No election in the United States is as important as our elections for president. Yet if the last two cycles have told us anything, it’s that how we nominate presidents is broken and deeply unrepresentative – a process as much about dumb luck as it is about candidate quality or ability to unify voters. But we may be about to see a change.
The Democratic Party would be a trailblazer if it follows through on its new plan to have states apply to be among the early primary states, with selection based on clear criteria. That would break up the monopoly of the same states – including the largely racially and ethnically homogeneous Iowa and New Hampshire – voting first again and again.
According to Ballotpedia, leading Democratic contenders Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren each spent about one out of every three days on the 2020 campaign trail in just four states – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. The geographic accident of coming from a state next to New Hampshire has boosted candidates like Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, Bernie Sanders, Paul Tsongas and Mitt Romney.
