Democrats prepare to boot Iowa from “first in the nation” status

[Pres Mike]

The DNC likes to front load southern states. Their democratic primary voters are mostly older African Americans who typically vote for more moderate candidates

Although, this does have a point. Democrats can’t win the presidency without high black turnout in Milwaukee, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Allowing someone like Pete Buttigieg to win the nomination without black support would doom chances in a general election.

Hence I support a national primary day where every state voted. Candidates would have to balance every region

How would you prevent a fifty-state same-day primary from overwhelmingly favoring candidates with high nationwide name recognition and lots of cash? Obama would've probably failed to get the nomination in '08 under this system.

Because candidates with high name recognition are already heavily favored? Pete Buttigieg “won” the Iowa caucus and nearly won New Hampshire. By conventional logic Buttigieg should have become the front runner. At very least, the moderates would have rallied behind him to stop Sanders.

Turns out, the other 48 states don’t give a rat’s a** about what Iowa and New Hampshire thinks. Pete Buttigieg collapsed spectacularly in South Carolina.

So, what was the point of the dozen debates and thousands of dollars spent in these two states?

Here’s the thing, regardless of how you organize the primary 2-5 big name candidates are going to dominate the conversation. Having 20 people on the debate stage, each hoping to “break out” isn’t going to change that.

If a no name candidate wanted to “break out”, it’s not by traveling to every cafe and pig barn in Iowa.

What a much more serious problem is states not mattering in the primaries. By not having each state go on the same day, inevitably some states won’t have a say.

Another poster suggested states be divided into four batches. Fairer than what we have now. But won’t the nomination be settled by the time we reach the 4th batch? Congrats, a quarter of the party has no say in the nomination. Rotate the batches? Congrats, I’ll have a say every 12-16 years!

(Btw, I’m extremely skeptical Obama wouldn’t be the nominee in 2008. The party fell in love with him after he gave the keynote address at the 2004 DNC. He only ran because
Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, the two most powerful senate democrats, went to his office and begged him to run against Hillary, their close congressional ally)

[MarkD]

Here is a suggestion I have talked about several times before on TE.

It would take a constitutional amendment to adopt the system I am suggesting.

Adopt an amendment that provides for the following rules: require all of the states and US territories to use presidential primaries from now on; no more caucuses. All states/territories will be prohibited from holding their primaries before April 1st, nor any later than June 30th. The New Hampshire law which says their primary must be the first in the country would be void; no state should be allowed to adopt a law that says "We're first."

Allow all of the states with 3 or 4 ECVs, and all of the US territories, to hold their primaries on any date in April, May, or June, but ONLY those states/territories are allowed to hold them in April. (This would include Alaska, American Samoa, Delaware, District of Columbia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, US Virgin Islands, Vermont, West Virginia,, and Wyoming. These may choose any date in April, but they are allowed to choose dates in May or June as well.)

Allow the states with 5 to 11 ECVs to hold their primaries in May or June, but ONLY those states, and the previous set of states/territories, to hold them in May. (This would include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin. These can pick any date in May, or June if they wish.)

Make all of the states with the most population, 12 ECVs or more, wait until June. (This would include California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. These can pick any date in June.)

In coming decades, after each census and reapportionment, a few states will change to a different month, so the lists I have above will change.

The reason I prefer this system is because it would increase the likelihood of a "dark horse candidate" being able to compete via "retail politics," - candidates meeting voters personally, one-on-one - instead of having fund-raising and TV advertising as the most important attribute that determines who wins. Of course, I hope not ALL of the smallest states will pick the first Tuesday in April.

[Green Line]

Michigan would make a great new First in the Nation.

Too many white people.  That would defeat the whole purpose of this exercise, which is to make a statement.

I get that you're trolling but this is a really weird post. Using "Detroit" as a dogwhistle for "black people" is like using "Milwaukee" for the same goal, except it's actually subtle and passable for some weird reason.

