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It may not be business as usual in the TV world, but little by little, production has picked up, networks are announcing renewals and new (and some not all that new CSI, again?) shows are being greenlit. Heres a round-up of some shows and developments that have been generating TV talk.

Bridgerton news: The fabulously watchable Netflix series set in 1800s London is returning for a second season. Let the rejoicing begin! But good as that news is, heres the bummer: Reg-Jean Page, whose sexy, elegant performance as Simon Bassett, the Duke of Hastings, helped ignite viewer passion for the show, wont be back for Season 2.

Pages career has caught fire after his sizzling work in Bridgerton, so it may not be all that surprising that hes pursuing other opportunities. And Season 2 is, were told, going to mirror author Julia Quinns series of novels, and deal with Daphne Bridgertons (Phoebe Dynevor) brother, Anthony, and his search for an appropriate spouse.

The Hollywood Reporter cites sources who say that Page originally signed a one-year deal for Bridgerton, the first season of which revolved around the relationship and romance between his character and Daphne Bridgerton.

According to the Hollywood Reporter story, Sources close to the show tellTHRthat Page was offered an opportunity to return as a guest star in three to five episodes of season two at a rate of $50,000 an episode but declined for a multitude of reasons.

While Dynevor is expected to return for the second Bridgerton season, Page has been busy elsewhere, recently hosting Saturday Night Live, and working on movies.

Oh, well. To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that when an actor becomes a breakout hit on a TV show, they may quickly depart for greener pastures.

Everything old is new again: Networks love to revamp shows that viewers are familiar with. Theres no better evidence of that than the recent announcement that CSI is making a comeback. CBS has ordered CSI: Vegas, which is being described as a sequel to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, the crime-solving procedural that gave birth to a bunch of spinoffs. Back for more are original stars William Petersen, Jorja Fox and Wallace Langham. New cast members include Paula Newsome, Matt Lauria, Mel Rodriguez and Mandeep Dhillon.

Theres no word yet on when CSI: Vegas will premiere. The original CSI premiered in 2000, and ran for 15 seasons, just in case you forgot.

Cancellations and renewals: While 2021-2022 schedules are still in flux, news keeps dribbling out about shows that have been axed, and others that will live to see another season. Heres some recent news.

Canceled: American Gods (Starz); Pose (the FX series returns for its third and final season on May 2); Killing Eve (the BBC America series returns for its fourth and final season in 2022); Bless the Harts (Fox); Mom (CBS); NCIS: New Orleans (CBS)

Renewed: Mr. Mayor (NBC); Dancing With the Stars (ABC); Young Sheldon (CBS); The Simpsons (Fox); Bob Hearts Abishola (CBS); FBI (CBS); FBI: Most Wanted (CBS); The Neighborhood (CBS); The Equalizer (CBS); Superman & Lois (The CW); Walker (The CW); Making the Cut (Amazon Prime Video)

More of our coverage:

Jon Stewarts TV return: Title, premiere plan for former Daily Show hosts new series

Chad: Another Portland-filmed comedy from a Saturday Night Live veteran debuts Tuesday

-- Kristi Turnquist

kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist

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That Bridgerton bummer; CSI revival; cancellations, renewals, and more TV news - OregonLive

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation had an impressive 15 season run on CBS. But these days nothing is ever really over, which is why the network is bringing the show back, along with original stars William Petersen and Jorja Fox, under the slightly reworked title CSI: Vegas.

This is not good news. I like both actors; Petersen is a veteran of the Chicago theater scene and hes always found a way to retain that grounded, no-bull approach in his work on TV. Even on a weekly procedural.

But I would deem the return of CSI as the least inspired television gambit of the year if it werent for Dick Wolf and NBC saying hold my beer and burping up Law & Order: Organized Crime, which premiered last week starring Christopher Meloni, whose Det. Elliot Stabler last appeared 10 years ago on Law & Order: SVU. Hes back. And hes more or less the same: Too intense but the ends justify the means because he cares. Meet the new show, same as the old show.

This is nothing against Meloni, whos a terrific actor. Audiences like Stabler. We also like familiarity. Theres nothing wrong with that, and executives appear all too happy to launch new projects if half their marketing is already done.

