# Independent Voter News > Independent Voter News covers elections, voter rights, and political reform from a nonpartisan perspective. Journalism that puts voters before parties. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### Latest URL: https://ivn.us/latest/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:08:52.000Z _No content available._ ### Contact IVN URL: https://ivn.us/contact/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T18:01:33.000Z The fastest way to reach Independent Voter News is by email. Use the routing below so your message gets to the right editor. ## Editorial tips and story ideas Have a story we should cover, a document we should see, or a correction we need to make? Email editor@ivn.us. ## Submissions and contributor questions If you want to write for IVN, start on our [Publish page](https://ivn.us/publish). For questions before you submit, email editor@ivn.us. ## Republishing IVN stories Most IVN articles are available for republication under the terms in our [republishing policy](https://ivn.us/about#republish). For uses outside the standard terms, translations, or ongoing partnerships, email editor@ivn.us. ## Press and media inquiries For interviews with IVN editors or contributors, or to request comment from the platform, email editor@ivn.us. ## Sponsorship and advertising IVN offers sponsorship and advertising opportunities for organizations whose work aligns with our editorial focus. Email editor@ivn.us for current options and rates. ## Partnerships For newsrooms, civic organizations, foundations, or platforms interested in content partnerships, co-published series, or syndication, email editor@ivn.us. ## Mailing address Independent Voter News 2700 Adams Avenue, Suite 202 San Diego, CA 92116 ## Follow IVN Find IVN on [X](https://x.com/ivn?ref=ivn.us), [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/IVN/), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/independentvoter/?ref=ivn.us), and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@Independent-Voter?ref=ivn.us). Subscribe to the IVN newsletter on our homepage. ### Publish with IVN URL: https://ivn.us/publish/ Last updated: 2026-06-09T22:14:47.000Z Don't agree with something you see? Write your own story. IVN is a platform built for independent-minded journalists coming from different perspectives. Our contributors span the political spectrum. They include attorneys, organizers, former elected officials, professional journalists, academics, students, and people who simply think clearly about how political systems work. What unites us is a focus on rules, incentives, and the structural conditions that shape American politics, and a willingness to abide by a short editorial etiquette. If you read something on IVN you think is wrong, the answer is not to ask us to take it down. The answer is to make your case. Submit your piece. If it follows the rules below, we will publish it. IVN regularly runs work that disagrees with our other contributors, and with positions taken by the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) itself. That is the model. [SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLE](https://ivc.typeform.com/to/TzXQ2d?typeform-source=ivn.us&ref=ivn.us) --- ## What We Publish - Reporting on election rules, ballot access, primary systems, and campaign mechanics - Analysis and commentary on political systems, reform, and institutional incentives - Explainers that demystify how things actually work - First-person accounts from people inside the political process - Responses to other IVN coverage, when the response makes a substantive argument - Investigative reporting and original data work If your topic touches a political system, a structural reform, an election rule, or how an institution actually behaves, it is in our wheelhouse. ## What We Do Not Publish IVN is opinionated about systems. We are not a campaign tool. The following will be declined: - Endorsements of candidates - Press releases from campaigns, parties, or political committees - Personal attacks on individual candidates or officeholders that do not make a substantive systems argument - Content paid for or commissioned by a campaign or political committee, unless disclosed and clearly labeled as sponsored - Material that is primarily AI-generated, or that misrepresents authorship - Plagiarized work, or previously-published work submitted without disclosure --- ## The IVN Editorial Etiquette Four rules. They apply to every contributor. They are not negotiable. ### 1\. No personal attacks. Attack the argument, not the person. Disagree as hard as you want with what someone wrote. Do not attack their character, intelligence, or motives without evidence. Substantive criticism is welcome. Insults are not. ### 2\. No self-promotion. IVN is for political discussion, not advertising. Do not use a contributor piece to promote a product, service, candidate, campaign, or organization you control or work for. If you want to advertise, IVN offers separate sponsorship and advertising options. Contact editor@ivn.us for details. ### 3\. Sources must be substantiated. If you make a factual claim, source it. "Someone said it" is not evidence. Link to primary sources, official documents, court filings, credible reporting, or your own underlying data. Unsupported claims will be returned for sourcing or removed. ### 4\. No performance-based generalizations. Avoid lazy partisan shorthand. Sentences that begin with "Democrats think...," "All Republicans are...," or "Every independent believes..." are almost always wrong and almost never useful. Engage with what actual people, institutions, or rules are doing. Your argument is stronger when it does. --- ## How to Submit Submit your draft through the [IVN contributor form](https://ivc.typeform.com/to/TzXQ2d?typeform-source=ivn.us&ref=ivn.us). Include: - Your name and a one-paragraph bio (two or three sentences is fine) - The full draft, in plain text or as a Google Doc link with editor access - Citations or source links, inline or at the end - One image with credit, if relevant (optional) - Any disclosures of interest or affiliation a reader might want to know If your piece is a response to another IVN article, link to it. Length: most IVN pieces run between 600 and 1,500 words. Longer is fine for deep reporting or major analysis. Shorter is fine for a sharp argument. Write to the topic, not to a target. ## What Happens After You Submit An editor will read your draft and respond, typically within five business days. We may: - Publish as submitted - Suggest light edits for clarity, length, or sourcing - Send the piece back with editorial feedback before it can run - Decline to publish, with a brief explanation We do not publish pieces that violate the etiquette, fail to source their claims, or do not make a substantive argument about systems, rules, or incentives. Decisions are editorial, and they are final. ## Compensation and Rights Most IVN content is contributed without compensation by writers who want to reach the IVN audience. For commissioned reporting, certain editorial series, and specific partnerships, paid contributor agreements are available. Compensation is discussed on a per-project basis. By submitting, you confirm: - The work is your original creation, or you have the rights to publish it - IVN may edit your piece for clarity, length, and style - IVN holds non-exclusive rights to publish, archive, and distribute the piece - You retain ownership of your underlying ideas and credit on the byline If you want your piece republished elsewhere after it runs on IVN, that is encouraged. The terms in our [republishing policy](https://ivn.us/about#republish) apply. ## Audience IVN reaches a national audience of voters, policy professionals, election reform advocates, journalists, and independent-minded readers across our website, newsletters, and social platforms. Work that performs well is regularly shared by election officials, reform organizations, academics, and researchers, and is indexed by Google News. ## Editorial Contact For pitches, questions, or anything not covered here: editor@ivn.us [SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLE](https://ivc.typeform.com/to/TzXQ2d?typeform-source=ivn.us&ref=ivn.us) ### Donate URL: https://ivn.us/donate/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:09:08.000Z To make a tax-deductible donation, [donate here](https://donorbox.org/independentvoternews?ref=ivn.us) through FIVE, a 501(c)(3) sister organization of the Independent Voter Project. ### Newsletters URL: https://ivn.us/newsletters/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:09:49.000Z _No content available._ ### Independent Voter Podcast URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T16:35:08.000Z Join us every week as we post a new podcast about the elections for independent voters. We bring you conversations that challenge the two-party echo chamber and reject the false binaries dominating today’s political narratives. We focus on two things: (1) Election reforms that increase real competition and voter choice, and (2) Policy issues that defy the black-and-white frameworks set by national party agendas. ### Events URL: https://ivn.us/events/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:12:24.000Z _No content available._ ### Featured URL: https://ivn.us/featured/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:12:18.000Z _No content available._ ### Topics URL: https://ivn.us/topics/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:12:08.000Z _No content available._ ### Actions URL: https://ivn.us/actions/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T19:00:26.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Shield-Check-Icon.svg) #### Credibility We're non-partisan and accredited [Ignore](https://ivn.us/credibility) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Message-Circle-Icon.svg) #### IVN Etiquette Some simple guidelines for a healthy community [Ignore](https://ivn.us/etiquette) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Pen-Line-Icon.svg) #### Write for us IVN is an open platform [Ignore](https://ivn.us/pitch-us) ### Credibility URL: https://ivn.us/credibility/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:11:40.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/image-1.png) **High Credibility* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/image.png) **Rated Center* At IVN, we believe trust is earned, not claimed. That's why we welcome independent scrutiny of our reporting - and we're proud of how we measure up. **Media Bias/Fact Check** rates IVN as **High Credibility**, recognizing our commitment to factual reporting, transparent sourcing, and editorial accountability. **AllSides** rates IVN with a **Center** bias rating, reflecting our mission to cover politics and policy without partisan spin — giving readers the context they need to think for themselves. These ratings come from two of the most respected independent watchdogs of media bias and accuracy in the country. We don't pay for them. We don't influence them. We simply do the work - and let the results speak. In an era of declining trust in media, we think readers deserve more than slogans. They deserve evidence. ### IVN Etiquette URL: https://ivn.us/etiquette/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T18:40:56.000Z We’ve been called liberals. Undercover Republicans. Progressives. Socialists. Communists. Libertarians. And even Anarchists. And they’re all true. It all depends on whose article you read and from what perspective you view us. This is Independent Voter News. We are, to the best of our knowledge, the only “open platform” for journalists who are bound not by an ideology, but a simple etiquette. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/image-2.png) About every few days, someone will send us a message that goes something like this: “I’ve been following your page and I’ve had it. You’re not independent at all! You're just a bunch of \_\_\_\_.” The problem is, from the talking heads to the political consultants to our party-based elections, we try to define independents by an ideology: Centrist? Moderate? Libertarian? Being independent is a mindset, not an ideology. It does not mean that you lack an ideology. It does not mean that you don’t have libertarian, socialistic, conservative, or liberal tendencies. Being independent means that you don’t believe so stridently in a perfect philosophy that everyone who doesn’t agree with you must be an idiot … or evil … or brainwashed. Being an independent means you are grown up enough to think for yourself. You are confident enough to allow others to speak. And you are humble enough to think you might learn from someone. We call ourselves the Independent Voter Network because the platform is open to anyone who wants to participate in a civil dialogue, including you – whatever ideological tendencies you hold. We will publish anything that follows our etiquette rules. We have been told this approach to journalism is itself progressive and therefore we are progressives. OK. The Independent Voter News ([IVN.us](https://ivn.us/)) is an open news platform for independent-minded authors and readers. ## Interested in writing your own story? [Reach out to the editor](https://ivn.us/publish/) and get published on IVN. ### Pitch Us URL: https://ivn.us/pitch-us/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:10:45.000Z Have an investigative story? Want to collaborate on video or social? Pitch us. ### About Independent Voter News URL: https://ivn.us/about/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:11:27.000Z Independent Voter News (IVN.us) is a national news platform built around a single conviction: voters should not have to join a political party to have meaningful political power. That belief shapes what we cover and how we cover it. The American political system structurally disadvantages independent-minded voters through rules, incentives, and institutional gatekeeping. The problem is systemic, not partisan, and IVN reports and analyzes it that way. We are nonpartisan on candidates and parties. We are not falsely neutral on whether voters deserve fair access to the process. Our coverage focuses on election rules, primary systems, ballot access, campaign mechanics, and the institutional incentives that drive political behavior. We are opinionated about systems. We are not in the business of advocating for candidates. IVN publishes original reporting, policy analysis, and commentary from contributors across the political spectrum. What unites them is a shared focus on how political systems actually work, who is included, and who is shut out. Authors are expected to argue with rigor, source their claims, and disclose conflicts of interest. IVN is a co-publication of the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us), a 501(c)(4) nonpartisan organization best known for authoring California's nonpartisan top-two primary (Proposition 14, 2010), and the [Foundation for Independent Voter Education](https://www.independentvoterfoundation.org/?ref=ivn.us), a 501(c)(3) civic education organization and founding member of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers. IVN is editorially independent from both. Neither organization's funding role grants editorial control over individual contributors. *"We fund this platform to host opinions all over the map, including ours."* Dan Howle, Chairman, Independent Voter Project ### What we cover - Election reform and ballot access - Primary systems and independent voter participation - Election rules and campaign mechanics at the federal, state, and local levels - Policy analysis and explainers, including our [How It Really Works](https://ivn.us/category/how-it-really-works) series - Original reporting and contributor commentary on political systems and reform ### Contact Editorial inquiries, tips, corrections, and submissions: editor@ivn.us --- ## News and Awards IVN's work is reviewed by independent media analysts and has been recognized by national and regional journalism organizations. ### Third-party ratings **AllSides** Media bias rating: **Center** [View on AllSides](https://www.allsides.com/news-source/ivn?ref=ivn.us) **Media Bias/Fact Check** Bias: **Least Biased** Factual reporting: **High** Credibility: **High Credibility** [View on MBFC](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/independent-voter-network-ivn/?ref=ivn.us) IVN is also indexed by Google News and is regularly cited as a nonpartisan source by AI platforms and election reform researchers. ### Selected awards **San Diego Press Club, "Best of Show" Excellence in Journalism (2019)** Awarded to IVN contributor [Carl Nettleton](https://ivn.us/author/carl-nettleton) for in-depth reporting and analysis published on IVN. The recognized piece, ["SANDAG Goes Back To The Future,"](https://ivn.us/posts/sandag-goes-back-to-the-future-the-2007-vision-for-a-grand-central-station) traced the policy history behind San Diego's intermodal transportation planning. [Read more.](https://ivn.us/posts/press-club-honors-ivns-carl-nettleton-with-top-award-for-journalism) **American Civic Collaboration Award ("Civvy"), First Place, Political Category (2018)** The Foundation for Independent Voter Education, IVN's 501(c)(3) co-publisher, received the 2018 Civvy in partnership with the Chamberlain Project Foundation for IVN's nonpartisan coverage of Maine's ranked choice voting initiative. The award recognized the role of independent reporting in helping voters understand a landmark election reform that they ultimately defended and enacted at the ballot box. [Read more.](https://ivn.us/posts/ivn-wins-civvy-award-for-coverage-of-maines-ranked-choice-voting-initiative) --- ## How We Are Funded IVN.us is supported by two nonprofits with distinct legal roles and overlapping civic missions: - [**Independent Voter Project (IVP)**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) is a 501(c)(4) nonpartisan organization focused on election reform, ballot access litigation, and public policy advocacy. IVP authored California's nonpartisan top-two primary system. Contributions to IVP are not tax deductible. - [**Foundation for Independent Voter Education (FIVE)**](https://www.independentvoterfoundation.org/?ref=ivn.us) is a 501(c)(3) civic education organization that produces nonpartisan voter education and underwrites journalism on IVN. Contributions to FIVE are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Both organizations help fund the IVN platform. Neither directs IVN's editorial coverage. IVP publishes on IVN as one of many contributors and follows the same editorial standards as any other author. IVN regularly publishes work that disagrees with IVP's positions. That is by design. IVN does not solicit contributions. IVP accepts contributions for its 501(c)(4) reform and advocacy work directly through [independentvoterproject.org](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us). FIVE accepts tax-deductible contributions for its 501(c)(3) voter education and journalism work, including the underwriting of editorial content, directly through [independentvoterfoundation.org](https://www.independentvoterfoundation.org/?ref=ivn.us). Each organization manages its own giving. ### Transparency Both publishers maintain public Candid profiles, which include IRS filings and organizational information: - [Independent Voter Project (EIN 20-4842091)](https://www.guidestar.org/profile/20-4842091?ref=ivn.us) - [Foundation for Independent Voter Education (EIN 45-2992162)](https://www.guidestar.org/profile/45-2992162?ref=ivn.us) Mailing address for both organizations: 2700 Adams Avenue, Suite 202, San Diego, CA 92116. --- ## Republish Our Stories IVN's reporting is meant to reach voters, not sit behind a paywall. You are welcome to republish most IVN articles at no cost, under the following terms. ### Credit the author and IVN - Keep the original byline. Use the format: *"By \[Author Name\], Independent Voter News."* For commentary or opinion pieces, use: *"By \[Author Name\], Special for Independent Voter News."* - At the top of the story, include the line: *"This story was originally published by* [*Independent Voter News*](https://ivn.us/)*.* [*Sign up*](https://ivn.us/subscribe) *for IVN's newsletter."* For commentary, replace "story" with "commentary." If you are republishing in print, the newsletter line can be omitted. ### Do not edit the substance of the article - You may make light changes for time, location, or your publication's house style. For example, "yesterday" can become "last week," and "San Diego" can become "San Diego, California." - Do not change the headline, the meaning of any sentence, or the substance of the reporting. - If you add local reporting, include the line "Additional reporting by \[Your Publication\]" and notify us at editor@ivn.us. ### Translations If you want to translate an IVN article into another language, contact editor@ivn.us for approval. We are generally supportive of translation, especially for civic education content. ### Photos, illustrations, and video - Photos and illustrations produced by IVN staff or marked "for IVN" may be republished only alongside the story in which they originally appeared. For any other use, contact editor@ivn.us. - Photos and illustrations from wire services such as the Associated Press, Reuters, Getty, or stock providers are not covered by this policy and cannot be republished without separate licensing. - IVN video and podcast content may be embedded using IVN's standard embed tools. Downloaded copies may not be re-uploaded to a competing platform without permission. ### Commercial use - Do not sell IVN stories, and do not sell ads positioned specifically against an IVN story. You may run IVN stories on a page that includes ads you have already sold to general advertisers. - Do not use IVN reporting in paid political communications, candidate mailers, or campaign advertising without written permission. ### Social media If you share IVN reporting on social media, please credit @IVN where possible. IVN is on X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. ### Regular republishing partnerships If you are a newsroom, civic organization, or platform interested in a regular content-sharing relationship with IVN, contact editor@ivn.us. We have ongoing partnerships with nonpartisan civic outlets and are happy to discuss feeds, syndication, and co-published series. ### Questions For anything not covered here, including unusual use cases, AI training, or large-scale redistribution, email editor@ivn.us before publishing. ### Tip Jar URL: https://ivn.us/tip-jar/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T20:47:17.000Z _No content available._ ### Advanced User Settings URL: https://ivn.us/advanced-settings/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T20:47:18.000Z _No content available._ ### Group Subscriptions URL: https://ivn.us/group-subscriptions/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T20:47:19.000Z _No content available._ ### Buy a Group Subscription URL: https://ivn.us/buy-group-subscription/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T20:47:20.000Z _No content available._ ### Subheader URL: https://ivn.us/subheader/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T18:48:49.000Z _No content available._ ### Home Lists URL: https://ivn.us/home-lists/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T23:49:17.000Z _No content available._ ## Posts ### 28 Arrested in California v. DOJ Election Showdown URL: https://ivn.us/28-arrested-in-california-v-doj-election-showdown/ Last updated: 2026-10-20T15:22:50.000Z On Monday, the DOJ charged **28 California residents with illegal registration and voting**, all green card holders by the government’s account, under what it calls Operation Protect the Vote. Behind the charges: a federal lawsuit, a disputed roster of 20,000 names, and a written warning aimed at the county workers who count ballots. Here is where both sides are right, and wrong. The DOJ’s 113 cases across 20 states is hardly evidence of mass voter fraud. But, then again, California refuses to produce records that would clear 20,000 registered voters who are suspected to be non-citizens from their voter rolls. So, naturally, **voters continue to line up on different sides of competing, but unprovable, narratives.** Read Cara McCormick's [**full breakdown on IVN.**](https://ivn.us/california-vs-doj-election-integrity-takes-a-back-seat-to-partisan-politics/) Luckily, we're not the only ones who know independents hold the power this election. Matthew McConaughey (yes, the actor) [**just posted a video**](https://ivn.us/mcconaughey-americas-brand-was-never-r-or-d-its-independent/) encouraging voters to consider independent candidates, calling it his **endorsement of two things: “Fairness and reality.”** Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## California vs. DOJ: Election Integrity Takes a Back Seat to Partisan Politics [![California vs DOJ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/gavin-newsom-doj-noncitizen-arrests.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-vs-doj-election-integrity-takes-a-back-seat-to-partisan-politics/) The DOJ announced criminal cases against 28 Californians while the state sits on a disputed list of 20,000 names. **Fifteen days before Election Day, neither side will give the other what it needs to settle the question.** Cara Brown McCormick reports. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/california-vs-doj-election-integrity-takes-a-back-seat-to-partisan-politics/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [The Election Referee Is Missing—and the Money Is Pouring In ](https://ivn.us/the-election-referee-is-missing-and-the-money-is-pouring-in/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![The Election Referee Is Missing—and the Money Is Pouring In](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/image-1afe434a-5eda-44a5-a432-07f2835f044c.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-election-referee-is-missing-and-the-money-is-pouring-in/) [Bill Hill Raised $1.17 Million. The Fight Is Over Where the Money Comes From ](https://ivn.us/bill-hill-raised-1-17-million-the-fight-is-over-where-the-money-comes-from/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Bill Hill Raised $1.17 Million. The Fight Is Over Where the Money Comes From](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/Bill-Hill-Campaign-Event.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/bill-hill-raised-1-17-million-the-fight-is-over-where-the-money-comes-from/) [McConaughey: "America’s Brand Was Never ‘R’ or ‘D.’ It’s Independent" ](https://ivn.us/mcconaughey-americas-brand-was-never-r-or-d-its-independent/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![McConaughey: ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/Matthew-McConaughey-1.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/mcconaughey-americas-brand-was-never-r-or-d-its-independent/) [Senator Lisa Boscola Trashes Closed Primaries on Pennsylvania Senate Floor ](https://ivn.us/senator-lisa-boscola-trashes-closed-primaries-on-pennsylvania-senate-floor/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![Senator Lisa Boscola Trashes Closed Primaries on Pennsylvania Senate Floor](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/Senator-Lisa-Boscola.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/senator-lisa-boscola-trashes-closed-primaries-on-pennsylvania-senate-floor/) [Missouri Voters Could Kill a Gerrymander — And Make It Harder for Politicians to Try Again ](https://ivn.us/missouri-voters-could-kill-a-gerrymander-and-make-it-harder-for-politicians-to-try-again/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Missouri Voters Could Kill a Gerrymander — And Make It Harder for Politicians to Try Again](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/image-9c64fb37-f33d-4e8a-adea-e0da4a731249.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/missouri-voters-could-kill-a-gerrymander-and-make-it-harder-for-politicians-to-try-again/) [Montana’s Senate Race Is Breaking All the Rules of Party Loyalty ](https://ivn.us/republicans-call-bodnar-a-democrat-democrats-call-him-a-spoiler/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Montana’s Senate Race Is Breaking All the Rules of Party Loyalty](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/seth-bodnar-profile.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/republicans-call-bodnar-a-democrat-democrats-call-him-a-spoiler/) ### *VIDEO CLIP ▶▶▶* ## Boscola: No American Should Be a ‘Second-Class Voter’ [![Sen. Lisa Boscola on the Pennsylvania Senate floor](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/boscola-clip.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/DesZmOMl2Mx/?ref=ivn.us) Pennsylvania state Sen. Lisa Boscola took to the Senate floor for the 1.4 million Pennsylvanians registered outside the two major parties: **they pay taxes, serve in the military, and send their kids to local schools, but are shut out on primary day**. Her passionate speech is a must-watch: [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/DesZmOMl2Mx/?ref=ivn.us) ### *INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES ▶▶▶* ## Ranked Choice Voting Won’t Hand Bill Hill A Win in Alaska. Here’s What Could [![Bill Hill](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/bill-hill.jpg)](https://ivn.us/ranked-choice-voting-wont-hand-bill-hill-a-win-in-alaska-heres-what-could/) Alaska’s ranked choice ballot gives independent Bill Hill a fair shot, not a free pass. **To win, he needs to be the second choice of nearly everyone else’s voters.** Matt Shinners does the math: [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/ranked-choice-voting-wont-hand-bill-hill-a-win-in-alaska-heres-what-could/) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## California Burned. Utilities Profited. One Lawmaker Says the System Is Broken [![The Eaton Fire](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/eaton-fire.jpg)](https://ivn.us/after-the-eaton-fire-who-is-california-really-protecting-survivors-or-utilities/) After the Eaton Fire, Assemblymember John Harabedian says the system worked exactly as designed: **utilities profit, insurers retreat, and survivors wait**. The Planning Report on who California is really protecting: [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/after-the-eaton-fire-who-is-california-really-protecting-survivors-or-utilities/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Independent voters could decide California’s closest contests, and **the wording of the voter ID measure alone shifted support by 15 to 20 points** in new polling. EP63 on who actually decides this election. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upSN2lq7lvM&ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: A Fresh Look for IVN We just redesigned IVN.us. Browse the latest stories by the topics you care about: election reform, California, independent candidates, open primaries, and ranked choice voting, and catch every episode of our shows in one place. [EXPLORE THE NEW IVN](https://ivn.us/) ### *VETERANS ▶▶▶* ## Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff It took former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard **37,000 signatures and $700,000 just to get on the ballot** as an independent in Indiana. He joins Rieckhoff on how the two-party system stacks the deck, and how he intends to change it. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp7tAb48zrU&ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### McConaughey 2028? The Hollywood Star’s Independent Moment URL: https://ivn.us/mcconaughey-2028-the-hollywood-stars-independent-moment/ Last updated: 2026-10-20T13:51:35.000Z Matthew McConaughey just sent a message that lit up phones across the country, and Paul Rieckhoff breaks down what a Hollywood heavyweight going independent actually means for 2028 — and for the plurality of Americans already here. He covers the stunning new South Dakota poll showing independent veteran Brian Bengs tied with GOP Senator Mike Rounds, The Guardian's report that Elon Musk personally asked Donald Trump to throttle Starlink in Ukraine, the ex-press secretary disaster that captured the entire Trump administration in a single clip, a weekly check-in on IVA-endorsed veteran candidates Osborn, Bodnar, and Achilles, the real story behind Coast Guard recruiting numbers, and finishes on Ukraine's 92nd Separate Assault Brigade pulling off the first-ever drone medevac of a wounded soldier in combat history. Righteous anger, patriotic hope, and a movement finally being heard. **Get the latest episodes of Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff on the podcast's** [**YouTube channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentamericans?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### California vs. DOJ: Election Integrity Takes a Back Seat to Partisan Politics URL: https://ivn.us/california-vs-doj-election-integrity-takes-a-back-seat-to-partisan-politics/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T23:50:48.000Z California and the federal government both say they want the same thing: an election where only eligible citizens vote. Fifteen days before the November 3 midterm, they cannot agree on who those citizens are, and neither will give the other what it says it needs to settle the question. On Monday, the Trump Administration escalated the fight, and the Justice Department announced criminal cases against 28 California residents it accuses of illegal registration and voting, under an effort it calls [Operation Protect the Vote](https://abc7news.com/post/28-charged-california-sweep-targeting-alleged-noncitizen-voters/19956203/?ref=ivn.us). > Just In: The Trump administration says it has charged (and today arrested several) green card holders who allegedly voted in recent elections in California. > > Every U.S. Attorney’s office in California was involved in the operation: [pic.twitter.com/b4o3QgqaGa](https://t.co/b4o3QgqaGa?ref=ivn.us) > > — Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) [October 19, 2026](https://x.com/ZavalaA/status/2112223190105952579?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) This move followed a federal lawsuit against the state, a disputed roster of 20,000 names, and a written warning from the feds aimed at the county workers who count ballots. Voters are left to choose a side in a fight neither side can fully prove. ## **What the Justice Department Alleges** Federal prosecutors in every California judicial district participated in the October 19 action, according to Ashley Zavala at KCRA and an[ ](https://www.kpbs.org/news/public-safety/2026/10/19/justice-department-charges-more-than-2-dozen-in-california-sweep-targeting-alleged-noncitizen-voters?ref=ivn.us)[Associated Press report carried by KPBS](https://www.kpbs.org/news/public-safety/2026/10/19/justice-department-charges-more-than-2-dozen-in-california-sweep-targeting-alleged-noncitizen-voters?ref=ivn.us). The federal government says each of the 28 defendants who were charged with a crime holds a green card, which grants permanent residency but not the right to vote. The alleged crimes range from lying on citizenship paperwork to filing bogus voter registrations. > Congress has the authority to enact legislation protecting constitutional voting rights. California dilutes American citizens’ votes and deprives them of those rights by violating federal law and counting ballots from noncitizens. In the United States, the law of the land is one… [https://t.co/k7ZZYRGrVO](https://t.co/k7ZZYRGrVO?ref=ivn.us) > > — F.A. United States Attorney Bill Essayli (@USAttyEssayli) [October 18, 2026](https://x.com/USAttyEssayli/status/2111870913205670374?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Nationally, the department told reporters it has brought 113 cases tied to illegal voting or registration across 20 states over the past several weeks, the AP reported. If proven, each case is a genuine crime against the franchise. But 113 cases are a tiny fraction of the more than 227 million Americans who were registered to vote in 2024. **113 out of 227 million is about 0.00005%, or roughly 1 case in every 2 million registered voters.** > The Trump Admin completely upends their “widespread voter fraud” claims by admitting they have only charged 113 people across 20 states [pic.twitter.com/VRTek6qfc7](https://t.co/VRTek6qfc7?ref=ivn.us) > > — Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) [October 19, 2026](https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/2112245122759118993?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) A Reuters investigation published in July 2026 counted 129 people prosecuted for noncitizen voting since Congress made it a federal crime in 1996, as[ ](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-doj-california-voters-methodology-lawsuit-12576337?ref=ivn.us)[Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-doj-california-voters-methodology-lawsuit-12576337?ref=ivn.us) summarized it. No one has ever proven in court that such cases decided an election's outcome. ## **A Roster of 20,000 Names** Federal officials gave California a locked USB drive with 20,000 names and two days to act. California let the deadline pass. Justice Department officials insist the count will only grow. Secretary of State Shirley Weber counters that Washington, D.C., has never backed the number with evidence. ## **Why California Said No** California's refusal to check the names on its rolls started back in July, when the Department of Homeland Security claimed as many as 190,000 noncitizens were on the state's rolls. Weber asked for the data and methodology behind that number. She says she never got it. So when the 20,000-name list arrived, state and county officials met it with suspicion, for specific reasons, including that **the** list went to Los Angeles County, not the Secretary of State, on a thumb drive with its password on a sticky note. Registrar Dean Logan refused to open the file, saying the device wasn't a secure medium under the county's data protocols. Officials were given only 48 hours to review 20,000 records three weeks before an election, with ballots already in the mail. Weber pointed to Nevada, where she says DHS first alleged nearly 16,000 noncitizens on the rolls and ultimately did not establish a single one. > The claim that DHS was "proven false" in Nevada is wrong. Nobody has proven anything. > > In California and Nevada, a voter's citizenship is largely taken on their word: a signed statement under penalty of perjury. > > DHS flagged 185 Nevada registrants as noncitizens after manual… [pic.twitter.com/igoPeUhhFu](https://t.co/igoPeUhhFu?ref=ivn.us) > > — F.A. United States Attorney Bill Essayli (@USAttyEssayli) [October 19, 2026](https://x.com/USAttyEssayli/status/2112035874200576405?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Attorney General Rob Bonta argued that the demand could violate the federal ban on systematic voter-roll removals within 90 days of an election. Weber also cited an October 9 federal court order that vacated a DOJ policy on matching state rolls against federal databases. Gov. Gavin Newsom is casting the federal government’s actions as voter suppression. > WOW. First Assistant Bill just admitted in front of the press that not all of those arrested today may have voted. > > And these are supposedly people on their “high confidence” list. > > YIKES. Stephen Miller not going to be happy about this performance. [pic.twitter.com/rMBurSd0dc](https://t.co/rMBurSd0dc?ref=ivn.us) > > — Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) [October 19, 2026](https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/2112247407366885766?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan said his office would keep running the election and leave the dispute to a judge. The Justice Department is asking a federal court to require California to hold back every mail ballot tied to a name on the list until it confirms each voter's citizenship. In a separate letter, the DOJ told county officials that knowingly counting those ballots could expose them to charges as accomplices to a federal crime. ## **Where Washington is Right, and Where It Goes Too Far** Voting as a noncitizen in a federal election is a federal crime. The federal government, not the states, holds the immigration and naturalization records that can confirm or rule out citizenship. California confirms citizenship at registration through a sworn, penalty-of-perjury attestation, and it mails a ballot to every registered voter. But Washington's approach may be exacerbating the distrust it complains about. The numbers keep changing, and that is fueling mistrust. DHS said there were 190,000 non-citizen voters in July. The lawsuit says about 20,000\. DHS now says the smaller figure is the subset manually verified so far. Maybe so, but the government has yet to show its work on either number. Even though incomplete or outdated records can easily trigger mismatches, the government's legal filing acknowledges this inherent uncertainty. The complaint explains that potential voter matches fall into high-, medium-, and low-confidence categories, ultimately describing the 20,000 as merely "likely" noncitizens. The AP reported that the department's lawsuits seeking sensitive voter data from dozens of states have not succeeded so far. A federal court on October 9 vacated a DOJ voter-roll matching policy, according to Weber's letter. UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen told Reuters he sees no federal authority to tell states which ballots they can count. Neither side disputes that Washington can prosecute individual noncitizen voters; the Tenth Amendment shields no one from federal criminal law. The fight is over whether the Justice Department can require county officials to count specific ballots. California argues that no federal statute directs this, so an executive agency instructing state election officers, under threat of prosecution, looks like commandeering. It adds that the National Voter Registration Act bars systematic roll removals within 90 days of an election. The federal view is that counting ineligible ballots conflicts with federal law, so the Supremacy Clause lets a court order a pause, and that it asked counties to segregate the ballots, not cancel them. ## **Where Sacramento is Right, and Where It Falls Short** California's caution is not unreasonable. Voter files contain sensitive personal identifiers that the state must protect. Weber notes that other states have purged eligible citizens based on federal SAVE data. Holding 20,000 ballots on a list the government itself labels "likely" would put real citizens at risk of losing their votes. No election office should be expected to load an unverified storage device into its systems. But California has also made itself impossible to help. In July, Weber questioned how DHS could know who is on the state's rolls when her office had never shared its statewide list. DHS says it worked from publicly available registration records instead. Meanwhile, the federal complaint says that, as far as the government knows, California has not run its rolls through SAVE either. That is a closed loop. The state rejects federal findings as unreliable while withholding the information that would make them more reliable. > California AG Rob Bonta noted Nevada proved the Trump admin wrong on claims of non-citizens on that state's voter rolls. > > I asked him, why not check claims against California and prove them wrong? > > He was clear, state leaders don't think the federal govt is acting in good faith: [pic.twitter.com/4GqoEHQffO](https://t.co/4GqoEHQffO?ref=ivn.us) > > — Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) [October 18, 2026](https://x.com/ZavalaA/status/2111956619009704150?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Weber’s October 15[ ](https://admin.cdn.sos.ca.gov/pdf/other/casos-to-doj-101526.pdf?ref=ivn.us)[letter to the Justice Department](https://admin.cdn.sos.ca.gov/pdf/other/casos-to-doj-101526.pdf?ref=ivn.us) says the state would welcome reviewing any federal evidence, data, and methodology, and would act under state and federal law, conditioned on Washington going first. Other options existed between full compliance and a closed door. The state could have requested a secure transfer and checked a sample of names against its own records. It could have proposed a post-election review of flagged ballots that leaves every vote counted for now. California law does require that only citizens register and that ineligible registrants be removed. Saying so is not the same as showing it. When a state's answer to "how do you know?" is "trust us," it is asking for the same blind faith it refuses to give Washington. ## **What Partisan Distrust Costs Voters** So, the federal government holds the immigration records. State governments hold the voter rolls. Neither list can answer the non-citizenship voting question alone, and neither side will let the other look. This standoff is not really about data security or federal overreach in the abstract. Instead, it is about who controls the story going into a close midterm. The Republicans are trying to find every incentive to make noncitizen voting look widespread. The Democrats are painting any federal check as voter suppression. Both views point away from the one thing that would actually build trust: a transparent, verifiable process both sides agreed to before the ballots went out. Every voter, Republican, Democrat, or independent, is told by one government or the other that the election cannot be trusted. Election integrity ought to be the shared ground in American politics. In California and across the country this fall, it has become one more front in a partisan war. Both sides can claim they are protecting the vote. Neither has shown voters the evidence they need to decide for themselves. ### Progressive-Backed Cofer and Establishment Favorite Guerra Face off for Sacramento County Supervisor URL: https://ivn.us/progressive-backed-cofer-and-establishment-favorite-guerra-face-off-for-sacramento-county-supervisor/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T18:53:32.000Z For the first time in nearly 16 years, Sacramento County's District 1 will have a new Supervisor. Phil Serna, who has held the seat since he was first elected in 2010, is stepping down in January. Voters will decide his replacement this November. Two Democrats advanced from the primary, although the race is technically nonpartisan. This November's result will test [which strain of the Democratic Party has more electoral pull](https://www.californiadsa.org/news/dec-2024-adems?ref=ivn.us) when voters can't fall back on partisanship to make the choice for them. ## **"Flo" Cofer (D)** [Dr. Flojaune "Flo" Cofer](https://www.floforsac.com/?ref=ivn.us), 43, is an epidemiologist with a PhD who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is the daughter of public school teachers and the granddaughter of a coal miner and a postal worker. She moved to California 20 years ago and has worked for the California Department of Public Health and in advocacy. In her 2024 mayoral campaign, she drew backing from the local [Democratic Socialists of America](https://www.californiadsa.org/news/flomentum?ref=ivn.us) chapter, and she remains the candidate most associated with Sacramento's progressive coalition. She has the phrase "more is possible" tattooed on her arm. > Solidarity to all workers this May Day! > > As the daughter of teachers and granddaughter of a coal miner and a postal worker, I'm thankful to all laborers whose work uplifts humanity, and to our unions for continuing the struggle for fair wages and safe working conditions. [pic.twitter.com/USZw0tmxAj](https://t.co/USZw0tmxAj?ref=ivn.us) > > — Dr. Flo Cofer - she/her (@Flo4Sacramento) [May 1, 2023](https://x.com/Flo4Sacramento/status/1653076382954721280?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Her record includes chairing Sacramento's Measure U citizen oversight committee, which watches how the city spends its sales tax revenue. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3BHWs-PhVe/?ref=ivn.us) Cofer has a bachelor's degree in Chemistry and Women's Studies from *Spelman College*, followed by a Master's in Public Health and a Doctorate in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. ## Eric Guerra (D) Sacramento Mayor Pro Tem [Eric Guerra](https://electericguerra.com/?ref=ivn.us), 47, has represented Sacramento City Council District 6, which includes Campus Commons, Sierra Oaks, Tahoe Park, and the Little Saigon area, since 2015. Guerra is a more moderate, establishment-backed Democrat supported by the building trades, local officeholders, and law enforcement. He was a migrant farmworker beginning at age 5 and experienced homelessness. According to the Sacramento Bee, “His life story - being snuck across the Mexican border as a child, living in his car as he studied in college, and rising in Sacramento politics - is inspirational. After 11 years on the council, there is no doubting his knowledge of issues or his commitment to Sacramento.” Guerra graduated from California State University, Sacramento, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and a Master of Public Policy and Administration. Now married with two children, he said in a recent candidate forum that he drives a twenty-year-old Kia with 158,000 miles. "I know the challenges that families face today because I live it.” He points to years of work across city and county jurisdictions and alongside the current Board of Supervisors, and notes that Republicans, Democrats, and independents who worked with him on constituent problems have endorsed him. > County government is about neighbors working with neighbors to solve neighborhood issues. That’s always been my approach. Check out my interview on CapRadio to hear more about my roots in Sacramento and how I’ll work with local leaders as Supervisor to solve neighborhood issues. [pic.twitter.com/Dk2ZXuJpCQ](https://t.co/Dk2ZXuJpCQ?ref=ivn.us) > > — Eric Guerra for Supervisor (@ElectEricGuerra) [October 6, 2026](https://x.com/ElectEricGuerra/status/2107531999951106216?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Guerra was the Governor’s appointee on the CSU Board of Trustees and the California Air Resources Board. He was president of the Tahoe Park Neighborhood Association, chair of the Sacramento County Planning Commission, and president of the Sacramento State Alumni Association. ## **About the District** Sacramento County's five supervisors collectively represent roughly 1.6 million residents, with each district covering more than 300,000 people. The board decides how the county spends its $9.2 billion budget and oversees agencies that touch nearly every part of local life, including the sheriff's and district attorney's offices and the county's health agencies. District 1 covers about half of Sacramento. It stretches across Natomas, Del Paso Heights, Central Sacramento, East Sacramento, Oak Park, and parts of South Sacramento. ## Democratic Socialists vs. the Democratic Establishment The runoff this November sharpens a battle that has been simmering beneath the campaign's surface since the start. Cofer carries the support of the same progressive coalition that came within a percentage point of putting her in the mayor's office in 2024, and it is behind her again. Their organizing work for her was described in an article documenting ["DSA Flomentum"](https://www.californiadsa.org/news/flomentum?ref=ivn.us) in 2024: *“DSA Sacramento members joined a wide swath of communities from all types of backgrounds, from all over the city, and even from elsewhere in the country in supporting Flo. They canvassed, phone banked, text banked, threw house parties, threw fundraising events, held forums, and donated. The campaign saw nearly seventy thousand doors knocked, including over eight thousand two hundred the weekend before election day; one hundred fifty thousand calls, including twenty thousand the weekend before election day; three hundred thousand texts, and nearly one hundred house parties.”* If Cofer’s base turns out in Oak Park and Central Sacramento, the ascendant DSA could have another win, this time in Sacramento. ## Roads and Jails Cofer says the average road in Sacramento County is failing, and she wants to address the billion dollars in “deferred maintenance.” Cofer does not support a new county jail. Guerra called the current jail “deplorable" and unsafe for both inmates and staff. "Something must be done," Guerra said in a candidate forum last month. ## Housing On housing, Cofer has argued that keeping renters in their homes and preventing displacement matters as much as building new units. Guerra says Sacramento County “needs to play a role in the economic development and revitalization of places like Northgate Boulevard, of places like Marysville Boulevard and Franklin Boulevard and help through different tools." “As a county supervisor, my intent is to have the county be much more involved with the city…Many of the times, it's been this idea of being hands-off like, 'That's the city's problem.' No, housing is our regional problem," Guerra said. ## Homelessness Guerra says his top priority is “addressing the epidemic of severely mentally ill and drug addicted people on our streets. Recent data showed 79 people consumed $12.5 million of our fire department’s budget in the last five years. It’s time to act. I’ll do what others won’t: I’ll ignore extremists who demand the status quo. I’ll mandate treatment to save time, money and lives.” Homelessness is also at the top of Cofer’s priority list, and she frames it as a public health problem. Cofer said in a primary forum that allowing safe ground camping is appropriate, “since society needs places for people to go.” Both candidates now support SB 802, a bill by State Sen. Angelique Ashby, D-Sacramento, that Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed into law and could create a joint powers authority in the region to address homelessness. Cofer said in a forum she thinks the County should take the lead: "I think it's the agency that has public health and the homelessness dollars and the responsibility for administering Medi-Cal and CalFresh and all of the state services that can be provided for homelessness," Cofer said. "Right now so many people are expected to navigate separate systems for housing, for healthcare, for their identification, for their benefits," Cofer said. "And it's a really confusing process that takes time and know-how that many people, especially those who are in crisis, just don't have." "I can appreciate both the city and the county," Guerra said. "We have an equal responsibility…A lot of the city personnel is doing the day-to-day touches at the city." “The responsibility should not be focused on just one entity," he continued. "People want to have somebody else deal with the problem, but it's all of our collective problems.” ## **Endorsements from Different Wings of the Democratic Party** Cofer's endorsements include the Sacramento County Democratic Party, the Working Families Party, the Sierra Club, the Los Rios Community College District teachers' union, and the California Democratic Renter's Council. Guerra carries the endorsement of outgoing Supervisor Phil Serna, former state Senator Deborah Ortiz, U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui, the Sacramento Police Officers Association, and the Sacramento Stonewall Democrats. Guerra is also supported by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 340, Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 447, Sacramento-Sierra's Building and Construction Trades Council, UPE Local 39 and the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs' Association. The Sacramento Central Labor Council has endorsed both Cofer and Guerra. The Sacramento Bee editorial board endorsed Cofer, saying: “Guerra is a smart and steady public servant. Cofer is the clear change agent. She would challenge a county budget dominated by law enforcement…The fact that no current supervisor supports her is the greatest endorsement of all.” ## **Two Complaints Filed Against Cofer** After a legal complaint was filed against Cofer this Spring, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Jennifer K. Rockwell ordered Cofer to change her ballot title from “doctor” because she is not a medical doctor. "I do think (the planned designation) is misleading," Judge Rockwell said in her ruling. "I don't think it was intentionally so ... If I just introduce someone as a doctor and don't say anything else, they think it's a medical doctor." Cofer’s [ballot designation was changed from doctor](https://www.theobserver.media/local/2026-03-cofer-ballot-designation-lawsuit-?ref=ivn.us) to "epidemiologist, public health" as a result of the court ruling. The Fair Political Practices Commission is also investigating Cofer after a complaint argued that she failed to report income on her financial disclosure form for guest lectures at Sacramento State, expert witness testimony, and policy work for the California Department of Social Services. Voters in this countywide general election cannot fall back on party label to sort these two candidates, so it will be a plain measure of which wing of the Democratic Party can actually deliver ballots. Cofer's near-miss for mayor in 2024 showed [DSA activists have real power in Sacramento](https://www.californiadsa.org/news/flomentum?ref=ivn.us). The open question is whether it will be enough against the establishment's organizing muscle in this lower-turnout supervisor race. The two dominant factions of California's Democratic Party will be watching to see whose message lands with the voters who actually turn out. ### Ranked Choice Voting Won’t Hand Bill Hill A Win in Alaska. Here’s What Could URL: https://ivn.us/ranked-choice-voting-wont-hand-bill-hill-a-win-in-alaska-heres-what-could/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T18:55:06.000Z Monday, October 19, marks the beginning of early voting in Alaska. There are tight races for a Senate seat and for the governor’s mansion. Measure 2 seeks to repeal the Top Four primary, ranked choice voting, and campaign finance disclosures that were part of the same reform package approved by voters in 2020\. And the race for Alaska’s lone House seat continues to look the way it has looked throughout the summer. Incumbent Republican Rep. Nick Begich is ahead in the polls and in money, and independent Bill Hill is second. They both are well ahead in resources and polling over the Democrat (who is running from a federal penitentiary in New York, having pled guilty to making threats against elected officials) and the Libertarian candidate. Much of the commentary on this race has been focused on those two minor candidates. Conservative outlets have argued that Eric Hafner, the Democrat on the ballot, could end up deciding the race through second-choice rankings. Hill’s campaign seems to be counting on it. Both sides treat the minor-candidate vote as a reserve Hill would need to draw on in order to win the seat. However, that may not be the case. In the 2024 congressional race, nearly half of the voters who backed candidates other than Nick Begich and Mary Peltola did not have their votes transfer to either finalist under ranked choice voting. If that pattern holds in 2026, Hill cannot count on second-choice votes alone to erase a double-digit deficit against Begich. His path to a victory, therefore, runs through first-choice voters he hasn’t won yet. ## **Where The Race Stands** Polling has shown some minor shifts, but nothing too far outside of a margin of error. The race appears to have moved little since August: | **Poll** | **Field dates** | **Begich (R)** | **Hill (I)** | **Hafner (D)** | **McDermott (L)** | **Other** | **Final round** | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- | -------------- | ------------ | -------------- | ----------------- | --------- | ----------------- | | [NYT/Siena](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/house/general/2026/alaska/at-large/begich-vs-hill?ref=ivn.us) (504 LV) | Sept. 22–Oct. 1 | 47% | 35% | 8% | 5% | 5% | Begich 53–47 | | [AARP](https://www.aarp.org/pri/topics/voter-research/politics/2026-midterm-election-poll-alaska/?ref=ivn.us) (Fabrizio Ward-R / Impact Research-D, 800 LV) | Sept. 8–11 | 45% | 31% | 9% | 3% | — | Begich 57–43 | | [Alaska Survey Research](https://www.270towin.com/2026-house-polls/alaska?ref=ivn.us) (1,872 LV) | Aug. 20–23 | 51% | 39% | 5% | — | 5% | — | | [GBAO](https://thealaskacurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Hill-Memo-081126-v2.pdf?ref=ivn.us) (Hill campaign internal, 500 LV) | Aug. 3–5 | 46% | 42% | — | — | — | Head-to-head only | Siena’s first-round numbers (the most recent) put Begich at 47%, Hill at 35%, Hafner at 8%, and McDermott at 5%; its final-round figure is Begich 53%, Hill 47%. While this may appear to show that Hill will pick up a lot of votes in later rounds, it’s important to remember one thing: many Alaska voters haven'tranked past their first choice in recent elections. While a poll may pick up people’s preferences, their behavior on Election Day tends to show a significant dropoff between first- and second-round votes. These “bullet voters” (called because they put only one bullet on their ballot) drop out after the first round, lowering the total votes cast and shifting numbers. Looking at Alaska’s prior elections can show us what we can expect as to voter behavior on election day. ## **What Happened to the Minor-Candidate Vote in 2024** The 2024 race had the same structure: Begich; a Democratic-aligned major candidate (then-Rep. Mary Peltola); the Alaskan Independence Party’s John Wayne Howe; and Hafner. Begich took 48.4% of first choice votes to Peltola’s 46.4%. The[ ](https://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/24GENR/RCV-USRep.pdf?ref=ivn.us)[official tabulation report](https://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/24GENR/RCV-USRep.pdf?ref=ivn.us) shows where the remaining ballots went. | **Eliminated** | **Ballots** | **To Begich** | **To Peltola** | **Exhausted** | | -------------- | ----------- | ------------- | -------------- | ------------------------------ | | Hafner (D) | \~3,550 | 8% | 37% | 37% (another 19% went to Howe) | | Howe (AIP) | 13,871 | 35% | 20% | 45% | When Hafner was eliminated, 267 of his ballots moved to Begich, 661 to Howe, and 1,300 exhausted. When Howe was eliminated, 4,817 went to Begich and 6,295 exhausted. Fewer than 40% of Hafner’s ballots, 1,303, transferred to Peltola, even though she was the Democrat. By the final round, 7,595 ballots had exhausted, and Begich won with 51.22% of the remaining continuing ballots. That’s about 45% of every ballot that ranked a candidate lower in the polling first. A Hafner voter is not automatically a second-choice Democrat, or, in this case, a vote against a Republican. One caveat matters. In 2024, Hafner was a 1% candidate. This year he’s polling at 8–9%, almost certainly because he’s the only “D” on the ballot. His 2026 voters are more likely to be straight-ticket Democrats, and those voters may rank Hill second at higher rates than his 2024 voters did. ### **The Projection** The scenarios below start from Siena’s first-round numbers, set aside the 5% undecided or other, and test three assumptions about where Hafner’s voters go. In all three, McDermott’s voters behave like Howe’s did in 2024. | **Scenario** | **Hafner voters** | **Begich** | **Hill** | **Ballots exhausted** | | ------------------------ | -------------------------------- | ---------- | -------- | --------------------- | | 2024 repeat | Same rates as 2024 | 55.9% | 44.1% | \~7.5% | | Hafner voters favor Hill | 60% Hill, 5% Begich, 35% exhaust | 54.6% | 45.4% | \~5.6% | | Total consolidation | 100% Hill | 52.6% | 47.4% | \~2.5% | The 2024-repeat scenario lands close to AARP’s 57–43 result. Siena’s published 53–47 is close to the total-consolidation scenario. In other words, the most Hill-friendly public poll already assumes nearly every Hafner voter ranks him. Even then, Begich wins. ### **What Hill Has to Do to Win** Independent voters are the group this race turns on, and the only public breakdown of them comes from Hill’s own pollster. That campaign poll, conducted by Democratic firm GBAO, had Hill leading among independents by 16 points. This poll results comes in a state where roughly 60% of Alaska’s registered voters (nearly 380,000 people) aren’t registered with either party.[ ](https://thealaskacurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Hill-Memo-081126-v2.pdf?ref=ivn.us) The final two weeks, therefore, need to be a persuasion campaign, not a turnout or transfer campaign, if Hill wants to win. And he still has room to grow. Only about a third of voters had any opinion of him in August, and after hearing his positions on affordability and housing, voters broke in his direction ([though that result came from Hill’s pollster](https://ivn.us/whos-polling-the-independents-a-field-guide-to-the-firms-behind-the-numbers/)). Instead of working solely on turnout, Hill needs to make his case to undecideds and Democrats, convincing them that an Independent is their best option. At the same time, he needs to continue to target weak Begich voters. Without some of them, his path to victory, even in Alaska’s ranked choice voting system, is a long shot. That’s probably why traders at Kalshi have him at 13%: he’s a long-shot, but he has a path. ### McConaughey: "America's Brand Was Never 'R' or 'D.’ It's Independent” URL: https://ivn.us/mcconaughey-americas-brand-was-never-r-or-d-its-independent/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:34:15.000Z Actor Matthew McConaughey posted a video on YouTube Sunday, in which he had a message for every American voter:: Voting for an independent candidate does not have to be a wasted vote. Instead, it can be a check on the two major parties. “A great question for our times is, how’s that ‘unwasted’ vote been working out for you?” He says in the video. Curiously, he said that the point of the video was not about him “right now.” This could lead to speculation that he is preparing to jump into the political arena at some point in the near future, potentially as an independent candidate. McConaughey has previously left the possibility open. However, as of now, he has not declared his intentions to run for any office. Instead, he says this is about the upcoming ballot and his endorsement of two things: “Fairness and reality.” “I believe in a fair fight and a fair fight is not just two fighters throwing the same punches at each other for 50 years,” McConaughey says.”A fair fight is when the fighters who ought to be represented in the fight are actually in the fight.” He notes that the number one political identity in the US is not Republican or Democrat. It is independent, a statement backed up by polling and voter registration data in states that register voters by party. McConaughey also makes a point to mention that being independent does not mean being a fence-rider. It does not mean that a person has to be considered “middle-of-the-road” “Independent is the original road,” he says. Being independent does not mean a person has to be against the parties. It means “taking the best of both,” which McConaughey asserts is not indecision, but judgment. It is a position not far off from the IVN stance that [being independent is a mindset](https://ivn.us/heres-proof-independent-voters-are-not-just-democrats-or-republicans-2025-08-11/). It is the willingness to accept that there is legitimacy in opposing ideas, and that finding solutions requires a more voter-centric, nuanced approach. Identify the best policies within both parties, but also be willing to look beyond them for the answers as well. And this approach will not always be the same for every independent voter. Independent voters can hold different positions, they can disagree, but they think critically. They don't have to be neutral. They don't even have to be "moderate." “Independents belong in the fight. Not as a protest. Not as a spoiler. But as a real and potential winner on the ballot by us,” McConaughey remarks. It has been an uphill battle for people who want to run as an independent. The system is designed at every level to elevate two private political organizations. Most elections are decided well before independent candidates even appear on the ballot. [9% of Voters Already Picked Your Congress. A New Poll Says Everyone Else Is Fed UpA new poll shows 56% of voters want to replace closed party primaries with open elections where all candidates compete on one ballot. The survey reveals voters are frustrated that just 9% of Americans effectively decide most congressional races.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-1f8f4582-2015-458e-b64a-5cfff9331eef.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-aad88429-0491-4207-94b6-8f53ceb62273-d7d2d299-f4f0-4dc1-b992-cf94f3318214.jpg)](https://ivn.us/9-of-voters-already-picked-your-congress-a-new-poll-says-everyone-else-is-fed-up/) And, in the few instances in modern history when an independent has made it to Congress or has switched party affiliation, they are expected to “pick a side,” just like voters at the polls. “The truth is, we don’t know how many independents would vote for a true independent—organized,funded, owned by neither side—because no one has ever given us one,” McConaughey argues. He points out that the current political environment offers an opportunity that has not always existed for independent candidates. The party split in Congress is so even, particularly in the Senate, that only a few independent candidates are needed to hold both sides accountable. Put simply, elect 3-5 independent candidates and they will control the majority vote and can, in theory, force Republicans and Democrats to come to the table and compete for the independent vote. This is colloquially referred to as the “Fulcrum strategy” and is something independent candidates for Senate across the US are making part of their pitch this year. IVN author Matt Shinners [has covered these races and candidates extensively](https://ivn.us/author/matt-shinners/). McConaughey also notes that former US Sen. Joe Manchin and his daughter, Heather, have launched the Independent Leadership Council that he says was “built to recruit, fund, and back true independents for Congress.” “Joe Manchin knows the math. He lived it. In a 50-50 Senate, one independent mind became the deciding vote and took all the fire for it alone,” he explains. “Now imagine that power held by 3 or 4, together, owned by no party at all.” It is not a solution that will fix the myriad of systemic problems in US elections. However, those who support this idea believe that it is a mechanism to change how both parties behave in Congress. And there is a shifting reality to consider. More organizations are forming to provide a foundation on which independent candidates can run that they never had before, whether it is Manchin’s ILC or Paul Rieckhoff’s Independent Veterans of America. McConaughey closes the video by reminding voters that—in more places than ever—the options on the ballot are not limited to Republicans and Democrats. He doesn’t tell the viewer how to vote, but implores them to examine the candidates and figure out who truly represents them. And who can be that “check,” not to replace the two parties, but “to keep them honest.” “America’s brand was never ‘R’ or ‘D,’” he says. “It is independent.” ### California Burned. Utilities Profited. One Lawmaker Says the System Is Broken URL: https://ivn.us/after-the-eaton-fire-who-is-california-really-protecting-survivors-or-utilities/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T13:21:09.000Z *Editor's Note: The following Q&A with Asm. John Harabedian was* [*originally published*](https://www.planningreport.com/2026/10/15/assemblymember-harabedian-legislative-responses-eaton-fire-s-devastation?ref=ivn.us) *by The Planning Report and has been republished on IVN in its entirety with permission from the publishers.* ## Assemblymember Harabedian - Legislative Responses to Eaton Fire’s Devastation Assemblymember John Harabedian, whose district includes Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre, has spent much of his first term turning the Eaton Fire's hard lessons into legislation. Speaking with TPR after the close of session, Harabedian reflects on AB 1642, his newly signed bill setting first-in-the-nation standards for testing and clearing smoke-damaged homes, and on why the Assembly let SB 492 die rather than declare "mission accomplished." The Assemblymember also explains why he has changed his mind on undergrounding, and names the one question he says every candidate for insurance commissioner must answer. **John, please begin by highlighting your legislation this last session in response to the Eaton Fire.** [**AB 1642**](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F202520260ab1642?ref=ivn.us)**, one of your Bills, sets first-in-the-nation standards for testing and cleaning up contaminated homes, was just signed by the Governor. Since your constituency is clearly affected by the Eaton Fire, elaborate on the bill’s intent and details.** John Harabedian: After the fires, both in the Palisades and, with the Eaton Fire, in Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre, thousands of families who didn’t necessarily lose their homes suffered significant smoke damage. Weeks after the fire, once the ash had been cleaned up, residents who had evacuated saw, on a positive note, that while their house survived, they were left without much direction on how to rehabilitate. Their insurance companies made that extremely difficult, because they were not giving these survivors a clear picture of whether their house was contaminated, or safe for their kids, parents, and loved ones to occupy. We in the legislature were dismayed to find out that the State, having endured many urban wildfires, didn’t have a science-based standard for determining whether a house was safe for occupancy after a wildfire. So we very quickly tried to figure out what we could do, and we thought the simplest thing to do was AB 1642: set a basic, objective standard, based on scientific data, for whether a house is safe to occupy, and actually establish what an insurance company would have to do to test. What we saw after the fires was a lot of insurance companies saying, “We tested; it’s fine.” Folks then would move back in, do their own testing with their own professionals, and learn their home was clearly not safe—lead and asbestos levels five, 10, 50 times what any human being could safely live with. And that testing typically did not even include the other contaminants that we find in these urban wildfires because of household cleaning products, car batteries, etc. Fast-forward to the governor signing AB 1642 and finally setting these safety testing standards. No state in the nation has done this. The federal government hasn’t done it. ***What this legislation will ensure now is that after the next California wildfire, wherever that is, no family will ever have to guess whether their house is safe when they move back in.*** They will know both objectively, based on the testing, the remediation needed - and that insurance companies will now have to follow under AB 1642 and its partner bill, [AB 1795](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F202520260ab1795?ref=ivn.us). So, it’s a big win for fire survivors and future fire survivors, and hopefully it brings some semblance of normalcy and finality to the thousands of families who are still in litigation with their insurance companies over this exact issue. **John, signing into State Law your legislation is a noteworthy accomplishment. But as you have often noted - clearly the intended results depend on DTSC and CalEPA writing the necessary rules and regulations to implement** [**AB 1795**](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F202520260ab1795?ref=ivn.us)**. Address the next steps.** John Harabedian: That next step is incredibly important. Most people think that when the bill is signed, you should pop the champagne because you did it. In reality, another fight starts right after the bill is signed: implementing the rules, coming up with the regulations, and making sure the agency in charge is carrying out that process in a way that adheres to the intent of the bill. So over the next year—two years, really—we will be working with DTSC and [CalEPA](https://calepa.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) to implement this very quickly, but also correctly. We have seen it time and time again, and you have seen it: Bills will be passed, and then they will effectively be vetoed by the administration through the rulemaking and regulatory process, where either the agency in charge sits on it and just doesn’t implement it, or implements it in a way that actually doesn’t do anything. As the assemblymember behind the bill, I’m going to take an active role to make sure that doesn’t happen here. I am very honest with people: Until the interim rules are established for lead and asbestos, until the final standards for lead and asbestos are set a year later, and until we have the larger list of contaminants included two years down the road, we are still working on this bill. **And regarding implementation of this legislation, how will who’s elected in November as Governor, Insurance Commissioner, etc. impact the ultimate rules and regulations adopted?** John Harabedian: Sadly, I think it matters a lot who is elected, who’s in charge of the executive branch, and who’s in charge of the Department of Insurance. That’s where policy and politics intertwine, and that’s why these upcoming elections are very important. **Pivoting to a less successful Bill -** [**SB 492**](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F202520260sb492?ref=ivn.us)**, elaborate on the failure of this wildfire liability legislation to pass and the Wildfire Fund framework to be reformed —and both on how you chose to vote, and the possibility of reform next session.** John Harabedian: Roughly six weeks out, maybe even less, from the end of session, the Governor and his team came to the Legislature, both the Senate and the Assembly, and effectively commanded that we do something to reform the system that led to the most recent wildfires and the wildfires before them, as well as the process that follows a wildfire: the Wildfire Fund, liability, etc. He rolled out a term sheet, if you will, of points he wanted the Legislature to address. In doing so, he effectively got every single interest group—survivors, insurance companies, and the utilities—upset and against the plan he put forward, because it was not a fully baked plan. It was going to hurt survivors. It was going to very much hurt insurance companies. It wasn’t necessarily going to hurt the investor-owned utilities, but they didn’t love it either. At first blush, looking at what the governor and his staff wanted in a bill, it looked like a utility bailout. It was going to cap damages for survivors. It was going to make it harder for them to hire attorneys. It was going to make it hard for insurance companies to subrogate, or get their money back, from the Wildfire Fund. And it didn’t have a whole lot of reform for the IOUs. Fast-forward to the bill that came forward and what the Assembly did. The bill really didn’t do anything to materially change the status quo. I give the governor a lot of credit for wanting to do something this big, even at this late stage in his gubernatorial career and potentially on the cusp of a presidential run. I agreed with him—many of us agreed with him—that the status quo is broken. We need to change the way we deliver energy. We need to make it safer. We need to make it easier for a lot of this fire-prevention work to get done. And we need more accountability for IOUs when a fire happens. SB 492 did none of that. In actuality, it didn’t change the status quo whatsoever. The few supposed wins, or changes, in there were actually flawed. There was a fast-track system for survivors, for example, that actually made it harder for them to access justice through the courts. The lesson learned there is: This is what happens when you try to quickly solve a problem in three to four weeks that has been brewing for decades. The final product just didn’t do enough to change the status quo when it comes to the IOUs. We have to have way more conversations and policy discussions about whether the IOUs, as they currently exist, deserve to exist going forward, and whether that’s the best way to deliver our energy as safely as possible. Beyond that, should the current insurance-industry dynamics persist? Subrogation is a huge issue. It’s very costly. Should insurance companies be able to subrogate against a Wildfire Fund that is paid for, for the most part, by ratepayers? And lastly, are survivors on the best footing after they endure such a tragedy? Across the board, the answer is that we have fallen short on every single one of those measures. Reform—a bill that actually addresses this—needs to hold all those parties accountable and bring some actual change. SB 492 didn’t. So, the Assembly, after caucusing and having many discussions, decided the best thing to do was stay at the table—not make some proclamation of “mission accomplished,” à la George W. Bush with the Iraq War, and then pretend the work had been done. The work has not been done. We need to stay at the table. We need to continue to talk about this. And I think you’re going to see some big things in this next session that actually address many of these issues. [**Last June, in The Planning Report**](https://www.planningreport.com/2025/06/25/insurance-infill-infrastructure-asm-john-harabedian-s-agenda-resilient-rebuild?ref=ivn.us) **you opined that undergrounding transmission should be the state’s top priority, even at a multibillion-dollar cost. Since then, and after SB 492 failed, you have rethought your position on undergrounding, and also asserted that** [ **SCE hasn’t spent a dime investing in Altadena**](https://harabedian.asmdc.org/press-releases/20260901-half-baked-wildfire-fund-proposal-stalls-state-legislature-asm-harabedian?ref=ivn.us)**. Speak to all three… and your policy views today.** John Harabedian: It’s offensive to me that Southern California Edison, even after being found responsible —there’s no debate now that the fire came from their equipment. There’s still going to be a legal debate over certain aspects of causation under strict liability and all that. But it’s astonishing to me that now, 20 months after the fire here in Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre—with Edison having started it—we still haven’t seen a material investment by Edison back into the rebuilding of our community. You’ve seen them pay out individuals. You’ve seen them go through the court process, where they’re vigorously challenging their own liability and now countersuing local government agencies. They haven’t put $1 into rebuilding the streets of Altadena, rebuilding the infrastructure they burned down, rebuilding the parks. Not a single penny. And they are doing that on the heels of paying out $1.3 billion to their investors in December of last year and giving their executives pay raises in the form of bonuses, increased base compensation, and stock incentives. I find that to be a failure of the system. Shame on them for doing it, but shame on us for allowing that to happen after this type of catastrophic wildfire occurs. Going back to my view of undergrounding and what we need to do to ensure that Altadena and the surrounding areas don’t burn again: You learn a lot after these fires. Right after the fires, there was a call from a lot of people, including most Altadena residents: “We’re not going to move back into Altadena unless you underground all the distribution lines.” Although it was a transmission line that caused the fire, they didn’t want to be subjected to future fire risk, and they felt Edison should be paying for the undergrounding. The reality is, ratepayers pay for undergrounding. And the reality is that undergrounding, in many ways, is not needed. The more you learn about this—and that includes me—the more you see that you can insulate power lines above ground, which eliminates about 95 percent of the fire risk. Undergrounding ostensibly eliminates 99 or 100 percent of the fire risk, but you can insulate aboveground lines for a fraction of the cost and really take care of the fire risk. So, I am now of the mindset that undergrounding, in many ways, is not necessarily the pathway forward, because, one, it’s going to cost us a hell of a lot more. Ratepayers are going to be stuck with huge bills in exchange for maybe a fraction more wildfire safety than they could get by insulating the lines. And what that means is that the IOUs are going to make a ton of money off undergrounding. Frankly, what you’ve seen, David—and this is a longer conversation—is that building out transmission has been the biggest source of profits for IOUs, because we give them cost-plus. We give them a return on equity on whatever they build; the PUC effectively gives them a mandated rate of return. As transmission building has slowed, where we’ve seen most of the profits, most of the costs, and most of the rate increases is in distribution—the poles and the wires in our communities. They have a monopoly on that, to the point where they can do pretty much whatever they want and spend as much as they want, and we have to give them that cost-plus. Undergrounding increases that cost in such an extravagant way that I think, in the long run, it’s not what we should be doing. It’s a good example of being in the job, learning about the substantive policy area, listening to people who probably know more than you do, and changing your mind. **Pivoting to Virtual power plant deployment: The governor vetoed a bill——**[**AB 740**](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F202520260ab740?ref=ivn.us)**, last October, finding it didn’t fit the CPUC’s resource planning process. Is there State support for incenting distributed energy resources - for virtual power plant deployment?