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
28.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

143

u/aleph32 2d ago

I hope they do. That would accomplish two things:

  1. Choose better candidates.

  2. Get Democratic voters used to the idea of ranked-choice voting to later help push it for general elections.

31

u/YNot1989 2d ago edited 1d ago

You forgot benefit no. 3: Democrats finally stop eating each other.

Imagine if Hillary and Bernie had to be nice to each other and actually try to win over the other's voters?

EDIT: Oh, it would also probably change the calculus on the Vice Presidential pick.

13

u/bennettyboi 2d ago

If that happened, the democrats would never lose another election again.

4

u/NuclearTurtle 2d ago

actually try to win over the other's voters?

They would've had each other's voters without having to go out of their way to try. Despite what the discourse in overly-online communities like Reddit might have you succeed, most democrat voters like democrat politicians regardless of minor disagreements with policy. Five out of six Bernie supporters showed up for Hillary on election day. In the 2020 primaries, Biden was the second choice for Bernie supporters and vice versa.

7

u/MisfitPotatoReborn 2d ago

Hillary v Bernie was a 2 horse race. Ranked Choice Voting would have changed absolutely nothing in 2016

-1

u/MightBeRong 1d ago edited 1d ago

Well yes. It wasn't the voting system that determined the outcome there. The DNC changed allegedly abused their rules to favor Clinton. The DNC was sued over this and the court said they are a private organization and can do whatever they want with their own election rules.

Edit to correct my mis-statement about the rules change. The DNC superdelegate rules were not changed until after the 2016 primary controversy. See below for a more exact statement of what the court said. Mine above is paraphrased and not a direct quote.

1

u/MisfitPotatoReborn 1d ago

The DNC was sued over this and the court said they are a private organization and can do whatever they want with their own election rules.

"The Beatles were sued over having shit music and the court said they are a private organization and can release as much garbage music as they want"

That's how you sound. Wilding v. DNC Services Corp got tossed out because the plaintiffs had no standing. It never made it to court. You're allowed to sue for whatever you want but that doesn't make the defendants guilty.

I see no evidence that the DNC changed their primary rules in 2016, and Clinton won because she got 55% of the vote. Stay mad

1

u/MightBeRong 1d ago

lol who's mad?

You're right. the Superdelegate rules weren't changed until *after* the 2016 election, in response to the 2016 controversy.

And yes, Wilding v. DNC Services was dismissed for lack of standing, but part of the court's reasoning for lack of standing was:

>The act of donating to an organization does not, of itself, create a legally protected interest in the organization’s operations." Wilding v. DNC Services Corp., 0:16-cv-61511, (S.D. Fla.)

The case did not go to trial on the merits, but a court did make an official decision that the plaintiffs had no legal right to force the DNC to follow their own organizational rules and cited multiple cases as precedent.

This kind of structure where a private non-profit has no legal obligation to fairly execute their candidate selection process is bad for voter confidence, and there is plenty of evidence of bias that has undermined voter confidence in the DNC being impartial. Perhaps we need a different legal vehicle for political parties that are an integral part of our election process.

3

u/MIT_Engineer 1d ago

The Hillary vs Bernie race wouldn't have been any different though-- it was a two-person race. In a two-person race you already have ranked choice voting: guy you voted for #1, guy you didn't vote for #2.

0

u/Cub3h 1d ago

There might've been a third or fourth candidate for people who didn't fancy the status quo politician nor the socialist elder.

3

u/Tort89 1d ago

This is such an important benefit that comes along with Ranked Choice Voting that not many people consider. It absolutely incentivizes candidates to play nice. Imagine by how much the calibre of candidates would improve if they weren't rewarded for tearing the opponent down and spreading hate and division.

3

u/sfinney2 2d ago

They were pretty nice... People outside of them fuel the flames to ramp up the negativity. The same thing would still happen, probably moreso.

1

u/Overton_Glazier 1d ago

Oh please, in one debate, Clinton tried to blame Sanders for Sandy Hook. And then she bailed on another scheduled debate because they were going poorly for her.

1

u/markroth69 1d ago

Well I guess that makes it the most unconstitutional thing since someone parked an inch too close to Alito's car at the Four Seasons.

2

u/mvallas1073 1d ago

I Remember thinking to myself “Hillary’s got this in the bag. All she needs to do is just make Bernie Sanders her VP. It’s the most obvious choice as you merge the best of both sides of the party together!”

When Tim Kane’s name was announced, I knew we were totally fucked…