The Case for Incumbency

2024 was the year of the election as countries across the world held elections. As the results of these elections came in a trend began to emerge. By the middle of the year it was evident that there was a broad backlash against incumbent governments. And it really was a global trend; ParlGov global research has tracked the elections of 10 major countries and for the first time since at least the 1950s every governing party lost vote share in 2024. 

For American political pundits the questions very quickly became, "would America follow this global trend?" But as quickly as the question was asked it became muddled. Yes, Democrats held the Presidency and the Senate, but Republicans held the House, and the Supreme Court was dominated by Republican appointed Justices. Control of the federal government was divided, and while Democratic President Joe Biden experienced low approval ratings with a 56% disapproval rating as of the midpoint of 2024, House Republican governance was conspicuously dysfunctional and the Supreme Court has experienced a net disapproval rate since the overturning of Roe v Wade.

To further complicate the question the Republican Presidential nominee was a former President who had lost his previous reelection campaign to the current President, and by July 21, 2024 Joe Biden had dropped out of the race to be replaced by his Vice President, Kamala Harris. This created a real question of whether Trump would be burdened with the incumbency label, having served as President less than four years prior, or would Harris as a member of the current administration.

We have since gotten our answers to "which candidate did voters identify as the incumbent" and "whether America would follow the anti-incumbent trend". Republicans were able to hold on to the House of Representatives while winning the Presidency and flipping the Senate, placing control of the government squarely with Republicans. This result was foreshadowed as far back as January 2024 when Gallup asked voters whether President Biden and most members of Congress deserved reelection.

This finding was reaffirmed in October when Gallup again asked whether members of Congress deserved to be reelected.

As evident by these results, the sentiment towards incumbents deteriorated over the nine months from January to October 2024 when only a plurality, not even a majority, of respondents felt their own Representatives in Congress deserved to be reelected. 

This begs the question, though, what exactly do voters want when expressing an anti-incumbency preference. To be anti-incumbent is an abstraction, after all. To move from an abstraction to a fleshed out position one must first identify who, or what the incumbent is; and as stated earlier, that was at the very least muddled in the 2024 election cycle. Even after the incumbent is identified a set of policies, or lack thereof, must be prescribed to the incumbent that voters do not support. 

In the case of the 2024 election the economy was the most important issue to voters. President Biden and Democrats were seen as both responsible for the inflationary environment of the past few years due to increased federal spending in response to COVID, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and were viewed as not having taken action to meaningfully reduce prices. 

Given that voters ranked the economy as their top issue in the 2024 election, and thought candidate Trump would be better able to handle the economy, it would seem that the nature of voter's anti-incumbency preference was motivated by economic policies. 

Outside of issue preferences of the 2024 election, there is some additional polling that may help further shape the anti-incumbency concept. First, pollsters find that an increasing percentage of Americans identify as independents rather than Democrats or Republicans. Furthermore, a majority of Americans believe we need a third-party option in our elections.

Second, between 2000 and 2020 32% to 43% of the eligible voting population is not participating in elections. Of that cohort between 11% and 18% reported not voting because they were not interested or felt their vote would not make a difference and 8% to 25% reported not voting because they did not like the candidates or campaign issues. This is a significant portion of the population that is disengaged from our political system because they do not think that system is responsive their beliefs.

These findings would seem to suggest anti-incumbency is not necessarily partisan or even issues based, but rather a rejection of our political system as a whole. Viewed in this light, the anti-incumbency vote was perhaps more of an abstraction than a rejection of a specific set of policy prescriptions after all. 

If I was to synthesize each of these poll results into a single expression of voter sentiment it would be this; voters want a responsive government and do not feel like that is what they are getting. This is further supported by the disapproval ratings for all three branches of government. But what does it mean for a government to be responsive? 

There are two ways in which a government can be responsive; it can be responsive to voters or it can be responsive in its ability to perform its duties, what I will call actionability. While distinct, these are not necessarily mutually exclusive qualities of government.

I do want to be careful here not to diminish or discredit the dissatisfaction expressed by voters in the series of polls cited above, or in the 2024 election. After all, I too want a government that is responsive to my political persuasion! However, I think it would be a mistake to not address the contradictions between voters' expressed preferences and their revealed preferences. Namely, voters' expressed preference for a government with greater actionability and their revealed preference of, at best, vacillating between a normal governing party in the Democratic Party and a party that is seemingly uninterested in governing in the Republican Party. Now some may say this is an unfair characterization of the Republican Party, but this is a party that failed to adopt a party platform in 2020 and the 118th Congress, led by Republicans, was by far the least productive Congress in at least 40 years. Whether or not one agrees with Democratic policy positions and governance, if voters desire a government with actionability then they should be voting for politicians other than what Republicans have offered.

Voters are not fully at fault for this contradiction, however. Our system presents voters with a theoretical false dilemma, but practically only allows for two legitimate options in any election. Not only is there not only a Democratic and Republican side to any issue, but voters also do not consistently hold Democratic or Republican perspective on every issue. People are complicated and their political perspectives are equally heterodox. 

While there are two ways in which a government can be responsive, my read of the motivation behind the anti-incumbency vote is a frustration with the actionability of government more so than the responsiveness of government to voters. As we saw with voters' top issue being the economy, voters were responding to inaction from the Biden administration on prices. Further, Gallup has also found that a majority of Americans would like their elected leaders to compromise on issues. That's not to say that responsiveness to voters is not also important, so I do want to come back to it, but first I would like to examine the second form of responsiveness; government's actionability. 

What I think is being overlooked by the anti-incumbent voter is the value of institutional knowledge. In the past several years we have seen examples of the benefit of legislators with deep institutional knowledge and those without. Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi was able to effectively govern the House of Representatives as Speaker of the House with a very narrow, ten seat majority, because she understood the levers of power available to her. Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy, on the other hand, may be the prime example of a legislator who did not have deep institutional knowledge; his tenure as Speaker of the House also oversaw a narrow, ten seat majority, was extremely dysfunctional and punctuated by his own caucus removing him as speaker and McCarthy resigning soon after. While both wielded the Speaker's gavel with similar majorities the Senate and White House were aligned Pelosi and not McCarthy, creating different incentive structures for both; Pelosi to enact meaningful legislation to advance Democratic priorities and McCarthy to obstruct and frustrate Democratic policies. To that end, McCarthy could be considered a success. Although, as the earlier polling cited, American voters want their elected officials to compromise on at least some issues. Further, control of Congress has been divided before and not been as unproductive as the 118th Congress and no other Speaker has been removed by their own caucus.

