LogFAQs > #950631233

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Bernie had a commanding lead in the first few primaries, and Biden still crushed him after South Carolina. What would changing the state order have done? Just have Biden be the front runner from the start?

Not really: he won Iowa and New Hampshire narrowly. His biggest victory by far was in Nevada, a margin sufficiently threatening that the party decided he needed to be stopped.

It's almost impossible to model how the order would affect things(other than that he still wins huge in Nevada), because momentum is absolutely a vital factor in primaries. People like to vote for winners, or just don't vote at all if they perceive their favored candidate as losing by the time their state comes up.

My own suggestions:
1) Caucuses are dumb and bad and should be abolished yesterday
2) Having fixed states going first is dumb and bad, even if they're more diverse than Iowa and New Hampshire. Rotate them, and try to get a representative sample of the voting public between the first 3-4.
3) Based on the fact that Bernie won California quite handily and still lost overall, you don't necessarily need to hold the big states back.