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      A Battle Between Gay Rights and Religious Expression

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      More from our inbox:Why No Gun Control Laws?Gains for DemocracyA National Primary DayThe Supreme Court heard a case concerning a Christian graphic designer who intends to limit her wedding-related services to celebrations of heterosexual unions.Michael A. McCoy for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “When Gay and Religious Freedoms Clash,” by Tish Harrison Warren (Opinion, Dec. 5), about the Supreme Court case involving a web designer who does not want to design websites for same-sex weddings because of her religious convictions:Ms. Warren states that there a distinction to be made between general discrimination against a group and declining to participate in an act one finds immoral.The designer states that she would not refuse to create a website for a gay individual; she simply does not want her services to be used for an event to which she is morally opposed.But where do we draw the line? Can a dry cleaner accept an L.G.B.T.Q. person’s business, but refuse to clean a tuxedo that they will wear to a “gay” wedding? Will your hairdresser choose not to style your hair when you are preparing for a “gay” event?Peggy ThomsonNew YorkTo the Editor:As a heterosexually married former Catholic priest, I have had the joy — under other auspices — to officiate at dozens of same-sex weddings. Some of my clerical colleagues have chided me, some supported me and some even clandestinely cooperated in the ceremony.Yet I find it difficult to insist that a web designer must accept any request to create a website for something that is against his or her conscience. Certainly, if she were asked to create one for a white supremacist group or to support some kind of questionable political stance, most of us liberals would have no problem saying she should not have to do so. I don’t see how this is different, even though I disagree with her beliefs.Surely, there are many competent business owners who support or are at least respectful of any given customer’s choices. It does not seem that all service providers have to accept whatever request comes their way.I would say to my friends who face any such objection to shake the dust from their feet and choose another web designer who respects their choices and loving commitments!Dave PasinskiFayetteville, N.Y.To the Editor:Tish Harrison Warren’s defense of the website designer who wants to discriminate against same-sex couples is distasteful.Although Colorado’s public accommodations law includes both race and sexual orientation as protected classes, Ms. Warren insists that discrimination against same-sex couples must be allowed under religious liberty because Scripture condemns homosexuality.Yes, the Bible declares same-sex sexual contact to be “an abomination,” instructing, “They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13). Paul blithely reiterates that people with a same-sex orientation are “worthy of death” (Romans 1:26-32). This is nothing for Ms. Warren to brag about.But then Ms. Warren claims that antiracism civil rights laws are OK because they do not violate religious laws. Yet both the Old and New Testaments promote and countenance slavery, including allowing the rape, beating and torture of slaves. Such passages were touted incessantly to sanctify chattel slavery in this nation. Although Ms. Warren denies the Bible’s role in slavery, by her logic, slavery would be a religious right.Instead of condemning her Bible’s barbaric homophobia, Ms. Warren misguidedly argues that U.S. civil law and citizens should be subject to her cherry-picked Bronze Age morality.Annie Laurie GaylorMadison, Wis.The writer is the co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.To the Editor:Tish Harrison Warren’s advocacy for allowing business owners to refuse to provide services based on their professed religious beliefs is an invitation to invidious discrimination carried out behind a veneer of “pluralism.”A relatively small percentage of Christians continue to oppose interracial marriages, relying on vague biblical language and interpretive texts. The Talmud and resulting Jewish laws for many centuries declare marriages between Jews and non-Jews to be both prohibited and void under Jewish laws.Should we permit business owners to refuse to provide services not only to gay couples, but also to interracial and interreligious couples? Should the owner of a bed-and-breakfast operating out of the owner’s home be permitted to prohibit such couples from staying under their roof, based on religious objections?And what if the claimed religious beliefs are just a pretext for discrimination, and who would make such a determination?Thomas F. WiederAnn Arbor, Mich.To the Editor:Re “Justices Weigh Religion Rights vs. Bias Laws” (front page, Dec. 6):If the Colorado web designer had refused to create sites for divorced people, on the grounds that Jesus specifically condemned divorce in Matthew 5:31-32, would the Supreme Court even hear this case?David CastronuovoRomeTo the Editor:The Supreme Court arguments on Monday were supposed to be about speech, not religion. Nonsense. At a telling point, Justice Samuel Alito asked counsel, “Do you think it’s fair to equate opposition to same-sex marriage with opposition to interracial marriage?” From the colloquy, his own answer emerged clearly: Religious objections to same-sex marriage are “honorable,” while objections to interracial marriage are not.In the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that African Americans “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Fast forward 165 years, and Justice Alito’s message is plain: L.G.B.T.Q. people have no rights that conservative religious people are bound to respect.James H. StarkHartford, Conn.The writer is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut School of Law.Why No Gun Control Laws? Kenny Holston for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “As Shootings Continue, ‘the Votes Aren’t There’ for a Gun Control Law” (news article, Dec. 4) and the disheartening subheadline, “Any new limits will likely have to wait two years for Congress”:Are we truly helpless to stop the incessant mass shootings in America? Why aren’t the votes there for gun control? Who exactly is voting against the will of the American people? Should not these members of Congress be called out for their intransigence in the face of such wholesale slaughter?The mass killings will continue until the country at least minimizes the firepower available for these tragedies, but nothing can change until either the minds or the members of Congress who continually block gun control measures change.With each mass killing, newspapers should begin publishing the voting record on gun control by the politicians in the state affected by that day’s massacre. Would such an act really be journalistically too political for the sake of our children?David SimpsonRindge, N.H.Gains for DemocracyA demonstration in Beijing last month against strict coronavirus measures. The recent unrest has been the boldest and most widespread in China since the pro-democracy movement of 1989.Kevin Frayer/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:The demonstrations for democracy and against Covid restrictions in China, and the huge protests for women’s rights and democratic freedoms in Iran, indicate that democratic values are trending.The victory of democratic forces in the Brazilian elections and the better-than-expected showing of Democrats in our own point to the same conclusion: The appeal of democratic values remains robust and is a powerful antidote to authoritarianism.Resistance to authoritarianism takes many forms: Voters vote, citizens demand rights in the face of brutal crackdowns, and in Ukraine people stand against invasion. But it is all part of the pro-democracy movement, worldwide.Edmund McWilliamsWhite Oaks, N.M.The writer is a retired Foreign Service officer.A National Primary DayThe crowd cheers before Joe Biden takes the stage after being declared the winner of the South Carolina primary in Columbia, S.C., in February 2020.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Reordered Primaries Create New Gambits for the Political Chessboard” (news article, Dec. 4):Asking which state(s) should go first in primary voting is the wrong question. We should instead ask: Why aren’t all state primaries on the same day? That would avoid the farce of candidates pandering to local interests, only to reverse their positions (or “pivot”) when they move on to the next state. To have honest candidates, we should have an honest process.These are candidates for national office. There should be national election rules and a national primary day.Michael T. FerroEndwell, N.Y. More