Even so, its a curious decision to add yet more cop shows in the midst of a collective reckoning on police abuse, racism and fatalities. Its a genre that plays such an influential role shaping real world perceptions and misconceptions about what justice is supposed to look like. Im still waiting for a bold network or streaming executive to greenlight a TV show that portrays a community that has replaced policing with other systems. How might that work? What are the upsides? And what are the unintended consequences? Fiction can take all kinds of leaps and help us envision alternatives to our present.

But really, I just want Hollywood to tell new stories instead of succumbing to franchise fever and regurgitating the same old intellectual property over and over.

Its the only way forward if people in decision-making roles are serious about creating real opportunities for writers who have long been marginalized and ignored. So many words were spoken to that effect last summer when studios acknowledged they needed to publicly take a stand against racism. Was that just lip service?

Thuc Nguyen is a Los Angeles-based screenwriter and founder of the mentorship program #StartWith8Hollywood. She moved to the U.S. from Vietnam with her family in 1980. I look at the big picture, she said. And from my point of view as a Vietnamese American woman, Im coming at it from the perspective of: What do I think society needs to know that you couldnt possibly know unless you were me?

Theres been no shortage of films about the war in Vietnam from the perspective of those who served in the U.S. military. And they just keep getting made; Zac Efron and Russell Crowe are in talks to star in Beer Run from director Peter Farrelly, about a Marine vet in 1967 who sets out on a wild journey from New York to Vietnam just to bring beer to his childhood buddies in the army as they battle overseas.

There are other stories worthy of backing from financiers and studios.

Nguyens screenplay for Scent of the Delta tells the story of a Vietnamese American woman in her 30s who returns to her hometown of New Orleans after her mother, a manicurist at a nail salon, is murdered.

She has another script, a satire called Mindy Wu Tran Versus Silicon Beach, about a Vietnamese American entrepreneur who battles racism, sexism and the less talked about insidiousness of white feminism in order to keep her startup alive: Will she make it out of #Brotopia?

Nguyen also has a couple of horror films written, as well as a TV pilot that tackles the fetishization of Asian women, about a Ph.D. candidate who pretends to participate in a white male/Asian female romantic relationship to examine: What is the deal with these things and what are the racial dynamics? Its her academic study of yellow fever.

What kind of feedback does Nguyen get when she pitches these ideas?

Theres a scene in Scent of the Delta where the main character is walking alone at night and a car drives by and someone yells, Me love you long time. And a white woman producer told me, That doesnt happen. And I said, Yes it does! Its happened to me a million times in my life. And she said, Lets go ask my Vietnamese friend down at my tennis club if this happens to her, I bet it doesnt. Those are her words, verbatim, that ring in my head.

As violent attacks on Asian people have increased in recent months, Nguyen said shes had more requests to see her screenplays. Especially after the mass shooting last month of female spa workers in Atlanta. Nguyen mentioned something neither of us has seen addressed so far: The women in Atlanta were killed on the anniversary to the day, March 16 of the 1968 My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, when a company of American soldiers slaughtered a village of unarmed Vietnamese women, children and elders.

So we have history practically slapping us in the face, Nguyen said. Her scripts contend with the kind of violence Vietnamese and other Asian women experience today, and when producers suddenly express interest in her scripts but only in the wake of traumatic events, it feels cynical. Nguyen pointed out one of the lines on the poster for 1987s Full Metal Jacket as emblematic of the apathy that is the norm: Vietnam can kill me, but it cant make me care.

All these messages right now about #StopAsianHate, were begging people to just care. And in Hollywood, people havent cared unless they can make money off of Asians, or proliferate these white-friendly lifestyle movies like Crazy Rich Asians, which doesnt show that there are actually socioeconomic problems experienced by the Asian diaspora, it just makes it look like Asians dont need help. That were rich and we flaunt it.

Much as I want to see new stories, I also want projects that avoid old traps and bad habits.

Too often when Hollywood does zero in on Asian stories, they lack specificity: That applies to Disneys Raya and the Last Dragon, where its like all Southeast Asians were put into a blender, said Nguyen. Theyre expecting all Asians to share this one crumb.

Or producers would rather cast a star the point of view character who is white. Thats the case in the forthcoming Netflix movie A Tourists Guide to Love, with Rachael Leigh Cook playing a travel executive who goes undercover to learn about the tourism industry in Vietnam.

This white woman goes to exotic Vietnam and interprets the country through white eyes, produced by all white, people isnt really sitting well especially right now, Nguyen tweeted when the film was announced earlier this month.

