Wednesday, April 8, 2026
How the parties should order their primaries
It's been well documented that the states that vote first in the primaries have an outsized voice in choosing the candidates for President for both parties. It therefore seems to make sense that the parties should take more control over the order they go in. And that the order shoule be designed to help them win - because like that's the goal - to choose a candidate who will win in November. I think they should reorder the primaries every year based on how close each state's vote was. And spread them out one a week instead of bunching them so that candidates can just roll into the next one. So I created a 25 week schedule (which would start in mid- January and end at the end of June). Each week has an "anchor" state, ranked out vote margin, and sometimes smaller states to fill it out so that, except when a very large state is the anchor, they all have about 10-11 million people. I threw the territories in where with their closest states. In some cases I considered geography to try and keep neighbor states together. Here's what I got:
1. Wisconsin
New Hampshire
Nevada
2. Michigan
3. Pennsylvania
4. Georgia
5. North Carolina
6. Minnesota
New Mexico
Maine
Rhode Island
7. Arizona
Iowa
8. Virginia
Delaware
9. New Jersey
Montana
10. Illinois
11. Colorado
Oregon
12. Ohio
13. New York
14. Florida
Puerto Rico
VI
15. Texas
16. South Carolina
Connecticut
South Dakota
North Dakota
17. Washington
Idaho
Alaska
18. Missouri
Mississippi
Vermont
19. Indiana
Utah
20. California
21. Louisiana
Kentucky
Hawaii
Pacific territories
22. Massachusetts
Arkansas
23. Maryland
Oklahoma
24. Tennessee
Kansas
25. Alabama
Wyoming
DC
West Virginia
Nebraska
By coincidence NH is still an early state, as is Nevada. I welcome the Wisconsin kick off Primary.
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