N.H. official says primary will likely be held before Feb. 14

The Republican National Committee rules allow Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina to hold their nominating contests in February, with other states allowed to vote on or after March 6. The Democratic National Committee assigned dates to each early state, with the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 14, following the Iowa caucuses and four days before the Nevada caucuses. But several states are threatening to leapfrog ahead, trying to tap into the excitement and attention bestowed on the early states.

Florida’s primary is set for Jan. 31, and some officials there are not inclined to change it. A Florida commission has until Oct. 1 to decide when to hold the primary, and states such as Michigan and South Carolina are waiting for Florida’s move. Missouri and Arizona have primaries scheduled for February and require either legislative or gubernatorial action to change their dates.

Wisconsin and West Virginia have also talked about voting before March, said Gardner and Steve Duprey, a Republican National Committee member from New Hampshire

Any state that violates the RNC rules will lose half its delegates to the party convention. Duprey said the RNC is waiting to see what Florida does. “The RNC has made it very clear if any state other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina goes before the first Tuesday in March, they’ll apply the rules,’’ Duprey said.

Even if the other states decide to hold off until March, New Hampshire still may not adhere to the Feb. 14 date, Gardner said. New Hampshire law instructs the secretary of state to set the primary seven days before any similar nominating contest, and the proposed DNC calendar has just four days between New Hampshire and Nevada.

Massachusetts’s primary is set for March 6. William Galvin, Massachusetts’s secretary of state, said he would prefer that New Hampshire have its primary in February because the media ads spilling over from New Hampshire encourage Massachusetts voters to participate. But Galvin supports Gardner’s decision to hold the primary as early as necessary.

The first time Florida challenged New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status, before the 1972 election, New Hampshire moved its primary up a week, and later that decade passed a law codifying its tradition of voting first, Gardner said. Since then, jockeying for position has become a quadrennial tradition, and Gardner has proven his ability to wait as long as necessary to announce the primary date.

On Thanksgiving eve 2007, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Michigan could hold its primary Jan. 15. Gardner then announced that New Hampshire’s primary would be held Jan. 8, the earliest presidential primary date, following a Jan. 3 caucus in Iowa. Voters had little time to process the Iowa results before voting in New Hampshire.

Shira Schoenberg can be reached at sschoenberg@globe. com. Follow her on Twitter @shiraschoenberg.