top of page
This site was designed with the
.com
website builder. Create your website today.Start Now

Policy Brief: Fixing Party Polarization by Changing the Primary Election Structure

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This policy brief examines issue of extreme party polarization in the federal government. Polarization has been a concern in the United States since the Founding. Today, it has become a major problem, with the Democrats having moved much further left and the Republicans having moved much further right than they once were. Polarization has had many negative effects on politics. Firstly, it has caused party identification to be weaker today than ever before. The percentage of independents in the United States is greater than the percentages of Republicans and Democrats combined, but polarization has made candidates for office more extreme, which does not reflect America’s true views. This can cause independent and unaffiliated voters to either abstain from voting or vote for a candidate that they do not fully support. Additionally, polarization has made Congress far less productive by creating policy gridlock and a mutual distrust of one another between the two main political parties. Members of opposite parties today are unwilling to cooperate with one another. Instead of coming to a consensus that could potentially please both parties, each one wants their own policies passed and nothing else. This brief analyzes a potential solution to this problem: eliminating party primaries for Congress and replacing them with open, top-two primaries.

​

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Concern for the problem of polarization has existed as far back as the Washington Administration. In his famous Farewell Address, President George Washington warned the country against the danger of political parties, stating that “They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests” (Washington, 1796). Despite President Washington’s warning, since 1852, the American political system has been dominated by two parties, the Democrats and Republicans, since 1852 (Mann & Ornstein, 2012).

 

The two-party system is a result of the winner-take-all electoral system used for congressional elections. Under the winner-take-all system, the candidate who gets the most votes is elected to office, and all other candidates win nothing, even if they receive 10% or 20% of the votes. This encourages the formation of two large parties rather than many smaller parties. These two parties have moved further and further away from the center of the political spectrum and have become significantly more polarized over time. Candidates running for office used to attempt to appeal to centrist voters, but recently they have made the switch to wanting to appeal more to extreme right or left voters. One reason why is that candidates now run advertisements denouncing one’s opponent in order to unify supporters with a dislike of the opposite side rather than moving support away from that candidate. Interest groups and PACs also want to see commitment to party ideology in candidates whose campaigns they endorse, which made the people running appear more polarized because they want to show dedication, thus discouraging the support of more moderate voters. Lastly, the drawing of congressional district boundaries is done by state legislatures every ten years, giving the party in power the ability to gerrymander districts to their benefit and helping more members of their party get elected, possibly also fueling the polarization problem.

​

IDENTIFICATION OF POLICY PROBLEM

Party identification has currently reached historic lows. In 2015, a Gallup poll found that only 26% of Americans considered themselves Republicans and 29% of Americans considered themselves Democrats, while 42% of Americans identified as independents. This was the fifth consecutive year in which this poll showed that the percentage of independents in the U.S. was greater than 40% (J. Jones, 2016). More recently in January 2017, another Gallup poll found that the proportion of independents has grown to 44% (Gallup, 2017). This weak party identification among Americans is likely a reflection of polarization making the two major parties more extreme and thus giving voters less to agree with. Low party affiliation can affect voter turnout because if people cannot identify with either party running, then they may not be able to support either candidate running, which could cause them to abstain from voting altogether. Not being affiliated with a political party may also disqualify some people from voting in primary elections. Twelve states, or 24%, have strict closed primaries, meaning that only voters registered to a certain party may vote in primaries (Investment Watch, 2015). In addition to these twelve, twenty-one states have mixed primaries that have a variety of rules. Some states allow unaffiliated voters to register with a party on election day, and others allow voters to do this but they must vote for that party again in the next primary (Investment Watch, 2015). Other states allow parties to decide who can vote in their primary, so it is possible for one party’s primary to be open to unaffiliated voters and the other party to be open only to voters registered with that party (Investment Watch, 2015).

