Ch 1.11 | 🔐Closed partisan primaries = polarization and Disenfranchisement
The impact of our closed primary system is immense.
As an independent, I was never allowed to participate in a primary. As such, my ability to influence who governs our country is almost non-existent. Watch this brief video from Unite America which explains the challenges created by the closed primary system used in many states.
The video validates the information I had surfaced a decade earlier as a board member of Freedom Communications, publisher of the Orange County Register (once the media arm of the Libertarian Party). In a nutshell, the vast majority of our political ideologies are just right or just left of center. Meanwhile, Congress is ideologically at the fringe. Members of Congress have become so divided and so extreme that they are incapable of working together to solve the myriad problems we face as a nation. Despite a low approval rating, 95% get re-elected. Why is that? The answer is the closed primary system.
Thanks to partisan gerrymandering, which has become increasingy precise thanks to advances in technology and data science, the outcome in most House districts is predetermined. In those elections, the only real competition is in the primaries, which draw far fewer voters. Especially in closed primaries — where only registered members of a political party may cast a ballot.
As a result, a small minority of voters decide the vast majority of congressional elections — fueling political polarization and preventing problem-solving. How can we call ourselves a functioning democracy when 30 million Americans are locked out of those primary elections. That’s why our government doesn’t answer to the will of the vast majority of the governed.
In March 2021, Unite America published “The Primary Problem." Here is a summary of their conclusions:
👉Closed primaries disenfranchise voters
In 2020, of the 361 “safe” congressional districts (where one party can be supremely confident of winning), 151 had no competition in the dominant-party primary, denying any voters a say in the outcome.
In partisan primaries in the remaining 210 safe districts, most voters in the non-dominant party effectively had no voice in choosing their representative.
And in 10 states, nearly 11 million independent voters were prohibited from participating in either party’s primaries altogether.
👉Closed primaries distort representation
Voters who participate in primary elections are often unrepresentative of both their own party and, especially, the electorate as a whole, producing similarly unrepresentative outcomes in the candidates they elect.
Polling data from Colorado’s 3rd district, for example, found that the Republican primary electorate that voted for challenger Lauren Boebert over incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton in 2020 was nearly twice as likely (60%) to identify as “very conservative” compared to general election voters (25%).
👉Closed primaries fuel political division and dysfunction
With no competition in the general election, most lawmakers’ only threat to reelection is the potential of being “primaried” by someone to their ideological extreme.
Research demonstrates that incumbents alter their behavior to appeal to primary voters — including which voters they are incentivized to represent and how they vote. Meanwhile, other research finds that potentially more moderate candidates opt out of running in the first place because they know they cannot win.
Closed primaries are further entrenched as a result of something called "sore loser" laws, which bar candidates who lost primaries from running independent campaigns or representing another party. As Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter write:
“Sore-loser laws are an example of rules devised by the industry actors themselves. These rules were not invented by the Framers but gained a foothold thanks to private, gain-seeking political parties. The first sore-loser law was enacted by Mississippi in 1906. Over time, these laws gained in popularity, reaching twenty states by 1970. Another twenty-one states adopted sore-loser structures between 1976 and 1994. Today, 41 states have these wacky rules that prevent candidates from running in the general election after losing in a party primary."
These perversions will continue until we ”unrig“ the system.
NPR reported,"The U.S. has a 'primary problem,' say advocates who call for new election systems." In the article, they quote Jeremy Gruber, senior vice president for the advocacy group Open Primaries, which works to end closed primaries.
"What's happened is the electorate has gone through a massive sea change over the last 25 years. Now, independents are the largest and fastest-growing group of voters in the country. Over 50% of our young people — the next generation of voters, millennials and Gen Z voters — are independent."
This is at least partly why many states have moved away from closed primaries. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, only 16 states — including populous Florida and New York — still have either completely or partially closed primaries.