** John Harabedian: Distributed energy resources, generally, are anything from an electric vehicle you plug into your house, to a smart thermostat, to a battery in your house. All of those are resources we call DERs—distributed energy resources—that can be used to actually power the grid and meet our resource adequacy, the amount of energy we need on the system to power our lives. And we don’t utilize that in a real or thoughtful way. Virtual power plants would really just institutionalize a structure to not only get that energy onto the grid so that we can utilize it—it’s already there—but also reduce the amount of transmission, distribution, and other generation that we have to build at great cost, and make the system more efficient and cheaper for everyone. That’s what the virtual power plant bill, AB 740, was trying to do: effectively utilize the clean energy that’s already there, so that over the long run we can stop spending unnecessarily on infrastructure we don’t need. The governor vetoed it, even though he had called for more effective measures to lower ratepayers’ costs—this would have done that—and to bring more clean energy onto the grid, or harness that clean energy. This would have done that, too. The reality is that the IOUs hate virtual power plants. They hate distributed energy resources, because the more we utilize them to meet demand, the less they need to build—and the less they build, the less profit they make. Again, they make profit off building things, whether it’s transmission, distribution, or generation. They do very little generation now relative to what they used to do; they’re basically transmission and distribution companies now. They don’t want to build less. Their workers don’t want to build less. They want more projects in the pipeline, and they want to build, build, build. We, as policymakers, don’t disagree that we still have to build things. The grid is not where it needs to be to support 100 percent electrification, which we’re supposed to reach by 2045\. However, there’s a lot of electricity on the grid in the form of DERs that could be harnessed by virtual power plants, and we are not harnessing it in an effective way. My bill and a few other bills would have done that. He vetoed all of them. With the next governor, hopefully we see less industry capture and more vision about what the next generation of clean energy looks like. I think it’s going to be you, me—residents who have a lot of clean energy resources at their fingertips in their houses—actually being a bigger part of the grid. **The California Legislature this last session attempted to address the concerns of: fire survivors, homeowners, as well as insurers. Your constituents surely understand both how underinsured most are and how many are struggling with post fire mortgage payments. Insurers are threatening to leave California. Share how, with your leadership, the Legislature is addressing all these pressing & related concerns.** John Harabedian: I think every homeowner in California is now underinsured—objectively underinsured—because the cost of rebuilding homes has gone up at a pace that the replacement levels in most insurance policies haven’t kept up with. Most homeowners probably know that, but most don’t really care, because “I’m not going to lose my house. I’m not going to see a flood or a fire or an earthquake take it out.” Probably nine out of 10 people have that view. These latest wildfires have made people really rethink that. Now that we’re seeing a California where there’s no such thing as a fire season—it’s going to happen pretty much throughout the year, and it can happen anywhere—people are really focused on how much replacement value they have for their home. And I think people are pissed that they’re underinsured. People are upset: “Why didn’t the insurance company tell me that I was underinsured?” We tried to come up with a bill that would have solved for that, and we realized it’s very hard to solve for. You can come up with a bill that says the insurance company has to give you notice that you’re, quote-unquote, underinsured. Well, who’s going to determine that? What is full insurance? What is technically underinsurance? Who’s going to make that financial determination? That’s one question—and you could solve for that. Second, what are you going to do? Put a piece of paper in the stack of paper that a policyholder gets anyway, that just says, “You’re underinsured by this much”? Does that really solve anything? And third, to the extent that people did know they were underinsured, are they willing to pay for more? People can’t afford their insurance as it is. So, if you solve for determining whether people are underinsured and giving proper notice, do people even really want to spend more? We haven’t come up with a solution on that yet, but we’re going to continue to look at it, because we do think this underinsurance problem is a real problem. It’s why we passed the mortgage forbearance laws: People are running out of money. The recovery has really brought people to a place of financial despair. You see most survivors now running out of all their savings, taking out loans, and putting the expenses of rebuilding their homes on credit cards. The state has no money to just give them directly; we don’t have billions of dollars for grants and free money. The federal government has held back the billions of dollars from FEMA that we need. So the easiest way of keeping people financially secure is keeping money in their pockets. The whole idea behind mortgage forbearance is that you get to delay your mortgage payment for a year—now up to two years. The money you keep in your pocket by not spending it on your mortgage, you’re going to have to pay back in the future. But use that money right now to meet the need of rebuilding your life, because there’s a gap to bridge: You are underinsured. The insurance isn’t enough. While you might be able to build a sufficient home with the insurance proceeds, you’re going to need a little bit more to do whatever it is you need to do. So the mortgage forbearance bills really do try to address the underinsurance issue, which is persisting, and they do it in a counterintuitive way: Just keep money in people’s pockets instead of giving them a check that doesn’t exist. **You proposed a state-led disaster housing task force to quarterback recovery, and a financing tool to help community groups buy burn lots in Altadena. Elaborate.** John Harabedian: I think it’s really unfortunate that that bill wasn’t signed into law. You still see government agencies—federal, state, and local—not coordinating like they should. There continue to be survivor groups and residents trying to get through the bureaucracy of rebuilding, and whether it’s in the Palisades or here in Altadena, a lot of people don’t know who’s in charge. Government is really bad at talking to itself. You have to institutionalize ways in which government agencies can work with each other efficiently. The task force would have done that, and I think it was a big swing and a miss for the state in showing real leadership on rebuilding. Time and time again, in the face of a catastrophe or disaster, the state has ceded too much power to the federal government. We do that for various reasons. But I think the future, especially under federal administrations like this one, is that the state needs to lead more. Creating this task force would have shown leadership, and we didn’t do it. **Before we conclude: Given the significance of what you’ve addressed here—re the insurance industry, the needs of homeowners and survivors, etc.— to date the State Insurance Commissioner run-off contest reporting seems to be almost nonexistent. One of the candidates capitalizing on voter frustration and anger shouts: “Blow it all up; it doesn’t work.” The fact that if you blew it all up, ratepayers and taxpayers would be the backstop - seems to be unimportant. How then do you & civic leaders generate a more substantive conversation, given the existential importance of truly managing insurance risk?** John Harabedian: You have to be economically rational when it comes to the broken insurance market we see in our state right now. The way you fix a broken market, effectively, is to incentivize more supply—in this case, more companies writing insurance policies that actually work. We don’t have that in California. We have insurance companies that have retreated, which creates less supply of insurance policies and leaves the consumer, the policyholder, in a worse place. Anyone running for insurance commissioner needs to answer one question: How do you make it more attractive and more sustainable for insurance companies to insure the average California homeowner? Within that question and answer, you need to answer big questions, like: What is the future of home insurance as it applies to wildfire? How much should an insurance company expect to make on an average policy in California? And thirdly, very importantly, how much should an average California homeowner be expected to pay? We don’t have good answers to those. We have the Sustainable Insurance Strategy that the current insurance commissioner rolled out a couple of years ago. It hasn’t really taken effect. But going back to what I led with: This is a market. It’s a regulated market, but how do we get more insurance companies writing fair policies that actually help people? You certainly aren’t going to do that by making it harder on insurance companies. And there is a balance here. Insurance companies need to follow the law. They need to treat their policyholders legally and with respect and humanity. But you also need to make sure there are more insurance companies swimming in the pond, because that’s ultimately going to benefit all of us. The fewer insurance companies you have here, the more abuse and the higher rates you’re going to see, and the less effective the market system. So, I think blowing it up is shortsighted. I don’t think that will work. I do think you need to have a conversation about how the state steps in and takes over for the failed [FAIR Plan](https://www.cfpnet.com/?ref=ivn.us). That is something the insurance commissioner is going to have to do as well. **To close on a more positive note…. At the end of the legislative session, the budget that was signed by the Governor includes a number of grants to arts and cultural institutions in your district & impacted by the fires. Are there details on the awards that you can share?** John Harabedian: We’re very excited about some of the budget wins we were able to secure with the help of our speaker, Robert Rivas, and the budget chair, Jesse Gabriel. One of the allocations we’re most proud to have fought for was a material amount of money for the Sierra Madre Playhouse.That money will go toward sustaining arts and culture in the district, restoring a historic building, and ensuring that our kids, and the community at large, will be able to continue to enjoy a cultural asset that has been underinvested in for decades.The Sierra Madre Playhouse used to have a capacity of nearly 1,000 seats. It now has roughly 80 seats. It was a playhouse that used to put on a new production every month. Now it’s a performing arts center that does a lot more than just theater, and it has really evolved thanks to the leadership of David Gordon. The money the state was able to unlock for this historic asset will hopefully make sure the Sierra Madre Playhouse really thrives over the next few decades. ### The Election Referee Is Missing—and the Money Is Pouring In URL: https://ivn.us/the-election-referee-is-missing-and-the-money-is-pouring-in/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T13:42:56.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** — Two weeks left in the 2026 midterm elections. Billions of dollars are flowing through campaigns, parties, and political committees. However, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the rules that govern all of this money is effectively powerless. For nearly 18 months, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has lacked the minimum number of commissioners required to investigate alleged election and campaign law violations, including campaign finance. It also cannot issue penalties or adopt new regulations—and this won’t change before Election Day. According to[ ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/10/17/us-campaign-finance-watchdog-is-sitting-out-midterms-heres-what-that-means/?ref=ivn.us)[The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/10/17/us-campaign-finance-watchdog-is-sitting-out-midterms-heres-what-that-means/?ref=ivn.us), the agency's report backlog of potential violations has grown from 21 before the shutdown to 157\. Meanwhile, the FEC collected $0 in civil penalties during FY2026. In the last fiscal year, it collected over a million dollars. All of this begs the question: What is the point of an enforcement agency if it has been designed in such a way that it can't perform its most important functions? ## **IVN Warned This Was Coming** These problems aren’t new. In May 2025, IVN published [an extensive breakdown of how the FEC works](https://ivn.us/partisan-gridlock-and-fec-50-years-increasing-paralysis-2025-05-19/), its bipartisan structure, and how that very structure had increasingly become a liability even when it had all the commissioners it needed for its enforcement duties. The FEC was established following Watergate with six commissioners, no more than three from the same political party. The idea was to prevent either party from weaponizing campaign finance enforcement against the other. However, partisan disagreements (particularly over the last two decades) increasingly produced deadlocks that prevented investigations from moving forward. So, instead of weaponizing the agency, both parties rendered it useless. As noted in IVN’s previous reporting, a 2021 Campaign Legal Center analysis found that commissioners deadlocked on approximately 40% of substantive enforcement votes between 2017 and 2020. Then the situation got worse: - Republican Commissioner Sean Cooksey departed the agency in January 2025. - President Donald Trump removed Democratic Chair Ellen Weintraub in February 2025, a move Weintraub contested as illegal. - Republican Allen Dickerson's departure at the end of April brought the commission below the four-member quorum needed for major decisions. - THEN, another Republican, Trey Trainor, departed in October 2025, leaving just two Democratic commissioners: Shana Broussard and Dara Lindenbaum. In February 2026, Trump nominated Republicans Ashley Stow and Andrew Woodson to fill two vacancies. IVN[ ](https://ivn.us/no-referee-in-the-midterms-trumps-fec-nominations-come-after-10-months-of-zero-federal-oversight-2026-03-02/)[reported in March](https://ivn.us/no-referee-in-the-midterms-trumps-fec-nominations-come-after-10-months-of-zero-federal-oversight-2026-03-02/) that even confirming both nominees would leave the commission vulnerable to partisan deadlocks. More than seven months later, neither nominee has been confirmed. ## **Complaints Are Piling Up. Enforcement Isn't.** The FEC has not completely shut its doors. Staff continue to collect and publish campaign finance disclosures, provide general information about existing rules, and receive complaints. Here’s the thing: Determining whether an illegal contribution occurred, or money was improperly routed, or a PAC violated coordination restrictions requires investigative powers that FEC staff cannot exercise independently. As a result, the commission’s entire enforcement caseload (not just pending reports as mentioned above) doubled over a year, according to an [October 7 CBS News investigation](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fec-midterm-elections-quorum-campaign-finance-rules/?ref=ivn.us). The number of cases went from 154 to 307. The report also revealed that when lawmakers requested help addressing AI-generated election misinformation, Commissioner Broussard explained that the agency could not proceed without a quorum. Even candidates attempting to comply with the law can be left without answers. Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna sought guidance on whether campaign funds could cover childcare expenses while she performed congressional duties. The FEC could not issue a formal advisory opinion. The problem isn't simply that potential violators can get away with their crimes. Candidates trying to follow the rules cannot always get definitive guidance on what those rules permit. ## **The Money Keeps Moving** The enforcement vacuum comes as increasingly sophisticated political organizations channel large sums of cash into federal elections. Consider the rapidly expanding role of AI companies and investors.[Wired reported on October 13](https://www.wired.com/story/the-biggest-pro-ai-super-pac-network-has-poured-millions-into-nevada-shell-companies?ref=ivn.us) that the pro-AI political network Leading the Future has poured more than $140 million into the 2026 elections. Campaign Legal Center filed an FEC complaint in May alleging potential violations of disclosure requirements involving companies connected to the network.But, without the needed quorum, the FEC cannot do anything with the allegations. And the existence of a complaint by itself does not establish wrongdoing. This is not a problem isolated to a single party. In one dispute, Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic-aligned organization, accused the National Republican Senatorial Committee of improperly using funds from specialized party accounts for campaign advertisements. The FEC could not act on the complaint, and a federal judge[ ](https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/smp-v-fec-26-336/?ref=ivn.us)[dismissed the resulting lawsuit in September](https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/smp-v-fec-26-336/?ref=ivn.us), finding that a court order could not provide meaningful relief while the agency lacked the votes required to proceed. Campaign finance watchdogs have also filed allegations involving Trump and his political allies, In August, Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley [filed an FEC complaint](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uplzCZUVFri8yw3n51x6Z6CBWrP0Vl%5FG/view?ref=ivn.us) against California Democratic congressional candidate Aisha Wahab and the Alameda County Democratic Party. He accused them of improperly routing $60,000 from Wahab's campaign account to the party. All of these allegations are different, but they share a common problem: Without a functioning enforcement process, who is going to look into the complaints? And how long will they go unresolved? ## **A Broken Agency by Design?** There is a deeper issue in this story. Getting four commissioners to ensure the FEC has the quorum it needs only addresses one part of the agency’s dysfunction. Even if there are two Democrats and two Republicans, the partisan divide may still get in the way. When party loyalty is put ahead of independent enforcement, it compromises the fundamental purpose of the institution at a time when most Americans—Republicans, Democrats, and independents—do not trust the massive amount of money they see flooding elections. [New Poll: Young Americans Think Democracy Is for Sale. And They're Tired of Playing AlongNew polling shows 83% of young Americans believe money in politics is a major problem, and 43% say it discourages them from voting altogether.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-8ef09ad7-4649-4645-93ba-82374bd1efdc.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-aa5aea65-6079-4561-a631-d47c09698e91-4127c8ed-2eba-4375-aca0-936cb918f1b8.jpg)](https://ivn.us/new-poll-young-americans-think-democracy-is-for-sale-and-theyre-tired-of-playing-along/) IVN previously examined proposed structural reforms, including reducing the commission to five members to prevent tie votes, giving an independent enforcement director greater authority to investigate complaints, and requiring more timely appointments. Critics of aggressive enforcement, meanwhile, argue that strong bipartisan safeguards are necessary to prevent campaign finance regulation from becoming a weapon against political opponents and political speech. Regardless, one thing is clear. The present arrangement has created something fundamentally different from bipartisan oversight: an agency that cannot exercise its most important powers at all. The FEC was sold to the public as a way to ensure elections had an independent referee capable of holding political actors accountable, regardless of party. Today, the rules still exist. Campaigns must still file disclosures. Complaints can still be submitted. But the referee cannot flag rule violations when they happen or penalize those that break election rules. ### Bill Hill Raised $1.17 Million. The Fight Is Over Where the Money Comes From URL: https://ivn.us/bill-hill-raised-1-17-million-the-fight-is-over-where-the-money-comes-from/ Last updated: 2026-10-20T13:52:55.000Z Q3 FEC fundraising reports were due Thursday, so we’ll see totals reported in the news and details of those reports trickling out over the next few days. Come back early next week for a full independent breakdown on IVN. Between the independents running this cycle, Bill Hill’s congressional campaign was one of the first to put out a release, suggesting a strong showing. The campaign says it raised $1.17 million from July through September. That is roughly as much as the independent raised in the whole first half of the year, when he was still[ ](https://thealaskacurrent.com/2026/10/07/bill-hill-alaska-at-large/?ref=ivn.us)[splitting the anti-Begich vote with a Democrat](https://thealaskacurrent.com/2026/10/07/bill-hill-alaska-at-large/?ref=ivn.us). The figures were shared early with the Alaska Current ahead of the October 15 FEC deadline. The campaign said the total came from more than 2,500 individual Alaskans. And in its release Wednesday, it said those donors came from 96 communities. “I’m proud to have support from communities across Alaska from Kotzebue to Ketchikan to King Salmon to Kenai,” Hill said in the release. The number matters. So does the line about the source. For Hill and every other well-funded independent this cycle, the money story has become an identity story. Republicans are no longer arguing mainly about how much these candidates raise. They are arguing about what the money reveals: which platform processed it, which party endorsed the candidate, and which super PACs are spending alongside the campaign. ## **The ActBlue Fight** No fundraising detail has drawn more attacks than ActBlue, the online platform that processes most Democratic small-dollar contributions. ActBlue loosened its rules in 2025\. Under the change, it reviews independent candidates case by case, weighing factors such as whether a Democrat is in the race, whether the candidate has a Democratic Party endorsement, and whether the candidate aligns with Democratic priorities. Republicans have turned the platform into a line of attack in every race: - **Alaska:** Hill’s[ donation page](https://billhillforalaskans.com/?ref=ivn.us) offers ActBlue alongside Anedot. - **Nebraska:** Ricketts’ campaign manager[ said](https://ruralradio.com/kmor/news/osborn-ricketts-campaigns-tout-fundraising-totals-in-u-s-senate-race/?ref=ivn.us) 72% of Osborn’s second-quarter contributions came through ActBlue and more than 83% of his itemized donations came from out of state. - **Montana:** Republican Kurt Alme[ demanded that Bodnar refund](https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/08/25/exclusive-kurt-alme-montanas-democrat-in-disguise-seth-bodnar-runs-on-liberal-actblue-cash-should-refund-1-76m/?ref=ivn.us) the $1.76 million his campaign has raised through ActBlue, which is roughly half of his total. - **Wisconsin:** Mike Thurow’s[ site](https://www.thurowforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us) gives donors two buttons: ActBlue and Numero. The platform is a target in its own right. GOP-led investigations and threats from the Trump administration have pushed some Democratic candidates to[ ](https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/13/politics/actblue-democrats-fundraising-midterms?ref=ivn.us)[line up backup fundraising tools](https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/13/politics/actblue-democrats-fundraising-midterms?ref=ivn.us). ## **Hill: The Rest of the Case** Outside of donation sources and fundraising platform, the Republican case against Hill (and other independents) starts with endorsements. The Alaska Democratic Party endorsed Hill the day after the primary results were finalized. The DCCC then[ added him to its “Red to Blue” program](https://rollcall.com/2026/09/15/dccc-adds-three-more-candidates-to-red-to-blue-program/?ref=ivn.us); the Alaska GOP chair responded by calling him a “Democrat in the witness protection program.” House Majority PAC, the super PAC allied with the DCCC, announced TV and digital ads in Alaska supporting Hill. Next comes the polling. The survey Hill’s campaign circulated before the primary, showing him within four points of Begich, was conducted by GBAO, a Democratic-aligned firm. Tavern Research, a Democratic firm, has also released surveys promoting Hill without disclosing who paid for them. Then the staff and the personal record. Hill’s campaign is run by the Ship Creek Group, a firm known for electing left-leaning candidates, and he collected endorsements from unions and prominent progressives. Federal records also show modest past donations to Democrats. None of it was a straight line. When Democrat Matt Schultz dropped out in July, he[ complained](https://alaskapublic.org/news/politics/2026-07-17/matt-schultz-suspends-his-campaign-for-u-s-house-endorses-bill-hill?ref=ivn.us) that too many institutions in the party’s orbit had declined to meaningfully back his campaign. Hill’s answer to the DCCC news was that he[ welcomes support](https://www.adn.com/politics/2026/09/18/national-democratic-group-throws-weight-behind-bill-hill-amid-growing-attention-on-alaskas-us-house-race/?ref=ivn.us) “from anyone in any party” who wants better representation for Alaska. When asked which caucus he would join earlier in the race, he[ said](https://alaskawatchman.com/2026/09/16/d-c-dems-target-alaska-championing-bill-hill-as-key-to-flipping-congress/?ref=ivn.us) he is “caucusing with the Alaska people.” ## **What Does an Independent Coalition Look Like in a World of Two-Party Dominance?** For decades, independent campaigns had one thing in common: they had no infrastructure. That has changed. Hill’s quarter, Bodnar’s string of fundraising leads, and Osborn’s donor counts all show that an independent label no longer means running without donors, consultants, or super PAC backup. Infrastructure doesn’t come from nowhere, though. The donor networks, consultants, pollsters, and digital fundraising tools that a statewide campaign needs mostly exist inside the two parties’ orbits. An independent who wants to compete has to borrow from somewhere. Right now, most of what’s available to these four candidates sits on the Democratic side. The coalition math points the same way. An independent’s pitch comes down to this: the current representation isn’t working and needs to change. In Alaska, Nebraska, Montana, and Wisconsin’s 6th District, the people holding those seats are Republicans. The voters who elected them should be the least interested in replacing them. So, an independent running against a Republican incumbent will naturally draw heavily from Democrats, then add whatever independents and disaffected Republicans they can win over. Flip the map, and the pattern flips with it. In California, Democrats hold power and redrew the congressional lines. There, Rep. Kevin Kiley[ ](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/)[left the Republican Party in March](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) and is running with no party preference in a new district that leans Democratic. His coalition has to come from Republicans and independents unhappy with Democratic rule. He also faces his own version of the identity question: he still caucuses with House Republicans so he can keep his committee assignments. Seen side by side, the “fake independent” charge says less about any one candidate than about where independents currently have to go for money and votes. That doesn’t make the critique irrelevant. An independent elected on one party’s infrastructure and one party’s voters will face steady pressure to vote like that party. What comes next depends on two things. First, does this cycle inspire more independents to run in more places, against Democratic incumbents as well as Republican ones, with coalitions that don’t all lean in the same direction? Second, does independent infrastructure mature enough to support coalitions built from different groups rather than borrowed from one side of the aisle? If both happen, the independent movement could change the country’s political fortunes. If not, it risks being absorbed by a major party, reduced to a rebranding strategy for red-state Democrats and blue-state Republicans, and rendered toothless. The first independent or independents to run, and how they react to the enticements of power from the major parties, will certainly play a large role in determining which direction the wind blows. ### Senator Lisa Boscola Trashes Closed Primaries on Pennsylvania Senate Floor URL: https://ivn.us/senator-lisa-boscola-trashes-closed-primaries-on-pennsylvania-senate-floor/ Last updated: 2026-10-20T13:29:25.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* The [Pennsylvania House has passed open primaries legislation](https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2026/09/pennsylvania-state-house-passes-open-primaries-bill-harrisburg-elections/?ref=ivn.us). Now the pressure is on the Senate to act—and Senator Lisa Boscola is making sure independent voters are heard. After years of fighting for reform, Boscola took to the Senate floor to demand action on Senate Bill 400, her legislation to give Pennsylvania’s nearly 1.5 million independent voters a voice in primary elections. “Independent voters deserve a voice. They deserve a choice. And they deserve action,” Boscola declared. Her message to her colleagues was unmistakable: the time for waiting is o11ver. With bipartisan momentum building in Harrisburg and the House already on record, the Senate has a clear opportunity to move Pennsylvania closer to elections that include every voter. **Watch Senator Boscola’s floor speech** and hear her call for action: **Want to help get open primaries across the finish line in Pennsylvania?** [Email Cathy Stewart](mailto:cstewart@openprimaries.org), Open Primaries’ National Organizing Director, to find out how you can get involved and help build the pressure on the Senate to act. ## **NYC Independents Take to the Streets** **ICYMI** — The NYC [Open Primaries](https://newyorkopenprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us) team hit the streets at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Antic, the borough’s largest and oldest street festival. Hundreds of New Yorkers signed an open letter urging Mayor Mamdani to meet with independent voters from across the city. Hear directly from the streets of Brooklyn. Ed Brady: Max Bissonnette: Yvonne Murray: ## **What We're Talking About** ## Independents Will Decide The Midterms. So Why Are They Shut Out? With control of Congress and the direction of the country at stake, independent voters are emerging as the kingmakers of the 2026 midterms. In appearances on [Forbes Newsroom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc%5FJYFUb%5FGE&ref=ivn.us), [C-Span](https://www.c-span.org/program/washington-journal/john-opdycke-on-the-role-of-independent-voters-in-the-2026-midterm-elections/686323?ref=ivn.us), and [NewsNation](https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/independent-voters-midterm-election-republicans-democrats/?ref=ivn.us), Open Primaries President John Opdycke discussed the extraordinary power independents hold. A new [*Los Angeles Times* report](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-10-11/midterms-state-of-play?ref=ivn.us) featuring Open Primaries Senior Vice President Jeremy Gruber and Independent Voter Project legal strategist Chad Peace drives the point home: independents have the power to decide elections, but too often have no say in choosing the candidates. **A record 45% of American adults identify as independents**, and candidates across the country are competing for their votes. As the LA Times highlights, **“Independent voters are going to be deciding this election in every respect, and they want less partisan mudslinging and a genuine effort to engage and persuade them.”** [Independent Voters Decide Elections. What Do They Get in Return?Independent voters have become a decisive force at the ballot box. The next question is whether that influence can translate into lasting political power.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-5ad2c9ad-fb3e-4e71-a30e-d3525f8a3de2.png)Independent Voter NewsJohn Opdycke![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/2026-midterm-results-f665858e-5248-4f0e-9071-eacbaab9ccd1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/independent-voters-decide-elections-what-do-they-get-in-return/) Here’s the contradiction at the heart of American politics: independents can help determine the country’s political future in November, yet in many states they’re shut out of the taxpayer-funded primaries that determine which candidates make it to the ballot. Candidates know they need independent voters. It’s time our election systems caught up. **Watch John Opdycke on *Forbes Newsroom* (below) and on** [**C-Span**](https://www.c-span.org/program/washington-journal/john-opdycke-on-the-role-of-independent-voters-in-the-2026-midterm-elections/686323?ref=ivn.us) **and** [**NewsNation**](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=WzKNhJt7osOoy2qtE6JaKxIgcYGhgGW9Tc7jNt-S9hx79bFVQtFkKE7h0ReciUMCAMFb7AhcXAzpA8AgJY2HMRqgvEMmUC1UrEHy%5FoMxTaVwmaF2P1vmWu8xrIxcpukCX97zkLdVoIZRMZiBlfzrrg&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F132&n=15) **at these links and read the full** [***Los Angeles Times* article**](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-10-11/midterms-state-of-play?ref=ivn.us)**.** ## **Did You Know?** ## That Oprah Is an Independent Watch her explain why she’s joined millions of Americans who have declared their independence. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/LetUsVote--2--2.png) ## **Reaching Massachusetts Independent Voters** **Joyce Dattner is a longtime independent voter and activist in Berkshire County** who has been active in the Massachusetts Question 3 campaign, gathering signatures and hosting a house party with Mary Lou Burdick in August. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/The-Berkshire-Eagle.png) This week, Joyce [penned a Letter to the Editor](https://www.berkshireeagle.com/opinion-letters/letter-an-independent-view-of-question-3/5029494?ref=ivn.us) in the *Berkshire Eagle* with a specific goal: reaching independent voters, who make up the majority of Massachusetts voters but [**many of whom still don’t know what Question 3 would mean for them.**](https://yeson3ma.org/?ref=ivn.us) The measure would create an all-party primary where every voter receives the same ballot and the top two candidates advance to the general election. Currently, independents must choose a party’s ballot to participate in a primary. As she concludes: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/joyce-dartner.png) Check out her video message: > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd4ad2QAaTR/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Vote YES on 3: All-Party Primaries (@voteyeson3ma)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd4ad2QAaTR/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) [Massachusetts Could End Party Primaries. Here’s What Question 3 Would Actually DoMassachusetts voters could eliminate party primaries and replace them with an open primary allowing all voters to choose any candidate on a single ballot. Here's what Question 3 would actually change.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-2be5e4e0-c253-4e80-806b-ce182e2d925b.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-7885c641-d58e-4a6d-aae3-0994847372d8-3924a784-a7f4-44d3-9be4-18a338567053.jpg)](https://ivn.us/massachusetts-could-end-party-primaries-heres-what-question-3-would-actually-do/) ## Midterm, Media, And Independents **A Message from Cathy Stewart** As we approach the midterms, the media is recognizing that independent voters could determine control of Congress and the outcome of November’s elections. My phone and inbox are filled with frantic requests: Can you find us an undecided independent in Iowa? A Gen Z independent for a 6:30 a.m. interview? You get the picture! Part of the frenzy is that the media spends virtually no time talking to independents between elections. But I love connecting our network with the press and putting independent voices on the airwaves. We have a lot to say about the lack of voting rights in 14 states and candidates who aren’t reaching out or listening. Sandi Hebley of Texas recently shared her take on AI campaign ads in an [interview with NewsNation:](https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/2026-midterm-elections/real-voters-reveal-what-could-decide-2026-midterms/?ref=ivn.us) *“I’d rather hear from the actual people than something that some committee somewhere made up.”* If you’re on our Spokesperson Committee, watch for a call or email—probably on short notice! Want to join my shortlist of interviewees? Email [cstewart@openprimaries.org](mailto:cstewart@openprimaries.org) . Gwen Mandell and I are also growing our network of independent spokespeople. Want to tell your story? Apply for our[ next Spokesperson Training Program here](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=H2qaeere9G304SzRr2TMbUX39KdgidU898ndmr9F6EYdmMHtn63uhFSzKCodWqiz4DaHGf7GEuwYluzKy5bFKJulVnf9TUSabTkI73t5B77FY1esTWS2pcPY7jl9mbZGlbxC6wFwGcCk26l%5FJjvtMg&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F132&n=24). ## **Breaking News** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/montana-bodnar-endorsement.png) **In a stunning break with party politics, Montana Democratic Party Chair Shannon O’Brien is resigning to endorse independent Senate candidate Seth Bodnar.** [In a powerful new op-ed for MS NOW](https://www.ms.now/opinion/montana-democrat-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar?ref=ivn.us), O’Brien makes the case that when the future of your state is at stake, party loyalty shouldn’t matter more than the values you stand for. O’Brien joins prominent Montana Democrats, including former Gov. Steve Bullock and former Sen. Jon Tester, in backing Bodnar. Her decision underscores a growing challenge to politics as usual: **voters shouldn’t have to choose between their values and a party label.** [Read O’Brien’s op-ed](https://www.ms.now/opinion/montana-democrat-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar?ref=ivn.us) to see why she’s making this stand—and what it says about the growing role of independent candidates AND voters in American politics. ## **What We're Reading** ## Millions of Americans Say They Were Locked Out of the Primaries ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/let-us-vote-signs-1.png) A [new survey analysis published by *RealClearPolitics*](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=RmhEIi%5FP271f6DCckpAwj9kMmdQmbmctewW3HTn4yPJCAfdrHB0yT0V-Lbjm7G7JPqFJ-I1KkcvKhPi2fcVaQdBx1%5FqmdN8w9sBOghuCJO1djrjS6vrzpfydQ-4A2Hlk%5F%5FFrSLhNvsb4JyuGcmzjZA&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F132&n=27) found that **28% of independents who skipped the 2026 primaries said they weren’t eligible to vote**—the most common reason independents gave for sitting out. Even more telling: **70% of voters who said they were ineligible support open primaries**. The message is clear: millions of Americans want a voice in choosing their leaders, but the system is shutting them out. ## **In Case You Missed It** ## Alaska’s Repeal Fight Has One Unmistakable Message: Voters Want Open Primaries The campaign to repeal Alaska's ranked-choice voting and nonpartisan top 4 primaries is doing something quite dishonest. [They are running ads](https://www.adn.com/politics/2026/09/16/pro-repeal-campaign-runs-ads-claiming-repealing-ballot-measure-2-would-bring-back-open-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) saying that overturning Alaska’s nonpartisan system would “bring back the days of open primaries.” Get rid of an open system to bring back…open primaries? [Alaska Ballot Measure 2 Could Kill Open Primaries, Ranked Choice Voting, and Dark Money Rules in One VoteAlaska voters will decide whether to repeal the state's 2020 election reforms, including open primaries, ranked choice voting, and campaign finance disclosure rules that expose dark money sources.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-8abca649-9ad7-456c-a15e-e3a9b6be7f00.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-2f50e085-e5e1-4295-841a-f6aa67d44218-67b88334-6516-47ff-a332-00337d966acf.jpg)](https://ivn.us/alaska-ballot-measure-2-could-kill-open-primaries-ranked-choice-voting-and-dark-money-rules-in-one-vote/) The current system guarantees every voter can participate. Repeal would return Alaska to partisan primaries, where parties can decide whether or not independent voters are allowed to participate. But the dishonesty points to something important: **the repeal campaign knows Alaska voters like open primaries.** They know voters want to participate without first choosing a political party. They have good reason to know it. Independents make up roughly two-thirds of Alaska’s voters. That is the real story: even the campaign fighting to repeal Alaska’s open system understands that independent voters expect—and want—a voice. ### Missouri Voters Could Kill a Gerrymander — And Make It Harder for Politicians to Try Again URL: https://ivn.us/missouri-voters-could-kill-a-gerrymander-and-make-it-harder-for-politicians-to-try-again/ Last updated: 2026-10-15T18:55:44.000Z Missouri voters will soon decide if state lawmakers can move forward with new congressional districts passed mid-decade. But another question on the ballot could determine if they can simply try again if voters reject the map on November 3. The two measures, Proposition A and Amendment 6, deal with separate subjects. One is a referendum on legislative action. The second would strengthen the citizen initiative process in several ways, including enshrining it as a fundamental right in the state constitution. One deals with a congressional map. The other deals with direct democracy. Yet, they have potentially interconnected consequences. Specifically, how voters cast their ballots on each could reshape the future of congressional redistricting in Missouri beyond 2026. ## **Two Ballot Questions, One Fight Over Political Power** As[ ](https://ivn.us/one-election-two-congressional-maps-missouri-voters-caught-in-the-middle/)[IVN previously reported](https://ivn.us/one-election-two-congressional-maps-missouri-voters-caught-in-the-middle/), Missouri's 2026 congressional elections have been complicated by competing maps, legal challenges, and a referendum campaign seeking to overturn a mid-decade redistricting effort. Republican lawmakers approved the new map in September 2025\. The goal was to strengthen their party’s congressional advantage by targeting a Democratic-held district in the Kansas City area. The nonpartisan group People Not Politicians organized a veto referendum. They collected over 300,000 signatures. And now, under Prop. A, a "Yes" vote approves the 2025 map. A "No" vote rejects it, leaving the congressional boundaries enacted in 2022 in place. The measure obviously carries tremendous implications for Missouri’s eight congressional districts. But Amendment 6 adds another layer. According to the[ ](https://www.sos.mo.gov/petitions/2026BallotMeasures?ref=ivn.us)[secretary of state's official ballot summary](https://www.sos.mo.gov/petitions/2026BallotMeasures?ref=ivn.us), Amendment 6 would: - Establish initiative and referendum powers as a fundamental constitutional right, - Prohibit lawmakers from weakening those powers, and - Restrict their authority to alter laws approved directly by voters. It would require at least 80% support in both legislative chambers to send proposed changes to voter-approved laws back to the electorate. What’s more, it would also restrict lawmakers from passing legislation "similar in effect" to measures rejected through a referendum without clearing that same legislative threshold and obtaining voter approval. It’s that provision that becomes consequential if Missourians vote “No” on Prop. A. Specifically, the language “similar in effect” is important. ## **What Happens If Voters Reject the Map AND Approve Amendment 6?** In a[ ](https://missouriindependent.com/2026/09/22/amendment-6-could-make-another-missouri-congressional-gerrymander-much-harder/?ref=ivn.us)[September analysis published by the Missouri Independent](https://missouriindependent.com/2026/09/22/amendment-6-could-make-another-missouri-congressional-gerrymander-much-harder/?ref=ivn.us), election-law scholars explained that rejecting Prop. A while approving Amendment 6 could substantially limit lawmakers' ability to redraw congressional districts again before the 2030 census. The state constitution already establishes a timeline for lawmakers to redraw electoral maps. It is after every census. However, lawmakers relied on the fact that the constitution does not explicitly prohibit mid-decade redistricting when they passed the 2025 map. Here’s the thing: If voters say “No” to Prop A, but “Yes” to Amendment 6, and lawmakers try to push through another new map before 2031, it would likely resemble the 2025 redraw and could be considered legislation "similar in effect" to the defeated plan. Under that interpretation, lawmakers would need approval from at least 80% of both the Missouri House and Senate to not only pass a new map, but they would then have to send it to voters who would have the final say. Republicans have a majority in the state General Assembly. But to send a similar map to voters would require bipartisan support, which is not likely to happen if they target the Kansas City district again. No outcome in this election would prohibit future redistricting. However, it could prevent the majority party from replacing a rejected map through another ordinary legislative vote. It is important to note that this is one legal interpretation. Amendment 6 does not specifically define what “similar in effect” means. Lawmakers could still try to push through another mid-cycle redraw, and make it a matter for the courts to decide what is and isn’t legal. ## **Four Possible Outcomes on November 3** The interaction between Prop. A and Amendment 6 creates four scenarios: **1\. Prop. A passes. Amendment 6 passes.** Voters approve the 2025 congressional map while simultaneously establishing stronger protections for citizen initiatives and referendums. **2\. Prop. A fails. Amendment 6 passes.** Voters reject the 2025 map and strengthen protections against legislative attempts to reverse referendum outcomes. Under the legal interpretation offered above, passing another similar congressional map before the next census could require 80% legislative approval and another statewide vote. (But the keyword is “could.”) **3\. Prop. A passes. Amendment 6 fails.** The 2025 congressional map receives voter approval, but the existing rules governing legislative authority over citizen-approved laws and referendum outcomes remain unchanged. **4\. Both measures fail.** The 2025 congressional map is rejected, but lawmakers would not face Amendment 6's new restrictions on enacting similar legislation. Future attempts to redraw districts would remain subject to existing constitutional requirements. ## **The Bigger Question: Who Gets the Final Word?** The stakes of this election extend beyond congressional boundaries—particularly as it relates to Amendment 6. Supporters of the measure, which include former Republican US Sen. Jack Danforth and former Democratic Secretary of State Jason Kander, argue that voter-approved laws and the referendum process need stronger protections. They assert that voters need added safeguards against legislative interference, pointing to examples like a paid sick leave requirement that was approved by voters, but then repealed by the legislature in 2025. Opponents, like Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, argue that the proposal puts excessive restrictions on state lawmakers and their ability to legislate. They further assert that it would make it harder to fix unintended consequences of citizen initiatives (with lawmakers being the ones who decide what "unintended consequences" warrant change or repeal). Hoskins tried to use the authority of his office to keep both Prop. A and Amendment 6 off the ballot. The matter was taken to court and he was ordered to let voters have a say on both. In August, Missourians [rejected a constitutional amendment](https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri%5FAmendment%5F4,%5FRequire%5FCongressional%5FDistrict%5FApproval%5Ffor%5FInitiated%5FConstitutional%5FAmendments,%5FProhibit%5FForeign%5FContributions,%5Fand%5FPenalize%5FPetition%5FFraud%5FAmendment%5F%28August%5F2026%29?ref=ivn.us) proposed by the General Assembly that could have made it harder to pass citizen-initiated amendments. Instead of having to get a statewide majority, proposals would need a majority in every congressional district. It was another attempt by lawmakers to weaken the citizen initiative process. Now, voters have a chance to strengthen it. The question is, will they? ### Montana's Senate Race Is Breaking All the Rules of Party Loyalty URL: https://ivn.us/republicans-call-bodnar-a-democrat-democrats-call-him-a-spoiler/ Last updated: 2026-10-20T13:52:12.000Z *In many of the races facing independent Senate candidates, it’s a two-way race between them and a Republican. In Montana, independent Seth Bodnar faces both a Trump-backed Republican and a Democratic nominee who refused to step aside. The result will test whether an independent can win when a party won’t get out of the way.* In Nebraska, the Senate race could come down to whether voters believe[ ](https://ivn.us/ricketts-calls-him-a-democrat-osborn-says-thats-the-problem-with-politics/)[Dan Osborn is a Democrat](https://ivn.us/ricketts-calls-him-a-democrat-osborn-says-thats-the-problem-with-politics/). In Montana, Seth Bodnar faces that problem, plus another one: Democratic nominee Alani Bankhead, who stayed in the race despite calls to drop out, says he doesn’t share key Democratic values. Will this split the anti-incumbent vote between the Independent and Democrat, or will the Democrat’s accusations result in people viewing Bodnar as more independent than in the races where there is no one with a (D) next to their name on the ballot? Only the results in November will answer this question. Absentee ballots went out October 9\. This week, [the state’s Democratic Party chair resigned](https://ivn.us/montana-democratic-chair-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar-for-senate/) and endorsed Bodnar. With less than three weeks until the election, there’s sure to be a lot more jockeying for position in the Treasure State. ## **The Race** The race started with a last-minute switch. Republican Sen. Steve Daines had been running for a third term. On March 4, minutes before the filing deadline, former US Attorney Kurt Alme[ ](https://dailymontanan.com/2026/03/04/kurt-alme-files-for-u-s-senate-immediately-endorsed-by-outgoing-sen-daines-president-trump/?ref=ivn.us)[filed for the seat](https://dailymontanan.com/2026/03/04/kurt-alme-files-for-u-s-senate-immediately-endorsed-by-outgoing-sen-daines-president-trump/?ref=ivn.us). Daines then[ ](https://dailymontanan.com/2026/03/04/daines-withdraws-from-re-election/?ref=ivn.us)[withdrew and endorsed him](https://dailymontanan.com/2026/03/04/daines-withdraws-from-re-election/?ref=ivn.us). Endorsements from Trump, Sen. Tim Sheehy, and Gov. Greg Gianforte arrived within hours. Members of both parties criticized the move as an example of the type of electoral gaming that voters hate. Bodnar then entered the race, two months after resigning as president of the University of Montana. Former Sen. Jon Tester’s[ ](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/01/14/bodnar-plans-senate-run-as-an-independent-and-testers-apparent-support-angers-democrats-in-montana/?ref=ivn.us)[apparent support for an independent run](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/01/14/bodnar-plans-senate-run-as-an-independent-and-testers-apparent-support-angers-democrats-in-montana/?ref=ivn.us) angered many Democrats. Alme won the June 2 primary with about 76% of the vote. Bankhead won the Democratic nomination with about 44% over former state Rep. Reilly Neill. Pressure on Bankhead to quit came next. In July,[ ](https://dailymontanan.com/2026/07/09/democratic-legislators-want-a-consolidated-u-s-senate-race-in-montana/?ref=ivn.us)[17 Democratic legislators asked](https://dailymontanan.com/2026/07/09/democratic-legislators-want-a-consolidated-u-s-senate-race-in-montana/?ref=ivn.us) either Bankhead or Bodnar to drop out. Their letter implored both Bankhead and Bodnar to consider traditional campaign metrics, many of which Bodnar was leading at the time (polling; fundraising; volunteer sign-ups). A pro-Bodnar super PAC, Montana Freedom PAC,[ ](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/08/06/scenes-from-a-dropout-deadline/?ref=ivn.us)[paid for signs and ads](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/08/06/scenes-from-a-dropout-deadline/?ref=ivn.us) urging Bankhead to leave. The August 10 withdrawal deadline passed with her still on the ballot. The latest break came this week. Shannon O’Brien[ ](https://ivn.us/montana-democratic-chair-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar-for-senate/)[resigned as Montana Democratic Party chair and endorsed Bodnar](https://ivn.us/montana-democratic-chair-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar-for-senate/) the day after all four candidates[ ](https://dailymontanan.com/?p=39449&ref=ivn.us)[met in Bozeman](https://dailymontanan.com/?p=39449&ref=ivn.us) for the race’s main televised debate. ## **The Candidates** **Seth Bodnar (I)** is a West Point graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and former Green Beret who served in Iraq. He led the University of Montana from 2018 until January 2026\. He qualified for the ballot with nearly 30,000 signatures from 52 counties, more than twice the requirement. His backers cross party lines. On the Democratic side are Tester, former Sen. Max Baucus, and former Gov. Steve Bullock. On the Republican side is former Gov.[ ](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/us/politics/seth-bodnar-montana-senate.html?ref=ivn.us)[Marc Racicot](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/us/politics/seth-bodnar-montana-senate.html?ref=ivn.us). He also has the[ ](https://www.kpvi.com/news/regional%5Fnews/independent-earns-progressive-endorsements-in-montana-senate-race/article%5Fe93990eb-e1ad-5824-86ea-b1596af21642.html?ref=ivn.us)[Montana AFL-CIO, Montana Conservation Voters, and VoteVets](https://www.kpvi.com/news/regional%5Fnews/independent-earns-progressive-endorsements-in-montana-senate-race/article%5Fe93990eb-e1ad-5824-86ea-b1596af21642.html?ref=ivn.us). Like many other independent candidates this cycle, he has said he wouldn’t caucus with either party. Republicans cite [his 2012 registration as a Democrat in Connecticut](https://www.google.com/search?q=bodnar+connecticut+democrat&rlz=1C1HKFL%5FenUS1192US1192&oq=bodnar+connecticut+democrat&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyCQgAEEUYORigATIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRirAjIHCAQQIRirAjIHCAUQIRiPAjIHCAYQIRiPAtIBCDI1NzRqMGo0qAIAsAIB8QUvoOpmfP8rsA&sourceid=chrome&source=chrome.ob&ie=UTF-8) as evidence against that pledge (he re-registered as an independent in 2014). **Kurt Alme (R)** was twice appointed US Attorney for Montana by Trump,[ ](https://dailymontanan.com/2025/10/09/alme-confirmed-by-u-s-senate-as-u-s-attorney-for-montana/?ref=ivn.us)[most recently confirmed in 2025](https://dailymontanan.com/2025/10/09/alme-confirmed-by-u-s-senate-as-u-s-attorney-for-montana/?ref=ivn.us). He previously led the state Department of Revenue under Gov. Judy Martz. He is running on public safety, affordability, and support for Trump’s agenda. At the[ ](https://www.pbs.org/video/901-us-senate-alme-austin-bankhead-bodnar-7arefd/?ref=ivn.us)[Bozeman debate](https://www.pbs.org/video/901-us-senate-alme-austin-bankhead-bodnar-7arefd/?ref=ivn.us), he grouped Bodnar and Bankhead together as his “two liberal opponents.” **Alani Bankhead (D)** is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and leadership coach from Helena. She is running on universal health care and lifting the Social Security payroll tax cap. She has called on Bodnar to drop out,[ ](https://flatheadbeacon.com/2026/06/15/in-montana-senate-race-democrat-bankhead-doubles-down-on-bid-against-bodnar/?ref=ivn.us)stating that he has never won an election and is instead a candidate picked by party leadership, similar to how Alme entered the race **Kyle Austin (L)** is a Billings pharmacist and twice ran in the Republican House primary. He won the Libertarian primary narrowly, but the state Libertarian Party[ ](https://www.mtlp.org/blog/2026/6/3/montanas-primary-results-expose-structural-flaw?ref=ivn.us)[disavowed him](https://www.mtlp.org/blog/2026/6/3/montanas-primary-results-expose-structural-flaw?ref=ivn.us). In many ways, this race is an interesting intersection between party power, identity, and individual candidates. There is a hand-picked Republican candidate who ended up in the race due to backroom party machinations. A Democrat who won the primary but who has faced leadership calls to drop out from before she was even the nominee. An independent who has seen institutional Democratic (and Republican) support. And a Libertarian who is disavowed by his own party. ## **The Money** Bodnar has proven to be a prolific fundraiser, [outraising the rest of the field combined](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/MT/2026/?ref=ivn.us). However, he is also spending that money faster than his Republican opponent: | **Candidate** | **Total raised** | **Cash on hand** | | ------------- | ---------------- | ---------------- | | Bodnar (I) | $3.24 million | $978,000 | | Alme (R) | $1.98 million | $1.45 million | | Bankhead (D) | $58,800 | $21,500 | | Austin (L) | $262,000 | $7,900 | *FEC filings through June 30\. Third-quarter reports are due October 15.* ### **Polling** [Every public three-way poll shows Alme ahead](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/montana-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us), while Bodnar leads Bankhead in each poll. However, Alme never breaks 50%: | **Pollster** | **Dates** | **Alme** | **Bodnar** | **Bankhead** | **Austin** | | ------------------------------ | --------------- | -------- | ---------- | ------------ | ---------- | | American Pulse / NonStop Local | Sept. 19–24 | 45% | 26% | 19% | — | | Quantus Insights (R) | Sept. 14–15 | 44% | 24% | 23% | — | | MTFP–Rutgers Eagleton | Aug. 27–Sept. 7 | 38% | 30% | 16% | 5% | | Peak Insights (Alme campaign) | Aug. 23–25 | 44% | 22% | 19% | 2% | Head-to-head polling shows what Bodnar’s allies have been arguing for months. A Hart Research survey[ ](https://forwardmontana.org/results-of-new-polling-on-the-montana-u-s-senate-election/?ref=ivn.us)[released by Forward Montana](https://forwardmontana.org/results-of-new-polling-on-the-montana-u-s-senate-election/?ref=ivn.us), which endorsed Bodnar, had Alme and Bodnar tied at 46% in a two-way race. A GQR poll paid for by[ ](https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-07-28-exclusive-independent-leads-democrat-against-republican-montana?ref=ivn.us)[the nonprofit Contours](https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-07-28-exclusive-independent-leads-democrat-against-republican-montana?ref=ivn.us) had Bodnar ahead, 50% to 44%. Both came from groups aligned with Bodnar, so[ ](https://ivn.us/whos-polling-the-independents-a-field-guide-to-the-firms-behind-the-numbers/)[take them with a grain of salt](https://ivn.us/whos-polling-the-independents-a-field-guide-to-the-firms-behind-the-numbers/). ## **Why It Matters** Polls (and betting markets) have the [Nebraska](https://ivn.us/ricketts-calls-him-a-democrat-osborn-says-thats-the-problem-with-politics/) and Montana Senate races as the two most likely for the independent to win. The races are similar, with one key difference: Osborn’s Democratic opponent dropped out of the race, leaving him to run against Sen. Ricketts head-to-head. That didn’t happen in Montana, despite many institutional Democrats and party leaders calling for Bankhead to step aside. Democratic Chair O’Brien’s resignation shows what that split costs, and polls show the difference between the two races. Many people, especially independents, lament that party identification takes precedence on election day, even when voters have misgivings about the candidate from their party. In Montana, it’ll be interesting to see if the endorsements, money, and polling can cause Democrats to move past their party identification and vote *against* the Democrat and for the independent, given the evidence that he has a better chance at unseating an incumbent they dislike. If Bodnar wins, it will show that an independent can build a coalition strong enough that a party’s voters leave their own nominee without the party’s permission. If he loses to Alme but outpaces Bankhead, but with her share larger than his margin of defeat, it will be a strong argument against the way that people engage the spoiler argument against independents. 2028 might see more people running outside of a party label, with support of a minority party that otherwise likely wouldn’t have a chance in a state that skews heavily towards the (D) or (R) label. ### California’s Election Will Be DECIDED by These Voters (NOT Who You Think) | EP63 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/californias-election-will-be-decided-by-these-voters-not-who-you-think-ep63/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:36.000Z California’s elections are right around the corner, and IVP's own polling proves that independents are the voters with the power to control the outcome. Chad, Cara, and Ethan dig into the data behind Prop 39's voter ID fight and why it's not the fair contest it looks like on paper. The crew opens by walking through why IVP's statewide surveys are catching things the big outlets miss, then puts that polling power to work on California's ballot. They break down Prop 41's push for an independent auditor on special taxes, then spend real time on the Insurance Commissioner race between Jane Kim and Ben Allen, where 67% of voters in IVP's poll couldn't decide between two very different Democrats. From there it's a deep dive into Prop 39: IVN's own split-test data shows the ballot title's use of the word "prohibit" shifted results by 15 to 20 points, enough to potentially flip the outcome, and the team argues it's a textbook case of partisan ballot manipulation hiding in plain sight. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/californias-election-will-be-decided-by-these-voters-not-who-you-think?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2h0vnXJVdBhVfgw7KJsPTq?si=xKmFhu6YTOCo5P7loPKS5w&ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/californias-election-will-be-decided-by-these-voters/id1680559155?i=1000796518209&ref=ivn.us)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, **Chad Peace**, **Cara McCormick**, and **Ethan Handelman** open by explaining why **IVP's own statewide polling** (sample sizes near 3,000 with a sub-3% margin of error) catches shifts that smaller, partisan-funded surveys miss, pointing to their early calls like the **Becerra** primary result as proof of concept. The hosts pivot to California's ballot, flagging **Prop 41** as an under-the-radar measure that would create an independent auditor to track whether special tax revenue, like **lottery funds**, is actually spent as promised, contrasting it with the massive ad spending around **Prop 40**. Cara breaks down IVP polling showing **67% of voters undecided** in the **Insurance Commissioner race** between **Jane Kim** and **Ben Allen**, two Democrats with sharply different philosophies, and the group argues this down-ballot contest may matter more to voters' daily lives than the governor's race given the state's **wildfire** and healthcare cost pressures. The deep dive lands on **Prop 39**, California's voter ID measure. Cara explains the policy (a free state-issued ID option) while Chad calls out the official ballot title, written by a **Democratic attorney general**, for using the word **'prohibit'** to describe the law. Ethan details IVP's **split-test survey** methodology showing that respondents given the official ballot language versus a neutral description of **Prop 39** shifted by **15 to 20 points**, a gap the team says is large enough to flip the outcome and amounts to textbook **ballot title manipulation**. Cara draws a parallel to **Maine's** failed voter ID referendum two years ago, noting that despite roughly nine in ten residents supporting the concept, a partisan **secretary of state's** framing of the ballot question helped sink it, reinforcing the hosts' point that both parties manipulate ballot language when it suits them. The conversation turns to intra-party warfare within the **California Democratic Party**, with Cara citing local races like **Jackie Elward** versus **Eric Lucan** in **Marin County** and the rising organized bloc from the **Democratic Socialists of America**, who are fielding roughly 25 legislative candidates statewide. Closing out with quick hits, the hosts discuss **Elon Musk's** reported **$366 million** in political contributions, his involvement in Alaska's push to eliminate its nonpartisan primary, and a lighter aside about his **Grok** chatbot accidentally exposing a Lego order number online. ### POLL: Stop Talking About Donald Trump URL: https://ivn.us/poll-stop-talking-about-donald-trump/ Last updated: 2026-10-15T15:35:35.000Z Polls conducted by the Independent Voter Project, included in the New York Times poll tracker, do something fundamentally different from most. Traditional polls try to predict the result of an election, if the election were being held today. [IVP polls, on the other hand](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/), try to understand which voters have made up their minds, and which ones are up for grabs. It's the undecided voters that matter most. But for any given race, who the undecided voters are can vary significantly. [IVP’s latest California survey](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/) is still the only poll we know of that tracks who the undecided voters actually are. California's Prop. 39 (Voter ID) lead, for example, looks less certain the further you go into the [crosstabs in IVP’s interactive data studio](https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/10d16530-96ab-4a7f-b793-52a0c6f936d4/page/4ARxF?ref=ivn.us). Look a little further and you’ll find that, by more than 3 to 1, likely voters say California campaigns should focus on California issues, not on Donald Trump (57% to 16%). And who are the voters who just want to focus on Trump? Hint: It's not Republicans. Yet so many campaigns this year still run on the same issue: Trump. Maybe that’s why [everybody wants the independent vote, but few campaigns are earning it](https://ivn.us/everybody-wants-the-independent-vote-but-nobody-actually-talks-to-them/). And maybe that's why more campaigns should be looking at the [crosstabs](https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/10d16530-96ab-4a7f-b793-52a0c6f936d4/page/4ARxF?ref=ivn.us). Check out more stories for independent-minded voters below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## Everybody Wants the Independent Vote, But Nobody Actually Talks To Them [![Independent voters](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/california-independent-voters-kingmakers.jpg)](https://ivn.us/everybody-wants-the-independent-vote-but-nobody-actually-talks-to-them/) Independent voters are the kingmakers of the 2026 midterms, but campaigns treat them as **data points to be modeled instead of people to be persuaded**. The IVN Editorial Board on the conversation nobody is having. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/everybody-wants-the-independent-vote-but-nobody-actually-talks-to-them/) ### *POLL RESULTS ▶▶▶* ## New CA Poll: Voter ID Measure Leads Today. Its Undecided Voters Point the Other Way [![California 2026 poll: Prop 39 voter ID and undecided voters](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/california-poll-2026-voter-id-prop-39-undecided-voters-featured.png)](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/) IVP’s survey of 2,906 likely California voters separates the decided from the undecided, then studies who the undecided are. **Prop. 39’s voter ID lead becomes a coin flip once its mostly Democratic undecideds break**, Prop. 40 leans no, and the Insurance Commissioner race hinges on one fact most voters have not heard yet. Or skip the summary and [dig through the full data studio and crosstabs](https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/10d16530-96ab-4a7f-b793-52a0c6f936d4/page/4ARxF?ref=ivn.us) yourself. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [Report: 125 Primary Winners Didn’t Get a Majority. For 21, Congress Is All But Guaranteed ](https://ivn.us/report-125-primary-winners-didnt-get-a-majority-for-21-congress-is-all-but-guaranteed/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Report: 125 Primary Winners Didn’t Get a Majority. For 21, Congress Is All But Guaranteed](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/la-shawn-ford.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/report-125-primary-winners-didnt-get-a-majority-for-21-congress-is-all-but-guaranteed/) [Josh Hoover Keeps Winning Where Democrats Have the Edge. Can He Do It Again? ](https://ivn.us/josh-hoover-keeps-winning-where-democrats-have-the-edge-can-he-do-it-again/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Josh Hoover Keeps Winning Where Democrats Have the Edge. Can He Do It Again?](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/AD7---Hoover-vs.-Slavensky---Ghost-Preview-Image-1.png) ](https://ivn.us/josh-hoover-keeps-winning-where-democrats-have-the-edge-can-he-do-it-again/) [The Gerrymandering Gamble May Backfire in These 8 Congressional Districts ](https://ivn.us/the-gerrymandering-gamble-may-backfire-in-these-8-congressional-districts/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![The Gerrymandering Gamble May Backfire in These 8 Congressional Districts](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/image-e9f35d03-b343-427f-a1b0-18e7e5f3e718.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-gerrymandering-gamble-may-backfire-in-these-8-congressional-districts/) [The Ranked Choice Voting “Confusion Myth” ](https://ivn.us/the-ranked-choice-voting-confusion-myth/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/10/paul-h.jpg) Paul Haughey [ ![The Ranked Choice Voting “Confusion Myth”](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/ranked-choice-voting-confusion.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-ranked-choice-voting-confusion-myth/) [New Poll: Young Americans Think Democracy Is for Sale. And They’re Tired of Playing Along ](https://ivn.us/new-poll-young-americans-think-democracy-is-for-sale-and-theyre-tired-of-playing-along/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![New Poll: Young Americans Think Democracy Is for Sale. And They’re Tired of Playing Along](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/image-aa5aea65-6079-4561-a631-d47c09698e91.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/new-poll-young-americans-think-democracy-is-for-sale-and-theyre-tired-of-playing-along/) [15 Races Where Democratic Socialists Can Reshape California Politics ](https://ivn.us/15-races-where-democratic-socialists-can-reshape-california-politics/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![15 Races Where Democratic Socialists Can Reshape California Politics](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/DSA-candidates-Nithya-Raman.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/15-races-where-democratic-socialists-can-reshape-california-politics/) [Who’s Polling the Independents? A Field Guide to the Firms Behind the Numbers ](https://ivn.us/whos-polling-the-independents-a-field-guide-to-the-firms-behind-the-numbers/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Who’s Polling the Independents? A Field Guide to the Firms Behind the Numbers](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/independent-candidate-polling.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/whos-polling-the-independents-a-field-guide-to-the-firms-behind-the-numbers/) ### *TAKE ACTION ▶▶▶* ## Declare Your Right to Vote [![Declare your right to vote](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/og-rtv.jpg)](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/right-to-vote-ny?ref=ivn.us) IVP is representing a number of veterans in a federal challenge to New York’s closed primaries, which shut out 3.1 million voters from taxpayer-funded elections. [DECLARE YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/right-to-vote-ny?ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: A Fresh Look for IVN We just redesigned IVN.us. Browse the latest stories by the topics you care about: election reform, California, independent candidates, open primaries, and ranked choice voting, and catch every episode of our shows in one place. [EXPLORE THE NEW IVN](https://ivn.us/) ### *ELECTION REFORM ▶▶▶* ## Alaska Ballot Measure 2 Could Kill Open Primaries, Ranked Choice Voting, and Dark Money Rules in One Vote [![Alaska ballot measure 2](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-2f50e085-e5e1-4295-841a-f6aa67d44218.jpg)](https://ivn.us/alaska-ballot-measure-2-could-kill-open-primaries-ranked-choice-voting-and-dark-money-rules-in-one-vote/) Alaska voters will decide whether to repeal the state’s 2020 reforms: open primaries, ranked choice voting, and dark money disclosure, **all three in a single up-or-down vote**. Shawn Griffiths on what’s at stake. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/alaska-ballot-measure-2-could-kill-open-primaries-ranked-choice-voting-and-dark-money-rules-in-one-vote/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Trump’s LA bombing comment went viral stripped of its context. **The way political clips get weaponized says more about our broken elections than the clip itself.** The crew breaks it down on EP62. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f%5F%5FFJqcpXGg&ref=ivn.us) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## Neither Party Owns California’s Latino Vote. That’s What Makes It Powerful [![California Latino voters](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/California-Latino-Voters-Can-Decide-California-Elections.jpg)](https://ivn.us/neither-party-owns-californias-latino-vote-thats-what-makes-it-powerful/) Millions of California voters have walked away from party labels, and Latino independents are leading the shift. **Neither party can take their vote for granted, and both have to earn it.** Alex Segura of the Latino News Network reports. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/neither-party-owns-californias-latino-vote-thats-what-makes-it-powerful/) ### *VIDEO CLIP ▶▶▶* ## Rieckhoff on NewsNation: Primaries Are ‘the Whole Ball Game’ [![Paul Rieckhoff on NewsNation](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/vets-clip.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/DeKgQKLAuAg/?ref=ivn.us) Iraq War veteran Paul Rieckhoff took the lawsuit to NewsNation: New York’s primaries run on public schools, public funding, and public poll workers, but **voters without a party must ‘resign’ their independence to take part**. He calls Rieckhoff v. Berger the start of a national fight. [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/DeKgQKLAuAg/?ref=ivn.us) ### *INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES ▶▶▶* ## Montana Democratic Chair Resigns, Endorses Independent Seth Bodnar for Senate [![Seth Bodnar](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/montana-democratic-chair-seth-bodnar.jpg)](https://ivn.us/montana-democratic-chair-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar-for-senate/) Shannon O’Brien led Montana’s Democratic Party ... until now. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/montana-democratic-chair-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar-for-senate/) ### *CAMPAIGN TOOLS ▶▶▶* ## 217 Million Voters, One Chat Box: New AI Tool Opens Up the Voter File [![The US voter file](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/US-voter-file.jpg)](https://ivn.us/217-million-voters-one-chat-box-new-ai-tool-opens-up-the-voter-file/) A new AI tool called Voter Count lets anyone ask plain-English questions about **217 million registered voters**, no expensive contracts or technical expertise required. Shawn Griffiths takes it for a spin. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/217-million-voters-one-chat-box-new-ai-tool-opens-up-the-voter-file/) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### Hope In the Heartland: Independent Greg Ballard on Standing Up to Gerrymandering and the GOP in Indiana URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/hope-in-the-heartland-independent-greg-ballard-on-standing-up-to-gerrymandering-and-the-gop-in-indiana/ Last updated: 2026-10-20T13:50:29.000Z Marine colonel and former two-term Republican mayor of Indianapolis Greg Ballard sits down with Paul Rieckhoff to break down why he left the GOP, how he gathered 37,000 signatures and spent $700,000 just to get on the Indiana ballot as an independent for Secretary of State, and why this one race could unlock ballot access for every independent candidate who follows. Ballard explains the math of a rigged two-party system in which 95% of Indiana's state legislature is effectively decided by 10% of voters in May primaries, why 244 independents have run in Indiana's last two cycles with a 52% win rate, and why he refuses to endorse, fundraise for, or go negative on anyone in the race. A groundbreaking entry in the Meet the Independent Candidate series — and a conversation about what it actually takes to break the duopoly from the heartland. **Get the latest episodes of Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff on the podcast's** [**YouTube channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentamericans?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### Josh Hoover Keeps Winning Where Democrats Have the Edge. Can He Do It Again? URL: https://ivn.us/josh-hoover-keeps-winning-where-democrats-have-the-edge-can-he-do-it-again/ Last updated: 2026-10-16T23:16:27.000Z Assembly District 7 has swung back and forth between the two major parties for more than a decade, and this November it is again one of California's most closely watched legislative races. Two-term Republican Assemblymember Joshua Hoover, recently named Assembly Republican Minority Floor Leader, faces Democrat Amy Slavensky, a school administrator, on November 3 after the two finished first and second in the June Top Two primary. With more than 21% of the district's voters registered No Party Preference, independents will likely decide the race. ## **A Sacramento County Swing District** The American River connects Folsom, Rancho Cordova, and Citrus Heights, the cities at the core of the 7th Assembly District. The district lies entirely within Sacramento County and also takes in the unincorporated communities of McClellan Park, North Highlands, Foothill Farms, Fair Oaks, Orangevale, Gold River, Rosemont, Mather, and most of Carmichael. Share of registered voters by party in California's 7th Assembly District | Pct | Party Group | | ----- | ------------------- | | 36.81 | Democratic | | 32.85 | Republican | | 21.32 | No Party Preference | | 9.02 | Other | Answered directly from the voter file with [Voter Count](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us) According to the Census Bureau's 2023 American Community Survey, the district has 496,790 residents. The population is 57.7% White, 19.2% Latino, 10% Asian, and 6.1% Black. About 18.7% of residents were born outside the United States, and 6.5% are veterans. Registered voters by race and ethnicity in California's 7th Assembly District In California's 7th Assembly District, 61.26% of registered voters are White, 13.75% are Hispanic or Latino, 7.41% are Asian American and 2.17% are Black. The remaining 15.41% fall into other or unknown ethnicity groups. Answered directly from the voter file with [Voter Count](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us) The median household income is $90,390, and the median home value approaches $500,000\. Renters make up nearly 40% of households and pay an average of $1,760 a month. California homes cost about twice as much as the typical U.S. home, and in Sacramento County the monthly payment on a newly purchased "bottom-tier" home has risen 74% since January 2020\. Rising insurance, food, and utility costs have further tightened budgets, especially in the newer suburban neighborhoods of Folsom and Rancho Cordova. As of September 4, 2026, AD 7 had 299,480 registered voters: 37.1% Democratic, 32.5% Republican, and 21.4% No Party Preference. Democrats hold a 4.6-point registration edge, but voters who belong to neither major party dwarf that gap. Party registration in California's 7th Assembly District | Voter Count | Parties Description | | ----------- | -------------------- | | | | | 106,675 | Democratic | | 95,193 | Republican | | 61,784 | Non-Partisan | | 16,032 | American Independent | | 4,337 | Libertarian | | 1,820 | Peace and Freedom | | 1,546 | Green | | 1,110 | Other | | 1,081 | Unknown | | 162 | We the People | | 37 | Reform | Answered directly from the voter file with [Voter Count](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us) Elections here have been consistently close. Barack Obama carried the area by 0.54 points in 2008, Mitt Romney by 1.88 points in 2012, Hillary Clinton by 2.97 points in 2016, Joe Biden by 5.92 points in 2020, and Kamala Harris by 4 points in 2024. ## **Joshua Hoover (R)** Hoover, 38, of Folsom, flipped the seat in 2022 and is seeking a third term. He was recently appointed Assembly Minority Floor Leader and joined the leadership team of newly selected Assembly Republican Leader Alexandra "Ali" Macedo. > Our second TV ad is live! Sacramento needs leaders who will work to lower costs and put families first. I’m running for Assembly to continue restoring balance and common sense at the State Capitol. Find out how you can help at [https://t.co/TXNxnXc3z1](https://t.co/TXNxnXc3z1?ref=ivn.us). [pic.twitter.com/ZFEgLDigbM](https://t.co/ZFEgLDigbM?ref=ivn.us) > > — Josh Hoover (@joshua\_hoover) [October 1, 2026](https://x.com/joshua%5Fhoover/status/2105721156452168168?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) He serves as vice chair of the Education Committee and the Committee on Jobs, Economic Development, and the Economy, where he has worked to support small businesses and bring jobs to the region. He serves on the Select Committee on Serving Students with Disabilities and is a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. [Members](https://www.assembly.ca.gov/caucuses/legislative-problem-solvers-caucus?ref=ivn.us) of the Problem Solvers Caucus agree, in writing, not to actively work against one another's bills, no matter what political party they are in. [Someone in Sacramento Is Actually Trying to Solve ProblemsCalifornia’s Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of 26 lawmakers, is quietly working to solve real problems like housing costs and energy by passing bills without partisan conflict.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-03ceaa7c-2c9b-4e8d-8e9a-4e86c1d8a52a.png)Independent Voter NewsDan Schnur![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-problem-solvers-9ce21181-0316-473b-ac2e-e7b09dc84756.jpg)](https://ivn.us/someone-in-sacramento-is-actually-trying-to-solve-problems/) Hoover’s campaign website calls him "a passionate advocate for California families" whose priorities include keeping the community "a great place to live, work, and go to school." ## **Public Safety** Most recently, Hoover has pushed for funding to implement Proposition 36, the 2024 ballot measure that increased penalties for repeat theft and certain drug crimes, and has discussed it on his podcast. > Sheriff John McGinness and I discuss why funding Prop. 36 is a critical part of solving homelessness and how enabling aberrant behavior is anything but a compassionate approach. [@pointoforderpod](https://x.com/pointoforderpod?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/eGbQqiLEM5](https://t.co/eGbQqiLEM5?ref=ivn.us) > > — Josh Hoover (@joshua\_hoover) [September 30, 2026](https://x.com/joshua%5Fhoover/status/2105156153298829484?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) > "Without funding, it doesn't go anywhere." > > It's been two years since CA voters overwhelmingly passed Prop 36 to ramp up penalties for repeat thieves and drug dealers. > > Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper criticized state leaders for not doing more for the will of the voters [pic.twitter.com/8f172oTxGB](https://t.co/8f172oTxGB?ref=ivn.us) > > — Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) [July 13, 2026](https://x.com/ZavalaA/status/2076472930314187205?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Hoover called for the removal of every state parole board member who voted to release convicted child molesters. Two of those members have since lost their positions after the State Senate refused to confirm their appointments. Hoover called it "a critical first step" and said "more must be done to remove the remaining members and pass reforms to stop the early release of criminals serving life sentences." He discussed the parole board fights on a recent episode of his[ ](https://linktr.ee/pointoforderpod?ref=ivn.us)[Point of Order podcast](https://linktr.ee/pointoforderpod?ref=ivn.us). In July, Hoover joined John McGinness to discuss what he called the "concerning rise of socialism in the United States" and why it threatens American values. "Freedom is never guaranteed," Hoover wrote. "Liberty, free markets, and the rule of law must be actively defended and preserved every single generation." > Freedom is never guaranteed. Liberty, free markets, and the rule of law must be actively defended and preserved every single generation. > > I joined Sheriff John McGinness to discuss the concerning rise of socialism in the United States and why it threatens American values. [pic.twitter.com/QKLoAsHTa6](https://t.co/QKLoAsHTa6?ref=ivn.us) > > — Josh Hoover (@joshua\_hoover) [July 24, 2026](https://x.com/joshua%5Fhoover/status/2080602137311003056?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) "I oppose the soft-on-crime policies coming out of the State Capitol that have made our neighborhoods less safe," Hoover said. "It is past time to restore accountability in our criminal justice system by reforming laws that have led to rampant retail theft and the early release of dangerous criminals." Hoover has pushed to add school police officers and introduced "Ryla's Law" to close loopholes that allow child abusers to be released from jail early. ## **Schools and Kids** Hoover joined a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers this year behind 13 bills to keep children safe online, all signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. "Protecting kids should never be a partisan issue," Hoover wrote in a September 24 post on X, describing the package as common sense legislation "that will help put an end to the screen-based childhood." Hoover authored one of those bills, AB 2071, which directs California public schools to develop Digital Wellness Instruction so students learn to use technology in ways that support their physical and mental health. Hoover was also a joint author of AB 1709, a bipartisan bill restricting users under 16 from social media platforms with "addictive features." "This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue. This is a parent issue. This is a kid issue," Hoover said of the bill. The new laws build on the Phone-Free Schools Act, which Hoover passed in 2024. On September 27, he appeared on California Politics 360 with Democratic Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi to discuss how the law is working. > Protecting kids online should never be a partisan issue. As a parent, I was proud to work with a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers this year on common sense legislation that will help put an end to the screen-based childhood. Today 13 of those bills were signed into law. [pic.twitter.com/7n913k0HH1](https://t.co/7n913k0HH1?ref=ivn.us) > > — Josh Hoover (@joshua\_hoover) [September 11, 2026](https://x.com/joshua%5Fhoover/status/2098284734535377279?