Fixing the primaries

Two reforms to make the process more representative and less divisive

By Rick Holmes

Feb. 14, 2020

Hinsdale, NH – Every four years around this time, we talk about how crazy it is to let Iowa and New Hampshire dominate the presidential nominating process. They are small and unrepresentative of the country, too white and old for the Democratic base. They hog the attention of the candidates and the media, distort policy priorities (ethanol in Iowa, for starters), and give an unfair advantage to candidates well-positioned to compete in those two states.

It’s all true and everyone agrees – except for the political establishments in Iowa and New Hampshire who have successfully blocked all efforts to deprive them of their place in the front of the line. Maybe the inept handling of this year’s Iowa caucuses will spur some reforms. Let’s hope so.

But if Iowa and New Hampshire don’t deserve to be so prominent, we should stop taking them so seriously. Two small unrepresentative states voted, and no candidate won even 30 percent of the votes in either one. So let’s not be so quick to declare winners and losers. At least wait until Nevada and South Carolina weigh in. They aren’t perfectly representative of Democrats or the country either: Nevada is more heavily Hispanic than the country as a whole, and a majority of South Carolina Democrats are African American. But that’s OK. Add the four early states together and you get a pretty good cross-section of the electorate.

I’ve always liked the idea of starting the campaign off in small states where campaigns are relatively inexpensive, where retail politics is rewarded, where people come out to meet candidates face-to-face and even longshots have a chance to be heard. I’d like to see other small states should get their turn at the front of the calendar. What would happen if Delaware, Mississippi or Idaho came first?

Charles Blow, writing in The New York Times, proposed a reform that might be more palatable to the people of Iowa and New Hampshire. Keep the four early states at the front of the line, he suggests, but have them all vote on the same day. They’d still get the attention they are used to in the months leading up to the first votes, and candidates with limited resources could still compete for the bounce that comes from a good showing in whatever state seems most hospitable. But the peculiarities of Iowa, with its Byzantine caucus system, or New Hampshire, with its open primary that invites mischief from the other party, would become less important.

Next up is another discussion we have almost every four years, about the possibility of a brokered convention. Democrats haven’t had a convention that wasn’t decided on the first vote since the modern primary season took shape, but a contested convention intrigues activists and pundits whenever no single candidate dominates in the early going.

This year, the chance of going into a Democratic convention without a nominee already decided seems more likely than ever. It now looks like a half-dozen candidates will be viable at least until Super Tuesday, March 3, when voters in 14 states go to the polls.  Those states, a diverse slate including California, Texas, Massachusetts, Vermont and Minnesota, could easily deliver a mixed verdict. Democrats no longer allow winner-take-all primaries, so the proportional allocation of delegates across a crowded field will make it even harder for one candidate to amass the number of committed delegates needed to declare victory.

And the longer it takes for a party to settle on a nominee, the harder it is to unite the factions for the general election campaign.

Democrats are alarmed at this prospect for good reason. Many blame the party’s Electoral College loss four years ago on the bitterness between supporters of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Sanders refused to concede before the convention, despite lacking a majority of pledged delegates. Resentment over their candidate’s treatment by the party establishment prompted some number of Sanders supporters – estimates run as high as one in five – to withhold their votes in November.

Could such divisions doom the Democratic nominee again this year, despite the calls to “vote blue no matter who”?

That brings me to another reform whose time has come: ranked-choice voting. Under ranked-choice voting, already in place in Maine and several major cities, voters mark their preferences in order: first, second, third and all the way down the ballot. If no candidate wins a majority outright, the bottom candidate is eliminated, with their votes redistributed to their voters’ second choice. The process continues until one candidate has a majority.

In a crowded primary, ranked-choice voting is attractive because it allows people to vote their hearts for a lower-tier candidate they like, while giving their second-choice vote to the first-tier contender they prefer. It encourages civility because second-place votes can determine the winner, as they did in a Maine Congressional race in 2018; candidates don’t want to anger their rivals’ supporters. And the second- and third-place votes give an advantage to candidates with the best shot of unifying the party in the general election.

Ranked-choice voting is a good idea for the next presidential nomination contest. This time around, Democrats will have to rely on common sense and the unifying threat of a second Trump term to bring them together in November.

Rick Holmes can be reached at rick@rickholmes.net. Like him on Facebook at Holmes & Co, and follow him on Twitter @HolmesAndCo.