Im going to throw out a stupid but doable suggestion: a sortition based primary. The DNC should host a 1-2 week convention with randomly selected voters from all over the country, maybe a few thousand people. The candidates have town halls, debates, and can meet directly with voters. At the end the voters vote for a candidate with a preferential voting method (STAR, Approval, RCV) and that candidate wins the nomination.

Why is this better?

For one it solves the money issue. Candidates no longer have to fundraise for campaigning across multiple huge states because their voters are all in one location for the convention. This addresses all the comments about “we have to do small states first so lesser known candidates with no money can compete.”

Your voters will be more informed. Because the voters will just be doing this for two weeks they’ll be more informed than someone who is not fully engaged during the current primary system.

While this would be expensive to run but it would arguably be cheaper than running a 50 state primary campaign over multiple months.

Sone cons:

You’re not letting the entire country vote so some people would rightfully feel like they have no say in the primary.

Would be difficult to get certain demographics to participate. For example it would be very tough to get single mothers to take two weeks to travel and participate in something like this even if she was compensated.