The GOP’s Primary Weakness

The nominating process has made the party too reliant on Donald Trump, and too cowardly to do anything about it.

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Former President Donald Trump. (Photo by Ed Jones//AFP/Getty Images.)

At President Biden’s behest, the Democratic National Committee is poised to throw Iowa and New Hampshire under the bus. Assuming he gets his way, the new primary order will be South Carolina, followed by Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia and Michigan.

It’s fine with me.  

I like both Iowa and New Hampshire, but the idea that these two states have some divinely ordained role in our elections is silly—and even costly. For instance, were it not for the Iowa caucuses, America probably wouldn’t be stuck with ethanol mandates. This government moonshine is bad for cars, the environment, and the economy (outside of corn producing states). 

But Biden’s move is little more than deckchair shuffling. The real cost of primaries—all of them—is that they are bad for democracy. 

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  1. Randall Briggs

    "Whether [Trump] threatened violence in his speech preceding the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol is hotly debated." Really? Who says he didn't threaten violence, other than the Putin wing of the GOP?

    Oh, yeah, I agree on eliminating primaries. Whatever purpose they may have once served has long since passed.

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  2. Hmgcpa52

    Primaries became the rule after 1968. Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic Party nomination without running in one of the few primaries then.
    In today's Woke world, having white people decide a candidate would be immediately dismissed. Even though the GOP is mostly white

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  3. Ken Motamed

    One possible solution is ranked-choice primaries. Support for Trump is so partisan and unprincipled that I seriously doubt he would be anyone's second or third choice. Ranked-choice is probably a bad idea for the general election because of how long it takes to produce a result, but it might be the perfect solution for primaries.

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    Ben Connelly

    Let’s go back to smoke-filled rooms.

    Preferably by also eliminating all indoor anti-smoking laws, too.

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  5. Jack H Wolf

    Most, but not all the Republican primaries are winner takes all, plurality wins. The Dems have mostly proportional awarding of electors. This is preferable as it prevents an outlier with a strong base, think Trump, Sanders- from running away by winning pluralities. It also gives more candidates electors and a chance to join forces, as Bloomberg, Klobuchar, Buttigieg did to elevate Biden.
    Although I don't think either party would consider letting party officials decide, as Jonah suggests, the idea of superdelegates is perhaps a partial response but not very popular.

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    Jak41592

    I think primaries are a bad idea, and we would all be better off scrapping them entirely.

    But it must be acknowledged that the Democratic Party has managed to avoid the Republican Party's issues with nominating electable candidates. To be clear I am not saying the Democratic Party is incapable of self-immolation. Just this cycle Democratic primary voters (driven by the party's activist base, which is indeed to the left of the country as a whole) drove out Kurt Schrader and his replacement lost a close election for his seat. Henry Cuellar also nearly lost re-nomination as well (and he is likely the only candidate who could win his seat for Democrats). Democratic incumbents also made poor choices on where to run, like DNC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney & Andy Levin abandoned his district and lost re-nomination as well.

    However, those examples are outliers for Democrats who generally ran strong candidates in every competitive race in both the House and the Senate. Say what you will of Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto & Maggie Hassan but all five are credible candidates, generally in the mainstream, and won re-election. All, with the possible exception of Warnock, ran strong enough campaigns to win against even 'normal' Republicans in my opinion. Additionally losing recruits like Tim Ryan, Cheri Beasley & Mandela Barnes were all credible mainstream candidates as well. Had Beasley faced a candidate similar to Blake Masters I suspect she would have won.

    In the 2016 & 2020 Democratic primaries Democratic rules assisted in ensuring eccentric candidates did not win the nomination, and in both cases mainstream candidates pulled out wins. Joe Biden is president, not Bernie Sanders.