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      The End of a Presidential Launchpad

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      Democrats stripped Iowa of its first-in-the-nation status.It was an inauspicious debut, to say the least. In February 1975, a little-known governor from Georgia named Jimmy Carter showed up in Des Moines, Iowa, to kick off an improbable campaign for president. His team rented a hotel ballroom and bought enough food for a crowd of 200 people. Three showed up.So Carter started working the streets and stores. Gerald Rafshoon, who was his media adviser, recalled the other day a story that later became famous. “Carter walks into a barbershop and says, ‘My name is Jimmy Carter and I’m running for president,’” Rafshoon told me. “And the barber said, ‘Yeah, the boys and I were just laughing about that.’”From that modest start, however, something really big grew. Over the next year, Carter practically lived in Iowa and beat every other candidate in the caucuses that followed, propelling him to the White House. Now, nearly a half-century later, the Iowa launchpad is about to close down. With it will go the romance of the long-shot candidate who goes door to door in farm country to emerge from obscurity and reach the heights of American politics.At President Biden’s behest, the Democratic National Committee is moving around its presidential primary schedule to end Iowa’s marquee first-in-the-nation status. The party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee on Friday approved a schedule putting South Carolina first, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada and then Georgia and Michigan, dropping Iowa from the early lineup. For the changes to be adopted, the full D.N.C. still must sign off early next year.It is unclear whether Republicans will follow suit, but as my colleague Trip Gabriel wrote, “one of the most idiosyncratic and consequential pageants in American elections has come to its likely end.”‘The Big Mo’The Carter breakthrough in 1976 gave birth to generations of campaigns by little-known candidates hoping to replicate his stunning success. Iowa had never been a force in primary politics until then, but Carter’s team, which had noticed that George McGovern got a bounce out of a second-place showing in the state in 1972, decided to invest time and resources there.It was a humbling experience. Just getting a reporter to show up for an event was a major victory. “Anyone with a scratchpad and a tape recorder would send us into ecstasy,” Carter recalled to Jonathan Alter for his biography “His Very Best.” But, from nowhere, Carter got 28 percent of the vote on Jan. 19, 1976, placing him second behind “uncommitted,” with 37 percent, but ahead of all the flesh-and-blood candidates. He went on to win the New Hampshire primary that came next.Iowa was a proving ground for most candidates who followed. When George H.W. Bush beat Ronald Reagan there in the 1980 Republican contest, he ecstatically declared that he had “the Big Mo,” or momentum, only to fall in New Hampshire afterward. In 2008, Barack Obama upset the front-runner, Hillary Clinton, demonstrating that a Black candidate could win in a predominantly white state and giving credibility to his underestimated campaign.Joe Biden in Iowa in 2020.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesThe winnowingIowa picked the ultimate Democratic nominee all but two times since that original 1976 contest, the exceptions being 1988, when Richard Gephardt won the caucuses only to lose the nomination to Michael Dukakis, and 1992, when Iowa’s own Senator Tom Harkin was running. On the Republican side, it has been less influential. Putting aside incumbents running for re-election, no Iowa winner has gone on to win the G.O.P. nomination since George W. Bush in 2000. But it has always played a role in winnowing the field.One candidate who did not particularly like getting winnowed was a senator and later vice president named Joseph R. Biden Jr. In 2008, Biden drew less than 1 percent of the vote in Iowa and dropped out. In 2020, he finished in a humiliating fourth place when he was the presumed front-runner, though he ultimately bounced back.No surprise, then, that Biden might not feel too committed to Iowa’s claim to the first vote. South Carolina, his choice for opening contest in 2024, is where he turned around his 2020 campaign.It did not help that the Iowa Democratic Party’s new app-based counting in 2020 was so botched that the winner did not emerge for days. (Under its complicated rules, Pete Buttigieg barely edged out Bernie Sanders for the most state delegate equivalents, the key metric.)And so that is the end of the Jimmy Carter scenario, at least for the Democrats. “When we decided to do it, it was one of the smartest things we did,” Rafshoon told me. Now, that is just a story in the history books.Related: The Democrats’ new primary calendar indicates that Biden plans to seek re-election.THE LATEST NEWSPoliticsThe Supreme Court will hear a case on a Christian graphic designer who is opposed to working for same-sex couples.Georgia’s Senate candidates delivered their final campaign pitches before tomorrow’s runoff election. (These could be the most competitive precincts.)Donald Trump called for a “termination” of the Constitution, drawing some bipartisan criticism.Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor, is close to twin brothers with dubious financial pasts, a Times investigation found.InternationalA protest in Tehran in October.via Associated PressIran abolished its morality police, an official suggested, after months of unrest incited by the death of a woman they arrested.A Korean pop group is accusing an executive at its agency of abuse, reviving worries about exploitation in the industry.War in UkraineEurope and the United States started enforcing a price cap intended to limit Russia’s oil income. Russia threatened to cut off supplies.Germans are using heat pumps to warm their homes, an alternative to expensive Russian natural gas.War and sanctions are pushing Russia’s economy back in time.Other Big StoriesInternal documents from Twitter revealed how the company handled an unconfirmed news report about Hunter Biden.Gunfire at two substations knocked out power for tens of thousands of people in North Carolina in what an official said was an “intentional” attack.A shipwreck or a piece of an old pier? An 80-feet wooden object emerged on a Florida beach.OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens (already) discuss presidential primaries.Georgia’s runoff election has big implications for judicial appointments, the 2024 election and more, Ross Barkan argues.North Carolina has been ground zero for Republican attempts to manipulate elections. Now they want to do the same nationwide, Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, argues.MORNING READSAlessandro Michele’s fall 2018 collection for Gucci.Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York TimesFreaky, geeky Gucci: Alessandro Michele changed how people dress.Vows: They met in study hall.Quiz time: Take our latest news quiz and share your score (the average was 9.8).Metropolitan diary: Choosing a special park bench.A Times classic: The colleges where graduates are most (and least) likely to get married.Advice from Wirecutter: Check yourself for signs of hearing loss.Lives Lived: Bob McGrath was an original “Sesame Street” cast member who played an advice-giving music teacher for nearly half a century. He died at 90.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICInjury: The San Francisco quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo broke his foot in the 49ers’ win over Miami yesterday, a blow for the team’s Super Bowl aspirations. Brock Purdy subbed in. Elected: Fred McGriff earned entry into baseball’s Hall of Fame yesterday by a unanimous vote from the Contemporary Era Committee. He hit 493 home runs across 19 seasons.College Football Playoff: Georgia, Michigan, T.C.U. and Ohio State will decide this year’s national champion, arguably the toughest decision the playoff committee has had to make.WORLD CUPRound of 16: France beat Poland, 3-1, and England won 3-0 against Senegal.Suriname: The tiny country is responsible for some of soccer’s greatest players.Lionel Messi: This is how a team could stop him.Spot the ball: We removed it from these photos. Where do you think it was?Today: Japan plays Croatia at 10 a.m. Eastern, and Brazil faces South Korea at 2 p.m.ARTS AND IDEAS A gift that goes back millenniumsBooks are, in many ways, the quintessential gift: They offer infinite variety, are easily wrapped and can be tailored to the recipient. So it makes sense that they have been a favorite of holiday giving for as long as people have had holidays, Jennifer Harlan writes.A Roman gift guide for the celebration of Saturnalia by the first-century poet Martial included several texts on parchment, including works by Virgil and Cicero and Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” In December 1851, just a few months into The Times’s existence, the paper declared a “season of Book-blossoms,” adding, “The Holidays act upon books like April upon trees.”To this day, the holiday book-buying rush continues. In Iceland, it is called the jolabokaflod, or the “Christmas book flood.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookJoe Lingeman for The New York TimesThese sesame-brown butter udon noodles are slurpable and quick.What to WatchStream the year’s best Christmas movies.What to ReadJohn le Carré was one of the last great letter writers.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was conjoined. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Tea variety (five letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.P.S. Lauren Leatherby, who has contributed to this newsletter, will cover Europe and the Middle East as a visual reporter in London.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about Ukraine’s winter. Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      How Democrats’ New Primary Calendar Changes the Chessboard

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      President Biden’s push to abandon Iowa for younger, racially diverse states is likely to reward candidates who connect with the party’s most loyal voters.When a panel of Democratic Party insiders endorsed President Joseph R. Biden’s preferred lineup of early presidential nominating states on Friday, they didn’t just shatter the exalted status of Iowa and New Hampshire voters.They also formally aligned themselves with a demographic reckoning decades in the making, reflecting the growing clout of the racially diverse coalition that brought Mr. Biden to power — and implicitly rebuking two overwhelmingly white states that rejected him in 2020.According to the proposal recommended by Mr. Biden and adopted by the party’s Rules and Bylines Committee, South Carolina would now go first, holding its primary on Feb. 3, 2024. Three days later, Nevada and New Hampshire would follow. Georgians would vote next on Feb. 13, then Michiganders on Feb. 27.For political obsessives, the change — which must still be voted on by the whole committee — feels sweeping and swift.“For the .000001 percent of people who follow this stuff, this is equivalent to an earthquake,” said Julián Castro, the former secretary of housing and urban development who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. “For it to change this much in one cycle is both impressive and will be very impactful in the years to come.”Mr. Castro spent years arguing that Iowa should lose its spot at the front of his party’s presidential nominating calendar, even starting his primary campaign with an event in Puerto Rico — an intentional symbolic rejection of Iowa. He praised the new schedule, saying the broader diversity of states would offer opportunities to a wider range of candidates.Donna Brazile, former acting chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said the changes would offer myriad benefits to the party, “from hearing the voices of people who tend not to matter to candidates until the end to lifting up those who also might need to be part of the process.”Mr. Biden’s recommendations were perhaps the most telling indicator that he planned to seek re-election, despite the prospect that he would be reaching well into his 80s by the end of a second term. His proposed reordering of the political map, noted Mike Murphy, a Republican consultant, happens to be “very Biden-friendly.”Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan, right, has pushed for her state’s inclusion among the early states for years. Under Mr. Biden’s proposal, Michigan would hold the fifth primary in 2024.Doug Mills/The New York TimesRepresentative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who has lobbied for her state’s inclusion in the early states since the 1990s, said that Mr. Biden’s choices also reflected a recognition that the party must resist the tug of its bicoastal centers of power.“You cannot win the White House without the heartland of America,” she said.The panel’s decision is not the last word on the calendar. Democrats will need to somehow persuade Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to set the date of his state’s primaries according to the wishes of the Democratic National Committee, rather than those of his own party.The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands after the midterm elections.A Defining Issue: The shape of Russia’s war in Ukraine — and its effects on global markets —  in the months and years to come could determine President Biden’s political fate.Beating the Odds: Mr. Biden had the best midterms of any president in 20 years, but he still faces the sobering reality of a Republican-controlled House for the next two years.2024 Questions: Mr. Biden feels buoyant after the better-than-expected midterms, but as he turns 80, he confronts a decision on whether to run again that has some Democrats uncomfortable.Legislative Agenda: The Times analyzed every detail of Mr. Biden’s major legislative victories and his foiled ambitions. Here’s what we found.Disgruntled Iowa and New Hampshire might stick to their first-in-the-nation guns, even if the party strips them of delegates in retaliation for their defiance. Democrats running in 2024 — assuming there are any candidates besides, or instead of, Mr. Biden — would then have to decide whether the resulting “beauty contests” were worth the bragging rights alone.If Mr. Biden runs again, a decision he has indicated is coming early in the new year, the state that set him on a path to the nomination in 2024 will offer a formidable first hurdle to any would-be challenger.