Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The Democrats didn't have a meaningful primary, and no one cared

Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention

Vice President Kamala Harris closes out the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night.

Liao Pan/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images

Lovit is a senior program officer and historian at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, where he also hosts the podcast "The Context.”

In many respects, last week’s Democratic National Convention was indeed conventional. The party faithful gathered in a basketball arena in Chicago for speeches carefully calibrated to unite factions and define the central messages of the Harris-Walz campaign. It was a ceremony, a celebration and a storyline — just like the Republicans’ convention last month, and many conventions in years past.

For most of American history, party conventions served a different purpose. They were practical meetings where elites hammered out details of the party platform and wrangled over potential nominees. In a political world where party tickets at every level of government were determined in smoke-filled rooms, the convention was the biggest smoke-filled room of them all.


In the early 20th century, progressive reformers sought to cut through the fog with direct primary elections. By 1917, all but four states had at least partially adopted direct primaries for statewide elections. Primaries were slower to come to presidential selection — the only race in the United States that crosses state lines — but since the 1970s, both major parties have used primaries to select nominees. Convention votes confirming those choices were mere formalities. For the last 50 years, conventions have been like weddings — a party, but with a legally meaningful ceremony at the center.

But Vice President Kamala Harris’ path to the Democratic nomination was unique. With President Joe Biden withdrawing from the race after the primary had already effectively concluded, she is the first major-party presidential nominee in a half-century not to be selected through a primary. And this year’s convention was like a wedding reception without a ceremony; Harris and the Democratic Party had already tied the knot weeks earlier during a virtual roll call vote of delegates.

As evidenced both by polling and by the rapturous reception the Harris-Walz ticket received at the convention, most Democrats are happy with their nominee. This raises a question: If we can dispense with the primary for the highest office in the country, and few people seem to miss it — not even Democratic voters who were deprived of the chance to participate in selecting her — what’s the point of primaries?

Primaries do have some arguments in their favor. For one, rigorous analysis by political scientists Shigeo Hirano and James Snyder Jr. demonstrates that direct primaries promote more qualified candidates, especially in competitive races. And although primary elections are relatively rare internationally, so is the United States’ two-party system. In most other democracies, interparty competition among ideologically similar parties keeps the organizations honest; in the U.S., intraparty competition might be necessary.

But there are also compelling arguments against primaries. During the Jim Crow era, white-only primaries were one method (among many) Southern states used to prevent Black citizens from exercising political power. Today, white voters participate in primary elections at higher rates than most minority groups, who are more likely to identify and register as independent. Some studies suggest that primary elections create extra hurdles for women and candidates of color (like, say, Kamala Harris).

The biggest knock on primaries is that they draw a small and unrepresentative electorate. In most states, voter turnout in primary elections is less than half of what it is in general elections, and the voters who do show up to cast primary ballots tend to be the most ideologically extreme partisans. This means that primaries often function less to produce candidates in the mainstream of public opinion, and more to enforce extreme partisan positions. Instead of selecting candidates in smoke-filled rooms of insiders, these decisions are now made by party loyalists in angry social media feeds.

Even worse, partisan geographic sorting and gerrymandering have conspired to render most general election races in the United States uncompetitive. This is true for both federal and state legislatures. In many of these races, the low-turnout primary election is the only real competition candidates face; according to data from Unite America, in 2022, 83 percent of House races were effectively determined in primary elections by just 8 percent of the voting-age public.

This doesn’t mean we should just do away with primaries. This would remove the only remaining public accountability for noncompetitive races. But the presidential contest this year is certainly competitive — more so with Harris as the Democratic nominee than primary-winner Biden. So primary elections do not seem to have been necessary — or even useful — for Americans to have a real choice at the ballot box this November.

Harris’ unusual path to the nomination provides Democrats, and all Americans, with practical experience of a strong party choosing its nominee, rather than beholden to an ideologically extreme primary electorate. If we like the results, perhaps it’s time to consider reforming our system of primary elections.

Read More

An oversized ballot box surrounded by people.

