Commentary: Why Illinois Should Be The First 2016 Primary State
From the Washington Post
On Monday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus suggested that Iowa and New Hampshire's place at the front of the primary election line is by no means set in stone, and that, in the future, other states may very well be kicked ahead in line.
To which I say great, of course, given my established antipathy to two of the least-representative states in the nation playing such a critical role in weeding out presidential candidates. When I wrote about this in February, though, I set my sights on California, thinking that its diversity and size would make it a good first state.
But prompted by the New York Times' Nick Confessore and the Atlantic's David Graham, I was inspired to look at the demographic composition of the states as a guide to figuring out which actually matched the United States most closely.
Using a big index of census data, I compared each state's density of racial populations, education, housing status, age groups and a few other metrics and arrived at a simple answer to the question of where the first primary should be held.
The state that is most like the United States on the whole? Illinois — followed by Missouri, Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia. The least like the nation on the whole? Hawaii.
Read more in our daily News Update...
From the Washington Post
On Monday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus suggested that Iowa and New Hampshire's place at the front of the primary election line is by no means set in stone, and that, in the future, other states may very well be kicked ahead in line.
To which I say great, of course, given my established antipathy to two of the least-representative states in the nation playing such a critical role in weeding out presidential candidates. When I wrote about this in February, though, I set my sights on California, thinking that its diversity and size would make it a good first state.
But prompted by the New York Times' Nick Confessore and the Atlantic's David Graham, I was inspired to look at the demographic composition of the states as a guide to figuring out which actually matched the United States most closely.
Using a big index of census data, I compared each state's density of racial populations, education, housing status, age groups and a few other metrics and arrived at a simple answer to the question of where the first primary should be held.
The state that is most like the United States on the whole? Illinois — followed by Missouri, Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia. The least like the nation on the whole? Hawaii.
Read more in our daily News Update...