    It is Republicans who have allowed themselves to become captured by their base, and not just influenced by them. Democrats have their own struggles with their activist base, but either due to the wisdom of a majority of Democrats, or shrewd rules/politicking: Democrats have come out ahead in my lifetime against their base. Republicans perhaps need this message more than Democrats in my estimation.

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    1. Ken Motamed

      The Democratic Party's activist base is not just to left of the country, it's to the left of the average Democratic voter. And that's what makes the party unacceptable to so many voters.

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      Bayesian

      I strongly disagree with calling Mandela Barnes a "credible mainstream candidate". Someone who, as LG of a polarized and swing state (Wis) gives a (2019) state of the union response on behalf of the effin' Working Families Party is *mainstream*?

      I haven't wanted both candidates to lose so badly since the 2016 POTUS election.

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        Jak41592

        I think this is a checkered view of Barnes. I would not devolve him to "Working Families Party" (it's basically a caucus within the Democratic Party if what I am reading is accurate). He's the current Lt. Governor of Wisconsin. He's a credible mainstream candidate.

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          Bayesian

          Oh, definitely a checkered view. And indeed he's held elected office for some time now (starting in the Wisconsin assembly, 11th district, in 2013). You do know that in Wisconsin, Governor and LG run on a common slate (e.g. when Evers and Barnes defeated Walker and Kleefisch 49.6/48.4 in 2018), so the Senate election this year was the first time Barnes was tested against a statewide electorate (for the record, I'm surprised that Barnes did as well as he did, running only 1% behind Johnson and less than 2% behind Evers).

          And I'm not "devolving" Barnes to the WFP - I'm saying that his choice to give the WFP, *not* Democratic, response to the SOTU represents (along with other actions such as his failed primary challenge to Lena Taylor in 2016) represents a deliberate choice on his part to represent about the farthest left of the officeholding Democratic Party and to distinguish himself from the median Democrat. Fine, he can stand for what he wants to but then don't

          1) call him not a candidate of the base; or
          2) be surprised when he loses

          I probably do have a narrower vision/definition of "mainstream" than you do - I'm not sure what a neutral definition would be.

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            Jak41592

            Did he have the opportunity to give the Democratic SOTU? Is the WFP the farthest left? I am not so sure that's true. He's not a member of the DSA as far as I can tell. He was certainly a base candidate, but I think he was certainly a credible candidate, and he's definitely within the mainstream of the current Democratic Party. I don't think anything you have presented suggests he is not.

            Now, would he be my FIRST choice of candidate in Wisconsin? Probably not, but I don't think he was a terrible candidate either. Nor was I surprised when he lost.

            He's certainly more reasonable than Ron Johnson

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    3. Nordic_man

      I think the big difference is in what happened to the bases of the parties. After the civil rights movement. Democrats shed the labor aligned but racially divisive southern democrats and opened their tent to all black voters who could have basically any ideology, because hey how is “we will protect your right to vote” not a winning message. This injected multi axis ideological diversity into the base of the party in both economic and cultural axes.

      The republicans used to have a similar multi axis diversity, where you had your culturally liberal, pro good governance republicans who were less all in on social issues, and, while they favored low taxes, also appreciated that not all government spending was bad especially if well organized. The republicans ran these people out of the party. Hell the MA GOP tried to censure the most popular gop governor in Charlie baker, who didn’t run for re-election because primary concerns.

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        Jak41592

        I think the racial diversity of the Democratic Party certainly helps. It is no coincidence that the two white states (Iowa & New Hampshire) strongly backed Bernie, while the two non-white states (Nevada & S. Carolina) either more strongly supported Biden or decisively supported Biden.

        But I think we can make too much of this as well. Once the race went down to Biden v. Bernie: Biden romped everywhere. He won highly black states in the south and white states in the north. He won rural states like Idaho, and urban. states like Michigan. The only state Bernie won after Super Tuesday is North Dakota (a weird state with a caucus not a primary).

        So I think the Democratic primary electorate as a whole is more moderate than the GOP's, and it's more than ideologically diverse black/brown people being less liberal than their white fellow Democrats.

