Full results are in from the 2024 U.S. presidential primaries. In what can only be described as a failure for democracy, roughly 199 million eligible voters — a full 84% of those eligible to vote — chose not to participate. For the minority who did participate, competition and choices were lacking. In most states, a voter could either rubberstamp the party's presumptive nominee, or register a meaningless protest vote. In some states, voters were not allowed to vote at all. What caused turnout to be so low? What can be done about it in the future? How can voters change the system? Read on for answers. But first, here are some key takeaways and insights from the election results.
TOP 10 TAKEAWAYS
1. All registered voters should be allowed to vote in the primaries. Voters should not have to affiliate with a party in order to vote in the primaries. All partisan-based barriers to participation should be removed.
2. Primaries should be nonpartisan elections. As long as primaries remain partisan elections, the best candidates with the broadest appeal are unlikely to emerge from the process. Eliminate the narrow partisan boundaries and ideologies to which candidates must conform, and let all voters choose the winners, and the best candidates will be more likely to run and more likely to win.
3. Political parties should not be in charge of running elections. As long as political parties remain in charge of the primaries, gross manipulation of the elections will continue.
4. More competition helps just a little bit. Eight years ago, we conducted a similar study of the 2016 presidential primaries. Back then, both Republican & Democratic parties had vigorous competition in their primaries and multiple candidates. There were no incumbents. Yet only 29% of eligible voters participated. So more competition does bring out more voters, but still a much-too-small minority of voters are picking the candidates who advance to the general election.
5. Lesser of Two Evils: It's easy to see why, each and every election cycle, a majority of voters are dissatisfied with their choices in the general election. The vast majority of voters exercise no say in choosing the general election candidates. In the November 2024 general election, all presidential candidates combined — major parties, minor parties, and independents — will have amassed a mere 7% of the primary vote. In the General Election, you can choose a major party candidate who received 7% of the votes in the primary. You can choose a major party candidate who received no votes in the primary. Or you can opt for a third-party candidate who also received no votes. 93% of voters did not choose any of the candidates who will be running in the General Election.
6. Appeal to Extremists / Best Candidates Eliminated: A good way to win a primary is to appeal to factions in your party who the general public might regard as extreme. If you only have to win over 6% or 7% of the voters, you can concentrate your efforts on a handful of special interest groups. Get one or two of these groups to vote for you en masse and you're in. Historically, the best way to lose a primary has been to have broad based appeal to the general public. Do your favorite candidates always lose badly in the primaries? That's just the way the current system is designed.
7. Florida Again? + North Carolina, Tennessee, New Hampshire & Iowa: Florida residents were presented with exactly three options in the 2024 presidential primaries. Option #1: Register as a Republican and vote for Donald Trump. Option #2: Register as a Republican and vote for a dropout (since all other Republican candidates had dropped out). Option #3: Register as a Democrat or Independent and don't vote. Independents are prohibited from voting in Florida primaries. The Democratic Party cancelled Florida's presidential primary by not allowing candidates other than Joe Biden to run [7]. They also effectively cancelled primaries in Tennessee [8] and North Carolina [9,10] by prohibiting all candidates not named "Biden" from being on the ballot. In addition, the Democratic Party kneecapped the highly heralded first-in-the-nation voting contests, invalidating the votes from the New Hampshire primary by awarding the winners 0 convention delegates [11], and turning the Iowa Caucuses into a simple mail-in vote.
8. That Democratic Party: Normally, both major parties are equally deserving of public scorn, and both parties have in the past been guilty of suppressing candidates and of manipulating their respective primaries. But this time, the Republican Party primary was nothing out of the ordinary. By all appearances, it was a fair process to all candidates. The only disappointment was the lack of competition, with all but one candidate dropping out early. The Democratic Party primary, on the other hand, made a mockery of the entire election process. First, the Democratic Party discouraged all of its highly ambitious politicians from running against Biden the incumbent. Remaining were three who we'll call "rogue candidates" because they dared challenge the party's incumbent. The Democratic Party then rigged the primary process through superdelegates and by effectively cancelling primaries in Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, and New Hampshire. The rigged process forced one of the remaining rogue candidates, RFK Jr, out of the party to run as an independent [12] and the two remaining rogue candidates, Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson, to deal with a primary system that was stacked against them. Finally, after the primaries were over, the Democratic Party put their winning incumbent out to pasture, bypassed the two other candidates who had run in the primary, and installed a politician as their nominee, Kamala Harris, who had received zero votes in the primary. How "democratic" of the party. Ironically, the Democratic Party is the one bellowing the loudest about how "democracy is at stake" in this election. Not even a diehard Democrat could be happy with how the Democratic Party ran this primary election.