“He’s created a firewall against any insurgency,” said David Axelrod, one of the architects of former President Barack Obama’s political rise. “It doesn’t mean he will run. But it certainly suggests he intends to.”Those seeking to unseat the president would need to connect with South Carolina’s majority Black primary electorate, which is more conservative than either Iowa’s prairie progressives or New Hampshire’s northeastern Brahmins. In the state’s 2020 primary, more than 60 percent of Black voters chose Mr. Biden over his rivals, according to exit polls.Mr. Biden’s triumph in South Carolina exposed not only the regional appeal of liberal candidates like Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, but also the limits of two billionaire candidates who sought to buy a grass-roots following: Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer. And it underscored the struggles Pete Buttigieg, then running as the whiz-kid mayor of South Bend, Ind., had in reaching Black voters in particular.Steve Phillips, a Democrat and author of several books on racial politics, said the changes would reward candidates who develop a deep bond with Black communities, rather than train them to appeal to rural Iowans who might not support them in November.“You want somebody who is going to inspire and understand Black voters to be your nominee,” he said.If Mr. Biden does not run, the new lineup is likely to scramble generations of electoral calculations.For decades, the Iowa caucuses were an early proving ground for upstart candidates, including starting Jimmy Carter and Mr. Obama on their roads to the White House. The state carried continued mystique as a kingmaker, even as it increasingly evolved to be older, whiter and more Republican than the Democratic Party. The chaotic counting of the state’s caucus voters in 2020, when final results took a week, marked its demise for many in the party.A number of party strategists argued the low costs of campaigning in South Carolina would allow underdogs to continue to surprise the country with a stronger-than-expected showing.“The state is not so expensive that you can’t go live there and get it done,” said Jeremy Bird, a Democratic strategist.Mr. Bird, who helped guide Mr. Obama to a nearly 30-point primary win in South Carolina in 2008, said the diversity of South Carolina would force candidates to spend more time in rural Black communities, historically Black colleges and universities and Southern cities, and less time in grange halls and the living rooms of caucus microinfluencers.Traditionally, skipping Iowa was viewed as a sign of weakness by pundits, donors and strategists. But the quick pace of the first three states, with Nevada and New Hampshire coming just three days after South Carolina, could reshape that calculation.“If it’s an open primary in the future, you could have lots of different strategies,” Mr. Bird said. “You could have someone that skips South Carolina altogether. You could have someone that skips Nevada. It will be fascinating to see.”The long-term impact of the changes is still very much to be determined. The party says it plans to revisit its lineup in four years, raising the prospect that the calendar itself has become less a function of tradition than political juice.For now, with Georgia’s fate uncertain and Iowa and New Hampshire in potential revolt, candidates will also have to learn how to run in a new entry to the early-state mix: Michigan, a state that has rarely been in serious contention in recent presidential primaries.Compared with pastoral, racially homogeneous Iowa, Michigan presents an emerging America in microcosm — an increasingly diverse state of 10 million people that boasts not just one of the country’s historical centers of Black culture, Detroit, but also one of the largest Arab American populations in the country, among other communities of color dotted in suburbs and smaller cities across the state, like Ann Arbor.Michigan, an increasingly diverse state with a mix of large and small cities, could scramble old ways of campaigning. Allison Farrand for The New York Times“It’s more like a jigsaw puzzle,” said Amy Chapman, a Democratic strategist in Michigan who ran Barack Obama’s campaign in the state in 2008.The state’s geographic diversity could allow candidates to essentially choose their own spending adventure, said Eric Hyers, who directed Mr. Biden’s campaign in Michigan in 2020.“It’s not like there’s just one media market and it’s wicked expensive,” Mr. Hyers said. Campaigning in Nevada means spending heavily in the costly Las Vegas market, and New Hampshire candidates must buy airtime in pricey Boston.Jeff Link, a Des Moines operative who served as a local guide for Bill Clinton and Mr. Obama, said that even Mr. Obama, who forever altered how presidential candidates raise money, might not have won the nomination in Mr. Biden’s proposed calendar. And yet, even as much of Iowa’s Democratic political world spent Friday wallowing in the loss of what many considered a birthright, Mr. Link predicted that as long as Republicans maintained Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status, Democrats would come to the state too, even if the state’s caucuses no longer officially mattered. That is, after all, where the media will be.“If you guys are in town covering the other side, candidates are going to show up because you can’t help yourself,” he said.Reid J. Epstein More

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      Brian Kemp’s Interesting Strategy: Stand Up to Trump, Stump for Walker

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      It’s not surprising that Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, fresh off his re-election victory, would take a field trip to the Adventure Outdoors megastore. Shooting ranges, gunsmithing, machetes, tomahawks, ammo, camo, “over 130 yards of gun counters” with more than 18,000 guns in stock — what red-blooded Southern Republican wouldn’t jump at the chance for a holiday-season visit to this Pole Star of Second Amendment vibes nestled in the Atlanta suburbs?That said, some folks might have found it a tad curious to see Mr. Kemp hanging out in the store’s parking lot, hugging and mugging for the cameras with Herschel Walker, the Republican Party’s deeply problematic Senate nominee. The former football star is in a tick-tight runoff with the incumbent, Raphael Warnock, and Mr. Kemp was imploring the crowd to turn out for him in this Tuesday’s vote. “He will go and fight for those values that we believe in here in our state,” the governor insisted.Talk about a postural shift. Throughout his re-election race, Mr. Kemp practiced scrupulous social distancing from his ticketmate. The men did not do joint events. (Adventure Outdoors was their first rally together!) Mr. Kemp did not talk up — or even about — Mr. Walker. When asked about the distance between their campaigns, Mr. Kemp tended to make vague noises about supporting “the entire ticket.”Which, honestly, was the only sensible course of action considering the freak show that has been Mr. Walker’s candidacy. Accusations of domestic abuse? Semi-secret children? Allegations (which he denies) that he paid for abortions for multiple women? Making up stuff about his academic and business ventures? The guy has more baggage than a Kardashian on a round-the-world cruise. No candidate with a sense of self-preservation would want to get close to that hot mess.Matthew Pearson/ WABEBut now! Mr. Kemp is having a moment. Having secured another four years in office — despite being targeted for removal in the primaries by a certain bitter ex-president — he is feeling looser, freer, more inclined to lend a hand to his good buddy Herschel.Way more than a hand, actually. Mr. Kemp put his formidable turnout machine — everything from door knocking to phone banking to microtargeting — at Mr. Walker’s disposal. Or, more precisely, he put it at the disposal of the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell. And Mr. Kemp personally has gone all in. In addition to hitting the trail with Mr. Walker, he has been promoting him in media interviews, was featured in a pro-Walker mailer