Wrong on both counts?  Detroit is a small part of Michigan.  And yes, the whole reason they’re changing from Iowa is because its too white.  The whole party has just become so racist that its actions sound absurd when said out loud.  But its not trolling, wish it was.

[Santander]

We can do process of elimination to find the "ideal" states:

1. Eliminate states that are geographically unrealistic


2. Eliminate states Democrats are basically irrelevant in


3. Eliminate DC because that would be stupid


4. Eliminate states that are probably too red


5. Eliminate states with no big city


6. Eliminate states with too much corruption/machine politics


7. Eliminate states that are too big (>15 EV)


8. Eliminate states that are too white (>70% white)


9. Eliminate states that aren't black enough (<10% black)


That leaves us with Nevada, Maryland, Connecticut and Virginia, the latter two being demographic compromises, but also reflecting the worst of the Democratic Party. Iowa and New Hampshire look pretty good in comparison...

[progressive85]

Does anyone feel it would be wise to just have them all on the same day and just get it over with quicker, possibly later in the year like in May? 

(Less fun I suppose for us junkies since the spread-out calendar makes for more election nights throughout the winter and spring.)

[T0rM3nTeD]

Primary 10 weeks long. 5 states per week. Create 10 groupings of 5 that make sense, then rotate every election cycle which group goes first.

[John Dule]

Because candidates with high name recognition are already heavily favored? Pete Buttigieg “won” the Iowa caucus and nearly won New Hampshire. By conventional logic Buttigieg should have become the front runner. At very least, the moderates would have rallied behind him to stop Sanders.

Turns out, the other 48 states don’t give a rat’s a** about what Iowa and New Hampshire thinks. Pete Buttigieg collapsed spectacularly in South Carolina.

So, what was the point of the dozen debates and thousands of dollars spent in these two states?

Here’s the thing, regardless of how you organize the primary 2-5 big name candidates are going to dominate the conversation. Having 20 people on the debate stage, each hoping to “break out” isn’t going to change that.

If a no name candidate wanted to “break out”, it’s not by traveling to every cafe and pig barn in Iowa.

What a much more serious problem is states not mattering in the primaries. By not having each state go on the same day, inevitably some states won’t have a say.

Another poster suggested states be divided into four batches. Fairer than what we have now. But won’t the nomination be settled by the time we reach the 4th batch? Congrats, a quarter of the party has no say in the nomination. Rotate the batches? Congrats, I’ll have a say every 12-16 years!

(Btw, I’m extremely skeptical Obama wouldn’t be the nominee in 2008. The party fell in love with him after he gave the keynote address at the 2004 DNC. He only ran because
Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, the two most powerful senate democrats, went to his office and begged him to run against Hillary, their close congressional ally)

Fair enough, but what about the fundraising aspect of it? Holding all 50 primaries on the same day would require a winning candidate to come up with a full season's worth of funding from the get-go. There's also the issue that holding FPTP primaries all on day one could cause consolidation towards two major candidates rather than the larger competitive pool we usually see.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Why not hold IA/NH/SC/NV at the same day . If you did that combination would actually be very representative of the Democratic Party and pretty much compromise every wing of the dem party .

[Landslide Lyndon]

Why not hold IA/NH/SC/NV at the same day . If you did that combination would actually be very representative of the Democratic Party and pretty much compromise every wing of the dem party .

Because Iowa and New Hampshire don't want anyone else to steal the spotlight from them.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Good riddance. As long as Iowans continue to prove that they refuse to live in the 21st Century, they are more deserving of losing the only reason that anybody really cared about the state in the first place.

Actually the reason people cared about that state in the 2010s was because it was the state that made Barack Obama’s candidacy possible . In fact pre Iowa Clinton was leading Obama in South Carolina so without IA , Obama very May never be the nominee .

[Pres Mike]

Because candidates with high name recognition are already heavily favored? Pete Buttigieg “won” the Iowa caucus and nearly won New Hampshire. By conventional logic Buttigieg should have become the front runner. At very least, the moderates would have rallied behind him to stop Sanders.

