Primary Schedule (1 Viewer)

Users who are viewing this thread

    Optimus Prime

    Well-known member
    Joined
    Sep 28, 2019
    Messages
    8,563
    Reaction score
    10,349
    Age
    47
    Location
    Washington DC Metro
    Offline
    Interesting article

    Iowa is in the national consciousness for one reason and one reason only, it’s the first event of the presidential election calendar

    If that’s taken away from them then the state becomes one of the Dakotas

    I’m sure they’ll fight tooth and nail to keep it

    I don’t know what metrics should be used to determine what state should be first but what ever it is there’s no way Iowa should be at the top of that list
    ==================================

    For decades, Iowa has had an outsize impact on the nation’s politics, as President Biden’s recent pilgrimage to the state, in which he touted corn ethanol, shows.

    But last week, a Democratic National Committee panel voted to remove Iowa’s caucuses from the first spot in the party’s presidential nominating calendar, opening the early window to any state that wishes to apply.

    The move is long overdue.

    Iowa’s dethroning is still not ensured, as an intense lobbying campaign will no doubt kick into gear.


    The case against Iowa has been building for generations. Its residents enjoy lavish federal subsidies because of the undue political clout they hold.

    The state’s caucus system, in which those who want to participate must show up in person to a specific location at a prescribed time of night and sit through interminable proceedings, is deeply undemocratic.

    The state’s electorate is predominantly White, unreflective of either the nation or Democrats’ diverse coalition. To top it off, Iowa’s 2020 caucuses were a logistical disaster, as a new electronic results reporting system failed as much of the country awaited Iowans’ all-important verdict on who should be the next president.

    Not only were results long delayed, but questions swirled about whether the results could be fully trusted……..

     
    Last edited:
    From a strategic standpoint, I have read that this is an attempt to lessen the impact of the far left progressives in the Party. The Dems in SC tend to be a bit more pragmatic and moderate and the Democrats are intent on not letting the fringe run the party in the same way that the Rs are now captive to their far right base.
     
    I read this, I had to laugh:

    Editorial: Mr. President, the first-in-the-nation primary is not going down without a fight​


    I've set in bold in the following quote that which brought a laugh: (you'll have to expand the quote to see what it was that made me laugh)

    "Disappointing," "deeply misguided," "shortsighted," "a shame." Those are the words being thrown at President Joe Biden, and they are coming from members of his own party.

    Thursday night, the president tried to destroy New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary status. With all due respect, Mr. President, the people of New Hampshire aren’t going to let that happen.

    A little background: Members of the Democratic National Committee met in Washington this week to finalize the presidential primary calendar. All signs were pointing to the DNC once again signing off on New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status.

    Then, late Thursday night, the White House proposed South Carolina go first. New Hampshire and Nevada would share the next spot, followed by Georgia and then Michigan.

    On one hand, the move by the president shouldn’t be surprising. He was a no-show on election night during our last presidential primary. He lost that race here. But South Carolina lifted the president’s flailing campaign.

    On the other hand, the president should know better. He campaigned here for president in 1988, 2008 and 2020. He knew it was critical. He was at rallies, town halls and debates hoping a win in New Hampshire would be the catalyst to becoming his party’s nominee.

    The New Hampshire primary is often under attack, ostensibly by other states trying to take it away, not a sitting president.

    The White House says South Carolina is more diverse, and elevating its primary would give voters of color a louder voice.

    We don’t disagree. South Carolina is more diverse, but New Hampshire has a growing number of people of color.

    And we've been doing this a long time. In our small state, politics are intimate. Almost anyone can meet any candidate. That won’t happen anywhere else.

    They've indeed been doing it for a long time and now it's time for other Americans to get a share.
     
    From a strategic standpoint, I have read that this is an attempt to lessen the impact of the far left progressives in the Party. The Dems in SC tend to be a bit more pragmatic and moderate and the Democrats are intent on not letting the fringe run the party in the same way that the Rs are now captive to their far right base.
    I think that's pretty true, and a good reason to bring it back to a balance. We've too many cycles in the past where a fringe candidate from either side has arrived in New Hampshire 3 years before the next election, and has camped there throughout all else, and have spent their entire wad focused in that tiny state.

    That doesn't do the rest of American any good. I remember that grim year on the GOP side when New Hampshire chose Pat Buchanan.
     
    DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Hy-Vee Hall ballroom in Des Moines erupted in cheers in 2008 when the youthful Illinois senator hinted at the improbable possibility of the feat ahead: “Our time for change has come!”

    That Iowa, an overwhelmingly white state, would propel Barack Obama’s rise to become America’s first Black president seemed to ratify its first-in-the-nation position in the presidential nominating process.

    But in the half-century arc of the state’s quirky caucuses, Obama’s victory proved to be an outlier. All other Democratic winners turned out to be also-rans.

