Author: Gabriel Kraemer

In the U.S., elections typically start with party primaries, where members of each political party select their candidates for the general election. There are two main types of primaries: closed and open. In closed primaries, only registered members of a party can vote in its primary. Open primaries, on the other hand, allow all voters to participate, regardless of their party affiliation. Within these primary systems, when members of a single party dominate the electorate — in heavily Democratic cities, for instance, or mostly Republican rural areas — primaries can effectively decide contests, because the general election (with only one candidate from each party) is uncompetitive. 

Critics of the existing primary system propose a variety of reforms to make results more responsive to the electorate as a whole. One such reform is the top-two primary. Jurisdictions with a top-two primary system hold a single primary election for all candidates and all voters, and the candidates with the top two vote shares — regardless of party — advance to the November general election. The reform aims to increase voter choice, reduce incentives for political polarization and extremism, and make winning candidates more reflective of the broad electorate. 

California and Washington are the lone states to use the top-two primary system for state and congressional elections. (Nebraska also uses it for state legislative elections, which are nonpartisan in the state.) Proponents have led efforts to institute it in various other states, including Florida, Maryland, and Oregon, but none have been successful.

Arguments in Favor

A central goal of top-two primaries is to increase the share of the electorate that casts meaningful votes. Primaries generally see lower turnout than general elections — per one analysis, on average, primary turnout between 2000 and 2020 was under 30%, while general election turnout exceeded 60%. Since primaries can be decisive in jurisdictions that are less competitive between parties, this difference in turnout means that a lower percentage of the electorate tends to vote in the elections that matter. According to the Unite America Institute, the results of 83% of congressional elections in 2020 were determined by primary elections that just 10% of Americans voted in.

In top two-primaries, the top two candidates that advance to the general do not necessarily represent both major parties. In 2022, for example, top-two primaries in six heavily Democratic congressional districts in California chose two Democrats (rather than candidates from both parties) to advance to the general election. Traditional primaries in those districts might typically yield a Democratic nominee strongly favored in the November election and a Republican candidate with a very low probability of winning. Instead, voters in the higher-turnout general could choose between two candidates who garnered significant support in the primary, increasing the chance that more voters have a meaningful say in the race.

Moreover, in this example, a Republican minority with little potential impact in a traditional primary could now express its preferences between two viable (Democratic) candidates. Some advocates say partisan primaries, especially closed ones, effectively “disenfranchise” voters by preventing voters of one party from having a say in the elections that matter. Proponents of the top-two primary argue that more voters’ choices affect the result in the system.

Many also argue that the top-two primary helps more moderate candidates win and thus discourages extremism. In the traditional primary system, candidates must appeal to voters within their party first, before moving on to others in the general election. When the general election is an afterthought (as it is in races dominated by a single party), this can encourage candidates — including incumbents — to adjust their positions to appeal to a more partisan audience rather than the broader scope of the general electorate, fueling political polarization. Top-two primaries, advocates argue, take this effect out of play by eliminating single-party primaries. In addition, if two candidates of the same party advance to the general election, they have an incentive to appeal to voters from the minority party in that race, pulling them towards the center ideologically. A London School of Economics analysis found that candidates in such races are “more likely to talk about partisanship and policy in ways that seek support from voters outside of their own party base.” A University of Southern California study showed that instituting top-two primaries in California consequently “reduced ideological extremity among legislators” elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the state between 2003 and 2018.

In typical general elections after party primaries, three or more candidates can split the electorate, resulting in winners with well under 40 percent support. In these traditional contests, so-called “spoiler candidates,” those with small shares of support, can determine close races despite their low chance of winning. Because only two candidates can appear on the ballot in a general election under the top-two system, these November elections serve functionally as runoffs, ensuring that the winner receives more than 50% of the vote without adding an extra election and its associated costs.

Arguments Against

A key critique of the top-two primary system is its vulnerability to political gamesmanship, particularly through the phenomenon of primary spoilers. In this system, the sheer number of candidates from one party can drastically affect the outcomes. For instance, in a predominantly Democratic district, if multiple Democratic candidates split the vote while a single Republican candidate consolidates their party’s vote, the Republican could advance to the general election. Despite this advantage in the primary, such a Republican candidate would typically face slim chances of winning in the November general election. Candidates can exploit these peculiarities. In one prominent example, Rep. Adam Schiff, running against two other Democrats for Senate in California this year, ran ads implicitly favoring Republican candidate Steve Garvey so he could compete with a Republican instead of a Democrat in November. Garvey came in second place after Schiff, advancing to the general election, making Schiff’s race no longer competitive according to news outlets.

Since top-two primaries include candidates from all parties, some opponents argue top-two primaries act as a first-round general election with lower turnout. This shifts political power to low-turnout primary elections that still often decide elections — voters in the other 44 California congressional districts advanced a Republican and a Democrat to the 2022 general election, for instance, unchanged from the results of a traditional party primary. One study also found that parties’ incentives to field few candidates in primaries (to ensure general-election advancement) reduces voters’ additional choices in top-two primaries. At the same time, turnout might be discouraged in general elections as well: Minority-party voters may not have a candidate they strongly support, and so are less likely to vote. The overall outcome might be lower turnout without much increase in choice.

Many opponents of top-two primaries say the system disenfranchises minority-party voters in any given jurisdiction, because when two candidates of the same party advance to the general election, minority-party voters are prevented from voting for a candidate of their party. On the other hand, if their party’s candidate would have little chance of winning the election, choosing between two candidates of the other party might give them a greater ability to influence the result in a direction they prefer. Another notable problem with the system is its consequences for third parties. The runoff form of general elections (in which only two candidates can compete) makes it difficult for third parties to advance past the low-turnout primary, limiting their exposure. 

