Democrats are readying for a 2024 primary dispute over its recent Iowa-New Hampshire-Nevada-South Carolina lineup

• Democrats are already talking about the presidential primary nominating contest ahead of 2024.
• They say the issue is more fraught now amid speculation Biden may not run for re-election.

CHARLESTON, S.C.—Chatter about the 2024 presidential primary calendar dominated sidebar conversations at the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting this weekend, as Democratic officials contend with the possibility that President Joe Biden might not run for re-election.

"Yes, Biden has obviously made it clear that he is running again, but nobody really knows that for sure," one state party chair told Insider of the first-term president who will be 83 years old on Inauguration Day in 2025. This person added: "I just think the DNC is going to prepare for all scenarios."

"If everything was like Obama '08 and '12, when it was very clear he was going to run for re-election, there was no drama at the DNC as far as the primary-caucus calendar, which states were going when because none of it mattered because Obama was running for re-election and going unchallenged, " this person said.

At the Charleston Marriott this weekend, DNC members previewed a future potential dispute over how to order the presidential nomination calendar and handle a Pandora's box of issues that come with shaking up the recent 2020 lineup of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.

"Those conversations have started in earnest," a Democratic official said.

Nevada has already made a move

Iowa has held the nation's first Democratic nominating contest since 1972. New Hampshire has maintained its first-in-the-nation primary since 1976.

But for decades, Democrats have debated the efficacy of predominantly white, older states such as Iowa and New Hampshire leading off the more diverse Democratic party's presidential nominating contest.

After 2020's Iowa Caucus's app disaster, which delayed final results for days, those criticisms only intensified. With the 2024 cycle not that far away, Nevada's governor signed a law in June that moves his state's primary date ahead of New Hampshire and the Iowa caucus. That's expected to set off a scramble with other states and other competing ideas.

"There's been talk about that for 50 years, but none of it makes any sense at all, because whatever it is, if you do a regional primary, then only the mega-wealthy, mega-star candidates have the ability to seek the nomination," said Raymond Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, which has long overseen the Democrats' first-in-the-nation primary.

The DNC rules committee is set to next discuss the primary contest issue on January 29, and the full executive committee will address the matter at a March meeting in Washington.