More from Gruber:
"So if you're an independent voter in those 16 states ... you do not get the right to participate in the primary, Your taxes pay for them, but you don't get the right to participate. You only can participate in the general elections."
Gruber’s organization, Open Primaries, breaks down the rules in each state, which in some cases are different for presidential races than other elections.
In discussing the subject of Open Primaries, NPR states:
Supporters of closed primaries have argued that sabotage from non-members is a serious issue and that voters who want to vote can simply register with the party that's most closely aligned with their views. According to the Pew Research Center, the vast majority of independent voters tend to "lean" toward either the Republican or Democratic Party.
Such arguments fall flat for me, and for 40 percent of voters who are independent of either major party.
There is only one honest reason that anyone would support a closed primary, and that's to retain power and exclude large numbers of Americans from having a voice.
As Christian Grose, a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California Los Angeles looked at the unusual primary system in California. For most offices (excluding president), all candidates run in a single, open primary. The two candidates with the most votes, regardless of party, then compete in the general election. He writes:
Political party activists have fought these efforts, expending resources to oppose ballot initiatives supporting the top-two primary and to litigate it in the courts. The expenditure of resources by both major political parties suggests that the top-two primary system alters incentives for candidates and voters; and reduces the influence of party activists in the selection and nomination process. Further, Democratic and Republican campaign consultants publicly complain about the propensity for the top-two system to produce same-party general elections.
(I should acknowlege, however, that even though many of us call ourselves “independent,” we still lean strongly one party over the other. As I've written, I'm an independent who had never registered with a party and who, for most of my life, identified more closely with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party.)
Former Fortune 500 CEO Kent Thiry has waged four successful election-reform ballot-initiative campaigns in Colorado: opening presidential primaries to unaffiliated voters (2016), opening non-presidential primaries (2016), banning political gerrymandering (2018) and establishing independent redistricting commissions for the state’s political maps (2018). Colorado’s open primary led to 8x more voters participating in primaries in 2020 compared to 2016. Prior to his work in Colorado, Thiry co-authored the legislative redistricting measure in California. He continues to advocate for pro-democracy reform in Colorado and across the country as co-chair of Unite America. He has learned how to build reform coalitions that span the ideological spectrum, activate independent voters, connect with the grassroots — and win! It all started in 2013 with this editorial, which is worth a read. In a recent interview, Kent describes the work he's doing.
We have the opportunity to break the cycle, to move beyond the status quo, and to champion the voices of those who've been left out of the partisan conversation in the name of fairness and proportional representation. There is a great segment in the video that I've excerpted here:
Democracy is not a spectator sport. The fact is that all of us who are in our 50s or 60s, we've had a good run the last 40 years. This is one of the best 40 year streaks for a demographic cohort to enjoy in terms of relative peace, relative economic prosperity etc. So, if any cohort, if any generation, should feel a sense of obligation to protect what they inherited and try to move it forward, and to remember that democracy didn't come easily, it wasn't sustained easily, it was never intended to be easy, it was never marketed to be easy. It's never easy to confront people who have power and therefore use that power to keep that power, and so when you start these things you feel like Don Quixote, that it can't possibly work, because the problem gets in the way of solving the problem. The problem is the wrong people, the far left and far right, are just disproportionately represented.
The beautiful thing is that the American people are not nearly as polarized as American legislatures. So if we just get back to addressing the root cause of how the far left and the far right, who deserve their voice, they deserve their sliver, they deserve their proportional representation, they don't deserve disproportional representation. If we listen well enough and remind people of the kind of Community Action that is required to sustain democracy then we give the middle voice and choice back, and they will take care of everything else.
That says it all! If we, the silent majority, take action, we can put partisan politics aside and focus on nonpartisan system reforms that will give a voice to common sense and find solutions to the problems we face as a nation.
