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

[John Dule]

The first state should be the one with the closest margin from the previous election.

[John Dule]

The first state should be the one with the closest margin from the previous election.

Out of curiosity, here's how this system of determining the first primary state would have played out:

2024: Georgia
2020: Michigan
2016: Florida
2012: Missouri
2008: Wisconsin
2004: Florida
2000: Kentucky
1996: Georgia
1992: Washington
1988: Minnesota
1984: Massachusetts
1980: Oregon
1976: Minnesota
1972: Missouri
1968: Arizona
1964: Hawaii

It's not the worst way of deciding who goes first, even if it's still a bit of an arbitrary reason.

I don't think it's all that arbitrary. The point of the primaries is to find the candidate who is best suited to winning swing states... so why wouldn't it be in the party's interest to put the swing states first?

Here's what this principle would look like extrapolated to the whole primary season. I just made this in five minutes, so please nobody whine at me about it:



Basically, you would frontload the primaries with the swingiest states in order to give well-deserved momentum to whichever candidate those states prefer. Then you move down the list of states in order of the margin from the last election. This way you have voters in unflippable states (California or Oklahoma) going last and thus not influencing the outcome as much as voters in swing states. This system has the added bonus of altering the order every year, which takes away the permanent "first in the nation" power from any one state.

Not saying this rule should be followed rigidly, or that things should be scheduled in the exact way I said in that pic, but I honestly don't see why the DNC can't adopt something similar to this (aside from the usual regionalist bickering and entitlement from various bullsh*t states like New Hampshire).

[John Dule]

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.

[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.

[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).

[John Dule]

The thing I like best about threads discussing the primary/caucus schedule is that for every 100 posts there will be about 95 different ideas on how to change it.

yeah but mine is the best

[John Dule]

Blacks, esp. older ones are socially conservative because the Republicans have obviously abandoned them and socially conservative blacks have no reason to vote Republican.

And why are they any less valuable as Democrats than I am as a Republican?

Because they prevent the Democratic Party from moving left and progressive and thus act as a block on what should be much needed change.

[younger blacks are often very progressive tho, but they're a strong minority]. America is ruled by the old given your president could be your grandpa.

Seems very anti-demcoratic

Changing a primary agenda to fit better with voter groups you traditionally are strong with isn't democratic. It's what a dictator would do to give the impression an election is democratic because he would be guaranteed to win anyways.

I would do the same thing if i were a dictator. It's textbook dictatorial tactics.

Primaries aren’t provided for in the Constitution and the parties can structure them however they like.