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Hoover has also revisited the pandemic school closures he fought as a school board member. After Newsom said in September that closing beaches was "insane, in hindsight," Hoover reposted the quote with "in hindsight" removed. "For those of us with basic common sense, hindsight was not required to do the right thing during COVID," Hoover wrote, adding that those who pushed to reopen schools "were demonized and told to 'follow the science.'" On education, Hoover authored AB 2316, which Newsom signed into law. Sponsored by the California Charter Schools Association, the bill gives eligible charter public schools facing significant facilities costs access to financial hardship relief comparable to what school districts receive. The association called it a major step forward for equity in public education and thanked Hoover for championing it. "Proud to author legislation supporting charter schools and school choice for California students," Hoover wrote on X. "Thank you to Governor Newsom for signing this important bill that will ensure families continue to have options when it comes to their child's education." ## **Cost of Living and the Campaign** On September 17, Hoover's campaign launched its first TV ad focused on the cost of living. "During my time in the Assembly, I have fought back against harmful policies that are increasing the cost of everything we buy," Hoover wrote in announcing it. "California families have had enough." > Our first TV ad is now live! During my time in the Assembly I have fought back against harmful policies that are increasing the cost of everything we buy. California families have had enough. Learn more and help us keep this ad on the airwaves at [https://t.co/Uw4xXWzaTU](https://t.co/Uw4xXWzaTU?ref=ivn.us). [pic.twitter.com/sewRqSK4Mi](https://t.co/sewRqSK4Mi?ref=ivn.us) > > — Josh Hoover (@joshua\_hoover) [September 17, 2026](https://x.com/joshua%5Fhoover/status/2100632892716318802?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) A second, positive ad promoting Hoover is also running. Hoover has targeted the troubled Highway 50 rebuild through Sacramento, known as Fix50.[ ](https://sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article317275097.html?ref=ivn.us)[The Sacramento Bee reported](https://sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article317275097.html?ref=ivn.us) in September that he may request an audit of the project, which he called "an unmitigated disaster," citing years of delays, faulty concrete, and deadly crashes. "The public deserves a full accounting of what went wrong," he said, "and most importantly, Caltrans must do better moving forward." Hoover's 2026 endorsements include the California Professional Firefighters, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the Peace Officers Research Association of California, the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the American Independent Party. Law enforcement groups backing him also include the California Police Chiefs Association, the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs Association, the Folsom Police Officers Association, and the Sacramento Police Officers Association. The California Republican Party endorsed him. > People over party. > > The California Problem Solvers Caucus brings Republicans and Democrats together to cut costs for California families, from the gas pump to the power bill to the price of a home. [#caleg](https://x.com/hashtag/caleg?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) > > — California Problem Solvers Caucus (@CAProblemSolver) [October 9, 2026](https://x.com/CAProblemSolver/status/2108595847923716510?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) ## **Hoover Wants To Take Partisanship Out of Elections** Hoover has taken up nonpartisan election reform. In August, he joined Assemblywoman Natasha Johnson, the lead author, in introducing ACA 23\. The constitutional amendment would make Secretary of State a nonpartisan office, with candidates running without a party label, as candidates for Superintendent of Public Instruction already do. ***"The individual administering our election system should be a referee ensuring a fair contest, not a political actor wearing a specific team's jersey," Hoover wrote.*** On August 13, Hoover joined colleagues at the State Capitol to push ACA 23 alongside SCA 3, by Senator Roger Niello. SCA 3 would move the job of writing ballot titles and summaries from the Attorney General to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, which Hoover said would ensure "accurate and unbiased descriptions for every proposition on the ballot." Together, Hoover said, the measures would "give voters the opportunity to restore trust in elections by taking partisan politics out of the equation." > This week my colleagues and I joined together at the State Capitol to urge passage of two critical reforms that would give voters the opportunity to restore trust in elections by taking partisan politics out of the equation. > > ACA 23 (Johnson/Hoover) would make California’s chief… [pic.twitter.com/CopoXnrPAp](https://t.co/CopoXnrPAp?ref=ivn.us) > > — Josh Hoover (@joshua\_hoover) [August 14, 2026](https://x.com/joshua%5Fhoover/status/2088143293179961366?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Hoover pointed to the fight over the ballot title for Proposition 39, the voter ID initiative. In July, Republicans[ ](https://www.kcra.com/article/prop-39-campaign-sues-california-attorney-general-voter-id-measure/73296334?ref=ivn.us)[sued Attorney General Rob Bonta](https://www.kcra.com/article/prop-39-campaign-sues-california-attorney-general-voter-id-measure/73296334?ref=ivn.us) after new wording described the measure as “prohibiting citizens from voting” without government ID. He has also used his podcast to explore these issues, including a conversation with Macedo and a July episode asking whether California's independent Citizens Redistricting Commission is done for good. > Is the independent Citizens Redistricting Commision done for good in California? We discussed this and the future of other election reforms on the latest episode of the [@pointoforderpod](https://x.com/pointoforderpod?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us). [pic.twitter.com/akht96FRHL](https://t.co/akht96FRHL?ref=ivn.us) > > — Josh Hoover (@joshua\_hoover) [July 15, 2026](https://x.com/joshua%5Fhoover/status/2077207696923873549?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) ## **Hoover's Background** Before joining the Assembly, Hoover served as chief of staff to then-Assemblymember Kevin Kiley, whose office he joined in 2016, and as an elected trustee of the Folsom-Cordova Unified School District. On the school board, he led the push to reopen schools during the pandemic, and FCUSD became the first district in Sacramento County to return students to in-person instruction. He also worked to balance the district budget, protect taxpayers, expand mental health services, support school police officers, and improve student achievement. In 2020, Folsom named him its Young Professional of the Year for his advocacy on behalf of students. Earlier in his career, he worked with Senator Mimi Walters, Assemblymember Melissa Melendez, and Assemblymember Jay Obernolte. He earned an associate degree from American River College, a bachelor's in political science from UCLA in 2011, and a master's in public administration from USC in 2015. Hoover lives in Folsom with his wife, Nicole, and their three children. The parent of a child on the autism spectrum, he has served on the Folsom Cordova Special Education Community Advisory Committee and in local PTA leadership. ## **Hoover's Record of Winning Close Races** Hoover first won the seat in 2022, campaigning on homelessness and crime prevention. He unseated Democratic incumbent Ken Cooley 50.4% to 49.6%, a margin of about 1,400 votes. In 2024, he faced Citrus Heights City Councilmember Porsche Middleton. Hoover beat Middleton 53.64% to 46.36%, a margin of more than 15,000 votes. Hoover ran ahead of the top of the Democratic ticket. Kamala Harris carried the district by 4.5 points, and Adam Schiff won it in the U.S. Senate race by 0.2 points. The district's 1.46-point shift to the right from 2020 to 2024 was the smallest of any California legislative seat. ## **The June 2026 Primary** Hoover narrowly cleared 50% in the June 2 Top Two primary, finishing 4,766 votes ahead of Slavensky. American Independent Party candidate Sanaz Motamedi, a licensed realtor, finished a distant third. Turnout was 42.85%, with 128,341 votes cast. | **Candidate** | **Party** | **Votes** | **Share** | | -------------- | -------------------- | --------- | --------- | | Joshua Hoover | Republican | 65,279 | 50.86% | | Amy Slavensky | Democratic | 60,513 | 47.15% | | Sanaz Motamedi | American Independent | 2,549 | 1.99% | June 2026 primary turnout by party in California's 7th Assembly District | Pct Voted | Parties Description | | --------- | -------------------- | | | | | 50.67 | Democratic | | 51.87 | Republican | | 31.2 | Non-Partisan | | 40.78 | American Independent | | 33.43 | Libertarian | | 19.56 | Peace and Freedom | | 34.48 | Green | | 32.88 | Other | | 22.85 | Unknown | | 48.77 | We the People | | 51.35 | Reform | Answered directly from the voter file with [Voter Count](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us) ## **Amy Slavensky (D)** Amy Slavensky, 63, is an educational coach and consultant who was born and raised in Fair Oaks and Carmichael. She left home at 17 and paid her own way through college, earning a bachelor's in liberal studies from Point Loma Nazarene University in 1984, a master's in education from Azusa Pacific University in 1987, and a Ph.D. in educational leadership from Claremont Graduate University in 2003. She began her four decades in education in 1984 at Clairemont Christian, followed by 11 years in the Baldwin Park Unified School District. She served as principal in Glendora Unified from 1995 to 1999 and in Walnut Valley Unified from 1999 to 2007\. She then served as director of curriculum and instruction in Upland Unified, a middle school principal in Sacramento City Unified, and K-8 director in San Juan Unified from 2011 to 2016. Slavensky was superintendent of the Amador County Unified School District from 2016 to 2021\. In mid-2019, during that tenure, she drew controversy when a well-liked high school principal was fired after a negative performance review. She returned to San Juan Unified in 2022 as a leadership coach and interim deputy superintendent, serving until June 2025, and now works for herself in Sacramento. ## **Where Slavensky Stands** Slavensky's campaign pitch draws on her own life. She grew up in a family that struggled after her parents' divorce, which she says taught her early "what it feels like when systems don't support families in crisis." She says she stands for "dignity, fairness, and opportunity for every person in our community." She and her husband, Mike, have five children and three grandchildren. "I am, at my core, a mom, a wife, an educator, and a neighbor who believes in showing up for people with compassion and integrity," she said. Saying she knows firsthand how hard it can be to secure stable housing, she wants to increase affordability, expand pathways to renting and owning a home, and "prioritize people over bureaucracy." "Having lost my brother after years of homelessness, I believe we must treat people experiencing mental illness, trauma, and housing instability with humanity, while expanding mental health care, diverse housing options, and pathways to stability," she said. Education remains her anchor issue. "I stand for strong, well-resourced public schools because I have witnessed for decades how education transforms lives," she said. She argues that every child should have access to world-class learning, regardless of race, income, language, disability, or background. She is also running on women's rights, citing her own experiences with sexism, limited maternity protections, and pay inequity. Her platform calls for reproductive freedom and fair workplaces "where women can grow and lead without barriers." Slavensky says California must address systemic racism, improve bias training, and ensure accountability in systems that hold power. She also supports environmental protection and sustainable agriculture and calls for acknowledging how climate change affects families and workers. Her campaign sums up the pitch this way: "After 40 years of service in our public schools, I've seen our community's challenges, and I know we can do better." Two new positive ads about Slavensky began circulating this month. > New CA political ad detected: > > "Amy Slavensky for Assembly 2026" on Google > Running since: Oct 10, 2026 > > See more including total spend and geographic/demographic targeting:[https://t.co/jkF6IVNmrD](https://t.co/jkF6IVNmrD?ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/olMZIoZfDl](https://t.co/olMZIoZfDl?ref=ivn.us) > > — CA120Ads (@CA120Ads) [October 11, 2026](https://x.com/CA120Ads/status/2109352371423965653?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) > New CA political ad detected: > > "Amy Slavensky for Assembly 2026" on Meta > Running since: Oct 09, 2026 > > See more including total spend and geographic/demographic targeting:[https://t.co/PSSVVI1DBZ](https://t.co/PSSVVI1DBZ?ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/F1atxXAGSg](https://t.co/F1atxXAGSg?ref=ivn.us) > > — CA120Ads (@CA120Ads) [October 9, 2026](https://x.com/CA120Ads/status/2108657770362970547?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Two negative ads targeting Slavensky are also running. ## **Her Case Against Hoover** The campaign casts Hoover as "a true Sacramento insider" and targets his moderate image. The site says Hoover "calls himself a moderate but his voting record shows otherwise," linking to [joshhoovervotes.com](http://joshhoovervotes.com/?ref=ivn.us). Slavensky's campaign has also launched a negative ad against Hoover. SEIU California, the California Labor Federation, the California Teachers Association, and the California Women's List have endorsed Slavensky, as have Porsche Middleton, Hoover's 2024 opponent, and other local leaders. The California Democratic Party gave her both its Pre-Endorsement Conference endorsement and its primary endorsement. > These are the leaders who are ready to shape California’s future. Meet three more Democrats we’re proud to endorse for the State Assembly: > > ⭐️ AD-07 Amy Slavensky > ⭐️ AD-27 Brian Pacheco > ⭐️ AD-36 Dr. Ida Obeso-Martinez > > From the Central Valley to communities across the state,… [pic.twitter.com/vyefHBRNGz](https://t.co/vyefHBRNGz?ref=ivn.us) > > — California Democratic Party (@CA\_Dem) [September 25, 2026](https://x.com/CA%5FDem/status/2103304637566914570?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) ## **The Money Race** Hoover entered 2026 with a commanding financial edge, but the California Democratic Party has gone all in on Slavensky. The CDP has given Slavensky’s campaign $1.6 million so far, including two large late contributions: $251,336 on September 24 and $552,913 on October 8\. Those two checks alone total $804,249, more than Hoover has reported having in the bank at any point this year. Hoover raised $1.08 million in the first half of the year and had $712,465 on hand at the end of June. By the September 19 filing, his campaign had raised $1,388,190, spent $804,908, and held $567,893 cash on hand. According to the California Target Book, independent expenditure committees have spent $2 million in AD 7 this cycle, with every dollar going toward supporting Hoover or opposing Slavensky. More than $1.1 million of that, about 61%, was reported in the first six days of October. Three committees have spent $646,441 against Slavensky. Legislative Action Victory PAC has put $352,528 into literature, polling, research, and digital ads. PACSA PAC, sponsored by Parents Against Child Sexual Abuse, has spent $225,039, mostly on digital advertising. Keeping Californians Working has spent $68,874 on campaign literature. Slavensky is leaning on the Democratic Party, while Hoover benefits from outside groups that can spend without limit but cannot coordinate with him. ## **Source Notes** This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, CalMatters, the California Target Book, Ballotpedia, California FPPC campaign finance and independent expenditure filings, candidate websites and social media accounts, and reporting from local and regional newspapers and television stations. ### Ricketts Calls Him a Democrat. Osborn Says That's the Problem with Politics URL: https://ivn.us/ricketts-calls-him-a-democrat-osborn-says-thats-the-problem-with-politics/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T15:51:06.000Z Most Senate races eventually come down to a question about policy. Nebraska’s has come down to a question about identity. Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts has spent the campaign arguing that independent Dan Osborn is secretly a Democrat. Osborn has spent it arguing that he’ll answer to neither party. With the race polling inside the margin of error, undecided voters, independents, and Democrats who don’t have another option on the ballot will need to answer that question to decide who will represent them: Who is Dan Osborn? And, does he represent my values? ## **The Race** Osborn is a former Kellogg’s mechanic and union president. He nearly pulled off an upset in 2024, [losing to Sen. Deb Fischer by about seven points](https://ballotpedia.org/United%5FStates%5FSenate%5Felection%5Fin%5FNebraska,%5F2024?ref=ivn.us) in a state Donald Trump won by more than 20\. This year, he faces Ricketts, a former two-term governor who was appointed to the Senate in 2023 and won reelection to the seat in a 2024 special election. The field narrowed over the summer. Democratic nominee Cindy Burbank[ ](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-officially-osborn-vs-ricketts-unless-republicans-stop-it/)[filed to withdraw on July 17](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-officially-osborn-vs-ricketts-unless-republicans-stop-it/) so she would not split the anti-incumbent vote, and Nebraska Democrats will not have a Senate candidate on the ballot for the second cycle in a row. ## **The “Democrat Dan” Frame** Ricketts settled on his message early. When Osborn launched his campaign in 2025, Ricketts told KLKN that “[Dan Osborn is a fake](https://www.klkntv.com/sen-pete-ricketts-talks-2026-race-calls-independent-dan-osborn-a-fake/?ref=ivn.us)” and said he was really a Democrat. Ricketts pointed to Osborn’s 2024 fundraising, which came mostly through Democrats’ ActBlue platform and from out-of-state donors, and big donations from traditionally Democratic donors and PACs. The frame took a central place in the race’s only scheduled debate, held September 1 at the Nebraska State Fair. Ricketts called his opponent “Democrat Dan” so often that Osborn joked the stage needed a[ ](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/?p=43931&ref=ivn.us)[third podium](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/?p=43931&ref=ivn.us). Some of the evidence behind that argument is real. The Nebraska Democratic Party[ ](https://nebraska.tv/news/local/dan-osborn-endorsed-by-ne-democratic-party-for-2026-senate-race?ref=ivn.us)[endorsed Osborn in August 2025](https://nebraska.tv/news/local/dan-osborn-endorsed-by-ne-democratic-party-for-2026-senate-race?ref=ivn.us), and Burbank’s withdrawal cleared his path. His endorsement list leans heavily on unions and progressive groups. Osborn, on his part, has pledged not to caucus with either party. ## **Osborn’s Answer: Caucus With Everybody** Ricketts response to that pledge? He dismissed it as “foolishness,” arguing that the Senate doesn’t work that way. Osborn’s rebuttal, however, is a pledge he shares with several other independent hopefuls running for the Senate. These six independents are coordinating what they call the Fulcrum Caucus. The idea is to win enough seats that neither party can organize the Senate without them, then set the terms before helping either side do it. At the Independent National Convention in Washington last month, Osborn put the pledge in its broadest form. Asked who he would align with, he told Roll Call, “[I’m going to caucus with everybody](https://rollcall.com/2026/09/24/who-would-this-independent-caucus-with-everybody/?ref=ivn.us).” How that would work in practice is still unsettled. One path is a power-sharing arrangement. The Fulcrum Caucus would negotiate a place for its members outside the party caucus system while still providing the leadership and procedural votes the majority needs to run the chamber. That gives Osborn an unusual answer to the Democratic label. Ricketts says a vote for Osborn is a vote for Chuck Schumer as majority leader. Osborn says that in a closely divided Senate, his vote would come at a price for Schumer or anyone else. Neither claim can be tested until January. Still, the Nebraska Farmers Union endorsed Osborn while the Farm Bureau backed Ricketts, which suggests at least some rural institutions are treating it as an open question. ## **Polling and Money** Public polling remains close: | **Pollster** | **Sample** | **Osborn** | **Ricketts** | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------- | ---------- | ------------ | | [YouGov](https://politicalwire.com/2026/10/06/osborn-edges-ricketts-in-nebraska-senate-race/?ref=ivn.us) | LV, ±3.3 | 48% | 47% | | [SurveyUSA](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-to-campaign-in-nebraska-as-gop-faces-close-senate-race-in-red-state-12502967?ref=ivn.us) | 503 LV | 46% | 42% | | [Impact Research](https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-chances-of-losing-to-dan-osborn-in-nebraska-senate-race-12370545?ref=ivn.us) | 600 LV, ±4 | 47% | 47% | The Impact Research poll is worth reading closely. It found Republicans[ ](https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-chances-of-losing-to-dan-osborn-in-nebraska-senate-race-12370545?ref=ivn.us)[ahead by 11 points on Nebraska’s generic ballot](https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-chances-of-losing-to-dan-osborn-in-nebraska-senate-race-12370545?ref=ivn.us), yet Osborn and Ricketts tied. That gap is the independent premise in a single number: Osborn is running about 11 points ahead of what an unnamed Democrat would get. It is also an internal poll released by his campaign, so take the [results with a grain of salt](https://ivn.us/whos-polling-the-independents-a-field-guide-to-the-firms-behind-the-numbers/). Ricketts’ campaign responded by noting that Osborn’s 2024 internals[ ](https://www.klkntv.com/?p=5188766&ref=ivn.us)[overstated his standing by 12 points](https://www.klkntv.com/?p=5188766&ref=ivn.us). Ricketts has the money advantage. As of June 30, he had[ ](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/NE/2026/?ref=ivn.us)[raised $11.2 million and had $6.9 million on hand](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/NE/2026/?ref=ivn.us), compared with Osborn’s $5.8 million raised and $2.4 million on hand. Third-quarter reports are due October 15\. Republicans are also treating the race as competitive. [Trump held a rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, on October 5](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/10/06/photos-trumps-nebraska-rally-the-first-presidential-visit-to-grand-island-since-2006/?ref=ivn.us), an unusual stop in a state where a Republican Senate incumbent wouldn't normally need help. ## **Why It Matters** If the label war decides the race, the result will mean more than one seat. A Ricketts win would show that a well-funded incumbent can define an independent by his allies and his donors, and that voters will accept the definition. An Osborn win would show the opposite: that in a state with roughly twice as many[ ](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ne?ref=ivn.us)[registered Republicans as Democrats](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ne?ref=ivn.us), enough voters can be persuaded that the party question doesn’t apply to him. Osborn’s caucus pledge is easy to dismiss as positioning, and Ricketts has done so. But it is the only real answer an independent has to the charge he faces. If Osborn can win and show how an independent senator can operate outside of the caucus system, he provides a model for others to use. ### Neither Party Owns California's Latino Vote. That's What Makes It Powerful URL: https://ivn.us/neither-party-owns-californias-latino-vote-thats-what-makes-it-powerful/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T14:40:29.000Z *Editor's Note: The following article* [*originally published*](https://calatinonews.com/the-essential-independent-candidate-effect-in-californias-latino-vote/?ref=ivn.us) *on CALatinoNews.com and has been republished on IVN in its entirety in partnership with the Latino News Network.* More than 5.3 million California voters enter the final weeks of the 2026 election without belonging to either of the state’s two major political parties. [As of September, nearly 23 percent of registered voters in California were registered with No Party Preference, compared with about 45 percent as Democrats and 25 percent as Republicans, according to the California Secretary of State.](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/report-registration/60day-general-2026?ref=ivn.us) Among Latino voters, the space outside the two parties is significant too. An analysis by the Center for Inclusive Democracy found that 23 percent of Latino registered voters in California identified as No Party Preference in 2024. Those numbers do not mean California is experiencing a wave of independent candidates. [The state’s top two primary system makes it difficult for candidates outside the major parties to reach November.](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/political-parties/no-party-preference?ref=ivn.us) But the growing number of voters with weaker party ties is changing how some candidates campaign. Rep. Kevin Kiley offers the clearest example. [Kiley was elected to Congress as a Republican. In March, he left the party and changed his affiliation to independent while preparing to seek reelection in California’s newly configured 6th Congressional District.](https://apnews.com/article/kevin-kiley-independent-republican-party-california-district-cf984d5b264563dc2d43aacbf4da7cc1?ref=ivn.us) His campaign raises a basic question. Can a candidate separate himself from the party that defined much of his political career simply by removing the label? Art Estopiñán, a Republican political consultant who spent 27 years as chief of staff to former Florida Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen, believes independent voters will be central to the answer. “The issue is with the independents,” Estopiñán told Latino News Network in an interview. “I think these elections are going to be decided with the support of independents.” Estopiñán said Republicans cannot assume voters who supported President Donald Trump in 2024 will automatically support Republican congressional candidates in 2026. “Republicans have to communicate that agenda to the Hispanic and Latino community directly in Spanish,” he said. He pointed to Southern California, South Texas and South Florida as regions where Latino voters could prove decisive in determining control of Congress. But Cristina Mora, Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley, said weaker attachment to political parties among Latino voters should not automatically be interpreted as a shift toward the center. “I think the dissatisfaction is with traditional parties,” Mora told Latino News Network in an interview. On the Republican side, Mora sees some Latino conservatives who remain ideologically conservative but are dissatisfied with Trump and the Republican Party’s approach to the economy and immigration enforcement. “These are less likely to say that they are no longer Republicans, or conservatives, but not enthusiastic about the direction of the administration,” she said. Among younger Latinos, particularly Latinas, Mora sees a different source of frustration. Some believe Democratic leaders have failed to deliver on promises or push back strongly enough against the Trump administration, particularly on immigration enforcement. For those voters, identifying as independent does not necessarily mean becoming more moderate. “Independent might mean more of a Bernie Sanders disposition,” Mora said, describing voters who may actually see themselves as more progressive than Democratic leaders such as Gov. Gavin Newsom or Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. That makes the Latino independent electorate difficult to define. --- ## **Candidates running outside traditional political structures are testing whether Latino voters are looking for something beyond a party label.** --- Some voters may be moving away from Republicans because they believe Trump policies go too far. Others may be frustrated with Democrats because they believe the party does not go far enough. The common thread may be dissatisfaction rather than ideology. Randy Villegas is a Democrat, but his campaign in California’s 22nd Congressional District reflects another version of this independent political style. The son of Mexican immigrants, Villegas is a college professor, school board member and co owner of his family’s auto repair business in Bakersfield. National Democratic officials initially backed Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains in the primary. Villegas ran against that decision, emphasizing his Central Valley roots and support from local Democratic leaders. He won and now faces Republican Rep. David Valadao in November. Villegas never left the Democratic Party, but his campaign showed that a candidate can position himself against the political establishment while remaining inside it. Mora said local identity can matter, but national politics still shape how voters judge those candidates. For left leaning voters, frustration can come from seeing local Democratic officials as unwilling to challenge the national party. “My hunch is that these voters want to see much more push back,” she said. For conservative voters, dissatisfaction can come from economic concerns and from Republican officials failing to challenge policies they believe are hurting industries such as agriculture and manufacturing. One issue may cut across those divisions. “Gas prices seem to be a unifying marker of dissatisfaction across all independents,” Mora said. That focus on affordability is visible elsewhere in California politics. [Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has tried to appeal to independent and Latino voters by emphasizing housing costs, taxes, utilities and the cost of living.](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-10-03/steve-hilton-latino-outreach-king-taco?ref=ivn.us) His challenge is similar to Kiley’s. Candidates can try to distance themselves from national party politics, but voters still see their endorsements, records and political histories. That may be the central tension behind the independent candidate effect. California is unlikely to elect large numbers of independent officeholders this year. But candidates increasingly recognize that millions of voters cannot simply be counted on because of a party label. For Latino voters, that may be particularly important. A younger Latina in Los Angeles is frustrated that Democrats have not pushed back hard enough against Trump. Moreover, she may call herself independent for different reasons than a conservative Latino small business owner in the Central Valley. Both can appear in the same political category. They may want completely different things. Estopiñán sees those voters as crucial to Republican prospects. Mora sees dissatisfaction moving in both directions. Together, their assessments suggest that the biggest independent effect in California may not be the number of independent candidates who win. It may be the growing number of voters telling both parties that their support can no longer be assumed. ### Report: 125 Primary Winners Didn't Get a Majority. For 21, Congress Is All But Guaranteed URL: https://ivn.us/report-125-primary-winners-didnt-get-a-majority-for-21-congress-is-all-but-guaranteed/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T03:28:38.000Z A record-number of candidates advanced from the primary election season this year with less than a majority of the vote, according to a new report from FairVote. What’s more, many of them already know they are going to win ahead of November. The[ ](https://fairvote.org/report/fewest-votes-wins-plurality-victories-in-2026-primaries/?ref=ivn.us)[FairVote report](https://fairvote.org/report/fewest-votes-wins-plurality-victories-in-2026-primaries/?ref=ivn.us), released Tuesday, found that 125 candidates won congressional and statewide primaries with less than 50% of the vote. This is the highest number since the organization began tracking these outcomes in 2018 and a 79% increase over 2024. Of those, 93 were US House nominees and FairVote projects that 21 are now poised to win in districts that are comfortably safe for their party. In other words, 20-40% of the upcoming House freshman class were effectively chosen by a small fraction of their district’s voters. "In states and districts across the country, majority rule has been replaced with 'fewest votes wins,'" said FairVote Senior Director of Research and Policy Deb Otis. > *"Powerful elected officials are chosen by a fraction of a fraction of the electorate – hurting democratic legitimacy and feeding polarization."* ## **When 24% Is Enough to Get Elected to Congress** Take Illinois' 7th Congressional District as an example. Democrat La Shawn Ford won his party's primary with just 23.7% of the vote, receiving 24,408 votes in a district with approximately 760,000 residents. The district is so safe for the Democratic Party, Ford will likely take the November election with over 80% of the vote. Sitting US Rep. Danny K Davis, who did not run for re-election, won in 2024 with 83% of the vote. In other words, the votes of roughly 3% of the district's population effectively decided who represents everyone. And Ford is hardly alone. According to FairVote's research, some of the lowest winning primary vote shares included: | **Candidate** | **District** | **Winning vote share** | | ------------------ | ---------------- | ---------------------- | | La Shawn Ford (D) | Illinois 7th | 23.7% | | Dan Green (R) | Florida 9th | 25.4% | | Chuck Gray (R) | Wyoming At-Large | 25.4% | | Adam Hamawy (D) | New Jersey 12th | 28.6% | | Jim Schwartzel (R) | Florida 19th | 29.1% | | Daniel Biss (D) | Illinois 9th | 29.4% | All six are running in seats rated safe for their party. They all also happened to have won their primaries under closed partisan systems. *(Note: Illinois does not register voters by party, but voters must declare their party affiliation when they vote in primary elections. The declaration is more than choosing a party ballot. It is required under law to vote.)* ## **Gerrymandering Is Making the Problem Worse** FairVote reports that 2025-2026 redistricting has added another layer to the problem. The bipartisan fight hasn’t just created new safe or favorable districts for the party in power. It has also created opportunities for candidates to secure their nomination with surprisingly little support. The analysis shows that in 10 of 14 congressional districts where mid-decade redistricting intentionally improved the chances of the party not holding the seat, that party's nominee won their primary without a majority. The most striking example is in Florida. The state legislature approved a congressional map in May 2026, creating four districts with (at the time) improved Republican prospects. In all four, the Republican nominee received less than half the primary vote: - Dan Green (FL-9): 25.4%, or 14,748 votes. - Mike Beltran (FL-14): 45.6%, or 25,866 votes. - Casey Askar (FL-22): 30.9%, or 14,774 votes. - Scott Singer (FL-25): 31.4%, or 11,896 votes. Singer's primary vote total represented approximately 1.5% of his district's population. Green's and Askar's totals each represented approximately 1.8%. As [recently pointed out on IVN](https://ivn.us/the-gerrymandering-gamble-may-backfire-in-these-8-congressional-districts/), not all these districts are guaranteed Republican victories in November. Some remain competitive. However, the figures illustrate how partisan mapmaking and closed, crowded primaries can combine to give a relatively small handful of voters the greatest influence over election results. According to FairVote, Florida led the nation with 17 House primaries won without majority support. Four of the five states with the most such outcomes – Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, and North Carolina – also redrew congressional maps during the current election cycle. ## **The Other Culprit: Retiring Incumbents** FairVote also notes that a wave of congressional retirements has resulted in crowded contests in districts where one party already has a clear advantage. In states using traditional plurality primaries, FairVote found that 21 of 39 open seats with a retiring incumbent produced nominees from the favored party who won with less than 50% of the vote. That's 54% of these specific contests. By comparison, only five of 249 districts where incumbents sought reelection had similar outcomes in the incumbent party's primary. The result is a system in which politicians can leave office, a crowded field competes for their seat, and someone with support from less than a third of participating primary voters can emerge as the favorite to become the next representative. ## **The Minority-Rule Problem** FairVote argues that ranked choice voting in primaries would help address the problem by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference rather than selecting just one. The group points to Maine's 2026 gubernatorial primaries as a contrast. In the Democratic primary, Nirav Shah led with 27% of first-choice votes, but Hannah Pingree ultimately won with 56% after ranked choice tabulation. Rather than awarding the nomination to the candidate with the largest initial plurality, the system allowed voters' backup preferences to determine the outcome. FairVote acknowledges that there are still limitations to the reform. For example, ranked choice voting does not solve the larger problem of gerrymandered districts or voters excluded from closed party primaries. The group advocates proportional representation as a longer-term solution. Partisan primaries historically generate low turnout, meaning that even when a primary winner advances to November with a majority vote, they still may have been chosen by only a fraction of the district's full electorate. And in states with closed primaries, independent voters are excluded from the very contests that determine their representation. The question before voters isn’t simply whether candidates win their primaries with majority support. It’s why so many congressional elections are effectively decided before most voters get to cast a ballot in November. And why millions of Americans are denied meaningful participation in taxpayer-funded elections. ### Montana Democratic Chair Resigns, Endorses Independent Seth Bodnar for Senate URL: https://ivn.us/montana-democratic-chair-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar-for-senate/ Last updated: 2026-10-16T17:00:36.000Z Shannon O’Brien[ resigned as chair of the Montana Democratic Party](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/10/12/democratic-partyp-chair-resigns-endorses-bodnar/?ref=ivn.us) on Monday, effective immediately. Vice Chair Bruce Knutson is now the state party chair. O’Brien, almost immediately after stepping down, endorsed independent Seth Bodnar over her party’s own US Senate nominee, Alani Bankhead. This move came the day after incumbent Republican Sen. Kurt Alme debated Bodnar, Bankhead, and Libertarian Kyle Austin (who does not have the support of the state Libertarian Party…yes, it’s an interesting race) in Bozeman. She’s not the first Democrat to endorse the independent over the party nominee. Earlier in the cycle, former Democratic Senator Jon Tester’s pushed Bodnar as a nonpartisan alternative over a Democratic nominee. [At the time](https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/tester-rips-democrats-signals-support-for-um-president-as-best-bet-to-challenge-daines/article%5F1c5f8d95-8d7f-5c00-8ac7-7eeb9d4a8e16.html?ref=ivn.us), O’Brien responded to Tester’s move by describing her role narrowly: “My number one job is to get Democrats elected.” O’Brien appears to have decided she could not keep the title and also say what she believes: that Bodnar offered the best chance at unseating an incumbent Republican. ## **Her Own Explanation** O’Brien made her case in an[ op-ed for MS NOW](https://www.ms.now/opinion/montana-democrat-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar?ref=ivn.us). She presented the move as putting principle ahead of party labels. She wrote that she ran for chair to unify Democrats, but the party is now more divided than ever. However, the cause of the rift, according to O’Brien, is not values but the approach to the Senate race. She called resigning and endorsing a choice made for the “greater good.” She joins a long list (which she includes in her op-ed) of Democratic politicians and leaders who are also supporting the independent, including former senators and governors Jon Tester, Steve Bullock, Max Baucus O’Brien’s argument went beyond who can win. She wrote that Bankhead “[does not have the momentum, resources or will to win this race](https://www.ms.now/opinion/montana-democrat-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar?ref=ivn.us).” She also questioned Bankhead’s commitment to what she believes to be core Democratic values, including abortion rights, a focus on working people, and to Montanans living in poverty. Bankhead’s stated position is pro-choice, but [Bodnar points to discrepancies](https://www.sethformontana.com/news/former-naral-head-calls-out-alani-bankhead-for-lying-about-reproductive-freedom-record?ref=ivn.us) in her application for an endorsement from Planned Parenthood in questioning her actual stance. O’Brien also pointed to More Jobs, Less Government. That PAC backed Montana Republican Senator Tim Sheehy in 2024, and it[ spent about $700,000](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/05/26/the-sheehy-supporting-pac-trying-to-define-montanas-democratic-senate-candidates/?ref=ivn.us) promoting Bankhead before the June primary. It should be noted, however, that both Republican and Democratic PACs have been backing candidates they believe are more beatable in the general election during the other party’s primary, so money spent to support a candidate doesn’t necessarily imply agreement with their stances; sometimes, it’s quite the opposite. ## **Bankhead’s Response** Bankhead treated the resignation as proof of what she’s been claiming has been true of the Democratic Party in Montana throughout her candidacy. She told[ The Hill](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6144107-montana-democrats-chair-resigns/?ref=ivn.us) that O’Brien had worked against her as the Democratic nominee since the summer and is now “using her exit to campaign for a man who never ran in our primary.” She added that Montana Democrats picked her as their nominee and voters are already casting ballots. ## **Why It Matters** O’Brien joins a growing list of Democratic-aligned backers of Bodnar. Outside of the earlier named individuals, groups such as VoteVets, Montana Conservation Voters, Wild Montana, and the Montana AFL-CIO have endorsed the independent. By stepping down first, O’Brien separated the institution from the individual. Under former Vice Chair Knutson, the party apparatus remains formally behind its nominee, Alani Bankhead. Meanwhile, one of its most senior figures is arguing, as a private citizen, that the priority should be unseating the Republican with a candidate who is more likely to win and closer to the Democratic Party in values. The highest quality and most recent poll from [MTFP-Eagleton](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/09/11/alme-holds-an-8-point-lead-over-bodnar-in-senate-race/?ref=ivn.us) from September showed Alme leading Bodnar by eight points 38-30, with Bankhead 14 points behind Bodnar. O’Brien might be betting that much of that gap is Democrats who haven’t yet come around on the idea of voting for an independent over their party’s nominee. Her resignation just might be an effort on her part to give them that permission, elevating a candidate she believes to be the best chance at unseating someone [she has called a puppet for Trump](https://www.ms.now/opinion/montana-democrat-resigns-endorses-independent-seth-bodnar?ref=ivn.us). Only November will show if that works out. ### Can Leila Namvar Give Dem Socialists a Win Over Moderate Republican Greg Wallis? URL: https://ivn.us/independents-will-decide-wallis-vs-namvar-in-californias-desert-battleground/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T19:48:55.000Z Greg Wallis has never won Assembly District 47 by much, and Democrats are betting 2026 is the year his narrow margins run out. But this year they are running a candidate backed by the California Democratic Socialists of America. With nearly one in five voters registered No Party Preference, independents are once again positioned to decide who holds one of California's most competitive Assembly seats. On November 3, voters in the district, which stretches from Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley to Yucca Valley, Banning, and Yucaipa, will choose between Wallis, a Republican seeking a third term, and Democrat Leila Namvar, a City of Indio planner and former SEIU chapter president. Wallis led the June primary, but the two Democrats on the ballot together drew more votes than he did. > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd-GtCJCL3D/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Greg Wallis (@gregwallisforassembly)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd-GtCJCL3D/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) ## **The June Primary** Wallis finished first in the June 2 Top Two primary with 68,831 votes, or 48.13%, according to the California Secretary of State. Namvar placed second with 46,256 votes (32.35%). Fellow Democrat Jason Byors, a Cathedral City software engineer who had first filed to run for Congress against Rep. Ken Calvert, finished third with 27,915 votes (19.52%). Turnout was 42.73%, with 143,002 ballots cast. Together, Namvar and Byors took 51.87% of the vote. Wallis, meanwhile, ran nearly 15 points ahead of the Republican share of registered voters. > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXfTVCRknGs/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) The Wallis campaign says it has seen these numbers before. Duane Dichiara, a strategist working with Wallis, told the Riverside Press-Enterprise by email that Democrats usually outpoll Wallis in the primary, "and Greg wins in November with the more moderate coalition of Democrats, Independents and Republicans who turn out in that election." ## **A District That Refuses to Pick a Side** As of September 4, 2026, Assembly District 47 had 334,683 registered voters. Democrats accounted for 129,832 (38.79%), Republicans for 111,192 (33.22%), and No Party Preference voters for 65,315 (19.52%), with the rest registered with minor parties. Democrats hold a 5.57-point registration edge, but they also held the advantage in 2022 and 2024, and Wallis won both years. The Target Book describes a district whose politics range from conservative-leaning Yucaipa, Calimesa, and the Redlands area to solidly Democratic Palm Springs and Cathedral City. At the statewide level, it has swung between the parties. Joe Biden carried the district by 6.56% in 2020, and Kamala Harris won it by 4% in 2024\. Adam Schiff carried it by just 1% in the 2024 U.S. Senate race. Governor Gavin Newsom lost it narrowly in 2018 but won it by 2% in 2022. Wallis first won the seat in [2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0851evE2so&ref=ivn.us), defeating Democrat Christy Holstege, then a Palm Springs City Councilmember, by 85 votes, a margin of less than one-tenth of a percentage point ([Idyllwild Town Crier](https://idyllwildtowncrier.com/2024/10/02/holstege-expects-second-time-is-charm/?ref=ivn.us)).[ ](https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/12/08/wallis-declares-victory-in-ad-47-race-holstege-weighing-recount-request/69712433007/?ref=ivn.us)[The Desert Sun](https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/12/08/wallis-declares-victory-in-ad-47-race-holstege-weighing-recount-request/69712433007/?ref=ivn.us) called it the tightest Assembly contest in decades, and the Target Book noted that Wallis was the only Republican that year to win a legislative district Newsom carried. In their 2024 rematch, Wallis won by 5,534 votes, or 2.4 percentage points, taking about 51% of the vote. Turnout that November reached 72%. ### **From the Coachella Valley to the High Desert** The district stretches across Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, encompassing the cities of Banning, Beaumont, Calimesa, Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Yucaipa, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, and the town of Yucca Valley, along with portions of Redlands, Highland, and San Jacinto. It also climbs into the San Jacinto Mountains, including Idyllwild. [Assemblymember Greg Wallis on Instagram: “Earth Day looks a little different in the 47th Assembly District. We’re surrounded by landscapes that have shaped this region for thousands of years. That history and character don’t happen by accident, and they aren’t guaranteed. That’s why protecting places like Chuckwalla National Monument matters. Taking care of this land means it’s still here for the people who come after us. That’s what Earth Day 2026 means out here.”28 likes, 1 comments - asmgregwallis on April 22, 2026: “Earth Day looks a little different in the 47th Assembly District. We’re surrounded by landscapes that have shaped this region for thousands of years. That history and character don’t happen by accident, and they aren’t guaranteed. That’s why protecting places like Chuckwalla National Monument matters. Taking care of this land means it’s still here for the people who come after us. That’s what Earth Day 2026 means out here.”.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/rzWiSjZRxk5-32acffd7-d875-4f10-9c2a-840e7d08652f.webp)Instagram![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/671183107_17946580038146037_5514139606675314608_n-98d7c304-f466-404d-be6e-3bd0079cea9b.jpg)](https://www.instagram.com/reels/DXchHdKjOWc/?ref=ivn.us) A significant portion of the district lies within the Coachella Valley, where tourism, housing affordability, infrastructure strain, and seasonal population swings shape local politics. Palm Springs remains internationally associated with mid-century modern architecture, including Twin Palms (also known as the Frank Sinatra House), designed by E. Stewart Williams in the Movie Colony East neighborhood. To the east, Joshua Tree National Park anchors the district's environmental and cultural identity. Pasadena resident Minerva Hoyt first protected the area through advocacy; it became a national monument in 1936 and was elevated to national park status in 1994\. Today, the park spans more than 790,000 acres, protects hundreds of archaeological and historic sites, and supports a tourism economy critical to surrounding communities. ### **Demographics, Housing, and Cost of Living** According to the 2023 American Community Survey, Assembly District 47 has a population of 523,318\. The district is 48.5% White, 39.3% Latino, 3.8% Black, and 4.4% Asian. About 16.9% of residents are foreign-born, and 7.2% are non-citizens. The citizen voting-age population is 72.6%. Economic indicators reflect both growth and strain. The median household income is $78,451, with a mean household income of $114,772 and a per capita income of $45,665\. Approximately 12.8% of residents live below the poverty line. About 6.5% lack health insurance, and 11.6% receive food assistance. Housing is predominantly owner-occupied at 70.7%, while 29.3% of homes are renter-occupied. The median home value is $450,800, and the median monthly rent is $1,542. The district has 29,537 civilian veterans, representing 7.1% of the population. ## **Greg Wallis: Moderate Republican** [Republican Greg Wallis](https://www.gregwallis.org/?ref=ivn.us), born May 15, 1990, is a third-generation Californian who lives in Bermuda Dunes. Before his election, he served as district director for Assemblymember Chad Mayes beginning in 2014. Earlier in his career, he managed Brian Nestande's unsuccessful congressional campaign and served as executive director of the Inland Empire Taxpayers Association, according to public records and his[ ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-wallis-75211846/?ref=ivn.us)[LinkedIn profile](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-wallis-75211846/?ref=ivn.us). ### **A Record of Crossing the Aisle** Wallis is considered[ ](https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/greg-wallis-1990/?ref=ivn.us)[one of the state's most moderate Republicans](https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/greg-wallis-1990/?ref=ivn.us), and CalMatters' legislator tracker classifies him as "Moderate Right." Yet he holds a district where a traditional political lens would hand the seat to Democrats. In July 2026, CalMatters' Digital Democracy[ ](https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/07/california-legislature-maverick-lawmakers/?ref=ivn.us)[named Wallis the Legislature's top maverick voter](https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/07/california-legislature-maverick-lawmakers/?ref=ivn.us), ranking him first among lawmakers who vote against the majority of their own party. The analysis noted that he was the lone Republican to support a bill aimed at protecting abortion and gender-affirming care providers from arrest, and the lone Republican to back an LGBTQ Caucus priority bill protecting insurance coverage for gay and transgender Californians. Wallis is a member of the California Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of legislators who work across party lines to develop practical solutions to state challenges. He recently joined a bipartisan coalition working to protect Head Start's evidence-based performance standards from a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services proposal that would eliminate the standards behind the program's comprehensive early childhood services. "Republicans, Democrats, independents, nobody has a monopoly on good ideas," Wallis told CalMatters. In September, Wallis led 60 other state lawmakers from both parties in opposing a Trump administration plan to trade a parcel of Yosemite National Park to Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a Nevada-based developer that owns land just outside the park's western boundary and wanted the parcel for a private road into the park, The Desert Sun reported. Wallis sent the letter on his letterhead to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, with his signature first, asking the department to confirm it would reject the exchange. "Yosemite belongs to no one and to everyone," the letter said. Wallis also authored a joint resolution, adopted by both the Assembly and the state Senate this year, calling on the administration to restore full funding and staffing for the National Park Service. Closer to home, Wallis joined fellow Republican Assemblymember Jeff Gonzalez on AB 1145, known as Tristan's Bill, which Newsom signed into law. Named for Tristan Bourgeois, a La Quinta man killed in an October 2024 crash involving a big rig on Highway 74, the law directs Caltrans to study safety on the winding mountain highway and similar roads across the state and report its findings to the Legislature ([NBC Palm Springs](https://www.nbcpalmsprings.com/2025/04/24/assemblyman-jeff-gonzalez-and-assemblymember-greg-wallis-introduce-ab-1145-to-investigate-safety-risks-on-hwy-74-and-similar-roads?ref=ivn.us)). In an October 11 letter to The Desert Sun, a reader praised the bill as bipartisan problem-solving, citing a crash rate on the highway 125% higher than on comparable roads and urging Caltrans to finish its study quickly. In early 2025, Wallis was the only Republican Assemblymember to vote for Newsom's $180 million wildfire prevention funding package. He also joined lawmakers from both parties on a letter led by State Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh urging President Donald Trump to consider expedited work permits for undocumented essential workers, including farmworkers. During the 2023 to 2024 session, Wallis introduced 37 bills, five of which became law, and Newsom vetoed one. Among those enacted was AB 2111, which prohibits altering a license plate to prevent identification. He also authored bipartisan legislation that extends California's electric-vehicle carpool lane decal program through January 1, 2027, contingent on federal authorization. ### **Ratings and Endorsements** Wallis supports same sex marriage and abortion rights, and he helped secure funding to rebuild a Palm Springs fertility clinic damaged in a May 2025 bombing. He has received 73% from Equality California, 75% from NARAL Pro Choice California, and 100% from Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. Business groups rate him highly, including a 100% score from the California Chamber of Commerce in 2023\. He received 36% from the ACLU and 29% from the Alliance for Retired Americans. Several public safety unions support Wallis: California Professional Firefighters, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, and the Peace Officers Research Association of California. The editorial boards of the Riverside Press-Enterprise and the Redlands Daily Facts have also endorsed him. In its September 30 endorsement, the Redlands board called Wallis a pragmatic conservative and argued that Sacramento already has plenty of lawmakers aligned with organized labor. In a December 2025 interview with the San Bernardino Sun, Wallis described his district as "a mix of Republicans, Democrats, and independent voters who value results over party." "Given that Sacramento Democrats have spent millions against me each election, I'm sure they will do so again," Wallis said. "The truth is that they and their special interest allies have basically unlimited funds. So, I assume they will keep trying to unseat me, and I will focus my time and effort on doing the right thing for local people. That's how I get re-elected because I'll work with anyone, regardless of their party, to get things done." Wallis and his high school sweetheart, Desiree, have two dogs, Gunner and Harley. ## **Leila Namvar: Progressive Democrat** [Democrat Leila Namvar](https://www.leilanamvar.com/?ref=ivn.us), born August 4, 1972, lives in La Quinta and works as a public arts program analyst for the City of Indio. Born and educated in Iran, she worked in urban planning in Tehran before coming to the United States. Her family began the immigration process in 1983, when she was 11, hoping to join relatives in California. The wait lasted 19 years, according to[ ](https://www.newarab.com/news/iranian-american-leila-namvar-runs-california-assembly?ref=ivn.us)[The New Arab](https://www.newarab.com/news/iranian-american-leila-namvar-runs-california-assembly?ref=ivn.us) and a 2006 Desert Sun profile. She arrived legally in Southern California in 2002, at age 30. > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZDmaPqSRow/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) Despite holding several degrees, including one in architecture, Namvar started over at the bottom of the job ladder. The Desert Sun reported that she sold tickets at a movie theater and worked as a Red Cross lab assistant. Her campaign says she arrived with no money or connections and at one point held four jobs while taking night classes to learn English. She told The New Arab that she sometimes had to choose between buying gas and saving for rent. She joined the City of Indio as a planning technician in late 2005 and later moved into public arts. Her campaign credits her with helping shape the city's strategic plans and budgets and opening more room for public input. A September 2025 Desert Sun report noted her role in developing Indio's general plan and its downtown housing density framework. Namvar became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2008 and voted for Barack Obama in her first presidential election, according to The New Arab. She later earned a master's degree in public administration and volunteered as a translator for Iranian and Afghan asylum seekers. ### **Labor Leader** Namvar served as chapter president of SEIU Local 721 at the City of Indio. Her campaign website says she negotiated three contracts, "never backing down from having hard conversations and standing up to powerful interests when the stakes were high." The campaign frames her union work around pay, workplace safety, and health coverage. She is an[ ](https://www.instagram.com/p/DGwoeuvviI4/?ref=ivn.us)[Assembly District 47 delegate](https://www.instagram.com/p/DGwoeuvviI4/?ref=ivn.us) to the California Democratic Party and serves as[ ](https://democraticwomenofthedesert.org/personnel/leila-namvar/?ref=ivn.us)[membership chair](https://democraticwomenofthedesert.org/personnel/leila-namvar/?ref=ivn.us) of Democratic Women of the Desert. Namvar describes herself as a working mom and a woman of color. Her husband is an emergency room nurse, and their son is training to become an EMT. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYJMV8Bzo7S/?ref=ivn.us) ### **Why She Is Running** Namvar told The New Arab that watching working families fall further behind, and seeing benefits cut for people in need under Trump, pushed her to get more involved. In July 2025, Close the Gap California, which recruits progressive women to run for office, reached out after hearing about her labor and city work and helped her assemble a campaign team. The group's executive director, Susannah Delano, told the outlet that Namvar's affordability message fits the moment. Announcing[ ](https://www.facebook.com/voteleilanamvar/)[her Assembly bid](https://www.facebook.com/voteleilanamvar/), Namvar told The Desert Sun, "When I came here, I really believed in the American dream. But I think it's slipping away from too many." Her platform centers on the cost of living. She says she wants the state to rein in corporate power, create better-paying jobs, and make health care and education easier for families in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties to access. She has also proposed tougher terms for data centers, arguing they drive up local power and water bills and harm the environment. Namvar says she would block new facilities that refuse to sign community benefit agreements covering those costs and local hiring, and would keep them in existing industrial zones, away from homes and schools. On immigration, Namvar says she would push back against ICE enforcement and work with other legislators to defend Californians from what her campaign calls harmful actions by the Trump administration. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeStAVCT3Tz/?ref=ivn.us) ### **Endorsements** The[ ](https://cadem.org/california-democratic-party-announces-endorsements-for-statewide-congressional-and-state-legislature-candidates/?ref=ivn.us)[California Democratic Party](https://cadem.org/california-democratic-party-announces-endorsements-for-statewide-congressional-and-state-legislature-candidates/?ref=ivn.us) endorsed Namvar after the primary. SEIU, the Working Families Party, CAIR-PAC, the political arm of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the California Federation of Labor Unions also back her. By March, she had won the support of about 20 labor unions and several local elected officials, The New Arab reported. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DcGuiIuTjF7/?ref=ivn.us) [California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us) recommends Namvar as "the clear choice of labor," pointing to her SEIU leadership. She is one of 15 candidates backed by both the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America in competitive California races this fall, and Assembly District 47 is one of four Republican-held seats on that list ([IVN](https://ivn.us/15-races-where-democratic-socialists-can-reshape-california-politics/)). If elected, Namvar would be the first Muslim and the first Iranian American to represent the district, according to The New Arab. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DdAMdbegcsr/?ref=ivn.us) ## **Money and Mail** The Target Book ranks Assembly District 47 among California's most competitive legislative races. Independent expenditures topped $2.5 million in 2024, and outside money is flowing again. Wallis built an early fundraising advantage, but Namvar has narrowed it since the primary. During the reporting period that closed September 19, the two raised similar amounts: $267,745 for Wallis and $252,369 for Namvar. Since then, Namvar has reported $1,041,183 in new contributions, bringing Wallis's cycle total to $1,506,361 and Namvar's to $1,770,289. Wallis has also spent far more, $1,264,202 over the cycle compared with Namvar's $395,354\. As of September 19, he had $377,900 in the bank, and she had $82,272, a figure that predates her late surge. Party money is part of the picture on both sides: Wallis has received $143,000 from the California Republican Party, and the California Democratic Party gave Namvar $53,800 in July, after the primary. In the primary, seven outside committees spent $520,640, according to the Target Book. Three labor committees backed Namvar: SEIU California's Nurses and Educators for Healthy CA Communities at $151,844, followed by the United Domestic Workers of America IE PAC at $85,009 and SEIU Local 721 at $53,022. Four committees spent $230,765 supporting Wallis. Uber Innovation was the largest single outside spender in the primary at $164,966\. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association added $50,000, the California Apartment Association's Advance California spent $11,360, and the Statewide California Coalition PAC spent $4,439. Voters are seeing that spending in their mailboxes.[ ](https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/10/08/california-assembly-election-leila-namvar-greg-wallis-candidates/91993389007/?ref=ivn.us)[The Desert Sun reported](https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/10/08/california-assembly-election-leila-namvar-greg-wallis-candidates/91993389007/?ref=ivn.us) that most of the mail for and against both candidates comes from independent groups, not the campaigns. Mailers attacking Wallis focus on his donations from oil and utility companies. Mailers attacking Namvar highlight her support from the Democratic Socialists of America and say she backs a major tax hike. ## **Where They Stand on Affordability** Both candidates are running on affordability. In answers to a Desert Sun questionnaire, Wallis called the cost of living "the biggest issue facing families across our communities," citing higher prices for groceries, gas, and insurance. He also listed public safety and a more efficient state government among his priorities. Namvar focused on housing, pledging more affordable units, stronger renter protections, and more help with down payments for first-time buyers, along with infrastructure and transit spending to cut commuting costs across the Coachella Valley. They part ways on taxes and spending. Namvar told The New Arab, "I understand the need for tax reform," and said California should reorder its budget priorities to ease the cost of living. The Redlands Daily Facts board predicted she would vote for tax increases. Wallis told the board that the state budget has roughly doubled in ten years while many services have gotten worse, and he wants independent, nonpartisan audits of state programs. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has graded him B, B, and most recently A, according to the editorial. They also split on high-speed rail. Wallis calls the project "one of the biggest examples of government waste in California history." Namvar told the same editorial board she strongly supports finishing the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles line as part of expanding affordable transportation. Wallis also favors streamlining the California Environmental Quality Act so housing and other projects can be built faster, and supports more money for addiction and mental health treatment if it comes with more accountability. ## **Independents Hold the Key** Wallis has held this seat by winning over voters outside his own party. Namvar is counting on stronger November turnout, the state party's backing, and her late fundraising surge to change that. The district's No Party Preference voters outnumber Wallis's 2024 margin nearly 12 to 1. ## **About the November 3 General Election** The last day to register to vote for the November 3, 2026, General Election is October 19, 2026\. Eligible Californians who miss the deadline can still register and cast a provisional ballot through same-day conditional voter registration at their county elections office or a vote center. All active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot, with mailing beginning October 5\. Early in-person voting begins October 24 in Voter's Choice Act counties. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by November 10. ## **Source Notes** This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, CalMatters and its Digital Democracy project, the California Target Book, California FPPC campaign finance filings, The Desert Sun, the Riverside Press-Enterprise, the Redlands Daily Facts, the San Bernardino Sun, The New Arab, the Idyllwild Town Crier, The Ballot Brief, the California Democratic Party, California DSA Voter Guide, candidate websites and social media accounts, and other local and regional reporting. ### The Gerrymandering Gamble May Backfire in These 8 Congressional Districts URL: https://ivn.us/the-gerrymandering-gamble-may-backfire-in-these-8-congressional-districts/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T14:44:04.000Z Today, roughly 35 million Americans live in a different congressional district than they did 2 years ago. And the reason is because of a mid-cycle redistricting effort that was supposed to guarantee particular outcomes in the 2026 midterms. However, with just 3 weeks until Election Day, there are indicators that these efforts may backfire on the party in power. It all started last summer when Republicans launched an aggressive redistricting effort in Texas at the direction of President Donald Trump. But things escalated when California responded with Proposition 50. [35 Million Americans Didn’t Move. Their Congressional Districts Did.More than 24 million voters will cast ballots in new congressional districts they didn’t move to, as nine states redrew maps in 2025 ahead of the 2026 midterms. The shift raises questions about whether elected officials represent constituents or if voters are being picked by mapmakers for partisan a![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-71597c26-ed6d-4254-a0b5-199770c64c09.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-94ff4ccd-ccbd-4c77-9428-eeb411e1121e-ea20d824-b218-4a3d-8220-df02b1e458d8.jpg)](https://ivn.us/24-million-potential-voters-didnt-move-their-congressional-districts-did/) Since then, 7 additional states have passed new maps, more have tried, Utah is using a court-ordered map, and there are indicators that more partisan gerrymandering will occur ahead of the 2028 presidential election. The strategy is straightforward: redraw the boundaries, change the partisan composition of districts, and improve the odds of winning more seats. However, the outcome in this election may not pan out exactly as mapmakers anticipated. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer even stated last week that Republicans [were unlikely to capture all the additional seats they had targeted through redistricting](https://www.axios.com/2026/10/06/house-republicans-redistricting-midterm-elections?ref=ivn.us), including five in Texas and four in Florida. Researchers at Rice University and the Brookings Institution [also note](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/texas-redistricting-plan-unlikely-to-add-5-new-republican-seats/?ref=ivn.us) that the strategy in Texas depended partly on gains the GOP made among Latino voters in 2024—which may not hold up in 2026. Meanwhile, Democratic efforts to redraw California's congressional boundaries have created their own tests of whether partisan mapmaking can overcome incumbency and local political dynamics. Here are 8 congressional districts where the new maps are confronting unexpected obstacles, and where independent voters could make the biggest difference. ## **1\. California's 22nd District: David Valadao Has Defied Expectations Before** California Democrats used Proposition 50 to make US Rep. David Valadao's Central Valley district more Democratic, adding approximately 100,000 Fresno residents, while cutting out the congressman’s own home town. [Democrats Gerrymandered David Valadao’s District. Did It Backfire?Both Parties Spent Millions Picking This Matchup. 100,000 Independents Get to Decide Who Wins.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-703071f7-81f8-4696-bd41-aa958e1287f0.png)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/david-valadao-0166f3f7-7bf5-4f49-b72f-c60dec7f39c5.jpg)](https://ivn.us/democrats-gerrymandered-david-valadaos-district-it-backfired/) New registration figures show 42% of the district’s electorate are Democrats, nearly 26% are Republicans, and about a quarter are registered No Party Preference (independent voters). On paper, the changes created a stronger opportunity for Democrats to defeat one of California's most resilient Republicans. But recent election history shows that the incumbent has a history of outperforming his own party and winning even when Democrats have a registration edge. **Why the redraw could backfire:** The district is considered a “Toss Up” or narrowly Republican-leaning despite the increased number of Democrats, and the reason may be a combination of Valadao’s cross-party appeal and the significant number of independent voters in the district. ## **2\. California's 6th District: Kevin Kiley Is Testing Whether an Independent Can Beat the Map** US Rep. Kevin Kiley's former 3rd District was redrawn to favor Democrats under Prop 50, prompting him to seek reelection in the Sacramento-area 6th District instead. But Kiley made another consequential move: He left the Republican Party and became an independent. He subsequently finished first in the June primary, ahead of former Democratic state Sen. Richard Pan, setting up a November contest in a district Kamala Harris carried by nearly 20 points in 2024. The most recent voter registration statistics show 39% of registered voters in the district are Democrats, 30% are Republican, and nearly 22% are No Party Preference. It is a race where independent voters could cast the most consequential ballots. **Why the redraw could backfire:** California Democrats created a heavily Democratic district, but Kiley is running not only as an incumbent, but also as an independent. Will a separation from partisan politics be enough to overcome a map shaped by partisan redistricting? ## **3\. Texas' 28th District: Incumbent Henry Cuellar Still Has Broad Support** Texas Republicans redrew the South Texas district represented by Democratic US Rep. Henry Cuellar so that Trump would have carried it by approximately 10 points in 2024. The strategy assumes that voters who supported Trump then will also support a Republican congressional candidate now. But [reports on the race](https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-house-races-watch-2026-elections-2026-10-12/?ref=ivn.us) note that Cuellar has demonstrated an ability to attract voters outside his party, particularly in communities where more conservative Democrats remain influential. **Why the redraw could backfire:** Presidential voting behavior does not automatically translate into congressional voting behavior, especially when a longtime incumbent has an established local base and a record of broad appeal. ## **4\. Texas' 34th District: Vicente Gonzalez Won’t Be Easy to Defeat** Similar to the 28th, Republicans redrew US Rep. Vincente Gonzalez's district (also in South Texas) into one Trump would have carried by roughly 10 points. But Gonzalez has entered the final weeks of the election with significant financial resources. Reuters reported on October 12 that Gonzalez had nearly $2 million more in campaign cash than Republican Eric Flores, while Democrats are spending twice as much as Republicans to defend the seat. Axios [also reported on October 8](https://www.axios.com/2026/10/08/south-texas-gop-latino-warning-democrats?ref=ivn.us) that the district was rated a “Toss Up.” As previously mentioned, The Republican strategy was to capitalize on gains the party made with South Texas Latino voters in 2024\. But this is a segment of the voting population both parties often misunderstand. Latinos are more likely than any other group to be independent. And even when they identify with a party, many do not blindly vote how the party tells them or fall lockstep in line with the party’s platform. **Why the redraw could backfire:** Republicans are relying on an assumption that voter preferences haven't changed in two years. Particularly, among Latino voters. However, recent polling shows the GOP is not looked on as favorably this cycle. Changing political attitudes, Gonzalez's incumbency, and the spending advantage for Democrats are complicating the effort. ## **5\. Texas' 15th District: A Republican Seat Caught in the Redistricting Gamble** Texas' 15th differs from the two districts above. Republicans already hold it, and Rep. Monica De La Cruz's election was considered an important milestone in the GOP's effort to expand its appeal in South Texas. However, evidence of shifting Latino voter preferences is complicating that narrative in her race against Democrat and Tejano music star Bobby Pulido. In August, [one nonpartisan poll](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/texas-us-house-15-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) showed Pulido ahead by 6. > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/p/DeCZZzZCLcU/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by The New York Times (@nytimes)](https://www.instagram.com/p/DeCZZzZCLcU/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) Further, an October 5 [NBC News/Telemundo poll](https://kyma.com/decision-politics/national-politics/2026/10/05/new-nbc-news-telemundo-poll-shows-latino-voters-souring-in-gop-and-president-trump/?ref=ivn.us) found Democrats leading Republicans 59% to 35% among Latino voters nationally. National polling cannot establish how voters in South Texas will behave. Latino voters are not a monolith. But the changing numbers show that the GOP can no longer rely on the same assumptions made by mapmakers. **Why the redraw could backfire:** While the 15th district wasn’t a target of redistricting, the new map unintentionally resulted in tighter contests this year that could result in smaller gains or even losses for Republicans. ## **6\. Florida's 14th District: A Trump District With a Democratic Incumbent** Florida Republicans made substantial changes to US Rep. Kathy Castor's Tampa-area district when they adopted a new congressional map in May 2026. Under the old boundaries, Kamala Harris carried the district by approximately eight points in 2024\. Under the new lines, Trump would have won by roughly 10.5 points. Yet, this contest is not considered a sure thing for Republican Mike Beltran. Fox News’ ratings [have moved the district from “Lean Republican” to “Toss Up.”](https://floridapolitics.com/archives/821268-fox-news-ratings-move-7-of-floridas-u-s-house-contests-in-democrats-direction/?ref=ivn.us) Something to consider: Florida has a sizable independent voter population. More than 3.3 million Floridians are registered as “No Party.” These voters may not the same way between two election cycles, making them a hard voting bloc for mapmakers to predict. **Why the redraw could backfire:** Republicans transformed the 14th into a Trump district, but they still have to persuade voters to remove a familiar representative that has incumbency and experience. The shift in boundaries alone may not guarantee that result. ## **7\. Florida's 22nd District: A Redrawn Republican Seat With a History of Swing Voting** The changes made to Florida's 22nd District are considered [among the most dramatic under the state’s new map](https://www.wusf.org/politics-issues/2026-05-06/breakdown-changes-for-florida-new-congressional-map?ref=ivn.us). The district now stretches from parts of Palm Beach and Broward counties into more conservative territory in Hendry and Collier counties. Under its previous boundaries, Harris carried the district in 2024\. Under the new lines, Trump would have easily taken it. Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel is not seeking re-election, which makes this an open-seat race between Democrat Pia Dandiya and Republican Casey Askar. Like with the strategy in Texas, the new 22nd was drawn based on how voters cast their ballots in 2024, but many voters in the district supported Joe Biden in 2020. The race is now considered a “Toss Up.” **Why the redraw could backfire:** The GOP advantage relies on voters maintaining their 2024 political preferences. An open race without an incumbent and a district containing communities that have shifted between parties create uncertainty around that assumption. ## **8\. North Carolina's 1st District: Don Davis Defies the New Boundaries** North Carolina Republicans redrew the state's 1st Congressional District to make it substantially more favorable to their party. Under the previous map, Trump carried the district by approximately three points. Under the new boundaries, his advantage would have reached double digits. Yet Democratic US Rep. Don Davis remains highly competitive against Republican Laurie Buckhout. [An October poll](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/north-carolina-us-house-1-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) showed Davis leading Buckhout by 10 points, although another Republican-sponsored survey showed a much closer race. On October 9, the Cook Political Report [moved the district from “Lean Republican” to “Toss Up.”](https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings?ref=ivn.us) Reuters also reported that Davis had raised more money than Buckhout and that Democrats had substantially outspent Republicans in the district. **Why the redraw could backfire:** The new partisan composition has not eliminated Davis' appeal or fundraising advantage. His race illustrates how a competitive incumbent can complicate an aggressive partisan redraw in a state in which independent voters make up 40% of the electorate. ### Los 50 mil votantes independientes del condado de Kern decidirán quién llega a la Asamblea de California URL: https://ivn.us/hide/los-50-mil-votantes-independientes-del-condado-de-kern-decidiran-quien-llega-a-la-asamblea-de-california/ Last updated: 2026-10-20T17:20:15.000Z **BAKERSFIELD**.– En los pueblos agrícolas y en los barrios del oriente del Distrito 35 de la Asamblea de California, es probable que este noviembre el voto más poderoso lo tengan quienes se niegan a casarse con un partido. Más de 50 mil electores del distrito están registrados sin preferencia partidista. Representan casi uno de cada cuatro votantes y son prácticamente tantos como los republicanos inscritos. Cuando se cuenten las boletas, el 3 de noviembre, lo más seguro es que en sus manos esté la decisión: enviar a Sacramento, la capital del estado, al demócrata [Andrae Gonzales](https://www.andraegonzales.com/?ref=ivn.us), concejal de Bakersfield, o al republicano [Saul Ayon](http://www.ayonforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us), alcalde de McFarland. Aunque los demócratas son el partido con más afiliados en el distrito, están lejos de ser mayoría, y esa ventaja les ha servido de poco en los últimos años. En 2024, Kamala Harris le ganó aquí a Donald Trump por apenas 363 votos. El fenómeno no es exclusivo de Kern. De acuerdo con [VoterCount.ai](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us), en California hay 5.2 millones de electores registrados sin preferencia partidista, cerca de 22 por ciento del padrón. Si a ellos se suman los alrededor de 950 mil inscritos en el Partido Independiente Americano, más de seis millones de californianos no militan en ninguno de los dos grandes partidos, una cifra mayor que todo el electorado republicano del estado. Por eso Los Angeles Times los considera [el fiel de la balanza](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-10-11/midterms-state-of-play?ref=ivn.us). [Everybody Wants the Independent Vote, But Nobody Actually Talks To ThemIndependent voters are now “kingmakers” in competitive races, but campaigns treat them as data points, not people. Without direct conversation, candidates miss opportunities to engage the largest voting bloc.