Alternate Democratic party primary system

[James G]

(I used this in my current TL)

I have been thinking about a different system in use for the US Democrats to select their presidential nominee. This could be because of recent events last year - for the future - or something bought in before (for previous contests).
Five 'primary days' spread from late January to early June so they would be 4 and five weeks apart. Ten states each time, plus additional territories & other groups, with the states drawn at random though with 'seeded', the biggest population states (numbering 5 in total) in each round.
Here is an example:



(The five stars are the seeded ones, though their order can change through each round)

Round One
Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania (*), Virginia + Democrats Abroad

Round Two
Alabama, Florida (*), Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island + DC

Round Three
Arkansas, Georgia, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas (*), Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin + Puerto Rico

Round Four
Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, New York (*), North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Utah + Guam & US Virgin Islands

Round Five
Arizona, California (*), Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Wyoming + American Samoa & Northern Marinas

[James G]

This would be a popular vote contest with primaries and not caucuses.
Delegates, 'state delegate equivalents' and super-delegates would all not exist in this contest.

[american2006]

Well, if it’s by popular vote why not hold all primary elections the same day, modeled after Election Day?

[James G]

Jan 29, 2021 14:59:32 GMT american2006 said:

Well, if it’s by popular vote why not hold all primary elections the same day, modeled after Election Day?

I hadn't thought of that. Gotta be possible I guess.

(all my hard work - remembering 50 states without cheating - binned; tears!)

[american2006]

Jan 29, 2021 15:25:28 GMT James G said:

Jan 29, 2021 14:59:32 GMT american2006 said:

Well, if it’s by popular vote why not hold all primary elections the same day, modeled after Election Day?

I hadn't thought of that. Gotta be possible I guess.

(all my hard work - remembering 50 states without cheating - binned; tears!)

My sincere apologies.

You could keep your current system and have an electoral college like system, say 1 vote for each 100,000 votes the party received in the last election plus 1 for each member of Congress and statewide offices held by the party in that state.

[kyng]

I have to admit, I rather like the 'rounds' system. I came up with something similar a while back (for both parties) - although, I'm not sure if I have it saved anywhere.

In answer to american2006's question about "Why not hold all 50 states on the same day?"... I think one important advantage of the 'rounds' system is that it encourages the candidates to campaign in different parts of the country. If you held all 50 primaries on the same day, then you'd get candidates focusing heavily on big cities like NYC and LA, at the expense of everyone else. (Indeed, when I did my 'rounds' system, I had a bunch of rural states going first, with New York and California fairly late on in the process, as a deliberate counter to this)

[James G]

Jan 29, 2021 15:52:15 GMT american2006 said:

Jan 29, 2021 15:25:28 GMT James G said:

I hadn't thought of that. Gotta be possible I guess.

(all my hard work - remembering 50 states without cheating - binned; tears!)

My sincere apologies.

You could keep your current system and have an electoral college like system, say 1 vote for each 100,000 votes the party received in the last election plus 1 for each member of Congress and statewide offices held by the party in that state.

What I was looking for was something uncomplicated. Do you recall the numbers from Iowa 2020 where Sanders won the popular vote (just) but Mayor Pete had the victory because he had more SDEs? Then 2008 with the superdelegate mess on the horizon during the primary campaign where, for a time, it looked like even if Obama won, Clinton could have ended up victorious. So all those other factors of an electoral college would be binned.

Jan 30, 2021 13:01:54 GMT kyng said:

I have to admit, I rather like the 'rounds' system. I came up with something similar a while back (for both parties) - although, I'm not sure if I have it saved anywhere.

In answer to american2006's question about "Why not hold all 50 states on the same day?"... I think one important advantage of the 'rounds' system is that it encourages the candidates to campaign in different parts of the country. If you held all 50 primaries on the same day, then you'd get candidates focusing heavily on big cities like NYC and LA, at the expense of everyone else. (Indeed, when I did my 'rounds' system, I had a bunch of rural states going first, with New York and California fairly late on in the process, as a deliberate counter to this)

That is what I have tried to have them do. They are all over the country and building momentum. With New York then California in the last two rounds, someone out ahead could still be caught too because it is all popular vote numbers.