Ideas for a More Equitable Primary System for Candidates and Voters
By Eric Loepp, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Learning Technology Center, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Dustin Wahl, Deputy Executive Director, Fix Our House, and David A. Ellison, Author of Repairing Our Divided Nation
Too Many Primary Voters Are Currently Left Out
By Eric Loepp – Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Learning Technology Center, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Since Iowa and New Hampshire are home to the first election contests of the presidential nomination season, they enjoy a level of influence that other states do not. Presidential campaigns can be legitimized or lost in these early states. Many of the candidates who stumble in these first two contests drop out of the race.
The voters of Iowa and New Hampshire, however, do not represent the broader electorate that votes after them. Both states have smaller populations than most other states and white voters comprise a much larger share of their electorates than they do in the country as a whole. The fictional television show The West Wing poked fun at this by creating a “scandal” in which a presidential aspirant once quipped that New Hampshire was “as diverse as a Mayflower reunion.” Why should these two states, or any two states, enjoy so much sway over nominees for president?
A Rotating Regional Primary Would Distribute Power Evenly
Even if these two states were representative of the larger electorate, their voters still wield disproportionate influence over the primaries. A better approach would balance the desire for high voter participation with a wide selection of candidates to choose from. The best way to do this is with a rotating regional primary system.
A rotating regional primary divides the country into four regions—West, Midwest, South, and Northeast—with each region composed of roughly the same number of Electoral College votes. For example, a West region may include all states fully in the Pacific and Mountain time zones, plus Alaska and Hawaii. In presidential election years, these regions would vote in succession with one month in between each contest (e.g., the Midwest in March, South in April, East in May, and West in June). For the first year, the order of voting would be established by a random drawing. Thereafter, the regions would rotate to begin each cycle.
Leveling the Playing Field for Voters and Candidates
A rotating regional primary benefits nearly everyone. First, the system would be simpler and easier for voters to follow. The number of primary elections would be reduced from fifty to four with even spacing in between each voting region. Every region would enjoy the privilege of going first during different election cycles, yet every year all regions would enjoy at least one month of dedicated attention from the candidates. The system would also incentivize candidates to invest time and energy to make their case to a wider, more diverse (ideologically, economically, racially, religiously, etc.) electorate, rather than catering to the whims of voters in just a few states. Most importantly, more voters would get to vote while there are still multiple viable candidates to choose from.
The candidates would benefit as well. Focusing on one region at a time would make it more manageable for them to compete. They would not have to crisscross the country to make campaign stops in the early voting states and exhaust both their staff and budgets. Advertising dollars could be spent more efficiently since many media markets broadcast to multiple states. These advantages would be especially valuable to upstart candidates who are not (yet) well-known or well-funded. They would have time to establish a brand and a following in a particular region and build on that in subsequent regions.
A rotating regional primary system is not the perfect solution, but it is the option that would best empower a diverse field of candidates to compete for the nomination, while also ensuring that more diverse voters have a say in who advances to the general election in the fall.
End Winner-Take-All Primaries and Make Conventions Matter Again
By Dustin Wahl – Deputy Executive Director, Fix Our House
America’s presidential primary system is unrepresentative and arbitrary, and this fact is becoming increasingly clear to more Americans by the day. The Republicans are going to nominate former President Trump, despite his unpopularity, old age, and that he may be a convicted felon by November. The Democrats are going to nominate President Biden, despite his unpopularity, old age, and the fact that two-thirds of Democratic-leaning voters don’t want him to run. Voters don’t want a 2020 rematch, and yet here we are. It doesn’t take a political scientist to see that something is wrong with the current system.
The reforms that Dr. Loepp and I are discussing can’t fix this problem at its core. America has an electoral system that makes it nearly impossible for more than two parties to compete. Changing the presidential primary system wouldn’t change that core reality. Still, an improved system could give both parties a better chance to actually determine their party’s nominee.
The Downsides of a Rotating Regional Primary
A rotating regional primary, as Dr. Loepp proposes, would have strong advantages but also some complications. Currently, campaigns can jumpstart themselves by doing grassroots organizing in just one state at a time. Covering a quarter of the country at a time would necessitate more travel and staff, which would require significantly more money. The large regions would also effectively end “retail politics,” which target local events and individual voters. Personal access to candidates would be limited and filtered through TV and social media more than ever. All these things would be even more extreme in a one-day national primary without regions.
And while a regional primary system would prevent a few small states from having outsized influence, it wouldn’t stop the primaries from effectively playing out as coronations for Biden and Trump. Trump would still likely win each of the four primary regions. A regional primary could make it harder for other Democrats to challenge Biden. Instead of trying to pull off a win in one of the early-voting states, which could serve as a launchpad for attention and fundraising, a Biden primary opponent would need to pull off a miracle by winning several states.