​

In addition to lessening party identification, polarization can also create disagreement in politics. The biggest and most obvious example of this is gridlock: the inability to pass legislation. Since 1970, the amount of both actual and threatened filibusters has increased greatly (Epps, 2012). The first half of the 111th Congress in 2009 experienced 137 filibusters, which is double the amount that occurred in the entire period from 1950 to 1969 (Epps, 2012). During that Congress, over 400 bills that had passed in the House died in the Senate without being debated or voted on (Epps, 2012). While it is generally assumed that gridlock is mostly the product of divided government, a 2001 study by Baruch College proved otherwise. They found that when party polarization and division of seats are taken into account, divided government actually has only a small impact on policy gridlock (D. Jones, 2001). They also found that the probability of gridlock increases significantly as polarization increases, and gridlock is much likelier when a smaller proportion of congressional seats is held by the president’s party (D. Jones, 2001). Gridlock means that Congress has little ability to get anything done, leading to public dissatisfaction and low approval ratings. In January 2016, Congress had an 80% disapproval rating (Coblenz, 2016). This is far too high, and it needs to be addressed.

 

Polarization has led to an animosity between the two parties. A poll conducted in 1994 found that only 16% of Democrats had a “very unfavorable” view of the Republican Party and only 17% of Republicans had a “very unfavorable” view of Democrats (Doherty, 2012). However, twenty years later, this survey was conducted again, and the percentages went way up. In the 2014 survey, 38% of Democrats had a “very unfavorable” view of Republicans and 43% of Democrats had a “very unfavorable” view of Democrats (Doherty, 2012). The survey also found that 27% of Democrats and 36% of Republicans viewed the opposite party as “a threat to the nation’s well-being” (Doherty, 2012). Negative feelings are fueled by attack ads run by opposing candidates, which unify one candidate’s supporters with a common dislike of the other side. Candidates do this to help get more money for their campaigns. They want money from interest groups, who want to see a dedication to party ideology. One big way to show commitment to a party is denouncing its opponents, which is done with attack ads. However, this attitude discourages cooperation and consensus among parties, which both increases gridlock and creates the illusion of the presence of only two “sides” to every political issue. It creates a misconception that there are only two answers to every problem in politics: the Democratic answer and the Republican answer, with nothing in-between. This makes compromise highly unlikely because neither party is willing to work with the opposing side to find middle ground.

​

DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS: THE KEY POLICY OPTIONS

Adoption of a top-two open primary, or a jungle primary, system for congressional elections could be a potential solution to the problem of party polarization. In this system, all candidates in all parties run against one another in a primary election which determines the top two candidates who will compete in the general election. Primaries are open to all voters, not just those registered as members of a certain party. This system is currently used in the states of Washington, Nebraska, California, and Louisiana. In many states, primaries are the only competitive elections, so in a lot of safe districts that are dominated by one party, once a candidate wins the primary, they are almost guaranteed to win the general election. In a jungle primary system, it is possible for two candidates of the same party to compete in the general election. This would force the candidates to appeal to more than just their party base and distinguish themselves from the competition by means other than being from the opposite party, like they would in a traditional primary system. Though some may initially assume that the prospect of an election where the only two candidates running belong to the same party may increase party polarization, one of the main advantages of open top-two primaries is that they have shown actual results against polarization. The Nebraska state legislature has used this system since the 1930s. Nebraska is one of the most conservative states in the U.S., but its legislature, which had a Republican majority at the time all of these laws were passed, has passed laws abolishing the death penalty, increasing taxes on gas, and allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses (Berman, 2015). None of these policies are traditionally supported by Republicans, yet they all passed in a Republican-majority legislature. This would also allow all voters, regardless of party affiliation, to vote in primaries. If the two candidates chosen in the primary are from the same party, this could potentially cause people who do not align with that party to feel excluded from elections. However, candidates would likely have differences in their policy views to distinguish themselves from one another, so most voters are likely to find some platforms from each candidate that they agree with.

​

Though a new primary system may be more difficult to pass than the other options, it has shown actual evidence of reducing polarization in the states that currently use it. Because the main flaw of this option is that it would be difficult to pass, it might be easier to start smaller and try to implement it on a smaller state-by-state basis rather than all at once at the national level. This could be done by establishing organizations and interest groups that advocate for adopting jungle primaries in each state. These organizations would promote jungle primaries at smaller, more local levels, which would thus make it easier to pass and implement them. As more states adopt this system, the benefits of it would become more prominent and make adoption in other states even easier as it becomes more popular. Switching to a top-two open primary system has the potential help stop the trend of polarization and make a government more representative of citizens’ true views, rather than just the extreme ends of the spectrum. Reducing polarization is key to having a legislature that will actually satisfy its constituents. Decreasing polarization would increase consensus among parties, and overall, make for a more efficient and cooperative government as a whole.

​

REFERENCES

bottom of page