Polls continue to show two Republicans at or near the top of a crowded field in California’s primary for governor, raising alarm bells of a “nightmare scenario” where Democrats don’t have a general election candidate in one of the bluest states in the country.
The unique dynamics of this year’s governor’s race created the perfect conditions for this early panic: a splintered Democratic electorate, no well-known front-runner, and a large share of undecided voters. While these conditions are very unlikely to hold, some prominent Democratic officials and pundits are using this scenario to cast doubt on the future of the state’s open primary.
MAGAZINE: REPUBLICANS HAVE A RARE SHOT AT WINNING THE CALIFORNIA GOVERNORSHIP
Let’s be clear: Like any election system, top-two primaries can produce unrepresentative outcomes, albeit extremely rarely. In over 2,000 top-two elections in California and Washington, the majority party was “locked out” in precisely three. The difference is, while unrepresentative outcomes are exceedingly rare under top-two primaries, they’re all but guaranteed in party primary systems — the system California had before 2008 and the system that 45 other states still use.
In traditional party primaries, nearly all elections are effectively decided in low-turnout primaries dominated by one party’s voters, often with the winner chosen with less than a majority of the vote. That’s the real flaw in our current system, and it happens in every election cycle. In 2024, my organization found that just 7% of voters effectively elected 87% of the House in party primaries.
In party primaries, candidates are incentivized to appeal to their party’s most loyal and ideologically engaged voters rather than to the broader electorate. Voters are forced to choose a Democratic or Republican ballot rather than vote for the candidates they actually think are best. And in 16 states, 16.5 million independent voters are barred entirely from participating in these taxpayer-funded elections.
No election system is perfect, but the evidence is clear that California’s top-two primary is an improvement over the status quo: higher voter turnout, more competitive elections, and candidates that are actually incentivized to appeal beyond their partisan bases. Not to mention, voters have the freedom to choose whichever candidate they want for every office, regardless of party.
In general, the possibility that two candidates from the same party advance to the general election is not a bug of top-two primaries — specifically, when those two candidates are from the dominant party. Instead of general elections being foregone conclusions, in about 1 in every 10 elections, California’s system reintroduces political competition by allowing all voters to decide between different kinds of candidates from the dominant party’s coalition. In a solidly red district, voters can choose what kind of Republican they want. In a solidly blue district, they can choose what kind of Democrat they want. That is more democratic, not less.
Critics of primary reform often miss the most important point. The value of top-two elections is not just that they modestly expand the primary electorate and make it more representative. It is that they fundamentally change governing incentives. It reduces lawmakers’ fear of being “primaried” for working across the aisle or stepping out of line with their party base. Notably, the only two House Republicans who voted to impeach President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and survived their primaries to win reelection came from California and Washington, another top-two primary state.
In 2026, 80% of Senate races and 92% of House races are effectively safe for one party or the other. If every state used top-two primaries, political competition would be reopened in all of these places, even those that have been heavily gerrymandered, by giving all voters a say in the determinative contests.
There are ways to improve California’s current system to make major-party lockouts even more unlikely — whether it’s allowing voters to rank candidates in the primary and advance the top two, effectively scrap primaries altogether as Louisiana has done since the 1970s, or advance the top four candidates to the general election like Alaska has done since 2022.
BILLIONAIRES PICK THEIR FAVORITE IN CALIFORNIA’S PACKED GOVERNOR’S RACE
The real question is not whether top-two primaries are perfect. It’s whether we want elections decided by all voters in competitive elections, or by a narrow partisan minority in low-turnout primaries.
California has already made that choice — and it’s the right one. Other states should follow.
Nick Troiano is the executive director of Unite America, a philanthropic venture fund that invests in nonpartisan election reforms. He’s also the author of The Primary Solution: Rescuing Our Democracy from the Fringes.