Iowa and New Hampshire

[Garrett78]

I'm glad that there seems to be a move away from caucuses. But I think other changes are called for, such as not having Iowa and New Hampshire kick things off. Those states don't reflect our electorate.

The point has been made that both parties need to follow more or less the same schedule, so that neither party is alienating certain states by having or not having those states be early voting states. I'm not convinced that should be a huge concern. But both parties can follow more or less the same rotating schedule without having IA and NH always leading the way. Some traditions need to die.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Each state independently sets its own schedule, so not much can be done for now.

[Garrett78]

2. The national party can encourage change just as...

...the party is encouraging states to do away with caucuses.

It seems no state would dare try to go ahead of Iowa for tradition's sake.

[still_one]

3. California has moved its primary to early March, and even though after the NY primary.it was obvious

mathematically who would be the nominee, moving California primary to early March will seal it if the numbers are there

[Garrett78]

4. Moving our primary up to Super Tuesday may or may not have a big impact.

California is significant in terms of how many delegates we have, but we may see a major vote splitting if half a dozen or more candidates (including multiple Californians) are still in the race. Because, thankfully, Democrats don't have a winner-take-all primary system like Republicans do.

Aside from CA moving up, the schedule hasn't been changed much from 2016. Here's the first 6 weeks in 2016:

2/1: IA
2/9: NH
2/20: NV
2/27: SC
3/1: AL, AR, CO, GA, MA, MN, OK, TN, TX, VA, VT
3/5: KS, LA, NE
3/6: ME
3/8: MI, MS
3/15: FL, IL, MO, NC, OH

And here's what the first 6 weeks look like for 2020:

2/3: IA
2/11: NH
2/22: NV
2/29: SC
3/3: AL, CA, MA, NC, OK, TN, TX, VA, VT
3/7: LA
3/10: ID, MI, MS, MO, OH
3/17: AZ, FL, IL

[still_one]

5. There will be some vote splitting, but I think California will push enough votes to the eventual

Democratic nominee.

Moving it from June to March in my view is a big deal, and I think if there are a lot of Democratic nominees, most will be filtered out by the end of the California primary

There were a lot of Senate candidates running in the California primary, but most of the votes were given to the top two candidates

Also, for Presidential primaries, California has a modified primary where in order to vote for the presidential race you need to be either registered to a specific party, or registered as NPP. If registered to a specific party you will get the ballot for the party you are registered for. If you are registered as NPP, you can request the ballot you want for the political party.

[Garrett78]

9. The big difference being that in our Senate primary, a longtime incumbent faced a bunch of unknowns.

How many are still around after the initial 4 contests will say a lot about how much vote splitting there is on Super Tuesday.

Also, the winner of CA won't necessarily do all that well in the other 8 states that vote the same day.

[still_one]

11. It will be interesting to see, but I don't think it will be as dramatic as you think

[Garrett78]

13. I don't know what will happen. I'm just talking possibilities.

What's different this time around is that we may start off with the largest ever field of candidates--by far. Meaning the field may be larger than normal heading into Super Tuesday.

Time will tell.

[still_one]

14. That is what we all are doing, talking possibilities. I hope we don't have the largest field of

candidates running. 5 or 6 is what I consider reasonable, and should be more than enough to cover the different nuances of political ideology that make up the Democratic party.

In my opinion if we end up with too many candidates we increase the chances for no clear candidate by the Convention, a very public fight on the floor, and a very divided party

[Garrett78]

15. At least 15 will run. Some speculate as many as 30 will run.

In that case, we'll be lucky to be down to 5 or 6 by Super Tuesday.

[still_one]

16. I hope not

[Garrett78]

18. Same here, but I'm afraid it's inevitable. It'll be the largest field ever.

Last edited Sun Dec 9, 2018, 01:59 PM - Edit history (1)

There's no clear front-runner and the nominee will be a heavy favorite to become the next POTUS.

And then you've got those who are really just trying to boost their public profile and angle for VP or a cabinet post.

Maybe - just maybe - only a dozen or so will run.

[still_one]

22. I think your analysis of some just wanting to increase their public profile is pretty accurate

[Garrett78]

23. That's always the case. Many who run know they can't win.

[JI7]

6. i think the only way to end the Iowa and NH as first states would be if both parties agreed to end

it. and that's because they are both swing states where that's probably the biggest attention they get nationally/internationally every 4 years so it means a lot to them and whichever party took it away from them would probably lose the state in the GE in big part due to that.