and cut two ads for him.Whatever happens with Mr. Walker, keep an eye on Mr. Kemp. The 59-year-old Georgia governor is positioning himself to be a major Republican player — one that, unlike so many in his party, is not a complete Trump chump.If Mr. Kemp’s electoral victory over Stacey Abrams was decisive, besting her by more than seven percentage points, his psychological victory over Donald Trump was devastating, in ways you cannot measure in votes. Mr. Trump had targeted Mr. Kemp for defeat this year, after the governor refused to help him subvert the presidential election results in 2020. The former president put a lot of political capital on the line in his crusade against Mr. Kemp, only to get spanked once again in Georgia. The governor’s refusal to bow to Mr. Trump wound up burnishing his reputation across party lines, which served him well in the purplish state. In the general election last month, Mr. Kemp won 200,000 more votes than Mr. Walker did in his race.National Republicans are now desperate for Mr. Kemp to help Mr. Walker win over a chunk of those split-ticket voters. Originally, the governor accepted this mission when it still looked as though control of the Senate might once again rest with Georgia. But even after Democrats secured 50 seats, he was happy to go the extra mile for the team.It’s all upside for Mr. Kemp. No one will seriously blame him if he can’t rescue a candidate as lousy as Mr. Walker, and he wins friends and influence within the party simply by trying. He also gets to wallow in his status as a separate, non-Trumpian power center. After all the abuse he has taken from Mr. Trump, the governor must on some level relish being asked to salvage the former president’s handpicked dud — even as the party made clear it did not want Mr. Trump anywhere near the Peach State this time. And if Mr. Kemp somehow manages to drag Mr. Walker to victory, clawing back one of the two Georgia Senate seats Mr. Trump helped cost the party last year, it will be an ostrich-size feather in his already heavily plumed cap — not to mention a fat thumb in Mr. Trump’s eye.Mr. Kemp clearly has his sights set on the political road ahead. National Republicans were impressed by how thoroughly he decimated his Trump-orchestrated primary challenge in the governor’s race, ultimately stomping his chief opponent, former Senator David Perdue, by more than 50 points. Post-primary, Mr. McConnell hosted Mr. Kemp for a cozy breakfast in the Senate dining room. In early September, Mr. McConnell was a “special guest” at a Kemp fund-raiser in Washington that touted another 16 Republican senators as “featured guests.”Mr. Kemp’s work on behalf of Mr. Walker is opening even more doors, helping him forge connections with officials, operatives and donors well beyond Georgia. All of which will come in handy if, say, Mr. Kemp decides he wants to run for federal office one day.And it sure looks as though he might. Not long before Thanksgiving, he filed the paperwork to form a federal super PAC. Named Hardworking Americans Inc., the organization will help him gain influence — having a pool of political cash tends to raise one’s popularity — and possibly pave his way for a federal campaign.As it happens, Mr. Kemp’s second term ends in 2026, the same year that Jon Ossoff, Georgia’s other Democratic senator, is up for re-election. There is buzz around the state that this would be a logical next step for the governor — and that it is definitely on his mind.Of course, 2026 is four eternities away in political terms. But Mr. Kemp has distinguished himself as his own man, having won on his terms in a party increasingly anxious about the former president’s influence. For those who see Mr. Trump as the G.O.P.’s past, Mr. Kemp may look appealingly like its future.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      DNC Panel Supports Biden’s Plan to Make South Carolina First Primary in 2024

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      A key panel supported President Biden’s plan, which would remove Iowa as the first presidential nominating state. States with more diverse, working-class and in some cases more moderate constituencies are being elevated.WASHINGTON — Over objections from some Democratic state leaders, the Democratic National Committee on Friday moved one step closer to enacting President Biden’s vision for drastically overhauling the party’s 2024 presidential primary process, as a key committee voted to recommend sweeping changes to the calendar.At a daylong gathering of the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee in a Washington hotel ballroom, members voted to recommend supporting a 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar that would begin in South Carolina on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and then Michigan on Feb. 27. That plan reflected a framework Mr. Biden delivered to the committee on Thursday that emphasized racial and geographic diversity. Representatives from Iowa and New Hampshire voted against the proposal, and officials emphasized that the move by the Rules Committee was one step in what might still be a prolonged and contentious process. The proposed early states have until Jan. 5 to confirm that they can hold a primary on their assigned date.The recommendation, which upends the traditional Democratic order of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, must be affirmed by the full D.N.C. at a meeting in early February, but Mr. Biden’s preferences carry enormous weight with the party committee. The proposed new order rewards some of the states that powered his political rise in 2020, elevating diverse, working-class and in some cases more moderate constituencies that were vital to Mr. Biden’s primary victory. At the same time, smaller states that have long emphasized retail politics — Iowa and New Hampshire — would be diminished. “Given the president’s strong interest in the design of the 2024 primaries, and the dates for them, I think it’s clear that he’s running,” said James Roosevelt Jr., a co-chairman of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, who said he had spoken with Mr. Biden this week about the early-state order.Mr. Biden has said that he intends to run again but plans to discuss the race with his family. If he does not run, the schedule, if adopted, would help other candidates with strong support from the voters of color who make up the backbone of the Democratic Party.Black voters accounted for more than half of the Democrats who voted in the South Carolina primary in 2020, according to exit polling. And they make up a significant share of the primary electorates in Georgia and Michigan. Latino voters play an especially central role in Nevada.But the shift could also hurt candidates without the campaign cash to compete quickly in early states with expensive media markets — like Nevada, Georgia and even New Hampshire, where Boston television stations drive up rates. The fast pacing of the proposed calendar could force contenders with smaller bank accounts to choose to compete in just one or two of the first three states. Scott Brennan and other Iowa Democrats criticized the proposed changes and suggested that the state party would challenge them.