Congress is a complicated institution with a set of arcane rules operating in a larger governmental structure that only adds additional layers of complexity. Institutional knowledge gained from having served in Congress allows for individual legislators to have actionability within this system and as a result create a government with actionability. This is not to suggest that institutional knowledge is the only knowledge valuable to a legislator. There is value in having a Congress made up of Senators and Representatives with a diverse set of backgrounds and expertise. Expertise that allows legislators to effectively regulate certain industries and backgrounds that makes legislators genuine representatives of their constituents. 

Beyond institutional knowledge, an incumbent will have existing relationships with other legislators who they know they can work with to enact, amend, or block legislation. More senior legislators are more likely to get high ranking positions within party leadership and on committees. This allows those legislators to set the agenda for the legislative session as a whole or for specific committees. Ultimately, seniority means influence and legislators with influence have greater actionability to be able to deliver results for their constituents.

This is to argue that if voters want a government with actionability, basing their vote on an anti-incumbency zeitgeist is not the means to achieve that particular end. What this is not an argument for is an inherent virtue of career politicians. Politicians that do not need to be responsive to voters often end up being lazy or corrupt, or both. In fact, to ensure we have a government with actionability we need a government that is responsive to its voters. 

To that end a majority of voters think that there should be term limits for members of Congress. While on its face support for Congressional term limits and anti-incumbency may seem to express the same sentiment I think there is a nuanced distinction between the primary expression between support for each. The anti-incumbency vote did actually result in a responsiveness to voters, at least in electoral results. As such, and for the reasons laid out earlier, this seems to be an expression of frustration with the governments actionability, or lack thereof. Imposing term limits, on the other hand, appears to be an attempt on the part of voters to reclaim some government responsiveness.

The issues laid out with a blanket anti-incumbency vote apply just the same to term limits. Further, to impose term limits on Congress is to treat a symptom of the problem—entrenched politicians—and not the underlying issue—an electoral system that makes it overly difficult to remove lazy, incompetent, or corrupt politicians. Congressional term limits would remove both those legislators that are effective along with those that are ineffective, without discretion and with no mechanism to ensure those ineffective legislators are replaced with effective ones. 

Gerrymandering, campaign finance issues, and our first-past-the-post electoral system all contribute to a system where elected officials become entrenched and become less accountable to their constituents. In a better system, not even an ideal system, elections would be the mechanism to remove unpopular elected officials, making term limits obsolete. Improving our elections systems would allow voters to retain the effective and popular representative while removing the lazy, incompetent, and corrupt. 

I would argue the reason we do not have a government with actionability is precisely because we do not have a government that is responsive to its voters. To fix the former the latter must be addressed.

The Primary Problem

The Presidential Primaries as we understand them are a relatively recent development in America’s electoral politics. Not that America's electoral system has been immutable; from changes to electing the President and Vice President on a single ticket to the direct election of Senators, America has been willing to change its processes for electing its governing officials. The modern Presidential Primary process we are familiar with today is a response to the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

To understand the adoption of the modern system, we should set the stage leading up to the 1968 DNC. In 1968 Lyndon Johnson was President and had only four years early won reelection in a landslide victory. However, despite passing some legislation popular with the Democratic base, like the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, civil strife at home continued to grow. The Civil Rights movement continued its fight for equality and the Vietnam War continued to drag on, distracting from Johnson's domestic agenda—'The Great Society'. The absence of a clear motivation or objective for the Vietnam War—other than the increasingly broad policy of 'Containment'—along with the draft and apparent lack of any progress towards victory galvanized the public against the war,
particularly among young Americans. As a result, the anti-war movement became a focal point of the 1968 Democratic Presidential Primary.

Tapping into this zeitgeist, Eugene McCarthy, Democratic Senator from Minnesota—not to be confused with Joseph McCarthy, Republican Senator from Wisconsin, of 'Red Scare' and 'McCarthyism' fame two decades prior—ran a primary campaign against President Johnson on an anti-war platform. Meanwhile, President Johnson, an adept politician, read the tea leaves and announced that he would not seek reelection on March 31, 1968. Four weeks later, Johnson’s Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President.

Leading up to the Convention, held during the final week of August 1968, only 13 states and Washington DC held primary elections. Humphrey was not on the ballot in any of these primary elections, yet he won the Democratic nomination from delegates from the remaining 37 states controlled by party leaders. Outraged by the party leadership's flagrant power grab, anti-war protesters confronted police outside the convention hall, which devolved into a riot.

In response to the chaos of the 1968 DNC, the Democratic Party decided to hold primaries or caucuses in every state to decide their nominee for President. The Republican Party followed suit shortly after.

Though not nearly as dramatic as the events of the 1968 DNC, tumult during the 2020 primary has again pushed Democrats to rethink how they conduct their primaries. During the 2020 Iowa Caucus, the first contest between Presidential candidates, a failure of the electronic voting software delayed results, caused confusion, and ultimately led to conspiracy theories over stolen votes. The discussion whether to replace Iowa—and New Hampshire—as the first primary states predates the 2020 hiccup, however. Some have pointed out that both Iowa and New Hampshire are whiter and more rural than the country as a whole, and so, are unrepresentative of the country. This matters because the early states in the primary process winnow the field of candidates, effectively selecting the candidates later states will vote for. Voters in two states that are predominately white and rural are going to have different considerations than a more diverse and urban electorate.

President Joe Biden has weighed into the discussion, proposing South Carolina be the first primary state. President Biden owes his presidency to his primary victory in South Carolina. Heading into another primary in a year, the President likely wanted to discourage any potential challengers, and if one should arise he would want an early, decisive victory to quash any concerns over his electoral chances before they arose. If there was any doubt that President Biden’s suggestion of South Carolina was about politics and not representation, FiveThirtyEight looked at which states were most representative of the Democratic Party’s base. They found South Carolina ranked 46, behind Iowa (42) and New Hampshire (34).

