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So Much Drama in the R.B.C.

Inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, a dozen states including New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and Nevada are scrapping to answer one of the most consequential questions in presidential primary politics: Who’s on first?

Ken Martin
Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin speaks during an interview at D.N.C. headquarters in Washington, November 2025. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
Peter Hamby
July 22, 2026

All the crosswinds tugging at the Democratic Party in the Donald Trump era—race, class, Gaza, media tactics, organized labor, impatient young voters, culture wars, even the legacy of Joe Biden—will be reckoned with this week inside a dreary conference room in the bowels of a Washington hotel. A meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee might not sound like it heralds high drama. But in a series of votes on Thursday and Friday, 49 members of the D.N.C. will decide, among other things, which states will be the first to hold their primaries during the 2028 presidential nominating process—a determination that will have profound consequences for the many Democrats who will run to replace Trump in the White House.