Agreed ! I feel like we would get along nicely if we knew each other IRL . <| sep |> See this chart from 538 . If you put those states at the very start , you could likely end up with the candidate with greater namerecognition getting an temporary advantage which could be largely diminished by the time the General Election voting occurs . Giving that boost to a candidate would eliminate the purpose of finding the candidate who can best win those swing states in a scenario closer to the general election I . E . time has passed and people are paying attention . Greater name recognition helps especially during the primaries , but wouldn ' t always necessarily translate to a more competitive candidate for the General Election due to the time gap involved .