The Gauntlet of Irrelevance: How a Doomed Primary Calendar Is Choking the Life Out of Democratic Strategy
By Michael Kelman Portney
It doesn’t matter how compelling your policies are if you’re forced to fight your opening battles in the wrong terrain. That’s the sadistic reality of the modern Democratic primary system—a political obstacle course so disjointed, antiquated, and self-defeating that it might as well have been designed by Mitch McConnell in a fever dream. It rewards the wrong kinds of candidates, punishes broad-based appeal, and delivers to the general election a nominee forged in the fires of irrelevance.
This isn’t a contest of merit. It’s a Hunger Games for consultants and donors. And it's killing the party.
PART I: The Fantasy League That Picks Our Nominee
The Democratic primary process is structured less like a coherent national strategy and more like a fantasy league run by out-of-touch donors and institutional cowards. It kicks off in states that bear almost zero resemblance to the broader national electorate and, even worse, have little to no relevance in the general election.
Let’s look at the first four states:
Iowa - Rural, overwhelmingly white, culturally conservative, and home to a convoluted caucus system that disenfranchises casual voters. The last time Iowa picked a Democratic president in the general election? 2012.
New Hampshire - Small, white, libertarian, and obsessed with "independence" over coalition-building. It punches way above its demographic weight and doesn’t represent the party's core constituencies.
Nevada - A rare bright spot. Diverse, working-class, and union-driven. But it’s third in line and rarely sets the tone.
South Carolina - The first heavily Black electorate, yes. But also one with deeply entrenched machine politics that hand disproportionate power to party elites like Jim Clyburn. It is a firewall, not a launchpad.
This sequence is absurd. We’re selecting a national nominee in states that will not decide the general election and often favor profiles that cannot win it. The result? Nominees who have learned how to court MSNBC panels, not win over swing-state factory workers.
PART II: The Order of States Is Not Just Dumb. It’s Damaging.
Imagine a system where the NFL playoffs were seeded based on preseason popularity contests, and the Super Bowl contenders were chosen before any meaningful games were played. That’s what the Democratic primary sequence amounts to.
By the time Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia have their say, the race is already decided. The South locks it up on Super Tuesday—and yet the very states delivering that decisive delegate haul are redder than a Texas chili cook-off. They’re states Democrats routinely lose in November.
It’s electoral cosplay. We run a marathon through states that give the illusion of momentum but contribute nothing to general election victory. And the consequences are real:
Southern blowouts lead to premature coronations (see: Biden 2020), leaving no space for candidates who might actually thrive in the Midwest.
Progressive populists who do well in states like Nevada and Wisconsin get kneecapped before they can consolidate broader support.
Swing-state governors and red-district fighters get laughed off the stage while boutique Twitter favorites hog the mic.
This is not how you build a coalition. This is how you build a suicide pact.
PART III: Who This System Rewards (and Who It Destroys)
The current gauntlet of irrelevance rewards a very specific type of candidate:
Establishment-favored
High name recognition
Deep donor networks
Culturally fluent in elite liberal bubbles
Incapable of reaching Rust Belt moderates, let alone a Georgia truck driver or an Arizona retiree
It destroys candidates who might actually win:
Governors from red or purple states
Economic populists who don’t speak coastal elite
Authentic, culturally dexterous communicators who can code-switch from a union hall to a church pew
Ask yourself: How far would someone like Jon Tester or Sherrod Brown make it in this system? How about a Midwestern mayor who didn’t go to Harvard and wasn’t born into Beltway cocktail parties?
We don’t find our strongest champions. We find the most telegenic survivors of an irrelevant trial-by-fire.
PART IV: The Media and Consultant Class Love It This Way
If you're wondering why the DNC hasn't blown this thing up, here's your answer: it benefits the people who are already in power.
Consultants get paid obscene sums to run ads in Super Tuesday states that Democrats will never win. The media gets an artificial horserace every four years, with breathless coverage of meaningless Iowa momentum and New Hampshire "comebacks."
And donors? They get early access to the anointed one. The party gatekeepers make sure that by the time working-class voters in Detroit or Phoenix weigh in, the narrative is already locked. The menu has one item, and you’re going to eat it or go hungry.
This isn't democracy. It's a curated dinner party. And if you're not invited, you don't eat.
PART V: What the Calendar Should Look Like (If Winning Mattered)
Let’s say we cared about winning the Electoral College. Just humor the idea. Here's how a rational, victory-oriented primary calendar might begin:
Week 1: Michigan + Georgia
Week 2: Pennsylvania + Arizona
Week 3: Wisconsin + Nevada
Week 4: North Carolina + Minnesota
Notice the pattern? These are all swing states. They represent a diverse mix of voters: white working-class, Black southern, Latino, urban, rural, suburban. If you can win across those, you’re not just the nominee. You’re probably the president.
And let’s be real: any candidate who can’t win there doesn’t deserve the nomination.
PART VI: Real Strategy Requires Real Courage
Changing the primary calendar would mean standing up to legacy power brokers, party elites, and media machinery that profits from inertia. It would mean pissing off New Hampshire and Iowa, which treat their early status like constitutional law.
But winning demands courage. It demands discomfort. It demands a party that acts like it wants to survive.
The Republicans figured this out a long time ago. They don’t give a damn if their candidates offend polite society. They run insurgents who know how to win states, not dinner parties.
Meanwhile, Democrats are out here debating whether it’s more important to win back Ohio or to satisfy the editors of The Atlantic.
This isn’t a hard question.
PART VII: Burn It Down or Lose Forever
It’s not just that the system is broken. It’s that the system is actively producing losers.
Democrats cannot afford another cycle where they nominate a candidate optimized for cable news instead of kitchen tables in Kenosha. They cannot afford to let South Carolina annoint the next nominee before the Upper Midwest even votes. They cannot afford to let Iowa decide who deserves media oxygen.
The primary calendar must be ripped out and rebuilt from the ground up. Swing states must come first. Cultural fluency must be rewarded over technocratic elitism. Coalition-building must beat consultant worship.
Until that happens, the Democrats are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic—and asking donors to sponsor the ice.
Conclusion: The First Battle Defines the War
If you start the war on the wrong battlefield, you lose before the first cannon fires. The Democratic primary calendar is a suicide mission disguised as tradition. It’s a gauntlet of irrelevance, and it’s killing every good candidate before they can even take the national stage.
Change the map, or prepare to lose the country. Those are the stakes.
And if the DNC won't do it?
Then someone else will. And they won't be asking for permission.