While there are some objective measures over which state is most representative of the country to go first in the primaries—Illinois according to FiveThirtyEight—I think this begs the question, should any one state be first in the primaries? After all, voters in a Midwest state, even a representative one, will have considerations other than voters in the plains dealing with drought, or boarder states dealing with immigration, or coastal states dealing with rising sea levels.

Iowa and New Hampshire will make the case for themselves to continue to hold their positions as first in the nation. Some of these I find convincing; others, not so much. These states will argue that because they have held this position in the primaries for so long the residents of the state understand the importance of their selections and take this responsibility seriously. This, I’m not so convinced by, but we’ll look into voter motivation a bit later. The argument continues; because both Iowa and New Hampshire are relatively small, candidates are able to easily visit every major town and every county; meeting with voters across the state. This 'retail politics' is important for candidates to hone their message and actually "touch grass". I am a bit more persuaded by this argument; politicians should understand the interests and concerns of the people they are seeking to represent, however, the early campaign message is being tailored to an electorate that does not look like the nation. And lastly, the media markets in these states are relatively cheap. This gives newcomers who do not have a campaign war-chest or a robust fundraising network in place the ability to compete. I think this too, is a valid argument. We should not want a system that is biased towards a ruling class and only allows the wealthy to break onto the political scene. 

So, the question then becomes, can we achieve these benefits while also improving representation? To this point we’ve done a bit of stage setting, but let’s complete the picture with a quick look at what primaries look like today. I opted to look at the 2016 Presidential Primary calendar because (1) it was an open primary for both Democrats and Republicans, and (2) the 2020 Primary calendar was interrupted and jumbled by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2016 the primaries began on Monday, February 1, with the Iowa Caucus and ended Tuesday, June 7. It spanned five months and there were 20 different election days. The primaries also began seven months before the party national conventions that are typically held in August—though candidates are declaring their candidacies earlier and earlier in the election cycle.

Of the 50 state elections held by both parties to determine their nominee, Democrats held 14 caucuses and Republicans held 13. If you live in a state that holds the more common primary and are unfamiliar with caucuses; these are party meetings typically held during the evening, in a public place where candidate surrogates make speeches before voters cast their ballot. This creates barriers of participation for people who cannot take time off work, find transportation to the caucus location, find someone to care for their children, or cannot attend an hours long meeting during the week for a myriad of other reasons. Many others have made the case against caucuses so I will not go into detail here. As the main thrust of my argument is for greater representation, caucuses that systemically preclude full representation—specifically participants of specific groups like parents, the sick or disabled, or poor—should be retired in favor of primaries.

Now to get back to our question; should any one state be the first primary state? Inspired by FiveThirtyEight, I did my own analysis of the demographics of states based on race, educational attainment, urban and rural divide, occupation, and employment status. Unlike FiveThirtyEight, I looked at the country as a whole and not the demographic breakdown for one or both of the parties. I also included a few more categories than the team a FiveThirtyEight. Based on the metrics I used, Oregon should be the first state to hold a primary—South Carolina is ranked 26, Iowa 38, and New Hampshire 43.

To those who do not live in Oregon, it might seem like an odd choice (to those in Oregon it might seem odd!); Oregon is whiter and slightly more educated than the nation as a whole. However, its rural-urban divide, occupation, and employment rate trend very closely to the national average. 

If ranking by race alone Illinois would be first; educational attainment – Georgia; rural-urban divide and occupation – Oregon; employment – New York. These other states may seem like more natural choices, they are states that are often in the political discussion in a way the Oregon is not.  

If we were to select one of these states to be first though, what other arguments would we have in defense of any individual state over the others? Cards on the table, I think an average of each of these metrics should be used, but I have no good argument for Oregon, alone, to be first. There may be reasons why a state should not be first; the state already holds an outsized influence over politics and media—think New York or California—or, as has been argued, the state is unrepresentative of the country. However, I am not able to defend weighing one state's political quirks more heavily by placing it first in the primaries, even if it is the most representative state in the country. Particularly because those quirky political preferences are weighed so heavily by our primary process. 

I said I would return to voter motivation, so lets take a look at that now. Every four years as part of the horse race coverage there will be stories about 'electability'. No one really knows what electability means. It is a lot of vibes, but one could assume it means something like broadly popular and able to win elections. A candidate is able to make a strong case for this by, well, winning primary elections. But the strange thing about the discussion around electability is that it is a bit circular in its reasoning. Discussions over candidate electability often lack the context of 'favorability' or 'strength of support' polling, which might actually do a better job of telling us who voters like and support—i.e. who is electable. Instead, electability seems to be asking respondents who they think has the most support and is the most well liked. In the early primary states there are few metrics for voters to inform this decision; there are fewer poll results and no primary results. So, the electability metrics that are released are take into consideration by voters, and because partisan primary voters want their party to win in the upcoming general election, they vote accordingly. And here is the circular reasoning; voters think a candidate is electable and so will vote for that candidate, who wins the election because they were electable (or more accurately, perceived to be electable). After the first few primary results come in, some candidates will perform well and appear electable while others will perform poorly and drop out. This is the winnowing effect of the early states that we previously discussed; but what's more, these early states have defined a narrative for the winning candidates going forward—namely, that they are electable.  

In 2016 Iowa voted first on February 1 and a week later New Hampshire voted on February 9, then about a week and a half later the next election was held on February 20. In the Republican field, Ted Cruz won the Iowa Caucus; Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum dropped out. Donald Trump won the next primary in New Hampshire; Jim Gilmore, Chris Christie, and Carly Fiorina dropped out. Two elections and the field of Republican candidates was halved. On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton won the Iowa Caucus; Martin O'Malley withdrew after, leaving the race between Clinton and Bernie Sanders up to the Convention. 

Following New Hampshire there is a week and a half before the next set of primaries for the media to start to create narratives for election based on the results 1.38% of the country. Even if California were to be first in the nation, at 12% of the nation's population, would we think this fair? Perhaps, but I think there is a better way. It seems to me, the primary calendar should be, to some extent, condensed and regional primaries should be held.

 Above is my suggested regional groupings for primaries. Refer to Figure 1 in the linked support below for further detail of this breakdown. When trying to determine the regional groupings I had a couple objectives in mind; (1) I tried to keep the regions compact and (2) I tried to ensure the population across regions was relatively consistent. The latter is why some groupings might look a little odd, like Pennsylvanian's inclusion in the Appalachia grouping instead of New England or the Midwest. However, if I were to group PA with New York in New England, or with Ohio and Illinois in the Midwest the results of these regions would potentially weigh more heavily. It is the same reason Texas and Florida are separated. 

