Party bosses don’t want to give up power, but changing the primary system would encourage candidates to move toward the center.
November 16, 2024
Originally appeared in Bloomberg
By Frank Barry
Frank Barry is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and member of the editorial board covering national affairs. He is the author of the new book, “Back Roads and and Better Angels: A Journey Into the Heart of American Democracy.”Democratic candidates had a disastrous election day. Yet in some states where Republicans ran up big numbers, Democratic party leaders joined in celebrating the results. Fake news? If only.
The cause of the bipartisan joy was the success both parties had in defeating open primaries nearly everywhere the reform was on the ballot. Like gangs guarding their turf, they fought to protect their power and control of the ballot.
“I’d compare the two parties to the Bloods and Crips,” an independent who was supporting Trump told me in McGill, Nevada, “but I don’t want to give the gangs a bad name.”
I heard similar frustration about party politics from others along the Lincoln Highway, with some talking about how hyper-partisanship has made personal and professional relationships more difficult.
The manager at our KOA campground in West Wendover, Nevada, talked about the meanness that has infected politics and how it can turn neighbors against each other, which is why she avoids talking about it. At one of the oldest restaurants in Reno — Louis’ Basque Corner, where strangers are seated together and meals are served family style — I sat next to a woman who told me about how her engagement ended when her fiancé went around the bend on QAnon.
Nevada was one of the seven states where voters organized a ballot proposal aimed at promoting centrism in politics through a type of open primary where all voters are eligible to participate regardless of party, all candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party, and the top finishers advance to the general election regardless of party.
The case for the reform is straightforward: Closed party primaries, where only party members can vote, allow the most ideological voters to dominate low-turnout nominating contests, feeding polarization and extremism. In open primaries, candidates have incentives to seek votes across a broader political spectrum.
The aim is to give bridge-builders a better shot against bomb-throwers, and there’s growing evidence that it does. For example: Of the 10 Republican members of Congress who crossed party lines to vote to impeach Donald Trump after the January 6 insurrection, only three won re-election. It’s not a coincidence that all three were in states with open primaries.
When I passed through Lincoln, Nebraska, former State Senator Adam Morfeld, a Democrat, told me that he believes the state’s open system has helped blunt the forces of polarization there. A 2020 study of California’s experience — the state moved to an open primary in 2012 — came to a similar conclusion.
Party leaders have mostly opposed the switch to open primaries because it weakens their control. Incumbents tend to oppose it because they prefer smaller and already-loyal blocs of voters. And ideological activists tend to oppose it because it empowers candidates who are less beholden to them.
In Nevada, these groups were willing to risk the White House and a Senate seat to defeat open primaries, diverting millions of dollars away from those and other races to attack the ballot proposal.
The “yes” side outspent the opposition in Nevada, but it devoted most of its money to television and media rather than education and grassroots organizing. That left voters susceptible to the predictable attacks by the parties, including their appeals to partisanship: urging voters to keep independents and members of the other (bad) party out of their business.
In Nevada and six other states where it was on the ballot, open primaries lost. (In Alaska, where voters decided whether to repeal an open system, the result is still too close to call.)
In several states, the “yes” campaign may have been hurt by pairing the issue with a second election reform, ranked choice voting, which the parties attacked as a confusing and untested idea, even though it’s neither. And as my Bloomberg colleague Tyler Cowen has noted, evidence shows that it diminishes negative campaigning and promotes moderation.
Tacking ranked voting onto open primaries may have been too much too soon. Yet there was one place where the combo passed, and it’s the place where voters know the harms of partisan extremism best: Washington, D.C.
No election reform will end polarization, of course, but structural reforms that incentivize candidates to reach across the aisle — and improve their odds against extremists — can help reduce it.
As the number of independents continues to grow — one exit pollfound that their turnout exceeded Democratic turnout this year — so will the demand for open primaries. After all: How can such a large percentage of voters be barred from participating in taxpayer-financed elections?
At the same time, as hyper-partisanship continues to plague both legislative bodies and personal relationships, more Democratic and Republican party members will have reason to give open primaries a closer look.
Changing politics is the work of a generation, not an election cycle. Democratic and Republican party leaders protected their turf in this election, but as the ground shifts beneath them, they may find it harder to hold on.
