by David Safier
California's open primary system may be coming to Arizona if people vote for it in November. If it passes, caveat emptor: let the most disciplined and cynical party win.
Case in point. In California's 31st Congressional District, two Republicans will square off in November to see who will be the district's representative. Part of the reason: only two Republicans ran in the primary, and three Democrats ran. The D votes were split 3 ways, the R votes 2 ways. So the two top vote getters were R's, and they move on to the November general.
Let's game this out in an Arizona election. A state legislative district has, say, a 10% Democratic voter advantage. In the Senate primary, four Democrats decide to run. Meanwhile, two Republicans switch parties and run as Democrats, featuring the label "Democrat" prominently in all their campaign material. That's six "Democratic" candidates total. Meanwhile, the Republicans hand pick two right wing candidates.
You hardly need to wait for the primary to know what the results will be. Even if the candidates don't have a D or an R next to their names on the ballot, voters will know who's who. Democrats will split most of their votes four ways with a few stray votes for the two R-into-D ringers. Republicans will all vote for the two Republicans. The two Rs will win and compete against each other in the general. In November, a Democratic-leaning district will have no choice but to elect either right wing Tweedledum or farther right wing Tweedledee to the Arizona State Senate.
I know some progressives like the open primary system, saying it will get the parties out of the way and let the people pick their candidates. I disagree. It looks to me like, in the real world, close races will be easy pickings for the party which is more disciplined and has a firm hand on who runs for office — usually Republicans — while the more democratically-minded party — usually Democrats — will run more candidates in the primaries and end up with fewer in the general. Sometimes, I imagine, it could go the other way with the Ds outsmarting the Rs. Either way, it's a case of open primaries rewarding party strategy over quality candidates.
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If the goal is to tamp down extremism then Clean Elections is no solution to that. Government funding of political campaigns is not a good thing in and of itself.
Several comments:
Open Primaries are poorly disguised efforts to weaken established parties. Just the opposite of what we need!
The pool of voters who have not declared a party affiliation appears to be around 90% partisan anyway. You could say there are Democrats and registered Democrats on one side, Republicans and registered Republicans on the other, with very few who don’t align with a party.
I question the notion that Dems in Arizona will, or can, run multiple candidates. We already have quite a few cases of only one candidate for State House when could have had two.
I happen to be in New Mexico at the moment and here you can’t vote in a party’s Primary election unless you are registered in that party. The exact opposite of what California is trying out. As of today I don’t know enough to make any evaluations but I’ll keep my ear to the ground. Neverthless I’m for strengthing parties and therefore not a fan of the open Primary system.
Look at how candidates with no primary challenger run now. They campaign among the same groups of highly interested partisans as they do when they have a challenger. It’s where the money and volunteers are. The independents who ran in CA yesterday all lost, despite all the buzz they’d gotten.
The irony is that many Open Primaries supporters in AZ also want to get rid of Clean Elections. A Clean candidate, free from the obligation of constant fundraising, is in the best position to try and reach out to mainstream voters. But even they need GOTV volunteers desperately so they still have to work the party and activist circuit.