(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Democrats will have a chance to make the case to national party leaders that the Iowa Democratic Party’s Caucuses should move back to a lead-off position in the next presidential election. A panel of national Democrats met this weekend and agreed Iowa and 11 other states will be competing for up to five early voting slots in 2028. Minyon Moore is chair of the group that will make the decision and she says they are looking for one thing.

“The calendar that produces the strongest possible Democratic nominee for president,” she said. Iowa will be competing against Illinois and Michigan to host one of the four regional voting events that will kick-off the 2028 presidential election. Some committee members like David McDonald of Washington state are raising concerns about having large states like Illinois host the opening contests for Democratic candidates in 2028.

“We make a trade off if we put one of those states up front,” McDonald said. “It is both more expensive and it is less retail campaigning and historically we have tried to emphasize person-to-person contact as much as possible by using small states up front to get a read on the candidates.”

Two other members of the panel that will consider Iowa’s pitch say Iowa Democrats must make clear in their presentation how they plan to conduct the 2028 Caucuses rather than present a menu with early voting options alongside Caucus night voting.

The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is scheduled to meet again in April, but there’s no date set yet for Iowa and other states to make their presentations about hosting early primaries — or the Iowa Caucuses — in 2028.