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NEWFIELDS, N.H. — Ken Burns, the esteemed filmmaker whose well-liked documentaries chronicle American historical past and tradition, has a message for the Democratic Party.
Burns is urging Democrats to restore his house state of New Hampshire because the lead-off primary within the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) 2028 presidential nominating calendar.
New Hampshire had held the lead-off presidential primary for each Democrats and Republicans for a century, and whereas the GOP adhered to custom within the final race for the White House, the DNC upended their calendar, putting South Carolina forward of the Granite State.
The transfer was an undesirable distraction for Democrats throughout the 2024 primaries, and the DNC is now beginning to focus on which states will lead off its 2028 calendar, when the get together goals to win again the White House within the race to succeed term-limited Republican President Donald Trump.
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Ken Burns speaks onstage throughout the New York premiere of PBS’s “The American Revolution,” on Sept. 18, 2025, in New York City. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Burns, who lives within the small southwestern New Hampshire city of Walpole, wrote a letter to the DNC’s Rules & Bylaws Committee, which oversees the get together’s primary calendar, on the eve of that panel’s assembly in Puerto Rico to start contemplating purposes by New Hampshire and almost a dozen states to maintain an early primary in 2028.
“I’m writing to you today both as a Granite Stater who has witnessed firsthand how New Hampshire’s First in the Nation Primary has helped move our democracy forward, and a historical filmmaker who, in this particularly challenging moment, is concerned for the future of our country and believes that New Hampshire’s citizen-led, First in the Nation primary remains indispensable for this moment,” Burns wrote within the letter, which was obtained by Fox News Digital.
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In the letter, which was first reported by WMUR-TV in New Hampshire, Burns emphasised, “I know of no people better suited to help begin the journey to maintain true freedom, to re-light that sacred fire, than the people of the Live Free or Die State. That’s why we need New Hampshire’s citizen-led, First in the Nation Primary, where everyday people can be heard. For in the strength of everyday citizens, there is no better or equal hope in our world.”
An indication marking New Hampshire’s century-old conventional function in holding the first-in-the-nation presidential primary is positioned throughout the road from the state’s capitol, in Concord, N.H. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
Longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley, who’s a member of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee and is attending the assembly in Puerto Rico, instructed Fox News Digital that “Ken Burns is a beloved, internationally respected storyteller of America. Ken is trusted, he knows his stuff, he speaks with such clarity and authority that he gets people to sit up and listen.”
“Ken makes a powerful statement in support of New Hampshire’s presidential primary that will resonate with my colleagues,” Buckley predicted.
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National Democrats for years had knocked each Iowa — whose caucuses for 50 years led off the get together’s nominating calendar till 2024 — and New Hampshire as unrepresentative of the get together as an entire as a result of the states have largely white populations with few main city areas. Nevada and South Carolina, which in current cycles voted third and fourth on the calendar, are far more various than both Iowa or New Hampshire. Nevada and South Carolina had been added to the Democratic calendar twenty years in the past to improve the variety of the early states’ voters.
The Democratic National Committee is anticipated to determine on the order of its 2028 presidential nominating calendar later this 12 months. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News )
But New Hampshire Democrats have lengthy pushed again, saying the state’s wealthy custom of grassroots, retail politics, its well-informed voters, its excessive share of voter participation and its longtime standing as a key common election swing state make it the proper locale to maintain the first-in-the-nation primary.
After the DNC eliminated New Hampshire from the highest of their 2024 calendar, placing the state second together with Nevada, the Granite State nonetheless moved to the pinnacle of the road. Adhering to a virtually half-century-old regulation that mandates the Granite State to maintain the first presidential primary every week forward of any related contest, New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan scheduled the Democratic and GOP presidential primary contests for Jan. 23, 2024.
The Democratic contest, which was held earlier than South Carolina and Nevada, ended up being an unsanctioned election, with the DNC banning the state’s delegates from attending that summer time’s nominating conference. The DNC later made peace with New Hampshire, and reinstated their conference delegates.
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The Rules and Bylaws Committee is not anticipated to determine on the 2028 calendar till later this 12 months.
The rival Republican National Committee, as Fox News Digital first reported final week, at its winter assembly took the first formal step in retaining the GOP’s 2028 calendar the identical, with the Iowa caucuses kicking off the nominating course of adopted by New Hampshire’s primary.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter primarily based within the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the marketing campaign path from coast to coast.”