Often, Nguyen said, Hollywood only thinks of Asian women serving you as your nail tech or your girlfriend or your eye candy. Or serving a bad guys rear on a platter.

But theres a whole spectrum of characters and human experiences that arent being portrayed as often. Or at all.

Does Nguyen feel optimistic about her own prospects as well as those of others?

Im a cynic supreme, she said, but I just saw an ad from a company looking for grounded Asian stories that have nothing to do with wealth. So well see.

(Nina Metz covers TV and film for the Chicago Tribune.)

2021 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Originally posted here:
Nina Metz: Enough with the reboots and regurgitation of the same old, same old. Tell new stories - Hastings Tribune

Bahareh and Emad Shargi in California in June 2017. Bahareh Shargi hide caption

Bahareh and Emad Shargi in California in June 2017.

Later this month, Bahareh Shargi will mark an anniversary: It will be three years that her husband has been stuck in Iran.

Iranian authorities first imprisoned Emad Shargi, a U.S. citizen, on April 23, 2018. Though they eventually released him on bail, they did not allow him to leave the country and later returned him to Tehran's Evin prison. Now his family hopes that speaking out may help him.

His wife discussed his case at the Washington, D.C., home where they raised two daughters. She sat on their concrete back porch, which overlooks a playground set from the days when their children were little. "I'm so proud to have spent the last 32 years with him," she said. She calls these last three years spent apart "this ordeal."

Emad, Shargi, 56, is one of numerous U.S. citizens who have been arrested in Iran over the years on opaque charges of espionage. He said he was innocent, and Iran made no evidence public.

Iranian diplomats have frequently spoken of exchanging such prisoners for Iranians in U.S. prisons. While the United States formally rejects any such exchanges, some U.S. and Iranian prisoners were released during the Trump administration. But not Emad Shargi.

Bahareh Shargi, 53, said she and her husband were born in Iran, and both moved to the United States when they were young and became citizens. But they maintained family ties to their native country, and when their children went to college a few years ago, they chose to take an opportunity to live in Tehran.

Emad Shargi in 2015 Bahareh Shargi hide caption

Emad Shargi in 2015

"We had this window of time where we thought, 'We can travel,' " she said.

They occupied a house in Tehran belonging to Bahareh Shargi's family. Emad Shargi, a businessman, had previously worked in the Persian Gulf region and briefly worked for the Dutch arm of an Iranian venture capital firm.

His wife insists that they had no hint of trouble with Iranian authorities until after midnight on April 23, 2018, when she woke to find "15, 16, 17 men and a woman, strangers in our home." They took the couple's passports and many other documents, and left with Emad.

She followed him to Evin prison, an imposing mountainside structure in north Tehran. It occupies an outsized place in the Iranian psyche as the destination for many who fall out of favor with Iran's security services. She passed through its gates daily, seeking to meet a senior official, but only reached a secretary who told her to go home. She recounts being told, "We will call you. Your husband will be here for a long, long time."

Emad Shargi was released from prison in December 2018, but his passport was not returned, making it impossible for him to travel. His wife reluctantly returned to the U.S., hoping he could follow. But after nearly two years of waiting, he was rearrested in November 2020.

Bahareh Shargi grew concerned that month when she could not reach him by video conference as she usually did. Finally she learned he was back in prison from the BBC Persian news service. "I opened my phone," she said, and saw "three pictures of a man that looked like Emad, but had aged, I would say, 20, 30 years since the last time I had seen him on FaceTime."

The Shargi family in 2015. Bahareh Shargi hide caption

The Shargi family in 2015.

In February Emad was allowed to begin calling from Evin. He said he had been convicted in a trial he did not attend, and issued a 10-year sentence.

Bahareh Shargi and their daughters, Hannah, 22, and Ariana, 24, gather around the phone when he calls.

"What I've been trying to do lately is let him know we are doing other things and higher up people are doing other things, and 'You are not forgotten,' " Bahareh Shargi said.

On a recent call, she informed her husband that U.S. and Iranian diplomats would be in Vienna this week, passing messages back and forth. It's an effort to find a way for the U.S. to rejoin a nuclear agreement with Iran and other world powers.

