Cara Brown McCormick
Since the passage of California’s Nonpartisan Primary, IVN has provided simple, objective information on candidates who make it to the November ballot each election year.
Every election cycle presents a different challenge. But the goal remains the same: publish, in one place, what each candidate shares about themselves, their experience, and what they want to do in office.
Sometimes California’s election system also provides a unique window into national politics.
The battle between the Democratic Socialists of America and so-called Mainstream Democrats has mostly played out in closed partisan primaries throughout the country.
But in California, five competitive contests for seats in the state Legislature this November feature a DSA-backed or recommended Democrat against a more mainstream Democrat.
That matters because California does not require voters to join a political party to participate in these elections. Under the state’s Top Two system, every voter can vote for any candidate in the primary, and the two candidates receiving the most votes advance to November regardless of party preference.
As a result, California may provide a particularly useful test of how DSA candidates and their platforms perform when the electorate extends beyond Democratic primary voters and the choice is not determined inside a partisan primary.
These are overwhelmingly Democratic districts in which almost any Republican would face long odds. In most of the nation, that means the election that effectively determines who holds the seat happens in a Democratic primary in which independent and Republican voters cannot participate.
Not here.
Thousands of California voters in these districts are not Democrats, but they will have exactly the same choices in November as Democratic voters.
What will they do with them?
Will Republicans skip these two-Democrat contests? Will independents gravitate toward anti-establishment candidates backed by DSA? Will they instead consolidate behind the more mainstream candidates? Or will voters behave in ways neither political camp expects?
A new example in this week's Open Primaries newsletter about West Virginia suggests that last question may deserve more attention.
This year, West Virginia Republicans closed their primary to unaffiliated voters for the first time since the 1980s. More than 21,000 voters chose a no-party ballot instead, a 74% increase from the 2022 midterm primary.
Republican ballots cast fell 22% from 2022 even as Republican registration increased. At the registration deadline, roughly 302,000 West Virginians, or 25.2% of the electorate, were registered with no party.
Those voters could still participate in statewide nonpartisan judicial contests. In those races, two state Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey lost their elections.
Those results alone can't tell us precisely why individual voters made those choices. But the numbers raise an interesting question for political parties everywhere: What happens when voters are told they cannot participate in the contest a party considers most important?
California offers the opposite experiment.
Instead of asking independents and voters from the other party to sit out, the state puts the same candidates in front of everyone and lets the entire electorate decide.
Five Democrat-versus-Democrat legislative races this November will give us an unusually clear look at what those voters do with that power.
There are lessons here for everyone. We plan to do our best to provide objective coverage and to encourage everyone to make their own choice.