A spread out primary season is okay (but the campaining has been on for months, and the 1st primary is ‘when’?) because clay feet can take time to notice, and small states early gives regular people a shot at actually meeting candidates, but leaving out large states like, say, California) until the primary is decided deprives many of their voice.
More rotation sounds good to me.
I agree that it’s highly likely that one of Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin are going to be the tipping point state. Most likely it will be predominantly white people from the suburbs of places like Philadelphia and Milwaukee who will be the tipping point.
I also doubt that the nominee will be determined before 3/3/20. If we do have a nominee before that time, it’s likely because the losing candidates all had a huge failure rather than everyone dropping out because they came in 2nd place in New Hampshire or 3rd place in Iowa. In the scenario that there is a nominee after New Hampshire, my guess is that having all the states that vote on 3/3/20 vote on 2/3/20 would likely have ended up with the same result.
I’ve thought that when states do that, it is to calculate taxes on something that crosses state lines in a pipeline.
When I am God-President, I’ll implement one of these systems.
System A: Multi-primary system with three national primaries and one national general.
[spoiler]On the first Tuesday of February in presidential election year, hold the first non-partisan primary (no caucuses!) in all states. Any candidate who gets the most votes in any state, passes onto the second primary. On the first Tuesday of May, hold the second non-partisan primary. The two candidates who get the most votes totalled across all states pass to the third primary, and the two candidates who won the most states also pass. On the first Tuesday of August, hold the third non-partisan primary. The two candidates who get the most votes totalled across all states pass to the general election. On the first Tuesday of November, hold the (still non-partisan) general election. The single candidate who gets the most votes totalled across all states wins the office.
At the first primary, little-known candidates can focus on small states with low campaign costs. They choose the state they think they’d do best in. Better-funded candidates can campaign across more states to get better assurance of passing. There will be fringe candidates that pass, but I consider that a feature at this stage. Better to be heard and voted out in stage two, then to fester as malcontents. Also, removing party control of the election process is also a feature. Make parties focus on winning at the ballot instead of restricting access.
At the second primary, candidates can go for broad appeal by winning the most votes nationally, or they can go for a focused appeal by winning in the most states. The second option is to make it easier for less-funded candidates to pass through. The third primary is basically a dry run of the general, which are both based solely on national vote total.[/spoiler]
System B: Fifty staggered primaries over 50 weeks.
[spoiler]Similar to the current system, but order of state primaries (no caucuses!) is based on how close the previous presidential vote was. Close is defined as the absolute difference between the top vote-getter in the state and the second place. This gives an advantage to smaller states, which tend to have close absolute vote difference. The first primary is the first Tuesday of September in the year before the presidential election. Each following primary is one week later. Delegates are assigned proportionally to number of votes.
This system magnifies the impact of voters in states that are most contested. Ideally that will improve the quality of candidates in appealing to states most likely to change the outcome of the election.[/spoiler]
Party bosses have picked candidates who benefited the nation with their defeat. Have primary-winning nominees done America much better?
Here’s a nominee selection proposal the 2nd Amendment crowd should love: Gunfights. Shootouts at the GOP Corral and the Donkey Pen. Or for Evangelical support, throw all candidates (bound and gagged) into a pond and see who floats. Let their deity decide. 
For tradition, such elimination contests can be staged in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The US electoral system in both primary and general contests is quite broken and thus amusing and terrifying. Do we get the government we deserve? I could (but won’t) dream up perfect voting systems but why bother? US political players seem to LOVE long campaigns. Some are already running for 2028. So we can expect primaries to be vicious and crazy entertaining. We’ll keep stumbling along with this until annihilation.
I just want it compacted. Have the primaries in June and July. The conventions in August. Campaign in September in October for the general. Way it stands now, Iowa is 2/3 and New Hampshire 2/11. The last primary, DC, is 6/16.
I like this except perhaps changed to 25 weeks. 50 weeks would only work if there were as many candidates as there are now and they are almost all relatively young and healthy. A year’s age can really show on some of these current candidates and current events might overshadow the benefit of weeding out a shorter list of candidates. I’ve also thought of something similar except to assign the number of delegates based on population and purpleness, but the idea of absolute vote count instead determining the order of primaries is even better.
Say, here’s a crazy idea:
Each party has all of its primaries on the same day. The parties don’t have to have them on the same day as each other, but I can see pretty much every state screaming about the costs of setting up multiple elections if they don’t (in which case, offer parties an alternative if either (a) they pay for all of the costs, or (b) it is conducted by mail/online). Whoever gets the most votes is that party’s nominee.
If having a majority is that big of a deal, use a ranked preference system similar to how the Oscars select Best Picture (and how Australia conducts its House elections) - if nobody has a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated (or candidates, if their combined votes would still put them in last place - e.g. if there were five candidates and they got 35%, 30%, 20%, 10%, and 5%, the bottom two combined are eliminated at once because even if everybody who voted for the #5 candidate switched to #4, #4 would still be behind the other three) and those votes are transferred to whoever is ranked highest on those ballots among the remaining candidates.
Anybody who doesn’t like the system will have the hypocrisy pointed out to them when their candidate “wins the popular vote” but loses in the electoral college.