When U.S. diplomats last negotiated over Iran's nuclear program during the Obama administration, they worked to keep the talks separate from the discussions of imprisoned Americans. They wanted to avoid being asked to pay a kind of nuclear ransom for prisoners. These most recent nuclear talks are tentative U.S. and Iranian officials are not even in the same room but Rob Malley, the U.S. envoy to Iran, said President Biden "cares deeply" about getting "the American citizens released as soon as possible, reunited with their loved ones."

"They're not part of this negotiation, but they're part, in fact, of our thinking," Malley told NPR in an interview Monday. "And we're determined to see them released regardless of what happens on the nuclear track."

The families of Americans being held in Iran have urged the Biden administration to make their release a priority.

"Looking back," said Bahareh Shargi, "it was one big mistake of going there."

She gestured out into the backyard of their Washington home. "His best times were under this cherry blossom tree, which, if you come back in 20 days, is in full bloom [and] pink." She has no way to know when her husband might return to see their backyard cherry trees.

She remembered when their daughters were small, and "showered themselves with cherry blossoms" as the petals fell. "And the reason I say that is that I want to tell these people [that] you have the wrong person. Why do you have Emad?"

Lisa Weiner and Denise Couture produced and edited the audio story.

The rest is here:
3 Years Later, A Prisoner's Family Still Awaits His Return From Iran - NPR

Robert Malley, pictured in 2018, helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. He's now involved in talks to potentially restart the deal, beginning this week in Vienna. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Robert Malley, pictured in 2018, helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. He's now involved in talks to potentially restart the deal, beginning this week in Vienna.

The U.S. and Iran are holding indirect talks this week in Vienna over a return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

Diplomats from the two countries won't meet face to face representatives from Europe, Russia and China will serve as a go-between. Both the U.S. and Iran insist the other needs to make a concession first Iran says the U.S. should lift sanctions, while the U.S. says Iran should scale back its nuclear program.

Robert Malley will be one of the people representing the U.S. in the talks. He tells Morning Edition that it's only a first step in a long and difficult process with the goal of bringing both countries back into compliance.

"This is going to involve discussions about identifying the steps that the U.S. has to take and identifying the steps that Iran is going to have to take," he says. "Because they've been increasingly in noncompliance with their nuclear commitments."

Former President Donald Trump broke off from the deal in 2018 and imposed punitive sanctions. Iran in turn began to enrich uranium to higher percentages than was allowed under the deal, getting slightly closer to making the radioactive fuel used in nuclear weapons.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the sanctions imposed by Trump are illegal and that they must be removed before Iran changes its nuclear activities.

Malley, who is serving as a special envoy for the Biden administration, responds that "it's not going to work that way," telling NPR's Steve Inskeep that stance would mean Iran is "not serious" about rejoining the deal.

Malley helped negotiate the deal in 2015 when he served in the Obama National Security Council.

Here are excerpts from the interview, which have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

How out of compliance is Iran at the moment?

Every day that goes by, they're more out of compliance because they have obviously increased their stockpile of enriched uranium. They are experimenting with centrifuges that are more advanced than the ones that they were supposed to be using, they have restricted the access of the International Atomic Energy Organization. So they are doing things that are out of compliance.

And, you know, President Biden has been clear during the campaign and since he's been in the Oval Office that the United States is prepared to come into compliance if Iran does. Unfortunately, ever since the president has been in office, Iran has moved further out of compliance.

Even before these negotiations began, there were groups who are opposed to resuming this nuclear agreement who've been taking out ads in papers and lobbying in different ways. Is there a case to be made for the status quo? It wasn't what you would have done had you been around during the Trump administration. But Iran is still sort of in the deal and it's also sanctioned and restricted in many ways.

Listen, we've had a real life experiment with this. The last three years the Trump administration tested the proposition that putting Iran under maximum pressure and telling it either it needs to come back and forget about the existing nuclear deal and agree to more stringent requirements, or else the pressure would continue.

Well, we've seen what happened. Iran expanded its nuclear program, is getting closer to, sort of, troubling levels of enriched uranium, troubling levels of advanced centrifuges, troubling restrictions on the verification and monitoring, the unprecedented verification that the nuclear deal provided. So, no, we've seen the result of the maximum pressure campaign. It has failed.

You're telling me that this situation gets a little more dangerous each day. Iran comes a little more out of compliance each day. Are we on a trend line where if nothing changes, ultimately there would be a war because the United States is committed never to allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon?

