Raffensperger sets Georgia primary date for March, despite Democrats’ push for earlier

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) set the state’s primary date for March 12 despite Democrats’ wish to have the election earlier.

Raffensperger said that the Democrats’ push to have the state’s primary early was “unilateral,” noting that Republicans wanted the more traditional primary schedule, with Iowa going first, followed by New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, The Associated Press reported. He added that the Democrats “never did” reach out directly to him about the dates.

“If you want to get most things done in America, sometimes you have to build some consensus and reach out to both sides of the aisle,” he said.

The Democratic National Convention pushed to switch up the primary dates for 2024 and approved an adjusted schedule in February. The new schedule has South Carolina going first, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire on the same day, then Georgia, and Michigan.

President Biden has also pushed for an adjusted primary schedule to make the early primaries more representative of the country.

“Our early states must reflect the overall diversity of our party and our nation – economically, geographically, demographically,” he wrote to the Rules and Bylaws Committee last year. “This means more diverse states earlier in the process and more diversity in the overall mix of early states.”

Raffensperger, who has the sole power of determining when the state’s primaries are, said that he did not want separate primary dates for Republicans and Democrats, adding that he did not want to risk Georgia losing a delegation vote at a national party convention, AP reported.

The Georgia primaries will now come one week after Super Tuesday, which Raffensperger said would allow Georgia to be the “prize” of March 12 elections. The only other state primaries that day are Idaho, Washington and Mississippi.