ConclusionTop-two primaries could have wide implications for American electoral politics: according to advocates, they offer a strong alternative to polarizing partisan primaries; opponents say they would make the system even more restrictive than it already is. State-level electoral reforms have mainly focused on other proposed systems, like ranked-choice voting, in recent years, but top-two primaries remain a compelling and significant option to address the problems of traditional primary elections.

In the United States, voters typically choose single candidates on their ballots, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins. In a ranked-choice election, voters instead rank candidates in order of preference. After the election is over,  only first-choice votes are counted. The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated from consideration, and the votes for that candidate are reassigned to the candidate’s supporters’ second choices. This process is repeated until a single candidate has more than fifty percent of the vote, ensuring majority support.

Jurisdictions in the U.S. have increasingly implemented ranked-choice voting (RCV) for various contests, including for federal elections in Alaska and Maine. Prominent local elections, including in New York and San Francisco, also use the system. The precise rules of the system vary from state to state. Alaska, for example, allows four candidates to advance to general elections and selects among them using RCV. Maine, on the other hand, uses RCV in both traditional party primaries and the November general election.

How could RCV be a good policy?

Ranked-choice voting is meant to ensure that winning candidates command majority support in the electorate. In plurality-based races without RCV — sometimes called “first-past-the-post” elections — three or more candidates can split the electorate, resulting in winners with well under 40 percent support. Moreover, in these traditional contests, so-called “spoiler candidates” with only small shares of support can also determine very close races even while they have little chance of winning themselves. In RCV elections, such candidates would be eliminated and their votes reassigned if no candidate receives a majority of votes, guarding against the influence of spoilers in narrow contests. A 2023 study showed that by a variety of measures, RCV elections are less affected by spoiler candidates than plurality ones. At the same time, RCV can encourage more candidates to run in the race, precisely because concerns about acting as spoilers are minimal. More people might choose to run for office when prospective candidates no longer worry about unintentional adverse results of their participation, potentially increasing the number of options for voters.

Proponents of RCV argue that the system has positive impacts beyond its simple mechanics. When candidates are campaigning for second- and even third-choice votes, they might have stronger incentives to appeal to broader sectors of the electorate, thereby promoting moderation and depolarization. FairVote, an RCV advocacy group, cites the 2022 elections in Alaska as an example of this effect: Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, two moderates who endorsed each other, won on the same ranked-choice ballot; FairVote writes that the result reflected Alaska’s “ideological diversity.”

There is also evidence that RCV can encourage candidates to conduct more civil campaigns. When candidates rely on secondary support, there is a higher cost to alienating opponents’ voters, so attacks against competing candidates lose appeal. A 2021 analysis of campaign communications in local elections across the U.S. found that examples from races using RCV used more positive language than those from plurality races, supporting the civility theory.

What are the downsides of using RCV?

RCV is not always simple to implement. Results in RCV elections generally face delays compared to those for plurality ones, which can be tabulated more quickly; for example, Alaska’s Division of Elections did not release any ranked-choice returns for 15 days after its 2022 elections. Some argue there is a higher risk of error in more complex RCV tabulation. In a high-profile example, the New York City Board of Elections accidentally included 135,000 “test ballots” in results for the 2021 mayoral race before catching its mistake, causing widespread confusion. Moreover, introducing RCV could burden local bodies already straining to conduct elections.

Voting in RCV elections is also more complicated for voters than in single-choice ones, which some argue can increase the risk of mistakes on ballots that disqualify votes. Less informed voters who do not take advantage of the opportunity to rank multiple candidates can be disadvantaged if their ballot is eliminated (and therefore not counted), a situation known as “ballot exhaustion.” Some opponents say this results in systematic disparities, but evidence on the subject is mixed. Many advocates recommend voter education efforts to ensure voters take advantage of RCV and to minimize the risk of ballot exhaustion.

There is also a risk that the electorate views results of RCV elections as less legitimate than those of traditional first-past-the-post ones, especially when the winner is not the candidate who receives the most first-place votes. A George Washington University study found that these “come-from-behind victories” lead to greater voter dissatisfaction. More generally, voters can perceive RCV elections as less transparent, since determining winners relies on a less intuitive process than they are used to. There are already signs of mistrust in some examples. In the 2021 New York mayoral race, some allies of the eventual winner, Eric Adams suggested that the system was perpetrating “voter suppression” of minority voters when it appeared that another candidate might overtake Adams’s early lead in later rounds of tabulation.

Alternatives and variants

Runoff elections between the top two vote-getters in a given election aim to solve many of the same problems as RCV, and according to the George Washington University study, are often seen as more legitimate by the public. Nevertheless, proponents argue that RCV is more efficient and reliable, especially since runoffs often have lower turnout rates than general elections. RCV is sometimes called instant-runoff voting, because it eliminates lower-performing candidates and evaluates top performers immediately rather than requiring another election to do so.
Ranked-choice voting is not identical in every jurisdiction: Distinct forms include the four-candidate ranked-choice system in Alaska and various ranking and tabulation methods for races in which multiple candidates win. Its use is only growing. According to a Ballotpedia count, 31 states have introduced legislation concerning RCV, and the use of RCV will itself be on the ballot in three states in 2024. Advocates say the system is a democratic reform that will improve consensus, while others view it as inefficient and unfair. Either way, ranked-choice voting is increasingly a part of the political conversation in the U.S.