Proportionality and Stronger Parties Can Empower the Candidates
Two proposals could address these problems. First, all delegates should be won proportionally. Many states are currently winner-take-all, where 51 percent of the vote wins 100 percent of the state’s delegates, and 49 percent wins nothing. That system dramatically favors a front-runner like Trump, which his team understands; they pushed for more states to become winner-take-all before 2024. If all states elected candidates proportionally, where 20 percent of the vote wins 20 percent of the delegates, a challenger like Nikki Haley could scrape together more delegates and have a better chance of winning.
A second, more significant change would be to empower delegates at nominating conventions. Currently, conventions are just coronations. But if delegates were not bound by the primary results, they could vote for the candidate that they believe would best serve the interests of their party—such as the ability to win in the November general election.
This might appear to be a less representative system for voters. The voters, after all, should have more control, not the political parties. But look at the current system: what could be less representative of voters than a situation where both parties are effectively stuck with unpopular candidates after only a tiny percentage of the country has voted? An open Republican National Convention may still choose Trump given his vice-like grip on the GOP base. But an open Democratic National Convention would give Democrats the best possible opportunity to select their strongest candidate for the general election. Ironically, by reducing the power of primaries and increasing the power of conventions, voters would have a better chance of being happy with their party’s nominee.
A change this dramatic is unlikely in today’s politics, but the status quo is unsustainable. There are two dirty secrets about American politics today. One: our political parties are perceived as strong when they are actually weak. And two: both parties are hated when stronger parties are the very thing our system needs to stabilize.
Fix Congressional Primaries with Final Five Elections
By David A. Ellison, Author of Repairing Our Divided Nation
While Dr. Loepp and Mr. Wahl correctly state that presidential primaries could be improved, I believe the bigger problem facing our nation is the congressional primaries. Congress, designed to be the most powerful branch of government, is broken. Our elected officials rarely work together on important issues because they are incentivized only to get elected and keep their jobs.
Most congressional election outcomes are determined in party primaries because primary winners in districts that are reliably “safe” for Democrats or Republicans almost always win the general election. According to Unite America and the Cook Political Report, in 2022, over 80% of House seats and over 60% of Senate seats were considered “safe” for one party or the other, resulting in party primaries often becoming the only elections that matter.
Power Shifts to the Extremes
When general elections are not competitive, politicians are beholden to the extremes in their party. Elected officials who are more focused on bipartisanship and problem-solving, often lose party primaries to more extreme candidates who appeal to the small percentage (<20%) of people who vote in primaries. As a result, big money and party insiders gain undue control over our choices in primaries.
To get reelected, politicians need to answer to those who elected them. As a result, the behaviors required to solve serious problems—reaching across the aisle, negotiating, and voting yes on the consensus legislation—are penalized in primaries.
Final Five Elections Include More Voters and Candidates
The solution: Final Five Elections. Final Five Elections is an umbrella term for the combination of two changes to our elections—open, single-ballot primaries and top five, instant-runoff general elections.
- In the primary: We implement open, single-ballot primaries in which all candidates appear on the same ballot whether affiliated with a party or not. Candidates run with their party identification in the open primary, and parties can endorse one or more candidates. The top five finishers advance to the general election.
- In the general election: Voters rank the candidates in order of their preference, and each ballot is calculated using an instant-runoff process. The candidate with the fewest first preference votes in round one is eliminated. The results are immediately recalculated using the second choice of the voters whose candidate was eliminated as their new first-preference candidate. This instant-runoff process is repeated until only the top two candidates remain, and the majority winner is clear.
Since no party affiliation is required, it would be easier and less expensive for candidates to get on the general election ballot, and it would allow more voters and candidates to participate in primaries. To win the general election, candidates must convince voters who wouldn’t vote for them as their first preference that they are worthy of a second or third preference vote. The candidates would have to focus on the needs of voters in the general election rather than cater to extremists in low-turnout partisan primaries. Legislators would be incentivized to work across the aisle and deliver consensus solutions on the important issues facing our country because that is what most voters want.
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Eric Loepp
Eric Loepp is an associate professor of political science and director of the Learning Technology Center at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He teaches courses in American government, political behavior, and research methods. His research has been published in such journals as Electoral Studies; the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties; Research & Politics; Election Law Journal; American Politics Research; PS: Political Science & Politics; and Social Science Quarterly.
Dustin Wahl
Dustin Wahl is the Deputy Executive Director for Fix Our House. He has created and led a variety of advocacy campaigns, including Save71, an organization he founded to promote accountability and a change in leadership at his alma mater, Liberty University. He has been featured in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, and he has appeared on MSNBC, the BBC, and in the Hulu documentary God Forbid.
David A. Ellison
David A. Ellison is an avid reader of books about history, politics, the division within our country, and the Constitution. His first book, Politics Beyond Left and Right: A Guide for Creating a More Unified Nation, was published in 2017. He received his B.S. from Bryant University, and is a Certified Financial Planner but no longer practices. David previously worked as the editor and publisher of The Financial Corner, a monthly financial newsletter. He currently lives in Milford, Connecticut, and is a partner with his wife, Stephanie, in the Ellison Homes Team, a real estate brokerage firm.