Full disclosure: I’m from New Hampshire and live and vote there. Take my perspective with a grain of salt; on the other hand, I’ve had a front-row seat and may have some useful insights.
Let’s start with a historical summary of the New Hampshire Democratic primary since 1968. (We’ve had primaries much longer than that, but they were often “beauty contests” that didn’t award convention delegates. Plus, I remember the 1968 contest, not earlier ones.)
Does holding the first primary in a small state force credible candidates out? No. Here’s my best effort to capture the history of this, alongside numbers showing the growing adoption by states of primaries:
|
Year
|
D Primaries
|
NH: Winner
|
NH: Second
|
Dropped Out Before Next Southern or Big State
|
|
1968
|
16
|
Johnson
|
McCarthy
|
Johnson
|
|
1972
|
22
|
Muskie
|
McGovern
|
None
|
|
1976
|
28
|
Carter
|
Udall
|
None
|
|
1980
|
29
|
Carter
|
Kennedy
|
None
|
|
1984
|
24
|
Hart
|
Mondale
|
Askew, Cranston, Hollings
|
|
1988
|
30
|
Dukakis
|
Gephardt
|
None
|
|
1992
|
34
|
Tsongas
|
Clinton
|
None (also-rans stayed in until Super Tuesday)
|
|
1996
|
32
|
Clinton
|
Buchanan*
|
None
|
|
2000
|
34
|
Gore
|
Bradley
|
None
|
|
2004
|
35
|
Kerry
|
Dean
|
Lieberman
|
|
2008
|
37
|
Clinton
|
Obama
|
None
|
|
2012
|
36
|
Obama
|
Paul*
|
None
|
|
2016
|
38
|
Sanders
|
Clinton
|
None
|
|
2020
|
44
|
Sanders
|
Buttigieg
|
Yang, Bennet
|
*Write-in candidates who got under 5%
Sources: https://www.frontloadinghq.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
So New Hampshire at least, has not kept other voters from hearing the pitches from credible candidates. (If you really, really wanted to vote for Joe Lieberman in 2004, we New Hampshirites apologize. But understand: he actually moved here to campaign. He was our neighbor. There are real costs to hosting this thing.)
(This history also makes it harder to argue that NH Dems are a bunch of leftist hippies, a comment I have seen here. Maybe you can argue that with Sanders wins, although he has surprisingly broad appeal nationwide. Hart and Tsongas were sort of neo-liberals.)
Our primaries are next Tuesday, Jan. 23rd. Republicans, including New Hampshire voters, have already lost Christie, Ramaswamy, and Hutchinson this month. That is a sign of another factor in the primary process: the Hidden First Primary of big money donors. One of the major reasons candidates drop out is because they can no longer get enough campaign contributions—and that is based on national and early state polling, as much as the results from Iowa. That would be true no matter which states went first.
One other historical observation: back in 1972, the primary debates were held in the current primary state, usually hosted by the League of Women Voters, and virtually all candidates appeared—no polling threshold for a seat. (I remember Ned Coll and his all-purpose rubber rat). Today the parties arrange most of the debates: the rules, the moderator, the location, and the thresholds to qualify. In that respect, it has become more of a national primary: January debates are held in California.
Criteria
Before digging into details, let’s move up a few thousand feet and try to understand our goals in a primary system. Some of those goals are pretty clear and command a consensus:
- An opportunity for each constituency within the party to have reasonable influence, perhaps proportional to their voting percent in the party
- A winnowing process that eliminates candidates who don’t attract enough support
- Limit the influence of big money funders
- Generate enthusiasm for the eventual nominee
- Discourage the selection of a bad President
I think we also have some fuzzier, less broadly accepted goals:
- Opportunity for “long-shot” candidates (i.e., not Beltway favorites) to offer their candidacies
- Reasonable raising and airing of critical policy issues, even when many candidates would rather duck them. (This is related to long-shot candidates—they are often the ones who raise these issues)
- Promote participation by all. (For example: it might make sense for the DNC to ‘punish’ states for passing voter suppression laws. New Hampshire might properly get dinged here, with its newer picture ID requirements.)
- Integrity of election results. (For example: it might make sense to not seat convention delegates chosen in states with unverifiable, no-paper-record systems.)
- Promote candidate exposure to “retail politics”. This is, as opposed to a fully scripted TV, radio, and mailer campaign. Speaking to actual voters while the cameras run can provide the public a more accurate picture of the candidate (see Haley’s answer regarding Civil War causes). I would argue that this is a critical tool in ‘discouraging the selection of a bad President’.
If you think I’ve missed some important goals, or shouldn’t include some here, please tell us in the comments!
Constraints
Another important aspect of the primary process is the set of constraints that limit our options.
- Primaries are typically controlled by, run by, and paid for by state governments. Certainly not always—in pulling together the history chart above, I was surprised at the number of states with party-sponsored primaries. But very often, states do not want to pay for separate party primaries on different days: it costs more and overtaxes the (often volunteer) election workers. Because of this, changes to the primary calendar have often been negotiated between the two parties—see Super Tuesday. The unilateral DNC move to make South Carolina first departed from that.
- States have very different laws regarding who gets on the primary ballot. NH: pay $1000, testify that you are 35+ years old and a natural-born citizen. MA, probably other states too: the nominee of each party gets on the ballot, with Constituional eligibility not considered. (This is going to court right now, over Trump.) Some other states: petition requirements. All this means that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment will not automatically apply to all primaries, even if SCOTUS rules he is ineligible to hold office.
- Parties are not completely private organizations: courts can overrule their internal rules. See Smith v. Allwright, 1944, in which SCOTUS ordered Texas to ensure its state Democratic Party did not block Black voters and candidates from participation. This could be a barrier to more exotic proposals: e.g., weight a state’s convention votes by the state’s history of general election results
Brief Thoughts on How Different Systems Address the Constraints and Criteria
A single national Primary Day. That would, very clearly, make the money men kingmakers. It would mean no retail politics—the campaign would be on TV and social media. I really can’t see anything in favor of this frequently-proposed method, except shorter campaigns.
Rotating primaries. That probably means a coordinated change to 51+ sets of state laws every four years. Possible; difficult. And when California goes first, or Texas, the field really does shrink quickly based on the money men.
Regional primaries. I’m not sure how this would work. If it means, we have five Super Tuesdays and that’s it—we lose the longshot candidates because the ante is too high. And now the primary order is much more fraught: the first regional primary will kill off more candidacies than the current system does. It’s a Big Deal whether the first Regional is the Sunbelt or the Northeast.
Primary calendar order based on Party-determined criteria. That’s what ‘making South Carolina first’ is: the Black voter is critical to Democratic success, and is underrepresented (to say the least!) in Iowa and New Hampshire. I don’t fully accept that approach, though, because having a small state going first doesn’t skew the results too badly. (I think of the first couple of states as almost a spring training exercise: they give ‘teams’ a chance to try out some things, and give longshot players a chance on the field, but they don’t affect the standings.) Candidates are able to attract financial and voter support despite a New Hampshire loss—as Joe Biden did. And: a party criteria approach really means entirely separate calendars for the two parties—which would have different criteria for which demographics represent them best.