As Nick Troiano, the CEO of Unite America, states succinctly:
One is that every registered voter should be able to vote for any candidate, regardless of party, in every election. And the second principle is that whoever wins those elections should be required to have majority support. Now when you ask most Americans, not only do over 70% agree with those two principles, over 70% assume they're the case today because they're so common sense — but they're not. In fact, there's only four states where both of those statements are true, and those are the states that have done away with traditional party primaries and moved to either having no primary or a nonpartisan primary.
There is an innovative proposal in Arizona that would overhaul elections with nonpartisan open primaries. The Make Elections Fair Act is a proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution that would abolish taxpayer-funded partisan primaries and instead create an open primary in which all candidates for partisan offices appear on the same ballot.
All voters, regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof, would vote on that ballot.
Signature requirements for candidates to get their names on the primary ballot would be the same, regardless of party.
Ballots would include statements explaining that candidates' party affiliation doesn't indicate they're endorsed by that party.
What's interesting about this approach is it isn't prescriptive, because it allows the Legislature to decide how many candidates advance to the general election. For a race in which one candidate is elected, two to five can advance.
If only two candidates advance to the general, both could be from the same party.
If more than two candidates advance to the general, the eventual winner would be elected through a form of ranked-choice voting.
But the main thrust of the proposal mirrors the election system put into place in Alaska prior to the 2022 elections. Alaska instituted a “top four” model. Like in California, all candidates for an office run on one ballot but here the four with the most votes advance to a general election that uses ranked-choice voting.
(In an RCV election, voters rank the candidates in order of preference. If someone gets a majority of first-choice votes, they win. If not, the person with the fewest “firsts” is eliminated and that candidates’ support is redistributed to voters’ second choice. The process continues until someone has a majority.)
Proponents argue that RCV ensures the winner has a mandate from the majority of voters, which may not be the case in a “norma” election in which the person with the most votes wins. Candidates have to campaign beyond their base support in order to secure those second- and third-choice votes. Maine also uses RCV in its elections, as does New York City and dozens of other cities and counties.
🥉Is a third party the answer?
On the surface, this might feel like a solution. If we all vote for a candidate in a new party, perhaps we can effectuate change. This might be true if were able to secure votes from the vast majority of the country and not only in the presidential election but in every House and Senate race. Given how unrealistic that outcome is, I do not believe that a third party is the answer. Or better stated, until we end partisan primaries, eliminate the Electoral College and change plurality voting, a third-party candidate has no real chance of succeeding. But let's explore it here for a bit.
Historically, third-party candidates have struggled to compete in presidential elections. Ross Perot’s 1992 campaign was the most successful third-party run in modern U.S. history, with the businessman receiving 19% of the vote while running against Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. Clinton ultimately won the race with 43% of the vote, and many considered Perot a spoiler who cost Bush the election. But remember, a presidential candidate doesn’t win by getting the most votes — they win by getting the most electoral votes.
Each state is allocated a certain number of votes in the Electoral College, based on population. A candidate needs to win a majority of those votes in order to become president. So even while Perot captured almost a fifth of voters’ support, he didn’t win any states in the Electoral College. In one sense, Clinton lacked a mandate from the voters, with just 43% support. But in another sense, it was a rout — he got 69% of the electoral votes.
And that’s not even the only obstacle facing independent candidates.
When I was growing up, all election debates were controlled by the League of Women Voters. For over a decade, the league did an honorable job ensuring that the debates were held with the best interests of the electorate at heart.
But in 1980, President Jimmy Carter boycotted the first presidential debate because the league invited John Anderson, a congressman who broke with the Republican Party to run as an independent.
In 1984, LWV condemned the campaigns of Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale for “totally abusing the process” when they tried to control what questions could be asked during the debate.
“The two major political parties should do everything in their power to strengthen their own position.”
Dorothy Ridings, then president of LWV, issued a precient warning:
“If future presidential forums are sponsored only by the two major parties, it stretches the imagination to think that significant independent or third-party candidates would ever be included in such debates."