Young people worldwide form new parties to reshape politics—yet America’s two-party system blocks them.

Getty Images, J Studios

No Country for Young Politicians—and How To Fix That

In democracies around the world, young people have started new political parties whenever the establishment has sidelined their views or excluded them from policymaking. These parties have sometimes reinvigorated political competition, compelled established parties to take previously neglected issues seriously, or encouraged incumbent leaders to find better ways to include and reach out to young voters.

In Europe, a trio in their twenties started Volt in 2017 as a pan-European response to Brexit, and the party has managed to win seats in the European Parliament and in some national legislatures. In Germany, young people concerned about climate change created Klimaliste, a party committed to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as per the Paris Agreement. Although the party hasn’t won seats at the federal level, they have managed to win some municipal elections. In Chile, leaders of the 2011 student protests, who then won seats as independent candidates, created political parties like Revolución Democrática and Convergencia Social to institutionalize their movements. In 2022, one of these former student leaders, Gabriel Boric, became the president of Chile at 36 years old.

Keep ReadingShow less
How To Fix Gerrymandering: A Fair-Share Rule for Congressional Redistricting

Demonstrators gather outside of The United States Supreme Court during an oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford to call for an end to partisan gerrymandering on October 3, 2017 in Washington, DC

Getty Images, Olivier Douliery

How To Fix Gerrymandering: A Fair-Share Rule for Congressional Redistricting

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground. ~ Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Col. Edward Carrington, Paris, 27 May 1788

The Problem We Face

The U.S. House of Representatives was designed as the chamber of Congress most directly tethered to the people. Article I of the Constitution mandates that seats be apportioned among the states according to population and that members face election every two years—design features meant to keep representatives responsive to shifting public sentiment. Unlike the Senate, which prioritizes state sovereignty and representation, the House translates raw population counts into political voice: each House district is to contain roughly the same number of residents, ensuring that every citizen’s vote carries comparable weight. In principle, then, the House serves as the nation’s demographic mirror, channeling the diverse preferences of the electorate into lawmaking and acting as a safeguard against unresponsive or oligarchic governance.

Nationally, the mismatch between the overall popular vote and the partisan split in House seats is small, with less than a 1% tilt. But state-level results tell a different story. Take Connecticut: Democrats hold all five seats despite Republicans winning over 40% of the statewide vote. In Oklahoma, the inverse occurs—Republicans control every seat even though Democrats consistently earn around 40% of the vote.

Keep ReadingShow less
Once Again, Politicians Are Choosing Their Voters. It’s Time for Voters To Choose Back.
A pile of political buttons sitting on top of a table

Once Again, Politicians Are Choosing Their Voters. It’s Time for Voters To Choose Back.

Once again, politicians are trying to choose their voters to guarantee their own victories before the first ballot is cast.

In the latest round of redistricting wars, Texas Republicans are attempting a rare mid-decade redistricting to boost their advantage ahead of the 2026 midterms, and Democratic governors in California and New York are signaling they’re ready to “fight fire with fire” with their own partisan gerrymanders.

Keep ReadingShow less
Stolen Land, Stolen Votes: Native Americans Defending the VRA Protects Us All – and We Should Support Them

Wilson Deschine sits at the "be my voice" voter registration stand at the Navajo Nation annual rodeo, in Window Rock.

Getty Images, David Howells

Stolen Land, Stolen Votes: Native Americans Defending the VRA Protects Us All – and We Should Support Them

On July 24, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a Circuit Court order in a far-reaching case that could affect the voting rights of all Americans. Native American tribes and individuals filed the case as part of their centuries-old fight for rights in their own land.

The underlying subject of the case confronts racial gerrymandering against America’s first inhabitants, where North Dakota’s 2021 redistricting reduced Native Americans’ chances of electing up to three state representatives to just one. The specific issue that the Supreme Court may consider, if it accepts hearing the case, is whether individuals and associations can seek justice under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). That is because the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, contradicting other courts, said that individuals do not have standing to bring Section 2 cases.

Keep ReadingShow less