The DNC's rules committee is set to meet later this week to consider booting Iowa from its first-in-the-nation slot and add new early states.

A flurry of public and private lobbying to reformat the longtime early-state lineup of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina kicked off again after the midterms, with the Democratic National Committee’s group reviewing the order set to meet later this week.

Key Democratic leaders have been bombarded with phone calls and memos in recent days, while some elected officials, like Sen.

States like Michigan and Minnesota are trying to push in, while Nevada is making a play for first-in-the-nation status over New Hampshire.

The committee has still left open the possibility of adding a fifth calendar to the slate, while it’s also been suggested that two states could hold their contests on the same day.

But there is at least one clear preference from many Democratic leaders, both outside and inside these party deliberations: that Iowa be scrapped from its coveted first slot.

“I don’t think there’s any way Iowa stays and there’s no reason for Iowa to stay,” said one Democrat familiar with the process of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, the group charged with reordering the calendar.

“If the president says he wants this state or that state in the early window, then I’m going to support it because he’s the leader of the party and I would imagine every other [rules committee] member feels the same way,” said one DNC member, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who has led her state’s charge to move up in the nominating calendar, said she’d make moving into the early window her “primary focus” in a letter to her state’s central committee, seeking their support for her bid for an open seat on the DNC.

But Michigan may face pushback due to its larger size, some members said, given that the committee has frequently raised in previous meetings that states should be small and accessible enough for lesser-known candidates to campaign and win.

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Ross Wilburn sent a letter to the Rules and Bylaws Committee on Monday evening, outlining his party’s plans for an “all-mail vote expression of presidential preference” — an effort to simplify a convoluted and difficult caucus system that imploded in 2020, when efforts to tabulate the results broke down on caucus night

“It’s critical that rural states like Iowa have a voice” and the party “cannot abandon an entire group of voters in the heart of the Midwest without doing damage to the party for a generation,” Wilburn wrote in the letter, which was obtained by POLITICO

But Iowa, a predominantly white state that’s trending increasingly Republican, does not fit well into the criteria set out by the DNC, which aimed to prioritize racially, economically and geographically diverse states that are competitive in general elections

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley told WMUR that he doesn’t believe the committee will approve drastic changes based on “my conversations with members,” he said

Earlier this year, the Republican National Committee voted to reaffirm its current lineup of early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada