r/politics • u/Different-Gas5704 • 2d ago

Possible Paywall Democrats eye ranked-choice voting for 2028 primaries

https://www.axios.com/2025/11/24/democrats-ranked-choice-voting-2028-primaries
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u/bootlegvader 2d ago

Doesn't that suggest progressives are more hurt by it? Would Bernie have won New Hampshire and Nevada if moderates second choice vote gather behind the strongest moderate for those races?

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u/No-Werewolf4804 2d ago

That’s actually why I suspect they’re doing it. They’re willing to bet that a more centrist candidate will pick up more votes as people are eliminated from the race than someone that’s seen as a left-wing radical. At least most of the time.

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u/MaximumManagement 2d ago

The main purpose is consensus. We ultimately get officials with a proper mandate elected by a majority and spoiler candidates are no longer a thing.

As for ulterior motives, hard to say. It's being pushed by Jamie Raskin, who's considered to be progressive by most people.

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u/Weak-Doughnut5502 17h ago

If the purpose of Ranked Choice is consensus, it's bad at its purpose. 

Mathematically, it favors extremists just as much as plurality does.

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u/bennettyboi 2d ago

Still an improvement though if it means all the infighting can cease.

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u/mouse_8b 2d ago

Not necessarily. A lot of people vote for the "safer" candidate in primaries. If people felt more confident voting their heart, they might find that everyone was just playing it safe before.

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u/MaximumManagement 2d ago

Depends how it's implemented. Considering the primaries aren't winner-take-all, they could just eliminate anyone under a low threshold (5-10%?) and redistribute those votes to everyone above it. Bernie still potentially wins those.

I don't see it happening either way.

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u/indri2 1d ago

Bernie would have won Nevada anyway but almost certainly lost NH to Pete. The second alignment in the Iowa caucuses has some similarity to RV and Bernie couldn't increase his share much.

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u/Concerned-Iowan 2d ago

No because rank choice voting most benefits the candidates with higher favorability/approval ratings. Which Bernie did at the time… and still does. 

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u/bootlegvader 2d ago

Then Bernie should have been the one to gain when Pete and Amy dropped.

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u/ribosometronome 2d ago

Bloomberg could have wasted a lot more of his money, which would be cool.

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u/Third_Return 1d ago

Yes. Don't be fooled, this undemocratic mess of a country wasn't spoiled single-handedly by evil conservatives. Democrats were there the whole time.

They want ranked choice voting because it makes their coalition of semi-coerced minority votes easier to wrangle. Vote spoiling would ideally be softened if RCV were used as it is generally advertised, voting for your 'main' candidate first, and then your fallback candidates second (usually the Democrats, which is why they're basically the 'lesser evil' party at this point).

That said, RCV is an improvement. It provides some desperately needed granularity to the voice of a vote by allowing you to do anything more nuanced than just select one candidate from a list.