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

[Pres Mike]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/29/democrats-primary-calendar-00071074

The DNC is going to vote this week on the 2024 primary calendar. It’s highly likely that Iowa will no longer be first. The front runner to replace Iowa seems to be either Nevada or Michigan. But a lot is up in the air, with Minnesota making a big last minute push.

The DNC will also vote to have a fifth state. Maybe have two states go first.

I’m glad. I’m opposed to any one state picking the nominee. I think every state should vote on the same day. Why should the primary be decided before half the country votes?

But if a state must go first, Iowa absolutely should not be first. First, the whole concept of a caucus is very undemocratic. How is a single mother working two jobs suppose to meet for hours in some school gym on a random Tuesday night in the Iowa cold?

Plus, Iowa is incredibly unrepresentative of the country. Pete Buttigieg “won” the Iowa caucus but failed spectacularly in the rest of the country. Can you imagine if the media had crowned Buttigieg the presumptive nominee based on Iowa and New Hampshire alone? (I do think the media would have done this to stop Sanders). Only to be demolished in South Carolina? Buttigieg would have lost in a landslide to Trump.

Plus, how dare Iowa make us wait days for the results after their spectacular failure in 2020. They had a good app developed by Microsoft in 2016. But they decided to go with a random third party company in 2020…

[Pres Mike]

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.

Constitutional? Eh

Georgia must be the first state to harvest peaches each year! Is it constitutional to mandate it?

[Pres Mike]

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).

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

[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)

[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.

[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.

[Pres Mike]

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.

Because there’s no obvious solution. There’s no way to give every democrat in the country a fair vote on who becomes their nominee while also allowing no names a change

I deeply resent that certain states go first. Why should IA/NH/NV/SC get to decide the nominee? Why does Super Tuesday states get to decide the nominee?

I don’t understand the logic. If the nomination is effectively finish before half the country voted, how is that fair? Why should I, a registered Democrat, care if it’s easier for someone like John Delaney to win the nomination? (Especially since the nomination is going to one if the big names anyway)

[Pres Mike]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/01/michigan-poised-to-replace-iowa-as-early-state-00071677

Biden endorses MI replacing IA as first in the nation. Fitting since IA placed Biden at 4th place

[Pres Mike]

I really hope hope SC doesn’t go first. It’s hurts progressive candidates

MI allows for both black representation (Detroit) which favors moderates candidates while giving progressives a chance from the strong labor unions, which are largely nonexistent in SC.

And MI looks more like the country as a whole.

Sanders surprised victory in 2016 gave his campaign a lot if credibility, momentum and hope. It also foresaw problems Hillary would have in the Midwest in the general election. Biden’s larger than expected victory in the 2020 primary in Michigan showed that he was a much better choice than Hillary, more competitive in the Midwest, and allowed progressive to accept him.

[Pres Mike]

I really hope hope SC doesn’t go first. It’s hurts progressive candidates

MI allows for both black representation (Detroit) which favors moderates candidates while giving progressives a chance from the strong labor unions, which are largely nonexistent in SC.

And MI looks more like the country as a whole.

Sanders surprised victory in 2016 gave his campaign a lot if credibility, momentum and hope. It also foresaw problems Hillary would have in the Midwest in the general election. Biden’s larger than expected victory in the 2020 primary in Michigan showed that he was a much better choice than Hillary, more competitive in the Midwest, and allowed progressive to accept him.

Progressive candidates need to do a better job appealing to Black voters in the South, period. Campaign in SC, GA, NC, AL, TX, TN, etc.
You gotta be there

Progressives absolutely need to do a better job appealing to black voters….

Wait, didn’t Bernie win black voters under 30? Or was it 35?

The problem is the vast vast vast majority of black primary voters are over age 50. A progressive message is only going so far.

Bernie legit tried. He campaigned a lot in black churches in 2020. He made lowering Medicare age and expanding dental, health, vision to Medicare a big part of his platform.

Ultimately, the black church values loyalty over benefit. There was a very interesting article written by a African American journalist who interviewed several elders in his community. The consensus was Bernie’s platform would benefit black folks the most, but they liked the idea that Biden would owe his nomination to the black community