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-ba642264-cd14-412c-974d-295ba0cdef45.png)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-independent-voters-kingmakers-7ea83eb9-f09d-4da2-baa1-d59a46bcaa27.jpg)](https://ivn.us/everybody-wants-the-independent-vote-but-nobody-actually-talks-to-them/) ## **Donde el agua, el trabajo y la cosecha van primero** El distrito es el corazón agrícola de California. Atraviesa el condado de Kern y abarca Delano, McFarland, Wasco, Shafter, Arvin y la comunidad de Lamont, además de más de la mitad de Bakersfield, incluido el oriente de la ciudad. Aquí la política se resume en tres temas: agua, tierra y empleo. Muchos de sus habitantes viven de seguir la cosecha de pueblo en pueblo, y la región tiene una larga historia de lucha por los derechos de los jornaleros agrícolas. En 1965, recolectores de uva filipinos y mexicoamericanos [abandonaron los campos de Delano y encendieron la huelga que dio forma al sindicato Unión de Campesinos (United Farm Workers)](https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/workers-united-the-delano-grape-strike-and-boycott.htm?ref=ivn.us), bajo el liderazgo de Larry Itliong, César Chávez y Dolores Huerta. Tres de cada cuatro habitantes son latinos, igual que seis de cada 10 personas con derecho a voto. Para cumplir con la Ley federal de Derecho al Voto, la Comisión de Redistribución de Distritos de los Ciudadanos de California (California Citizens Redistricting Commission) dividió Bakersfield de manera que las comunidades latinas quedaran unidas en un mismo distrito. Es una zona donde el dinero no alcanza. Un hogar típico gana 55 mil 794 dólares al año, muy por debajo del promedio estatal. Casi una cuarta parte de la población vive en pobreza, una proporción similar de familias recibe asistencia alimentaria y apenas uno de cada 10 adultos tiene título universitario. ## **De una ventaja de 25 puntos a un volado** Hace una década, esta era una de las zonas más leales a los demócratas del Valle Central. En 2016, Hillary Clinton ganó aquí por 25 puntos. Desde entonces, el apoyo empezó a desmoronarse. En 2020, Joe Biden ganó por 21 puntos, y en 2024 la ventaja de Harris fue de apenas un tercio de punto porcentual. En esos ocho años, Trump aumentó su votación en el distrito cerca de 61 por ciento, mientras que Harris obtuvo unos 17 mil 500 votos menos que Biden. El desgaste también alcanzó otros cargos. En 2024, Adam Schiff ganó el distrito por menos de dos puntos en su elección al Senado, y Gavin Newsom vio reducirse el margen de 18 puntos que había obtenido en 2018. Ese mismo año, mientras el resto del estado aprobaba con holgura la Proposición 3, que incorporó a la Constitución estatal el derecho al matrimonio, este distrito la rechazó por 299 votos. En cambio, respaldó con casi 72 por ciento la Proposición 36, que endureció las penas por robo y por delitos de drogas. ## **Un escaño vacante y una segunda oportunidad** El escaño quedó libre en julio de 2025, cuando la asambleísta demócrata [Jasmeet Bains](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/jasmeet-bains-165424?ref=ivn.us), cortejada con insistencia por la dirigencia nacional de su partido, anunció que buscaría arrebatarle su lugar en el Congreso al republicano David Valadao. Bains terminó en tercer lugar en la primaria, así que su paso por la Asamblea concluye en diciembre. Para Gonzales, la vacante fue una segunda oportunidad. En 2023 [había intentado disputarle el escaño a Bains](https://sjvsun.com/news/politics/andrae-gonzales-bakersfield-councilman-launches-challenge-to-bains-for-assembly/?ref=ivn.us), luego de que ella rompiera con su partido para oponerse al impuesto estatal a la gasolina y de que el entonces presidente de la Asamblea, Anthony Rendon, la castigara retirándole un puesto en un comité. Gonzales apenas superó los 100 mil dólares de recaudación, muy lejos de su rival, y meses después [se retiró de la contienda](https://sjvsun.com/?p=87243&ref=ivn.us) con un llamado a la unidad de los demócratas locales. Esta vez no esperó: registró su candidatura un día después de que Bains anunció su salto al Congreso. La noche de la primaria, Ayon tomó una ventaja de unos seis puntos que todavía conservaba a la tarde siguiente. Pero conforme avanzó el conteo, Gonzales fue recortando la diferencia hasta terminar en primer lugar, con 36.73 por ciento frente a 36.66 por ciento de su rival. La demócrata Ana Palacio quedó fuera con 26.61 por ciento. Solo 23.75 por ciento de los electores registrados acudió a votar. ## **El demócrata: un concejal del centro que apuesta por el costo de la vida** [Andrae Gonzales](https://www.andraegonzales.com/?ref=ivn.us), de 44 años, nació en Bakersfield, se graduó de la preparatoria East Bakersfield y estudió ciencia política en la Universidad de California en Berkeley. Su carrera política comenzó en 2010, cuando fue electo al consejo del Distrito Escolar de la Ciudad de Bakersfield (Bakersfield City School District), que atiende a más de 30 mil alumnos y que más tarde presidió. Seis años después llegó al Concejo Municipal. En 2020 se reeligió sin rival y en 2024 volvió a ganar, esta vez por unos 20 puntos; su periodo concluye en 2028. Representa al Distrito 2, que abarca el centro, la colonia Oleander y el oriente de Bakersfield, hoy la novena ciudad más grande de California. Fue el primer latino en ocupar el cargo de vicealcalde y vive en la zona de Eastchester, en el oriente de la ciudad. Creció como el hijo de en medio en una familia que, según cuenta, era de cinco hermanos. Atribuye su vocación de servicio a su difunto padre, consejero en Bakersfield College, y asegura que ese interés nació cuando tenía apenas seis años. Desde 2010 dirige [Stewards, Inc.](https://www.stewardsinc.org/leadership?ref=ivn.us), una organización cristiana sin fines de lucro que atiende a más de mil personas vulnerables del condado de Kern, muchas de ellas adultos con discapacidad intelectual. La organización les ayuda a conservar su vivienda y su acceso a servicios sociales, en parte administrando los apoyos económicos que reciben. Gonzales también ha impulsado otras organizaciones locales, como Faith in Action, Children First, Kern Alliance of Nonprofits y The Hub of Bakersfield. Su paso por el Concejo destaca sobre todo en materia de vivienda. Encabezó la creación del Centro de Navegación Brundage Lane (Brundage Lane Navigation Center), el primer albergue de Bakersfield para personas en situación de calle con requisitos mínimos de ingreso, con 300 camas para mujeres, hombres y parejas. También creó el Fondo Fiduciario de Vivienda Asequible de la ciudad, con el que, según su campaña, se habrán construido más de mil viviendas a precios accesibles para finales de este año, y el Fideicomiso Comunitario de Tierras de Bakersfield, uno de los primeros en el Valle Central. Este fideicomiso conserva terrenos con respaldo municipal en propiedad común, lo que permite a familias trabajadoras comprar casas que de otro modo estarían fuera de su alcance. “La idea es que puedan tener algo propio”, explicó Gonzales al diario *The Bakersfield Californian*. Como presidente del comité de presupuesto del Concejo, llevó las reservas de la ciudad a niveles récord y creó el primer fideicomiso de pensiones de Bakersfield, amparado en la Sección 115 del código fiscal federal, para ir reduciendo la deuda de jubilaciones a largo plazo. Entre sus logros, también presume 100 millones de dólares invertidos en el sureste de la ciudad a través de programas climáticos, nuevo alumbrado público en el oriente, banquetas renovadas en Oleander y Sunset, obras en las calles 18 y 19 que sumaron árboles, ciclovías e iluminación peatonal que ayudaron a que los pequeños negocios volvieran al centro. En su distrito renovó los parques Jefferson, Jastro, Oleander, Quailwood, Beale y MLK, negoció con el sistema de bibliotecas del condado para ampliar sus horarios y creó la primera guía municipal de medidas para reducir la velocidad del tráfico en las colonias. Además del comité de presupuesto, preside el comité de Vivienda y Personas en Situación de Calle y forma parte del comité de Asuntos Legislativos y Litigios y de Recursos Hídricos. En 2025 recibió el premio Dennis Wallace al liderazgo comunitario durante la conferencia anual sobre vivienda asequible San Joaquin Valley Housing Collaborative. De los candidatos en esta elección, Gonzales es quien más tiempo lleva en cargos de elección popular, y esto lo presenta como una ventaja. “En cualquier profesión, incluidas la docencia y la enfermería, la experiencia cuenta a favor”, afirmó. El costo de la vida es el eje de su campaña. “Las familias que represento están asfixiadas”, dijo al arrancar su candidatura, y [recordó](https://sjvsun.com/?p=99766&ref=ivn.us) que comprar una casa en Bakersfield cuesta hoy cerca de 90 por ciento más que hace una década. Si llega a Sacramento, asegura, su primera tarea será que el estado deje de regatearle recursos al condado de Kern. También quiere combatir la pobreza infantil, que afecta a uno de cada cuatro niños de la región, y el alza en los precios de la gasolina, la vivienda, los servicios y los seguros. En varios temas, Gonzales se aparta de buena parte de los demócratas del Capitolio estatal. No le incomoda que lo llamen Valleycrat, como se conoce a los demócratas del Valle Central cercanos al sector empresarial, y promete combatir las regulaciones que, a su juicio, perjudican a los productores de petróleo y a los agricultores de la región, diversificar la economía de Kern más allá de sus industrias tradicionales y contener el costo de la vivienda. Su lista de respaldos es larga. Incluye al presidente de la Asamblea estatal, Robert Rivas; a los sindicatos de la construcción; a la Asociación de Maestros de California; Asociación de Oficiales de Paz Correccionales de California (California Correctional Peace Officers Association); a directivos escolares, defensores de la vivienda y varias organizaciones empresariales, así como a funcionarios actuales y anteriores de todas las ciudades del distrito. Entre ellos están la supervisora del condado de Kern Leticia Perez, quien perdió este mismo escaño frente a Bains en 2022, y Emilio Huerta, hijo de Dolores Huerta. También lo respalda *The Bakersfield Californian*, cuyo consejo editorial [lo recomendó para noviembre](https://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/our-view/our-view-kern-benefits-from-having-experienced-candidates-send-gonzales-couch-to-state-assembly/article%5F64f67350-f50f-4169-a974-1da71eb86b22.html?ref=ivn.us). En su editorial, el diario señaló que la experiencia y la trayectoria de Gonzales en el servicio público “superan con mucho las de Ayon”, y destacó su capacidad para reunir distintos sectores en torno a soluciones comunes. En la recta final de la campaña, Gonzales recorre el distrito con Made in Kern County, una serie de conciertos gratuitos con mariachis, ballets folclóricos y bandas locales. La gira arrancó en el parque Larry Itliong de Delano y cerrará el 1 de noviembre en el parque Beale de Bakersfield, dos días antes de la elección. ## **El republicano: un exalguacil que presume resultados** Saul Ayon, de 50 años, es alcalde de McFarland, un pueblo agrícola de unos 15 mil habitantes que se hizo famoso con la película *McFarland, USA*, de 2015\. Ahí creció y se graduó de la preparatoria local. Durante un cuarto de siglo, de 1996 a 2021, fue agente de la Oficina del Sheriff del condado de Kern, donde dirigió un equipo especial de respuesta a emergencias, formó a nuevos agentes como instructor de la academia y se especializó en prevención de pandillas. Tiene un título técnico en justicia penal por Bakersfield College y una licenciatura por Union Institute and University. Al dejar la corporación, obtuvo su certificación docente y volvió a la preparatoria McFarland, ahora como maestro de tiempo completo de justicia penal. En 2020 llegó al Concejo Municipal y en 2022 a la alcaldía, con lo que suma tres décadas de servicio público. Ha presidido la Cámara de Comercio de McFarland y es secretario del Comité Central Republicano del condado de Kern. En noviembre de 2025 se unió al Partido Republicano de California y al asambleísta David Tangipa en una demanda federal contra el gobernador Gavin Newsom para impugnar la Proposición 50, aprobada por los votantes, que redibujó los distritos federales del estado. Los demandantes sostienen que la redistribución de distritos se trazó con criterios raciales, en violación de las enmiendas 14 y 15 de la Constitución. Ayon basa su campaña en lo que asegura haber logrado en McFarland y en tres principios que repite: servicio, rendición de cuentas y resultados. De acuerdo con su equipo, durante su gestión la ciudad eliminó un déficit de 2.9 millones de dólares, la policía pasó de tres empleados a más de 30, se obtuvieron más de 60 millones de dólares en fondos para calles, agua y seguridad pública, y se crearon programas de prácticas profesionales y de aprendices para jóvenes del pueblo. Su gestión, sin embargo, no ha estado exenta de cuestionamientos. En junio, el medio sin fines de lucro Capital & Main reveló que un acuerdo firmado en 2024 entre McFarland y The GEO Group, empresa que opera dos centros de detención migratoria de ICE en la ciudad, deja en manos del personal civil de la compañía ciertas funciones policiales dentro de esas instalaciones. Según el medio, Ayon no respondió a solicitudes para explicar el acuerdo. “Me he pasado la vida arreglando lo que está descompuesto”, escribió Ayon en un [cuestionario para candidatos](https://www.kget.com/news/politics/your-local-elections/2026-california-assembly-district-35-candidate-questionnaire/?ref=ivn.us) de la televisora KGET, en alusión a la policía y las finanzas de McFarland. A su juicio, Sacramento necesita el mismo tipo de compostura. “Siempre he sentido el llamado de ayudar a la gente”, afirma en su sitio de campaña. “Estoy listo para llevar esa misma entrega a Sacramento y luchar por las familias, los agricultores y los pequeños negocios.” En entrevista con *The Bakersfield Californian*, Ayon dijo que los californianos están contra la pared: pagan más impuestos, recibos de luz y agua más altos y precios más elevados por la vivienda, los alimentos y la atención médica. Su receta es exigir cuentas al gobierno y quitar de los empleadores lo que considera costos y trámites innecesarios. Si el estado no corrige el rumbo, advierte, más empresas se irán. “Tenemos que ver a nuestras industrias como un activo, no como un adversario”, sostuvo. McFarland es su carta de presentación. Asegura que, bajo su mando, la ciudad simplificó trámites para los constructores, actualizó sus ordenanzas y su reglamento de uso de suelo, y atrajo inversión inmobiliaria. Con los cambios al Plan General de desarrollo urbano, ahora se pueden construir casas más pequeñas, de una y dos recámaras, lo que ha puesto la vivienda propia al alcance de más familias. Promete llevar esa fórmula a Sacramento y trabajar con ambos partidos para lograrlo. Durante su administración, la ciudad también invirtió fuertemente en su sistema de aguas residuales. En educación, propone que las escuelas vuelvan a lo básico, la lectura y la escritura, y que se abra un camino más directo hacia los oficios especializados para los jóvenes que quieran ponerse a trabajar al terminar la preparatoria. El agua es otra de sus prioridades: quiere defender los derechos de la región sobre el recurso y ampliar la capacidad de almacenamiento para el campo y los hogares. También promete un respaldo firme a las corporaciones policiacas. Si Gonzales tiene de su lado a la clase política de Sacramento, Ayon tiene a los uniformados. Lo respaldan el alguacil del condado de Kern, Donny Youngblood; organizaciones estatales de policías y alguaciles, y las asociaciones de agentes de McFarland, Shafter y Delano. Suma además el apoyo de los alcaldes de Wasco, Shafter y Arvin, del congresista Valadao, de la Asociación de Contribuyentes Howard Jarvis y de la Bancada Legislativa Hispana de California. Reform California, la organización conservadora fundada por el asambleísta Carl DeMaio, ve en el Distrito 35 una oportunidad para que los republicanos ganen el escaño. Boxeador aficionado, Ayon es padre de dos hijos y vive en McFarland. ## **El dinero detrás de la contienda** Ambos partidos tienen puesta la mira en esta elección, pero en dinero Gonzales lleva gran ventaja. Al 19 de septiembre había recaudado más de 1.1 millones de dólares, frente a unos 421 mil de Ayon. Como ya gastó la mayor parte, la diferencia en caja es menor: Gonzales tiene 126 mil 306 dólares disponibles y Ayon, 77 mil 780. En la primaria, grupos independientes gastaron más de 5.1 millones de dólares, uno de los montos más altos en cualquier elección legislativa de California, y la mayor parte fue para impulsar a Gonzales. ## **Los votantes independientes tienen la llave** Las cuentas para noviembre son distintas a las de junio. Ayon se quedó con el voto republicano en la primaria y aun así no llegó a 37 por ciento, mientras que los aspirantes demócratas sumaron 63 por ciento. Para ganar, Gonzales necesita aglutinar ese voto demócrata. En cambio, Ayon depende de los votantes independientes y de otros partidos que hace dos años estuvieron a punto de entregarle el distrito a Trump. La participación tampoco será como la de junio, donde votó menos de uno de cada cuatro electores registrados. En un distrito tan parejo, los cerca de 50 mil votantes sin preferencia partidista podrían definir la elección por sí solos. En California, todos los electores con registro activo reciben su boleta por correo. Las boletas deben llevar matasellos a más tardar el día de la elección, el 3 de noviembre, y llegar dentro de los siete días siguientes. Quienes no se registren antes de la fecha límite, el 19 de octubre, todavía pueden hacerlo y votar el mismo día en la oficina electoral de su condado o en una casilla electoral. ### Kern County's 50,000 Independent Voters Will Decide Who Goes to Sacramento URL: https://ivn.us/kern-countys-50-000-independent-voters-will-decide-who-goes-to-sacramento/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T19:48:53.000Z **BAKERSFIELD** – In the farm towns and east-side neighborhoods of California's 35th Assembly District, the most powerful voters this November may be the ones who refuse to pick a party. More than 50,000 voters here are registered with No Party Preference. That's nearly one in four, and almost as many as the district's registered Republicans. When the ballots are counted on November 3, they will likely decide whether Democrat [Andrae Gonzales](https://www.andraegonzales.com/?ref=ivn.us), a Bakersfield city councilmember, or Republican [Saul Ayon](http://www.ayonforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us), the mayor of McFarland, heads to Sacramento. Democrats outnumber every other party in AD35, but they fall well short of a majority, and that edge hasn't bought them much lately. In 2024, Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump by just 363 votes here. In California, 5.2 million voters are registered with no party preference, about 22 percent of the electorate, according to [VoterCount.ai](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us). Add the roughly 950,000 voters on the American Independent rolls and more than six million Californians have no home in either major party. That is more voters than the state's entire registered Republican base. These are the people the LA Times is calling [kingmakers](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-10-11/midterms-state-of-play?ref=ivn.us). [Everybody Wants the Independent Vote, But Nobody Actually Talks To ThemIndependent voters are now “kingmakers” in competitive races, but campaigns treat them as data points, not people. Without direct conversation, candidates miss opportunities to engage the largest voting bloc.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-ba642264-cd14-412c-974d-295ba0cdef45.png)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-independent-voters-kingmakers-7ea83eb9-f09d-4da2-baa1-d59a46bcaa27.jpg)](https://ivn.us/everybody-wants-the-independent-vote-but-nobody-actually-talks-to-them/) ## **Where Water, Work, and the Harvest Come First** This district is peak California farm country. It sweeps across Kern County, taking in Delano, McFarland, Wasco, Shafter, and Arvin; the community of Lamont; and more than half of Bakersfield, including the east side. Here, politics comes down to water, land, and jobs. Many residents spend their days following the harvest from one town to the next, and the district has deep roots in the fight for farmworkers. In 1965, Filipino and Mexican American grape pickers [walked off the fields](https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/how-delano-grape-strike-1965-began?ref=ivn.us) in Delano, [launching the strike that helped build the United Farm Workers](https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/workers-united-the-delano-grape-strike-and-boycott.htm?ref=ivn.us) under Larry Itliong, Cesar Chavez, and Dolores Huerta. Three in four residents are Latino, and about six in 10 eligible voters are, too. The district was drawn to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act, and the Citizens Redistricting Commission split Bakersfield to keep Latino communities together. Money is tight. The typical household earns $55,794 a year, far below the California statewide average. Nearly a quarter of residents live in poverty, about as many households rely on food assistance, and about one in 10 adults has a college degree. ## **From a 25-Point Win to a Coin Flip** A decade ago, this was one of the most reliably Democratic corners of the Central Valley. Hillary Clinton carried the area by 25 points in 2016\. Then the bottom started falling out. Biden's margin slipped to 21 points in 2020\. By 2024, Harris won by just one-third of a percentage point. Over those eight years, Donald Trump's vote total here grew by about 61 percent, while Harris drew roughly 17,500 fewer votes than Biden got. The erosion showed up down the ballot too. Adam Schiff carried the district by less than two points in his 2024 Senate race, and Gavin Newsom's margin here shrank from 18 points in 2018. In 2024, the district rejected Proposition 3, the constitutional right to marry, by 299 votes even as it passed easily statewide, while backing tougher theft and drug penalties under Proposition 36 with nearly 72 percent. ## **An Open Seat and a Second Chance** This seat came open in July 2025, when Democratic Assemblymember [Jasmeet Bains](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/jasmeet-bains-165424?ref=ivn.us), after an aggressive courtship from national Democrats, announced a run against Republican Congressman David Valadao. She finished third in that primary, so her time in the Assembly ends in December. For Gonzales, it was a second chance. In 2023, he [challenged](https://sjvsun.com/news/politics/andrae-gonzales-bakersfield-councilman-launches-challenge-to-bains-for-assembly/?ref=ivn.us) Bains after she broke with her party to oppose the state gas tax and then-Speaker Anthony Rendon stripped her of a committee assignment. He raised just over $100,000 but trailed far behind in fundraising, and he[ ](https://sjvsun.com/?p=87243&ref=ivn.us)[dropped out](https://sjvsun.com/?p=87243&ref=ivn.us) months later, urging local Democrats to come together. This time, he entered the race the day after Bains announced she would run for Congress. On primary night, Ayon jumped out to a lead of roughly six points and still held it the next afternoon. But as the remaining ballots were counted, Gonzales steadily closed the gap and finished on top, 36.73 percent to Ayon's 36.66 percent. A third candidate, Democrat Ana Palacio, finished with 26.61 percent and was eliminated. Just 23.75 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in the primary. ## **The Democrat: A Downtown Councilman Selling Affordability** [Andrae Gonzales](https://www.andraegonzales.com/?ref=ivn.us), 44, is a Bakersfield native who graduated from East Bakersfield High School and studied political science at UC Berkeley. Voters first elected him to the Bakersfield City School District board in 2010, where he later served as board president in a district of more than 30,000 students. Six years later, he won a City Council seat. He won reelection unopposed in 2020 and by about 20 points in 2024\. His current term runs through 2028. His Ward 2 seat spans downtown, the Oleander neighborhood, and east Bakersfield in what is now California's ninth-largest city, and he became the first Latino to serve as Bakersfield's vice mayor. He lives in the Eastchester area of East Bakersfield. Gonzales grew up as the middle child in what he describes as a family of five siblings. He credits his late father, a counselor at Bakersfield College, with shaping his drive to serve the public, something he says began when he was just 6 years old. Since 2010, he has led[ ](https://www.stewardsinc.org/leadership?ref=ivn.us)[Stewards, Inc.](https://www.stewardsinc.org/leadership?ref=ivn.us), a Christian nonprofit that helps Kern County residents in need, many of them adults with mental disabilities, stay housed and connected to social services, in part by managing their benefit payments. It serves more than 1,000 clients. He has also helped start several other local nonprofits, including Faith in Action, Children First, the Kern Alliance of Nonprofits, and the Hub of Bakersfield. His council record is impressive, especially on housing policy. Gonzales spearheaded the Brundage Lane Navigation Center, Bakersfield's first low-barrier homeless shelter, which has 300 beds and takes in single women, men, and couples. He also created the city's Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which his campaign expects to have produced more than 1,000 affordable units by the end of this year, and the Bakersfield Community Land Trust, one of the first in the Central Valley. The land trust holds city-backed land in common so working-class families can buy single-family homes they otherwise couldn't afford. "The point is that they will be able to own something," Gonzales told *The Bakersfield Californian*. As chair of the council's budget committee, Gonzales grew city reserves to record levels and launched Bakersfield's first Section 115 pension trust to chip away at long-term retirement debt. He also cites $100 million invested in southeast Bakersfield through the city's climate work, new street lighting on the east side, resurfaced walkways in Oleander and Sunset, and work along 18th and 19th Streets that added trees, bike lanes, and pedestrian lighting and helped bring small businesses back downtown. In his ward, he upgraded Jefferson, Jastro, Oleander, Quailwood, Beale, and MLK parks; brokered a deal with the county library system to keep branches open longer; and created the city's first neighborhood traffic-calming toolkit. In addition to the budget committee, Gonzales chairs the council's Housing and Homelessness Committee and serves on its Legislative and Litigation and Water Resources committees. In 2025, he received the Dennis Wallace Community Leadership Award at the San Joaquin Valley Housing Collaborative's annual affordable housing conference. Gonzales has held elected office longer than anyone else in the race, and he argues that a long tenure should count in his favor, not against him. "In every industry, including in teaching and in nursing, experience is a positive," he said. He has built his campaign around the cost of living. "Families I represent are being squeezed," he said when he launched,[ ](https://sjvsun.com/?p=99766&ref=ivn.us)[pointing out](https://sjvsun.com/?p=99766&ref=ivn.us) that the cost of buying a home in Bakersfield had risen about 90 percent in a decade. In Sacramento, he says, his first priority would be making sure the state stops shortchanging Kern County. He also wants to tackle child poverty, which reaches one in four kids locally, and the soaring price of gas, housing, utilities, and insurance. Gonzales also takes positions that set him apart from many Democrats in the Capitol. He doesn't mind being called a "Valleycrat," the nickname for business-friendly Central Valley Democrats, and says he would fight regulations he believes hurt local oil producers and farmers, broaden Kern's economy beyond its traditional industries, and keep housing costs down. His endorsement list is long, running from Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas to the state building trades, the California Correctional Peace Officers, the California Teachers Association, school administrators, housing advocates, several business groups, and current and former officials in every city in the district. It also includes Kern County Supervisor Leticia Perez, who lost this same seat to Bains in 2022, and Emilio Huerta, son of Dolores Huerta. He also has the backing of *The Bakersfield Californian*, whose editorial board [endorsed him](https://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/our-view/our-view-kern-benefits-from-having-experienced-candidates-send-gonzales-couch-to-state-assembly/article%5F64f67350-f50f-4169-a974-1da71eb86b22.html?ref=ivn.us) for November. "Gonzales' depth of experience and length of public service far exceeds Ayon's," the board wrote, also praising his willingness to bring different groups together to tackle problems. In the closing weeks, Gonzales is touring the district with a free "Made in Kern County" concert series featuring local mariachis, folklórico dancers, and bands. It kicked off at Larry Itliong Park in Delano and ends at Beale Park in Bakersfield on November 1, two days before the election. ## **The Republican: A Former Deputy Running on Results** Saul Ayon, 50, is the mayor of McFarland, a farming town of about 15,000 made famous by the 2015 film *McFarland, USA*. He grew up there, graduated from McFarland High School, and spent a quarter century as a Kern County Sheriff's deputy, from 1996 to 2021, leading a Special Emergency Response Team, training new deputies as an academy instructor, and specializing in gang prevention. He holds an associate degree in criminal justice from Bakersfield College and a bachelor's degree from Union Institute and University. After leaving the department, Ayon earned a teaching credential and returned to McFarland High, his alma mater, as a full-time criminal justice teacher. He was elected to the City Council in 2020 and became mayor in 2022, rounding out three decades in public service. He has served as president of the McFarland Chamber of Commerce and is active in party politics as secretary of the Kern County Republican Central Committee. In November 2025, he joined the California Republican Party and Assemblymember David Tangipa as a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom challenging Proposition 50, the voter-approved measure that redrew California's congressional maps, arguing the new lines amount to racial gerrymandering in violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Ayon is running on what he says he delivered at home, guided by three principles he calls service, accountability, and results. According to his campaign, McFarland erased a $2.9 million budget deficit on his watch, grew its police department from three employees to more than 30, landed more than $60 million in grants for roads, water, and public safety, and launched internship and apprenticeship programs for local students. His record has also drawn scrutiny: in June, the nonprofit outlet Capital & Main reported that a 2024 agreement between McFarland and The GEO Group, which runs two ICE detention centers in the city, hands certain law enforcement duties inside the facilities to the company's civilian staff, and that Ayon did not respond to repeated requests to explain the arrangement. "I've spent my life fixing broken things," Ayon wrote in a[ ](https://www.kget.com/news/politics/your-local-elections/2026-california-assembly-district-35-candidate-questionnaire/?ref=ivn.us)[candidate questionnaire](https://www.kget.com/news/politics/your-local-elections/2026-california-assembly-district-35-candidate-questionnaire/?ref=ivn.us) for KGET, pointing to McFarland's police department and city budget, and arguing that Sacramento needs the same kind of repair. "I've always felt called to help people," Ayon says on his campaign website. "I'm ready to take that same dedication to Sacramento and fight for families, farmers, and small businesses." In an interview with *The Bakersfield Californian*, Ayon said Californians are being squeezed from every direction by higher taxes, higher utility bills, and steeper prices for homes, groceries, and medical care. His fix is to hold government accountable and lift what he sees as needless costs and red tape on employers. If the state doesn't change course, he warns, more businesses will leave. "We've got to treat our industries as assets, not as adversaries," he said. He holds up McFarland as his model. Under his leadership, he says, the city cut red tape for builders, updated its ordinances and zoning, and recruited developers to invest in town. Changes to McFarland's long-range General Plan let builders offer smaller one- and two-bedroom homes, putting ownership within reach for more local families. He says he would take that playbook to Sacramento and work with both parties to do it. The city has also spent heavily on wastewater upgrades during his tenure. On education, he wants schools to refocus on core reading and writing skills and create a smoother path into the skilled trades for graduates ready to go straight to work. Water is another top priority: he wants to defend local water rights and expand storage for agriculture and households. He also pledges strong support for law enforcement. Where Gonzales has the Sacramento establishment, Ayon has the badge. Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, statewide police and sheriffs' groups, and police officers' associations in McFarland, Shafter, and Delano endorse him. He also counts the sitting mayors of Wasco, Shafter, and Arvin among his supporters, along with Congressman Valadao, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the California Hispanic Legislative Caucus. Reform California, the conservative group founded by Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, lists AD35 as a Republican pickup opportunity. An amateur boxer, Ayon is the father of two sons and lives in McFarland. ## **The Money Behind the Race** Both major political parties have taken an interest in the race, but Gonzales has a large money advantage. Through September 19, he had raised more than $1.1 million, compared with about $421,000 for Ayon. Gonzales has spent most of it, leaving the two campaigns closer in cash in the bank: $126,306 for Gonzales and $77,780 for Ayon. Independent groups spent more than $5.1 million in the primary, one of the highest totals in any California legislative race, and most of it went to boost Gonzales. ## **Independents Hold the Key** The November math looks different from June's. Ayon won the Republican primary vote but still finished below 37 percent, while the Democratic candidates together took 63 percent. Gonzales's path runs through bringing that Democratic vote together behind him. Ayon's path runs through the same independent and crossover voters who nearly handed this district to Donald Trump two years ago. Turnout will also look nothing like June, when fewer than one in four registered voters cast a ballot. In a district this closely divided, the roughly 50,000 voters registered with No Party Preference could decide the race on their own. All active registered voters in California receive a mail ballot. Ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, November 3, and received within seven days. Californians who miss the October 19 registration deadline can still register and vote the same day at their county elections office or at a polling place. ### Everybody Wants the Independent Vote, But Nobody Actually Talks To Them URL: https://ivn.us/everybody-wants-the-independent-vote-but-nobody-actually-talks-to-them/ Last updated: 2026-10-13T18:09:50.000Z The independent voter has finally been noticed. In the [Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-10-11/midterms-state-of-play?ref=ivn.us) this week, Justine McDaniel reports that independents are now the “kingmakers” of the 2026 midterms. Gallup puts the number at a record 45% of American adults, against 27% for each party. Nearly every competitive Senate race runs through states with large unaffiliated populations. As Jeremy Gruber of Open Primaries puts it, “Independent voters are going to be deciding this election in every respect.” The piece even uses the[ Independent Voter Project’s own state-by-state data](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-data?ref=ivn.us) to show how large that bloc has become. [New CA Poll: Voter ID Measure Leads Today. Its Undecided Voters Point the Other WayA new California poll shows Prop. 39 has a narrow lead among likely voters, but undecided voters—mostly Democrats—could swing the race either way. An analysis of who is undecided reveals the true state of close contests.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-e2113284-f653-4c48-9623-4e4cea5f491f.png)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-poll-2026-voter-id-prop-39-undecided-voters-featured-1-2ba72ac0-0c53-43c8-a1cc-c361871bbf51.png)](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/) The problem? Watch how campaigns relate to these voters. They “fight for” them. They target the independents who lean their way. Karen Kedrowski, a political scientist at Iowa State, advises Democrats to make it “seem safe” for an independent to vote their way. Her advice isn't to be a candidate a voter can trust; it is to simply appear that way, whether the candidate is or isn't. Republicans answer with ad blitzes built to define their opponents, and just yell the same thing they’ve been saying even louder. In California alone, 5.2 million voters are registered with no party preference, about 22% of the electorate, according to [VoterCount.ai](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us). Add the roughly 950,000 voters on the American Independent rolls and more than six million Californians have no home in either major party. That is more voters than the state's entire registered Republican base. These are the people the LA Times is calling kingmakers. They’re right. But the political class has it all wrong about independent voters. In [The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/primary-voters-are-unrepresentative-inconsistent-and-very-powerful-292176?ref=ivn.us), political scientist Robert Boatright shows what happens upstream, in the primaries that settle most seats long before November. National turnout in primaries has averaged about 20% of the voting-age population in recent midterms. In primary elections, the people who show up are older, wealthier, and less diverse than the country they nominate candidates for. They are also inconsistent. Looking at more than three million voters, Boatright and his co-authors found that fewer than half of the people who voted in a given primary had voted in the one four years earlier. A small and shifting slice of the electorate is choosing most of Congress, and the nonaligned voter is mostly not in it. In [Capitol Weekly](https://capitolweekly.net/is-the-undervote-going-to-be-decisive-in-2026/?ref=ivn.us), Paul Mitchell shows the end of that same story. Studying California’s same-party runoffs, he estimates that the undervote, the people who skip a race entirely, can be the single largest bloc on the ballot, larger than the margin between the two candidates. He runs the precinct math to estimate who leaves which race blank. California is where this plays out most clearly. Because the Top Two primary sends the two leading finishers to November regardless of party, voters across the state now face [runoffs between two candidates from the same party](https://ivn.us/15-races-where-democratic-socialists-can-reshape-california-politics/). In the race for Insurance Commissioner, Jane Kim faces Ben Allen, both Democrats. In the 7th Congressional District, Mai Vang faces Representative Doris Matsui, both Democrats, in a June primary decided by about 3,500 votes. In Senate District 24, John Erickson faces Brian Goldsmith, both Democrats. In each district, No Party Preference voters make up close to a quarter of the electorate, roughly 98,000 in the 7th CD and more than 150,000 in SD 24, according to [VoterCount.ai](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us). They are large enough to decide the outcome and the voters most likely to leave the race blank. In the 22nd Congressional District, for example, only 16.7% of unaffiliated voters cast a ballot in the 2022 midterm. [Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Sue New York After Being Denied the Right to VoteIraq and Afghanistan war veterans are suing New York over its closed primary system, arguing that independent voters are being denied equal voting rights in publicly funded elections.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-cd06b64f-f1d0-4615-a309-044229630ad5.png)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-6e952a04-7cf5-4eae-9544-53437fb9ab64-e933c5a5-580a-494e-bb11-9236179c4210.png)](https://ivn.us/veterans-of-iraq-and-afghanistan-wars-sue-new-york-after-being-denied-the-right-to-vote/) Everyone has learned to measure the independent voter. The LA Times counts them. Boatright profiles them. Mitchell tries to model exactly which race they will skip. None of that measurement talks to them. A voter described from the outside, as a bloc to be won or a variable in a regression, is still a voter no one has actually spoken to. The November ballot shows what changes when someone explains the choice plainly. The Independent Voter Project’s [statewide poll](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/) of 2,906 likely California voters found three measures where the result turns less on party than on what voters are told. Proposition 39, the voter identification measure, leads 43% Yes to 40% No, with 17% undecided. That undecided group is the whole contest. It is 61% Democrats and 24% independents, and more than half of them trust neither party enough to take a cue from it. Overall, 40% of independents trust neither party. The measure’s official title, written by the attorney general’s office, reads “Prohibits Citizens from Voting Unless They Present Government-Issued Identification.” Described in plainer terms, as a government ID requirement with a free card available, support rises to 62%. The wording is doing more work than the party label. Proposition 40, the tax on billionaires to fund health care, shows the same sensitivity. It leads 40% to 38% when described in plain terms and trails 38% to 42% once voters hear the Legislative Analyst’s cost estimate. Proposition 41, which would require audits of new special taxes, leads comfortably, but only when voters know what it’s about. A voter who doesn't know that can cancel out their own intent. None of this means voters are incapable. It means the ballot is genuinely hard to read, and the campaigns have little incentive to make it easier for anyone outside their base. The growth of the undervote is not a mystery that needs a model to solve. In a same-party race, a voter who doesn't belong to either party is handed two candidates from a club they never joined, with very little information to tell them apart. Campaigns spend where the model says the votes already are. They turn out their base and treat everyone else as either locked up or a lost cause. Often, that isn't even a decision to ignore the independent voter. It is that campaigns don't know how to speak to them. That gap is the reason the Independent Voter Project exists. When voters get real information about how their vote actually works, what a Top Two runoff is, and what a down-ballot race decides, they use it. Before the June 2026 primary, IVP reached roughly 2.8 million independent voters. Turnout among No Party Preference and American Independent voters rose 52% over the last comparable midterm primary, from about 1.17 million ballots to 1.78 million, **almost twice the rate of either major party**. We cannot, and do not, claim the program was the sole cause of the unexpected nonpartisan turnout. But where we've run these programs, even on limited budgets, the results have been consistent: higher participation. The problem has never been that independent-minded voters are apathetic. It’s that they’ve tuned out partisan politics. Instead of trying to “seem safe,” candidates and campaigns should treat independent voters like people, not data points in a regression analysis. Yet, consultants and data vendors who make their living describing and targeting the electorate drive blindly partisan campaigns from opposite directions. As long as this is true, one side wins. And the prophecies of partisan politics continue. But for now, IVP will keep doing what it can with the resources it has. We will give voters enough information to use their vote meaningfully in races where independent-minded voters can make the biggest difference. The goal is simple and measurable. Broader participation and, over time, representation that looks more like the communities we actually live in, rather than the narrow and predictable slice the current system rewards. *Disclosure: IVN.us is co-published by the Independent Voter Project*. ### 15 carreras electorales en las que los socialistas democráticos pueden transformar la política de California URL: https://ivn.us/hide/15-carreras-electorales-en-las-que-los-socialistas-democraticos-pueden-transformar-la-politica-de-california/ Last updated: 2026-10-13T20:43:37.000Z Diez candidatos apoyados tanto por el Partido de las Familias Trabajadoras de California (WFP) como por los Socialistas Democráticos de América (DSA) tienen la victoria prácticamente segura en noviembre. La pregunta que sigue abierta es cuántos más se les unirán. El Partido Demócrata domina en California, y los dos grupos trabajan para jalarlo hacia la izquierda, elección por elección. Este otoño, sus candidatos aparecen en la boleta para el Congreso, el Senado Estatal, la Asamblea Estatal, el cargo de comisionado de seguros (el funcionario estatal que regula a las compañías de seguros), la Junta Directiva Estatal de Impuestos Sobre Ventas (Board of Equalization) y la alcaldía de cuatro ciudades, entre ellas Los Ángeles. En todo el país, los DSA lograron la mayoría de sus victorias de 2026 en elecciones primarias demócratas cerradas, donde un grupo pequeño de votantes motivados puede decidir el resultado ([IVN](https://ivn.us/the-dsa-class-of-2026-11-democrats-running-as-socialists/?ref=ivn.us)). California no tiene elecciones primarias cerradas. Con el sistema Top Two (de los "dos candidatos principales"), todos los votantes reciben la misma boleta, los dos candidatos con más votos pasan a la elección general sin importar su partido, y los independientes tienen voz en noviembre. En varios de los distritos más demócratas del estado, esto produjo elecciones generales con dos demócratas y ningún republicano. En esas elecciones, un demócrata apoyado por los DSA se enfrenta a un demócrata más convencional, y los votantes independientes y republicanos decidirán entre los dos, si salen a votar ([IVN](https://ivn.us/california-2026-the-candidates-choices-and-elections-that-show-how-much-power-voters-really-have/?ref=ivn.us)). En junio se vio lo fuerte que es el trabajo de campo de la izquierda. Tom Steyer gastó más de 200 millones de dólares de su propio dinero en la elección para gobernador. También ayudó a pagar las campañas progresistas para llevar votantes a las urnas. Equipos de los DSA y del WFP las llevan a cabo tocando puertas en barrios urbanos con mucha población. Las boletas por correo que llegaron de esos barrios después del día de la elección pusieron a Nithya Raman por encima de Spencer Pratt y la llevaron a la segunda vuelta por la alcaldía de Los Ángeles ([IVN](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **Los 10 triunfos casi seguros** Los 10 son demócratas y nueve ya ocupan el cargo. Cada uno quedó en primer lugar en junio, la mayoría con más del 60 por ciento de los votos. *(D) = demócrata. (R) = republicano.* | **Candidato** | **Cargo** | **Resultado del 2 de junio** | **Rival en noviembre** | | --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------- | --------------------------- | | Lateefah Simon | Cámara de Representantes de EE. UU., Distrito 12 | Primer lugar | Jamie Joyce (D) | | Aisha Wahab | Cámara de Representantes de EE. UU., Distrito 14 | Primer lugar, 34.3 por ciento | Melissa Hernandez (D) | | Damon Connolly | Senado Estatal, Distrito 2 | Primer lugar, 71.6 por ciento | Tief Gibbs (R) | | Caroline Menjivar | Senado Estatal, Distrito 20 | Primer lugar, 62.1 por ciento | Tony Rodriguez (R) | | Lola Smallwood-Cuevas | Senado Estatal, Distrito 28 | Primer lugar, 77.5 por ciento | Joe Lisuzzo (R) | | Liz Ortega | Asamblea Estatal, Distrito 20 | Primer lugar, 75.1 por ciento | Patricia Muga (R) | | Ash Kalra | Asamblea Estatal, Distrito 25 | Primer lugar, 72.2 por ciento | Himat Singh Bainiwal (R) | | Nick Schultz | Asamblea Estatal, Distrito 44 | Primer lugar, 71.2 por ciento | Carolyn Daniels (R) | | Isaac Bryan | Asamblea Estatal, Distrito 55 | Primer lugar, 64.6 por ciento | Ashley M. Brown (D) | | Sade Elhawary | Asamblea Estatal, Distrito 57 | Primer lugar, 85.7 por ciento | Constance Jewel Menzies (R) | La elección de Wahab es la más reñida de las 10\. Quedó en primer lugar en la elección primaria regular con 34.3 por ciento contra 16.1 por ciento. Luego, en agosto, ganó una elección especial para terminar el período del excongresista Eric Swalwell. En esa elección venció a Melissa Hernandez, integrante de la junta directiva de BART (el sistema de trenes del Área de la Bahía) ([CBS News Bay Area](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/alameda-county-voters-deciding-who-will-succeed-former-rep-eric-swalwell/?ref=ivn.us); [NBC Bay Area](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/aisha-wahab-california-congressional-district-14/4130964/?ref=ivn.us)). En 2018, Wahab ganó un puesto en el Concejo Municipal de Hayward y se convirtió en la primera persona afgano-estadounidense elegida para un cargo público en Estados Unidos. La revancha de noviembre se hará con un nuevo mapa del distrito que agrega a unos 26,000 votantes de Dublin que no pudieron votar en la elección especial de agosto. Otros 15 candidatos apoyados tanto por los DSA como por el WFP están en elecciones más reñidas. La mayoría son retadores o compiten por puestos abiertos (donde la persona que hoy ocupa el puesto no se postula otra vez). ### 1\. Comisionado de seguros El cargo más alto en la lista de la izquierda progresista este año es el de comisionado de seguros. En esa elección, Jane Kim se enfrenta al senador estatal Ben Allen. Es la primera vez que dos demócratas compiten por este cargo desde que se elige por voto popular ([Santa Barbara Independent/CalMatters](https://www.independent.com/?p=745064&ref=ivn.us)). Según los resultados certificados, Kim quedó en primer lugar en la elección primaria de junio con 27.4 por ciento, contra 19.4 por ciento de Allen ([Santa Monica Daily Press](https://www.smdp.com/election-results-2026-primary/?ref=ivn.us)). Kim fue integrante de la Junta de Supervisores de San Francisco. En 2020, fue la directora política de Bernie Sanders en California ([SPUR](https://www.spur.org/news/2026-05-19/rebuilding-affordable-sustainable-insurance-market-insurance-commissioner?ref=ivn.us)). También dirigió el Partido de las Familias Trabajadoras de California. Como directora estatal, anunció el año pasado el respaldo del grupo a Mai Vang para el Congreso ([Working Families Party](https://workingfamilies.org/2025/09/california-working-families-party-endorses-mai-vang-in-ca-7/?ref=ivn.us)). El WFP respaldó a Kim en enero y prometió un esfuerzo de organización en todo el estado ([Working Families Party](https://workingfamilies.org/2026/01/wfp-endorses-jane-kim-for-california-insurance-commissioner/?ref=ivn.us)). Los DSA de Los Ángeles la recomiendan, y los DSA de California la presentan como su candidata preferida ([DSA-LA](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)). También la apoyan Sanders, SEIU California y la Asociación de Maestros de California (California Teachers Association). Kim propone un "seguro contra desastres naturales para todos", un programa administrado por el estado y basado en el de Nueva Zelanda. Además, no acepta dinero de compañías de seguros ni de sus ejecutivos. Allen representa el lado oeste (Westside) de Los Ángeles y ha pedido más supervisión del FAIR Plan (el seguro de último recurso en California para quienes no consiguen otra póliza contra incendios). La mayoría de los votantes todavía no ha decidido. Una encuesta reciente de NBC Los Angeles le dio a Kim casi 25 por ciento y a Allen 18 por ciento, con más del 57 por ciento de indecisos ([NBC Los Angeles](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/california-insurance-commissioner-jane-kim-ben-allen/3950222/?ref=ivn.us)). Una encuesta reciente del Independent Voter Project (IVP) muestra que la elección entre Kim y Allen es la más incierta de la boleta de California. La conexión con los DSA podría pesar. El IVP hizo una encuesta con muestra dividida (a dos grupos de personas se les dio información distinta). Los encuestados que solo vieron los nombres de los candidatos estaban divididos, y casi dos tercios no habían decidido. En cambio, cuando a los encuestados se les dijo que los DSA apoyan a Kim y que Allen es un demócrata convencional, prefirieron a Allen por 36 por ciento contra 23 por ciento ([IVN](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/?ref=ivn.us)). ### 2\. Junta Directiva Estatal de Impuestos Sobre Ventas, Distrito 2 Otros dos candidatos apoyados tanto por los DSA como por el WFP compiten por la Junta Directiva Estatal de Impuestos Sobre Ventas, un organismo elegido por los votantes. Supervisa cómo se calcula el valor de las propiedades para cobrar impuestos. También supervisa algunos impuestos estatales. En el Distrito 2, el WFP respalda a Sally Lieber, y los DSA de California la presentan como su candidata preferida ([California DSA](https://www.sway.co/california-dsa/recs?ref=ivn.us)). Su rival es John Pimentel. Los grupos de San Francisco se dividieron como de costumbre: el Partido Demócrata local y SEIU 1021 apoyan a Lieber, mientras que GrowSF y el Partido Republicano de San Francisco apoyan a Pimentel ([SF Endorsements](https://sfendorsements.com/?ref=ivn.us)). ### 3\. Junta Directiva Estatal de Impuestos Sobre Ventas, Distrito 3 En el Distrito 3, que cubre todo el condado de Los Ángeles, Sam Sukaton se enfrenta a Mike Gipson, también demócrata. Gipson es miembro de la Asamblea Estatal y ya no puede volver a postularse a la Asamblea por el límite de mandatos. Sukaton es organizador sindical en la educación superior y miembro de los DSA de Los Ángeles. El WFP lo respalda, y los DSA de Los Ángeles y los DSA de California lo recomiendan ([California DSA](https://www.sway.co/california-dsa/recs?ref=ivn.us)). Sukaton venció a 10 rivales para llegar a noviembre, pero está unos 10 puntos detrás de Gipson, que tiene el apoyo del Partido Demócrata y de la Federación Laboral de California (California Labor Federation) ([DSA-LA](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)). ## Congreso Tres candidatos al Congreso apoyados por los DSA y el WFP enfrentan elecciones más difíciles que las de Simon y Wahab. Dos de ellos retan a congresistas demócratas que ya ocupan el puesto. El tercero intenta quitarle el puesto a un republicano. ### 4\. Sacramento: Vang contra Matsui Mai Vang, concejala de la ciudad de Sacramento, quedó en primer lugar en la elección primaria de junio en el Distrito 7\. Obtuvo 30.8 por ciento contra 29.1 por ciento de la congresista Doris Matsui, una diferencia de 3,510 votos. Matsui iba adelante durante la primera semana del conteo, hasta que las últimas boletas contadas pusieron a Vang en primer lugar. Fue la primera vez en más de dos décadas que Matsui terminó detrás de un rival en una elección primaria ([CapRadio](https://www.capradio.org/218172?ref=ivn.us)). Vang, de 41 años, es hija de refugiados hmong y ha vivido toda su vida en el sur de Sacramento. Matsui, de 81 años, ocupa el puesto desde 2005, cuando sucedió a su difunto esposo, el congresista Bob Matsui ([Bangor Daily News/AP](https://www.bangordailynews.com/2026/06/09/nation/mai-vang-advances-to-november-ballot-for-california-us-house-seat-will-face-fellow-democrat-matsui/?ref=ivn.us)). El WFP respaldó a Vang en septiembre de 2025 y prometió apoyarla con sus miembros y recursos. Su campaña rechaza dinero de comités de acción política (PAC) de empresas ([Working Families Party](https://workingfamilies.org/2025/09/california-working-families-party-endorses-mai-vang-in-ca-7/?ref=ivn.us)). Vang tiene el respaldo formal de los DSA en su campaña al Congreso. Los DSA de Sacramento respaldaron a Vang, y los DSA de California la presentan como "Endorsed by CA DSA" (respaldada por los DSA de California) ([California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)). ### 5\. Valle Central: Villegas contra Valadao En el Distrito 22, el congresista David Valadao obtuvo 40.74 por ciento en junio. Randy Villegas quedó en segundo lugar con 32.36 por ciento. Así superó por poco a Jasmeet Bains, miembro de la Asamblea Estatal, que obtuvo 26.90 por ciento. Menos del 25 por ciento de los votantes registrados votó ([IVN](https://ivn.us/democrats-gerrymandered-david-valadaos-district-it-backfired/?ref=ivn.us)). Villegas, de 31 años, es profesor de ciencias políticas en el College of the Sequoias, miembro de la junta escolar del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Visalia e hijo de inmigrantes mexicanos. Tiene un doctorado de la UC Santa Cruz y es miembro del sindicato UAW. El WFP lo respalda. El PAC del Partido de las Familias Trabajadoras gastó 441,035 dólares a su favor y 232,817 dólares en contra de Bains en la elección primaria. Los DSA de California recomiendan a Villegas y dijeron que la elección era "una decisión fácil para los miembros de los DSA". También lo apoyan Bernie Sanders, el congresista Ro Khanna, el Caucus Progresista del Congreso y Dolores Huerta. Valadao, productor lechero de Hanford, ha ganado el puesto cinco veces desde 2012\. Es uno de los dos republicanos que siguen en la Cámara de Representantes y que votaron a favor del juicio político (impeachment) contra Donald Trump después del 6 de enero de 2021. La Propuesta 50, una medida de la boleta electoral de 2025, cambió los mapas de los distritos del Congreso. Según el California Target Book, esa propuesta redibujó este distrito: la ventaja de Trump bajó de 5.8 a 1.7 puntos, y Hanford, la ciudad natal de Valadao, quedó fuera. Ahora hay más demócratas registrados que republicanos: 40.5 por ciento contra 27.6 por ciento. Grupos externos han gastado más de 25 millones de dólares en anuncios, lo que hace de esta elección una de las más caras del país. Más de 100,000 votantes del distrito no pertenecen a ninguno de los dos partidos principales. Su edad promedio es de 39 años, y cerca del 71 por ciento de los que tienen un origen étnico conocido son hispanos. Valadao nunca ha ganado el puesto solo con votos republicanos ([IVN](https://ivn.us/democrats-gerrymandered-david-valadaos-district-it-backfired/?ref=ivn.us)). ### 6\. Eastside de Los Ángeles: Gonzales-Torres contra Gomez En el Distrito 34, el congresista Jimmy Gomez obtuvo 46.1 por ciento en junio. Angela Gonzales-Torres quedó en segundo lugar con 30.6 por ciento. Los dos son demócratas y competirán entre sí en la elección general ([California Secretary of State](https://api.sos.ca.gov/returns/us-rep/district/34?ref=ivn.us)). El WFP respalda a Gonzales-Torres. Los DSA de Los Ángeles la respaldaron formalmente, y los DSA de California la recomiendan ([DSA-LA](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)). También tiene el apoyo de Justice Democrats. Esta es una pelea real dentro del ala izquierda del ala izquierda del Partido Demócrata. Gomez está en el Congreso desde 2017\. Es vicecoordinador (deputy whip) del Caucus Progresista del Congreso y tiene el respaldo de Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. El distrito incluye Boyle Heights, Eagle Rock y Highland Park, y cerca del 65 por ciento de su población es latina ([The Eastsider](https://www.theeastsiderla.com/news/crowded-field-challenges-jimmy-gomez-in-california-s-34th-congressional-district/article%5F325cf7fc-4aed-4423-b4b1-b5912e80a587.html?ref=ivn.us)). ## Senado Estatal Tres candidatos al Senado Estatal apoyados por los DSA y el WFP están en elecciones disputadas. Dos de ellos se enfrentan a demócratas moderados en Los Ángeles. El tercero reta a un senador republicano que ya ocupa el puesto. ### 7\. Oeste de Los Ángeles: Erickson contra Goldsmith El Distrito 24 del Senado va desde Santa Mónica y Malibú hasta las ciudades costeras del South Bay. John Erickson, concejal de West Hollywood, quedó en primer lugar en junio con 20.5 por ciento. El consultor de medios Brian Goldsmith quedó en segundo lugar con 18.3 por ciento. La noche de la elección, Erickson iba en tercer lugar. Después subió al primero conforme se contaron las últimas boletas ([Santa Monica Daily Press](https://www.smdp.com/election-results-2026-primary/?ref=ivn.us); [IVN](https://ivn.us/forget-brooklyn-socialisms-next-test-runs-through-west-la-and-independents-are-the-judges/?ref=ivn.us)). Dos republicanos dividieron el voto de su partido, así que ningún republicano quedó entre los dos primeros. Erickson, de 40 años, es exalcalde de West Hollywood y fue vicepresidente de Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. Lo respaldan el WFP, la Federación Laboral de California y la Asociación de Maestros de California. Los DSA de California lo recomiendan como el principal progresista de la competencia. En febrero, obtuvo solo el 8 por ciento en la convención en la que el Partido Demócrata de California decide sus respaldos. Goldsmith es periodista y es candidato por primera vez. Recaudó más de 2 millones de dólares, más que cualquier otro candidato en la elección primaria. Lo apoyan Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg, Antonio Villaraigosa, Rick Caruso y el sindicato Teamsters. En el distrito hay más del doble de demócratas que de republicanos. Pero 199,320 de sus 665,754 votantes no pertenecen a ninguno de los dos partidos principales. Entre ellos hay unos 162,000 votantes registrados como "No Party Preference" (sin preferencia de partido). Esta podría ser la elección legislativa más cara del estado este año ([IVN](https://ivn.us/forget-brooklyn-socialisms-next-test-runs-through-west-la-and-independents-are-the-judges/?ref=ivn.us)). ### 8\. Este de Los Ángeles: Rascón contra Hernandez En el Distrito 26 del Senado, Sara Hernandez quedó en primer lugar en la elección primaria de junio con 31.2 por ciento. Hernandez es miembro de la junta directiva del Distrito de Colegios Comunitarios de Los Ángeles. Sarah Rascón quedó en segundo lugar con 19.4 por ciento. Así superó a Wendy Carrillo, exmiembro de la Asamblea Estatal, que obtuvo 13.7 por ciento ([California Secretary of State](https://dp.electionresults.sos.ca.gov/returns/state-senate/district/26?ref=ivn.us)). Rascón creció en El Sereno. En su puesto más reciente, dirigió los asuntos del condado y de la región para la alcaldesa de Los Ángeles, Karen Bass. Apoya un sistema de salud de pagador único a través de CalCare (en el que el estado pagaría la atención médica de todos). También apoya derogar dos leyes: la Ley Ellis, que permite a los dueños desalojar a los inquilinos para retirar sus edificios del mercado de renta, y la Ley Costa-Hawkins, que limita el control de rentas. Además, quiere reformar la Propuesta 13, que limita los impuestos a la propiedad ([IVN](https://ivn.us/east-la-independent-voters-may-decide-whether-or-not-socialists-win-senate-seat/?ref=ivn.us)). El WFP y los New Deal Democrats respaldan a Rascón. Los DSA de Los Ángeles la recomiendan. Señalan que, desde la elección primaria, la han respaldado tres personas: Carrillo, Maebe Pudlo (otra candidata de la elección primaria) y la senadora María Elena Durazo, quien hoy ocupa ese puesto ([DSA-LA](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)). Hernandez fue maestra de secundaria y es abogada. Tiene el apoyo de la Asociación de Maestros de California, de la Federación Laboral de California y de muchos senadores estatales en funciones. El distrito incluye Boyle Heights, el Este de Los Ángeles, Highland Park, Los Feliz y Koreatown. Tiene la mayor concentración de miembros de los DSA de Los Ángeles en el sur de California. Los demócratas son poco menos del 60 por ciento de los registrados y los republicanos son el 11 por ciento. Eso deja a 144,000 votantes que no están registrados con ninguno de los dos partidos, casi el triple de los votantes republicanos ([IVN](https://ivn.us/east-la-independent-voters-may-decide-whether-or-not-socialists-win-senate-seat/?ref=ivn.us)). ### 9\. Condados de Placer y Sacramento: Frame contra Niello En el Distrito 6 del Senado, el senador republicano Roger Niello obtuvo 56.2 por ciento en junio. Sean Frame quedó en segundo lugar con 28.5 por ciento, y Sara Velasco, también demócrata, obtuvo 15.3 por ciento ([Critical Report](https://criticalreport.substack.com/p/2026-ca-senate-primaries?ref=ivn.us)). Frame es líder sindical en la Oficina de Educación del Condado de Sacramento, exmiembro de una junta escolar y miembro de los DSA de Sacramento. El WFP respalda a Frame, y los DSA de California lo recomiendan ([California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)). El distrito ha sido republicano por mucho tiempo. Aun sumando los votos de Velasco a los de Frame, los demócratas obtuvieron menos del 44 por ciento en junio. ## Asamblea Estatal Cuatro candidatos a la Asamblea Estatal apoyados por los DSA y el WFP están en elecciones competitivas. Dos se enfrentan a demócratas moderados por puestos abiertos. Dos intentan ganar puestos que hoy tienen los republicanos. Una quinta candidata, en el South Bay, tiene el apoyo de los DSA, pero no el respaldo del WFP. ### 10\. Marin y Sonoma: Elward contra Lucan En el Distrito 12 de la Asamblea, Eric Lucan, supervisor del condado de Marin, quedó en primer lugar en la elección primaria de junio con 28.28 por ciento. Jackie Elward, concejala de Rohnert Park, quedó en segundo lugar con 22.58 por ciento, por encima de la republicana Eryn Cervantes, con 19.4 por ciento. Elward iba en tercer lugar hasta que se contaron las últimas boletas ([IVN](https://ivn.us/how-liberal-is-marin-county-really-independent-voters-will-decide/?ref=ivn.us)). Damon Connolly, miembro de la Asamblea Estatal, se postula al Senado Estatal, así que su puesto está abierto. Connolly respalda a Elward. Elward creció en la República Democrática del Congo. En 2020, se convirtió en la primera mujer negra elegida al Concejo Municipal de Rohnert Park, y después fue alcaldesa. Lucan es presidente de la Junta de Supervisores del Condado de Marin y exalcalde de Novato. El WFP respalda a Elward, y los DSA del condado de Sonoma y los DSA de California la recomiendan. También la apoyan la Federación Laboral de California, la Asociación de Maestros de California, 21 sindicatos y el congresista Mike Thompson. A Lucan también lo apoyan el congresista Jared Huffman, cinco supervisores en funciones, el periódico Marin Independent Journal y Grow California. Los dos tienen posiciones muy distintas sobre la inteligencia artificial (IA) y los impuestos. Elward quiere una moratoria estatal (una pausa) a los nuevos centros de datos de IA. También ayudó a juntar firmas para la Propuesta 40, el impuesto a los multimillonarios. Lucan quiere que el estado ponga reglas y límites a la IA y se opone a la Propuesta 40\. Grupos sindicales han enviado folletos de campaña por correo que vinculan a Lucan con las grandes empresas tecnológicas. Los demócratas son el 57.9 por ciento de los registrados y los republicanos son el 15.5 por ciento. Eso deja a unos 81,800 votantes que no están registrados con ninguno de los dos partidos ([IVN](https://ivn.us/how-liberal-is-marin-county-really-independent-voters-will-decide/?ref=ivn.us)). ### 11\. Valle de Coachella: Namvar contra Wallis En el Distrito 47 de la Asamblea, Greg Wallis, miembro republicano de la Asamblea Estatal, obtuvo 48.1 por ciento en junio. Leila Namvar quedó en segundo lugar con 32.3 por ciento, y Jason Byors, también demócrata, obtuvo 19.5 por ciento ([The Ballot Brief](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/riverside-county/california-assembly-district-47?ref=ivn.us)). Los dos demócratas de la boleta de junio sumaron 51.8 por ciento. Wallis ganó el puesto en 2022 por menos de una décima de punto porcentual ([Idyllwild Town Crier](https://idyllwildtowncrier.com/2024/10/02/holstege-expects-second-time-is-charm/?ref=ivn.us)). Namvar es una inmigrante iraní que trabaja para la ciudad de Indio desde 2005\. Sería la primera persona musulmana y la primera iraní-estadounidense en representar al distrito ([The New Arab](https://www.newarab.com/news/iranian-american-leila-namvar-runs-california-assembly?ref=ivn.us)). El WFP respalda a Namvar, y el Partido Demócrata de California la respaldó después de la elección primaria ([California Democratic Party](https://cadem.org/california-democratic-party-announces-endorsements-for-statewide-congressional-and-state-legislature-candidates/?ref=ivn.us)). Los DSA de California recomiendan a Namvar como "la opción clara del movimiento sindical" y mencionan que fue presidenta de una sección local de SEIU 721 ([California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)). ### 12\. Condado de Orange: Lopez contra Penaloza En el Distrito 68 de la Asamblea, David Penaloza, concejal de Santa Ana, quedó en primer lugar en la elección primaria de junio con 32.5 por ciento. Jessie Lopez, también concejala, obtuvo 31.4 por ciento, por encima de la republicana Mayra Ruiz, con 29.4 por ciento. La noche de la elección, Lopez iba en tercer lugar. Después pasó al segundo conforme se contaron las últimas boletas ([The Ballot Brief](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/orange-county/california-assembly-district-68?ref=ivn.us); [JoinCalifornia](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15229?ref=ivn.us)). Como los dos forman parte del mismo concejo, los votantes pueden comparar directamente el historial de cada uno. En 2021, Lopez dio el voto decisivo para aprobar la ordenanza de control de rentas de Santa Ana, la primera del condado de Orange. También apoyó una medida para permitir que las personas que no son ciudadanas votaran en las elecciones de la ciudad, pero no fue aprobada. Penaloza se opuso a las dos. En 2023, grupos locales de los DSA ayudaron a Lopez a superar un proceso de revocación de mandato (recall), por 56 por ciento contra 44 por ciento. El WFP respalda a Lopez, al igual que Bernie Sanders, Our Revolution, SEIU California y UFCW 324\. Los DSA de California recomiendan a Lopez. Penaloza tiene el apoyo del Partido Demócrata de California; del presidente de la Asamblea, Robert Rivas; de Avelino Valencia, miembro saliente de la Asamblea Estatal; y de la mayoría de los sindicatos de seguridad pública del estado. Los demócratas son el 48 por ciento de los registrados y los republicanos son el 22 por ciento. Eso deja a unos 68,000 votantes que no están registrados con ninguno de los dos partidos. El distrito, de mayoría latina, cubre partes de Santa Ana, Anaheim y la ciudad de Orange ([IVN](https://ivn.us/orange-county-birthplace-of-the-reagan-revolution-could-elect-a-democratic-socialist/?ref=ivn.us)). ### 13\. Costa del condado de Orange: Kluwe contra Van Der Mark En el Distrito 72 de la Asamblea, Chris Kluwe quedó en primer lugar en la elección primaria de junio con 43.8 por ciento. Kluwe fue pateador de fútbol americano con los Vikings de Minnesota. En segundo lugar quedó la republicana Gracey Van Der Mark, concejala y exalcaldesa de Huntington Beach, con 37.7 por ciento. El republicano Matthew Harper obtuvo 16.4 por ciento ([The Ballot Brief](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/orange-county/california-assembly-district-72?ref=ivn.us)). El distrito va de Seal Beach a Laguna Beach. El puesto está abierto porque Diane Dixon, miembro republicana de la Asamblea Estatal, deja el cargo. Kluwe quedó primero en junio, pero los dos republicanos de la boleta sumaron 54.1 por ciento. El WFP respalda a Kluwe. Los DSA de California lo recomiendan "con entusiasmo" y dicen que la izquierda podría quitarles el distrito a los republicanos. También lo apoyan el Partido Demócrata de California y la Federación Laboral de California ([California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)). ### 14\. South Bay: Deen contra Seo En el Distrito 66 de la Asamblea, Paul Seo, alcalde de Rancho Palos Verdes, quedó en primer lugar en la elección primaria de junio con 26.6 por ciento, y Sara Deen obtuvo 24.6 por ciento. La noche de la elección, Deen iba en tercer lugar. Cuatro días después, pasó al segundo lugar por encima de la republicana Jessica Zonia Maldonado ([The Ballot Brief](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/los-angeles-county/california-assembly-district-66?ref=ivn.us); [JoinCalifornia](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15207?ref=ivn.us)). Los DSA de California recomiendan a Deen, pero el Partido de las Familias Trabajadoras no la incluye en su lista de respaldos. Esta es la única elección legislativa competitiva de este artículo en la que los DSA recomiendan a una candidata sin el apoyo del WFP. Deen les pidió a los DSA de Los Ángeles que quitaran de su guía para votantes la recomendación a favor de ella. "Pedimos que la quitaran porque tergiversa mis valores y equipara a los musulmanes estadounidenses con el socialismo, lo que les da a los oponentes una forma más segura de atacar mi identidad en lugar de mi historial", afirmó. Más tarde, dijo que "no tenía la intención de decir que los DSA de Los Ángeles en sí equipararan a los musulmanes estadounidenses con el socialismo". "Lo que quise decir es que oportunistas políticos tomaron la recomendación de los DSA de Los Ángeles, la cual yo nunca busqué, y la usaron para alimentar una narrativa falsa: presentar a los líderes musulmanes estadounidenses como socialistas secretos, comunistas o personas peligrosas de fuera". Deen es una dentista paquistaní-estadounidense y presidenta de la junta del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Palos Verdes Peninsula. Le han pedido que renuncie a esa junta por sus publicaciones en redes sociales sobre la guerra entre Israel y Hamás. La respaldan la Asociación de Maestros de California, Indivisible South Bay y el Consejo de Relaciones Estadounidense-Islámicas (CAIR). Paul Seo es fiscal adjunto en la oficina del fiscal general del estado, veterano del Ejército y exfiscal del condado de Los Ángeles. Lo apoyan la Federación Laboral del Condado de Los Ángeles y varias asociaciones de agentes del orden. El puesto está abierto. Los demócratas son el 43 por ciento de los registrados y los republicanos son el 27 por ciento. Eso deja a unos 97,000 votantes que no están registrados con ninguno de los dos partidos ([IVN](https://ivn.us/dsa-on-one-side-labor-and-cops-on-the-other-south-bay-independents-get-the-deciding-vote/?ref=ivn.us)). ## Alcaldías Cuatro candidatos a alcalde tienen tanto el respaldo del WFP como el respaldo formal de los DSA. El premio mayor es Los Ángeles. ### 15\. Los Ángeles: Raman contra Bass La alcaldesa Karen Bass quedó en primer lugar en la elección primaria de junio con 34.3 por ciento. La concejala Nithya Raman quedó en segundo lugar con 29.0 por ciento, por encima del republicano Spencer Pratt, con 25.5 por ciento ([Santa Monica Daily Press](https://www.smdp.com/election-results-2026-primary/?ref=ivn.us)). La noche de la elección, Raman iba ocho puntos atrás. En cinco días subió del tercer al segundo lugar, conforme llegaban las últimas boletas por correo de los barrios donde trabajaron los equipos de campo de los DSA y del WFP ([IVN](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/?ref=ivn.us)). Ese resultado cambió la competencia. Harry Enten, de CNN, citó encuestas de junio. Según esas encuestas, Bass le habría ganado a Pratt por 18 puntos, pero estaba cuatro puntos detrás de Raman. Raman es miembro de los DSA ([IVN](https://ivn.us/the-dsa-class-of-2026-11-democrats-running-as-socialists/?ref=ivn.us)). Los DSA de Los Ángeles respaldaron formalmente a Raman después de que el 65.9 por ciento de los cerca de 1,427 miembros que votaron aprobó ese respaldo. El WFP la respalda ([DSA-LA](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)). También la apoyan UNITE HERE Local 11, UAW Region 6 y Western States Carpenters. A Bass también la respaldan la Federación Laboral del Condado de Los Ángeles y el Partido Demócrata del condado. Raman es parte del Concejo Municipal desde 2020 y fue la primera persona respaldada por los DSA de Los Ángeles en ganar un puesto en el concejo. Su campaña se enfoca en proteger a los inquilinos y en un plan para reducir a la mitad el número de personas sin hogar. Si Raman ganara, una integrante de los DSA quedaría a cargo de la segunda ciudad más grande del país. Se sumaría así a Zohran Mamdani, alcalde de Nueva York. ### Richmond, El Cajón y Vista En Richmond, los DSA del East Bay y el WFP respaldan a la concejala Claudia Jimenez. Los DSA del East Bay la describen como miembro ([East Bay DSA Organizer](https://eastbaydsanews.substack.com/p/september-east-bay-organizer-7d7?ref=ivn.us)). Jimenez avanzó en la elección primaria de junio, y los dos candidatos a alcalde que salieron de esa elección están en la boleta de noviembre ([East Bay DSA](https://www.eastbaydsa.org/electoral/?ref=ivn.us)). En 2024, Richmond era la única ciudad del país donde la mayoría del concejo eran miembros de los DSA o personas respaldadas por los DSA ([California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/news/east-bay-electoral-2024?ref=ivn.us)). En el condado de San Diego, los DSA de San Diego respaldaron a dos candidatos a alcalde que también tienen el apoyo del WFP. Los DSA de San Diego organizan visitas de puerta en puerta cada dos semanas para los dos ([DSA San Diego](https://www.dsasandiego.org/endorsements?ref=ivn.us)). En El Cajón, los DSA describen a Alexander Kraft como originario de la ciudad, organizador sindical y exeducador. Su plataforma incluye un salario mínimo para la ciudad, una auditoría de la cooperación de la policía con el Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE) y un equipo comunitario para responder a llamadas de salud mental. En Vista, Kenneth Zuniga es miembro de los DSA y fue copresidente de la rama del North County de los DSA de San Diego. Forma parte de la comisión de la ciudad sobre personas sin hogar y ha organizado acciones para mantener al ICE fuera de las instalaciones municipales. ## Los independientes tienen el voto decisivo En las más reñidas de estas elecciones, la diferencia de votos es menor que el número de votantes que no pertenecen a ninguno de los dos partidos principales. | **Elección** | **Candidatos** | **Votantes que no están registrados con ninguno de los dos partidos principales** | | --------------------- | --------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Senado, Distrito 24 | Erickson (D) contra Goldsmith (D) | 199,320 (cerca del 30 por ciento) | | Senado, Distrito 26 | Rascón (D) contra Hernandez (D) | 144,000 (29 por ciento) | | Congreso, Distrito 22 | Villegas (D) contra Valadao (R) | Más de 100,000 (casi uno de cada tres) | | Asamblea, Distrito 66 | Deen (D) contra Seo (D) | 97,000 (30 por ciento) | | Asamblea, Distrito 12 | Elward (D) contra Lucan (D) | 81,800 (27 por ciento) | | Asamblea, Distrito 68 | Lopez (D) contra Penaloza (D) | 68,000 (30 por ciento) | Las cifras de registro vienen de votercount.ai, según la cobertura de IVN de cada distrito, citada en la sección de cada elección. Históricamente, pocos de estos votantes salen a votar. En el Distrito 22 del Congreso, solo el 16.7 por ciento de los votantes sin afiliación a un partido votó en las elecciones intermedias de 2022 ([IVN](https://ivn.us/democrats-gerrymandered-david-valadaos-district-it-backfired/?ref=ivn.us)). La encuesta del IVP da una idea de cómo podrían reaccionar estos votantes a una conexión con los DSA. En la elección para comisionado de seguros, casi la mitad de los independientes siguieron indecisos aun después de saber a qué candidato apoyan los DSA ([IVN](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/?ref=ivn.us)). ## ¿Se unirán los demás a los 10? Si todos los candidatos apoyados por los DSA y el WFP ganaran, el número de sus candidatos en estos cargos pasaría de 10 a 25. La mayor parte del cambio ocurriría dentro del Partido Demócrata, no entre los partidos. Ocho elecciones son entre dos demócratas: la de comisionado de seguros, el Distrito 3 de la Junta Directiva Estatal de Impuestos Sobre Ventas, los Distritos 7 y 34 del Congreso, los Distritos 24 y 26 del Senado y los Distritos 12 y 68 de la Asamblea. En esas elecciones, los resultados decidirán qué ala del partido se queda con el puesto. En dos de ellas, los retadores se enfrentan a congresistas en funciones: Matsui y Gomez. Cuatro elecciones podrían hacer que puestos republicanos pasen a manos de los DSA: el Distrito 22 del Congreso, el Distrito 6 del Senado y los Distritos 47 y 72 de la Asamblea. Si Raman ganara, una integrante de los DSA desde hace mucho tiempo quedaría a cargo de la ciudad más grande del estado. Seis de los 15 tienen el respaldo formal de los DSA: Vang, Gonzales-Torres, Raman, Jimenez, Kraft y Zuniga. A los demás, los DSA los recomiendan. La dirigencia del partido ya se dio cuenta. Rusty Hicks, presidente del Partido Demócrata de California, ha trabajado para eliminar el sistema Top Two, que obliga a que estas peleas dentro del partido lleguen a la elección de noviembre ([IVN](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/?ref=ivn.us)). *\[Nota de la autora: Este artículo se actualizó para incluir que Sara Deen les pidió a los DSA de Los Ángeles que quitaran de su guía para votantes la recomendación a favor de ella.\]* ## ¿Quiere saber más? "Assessing East Bay DSA's Electoral Work." California DSA, [californiadsa.org](https://www.californiadsa.org/news/east-bay-electoral-2024?ref=ivn.us). "California 2026 Primary Voter Guide." California DSA, consultado el 6 de octubre de 2026, [californiadsa.org](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us). "California Assembly District 47," "66," "68" y "72"; "California Senate District 26." The Ballot Brief, consultado el 6 de octubre de 2026, [theballotbrief.com](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/orange-county/california-assembly-district-72?ref=ivn.us). "California DSA's Voting Group Recommendations." Sway, consultado el 6 de octubre de 2026, [sway.co](https://www.sway.co/california-dsa/recs?ref=ivn.us). "California Democratic Party Announces Endorsements for Statewide, Congressional and State Legislature Candidates." California Democratic Party, [cadem.org](https://cadem.org/california-democratic-party-announces-endorsements-for-statewide-congressional-and-state-legislature-candidates/?ref=ivn.us). "California Working Families Party Endorses Mai Vang in CA-7." Working Families Party, septiembre de 2025, [workingfamilies.org](https://workingfamilies.org/2025/09/california-working-families-party-endorses-mai-vang-in-ca-7/?ref=ivn.us). "Electoral Strategy." East Bay DSA, consultado el 6 de octubre de 2026, [eastbaydsa.org](https://www.eastbaydsa.org/electoral/?ref=ivn.us). "Endorsements." DSA San Diego, consultado el 6 de octubre de 2026, [dsasandiego.org](https://www.dsasandiego.org/endorsements?ref=ivn.us). "Jessie Lopez." JoinCalifornia, consultado el 6 de octubre de 2026, [joincalifornia.com](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15229?ref=ivn.us). "Sara Deen." JoinCalifornia, consultado el 6 de octubre de 2026, [joincalifornia.com](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15207?ref=ivn.us). "2026 DSA-LA General Voter Guide." DSA-LA, consultado el 6 de octubre de 2026, [voterguide.dsa-la.org](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us). "WFP Endorses Jane Kim for California Insurance Commissioner." Working Families Party, 21 de enero de 2026, [workingfamilies.org](https://workingfamilies.org/2026/01/wfp-endorses-jane-kim-for-california-insurance-commissioner/?ref=ivn.us). ### El condado de Orange, cuna de la revolución de Reagan, podría elegir a una socialista demócrata URL: https://ivn.us/hide/el-condado-de-orange-cuna-de-la-revolucion-de-reagan-podria-elegir-a-una-socialista-democratica/ Last updated: 2026-10-20T00:40:12.000Z En la mayor parte del país ya quedaron atrás las sonadas batallas de las elecciones intermedias entre socialistas democráticos y demócratas moderados. Ahí, las primarias cerradas decidieron a los ganadores: se impuso quien logró llevar a las urnas al núcleo más comprometido del voto demócrata y, en muchos casos, ese fue el candidato de los DSA. California juega bajo otras reglas. El 2 de junio, todos los electores recibieron la misma boleta; los dos aspirantes con más votos pasaron a la siguiente ronda sin importar su partido, y en noviembre votará el electorado completo. Así, el condado que catapultó a Ronald Reagan y que bautizó su aeropuerto en honor a John Wayne tendrá que elegir, con el peso decisivo de sus 68 mil votantes independientes, entre [Jessie Lopez](https://www.votejessielopez.com/?ref=ivn.us), la recomendación de DSA, y [David Penaloza](https://davidpenaloza.com/?ref=ivn.us), demócrata moderado. ## **Distrito 68 de la Asamblea** ### **David Penaloza (D) contra Jessie Lopez (D)** En la primaria del 2 de junio, los dos demócratas quedaron a menos de mil votos de diferencia: Penaloza obtuvo 33 por ciento y Lopez, 31 por ciento. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZD7gInPz1g/?ref=ivn.us) La sección californiana de los DSA [recomienda votar por Lopez](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us). A su favor también se han pronunciado los sindicatos SEIU California, UFCW 324 y NUHW, el Partido de las Familias Trabajadoras (Working Families Party), la organización [Our Revolution](https://ourrevolution.com/category/endorsement/ca/?ref=ivn.us) y el senador Bernie Sanders. Lopez suma además el apoyo de [CAIR-CA PAC](https://ballotpedia.org/Endorsements%5Fby%5FCAIR-CA%5FPAC?ref=ivn.us), comité de acción política financiado por el Consejo de Relaciones Estadounidense-Islámicas (CAIR) y encabezado por [Hussam Ayloush](https://www.memri.org/reports/cair-la-director-hussam-ayloush-november-2023-islamic-society-orange-county-event-israel?fbclid=IwAR28kMilcLCuEibcujo3HvLkRt-MhyOrhdMEQue4vB-%5FzVLxX0i5c91vS7Q%5Faem%5FASP62ZHLa-pMbXZp-nGFzXOZ1TCO8j%5F2cEMnIirYnMF3nM5%5FMs4qzHghUc5EZLnvEr-VGpOQUEI13qWkmXE9vxEk&ref=ivn.us). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-14-at-3.44.58---PM-1.png) Como ambos son miembros del Concejo Municipal de Santa Ana, los votantes pueden contrastar directamente su desempeño. En los últimos seis años, Lopez y Penaloza han votado en bandos opuestos en temas económicos y electorales. En su primer año en el Concejo Municipal, Lopez dio el voto decisivo para aprobar, por 4 votos contra 3, la ordenanza que estabiliza las rentas y limita los desalojos a causas justificadas. Con ello, [Santa Ana se convirtió en la primera ciudad del condado de Orange con una ley propia de control de rentas](https://voiceofoc.org/2021/10/santa-ana-becomes-first-orange-county-city-with-rent-control/?ref=ivn.us). Los DSA defienden en su plataforma el control de rentas generalizado y una protección amplia a los inquilinos, pues consideran [la vivienda un derecho humano](https://www.dsausa.org/blog/less-rent-more-control/?ref=ivn.us) y no como un producto con fines de lucro. Penaloza votó en contra de aquella ordenanza de 2021\. A su juicio, se aprobó con prisas, y los 300 mil dólares que se le destinaron salían de recursos no recurrentes, lo que acabaría por agravar la deuda municipal. Lopez también apoyó la Medida DD, que buscaba [que los residentes sin ciudadanía pudieran votar](https://ocindependent.com/2023/10/santa-anas-progressive-council-majority-wants-non-citizens-to-vote-in-city-elections/?ref=ivn.us) en las elecciones locales de Santa Ana, una postura que coincide con [la plataforma que los DSA presentaron en 2026](https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/dsa-unveils-new-platform-including-radical-structural-changes-to-us-government-dsa-melot-kiros-democrat-party-republicans?ref=ivn.us). Penaloza se opuso. > *“¿Debe reformarse la Carta Municipal de Santa Ana para que, a más tardar en la elección municipal de noviembre de 2028, los residentes de la ciudad que no sean ciudadanos puedan votar en todas las elecciones municipales?” (*[*Medida DD*](https://ballotpedia.org/Santa%5FAna,%5FCalifornia,%5FMeasure%5FDD,%5FNoncitizen%5FVoting%5Fin%5FMunicipal%5FElections%5FAmendment%5F%28November%5F2024%29?ref=ivn.us)*; rechazada con 60 por ciento de los votos en contra)* Antes de la primaria, Lopez fue blanco de duras críticas por votar a favor de llevar a las urnas la Medida FF, que planteaba un aumento del 556 por ciento al salario de los concejales de Santa Ana, incluida la suya. *“La reforma propuesta elevaría el salario de los concejales y del alcalde de 12,000 dólares anuales (1,000 dólares mensuales) a 78,698.07 dólares anuales (6,558.17 dólares mensuales)…”* Penaloza, en cambio, votó contra el aumento a su propio sueldo. Lopez fue la impulsora de la [Comisión de Supervisión Policial de Santa Ana](https://santa-ana.gov/police-oversight-commission-complaint-form/?ref=ivn.us) (Santa Ana's Police Oversight Commission), encargada de investigar abusos de la policía. A finales de 2023 enfrentó un proceso de revocación de mandato muy polarizado, en el que las secciones de los DSA en California se volcaron a hacer campaña para mantenerla en el cargo. Los votantes rechazaron la revocación por 56 contra 44 por ciento, y los DSA presumieron el resultado como un triunfo importante en el sur de California. [Santa Ana: Jessie Lopez Tried To Enlist Other Tenants In Attempt To Sabotage Sale Of Landlord’s House - OC IndependentSanta Ana Councilmember Jessie Lopez attempted to enlist her fellow tenants in her efforts to sabotage the sale of the house where she was renting a bedroom, according to documents filed by her former landlord in his successful civil complaint against Lopez. The landlord, Hector Orellana, successfully sued Lopez for $35,000 in damages. OC Independent \[…\]![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/cropped-V2_Logo-Mark-270x270-097f4c50-d6be-4bda-9ca4-bed422702ac2.png)OC IndependentMatthew Cunningham![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/jessie-lopez-OIC-44622016-091a-4dcf-9117-318e58a387ab.jpg)](https://ocindependent.com/2024/10/santa-ana-jessie-lopez-tried-to-enlist-other-tenants-in-attempt-to-sabotage-sale-of-landlords-house/?ref=ivn.us) Por su parte, Penaloza tiene el respaldo del Partido Demócrata de California; del presidente de la Asamblea estatal, Robert Rivas; del asambleísta Avelino Valencia, quien deja el cargo; de la excongresista Katie Porter; de la Asociación de Maestros de California y de casi todos los sindicatos de los cuerpos de seguridad pública del estado. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db%5FKm29pyRx/?ref=ivn.us) Lopez tiene 37 años y es originaria de Santa Ana, donde creció. Hija de inmigrantes, se pagó los estudios con dos empleos. Cursó una carrera técnica en Santa Ana College y la licenciatura en sociología en la Universidad Estatal de California en Long Beach. En 2020 ganó el escaño del Distrito 3 en el Concejo Municipal de Santa Ana y, ese mismo año, llegó al Comité Central del condado de Orange. En 2024 se reeligió como concejal. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTyzD85DxYe/?ref=ivn.us) David Penaloza nació el 6 de enero de 1988 y ha vivido toda su vida en el condado de Orange. Tenía tres años cuando su padre murió atropellado por un conductor ebrio, y reconoce que su familia salió adelante gracias a su madre y a la comunidad que los arropó. De acuerdo con su sitio web, aprendió a nadar y jugó beisbol en la alberca comunitaria de Memorial Park, y en la preparatoria Saddleback formó parte de los equipos de natación y waterpolo. En 2011 se tituló de la licenciatura en lengua y literatura inglesas por la Universidad Estatal de California en Los Ángeles. Siendo todavía estudiante, entró a trabajar medio tiempo en las oficinas de [Color Science, Inc](https://www.modifiedplastics.com/color-science-inc?ref=ivn.us)., una manufacturera del condado de Orange. Ahí pasó 16 años y recorrió las áreas de embarques, ventas, nómina, calidad y cumplimiento normativo, hasta que en 2019 asumió la dirección de asuntos regulatorios. Llegó al Concejo Municipal de Santa Ana en 2018 y se reeligió en 2022\. Su periodo termina el 8 de diciembre de 2026. Actualmente preside la [División del Condado de Orange de la Liga de Ciudades de California](https://www.cacities.org/Resources-Documents/Member-Engagement/Professional-Departments/City-Managers/Welcome-Packet-Documents/Regional-Managers-Brochure-2014?ref=ivn.us) y las Agencias de Corredores de Transporte (Transportation Corridor Agencies). También representó a las ciudades grandes en el [Fideicomiso de Financiamiento para la Vivienda del Condado de Orange](https://ochft.org/?ref=ivn.us). Su campaña le atribuye más de 2 mil viviendas nuevas, cinco parques, la rehabilitación de calles e infraestructura, la primera biblioteca que se construye en la ciudad en sesenta años y la reestructuración de la deuda de pensiones del municipio. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DVhEv%5FpErT3/?ref=ivn.us) Entre esas obras destaca la remodelación de la misma alberca de Memorial Park donde aprendió a nadar, que no se renovaba desde 1965. Es miembro de la Logia de los Elks #794 y ha sido voluntario del Children’s Resource Center por medio de la [Illumination Foundation](https://illuminationhealthhome.org/?ref=ivn.us). Vive en Santa Ana con sus dos hijos, Penelope y Lucas, y con su esposa, [Kim Nguyen-Penaloza](https://ballotpedia.org/Kim%5FNguyen-Penaloza?ref=ivn.us), exconcejal de Garden Grove que en 2024 buscó sin éxito un escaño en el Congreso. En el padrón del distrito, los demócratas suman 48 por ciento y los republicanos, 22 por ciento. El 30 por ciento restante, unos 68 mil electores, no está afiliado a ninguno de los dos partidos; de ellos, 54 mil se registraron sin preferencia partidista. El distrito se encuentra por completo dentro del condado de Orange: la mitad corresponde a Santa Ana, cerca de 30 por ciento a Anaheim y 20 por ciento a la ciudad de Orange. Es de mayoría latina, pues 56 por ciento de los ciudadanos en edad de votar son latinos. 57 por ciento de los hogares renta, con un pago mediano de 2,050 dólares al mes, mientras que una casa tiene un valor mediano de 709 mil dólares; es por eso que el control de rentas se volvio tema central. Asimismo, 36 por ciento de los habitantes nació en el extranjero y 20 por ciento no tiene la ciudadanía, lo que explica que la Medida DD llegara a la boleta. Dentro del distrito se ubican el Angel Stadium, el Honda Center, la Universidad Chapman, Santa Ana College y el Museo Bowers. ### Este de Los Ángeles: Los votantes independientes podrían decidir si una socialista llega al Senado de California URL: https://ivn.us/hide/este-de-los-angeles-los-votantes-independientes-podrian-decidir-si-una-socialista-llega-al-senado-de-california/ Last updated: 2026-10-12T21:20:19.000Z ***El futuro del socialismo en Estados Unidos no se decidirá en Nueva York, sino en lugares como el este de Los Ángeles, a unos 4 mil 800 kilómetros de distancia.*** ## Distrito 26 del Senado estatal ### **Sara Hernandez (D) contra Sarah Rascón (D)** Este año, los candidatos socialistas democráticos se han vuelto expertos en ganar primarias demócratas cerradas, en las que basta un electorado reducido pero movilizado para llevarse la contienda y en las que solo votan los afiliados al partido. California, sin embargo, no celebra elecciones cerradas. El 2 de junio, todos los electores registrados, militen o no en algún partido, recibieron la misma boleta; los dos aspirantes con más votos pasaron a la elección general sin importar su filiación y, en los distritos más demócratas del estado, eso a veces significó que en noviembre compitieran dos demócratas, sin un solo republicano. El Distrito 26 del Senado estatal es un claro ejemplo. Al no haber republicanos en la boleta, los 144 mil votantes sin afiliación partidista de este distrito del este de Los Ángeles tendrán la última palabra en el duelo entre Sarah Rascón, [recomendada por la organización Socialistas Democráticos de Estados Unidos (DSA)](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us), y Sara Hernandez, demócrata moderada. Los DSA bien podrían arrebatar este escaño. El Distrito 26 concentra la mayor cantidad de miembros de la sección de Los Ángeles de los DSA en todo el sur de California, y Rascón cuenta con el respaldo de la organización. En la primaria del 2 de junio, sin embargo, Hernandez tomó una ventaja contundente: obtuvo 34 por ciento de los votos, frente a 21 por ciento de Rascón. [Hernandez](https://www.sarahernandez.com/?ref=ivn.us) es integrante del Consejo de Administración del Distrito de Colegios Comunitarios de Los Ángeles y abogada especializada en vivienda, migración y medio ambiente. Comenzó su carrera como maestra de secundaria en el Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles, estudió en la Universidad Duke, en la Universidad Loyola Marymount y en la Facultad de Derecho de Loyola, y vive en Eagle Rock. [La respaldan](https://www.sarahernandez.com/endorse?ref=ivn.us) la Asociación de Maestros de California, la Federación del Trabajo de California, la Local 12 del Sindicato Internacional de Ingenieros Operadores (IUOE) y buena parte de la clase política demócrata, incluidos senadores estatales en funciones que serían sus futuros colegas. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DXxh5V6P0i1/?ref=ivn.us) [Rascón](https://www.rasconforsenate.com/?ref=ivn.us), por su parte, creció en El Sereno, vive en Glassell Park y su trayectoria proviene del trabajo en sustentabilidad y justicia ambiental. Fue directora de asuntos del condado y regionales de la alcaldesa Karen Bass; trabajó con Jimmy Gomez cuando este era asambleísta estatal y en la Autoridad de Recreación y Conservación de las Montañas; formó parte de la Comisión de Planeación del Este de Los Ángeles y del consejo directivo de CicLAvia. Cuenta con el apoyo de los DSA, del Partido de las Familias Trabajadoras de California y de los New Deal Democrats. [La guía electoral de los DSA en California](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us) recomienda votar por Rascón porque “apoya un sistema de salud de pagador único a través de CalCare, la derogación de las leyes Ellis y Costa-Hawkins y la reforma de la Proposición 13”. Rascón también se ha pronunciado a favor de la “liberación total de Palestina”. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DceNCwLyrze/?ref=ivn.us) De acuerdo con [votercount.ai](http://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us), los demócratas representan poco menos de 60 por ciento del padrón y los republicanos apenas 11 por ciento. El 29 por ciento restante, unos 144 mil electores, no está registrado con ninguno de los dos grandes partidos; de ellos, 116 mil se inscribieron sin declarar preferencia por partido alguno. En el Distrito 26, este bloque de votantes sin partido es casi tres veces más grande que el electorado republicano. Sin republicanos en la boleta y con dos demócratas de posturas marcadamente distintas, estos electores son el fiel de la balanza. Si los votantes que no militan en ninguno de los dos grandes partidos salen a las urnas, serán ellos quienes definan la elección. El Distrito 26 abarca el centro y el oriente de Los Ángeles: Boyle Heights, el este de Los Ángeles, Highland Park, Los Feliz, Koreatown y la ciudad industrial de Vernon. Su población es mayoritariamente latina e inmigrante, y en los foros con candidatos celebrados esta primavera los vecinos preguntaron sobre la aplicación de las leyes migratorias, la salud pública y el medio ambiente. ### Alaska Ballot Measure 2 Could Kill Open Primaries, Ranked Choice Voting, and Dark Money Rules in One Vote URL: https://ivn.us/alaska-ballot-measure-2-could-kill-open-primaries-ranked-choice-voting-and-dark-money-rules-in-one-vote/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T17:25:31.000Z **ANCHORAGE, Alaska** — Alaska voters once again could fundamentally change the way elections work in their state, including who gets to participate in primary elections, and how much voters know about the money influencing their elections. Except, [unlike Question 3 in Massachusetts](https://ivn.us/massachusetts-could-end-party-primaries-heres-what-question-3-would-actually-do/), the vote is on whether to ditch reform, not put it in place. Ballot Measure 2 would repeal a nonpartisan election reform package approved by voters in 2020, replacing the state's nonpartisan Top Four primary and ranked choice general election system with partisan primaries and single-choice general elections. But there is a third component that is getting less attention: The measure would also roll back campaign finance disclosure requirements designed to expose the original sources of political spending, including money from outside Alaska. In other words, this is not simply a referendum on ranked choice voting as Yes on 2 ads have suggested. For supporters, Measure 2 is an opportunity to return to a party-nominated and controlled system, where taxpayer-funded primaries select party nominees and party leaders decide who gets to participate in these elections. It is also a chance for them to eliminate what they argue are unnecessarily complicated voting rules under ranked choice voting. For opponents, it threatens voter choice, the guaranteed right of independent voters (who make up roughly 60% of the electorate) to participate in public primaries, and financial transparency. This is the second time reform repeal has appeared on the Alaska ballot in two years. Voters rejected a similar attempt to repeal the state's open primaries and ranked choice voting by just 743 votes in 2024. The only difference this year is that the repeal campaign added new campaign finance regulations to the chopping block as well. ## **What Does the Ballot Say?** The initiative's official title is: “An Act Restoring Political Party Primaries, Ending Ranked-Choice General Elections, and Repealing Recent Campaign Finance Laws.” The ballot language reads: *“This act would get rid of open primary elections, where all candidates appear on one ballot. It would also get rid of ranked-choice general elections. It would bring back political party primaries and single-choice general elections. It would also repeal certain campaign finance rules that were added by a 2020 ballot measure.* *“Elections would occur as they did before open primaries and ranked choice voting. In the primary election, voters would choose a party’s ballot, unless prohibited by the party’s bylaws. They would only vote for candidates on that ballot. The winning candidate from each primary would be the party’s nominee. In the general election, voters would vote for only one candidate in each race. The candidate with the most votes would win. Party petitions, special runoff elections, and other processes would return. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor would run separately in political party primaries and then together in the general election.* *“This act would also repeal campaign finance rules that were passed in 2020\. It would remove the limits on donations to joint campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor. It would remove limits and disclosure rules under current law, including for digital ads, out-of-state donations, undisclosed donations, and the true source of donations. It would change the meaning of a campaign expenditure and remove some fines.* *“Should this initiative become law?”* Put simply, a “Yes” vote would repeal the current Top Four primary, ranked choice voting, and specified campaign finance requirements. A “No” vote would maintain the current election system and disclosure requirements. ## **How Alaska Elections Work Now** Alaska's current nonpartisan election system was approved by voters in 2020 and was first implemented in 2022. The reform package includes a nonpartisan Top Four open primary system, in which all voters and candidates participate on a single ballot, regardless of party. Every voter can choose any candidate they want in any race. It also switched the voting method used in the general election to ranked choice voting, which gives voters the option to rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate wins a majority, the last place candidate is eliminated and their voters’ next choices are applied to the results. The elimination process continues until a single candidate has a majority of votes. Ranking candidates is not mandatory. Voters can select just one candidate if they prefer. The 2020 package also established disclosure requirements intended to help voters identify the actual sources of money behind political advertising and independent expenditures. These include “true source” requirements for contributions funneled through an intermediary group. For example, Elon Musk gave the Wisconsin-based Aurora Action Network $1.5 million to support the Yes on 2 campaign. Over a million of that went to the repeal effort. The reason Musk’s involvement became public is because of these disclosure rules. [Alaska’s Ranked Choice Repeal Has a Dark-Money Clause Voters Can’t IgnoreAlaska’s effort to repeal ranked choice voting would also roll back campaign finance transparency rules, removing disclosure requirements for dark money and out-of-state donations that voters approved in 2020.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-5f83a004-09cd-4b2e-b0b0-c53c455d98df.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-8c4629b3-d0ef-4567-8109-b4a066a069cd-da08bdd0-4212-4749-960f-04d053572d04.jpg)](https://ivn.us/alaskas-ranked-choice-repeal-has-a-dark-money-clause-voters-cant-ignore/) Without them, voters could know about the PAC, but not the people giving to it. ## **What Would Actually Change Under Measure 2?** Ballot Measure 2 would undo the central components of the 2020 package. | **Current system** | **Under Measure 2** | | -------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- | | One primary ballot featuring all candidates | Separate partisan primary ballots | | All voters can select any primary candidate | Parties determine eligibility to participate in their primaries | | Top four candidates advance | Party nominees advance under old partisan rules | | Ranked choice general elections | Single-choice, plurality-winner elections | | Primary voters do not formally nominate party candidates | Party primary voters select nominees | | Enhanced true-source political spending disclosures | Repeal of specified 2020 disclosure provisions | The measure would also bring back provisions governing party petitions, special runoff elections, and associated election procedures. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor would again compete separately in partisan primaries before running as a joint ticket in the general election. Notably, the campaign finance changes extend beyond simply repealing one reporting requirement. They would remove limits on contributions to joint gubernatorial campaigns established by the 2020 reform package, amend the definition of campaign expenditures, eliminate certain disclosure provisions, and remove some financial penalties. ## **What Supporters of Measure 2 Argue** The campaign behind Ballot Measure 2 is called Repeal Now, which has primarily focused its messaging on ranked choice voting. Supporters argue that ranked choice voting makes elections more complicated than necessary and point out that ballots can become exhausted if voters don’t rank every candidate. [The Ranked Choice Voting “Confusion Myth”Critics say ranked choice voting confuses voters, but real-world election data suggests most voters understand the system — and that ballot errors remain rare.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-7e40cbde-a9fd-449f-8131-7a95db6ca78b.png)Independent Voter NewsPaul Haughey![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ranked-choice-voting-confusion-68e50fbb-43b4-43d9-9251-db4eba4348d4.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-ranked-choice-voting-confusion-myth/) An exhausted ballot occurs when it no longer has a ranking for any candidate remaining in the count. This concern is often brought up when discussing large candidate fields. According to state election data, approximately 4.2% of ballots were inactive in Alaska's 2024 US House election by the final round of ranked-choice tabulation, according to state election data. However, that figure includes ballots with overvotes and other issues, not just voters who declined to rank additional candidates. Since Alaska law allows voters to rank as few candidates as they wish, it is impossible to attribute every exhausted ballot to voter confusion. In fact, in the US House race, many of the voters whose first pick was not one of the top two candidates was their only pick—and that is a choice they have under ranked choice voting. At [a July public hearing](https://vimeo.com/1213321836?ref=ivn.us), Repeal Now Treasurer Bethany Marcum explained the campaign's position: “Our campaign is about one person, one vote.” The Yes campaign also argues that partisan primaries provide a clearer process for voters to select party nominees and allow political parties to maintain control over their own nominations. Under Alaska’s voter-nominated system, the purpose is not to select party nominees, but to narrow the field of candidates chosen by the broader electorate. It is worth noting that Alaska law does not prohibit political parties from endorsing candidates in the primaries. They are free to back whomever they want. The decision on who advances is left up to voters—not the parties. On campaign finance, Marcum argued that the 2020 disclosure requirements have not eliminated dark money and imposed burdens on smaller campaigns. “In our opinion, the money overwhelms the disclaimer,” she said during the July hearing. But this is a subject that the campaign is mostly avoiding, sticking instead to its messaging on ranked choice voting. ## **The Case Against Measure 2: Voter Choice and Transparency** Opposition to Ballot Measure 2 is led by No on 2 – Protect Alaska's Elections. The coalition includes election reform advocates, former officials, and organizations such as the First Alaskans Institute, [whose board announced its opposition in August](https://www.firstalaskans.org/first%5Falaskans%5Finstitute%5Fboard%5Fopposes%5Fballot%5Fmeasure%5F2?ref=ivn.us). FAI is an Alaska Native nonprofit. “Self-determination begins with having a vote by ensuring every voter can support the candidates they believe in and by providing transparency about the sources of election spending,” said FAI President and CEO Roy Apagruk Agloinga. > “These are important protections that strengthen trust in our democracy.” Opponents argue that the current primary system allows candidates to compete for support from the entire electorate rather than a smaller group of partisan primary voters. Further, since all voters are guaranteed the right to vote in taxpayer-funded primaries, the independent majority does not need permission from a party to participate. A “Yes” on 2 would mean returning to a system in which two private political entities have the most control over who is on the ballot and who gets to vote. Attorney Scott Kendall, who helped advance the original reforms, has also noted that the repeal of financial disclosure provisions cannot be overlooked. At the July hearing, he argued that these new rules were just as important as the primary and voting changes made in 2020. “Ballot Measure 2 is a bit of a Trojan horse,” Kendall said, arguing that the initiative would weaken protections against undisclosed political spending. Opponents also dispute the claim that ranked choice voting is primarily responsible for delays in determining election winners. Alaska's geography and reliance on absentee and rural mail ballots often extend the reporting process, regardless of the voting method used. ## **Controversial ‘Yes on 2’ Ad Claims It Will Return to the Days of Open Primaries** As[ ](https://ivn.us/the-most-dishonest-campaign-ad-in-2026/)[IVN reported in September](https://ivn.us/the-most-dishonest-campaign-ad-in-2026/), a Yes on 2 audio ad suggested that approving the initiative would bring back open primaries and reject dark money. The problem is that Alaska already has a nonpartisan open primary system that allows every voter to select any candidate. The system Measure 2 would bring back is different. It wouldn’t guarantee open primaries to all voters, but would let parties decide if independents can vote. Further, under Alaska’s previous partisan primary rules, when independent voters were allowed to participate, their choices were limited to the candidates of a single party. No on 2 Campaign Manager Julia Anastos accused the Yes campaign of misleading voters about the initiative's effects. The No campaign sent cease-and-desist letters to radio stations across Alaska demanding they refuse or stop airing the ad. ## **A Vote on Who Controls Alaska's Elections** There is a lingering question over how voters feel about this second attempt to repeal the 2020 election reforms since no polling has been conducted. The only baseline available is the 2024 vote, in which voters rejected repeal by less than a percentage point. But the 2026 electorate could look different from two years ago. Turnout likely won’t be the same. Voter incentives and motivations have also changed. In 2020, the reform package was approved by a similarly narrow margin. Different turnout. Different electorate. If the last 6 years have indicated anything, it is that voters haven’t budged much on the issue. It’s possible the results this year will be razor-thin as well because the questions before Alaskans haven’t changed: - Should primary elections be structured around political parties or around all voters and candidates? - Should general elections allow voters to rank candidates, or require each voter to select only one? - And should Alaska retain the additional disclosure rules that voters approved in 2020? What is certain is that Measure 2 would change more than the method used to count ballots. There is more at stake than ranked choice voting. It would restructure the candidate nomination process, change the role political parties play in taxpayer-funded primaries, and remove certain political spending disclosure requirements. The fundamental question voters really need to ask is, Who should have the most control in elections… the parties or voters? This is what is on the November 3 ballot. ### Pennsylvania’s Primary Lockout Is Running Out of Defenders URL: https://ivn.us/pennsylvanias-primary-lockout-is-running-out-of-defenders/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T21:42:33.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* Last week, the Pennsylvania House [passed **HB 280 to open the state’s primaries** in a bipartisan vote](https://www.abc27.com/pennsylvania-politics/pennsylvania-house-passes-bipartisan-open-primaries-bill/?ref=ivn.us). That breakthrough is proving to be just the beginning. The momentum behind open primaries is now spreading across the state—and some of Pennsylvania’s most powerful voices are joining the fight. [**Governor Josh Shapiro has endorsed opening Pennsylvania’s primaries**](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/shapiro-endorses-open-primary-legislation-210000969.html?guccounter=1&ref=ivn.us), and Congressman **Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican and one of the state’s leading bipartisan voices,** [**has thrown his support behind the effort as well.**](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/oct/6/pennsylvania-gop-rep-fitzpatrick-calls-open-primaries/?srsltid=AU7gw4VC0B38uLbk6qPstZWFFLUghS4xjq79vPhAkV9Io-8IOGMGHZiS&ref=ivn.us) [Pennsylvania’s Open Primary Fight Could Come Down to a Handful of Senate SeatsWith control of the state Senate at stake in November, a handful of competitive races could determine the future of legislation allowing more than 1.5 million independent voters to participate in Pennsylvania’s primaries.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-7df1fcf7-8415-40c4-ae70-158b9947cda2.png)Independent Voter NewsHugh J Campbell Jr.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/josh-shapiro-open-primaries-5a73f26d-7a95-434f-9f47-5f4bde19e411.jpg)](https://ivn.us/pennsylvanias-open-primary-fight-could-come-down-to-a-handful-of-senate-seats/) And it’s not just elected officials paying attention. **Media outlets across Pennsylvania are buzzing about the issue**, putting the voices of the state’s 1.5 million independent voters front and center and sparking a much bigger conversation about who gets to participate in Pennsylvania’s taxpayer-funded elections. Now we’re putting that momentum to work. Open Primaries and our partners at [Ballot PA Action](https://www.bpaction.org/?ref=ivn.us) are activating Pennsylvanians across the state to **thank the House members who voted for HB 280** and to urge state senators to support the bill as it moves forward. We want lawmakers to hear directly from the independent voters who have been locked out of Pennsylvania’s primaries for far too long. Check out PA Open Primaries activist Tom Graff with a message for PA voters: > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd-SQ3cJfN9/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Open Primaries (@openprimaryusa)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd-SQ3cJfN9/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) If you live in Pennsylvania or know someone who does and want to get involved, please email Cathy Stewart at [cstewart@openpriamries.org](mailto:cstewart@openpriamries.org) For a decade, we have organized, litigated, built alliances, and fought for this moment. Now Pennsylvania is watching—and the rest of the country is watching Pennsylvania. [Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Sue New York After Being Denied the Right to VoteIraq and Afghanistan war veterans are suing New York over its closed primary system, arguing that independent voters are being denied equal voting rights in publicly funded elections.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-7fb0a5dc-30f0-49d7-ba57-49f9273cd84d.png)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-6e952a04-7cf5-4eae-9544-53437fb9ab64-0115967a-8d38-400c-b4a3-2b830c55cc34.png)](https://ivn.us/veterans-of-iraq-and-afghanistan-wars-sue-new-york-after-being-denied-the-right-to-vote/) ## **What We're Talking About** ## THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT SHOULD BE VERY, VERY NERVOUS OP President John Opdycke recently kicked off the Independent National Convention with a message the two-party system desperately does not want to hear: **Independents are done waiting for permission.** They are organizing. They are building power. And they are demanding a political system where they actually have a voice. **This isn’t the fringe anymore. This is the realignment.** Check out his compelling charge: > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd9AK6zJPch/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Open Primaries (@openprimaryusa)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd9AK6zJPch/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) ## **Activities / Events** ## **Joe Manchin: Are Independents Finally Breaking Through?** Don’t miss [our provocative conversation with former Senator Joe Manchin, Independent Center senior adviser Adam Brandon](https://youtu.be/JlPnPWS8tVQ?si=HF6sBBJSIHPR6QSU&ref=ivn.us), and Open Primaries President John Opdycke on whether 2026 could be the year independents finally translate their numbers into political power. Can independent candidates break the two-party monopoly—and change how Washington works? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/LetUsVote--2--1.png) ## **BROOKLYN VOTERS SAY: LET US VOTE!** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/brooklyn-activists.png) Not even pouring rain could slow down the Open Primaries crew at this year’s Atlantic Antic, Brooklyn’s biggest and oldest street festival. Our volunteers hit Atlantic Avenue to gather signatures for our open letter to Mayor Mamdani—and to talk with New Yorkers about an outrageous fact: **1.2 million independent voters in New York City are locked out of their own taxpayer-funded primary elections.** Our letter calls on Mayor Mamdani to hold an Independent Voters Town Hall and meet face-to-face with the New Yorkers he says are “quite content” with the status quo. Brooklyn voters had a very different message. **Independents are done being locked out.** Hundreds stopped, signed the letter, and made their position unmistakable: **LET ALL VOTERS VOTE.** **Watch Torsha Childs as she lays it out:** Atlantic Antic was a reminder that this isn’t an abstract political debate. It’s about whether millions of New Yorkers get a voice in the elections their tax dollars pay for. Are you a New Yorker or know someone who is? [Go to our campaign site, sign the petition and get involved.](https://newyorkopenprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us) ## **MARYLAND: THE DAM IS BREAKING** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/maryland-open-primaries-support.png) A [second Maryland poll](https://wtop.com/maryland/2026/10/poll-maryland-voters-back-open-primaries-question-congressional-map-proposal/?ref=ivn.us) has now confirmed [what the first one](https://marylandmatters.org/2026/09/22/poll-finds-opposition-to-maryland-redistricting-ballot-question/?ref=ivn.us) showed: **Marylanders want open primaries.** The new UMBC poll finds 60% of likely voters support opening the state’s primaries, while just 32% support keeping the current closed system. That makes this more than a single encouraging poll. **Two polls, from different pollsters, are now showing overwhelming public support for giving independent voters a voice in Maryland’s taxpayer-funded primaries.** The politics are moving. The law is being challenged. And the public is speaking clearly. **Maryland’s closed-primary system is running out of excuses.** ## **MASSACHUSETTS DEBATES PRIMARY REFORM** **Massachusetts has a massive competition problem—and its partisan primary system isn’t fixing it.** Independent voters can choose which party’s primary to enter, but they still have to choose a party. [**Question 3**](https://yeson3ma.org/?ref=ivn.us) **would put every candidate on the same ballot, give every voter a free choice among them, and send the top two to November.** [Massachusetts Could End Party Primaries. Here’s What Question 3 Would Actually DoMassachusetts voters could eliminate party primaries and replace them with an open primary allowing all voters to choose any candidate on a single ballot. Here’s what Question 3 would actually change.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-95e20d30-e2f5-4f6c-9767-2f56e12a7288.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-7885c641-d58e-4a6d-aae3-0994847372d8-0a5b362b-e941-4dae-af42-a9e9edb94795.jpg)](https://ivn.us/massachusetts-could-end-party-primaries-heres-what-question-3-would-actually-do/) That’s not just a different primary system. **It means real competition for every vote—and real freedom for voters to choose the candidates they actually want.** Watch the Boston Public Radio debate between Question 3 advocate Danielle Allen and State Senator Lydia Edwards. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/the-verdict--2-.png) ## **WYOMING’S SUPREME COURT JUST MADE IT HARDER FOR VOTERS TO CHOOSE** This week the WY Supreme Court [issued a decision](https://ivn.us/new-poll-young-americans-think-democracy-is-for-sale-and-theyre-tired-of-playing-along/) upholding a law barring voters from changing their party affiliation for 96 days before a primary election—even though it also recognized that these primaries are **public elections** and that voting in them is a **fundamental constitutional right**. That contradiction should concern every voter. Wyoming’s Constitution promises “open, free and equal” elections and the “untrammeled exercise” of the right to vote. Yet the court says the government can force voters to decide which party’s primary they will participate in **months before they know who is running.** Think about how absurd that is. Candidates enter the race. Voters learn where they stand. Political circumstances change. A voter may decide another primary matters more. A family member may be running. But if that decision comes after the government’s arbitrary deadline, too bad. The state has already decided which primary that citizen is allowed to vote in. And let’s be clear: **these are not private political clubs. They are government-run elections.** Political parties can decide who belongs to their organizations. But when government administers a primary, pays for it, and uses it to determine who advances to the general election, voters have a right to meaningful access to that election. The court got one thing very important right: primary elections are public elections. Now we need to ask the obvious question: **If the right to vote is fundamental, why is government making it harder to exercise?** ## **In Case You Missed It** ## A New Chapter for the Open Primaries Movement ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/open-primaries-movement.png) Open Primaries is building something bigger. For years, leaders and activists across the country have been fighting for open primaries—often without a formal structure connecting their work. That’s changing. [We’ve launched a nationwide network of State Leaders and Spokespeople](https://openprimaries.org/state-leaders-and-spokespeople/?ref=ivn.us), bringing together 11 state leaders and 29 spokespeople across more than half the states in the country. These are people who have been in the fight for years, alongside new activists joining the movement. Together, they’re helping build the foundation for a 50-state network. This is an exciting new chapter for Open Primaries: expanding our organization, creating new structures, and bringing more voices into the fight for independent voters. **The movement is growing. Now our organization is growing with it.** [Meet the State Leaders and Spokespeople building the movement nationwide.](https://openprimaries.org/state-leaders-and-spokespeople/?ref=ivn.us) ### New Poll: Young Americans Think Democracy Is for Sale. And They're Tired of Playing Along URL: https://ivn.us/new-poll-young-americans-think-democracy-is-for-sale-and-theyre-tired-of-playing-along/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T14:44:23.000Z New polling data shows most young Americans don't believe their voices carry nearly as much weight as the wealthy donors funding political campaigns. And that perception is discouraging some from participating in elections altogether. A[ ](https://americanpromise.net/2026-youth-poll/?ref=ivn.us)[poll released Friday](https://americanpromise.net/2026-youth-poll/?ref=ivn.us) by American Promise and public opinion research firm SocialSphere found that 83% of Americans ages 18 to 29 believed money in politics was a big problem, including 58% who described it as a “very big problem.” But in an election cycle in which candidates are trying to energize younger voters ahead of November, the more troubling finding was that 43% said the influence of money made them less motivated to participate in politics. Only 24% said it motivated them to get *more* involved. This stems from the perception that their vote doesn’t matter as much as the cash candidates receive. When respondents were asked who holds the most influence over decisions in Washington, 38% said wealthy individuals and billionaires. Only 4% said ordinary voters. “Today’s broken campaign finance system, in which political spending has had virtually no limits, is the only one that young Americans know,” said American Promise CEO Jeff Clements. > *“It’s no wonder that young people question whether their voices matter, because they understand how today’s political system works. However, what this survey shows is that candidates who make campaign finance reform a central tenet of their campaigns can earn back the trust and remotivate the next generation.”* This is not an issue that divides voters. Majorities across the political spectrum believe members of Congress are more influenced by their campaign funders than by their constituents: - 67% of Democrats - 54% of Republicans - 50% of independents More than half of all respondents (52%) said that when people like them vote, organize, contact elected officials, or otherwise speak up, it makes little or no difference. American Promise notes that the poll measures perceptions and self-reported motivation, not actual voting behavior. Still, the findings indicate that concerns about political money may be contributing to a broader sense of political powerlessness. The poll was conducted online between September 8-13 and includes responses from 2,026 young adults. ## **An Issue That Unites Democrats, Republicans, and Independents** There is consistent data that show broad agreement on this issue. In this poll, 95% of young Democrats described money in politics as a big problem. The same was true for 83% of young Republicans and 78% of independents. Additionally, 70% of respondents agreed that Congress and state legislatures should have the authority to reasonably regulate and limit money spent on elections and campaigns. This has been the sole mission of American Promise: To pass a constitutional amendment that allows state and federal lawmakers to establish limits on political spending that won't immediately be struck down by the courts. This could mean different rules for individuals and entities such as corporations and unions. [81% of Americans Say Money Controls Politics – Can a Constitutional Amendment Fix It?Polls consistently show that nearly all Americans across the political spectrum agree that there is too much money in politics – whether from foreign sources, corporations, or so-called “dark money” groups.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-417fbd31-30b1-4680-a7ce-c8c93204f818.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/money-in-politics-campaign-finance-reform-constitutional-amendment-citizens-united-bd5a59d6-88eb-4cf0-9448-6c6e03b33af0.png)](https://ivn.us/81-of-americans-say-money-controls-politics-can-a-constitutional-amendment-fix-it-2026-02-23/) The amendment would not itself impose specific spending limits. Instead, it would restore legislative authority to adopt rules currently constrained by constitutional interpretations of political spending and free speech. American Promise says [25 states have passed resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment addressing money in politics](https://ivn.us/half-of-us-states-are-now-in-revolt-over-money-in-politics-2026-04-08/), including recent action in Idaho, Oklahoma, and Utah. ## Will Candidates Listen? Young voters were also surveyed on what impact a commitment to campaign finance reform would have on their candidate preferences in the November midterms. Overall, 70% said a candidate's position on reducing the influence of money in politics would be important to the choices they make. This included 84% of Democrats, 75% of Republicans, and 61% of independents. Another 68% agreed that limits on political spending would make them more confident that government represents people like them. “Every candidate on the ballot this November should take that seriously,” said John Della Volpe, founder and CEO of SocialSphere. > “If we want young people to vote, we have to show them that their voices can shape what Washington does.” The survey cannot establish whether campaign finance reform would increase turnout. But it does identify a significant disconnect between young Americans' desire for political influence and their perception of who actually holds power. ### Pennsylvania's Open Primary Fight Could Come Down to a Handful of Senate Seats URL: https://ivn.us/pennsylvanias-open-primary-fight-could-come-down-to-a-handful-of-senate-seats/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T13:28:27.000Z The push to transition Pennsylvania from a closed primary system to an open primary system has historically stalled due to a split legislature. To pass comprehensive election reform like open primaries, Democrats likely need to secure a mid-term trifecta in the 2026 midterm elections. **A political trifecta occurs when a single political party controls the governor's office and both chambers of the state legislature.** Here is how the current political landscape and the mechanics of Pennsylvania law tie open primaries directly to the outcome of a mid-term trifecta: Consult official Pennsylvania General Assembly resources to verify the current rules of the primary system, the status of pending primary election legislation, and how voter registration types affect primary eligibility. ## **Why a Trifecta is Required to Pass the Law** **Overcoming the Split Legislature:** The Pennsylvania General Assembly is currently divided, with Republicans controlling the Senate and Democrats holding a narrow majority in the House. This split has created a perennial gridlock on sweeping voting laws. **Democratic Election Priorities:** Allowing independents to vote in primary elections has emerged as a core priority for state Democrats, alongside other reforms like mandatory ballot drop boxes and pre-canvassing. **The Three Components of the 2026 Trifecta:** To break the gridlock and pass these reforms, Democrats must achieve single-party control by clearing three hurdles in the midterms: **Retain the Governor's Mansion:** Incumbent Democratic Governor **Josh Shapiro** must win his reelection campaign against Republican challenger Stacy Garrity. **Hold the State House:** Democrats must maintain their fragile three-seat majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. **Flip the State Senate:** Democrats must erase the current Republican majority by winning vulnerable districts [in areas like the Lehigh Valley and the Philadelphia suburbs](https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2026/07/election-law-changes-democratic-trifecta-2026-midterm-shapiro-elections/?ref=ivn.us). Without securing all three pieces of this mid-term trifecta, any legislation to open Pennsylvania's primaries would continue to face a split-party veto or gridlock in the legislature. The Pennsylvania State Senate is currently controlled by a narrow 27-23 Republican majority. In the November 3, 2026, midterm elections, 25 of the chamber's 50 seats (the even-numbered districts) are up for election. Political forecasters consider five specific districts to be highly competitive high-risk battlegrounds—four held by Republicans and one held by a Democrat—with three considered true single-digit toss-ups. Because a 25-25 tie combined with a Democratic governor's lieutenant governor would give Democrats procedural control, both parties are intensely focusing resources on the following high-risk seats: ## **High-Risk Republican Seats** Democrats are targeting four primary Republican seats, all located in the eastern half of the state, to erase the GOP's single-chamber advantage: **6th State Senate District:** Located in Bucks County, this southeastern PA seat is a premier suburban battleground: Frank Farry versus Eileen Hartnett Albillar\]. **16th State Senate District:** Encompassing parts of the Lehigh Valley, this region features highly elastic swing voters: Jarrett Coleman versus Mark Pinsley. **24th State Senate District:** Covering parts of Montgomery and Berks counties, this is a key flip opportunity for Democrats aiming to maximize suburban gains: Tracy Pennycuick versus Christopher Thomas. **40th State Senate District:** Situated in Monroe and Lackawanna counties in northeastern PA, this seat is heavily contested in a shifting demographic area: Rosemary Brown versus Brian Wrightson. ## **High-Risk Democratic Seat** Republicans have focused their primary offensive energy on reclaiming a single, [highly vulnerable seat](https://www.lockhaven.com/news/local-news/2026/09/the-2026-races-that-could-decide-control-of-the-pa-house-senate/?ref=ivn.us) that [flipped unexpectedly in a special election](https://whyy.org/articles/pennsylvania-senate-elections-democrats-philadelphia-suburbs/?ref=ivn.us): **36th State Senate District:** Located in Lancaster County, this seat is held by Democrat James Malone, who won a surprise special election upset in a heavily conservative district that Donald Trump comfortably carried. Malone faces a stiff challenge from Republican Tom Jones in what represents the GOP's best opportunity to flip a seat and safeguard their majority: James Malone versus Tom Jones. ## **Secondary Republican Targets** While less vulnerable than the 36th district, Republicans are also actively monitoring and targeting two other Democratic seats to expand their map: **14th State Senate District:** Located in the Lehigh Valley: Nick Miller versus Omy Maldonado. **38th State Senate District:** Encompassing the competitive suburbs of Pittsburgh: Lindsey Williams versus Thomas West. ### Deval Patrick and Charlie Baker Back Question 3 to Truly Open Massachusetts Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/deval-patrick-and-charlie-baker-back-question-3-to-truly-open-massachusetts-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-10-08T23:47:26.000Z **BOSTON**—Two former Massachusetts governors from opposite parties, Democrat Deval Patrick and Republican Charlie Baker, have endorsed Question 3, the November ballot measure that would open the Commonwealth's primaries to independent voters. Question 3 would scrap Massachusetts' partisan primaries in favor of a single primary open to every candidate, where every voter can vote. The system would look more like primary elections in California, Washington, and Alaska. [Massachusetts Could End Party Primaries. Here’s What Question 3 Would Actually DoMassachusetts voters could eliminate party primaries and replace them with an open primary allowing all voters to choose any candidate on a single ballot. Here’s what Question 3 would actually change.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-7f721b02-6a2b-4db0-b4b8-a8678ba3e2a6.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-7885c641-d58e-4a6d-aae3-0994847372d8-d3231358-d159-4177-94d5-23a5fb12f8c3.jpg)](https://ivn.us/massachusetts-could-end-party-primaries-heres-what-question-3-would-actually-do/) Governor Patrick and Governor Baker have not always agreed on election reform. When Baker was governor, the two were on opposite sides of ranked-choice voting. Patrick was an honorary co-chair of the historic RCV campaign. Baker held an official press conference to publicly oppose it on the Friday before Election Day. On Question 3, though, they agree. In their statements, both men say the nonpartisan primary system Massachusetts cities already use in local elections is far superior to closed partisan primaries. "All-party primaries will give voters more choice and our elected officials will have to reach across the aisle to voters from other parties if they want to be successful," said Baker. > "That’s why I believe Question 3 will return the focus to what matters most: delivering meaningful results for the people of our Commonwealth.” “Politics nowadays is less about ‘red’ versus ‘blue’ than about insiders versus outsiders,” said Patrick. > “Elections ought to be a competition of ideas, experience and character than about who has the better structural advantage. All-party primaries can enable more good people to compete, and encourage more office holders to deliver results once elected.” ## **The Opposition** Top Two systems like Question 3 proposes have drawn criticism for reasons that have less to do with left and right than with who benefits from the current rules. The Massachusetts Working Families Party (MAWFP) has announced its opposition to Question 3\. That puts it alongside the Massachusetts Republican Party and the Massachusetts Democratic Party, which also oppose Question 3. > 1/ People have been asking me why I decided to launch a ballot initiative for an all-party primary in Massachusetts. I've been working on this for five years, and I want to tell the story. So here goes. 🧵 > > — Danielle Allen (@dsallentess) [August 27, 2026](https://x.com/dsallentess/status/2092960618282152245?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The Working Families Party and the "No on 3" campaign call Question 3 a "jungle primary," a term for an entirely different electoral system used in Louisiana. The party told voters to mark "No" on the measure. It says it prefers opening up the election process by using ranked-choice voting in closed partisan primaries, as Maine does. The subhead on the party's press release framed Question 3 as one that "trades one broken system for a worse one." The party says RCV would open the process without rewiring the closed primary structure. "We need more competition in our elections, but Question 3 is a worse system dressed up as a solution," the Working Families Party said. "Let us be extremely clear: Question 3 will not help working people build power in Massachusetts. It will do the opposite," said Josh Wolfsun, the party's state director. The party pointed to California as its warning. > "We've seen this exact experiment run in California. It produced longer, more expensive campaigns that made it harder for grassroots candidates to win, and the state legislature moved right because of it. If we want to actually fix what's broken on Beacon Hill, we know how to do it: public financing, same-day voter registration, and ranked-choice voting in primaries." ## **The Supporters** Supporters of Question 3 say this is about competition and accountability—two things they assert are missing from Massachusetts elections. The organization behind the measure, The Coalition for Healthy Democracy, argues that its reform makes it harder for a single party to effectively settle elections before most voters participate. Read more about where supporters stand [here](https://ivn.us/massachusetts-could-end-party-primaries-heres-what-question-3-would-actually-do/). Along with former governors Patrick and Baker, the NAACP of New England has endorsed Question 3. > Former gubernatorial opponents both agree on one thing: our state government works better when there’s real competition in elections. > > Join [@DevalPatrick](https://x.com/DevalPatrick?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) and [@CharlieBakerMA](https://x.com/CharlieBakerMA?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) in supporting Question 3 this November 3rd! Go to [https://t.co/85Mf0GIFDX](https://t.co/85Mf0GIFDX?ref=ivn.us) to learn more. [#massachusetts](https://x.com/hashtag/massachusetts?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us)… [pic.twitter.com/unBLfgMj5g](https://t.co/unBLfgMj5g?ref=ivn.us) > > — Vote YES on 3! All-Party Primaries (@vote\_yeson3ma) [October 5, 2026](https://x.com/vote%5Fyeson3ma/status/2107153705061495285?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) ## **One Step at a Time** Danielle Allen, the democracy advocate and Harvard professor who launched the ballot initiative, also chairs FairVote, which advocates for ranked-choice voting and proportional representation. Allen took to X to explain her step-by-step strategy for bringing election reform to the Commonwealth. > 1/ I'm Board Chair of FairVote — the nation's largest RCV org. I LOVE ranked choice voting. I'm also convening chair for Yes on 3, MA's All-Party Primary initiative. People ask ([@avikchatterMD](https://x.com/AvikChatterMD?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us)): why not RCV instead? Here's the story. > > — Danielle Allen (@dsallentess) [August 28, 2026](https://x.com/dsallentess/status/2093383339017228376?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) "I LOVE ranked-choice voting. I'm also convening chair for Yes on 3, MA's All-Party Primary initiative. People ask: why not RCV instead? Here's the story," she wrote. "In 2020, I was an honorary co-chair for MA's RCV ballot initiative. It failed. The people of Massachusetts rejected it. Then in 2021, I heard voters say there weren't even real choices on the ballot." "That's when it clicked: no one will vote to rank things when there aren't any choices to begin with. MA has a competitiveness problem," Allen wrote, "and that has to be solved first." Her next attempt paired the two reforms. "In 2023, we tried to do both at once," she wrote, describing a "Top 5 system" that combined an "All-Party Primary + RCV in the general." "Top 5 vote-getters advance, then voters rank them. It finally solves the spoiler problem." That proposal never reached the ballot. "The Attorney General's Office blocked it. Ruled the two reforms weren't 'related or mutually dependent.' I disagree. But I'm not the AG. So: one step at a time," Allen wrote, linking to the[ ](https://mass.gov/doc/23-04-declination-letter/download?ref=ivn.us)[AG's declination letter](https://mass.gov/doc/23-04-declination-letter/download?ref=ivn.us). "We're playing political Mother May I. Step one: All-Party Primaries. If we win, maybe we get to take the next step toward RCV," she wrote, adding that the next step would come "when Massachusetts voters want it." "All-Party Primaries tackle the competitiveness problem that's a pre-condition for RCV to work anyway. Competition in elections is what puts power back in the hands of the people." Question 3 goes before Massachusetts voters on Nov. 3. ## ### 15 Races Where Democratic Socialists Can Reshape California Politics URL: https://ivn.us/15-races-where-democratic-socialists-can-reshape-california-politics/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T17:06:18.000Z Ten candidates backed by both the California Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America are all but certain to win in November. The open question is how many more will join them. The two groups are working to pull California's dominant Democratic Party leftward, one race at a time. This fall, their candidates are on the ballot for Congress, the state Senate, the Assembly, insurance commissioner, the Board of Equalization and mayor of four cities, including Los Angeles. Nationally, most of the DSA's 2026 victories came in closed Democratic primaries, where a small and motivated electorate can carry a race ([IVN](https://ivn.us/the-dsa-class-of-2026-11-democrats-running-as-socialists/?ref=ivn.us)). California does not hold closed primaries. Under the Top Two system, every voter gets the same ballot, the two highest finishers advance regardless of party, and independents get a say in November. In several of the state's bluest districts, that produced general elections with two Democrats and no Republican. In those races, a DSA-backed Democrat faces a more mainstream Democrat, and independent and Republican voters will decide between them, if they vote ([IVN](https://ivn.us/california-2026-the-candidates-choices-and-elections-that-show-how-much-power-voters-really-have/?ref=ivn.us)). The left's ground game showed its strength in June. Tom Steyer spent more than $200 million of his own money in the governor's race and helped fund the progressive turnout operations that DSA and WFP canvassers run in dense urban neighborhoods. Late mail ballots from those neighborhoods lifted Nithya Raman past Spencer Pratt into the Los Angeles mayoral runoff ([IVN](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **The 10 Near-Certain Winners** All 10 are Democrats, and nine are incumbents. Each finished first in June, most with more than 60 percent of the vote. | **Candidate** | **Office** | **June 2 result** | **November opponent** | | --------------------- | --------------------------- | ------------------- | --------------------------- | | Lateefah Simon | U.S. House, District 12 | First | Jamie Joyce (D) | | Aisha Wahab | U.S. House, District 14 | First, 34.3 percent | Melissa Hernandez (D) | | Damon Connolly | State Senate, District 2 | First, 71.6 percent | Tief Gibbs (R) | | Caroline Menjivar | State Senate, District 20 | First, 62.1 percent | Tony Rodriguez (R) | | Lola Smallwood-Cuevas | State Senate, District 28 | First, 77.5 percent | Joe Lisuzzo (R) | | Liz Ortega | State Assembly, District 20 | First, 75.1 percent | Patricia Muga (R) | | Ash Kalra | State Assembly, District 25 | First, 72.2 percent | Himat Singh Bainiwal (R) | | Nick Schultz | State Assembly, District 44 | First, 71.2 percent | Carolyn Daniels (R) | | Isaac Bryan | State Assembly, District 55 | First, 64.6 percent | Ashley M. Brown (D) | | Sade Elhawary | State Assembly, District 57 | First, 85.7 percent | Constance Jewel Menzies (R) | Wahab's race is the closest of the 10\. She led the regular primary 34.3 percent to 16.1 percent and then beat BART Director Melissa Hernandez in an August special election to finish former Rep. Eric Swalwell's term ([CBS News Bay Area](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/alameda-county-voters-deciding-who-will-succeed-former-rep-eric-swalwell/?ref=ivn.us);[ ](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/aisha-wahab-california-congressional-district-14/4130964/?ref=ivn.us)[NBC Bay Area](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/aisha-wahab-california-congressional-district-14/4130964/?ref=ivn.us)). Wahab was the first Afghan American elected to public office in the United States, when she won a Hayward City Council seat in 2018\. The November rematch uses new district lines that add about 26,000 Dublin voters who could not vote in the August special. Fifteen more candidates backed by both the DSA and the WFP are in closer races. Most are challengers or running for open seats. ## **1\. Insurance Commissioner** The highest office on the progressive left's list this year is insurance commissioner, where Jane Kim faces state Sen. Ben Allen. It is the first time since the office became elected that two Democrats will compete for it ([Santa Barbara Independent/CalMatters](https://www.independent.com/?p=745064&ref=ivn.us)). Kim led the June primary with 27.4 percent to Allen's 19.4 percent in certified results ([Santa Monica Daily Press](https://www.smdp.com/election-results-2026-primary/?ref=ivn.us)). She is a former San Francisco supervisor and was Bernie Sanders' California political director in 2020 ([SPUR](https://www.spur.org/news/2026-05-19/rebuilding-affordable-sustainable-insurance-market-insurance-commissioner?ref=ivn.us)). She also led the California Working Families Party and, as its state director, announced the group's endorsement of Mai Vang for Congress last year ([Working Families Party](https://workingfamilies.org/2025/09/california-working-families-party-endorses-mai-vang-in-ca-7/?ref=ivn.us)). WFP endorsed Kim in January and pledged a statewide organizing effort ([Working Families Party](https://workingfamilies.org/2026/01/wfp-endorses-jane-kim-for-california-insurance-commissioner/?ref=ivn.us)). DSA-LA recommends her, and California DSA lists her as its pick ([DSA-LA](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)). Sanders, SEIU California and the California Teachers Association also back her. Kim proposes "natural disaster insurance for all," a state-run program modeled on New Zealand's, and refuses money from insurance companies and their executives. Allen, who represents Los Angeles's Westside, has called for more oversight of the FAIR Plan. Most voters have not made up their minds. A recent NBC Los Angeles poll put Kim at nearly 25 percent and Allen at 18 percent, with more than 57 percent undecided ([NBC Los Angeles](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/california-insurance-commissioner-jane-kim-ben-allen/3950222/?ref=ivn.us)). A recent IVP survey shows the Kim-Allen race as the most open contest on California's ballot. The DSA connection may matter. In a split-sample IVP survey, respondents who saw only the candidates' names were divided, with nearly two-thirds undecided. When respondents were told that DSA backs Kim and that Allen is a mainstream Democrat, they favored Allen 36 percent to 23 percent ([IVN](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **2\. Board of Equalization - District 2** Two more candidates backed by both the DSA and WFP are running for the Board of Equalization, the elected panel that oversees property tax assessment and some state taxes. In District 2, WFP endorses Sally Lieber, and California DSA lists her as its pick ([California DSA](https://www.sway.co/california-dsa/recs?ref=ivn.us)). Her opponent is John Pimentel. San Francisco groups split along familiar lines: the local Democratic Party and SEIU 1021 back Lieber, while GrowSF and the San Francisco Republican Party back Pimentel ([SF Endorsements](https://sfendorsements.com/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **3\. Board of Equalization - District 3** In District 3, which covers all of Los Angeles County, Sam Sukaton faces termed-out Assemblymember Mike Gipson, another Democrat. Sukaton is a higher education labor organizer and a DSA-LA member. WFP endorses him, and DSA-LA and California DSA recommend him ([California DSA](https://www.sway.co/california-dsa/recs?ref=ivn.us)). Sukaton beat 10 opponents to reach November but trails Gipson, who has Democratic Party and California Labor Federation backing, by about 10 points ([DSA-LA](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **Congress** Three congressional candidates backed by DSA and WFP face tougher races than Simon and Wahab. Two are challenging Democratic incumbents. The third is trying to unseat a Republican. ## **4\. Sacramento: Vang vs. Matsui** Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang finished first in the June primary in the 7th District with 30.8 percent to Rep. Doris Matsui's 29.1 percent, a margin of 3,510 votes. Matsui led through the first week of counting before late ballots put Vang ahead. It was the first time in more than two decades that Matsui finished behind an opponent in a primary ([CapRadio](https://www.capradio.org/218172?ref=ivn.us)). Vang, 41, is the daughter of Hmong refugees and a lifelong South Sacramento resident. Matsui, 81, has held the seat since 2005, when she succeeded her late husband, Rep. Bob Matsui ([Bangor Daily News/AP](https://www.bangordailynews.com/2026/06/09/nation/mai-vang-advances-to-november-ballot-for-california-us-house-seat-will-face-fellow-democrat-matsui/?ref=ivn.us)). WFP endorsed Vang in September 2025 and pledged to put its members and resources behind her. Her campaign rejects corporate PAC money ([Working Families Party](https://workingfamilies.org/2025/09/california-working-families-party-endorses-mai-vang-in-ca-7/?ref=ivn.us)). Vang has a formal DSA endorsement at the Congressional level. Sacramento DSA endorsed Vang, and California DSA lists Vang as "Endorsed by CA DSA" ([California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)). ## **5\. Central Valley: Villegas vs. Valadao** In the 22nd District, Rep. David Valadao took 40.74 percent in June. Randy Villegas finished second with 32.36 percent, edging out Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains at 26.90 percent. Fewer than 25 percent of registered voters cast ballots ([IVN](https://ivn.us/democrats-gerrymandered-david-valadaos-district-it-backfired/?ref=ivn.us)). Villegas, 31, is a College of the Sequoias political science professor, a Visalia Unified school board member, and the son of Mexican immigrants. He holds a doctorate from UC Santa Cruz and is a UAW member. WFP endorses him, and the Working Families Party PAC spent $441,035 for him and $232,817 against Bains in the primary. California DSA recommends Villegas and called the race "an easy choice for DSA members." Bernie Sanders, Rep. Ro Khanna, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Dolores Huerta also back Villegas. Valadao, a Hanford dairy farmer, has won the seat five times since 2012\. He is one of two House Republicans still in office who voted to impeach Donald Trump after Jan. 6. Prop 50 redrew the district from Trump plus 5.8 points to Trump plus 1.7 points and cut Hanford, Valadao's hometown, out of it, according to the California Target Book. Democrats now lead registration 40.5 percent to 27.6 percent. Outside groups have spent more than $25 million on ads, making it one of the country's most expensive races. More than 100,000 district voters belong to neither major party. Their average age is 39, and about 71 percent of those with a known ethnicity are Hispanic. Valadao has never won the seat on Republican votes alone ([IVN](https://ivn.us/democrats-gerrymandered-david-valadaos-district-it-backfired/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **6\. Eastside Los Angeles: Gonzales-Torres vs. Gomez** In the 34th District, Rep. Jimmy Gomez took 46.1 percent in June. Angela Gonzales-Torres finished second with 30.6 percent. Both Democrats have advanced to compete against each other in the general ([California Secretary of State](https://api.sos.ca.gov/returns/us-rep/district/34?ref=ivn.us)). WFP endorses Gonzales-Torres. DSA-LA formally endorsed her, and California DSA recommends her ([DSA-LA](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)). She also has the backing of Justice Democrats. This is a real fight within the left flank of the left flank of the Democratic Party. Rep. Gomez, in Congress since 2017, is deputy whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The district, which includes Boyle Heights, Eagle Rock and Highland Park, is about 65 percent Latino ([The Eastsider](https://www.theeastsiderla.com/news/crowded-field-challenges-jimmy-gomez-in-california-s-34th-congressional-district/article%5F325cf7fc-4aed-4423-b4b1-b5912e80a587.html?ref=ivn.us)). ## **State Senate** Three state Senate candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists and the WFP are in contested races. Two of them face moderate Democrats in Los Angeles. The third is challenging a Republican incumbent. ## **7\. West LA: Erickson vs. Goldsmith** Senate District 24 runs from Santa Monica and Malibu to the South Bay beach cities. West Hollywood Councilmember John Erickson finished first in June with 20.5 percent, and media consultant Brian Goldsmith was second with 18.3 percent. Erickson ran third on election night and climbed to first as late ballots were counted ([Santa Monica Daily Press](https://www.smdp.com/election-results-2026-primary/?ref=ivn.us);[ ](https://ivn.us/forget-brooklyn-socialisms-next-test-runs-through-west-la-and-independents-are-the-judges/?ref=ivn.us)[IVN](https://ivn.us/forget-brooklyn-socialisms-next-test-runs-through-west-la-and-independents-are-the-judges/?ref=ivn.us)). Two Republicans split their party's vote, leaving no Republican in the top two. Erickson, 40, is a former West Hollywood mayor and a former vice president at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. WFP, the California Labor Federation and the California Teachers Association endorse him, and California DSA recommends him as the field's leading progressive. He took just 8 percent at the California Democratic Party's February endorsing convention. Goldsmith, a journalist and first-time candidate, raised more than $2 million, more than anyone else in the primary. Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg, Antonio Villaraigosa, Rick Caruso, and the Teamsters back him. Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 2 to 1 in the district. But 199,320 of its 665,754 voters belong to neither major party, including about 162,000 No Party Preference voters. The race could be the state's most expensive legislative contest this year ([IVN](https://ivn.us/forget-brooklyn-socialisms-next-test-runs-through-west-la-and-independents-are-the-judges/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **8\. East LA: Rascón vs. Hernandez** In Senate District 26, Los Angeles Community College District Trustee Sara Hernandez led the June primary with 31.2 percent. Sarah Rascón finished second with 19.4 percent, ahead of former Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo at 13.7 percent ([California Secretary of State](https://dp.electionresults.sos.ca.gov/returns/state-senate/district/26?ref=ivn.us)). Rascón grew up in El Sereno and most recently directed county and regional affairs for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. She supports single-payer health care through CalCare, repealing the Ellis Act and Costa-Hawkins and reforming Prop 13 ([IVN](https://ivn.us/east-la-independent-voters-may-decide-whether-or-not-socialists-win-senate-seat/?ref=ivn.us)). WFP and the New Deal Democrats endorse Rascon. DSA-LA recommends Rascon and notes she has since won endorsements from Carrillo, fellow primary candidate Maebe Pudlo, and Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, who holds the seat now ([DSA-LA](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)). Hernandez, a former middle school teacher and an attorney, is backed by the California Teachers Association, the California Labor Federation, and many sitting state senators. The district includes Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, Highland Park, Los Feliz and Koreatown. It has the highest concentration of DSA-LA members in Southern California. Democrats hold just under 60 percent of registrations and Republicans 11 percent, leaving 144,000 voters registered with neither party, nearly three times the Republican electorate ([IVN](https://ivn.us/east-la-independent-voters-may-decide-whether-or-not-socialists-win-senate-seat/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **9\. Placer County & Sacramento County: Frame vs. Niello** In Senate District 6, Republican Sen. Roger Niello took 56.2 percent in June. Sean Frame finished second with 28.5 percent, and fellow Democrat Sara Velasco took 15.3 percent ([Critical Report](https://criticalreport.substack.com/p/2026-ca-senate-primaries?ref=ivn.us)). Frame is a union leader at the Sacramento County Office of Education, a former school board member and a Sacramento DSA member. WFP endorses Frame, and California DSA recommends Frame ([California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)). The district has long been Republican. Even with Velasco's share added to Frame's, Democrats took less than 44 percent in June. ## **Assembly** Four Assembly candidates backed by Democratic Socialists and WFP are in competitive races. Two face moderate Democrats for open seats. Two are trying to take seats Republicans hold now. A fifth DSA-backed candidate in the South Bay lacks WFP's endorsement. ## **10\. Marin and Sonoma: Elward vs. Lucan** In Assembly District 12, Marin County Supervisor Eric Lucan led the June primary with 28.28 percent. Rohnert Park Councilmember Jackie Elward finished second with 22.58 percent, ahead of Republican Eryn Cervantes at 19.4 percent. Elward ran third until late ballots were counted ([IVN](https://ivn.us/how-liberal-is-marin-county-really-independent-voters-will-decide/?ref=ivn.us)). The seat is open because Assemblymember Damon Connolly is running for state Senate. Connolly endorses Elward. Elward grew up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2020, she became the first Black woman elected to the Rohnert Park City Council, and she later served as mayor. Lucan is president of the Marin County Board of Supervisors and a former Novato mayor. WFP endorses Elward, and Sonoma County DSA and California DSA recommend Elward. The California Labor Federation, the California Teachers Association, 21 unions, and Rep. Mike Thompson also back her. Rep. Jared Huffman, five sitting supervisors, the Marin Independent Journal, and Grow California also back Lucan. The two split sharply on artificial intelligence and taxes. Elward wants a statewide moratorium on new AI data centers and helped gather signatures for Prop 40, the billionaire tax. Lucan favors state guardrails on AI and opposes Prop 40\. Labor groups have sent mailers tying Lucan to Big Tech. Democrats hold 57.9 percent of registration and Republicans 15.5 percent, leaving about 81,800 voters registered with neither party ([IVN](https://ivn.us/how-liberal-is-marin-county-really-independent-voters-will-decide/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **11\. Coachella Valley: Namvar vs. Wallis** In Assembly District 47, Republican Assemblymember Greg Wallis took 48.1 percent in June. Leila Namvar finished second with 32.3 percent, and fellow Democrat Jason Byors took 19.5 percent ([The Ballot Brief](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/riverside-county/california-assembly-district-47?ref=ivn.us)). The two Democrats on the June ballot combined for 51.8 percent. Wallis won the seat in 2022 by less than one-tenth of a percentage point ([Idyllwild Town Crier](https://idyllwildtowncrier.com/2024/10/02/holstege-expects-second-time-is-charm/?ref=ivn.us)). Namvar is an Iranian immigrant who has worked for the city of Indio since 2005\. She would be the first Muslim and first Iranian American to represent the district ([The New Arab](https://www.newarab.com/news/iranian-american-leila-namvar-runs-california-assembly?ref=ivn.us)). WFP endorses Namvar, and the California Democratic Party endorsed her after the primary ([California Democratic Party](https://cadem.org/california-democratic-party-announces-endorsements-for-statewide-congressional-and-state-legislature-candidates/?ref=ivn.us)). California DSA recommends Namvar as "the clear choice of labor" and notes her past as a chapter president of SEIU 721 ([California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)). ## **12\. Orange County: Lopez vs. Penaloza** In Assembly District 68, Santa Ana Councilmember David Penaloza led the June primary with 32.5 percent. Fellow Councilmember Jessie Lopez took 31.4 percent, ahead of Republican Mayra Ruiz at 29.4 percent. Lopez was third on election night and moved into second as late ballots were counted ([The Ballot Brief](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/orange-county/california-assembly-district-68?ref=ivn.us);[ ](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15229?ref=ivn.us)[JoinCalifornia](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15229?ref=ivn.us)). Because both serve on the same council, voters can compare their records directly. Lopez cast the deciding vote on Santa Ana's 2021 rent control ordinance, the first in Orange County, and supported a failed measure allowing noncitizens to vote in city elections. Penaloza opposed both. In 2023, DSA chapters helped Lopez defeat a recall, 56 percent to 44 percent. WFP endorses Lopez, as do Bernie Sanders, Our Revolution, SEIU California and UFCW 324\. California DSA recommends Lopez. The California Democratic Party, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, outgoing Assemblymember Avelino Valencia, and most of the state's public safety unions back Penaloza. Democrats hold 48 percent of registration and Republicans 22 percent, leaving about 68,000 voters registered with neither party. The majority-Latino district covers parts of Santa Ana, Anaheim, and Orange ([IVN](https://ivn.us/orange-county-birthplace-of-the-reagan-revolution-could-elect-a-democratic-socialist/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **13\. Coastal Orange County: Kluwe vs. Van Der Mark** In Assembly District 72, former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe led the June primary with 43.8 percent. Huntington Beach Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark, a Republican and former mayor, finished second with 37.7 percent, and Republican Matthew Harper took 16.4 percent ([The Ballot Brief](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/orange-county/california-assembly-district-72?ref=ivn.us)). The seat, which runs from Seal Beach to Laguna Beach, is open because Republican Assemblymember Diane Dixon is leaving. Kluwe led in June, but the two Republicans on the ballot combined for 54.1 percent. WFP endorses Kluwe. California DSA recommends Kluwe "enthusiastically" and calls the district a potential pickup for the left. The California Democratic Party and the California Labor Federation also back Kluwe ([California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)). ## **14\. South Bay: Deen vs. Seo** In Assembly District 66, Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor Paul Seo led the June primary with 26.6 percent, and Sara Deen took 24.6 percent. Deen ran third on election night and passed Republican Jessica Zonia Maldonado for second four days later ([The Ballot Brief](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/los-angeles-county/california-assembly-district-66?ref=ivn.us);[ ](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15207?ref=ivn.us)[JoinCalifornia](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15207?ref=ivn.us)). California DSA recommends Deen, but the Working Families Party does not list her on its endorsement list. This is the one competitive legislative race in this story where DSA recommends a candidate without WFP support. Deen asked DSA-LA to remove its recommendation from its voter guide. "We asked for it to be removed because it misrepresents my values and equates Muslim Americans with socialism - giving opponents a safer way to attack my identity instead of my record," she said. Later, she said that she "did not intend to say that DSA-LA itself equates Muslim-Americans with socialism." "What I meant to say is that political opportunists took DSA-LA's recommendation, which I never sought, and used it to feed a false narrative - painting Muslim-American leaders as secret socialists, communists, or dangerous outsiders." Deen is a Pakistani American dentist and president of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District board. She has faced calls to resign from that board over her social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war. The California Teachers Association, Indivisible South Bay, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) endorse her. Paul Seo is a deputy state attorney general, an Army veteran, and a former Los Angeles County prosecutor. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and several law enforcement associations back him. The seat is open. Democrats hold 43 percent of registration and Republicans 27 percent, leaving about 97,000 voters registered with neither party ([IVN](https://ivn.us/dsa-on-one-side-labor-and-cops-on-the-other-south-bay-independents-get-the-deciding-vote/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **Mayor** Four mayoral candidates hold both WFP endorsements and formal DSA endorsements. The biggest prize is Los Angeles. ## **15\. Los Angeles: Raman vs. Bass** Mayor Karen Bass led the June primary with 34.3 percent. City Councilmember Nithya Raman finished second with 29.0 percent, ahead of Republican Spencer Pratt at 25.5 percent ([Santa Monica Daily Press](https://www.smdp.com/election-results-2026-primary/?ref=ivn.us)). Raman trailed by eight points on election night. She climbed from third to second over five days as late mail ballots arrived from neighborhoods targeted by the DSA and WFP ground operation ([IVN](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/?ref=ivn.us)). That result changed the race. CNN's Harry Enten cited June polling showing Bass would have beaten Pratt by 18 points but trailed Raman by four. Raman is a DSA member ([IVN](https://ivn.us/the-dsa-class-of-2026-11-democrats-running-as-socialists/?ref=ivn.us)). DSA-LA formally endorsed Raman after 65.9 percent of roughly 1,427 voting members approved, and WFP endorses Raman ([DSA-LA](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)). UNITE HERE Local 11, UAW Region 6 and the Western States Carpenters also back Raman. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and the county Democratic Party also endorse Bass. Raman has served on the City Council since 2020 and was the first DSA-LA-endorsed candidate to win a council seat. She is running on renter protections and a plan to cut homelessness in half. A Raman win would put a DSA member in charge of the country's second-largest city, joining New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. ### **Richmond, El Cajon and Vista** In Richmond, East Bay DSA and WFP both endorse City Councilmember Claudia Jimenez, whom the chapter describes as a member ([East Bay DSA Organizer](https://eastbaydsanews.substack.com/p/september-east-bay-organizer-7d7?ref=ivn.us)). Jimenez advanced from the June primary, and both mayoral candidates from that race are on the November ballot ([East Bay DSA](https://www.eastbaydsa.org/electoral/?ref=ivn.us)). As of 2024, Richmond was the only city in the country where a majority of the council were DSA members or endorsees ([California DSA](https://www.californiadsa.org/news/east-bay-electoral-2024?ref=ivn.us)). In San Diego County, DSA San Diego endorsed two mayoral candidates with WFP backing and runs biweekly canvasses for both ([DSA San Diego](https://www.dsasandiego.org/endorsements?ref=ivn.us)). In El Cajon, the DSA describes Alexander Kraft as a native of the city, a labor organizer, and a former educator. His platform includes a city minimum wage, an audit of police cooperation with ICE, and a community response team for mental health calls. In Vista, Kenneth Zuniga is a DSA member and former co-chair of the chapter's North County branch. He serves on the city's homelessness commission and has organized to keep ICE out of city facilities. ## **Independents Hold the Deciding Vote** In the closest of these races, the margin is smaller than the number of voters who belong to neither major party. | **Race** | **Matchup** | **Voters registered with neither major party** | | ------------------------- | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------- | | Senate District 24 | Erickson (D) vs. Goldsmith (D) | 199,320 (about 30 percent) | | Senate District 26 | Rascón (D) vs. Hernandez (D) | 144,000 (29 percent) | | Congressional District 22 | Villegas (D) vs. Valadao (R) | More than 100,000 (nearly one in three) | | Assembly District 66 | Deen (D) vs. Seo (D) | 97,000 (30 percent) | | Assembly District 12 | Elward (D) vs. Lucan (D) | 81,800 (27 percent) | | Assembly District 68 | Lopez (D) vs. Penaloza (D) | 68,000 (30 percent) | Registration figures come from votercount.ai, as reported in IVN's district coverage and cited in each race above. [Voter Count | Talk to the data. Understand the electorate.Ask questions in natural language and explore L2 voter data through a conversational research experience. Registration, turnout, and district profiles in aggregate — never individual records.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/icon-826aedbd-092e-467e-8e26-daac4ee98a2b.png)Voter Count![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/opengraph-image-a92fec0e-72b7-4155-81a1-35ba29558edc.png)](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us) These voters have historically turned out at low rates. In Congressional District 22, only 16.7 percent of unaffiliated voters cast ballots in the 2022 midterm ([IVN](https://ivn.us/democrats-gerrymandered-david-valadaos-district-it-backfired/?ref=ivn.us)). The IVP survey suggests how they may react to a DSA connection. In the insurance commissioner race, nearly half of independents stayed undecided even after hearing which candidate DSA backs ([IVN](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/?ref=ivn.us)). ## **Will the Others join the 10?