It appears that the Iowa Caucus will cease to be the sole first Democratic Presidential nomination contest for 2024….
The Democratic National Committee is officially reopening its presidential nominating process, upending the current calendar led by Iowa and New Hampshire and requiring them — and any other interested states — to apply for early-state status in 2024.
Members of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted on Wednesday to set the application process for how states will be considered as candidates to lead off the presidential primaries, potentially expanding the roster from four to five states. The influential perch guarantees candidates, attention and money flow into those states during national campaigns — not to mention giving voters there an outsize say in picking presidents.
Iowa and New Hampshire have dominated the process since the dawn of the modern presidential nominating process, with other early states added and adjusted along the way. But Iowa’s disastrous 2020 Democratic caucuses, which featured delayed results due to technical difficulties, fueled complaints that the first-in-the-nation state not only failed to implement its caucus properly, but no longer represented the party’s diversity….
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A handful of states have already indicated they plan to apply. New Jersey Democrats sent a letter to DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison in mid-March arguing that they should go first, emphasizing the state’s racial and geographic diversity. Michigan, too, has indicated it’s interested. And Nevada, which currently goes third in nominating order, has also lobbied to jump to the front of the line.