Wouldn’t it make more sense if the early primary states were picked from the battleground states of the previous election instead of being a fixed set of states? For example, the top 5 battleground states go first.
Right now the early primaries are a bunch of states whose demographics don’t really match America (New Hampshire and Iowa are very white) and/or don’t pick a Dem candidate that will do well at the general election.
For example the Dem that won in Mississippi recently… big fucking deal. They’re not going to get those electoral college votes anyway.
However, if the primaries picked a Dem candidate that was whoever did the best in MI, NH, WI, PA, FL, MN, NV, ME, NC, AZ (the top 10 nearest contests.)
Now I do realize that Iowa and New Hampshire take a lot of pride in being the first states. However by having a dynamic set of states we “shake things up” a bit, and make the process more democratic.
The bottom line is that it should be a process that picks the Dem that is most likely to win. Nothing else should matter.
Notes:
- A few responses have been “why not all primaries on the same day?” There’s a good reason to stagger them. It helps smaller, less funded, candidates do well. It is very difficult to set up a 50-day infrastructure all at once.
- Some people have suggested that Rank Choice Voting would be better. It would be an improvement, but it wouldn’t help this particular problem that I’m trying to solve, which is that we want to pick a presidential candidate that is most likely to win in the general election.