Maintaining compact regions is important for one of the reasons that Iowa and New Hampshire argue they should be first; it should be as easy as possible for candidates to traverse the regions to see as many voters as possible. That will be easier in some regions than others, the Central region is very large, but that is in the interest of this region having a comparable population to the others. By having regions, for the most part, continuous it allows candidates to set routes and continually stop and visit with voters in different regions in a way that would not make sense if Florida was grouped with Washington. Sure, a candidate could drive, stopping a long the way, but that would be wasting valuable time on states that have either already voted or will be voting in a later primary, at the expense of some states that will be voting in the next primary. 

One might argue that this is exacerbating the problem; we are swapping out the interests of the first few states for the interests of the first region. This is a fair concern, but as we did with individual states, we can identify which region is most representative of the nation to prioritize that group first. Furthermore, while there may be some regionalism at play, the individual politics of each state are unique leading to a greater diversity of representation. 

Pressing on this further, one might point out that this system would continue to favor larger states. Candidates would spend their time campaigning in the largest states in the region. To this I would point out that in several regions there is more than one highly populated state and this would not obviously be a sound strategy as it would effectively be forfeiting in the other states, which leads to my next point.

With each region having a similar population there is no obvious leader, meaning that winning the first region may not be as significant as winning the first state. This is because the results of the first primary become a bit more complicated. A candidate might come out of the first set of primaries with the most delegates, but they  may not win a majority of the states or votes. Or maybe a different candidate wins in each state. Or perhaps the candidate that wins a plurality of the states or votes does not win the most delegates. Any of these results preclude a clean narrative of a front runner. Sure, there will likely be candidates that drop out, but the mixed results allow more to stay in. It may not remove the 'electability' question, but it at least would allow more candidates to credibly make an argument for it, allowing for later primary regions to vote for their preferred candidates.

It is also worth considering how this will affect the campaign strategies of candidates. Not that there is no strategy currently involved in primary campaigns, but this would allow candidates deploy their resources differently. Under the current system candidates take a risk not campaigning heavily in Iowa and New Hampshire; the strategy paid off for President Biden, but not everyone is a former Vice President with deep connections in Congress (specifically to Representative Jim Clyburn from South Carolina). 

Consider the New England region; less well-funded candidates could choose to forego media buys in the expensive New York media market in favor of flooding New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine with ad buys. Sure, well funded campaigns with wealthy donors are going to be able to play in every market, but how is that different than how the campaigns are currently conducted? And if well funded campaigns do decide to go the route of expensive ad buys in the New York market hoping to win a knockout win with a big delegate haul, they will have fewer dollars for ad buys in other markets. This allows new comers to the national political stage to target their campaigns in hopes of breaking through other, smaller media markets and notching a couple wins to carry momentum into the next regional primary. 

To state the implications of this plainly; the adoption of regional primaries would include expensive media markets in nearly every region. However, because there are so many markets in play at the same time, it has the potential to dilute well-funded campaign's ability to flood all media markets making less well-funded campaign's media efforts in cheaper markets more potent. 

So, now that we are all convinced, we should have regional primaries, which region should go first? Based on my analysis, the order should be South Central first, followed by the Midwest, South East, New England, Central, Appalachia, and West Coast last. 

I think order matters a bit less if a regional primary calendar is adopted, for the same reasons given for adopting regional primaries in the first place. It has also been suggested that a rotating primary schedule should be adopted so that one region (or state) is not always first, which seems reasonable to me. 

Parties are largely in control of how primaries are conducted. Its true that Iowa and New Hampshire have state laws requiring that they are the first states to hold caucuses or primaries, but there are ways around this. I mention this because it means it is far easier to reform this specific part of our electoral system than it would be to reform general election processes; through Constitutional amendment or reform efforts in each of the 50 states. I would like to say that it is good that the Democratic party is again wrestling with the problems in their primary system, however, it seems clear that they have placed Democrat priorities over democratic principles. Primaries are where our electoral process begins; if that first step is unrepresentative then how can the elections that follow be representative?

The Rational for a Proportional System

At this point I have written more than once in favor of adopting a proportional electoral system over our current first-past-the-post (or winner-take-all) system, and even over a ranked choice electoral system. So, I thought it might be a good idea to quickly articulate why my preferences are what they are. To be clear, I do not disfavor a ranked choice system. In fact, I think it is necessary in certain cases when there is not anything to apportion—say in US Senate or Governor elections. And if I had the power to implement a new system of elections in this country with the snap of my fingers, but the only choice was between a ranked choice system and maintaining the status quo, I most definitely would choose the ranked choice system.

Although both a proportional and a ranked choice system are different means to achieve most of the same objectives—increasing ideological representation, increasing voter engagement, and breaking the two-party power structure—ranked choice retains some of the structural advantages for the two parties that exists in our current system. Namely, the two parties have a presence in every state to be competitive in most elections up and down the ballot. This includes donor lists, volunteers, a bench of candidates, relationships with pollsters and advertising agencies, party employees, and anything else needed to run a campaign. This will not necessarily be true of every other party as they may have difficulty even fielding a candidate in every race. The second benefit that the major parties have is name recognition. Voters may know the Libertarian and Green parties, but how many other third-parties can they name? In the 2020 election there were about 90 named third-parties included on ballots across the country. Even if voters recognize the party name, would they know the party's platform? So, even if their primary preference was for a third-party what would voters’ choose as their second choice? Likely the more recognizable candidate/party, which would probably be a Republican or Democrat.

Source: FEDERAL ELECTIONS 2020: Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, Federal Election Commission, Washington, D.C., October 2022

Now you might rightfully point out that most of the structural advantages I just outlined would still be present in a proportional system. However, the last point is where I think these two systems pull apart and a proportional system benefits third parties more. While I can take election results and distribute seats proportionally based on those results, it is more difficult to game-out ranked choice results (and to be fair, I made it easy on myself when apportioning seats by throwing all third-party votes into one bucket which overstates the actual results of any one third-party). This is difficult because while I could make some assumptions about who a voter’s second and third choice may be, voters are idiosyncratic and those assumptions may very well be wrong. Furthermore, when you change the election rules and incentives, voters will change their voting behavior accordingly. To take this one step further, if I were to retroactively apply a ranked choice system to all elections where a majority was not obtained, making assumptions along the way, the results likely would not drastically differ as the two major parties will have a substantial lead—in part because voters were not casting their ballots with a ranked choice system in mind.