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesJoanne Dowdell, a D.N.C. member from New Hampshire, opposed the proposal.Shuran Huang for The New York Times“One of the things that New Hampshire is known for is our retail politics, and candidates having the opportunity to engage the electorate face to face,” said Joanne Dowdell, a D.N.C. member from New Hampshire who opposed the proposal. “By having three states, one on top of the other, I think causes a little bit of conflict for candidates trying to vie for the attention, get name recognition and also raise money.”The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands after the midterm elections.A Defining Issue: The shape of Russia’s war in Ukraine — and its effects on global markets —  in the months and years to come could determine President Biden’s political fate.Beating the Odds: Mr. Biden had the best midterms of any president in 20 years, but he still faces the sobering reality of a Republican-controlled House for the next two years.2024 Questions: Mr. Biden feels buoyant after the better-than-expected midterms, but as he turns 80, he confronts a decision on whether to run again that has some Democrats uncomfortable.Legislative Agenda: The Times analyzed every detail of Mr. Biden’s major legislative victories and his foiled ambitions. Here’s what we found.Jeff Link, a longtime Des Moines operative, said cutting Iowa’s caucuses out of the Democratic presidential nominating process would diminish the importance of organizing, which is central to the state’s political culture.That could prove detrimental to the party nationally, he said, by eliminating a critical proving ground for Democratic field operatives.“Rather than having a big field operation, they’re going to have a big social media operation,” Mr. Link said. “There’s going to be less people talking to other people in the campaign. One of the benefits of having a caucus early is that for three decades, we’ve trained campaign staff on how to organize person to person.”Other objections have been far louder, especially from the two states accustomed to being at the front of the line. New Hampshire has long held the nation’s first primary as a matter of state law, and state officials have said they intend to follow that law rather than any party decision. And the chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party noted in a statement that the country’s longtime leadoff caucus state has a law that “requires us to hold a caucus before the last Tuesday in February, and before any other contest.” The decision on timing would be up to the state central committee and elected officials, said Scott Brennan, a member of the Rules Committee from Iowa.More than political clout and bragging rights is at stake: Studies of the economic impact of past caucuses in Iowa and New Hampshire primaries have found that spending was in the hundreds of millions of dollars, much of that on TV ads, though the figures were a drop in the bucket of each state’s annual economic activity.The party has powerful tools with which to compel states to fall in line.D.N.C. rules agreed upon earlier this year stipulated notable consequences for any state that jumps ahead to operate outside the party’s agreed-upon early window, including cuts to the number of pledged delegates and alternates for the state in question. Significantly, candidates who campaign in such states would face repercussions as well. “If a candidate chose to campaign in a state that operated outside the window, they would lose the delegates from that state,” Mr. Roosevelt said. “They could have other penalties, because the chair is empowered to go beyond that.”Some officials have suggested they are willing to take those risks.The D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee gathered in Washington on Friday.Shuran Huang for The New York Times“For decades we have said we will bear any sanctions,” said Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.Republican willingness, or lack thereof, to change dates may also be relevant in several states, including in Republican-controlled Georgia. A spokesman for Gov. Brian Kemp did not respond to a question on Friday afternoon about his reaction to the Democratic proposal. The primary date is set by Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who declined to comment on the Democrats’ process on Friday. “Our focus is on the security and integrity of the election that’s currently underway, and we will be looking at the entire process for possible improvements once this one is successfully complete,” said Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state, as Georgia hosts a Senate runoff. But, she noted in a statement, “Our legal team has continuously stated that both parties’ primaries must be on the same day and must not cost anyone any delegates.”Republicans have already agreed to their own early-state lineup of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.The Rules and Bylaws committee’s vote came a day after Mr. Biden sent a letter to members laying out his criteria for the early-voting window. In it, he rejected caucuses — effectively dealing a mortal blow to the troubled Iowa caucuses, which struggled for days to deliver results in 2020.After Mr. Biden came in fourth place in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire, two states with high percentages of white voters, he showed new signs of political life in Nevada. And it was South Carolina’s primary, with large numbers of Black voters, that revived his candidacy and propelled him through Super Tuesday and to the nomination.“Defense, education, agriculture, manufacturing — South Carolina is a perfect laboratory,” said Representative James E. Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat whose endorsement of Mr. Biden in 2020 played a vital role in the president’s victory in the state. “That’s why the people who do well in South Carolina end up doing pretty good in the general.”Mr. Clyburn said that he had urged Mr. Biden to keep South Carolina in the early-state window — “first, second, third or fourth, didn’t matter to me” — but that he had learned of the state’s possible elevation to the kickoff primary on Thursday from the president.Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the D.N.C., who is also from South Carolina, said he had found out at Thursday night’s state dinner.Mr. Biden has urged the Rules and Bylaws Committee to review the calendar every four years, and the committee embraced an amendment to get that process underway.“Nevada still has the strongest argument for being the first-in-the-nation primary,” Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, the state’s senators, said in a joint statement. “We will keep making our case for 2028.”Reid J. Epstein More

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      Iowa Democrats Question Their Identity Without First-in-the-Nation Caucuses

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      President Biden’s push to start the Democratic presidential nominating process in South Carolina has inspired a rush of wistful memories and soul searching in the Hawkeye State.DES MOINES, Iowa — Every four years since 1972, Iowa has stolen the national spotlight as presidential aspirants infiltrated its coffee houses, parades, living rooms, high school gyms, community centers and the pork-grilling pavilion at the state fair.But after 50 years of being politically first-in-line — the site of caucuses that have been the Democrats’ initial contest on the presidential nominating calendar — one of the most idiosyncratic and consequential pageants in American elections has come to its likely end.Democratic Party officials on Friday moved a step closer to making South Carolina the first nominating state of 2024, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire, Georgia and then Michigan. The radical shake-up of the old calendar has the backing of President Biden and is aimed at giving voters of color a more powerful voice in the party’s presidential process.Iowa’s dethronement, which was not unexpected, has inspired a rush of emotions in the state — mourning, regret, nostalgia, reflections on Democrats’ weakening grip on the Midwest and a kind of who-are-we-now bit of soul searching.“We’ve always joked, If Iowa doesn’t have the caucuses, are we Nebraska?” said Mike Draper, the owner of Ray Gun, a quirky T-shirt store in Des Moines frequently visited by candidates and their staffs. His description of the caucuses was not quite political, yet fairly apt: “It’s like the dork Olympics.”