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As you know, at present the presidential primaries begin with the straw polls in Iowa, followed by the first "official" primary in New Hampshire. As a result, the candidates spend vast amounts of time in these two states, pandering to / listening to (depending on your bent) the voters there. After that, there might be one or two other primaries, and then comes "Super Tuesday" in which a bunch of states all vote at once. Oftentimes, the outcome is decided at this point, and too bad for the voters in the states that didn't get to take their turn before it was all wrapped up.
It seems to me that this system gives vastly disproportionate influence to just two states, while completely ignoring many others. And this just does not seem fair.
I've seen a number of alternate suggestions on how to restructure the primary system to enable everyone to have their say. Here's the idea that I like the best:
There would be five "tiers" of primaries, each held a month apart. The first would consist of just two states, these being the ones that had the greatest percentage share of votes for each of the two parties during the previous presidential election. (For example, if Utah had the highest percentage vote for the Republican candidate and Vermont had the highest percentage vote for the Democrat candidate, those two states would go first.) In this way, the most partisan states (for each of the two parties) would get "rewarded" for their partisanship by having an important say in who each of their parties would nominate in the current go-round.
The next tier would consist of the 10 smallest states by population (not counting either of the states in the first tier, if applicable). The idea here is that these states are small enough that retail politicking is feasible, and thus all of the candidates would have a chance to gain national exposure. The third tier would consist of the next 10 larger states, and the fourth tier would consist of the next 10 larger states after that.
There would be some threshold number of primary delegates won that would be required to be met in order to advance beyond each tier, with the idea being a gradual winnowing of the field. But the numbers would be set in such a way that unless one candidate was winning nearly every primary, at least three or four of the candidates would be able to advance to the final tier. In other words, it should be made very difficult for any one candidate to become the final winner before advancing to the final tier.
And that last tier would consist of the 10 largest states. The number of primary delegates to be won in these states would be so large that the contest would almost certainly be decided at this stage, and the winners (one from each party) would go on to face each other in the general election. In the event that more than one candidate from a party had enough delegates to qualify, the winner would be determined at the nominating convention (which is how it was done in the old days, before the conventions became nothing more than coronations).
What are your thoughts? Would this work? Do you prefer another way of doing it? Should it just be left the way it is?
My idea for the quickest fix, in response to those who complain that the two states that go first (IA and NH) are among the whitest in the country, is to have DC and NM go next. The reason for selecting those two is that DC is majority Black and New Mexico is majority/near-majority Hispanic (thus adding racial diversity to the initial selection), and both are reasonably small when it comes to campaigning (as opposed to adding a state like California or Texas to the early tier).
My idea for the quickest fix, in response to those who complain that the two states that go first (IA and NH) are among the whitest in the country, is to have DC and NM go next. The reason for selecting those two is that DC is majority Black and New Mexico is majority/near-majority Hispanic (thus adding racial diversity to the initial selection), and both are reasonably small when it comes to campaigning (as opposed to adding a state like California or Texas to the early tier).
If the first state is to be selected based on its demographic diversity, I would suggest that a fairer way of doing it would be to pick whichever state is closest to the national average. This would appear to be Illinois, whose percentages of whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics are all within a percentage point or so of the national averages.
I think I'd set the 5 primary dates, but have 10 states in each primary. They would be rotated each election so the who goes first in this election would be last in the next...
If the first state is to be selected based on its demographic diversity, I would suggest that a fairer way of doing it would be to pick whichever state is closest to the national average. This would appear to be Illinois, whose percentages of whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics are all within a percentage point or so of the national averages.
Under my idea DC and NM would go early in addition to (and not instead of) IA and NH. Thus you'd have two lily-white states along with two majority-minority (or nearly so) areas doing it first.
Primaries are purely a function of the national parties. The parties could change order of their primaries anyway they choose including not having primaries at all.
The electoral college has nothing to do with primaries.
The importance of primaries is actually a very new thing. Prior to 1968, it was the convention floor votes, so party delegates, that mattered most.
If it were me, I'd set up something like a sports draft lottery to determine the order that would take place a year before the first primaries.
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