Quick Take: The Benefits of Abolishing Party Primaries
The Michael Steele Podcast
The Bulwark
4.8 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2024
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
Michael Steele speaks with Nick Troiano about his new book, "The Primary Solution: Rescuing Our Democracy from the Fringes." The pair discuss how in 2024, 24 million independents will be locked out of closed primaries for president or Congress. They discuss the benefits of abolishing the primary system, the states that have already changed their primary systems, and where third parties and ranked-choice voting fits into the mix.
Check out "The Primary Solution" here: https://www.amazon.com/Primary-Solution-Rescuing-Democracy-Fringes-ebook/dp/B0C7RMW1Z1
Check out Unite America here: https://www.uniteamerica.org/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey Michael Steele podcast listeners, Michael Steele here with another quick take from the Michael Steele |
| 0:13.0 | podcast check out what's going on right now. Welcome back everybody to the |
| 0:18.2 | Michael Steele podcast. We're sort of drilling down a little bit today on the other side of the electoral process, which is the process itself and the tools and mechanisms that are at stake and put into play to run our nation's primary system and the impact that it's having right now on outcomes from policy to the kinds of candidates. |
| 0:47.6 | Nick Trojato is the author of the primary solution rescuing our democracy from the fringes. So Nick in the book you |
| 0:56.2 | you really kind of break it down and I thought it was a couple of things first off you |
| 1:01.2 | talk about the Republican Party's primary problem, which you referenced a bit before we went to break, is arguably more severe at this point though the Democrats may be catching up soon enough. |
| 1:17.3 | Now the Democrats just did a very interesting thing in their primary where they bypassed the traditional oh let's start with the whitest state in the country, |
| 1:25.7 | Iowa, and then go to the most independent state in the country, New Hampshire, to sort of set the tone for our primaries, which states have very little |
| 1:37.8 | relevance to the ultimate, you know, to the cross section of states that are out there. |
| 1:42.8 | It's not the best in my view representation |
| 1:46.3 | of where I think you should begin. |
| 1:49.2 | But talk to me a little bit about the Republican Party's primary problem and why the Democrats may |
| 1:56.5 | be experiencing that same problem even though they just made a reform that starts their |
| 2:00.7 | primary in South Carolina, shakes it up a little bit. |
| 2:04.0 | Right. Well, when you look at Congress, for example, the first problem I referenced earlier |
| 2:09.1 | was on the Republican side, the party primary system is nominating candidates who are not competitive and losing winnable general elections. |
| 2:18.0 | And so that has narrowed the Republican majority, say in the House House to a very slim margin. |
| 2:25.0 | So one. |
| 2:26.0 | And then right now it's one. |
| 2:29.0 | And who has the power when the margin is that small but the people who are willing to leverage |
| 2:37.5 | their votes to do some crazy things and those are people on the far right like the Marjorie |
| 2:43.8 | Taylor Greens who were effectively elected with less than 10% of voters in |
... |
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