Is It Best to Do Away with Primaries?
As 2024 approaches, we should reevaluate the nominee selection process
With the Iowa Caucus just three months away, the mainstream media has once again churned into a seemingly endless election cycle. Yes, it's presidential election season—where, ideally, millions of American voters select the candidate who best represents them. Yet, these candidates are chosen by a small partisan few in a system that fuels extremism, distorts representation, and spawns unsavory contenders.
If one were to have a time machine and travel back to the founding of the Republic, attempting to explain the present-day primary system to the Founding Fathers, they would decry it as a poor attempt to emulate the ancient "mob-rule" of failed democracies, which they sought to avoid. Although the United States promotes democratic ideals, our system is undemocratic by design. The farmers wanted the federal government to represent the states, with local state governments representing their inhabitants. One significant example, prior to 1913, was that state legislatures appointed U.S. Senators, rather than them being directly elected by the voters. They did not particularly champion democracy.
Obviously, changes occurred for a reason. In 1968, turmoil erupted in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. The primitive primary process left no clear winner, with leading contenders being left-wing populist Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota and Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, who was assassinated. Leftists were excited about the idea of an anti-Vietnam war candidate but were left astonished when party bosses, led by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey, an establishment figure who hadn't run in a single primary. There was an uproar in the streets, with the "Battle of Michigan Avenue" drawing particular attention. This tumultuous disaster led to the formation of the McGovern-Fraser commission, which ultimately allowed more than two-thirds of delegates to be selected by the voters themselves, while the super delegate system still enabled party establishment to exert its influence.
George McGovern was the first Democratic candidate elected by the masses but proceeded to lose forty-nine of fifty states to incumbent Richard Nixon in 1972, garnering just under 40 percent of the vote. It wasn't Mr. Nixon's impeccable charisma and unblemished character that led to his electoral triumph; it was the extremism of Mr. McGovern's progressive platform, which called for minimum income, amnesty for draft-dodgers, defense cuts, the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion rights, and Medicare for all—positions that were extremely radical at the time.
Eight years earlier, Republicans faced the pitfalls of the primary system. Barry Goldwater, a firebrand from Arizona, led a determined conservative base to several primary victories in 1964. Many Republican insiders panicked and rallied liberal Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, and John Lindsay to stop him. Securing victories in some primaries and clever power brokering with southern Republican state parties, Mr. Goldwater emerged victorious on the first ballot of the 1964 convention. This disenfranchisement was exemplified when Republican consultant Stuart Spencer implored Mr. Rockefeller to "summon that fabled nexus of money, influence, and condescension known as the Eastern Establishment," to which he replied, "You are looking at it, buddy, I am all that is left." After the convention, the media portrayed Mr. Goldwater as a mentally incompetent right-wing extremist who would start a nuclear war. On election day, he managed to carry only six states to Lyndon Johnson's forty-four.
America was not ready for Mr. Goldwater's unapologetic commitment to conservative principles. The circumstances of his nomination, as well as Mr. McGovern's, highlight a fundamental problem with this electoral process: a ravenous and powerful minority, typically nourished by partisan rancor, has all the power. In the era of partisan news networks, such as MSNBC and Fox News, those dwelling outside the echo chambers are disenfranchised. These polarizing candidates do not deliver landslide victories, with every election now frequently "too close to call," and no decisive presidential win since 1996.
Despite Democrats' complaints about the election of Donald Trump, it was this democratic primary system that elevated him to the presidency. In the 2016 primary, Mr. Trump hovered only around forty-four percent nationally, with the more establishment wing of the party favoring Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. Mr. Bush had the full backing of the 'fabled nexus of money and influence.' $150 million dollars were raised for the moderate Republican, who party bosses felt was the perfect candidate to defeat Hillary Clinton. Though the Republicans never fully embraced Mr. Trump, as he performed below fifty percent in most primary states, the establishment wing never consolidated around one singular candidate—and they were punished for it.
A stylized "silent majority," though in reality a silent minority, were disinterested in these anointed candidates and instead chose the exact opposite of the 'establishment.' Mr. Trump, despite being a wealthy 'elitist' himself, resonated with a large core of rank-and-file voters who felt cheated, angry, and unrepresented by the ‘anointed’ candidates who preceded him. And yet, Mr. Trump was also an extremely unappealing candidate to the moderate voter. He remains the only elected U.S. President to never win the popular vote and coasted to victory largely due to the similar contempt that Mrs. Clinton was held in.
Mr. Trump's present supporters no doubt champion the primary system. Despite his pitiful national approval rating, he enjoys a hefty lead of around thirty points over most of his Republican competitors. Like in 2016, he holds only pluralities in the early states, but this doesn't seem to matter. The Republican establishment found themselves, once again, in a state of perpetual frustration as money and influence failed to prop up Ron DeSantis' ill-fated campaign.
The question remains: How can we balance the needs of the base with the appeal to the center? Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign serves as a clear example of a mainstream moderate who wooed independent voters but severely underperformed with the working-class Republican base. Mr. Romney managed to secure impressive wins in suburban America but fell short in the same areas that elevated Mr. Trump to the presidency four years later.
Personally, I find there is an appeal in the smoke-filled back rooms of party power brokers who would gather at a roundtable and deliver a candidate. This may seem elitist, undemocratic, and strange — but I am not without reason. In 2021, the Virginia Republican Party decided to hold a convention instead of a primary. The primary’s outcome seemed clear. The top polling candidate was State Senator Amanda Chase, who referred to January 6 rioters as 'patriots,' baselessly claimed the election was stolen, and touted herself as 'Trump in heels.' It is important to note that Mr. Trump lost Virginia, a swing state, by ten points. Glenn Youngkin, the former co-CEO of the successful Carlyle Group, polled in a distant second in a hypothetical primary.
At the convention, Mr. Youngkin successfully forged a coalition encompassing suburban and conservative rural counties, ultimately defeating Mrs. Chase on the sixth ballot. Mr. Youngkin positioned himself as a mainstream Republican, focusing on local issues such as education, statewide COVID mandates, and tax reform. He did not boast of ‘election fraud’ and tout himself as ‘Trump in a red sweater vest.’ On election day, he secured victory through a diverse coalition of moderate suburban, rural, and Hispanic voters. His divergence from the Trump movement and the absence of a partisan primary paved the way for the first statewide Republican triumph in twelve years, producing one of the party's most promising candidates in recent memory.
Now, the question arises: which path should we pursue going forward? With gerrymandering rendering most congressional seats one-sided, primaries often become the sole electoral battleground, leaving few candidates compelled to appeal to mainstream America. Should the rest of the country follow the lead of Virginia Republicans by embracing the classical convention format, eschewing primaries? With early 2024 predictions pointing to a rematch between Trump and Biden—both polarizing, unpopular, and unwanted—perhaps it's time to consider allowing the party itself to select different nominees. These unappealing candidates tend to only generate mere soundbites and anger within their respective bases. The electoral success in Virginia serves as a compelling political guideline to both left and right alike: appeal to everyone.