“Every four years, it really is one of the most exciting things,” he added. “You so rarely see Iowa on the news. It’s surreal to be here, where nobody ever notices.”A T-shirt in the store read “Just Trying to Get Some Ranch,” a deep inside-Iowa political reference to a viral video of a young woman who in 2019 pushed past Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York campaigning in an Iowa bar, all in pursuit of salad dressing. Mr. Draper said the store paid the young woman “licensing checks every quarter” for years.The Drake Diner in Des Moines has long been a favorite handshaking stop for candidates during the caucuses.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesThe caucuses are what started Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama on their roads to the White House, and where generations of party operatives and political journalists cut their teeth as a state that ranked no more than 30th in population became, for a time, the center of the political and news universe. That era’s seeming demise came as an increasingly diverse party, prodded by Mr. Biden, sought a kickoff state more representative than nearly all-white Iowa, and as Iowa has plunged off the map of general-election battlegrounds.“I love Iowa, but like all great love affairs it is very complicated,” said Lis Smith, who was senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg, whose razor-thin victory in the 2020 caucuses was not announced for nearly a week, after a chaotic counting snafu that helped taint Iowa in the hearts of many national Democrats.The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands after the midterm elections.A Defining Issue: The shape of Russia’s war in Ukraine — and its effects on global markets —  in the months and years to come could determine President Biden’s political fate.Beating the Odds: Mr. Biden had the best midterms of any president in 20 years, but he still faces the sobering reality of a Republican-controlled House for the next two years.2024 Questions: Mr. Biden feels buoyant after the better-than-expected midterms, but as he turns 80, he confronts a decision on whether to run again that has some Democrats uncomfortable.Legislative Agenda: The Times analyzed every detail of Mr. Biden’s major legislative victories and his foiled ambitions. Here’s what we found.Democratic activists in Iowa, including county chairs whose counterparts in other states live quiet, anonymous lives, were already regretting the loss of all that future attention.“It is amazing, out of the blue I’ll get calls from Cory Booker or Elizabeth Warren,” Bret Nilles, the Democratic chairman of Linn County, said, remembering the 2020 cycle. “In 2018, the day after the election, I got a call from Eric Swalwell,” he said, referring to the liberal California congressman who briefly explored a presidential run. “He just wanted to say hello and say he might be in Iowa.”Ordinary Iowa voters also basked in the attention of presidential hopefuls, whose long and frequent sojourns in a largely rural state led to an intense style of retail politics, one with no real equivalent elsewhere in America.Ms. Smith, who also worked for the 2016 presidential campaign of Martin O’Malley, a former Maryland governor, said campaigning in Iowa was “a truly magical special thing,” with candidates who may be powerful governors, senators or billionaires brought face-to-face for hours with average citizens.Mike Draper, owner of Ray Gun, a clothing store in Des Moines that became a staple campaign stop for many political candidates.Rachel Mummey for The New York Times“At a morning event, they’ll ask about your 10-point rural policy plan,” she said. “At lunch they’ll grill you about mass incarceration. In the evening you get grilled about the war in Yemen.”“It’s a process that has been good for American politics,” she added, “but also really good for American politicians.”Jeff Weaver, a top adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, whose 2020 presidential campaign contested the caucus results that put him in second place, said he supported making the more diverse Michigan the first Midwestern state to vote in the primary calendar. But he said there was a reason Iowans took the responsibility to weigh candidates so seriously.“It has to do with them being in the front of the line for so long,” Mr. Weaver said. “It became part of the culture.”Iowa’s caucuses provided some of the most indelible moments in American electoral history.In 2004, Howard Dean’s surprise defeat in the Democratic contest elicited a defiant cry, the “Dean scream,” which became perhaps the first viral meme in U.S. politics. Describing the importance of his 1980 victory in the Republican caucus, George H.W. Bush drew from sports to invoke the “Big Mo” that Iowa imparted, now a campaign truism. In 1976, a victory in Iowa transformed a little-known former governor of Georgia from “Jimmy Who?” to the overnight party front-runner, and eventually led to Mr. Carter’s election.Caucus defenders in Iowa have argued with the Democratic National Committee ahead of the reshuffling of the nominating calendar that while Iowa may lack racial diversity, its rural voters are a key constituency in the party’s coalition. To retreat from Iowa, their argument went, was to abandon a part of the middle of America dominated by white voters without college degrees, whom Democrats need to win back.Iowa lurched more forcefully to the right than any other U.S. state in recent years.Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times“If there are people who want to retreat because they haven’t had success or because there hasn’t been recent success in a state, then how do we continue to improve our ability to win everywhere?” Rob Sand, the Iowa state auditor, said.Mr. Sand was the sole Democrat to survive in statewide and federal elections in last month’s midterms. Democrats lost their last member of Congress from Iowa, Representative Cindy Axne. Tom Miller, a Democrat who has served nearly 40 years as the state attorney general and seemed invincible, was also defeated.As recently as 2014, Iowa was represented by Senator Tom Harkin, a progressive stalwart who introduced the Americans With Disabilities Act. The state twice voted for Mr. Obama. Yet it lurched more forcefully to the right than any other U.S. state. Thirty-one counties that voted for Mr. Obama in 2012 pivoted to Donald J. Trump in 2016. Mr. Biden failed to win back any of them in 2020.Explanations for the partisan reversal run the gamut from the economic distress of lost industrial jobs, to latent biases Mr. Trump enabled, to a broad malaise in rural areas that have been hollowed out by young people’s leaving.“The Democratic national message really isn’t resonating in those counties,” said Mr. Nilles, the party chairman of Linn County, which includes Cedar Rapids, the state’s second-largest city.Jeff Kaufmann, the chair of the Republican Party of Iowa, said the Democratic withdrawal will only cement the G.O.P. hold on the state. He argued that Iowa could still keep its place in the national spotlight in 2024, when national Republicans have committed to keep their own version of the Iowa caucuses first in the nation. “If we’ve got a competitive caucus, you all are coming out here,’’ he told a reporter. In Des Moines, the area around Drake University has been a hotbed of Democratic political activity for years. The campus was the site of nationally televised Democratic debates on the eve of recent caucuses. The nearby neighborhood of Beaverdale was such an organizing powerhouse it was known as Obamadale.In 2020, people arrived to caucus at the Drake University Fieldhouse in Des Moines.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesAnd because every Iowa political story must feature a diner, this one will end at the Drake Diner.The Drake has long been a favorite handshaking stop for candidates, as well as a meet-up spot for operatives and reporters, who traded gossip over chicken-fried steak and eggs beneath a band of red neon and a clock that urged, naïvely perhaps, “Don’t Worry.”At lunch hour on Thursday, years of political memories hovered over the booths and the counter.Kate Small, a longtime server, said that after Hillary Clinton dropped by in 2008, a photograph of her and Mrs. Clinton ran in The Washington Post. Scott Ford, a retired seed salesman and lunchtime patron, said he attended the state’s first Democratic caucuses in 1972 as a Vietnam veteran. When the nominee, George McGovern, ran on amnesty for draft evaders, Mr. Ford crossed the aisle to become a Republican.Tyger Nieters said Mr. Obama had dinner at the home of one of his father’s clients. “It’s a very cool thing that makes us special,” Mr. Nieters said of the caucuses.Mr. Nieters is a registered Republican. But he, too, declared himself “very upset” by the Democrats’ move to leave the state.“You know everyone’s watching Iowa at that point,” Mr. Nieters, who runs a youth soccer program, said of the caucuses. “We feel like we’re actually having an opinion in this giant nation.”Fairgoers waiting in line at the Iowa State Fair in 2019.Tom Brenner for The New York Times More

