A Fox News poll (they’re a good pollster despite the network’s fiercely right-wing ideological slant) last week ignited another round of handwringing and debate among Democrats, because it showed firebrand Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed trailing Republican Mike Rogers by four points, even as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson was up five points.
While it’s only one poll, and El-Sayed should still be favored given the building Democratic wave (more on that in the Senate rankings below), it’s clear that his brand of politics repels voters who otherwise would favor a Democrat. While many commentators will argue that El Sayed’s victory is reflective of the left surging in popularity, in truth it more reflects a broken electoral system.
El Sayed captured 48.5% of the vote, while his more moderate opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, won 47.5%. The remainder went to Mallory McMorrow, who had dropped out of the race weeks before the primary.
The result exposes two problems with our nominating systems: first, many states have neither runoffs, nor ranked choice voting. That means candidates like El Sayed can win primaries with less than a majority of the vote. That’s anti-democratic, and it often undermines primary voters’ top goal, which is winning in November.
The problem with this type of system was even more starkly evident in a few other key primaries over the last two weeks than it was in the Michigan Senate race, where at least El-Sayed got close to half of the vote.
Wisconsin Democrats barely avoided imperiling the state’s governorship (and the potential for their first trifecta in years). Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong came within 3,796 votes of winning, even though she only captured 39.4% of the vote. A multi-candidate field meant that no one got to 40%, and a few thousand more votes would’ve landed Hong the nomination despite more than 60% of the primary voters opting for non-socialist candidates.
Meanwhile, in Michigan’s 7th congressional district, a fiercely contested swing seat, Democratic chances dimmed when progressive activist William Lawrence beat two more moderate candidates in the primary. Yet, Lawrence only won 43.7% of the vote. The problem was that his two moderate opponents spent the campaign attacking each other and almost evenly split the other 56.3% of the vote.
Such an outcome is inexcusable, given the advent of ranked choice voting. In a ranked choice system, Lawrence almost certainly would’ve lost on the second ballot because most of the supporters of Matt Maasdam, the moderate who finished third, would have chosen Bridget Brink, the moderate who finished second, as their second choice.
The result would have been more democratic, because it would have reflected the will of the majority of primary voters, not just a plurality. Additionally, it would’ve offered Democrats a far better chance of winning the seat — the top priority for most Democratic voters in the district.
Ranked choice voting is better than run off elections, because they’re expensive to run and turnout tends to plummet. Even so, run offs are better than letting candidates win nominations despite being opposed by the majority of voters in their party — sometimes a strong majority.
The low turnout in run offs brings us to the other systemic problem that benefitted El-Sayed. Michigan’s Senate primary actually featured the highest turnout for a midterm Democratic primary since 2002. Sounds good, right? Yet, despite this “huge” turnout, only 18% of registered voters voted. Nationally turnout is even worse in congressional primaries: 7% in 2024.
The abysmal turnout in primaries favors more extreme candidates, who excite passionate base voters. Analysis of Catalist voter file data for 2024 found that 53% of Americans identify as either conservative or liberal, while 47% of the voting public identifies as moderate. Yet, in primaries that year, conservatives and liberals constituted 89% of voters, while moderates only made up 11% of the electorate.
In swing states and districts, this disparity can cost parties an election, because they nominate candidates like El-Sayed who repel the vast majority of voters who don’t show up for primaries.
Additionally, the gap is awful for the country, because it produces a Congress far more extreme than the country writ large — and one that is gridlocked and dysfunctional as well. Especially in the wake of geographic polarization and extreme gerrymandering, many members of Congress only have to worry about primaries, so it makes sense to avoid alienating more extreme voters in the name of legislating. Even those moderate in inclination must be wary of losing their next primary.
What can be done? The best choice might be a system like the one currently in use in Alaska: the top four candidates in an all party primary advance to the November ballot, and then voters rank those candidates in order of preference. It’s how moderate Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski beat a more conservative challenger in 2022: supporters of Democrat Patricia Chesbro ranked Murkowski second, and when Chesbro was eliminated, their votes pushed the senator over 50%.
As the good government party, Democrats should be pushing for such a system, because it’s better for the country. But they should also prefer this kind of system because it’s good for the party.
This summer’s primary fights, and the left’s relative success, will only spawn additional leftist challengers that risk fumbling away seats — as Republicans have been doing for 15 years. Of note, Florida Democratic Representative Jared Moskowitz faces a far left primary challenger on Tuesday in a newly gerrymandered district that President Trump won by nine points in 2024. The moderate Moskowitz might have a shot of holding the seat in a strong Democratic year (the district is fairly evenly split among Democrats, Republicans, and independents). A far left Democrat almost certainly won’t.
Likely to flip:
North Carolina: there isn’t much to say about this race. Democratic former governor Roy Cooper is up by 9.5 points in one polling average, and 8.7 points in another. While the race will probably tighten, in a state just left of the nation, Cooper is in excellent shape in an environment that will favor Democrats.
Slight lean toward flipping:
Maine: Senator Susan Collins has proved exceedingly difficult for Democrats to unseat, despite no Republican winning the state at the presidential level since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Yet, Collins has only run in one truly awful year for Republicans: 2008, when ticket splitting was much more common (Republicans held both Senate seats in the state at the time).