With that said, I think we can intuitively work this out. Let’s set up a fairly simple example; there is a state with four districts. The state is roughly split between conservatives and liberals and districts are drawn fairly. After the election is held the vote tally is as follows: 

Under our current system two Republicans and two Democrats are elected to the House of Representatives.

But, as I said earlier, if you change the rules of the election, voters will change their behavior. Let's now assume this same state adopted a ranked choice electoral system. With no third party infrastructures in the first or third districts and no candidate pool to pull from, those two districts remain a race between the Republican and Democrat. So, looking at districts 2 and 4 only, the results of the election are:

After the first round no one has an out right majority, and the third-parties did better—15 points better. But they are still last, so when this goes to the next round and the Libertarian votes in District 2 are distributed to their second choice, the Republican, and the Green votes in District 4 are distributed to their second choice, the Democrat, the outcome of the election will be the same. This state will have two Democratic Representatives and two Republican representatives.

This is a simplistic model for illustrative purposes, but we can see how this has played out in reality. Maine adopted a ranked choice electoral system in 2018. Since then it has held two elections for the US Senate and six for US House (three election years for two House seats); electing an Independent and a Republican to the Senate, and two Democratic Representatives each year. In fact, only once in those eight elections has a ballot gone to the second round—on the first ballot for district 2 in 2018 no candidate had a majority and so an instant runoff was held between the Republican and Democratic candidates who had received the most votes. It should also be noted that Angus King is the Independent Senator who was elected in 2018. However, he was an incumbent who previously had identified as an Independent and was caucusing with the Democrats. As such, I do not think we can credit his electoral victory in 2018 to the ranked choice system. In 2022 Alaska joined Maine in adopting a ranked choice system. In that election Alaska sent a Democrat to the House of Representatives and a Republican to the Senate.

Let’s return one more time to our hypothetical state. This time the state has gotten rid of its districts in favor of one, multi-member district with seats distributed proportionately by party to the percentage of votes won. This time the results are as follows:

Based on these proportions, Democrats are awarded two seats and Republicans and Libertarians are awarded one each. Under the other two systems third-parties may have had support in all districts but may not have been able to field a candidate to run in every district. Further, a third-party may have broad support in a state, support enough to win a seat under a proportional system, but not enough in any one district to win a majority.

We should also take a minute to consider what the implications of this are for voters. Voters in Districts 1 and 3 that might support a third-party candidate are forced to either decide between voting for a candidate for one of the parties running or not to vote at all. These voters rightly feel under-represented because they are presented with a false dilemma. The only reason this is any dilemma at all is because our winner-take-all system forces us into the false choice between two ideologies; conservatism as represented by the Republican party and liberalism as represented by the Democratic party. The American electorate is much more diverse than this dichotomy.

The outcome between our second hypothetical and our last hypothetical illustrates how, I believe, a proportional system is more potent in enabling third-parties to gain representation within our government. I should point out, in fairness, that in Maine the third-party candidates did not gain enough votes (even when combined) to win a seat under a proportional system, suggesting an optimism in my final hypothetical. Though, to repeat my refrain, voter behavior may change to a sufficient degree for a third-party to win representation if Maine were to adopt a proportional system instead of a ranked choice system. 

When we are considering electoral systems we should not think of them as isolated systems in their individual silos. More voters turn out to vote in Presidential election years, but those additional voters are not only voting for the President, they also cast their vote in Senate and House elections, and on down the ballot. Turnout is generally higher. It stands to reason then, that if we were able to increase voter turnout for one branch of government due to increased representation resulting from a more responsive electoral system, then turnout overall would increase.

As I stated earlier, I believe a ranked choice system is better than our current system. Given time, I may be proven wrong by the electoral results from Maine and Alaska as parties, candidates, and voters adapt to the new system. I hope I am wrong. I hope we begin to see more diverse representation from these states, and as a result increased voter turnout.

It is for the very reason that individual elections affect one another that my ideal would be to adopt a proportional system for state general assemblies and the House of Representatives, and a ranked choice system for Governors and the US Senate. I believe these systems would reinforce one another.

Proportional systems would give third-parties a better shot at gaining representation within the government. By merely winning an election third-parties would gain a credibility with voters that they have struggled to gain in the past. Winning an election would also increase the profile of third-parties so the party and its platform are more familiar to voters and voters would actually be able to see how the party's ideas translate into practical governance. 

When it comes time to cast a ranked choice ballot voters are more familiar with third-parties, their candidates, and their platform. Voters also view certain third-parties as more credible after the party has won representation for itself in an election and voters can see how the party operates in the government. Perhaps, then, after the ballots are counted, third-parties have a larger share of votes in the first round and are not the first party eliminated from the ballots. Maybe third-parties are also voters second and third choices above Republicans and Democrats. And so, maybe third-parties win more ranked choice elections.

What I am describing is a virtuous cycle. As third-parties win more elections they become more credible and known. As those parties become more credible and known they win more elections. The more elections that third-parties win the more ideologies and perspectives are represented. As more ideologies and perspectives are represented within the government citizens begin to see themselves better represented in their government and observe more responsive elections. As this perception increases more citizens begin to participate and voter turnout increases. With increased voter turnout, support for third-parties increases, and so on.

But to kick off this cycle something is needed to breakthrough the two parties hold on power. I do not think a ranked choice system is strong enough to do this. Although I believe a proportional system would be able to do this, it has limited applications—you cannot apportion votes for a single Senate seat or Governorship. And while I think a proportional system would still have an effect on these elections, the effect would inherently be limited because the candidate with the plurality of votes would win the election, reinforcing the two party system. Both are needed if we truly want to change our system for the better. 

Ohio Gerrymandered: A Decline into Single Party Rule

The Problem:

It is December of 2022 and it has been an eventful year, politically, for Ohio. The first national election after the decennial census will invariably generate additional attention as map makers work to draw new districts for the upcoming election—whether it is partisans in the state legislature, a non-partisan board, or a bi-partisan commission; as was the case for the first time in Ohio.