** If every DSA- and WFP-backed candidate wins, the number holding these offices would grow from 10 to 25. Most of the change would happen inside the Democratic Party, not between the parties. Eight races are contests between two Democrats: insurance commissioner, Board of Equalization District 3, Congressional Districts 7 and 34, Senate Districts 24 and 26, and Assembly Districts 12 and 68\. In those races, the results will decide which party wing holds the seat. Two races pit challengers against sitting members of Congress, Matsui and Gomez. Four races could flip Republican seats to the DSA: Congressional District 22, Senate District 6 and Assembly Districts 47 and 72. A Raman win would put a longtime DSA member in charge of the state's largest city. Six of the 15 hold formal DSA endorsements: Vang, Gonzales-Torres, Raman, Jimenez, Kraft and Zuniga. The rest are recommended by DSA. The party establishment has noticed. California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks has worked to end the Top Two system that forces these intraparty fights into the November election ([IVN](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/?ref=ivn.us)). \[Author's note: This article has been updated to include the fact that Sara Deen asked the Democratic Socialists of LA to remove their recommendation of her from their voter guide.\] ## **Want to Know More?** "Assessing East Bay DSA's Electoral Work." *California DSA*,[ ](https://www.californiadsa.org/news/east-bay-electoral-2024?ref=ivn.us)[californiadsa.org](https://www.californiadsa.org/news/east-bay-electoral-2024?ref=ivn.us). "California 2026 Primary Voter Guide." *California DSA*, accessed 6 Oct. 2026,[ ](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)[californiadsa.org](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us). "California Assembly District 47," "66," "68," and "72" and "California Senate District 26." *The Ballot Brief*, accessed 6 Oct. 2026,[ ](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/orange-county/california-assembly-district-72?ref=ivn.us)[theballotbrief.com](https://theballotbrief.com/state/california/orange-county/california-assembly-district-72?ref=ivn.us). "California DSA's Voting Group Recommendations." *Sway*, accessed 6 Oct. 2026,[ ](https://www.sway.co/california-dsa/recs?ref=ivn.us)[sway.co](https://www.sway.co/california-dsa/recs?ref=ivn.us). "California Democratic Party Announces Endorsements for Statewide, Congressional and State Legislature Candidates." *California Democratic Party*,[ ](https://cadem.org/california-democratic-party-announces-endorsements-for-statewide-congressional-and-state-legislature-candidates/?ref=ivn.us)[cadem.org](https://cadem.org/california-democratic-party-announces-endorsements-for-statewide-congressional-and-state-legislature-candidates/?ref=ivn.us). "California Working Families Party Endorses Mai Vang in CA-7." *Working Families Party*, Sept. 2025,[ ](https://workingfamilies.org/2025/09/california-working-families-party-endorses-mai-vang-in-ca-7/?ref=ivn.us)[workingfamilies.org](https://workingfamilies.org/2025/09/california-working-families-party-endorses-mai-vang-in-ca-7/?ref=ivn.us). "Electoral Strategy." *East Bay DSA*, accessed 6 Oct. 2026,[ ](https://www.eastbaydsa.org/electoral/?ref=ivn.us)[eastbaydsa.org](https://www.eastbaydsa.org/electoral/?ref=ivn.us). "Endorsements." *DSA San Diego*, accessed 6 Oct. 2026,[ ](https://www.dsasandiego.org/endorsements?ref=ivn.us)[dsasandiego.org](https://www.dsasandiego.org/endorsements?ref=ivn.us). "Jessie Lopez." *JoinCalifornia*, accessed 6 Oct. 2026,[ ](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15229?ref=ivn.us)[joincalifornia.com](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15229?ref=ivn.us). "Sara Deen." *JoinCalifornia*, accessed 6 Oct. 2026,[ ](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15207?ref=ivn.us)[joincalifornia.com](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/15207?ref=ivn.us). "2026 DSA-LA General Voter Guide." *DSA-LA*, accessed 6 Oct. 2026,[ ](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us)[voterguide.dsa-la.org](https://voterguide.dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us). "WFP Endorses Jane Kim for California Insurance Commissioner." *Working Families Party*, 21 Jan. 2026,[ ](https://workingfamilies.org/2026/01/wfp-endorses-jane-kim-for-california-insurance-commissioner/?ref=ivn.us)[workingfamilies.org](https://workingfamilies.org/2026/01/wfp-endorses-jane-kim-for-california-insurance-commissioner/?ref=ivn.us). ### Maine Let the Independent Debate. Why Can’t Illinois? URL: https://ivn.us/maine-let-the-independent-debate-why-cant-illinois/ Last updated: 2026-10-13T23:58:26.000Z **CHICAGO** — Last month, IVN reported on independent gubernatorial candidate Collin Corbett’s exclusion from an upcoming forum that will feature Gov. JB Pritzker and Republican nominee Darren Bailey. Corbett is one of three names that Illinois voters will see on their ballot this November. However, he did not get an invitation to share the same stage as the major party candidates. [On the Ballot, But Not the Stage: Illinois Independent Faces Familiar Debate Lock OutIllinois independent gubernatorial candidate Collin Corbett is demanding access to a debate forum with the Democratic and Republican nominees, facing the same polling-based exclusion rules that have kept independent and third-party candidates off debates for decades.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-1e0d3537-650d-4959-8842-b9995c3fbf3d.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-b768dc52-41c1-4a86-bd5c-71b004048f27-6ebbc845-8473-418a-8dea-4b0b4ecdf7da.png)](https://ivn.us/on-the-ballot-but-not-the-stage-illinois-independent-faces-familiar-debate-lock-out/) The forum [is scheduled to be hosted by the Chicago television station WTTW on October 13](https://www.wttw.com/about/pressroom/2026/09/24/wttw-news-present-live-candidate-forums-illinois-governor-and-us-senate?ref=ivn.us). The reason Corbett is being excluded is because of a second set of qualifications that have nothing to do with making it on the ballot. Under WTTW's [published standards](https://news.wttw.com/about/candidate-forums-standards?ref=ivn.us), a certified candidate must receive at least 15% support in an independent public poll conducted after the primary. The candidate must also satisfy at least two additional criteria involving a campaign website, fundraising, and news coverage. Corbett's campaign told IVN that he has met all of the station's requirements. "They are selectively enforcing rules to shield the major parties and silence Independent voices," the campaign stated. There is only one poll for the Illinois governor's race. It was commissioned by Chicago News Weekly and conducted by Public Policy Polling. It [had Corbett at 6%](https://www.cnwmedia.com/article/cnw-poll-pritzker-leads-bailey-by-20-points-democrats-ahead-in-four-other-statewide-races?ref=ivn.us), below the polling threshold. Corbett's campaign disputes the independence of the poll, saying the owner and publisher of Chicago News Weekly, Cheryl Mainor Norman, "has been appointed by Pritzker to a salaried position, has taken tens of thousands of dollars from Pritzker and other Democratic politicians, and has contributed to a Democrat." There is some truth to these claims. The Illinoize [reports](https://www.theillinoize.com/articles/corbett-accuses-pritzker-wttw-debate?ref=ivn.us) that Pritzker's campaign disclosed $16,000 in advertising payments to Chicago News Weekly during the 2022 election cycle. "While the major party candidates call each other names, debate evolution, and fight over which is more extreme, I’m the only candidate providing actual solutions to the problems working families face," Corbett said in a statement to IVN. > "By keeping me off the forum stage, WTTW is depriving the public of hearing plans to lower property taxes, fully fund education, get our state growing again, and raise everyone’s wages." There was also another rule that stated candidates had to be a member of a state-recognized political party. However, after Corbett’s campaign wrote a letter to WTTW, calling the rule unlawful, the station dropped the requirement. Corbett also pointed out that WTTW hasn’t always used such criteria. In 2023, the station had 8 candidates for Chicago mayor on the same stage. This year, they had 4 candidates for Chicago School Board president. In both cases, simply being on the ballot was enough to be invited. But in the governor’s race, things are different. ## **Getting on the Ballot Is Only the First Gate** Debate sponsors — commissions, TV stations, newspapers, universities, and civic organizations — generally set their own participation standards. These can include fundraising, polling, campaign activity, and media coverage. Sometimes these criteria serve a legitimate purpose. Some races can have candidates who do little or no campaigning, and too many participants can become unmanageable. But some rules seen nationwide also create a problem for candidates outside the two major parties. A Democrat or Republican can gain immediate visibility simply by winning a party nomination. The same cannot be said for independent candidates when they qualify for the ballot. They have to demonstrate visibility before receiving access to the platforms available to build it. This ends up creating something resembling a political Catch-22: They have to poll well enough to get into debates, but they need access to those debates so voters know who they are to boost their polling. And the issue is not isolated to Illinois this year. ## **An Independent in Iowa Takes the Fight to the FEC** In Iowa's highly competitive 1st Congressional District, independent Michael Bridgford [has filed a complaint](https://qctimes.com/news/local/government-politics/elections/article%5Fe5b137d9-f436-4d4d-9320-70996fa6741f.html?ref=ivn.us) with the Federal Election Commission over his own debate exclusion. Bridgford is running against Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Democrat Christina Bohannan. KWQC and KCRG, both owned by Gray Media, announced that the two major-party candidates will participate in an October 20 debate at St. Ambrose University. They invited Miller-Meeks and Bohannan, but not Bridgford. The complaint alleges that Miller-Meeks and Bohannan declined an Iowa PBS debate for which Bridgford says all three candidates qualified and then agreed to participate in a separate two-candidate event that excluded him. When Bridgford called on Gray Media to produce the pre-established standards for the debate, he says the company’s response was that candidates needed to raise at least $1 million in campaign donations by July 1. Bridgford wasn’t even close, and he alleges that Gray Media knew that and used the information to exclude him. Just like in Illinois, he also alleges that Gray Media markets have hosted debates without such fundraising requirements. Because this is a congressional race, [federal debate rules apply](https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements-ssf-or-connected-organization/public-debates/?ref=ivn.us). The FEC allows broadcasters and certain nonprofit organizations to sponsor candidate debates without the costs being treated as campaign contributions. But there are conditions: - Organizers must use pre-established, objective criteria to select participants; and - A general election debate cannot exclude someone solely because the candidate is not the nominee of a particular political party. The FEC has long given debate organizers considerable discretion over their criteria, and polling and fundraising thresholds have previously been accepted as legitimate measures of candidate viability. The agency has a history of dismissing or outright ignoring complaints that these requirements, particularly the 15% polling threshold, create an unlevel playing field for candidates outside the two major parties—[even when the matter was brought to court.](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/in-the-courtroom/level-the-playing-field?ref=ivn.us) As of this reporting, the FEC has not taken up Bridgford’s complaint. ## **Maine Chose a Different Standard** There is a different story playing out in Maine. Independent Rick Bennett is running for governor against Democrat Hannah Pingree and Republican Bobby Charles. Current polling only has him at 6%, and yet he has appeared on the debate stage. He joined Pingree and Charles for Maine's [first televised gubernatorial debate on October 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%5Fmql4oBsGZM&ref=ivn.us). And on Thursday night, Maine Public, the Portland Press Herald and NEWS CENTER Maine are again hosting all three candidates for a statewide debate. With only three names on the ballot, debate sponsors in Maine have chosen to include all 3 candidates, regardless of their polling or fundraising. Maine voters can watch Bennett answer the same questions as Pingree and Charles. His inclusion hasn’t bolstered his support. He remains in the single digits. But a debate does not require voters to view every candidate as equally likely to win. It gives them information with which to make that judgment themselves. Or, at least, that is the stated purpose and goal of election debates, which brings up another side of the problem: Voters across the country are increasingly being denied the chance to see candidates on the debate stage entirely. ## **Sometimes There Is No Debate at All** In Tennessee, independent gubernatorial candidate David Hatley [pledged a combined ](https://www.wsmv.com/2026/09/23/stop-hiding-independent-gubernatorial-candidate-pledges-donate-1-million-charity-if-marsha-blackburn-agrees-debate/?ref=ivn.us)[$1 million to three charities](https://www.wsmv.com/2026/09/23/stop-hiding-independent-gubernatorial-candidate-pledges-donate-1-million-charity-if-marsha-blackburn-agrees-debate/?ref=ivn.us) if Republican nominee Marsha Blackburn would debate him and Democratic nominee Jerri Green on October 8. Green agreed to participate. Blackburn did not. Blackburn has declined repeated debate challenges this cycle and told WSMV that she would not give airtime to Green, whom she described as a socialist. In this case, the obstacle is not an independent candidate failing to meet a media organization's threshold. It is a major-party candidate hijacking the process by deciding that appearing on the same stage with her opponents is not politically necessary. In fact, the issue is no longer just insurmountable barriers for independent candidates to clear. It is that debates seem to be disappearing entirely across the US, even among major-party nominees who are letting rally speeches and campaign ads deliver their messages. A [September 25 Axios review of 10 closely watched gubernatorial races](https://www.axios.com/2026/09/25/debates-decline-2026-midterm-elections?ref=ivn.us) found that 5 had no scheduled debates between the Republican and Democratic nominees: Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and Texas. In 2022, just two of the comparable races went without a debate. Axios also found that 3 of 10 competitive US Senate contests — in North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas — had no debate scheduled as well. Here’s the thing: Independent voters in these states may cast the deciding votes in each contest. The question is, will they be allowed to make an informed decision? ## **Who Is the Debate For?** The examples out of Illinois, Iowa, Maine, and Tennessee highlight the fact that under the current system there is a difference between qualifying for the ballot and being treated as a full participant in an election. And while voters help independent and third party candidates with the former, they do not decide the latter. Debate organizers justify added criteria like polling thresholds and fundraising requirements by saying things like, “If we invite everyone, a forum risks becoming cluttered with candidates who have little support or organization.” It is a legitimate concern in crowded fields, but what about races in which there are only 3 or 4 candidates? The question is not whether every candidate who files paperwork deserves unlimited television time. It is whether ballot access is supposed to mean something more than having a name printed on a piece of paper. Candidates spend months collecting signatures, raising money, surviving ballot challenges, and meeting state requirements to give voters another option. Then, once they succeed, another institution can still decide whether voters ever see or hear from that option. Making the ballot establishes that a candidate is legally part of the election. The debate-access fight is increasingly about who gets to decide whether voters are allowed to treat them like it. ### Who's Polling the Independents? A Field Guide to the Firms Behind the Numbers URL: https://ivn.us/whos-polling-the-independents-a-field-guide-to-the-firms-behind-the-numbers/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:48:27.000Z Polling has become a hot-button issue over the past few election cycles. They’ve seemed to miss as often as they’ve hit, and controversies have arisen around [polling firms that put out fake polls to make a point](https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/polling-company-closes-fake-survey-b3035205.html?ref=ivn.us). However, polls are still important tools to understand where a race stands, and where the electorate is moving. As with all tools, though, it’s important to understand how to use them. Let’s dive into considerations that you should go through when analyzing a poll, and then look at some of the firms that have polled multiple independent Senate races this cycle --- ## **Reading a Poll** When you read a poll, start with who paid for it. A survey commissioned by a campaign or an allied group is released by choice, and campaigns rarely publish numbers that hurt them. Then look at the basics: when it was conducted, how many people were surveyed, and the margin of error. A 500-person poll with a ±4.4-point margin cannot meaningfully separate candidates who are three points apart. Next, check who was surveyed. Polls of likely voters generally tell you more about an election than polls of registered voters or all adults. It also helps to know how people were reached (phone, text, online, or a mix) and whether the pollster released its full questionnaire and crosstabs (the breakdowns by party, age, region and other groups). Some polls will also drive intentionally toward a result. These “push polls” will, for example, give positive biographical information about their preferred candidate and negative information about the opponent. Results thus skew toward their preferred candidate. A similar technique is an “informed voter” poll. These polls, ideally, present neutral information about both candidates to simulate likely election-day behavior, as individuals learn more about candidates as they prepare to vote. However, some of these polls will instead be push polls, with the information not presented in a neutral manner. Informed voter polls can be useful, but, again, check to see if the firm has released the language of their questions to ensure that the bios are presented in a neutral manner. Watch for these red flags: - **No sponsor named.** The release doesn't say who paid for the poll. - **Memo only.** The release is a short memo with toplines but no question wording or crosstabs. - **Primed questions.** Voters hear candidate biographies or other information before the ballot question. - **Outliers with no explanation.** The results differ sharply from other polls of the same race. - **No track record.** The pollster has no history or isn't rated by an independent grader such as the Silver Bulletin pollster ratings. Finally, remember that any single poll is a snapshot. The average of several independent polls is a sturdier guide than any one survey. --- ## **Independent Senate Race Polling** Seven firms have polled more than one of 2026's independent Senate races, which include Dan Osborn (Nebraska), Seth Bodnar (Montana), Todd Achilles (Idaho), Brian Bengs (South Dakota), Bob Chew (Colorado), and Ty Pinkins (Mississippi). Ratings of the pollsters below come from two sources. The first is the[ Silver Bulletin](https://www.natesilver.net/p/pollster-ratings-silver-bulletin?ref=ivn.us), Nate Silver's successor to the FiveThirtyEight grades, last updated in January 2026\. They are based on polls released in the final 21 days before an election. The second is[ Media Bias/Fact Check](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/pollster-sources/?ref=ivn.us), which bases its pollster ratings on Silver Bulletin data. --- ## **Public Policy Polling** This firm was founded in 2001 and has run six polls in these races, more than any other firm. Five were for the Bengs campaign, between July 2025 and September 2026\. One was in Idaho for an unnamed client aligned with independents. Media Bias/Fact Check reports a[ Silver Bulletin grade of A-](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/public-policy-polling-ppp/?ref=ivn.us) and rates the firm "Least Biased" with a slight left lean. | PPP: Fact Table | | | --------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | Founded | 2001, Raleigh, N.C. | | Leadership | Tom Jensen (director) | | Alignment | Democratic-aligned | | Polls in this series | 6: Bengs (5), Achilles (1) | | Paid for by | Bengs campaign (5); unnamed independent-aligned client (1) | | Silver Bulletin grade | A- (via MBFC) | | MBFC rating | Least Biased (lean left) · High factual | --- ## **Impact Research** The firm's[ stated focus](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/impact-research-bias-and-credibility/?ref=ivn.us) is Democratic candidates and progressive causes. In these races, Impact ran two polls for the Osborn campaign, one for the Bengs campaign, and one in Mississippi for the SPLC Action Fund. Silver Bulletin grades Impact[ B-, with a mean-reverted Democratic bias of 1.32 points](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/impact-research-bias-and-credibility/?ref=ivn.us). | Impact Research: Fact Table | | | --------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | | Founded | 1994 (as Anzalone Liszt Research) | | Leadership | John Anzalone (founder) | | Alignment | Democratic | | Polls in this series | 4: Osborn (2), Bengs (1), Pinkins (1) | | Paid for by | Osborn campaign (2); Bengs campaign (1); SPLC Action Fund (1) | | Silver Bulletin grade | B- (via MBFC); bias D+1.32 | | MBFC rating | Left-Center · Mostly Factual | --- ## **Change Research** Mike Greenfield and Pat Reilly[ founded Change Research in July 2017](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change%5FResearch?ref=ivn.us). It is a Bay Area public benefit corporation that polls entirely online. It has run one poll each in three races, each for a different client: - Osborn's exploratory committee, in Nebraska. - Independent Candidate Action, a group backing several independent candidates this cycle. - In Idaho, the campaign of John Stegner, an independent candidate for governor. Silver Bulletin grades it[ B-, with a mean-reverted Democratic bias of 2.68 points](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/change-research-bias/?ref=ivn.us). | Change Research: Fact Table | | | --------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Founded | July 2017, San Francisco Bay Area | | Leadership | Mike Greenfield (CEO), Pat Reilly | | Method | Online-only | | Alignment | Left-leaning | | Polls in this series | 3: Osborn (1), Bodnar (1), Achilles (1) | | Paid for by | Osborn exploratory committee; Independent Candidate Action; Stegner for Idaho | | Silver Bulletin grade | B- (via MBFC); bias D+2.68 | | MBFC rating | Left · Mostly Factual | --- ## **Tavern Research** Tavern is a Chicago-based political tech startup[ founded in 2024](https://www.fastaijobs.com/companies/tavern-research?ref=ivn.us). The firm pairs polling with AI-generated ad content and message testing, and its job postings say it works to help[ Democrats win](https://jobs.arena.run/jobs/senior-researcher-recg1-sxcoa7k5nt-vt/?ref=ivn.us). It has run three Montana polls, apparently for Contours Inc., and released one Nebraska poll publicly. It has no Silver Bulletin grade. | Tavern Research: Fact Table | | | --------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | | Founded | 2024, Chicago | | Alignment | Democratic | | Polls in this series | 4: Osborn (1), Bodnar (3) | | Paid for by | Public release (NE); Contours Inc. (MT)\* | | Silver Bulletin grade | Not rated | | MBFC rating | Not rated | --- ## **The Bullfinch Group** Brett Loyd is president and CEO of Bullfinch, which describes itself as nonpartisan. Loyd previously[ polled for Donald Trump's 2016 campaign](https://www.ctpublic.org/2025-12-01/this-organization-is-trying-to-use-ai-to-reshape-american-politics?ref=ivn.us). Bullfinch is the[ polling partner of the Independent Center](https://www.independentcenter.org/independent-center-bullfinch-group-nonpartisan-polling?ref=ivn.us), which was set up to organize independent voters. It has run two polls in Idaho and one in Montana. KATU described an Idaho poll matching Bullfinch's first survey as[ Achilles-sponsored](https://katu.com/news/nation-world/democratic-dropout-david-roth-in-idahos-us-senate-race-could-boost-independents-todd-achilles-bid-republican-jim-risch?ref=ivn.us). It has no Silver Bulletin grade. | Bullfinch Group: Fact Table | | | --------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | | Leadership | Brett Loyd (president and CEO) | | Affiliations | Polling partner of the Independent Center | | Alignment | Self-described nonpartisan; aligned with independent groups | | Polls in this series | 3: Bodnar (1), Achilles (2) | | Paid for by | Achilles campaign (1, per KATU); others not stated | | Silver Bulletin grade | Not found | | MBFC rating | Not rated | --- ## **Peak Insights** Peak Insights lists clients such as the NRCC, the RNC, and several Republican candidates on its select client list, suggesting it’s a Republican-aligned firm. It has run one poll in Montana, apparently for the Alme campaign, and two in Idaho. Its results showed Bodnar at 22 percent and Achilles at 18 percent. A June Idaho poll that still included Democrat David Roth had Achilles at 7 percent. No Silver Bulletin grade was found under the Peak Insights name. | Peak Insights: Fact Table | | | ------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | | Founded | 1981 (as Moore Information); rebranded 2024 | | Alignment | Republican | | Polls in this series | 3: Bodnar (1), Achilles (2) | | Paid for by | Alme campaign (MT)\*; Idaho clients not stated | | Silver Bulletin grade | Not found | | MBFC rating | Not rated | --- ### **Public Opinion Strategies** This firm, founded in 1991, has polled for the McCain and Romney presidential campaigns. It has run one poll in Montana and one in South Dakota. The South Dakota poll showed Rounds ahead by 23 points and was released through Townhall. FiveThirtyEight graded POS[ A- in 2021](https://www.ellisinsight.com/2021/03/30/?ref=ivn.us), and its current Silver Bulletin grade is unconfirmed. | Public Opinion Strategies: Fact Table | | | ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | | Founded | 1991, Alexandria, Va. | | Leadership | Founding partners Neil Newhouse, Bill McInturff, Glen Bolger | | Alignment | Republican | | Polls in this series | 2: Bodnar (1), Bengs (1) | | Paid for by | The Political Company (MT)\*; not stated (SD) | | Silver Bulletin grade | A- (FiveThirtyEight, 2021); current \[TK\] | | MBFC rating | Not rated | --- ## **Last Notes** In the runup to the election, expect to see more polls drop. Many will be released by campaigns trying to make it appear as if they have momentum, or as if they have the election on lock, thus suggesting to their opponents’ voters that it’s not worth showing up to the polls. And those things may be true! But remember that polls can’t be perfect, and even neutral pollsters have biases in their instruments (the questions), samples, and methods (texting gets you different people than calling land lines). Check the polls, but look into the pollsters and what they release, and you’ll have a better sense of what’s likely to happen on election day. ### How Trump’s LA Bombing “Troll” EXPOSES Our Broken Elections (Politics Explained) | EP62 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/how-trumps-la-bombing-troll-exposes-our-broken-elections-politics-explained-ep62/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:36.000Z A Trump rally clip has Los Angeles and San Diego in the crosshairs, and the most shocking part is that the crowd was cheering. Cara, Shawn, and Ethan break down what he actually said, what got cut from the viral version, and why both sides keep weaponizing clips like this to deepen the divide. The hosts open with the Iran bombing comment controversy, unpacking the full context (it came during a riff on oil prices) and whether the media's selective editing is just as corrosive as the original remark. From there they dig into IVP's new California survey, where Prop. 39's voter ID measure sits at a razor-thin 43% to 40% with Democrats making up most of the undecided 17%. Additionally, a framing experiment in the insurance commissioner race found that telling voters a candidate is DSA-backed cuts undecideds from 65% down to 32% and flips the outcome dramatically among Republicans and independents. In other news, [a new report](https://ivn.us/24-million-potential-voters-didnt-move-their-congressional-districts-did/) says 35 million Americans now live in a different congressional district than two years ago, including millions of Californians after the state's districts were redrawn under Prop 50. Rep. David Valadao's redrawn district cut out his own hometown of Hanford, including his family's farm, removing 60,000 people from the seat he's won five times. The hosts talk about all of this more in the latest episode of the Independent Voter Podcast. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/how-trumps-la-bombing-troll-exposes-our-broken-elections-politics-explained?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/19TTNuGLHD6es4iSYPvjON?si=lRhO3wc3SyirhHXK3IAmZg&ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-trumps-la-bombing-troll-exposes-our-broken-elections/id1680559155?i=1000793887767&ref=ivn.us)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ### Election Day Is Closing In. Now, Everyone Wants the Independent Voter URL: https://ivn.us/election-day-is-closing-in-now-everyone-wants-the-independent-voter/ Last updated: 2026-10-07T22:33:25.000Z For months, independent voters were told to pick a side or sit on the sideline in most states while party members voted on their nominees for Congress. Now, with Election Day less than 4 weeks away, many candidates understand how much they need this voting bloc Especially Republicans in this year’s midterm cycle. A [new Reuters review](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/most-republicans-tight-midterm-distance-themselves-trump-reuters-review-finds-2026-10-07/?ref=ivn.us) found that GOP nominees in 41 of 62 closely watched House and Senate contests have either broken with President Donald Trump on policy or have tried to distance themselves a bit. Voters aren’t seeing outright repudiations of Trump. However, candidates have split with the White House on individual policies, skipped presidential events, or toned down how prominently they feature Trump in their campaign materials. Reuters found that 12 candidates removed Trump's name, image, or endorsement from their campaign websites entirely. Most did so after they had secured their party's nomination. The reason? Campaign advisers say it is to appeal to independent voters. ## **The Independent Voter Becomes the Target** The political incentives in the primary versus the general election aren’t difficult to see. The most highly motivated primary base in the Republican Party still supports the president, and all it took was one word from Trump for them to support or oppose a candidate. Just look at Texas. US Sen. John Cornyn got more votes than Ken Paxton in the primary, but after Trump endorsed Paxton in the runoff, Cornyn lost. Low-turnout party primaries incentivize candidates to appeal (or pander) to the voters who show up. These voters tend to be older, more partisan, and lean toward ideological extremes. The general election is a different story. While most congressional races are considered a done deal at this point, the “toss up” and “lean” districts will come down to a margin of victory within 5 percentage points. And, independent voters will cast the deciding votes in many of these races. A [Reuters/Ipsos poll completed this week](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/most-republicans-tight-midterm-distance-themselves-trump-reuters-review-finds-2026-10-07/?ref=ivn.us) found Democrats leading Republicans 37% to 21% among registered independent voters in the congressional ballot. Notably, 28% of this bloc remained undecided. Those remaining voters could make up the existing gap between the two parties or sink one side completely. For some candidates, this means walking a very thin rope in an increasingly uncertain election cycle. Some candidates can’t afford to lose Trump’s support, but they also see where public opinion is currently. Take, for example, Nebraska. Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts is running against independent candidate [Dan Osborn](https://ivn.us/dan-osborn-is-ready-to-represent-the-working-class-in-congress-is-nebraska-ready-to-let-him/). Ricketts is 1 of 11 Republican candidates identified by Reuters who have split with Trump on a specific policy while continuing to support him more broadly. > I appreciate the Administration’s work to lower grocery prices. Short term policy shifts do not equal long term solutions. Flooding the market with lower quality beef compromises Nebraska farmers and ranchers. They should be enabled to grow herd sizes and meet consumer demand. > > — Senator Pete Ricketts (@SenatorRicketts) [August 21, 2026](https://x.com/SenatorRicketts/status/2090847016314163253?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Ricketts criticized Trump's proposal to increase beef imports before appearing alongside the president at a Nebraska campaign rally this week. Iowa Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-1) has also broken with the administration on multiple issues, including beef imports and presidential war powers related to Iran, while continuing to appear with Trump at other events. [A recent YouGov poll](https://polls.politicalbetting.com/us/senate/nebraska?pollster=yougov&ref=ivn.us) has Ricketts at a statistical tie with Osborn, 47%-48%. Some polling has Ricketts up. Some have Osborn up. RealClearPolling labels the contest a toss-up. In Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, Miller-Meeks looks like she is in danger of losing her seat. While public polling is sparse, a July survey put Democrat Christina Bohannan at 40%, Miller-Meeks at 35%, and independent Michael Bridgford at 11%. What’s more, independent voters make up the largest registered voting bloc in IA-1\. Nearly 200,000 voters in the district, [according to an August report](https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/pdf/VRStatsArchive/2026/CongAug26.pdf?ref=ivn.us), are registered “no party,” including voters listed as “inactive.” The maneuvering seen with Ricketts and Miller-Meeks isn’t surprising, especially in a political system in which candidates are incentivized to behave one way when running for a party nomination and another way when running in November. ## **The Primary-General Election Divide** Voters understand what is happening. A [national survey](https://ivn.us/election-day-is-november-3-for-390-house-seats-its-already-over/) conducted by Emerson College Polling for RealClear Opinion Research and the Unite America Institute found that 43% of registered voters said primaries encourage candidates to appeal to the most partisan or ideological voters. [9% of Voters Already Picked Your Congress. A New Poll Says Everyone Else Is Fed UpA new poll shows 56% of voters want to replace closed party primaries with open elections where all candidates compete on one ballot. The survey reveals voters are frustrated that just 9% of Americans effectively decide most congressional races.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-98e0a4c7-e3fa-4530-82e6-be95a43f0504.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-aad88429-0491-4207-94b6-8f53ceb62273-bb285674-bf32-4929-b94c-083a37e02d9a.jpg)](https://ivn.us/9-of-voters-already-picked-your-congress-a-new-poll-says-everyone-else-is-fed-up/) Just 18% said primaries encourage candidates to appeal to a broad majority. Independent voters also participated in the primary process at lower rates. Only 25% of respondents said they voted in a 2026 primary. Among independents, that number fell to 17%. More than a quarter of these voters said they couldn’t vote because their states didn’t allow it. In most cases, by the time these independent voters are able to cast a ballot, they will have limited to no influence on the outcome because roughly 90% of US House races are considered safe for the Republican or Democratic Party. This is why candidates appeal to the political extremes in the primary and then in the few competitive general elections that exist, they may move more to the center. Then, suddenly, independent voters become the most sought-after members of the electorate. To be clear, both parties and their candidates play this game. They treat independent voters like they don’t exist for much of the year, but then change their tune weeks before November. This is especially true in midterm elections when the sitting president is unpopular. The Reuters findings may be centered on Republicans navigating Trump's standing with voters this year, but Democrats used similar tactics during the Obama and Biden presidencies. When control of Congress is at stake, candidates know independent voters can’t be ignored. ### The Ranked Choice Voting “Confusion Myth” URL: https://ivn.us/the-ranked-choice-voting-confusion-myth/ Last updated: 2026-10-07T22:32:38.000Z *Editor's Note: This article* [*originally published*](https://democracysos.substack.com/p/the-ranked-choice-voting-confusion) *on the DemocracySOS Substack and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher.* Everyone has experienced an occasion in which the reasons given for opposing something are often not the real reason. Do billionaires object to higher capital gains taxes because they think it will stop investment…or because they don’t want to pay the tax? Do lumber companies object to logging regulations (through their “Save our Forests” PAC) because they care about healthy forests, or because they want to clear-cut them? Politics is no different. So, it should not be a surprise that those who have obtained power despite winning only a minority of the vote feel threatened by the “majority rule” of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). Extremist minorities like being able to elect one of their kind against the wishes of the majority, and thus object to RCV. Some of them fund biased think tanks (usually with “Democracy” in the name), and those think tanks publish “studies” that are designed from the start to find some fault with RCV. And of course, anyone can publish such a “study” on the Internet without any expert or peer review at all. Naturally, the media (which often publishes tweets and doesn’t investigate much anymore) just cites the conclusion of the study without reading it. One common objection to Ranked Choice Voting is that it is too confusing, but is it really? The vast majority of people understand how to pick a second choice if their first choice of something isn’t available, whether it’s ice cream flavors or Saturday night movies. RCV is no different, and poll after poll and study after study has shown that the vast majority of voters understand how to mark a second and/or third choice of candidates in case their first choice can’t win. Let’s apply some common sense. People might complain about having to list and possibly accept their 2nd or 3rd choice, but that doesn’t mean they’re confused. Clearly, everyone knows how to pick a second or third choice when their first, i.e. favorite choice isn’t available. Thus, the only reasonable confusion would come from not understanding how the RCV “instant runoff” elimination rounds work – yet they don’t need to know those details to know how to vote and to use the system effectively. Do most people understand how their smart phone or refrigerator works? With RCV, they just need to pick their backup choices and know those will be used in a runoff if needed. Certainly most people understand how two-round runoff elections work. Even if a tiny percentage of voters are a bit confused, is that a reason not to have an electoral method that ensures majority rule? Are you not going to let anyone else have a second choice of ice cream because your grandmother is confused by having to make a second choice if the ice cream vendor doesn’t have Salty Black Licorice flavor? ## **Confusing compared to what?** Some voters are easily confused, no matter what kind of system they vote in. A [2020 study](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract%5Fid=3660625&ref=ivn.us) by MIT’s Charles Stewart found that voters using mail-in ballots in *non*\-RCV elections saw much higher ballot invalidation rates than in RCV. Is that a reason to ban mail-in ballots? Or do the benefits outweigh the downside of having a small number of confused voters? That study concluded that, in the 2016 presidential election, as many as four percent (one out every 25) mail-in ballots were not counted, which is exponentially higher than the 0.53% of invalid ballots with RCV elections found by University of Pennsylvania’s Stephen Pettigrew and Dylan Radley in their self-published study[Overvotes, Overranks, and Skips: Mismarked and Rejected Votes in Ranked Choice Voting](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract%5Fid=4670677&ref=ivn.us). Some of the common errors with mail-in ballots are: \- Voters returning their ballot after 8 p.m. on Election Day. \- Not sealing the ballot inside BOTH envelopes. \- Not signing and writing the current date on the voter’s declaration. Tolbert and Donovan in their [2013-2014 survey work](https://fairvote.org/report/2014-survey-results/?ref=ivn.us) compared voters understanding of three difference electoral methods -- RCV, plurality voting and the top-two primary -- and found voters understanding of all three systems was similar. In particular, their findings rebut the claim that minorities make more errors with RCV: “Ninety percent of African-American voters in RCV cities found ballot instructions easy to understand… a higher percent of African-American respondents reported understanding RCV in RCV cities (88%) than plurality in plurality cities (86%).” Some common errors with the widely used plurality voting method (where the voter is allowed to only vote for 1 candidate) include: \- Selecting more than one candidate, and invalidating your ballot \- Not selecting any candidates for a position \- Marking outside the designated bubble, possibly invalidating your ballot \- Not fully darkening the oval or bubble \- Not using black ink Should we ban our current plurality voting system – which is the most widely used electoral system in the United States – because some voters make these kinds of errors on their ballots? ## **Voter education eliminates confusion** As with any change to ballots, voter education is done in real RCV elections so that voters aren’t confused. But a number of “studies” have used online mock RCV elections *without* educating the voters, or have cherry-picked actual RCV elections, and reached bizarre conclusions that data from real world RCV elections did not find. In [*Choosing to “Vote As Usual”*](https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/evaluating-the-effects-of-ranked-choice-voting/choosing-to-vote-as-usual-andre-blais-carolina-plescia-and-semra-sevi?ref=ivn.us) *by Andre Blais, Carolina Plescia, and Semra Sevi,* two online surveys simulated elections using plurality, approval, RCV and point (Score) voting. The entire explanation for RCV was: “For this vote, rank the candidates from your first to your last choice (you do not need to rank them all). This is called the ranked vote.” That’s it. They didn’t say *why* you should rank them – that if your first choice can’t win, your vote transfers to your second choice in an “instant” runoff. They didn’t mention that RCV eliminates the spoiler effect or any other advantages. Those are the types of RCV qualities that voters learn about in an actual RCV election, when there is widespread public education, media stories and the candidates themselves educating their voters. But respondents did not learn that in this simulated election. Similarly, the study [*Voter Information Search and Ranked Choice Voting*](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374938123%5FVoter%5FInformation%5FSearch%5Fand%5FRanked%5FChoice%5FVoting?ref=ivn.us) *by* [*Theodoros Ntounias*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tdounias/?ref=ivn.us)used online surveys instead of real elections, without sufficient voter education, and came up similarly strange conclusions that were refuted by results from real-world RCV elections. Another study, [*The impact of voter confusion in ranked choice voting,*](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.13366?ref=ivn.us)*by Lonna Rae Atkeson, Eli McKown-Dawson, Jack Santucci and Kyle L. Saunders,* used actual exit poll data from the 2018 Santa Fe RCV election and found that 16% of voters reported having felt very (6 percent) or somewhat (10 percent) confused; and Hispanic voters were more likely to report being confused than white voters. However, saying they felt confused doesn’t mean they made errors. The study also failed to mention that Santa Fe city officials fought RCV implementation, requiring a lawsuit that successfully forced compliance with the RCV law. But the foot dragging by the city clerk resulted in a drastic [shortening of the voter education window](http://www.fairvote.org/sf%5Fresources?ref=ivn.us) for the first election. Yet this factor was never mentioned, let alone discussed, in the Atkeson et al study. ## **Voters already pick multiple candidates for at-large plurality elections** One RCV criticism is that voters have to research and then rank multiple candidates. But the most widely used election method in the US is plurality at-large, used to elect multiple seats to bodies like city councils and school boards all across the nation. Voters are allowed as many votes as there are seats to elect, and instructed to select multiple candidates (e.g., in a citywide election to elect three seats for a city council, the voter can vote for three candidates). Voters have to decide who are their top three choices. This can be more confusing than RCV. Consequently, voters often resort to vote-wasting strategies like “bullet voting” – voting for only one or two candidates who they strongly prefer and not voting for other candidates, since a vote for a voter’s lesser-preferred candidates could actually contribute toward defeating their most-preferred candidates. But failing to use all your votes could give an advantage to voters who use all of theirs – confusing! Let the average voter try to figure all of that out. Even in single-vote, winner-take-all elections, a voter is often forced to order multiple candidates in their mind. For example, in the Democrat presidential primary in 2020, voters mentally had to rank who they liked best among Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, etc. Then it *really* got complicated – they had to factor in each candidate’s viability, since if they voted for a losing candidate, their vote was wasted. That’s a more much convoluted and confusing thought process than what a voter has to do in RCV – just rank your favorite candidates, 1, 2, 3, knowing that you can’t waste your vote. If your top choice can’t use your vote to win, your vote will transfer to your next favorite. ## **The record shows: few voters are confused in RCV elections** Pettigrew and Radley’s[Overvotes, Overranks, and Skips: Mismarked and Rejected Votes in Ranked Choice Voting](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract%5Fid=4670677&ref=ivn.us) claims that RCV *increases* ballot error rates by large percentages. They ignored [several](https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/3913?ref=ivn.us) other [studies](https://www.umsl.edu/~kimballd/KimballRCV.pdf?ref=ivn.us) that previously had [indicated](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8tm3s6hz?ref=ivn.us) [that](https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/3938?ref=ivn.us) [ballot](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract%5Fid=3697637&ref=ivn.us) errors in RCV elections are similar or less than non-RCV elections, with RCV marginally higher in some races but lower in others. The Pettigrew-Radley findings claimed that 1 in 20 RCV ballots – 5% –were ‘improperly marked’ in some way. But an improperly marked ballot is not the same as making an error that invalidates that ballot. For example, voting for 2 candidates as 3rd choice is improperly marked, but if the election is decided by the second choice, it doesn’t matter. Skipping a ranking does not help the voter or candidates, but it doesn’t hurt them either because the RCV tallying just counts the next ranking, so that ballot is still valid. Another study in 2024 by two academics, Alan Parry and John Kidd, [*Deficiencies in Recent Research on Ranked Choice Voting Ballot Error Rates*](https://mathematics-democracy-institute.org/deficiencies-in-recent-research-on-ranked-choice-voting-ballot-error-rates/?ref=ivn.us), reviewed the Pettigrew-Radley study. Parry and Kidd found that 90% of those improperly marked ballots were *actually counted as intended* by the voter. And yet Pettigrew and Radley either didn’t know that – if so, that’s a huge oversight that undermines the authors’ credibility-- or never mentioned it, which undermines their fairness as well as their credibility. The actual overall average rejection rate for RCV elections was 0.53% compared to 0.04% for non-RCV elections. So the difference was 99.96% acceptance rate compared to 99.47%, both very high numbers for valid ballot rates. While the RCV error rates are indeed 10 times larger than non-RCV, *10 times a very small number is still a very small number.* But the elections selected for study by Pettigrew-Radley for some reason “happened” to have higher error rates than most RCV elections. FairVote has published data showing that in 400+ RCV races, the median first-round [overvote rate is 0.2%](https://fairvote.org/resources/data-on-rcv/?section=ballot-error&ref=ivn.us), similar to non-RCV elections. ## **Ballot exhaustion ≠ confusion** Ballot exhaustion (not ranking all the candidates) has been said to mean the voter is confused. The previously mentioned paper by [Theodoros Ntounias](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tdounias/?ref=ivn.us), [*Voter Information Search and Ranked Choice Voting*](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374938123%5FVoter%5FInformation%5FSearch%5Fand%5FRanked%5FChoice%5FVoting?ref=ivn.us),says the fact that voters“under-fill their ballots, leading to exhaustion (Burnett and Kogan, 2014; Coll, 2021), is highly suggestive that voters either lack an understanding of RCV or do not invest additional time to inform themselves of the alternative candidates ….” However, that’s a false conclusion. It may also mean the voter doesn’t support some candidates, and thus did not rank all or even most of them. Ranking candidates is an option, the voter gets to decide. Another common criticism of RCV is that candidates must rank all the candidates, and thus research them all which is too much work for many voters. But this is simply false, and the “instructions to voters” on RCV ballots make this clear, saying the voter can rank as many or as few candidates as she/he wishes. In conclusion, the error rates for RCV are small, are similar to non-RCV elections, and are no reason not to adopt majority rule in your elections by incorporating RCV. Similar confusion is seen in existing plurality elections, yet it is not used as a criticism because the public is used to these defects of the plurality system and so think it’s just “normal” for elections. Those criticizing RCV as confusing have no credible studies and few election examples to point to that support this erroneous claim. A handful of academic critics who are promoting a competitor voting method have published or promoted studies with confused methodologies that contradict studies based on real-world RCV elections (see [here](https://democracysos.substack.com/p/shaky-political-science-misses-mark), [here](https://democracysos.substack.com/p/shaky-political-science-in-minnesota), [here](https://democracysos.substack.com/p/shaky-political-science-using-simulated) and [here](https://democracysos.substack.com/p/shaky-political-science-breakdown)). Other critics benefit from the current plurality system, where candidates are elected by divisively appealing to their minority of core supporters. None of these critics are willing to acknowledge that ranked ballots add something [useful and even special](https://democracysos.substack.com/p/the-miracle-of-rcvs-ranked-ballots) to our elections, including ensuring majority winners, getting rid of spoiler candidates, and liberating voters to pick their favorite candidates instead of having to settle for the lesser of two evils. That’s why over 50 US jurisdictions at federal, state and local levels use Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) to elect officeholders with a majority of the vote in a single election. ### Massachusetts Could End Party Primaries. Here’s What Question 3 Would Actually Do URL: https://ivn.us/massachusetts-could-end-party-primaries-heres-what-question-3-would-actually-do/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:47:47.000Z **BOSTON, Mass.** —Massachusetts voters could completely re-structure the way primary elections work in their state this November and give every voter, including independent voters, the ability to choose any candidate they want, regardless of party. Question 3 would eliminate taxpayer-funded party primaries for state and federal offices, and replace them with a single, nonpartisan open system in which all candidates and voters participate on a single ballot. The two candidates who receive the most votes would advance to the general election, no matter their party affiliation. This means a Democrat and a Republican could advance. Or two Democrats. Or an independent and a Republican. It all comes down to what voters in any given district and in the state want. For supporters, Question 3 addresses an election system in which too many contests are effectively decided in low-turnout party primaries because districts are safe for one party or the other. Thus, the primary is where the most consequential votes are cast. That is, if the election is contested at all. “[Data show](https://ballotpedia.org/Annual%5FState%5FLegislative%5FCompetitiveness%5FReport:%5FVol.%5F14,%5F2024?utm%5Fsource=Klaviyo&utm%5Fmedium=email&%5Fkx=RQYLuyNdBeoqJBS%5Ft9CnxFV85pd5JBPUcsm%5FG8OMWIo.Uw9UvV) Massachusetts has the fewest competitive elections in America. Since 2014, 51% of our elections have had no real contest at all: one candidate with no opposition in the primary or the general,” [writes Danielle Allen](https://manage.kmail-lists.com/subscriptions/web-view?a=Uw9UvV&c=01JTNZWTRVM1W27ST8QGZQ2W7E&k=97ed7dfe0a67d55289668162293e190f&se=team%40kingboston.org&m=01M08H2EK0NNQTYEKE42HJ855H&r=01M0BGSSXTE8PWR7CTZH639XGY&ref=ivn.us), one of the driving forces behind Question 3. Allen is a Harvard professor, as well as the director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School and the director Democratic Knowledge Project-Learn at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. "Uncompetitive primaries and groups of political insiders, more often than not, decide who represents you, your family, and your neighbors, long before the rest of us ever see a ballot," Allen said. > "And the solutions to our ever-increasing list of problems—affordability, housing, healthcare, transportation, schools, the environment—are ignored by people in power who don’t feel driven enough to deliver. Meanwhile, opponents assert that replacing party-controlled primaries with a nonpartisan open model would create a system in which money and name recognition determine which two candidates survive to November. For independent voters, Question 3 gives them more choices in the primary, thus providing a greater incentive to participate. However, opponents point out that independent and third party candidates could find it harder to make the November ballot. For reference, this exact primary model is in place in California and Washington. Alaska uses a nonpartisan open primary, but advances 4 candidates to November. ## **What Does the Ballot Say?** Question 3 asks voters whether they approve a new law that would eliminate separate party primaries and create one all-candidate primary (or all-party primary as the Yes campaign calls it). [Here is what the language says](https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/elections/research-and-statistics/2026-ballot-questions.htm?ref=ivn.us): > *“This proposed law would eliminate political party primaries for state elections and instead establish a system where there would be a single, all-party primary in which all candidates, regardless of their party affiliation, would be listed on one ballot, and voters could vote for any candidate on the ballot. The two candidates receiving the most votes in the primary would advance to the general election ballot.”* But there is more. The initiative also says: “This proposed law would require candidates for governor and lieutenant governor to run and be listed jointly on the ballot in the primary.” And, “This proposed law would provide political party status to any group whose candidates for any statewide office received at least 3% of the ballots cast in the state primary.” A Yes vote adopts the all-party, Top Two primary. A No vote keeps Massachusetts' existing party-primary system. ## **How Massachusetts Elections Work Now** Massachusetts uses what is commonly called a semi-open partisan primary system. Each party has its own primary. Democrats choose Democratic nominees and Republicans choose Republican nominees. Registered Democrats and Republicans are limited to their own party's primary. Independent voters —registered unenrolled in Massachusetts—can choose either party's ballot without joining that party, but they have to stick with the candidates of that party. In other words, if a voter likes a Republican in a gubernatorial race, but a Democrat in a congressional race, they can’t vote for both of those candidates in the same election. Their choices are strictly Republican or strictly Democrat. Under Question 3, a voter could cast their ballot for a Republican in one race, a Democrat in another, and an independent in a third. This choice is possible because every candidate appears on the same ballot given to every voter. Hence the term “all-party primary.” The difference is the current primary model is a party-nominated system. Question 3 changes the structure of elections to be a voter-nominated system. And Massachusetts has a lot of voters outside the two parties. In fact, it has the highest percentage of registered independents of any state in the country. [Nearly 65% of registered voters are unenrolled](https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/elections/research-and-statistics/accessible-table/enrollment-breakdown-2025.htm?ref=ivn.us), while 26% are Democrats and 8% are Republican. Note: This means two groups in the political minority are deciding which candidates appear on the November ballot under the current system. ## **What Would Actually Change?** Question 3 would cover governor and other statewide offices, the US House and Senate, the legislature, governor's council, and various county and district offices, including positions such as district attorney and sheriff. It would not change presidential primaries or municipal elections—very similar to both California and Washington. And, the new system would begin in 2028. Candidates would still have political affiliations displayed on the ballot. Parties and political organizations could also have an endorsement noted alongside a candidate with the required consent. Since the purpose of the primaries is no longer to select party nominees, Question 3 would also eliminate a Massachusetts rule that requires statewide candidates to win at least 15% support at a party convention to make the ballot. In other words, the door is not only open to candidates outside the major parties, but more candidates inside them as well. That provision has particular significance for Allen. In 2022, she was a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, but ended her campaign after falling short in the party convention process. ## **The Case for Question 3: Make Politicians Compete** Supporters make their case to voters by breaking down what is on their ballot. Or, in many cases, what isn’t on their ballot. WBUR reports that [60% of state House and Senate races this year have only one candidate on the November ballot.](https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/10/05/massachusetts-question-3-top-two-state-primary-elections?ref=ivn.us) An earlier analysis of candidate filings found voters were positioned to have a choice between listed candidates in only 82 of the legislature's 200 races. The Coalition for Healthy Democracy, which leads the “Yes” campaign, argues that an all-party primary would make it harder for dominant-party districts to effectively settle elections before most voters participate. In a heavily Democratic legislative district, for example, two Democrats could advance to November rather than having one Democrat win a September primary and face no meaningful opposition two months later. The group's argument in the state's official voter guide boils down to: ["More competition means more accountability."](https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/elections/download/information-for-voters/archive/IFV%5F2026%20English.pdf?ref=ivn.us) It’s notable that support for Question 3 spans across the political spectrum. For example, former Republican Gov. Charlie Baker announced his endorsement Monday alongside former Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick. “Massachusetts is at its best when we put good ideas and good government ahead of politics,” Baker said. > “All-party primaries will give voters more choice and our elected officials will have to reach across the aisle to voters from other parties if they want to be successful.” Patrick stated that politics these days “is less about ‘red’ versus ‘blue’ than about insiders versus outsiders. Elections ought to be a competition of ideas, experience and character than about who has the better structural advantage.” He added: “All-party primaries can enable more good people to compete, and encourage more office holders to deliver results once elected.” Other supporters include State Auditor Diana DjiZoglio, former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, former US Rep. Joe Kennedy III, former MassGOP Chair Jennifer Nassour, former state Treasurer Steve Grossman, the NAACP New England Area Conference, Open Primaries, Veterans for All Voters, Partners in Democracy, and Forward Party Massachusetts. ## **Opponents Ask: What Happens to Everyone Who Doesn't Finish First or Second?** Opposition has brought together seemingly strange bedfellows. Both the Massachusetts Democratic Party and the Republican Party oppose Question 3\. [Organized opposition](https://www.votenoon3mass.com/?ref=ivn.us) also includes labor unions and progressive groups. The main argument centers on the fact that Question 3 expands the field in September but guarantees only two candidates a spot in November—meaning independent and third-party candidates may have a tougher route to the ballot. This is because they would have to finish first or second in a field of candidates that include Republicans and Democrats. It is similar to partisan opposition in California, which also points out that two candidates from the same party can advance to the general election, leaving voters who prefer another party without a candidate in November. A [lawsuit filed by Democratic State Committee members Martina Jackson and Ann Roosevelt](https://commonwealthbeacon.org/politics/two-veteran-democrats-sue-to-block-all-party-primary-ballot-question/?ref=ivn.us) states: > *"By restricting general election ballots to only two candidates, the Petition dilutes the ‘diversity and competition in the marketplace of ideas’ in the phase of the electoral process in which policy choices are most seriously considered."* For the chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party, Amy Carnevale, this isn’t even about alternatives to the major parties: > *"Our existing party primary system is crucial to ensure that voters have an option of choosing between two alternative political philosophies at the ballot box."* But these arguments raise an important question: Does the current system incentivize a diverse and competitive marketplace of ideas? In 2022, Libertarian Kevin Reed qualified for the Massachusetts gubernatorial ballot and polled as high as 5%, yet the state's major televised debates [featured only Democrat Maura Healey and Republican Geoff Diehl](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/09/14/metro/governors-race-healey-holds-wide-lead-over-diehl-poll-shows-voters-recoil-trump-backed-candidate/?ref=ivn.us). The same year, 5 candidates ran for state auditor, but the major televised general-election debate featured only the Democratic and Republican nominees. In 2024, the DNC launched a six-figure advertising campaign branding Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein (based in Massachusetts) a "spoiler" [and argued that a vote for her would help Donald Trump](https://democrats.org/dnc-releases-new-ad-calling-out-jill-stein-as-a-spoiler-for-trump/?ref=ivn.us). The point here is not to diminish the concern that a Top Two primary could prevent a minor-party candidate from reaching November. But it adds context to the debate. Major party officials and leaders discuss diversity of ideas and competitiveness, while promoting a system that at every level discourages both: They sue to kick other options off the ballot, keep them out of debates, and call them "spoilers." One question to consider is: If an independent or third-party candidate advances from a nonpartisan primary system, would they face the same obstacles to actually being heard? The Working Families Party of Massachusetts acknowledges the current lack of competition in the state, but [states in its endorsement of No on 3](https://workingfamilies.org/2026/09/massachusetts-working-families-party-announces-opposition-to-question-3-warns-jungle-primary-would-make-elections-less-competitive-not-more/?ref=ivn.us) that Top Two "helps the candidates who can already afford to run that kind of race." Specifically, the party talks about "wealthier, corporate-aligned candidates — while shutting out first-time and working-class candidates without existing donor networks." “Let us be extremely clear: Question 3 will not help working people build power in Massachusetts. It will do the opposite,” said Josh Wolfsun, MAWFP State Director. > "We’ve seen this exact experiment run in California. It produced longer, more expensive campaigns that made it harder for grassroots candidates to win." Research on this is scarce, but what does exist has shown that working-class performance doesn't change much between party primaries and nonpartisan election models. In 2023, Sarah Treul and Eric Hansen wrote a paper titled, [“Primary Barriers to Working Class Representation,”](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10659129231154914?ref=ivn.us) in *Political Research Quarterly*. They found that raw vote share for working-class candidates was about 24 percentage points lower and they were 31 points less likely to win. Further, they wrote: > *“We find no differences in workers’ performance between top-two and standard partisan primaries.”* Opponents of Question 3 additionally argue that crowded all-party primaries magnify the importance of fundraising and name recognition because campaigns must quickly distinguish themselves from a much larger field. Tufts University's Center for State Policy Analysis [found evidence](https://tufts.app.box.com/v/cSPA-Q3-2026?ref=ivn.us) from California and Washington suggesting top-two primaries can reduce political polarization and slightly increase primary turnout. The report also found some evidence that these primaries may bring more money into races, and it remains unclear whether Question 3 would create more competitive contests overall. Interesting to note: In Massachusetts, 60% of legislative elections this year went uncontested. In California, only 4 state Assembly races were uncontested. There were zero uncontested state Senate races. There is no guarantee Question 3 will generate the same outcomes, but if people are going to compare Massachusetts with California, these are important numbers to consider. ## **The Polls: Question 3 Is A Tight Race** This summer, Question 3 looked like it had an advantage. An [August UMass Amherst/WCVB poll](https://masslegalresources.com/2026/08/30/massachusetts-question-3-all-party-primary/?ref=ivn.us) of 800 registered voters found 51% supported the measure, 32% opposed, and 17% were undecided. However, September polling tells a different story: - A MassINC Polling Group survey for [CommonWealth Beacon](https://commonwealthbeacon.org/by-the-numbers/poll-shows-voters-on-track-to-retain-legal-cannabis-and-2024-gun-law/?ref=ivn.us) conducted September 14-22 found 43% Yes, 36% No, and roughly 20% undecided among likely voters. - A University of New Hampshire poll [conducted September 17-21](https://blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/where-do-voters-stand-on-this-years?ref=ivn.us) found 41% Yes, and 39% No, with 19% undecided. The difference between August and September may be a warning sign for the Yes on 3 campaign. Roughly a fifth of voters were still undecided as the polls tightened. MassINC pollsters also noted a longstanding difficulty for ballot initiatives: voters who remain uncertain about these types of systemic changes late in the campaign often default to the status quo. ### Win or Lose, Independent Candidates Are Building Something Bigger URL: https://ivn.us/win-or-lose-independent-candidates-are-building-something-bigger/ Last updated: 2026-10-07T21:29:10.000Z When Sarah Czech and her team went door to door in Rapid City, South Dakota, last month, they were inviting complete strangers to come talk politics. Around 15 to 20 of them came to each event. "They came in and they were a little skeptical, but they left with a huge smile on their face," Czech said. "They were giving hugs to everybody." Czech works at the intersection of two kinds of organizations that have been quietly growing alongside this year's [independent candidates](https://ivn.us/tag/independent-candidates/). She is an associate at the Osmanthus Group, a consulting firm that works with independent campaigns, and since late August she has also worked on contract with Moving America Forward (MAF). Her view from the doorstep offers a look at a question hanging over the whole independent movement this cycle: what happens to the energy these candidates have generated, win or lose? ## An unusual year, and an infrastructure catching up There are more serious, well-funded independent candidates on the ballot this year than in any recent cycle. In Czech's estimate, it may be more than ever before. In South Dakota, [Brian Bengs](https://ivn.us/he-ran-as-a-democrat-once-brian-bengs-says-never-again/) became the sole challenger to Republican Sen. Mike Rounds after Democratic nominee Julian Beaudion suspended his campaign in August. In Nebraska, [Dan Osborn](https://ivn.us/dan-osborn-is-ready-to-represent-the-working-class-in-congress-is-nebraska-ready-to-let-him/) is again mounting a high-profile independent Senate run. Idaho has an unusual cluster: [Todd Achilles](https://ivn.us/todd-achilles-says-the-two-parties-broke-congress-now-he-wants-idaho-to-help-break-their-grip/) for U.S. Senate, [Sarah Zabel](https://ivn.us/the-republican-party-left-gen-sarah-zabel-now-shes-running-against-it/) in the [1st Congressional District](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/node/424004?ref=ivn.us), and former state Supreme Court Justice John Stegner for governor. Around those campaigns, a support structure has started to form. National organizations such as the Independence Center, Unite America, and the Forward Party are working on the movement's ideas and its national profile. Newer groups are offering campaign services. Caroline Anderson has spent years working on campaigns, and in January she expanded her practice into the Osmanthus Group, bringing Czech on as her associate. Czech said what the national infrastructure still lacks is people knocking on doors and talking to voters one-on-one. "Obviously that requires money, and that requires time and all these other things," she said. MAF's events are designed to fill part of that gap. ## What South Dakota said back The Rapid City trip was a first look at a small Western city for many members of the team, who live in Boston, San Diego, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Czech said that was part of the value. "We can be so caught up in the hyperpartisan warfare of what's going on when you are involved in the political movement that it's hard to take a step back and see things through the eyes of somebody who is not involved in this as much as we are," she said. The people who showed up were not activists. They considered themselves independent, but most were not deeply engaged in politics. Attendees ranged from 18-year-olds starting college to people in their 80s talking about their grandchildren. Some told the team they had not left their house in months, and that this was the first time anyone had invited them to something political that felt positive. Czech paused while recounting this to say it was emotional to talk about. The word Czech heard most often was "hope." One attendee, a man who had protested the Vietnam War in South Dakota decades ago, told the team that his generation had stood up and done the work in its time, and that now he needed to encourage his daughters that it was theirs. On issues, Czech hears independents gather around the national debt; the war in Iran and foreign policy more broadly; health care; and political reform; along with the economy and corruption, which she said matter especially in mountain states like Idaho and South Dakota. "We all really want to be able to afford gas, and we all really want to be able to afford groceries," she said. But she sees the deeper common thread as orientation rather than any single position. "Where Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and progressives are united against issues, I see independents united for something," Czech said. That something, in her telling, is love of country and community, and the question of how to protect and improve them. She also heard frustration with a broken bargain, particularly from registered Republicans. Several told her they had voted for what they thought would lower their prices, and felt that the opposite had happened. Czech described what she saw as a lack of trust rather than active distrust: skepticism toward politicians in general, and uncertainty about what a candidate without an R or a D next to their name actually means. That uncertainty is a hurdle at the ballot box, she said, but an asset across the dinner table. Partisans struggle to hear each other through the caricatures they hold of one another. An independent arrives without one. "There isn't a national caricature built around us, and so the masks can come down," she said. ## Why having real candidates matters Czech said the candidates have changed what outreach looks like. She recalled Unite America staff telling her that when they began organizing around the independent identity in 2017, people's reaction was flat refusal to engage. Now, she said, organizers can point to someone specific. "There is literally somebody who's viable and not scary and not crazy and \[not\] weird that is running in your area," she said. Voters often arrive already knowing the names, Czech said, citing Bengs, Achilles, and Zabel. She credited Bengs directly for the South Dakota trip, saying the team went to Rapid City only because he gave them an example to show people. "That's what they provide," she said. "A clear example of what an independent leader could look like." ## Idaho next, and the work after November The team heads to Idaho October 10–13\. Czech is especially optimistic there: where many states have one viable independent, she said, [Idaho has several](https://ivn.us/independent-candidates-are-taking-idaho-by-storm-in-2026/). South Dakota taught logistical lessons, like the fact that apartment buildings in snow country are locked, unlike open-air complexes in Southern California, so canvassers need a local contact before they arrive. The bigger lesson was about priorities. Czech said organizations can get fixated on RSVP counts, but the point is the people who actually show up. "We're leaving, but they live there," she said. "We have to encourage them to be builders in these cities." That shapes MAF's plans after Nov. 3\. The team intends to contact everyone it met, starting with a survey on the issues people care about and how they want to stay involved, and then help them form local chapters so that places like Boise and Rapid City become hubs for independent organizing. "Candidates and elections are temporary, but this movement is lasting," Czech said. Asked how to sustain hope if none of these candidates win, Czech acknowledged that disappointment would be real. But she pointed to what now exists that did not before. She has about 20 people in Rapid City she can text. Her message to them, she said, would be simple: two years ago, you had no one. Now, there are 20 of you. Two years from now, there could be 200. For a movement long defined by voters who belong to nothing in particular, that may be the most consequential result of this cycle, whatever the returns say on election night. ### 35 Million Americans Didn’t Move. Their Congressional Districts Did. URL: https://ivn.us/24-million-potential-voters-didnt-move-their-congressional-districts-did/ Last updated: 2026-10-05T21:12:42.000Z In just a few weeks, millions of Americans will vote for Congress in a different district than they did just two years ago. But they didn't move. The boundaries did. An AP analysis estimates that [more than 24 million potential voters](https://apnews.com/article/redistricting-congress-trump-gerrymandering-midterm-c26a343527d6d3da51abffec2da94088?ref=ivn.us) (roughly 1 in 10 nationwide) are now in a different US House district because of redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms. The largest shifts can be seen in 3 states in particular: - Texas, with more than 6.9 million potential voters moved into new districts; - California, with more than 6.3 million; and - Florida, with more than 4.5 million. But this doesn’t show the complete picture because potential voters don’t account for everyone affected by these new maps. A separate analysis from the nonpartisan organization [Protect Democracy](https://protectdemocracy.org/work/what-gerrymandering-costs-voters/?ref=ivn.us) found that 34.8 million people were reassigned to different congressional districts between 2024 and 2026. One in 5 of all Americans now live in a district where more than a quarter of the electorate is different from what it was during the last election. And there are indications that more shifts could happen between now and 2028. ## **9 States, Millions of New Political Neighbors** Congressional maps are normally redrawn after the census every 10 years to account for population shifts. States can lose or gain seats depending on these changes, but demographics may also be different. Traditionally, this means the next round of redistricting wouldn’t happen until 2031 at the earliest. However, many states chose not to wait this time. Specifically, 9 states will use different congressional boundaries in November: **Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.** It was almost 10 states, but the [Missouri State Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court](https://ivn.us/missouri-politicians-tried-to-override-voters-the-states-highest-court-said-no-twice/) ruled that the state had to use maps approved in 2022 because of a veto referendum on the ballot. To quickly recap, the scramble to manipulate congressional districts began in 2025 after President Donald Trump pressed GOP lawmakers in Texas to redraw the state's map. The goal was to create at least 5 additional Republican opportunities. California Governor Gavin Newsom quickly responded and said his state would “fight fire with fire.” Proposition 50 was put on the November 2025 ballot, which asked voters to suspend an independent congressional map with lines drawn by the state’s Democratic majority. Now, about 80% of congressional districts in Texas are designed to favor Republicans, while 92% favor Democrats in California. This was only the beginning. Seven additional states approved new maps. Some states—like Indiana, Virginia, and Maryland—tried, but the efforts were either blocked in the legislature or by the courts. Virginia held a vote on a map that heavily favored Democrats before a court ruled the referendum violated the state constitution. Utah is different from the other states. A court ordered its new map after it was determined that the legislature did not adhere to a voter-approved law designed to reduce a single party’s influence over redistricting. ## **The Numbers Look Different from the Voter’s Perspective** Most coverage of redistricting—much like the redistricting itself—focuses on the scoreboard. How many seats will Republicans gain? How many can Democrats offset? Which party will control the House? The AP estimates that if the new maps perform as intended, Republicans could emerge with a net gain of as many as 9 seats, although changing political conditions mean there is no guarantee the districts will vote the way mapmakers anticipated. Still, this framing ignores the impact on individual voters. Protect Democracy calculated that more than 10.4 million people in Texas, 9.2 million in California, and 6.2 million in Florida were reassigned to different congressional districts. No one talks about what that means for their representation. Suddenly, some of these voters have a different congressional representative. Others may encounter candidates they have never heard of or find themselves grouped with communities hundreds of miles away from those that previously made up their district. Even voters whose district number stayed the same could experience a dramatically different election if large portions of the constituency around them have changed. “If this trend continues, it really brings into question whether or not elected officials are really representing their constituents anymore, or if the voters are being randomly picked by mapmakers to squeeze out partisan advantage,” said Ben Raderstorf, who co-wrote Protect Democracy’s analysis. But it seems like the numbers have already answered this question. ## **Redistricting Doesn't Just Change Who Wins. It Can Change Whether There Is a Race.** There is another consequence that gets little attention in the national press: competition. The [latest Cook Political Report ratings](https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings?ref=ivn.us) put just 43 of the nation's 435 House races in its “Toss Up” or “Lean” categories. The overwhelming majority are rated Likely or Solid for one party. The trend toward diminishing competition isn’t new. But the mid-cycle redistricting efforts have escalated it. This year, just 9% of primary voters effectively elected 90% of Congress. [9% of Voters Already Picked Your Congress. A New Poll Says Everyone Else Is Fed UpA new poll shows 56% of voters want to replace closed party primaries with open elections where all candidates compete on one ballot. The survey reveals voters are frustrated that just 9% of Americans effectively decide most congressional races.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-6c45d463-16ee-47e8-ba02-e8893a39978f.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-aad88429-0491-4207-94b6-8f53ceb62273-081e2f85-9bd5-4b9d-97ee-e20f31c86649.jpg)](https://ivn.us/9-of-voters-already-picked-your-congress-a-new-poll-says-everyone-else-is-fed-up/) Notably, redistricting is not the sole cause of uncompetitive elections. Voters are increasingly self-sorting geographically and there are advantages to incumbency. But deliberately concentrating Democrats and Republicans into predictable districts can further shrink the number of November contests that actually matter. And for independent voters, it means losing any say in their representation at all. Especially if they live in a state with closed primaries. If voters do not belong to the dominant party, the election that effectively chooses the representative is one in which they cannot participate. It was not just the lines that moved. The meaningful election moved with them. However, as states look to make additional changes ahead of the 2028 presidential cycle, there is another possibility: the parties could stretch their advantages too much. The new congressional boundaries were constructed using past election results, demographic data, and assumptions about how particular communities are likely to vote. But the political environment in 2026 is already testing some of those assumptions. Just look at Texas. Prior to redistricting, Republicans had an advantage in 25 of the state’s 35 congressional seats. Then, state lawmakers redrew the lines to give them 5 additional seats. Yet with Election Day approaching, the Texas Tribune [identifies 6 congressional races in the state as genuinely competitive](https://www.texastribune.org/2026/09/30/texas-congress-house-elections-2026-midterms/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). Four are districts Republicans redrew in hopes of flipping them. The other 2 are seats Republicans are now defending. All 6 have eligible voting populations that are majority Latino. Why is that important? Because Latino voters are often misunderstood by both major parties. Their voting behavior is not easy to predict from one election to the next because Latinos are more likely than any other demographic group to be independent-minded. Much of the Texas strategy was built around Republican gains among Latino voters in 2024\. For example, the newly configured 34th District would have voted for Donald Trump by roughly 10 percentage points two years ago. Today, four weeks from Election Day, it is considered competitive. This does not mean the redistricting will fail. Moving voters can still make a district substantially easier for one party to win (as we have seen in all modern elections up to this point). But aggressive gerrymandering carries a mathematical risk—especially with an electorate that is increasingly identifying and registering independent of the two major parties. To create more favorable districts, mapmakers often spread their own voters across a larger number of seats. If voters shift away from the party in power by just a few points, districts designed to be safe for that party could suddenly become competitive. This may not mean the controlling party loses its majority, but it could mean they put all that effort into rigging the process even more in their favor only to potentially lose some seats. ### IVP Poll: Voter ID Leads in California. But... URL: https://ivn.us/ivp-poll-voter-id-leads-in-california-but/ Last updated: 2026-10-05T14:50:47.000Z Most polls answer one question: who is winning today? IVP's new California survey asks the question that decides close races: who is still undecided, and which way are they likely to go? Take Proposition 39, the voter ID measure. It leads among likely voters, 43 percent to 40 percent. But Republicans have largely made up their minds. The voters still deciding are mostly Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, and once they are accounted for, the measure is a coin flip. Six weeks before the June primary, an **IVP poll was the first** published survey to show Xavier Becerra breaking away from the Democratic field for governor. He finished first. [Read the full analysis](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/), then **explore the toplines and crosstabs in IVP's interactive data studio**. In other news: the lawsuit we told you was coming has been filed. Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are [suing the State of New York](https://ivn.us/veterans-of-iraq-and-afghanistan-wars-sue-new-york-after-being-denied-the-right-to-vote/) over closed primaries in a case that [could make its way to the Supreme Court](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/). Read about this and more stories that go beyond the two-sided narrative below. ### *NEW POLL RESULTS ▶▶▶* ## New CA Poll: Voter ID Measure Leads Today. Its Undecided Voters Point the Other Way [![California 2026 poll: Prop 39 voter ID and undecided voters](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/california-poll-2026-voter-id-prop-39-undecided-voters-featured.png)](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/) The Independent Voter Project surveyed 2,906 likely California voters and did what most polls skip: separated the decided from the undecided, then studied who the undecided are. **Prop. 39 leads, Prop. 40 is a toss-up that leans no**, and the Insurance Commissioner race turns on a single piece of information most voters do not have yet. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/) ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Sue New York After Being Denied the Right to Vote [![Plaintiffs and attorneys outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-6e952a04-7cf5-4eae-9544-53437fb9ab64.png)](https://ivn.us/veterans-of-iraq-and-afghanistan-wars-sue-new-york-after-being-denied-the-right-to-vote/) Paul Rieckhoff and Kristen Rouse served their country, then came home to a state that will not let them vote in the primaries their taxes pay for. **Rieckhoff v. Berger asks a basic question: does the right to vote come from citizenship, or from joining a party?** [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/veterans-of-iraq-and-afghanistan-wars-sue-new-york-after-being-denied-the-right-to-vote/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [OpenSecrets Tears Down the Wall Between State and Federal Money Data ](https://ivn.us/opensecrets-tears-down-the-wall-between-state-and-federal-money-data/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![OpenSecrets Tears Down the Wall Between State and Federal Money Data](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/image-6d397c4d-ed8b-484b-9950-f79a973d96e9.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/opensecrets-tears-down-the-wall-between-state-and-federal-money-data/) [Pennsylvania’s Closed Primary Wall Just Took a Major Hit ](https://ivn.us/pennsylvanias-closed-primary-wall-just-took-a-major-hit/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![Pennsylvania’s Closed Primary Wall Just Took a Major Hit](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/10/young-independent-voters.png) ](https://ivn.us/pennsylvanias-closed-primary-wall-just-took-a-major-hit/) [Georgia Has 2 Million Independent Voters. Getting an Independent on the Ballot Is Another Story ](https://ivn.us/georgia-has-2-million-independent-voters-getting-an-independent-on-the-ballot-is-another-story/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/09/Jabari-Gibbs.jpg) Jabari Gibbs, The Current [ ![Georgia Has 2 Million Independent Voters. Getting an Independent on the Ballot Is Another Story](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/georgia-ballot-access.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/georgia-has-2-million-independent-voters-getting-an-independent-on-the-ballot-is-another-story/) [Independent Voters Decide Elections. What Do They Get in Return? ](https://ivn.us/independent-voters-decide-elections-what-do-they-get-in-return/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/09/John_Opdycke.jpg) John Opdycke [ ![Independent Voters Decide Elections. What Do They Get in Return?](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/2026-midterm-results.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/independent-voters-decide-elections-what-do-they-get-in-return/) [Pennsylvania House Votes to Open Primaries — While 63 Legislative Races Have No November Contest ](https://ivn.us/pennsylvania-house-votes-to-open-primaries-while-63-legislative-races-have-no-november-contest/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Pennsylvania House Votes to Open Primaries — While 63 Legislative Races Have No November Contest](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/image-a21bfe25-c7d8-4302-a9b7-ee38f9065f35.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/pennsylvania-house-votes-to-open-primaries-while-63-legislative-races-have-no-november-contest/) ### *TAKE ACTION ▶▶▶* ## Declare Your Right to Vote [![Declare your right to vote](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/og-rtv.jpg)](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/right-to-vote-ny?ref=ivn.us) IVP is taking New York’s closed primaries to federal court on behalf of 3.1 million voters locked out of taxpayer-funded elections, including an estimated 140,000 veterans. **If a closed primary has ever shut you out, your story can be used as evidence in the case.** You do not have to live in New York, and it takes about three minutes. [DECLARE YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/right-to-vote-ny?ref=ivn.us) ### *INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES ▶▶▶* ## Polls Hint at a Blue Wave. Are the Independents Riding it? [![Independent candidates and the generic ballot](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/kevin-kiley-independent-candidates.jpg)](https://ivn.us/polls-hint-at-a-blue-wave-are-the-independents-riding-it/) Republicans keep telling voters that independent candidates are secret Democrats. **The Democrats’ generic ballot lead has swung six points in four months**, and Matt Shinners reads the polls for who is actually riding the wave. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/polls-hint-at-a-blue-wave-are-the-independents-riding-it/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Paul Rieckhoff joins the Independent Voter Podcast to explain why a combat veteran and 9/11 first responder is suing New York: **disenfranchisement on public property, with public funds**. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X6r2OWIRuY&ref=ivn.us) ### *VIDEO CLIP ▶▶▶* ## Hasan Piker Says America Is Worse Than al-Qaeda, ‘Pound for Pound’ [![Hasan Piker on The Axios Show](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/piker-thumbnail.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/DdZiP9ugeBx/?ref=ivn.us) Streamer Hasan Piker told The Axios Show that **the United States is worse than al-Qaeda**, pointing to the February strike on an Iranian school that killed 156 people. The remark landed in the middle of Michigan’s Senate race, where GOP groups have spent close to $3 million tying Piker to Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/DdZiP9ugeBx/?ref=ivn.us) ### *CAMPAIGN TOOLS ▶▶▶* ## 217 Million Voters, One Chat Box: New AI Tool Opens Up the Voter File [![The US voter file](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/US-voter-file.jpg)](https://ivn.us/217-million-voters-one-chat-box-new-ai-tool-opens-up-the-voter-file/) A new AI tool called Voter Count lets anyone ask plain-English questions about **217 million registered voters**, no expensive contracts or technical expertise required. Shawn Griffiths takes it for a spin. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/217-million-voters-one-chat-box-new-ai-tool-opens-up-the-voter-file/) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### *VETERANS ▶▶▶* ## Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff On Independent Americans, Rieckhoff breaks down the landmark lawsuit from the inside: **3.1 million New Yorkers, including an estimated 140,000 veterans, locked out of the elections that decide most races**. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz9VMRu1qD8&ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### New CA Poll: Voter ID Measure Leads Today. Its Undecided Voters Point the Other Way URL: https://ivn.us/new-ca-poll-voter-id-measure-leads-today-its-undecided-voters-point-the-other-way/ Last updated: 2026-10-15T16:40:44.000Z **SAN FRANCISCO** – Most polls answer one question: if the election were held today, who would win? We asked a slightly different question: who are the undecided voters, and how will they vote? Surveys like the one sponsored by the Public Policy Institute of California are built to measure where a race stands at a particular point in time. They do that job well, in part by asking nearly every respondent to pick a side. The Independent Voter Project survey is built to study the voters who have not picked a side, or who can still be persuaded. It reports them separately, then looks at who they are. That matters because undecided voters *are not* a random slice of the electorate. Who is still undecided varies by each race and ballot question, and the makeup of that group best guides where a close contest is likely to land. For example, Proposition 39, the voter ID measure, leads in our survey, 43 percent to 40 percent among likely voters, with 17 percent undecided. But the Republicans we surveyed have largely made up their minds, and the voters who haven't are mostly Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. If those voters break the way similar voters already have, Prop. 39 lands at about 50 percent, a coin flip, but if they follow the usual pattern of voters who are unsure about a ballot measure and vote no, it will fail. The survey of 2,906 likely voters was conducted Sept. 23 to Oct. 2, 2026 in English and Spanish and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. Details are in the methodology section at the end of this story. Six weeks before the June 2 primary, an [IVP poll ](https://ivn.us/tag/ivp-poll/)was the [first published survey in the New York Times tracker](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/california-governor-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) to show [Xavier Becerra breaking away](https://ivn.us/breaking-xavier-becerra-bolts-into-first-place-in-ivn-california-governor-poll-2026-04-20/) from the Democratic field for governor. He finished first. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-851f8d18-6421-4665-90cb-63fcb67a83d7.png) Where the contests stand among likely voters today; undecided voters are shown in gold. ### **How the Analysis Works** For each contest, the survey separates voters into those who have decided, including those who lean one way, and those who have not. It then compares undecided voters with decided ones on party, which party they trust, age, turnout history, region, and answers to related questions, such as whether they support voter ID in principle. A statistical model trained on decided voters estimates how undecided voters with the same characteristics would likely vote. The model correctly predicts decided voters' choices about 9 times in 10 in the governor's race and on Props. 39 and 40. The result is not a prediction of what will happen. It estimates where each contest is likely to end up if nothing changes between now and Election Day. Campaigns, news, and turnout can all change that. ### **Where the Contests Are Likely to Land** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-4a62cd3f-bd25-4f75-abe1-71d94dacd14a.png) Likely outcomes are shares of the two-way vote if nothing changes before Election Day. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-8315842c-1503-48ce-a866-f9e3570959ab.png) Decided voters today compared with the likely outcome and range for each contest. The undecided vote looks different in every contest. On Prop. 39, it is heavily Democratic. In the insurance commissioner race, it looks much like the electorate as a whole, because so few voters know either candidate. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-1bf7b1d9-dc22-4274-b03e-b68a6e532738.png) Who is still undecided: the makeup of the undecided vote changes from contest to contest. ## **Prop. 39: Who Is Left to Decide** Asked the Voter ID question in plain terms, 62 percent of voters support requiring a government-issued ID to vote, with a free ID card for anyone who asks. However, the measure itself is much closer. Its official title, written by the Attorney General's office, says it "Prohibits Citizens from Voting Unless They Present Government-Issued Identification." When read this title, Republicans support Prop. 39, 81 percent to 10 percent, and only 9 percent are undecided. Democrats oppose it 59 percent to 19 percent, and more than one in five are undecided. Of the voters still undecided on Prop. 39, 61 percent are registered Democrats, 24 percent are independents and 15 percent are Republicans. More than half of these undecided voters say they trust the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party. To pass, Prop. 39 needs about 4 in 10 of its undecided voters, and our model estimates it gets about 41 percent. That leaves almost no cushion, and voters who are unsure about a ballot measure often vote no. In the second wave of the survey, undecided voters were asked which way they would lean if they had to choose. Eight in 10 still could not say. ### **Prop. 40: Undecided Voters Don't Know Enough Yet** The idea of a one-time tax on billionaires to fund health care splits voters 40 percent to 38 percent. Prop. 40 itself trails 38 percent to 42 percent after voters hear the Legislative Analyst's Office estimate that it would raise tens of billions of dollars but could cost up to $1 billion a year in income tax revenue if wealthy residents leave California. Its undecided voters are a different group. They are about half Democrats, a quarter independents, and a quarter Republicans. Most of them are not sure about the idea of a wealth tax at all: 62 percent of Prop. 40's undecided voters *were also still undecided when the tax was described in plain terms*. To pass, Prop. 40 would need about 6 in 10 of its undecided voters. The model estimates it gets about half. In this survey, that makes Prop. 40 a toss-up that leans toward "No." PPIC's September survey found Prop. 40 ahead, and the difference between the two polls comes largely from Democratic and Latino voters, who are more supportive of the measure in PPIC's survey than in the one conducted by IVP. Prop. 41, which would require audits of new special taxes, and Prop. 42, which would block new taxes on the ownership of financial assets and personal property, both lead comfortably. Our questions described those measures in plain terms rather than using their ballot labels, so read the size of their leads with caution. Because Props. 40, 41 and 42 conflict, the one with the most yes votes takes effect. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-e9804988-b01e-459e-bbb0-9dde2e9c28d1.png) Support for Props. 39 to 42 by party registration. ### **Insurance Commissioner: Two Democrats, and Most Voters Have No Idea** The race for Insurance Commissioner between state Sen. Ben Allen and Jane Kim, both Democrats, is the most open contest on California's ballot this November. In the IVP survey, half of respondents saw only the candidates' names, as they will see them on the ballot. When given this choice, nearly two-thirds had no opinion, and the horse race was within the margin of error. The other half of the IVP survey respondents were told that the Democratic Socialists of America endorse Jane Kim and that Ben Allen is a mainstream Democrat. With that one bit of information, Allen leads Kim, 36 percent to 23 percent, and his likely share of the two-way vote rises to about 63 percent. Republicans and independents supply most of the movement toward Allen, while Democrats stayed nearly evenly divided. The insurance commissioner’s race will turn on what voters learn about the differences between the two Democrats on the ballot and whether Republicans, who have no candidate of their own, actually fill in the line and vote for one of the Democrats. Shown only names, nearly one in four Republicans said they would skip voting in this race. The Los Angeles mayor's race features the same kind of matchup in a city with far fewer Republican voters. [A recent UC Berkeley poll](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/nithya-raman-karen-bass-la-mayor-election-polls/3946109/?ref=ivn.us) shows the DSA-endorsed challenger, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, leading Mayor Karen Bass, with a third of voters undecided. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-c600a9a7-8dbd-436e-8fb2-97dadcf9e3d3.png) Half of the respondents saw only names. Half were told that DSA endorses Kim and that Allen is a mainstream Democrat. ### **Governor and the Down-Ballot Races** Xavier Becerra leads Steve Hilton 48 percent to 38 percent. Fifty-five percent of the undecided voters in our survey are Democrats, and the model estimates they will break about 2-to-1 Becerra’s way. Hilton would need about 9 in 10 undecided voters to win. If nothing changes, Becerra's likely share of the two-way vote is about 57 percent. The races for lieutenant governor and secretary of state have even more undecided voters, about one in four, and the undecideds are the same makeup as in the race for governor. Democrats Fiona Ma and Shirley Weber are likely to win their elections with 57 and 59 percent, respectively, if nothing changes. Republicans Gloria Romero and Don Wagner would each need about 7 in 10 undecided voters to break in their favor to win. ### **Independents Are the Swing Within the Swing** Independent voters, those registered with No Party Preference, the American Independent Party, or another minor party, make up about a quarter of likely California voters. They make up a larger share of the undecided vote, close to a third, in the races for lieutenant governor and secretary of state. Independents are not one bloc. More lean toward Democrats than Republicans: 29 percent trust the Democratic Party more, compared with 24 percent who trust the Republican Party more, and each group votes much like the party it trusts. ***The largest group, though, 40 percent of independent voters, trusts neither party, even when asked to choose.*** Those voters are where the close contests are most open: 1. They lean slightly toward Hilton, 40 percent to 33 percent, with nearly one in five undecided. 2. They support Prop. 39, 49 percent to 32 percent. That is the one group outside the Republican base where the measure has real support. 3. They split on Prop. 40, 36 percent to 40 percent, with nearly a quarter undecided. 4. Nearly half are undecided in the insurance commissioner race even after hearing which candidate DSA endorses. Taken together, independents split about evenly in the governor's race. They are also the voters most likely to leave part of the ballot blank. Only 65 percent of independents say they will vote on every race and measure, compared with 78 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of Republicans. ### **Which Independents Are Still Undecided** The independents who remain undecided are not the same voters from one contest to the next. The survey asked every respondent which party they trust more if they had to choose, and the answer changes the picture race by race. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-be54971a-0845-41aa-b75b-db1a1b03a88e.png) Undecided independents by the party they trust more, if they had to choose. **Governor.** Republican-leaning independents have almost all decided. Only 3 percent of undecided independents in the governor's race trust Republicans more. Seven in 10 trust neither party. Independents who have already made up their minds split almost evenly between Becerra and Hilton, but undecided independents are likely to break about 63 percent for Becerra. Hilton's independents are already counted. The remaining voters are not his natural base. **Secretary of State.** Only 1 in 10 undecided independents trusts Republicans more, and they are likely to break about 63 percent for Weber, compared with 53 percent among decided independents. The lieutenant governor's race is the exception among the candidate races: its undecided independents split about evenly, just as the decided ones do. **Prop. 39.** Only 15 percent of Prop. 39's undecided independents trust Republicans more than Democrats. (Overall, 25 percent of independents trust Republicans.) The rest of the undecideds lean Democratic or trust neither party. Independents who have already made up their minds support the measure 58 percent to 42 percent. Undecided independents are likely to split about evenly. More than 4 in 10 of them are not sure about voter ID even in principle. **Prop. 40.** Undecided independents on this question lean Democratic, which makes them more likely to vote yes than the independents who have already made up their minds. In other words, the conservative-leaning independent voters have already taken a side. **Insurance commissioner.** With only names to go on, the undecided independents look like independents as a whole, including Republican-leaning voters. Almost no one knows the candidates, so party trust has not sorted anyone yet. That is why the race moves so sharply once voters learn who DSA endorses. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-37bb8f06-0b61-41cb-bd8f-c545a01fdc2c.png) Undecided independents are likely to break differently than independents who have already decided. The groups of undecided independents are small, from about 80 to 230 respondents depending on the contest, so these figures show direction more than precise size. ### **What Would Change the Likely Outcome** Each of these estimates assumes nothing changes. Here is what the data suggests it would take for the result to come out differently. - **For Prop. 39 to pass,** its supporters would need to reach Democratic and independent voters who like voter ID but don't trust the people behind the measure. Few of its undecided independents lean Republican, so a message built for Republican-leaning voters will not reach them. More than a quarter of its undecided voters support voter ID but distrust Republicans to carry it out. Another 4 in 10 aren't sure about voter ID at all. Opponents need only keep those voters in the undecided camp. - **For Prop. 40 to pass,** and it is close enough to go either way, its supporters would need to give undecided voters a reason to support a tax most of them haven't formed an opinion on, and do it with Democrats and independents. Republican undecided voters are likely to vote no. - **For Hilton to win,** he would need nearly all undecided voters, including Democrats. Nearly all Republican-leaning independents have already decided, so the independents still available to him trust neither party or lean Democratic. He would have to win them by a wide margin. - **In the insurance commissioner race,** the outcome depends on what voters learn. If voters know which candidate DSA endorses, Allen is favored. If the race stays a matter of names, it is a toss-up, and turnout among younger voters, who lean toward Kim, matters more. ### **June Showed What Unexpected Turnout Can Do** Small shifts in who votes can decide close races. In June, independent turnout grew faster than Democratic or Republican turnout. Voters registered with No Party Preference or the American Independent Party cast 1,775,806 ballots, up 52 percent from 1,170,455 ballots cast in the 2022 primary. Democratic ballots rose 37 percent, and Republican ballots rose 34 percent, according to the L2 California voter file. In the governor’s race, Becerra finished comfortably first, while turnout ran higher than models built on past elections predicted. In the weeks before that vote, the Independent Voter Project, which authored California's top-two primary law and co-publishes IVN, ran the state's first statewide program to inform independent voters about [an effort to repeal the top-two primary](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/). [Its message](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlE5a7aOmaU&ref=ivn.us): if you don't vote now, they may not let you vote next time. The program reached about 2.8 million independent voters. Those results show independents voted in larger numbers than in 2022\. They do not, by themselves, show how much of that increase the program caused. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/image-7e326e3f-051c-4bf4-8e97-8ece231d5e7b.png) Primary ballots cast by party, June 2022 vs. June 2026\. Source: L2 California voter file. ### **How This Survey Compares With Other Polls** Other recent polls, including the Public Policy Institute of California's September survey, show a wider margin for Becerra and different results on Props. 39 and 40\. Part of the difference is who they count as a likely voter and as a party member. PPIC *asks* respondents how they are registered and how often they vote. This survey takes both details from the state voter file. Party comes from each voter's registration record, and the likely electorate is defined by actual voting history: at least two of the last four general elections or the June primary. Each approach has trade-offs. People tend to overstate how often they vote, and some misremember their registration status. Relying on voting records can miss newer voters, though this survey includes newly registered voters who cast a ballot in June. Those who registered but skipped the primary are left out, on the view that voters who passed up their first chance to vote are less likely to turn out in November. This survey also offers "not sure" as an answer, so it reports more undecided voters. Republicans look nearly identical in both polls. The differences are concentrated among Democrats, Latino voters and the undecided. ### **Four Weeks Out** The close contests will be decided by the voters the parties spend the least effort reaching: independents, occasional voters and voters who have not heard enough information to make a choice. In most races, the makeup of those voters already points to a likely outcome. Whether that outcome holds depends on who reaches them first, and with what information. ### **Methodology** The 2026 California General Election Survey was sponsored by the Independent Voter Project and conducted by IVC Media from Sept. 23 to Oct. 2, 2026\. It includes responses received through 10 a.m. on Oct. 2. **Who was surveyed.** The sample is 2,906 California registered voters who voted in at least two of the last four general elections or in the June 2026 primary. That record of past voting, not a respondent's stated intention to vote, is the survey's model of the November electorate. We include newly registered voters if they voted in the June primary; we exclude those who have not yet voted in any election. We also obtain party registration from the voter file rather than from what respondents report. We drew the sample directly from the L2 California voter file. **How it was conducted.** We invited voters by text message with a personal link, and they completed the survey online. We invited voters in households the voter file identifies as Spanish-speaking in Spanish; 141 respondents answered in Spanish. We matched every response back to the voter's record and removed duplicate and incomplete responses. The survey did not ask demographic questions. Age, party, race and ethnicity, region, and household language come from the voter file. **Weighting.** Results were weighted to match the full population of about 15.2 million voters who meet the vote-history standard, including those without a cellphone, by age, race and ethnicity, gender, party registration, region, urbanicity, education, and household language. The weights also adjust for which voters were invited, whose messages were delivered, and who tended to respond. The weighted electorate is 48 percent Democratic, 28 percent Republican, and 24 percent independent or other; 17 percent live in Spanish-speaking households. **Margin of error.** The margin of error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level, adjusted for weighting. It is about plus or minus 3.5 points for the two questions asked in split versions, including the insurance commissioner test, and larger for subgroups: 3.5 points for Democrats, 4.8 for Republicans and 5.2 for independents. **Undecided voters.** "Not sure" was offered as an answer on every question, in a randomized position. That is deliberate. It produces more undecided responses than surveys where respondents must volunteer that they don't know, and it is what makes it possible to study who the undecided voters are. **Likely outcomes.** The likely outcomes in this story are estimates, not forecasts. For each contest, a statistical model was fitted to voters who have made a choice, using their party registration, the party they trust more, age, race and ethnicity, gender, region, voting history, their stated intention to vote and finish the ballot, and their answers to related questions. The model then estimated how undecided voters with the same characteristics would likely vote. Ranges combine the margin of error with a 10-point swing in how undecided voters break. The insurance commissioner estimates are much less certain than the others, because most voters who saw only the candidates' names were undecided. **Limitations.** This is a text-message survey that voters chose to answer. About 3 in 1,000 voters who were sent an invitation completed it, and voters without a cellphone on file, about 28 percent of the target population, are represented only through weighting. Weighting reduces but cannot fully remove differences between voters who responded and those who did not. The margin of error does not capture those differences or the effects of question wording. Independent voters include No Party Preference, American Independent Party, and all other minor-party registrants. All results are weighted percentages unless otherwise noted. June turnout figures are from the L2 California voter file with the certified 2026 primary loaded, counted against current registration. Data provided by L2, America's most trusted source of nonpartisan voter data. [Full technical methodology, including complete question wording in English and Spanish](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1auV6zgZWmLjLrOKYw6PbTJP0O2lWLCWsoFRNkBSwYKE/edit?tab=t.0&ref=ivn.us). [Toplines and crosstabs](https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/10d16530-96ab-4a7f-b793-52a0c6f936d4/page/4ARxF?ref=ivn.us). *Candidate photos used with this poll: Xavier Becerra, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (public domain); Steve Hilton, Policy Exchange,* [*CC BY 2.0*](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=ivn.us)*, via Wikimedia Commons.* ### Pennsylvania’s Closed Primary Wall Just Took a Major Hit URL: https://ivn.us/pennsylvanias-closed-primary-wall-just-took-a-major-hit/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T21:42:04.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* Ten years in the making. A bipartisan breakthrough. And a huge step toward opening Pennsylvania’s primaries. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/ballot-pa.jpg) This week, the Pennsylvania House [passed **HB 280** in a bipartisan](https://www.abc27.com/pennsylvania-politics/pennsylvania-house-passes-bipartisan-open-primaries-bill/?ref=ivn.us), moving legislation forward that would allow the state’s 1.5 million independent voters to participate in primary elections. Open Primaries has been fighting for this moment for a decade, working in partnership with [**Ballot PA Action**](https://www.bpaction.org/?ref=ivn.us)**, its founder and Open Primaries national spokesperson David Thornburgh,** and grassroots activists from Pittsburgh to Philly on both legislation and litigation to break down Pennsylvania’s closed-primary system. [Pennsylvania House Votes to Open Primaries — While 63 Legislative Races Have No November ContestPennsylvania’s House passed a bill to open primaries to 1.5 million independent voters, but in 63 legislative races this year, only one candidate is running in November, making the primary the only real election.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-0087b26a-f137-4a54-893d-124ce3f945a9.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-a21bfe25-c7d8-4302-a9b7-ee38f9065f35-5779c41b-2614-4dd3-a446-d7a637b52f13.jpg)](https://ivn.us/pennsylvania-house-votes-to-open-primaries-while-63-legislative-races-have-no-november-contest/) Now, that decade of work has produced a House-passed bill. Open Primaries also named **Rep. Jared Solomon (D)** and **Rep. Valerie Gaydos (R)** its inaugural **“Champions of Independent Voters,”** recognizing their bipartisan leadership that helped bring HB 280 across the House. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/solomon-gaydos.png) Pennsylvania is the **Keystone State—and this is a keystone moment.** With independent voters now the largest segment of the American electorate, what happens in Pennsylvania will be watched far beyond its borders. The fight now moves to the Senate. ## What We're Reading ### DO VOTING RIGHTS ONLY MATTER WHEN THE VOTERS ARE DEMOCRATS? That’s the question I am forcing New York’s progressive establishment to confront in a [new *New York Daily News* op-ed](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=WETKJJPgqdDCdSTMOAIakHjZz4Vd0Fcr5NeIOS08XR897SWX3inG4s1MSVutJhfizJNEkFNxgRo7OJp75l58EN2ZlA8-qH4b7GxqegAKbQA&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F130&n=4). More than **1.2 million independent New Yorkers—including over 600,000 people of color—are shut out of the city’s primary elections.** Yet many of the same politicians and organizations that have made voting rights central to their progressive identity are defending that exclusion. I put [the contradiction front and center](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=WETKJJPgqdDCdSTMOAIakHjZz4Vd0Fcr5NeIOS08XR897SWX3inG4s1MSVutJhfizJNEkFNxgRo7OJp75l58EN2ZlA8-qH4b7GxqegAKbQA&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F130&n=5): ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/gruber-NYDaily-quote.jpg) ## **Litigation** ### THE FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENTS IS GROWING IN THE COURTS ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/ny-open-primaries-lawsuit-group.jpg) Paul Rieckhoff of [Independent Veterans of America](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us) and Chad Peace of the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) have filed a [federal lawsuit challenging New York’s exclusion of independent voters](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/rieckhoff-iva-sue-new-york-open-closed-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) from its primary elections. They are joined by [Veterans for All Voters](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?ref=ivn.us). The legal team and their supporters gathered in downtown NYC to commemorate the event. [Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Sue New York After Being Denied the Right to VoteIraq and Afghanistan war veterans are suing New York over its closed primary system, arguing that independent voters are being denied equal voting rights in publicly funded elections.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-0dbff142-a48e-4005-9a20-7563d4faca08.png)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-6e952a04-7cf5-4eae-9544-53437fb9ab64-12b5af6b-fcbf-4e56-91c7-7d2d2a6bcfcd.png)](https://ivn.us/veterans-of-iraq-and-afghanistan-wars-sue-new-york-after-being-denied-the-right-to-vote/) The case joins a growing number of constitutional challenges in states across the country, including **Maryland and Oregon**. New York is not an isolated case-it is the latest chapter in a growing national legal movement for open primaries and independent voter rights. [Learn more at the Open Primaries Litigation Portal.](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) ## **Did You Know** ### **MORE VOTERS VOTE IN OPEN PRIMARIES** [Fresh findings](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/the-2026-midterms-primary-turnout-trends/?ref=ivn.us) from the Bipartisan Policy Center demonstrate that **open primaries consistently drive stronger voter participation than closed systems** throughout the 2026 midterm elections—reinforcing a clear trend [highlighted in earlier BPC research](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/the-effect-of-open-primaries-on-turnout-and-representation/?ref=ivn.us). ## **What We're Talking About** ### GENZ IS INDEPENDENT. POLITICS ISN’T LISTENING. A [new CIRCLE study](https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/young-independents-diverse-disaffected-and-doubtful-their-votes-power?ref=ivn.us) reveals just how badly America’s political system is failing a generation that increasingly sees itself as independent. **56% of Gen Z identifies as independent—and half of those young independents are people of color.** Yet only **38% say they are extremely likely to vote in 2026, and just 37% believe their vote matters.** That disconnect should be impossible to ignore. Young independents are **racially diverse, economically stressed and deeply concerned about the cost of living, healthcare, housing and jobs.** They aren’t disengaged because they have nothing to say. They’re disengaged because too many don’t see a political system built to hear them. **A generation that increasingly rejects party labels deserves elections that don’t force voters into them.** ## **In The News** **New York:** [Open the primaries to independent voters](https://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/commentary-open-primaries-independent-voters-22442707.php?ref=ivn.us). **Pennsylvania**: [PA’s Closed Primaries Close Out Democracy. It’s Time to Open Them.](https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/guest-commentary-pa-closed-primaries-open-them/?ref=ivn.us) **South Carolina**: [South Carolina’s elections should serve voters — not political parties.](https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/sc-close-primaries-republican-party-serve-voters/article%5F29c4c5f6-c5e4-489f-a8c7-0c32af9ae285.html?ref=ivn.us) **National**: [Cassidy Introduces Bill to Strengthen Election Security, Give Accountability to Voters.](https://www.cassidy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cassidy-introduces-bill-to-strengthen-election-security-give-accountability-to-voters/?ref=ivn.us) ## **In Case You Missed It** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/independents-should-vote-in-primaries.png) A [new Unite America poll](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/new-poll-voters-say-primaries-reward-partisan-bases-sideline-ordinary-voters?ref=ivn.us) tells a remarkably simple story: 43% say primaries reward the most partisan voters, while 62% say wealthy donors and special interests have too much influence—and only 13% say ordinary voters do. No wonder 71% say independents should be able to vote in primaries. When just 9.4% of eligible voters effectively decide 88% of House seats, the message is hard to miss: voters want their voice back. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/LetUsVote--2-.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/10/LetUsVotePhone.png) ### **Welcome Independents!** This is an exciting moment for independent voters. We are the fastest-growing segment of the electorate, and in many states we outnumber either major party. More importantly, independents are beginning to organize and make our voices heard—from legislative hearing rooms in Maryland and Delaware to the streets of New York City and the pages of *USA Today*. But most independents still don’t know how many of us there are—or the power we have to change how politics works. And millions of us still don’t have full voting rights in the primary elections we pay for and participate in. That changes when independents start talking to each other. There is no substitute for person-to-person connection. **That’s how movements are built.** If you ever watched the TV detective series, *Harry Bosch*, you will remember the sign above his desk: *Get off your ass and go knock on doors!* Okay, a little revision: S*it on your ass and make some phone calls!* We have more than 3,300 independents who recently joined our movement, and we need your help to welcome them. Join our inaugural **Welcome Independents! National Phonathon**. No experience required—just a willingness to pick up the phone and connect with a fellow independent. **Phonathons:** - Sunday, November 8, 2:30–5:00 PM - Sunday, December 9, 6:00–8:30 PM **Trainings:** - Wednesday, October 28, 6:00–8:30 PM - Monday, November 2, 6:00–8:30 PM - Wednesday, December 2, 6:00–8:30 PM [**Register here**.](https://airtable.com/appEJ6Z8W5lNgjrVl/shruw0yOYEnQX09xI?ref=ivn.us) And if you can’t join us on the phones, please pick up when we call. **The movement starts with us talking to each other.** ### OpenSecrets Tears Down the Wall Between State and Federal Money Data URL: https://ivn.us/opensecrets-tears-down-the-wall-between-state-and-federal-money-data/ Last updated: 2026-10-02T18:06:48.000Z Polling shows most Americans are concerned about the impact money has in politics. Ask any voter, Republican, Democrat, or independent, and they are likely to tell you that there is too much cash being injected in state and federal elections. However, tracking all that money has traditionally meant knowing where to look. It meant several Google searches and opening 19 different browser tabs to identify how much money is being spent, where it is being spent, and who is spending it. Federal campaign contributions might be found in one database. State races in another. And some information is not easily obtained because it requires navigating a complex labyrinth of disclosure rules and bureaucracy. Now, OpenSecrets is trying to make the process easier. The nonpartisan organization announced this week the launch of a new public dashboard that combines historical state and federal political finance data [into a single searchable platform](https://www.opensecrets.org/state-profiles?ref=ivn.us). [217 Million Voters, One Chat Box: New AI Tool Opens Up the Voter FileA new AI chatbot called Voter Count lets anyone ask plain-English questions about 217 million registered voters, making demographic and voting data accessible without expensive contracts or technical expertise.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-b6295757-5d72-4ab9-95e4-5cc84f054325.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/US-voter-file-d3583912-8cb4-44e2-903b-fbbb2a9d62e3.jpg)](https://ivn.us/217-million-voters-one-chat-box-new-ai-tool-opens-up-the-voter-file/) The stated goal is to allow journalists, researchers, and voters to follow money across different levels of government in one, easy-to-access location. “Understanding how money influences politics shouldn't require a degree in data science or dozens of browser tabs,” OpenSecrets Executive Director Hilary Braseth said. The dashboard allows users to look at broad spending and contribution trends while also digging deeper into individual jurisdictions and donors. OpenSecrets says users can analyze financial activity in gubernatorial, legislative, and judicial elections alongside federal contests. Users can also filter contribution data by characteristics including geography, industry, employer, gender, and donation size. According to OpenSecrets, it is the first time its federal and state campaign finance information has been aggregated into a single unified platform, which could be useful for people who want to track monied interests that operate across multiple levels of government. And across state borders. For example, a company, advocacy group, or network of individual donors may be active in congressional elections while also putting money into state legislative contests. The new platform could help make it easier to identify patterns. The endeavor is the culmination of a merger that happened 5 years ago. The Center for Responsive Politics, which was best known for tracking money in federal politics through OpenSecrets, merged with the National Institute on Money in Politics in 2021\. The latter specialized in state campaign finance data. The combined organization became OpenSecrets. “When the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute for Money in Politics merged to form OpenSecrets, our vision was to eliminate the artificial wall between federal and state political spending data,” OpenSecrets Board Chairman Daniel Doktori said. The organization says this is just the beginning. It plans to update its dashboard with current state election data, additional ballot measure tracking and information related to the 2028 presidential election. The dashboard is free and available through OpenSecrets’ State Profiles section. ### Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Sue New York After Being Denied the Right to Vote URL: https://ivn.us/veterans-of-iraq-and-afghanistan-wars-sue-new-york-after-being-denied-the-right-to-vote/ Last updated: 2026-10-05T16:42:44.000Z **NEW YORK CITY** — Outside the Southern District of New York courthouse in Foley Square, Independent Veterans of America Founder Paul Rieckhoff and Army veteran Kristen Rouse, along with their attorneys, announced a lawsuit Wednesday challenging New York's continued use of closed partisan primaries. The suit was officially filed Thursday. Independent Veterans of America and the Independent Voter Project joined the suit as organizational plaintiffs. The case is *Rieckhoff v. Berger*, No. 26-cv-08655. It is part of a movement started by Rieckhoff and the Independent Voter Project called [Let Vets Vote](https://letvetsvote.org/?ref=ivn.us), which demands equal voting rights for the more than 3.1 million New York voters registered without a party, including an estimated 140,000 military veterans. At its core, the suit asks the court a basic question: Does the right to vote derive from citizenship or from joining a private political party? The goal is to set a constitutional precedent that every voter has a right to meaningful participation in publicly funded and administered elections. "We are suing the state that we love because we want it to be better," Rieckhoff said. "The way our elections are working right now is unfair, un-American, unpopular, and we would argue unlawful and unconstitutional." Independent Voter Project legal strategist Chad Peace, who is lead counsel for the plaintiffs, noted in the press conference that the question before the court is being litigated in different ways across the country. There are lawsuits challenging the use of closed primaries in [Maryland, Wyoming, and Oregon](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us). Rieckhoff's case was also filed not long after a retired Florida attorney, Michael J. Polelle, [brought the matter all the way to the steps of the US Supreme Court](https://ivn.us/retired-attorney-takes-voting-rights-case-all-way-supreme-court-himself-2025-09-09/). [The Voting Rights Case That Could Turn Both Parties Against the Supreme CourtOne question is playing out in courtrooms, on ballots, and in legislatures across the country: who controls primary elections, the parties or the voters. Only SCOTUS can settle it, and when it does, it will put both parties on one side and the voters on the other.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-39513946-cb6b-47e7-a9a9-1fe1f4bfaa61.png)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/3DW4C9D-c332c21c-91fc-4bd0-88e3-013dec743896.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/) The Court considered the petition at conference but ultimately declined to grant the writ of certiorari. The foundation for all of these cases was laid out by the Independent Voter Project, which previously led similar legal efforts in [New Jersey](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/in-the-courtroom/balsam?ref=ivn.us) and [California](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/in-the-courtroom/boydston?ref=ivn.us). Rieckhoff is an Iraq War vet, a 9/11 first responder, and yet he has had to explain to his kids why he can't vote for mayor in NYC in the primaries or the next governor of the state. It's because he chooses to hold on to his political independence. Rouse took a different path and ended up in the same place. She served 32 years in the Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard, including three tours in Afghanistan. She founded the NYC Veterans Alliance and served as a Deputy Director of the New York State Division of Veterans' Services, now the Department of Veterans' Services. According to the complaint, Rouse never wanted to join a party. She enrolled as a Democrat in 2007 for one reason: it was the only way to vote in the primaries that decided who represented her in Brooklyn. In 2021, she switched to the Working Families Party, believing she could still vote in primaries. She couldn't. The party held no primaries in her districts, and her enrollment shut her out of the Democratic primaries that did. Last month, she withdrew from party enrollment entirely, and she will now be denied a ballot in every future primary. "I spent 32 years in uniform serving my country, not a political party. I shouldn't have to sign up with a party to vote in a public election," Rouse said. The primaries in New York are conducted in public schools and buildings. They are administered and overseen by public election workers. They use public voting machines. Yet, Rieckhoff and Rouse are denied the right to vote in them. "My 11-year-old looked at me and said, 'Dad, that's messed up,'" Rieckhoff said. > *"Independents should have the same right to vote as people who join a party." - Paul Rieckhoff, Founder and CEO of Independent Veterans of America* As [previously analyzed on IVN](https://ivn.us/7-of-voters-just-decided-for-the-other-93/), the impact closed primaries have on the democratic process can be most egregiously seen in New York. Only 7% of voters turn out, most districts are safe for one party, and about a third of elections go uncontested entirely. While those who defend the use of closed primaries (and call them the ["domain of private political parties"](https://ivn.us/pennsylvania-house-votes-to-open-primaries-while-63-legislative-races-have-no-november-contest/)) assert that they are not "formal elections," history and hard data show they are often the *only* elections that matter. [The Veteran Suing New York for the Right to Vote (Paul Rieckhoff) | EP61A combat veteran and 9/11 first responder sues New York over its closed primary system that bars independents from voting, arguing it amounts to disenfranchisement on public property with public funds.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-3c8c92cc-7546-4f40-bb7e-eb0d80a79ea5.png)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Podcast![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-e7b95445-1eca-456f-ad10-182e0ad1deca-57dc18c1-5ae3-4a2f-a736-d2369e62f58c.jpg)](https://ivn.us/podcasts/the-veteran-suing-new-york-for-the-right-to-vote-paul-rieckhoff-ep61/) Rieckhoff says he isn't just suing New York on behalf of himself. He is suing on behalf of veterans like him and Rouse, who are more likely than any other segment of the population to be registered independent. Yet, despite their service, they are treated like second-class voters. "Veterans, 9/11 first responders, so many of us who have served our country and bled for this country and this state and this city should not be denied an equal right to vote," he remarked. But he also explained that this case goes beyond veterans. Beyond independent voters. He said this is about all Americans and making the democratic process in the US "better and fair." He promised that while this may start in New York, it's not going to end there. **Read the full complaint:** [ **Rieckhoff v. Berger: NY Closed Primary Complaint** PDF · 32 pages · 385 KB Open PDF ↗ ](https://ivn.us/content/files/2026/10/Rieckhoff-v-Berger-NY-Closed-Primary-Complaint.pdf) *Disclosure: IVN.us is co-published by the Independent Voter Project, a plaintiff in this case. Chad Peace, IVP's legal strategist, is lead counsel for the plaintiffs.* ### The Veteran Suing New York for the Right to Vote (Paul Rieckhoff) | EP61 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/the-veteran-suing-new-york-for-the-right-to-vote-paul-rieckhoff-ep61/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:35.000Z Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Independent Veterans of America and now the face of a growing independent-veteran movement, just became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against New York State's closed primary system, and he's joined by his attorney (and IVP host) Chad Peace to explain why. Paul tells the personal story that pushed him into this fight: walking his kids to their New York City public school on primary day and having to explain to them why dad, a combat veteran and 9/11 first responder, isn't allowed to vote. Chad, Cara McCormick, and Shawn Griffiths connect that story to the bigger picture, including how Zohran Mamdani's administration and the Democratic Socialists of America have blocked open primary reform through New York's Charter Revision Commission, and how Texas Republicans are now trying to close their own primaries for the opposite partisan reason. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/the-veteran-suing-new-york-for-the-right-to-vote-paul-rieckhoff?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Q0zfWPhpDbixy8708Ke7o?si=xNaQFjSMS%5FOVKmWFV7qbuA&ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veteran-suing-new-york-for-the-right-to-vote/id1680559155?i=1000792601150&ref=ivn.us)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, host **Chad Peace** welcomes **Paul Rieckhoff**, founder of **Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America** and now **Independent Veterans of America**, who has become lead plaintiff in a new lawsuit against **New York State's closed primary system**, with Chad serving as his attorney. Paul traces his path from 25 years leading veteran advocacy (passing the **new GI Bill**, VA reform, burn pit legislation) to founding **Independent Americans**, after years of surveys showing more post-9/11 veterans identifying as independent rather than Democrat or Republican. He shares the personal moment that drove him to join the suit: walking his kids to their **New York City public school** on primary day and having to explain why he, a combat veteran and **9/11 first responder**, isn't allowed to vote in an election held on public property with public funds. Cara McCormick and Chad connect Paul's story to the mechanics of the system, noting that in New York the primary is effectively the real election, so barring independents from voting there amounts to disenfranchisement, the core legal claim behind the lawsuit filed at **letvetsvote.org**. Shawn Griffiths links the fight to New York's **Charter Revision Commission**, explaining how **Zohran Mamdani's** administration and the **Democratic Socialists of America**, after riding a low-turnout closed primary to power, have since blocked open primary reform that had momentum under the prior **Adams administration**. The conversation broadens into a national frame: Shawn and Paul note **Texas Republicans** are pushing in the opposite direction, suing to close their own primaries, while a judge recently paused that case pending legislative action, illustrating how both parties weaponize closed primaries for partisan advantage. Paul makes the closing case that open primaries are a civil rights and equality issue on par with past veteran fights like burn pits and the GI Bill, pointing to the **45% of Americans** who now identify as independent as a rising political force he hopes will reach the **Supreme Court**. ### Let Vets Vote. 3.1 Million New Yorkers Locked Out of Primaries. Rieckhoff & IVA Files Landmark Lawsuit URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/let-vets-vote-3-1-million-new-yorkers-locked-out-of-primaries-rieckhoff-iva-files-landmark-lawsuit/ Last updated: 2026-10-07T15:11:19.000Z Paul Rieckhoff is on the courthouse steps in Foley Square, filing a landmark lawsuit against the state of New York on behalf of 3.1 million unaffiliated voters locked out of the primaries that actually decide elections. Joined by Independent Voter Project counsel Chad Peace, lead New York litigator Sam Gregory, and 32-year Army veteran Kristen Rouse, this is the launch of Let Vets Vote — a national effort by Independent Veterans of America to open closed primaries across America, starting in the state with the most restrictive rules in the country. The core question in front of the court: does the right to vote come from citizenship, or from joining a political party? Independent is an Attitude. Stay vigilant. **Get the latest episodes of Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff on the podcast's** [**YouTube channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentamericans?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### Independent Voters Decide Elections. What Do They Get in Return? URL: https://ivn.us/independent-voters-decide-elections-what-do-they-get-in-return/ Last updated: 2026-09-30T19:35:54.000Z *Editor's Note: The following commentary piece* [*originally published*](https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/independent-politics?ref=ivn.us) *on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN in partnership with the publication.* The midterms are six weeks away, and polls predict that [independent voters](https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/independent-voters-primaries?ref=ivn.us), who broke for Donald Trump in 2024, are planning on voting for Democrats by wide margins. Among Latinos, the numbers are staggering, to the point that the Republican gerrymanders in Florida and Texas may actually result in Democratic victories. If the Democrats take control of Congress, it will be because of independents. And what do independents get in return? Almost nothing. We do get to send a message, particularly to President Trump. We do get to create a divided government and restore some sense of balance (or at least stalemate) between the two warring parties. Just like in 2006, when independents gave control of Congress to the Democrats as a repudiation of George Bush’s war in Iraq, there is benefit to swinging the outcome and sending a message to the party in charge. But it's not enough. Not when our country is struggling in so many ways. Not by a long shot. America’s Independents are in a funny, almost absurd, position. We are the largest and fastest growing segment of the electorate - CNN has us at 48%. We decide the outcome of all major elections. If any other group of voters had these kind of numbers, and this capacity to decide outcomes, they would be courted by both parties. But not independents. We swing elections and then are ignored. The day after the election, the Democrats will most likely break out the champagne. They will start congratulating their donors and interest groups. Independents won’t get a call. We won’t have our “what can we do for you?” moment. In fairness, the Democrats and Republicans CAN’T ask that question. Why? Because the answer is that we want to change the political game. And that’s not something either party is eager to entertain. Independents must take matters into our own hands. Neither party wants to make a deal with us. They want our votes, but they don’t want a partnership. So we have to apply the pressure - in many different ways. By pushing to end the partisan control of our primary system, of our election administration (including the office of Secretary of State), the Federal Election Commission, and the debates. By insisting that the media take us seriously. By running independent candidates and supporting pro-independent Democrats and Republicans. By defending the ballot initiative process - and more. We have to apply tons of pressure on a decaying-but-powerful two party system. And we have to build the independent campaigns, candidacies, organizations, committees and coalitions that allow us to excel in the pressure business. When 20 independent voters show up at a hearing in Annapolis, Maryland to testify in favor of Delegate Lily Qi’s bill to allow independents to vote in primaries, they are building and flexing political muscle and saying (without saying) “*you want our votes so you can control Congress? Well we want something in return. We want in. We want to reshape the political conversation in this country so that it benefits ordinary people, not special interests. Let us in!”* When Seth Bodnar, the president of the University of Montana, says *I want to serve the people of Montana, not be a cog in a partisan machine, so I’m running for US Senate as an independent”* he is inviting Montantans to not just change who represents them, but HOW they are represented. Our movement is growing. But the major parties are smart. They know that if independents ever got organized we could change the game in significant ways. So years ago they did something really smart to stop - or at least slow down - the growth of an independent movement. It was so small, and so elegant, that most people never noticed. They invented the concept of the “leaner.” Half the country is not on team red or blue. That’s a bad look for both parties, so they recruited smartypants political scientists to redefine these pesky nonconformists. The scientists eagerly created a genius (and highly unscientific) sleight of hand: *“All these people identify as independent, but if they tend to favor one major party over the other, we can redefine them as Democrat Leaners or Republican leaners and presto - no more independents!* Brilliant. And deadly. The “independents as partisan leaners” framework is not just wrong, it is destructive on two levels. First, it obscures the fact that more and more Americans are distancing themselves from the major parties. There should be a national conversation about how to reshape our democracy to accommodate the changing desires of the American people. Instead, we get more partisan control, vitriol, and division. Secondly, it paralyzes independents. It sends a message that independents are not a real thing. As such, you can’t do business with them. You can’t hammer out a deal. They may be 48%, but you don’t have to give them anything to win their votes. If independents were legitimized, they would have negotiating power. As “leaners,” we are impotent and unseen. The key for the development of the independent movement is for independents to learn, through trial and error, how to shed the leaner label, apply pressure, and start extracting something for our votes. It will not be easy. Both parties are committed to gaslighting us. The journey from swinging outcomes to remaking politics is a tough one. But we independents need to learn how to do it. The country is depending on it. --- **John Opdycke** is the president of [Open Primaries](https://openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us), a national election reform organization. ### Pennsylvania House Votes to Open Primaries — While 63 Legislative Races Have No November Contest URL: https://ivn.us/pennsylvania-house-votes-to-open-primaries-while-63-legislative-races-have-no-november-contest/ Last updated: 2026-10-06T21:23:39.000Z **HARRISBURG, Pa.** —A bill that would open Pennsylvania’s taxpayer-funded primary elections to roughly 1.5 million independent voters passed the state Assembly Tuesday, despite vocal opposition from both sides of the political side. [House Bill 280 cleared the chamber in a 115-88 vote.](https://penncapital-star.com/campaigns-elections/bill-to-end-pennsylvanias-closed-primary-elections-passes-state-house/?ref=ivn.us) The legislation would implement semi-open primaries, meaning registered party members have to vote in their respective party’s primary, but [independent voters can choose between a Republican and Democratic ballot.](https://www.palegis.us/legislation/bills/text/HTM/2025/0/HB0280/PN0223?ref=ivn.us) Sixteen Republicans joined most House Democrats in supporting the reform. The bill now goes to the Republican-controlled state Senate. IVN has followed the proposal since it advanced from committee in 2025, when sponsors Jared Solomon and Chris Rabb, both Philadelphia Democrats, argued that independent voters should not be excluded from elections they fund through their tax dollars. During debate this week, Solomon told lawmakers that Pennsylvania's election system appears open and welcoming on the surface, but for unaffiliated voters, he said, "these voters are counted out each and every election." Republican and Democratic opponents of the bill argued that all eligible citizens can vote in the general election and that primary elections are the domain of private political parties to pick their nominees. Lawmakers who raised these arguments include Republican Rep. Wendy Fink of York County, “ “The primary is not an election in the purest form.” Democratic Rep. Greg Vitali of Delaware questioned why independent voters should have a say in choosing a party's nominee. But Pennsylvania’s legislative map conflicts with the notion that the primaries are not pure elections. In many cases, they are the only real election. ## **In 63 Legislative Races, There Is No November Competition** All 203 Pennsylvania House seats and 25 of the state's 50 Senate seats are on the ballot in 2026\. That is a total of 228 legislative elections. [Current candidate data compiled by MultiState](https://www.multistate.us/elections/state?st=PA&ref=ivn.us) show that 63 of those 228 general-election races, or 27.6%, are completely uncontested. In those districts, only one candidate is running in November. Sixty-five races lack a candidate from one of the two major parties, although two have another candidate on the ballot. It is true that there will be an election. It is true that all registered voters will be able to cast a ballot. However, in one out of every four legislative contests this year, there won’t be a competing candidate to consider in November. But that’s not the end of it. Spotlight PA [noted earlier this year](https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2026/05/pennsylvania-primary-election-results-legislature-2026-elections/?ref=ivn.us) that the number of genuinely competitive districts in the General Assembly has been shrinking, making the primary in many districts "the only serious election" a candidate faces before taking office. So, under these conditions, can anyone make the argument that primaries aren’t elections “in the purest form”? If a district is overwhelmingly Democratic or Republican — or if only one candidate appears on the November ballot — the election that determines who represents the district occurs months earlier, in a primary where more than a million independent voters cannot participate. HB 280 does not abolish partisan primaries or allow Democrats to vote in Republican primaries and vice versa. It would simply allow voters who belong to neither major party to choose one primary in which to participate. The bill’s fate at this point is uncertain. The Senate has little time left in the current legislative session, and Republican leaders have said additional election changes should be paired with expanded voter ID requirements. Still, Solomon has pointed out that the Republican-controlled Senate overwhelmingly passed similar open-primary legislation in 2019. ### Georgia Has 2 Million Independent Voters. Getting an Independent on the Ballot Is Another Story URL: https://ivn.us/georgia-has-2-million-independent-voters-getting-an-independent-on-the-ballot-is-another-story/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:50:14.000Z *Editor's Note: The following article* [*originally published*](https://thecurrentga.org/2026/09/26/georgias-third-party-candidates-struggle-for-ballot-access-local-independents-feel-impacts-acutely/?ref=ivn.us) *on The Current, an independent, in-depth and investigative journalism website for Coastal Georgia, and has been republished on IVN under a creative commons license.* Papers are scattered across the desk. Two cellphones sit to the side. Both details offer a glimpse into the many hats Rachael Thompson wears in Glynn County. “I was only supposed to be here for nine months, but everything just kept me here. All my jobs kept me here, and I kind of just grew to love our coastal ecosystems and the community,” said Thompson. The 36-year-old nonprofit leader has spent the past seven months juggling her duties as director of the [Glynn Environmental Coalition](https://www.glynnenvironmental.org/?ref=ivn.us) and wearing out shoe leather in an attempt to become an independent candidate for the [Glynn County District 4 School Board seat](https://www.glynn.k12.ga.us/200222%5F3?ref=ivn.us). ![Justin Taylor/The Current GA/CatchLight/Report for America](https://thecurrentga.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/20260915-elections-100-1024x683.jpg) Rachael Thompson in Brunswick on Sept. 15, 2026\. (Justin Taylor/The Current GA/CatchLight/Report for America) Yet Georgia’s hurdles for candidates unaffiliated with a major political party to appear on a ballot were too steep for her to surpass. Thompson carefully gathered hundreds of petition signatures to appear on the ballot, but her bid was denied after Glynn County Superior Court Judge Stephen Kelley determined she fell one signature short of the law. Of Georgia’s estimated 8.2 million voters, more than [2 million identify](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ga?ref=ivn.us) as independents or nonpartisan, representing 28% of the voting bloc, according to the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us), a California-based nonprofit that analyzes voter data. Nationwide, that [figure could be as high as 45%](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?ref=ivn.us). Yet in the Peach State, candidates who also see their values outside party structures find it nearly impossible to get traction. “Everybody's trying to figure out how to save democracy, and the best way to save democracy is by doing democracy, and that's what this person in Glynn County is doing,” said Cara McCormick from the Independent Voter Project. ### Third party challenges in Georgia While voters are trending independent, Georgia laws dating back to the 1940s keep third-party candidates and independents from gaining influence. A Mercer University Law Review paper described them as among the [harshest in the nation](https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2510&context=jour%5Fmlr&ref=ivn.us). Candidates from parties that failed to garner 20% in the last major election, such as the Libertarian or Green Party, and independents hoping to stand for non-statewide races must collect signatures from 5% of registered voters in their district to qualify for the general election ballot. For statewide positions such as governor or president, candidates must collect signatures from 1% of voters. The signature requirement has been challenged multiple times over the decades. In 2017, the Libertarian Party of Georgia filed a [lawsuit arguing](https://www.courthousenews.com/fight-over-ballot-access-in-georgia-hits-11th-circuit/?ref=ivn.us) that the signature requirement for independent candidates for U.S. House of Representatives races was unconstitutional. That case was filed on behalf of Martin Cowen, who was running for the 13th Congressional District seat. A year later, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision. ### Independents on the coast In local Coastal Georgia races, the signature requirement has been a hurdle for many — but not all. In 2020, attorney Keith Higgins [launched an independent campaign](https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-brunswick-georgia-elections-240992e8a543bbdacd04d44e024d4d91?ref=ivn.us) for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney race after the incumbent, Jackie Johnson, came under scrutiny after Ahmaud Arbery’s murder. Higgins collected signatures from Glynn, Camden, Wayne, Appling, and Jeff Davis, made it onto the ballot, and won. In 2024, Laura Khurana announced she would run for the At-Large County Commissioner Post 2 in Glynn. She needed 3,098 signatures from registered county voters and submitted more than 3,600\. The Board of Elections [ruled her bid a failure](https://thecurrentga.org/2024/07/31/glynn-election-board-claims-candidates-signatures-not-valid/?ref=ivn.us) because 1,000 signatures did not meet the legal standard for candidate petitions. ![](https://thecurrentga.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Laura-Khurana-e1722451584427-878x1024.jpg) Laura Khurana's bid to run as an independent for a Glynn County Commission seat hit a roadblock this week. “The truth is that one in every three voters is nonpartisan. They have chosen not to be affiliated with either of the two major political parties, but there is a barrier to an independent getting on the ballot,” said McCormick. In McIntosh County, Bradley Smith [qualified to run as an independent](https://votebradleysmith.com/?ref=ivn.us) for the McIntosh District 1 County Commission seat in the November election after meeting the 108-signature threshold. Smith is also running a campaign focused on transparency. This fall, [James Daniels announced](https://www.facebook.com/groups/1236768904406037/permalink/1542572453825679/?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=5jt0peIm9BAcUQHB#) he would run for Effingham County Commission District 5 as an independent write-in candidate, hoping public outrage over the [planned $20 billion](https://thecurrentga.org/2026/08/08/anatomy-of-a-secret-coastal-georgia-data-center-deal/?ref=ivn.us) OpenAI data center would help his bid succeed. Thompson, however, chose the signature route in her quest to win elected office in Glynn. She ran as a Democrat in 2022 for the same seat, but decided to forgo a party label in 2026\. “One of the things that I heard in my first campaign was that people were looking for something different, and they were looking for someone who was willing to represent them, and not a national political party,” Thompson said. “And so I actually say that the reason why I decided to run as an independent is that I listened to the people that I engaged with in my first campaign, and I responded to what they were asking, which is what public service officials are supposed to do.” The race had attracted both a Republican and a Democrat. Thompson’s path to get on the ballot was rocky from the start. Thompson’s Republican opponent, Lori Kozlowski, a local Realtor with Coldwell Banker Access Realty, said she respects the petition process and believes the discussion of the 5% threshold is more of a policy conversation than a matter of how laws are currently administered. “I think you have to find a balance, because I do think it should be a meaningful enough number to show that a candidate has some level of support within the community, but then at the same time, it shouldn't create an unreasonable barrier either for someone who does want to serve,” she said. The Democratic candidate in the race, Craig Campbell, Senior Pastor at Zion Baptist, said that the signature-gathering process is stringent and that he supports it. “If it was not a process, that has governance. You may have 30 to 50 candidates attempting to qualify as independents. So it has to be compliance and governance in that process,” Campbell said. Neither the Democratic Party of Georgia nor the Georgia Republican Party responded to requests for comments by the time of publication. ### How hard can it really be? Depending on the office and location, petition signature requirements for a third-party candidate can range from hundreds to hundreds of thousands. The number is only one part of the equation—gathering signatures is also fraught with obstacles. From people wary of someone approaching them with a clipboard and fearing scams to the many intricacies involved, the process becomes infeasible for some. Thompson was required to gather 508 signatures, all from residents of District 4 of Glynn County. “It's not easy. It doesn't sound like a lot — 600 signatures — but I've been through signature-gathering efforts, and they are hard,” McCormick said. Thompson said she started canvassing in February, knocking on more than 1,000 doors, and she went to community events all over town. Her petition numbers were growing. But for added security, she went back to people who may have only printed or signed to ensure that they did both. The process could be sabotaged by simple mistakes, such as signing their own sheet, in which case the entire page of valid signatures could be tossed in the trash. Thompson was working from home when she got a phone call from the Board of Elections. The first words she heard were that she was six short. “I was definitely pretty surprised. I knew it was going to be close,” she said. The Board of Elections must follow the state charter, which requires officials to manually verify each signature against official documents, such as a state-issued identification card. It also requires verifying the signers' addresses against state records. ![Justin Taylor/The Current GA/CatchLight/Report for America](https://thecurrentga.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/20260915-elections-102-1024x683.jpg) The Glynn County Board of Elections building in Brunswick on Sept. 15, 2026\. Matt Weiss, an elections lawyer and the General Counsel for the Democratic Party of Georgia, said that independent candidates should get legal counsel who knows Georgia’s complex rules to increase chances of success. “If you're going to mount a campaign, you know it's important that you know the rules so you can comply with them,” he said. “And on top of that, you should probably aim to get 10% over whatever the minimum is, because you know there are people going to get thrown off.” McCormick of the Independent Voter Project sees no problem with Georgia’s requirement that candidates gather signatures to earn a spot on the ballot. What she says is unfair is that it applies only to third-party candidates. “The name of the game is to limit the competition from outside of the two-party system. So this is just what all of them do. This is totally normal. This is totally par for the course, whether or not it's right or wrong,” said McCormick. Back in Brunswick, Thompson has decided to keep up her bid for the school district race. She is now campaigning as a write-in candidate for the seat. Without appearing on the ballot, however, the path to victory is hard. Until November, she plans to increase her visibility by showing up at local football games and pretty much any other event that brings the community together. “It's America's 250th birthday this year, and if you look back at our founding fathers, they all said that a two-party system was not good for democracy,” she said. *Correction: Sept. 26\. 2026 2:55 p.m. A previous version of this story misspelled Rachael Thompson's first name as Rachel.* --- **Jabari Gibbs**, from Atlanta, Georgia, is The Current's full-time accountability reporter based in Glynn County. His work in Glynn County is a 2026 winner of the Society of Professional Journalists Green Eyeshade Award for government reporting. He is a Report For America corps member and a graduate of Georgia Southern University with a degree in communications. While at Georgia Southern, he was the Editor-in-Chief for The George-Anne Inkwell. ### 217 Million Voters, One Chat Box: New AI Tool Opens Up the Voter File URL: https://ivn.us/217-million-voters-one-chat-box-new-ai-tool-opens-up-the-voter-file/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:50:26.000Z **SAN DIEGO, Calif.**—Want to know how many independent voters live in a particular congressional district? Or get more specific and break down independent voters by demographics like age and gender or how many voted in the last two primaries. Until now, getting this information required access to specialized software, vendor contracts, and someone who knew how to query the voter file. However, a new platform launched Tuesday that wants to change all of that. L2 and IVC Media announced [Voter Count](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us), an AI tool that allows users to ask plain-English questions about L2’s highly regarded national voter file—covering more than 217 million registered voters—and receive answers in seconds. According to the companies, there is no need to write database queries. Users can ask questions conversationally and receive counts and breakdowns based on geography, party registration, demographics, and voting history. The implications are far-reaching and extend well beyond political campaigns. The launch announcement states that Voter Count is designed for campaign professionals, journalists, pollsters, researchers, advocacy organizations, and others who need voter statistics but may not have access to a dedicated data team. Or can cover the huge costs associated with more traditional methods. “It is time to democratize voter data,” said IVC Media President Chad Peace. Peace noted that getting reliable voter statistics traditionally required expensive contracts, consultants, and technical knowledge. But with Voter Count, a reporter on a deadline, a first-time candidate, or a university researcher can ask questions in ordinary language and get an answer from the national voter file. The system also includes access to a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server with certain plans, which allows compatible AI assistants to connect directly to outside data sources. In other words, subscribers can bring L2 data into other popular AI platforms like ChatGPT and Claude rather than relying on an AI model’s general training data or information it finds elsewhere. It is the difference between asking AI to estimate how many registered voters live in a district based on its general knowledge and allowing the AI to query the voter file itself for an aggregate answer. "L2 has spent over 50 years building a national voter file that major campaigns, universities, and newsrooms rely on for its accuracy," said L2 President Paul Westcott. > *"Voter Count puts that data behind a simple chat box and connects it to the AI platforms our industry is quickly adopting. We are proud to partner with IVC Media to build the technology to make our data even more accessible to everyone."* Both companies emphasize that the platform is not designed to provide users with individual voter records. Responses are limited to aggregated information. Voter Count does not return personally identifiable information or bulk voter-file exports, and queries operate in a secure environment that excludes personal information. The platform is available now at [VoterCount.ai](https://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us). The website includes prices for different plans with a 30-day free trial offered for the Starter plan. MCP access is available with Professional and Team subscriptions. ### Polls Hint at a Blue Wave. Are the Independents Riding it? URL: https://ivn.us/polls-hint-at-a-blue-wave-are-the-independents-riding-it/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:50:01.000Z With 5 weeks until Election Day, the national question of who should control Congress has moved clearly toward Democrats. Their lead in the [Silver Bulletin generic ballot average](https://www.natesilver.net/p/generic-ballot-average-2026-nate-silver-bulletin-congress-polls?ref=ivn.us) reached D+8.1 on September 28, which the site calls a high point for the party this cycle. The [likely-voter-adjusted version](https://www.natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-2026-midterm-election-polls-model?ref=ivn.us) of that average used in its forecast stands at D+9.2. That creates a clear test for the high-profile independent candidates as they face attacks that they're secretly Democrats in disguise. Dan Osborn, Seth Bodnar, Todd Achilles, Bill Hill, and Kevin Kiley each argue they are true independents and stand apart from the two parties. If poll respondents believe that to be true, their numbers should not simply rise and fall with the national partisan mood. If it is not, their standing should track the generic ballot like any other candidate in a nationalized midterm. So, what do the polls show us? ## The National Line The generic ballot has not risen steadily in a line, but it rather dipped and then rose again: | Checkpoint | Generic ballot | Source | | ---------- | -------------- | ------------------------------- | | May 28 | D+8.1 | RealClearPolitics | | June 22 | D+4.8 | RealClearPolitics | | Late July | D+6.0 | RCP (July 29) / Silver Bulletin | | Sept. 1 | D+6.7 | Silver Bulletin | | Sept. 28 | D+8.1 | Silver Bulletin | The Democratic lead peaked at D+8.1 in late May, fell to D+4.8 by June 22, and recovered to D+6.0 by late July. In July, [Silver's average showed a 6-point Democratic lead](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5984107-democratic-poll-leads-gop/?ref=ivn.us), while Decision Desk HQ had it closer to 4\. Silver's average then climbed from D+6.7 at the start of September to its current high of D+8.1. This trend gives us two swings to test against: a drop of about three points from late May to late June, and a rise of 3 to 4 points from late June to late September. ## Osborn: Nearly Flat Nebraska has the most polling of any race on this list. Osborn's share has barely changed. | Poll | Dates | Osborn | Ricketts | Margin | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ----------- | ------ | -------- | ------ | | [Impact Research](https://www.osbornforsenate.com/impactpoll?ref=ivn.us) (D) | Feb. 2–5 | 47 | 48 | R+1 | | GBAO (D) | April | 46 | 45 | I+1 | | [Tavern Research](https://www.tavernresearch.com/research-and-writings/nebraska-senate-poll?ref=ivn.us) (D) | May 8–11 | 47 | 42 | I+5 | | GBAO (D) | July | 47 | 47 | Tie | | Impact Research (D) | Aug. 9–13 | 47 | 47 | Tie | | [GBAO (D)](https://static.washingtonsun.com/38/fa/94e79558460286cbf3847a27e4b5/working-class-majority-pac-september-survey-memo-091826.pdf?ref=ivn.us) | Sept. 3–8 | 47 | 46 | I+1 | | [SurveyUSA](https://results.