Michigan will replace Iowa as the first primary contest for Dems

[The Mikado]

You guys, for heaven's sake, think for a second.

Kemp isn't going against the RNC to move GA's primary into a prohibited zone by the GOP just to make the Democrats happy. He doesn't care about the Democrats. He also isn't gonna create a second GA primary just to make GA Dems happy.

Also, SC isn't gonna try to leapfrog NH/NV for similar reasons. Why would McMasters do that?

No one on the Dem side is gonna want a state-party organized at the last minute GA Caucus. They'll follow the GA primary date.

First four states on Dem side will either be NH/NV/SC/MI or NV/NH/SC/MI.

GOP will keep IA but will have a big problem with MI moving into the window. Presumably they don't want to alienate the MI-GOP with a major penalty so they'd have two choices: either allow an MI GOP primary early (maybe with the 50% delegate penalty they did in 2008 again) or force MI-GOP primary to be a delegate-less beauty contest with an MI-GOP caucus deciding delegates later on. (IMO this is what they do)

How do you guys follow politics and not know that the primaries are creatures of the state governments? The DNC/RNC can decide whether or not they're delegate awarding events, but the DNC can't just say "there'll be an early Feb Dem primary in South Carolina" without McMaster authorizing the money and polling places to allow that to happen. At most you get a caucus organized by the state party with like four polling places across all of Charleston and people voting in the gay bars and black churches that offer free rent to the SC Dems. MI might move because the MI state government WANTS to move. SC doesn't want to move to that date because the RNC isn't cool with it and McMaster cares more about them than he does about the DNC.

[The Mikado]

Now we see how much the DNC is willing to sanction states that jump the line. I think Iowa Dems will swallow their pride and go later but New Hampshire definitely will move up as far as needed. Question is whether the DNC is as tough on them as they were on Florida/Michigan in 2008.

IA would be easy to quash as all the DNC has to do is recognize the Iowa Primary (in June) as the delegate selecting contest, and say it won't accept any delegates selected at the Iowa Caucus.

[The Mikado]

One of the advantages of having four small states go first is that it has an equalizer effect. Smaller states require less money to campaign in, and if you have less name recognition, it's easier to crisscross the state and put yourself out there. Not every underdog is deserving, but neither is every frontrunner, and having small states go first allows the quality of candidates' ground games and campaigning skills shine through. See: 2008 Democratic primaries.

Michigan is a bigger state by area and far, far bigger by population. Underdogs or outsiders who may genuinely be better candidates run a greater risk of getting drowned out, and I'm not sure that benefits the party on the long run.

Come join us in the 2020s where any weird rando with a social media presence can raise 10s of millions of dollars and end up on national debate stages despite having literally 0 name recognition before announcing (looking at you Andrew Yang). This idea that bigger stages hurts gadfly underdogs is just so wrong...if anything there's never been a better time to be a random nobody gadfly candidate.

To the extent that larger primary states shuts weird novelty boutique underdogs out, well, good.

[The Mikado]

This new proposed primary calendar has Howard Dean's seal of approval:

https://twitter.com/ccadelago/status/1601218869837824002

He has more cause to hate Iowa than anyone else around, of course.

[The Mikado]

Is this calendar change following through? Will Iowa finally be brought down a peg after choosing the wrong winner by a wide berth in 2016 and 2020?

The tentative calendar for Dems is:

SC
NH/NV
MI

Super Tuesday.

Buuuuuuuuut, NH is going to try to jump the gun because the GOP state government has no interest in the DNC trying to kill their first in the nation primary. My guess is that the eventual result is NH goes first with a 50% delegate penalty for jumping the gun so the actual order ends up

NH
SC
NV
MI

GOP is keeping Iowa Caucus but Michigan's moving into their early window without authorization because the Democratic state government doesn't care about the RNC's calendar preferences so GOP early primaries should be:

IA Caucus
NH
NV
SC
MI (50% delegate penalty for going early)