Turns out, the other 48 states don’t give a rat’s a** about what Iowa and New Hampshire thinks. Pete Buttigieg collapsed spectacularly in South Carolina.

So, what was the point of the dozen debates and thousands of dollars spent in these two states?

Here’s the thing, regardless of how you organize the primary 2-5 big name candidates are going to dominate the conversation. Having 20 people on the debate stage, each hoping to “break out” isn’t going to change that.

If a no name candidate wanted to “break out”, it’s not by traveling to every cafe and pig barn in Iowa.

What a much more serious problem is states not mattering in the primaries. By not having each state go on the same day, inevitably some states won’t have a say.

Another poster suggested states be divided into four batches. Fairer than what we have now. But won’t the nomination be settled by the time we reach the 4th batch? Congrats, a quarter of the party has no say in the nomination. Rotate the batches? Congrats, I’ll have a say every 12-16 years!

(Btw, I’m extremely skeptical Obama wouldn’t be the nominee in 2008. The party fell in love with him after he gave the keynote address at the 2004 DNC. He only ran because
Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, the two most powerful senate democrats, went to his office and begged him to run against Hillary, their close congressional ally)

Fair enough, but what about the fundraising aspect of it? Holding all 50 primaries on the same day would require a winning candidate to come up with a full season's worth of funding from the get-go. There's also the issue that holding FPTP primaries all on day one could cause consolidation towards two major candidates rather than the larger competitive pool we usually see.

Post Citizen United, funding isn’t an issue. Bernie Sanders raised solely from small donors, no big donations.

Let’s be honest. If you are a serious candidate running for president, you should be able to raise money. If you can’t raise money for a national primary day, how are you going to fare in the general election?  

This isn’t 1976 anymore. Jimmy Carter, a no name, won Iowa by sleeping in motels and going door to door.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The DNC likes to front load southern states. Their democratic primary voters are mostly older African Americans who typically vote for more moderate candidates

Although, this does have a point. Democrats can’t win the presidency without high black turnout in Milwaukee, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Allowing someone like Pete Buttigieg to win the nomination without black support would doom chances in a general election.

Hence I support a national primary day where every state voted. Candidates would have to balance every region

How would you prevent a fifty-state same-day primary from overwhelmingly favoring candidates with high nationwide name recognition and lots of cash? Obama would've probably failed to get the nomination in '08 under this system.

(Btw, I’m extremely skeptical Obama wouldn’t be the nominee in 2008. The party fell in love with him after he gave the keynote address at the 2004 DNC. He only ran because
Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, the two most powerful senate democrats, went to his office and begged him to run against Hillary, their close congressional ally)

Obama barely won the nomination in 2008 to begin with and his strategy relied on the nomination relied on dominating the caucuses which were far more prevalent then they are today as he didn’t really do good in the larger state primaries . Obama’s nomination was very much a victory of playing the delegate math game In a brilliant fashion and he just would not be able to do that if there was a national one day primary .

In fact he may have not won the nomination if it was held under 2020 rules which had far less caucuses . If you want to see how much caucuses benefited him just look at the 2008 Texas primary Vs caucus results and you will see that

[John Dule]

Post Citizen United, funding isn’t an issue. Bernie Sanders raised solely from small donors, no big donations.

Let’s be honest. If you are a serious candidate running for president, you should be able to raise money. If you can’t raise money for a national primary day, how are you going to fare in the general election?  

This isn’t 1976 anymore. Jimmy Carter, a no name, won Iowa by sleeping in motels and going door to door.

So first off, I do want to say that I generally dislike the idea of holding primaries on different days. I don't think it's very democratic to have voters in one state have a bigger say in the nominee than voters in another state. I definitely do not enjoy having my vote count less than that of someone in Iowa (which is true also in the electoral college and the senate).

