Almost any way of kicking off primary season would be an improvement over the status quo.
The one silver lining of Monday night’s disaster at the Iowa caucuses is that it just might—maybe, possibly, finally—spell the end of the Iowa caucuses. For years, people have questioned why an overwhelmingly white and rural state should get to hold the first primary season contest every four years using a system of voting that requires people to wearily stand around a gym for hours on end.
But what should replace the caucuses? Do we just pick a different, more diverse, and technologically adept state to kick off primary season? Move to a single national primary? Force the candidates into feats of strength and possibly trial by combat? There are a lot of ideas out there, some of which are pretty baroque.
But if you are going to let one state do it, it should probably be somewhat representative of the country and party as a whole. Thankfully,and put together a fun index measuring which state’s demographics most closely matched the national average on race, religion, income, education, and age. The answer: Illinois. It’s a big state—population 12.6 million—but it’s got a nice balance of cities, suburbs, and farm country.
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