Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland played up his family ties to South Carolina and issued a spirited call to action as he addressed a room of Democrats hundreds of miles from home.

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota told The New York Times that he liked the idea of holding the first-in-the-nation presidential primary election in South Carolina, and stressed that Democrats should show up in red states like this one.

The 2028 presidential campaign is years away, and virtually everything about it is uncertain. But in the eyes of some South Carolina Democrats who filed into the state party’s dinner on Friday night, or who headed to Representative James E. Clyburn’s annual fish fry nearby, the earliest stages of the primary race are plainly underway.

And to them, just one question really matters: Who can win a general election?

“South Carolina Democrats don’t want to waste their vote,” said former Gov. Jim Hodges, the last Democrat to lead the state. “It’s very important that the candidates have a little swagger and confidence and that they lay out a persuasive case for how they can win.”

Indeed, interviews with roughly a dozen elected officials and party activists who were in Columbia this past week show that at this early stage, some are already inclined toward the kind of punditry that dominated the 2020 primary campaign, viewing potential candidates through the prism of their general-election appeal.