    The caucuses and their outsize importance were largely an exercise in myth-making, that candidates could earn a path to the White House by meeting voters in person where they live, and earnest, civic-minded Midwesterners would brave the winter cold to stand sometimes for hours to discuss issues and literally stand for their candidate.


    As the caucuses have played out, the flaws have become glaring. First among them: The state’s Democrats botched the count in 2020, leaving an embarrassing muddle. But there were more.

    Since 2008, the state’s political makeup has changed dramatically, from a reliable swing state to solidly Republican. And with the Democratic Party increasingly becoming a party of diversity, Iowa’s lack of it left the state without much of a rationale for leading the way……..

     
    CNN) — The Democratic National Committee on Saturday approved a plan to shake up the 2024 presidential primary calendar and demote longtime early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire, but significant questions remain about how the new order will be implemented.

    The new calendar upends decades of tradition in which Iowa and New Hampshire were the first two states to hold nominating contests and moves up South Carolina, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan. President Joe Biden has argued the new nominating order would better reflect the diversity of the nation and the Democratic Party……



     
    CNN) — The Democratic National Committee on Saturday approved a plan to shake up the 2024 presidential primary calendar and demote longtime early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire, but significant questions remain about how the new order will be implemented.

    The new calendar upends decades of tradition in which Iowa and New Hampshire were the first two states to hold nominating contests and moves up South Carolina, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan. President Joe Biden has argued the new nominating order would better reflect the diversity of the nation and the Democratic Party……




    Biden will push for SC since it was his first win. Iowa can not be the first state. I still have no idea who actually won, and I doubt they do as well.
     
    Biden will push for SC since it was his first win. Iowa can not be the first state. I still have no idea who actually won, and I doubt they do as well.
    Yeah, it's Iowa that I'm most interested in taking off of the first in the nation position. New Hampshire as well, but not as much. It should be a thing which is rotated from election cycle to election cycle. Some western states need to be first from time to time.

    I'm getting tired of it being an only east coast dominated thing.
     
    CNN) — Iowa Republicans voted Saturday to hold their first-in-the-nation caucuses on January 15 next year, setting up the earliest start of the presidential nominating process since 2012, when caucusgoers gathered on January 3…….



     
    Bolding mine. Is that a weird thing to have a law for?

    “Our state law says our state must be first”
    ====================


    New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan set his state’s presidential primary for Jan. 23, formalizing its defiance of the Democratic National Committee’s reworked primary calendar, which aims to give voters in more racially diverse states an early voice in the nominating process.


    “We did not take the first-in-the-nation primary from anyone, and we will vigorously defend it,” Scanlan said Wednesday at a news conference in Concord, N.H. Referencing the DNC’s criticism, Scanlan said, “Using racial diversity as a cudgel in an attempt to rearrange the presidential nominating calendar is an ugly precedent.”


    “At what point does a state become too old or too wealthy or too educated or too religious to hold an early primary?” he asked. “The truth is there is no individual state that truly reflects the makeup of America and no state is more American than any other state.”

    The DNC did not respond to a request for comment.

    The DNC approved a plan this year to shuffle the order in which states would appear in its 2024 primary calendar. The plan calls for South Carolina to be the first primary state, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada a week later, then Michigan.

    Proponents of the plan — including President Biden — have argued that South Carolina was much more diverse than Iowa and New Hampshire, which traditionally have held the first-in-the-nation caucuses and primary election, respectively. South Carolina is where Biden’s struggling campaign in 2020 won a crucial victory that helped propel him to the party’s nomination.

    New Hampshire law requires its primaries to be held at least seven days before any others. Iowa, which previously held an early spot on the calendar for its caucuses, agreed to relinquish its first-in-the-nation status after lengthy negotiations with the DNC……….



     
    anyone know why the primaries are staggered the way they are? They stretch from January to June


    Why not split it up in halves?

    Half the states (or delegate counts) vote on this date

    Six weeks later to give the candidates a chance to campaign do the second half

    Or all at once - 1st Tuesday in May is National Primary Day, get it over with all at once
     
    I know Iowa is always first and New Hampshire is always second but are all the others on a set schedule too?

    Is it always the same states in Super Tuesday every 4 years?
     
    anyone know why the primaries are staggered the way they are? They stretch from January to June


    Why not split it up in halves?

    Half the states (or delegate counts) vote on this date

    Six weeks later to give the candidates a chance to campaign do the second half

    Or all at once - 1st Tuesday in May is National Primary Day, get it over with all at once
    I think the candidates want to be able to campaign in the states prior, and maybe having only 2 dates would concentrate the voting so much that they couldn’t get to the states?

