Telepeer

Douglas Schoen: America’s primary system needs reform

April 27, 2023

The likely prospect of Donald Trump – an extreme, twice-impeached, unpopular ex-president – winning the Republican Party’s presidential nomination for the third time in a row is illustrative of a broader problem with the U.S. primary election system that goes far beyond Trump himself and the Republicans who still support him.

Most states adhere to the first-past-the-post principle in primaries, which requires candidates to win only a simple plurality of the vote in order to win their party’s nomination. Many also have a closed primary system, which prevents Independent and unaffiliated voters from participating, ensuring that only the most partisan voters have a say in the nominating process.

This ultimately paves the way for extreme politicians with loyal followings to prevail over consensus candidates with whom most voters can find common ground, especially in primary races with three or more candidates. The end result? Gridlock instead of good governance, chaos instead of conciliation, and partisan rancor instead of results.

There is no one individual whose political ascendancy is more emblematic of this flawed system than Donald Trump. While Trump certainly has more baggage now than when he first sought the nomination in 2016, he was still vastly outside of the mainstream of the GOP at the time, and won the nomination by appealing to a small plurality – not majority – of the Republican Party against a crowded primary field.

Since then, Republican leadership has kowtowed to the Trump-wing of the party, clearly cognizant of the electoral consequences of not doing so. Indeed, most Republicans – i.e., Liz Cheney – who spoke out against the MAGA movement lost their subsequent primary elections.

To be sure, Trump is just one embodiment of this flawed primary system. In last year’s midterm elections, many Republican candidates who were either outside the mainstream or unqualified for office advanced to the general election by winning a small plurality in the primary, only to lose to a Democrat.

The Pennsylvania Senate race provides one glaring example of this. In the closed-primary state, the Trump-endorsed Senate candidate, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was widely viewed as inexperienced and held extreme positions on issues like abortion, won the Republican primary with just 31.2% of the vote. Put another way, Oz was able to advance to the general election even though two-thirds of Republicans didn’t vote for him.

Furthermore, Oz garnered just 951 more votes than the 2nd place finisher, David McCormick, a hedge fund manager who was seen as a more moderate Republican and stronger general election contender. In the end, despite facing a relatively weak Democratic opponent in John Fetterman, Oz ended up losing the general election by five-points.

To be sure, this system has impacted Democrats as well. Had the Democratic Party not made the decision to coalesce around Joe Biden following his victory in South Carolina in 2020, the party very well could have been left with a far-left progressive – the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders – at the top of the ticket, likely handing the general election to Donald Trump.

Ultimately, both parties should be motivated – if not to help democracy, then at the very least to help their party win more general elections – to implement changes to the primary system that put an end to the elevation of extremists, and instead, elevates consensus-builders.

Ranked choice voting – which some states and localities have already adopted – would be a starting point. This is a more democratic and representative system because it allows voters to rank candidates in an election, rather than select only one, thereby ensuring that no candidate is able to win their party’s nomination without being ranked by a majority of voters.

This system incentivizes consensus-building, discourages negative campaigns, and forces candidates to campaign by appealing to the broadest majority of voters, not just their base.

Opinion |

School choice rejected by California Legislature

Opinion |

What you need to know about the federal debt ceiling debate

Opinion |

Turf war between federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and California’s Civil Rights Department

Opinion |

John Phillips: London Breed could be on Newsom’s shortlist if Sen. Feinstein steps down

Opinion |

Chad Bianco’s Keystone Cops lose 60 pounds of meth

Additionally, every state should allow open primaries. Allowing Independents to vote in one of the party’s primaries would ensure that general election candidates are more representative of the electorate, and would blunt the ascendancy of extreme candidates.

So many of the problems with the U.S. political system – ranging from extremism to gridlock – stem from our flawed primary election system, which has been hijacked by extreme candidates who feel no need to appeal to a majority of voters.

This is part of the reason why the majority of Americans believe democracy is broken, and on the brink of collapse.

These proposed reforms are a significant – but necessary – step in the right direction. They are necessary to blunt the growing power of both the far-left and the far-right, and to reverse the hollowing out of our nation’s political center.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Orange County Register

News Details

Douglas Schoen: America’s primary system needs reform

Related Articles

News

CONTACT INFO

QUICK LINKS

SERVICES

CURRENT NEWS