You see, after the 2010 census Republican’s held control of the Ohio legislature and so controlled the redistricting process. With that power they carved up Democratic territory in northeast Ohio and in the city of Columbus—and its surrounding suburbs—cracking and packing districts to maximize the number of Republican held seats in the State Senate, State House, and US House. One particularly egregious example was Ohio’s newly drawn District 9 which was designed to pit incumbent Democratic Representatives Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich against one another, eliminating a Democratic seat in the process. This new district, which spanned from Toledo to Cleveland along the shore of Lake Erie, was given the name “Snake on the Lake”. Fun fact about this district, it is technically not contiguous when Lake Erie water levels are high!

In response to this flagrant abuse of power, Ohio citizens expressed support for amendments to the State Constitution to reform the redistricting process. In 2015 an amendment was passed to move redistricting power for state legislative maps from the legislature to a bipartisan commission with 71% support. By 2017, the League of Women Voters, along with other groups, gained the necessary signatures to put forward an additional amendment to be voted on by Ohioans during the 2018 mid-term election. However, because the political environment was looking tough for Republicans, and seeing that redistricting reform was likely to be adopted in some form, Republican’s in the state legislature cut a deal with Democrats to put forward an amendment of their own for citizens to vote on during the 2018 primary. It is important to understand that citizen led amendments can only come forward for a vote during general elections; however, legislatively proposed amendments can be voted on during primaries—allowing Republicans to get ahead of the citizen led amendment and retain control of the process. Ohioans turned out and passed the amendment overwhelmingly; 1.2 million people voted for the amendment, which was 75% of those who voted. Readers should put a pin in this, thresholds for amendments (and particularly primary amendments) will come up later, so it is worth keeping these 71% and 75% thresholds front of mind.

So, what did these amendments do? As mentioned above, the 2015 amendment turned over the process of redistricting state legislative maps from the legislature to seven-member bipartisan commission consisting of the Governor, Auditor, and Secretary of State, as well as one member appointed by each of the Senate President, Speaker of the House, Senate Minority Leader, and House Minority Leader.

The 2018 amendment further reformed the redistricting process, this time for US House districts. The amendment changed the threshold for approval from a simple majority to three-fifths and requiring support from at least half the members of both major parties. If a map could not be agreed to then the process would be handed over to the seven-member commission created by the earlier amendment that is responsible for drawing state legislative maps. At this stage at least two minority-party members would have to agree to adopt the new maps. If the commission fails to come to an agreement as well, the redistricting process is handed back over to the legislature for approval by simple majority, however support from one-third of both parties would be required. At this point, if the two parties are unable to come to an agreement after three efforts at compromise, the legislature can pass a map with a simple majority; however, this map will only be valid for four years at which time this process would start again. The 2018 amendment also includes restrictions on how often counties and local governments can be split in order to promote compact districts. It further declares that maps must not unduly favor or disfavor a political party or its incumbents.

The 2015 and 2018 amendments seemed like the State had adopted good processes for redistricting; promoting and incentivizing bipartisanship, and setting limitations on how districts can actually be drawn. However, the final step in the 2018 amendment is its fatal flaw. This allows the majority party in power to pass gerrymandered maps and revise those maps every four years! 

In 2022 Democrats were expected to win only two of fifteen US House seats. They ended up winning five. Democrat Greg Landsman unseated incumbent Republican Steve Chabot in southern Ohio’s district 1 that includes Cincinnati. Marcy Kaptur—remember her? Republicans eliminated a Democratic seat by combining her district with another Democratic district and they returned in 2020 in an attempt to finish the job. Marcy beat Republican challenger J.R. Majewski. Lastly, Democrat Emilia Sykes defeated Republican Madison Gesiotto Gilbert to represent Ohio’s 13th district that includes Akron.

This in a year when Republicans swept statewide elections, including the US Senate seat, and Governor Mike DeWine defeated his opponent by 26 points. Part of this comes down to candidate quality; Majewski’s campaign was riddled with scandals and neither Majewski or Gilbert had previous elected experience. On the other hand, their opponents were known entities in their respective districts. Marcy Kapture has served in the US House of Representatives since 1983, making her the longest-serving women in the US House. Emilia Sykes has served in the State House since she took her father, Vernon Sykes', seat in 2015 and served as Minority Leader from 2019 to 2021. Steve Chabot’s defeat, however, cannot be explained by candidate quality as he was a 13 term Representative of District 1, serving from 1995 to 2009 and 2011 to 2023. The changing demographics of Cincinnati might explain Chabot’s defeat, but DeWine carried Hamilton County by 3 points.

The point being, Democrats won these three races by an average of 8 points; there is every reason to believe Republicans will try to draw these Democrats out of office again in four years.

But I am getting ahead of myself. We should look at the redistricting process that took place this year before looking forward to elections four years from now! I guess I also spoiled the ending of the story; bipartisan maps could not be agreed to and so four-year maps were adopted, but how did we get here?

The redistricting process begins with the decennial census. The most recent census began on April 1, 2020, which corresponded with lock-downs across the country in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic, along with interference from the Trump administration, resulted in a disorganized and chaotic 2020 census. Given these issues, the release date for census results was postponed from March 31, 2021 to September 30, 2021.

In fairness to the redistricting officials, the delayed release of official results meant that they lost six months that they could have otherwise been working on drawing districts. This meant that officials had to rush to get districts drawn and in place to allow candidates to register in their respective districts for the upcoming primary on May 3, 2022. However, the state legislature could have decided to push back the primary and registration dates to give themselves more time to complete the map making process (readers, pin another one).

The long and short of Ohio’s redistricting process in 2022 is this; Republicans who held five of the seven seats on the redistricting commission controlled the process. The commission was made up of Republican Governor Mike DeWine, Auditor Keith Faber, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Senate President Matt Huffman, and Speaker of the House Bob Cupp; and Democratic Senator Vernon Sykes and House Minority Leader Allison Russo. 