I'm not going to go there. I am going to say that the United States under President Biden is committed to making sure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon. We believe the best way to do that is through diplomacy.

Do you have any indication that there could be any bipartisan support? There wasn't for the last agreement.

You know, hope springs eternal. We'll work as closely as we can with Congress. And this is a very polarizing issue. We understand that. At the same time we've stated clearly it was what the president ran on that we would come back into the deal if Iran resumed compliance and then work on it to achieve what I think every member of Congress has said he or she wants to achieve, which is a stronger, longer deal that meets U.S. core interests. But also would have to include further steps that Iran is looking for. And doing this in coordination with our regional allies, our regional partners.

This administration has set a goal for itself of a foreign policy that is in some way connected to Americans. How, if at all, could reentering this nuclear agreement help ordinary Americans?

It would not serve the interests of America or American citizens if there were growing tension in the Middle East because of an expanding Iranian nuclear program. So getting back into the deal is very much, in our estimation, in the interest of the United States and of its citizens.

So that the president and his team could focus on what really matters for the well-being of the American people and a return to an understanding that was working and which could serve as a platform to then get something even stronger for our benefit.

Critics of this deal have said what it did not include: limitations on Iranian missiles or Iran's activities in the region. What is something stronger that you could get in a follow-on agreement if you resume this agreement?

What we would pursue is, first of all, a longer agreement. Even though this one lasts quite some time and some of its provisions last forever, of course, it would be better, as in any arms control agreement, to see whether we could get a follow-on deal that extends the timelines. ...

And, you know, we have concerns about Iran's ballistic missile program. We have concerns about their activities in the region. We want to talk about all that. But we're much better off talking about all of that if we could at least put the current nuclear issue to the side and not have to worry every day about what the latest Iranian announcement will be.

Iran has its own presidential election coming up in June. Is it necessary for you to get any agreement started before that election?

It's not necessary. And we will negotiate with whoever is in power in Iran. And if we could reach an understanding before the elections, fine. And if we can't, we'll continue after that with whoever is in office in Tehran. So we can't ignore the reality of an election, but we can't let it dictate our pace either.

Lisa Weiner and Denise Couture produced and edited the audio interview. James Doubek produced for the Web.

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Biden Envoy To Iran On What To Expect In Renewed Nuclear Talks - NPR

Like death and taxes, its long been a fact of life that Iowa and New Hampshire kick off both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries.

However, the nightmarish hellscape that was the Iowa caucuses in the 2020 Democratic primary the Iowa Democratic Party released barely any results the night of the caucuses because of technical problems heightened calls for ending Iowas reign as the first state to vote in the primary calendar.

But in some ways, the push to bump Iowa and New Hampshire from the start of the primary process has long been picking up steam among Democrats. Iowa and New Hampshire are two very white states 85 to 90 percent of each states population is non-Hispanic white and in 2020 neither state did much to influence the nomination race for a party that is now about 40 percent nonwhite. Now-President Biden won the Democratic primary despite finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses and fifth in New Hampshires primary.

Yet the mounting opposition to Iowa and New Hampshire voting first might not be enough to actually depose them. Ultimately, state parties and/or governments decide the timing of their caucuses or primaries. And while the national party can encourage these decision-makers to schedule their contests on certain dates, it cannot unilaterally impose its will on the primary calendar. Moreover, because Republicans seem intent on keeping the two states in prime position for the 2024 campaign, it might be even more difficult for Democrats to make any changes.

Its true, though, that Iowa and New Hampshire are not representative of the Democratic electorate. Back in 2019, we used data from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a survey of more than 50,000 people conducted by YouGov in conjunction with Harvard University, to reorder Democrats primary calendar based on the similarity of each states Democratic electorate to the partys nationwide voter base. We found that Iowa and New Hampshire ranked in the bottom half of states in terms of how representative they were of the Democratic Partys voters, and thus would vote near the end of the primary season. (This analysis uses data from the 2016 presidential election, but considering how highly correlated the 2016 and 2020 presidential contests were, its hard to imagine the order would change that much if we had final 2020 data, which we dont.)

States by how similar their 2016 Democratic electorate is to the U.S. Democratic electorate in terms of voters race, ethnicity and education, where lower scores mean more similar

Other includes people who identified as Asian, Native American, Middle Eastern, mixed or other.

The Democratic electorate includes anyone who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and anyone who didnt vote for Clinton but identified as a Democrat.

