A voter casts a ballot in the 2024 Nevada Democratic presidential primary Feb. 6 at the Desert Breeze Community Center polling site. Nevada Democrats are pushing for the state to be the site of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary in 2028.
Daniele Monroe-Moreno, the chairwoman of the Nevada State Democratic Party, is leading the party’s push for Nevada to become the first state to have a presidential primary in 2028. “Nevada is the battleground state that best reflects our growing nation,” Monroe-Moreno said in a statement. “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.”
Monroe-Moreno made her pitch in Arizona at a meeting of the Association of State Democratic Committees to assess the outcome of last month’s general election. Republican President-elect Donald Trump beat the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, in Nevada and every other battleground state, giving Democrats plenty to analyze.
The effort to make Nevada the opening primary is not new. The late Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the architect of the Democratic strategy in the state during his 30-year Senate tenure, also believed in the state’s first-in-the-nation capacity.
“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.”
Daniele Monroe-Moreno, chairwoman, Nevada State Democratic Party
After the presidential caucuses in February 2020, Reid said there was “so much Democratic enthusiasm in Nevada,” and he saw the best way to maximize the primary calendar was to begin in the Silver State. Reid, who died in late 2021, was also instrumental in Nevada’s switch to conducting presidential preference primary elections instead of caucuses. The state conducted its first presidential primaries in February, although the Nevada Republican Party shunned the GOP presidential primary for its traditional caucuses a week later.
“I’m glad to have fought to make Nevada the first Western state in the Democratic nominating process since 2008, and we have proven more than worthy of holding that prominent early state position,” Reid said in a statement in 2020. “I firmly believe that Nevada, with our broad diversity that truly reflects the rest of the country, should not just be among the early states — we should be the first in the nation.”
Nevada’s demographics make it a good representation of the entire nation, ahead of states like Iowa and New Hampshire, the traditional early states on the presidential primary and caucus calendar. Nevada is the third most racially and ethnically diverse state in the country, behind only Hawaii and California, according to the 2020 Census. About 30% of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, 9.4% as Black and nearly 9% as Asian.
In a news release, the state Democratic Party made the case for Nevada to be firstin-the-nation by pointing to the state’s base of voters with varying economic and educational levels. Between 2018 and 2022, 73.5% of Nevadans 25 and older didn’t have a college degree, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.
The party also cited Nevada’s union participation — 12.4% of the population in 2023 — which is above the national average of 10%, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed. Unions wield a prominent presence in Nevada politics, particularly the Culinary Union Local 226 representing 60,000 hospitality workers.
Monroe-Moreno’s mention of “college-educated, white or less competitive” states encapsulates New Hampshire, which ranked 48th out of 51 on the Census’ list of diverse states and Washington, D.C.
Moving the first primary to Nevada is far from guaranteed. New Hampshire balked when Biden led Democrats to announce that South Carolina would hold the first Democratic primary in the 2024 presidential cycle. Biden chose South Carolina as a reward for that state’s strong backing of him in the 2020 primary season.
But unlike this year, there is no frontrunning Democratic candidate for the 2028 presidential race — and no guarantee of how well they would fare in Nevada. Monroe-Moreno underscored that 2028 primaries that begin in Nevada would set the party up for a successful election that year.
“It’s crucial that we set an early window and primary calendar that puts us in the best position to win back the White House,” Monroe-Moreno said in the statement.
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