These five Republican members rammed through five different sets of state legislative maps, locking the Democratic members out of the process almost entirely. Why five maps? Because five times voting rights groups took their case before the Ohio Supreme Court who found the state legislative maps were unconstitutional. The Ohio Supreme Court found that the state’s federal legislative maps were unconstitutional twice as well, though voting rights advocates dropped their suit against the second map due to the upcoming election. Why didn’t the commission draw a sixth state legislative map? Because the US District Court’s Southern District of Ohio issued an order that the commission’s Map 3 was to be used in the upcoming election, meaning that the Republicans on the commission could simply ignore the State Supreme Court and use their preferred map.

To add a bit of flavor to this saga. After the court invalidated the commissions second attempt at a map, the members of the commission were called to appear before the court to argue why they should not be held in contempt. During this hearing Governor DeWine, Secretary of State LaRose, and Auditor Faber made a startling admission; House Speaker Cupp and Senate President Huffman control the budgets and employ the Republican map-making experts, which effectively meant that these two men were in control of the entire map making process. Around this same time the commission received aid from Ohioans who submitted their own versions of district maps, though ultimately the commission was not receptive to the submissions. After the third set of maps were rejected, the commission hired two independent map makers to aid them in drawing fair maps for their fourth submission. The commission declined to accept the independent map makers map, instead submitting another version of a Republican drawn map. When this was rejected requiring a fifth submission the Republicans opted to not draw a new map at all and instead resubmit the previously rejected Map 3.

As this process drew on Republicans grew increasingly frustrated and began calling for the impeachment of Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor over her decisive votes to reject the commissions' maps. Among those entertaining Chief Justice O'Connor's impeachment; Secretary of State and commission member Frank LaRose. Republicans were silent, however, while Justice Pat DeWine—son to Governor and commission member Mike DeWine—refused to recuse himself from the lawsuits against the redistricting commission, and by extension his father. The difference, presumably, being that Republicans were happy with how Pat was voting, but not Chief Justice O’Connor.

If you thought I was simply being an alarmist when I raised concerns that Republicans would try again to draw districts to eliminate the three Democrats that won upsets in 2022, consider this; the key vote in the 4-3 Ohio Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Republican gerrymandered maps was cast by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican, joining with the three Democrats on the bench. She was term-limited out of the court and replaced by another Republican, Justice Sharron Kennedy. Governor DeWine will appoint a Republican Justice to fill the vacancy left by Justice Kennedy meaning that Republicans will maintain their 4-3 majority on the Ohio Supreme Court, but Justice O'Connor's swing vote in these cases will be gone. The result being, Republican in the legislature will have nothing to check their blatant power grab in future redistricting efforts.

Oh, and because the commission was unable to draw fair maps, Ohio held two separate primaries in 2022. The first on May 3 and the second on August 2 for state legislative candidates. The second primary cost Ohio tax payers more than $30 million dollars.

The Effect:

Now then, we are caught up to the 2022 election where Ohioans went to the polls to vote using unconstitutional State Senate, State House, and US House maps. We have identified the problem—gerrymandering. And despite Ohioans’ best efforts to try and fix the problem, Republicans flaunted their power to ignore the will of the citizens they were elected to represent and went on gerrymandering. Before we get to the solution(s), I’d like to first take a look at the effects. It may help frame our later discussion.

Since the 1991 election Republicans have enjoyed control over both the House and Senate of the Ohio General Assembly, with the brief intermission of a Democratically controlled State House for one session after the 2007 election. Similarly, the Governor of Ohio has been held by a Republican since George Voinovich was elected to the office in 1989—noting the exception of the single four-year term of Ted Strickland from 2007 to 2011. This control over the legislature and executive branches gave Republicans control over three redistricting cycles; 2000, 2010, and now 2020.

The results of those electoral successes in the early 1990s beget later successes. We can quibble over how productive or successful Republicans have been in governing over their tenure, what I do not think is in doubt is that Republican success in Ohio has less to do with governance and everything to do with control over the redistricting process. But let’s look at some data to parse this out.

I will be looking at elections since 2000 as this the first time Republicans had the opportunity to fully control the redistricting process. In statewide elections during this period Republicans have, on average, won 51% of the vote to Democrats 47%. Both parties had an average margin of victory of 12%-13%. What this translates to in electoral outcomes is Republicans winning the Governor’s office 80% of the time, and a US Senate seat and the Presidential popular vote 2/3rds of the time.

So, when looking at results at the statewide level, Republicans are clearly outperforming Democrats, but not dramatically. I bring up the statewide election results for two reasons. First, the statewide results show that Democrats can, and have, won with popular support in Ohio and so are more competitive than the district level results may suggest. Second, though gerrymandering does not directly affect statewide elections by diluting or concentrating votes, it does have a knock-on effects on voters’ willingness to turnout to vote. Let’s test this claim a bit though.

Ohio’s voter participation in Presidential election years since 2000 is around 70%. This is well below the national average voter turnout of 86% during the same period. Even at 86% of registered voters, I would argue that voter turnout in this country is too low. In fact I have argued elsewhere that electoral participation in this country is suppressed, in large part, by disengaged voters who describe their reasons for not voting as they were “not interested, felt vote would not make a difference” or “did not like candidates or campaign issues”. In gerrymandered districts voters may not have more than one candidate to chose from, or may not believe their candidate has a legitimate chance of winning the election. In either case the voter may not like the candidate(s) or believe their vote will make a difference and instead chooses not to vote.

A quick aside—another significant reason respondents say they do not vote is voter restrictions. And with control of the state legislature Republicans have enacted the most aggressive voter-purge system in the country where a voters' registration is removed from the rolls if they fail to vote in two consecutive elections. In the current lame duck session of the Ohio General Assembly, Republicans are considering a bill limiting drop box locations, shortening the time-frame for requesting and returning early ballots, and requiring a photo ID to vote. All under the guise of preventing voter fraud despite Republican Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, reassuring Ohio voters that Ohio elections are secure.

But let’s set voter restrictions to the side and return again to gerrymandering, and specifically continue testing the supposition that gerrymandering can hurt the top of the ticket by suppressing voter turnout down ballot. We have already seen that voter turnout in Ohio is lower than the national average for Presidential elections.

Sticking with statewide elections; Ohio turnout of US Senate elections drops off a bit from the Presidential average to 59%. If instead we look at only Presidential election years, US Senate voter turnout is a comparable 68%—though still below the national average. In non-Presidential election years Senate voter turnout is 55%. Turnout for Governor elections drops even further to 48%—note that Ohio never votes for governor during presidential years when turnout is the highest. There are a lot of potential explanations for why turnout in Ohio is lower than the national average (see enacted voter restrictions above), but gerrymandering should be seriously considered as suppressing and disenfranchising voters.