That said, the purpose of the primaries is not to be "democratic," and it makes sense for the parties to weight votes in some states over others. The test in a partisan primary should not be fairness, but whether it yields the strongest candidate for the general election. Speaking from a purely strategic perspective, it does make sense to give structural advantages to swing states in the primaries. Realistically speaking, those states are the ones that will decide the election, and they are the ones where it matters the most to energize the base. At the end of the day, who cares if the winning candidate is relatively strong or weak in SC, OK, ND, CA, HI, or CT?

And more to the point, I don't think the DNC will ever adopt the idea of a same-day primary for exactly the reason you describe: Party insiders love the aesthetic of seeing their candidates in small towns talking to truck drivers, diner waitresses, and old veterans at community centers. They know perfectly well that this style of politics is dying, but it plays great for the cameras and creates the illusion of a grassroots movement. There's just something much more romantic about Carter's nomination win '76 than Hillary's win in '16, and everyone knows it (even the hacks who nominated her).

[Del Tachi]

Just have the traditional first 4 (IA, NH, SC, NV) rotate in alternating pairs, so each states goes first every other cycle.  Collectively these 4 states are a better representation than any one state individually. 

[SteveRogers]

That infamous law that mandates New Hampshire be the first primary in the nation, is it constitutional?
Because I read that Michigan will challenge it in court if NH refuses to accede to DNC's calendar.

I don’t immediately see any obvious grounds on which to challenge its constitutionality, but now I’m curious to hear to hear the arguments.

[HisGrace]

If you're not going to have a national primary it's better to pick important swing states to go first so you can tailor your candidates to them, not irrelevant states like Iowa, NH, and South Carolina.

[Spectator]

Dunno why the Dems don’t just jettison Iowa completely since that state is long gone for them and serves no purpose. Similarly just swap South Carolina for Georgia if you care about a) rewarding states loyal to you while b) still representing black interests. Or Maryland for South Carolina.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Dunno why the Dems don’t just jettison Iowa completely since that state is long gone for them and serves no purpose. Similarly just swap South Carolina for Georgia if you care about a) rewarding states loyal to you while b) still representing black interests. Or Maryland for South Carolina.

It’s not about how a state votes in a general but the primary voters in a state . Iowa voters pretty much represent the white liberal wing of the party

[Spectator]

Dunno why the Dems don’t just jettison Iowa completely since that state is long gone for them and serves no purpose. Similarly just swap South Carolina for Georgia if you care about a) rewarding states loyal to you while b) still representing black interests. Or Maryland for South Carolina.

It’s not about how a state votes in a general but the primary voters in a state . Iowa voters pretty much represent the white liberal wing of the party

New Hampshire serves that function already and notice how I didn’t say they should be jettisoned.

[Sol]

IA/NH/NV/SC really isn't a bad four-state group though Nevada should probably be first, but IMO if you wanted a perfect starting state as a microcosm of the Democratic party, Kansas has to be it. Demographically it looks a lot like the party as a whole but it's small enough to be accessible for smaller candidates, especially since like half the population is between Manhattan and KCK.

It's a red state to be sure, but it'd do more good for Democrats than, say, SC.

[Pres Mike]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/30/minnesota-democrats-michigan-presidential-primary-00071551

MN and MI are front runners to replace Iowa. The chair of the MN Democratic-Farmer Labor Party has sent a letter to all voting DNC letter why MI should not get it.

His reasoning is that MI has more delegates than NH/NV/SC combined. A canididate could focus solely on MI.

I think MI is a good state to start. NV is nice, but still has a weird caucus system.

[Joe Republic]

NV is nice, but still has a weird caucus system.

Not any more.  The legislature converted it to a primary in 2021.

[TDAS04]

Personally, I think four states—one randomly selected from each region—should simultaneously go first.

[Ogre Mage]

Yes, I think we should have NH, NV and SC plus one other as our first states.  The order can be hashed out.

Both MI and MN would be strong choices to replace IA.  But I'd probably have the smaller states (NV, NH and SC) go first followed by MI/MN. They are larger states and it will be more expensive to campaign there.  The smaller states going first will give less established candidates a chance to make an impression.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

https://youtu.be/cXVZVCoaxM4