Shawn Griffiths
Delaware voters head to the polls Tuesday, September 15, for the final statewide primary election of the 2026 cycle.
Now, just 7 weeks away from November, campaigns and voters are preparing for the final stretch of the midterms.
Millions will be spent on ads. Get out of the vote efforts are going to ramp up. Who holds a majority in Congress will be determined.
However, the election story often overlooked in the national press is that in most cases, these elections have already been decided.
The latest Primary Problem tracker from Unite America finds that 390 of the 435 seats in the US House (roughly 90%) can be safely predicted right now.
While there will still be general elections, the winners were effectively chosen in a partisan primary by just 9.4% of the country's voting-age population.
So, what does that mean for November 3?
More than 100 million Americans are expected to cast a ballot in the general election. Yet it is estimated that only about 15% of them will cast a "meaningful vote"—or one with a realistic chance of actually determining who wins.
More Voters Are Recognizing the Importance of Primary Elections
The 390 figure is not set in stone. General elections still have to be held. Candidates stumble. Political conditions shift.
Voters could witness a few surprises.
A district that looks safe can turn competitive by fall. But most of them won't because most congressional districts are not designed to swing like that.
The Cook Political Report rates 366 House seats as solidly Democratic or solidly Republican, meaning there is zero chance of competitiveness.
Another 50 are rated "Likely" or "Lean." That leaves only a small slice of the House in genuinely uncertain territory.
Think about it this way: In a heavily Democratic district, the Democratic primary is the election. The same can be said of the GOP primary in a heavily Republican district.
November tends to ratify a decision made months earlier. And sometimes there is barely a primary at all.
Unite America reported in July that 150 House candidates ran unopposed in the dominant party's primary in districts considered safe for that party.
That is roughly one-third of the House that was effectively elected without facing meaningful competition at either stage of the process.
Meanwhile, Millions of Independent Voters Couldn't Participate
If there is one segment of voters more affected by this imbalance than anyone else, it is the independent bloc.
Sixteen states use some form of closed congressional primary system that bars or heavily restricts voters who are not registered with a participating political party.
This impacts tens of millions of voters across the US.
They can show up on November 3. But by then, the decision that mattered was made in an election they paid for but were prohibited from joining.
In many parts of the country, the right to have a meaningful say in elections has been conditioned on joining a private political organization.
Turnout compounds the problem. Historically, participation in partisan primary elections tends to be low.
In New York, for example, turnout was under 10% of the voting age population. In neighboring New Jersey, it wasn’t much higher.
Both states have closed primary systems.
Research shows that the type of primary used does not necessarily indicate what turnout will look like. But, opportunities for meaningful participation increase when the doors are open to all voters.
In California, for example, turnout in its 2026 nonpartisan open primaries reached 41%—a record for the state driven primarily by No Party Preference and Latino voters.
The Bipartisan Policy Center released a report in July that found that California was 1 of only 5 states at the time that exceeded a 30% turnout goal among the eligible voting population.
Note: the report looked at eligible voters, not only registered voters, and some figures have changed.
So, the elections with the greatest practical effect on who sits in Congress—in most states—draw the fewest voters and often shut independent voters out entirely.
Who Ultimately Holds the Most Power in Elections?
Several reasons can factor into why so many general elections aren't competitive.
Congressional redistricting plays a major part. So does the geographic sorting of Democratic and Republican voters into like-minded districts.
Candidate recruitment, campaign money, and the built-in advantages of incumbency all factor in as well.
Changing primary rules by itself would not make all 435 House races competitive. But, when the most consequential vote in 90% of contests is in the primary, it raises a few basic questions:
If a primary effectively determines who represents an entire district, shouldn't every voter in that district have a meaningful way to take part in it?
Does the right to vote stop at simply being able to cast a ballot? Or does it mean the right to have a meaningful and impactful say in representation?
And, does the right to vote derive from citizenship? Or, from party membership?
Three states use nonpartisan primary models (California, Washington, and Alaska) founded on the principle that the right to vote comes from citizenship.
This does not mean all parties have a chance in every district in those states. Following Prop 50 in California, for example, 92% of the state’s congressional districts favor the Democratic Party.
Even under an independent map, there were still safe Democratic and Republican districts.
But what separates California from New York and New Jersey is that every voter has an opportunity to decide which candidates make it to November.
Independent voters can decide which Democrat or which Republican or which independent candidate they want to advance.
And while some primaries advance candidates from the same party—because the district leans heavily in that party’s direction—it changes the general election dynamic.
In a heavily Democratic district where a Democrat will always be guaranteed a win, going up against another Democrat doesn’t mean voters outside the party don’t matter.
In fact, they hold the most consequential votes.
They don’t simply have to sit back and watch a Democrat win election cycle after election cycle. They get to decide which Democrat wins. Their vote matters just as much as a Democrat.
The same can be said for voters outside the GOP in heavily Republican districts.
This, in turn, changes campaign incentives. Candidates can no longer simply rely on the party designation next to their name. They actually have to compete.
They have to define their candidacy and what separates them from the other candidates. The power is in the hands of voters, especially independent voters.
This is a drastic distinction from 90% of races across the US in which the only votes that have any weight are in a single party’s primary.
When nearly all House seats can be effectively decided before the general election, the rules governing the primary determine who actually has a meaningful say in representation.
Unfortunately, for most of the country, it’s not a lot of voters.