New Hampshire Sets January 8, 2008 for First Presidential Primary

Iowa leads off the 2008 Presidential Sweepstakes with its caucus on Thursday January 3, 2008. Last night New Hampshire settled on having their primary on Tuesday January 8, 2008.

New Hampshire’s decision announced by their Secretary of State, came after the Michigan Supreme Court by a 4 to 1 vote on Wednesday gave the go ahead for Michigan Democrats and Republicans to hold their primary on January 15, 2008.

As the NY Times notes, “New Hampshire law dictates that it hold the first primary in the nation, which it has done since 1920, and the Jan. 8 date makes the 2008 primary the state’s earliest ever.
This year, the primary calendar has been nothing short of a mess, with states leapfrogging one another’s contests, and the national parties imposing penalties on states that scheduled their primaries before party rules allowed. Michigan, for instance, could lose half of its Republican delegates and all of its Democratic ones”.

You can click here to view the current 2008 Democratic Primary schedule.

You can click here to view the current 2008 Republican Primary schedule.

Washington State Democrats will hold their precinct caucuses on Saturday February 9, 2008 to start the process to select delegates to the Democratic National Convention to be held in Denver, Colorado on August 25 -28, 2008.

Washington State Democrats hold a series of conventions for the delegates selected at the precinct caucuses. These include:

Precinct Caucuses – Saturday February 9, 2008
Legislative District Conventions – Saturday April 5, 2008
County Conventions – Saturday April 19, 2008
Congressional District Conventions – Saturday May 17, 2008
Washington State Convention – June 14 & 15, 2008 – Spokane, Washington

Click on this link for a summary and rules of the Democratic delegate selection process.

Washington State will also hold a Presidential Primary on February 19, 2008. It will not be used by the Democrats to select delegates but it will allow a lot more people an opportunity to vote for who they would like to see nominated for President by the Democrats. The Republican Party will select half of their delegates based on the vote by people selecting a Republican ballot on February 19, 2008.