Raffensperger endorses earlier 2028 Georgia presidential primary

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - After Saturday’s news the national Democratic Party has approved shuffling the dates of its 2024 presidential primaries, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger endorsed moving Georgia ahead in the primary season as well, but only beginning in 2028.

The Republican election chief, who garnered attention for rebuffing then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss in Georgia, told The Associated Press, “Georgia would be a great early primary state in 2028.”

“It has a good cross-section of engaged voters from both parties, and, as everyone seems to now recognize, we run great elections,” Raffensperger said, according to the AP.

This is the first time Raffensperger, who sets the state’s primary election dates, has endorsed the idea of Georgia as an early nominating state.

Over the weekend, the national Democratic Party approved replacing Iowa with South Carolina in the 2024 presidential primaries.

On Dec. 1, President Joe Biden penned a letter to the Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee, in which he wrote, “We must ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process and throughout the entire early window. As I said in February 2020, you cannot be the Democratic nominee and win a general election unless you have overwhelming support from voters of color — and that includes Black, Brown and Asian American & Pacific Islander voters.”

RELATED: Bye-bye, Iowa? Biden wants Georgia as one of nation’s first presidential primaries

South Carolina was crucial to Biden’s election as president in 2020 with Biden’s friend and longtime Congressman Jim Clyburn helping ensure a Biden victory. Biden then went on to sweep Super Tuesday and created an unstoppable path to his party’s presidential nomination.

Biden also became the first Democrat to carry Georgia in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1992.

In late July, Atlanta submitted a bid to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Last week, more than 60 Democratic mayors, state lawmakers, governors, congressmen and senators sent a letter to Biden, urging him to select Atlanta as the site for the 2024 convention.

“Democratic turnout in the state of Georgia is the single greatest reason that you and Vice President Harris are in the White House today instead of Donald Trump,” the officials wrote in the letter, which was also sent to Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Jaime Harrison.

“Instead of basking in what the pundits have declared an unlikely victory, we are now focused on maintaining this momentum into 2024 by assessing the strategies, tactics, and investments that helped us buck historical trends and expand our majority in the US Senate, a feat that was cemented this month with the reelection of Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia,” the officials wrote. “As Democratic leaders who have had to compete for votes in some of the most contested battlegrounds in our country, we humbly offer our own piece of advice: The Democratic Party should immediately select the city of Atlanta as the site of its 2024 presidential nominating convention.”

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