In 1987, the Commission on Presidential Debates was formed, and it managed every debate through the 2020 cycle. On occasion, when they met certain criteria, third-party candidates were invited to participate. But this year, Biden and Trump circumvented the CPD and arranged debates directly with the media, excluding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other candidates.
I’d encourage you to watch the 2006 documentary entitled “An Unreasonable Man.” It details Ralph Nader’s run for president. It’s eye-opening to say the least. One thing it demonstrates is that anyone who attempts to challenge the DNC and RNC will face impossible odds and be criticized as a "spoiler" for taking votes from one or the other candidates.
It’s worth noting that there is an organization that has embarked upon a strategy they call “An Insurance Policy for 2024.” It’s an ambitious plan but not without risks.
Early in 2024, No Labels, which calls itself a "national movement of people who believe in America and bringing our leaders together to solve our toughest problems," has said it was eyeing a third-party unity ticket for the 2024 election cycle. The idea was to have a ticket comprised of a Republican and a Democrat. It has happened in the past. The last (and only) unity ticket to win the presidency was the National Union Party in the 1864 presidential election, which ran a unity ticket between Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party and Andrew Johnson of the Democratic Party. No Labels ended that effort in April, saying it was unable to recruit candidates who could win the race.
Nevertheless, you can read their "Common Sense Agenda" which includes 30 big ideas to tackle America's greatest challenges, including proposals on our budget, energy, immigration, inflation, education, America's place in the world and so much more. Here's a few of their positions.
For what it's worth, I had the opportunity to talk to Dave Walker, one of the co-founders of No Labels in May 2023. He believes that he can get the media behind his party. The fear is, like with Ralph Nader and Ross Perot, that No Label’s "Unity Ticket" could act as a “spoiler” in the election, stealing votes from Biden in a rematch of the 2020 election. And, I continue to maintain that the problem is much larger than just who is president.
And it's not just No Labels. Ahead of the 2024 election, Andrew Yang's Forward Party continues to recruit candidates to run as third-party contenders in congressional races. Former Professor Cornel West also announced his own presidential campaign for the People's Party, before re-registering as a Green Party candidate.
The potential for a third-party ticket has been a divisive subject in Washington, D.C. — even among groups that would typically be expected to support the idea. Third Way, a center-left think tank that supports bipartisan initiatives, has been an outspoken critic of the idea for this election, saying it would hurt President Biden's chances of reelection and open the door for a second term for Donald Trump. Third Way has also said No Labels's own internal data shows it couldn't win the race and would only help Trump. Third Way said in a memo critical of No Labels:
"History makes clear that the No Labels candidate is unlikely to win even a single state. But if we suspend disbelief to explore their argument that they can pull this off, it would have to start with them winning ALL of the closely contested 2020 battleground states."
A group of former members of Congress says it is launching its own bipartisan entity to stop No Labels from running a third-party candidate.
The most powerful point the duopoly makes is that "if you challenge us, the bad guy you hate will win." For Democrats, the bad guy right now is Trump. In our two-party, hyper-partisan politics, there will always be a bad guy to vote against.
As David Brooks recently wrote:
"If America wants a relative moderate who is eager to do bipartisan deal making, it already has one. In fact, he’s already sitting in the Oval Office. Joe Biden doesn’t get sufficient credit, but he has negotiated a bunch of deals on infrastructure, the CHIPS Act, guns, the debt limit. As long as Biden is running, we don’t need a third option."
Personally, I don't agree that Biden is the right man for this moment in history. That said, absent the DNC aligning behind a better candidate, sadly, I see no choice but to vote for Biden in 2024 in order to defeat Trump. While I truly had hoped the GOP would move away form Trump and move towards the middle, that doesn't appear likely as of this writing.
Bottom line: The real impediment to a successful third party candidate defeating the GOP or Democratic ticket is structural and embedded in the system known as: Plurality Voting. Until we end Plurality Voting, we will never be able to effectively have the choice of a third-party.