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        1. Nordic_man

          So is the problem the primary system, or the voters? It seems like no one wants to say "gee maybe we (conservative ideologues) hitched our horses to the wrong group of idiots"

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            Jak41592

            I think they’re one and the same. The problem with primaries is that you’re asking primary voters to make a judgment on who is most likely to win a general election; and primary voters are never going to be as likely to pick the right person. You see the same thing in the UK. Labor Party members picked Jeremy Corbyn, and Conservatives picked Boris Johnson (then Liz Truss).

            Now, can primaries be reasonable? Yes then can, and the Democratic Party’s current coalition is, somewhat, reasonable. That doesn’t mean the system is the correct one, because that can change radically.

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    Jerry McKamy

    Spot on. The primary system as we know it must go away.

    How can anyone who takes an oath to preserve protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic then says scrap the Constitution because I say so get a singe vote by a U.S. Citizen?

    If someone wants to be under an autocrat, head to Russia, North Korea, Iran, or China. That's where you belong, not in the USA.

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    1. Ken Motamed

      You're assuming the GOP would not nominate Trump. This is the party that has censured its own members for having principles.

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        Jerry McKamy

        I am actually convinced the GOP WILL nominate Trump if given the chance. The GOP leadership is scared to death of the MAGA base.

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    Bayesian

    When it comes to ethanol mandates, let us not forget that Grover Norquist - who, in his quiet and AFAICT not at all narcissistic way, really is a very stable evil genius - not entirely single handedly blew up a deal to get rid of the ethanol subsidy because in his mind getting rid of a subsidy without an equal dollar value tax cut constituted a tax hike.

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    1. Georges

      Interesting: I did not know that. It sure seems like a bad outcome.

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        Bayesian

        Bad for the citizenry, sure. Bad for Grover Norquist himself, probably not.

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    BloggerBarbie

    If they're going to have primaries the way they've been doing it, may I recommend the relatively simple change of having them all on the same day--to heck with this system where Iowa and New Hampshire OR ANYONE ELSE gets to weed out candidates and New Mexico is stuck with the dregs by the time our turn comes around. One primary day. Ranked choice voting. It wouldn't fix everything, but it would be an easier change to make than removing the primary vote.

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    1. Russell J

      Honestly, I thought of the same day primary idea so I get the thought. The weeding isn’t the problem though. It is who does the weeding and how letting some weeds through (ahem John Kasich) can strongly influence the end result since the rules reward first place even if the winner gets 30% and 70% despise the winner.

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  10. Nordic_man

    So.. why have democrats managed to keep "squad" type politicians in check, but the right seems enslaved to it's base?

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    1. Georges

      Not sure it's fair to say "the squad" types are really in check.
      Barack Obama was pretty far leftward. Joe Biden, for all of his supposed "normal" characteristics has governed leftward too.
      But I am assuming keeping the squad types in check means governing from the center-left. Is that no longer part of the Dem fabric?

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      1. Nordic_man

        I am confused as to what you are saying. It sounds like you are measuring left and right from some static, historical perspective of your choice, which is quite frankly meaningless because if you ask 100 people what "center" is you get 100 different answers.

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      BloggerBarbie

      Conservatism is always a bit of an uphill battle because it is, by definition, negative--it's the brakes on the car. Everyone wants to know about acceleration and steering; brakes are an annoying safety feature. I mean, sure, they have to work, but they're not exciting. Reverse is even worse. You can't drive without them, but only super cautious drivers are going to buy a car based on how well it brakes. Meanwhile, progressives are always talking about acceleration and busting all the speed limits, so the party can smile benevolently and say, "Yes, it could do that, couldn't it? We'll go carefully for now, but isn't it a pretty idea to go wild?" Meanwhile, the real conservatives are going, "Um, that's not safe driving practice. Like, at all." Then the populists go around saying, "Look at all these cool tricks we can do full speed and in reverse!!!!" It's an easy sell, and suddenly all the people who don't want to go where the progressives are trying to steer see an alternative. Dumb stunts in the demolition derby of democracy! Yay! And the response from real conservatives tends to come off as "Get off my lawn" to the people enthralled by their daredevil stunts. It's a very different dynamic than the DNC trying to rein in its speeders.

