Idea: Illinois as first-primary state

[LAKISYLVANIA]

The state might be too populous/big and thus put certain candidates at a disadvantage.

Imagine the costs of running an effective ad campaign in the Chicago DMA (the third largest in the U.S.)

Perhaps, the Democrats could circumvent that problem by allocating each congressional district the same number of delegates, so that Southern Illinois won't be disregarded during the candidates' campaigns.

Southern Illinois is majorly white. It just shifting the problem. I also wouldn't say Chicago is very representative of the USA as a whole. And i'm not sure Afro-Americans in Illinois / Chicago are representative of Afro-Americans as a whole. Demographics is much more complicated than it looks like.

The GOP could hold their first primary in Florida, but would Florida hispanics be representative of the entire Hispanic community in America?

The benefit of IA is that it's small, cheap to campaign in and because grassroots support and popularity are being tested for real here and voters are elastic, so yes i'm a big proponent of IA first, NH second, despite the general consensus of many Atlas users.

There are tons of Afro-American states that come early as well (the first super sunday is full of states with large proportions of Afro-Americans in states that are likely not going to be competitive in the general election too, and SC as well as fourth already).

I'm not sure if there is an alternative to Iowa and/or New Hampshire. Nevada is the only one i can come up with. Kansas perhaps too, since it has a sizeable hispanic population. And Colorado is an option too. All states with many Afro-Americans are rather large, expensive to campaign in and are not going to be competitive.

Michigan and Pennsylvania are options, but both are way too large, although they shouldn't vote late too, given how important they are and how PA might be the "average" state of USA in terms of demographics and more.

States that should vote last are: West Virginia, both Dakota's, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama. Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Tennessee and Kentucky should be late too.

All smaller states i haven't named should be quite early, followed by the larger states (NY, CA, TX), followed by some other similar states (FL, OH)

I'd think this order would be good:

Nevada
Iowa
New Hampshire
North Carolina
________________________
Texas
Michigan
Minnesota
California
Colorado
Maine
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Vermont
Arizona
____________________

Wisconsin
Georgia
New Mexico
Alaska
Washington
______________________

Hawaii + other overseas regions and Americans in foreign areas
Illinois
Kansas
Utah
_________________

Massachussets
New York
Rhode Island
Connecticut
Virginia
DC

_________________

Florida
Nebraska

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All others I believe: KY, WV, ND, SD, ID, WY, TN, SC, AL, MS, LA, AR and that's it?

[LAKISYLVANIA]

If primaries are to be staggered, Illinois fits the bill for me - representative of the US ethnically, with a large city, suburbs, exurbs, rurals and a mixture of economic sectors and populations.

Illinois would be good, but Illinois is losing population. Look at census county maps and you see red---why not Georgia or Texas, or some other microcosm....

All extremely expensive (and impractical) to campaign in, unless you divide the state primary in several smaller primaries (which is an option, but than it's no longer a microcosm ofc).

Texas is a great microcosm sure, but it would actually not be able to test the desired establishment candidate very well, and in the long it would result in more losses during presidential elections, because it isn't a real test, as smaller candidates have not the money or the ability to campaign in such a large state.

Texas is already (and rightfully) early, but it shouldn't be among the first four. I'm fine with where Texas is right now.

And of course, if you prefer the establishment candidate time after time, you could make the case for just scraping the entire primary process. I mean it would unite the party perhaps much quicker, because having GA/TX/IL all come very early (like the first four primaries) would result in the primaries just being a waste of time for everyone, including the voters.