"The sequence of primaries and caucuses is one of the most important strategic elements of the nominating process," says Tad Devine, who has served as a senior strategist for Democratic presidential candidates from Michael Dukakis to Bernie Sanders. "You have to understand the sequence of how these states relate to each other and how you can build momentum by it."

At a time when the DNC and its chair, Ken Martin, have been under fire on several fronts, the new calendar has drawn high marks across the party. The calendar blends large and small states; states with a large Black population (South Carolina, Michigan and Virginia); a large Latino cohort (Nevada and New Mexico); and a strong union presence (Nevada and Michigan), and it includes contests in the DNC's four national regions.

"I'm not here to win a primary election, and neither are our candidates running for president," Martin said in an interview. "What's most important is whoever comes out from (the process), from whatever wing of the party they represent, they have to be ready for the general election. And battle-testing them with all parts of our coalition and all parts of the country … prepares whoever comes out to actually win."

"I think every candidate from the progressive end of the spectrum, to a moderate, to an establishment person can probably chart a path that they feel OK about," says Dan Kanninen, the battleground state director for both the Biden and Kamala Harris campaigns in 2024.

Jesse Lehrich, a Democratic consultant who publishes an online newsletter and podcast about the 2028 Democratic presidential race, wrote in his newsletter, "The new order is a coup for Harris — the kind that might persuade her to run."

Analysts agree that former Vice President Kamala Harris would start with a significant base there, and the state's movement to the front of the line could encourage her to run.