    I think they are the same every year.
     
    they've been campaigning nationwide for months now, with rallies, town halls and debates, and commercials airing non stop

    But move it from January to mid to late spring to allow for more of all that wherever they feel it's needed and get this done and over with
     
    Every four years, for the past five decades, New Hampshire has found itself the center of both the media’s and would-be presidents’ attention.

    Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are among the Democrats who have committed weeks to campaigning in the state, which has long held the country’s first presidential primary.

    Over the years, national and international media have spent tens of millions of dollars on hotel rooms, rental cars, food and booze.

    But this year, Democrats have stripped New Hampshire of its proud first-in the-nation status, potentially jeopardizing its outsized influence over American politics. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has instead decided the first place to vote will be South Carolina, a state with a more diverse population and perhaps not coincidentally, a place where Joe Biden performed well in 2020.


    “A terrible decision,” Maggie Hassan, one of New Hampshire’s two Democratic senators, told NBCon Sunday.

    “Tremendously disappointing,” Jeanne Shaheen, Hassan’s Senate colleague, said when the move was first proposed.

    Republicans have stood by the traditional nominating calendar, which since the 1970s has seen both parties hold caucuses in Iowa and then a primary in New Hampshire, while under Democrats’ plan, New Hampshire would retain plenty of clout – voting second, on the same day as Nevada.

    But the Granite state hasn’t taken the DNC’s proposals lying down. The state Democratic party here is plowing ahead with a primary regardless, even though the national party has said it will not honor the results. There is a sense that politicians, journalists and voters could be witnessing the end of an era.

    “New Hampshire is a very white area with an average age that’s a bit on the older side, so I do understand that it’s maybe not the best group of voters to represent the entire country,” said Jamie Setzler, 20, from New Boston, New Hampshire.

    “But from a selfish standpoint it is disappointing. I used to be able to look forward, every four years, to something interesting.”

    Holding the first primary has long given the state an outsized influence in national politics. Hundreds of journalists essentially move here for an entire week every four years as they’re able to cover both Republican and Democratic campaigns: in recent days, TV satellite trucks have almost outnumbered the amount of political yard signs in Manchester.…..

     
    WASHINGTON (AP) — As an independent, Christian Miller can’t vote in Pennsylvania’s closed presidential primary in April. He said it wouldn’t matter even if he could.

    “You’re not really voting for anything,” said Miller, who left the Democratic Party in 2022. “Every election I’ve ever seen, the candidates have been decided by the time they get to Pennsylvania.”

    Pennsylvania is a crucial presidential swing state and the fifth most populous in the country. And yet holding a primary so much later than other states means its voters often have little say in choosing the presidential contenders. It’s the same for voters in much of the rest of the country.

    That dynamic is even more pronounced this year with the front-runners for both major parties in overwhelming position to become the presumptive nominees not long after Super Tuesday, traditionally the biggest day on the election calendar when 16 states hold contests.

    Academics and democracy analysts said the presidential primary system, in which a small percentage of the nation’s voters often determines the candidates, is one of several quirks that make the United States stand out. To some, it raises questions about whether the world’s oldest and most prominent democracy might also be among the least representative.…..

     
    WASHINGTON (AP) — As an independent, Christian Miller can’t vote in Pennsylvania’s closed presidential primary in April. He said it wouldn’t matter even if he could.

    “You’re not really voting for anything,” said Miller, who left the Democratic Party in 2022. “Every election I’ve ever seen, the candidates have been decided by the time they get to Pennsylvania.”

    Pennsylvania is a crucial presidential swing state and the fifth most populous in the country. And yet holding a primary so much later than other states means its voters often have little say in choosing the presidential contenders. It’s the same for voters in much of the rest of the country.

    That dynamic is even more pronounced this year with the front-runners for both major parties in overwhelming position to become the presumptive nominees not long after Super Tuesday, traditionally the biggest day on the election calendar when 16 states hold contests.

    Academics and democracy analysts said the presidential primary system, in which a small percentage of the nation’s voters often determines the candidates, is one of several quirks that make the United States stand out. To some, it raises questions about whether the world’s oldest and most prominent democracy might also be among the least representative.…..

    Italics mine.

    Might? Might be the least representative? Where the hell else is LESS representative? Who else has election after election where almost NO ONE really wants either candidate?
    Is there another democracy where one party is over-represented by fifteen percent?

    If there is, I've yet to hear about them.

    We like to say "Only in America" with a rueful shrug but jeezus people, this system is killing us.
     
    If you live in a state that hasn’t held its primary yet what exactly is the point voting now that the nominations are already clinched?
     

    Create an account or login to comment

    You must be a member in order to leave a comment

    Create account

    Create an account on our community. It's easy!

    Log in

    Already have an account? Log in here.

    Advertisement

    General News Feed

    Fact Checkers News Feed

    Sponsored

    Back
    Top Bottom