Once again, a primary election is taking place today. With only eight weeks to go before the general election happens, voters in New Hampshire will be casting their primary ballots today. Astonishingly (to me, at any rate), this won't even be the final primary of the 2026 election season -- Rhode Island votes tomorrow, and Delaware closes out the primary calendar a week from today. What is really striking about this (again, to me) is that New Hampshire chooses to hold their primary so incredibly late, since they pride themselves on going first in presidential election years. Which, once again, is likely to become a headache at the start of 2028, when the next ugly fight over the primary calendar seems guaranteed to take place.

The Democratic National Committee voted on a new early primary calendar for 2028, and they rejected New Hampshire's traditional "first primary in the nation" status once again. The announced schedule is to have South Carolina go first, followed by Nevada, and then New Hampshire. This shakeup was designed to highlight states with large minority populations, rather than allowing two states with almost no minorities (Iowa and New Hampshire) to go first. Other new additions to the early calendar will follow, as New Mexico, Michigan, and Virginia all get to vote early (before the frenzy of Super Tuesday throws the door wide open to all the other states).

But, as usual, nobody consulted New Hampshire about any of this. And New Hampshire doesn't just pride itself on going first, they have actually written it into their state's laws. Here's what their state law says on the subject, in full:

Presidential Primary Election. -- The presidential primary election shall be held on the second Tuesday in March or on a date selected by the secretary of state which is 7 days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election, whichever is earlier, of each year when a president of the United States is to be elected or the year previous. Said primary shall be held in connection with the regular March town meeting or election or, if held on any other day, at a special election called by the secretary of state for that purpose. The purpose of this section is to protect the tradition of the New Hampshire first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

Traditionally, Iowa was allowed to go before New Hampshire because they held caucuses, not a primary election. But it's right there in the text -- New Hampshire's primary will be scheduled a week before any other state's, even if it pushes the primary into December of the previous year.

The D.N.C. already attempted to wrest the first-in-the-nation status away from New Hampshire in the 2024 presidential campaign. Because Joe Biden's 2020 campaign was saved by South Carolina voters, he pushed the Democrats to move South Carolina to the front of the line in 2024. New Hampshire pushed back and scheduled their primary a week before South Carolina's.

The D.N.C. reacted with a threat to refuse to seat any New Hampshire delegates at the party's convention (which would effectively disenfranchise all Democratic voters in the state). Joe Biden didn't appear on the New Hampshire ballot, even though he was the incumbent president at the time. So there was a sort of technical dance performed between the state and the D.N.C., where Biden supporters launched a write-in campaign (that Biden overwhelmingly won) on the scheduled primary day. Later, the state held a sort of "touching second base" technical primary in which only a few dozen Democratic Party officials "voted" using a ballot with only one candidate: Joe Biden. This was technically considered the state's Democratic primary, which allowed the state's delegates to be seated at the convention.

This time around, the D.N.C. is once again threatening to bar New Hampshire delegates from the convention if the state schedules its primary at the front of the line. They are also threatening the candidates themselves, by stating that any candidate who appears on the New Hampshire ballot and/or campaigns in the state will be barred from all official Democratic presidential debates. That could be a more effective threat, since the debates are likely to be critical to any candidate's success in such an open race.

How this showdown gets resolved is anyone's guess, at this point. New Hampshire prides itself on being first in the nation to vote on presidential candidates, which it has done for over a century (since 1920). It is not all that representative a state, due to the lack of significant minority populations. But it is a state where politics is done on a retail level, because it is so small. It doesn't require an immense amount of money for a candidate to break through, but it does require a significant investment in time spent meeting the state's voters and talking to them. This is the value of having New Hampshire vote early, because even candidates who haven't amassed enormous campaign warchests of money still have a chance to convince enough voters to support them to pull off an upset. The dynamics of campaigning in New Hampshire are not like the dynamics would be in South Carolina or Nevada, to put this another way.

But if the D.N.C. follows through on its threats to the candidates, it could effectively keep them away from the state -- so no retail campaigning would actually happen. All the one-on-one handshaking, town halls, and meet-and-greet gatherings would not include some of the biggest candidates running. This would effectively destroy the value that New Hampshire brings to the race. What serious candidate would risk being barred from the television debates just to pick up a handful of delegates in a very small state?

If New Hampshire does defy the D.N.C. and holds its contest a week before South Carolina, it could wind up with the ballots being very empty. Every viable candidate might have to rely on write-in votes to have a chance of winning. Then later on, the state's official Democratic Party could hold an official "primary" where they voted for the winner of the unofficial primary, as they did in 2024. That way, at least their delegates would be allowed to be seated at the convention.

The D.N.C. is obviously hoping that New Hampshire will knuckle under and accept third place on the calendar. After all, going third is still likely to be very important (with an open race, the Democratic field is going to likely be huge, meaning there will still be plenty of viable candidates left even after the first two contests are held). And if the state agreed to the new schedule, they could continue with their vaunted retail version of politics and all the candidates could openly campaign there.

Then again, the state's motto is "Live Free Or Die." New Hampshire voters have a deep and fierce pride about their first-in-the-nation status. It would be a very hard sell to get them to accept even third place on the calendar. And to do so, they'd have to change that state law, which could prove to be impossible (because it might give Republicans in the state legislature the power to block such a move).

The New Hampshire secretary of state's hands are tied, as things stand. The law is unequivocal. The primary must be held a week before any other state votes. No threats from the D.N.C. are likely to outweigh the legal requirement the secretary of state must follow, no matter the political consequences.

It is quite likely to become a very ugly fight, no matter what happens. The D.N.C. has already voted on their primary calendar and are not likely to relent. The lines in the sand have been drawn. If the D.N.C. does allow New Hampshire to ignore the official calendar, it would likely open the door up for other states to make the same move in the 2032 election (which has happened before).

From the outside looking in, it seems like a tempest in a teapot. Is going third really all that different from going first? But New Hampshire voters feel differently. They've got more than a century of history and tradition behind them, and they may not care whether their delegates get seated at the convention or not (by the time of the convention, the margin of delegates the winner amasses is normally a lot larger than the entire New Hampshire delegation, so it's not likely that they would wind up casting the deciding votes).

So while I will be watching the New Hampshire primary results roll in tonight, I will be more concerned with what happens in early 2028. Because as things stand, the state might be at the center of a very ugly fight with the national Democratic Party.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant