If that’s true, then Democrats’ new trifecta in Michigan is a perfect opportunity to strategically employ RCV. Adopting RCV now for all state elections would force the MIGOP’s primary to use it, which would give the “anybody but Trump” crowd a boost in defeating him.
It’s not much, but it’s the sort of edge that, multiplied over enough states, could help add up to a Trump loss in the 2024 GOP primary.
The increasing polarization of the electorate over the past 20 odd years suggests RCV is a great option in those few states that do not offer open primaries. Increasingly, I'm inclined to believe RCV is better than open primaries. We are politically cynical. Witness millions of Dem Super PAC dollars funneled into Trump-backed GOP candidate primaries to bolster the chances of the easier guy to beat. The strategy worked. What's also appealing about RCV is the forced education of voters.
I wish Trump would go away, but I'm neither holding my breath nor running around with my hair on fire. My primary concern with another Trump run is how much fuel that gives to a 2nd Biden term. That's the disaster I'd like to avoid. And without RCV, we'll keep playing this same game with the most fringe candidates (or the most senior, establishment, political dinosaur candidates) winding up on the ballots on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November every four years.
RE Trump, I think this highlights that there are more problems with our system than just FPTP or closed primaries.
The GOP presidential primary is winner-take-all. While this is often praised as a more "decisive" method, it also allows bad actors like Trump to capitalize on a divided field, and rockets them to frontrunner status without forcing them to really "earn" it.
By contrast, the Democratic presidential primary is roughly proportional. It's not perfect, but what it DOES do is act as a consensus-building mechanism. Each state AND constituency gets their say, not just the states alone like in WTA. As Biden's example proves, it provides multiple paths towards the nomination, so candidates can play to their strengths instead of being forced to win meat-grinders like Iowa, NH, and Super Tuesday.
I have a much more cynical view of the 2020 Democrat primaries. As in 2016, the DNC feared Sanders, believing him unelectable (because he's a socialist), and were able to parlay Clyburn's endorsement into an upset victory in SC on Super Tuesday. Prior to Super Tuesday, Sanders was the front runner. Clyburn changed that, and that's how we ( I was still a Dem at this time) wound up with a barely sensient DC dinosaur with more than a couple skeletons in his closet as the nominee. In terms of performance--I never thought I'd say this--Biden is measurably worse than Trump. Also I don't think Trump prevailed only on account of closed GOP primaries. Trump had a generous helping hand from legacy media, especially CNN, for whom every Trump rally was "Breaking News." That doesn't mean the primary system is not in need of reform. In what way did Biden play to his strengths? I guess I'm not sure he had any. After all, if he'd been that great a candidate, wouldn't he have been the nominee the first time he ran in 1999 instead of Mike Dukakis, or at least in 2016 instead of Hillary? The DNC didn't want Biden....until Sanders wouldn't go away and then they did. Parties exist for this reason--to get their candidates elected. And the Dems have been better at this job than the GOP for the past four or five years. What I would like to see is a primary system that disables the ability of the major parties to decide for us before we even see a ballot in a voting booth. Ranked choice might be that solution at the primary level.
I think RCV is better in the abstract, because Top X depends on the value of X you choose. FWIW, I think the best value of X is 2-5 depending on whether you have FPTP (X=2), AV (X=2-5), or RCV (X=3-5).
But really, each improves the other. Alaska is a perfect example: Top 4 weeded out the shitty candidates, but didn't stop a dozen or so from actually running! And then in the general, RCV made sure that the sanest candidate won.
Sure, there's some flukey shit that happens with RCV, but generally speaking, it tends towards the consensus candidate, not the one who can run the best closed-primary+FPTP play -- which tends to be the most divisive play.
Is RCV is the path to a more equitable and rational political system? I would be inclined to agree. I think that the Georgia election is an example of how RCV would result in a less bipolar political world. We saw republicans and independents vote for republicans for governor, sec of state, then vote for a democratic senator. These are the sort of results that RCV would give us writ large. As we saw in Georgia the candidates themselves became more important (partially because Walker was just so damn bad, but also because Warnock was uniquely situated to appeal across the aisle), while party ideology (at least momentarily) became secondary.
The runoff basically is a RCV process in two steps. The folks that vote for the libertarian the first time around then has their second-choice votes go to Walker or Warnock during the runoff. Im sure some voters changed their mind from leaning one way or another, but it seems like the 3rd party voters simply picked on of the other two candidates, and there wasn't much movement between Walker and Warnock.
Dave, how would RCV work in senate elections? like do we have to get rid of party primaries to really make it a voice of the people? or does it simply give 3rd parties slightly better visibility?
I think RCV works best in a primaryless world, or at least one like Alaska's Top 4.
But I don't think laying it over the current closed primaries inherently compromises the project. The only difference is that you'd see more centrists running as Independents and/or extremists running on alternate party lines. If there's a sore loser law in place (turns out only 3 states DON'T have one), that will slow down the pace of defections, but they'll happen nevertheless more frequently than they do today. Sinema's recent defection is a perfect example of this, because she probably would have split from the Dems sooner if she knew she could rely on RCV to give her Ruben Gallego's 2's.
Finally, I'd note that RCV makes those same Independents more viable long-term. In an inchoate sense, Sinema probably has suffered a lot precisely because she was tied to a Dem label she needed to get elected, but which ultimately soured the left on her when she didn't live up to the label in office. With RCV, if she'd declared as an Independent by like March 2021, she'd have been able to build up enough of a brand under *that* label that a lot of the same Sinema>Gallego voters would at least be willing to give her a "2" over whichever whack job the AZGOP puts up in 2024.
But more directly, what I'm saying is that if she could have made that work for 2024 (under RCV), then she probably would have been able to make it stick again in 2030, and so on into the future. At a systemic level, instead of having 1 or 2 independents at any given time, we'd probably level out at a good 10-15 of them. Romney, Cheney, McMullin, on down the line.
And having RCV in place would also give these same politicians both an actual incentive AND the real leverage to back repealing sore loser laws and/or replacing them with Top 4 primaries like Alaska's. They could go back to running under their party labels, and simply let their policy positions stand for themselves with the whole electorate, instead of having to game everything out in the primaries. It'd create a lot more moderation and cross-pollination, more wedges of the electorate moving back and forth. For all that I fantasize about having an explicit multiparty system, it's entirely possible to get the benefits of one without the formalisms of it; in fact, we've already had that once before. We just need a slightly more flexible system to get there.
What a conundrum! Hope that Trump runs or hope that he goes down in flames? If he runs, we can hope he mucks up the GOP to the point that they can't win. On the other hand, he deserves to be in jail, which leaves a huge opening for DeSantis.
Trump won't make it past the first primary in 2024. His nacent campaign seems to be going down in flames already, with yesterday's "Major Announcement"--the release of the Trump digital Super Hero digital trading cards. The ONLY way he makes it past NH is if he gets the same help he got in 2016 from the MSM. They need him as much as he needs them. DeSantis won't improve their ratings the way Trump did. I do not want Trump to stay in this race. And I cannot imagine why anyone would like to see a 2020 rematch. Dumb and Dumberer.
The increasing polarization of the electorate over the past 20 odd years suggests RCV is a great option in those few states that do not offer open primaries. Increasingly, I'm inclined to believe RCV is better than open primaries. We are politically cynical. Witness millions of Dem Super PAC dollars funneled into Trump-backed GOP candidate primaries to bolster the chances of the easier guy to beat. The strategy worked. What's also appealing about RCV is the forced education of voters.
I wish Trump would go away, but I'm neither holding my breath nor running around with my hair on fire. My primary concern with another Trump run is how much fuel that gives to a 2nd Biden term. That's the disaster I'd like to avoid. And without RCV, we'll keep playing this same game with the most fringe candidates (or the most senior, establishment, political dinosaur candidates) winding up on the ballots on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November every four years.
RE Trump, I think this highlights that there are more problems with our system than just FPTP or closed primaries.
The GOP presidential primary is winner-take-all. While this is often praised as a more "decisive" method, it also allows bad actors like Trump to capitalize on a divided field, and rockets them to frontrunner status without forcing them to really "earn" it.
By contrast, the Democratic presidential primary is roughly proportional. It's not perfect, but what it DOES do is act as a consensus-building mechanism. Each state AND constituency gets their say, not just the states alone like in WTA. As Biden's example proves, it provides multiple paths towards the nomination, so candidates can play to their strengths instead of being forced to win meat-grinders like Iowa, NH, and Super Tuesday.
I have a much more cynical view of the 2020 Democrat primaries. As in 2016, the DNC feared Sanders, believing him unelectable (because he's a socialist), and were able to parlay Clyburn's endorsement into an upset victory in SC on Super Tuesday. Prior to Super Tuesday, Sanders was the front runner. Clyburn changed that, and that's how we ( I was still a Dem at this time) wound up with a barely sensient DC dinosaur with more than a couple skeletons in his closet as the nominee. In terms of performance--I never thought I'd say this--Biden is measurably worse than Trump. Also I don't think Trump prevailed only on account of closed GOP primaries. Trump had a generous helping hand from legacy media, especially CNN, for whom every Trump rally was "Breaking News." That doesn't mean the primary system is not in need of reform. In what way did Biden play to his strengths? I guess I'm not sure he had any. After all, if he'd been that great a candidate, wouldn't he have been the nominee the first time he ran in 1999 instead of Mike Dukakis, or at least in 2016 instead of Hillary? The DNC didn't want Biden....until Sanders wouldn't go away and then they did. Parties exist for this reason--to get their candidates elected. And the Dems have been better at this job than the GOP for the past four or five years. What I would like to see is a primary system that disables the ability of the major parties to decide for us before we even see a ballot in a voting booth. Ranked choice might be that solution at the primary level.
I think RCV is better in the abstract, because Top X depends on the value of X you choose. FWIW, I think the best value of X is 2-5 depending on whether you have FPTP (X=2), AV (X=2-5), or RCV (X=3-5).
But really, each improves the other. Alaska is a perfect example: Top 4 weeded out the shitty candidates, but didn't stop a dozen or so from actually running! And then in the general, RCV made sure that the sanest candidate won.
Sure, there's some flukey shit that happens with RCV, but generally speaking, it tends towards the consensus candidate, not the one who can run the best closed-primary+FPTP play -- which tends to be the most divisive play.
Is RCV is the path to a more equitable and rational political system? I would be inclined to agree. I think that the Georgia election is an example of how RCV would result in a less bipolar political world. We saw republicans and independents vote for republicans for governor, sec of state, then vote for a democratic senator. These are the sort of results that RCV would give us writ large. As we saw in Georgia the candidates themselves became more important (partially because Walker was just so damn bad, but also because Warnock was uniquely situated to appeal across the aisle), while party ideology (at least momentarily) became secondary.
The runoff basically is a RCV process in two steps. The folks that vote for the libertarian the first time around then has their second-choice votes go to Walker or Warnock during the runoff. Im sure some voters changed their mind from leaning one way or another, but it seems like the 3rd party voters simply picked on of the other two candidates, and there wasn't much movement between Walker and Warnock.
Dave, how would RCV work in senate elections? like do we have to get rid of party primaries to really make it a voice of the people? or does it simply give 3rd parties slightly better visibility?
I think RCV works best in a primaryless world, or at least one like Alaska's Top 4.
But I don't think laying it over the current closed primaries inherently compromises the project. The only difference is that you'd see more centrists running as Independents and/or extremists running on alternate party lines. If there's a sore loser law in place (turns out only 3 states DON'T have one), that will slow down the pace of defections, but they'll happen nevertheless more frequently than they do today. Sinema's recent defection is a perfect example of this, because she probably would have split from the Dems sooner if she knew she could rely on RCV to give her Ruben Gallego's 2's.
Finally, I'd note that RCV makes those same Independents more viable long-term. In an inchoate sense, Sinema probably has suffered a lot precisely because she was tied to a Dem label she needed to get elected, but which ultimately soured the left on her when she didn't live up to the label in office. With RCV, if she'd declared as an Independent by like March 2021, she'd have been able to build up enough of a brand under *that* label that a lot of the same Sinema>Gallego voters would at least be willing to give her a "2" over whichever whack job the AZGOP puts up in 2024.
But more directly, what I'm saying is that if she could have made that work for 2024 (under RCV), then she probably would have been able to make it stick again in 2030, and so on into the future. At a systemic level, instead of having 1 or 2 independents at any given time, we'd probably level out at a good 10-15 of them. Romney, Cheney, McMullin, on down the line.
And having RCV in place would also give these same politicians both an actual incentive AND the real leverage to back repealing sore loser laws and/or replacing them with Top 4 primaries like Alaska's. They could go back to running under their party labels, and simply let their policy positions stand for themselves with the whole electorate, instead of having to game everything out in the primaries. It'd create a lot more moderation and cross-pollination, more wedges of the electorate moving back and forth. For all that I fantasize about having an explicit multiparty system, it's entirely possible to get the benefits of one without the formalisms of it; in fact, we've already had that once before. We just need a slightly more flexible system to get there.
What a conundrum! Hope that Trump runs or hope that he goes down in flames? If he runs, we can hope he mucks up the GOP to the point that they can't win. On the other hand, he deserves to be in jail, which leaves a huge opening for DeSantis.
He’s already running, so we’re down to trying to split his vote against him.
Trump won't make it past the first primary in 2024. His nacent campaign seems to be going down in flames already, with yesterday's "Major Announcement"--the release of the Trump digital Super Hero digital trading cards. The ONLY way he makes it past NH is if he gets the same help he got in 2016 from the MSM. They need him as much as he needs them. DeSantis won't improve their ratings the way Trump did. I do not want Trump to stay in this race. And I cannot imagine why anyone would like to see a 2020 rematch. Dumb and Dumberer.