9. The presidential primary system is broken. It doesn't matter your political affiliation, whether you're Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green, or Independent. Anyone with a pulse can see that the system is broken and in dire need of repair. While the system's been functioning poorly for decades, it's now undeniably broken. Some would say the system was designed to be broken, rife for manipulation by party leaders who excel in keeping power away from voters. Surely there are a few people who love the existing system, elitists at the top levels of the Republican and Democratic parties who are gaming the system. Those elitists will never work to change it. The impetus for change will not come from within the major political parties.
10. Voters can change the presidential primary system. Only we the people can change the system. And it's well within the people's power. It doesn't require a U.S. constitutional amendment. It doesn't require abolishing the Electoral College. It doesn't require legislation. It doesn't require the approval of the President, or any governors, US senators, US representatives, state senators, or state representatives. All it requires is a majority vote of the people of a single state to get the ball rolling. And once the ball is rolling, it can't be stopped.
PRINCIPLES FOR A REFORMED U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SYSTEM
1. All candidates, regardless of party, must declare early and run in the primaries.
2. Political parties will not run the primaries nor have any say in how the primaries are run.
3. Primaries will be nonpartisan. All candidates will compete against all other candidates.
4. The top two candidates will advance to the General Election in November, regardless of party.
5. Since only two candidates advance to November, there will be no spoilers.
6. Political parties can still field candidates, hold conventions, raise money, and pressure their poorer performing candidates to drop out. However, none of these partisan activities will have any legal standing in the primary or general elections.
Stay Tuned for Part II: A Simple Plan for Fixing the Presidential Primary System.
CALCULATING VOTER PERCENTAGES
Here's the data and methodology we used to calculate voter percentages. In the Democratic Party primaries, Joe Biden received 14,465,519 votes and all other candidates combined received 2,144,583 votes [1]. In the Republican Party primaries, Donald Trump received 17,015,756 votes and all other candidates combined received 5,249,119 votes [2]. Combining "all other candidates" from the Democratic and Republican primaries gives 7,393,702 votes to all candidates other than Biden and Trump. The USA population is estimated at 336,887,416 as of 8/8/2024 [3]. According to the census, 22.1% of the population is under 18, which subtracts off 74,452,119 people ineligible to vote due to age [4]. We also subtract off an estimated 19,957,402 non-citizens aged 18+ based on the percentage of noncitizen-adults times the current U.S. population [5]. Finally, we subtract off an estimated 4,600,000 voters who are disenfranchised due to felony convictions [6]. The result is an estimated 237,877,895 eligible voters, 38,874,977 of whom voted in the 2024 presidential primaries and 199,002,918 who didn't.
REFERENCES
[1] Results of the 2024 Democratic Party Presidential Primaries, 8/9/2024, Wikipedia
[2] Results of the 2024 Republican Party Presidential Primaries, 8/12/2024, Wikipedia
[3] U.S. and World Population Clock, Data from 8/8/2024, United States Census Bureau
[4] The U.S. Adult and Under-Age-18 Populations: 2020 Census, 8/12/2021, United States Census Bureau
[5] Selected Characteristics of the Native and Foreign-Born Population, Data from 2022, United States Census Bureau
[6] Expanding the Vote: State Felony Disenfranchisement Reform, 1997-2023, 10/18/2023, The Sentencing Project
[7] Florida Democrats Plan to Cancel Presidential Primary, Enraging Dean Phillips' Campaign, 11/30/2023, Politico
[8] Biden Primary Foe Phillips Will Challenge States Where He Missed Ballot, 12/7/2023, Semafor
[9] Dean Phillips, a Democrat Running for President, Says North Carolina Is Wrong to Keep Him Off Ballot, 12/22/2023, BPR
[10] Democratic Officials Keep Other Competitors Off North Carolina Ballot, Leaving Biden the Only Choice, 1/3/2024, Washington Examiner
[11] 2024 New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary, 8/10/2024, Wikipedia
[12] Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: DNC Rigging Primary For Biden, I May Need To Look at Other Alternatives, 9/8/2023, Real Clear Politics
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