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      1. Nordic_man

        So essentially “real” conservatives are a hopeless minority within the GOP that latched on to a party to try and have influence? Sounds about right

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          BloggerBarbie

          Real conservatives are not necessarily synonymous with the GOP at all. It's been a home for a while because it came closer to being able to apply the breaks than the DNC, but if it's going to start behaving like a right-wing version of the progressives, then the alliance no longer makes sense.

          I don't think conservatives are really outnumbered--there's a cautious strain in the American soul that goes down to the bedrock. It's just that it's a temperament, not a policy position, and that makes it difficult to run against fanciful castles in the sky built by the radicals.

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          1. Nordic_man

            I mean, conservative is a temperament, but just go ask Jonah Goldberg and I think he could lay out bullet points for what policies are things that define conservatism, so I’m not sure I really agree with you here.

            If you want to argue Americans are anti radical change sure. If you want to argue there is a silent majority akin to Jonah or Steve I need to see numbers

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      Bayesian

      Let the record show that Ilhan Omar squeaked through a primary challenge this year, 50-48, with who knows what assistance from her endorsement in that race from Elizabeth Warren: not that I will ever be a voter in Massachusetts, but an endorsement for Ilhan Omar in a primary - against a Black Man, no less - is for me as unforgivable as any of the Republican-leaning organizations or Republican officeholders who endorsed Larry Elder in the California gubernatorial recall. Such a person might as well have dinner with Ye and Nick Fuentes and throw David Duke into the mix - I suppose the D equivalent might be to have some combination of Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, Ilhan Omar, Ibram X. Kendi, and Robin DiAngelo at dinner. Yes, I am *quite* aware that everybody I just named except DiAngelo is Black/black, and she is whatever it is that she is.

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      1. Nordic_man

        Let the record show you put up one example, who by your own terms squeaked through. Meanwhile how many crazy republicans swept the floor in primaries? I’m not saying Dems are perfect, but they seem far more capable of course correction (see recall elections in SF) and containing the crazies that do win in super blue districts once they hit the senate/house. I mean how did the whole “hold BBB hostage until we get a progressive wish list” go? It lost horribly.

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          Bayesian

          No disagreement from me there, and I thought the SF recalls (plus various other events) are indeed promising. I was not asserting qualitative equivalence on craziness (I mean, the progressives did throw OR-5 away in a fit of pique, but that's pretty small potatoes), and my apologies for not being clear about that.

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    4. JG

      I don't think they have really kept them in check. They run their mouths and the rest of the party just sees what people will accept and then moves their party line accordingly.

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      1. Nordic_man

        Right. They talk a good game, but in the end don’t end up legislating much. I mean how did the whole hold the BBB hostage situation go for them?

        Meanwhile I can point to numerous times the republicans both pre and post trump have essentially shown through actual legislative action an in capability and no desire to govern even with trifectas

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    5. Bobbell73

      Off the top of my head ... The Squad is not as popular as the media would have you believe. In other words, no one outside their district would vote for them (fact based hyperbole). The Dems have traditionally had better party discipline - no matter how contentious the primary fight they usually manage to come together for the general, so icing out The Squad doesn't hurt them very much. Ice out Trump and half the GOP base will stay home in November (apparently elections are only binary when Trump is running). I think unions have a lot to do with this, especially public sector unions these days (not so much the traditional unions). Members follow their marching orders. Third, they have the superdelagates as a backstop to keep something really dumb (Bernie!) from happening.

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