Looking now at district level elections we see further drop off in participation. Average turnout for US Representative elections is 65% during Presidential election years, and 48% in non-Presidential election years. This is 3% and 7% lower than Senate election participation in Presidential and non-Presidential election years, respectively. The average voter participation rate continues to drop when looking at state district elections. An average 46% and 44% of voters turnout for the Ohio House and Ohio Senate, respectively. Though voter turnout for the Ohio House and Ohio Senate does increase to 62% and 63%, respectively, during Presidential election years—again, below the national average voter participation rate in Presidential elections. This means that when Ohioans are coming out to vote in Presidential election years, they are choosing not to cast a ballot for State Senators or State Representatives. When its not a Presidential election year, fewer voters are turning up to vote at all. See Figure 1 in the linked support below for further detail.

“Felt [my] vote would not make a difference”. That was one of the responses citizens gave for not voting. In Ohio from 2000 to 2022 an average of only seven State House districts changed parties. That is only 32 districts of 99 over the course of eight elections; or, in other words, 4% of general elections for Ohio State Representatives being of consequence—most elections being decided during primaries. Further, only 18 of these districts changed more than once during this period. Note that I excluded the election years 2002, 2012, and 2022 as these are outlier elections with changes in elected representation due to redistricting and not voter preference. See Figure 2 for additional detail.

Beyond just uncompetitive districts where the primaries are more important than the general election, in many cases voters do not have a choice between multiple candidates. This is not an issue in the statewide races for Governor or US Senate, or even really for the US House of Representatives. However, on average there are 16 districts a year with only one candidate running in the Ohio House and three a year in the Ohio Senate. This is an issue for both parties, though Republicans are running unopposed slightly more often. Which should not be surprising since they are drawing districts that favor their candidates. See Figure 3 for additional detail.

So, what is the result of these unopposed candidates and unshifting district affiliations? Well, based on voter share it means that Republicans are holding an average of about 2.5 more seats in the US House and Ohio Senate and 7 more in the Ohio House than they would under fair maps. It means that Democrats are holding an average of roughly 2.5 fewer seats in the US House and Ohio Senate and 6 fewer in the Ohio House. It means that Republicans can win a majority of seats without winning a majority of the popular vote; in 2000 and 2006 in the US House, in 2002 and 2018 in the Ohio Senate, and in 2006 and 2012 in the Ohio House. It also means that third-parties have been under represented in the Ohio House by a seat. See Figure 4 for additional details.

This last point, I think, is very important. Voters do not neatly fall into one of two camps; Conservative or Liberal. Voters have idiosyncratic beliefs developed from a wide range of lived experiences, and our electoral system is not representing that diversity of beliefs.

This is the underlying issue. Redistricting is preventing Ohioans from being adequately and accurately represented in our legislature at all levels. And because of this, would be voters are discouraged; whether its because there is only one candidate to vote for in their district, because the district is gerrymandered and the outcome of the general election was determined during the primary, or because voters feel under represented—because in a lot of cases they are! And so, Ohioans are staying home. They are choosing not to participate in a system that is not working for them. And the extent to which they are staying home is greater than the voter participation rates above would suggest! Those rates are based off of registered voters, not all voting aged citizens.

The Solution:

Voting rights groups, many of the same groups that pushed for the original reforms, have once again taken up the cause to reform Ohio’s redistricting process. This time advocating for an independent redistricting commission. The hope being that with an independent, and non-partisan, redistricting commission self-serving partisan actors will be removed from the process so that fair (and constitutional) maps may be drawn for Ohio voters.

However, Republicans are again trying to get ahead of redistricting reform; this time by amending the threshold for citizen led ballot initiatives. Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, is backing a proposal to increase the threshold for adopting ballot issues from 50% to 60%; arguing that “something as serious as amending our constitution should really demand the kind of consensus necessary to get 60%”. Keep in mind that the Republican General Assembly is trying to pass this legislation during the lame duck period between the general election and the beginning of the next legislative session. Further, the Republican General Assembly that is proposing this amendment does not have support of more than 60% of Ohio voters, despite gerrymandering! Ironically it will also take 50% of voters to raise the threshold to pass future amendments to 60%.

During hearings on the proposal, co-sponsor Rep. Brian Stewart said, “we’re not trying to make amending the Constitution impossible. We’re simply trying to require that you—in a diverse state of 11-plus million people—that you get more than 50% of the 25% that might show up to vote in a sleepy May primary.” If you remember, it is only legislative ballot initiatives that can be brought for a primary vote, not civilian initiatives. So, Brian is adding another layer of irony on this proposal as he wants to amend the Ohio Constitution in the exact way he says we should not be amending the Constitution. What’s more, Brian ran unopposed in the 2022 general election, which means he was elected in a "sleepy primary". A primary where he also ran unopposed and still only received 0.32% of votes in his district!

I alluded to my solution above, I would propose that Ohio should do away with all districts and adopt a proportional system for allocating seats to parties. I believe a proportional system for distributing Electoral College votes, US Representative seats, Ohio Senate seats, and Ohio House seats, along with a ranked choice system for the US Senate would vastly improve representation in Ohio. I have laid out my arguments in detail for a proportional system here and a ranked choice system here, so I will not fully rehash them. In summary, this would eliminate the ability of partisan actors to gerrymander for their own gain. It would also increase ideological diversity of representation as third-party candidates have legitimate odds at holding office. You can refer to my analysis in Figure 4 for more detail. I should note that when performing my analysis, I did group all third-party votes together, so the percentage of any one party is likely overstated. However, I believe that in a system where these candidates have a legitimate chance of holding office and voters view casting ballots for third-parties not as throw-away or spoiler votes, their vote share will increase. Further, success begets success, and as third-parties increase their representation they will draw more support.

Whether it is adopting an independent redistricting commission or instituting a proportional and ranked choice system, the status quo of elections in Ohio is untenable. Republicans in the state have not been accountable to voters for too long, and electoral accountability is a necessary condition for democracy. Take from that what you will.

Data:

Ohio Gerrymandered 

Ohio Election Data: 2000 - 2022