[still_one]

7. It isn't goiing to happen. Iowa and NH would fight that tooth and nail

[Garrett78]

10. Time will tell if they remain swing states. But it's unfortunate that...

...they hold as much sway as they do. The demographics of those states favor candidates who aren't necessarily our best options, but by virtue of being first, some of those better options will drop out.

[Hortensis]

8. Well, "frontloading" elections with two very white and also

Protestant Christian states always was and is definitely becoming increasingly problematic. The way we do it now, candidates also immediately have to start campaigning to the entire nation, and when they do try to address concerns of different regions, reporters with an agenda often accuse candidates of trying to deceive when they give focus to different issues. Heaven forbid they use local language instead of what is expected in IA and NH.

I'd like to see a rotating regional primary system if that became an option. A problem with any system, regional or national, though, is that when it's known which states will vote first, parties set up permanent operations in those states and put powerful emphasis on winning those voters, again resulting in setting the discussion for the entire nation or region.

[Garrett78]

12. I think a regional rotation would be good, provided we start with a handful of individual contests.

There need to be individual contests to start things off so as to whittle the field down. If we start with a Super Tuesday, there will be too much vote splitting.

After those first 5 individual contests, I could see having 5 regional Super Tuesdays of 9 states each. Maybe have 2 of the 5, then have all the non-states (DC, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, etc.) vote, and then have the other 3. With each group of primaries taking place every other week.

So, 5 primaries before March. And then 6 Super Tuesdays over the course of 3 months (March through May).

Which 5 kick things off and the order of the 6 regional primaries would change every 4 years.

[Hortensis]

17. Boy, definitely whittle down the regional candidates first.

Confusing voters into not knowing who's who or who does what, and thus turning many off, is such a huge problem that it's the other top tactic of those who can only win by screwing the electorate.

One thing I don't like is the entire rotation taking so long. We really need to put a complete end to 2- and 4-year-long campaigns and make most of this election industry that's grown up with corruption strictly part-time work. Give the bastards less time to mess around with peoples' heads. Yesterday I was listening to Fox deliberately confuse voters about something, using the same vocabulary for an unrelated something about Democrats that's being used to discuss Trump-Russia collusion, associating words for intense Republican corruption with Democrats.

These days voters need long enough to read all info available about local and national candidates and issues on their hand-helds, and not much more. Some debates as a national institution where we and the candidates come together in 100 million living rooms to mark this enormously important civic duty.

Keep it regional because we do have regional differences as well as state, and it's valuable for people to know that nationally as well as be able to make it felt regionally. But why not one primary voting day for each region?

[Garrett78]

19. When money and power is at stake, campaigning starts very early.

And when the incumbent president is essentially campaigning all the time, his challengers are pressured to do the same.

As for 1 primary voting day (with early voting options, of course) for each region, yes, that's what I'm advocating, as well. Have 5 individual contests in between late January and the end of February to whittle down the field. Then have each of 5 regions (plus the group of non-states) vote over the next 3 months.

Or maybe have just 4 regions consisting of 8-15 states each vote over the next 2 months. The Northeast region would consist of more states than other regions due to there being so many small states. Whichever region goes first one year would go last 4 years later.

By having regional Super Tuesdays, candidates don't have to travel as much.

[Hortensis]

20. Oh, sorry, I missed that. Yes, one primary voting day

after the necessary whittling down.

But we can do something about what has become non-stop election seasons. The power of incumbency is not the reason that developed, but rather the corrupting and profoundly dividing-and-conquering influence of big money. We can't get money out of campaigns until Citizens is repealed. But we can provide for publicly funded elections anyway and only fund campaigning during limited campaign seasons, which most people would support. Everyone left and right knows Big Money is screwing us and want it out of politics.

In any case, rotating regional primaries, supported by hundreds of current and former state elections officials. A great improvement over what we have now, and an exciting one. Wish we could look forward to it in 2020.

[Garrett78]

21. For sure. I fully support public funding and a spending cap.

But the incumbent having a platform does influence opponents to feel the need to campaign ASAP.

Breaking the country up into 4-5 regions would be a bit tricky but it's certainly doable.