Illinois Governor Says His State Should Vote First, Not Iowa

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said his state, not Iowa, should be the first to vote in future Democratic caucuses.

Pritzker made the appeal to POLITICO during the National Governor’s Association’s winter meeting in Washington D.C.

Democrats have recently questioned the merits of Iowa voting first, given its predominantly white demographics are not representative of the Democratic party. But those questions came to a fever pitch this week after Iowa struggled to report voting tallies from its caucuses, which sowed mass confusion over who won the first primary.

“I do not think Iowa should go first,” Pritzker told POLITICO. “We have the most diverse state that you could have for picking a presidential nominee.”

On Twitter, Pritzker linked to an NPR story that broke down why Illinois would be the best state to go first in the Democratic primaries. NPR said it “attempted to quantitatively evaluate” which states were more representative of the entire country, and Illinois was the state it came up with. It looked at race, education, age, income and religion.

Pritzker went beyond just race and ethnicity, though.

“We have the most diverse state that you could have for picking a presidential nominee,” he told POLITICO. “We have tech industry. We have agriculture. … We have rural, ex-urban, urban communities all over the state. We have, you know, every swath of different belief across the state of Illinois.”

Pritztker is not alone. Several candidates for president and high-profile Democrats have called on the Democratic National Committee to re-evaluate the wisdom of allowing Iowa to vote first in the primaries. The calls for Iowa’s position in the primary race to change came before the state party fumbled its caucus count this week, which has left major news organizations unable to declare a clear winner.

“Diversity matters, right? And to have these states with no diversity come first, and somehow that’s going to decide who’s going to drop out?” Pritzker said. He added that moving Illinois to the first position “is the right way to go, and I think we’re going to get it done, too.”