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      Biden Wants South Carolina as First Primary State in 2024, Demoting Iowa

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      Michigan would become the fifth primary. The plan came as the president asked that “voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process.”WASHINGTON — President Biden and the Democratic National Committee are moving to radically reorder the party’s presidential process by making South Carolina the first primary state in 2024, followed in order by Nevada and New Hampshire, Georgia and then Michigan.The plan, announced by party officials at a dinner Thursday in Washington, signals the end of Iowa’s long tenure as the Democrats’ first nominating contest, and it represents an effort to elevate the diverse, working-class constituencies that powered Mr. Biden’s primary victory in 2020. The move would also be an unmistakable reward for South Carolina, the state that saved Mr. Biden’s candidacy two years ago after he came in fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire, both of which are smaller and have a higher percentage of white voters. “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,” Mr. Biden wrote in a letter Thursday to members of the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. “Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic Party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process,” he said. “We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar. It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”The letter went on to note bluntly, “Our party should no longer allow caucuses as part of our nominating process.” Iowa is a caucus state and does not hold a primary. Iowa is still expected to remain the leadoff contest for Republicans, who have agreed to maintain the usual early-state order of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands after the midterm elections.A Defining Issue: The shape of Russia’s war in Ukraine — and its effects on global markets —  in the months and years to come could determine President Biden’s political fate.Beating the Odds: Mr. Biden had the best midterms of any president in 20 years, but he still faces the sobering reality of a Republican-controlled House for the next two years.2024 Questions: Mr. Biden feels buoyant after the better-than-expected midterms, but as he turns 80, he confronts a decision on whether to run again that has some Democrats uncomfortable.Legislative Agenda: The Times analyzed every detail of Mr. Biden’s major legislative victories and his foiled ambitions. Here’s what we found.Both Iowa and New Hampshire, whose famed diners and town commons are routinely overrun by candidates leading up to their nominating contests, have long promoted themselves as providing demanding tests of a candidate’s authenticity, preparedness and ability to connect in small gatherings with highly discerning voters.The new Democratic plan, by elevating several larger states, could reduce those opportunities and lead candidates instead to emphasize expensive advertising campaigns aimed at the broadest possible audiences.The proposal, reported first by The Washington Post, is subject to approval by the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee and then by the full D.N.C. early next year, and there may be technical and legal considerations for some of the states. The plan met furious pushback from New Hampshire, long accustomed to hosting the first primary as a matter of state law. Statements from several officials suggested a coming clash with the D.N.C., raising questions about how the party will enforce its final order should states try to jump the line.“I strongly oppose the president’s deeply misguided proposal, but make no mistake, New Hampshire’s law is clear, and our primary will continue to be First in the Nation,” Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, said in a statement.Ray Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, declared that “we will be holding our primary first.”But the president’s preferences will carry enormous weight with the D.N.C., a group that often functions as the White House political arm. Mr. Biden urged the Rules and Bylaws Committee to review the calendar every four years “to ensure that it continues to reflect the values and diversity of our party and our country.”After Iowa’s disastrous 2020 Democratic caucuses, in which the state struggled for days to deliver results, the D.N.C. embarked on a protracted effort to reassess how the party picks its presidential candidates. It invited states to apply to host the kickoff primaries amid concerns that Iowa, and to some extent New Hampshire, did not reflect the Democratic Party’s diversity. The initiative led to an intense public and private lobbying effort involving high-ranking party and elected officials up and down the ballot.The current leadoff states are Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, in that order, chosen to represent the four major regions of the country: the Midwest, Northeast, West and South.Discussions throughout the process have involved several core questions: whether to replace Iowa, and if so, with either Michigan or Minnesota; the order of the early states, as Nevada sought to displace New Hampshire in the first primary; and whether a fifth state should be added to the early cluster.Earlier this year, the committee adopted a framework that emphasized racial, ethnic, geographic and economic diversity and labor representation; raised questions about feasibility; and stressed the importance of general election competitiveness.Some D.N.C. members worried — and Minnesota Democrats have argued — that having a large and expensive state like Michigan host a primary early in the nominating process could lead well-funded candidates to essentially camp out there and ignore the other states on the calendar.That concern is less urgent, though, if Mr. Biden seeks re-election. He has said that he intends to run but plans to discuss the race with his family over the holidays and could announce a decision early next year.Some Democrats have long been intrigued by the idea of promoting Michigan, a critical general election state that is home to diverse voter constituencies and a major labor presence, The Democratic sweep there in this year’s midterm elections helped bolster that idea. Earlier this week, the Michigan State Senate voted to move the primary from the second Tuesday in March to the second Tuesday in February. A senior Michigan Democratic official who spoke with the White House this week came away feeling that the Biden team was inclined toward Michigan’s bid to become an early presidential primary state.Lisa Lerer, Maggie Astor, Michael D. Shear and Blake Hounshell contributed reporting. More