Similarity is determined by Euclidean distance, where a distance of 0 means the items are identical and higher scores mean more dissimilarity.

Source: 2016 COOPERATIVE CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION STUDY

Instead of the current order, a state like Illinois or New Jersey should go first by our calculations. That might be a hard sell, of course, considering a state like New Jersey has often voted at the end of the primary process, and underdog candidates would prefer not to run ads in the expensive media markets of Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.

As another option, Democrats have floated moving up Nevada, which ranked fifth in our similarity calculation and has been an early-voting state since 2008. Nevada Democrats, who have full control of state government, are even considering legislation to establish a state-run primary to try and jump ahead of New Hampshire, but its unclear whether such legislation, which has failed before in Nevada, will pass. (South Carolina is another leading alternative among Democrats, given its also an early-voting state and is one of the few states in the Democratic primary with a majority-Black primary electorate. It also proved vital to Bidens nomination in 2020.) Some Democrats even like the idea of promoting Pennsylvania, a pivotal swing state that ranked just behind Nevada in our analysis. However, in previous years Pennsylvania leaders have been reluctant to schedule an earlier date for the states consolidated primary, where it holds primaries for president and other offices on the same day.

And Pennsylvanias logistical concerns underscore one of the fundamental challenges to supplanting Iowa and New Hampshire: Doing so will require cooperation among the national parties, state parties and in the case of state-run primaries state governments, which is no easy task because these actors often have conflicting goals.

Although the Democratic National Committee can try to encourage states to schedule their contests in certain calendar windows with various carrots and sticks like handing out delegate bonuses or penalties they cant force states to cooperate. And Iowa and New Hampshire have no interest in giving up their valuable calendar real estate, which, beyond its outsized political influence, is also worth millions of dollars to each states local economy.

Take New Hampshire, where state law gives Secretary of State Bill Gardner unilateral power to move the primary date as necessary to protect the states distinction of hosting the cycles first presidential primary. This has arguably been Gardners raison dtre during his four-plus decades in office, as hes gone pretty far to keep New Hampshire first. Ahead of the 2012 GOP presidential primary, for instance, multiple states moved their primary dates up, which prompted Gardner to threaten that hed schedule New Hampshires contest in December 2011 if he had to. And in an age where theres little bipartisanship on most issues, maintaining New Hampshires privileged place unites Democratic and Republican leaders in the Granite State, so if Nevada does switch to a primary and tries to schedule it before New Hampshires primary, Gardner will just pick an even earlier date.

Democratic efforts to shake up the primary calendar would probably be more feasible if Republicans were on board, but theres little sign they are. Republican Party chairs from Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada are banding together to protect their carve-out spots at the front of the line, and potential 2024 Republican presidential contenders arent anticipating radical shifts, as theyre already visiting Iowa and New Hampshire.

One reason for the GOPs apparent lack of interest in changing the schedule may be that it has fewer concerns than Democrats about these two states being representative: Using 2016 CCES data, we found Iowa ranked as the sixth-most representative state for Republicans, based on educational attainment and born-again religious identification although New Hampshire also ranked in the bottom half of all states.

Democrats may still try to relegate Iowas caucuses after the messy 2020 event, and some Iowa Democrats have acknowledged they will have to fight to hold onto their spot. But because the GOP isnt moving to supplant Iowa, attempts at the wholesale changes many Democrats want may be a bridge too far.

Now, moving Iowas caucuses wouldnt be as involved as moving the primary in New Hampshire because they are a party-run event and dont involve the state government. But even if the DNC heavily penalizes Iowa and New Hampshire for going first by reducing or even eliminating their delegates, it risks a situation where Republicans are still competing first in those states. This could prompt Democrats in those states to still hold their contests at the same time as Republicans, hoping the inevitably intense media coverage of the races preserves their influence over the overall nomination race.

At this early vantage point, we cant say what the primary schedule will look like in 2024, or if Democrats will even have a competitive race. (Biden has said he plans to seek reelection, but hell be 81 years old in 2024.) But what we can say at this point is that making major alterations to the nomination calendar has never been easy if it were, things wouldve changed already. And attempts to remove the two states that have long had a stranglehold on the top rung might prove to be especially messy.

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Many Democrats Are Sick Of Iowa And New Hampshire Going First, But The Primary Calendar Is Unlikely To Change - FiveThirtyEight