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=d94236a7-5861-4b7f-9d81-d5a81ab786cc&ref=ivn.us) | Sept. 8–13 | 46 | 42 | I+4 | | Wedgewood Polls | Sept. 14–16 | 48 | 52 | R+4 | Osborn has polled between 46% and 48% in every survey since February. He held that range while the national environment fell three points and while it climbed back. The [four major polling averages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%5FUnited%5FStates%5FSenate%5Felection%5Fin%5FNebraska?ref=ivn.us) now put the race between a tie and Osborn +0.9. While the results may be uncertain because of the polls sponsors (Democratic-aligned firms or groups backing Osborn), the stability is what to look at here. Those polled in Nebraska aren't shifting their opinion of Osborn with the national mood toward Democrats, showing that they view him as separate from that party. ### Bodnar: Moving with Bankhead (D), Not the Nation Montana is the one race where the independent's numbers have shifted significantly over the past months. That shift, however, maps onto the state's three-way split better than onto the national environment. | Poll | Dates | Alme (R) | Bodnar (I) | Bankhead (D) | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- | -------- | ---------- | ------------ | | Public Opinion Strategies (R) | June 8–11 | 44 | 20 | 25 | | Hart Research (D) | June 18–24 | 47 | 25 | 22 | | Tavern Research (D) | July 23–27 | 49 | 25 | 24 | | [GQR (D)](https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-07-28-exclusive-independent-leads-democrat-against-republican-montana?ref=ivn.us) | July 23–26 | 41 | 27 | 22 | | [Hart Research (Forward Montana)](https://forwardmontana.org/results-of-new-polling-on-the-montana-u-s-senate-election/?ref=ivn.us) | Aug. 1–4 | 45 | 30 | 15 | | [Peak Insights (Alme campaign)](https://www.semafor.com/article/09/08/2026/republican-exploits-divided-field-in-montana-senate-race?ref=ivn.us) | late Aug. | 44 | 22 | 19 | | [MTFP/Rutgers-Eagleton](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/09/11/alme-holds-an-8-point-lead-over-bodnar-in-senate-race/?ref=ivn.us) | Aug. 27–Sept. 7 | 38 | 30 | 16 | | [Quantus Insights](https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/17/exclusive-poll-republican-kurt-alme-holds-19-point-lead-montana-senate-race/?ref=ivn.us) | Sept. 14–15 | 43.6 | 24.3 | 23.1 | Bodnar's lowest numbers came in June, when the generic ballot was also at its low. On its own, that could look like a correlation. But June was also when Democrat Alani Bankhead had just won her primary and was polling in the mid-20s. As Bankhead's share slipped into the teens in August polling, Bodnar's rose to 30\. The [Montana Free Press/Rutgers poll](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/09/11/alme-holds-an-8-point-lead-over-bodnar-in-senate-race/?ref=ivn.us) is the only poll here that is neither partisan nor campaign-sponsored. The September Quantus poll cuts the other way. It shows Bankhead back to 23% and Bodnar at 24%, even as the national environment kept improving for Democrats. These results do suggest that a large number of Montana voters are deciding between Bodnar and Bankhead, but it's hard to map that onto how they're feeling about Democrats in general. Independents are leaning strongly toward Bodnar in the race, but they're also leaning strongly toward Democrats nationally. ### Achilles: The Polling Firm Effect Idaho produces the widest spread of any race in this analysis. | Poll | Dates | Achilles | Risch | Margin | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------- | -------- | ----- | ------ | | [Public Policy Polling](https://data.ddhq.io/polls/2026/03/21/Public-Policy-Polling-Idaho?ref=ivn.us) | March 16–17 | 34 | 48 | R+14 | | [Bullfinch Group](https://www.thebullfinchgroup.com/post/for-immediate-release-independent-todd-achilles-surges-on-informed-ballot?ref=ivn.us) | May 29–June 1 | 36 | 40 | R+4 | | Change Research (Stegner campaign) | July 28–30 | 21 | 45 | R+24 | | [Bullfinch Group](https://www.thebullfinchgroup.com/post/for-immediate-release-independent-todd-achilles-leads-incumbent-jim-risch-in-two-way-head-to-head-m?ref=ivn.us) | Aug. 4–7 | 38 | 33 | I+5 | | Peak Insights (R) | Aug. 11–13 | 18 | 52 | R+34 | | [Advanced Targeting Research](https://www.advancedtargetingresearch.com/%5Ffiles/ugd/03a624%5F0fca9a6dd7f846f7bc96f97429561064.pdf?ref=ivn.us) | Sept. 13–16 | 50 | 39 | I+11 | Two surveys taken one week apart in August differ by 39 points on the margin. Because the differences between firms are this large, no trend over time can be measured, national or otherwise. The polling averages reflect the same problem. [Race to the WH puts Risch ahead by 1.4 points, while Silver Bulletin has him ahead by 18.9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%5FUnited%5FStates%5FSenate%5Felection%5Fin%5FIdaho?ref=ivn.us). Whatever is happening in [Idaho's first head-to-head Senate race without a Democrat](https://ivn.us/the-democrat-is-out-in-idaho-now-its-independent-todd-achilles-vs-jim-risch/), the polling cannot yet show whether it follows the national mood. ### Hill: Moving Against the National Current In Alaska, the race went in the opposite direction from the generic ballot. | Poll | Dates | Hill | Begich | Margin | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------- | ---- | ------ | ------ | | Public Policy Polling (Hill campaign) | Feb. 11–12 | 37 | 41 | R+4 | | Tavern Research (D) | May 18–27 | 48 | 52 | R+4 | | [Data for Progress (D)](https://www.filesforprogress.org/datasets/2026/8/dfp%5Falaska%5Faug%5F2026.pdf?ref=ivn.us) | July 28–Aug. 4 | 37 | 47 | R+10 | | [GBAO (D)](https://punchbowl.news/hill-aug-polling-memo/?ref=ivn.us) | Aug. 3–5 | 42 | 46 | R+4 | | [AARP (Fabrizio Ward/Impact)](https://www.aarp.org/pri/topics/voter-research/politics/2026-midterm-election-poll-alaska/?ref=ivn.us), final RCV round | Sept. 8–11 | 43 | 57 | R+14 | Hill's first-choice support rose sharply over the summer. He polled at 11% to 13% in Alaska Survey Research's spring multi-candidate surveys, then [won 32.5% in the August top-four primary](https://ivn.us/an-independent-just-broke-through-in-alaska-as-republicans-try-to-kill-the-system-that-made-it-possible/). That jump came after [Democrat Matt Schultz dropped out and endorsed him](https://www.adn.com/politics/2026/07/17/democrat-matt-schultz-drops-out-of-alaskas-us-house-race/?ref=ivn.us). It was consolidation within the non-Republican vote, not a national wave. In the head-to-head numbers, Hill held a four-point deficit through early August. The September AARP survey, the only one commissioned by a bipartisan team rather than a Democratic-aligned sponsor, showed his widest deficit of the year. That came during the same weeks the national generic ballot hit its high. ### Kiley: No Data to Test There is no public general-election polling in California's 6th District. The only hard numbers come from the June top-two primary. [Kiley led the seven-candidate field with 24.3% to Democrat Richard Pan's 23.2%](https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article%5F2e4c6e91-20f3-4fe0-a4b6-576cd6e7bc65.html?ref=ivn.us), in a district that [Harris carried by nine points](https://www.aol.com/articles/kiley-swaps-safe-seat-shifting-212840486.html?ref=ivn.us). Kiley is the one candidate here whose race is framed almost entirely by partisan geography, and it has no polling to test against the generic ballot. [IVN's earlier profile](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) described the race as a test of whether the independent label can beat the gerrymander. Until someone polls it, that remains untested. Though Kalshi has had Democrat Richard Pan as a 90+% likely winner throughout this time period. ### Is There A Correlation? Not one the data can support. | Period | Generic ballot | Osborn | Bodnar | Achilles | Hill | | -------------------- | -------------- | --------- | ---------------- | -------------------- | ------------------ | | Late May→late June | Toward R | No change | At his low | No usable comparison | No June polling | | Late June→late Sept. | Toward D | No change | Up in most polls | Wide Pollster spread | Worse in September | Taken candidate by candidate: - **Osborn** held steady through both national swings. - **Bodnar's** movement is better explained by Bankhead's share than by the national environment. There is a connection between these shifts, but, if anything, it connects Bankhead with the Democrats and Bodnar with the independent voting bloc. - **Achilles's** polling varies too much between firms to show any trend. - **Hill** moved against the national current in September. - **Kiley** has no polling to test. The pattern that does hold across races is local. In every case where an independent's standing moved meaningfully, the cause was a change in who else was on the ballot: - In Alaska, Schultz's exit came before Hill's primary surge. - In Montana, Bankhead's decline tracked Bodnar's rise. - In Nebraska, Osborn has run head-to-head all year, and his numbers have not moved. The independent-voter crosstabs point the same way. Nationally, independents favor Democrats on the generic ballot by [16 points in NBC's average](https://ibtimes.com/democrats-hold-9-point-lead-generic-ballot-strong-support-among-independents-polls-3807896?ref=ivn.us), and by [29 and 25 points in a recent Emerson survey](https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/6112294-republican-vulnerabilities-midterm-outlook?ref=ivn.us). In Montana, the independents who favor Democrats nationally are going to the independent candidate over the Democratic nominee. The Montana Free Press poll shows it, and so does the Forward Montana-sponsored Hart survey, which found Bodnar leading Alme 56–30 among independents head-to-head while Bankhead trailed Alme with the same voters. ### What It Means The candidates have argued all year that they stand apart from the legacy parties. The polling so far suggests that voters are treating them as such. It might be time for their opponents to start treating them as such and start to engage with their ideas instead of their identities. ### Mamdani and Trump Agree on Major Voting Rights Issue URL: https://ivn.us/mamdani-and-trump-agree-on-major-voting-rights-issue/ Last updated: 2026-09-29T15:06:15.000Z On November 3, ranked choice voting goes on trial in three cities: **Irvine, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Longmont, Colorado**. [**No city in Hawaii uses ranked choice voting, and the state capital could be the first**](https://ivn.us/3-more-cities-are-about-to-put-ranked-choice-voting-to-the-test/). These are local questions about local elections, not the national party fights the pundits keep having. The appetite for reform is not subtle. A new poll finds 56% of voters want to replace closed party primaries, and here's why: [**just 9% of voters already picked your Congress**](https://ivn.us/9-of-voters-already-picked-your-congress-a-new-poll-says-everyone-else-is-fed-up/) in low-turnout primaries. That's why you don't want to miss IVP's big announcement on the latest episode of the [**Independent Voter Podcast**: *Trump and Mamdani Agree on this One Big Issue*](https://ivn.us/podcasts/trump-mamdani-agree-on-this-one-issue-not-what-you-think-ep60/)*.* Meanwhile, the legal walls keep closing in on the closers. A federal judge sent the Texas GOP’s bid to shut its primary back to the Legislature, and Jeremy Gruber asks the bigger question: [**is Texas the beginning of the end for closed primary lawsuits?**](https://ivn.us/is-texas-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-closed-primary-lawsuits/) Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## 3 More Cities Are About to Put Ranked Choice Voting to the Test [![Ranked choice voting ballot](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-2f393249-5401-4ba0-a66d-13b23c1bbcb0.jpg)](https://ivn.us/3-more-cities-are-about-to-put-ranked-choice-voting-to-the-test/) Irvine, Honolulu, and Longmont all vote on ranked choice voting November 3\. California already has 7 RCV cities and Colorado has 5, but **Honolulu could become the first city in Hawaii to adopt it**. Shawn Griffiths on what each contest will test. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/3-more-cities-are-about-to-put-ranked-choice-voting-to-the-test/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [Big Brother or Ballot Security? The Supreme Court Just Picked a Side, For Now ](https://ivn.us/big-brother-or-ballot-security-the-supreme-court-just-picked-a-side-for-now/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Big Brother or Ballot Security? The Supreme Court Just Picked a Side, For Now](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/supreme-court-justices-voting.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/big-brother-or-ballot-security-the-supreme-court-just-picked-a-side-for-now/) [Is Texas the Beginning of the End for Closed Primary Lawsuits? ](https://ivn.us/is-texas-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-closed-primary-lawsuits/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![Is Texas the Beginning of the End for Closed Primary Lawsuits?](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/ken-paxton-senate-GOP-convention-1.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/is-texas-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-closed-primary-lawsuits/) [9% of Voters Already Picked Your Congress. A New Poll Says Everyone Else Is Fed Up ](https://ivn.us/9-of-voters-already-picked-your-congress-a-new-poll-says-everyone-else-is-fed-up/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![9% of Voters Already Picked Your Congress. A New Poll Says Everyone Else Is Fed Up](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/image-aad88429-0491-4207-94b6-8f53ceb62273.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/9-of-voters-already-picked-your-congress-a-new-poll-says-everyone-else-is-fed-up/) [Did Trump's FBI Just Tip Maine and the Senate to Democrats? ](https://ivn.us/did-trumps-fbi-just-tip-maine-and-the-senate-to-democrats/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Did Trump's FBI Just Tip Maine and the Senate to Democrats?](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/Susan-Collins-Navatek.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/did-trumps-fbi-just-tip-maine-and-the-senate-to-democrats/) [AI Is Now Running a Super PAC. Its Target? Control of the US Senate ](https://ivn.us/ai-is-now-running-a-super-pac-its-target-control-of-the-us-senate/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![AI Is Now Running a Super PAC. Its Target? Control of the US Senate](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/image-54a7c27c-1033-466a-b00d-c816befec2a2.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/ai-is-now-running-a-super-pac-its-target-control-of-the-us-senate/) [Independent Candidates Are Taking Idaho by Storm in 2026 ](https://ivn.us/independent-candidates-are-taking-idaho-by-storm-in-2026/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Independent Candidates Are Taking Idaho by Storm in 2026](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/idaho-elections-boise-1.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/independent-candidates-are-taking-idaho-by-storm-in-2026/) [America Has an Uncontested Election Problem. Here’s What Can Be Done ](https://ivn.us/america-has-an-uncontested-election-problem-heres-what-can-be-done/) By Rafael Gonzalez, The Fulcrum [ ![America Has an Uncontested Election Problem. Here’s What Can Be Done](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/uncontested-elections-in-US.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/america-has-an-uncontested-election-problem-heres-what-can-be-done/) [On the Ballot, But Not the Stage: Illinois Independent Faces Familiar Debate Lock Out ](https://ivn.us/on-the-ballot-but-not-the-stage-illinois-independent-faces-familiar-debate-lock-out/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![On the Ballot, But Not the Stage: Illinois Independent Faces Familiar Debate Lock Out](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/image-b768dc52-41c1-4a86-bd5c-71b004048f27.png) ](https://ivn.us/on-the-ballot-but-not-the-stage-illinois-independent-faces-familiar-debate-lock-out/) ### *INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES ▶▶▶* ## Kevin Kiley Says He's Done Caucusing with Republicans. Senate Independents Want to Break the Caucus System Entirely [![Rep. Kevin Kiley](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/kevin-kiley-caucus-gop.jpg)](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-says-hes-done-caucusing-with-republicans-senate-independents-want-to-break-the-caucus-system-entirely/) The caucus system is not in the Constitution, but it is how party leadership controls Congress. Kevin Kiley says he is done caucusing with Republicans, and **Senate independents want to break the caucus system entirely**. Matt Shinners reports. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-says-hes-done-caucusing-with-republicans-senate-independents-want-to-break-the-caucus-system-entirely/) ### *VIRAL ▶▶▶* ## Fetterman Snaps: ‘I’m Not Going to Be a Republican’ [![Fetterman Snaps: ‘I’m Not Going to Be a Republican’](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/Fetterman_Elevator_Clip.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/DdW1j8MDAFL/?ref=ivn.us) Is John Fetterman switching parties? He says no, and he is out of patience with the question. Cornered at a Capitol elevator, the Pennsylvania Democrat snapped “I’m not going to be a Republican” and told reporters to “chill and wait for the midterm.” Whatever letter he keeps after his name, **Pennsylvania’s fully closed primaries shut out roughly 1.4 million voters from elections their taxes fund**, and a group of them, including broadcaster Michael Smerconish, is suing the state over it. [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/DdW1j8MDAFL/?ref=ivn.us) ### *EVENT ▶▶▶* ## New York: Let Vets Vote [![New York Let Vets Vote, September 30 at Fraunces Tavern](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/LetVetsVote_NYC_Flyer.png)](https://letvetsvote.org/?ref=ivn.us#signup) They swore an oath to defend the Constitution, then came home to a state that will not let them vote unless they join a party first. Join the Independent Voter Project and Independent Veterans of America this Wednesday, September 30 (6:30 to 8:30 PM) at Fraunces Tavern in New York City as we announce **a lawsuit challenging New York’s closed primaries, which shut out 3.6 million voters, about 270,000 of them veterans**. One room. One lawsuit. One coalition. [RSVP NOW](https://letvetsvote.org/?ref=ivn.us#signup) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## How Liberal Is Marin County, Really? Independent Voters Will Decide [![Marin County](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/marin-county-assembly-race.jpg)](https://ivn.us/how-liberal-is-marin-county-really-independent-voters-will-decide/) Cara Brown McCormick on the Marin County Assembly race: two Democrats, one seat, and **the independent voters who will decide how liberal Marin really is**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/how-liberal-is-marin-county-really-independent-voters-will-decide/) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast President Trump and NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani met cordially at Gracie Mansion while trading scorched-earth rhetoric in public. The Independent Voter Podcast digs into **the one issue the two actually agree on**, and it is not what you think. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Fg6gGre4c&ref=ivn.us) ### *VETERANS ▶▶▶* ## Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff Navy veteran Bob Chew left the GOP, joined the Forward Party, and is now **taking on John Hickenlooper and both major parties in Colorado**. Paul Rieckhoff sits down with the independent challenger. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7pHjlHqt40&ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### Can Democratic Socialists Push Jackie Elward Past Moderate Eric Lucan in Marin and Sonoma? URL: https://ivn.us/how-liberal-is-marin-county-really-independent-voters-will-decide/ Last updated: 2026-10-16T23:25:13.000Z **MILL VALLEY, Calif.** – Marin County has a reputation as one of America's most liberal bastions. This is where the Grateful Dead played its first show on LSD, at a [Muir Beach acid test](https://www.altaonline.com/culture/music-podcasts/a69511980/grateful-dead-acid-test-muir-beach/?ref=ivn.us), and where mountain biking was born. [Birkenstock](https://www.dwell.com/article/marin-birkenstock-building-eames-institute-design-and-art-museum-1cfef959?ref=ivn.us) has sold its sandals to Americans from here since 1971\. Marin parents once skipped kindergarten vaccines at the highest rate in the Bay Area. So there was never much doubt that Marin and Sonoma's next Assembly member would be a Democrat. The question this fall is what kind of Democrat will be elected. In most of the country, general election voters in gerrymandered Democratic Party territories never get to answer that question. The party primary voters pick one Democrat; the Republican will surely lose, and so the November election is a formality. California is different. Here, a top-two primary sends the two strongest finishers to the general election regardless of party. This year, in Assembly District 12, which takes in all of Marin and southern Sonoma, both candidates are Democrats. [Jackie Elward](https://www.jackie4assembly.com/about?ref=ivn.us), a Rohnert Park councilmember, is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. [Eric Lucan](https://www.ericlucan.com/?ref=ivn.us), a Marin County supervisor, is a liberal Democrat, just not as liberal as Elward. November will be a true competition, and either candidate could win, because the deciding votes in this campaign belong to people outside either party. Roughly 82,000 independent and No Party Preference voters live in the district, and their choice between the labor-backed councilwoman and the business-backed supervisor will settle it. ## **Assembly District 12** ### **Eric Lucan (D) vs. Jackie Elward (D)** Six candidates ran in June for the seat Damon Connolly is vacating, which Mike McGuire's term limits left open in the state Senate. Marin County Supervisor Eric Lucan led the field with 28.28 percent. Rohnert Park City Councilmember Jackie Elward, who trailed in third place until late-arriving ballots were counted, finished second with 22.58 percent. Republican Eryn Cervantes, a San Quentin correctional counselor, took third at 19.4 percent. Turnout was 50.65 percent, with 160,336 votes cast out of 316,533 registered voters. ### **Democratic Party Leaders Are Split** Lucan has the backing of Rep. Jared Huffman, who told the Marin Independent Journal he has "zero hesitation" supporting him. Lucan's campaign counts five sitting supervisors from Marin and Sonoma, nine district mayors, and more than 100 current and former North Bay elected officials. Among them are Marin Supervisors Stephanie Moulton-Peters, Brian Colbert, and Mary Sackett. The Marin IJ editorial board puts his support at 45 of the district's 55 city and town council members. The Marin Independent Journal[ ](https://www.marinij.com/2026/09/05/editorial-in-close-race-lucans-experience-makes-him-choice-for-assembly/?ref=ivn.us)[just endorsed Lucan](https://www.marinij.com/2026/09/05/editorial-in-close-race-lucans-experience-makes-him-choice-for-assembly/?ref=ivn.us) and is standing by its June endorsement. He also has support from Grow California, local business groups, and some unions. Elward has the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America. The Sonoma County chapter recommended her in a[ ](https://www.instagram.com/p/DYK3HmtgY%5Fy/?img%5Findex=4&ref=ivn.us)[May 10 Instagram post](https://www.instagram.com/p/DYK3HmtgY%5Fy/?img%5Findex=4&ref=ivn.us): "Sonoma County DSA RECOMMENDS: JACKIE ELWARD for Member of the State Assembly, 12th District. A proud labor organizer, educator, and immigrant, a Rohnert Park councilwoman, and the former mayor and vice-mayor of Rohnert Park, Elward stands above the rest of her **'progressive'** field on the issues **true progressives** care about. Her policies and priorities include: Anti-ICE; Affordable housing; Universal healthcare; Expansion of Medicare within California." > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/Da8f-dzPury/?ref=ivn.us) Elward also has the endorsement of Damon Connolly. Connolly told the Marin IJ editorial board she is "experienced, principled" and "knows how to stand up for our progressive values." Rep. Mike Thompson, Treasurer Fiona Ma, state Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, and Assemblymember Tina McKinnor also back her. Labor is her base. The California Labor Federation, the California Teachers Association, 21 labor unions, and the California Young Democrats have endorsed her. So has the California Working Families Party: *"Slick names can’t hide the fact that crypto-bros, corporate landlords, and big oil are trying to buy California. Show them that Sonoma and Marin Counties are not for sale. Vote Jackie Elward for leadership that can’t be bought."* > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DdiE4shu29Y/?ref=ivn.us) ### **A 2025 Water Rate Vote Becomes a Campaign Weapon** One of the ads targeting Elward in the primary focused on a 2025 Rohnert Park City Council vote that passed 4-1 to raise water rates to fund long-delayed capital projects, including repairs to aging tanks, water lines, and wells. Elward has defended the vote as necessary rather than political, telling reporters that the rate increases were tied to infrastructure her city urgently needed and that delaying the work would only cost residents more later. The Press Democrat noted that the attack ad excerpted only a fragment of a longer explanation she gave at the time, cutting a sentence about paying now instead of paying more later down to just its second half. ### **Labor Mailers Tie Lucan to Big Tech** This is a Democrat-on-Democrat race. Even so, the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, the SEIU California State Council, and the California Teachers Association are actively campaigning against Lucan. The group has mailed at least three negative pieces urging voters to "Reject Eric Lucan" because "Big Tech has enough friends in Sacramento." One asks, "As Concerns Grow About AI, Can We Trust Eric Lucan for Assembly?" Another anti-Lucan mailer carries a headline about AI that says "It Could Kill Us All." ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-eddf5e80-b9d3-40e6-b61b-b646df3eb1ac.png) Another mailer says, "Tech and crypto billionaires are attacking Jackie because she will regulate AI and hold big tech accountable." ### **They Split on AI, Billionaires, and ICE** Elward is running on an openly progressive platform. "I am the only lifelong Democrat in the race," she told the Marin Independent Journal, "and the only candidate with a truly progressive platform that aligns with the district." She says she will "fight against ICE and the Trump administration." Her list also includes single-payer health care, a cap on utility rates, closing corporate tax loopholes so billionaires pay more, and protecting abortion rights. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-0d985d8e-06a0-411c-b5d9-e4a4743d5a71.png) Lucan is running on the cost of living, climate resiliency, and the local economy. "When you look at things like job creation, we are far behind our neighboring states," he said. He calls himself "a consensus builder" and points to support on both sides of the county line. The sharpest split is artificial intelligence. Elward wants a statewide moratorium on new AI data centers. "They do not want it. We do not need it," she said of her constituents. Lucan sees opportunity along with risk. He wants state guardrails, especially on chatbots and children, but says California should move carefully to avoid a fight with Washington. They also split on Proposition 40\. The November measure would impose a one-time 5 percent tax on wealth above $1 billion. Elward helped gather signatures to qualify it. Lucan opposes it. He says the top 1 percent of earners already supply 40 to 50 percent of state tax revenue, which leaves the budget exposed every time the stock market falls. On housing, they sound closer than their coalitions. Elward says developers have too much power and local governments need control. She cited a 17-story, 200-apartment building approved in San Rafael. Lucan points to Marin's housing element, which cleared the way for 5,000 homes. He wants the state to rein in density bonuses for projects that are affordable only on paper, and he wants redevelopment financing back. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DZpqsqSDdwK/?ref=ivn.us) Both condemn Grow California's primary spending. Elward says she "took every single punch." Lucan says he has never run a negative campaign and never will. ### **The Candidates** Lucan, born May 9, 1981, grew up in Novato and attended Novato High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in ministerial studies from Christian Life International in 2002 and an MBA from Georgia State University in 2005\. He worked as an ordained minister and as youth director and finance manager for New Life church and school. His first public post was an appointment to the Novato Parks and Recreation Commission in 2007\. He also served on Novato's planning commission. He was a registered Republican in college. He became a Democrat after winning a City Council seat in 2011, following an unsuccessful run in 2009, and spent 11 years on the council, including time as mayor. He briefly entered the 2014 race for state Senate District 2 before withdrawing ahead of the primary. He was marketing director for Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants from 2010 to 2014 and chief marketing officer for Mike's Bikes from 2014 to 2022\. He was elected to the Marin County Board of Supervisors in 2022, took office in January 2023, and now serves as board president. He has chaired the boards of Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, the Transportation Authority of Marin, and the First 5 Marin Children and Families Commission. He and his wife, Kiley, have three children. This month, they celebrated the birth of their daughter, who arrived early. ***“Eric delivered her since our midwives couldn't get here in time.”*** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-28-at-11.01.38---AM.png) As board president, Lucan has taken public positions on national issues: in June, he announced [Marin's decision to file an amicus brief supporting a federal injunction against a planned ICE ](https://www.marincounty.gov/news-releases/county-joins-opposition-new-ice-detention-facility?ref=ivn.us)detention facility in Santa Clara County, saying the county "remains firmly committed to opposing unlawful removals, federal overreach and actions that undermine due process." On housing, his signature issue, Lucan has written about growing up unable to afford a home in Marin, spending three years out of state before returning with a down payment on a 1963 fixer-upper. He has worked with Habitat for Humanity on the [county's first Habitat development in Novato](https://habitatgsf.org/redwood-boulevard/?ref=ivn.us) and a forthcoming 50-home project, proposed a local housing finance tool he calls "Redevelopment 2.0" after state redevelopment agencies wound down, and helped a nonprofit acquire transitional housing for youth aging out of foster care. He also supports a childcare affordability initiative on November's ballot. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DcRl656EuFl/?ref=ivn.us) Elward, born February 25, 1979, grew up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and immigrated to the United States in the early 2000s. She is fluent in six languages and holds degrees in criminal justice from Central State University, theological studies from the Institut Biblique de Kinshasa, and sociology from CSU Chico, which she completed while already serving on the Rohnert Park council. She moved to Rohnert Park with her husband, John Ryan Elward, to raise their three children and, in 2015, founded [Les Enfants Baobab](https://www.lesenfantsbaobab.org/?ref=ivn.us), a nonprofit that supported homeless children in Kinshasa. She has worked at [Santa Rosa French American Charter School](https://srfacs.srcschools.org/?ref=ivn.us) since 2015 and now works there full-time as a bilingual educator. [Les Enfants Baobab](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/811697929/202131659349200718/full?ref=ivn.us) has not actively operated for several years and has not conducted any fundraising during that time, according to a statement on its website. The statement describes it as a small volunteer effort that never fully developed as intended, particularly after COVID-19 and the loss of a key board member to cancer in early 2023\. While active, it helped provide housing and educational support for about 15 vulnerable children in [Kinshasa](https://www.britannica.com/place/Kinshasa?ref=ivn.us), where many children live on the streets. Other organizations continue that work today. The statement says administrative filings related to the nonprofit are being resolved. No one has been accused of personally profiting from it. The issue involves administrative filings for an inactive volunteer organization. The statement says outside political groups are trying to turn that administrative issue into a political attack during a competitive Assembly race. Elward lost an at-large council bid in 2018\. In June 2020, following the killing of George Floyd, she organized a [Black Lives Matter march in Rohnert Park](https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/hundreds-turn-out-for-black-lives-matter-march-rally-in-rohnert-park-to-se/?ref=ivn.us) that drew several hundred people to the city's public safety headquarters, and she called for a citizen oversight committee for the police department. That November, running in the city's first district-based election, she unseated six-term incumbent Jake Mackenzie, becoming the first Black woman elected to the council. She served as vice mayor beginning in 2021, and her council colleagues appointed her mayor that December, a role she held through 2022\. During her time on the council, Rohnert Park adopted police accountability measures and created a civilian crisis-response team to handle mental health and homelessness calls that would otherwise go to police; Elward has said she inherited 82 homeless encampments in the city and that the number is now zero, citing $40 million in funding she secured for interim housing and the city's participation in Project Homekey. In 2022, then-Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry named her the district's Woman of the Year, and Rep. Mike Thompson invited her to attend President Biden's first address to Congress virtually. Elward has also spoken publicly about racism she has faced in office, including a 2021 incident in which an anonymous caller used racial slurs and told her to leave the country over her support for a fireworks ban, and later described a pattern of being dismissed and labeled "angry" that she said other Black women in Sonoma County politics have experienced as well. She ran unsuccessfully for state Senate District 3 in 2024, placing fourth in a five-candidate primary, and Huffman endorsed her in that race, among others; this cycle, Huffman has endorsed Lucan instead. She sits on the board of [North Bay Jobs with Justice](https://www.northbayjwj.org/?ref=ivn.us), a labor and community coalition spanning Napa, Sonoma, and Marin counties. She has served on the Sonoma County Transportation Authority and Sonoma Clean Power. ### **The District** Assembly District 12 covers all of Marin County and portions of Sonoma. It includes the full cities of San Rafael, Rohnert Park, Larkspur, Sausalito, Novato, Petaluma, Belvedere, Mill Valley, and Cotati, the communities of Corte Madera, Fairfax, Ross, San Anselmo, and Tiburon, and part of Santa Rosa. Marin accounts for roughly 57 percent of registration and leans Democratic by about 47 points; Sonoma makes up the remaining 43 percent and leans Democratic by about 37 points, a modest but real difference that underscores Lucan's advantage in the larger and more heavily Democratic half of the district. Highway 101 ties the area together, along with a shared identity built around small towns, coastal protection, and open space. Democrats hold 57.9 percent of registration in the district and Republicans 15.5 percent, leaving roughly 81,800 voters, or about 27 percent, registered with neither party. Of those, about 59,400 are No Party Preference. The district has trended this way for years: Republican registration has fallen by about six points since 2008, while the Democratic advantage has widened from 32 points to more than 43\. At the top of the ticket, the pattern has held. Hillary Clinton carried the district by 56 points in 2016, Joe Biden by 59 points in 2020, and Kamala Harris won by roughly 55 points in 2024. The district's population is about 481,000, and its voting-age population, at roughly 71 percent, skews more heavily white than the overall population; Latino residents make up about a quarter of the population but a much smaller share of eligible voters, a gap that reflects the district's noncitizen population. It is an incredibly affluent area: median household income is nearly $119,000, just over 8 percent of residents live below the poverty line, and half of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Homeownership is common, with 62 percent of households owning at a median value of $1,043,000, while renters pay a median of $2,364 a month. ### 3 More Cities Are About to Put Ranked Choice Voting to the Test URL: https://ivn.us/3-more-cities-are-about-to-put-ranked-choice-voting-to-the-test/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T17:08:55.000Z On November 3, ranked choice voting will appear on the ballot in 3 cities: - Irvine, California; - Honolulu, Hawaii; and - Longmont, Colorado In two of these cases, Irvine and Longmont, voters could add to the growing number of cities in their state that use the reform. In California, 7 cities have already adopted ranked choice voting (RCV). Colorado is not far behind with 5. But in Honolulu, its residents have a chance to make history. Currently, no city in Hawaii uses RCV. The state capital could be the first. Each proposal also represents an additional test for RCV at the local level, particularly at a time when it has become increasingly caught up in national partisan politics. This is not about presidential primaries or state party fights. Voters in these cities will answer a simpler, more fundamental question Do they want more choices when they elect the people who run their cities? ## **Three Cities, Three Experiments** The basic concept is the same in all three places. Voters would be able to rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice selections, the last place candidate is eliminated, and those ballots transfer to their voters’ next choice. Additional rounds of elimination occur as needed until a single candidate has a majority. But each proposal is unique in its own way. In Irvine, [Measure D](https://ballotpedia.org/Irvine,%5FCalifornia,%5FMeasure%5FD,%5FRanked-Choice%5FVoting%5FMeasure%5F%28November%5F2026%29?ref=ivn.us) would direct the city to use RCV for mayor and City Council elections held after January 1, 2028, where implementation is technically and financially feasible. The campaign pushing the measure is [Voter Choice Irvine](https://voterchoiceirvine.org/?ref=ivn.us) and includes support from groups ranging from FairVote and Veterans for All Voters to labor organizations and the Orange County Democratic Socialists of America. Supporters argue voters should be able to back their preferred candidate without worrying that doing so could help elect someone they oppose. In Longmont, [Question 3C](https://ballotpedia.org/Longmont,%5FColorado,%5FQuestion%5F3C,%5FRanked-Choice%5FVoting%5Ffor%5FMayor%5Fand%5FCity%5FCouncil%5FElections%5FCharter%5FAmendment%5F%28November%5F2026%29?ref=ivn.us) would amend the city charter to allow RCV methods for mayor and City Council beginning in November 2029\. A separate [Question 3D](https://longmontcolorado.gov/city-clerk/election-information/november-3-2026-election-ballot-measures/?ref=ivn.us) would rearrange City Council election cycles and only take effect if voters also approve the RCV measure. Then there is Honolulu, where the proposal would not only make history, but would also make a larger structural change. [Question 5](https://ballotpedia.org/Honolulu,%5FHawaii,%5FQuestion%5F5,%5FRanked%5FChoice%5FVoting%5Ffor%5FCity%5FOfficials%5FAmendment%5F%28November%5F2026%29?ref=ivn.us) would replace the city's current two-election process with a single ranked-choice election in November beginning in 2032 for mayor, City Council, and prosecuting attorney. Right now, candidates can win outright in August if they receive a majority of the vote. If no one gets a majority, then the top two advance to the November general election. Honolulu officials note that every city official elected in 2024 was decided during the August primary—which tends to draw a lower turnout. Question 5 would mean only one election in November, allowing all qualifying candidates for the affected contests to compete in the general election. A majority winner would be determined under RCV. ## **The Opposition Is Showing Up, Too** The Honolulu proposal also demonstrates how quickly a local election reform can become a partisan fight, especially in a political environment where everything comes down to who benefits—or an assumption of who benefits. Hawaii Republicans are [actively campaigning against Question 5](https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2026/09/25/ranked-choice-voting-proposal-draws-gop-opposition-ahead-november-vote/?ref=ivn.us). State GOP Chair Shirlene Ostrov has relied on a familiar argument: RCV would make ballots more confusing, and voters should be able to cast a single vote without ranking additional candidates. But Republican state Rep. Elijah Pierick raises a different concern. He believes the system could make it more difficult for conservative candidates to win in a heavily Democratic state. It is worth noting though that Question 5 only applies to nonpartisan elections in Honolulu. Its application would not extend to statewide contests or elections for the state legislature. Supporters argue that ranking candidates gives voters more freedom to express their actual preferences and reduces the risk that candidates appealing to similar voters split support between them. ## **What Happens When Election Reform Stays Local?** The debate over ranked choice voting on the national stage has been hijacked by partisan interests. While the reform has expanded into elections in places like Maine, Alaska, and Washington, DC, 19 states have passed laws prohibiting its use. Meanwhile, 2026 has only produced 3 RCV ballot measures, fewer than every year since 2019 (except last year), according to Ballotpedia. This could suggest the reform’s momentum is slowing down, but it also makes Irvine, Honolulu, and Longmont unique case studies. As previously noted, national fights over RCV are often inseparable from arguments over which party, candidate, or ideological faction might benefit. Leadership in both parties have a history of opposing it when they think their own power is threatened. The 19 states that have banned RCV are controlled by the GOP. But the Democratic Party in DC fought tooth and nail to keep the reform from being implemented in the nation’s capital. Democratic leaders have also opposed it in places like Nevada and Maine. However, municipal elections offer something closer to a controlled experiment. Each of the 3 cities considering RCV this year have different political cultures, different election systems, and different reasons for considering the reform. And yet, voters in all 3 places are essentially being asked the same question: Should an election require voters to choose just one candidate, or should voters be allowed to express backup preferences as well? The outcome in each case could reveal something deeper about how voters view reform. Especially, when that reform is removed from presidential politics and partisan primaries and brought down to the level of mayors and city councils. Will voters separate it from the national fight? Will they be influenced by arguments that make assumptions over who benefits? Or, will they treat it as a basic question about how they want their own votes counted? These are questions that will be answered on November 3. ### Bob Chew: Colorado’s Independent Navy Vet taking on Hickenlooper — and the Republicans and Democrats URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/bob-chew-colorados-independent-navy-vet-taking-on-hickenlooper-and-the-republicans-and-democrats/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T14:01:42.000Z Colorado is 25% Democrat, 23% Republican, and 52% none of the above. Navy veteran, engineer, and first-time candidate Bob Chew joins Paul Rieckhoff for the Meet the Independent Candidate series to talk about his run against John Hickenlooper, the $8 trillion debt bomb neither party will touch, why he left the Republican Party a year ago, how the Forward Party got him on the ballot, and why he's writing checks to fellow independent veterans like Todd Achilles, Brian Bengs, and Dan Osborn as this movement breaks out in 2026. **Get the latest episodes of Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff on the podcast's** [**YouTube channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentamericans?ref=ivn.us)**.** Independent Veterans of America announced two new endorsements last week. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/IVA-BAKER-ENDORSEMENT-2026-TEMPLATE.jpg) One was Matt Baker in Virginia's 2nd Congressional District. Baker is a Marine Corps veteran running on a direct argument: a member who owes their seat to party money stops answering to the people. Hampton Roads, against an incumbent party structure. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/IVA-WOLL-ENDORSEMENT-2026-TEMPLATE-1.jpg) The second was Steve Woll for Virginia's 3rd Congressional District. Woll is a Navy veteran, scientist and businessman who came to Virginia with the Navy 25 years ago and stayed. He is running for a seat that **has not changed hands since 1993**. ### Big Brother or Ballot Security? The Supreme Court Just Picked a Side, For Now URL: https://ivn.us/big-brother-or-ballot-security-the-supreme-court-just-picked-a-side-for-now/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T18:35:57.000Z For more than 50 years, Washington has promised Americans it would not stitch together everything it knows about us into a single file. On September 25, the Supreme Court allowed the government, at least for now, to test how far that promise really goes. In an [unsigned order](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a308%5Fpok0.pdf?ref=ivn.us), the Court let the Trump administration keep using Social Security records to check whether registered voters are citizens. The decision was temporary, a pause on a lower court's ruling rather than a final verdict on the program itself. Yet it emerged right in the thick of an argument that both parties tend to describe in apocalyptic terms, each warning that the other side's position endangers democracy. Set the sky-is-falling rhetoric aside, and what remains is a more interesting and more difficult question. The federal government wants to know whether everyone on the voter rolls is a citizen. Its critics want to make sure the government does not build a master file on Americans to find out. Both are totally defensible goals. As this lawsuit shows, they are also very hard to reconcile. > We have a rogue partisan Supreme Court. Using the underhanded emergency docket to give a middle finger to the Constitution, which provides NO ROLE for the executive branch in administering voting and elections. Six lawless partisan hacks enabling distortion of elections.… > > — Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) [September 25, 2026](https://x.com/NormOrnstein/status/2103510834580172828?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) At the center of the controversy is the [Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements](https://www.dhs.gov/publication/systematic-alien-verification-entitlements-save-program?ref=ivn.us) program, or SAVE. It was created in 1986 as a sort of bureaucratic back office, a way for federal agencies to check whether people applying for public benefits like food stamps were eligible citizens. It could find only people already in immigration records, and before AI, it could look them up only one at a time. That all changed last year. Acting on [an executive order from President Trump](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-14248-preserving-and-protecting-the-integrity-american-elections?ref=ivn.us), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) connected SAVE to Social Security's vast records and allowed states to check many voters at once. When a state runs a name through the system now, one of two things happens. Either SAVE confirms the person is a citizen, or it reports that it cannot, and so the state must ask the voter for proof. The Trump administration's case begins with what it describes as a gap Congress never meant to leave open. [Federal law requires DHS to answer when a state asks whether someone is a citizen](https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=%28title:8%20section:1373%20edition:prelim%29&ref=ivn.us), but it also [requires states to keep their voter rolls accurate](https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/2/text?ref=ivn.us). Yet the old SAVE system depended on an immigration identification number that Americans born in this country never receive. For most citizens, in other words, SAVE had no verdict. Five states, including Florida and Texas, sued over the system’s shortcoming. The upgraded system, the government says, closed that gap. By its count, SAVE has confirmed more than [65 million voters in 26 states as citizens and flagged 28,635](https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2026/09/25/nx-s1-5976804/the-supreme-court-revives-a-controversial-data-system-for-citizenship-checks/?ref=ivn.us) as possible noncitizens. It never declares anyone a noncitizen. It says it does so only when it cannot confirm citizenship, and states must give voters a chance to respond before removing them. Seen this way, a system that confirms more real citizens protects voters rather than threatens them, and blocking it amounts to "undermining the integrity of federal elections," as the government told the justices. The Trump administration also has a statute on its side, or believes it does. A 1996 immigration law says no one may block citizenship information from reaching DHS, "notwithstanding any other provision" of law, which is lawyer's language for no matter what any other law says. The Supreme Court's majority found that argument likely to prevail. > Huge victory for election integrity! The Supreme Court granted [@TheJusticeDept](https://x.com/TheJusticeDept?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us)’s stay in revamping the SAVE citizenship verification database, which will allow states to clear the voter rolls of illegal voters. > > The modified SAVE system allows state and local officials to conduct… [pic.twitter.com/eibp4jwRx0](https://t.co/eibp4jwRx0?ref=ivn.us) > > — Attorney General Todd Blanche (@AGToddBlanche) [September 25, 2026](https://x.com/AGToddBlanche/status/2103557217748504767?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The challengers, led by the League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, [tell a different story](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26A308/424244/20260915130915266%5FLWV%20v%20DHS%20SCOTUS%20Stay%20Opp%20FINAL.pdf?ref=ivn.us). Congress wrote the [Privacy Act of 1974](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47863?ref=ivn.us) largely out of fear that federal agencies would pool their records into one enormous file on every citizen. When Congress [returned to the subject in 1988](https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/senate-bill/496?ref=ivn.us), it said plainly that its rules did not authorize "a national data bank." So the upgraded SAVE, the challengers argue, is precisely the thing Congress refused to build. The challengers also argue that the records themselves are predictably wrong. No one is required to tell Social Security when they become a citizen. So a person who received a Social Security number before naturalizing can remain, in the government's files, a noncitizen indefinitely. DHS's own internal reviews warned of "shortfalls in data accuracy." A naturalized citizen in Louisiana, identified in court papers only as "J. Doe 4," is in exactly that position. In Texas, according to the dissent, one voter "had her voter registration revoked without her knowledge." [Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson](https://supremecourthistory.org/supreme-court-justices/associate-justice-ketanji-brown-jackson/?ref=ivn.us), writing for the Court's three dissenters, rejected the government's reading of the 1996 law, arguing that it was aimed at local governments refusing to cooperate on immigration, not at dismantling privacy protections. ***Justice Jackson accused the majority of weighing only one side's harms, which she called "the judicial equivalent of expecting a seesaw with weight applied on only one side to work properly."*** Texas, which ran all 18 million voters through the SAVE system, flagged 2,724\. About 20 percent of those were later confirmed as citizens, according to the Texas Secretary of State, as reported by NPR, and 117 were referred for investigation. Supporters look at that example and see more than a hundred cases that merited a closer look. > 26 Republican Attorneys General backed a Supreme Court brief defending states’ ability to verify voter citizenship. > > Today, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to allow states, for now, to use the SAVE database to verify voter eligibility. > > Now that’s what we call a victory! [https://t.co/9Tvmxb3VQL](https://t.co/9Tvmxb3VQL?ref=ivn.us) > > — RAGA (@RepublicanAGs) [September 25, 2026](https://x.com/RepublicanAGs/status/2103544726532333577?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [Opponents](https://protectdemocracy.org/work/save-tool-explained/?ref=ivn.us) see instead a situation where all eligible American citizens are forced to prove they belong. For now, the practical consequences of the Supreme Court stay may be modest because their decision today falls within a [90-day window when yet another law says no one can purge the voter rolls](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/20507?ref=ivn.us). The fight is far from over. The case now returns to the appeals court and may yet reach the justices again for a full hearing, which means the questions at its heart remain very much alive. But some of those questions may be beyond any court's power to settle. How much privacy are Americans willing to give up to be confident that everyone who votes is eligible? How much of their personal information are they willing to let the government cross-reference to find out? And how many errors, in either direction, are they prepared to tolerate along the way? *This story draws on the*[](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a308%5Fpok0.pdf?ref=ivn.us)[*Supreme Court's order*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a308%5Fpok0.pdf?ref=ivn.us)*, the*[](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26A308/423264/20260908101245314%5FDHS%20v%20League%20of%20Women%20Voters%20Stay%20Application.pdf?ref=ivn.us)[*government's request to the Court, the district court's ruling*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26A308/423264/20260908101245314%5FDHS%20v%20League%20of%20Women%20Voters%20Stay%20Application.pdf?ref=ivn.us)*, and*[](https://www.opb.org/article/2026/09/25/the-supreme-court-revives-the-controversial-save-data-system/?ref=ivn.us)[*NPR's reporting*](https://www.opb.org/article/2026/09/25/the-supreme-court-revives-the-controversial-save-data-system/?ref=ivn.us)*.* ### Is Texas the Beginning of the End for Closed Primary Lawsuits? URL: https://ivn.us/is-texas-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-closed-primary-lawsuits/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:49:21.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* **Texas may have just changed the trajectory of the national fight over closed primaries.** After years of failing to move legislation to close Texas Republican primaries, the party went to court instead. [A federal judge has now put that effort on hold](https://www.texastribune.org/2026/09/18/texas-republican-party-closed-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) and pointed back to the Legislature. The message is hard to miss: **courts may not be willing to let political parties accomplish through litigation what they have failed to accomplish democratically.** [Texas GOP’s Closed-Primary Push Hits Pause. The Next Fight Is in AustinA federal judge paused a Texas GOP lawsuit seeking closed primaries, saying the legislature should decide the issue in 2027\. The case has exposed a divide within the party, with Abbott and Cornyn taking opposing positions on whether to exclude independent voters from taxpayer-funded primaries.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-4c2de2e4-4ae5-48b2-9a51-1494813a2462.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-4c1d59f0-13fb-487a-b272-a0edf1c951ae-ab1f1ccf-182c-47f5-968c-817e09dc1c1c.jpg)](https://ivn.us/texas-gops-closed-primary-push-hits-pause-the-next-fight-is-in-austin/) That echoes important decisions in Colorado, where courts have rejected challenges to the state’s system allowing unaffiliated voters to participate in party primaries. And it could have immediate implications in South Carolina, [where a similar Republican lawsuit](https://scdailygazette.com/2026/07/08/sc-gop-sues-to-close-primaries-to-registered-republicans/?ref=ivn.us) is pending after efforts to close the state’s primaries through legislation stalled. That would be a powerful reaffirmation that the voters—not political parties—belong at the center of our elections. ## **What We're Talking About** ## A POWERFUL DEFENSE OF CALIFORNIA’S TOP-TWO PRIMARY [This piece by Lenny Mendonca and Dan Schnur](https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/09/independent-voters-california-top-two-primary/?ref=ivn.us) cuts straight through years of partisan attacks on California’s top-two primary. Partisans have been predicting its hypothetical failures since before Prop. 14 even passed — and this year, they went into overdrive. [Independent Voters Can Be Heard in California. The Top-Two Primary Is Worth DefendingCalifornia voters broke the political parties’ grip on primary elections in 2010\. A new repeal effort raises a fundamental question: Who should get to choose the candidates on the November ballot?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-12007988-707a-4164-b28f-136d4944b54d.png)Independent Voter NewsLenny Mendonca![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-undo-the-top-two-independent-voters-20b67051-385f-44df-ad53-ccf2d0efc21c.jpg)](https://ivn.us/independent-voters-can-be-heard-in-california-the-top-two-primary-is-worth-defending/) Now, some of the same Democratic insiders who opposed reform from the beginning are pushing to repeal it — a move that would shut roughly 5.3 million independent voters out of state primaries and return California to the closed system voters rejected. Mendonca and Schnur make the essential point: **this isn’t about which party wins. It’s about whether millions of Californians get to participate at all.** That makes this a must-read — and an important defense of what California voters chose in 2010. ## **What We're Reading** ## FROMA HARROP: CLOSED PRIMARIES ARE A CURSE ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/Froma-Harrop.png) Froma Harrop has a great way of cutting through the usual political excuses and laying out what is actually happening. [In her latest editorial](https://www.heraldextra.com/news/opinion/editorial/2026/sep/23/harrop-closed-primaries-are-a-curse-on-our-democracy/?ref=ivn.us) syndicated across the country, she puts closed primaries under the microscope—**with Open Primaries SVP Jeremy Gruber right in the middle of the conversation.** She also exposes just how weak the usual arguments for keeping things this way are: 47% of American voters are unaffiliated, yet millions are shut out of the elections that often decide who wins. Her conclusion: **“Closed primaries are a curse on our democracy.”** [**Read the full piece.**](https://www.heraldextra.com/news/opinion/editorial/2026/sep/23/harrop-closed-primaries-are-a-curse-on-our-democracy/?ref=ivn.us) ## **In Case You Missed It** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/opdycke-profile.png) Open Primaries President John Opdycke [has a blunt message in *The Fulcrum*](https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/independent-politics?ref=ivn.us): Independents may decide elections, but too often they get nothing in return. They swing the outcome, the parties celebrate—and then independents are ignored. Opdycke argues that **it’s time to turn electoral power into political power: organize, apply pressure, open up the partisan systems that shut independents out, and demand a real seat at the table.** [Perot 2.0 Isn’t a Candidate. It’s a MovementIndependent candidates are multiplying, independent voters are organizing, and the two-party system is facing a challenge it thought it had buried decades ago.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-291533d5-7ce1-4340-966b-c1d3a78ace03.png)Independent Voter NewsJohn Opdycke![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ross-perot-03459402-3217-44a4-931e-bae3b448f5a5.jpg)](https://ivn.us/perot-2-0-isnt-a-candidate-its-a-movement/) ## **Activities / Events** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/joe-manchin-open-primaries-event.png)](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/yxQnAwXURWS7G2FWD%5F0gwA?ref=ivn.us#/registration) ## ***Is This The Year Independents Break Through? A Conversation with Joe Manchin and Adam Brandon*** **Hosted by Open Primaries President John OpdyckeWednesday, September 30 | 2:00 PM EDT | Virtual** Independent voters are the largest force in American politics. But when it comes to who holds power in Washington, Republicans and Democrats still have a near-total monopoly. *Could 2026 be the year that begins to change?* Join **Open Primaries President John Opdycke** for a timely conversation with former U.S. Senator **Joe Manchin** and **Adam Brandon**, senior adviser to the Independent Center and former president of FreedomWorks, about their ambitious new effort to elect independent candidates to Congress while challenging the two-party system from the outside. Their goal is to build the infrastructure independent candidates have long lacked and prove that candidates can run and win without a D or R next to their name. The stakes go beyond electing a handful of candidates. Their effort raises a much bigger question: **Why should two private political parties have so much control over who gets elected, how Congress operates and whether independent voices have a seat at the table?** With closely divided chambers, growing dissatisfaction with the two-party system and millions of Americans identifying as independents, even a small number of truly independent members of Congress could have an outsized impact potentially influencing congressional leadership, committee rules and how Washington does business. **Can independents finally translate their numbers into political power? Can candidates compete without the machinery of the two major parties? And could 2026 be the beginning of a fundamentally different kind of Congress?** [Join Joe Manchin, Adam Brandon and John Opdycke for a provocative conversation about breaking the two-party grip and whether this is the year independents finally break through.](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/yxQnAwXURWS7G2FWD%5F0gwA?ref=ivn.us#/registration) ## **Campaign Updates** ## PENNSYLVANIA KEEPS MOVING ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/ballot-pa.png) I joined CNN’s Michael Smerconish and [Ballot PA Action](https://www.bpaction.org/?ref=ivn.us)’s David Thornburgh at a Philadelphia-area gathering of open primaries supporters last night. Kudos to Open Primaries National Organizer and Phily local Bree Doldron for her tireless work to organize the event. It comes at a pivotal moment: **the state House is scheduled to vote next week on HB 280, legislation to open Pennsylvania’s primaries.** Open Primaries has spent **10 years building the case for open primaries in Pennsylvania**, supporting both legislation [and litigation](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) to give every voter a voice. And with new legislative developments in the works, **stay tuned—there’s a lot more to come.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/LetUsVote--2--2.png) ## **NEWSFLASH: USA TODAY WANTS TO HEAR FROM INDEPENDENTS** Independent voters are the largest voting bloc in America. Now USA TODAY wants to hear directly from them. National columnist Chris Brennan is asking independent voters to take a short, seven-question survey about why they’re independent, whether independents have enough political power, and what people get wrong about them. As Brennan puts it: “Independent voters are a significant chunk of the electorate, and they don't get the attention they deserve.” He’s right. So, let’s give independents a voice. [**Take the USA TODAY survey and tell them what you think.**](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/09/22/independent-voters-2026-midterm-elections/91580019007/?ref=ivn.us) **MASSACHUSETTS: LET ALL VOTERS VOTE** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/yes-on-3.jpg) Massachusetts has the highest percentage of independent voters in the country. [67% of Mass voters are not affiliated with a political party](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/08/27/newsletters/massachusetts-voter-registration-data-independents-the-scrum/?ref=ivn.us). Yet when primary elections arrive, those voters still have to choose a party ballot to participate. And in a state where three out of five legislative races this year have only one candidate on the ballot, that primary often is the election. Question 3 would change that. Qn #3 proposes an [All-Party Primary](https://yeson3ma.org/faq/?ref=ivn.us). It would put every candidate on one primary ballot, let every voter choose among them, and send the top two finishers to November—regardless of party. [Check out what WA State Rep. Parsley has to say about the value of a Top Two system.](https://youtu.be/DPrpvcAzz%5Fw?si=K5mN3zYsrSD6LM1G&ref=ivn.us) Massachusetts may be the first state to make this move from a semi-open primary to an all-party system. The support for Qn #3 includes several Indivisible chapters, the Western MA Building Trades, the NAACP New England Area Conference, Veterans for All Voters, Open Primaries and the Forward Party, to name a few of the endorsing organizations. It also includes at least 10 mayors who already use a similar system in their own cities. Battle lines have been drawn. The campaign faces stiff opposition from both the Democratic and Republican parties, several elected officials, multiple unions (SEIU, UAW, AFL-CIO) and the Mass Alliance. For the state's two-thirds of voters who aren't enrolled in a party, it's a simple proposition: no party membership should be required to have a voice. [Learn more about Question 3 →](https://yeson3ma.org/question-3/?ref=ivn.us) [Watch Massachusetts voters explain why they support it →](https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbv6fuMkejq/?hl=en&ref=ivn.us) ### Kevin Kiley Says He's Done Caucusing with Republicans. Senate Independents Want to Break the Caucus System Entirely URL: https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-says-hes-done-caucusing-with-republicans-senate-independents-want-to-break-the-caucus-system-entirely/ Last updated: 2026-09-29T18:57:03.000Z Rep. Kevin Kiley has spent six months as the only independent in the US House while still sitting in the Republican conference. He says that ends next year. In an interview last week, Kiley[ said he does not plan to caucus with Republicans](https://www.semafor.com/article/09/16/2026/kiley-says-he-wont-caucus-with-republicans-if-reelected?ref=ivn.us) if voters in California's 6th District send him back to Washington. Asked directly whether he would stay with the GOP, Kiley answered "No," and said he is working to eliminate what he called a[ "crazy policy"](https://thehill.com/homenews/house/6094063-kiley-to-leave-gop-caucus/?ref=ivn.us) requiring members to formally join one caucus or the other just to receive committee seats. "The committee seats should belong to the American people," he said. The announcement is about more than one congressman's affiliation. It puts a spotlight on the machinery party leaders use to keep members in line, and it lands just as a group of independent Senate candidates is promising to use a closely divided chamber to take that machinery apart. ## **How Kiley Got Here** Kiley [left the Republican Party in March](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) after California’s Proposition 50 dismantled his district, as a part of the mid-cycle redistricting struggle between the two major parties. He became the first independent in the House since Justin Amash of Michigan, who dropped his Republican affiliation in 2019\. But he said at the time that he would keep caucusing with House Republicans for the rest of the term because committee assignments are tied to party affiliation. Those committee assignments included a gavel: He chairs the House Education & Workforce subcommittee, and doing so required him to affiliate with the Republican Conference. Before the Semafor interview, Kiley had already taken the fight to the committee that writes the rules. He[ proposed before the House Rules Committee](https://kiley.house.gov/posts/rep-kiley-proposes-change-to-house-rules-to-assure-committee-seats-for-independent-members?ref=ivn.us) that a member outside either party should be guaranteed one committee assignment from a list of their choice, plus a second on request. He also proposed that a member who leaves a party should keep existing committee and subcommittee seats rather than having them automatically vacated. "Committee seats should not be the property of the parties," he told the panel. ## **What a Caucus Actually Is** A caucus is a private organization of members from the same party, or of members who agree to “caucus” with that party for management purposes. They are not defined in the Constitution. Rather, the parties adopt rules around these caucuses/conferences, and they invest tremendous power in them. Caucuses elect their own leaders, who become the Speaker, majority leader, or minority leader, depending on which party has a majority. They nominate members for committee seats, which the full chamber then ratifies. They decide who chairs committees and subcommittees, which determines what bills get hearings and markups. They control staff budgets, office space, and the floor schedule. For a member in good standing, the benefits are substantial: a path to leadership on the committee, seniority that compounds over years, campaign money from the party committees, and a seat at the table when the agenda is set. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Angus King are independents in name, but because they caucus with Democrats, they receive committee seats and seniority as if they were Democrats. And as much as these caucasus empower members, they can be used to disempower those who go against the caucus's leadership. ## **The Leash in Practice** In December 2012, Rep. Tim Huelskamp learned that he and three other Republicans had been stripped of key committee assignments by the House Steering Committee, which was under Speaker John Boehner's control. Huelskamp and Amash were removed from the Budget Committee, while David Schweikert and Walter Jones lost their Financial Services seats. Huelskamp said Boehner told the conference the moves were about "voting patterns," not ideology, and warned that more members could be targeted. The three conservatives[ wrote to Boehner](https://schweikert.house.gov/?p=725&ref=ivn.us) asking for any vote scorecard used against them. Boehner replied that there was no scorecard or single criterion behind committee assignments. Huelskamp's read on the purpose was blunt: with a large majority, three or four votes didn't matter, but punishing a few members could[ warn the rest of the conference](https://www.wnd.com/2012/12/inside-story-of-boehners-conservative-purge/?ref=ivn.us). One of those four was Amash, who seven years later would become the last House independent before Kiley. The Senate works differently in form but not in substance. At the start of each Congress, the chamber adopts an organizing resolution setting committee ratios and chairmanships based on which party has the majority. How much that depends on a single senator's caucus choice was demonstrated in 2001\. With the Senate split 50-50, Vermont's Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party to become an independent who caucused with Democrats. Tom Daschle became majority leader, and Republican committee chairs had to vacate their offices for Democratic successors. One senator's caucus decision moved every gavel in the chamber. Such power can give members of Congress tremendous power, if they can leverage it in a closely divided chamber. ## **The Fulcrum Candidates' Promise** That is the leverage a group of independent Senate candidates is now building a strategy around. Six of them call it the Fulcrum Caucus: win enough seats that neither party can organize the Senate without them, then set terms before helping anyone do it. The candidates frame the pledge as a tool for reform, not just a posture. Todd Achilles (running in Idaho) told IVN he would [not caucus with Chuck Schumer](https://ivn.us/todd-achilles-says-the-two-parties-broke-congress-now-he-wants-idaho-to-help-break-their-grip/) because, in his words, "he is the problem." Brian Bengs [(running in South Dakota) told CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/05/politics/senate-independents-midterms?ref=ivn.us) that if independents become the fulcrum, both parties would need them, "and there's going to be a price for that," which he defined as good-government reforms. Osborn has pitched the same idea to Nebraska voters as working for them rather than for a party boss. [Ty Pinkins](https://ivn.us/ty-pinkins-makes-the-case-for-sending-an-independent-caucus-to-the-senate/) (running in MS) has offered the most detailed account of what that price would be. In an interview for this series, he pointed to January 3, 2027, when the new Senate must adopt its rules, as the moment of maximum leverage. His asks target party leadership directly: an independent Senate leader with the same floor time, resources, and access as the Democratic and Republican leaders; and rules shielding independent bills on health care, redistricting, and Citizens United from partisan poison-pill amendments. "They have to come and find enough independents to give them a majority," he said. "And that is not free." ## **Why It Matters** The caucus system survives in part because almost no one outside Congress knows it exists. Committee seats, gavels, and floor time are distributed by private party organizations, and the threat of losing them has been used to discipline members who vote the way they promised voters they would. Kiley's announcement and the Senate candidates' pledges are aimed at the same target from two directions. Kiley is asking the House to write independents into its rules. The Fulcrum Caucus Senate candidates are betting that if they hold the deciding votes, they won't have to ask. Either way, the question for 2027 is no longer only which party controls Congress. It is whether the parties should be the only ones allowed to organize it. ### Trump & Mamdani Agree on This One Issue (NOT What You Think) | EP60 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/trump-mamdani-agree-on-this-one-issue-not-what-you-think-ep60/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:35.000Z Trump and Zohran Mamdani just had round two at Gracie Mansion, all smiles and charm. The IVP crew says the real story isn't the photo op, it's the primary system that manufactured two "ideological extremes" who now have to govern together. Chad, Cara, Shawn, and Ethan open by unpacking why Trump and Mamdani's rhetoric is scorched-earth in public but strangely cordial in person, and connect it to Katherine Gehl's recent argument about incentive structures in politics. Then comes a big on-air announcement: Independent Voter Project is filing a new federal lawsuit challenging closed primaries in New York, with veteran advocate Paul Rieckhoff as lead plaintiff. Shawn also digs into a deceptive Alaska ad campaign trying to roll back the state's open primary system. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/trump-mamdani-agree-on-this-one-issue-not-what-you-think?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, hosts **Chad Peace**, **Cara McCormick**, **Shawn Griffiths**, and **Ethan Handelman** open by breaking down the surprisingly cordial second meeting between **President Trump** and **NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani** at **Gracie Mansion**, contrasting it with the scorched-earth rhetoric both men use publicly. The hosts tie the dynamic to a recent piece by **Katherine Gehl** on how the two-party incentive structure manufactures ideological extremes, arguing that **Trump**'s 'take an extreme position, then come to the middle' style is a direct product of a broken **primary system** rather than personal ideology. Chad cites turnout data showing many **New York** primary races drew roughly **7% turnout**, with about **64% of statewide races** effectively uncontested, illustrating how a small, unrepresentative slice of the electorate can decide who governs everyone. The conversation turns to **California**'s **Prop 50** redistricting, where Cara's reporting on **Rep. David Valadao**'s gerrymandered district shows Democrats cutting out a Republican incumbent's home base to boost a **DSA**\-aligned candidate. This raises questions about whether the move could backfire on the party's more moderate wing. In a live on-air announcement, Chad reveals that **Independent Voter Project** will file a new federal lawsuit in the **Southern District of New York** challenging the constitutionality of **closed primaries**, with [veteran advocate](https://ivn.us/tag/veterans/) and [**Independent Veterans of America**](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us) leader **Paul Rieckhoff** serving as lead plaintiff. Chad connects the filing to the group's **15-year history** of primary litigation, including a prior [**New Jersey** case](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/in-the-courtroom/balsam?ref=ivn.us) and attorney [**Michael J. Polelle**'s **Florida** case that reached **Supreme Court** conference](https://ivn.us/retired-attorney-takes-voting-rights-case-all-way-supreme-court-himself-2025-09-09/), framing the new suit as a First Amendment argument over whether voting rights derive from citizenship or party membership. Shawn closes out the newsy segment by dissecting a deceptive **Alaska** ad campaign urging voters to 'return to the days of open primaries,' explaining the ad conflates traditional party-run open primaries with **Alaska**'s current voter-controlled **open primary and ranked choice voting system** it's actually trying to repeal. ### 9% of Voters Already Picked Your Congress. A New Poll Says Everyone Else Is Fed Up URL: https://ivn.us/9-of-voters-already-picked-your-congress-a-new-poll-says-everyone-else-is-fed-up/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:49:28.000Z The 2026 midterms are still weeks away, but for most Americans the outcome of their congressional race has already been decided, and they had little or no say in it. Now, new polling finds that voters are not satisfied with the process that gave them their November choices. IVN has written thousands of articles (literally) about the impact partisan primaries have on elections and the political process in the US. This includes how in every election cycle [90% of US House races are effectively determined in party primaries by just 9% of voters.](https://ivn.us/election-day-is-november-3-for-390-house-seats-its-already-over/) This is due to a number of factors, including partisan gerrymandering and geographical self-sorting (Republicans like to live with Republicans; Democrats like to live with Democrats). As a result, most congressional districts are safe for the Republican or Democratic Party. Whoever wins the dominant party’s nomination is all but guaranteed to win in November. And odds are the winner is chosen by only a handful of the voting age population. This week, [a survey conducted by Emerson College Polling for RealClear Opinion Research and sponsored by the Unite America Institute](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/new-poll-voters-say-primaries-reward-partisan-bases-sideline-ordinary-voters?ref=ivn.us) shows voters are not only aware of this problem but want the system changed. According to the results, 56% of respondents support replacing traditional party primaries with open, all-candidate primaries. Only 29% oppose the idea. Open, all-candidate primaries are elections in which all voters and candidates participate on a single ballot, regardless of party preference. Any voter can vote for any candidate in any race. This type of primary model is used in 3 states: California (Top Two), Washington (Top Two), and Alaska (Top Four). “Voters are experiencing the ‘Primary Problem’ in real time,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. > “Most congressional races were effectively decided before November by a small and unrepresentative share of voters. Candidates were rewarded for appealing to partisan bases, millions of voters lacked meaningful choices and Congress remains unable to address the problems affecting people’s lives.” But there’s more. The survey further highlights that voters increasingly understand the incentives that partisan primaries create. - Only 18% said the primary process encourages candidates to appeal to a broad majority. - 59% believed party primaries contribute to political division - 62% said wealthy donors, special interests, and Super PACs have too much influence Here is the core of the issue: When a small, highly engaged and motivated partisan base decides who holds office, candidates have no incentive to court the broader electorate. When candidates have no incentive to court the broader electorate, most voters are denied meaningful choice and representation. And when participation in the most consequential elections is limited to a small segment of the voting age population, every dollar spent by monied interests has a greater impact. ## Most Voters Sat It Out — Or Were Shut Out Only 25% of the survey’s respondents reported voting in a primary election this year. Among independents, the number dropped to 17%. But that low turnout should not be confused with apathy. More than a quarter of independent voters who said they didn’t vote also said they were ineligible to participate under their state's primary rules. In other words, a significant share of the fastest-growing segment of the electorate was locked out of the elections that decided most of Congress. Voters across the spectrum think that's wrong. While a majority said they support open, all candidate primaries, under a partisan primary process, more than 70% said all voters—including independents—should be able to participate. Just 29% said participation should be limited to registered party members. ## Congress Isn't Working, and Voters Know It If there is one clear takeaway from the survey, it is that the system is not working for most voters—party members and independents alike. Seventy-four percent of respondents said Congress is not effectively addressing the country's biggest problems, including the cost of living, health care, immigration, and AI. This includes 82% of Democrats, 75% of independents, and 65% of Republicans. Few issues in American politics generate that kind of cross-partisan consensus. But is it really a surprise when 90% of voters had zero say in who represents them? There is now a greater understanding among the general public that if they want better politics, then the US needs fairer, more inclusive elections. Closed and partisan primaries are only making things worse because they create incentives that make things worse. ### AI Is Now Running a Super PAC. Its Target? Control of the US Senate URL: https://ivn.us/ai-is-now-running-a-super-pac-its-target-control-of-the-us-senate/ Last updated: 2026-09-23T19:15:24.000Z The influence of AI is growing. It has already entered American politics through campaign ads, fundraising, voter outreach, and opposition research. Now, a newly announced super PAC in New Hampshire will attempt to influence who controls the US Senate. And it will largely be run using artificial intelligence. New Hampshire political activist Aaron Day launched StarkFreedom on Tuesday, which will spend up to $2.5 million supporting third-party candidates in four competitive Senate races. The objective? Day says it is to punish the GOP by tipping the scales in favor of the Democrats. However, instead of outright supporting Democratic nominees, the PAC will try to elevate third party candidates who can exceed the final vote margin between the two major parties. In other words, it is not endorsing third party candidates to support them, but to leverage them. The group says AI will power its research, polling, legal drafting, campaign content, and digital operations in pursuit of this goal. And its first test will be in New Hampshire. US Senate Constitution Party candidate Edmond Laplante is on the November ballot alongside Democrat Chris Pappas and Republican John Sununu. There is no incumbent [in the race](https://ballotpedia.org/United%5FStates%5FSenate%5Felection%5Fin%5FNew%5FHampshire,%5F2026?ref=ivn.us) as Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (whose seat is up) did not seek re-election. The Cook Political Report [moved the Senate contest into its toss-up category on September 15](https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/senate/new-hampshire-senate/move-toward-gop-new-hampshire-senate-race-shifts-toss?ref=ivn.us). Laplante was certified for the ballot on September 2, and according to [a recent Rasmussen poll](https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public%5Fcontent/politics/public%5Fsurveys/toplines%5Fnew%5Fhampshire%5Fsenate%5Fseptember%5F8%5F10%5F2026?ref=ivn.us) conducted September 8-10 among 1,000 likely voters, he is polling at 2%, compared to Pappas at 45% and Sununu at 34%. Day, who ran for Senate back in 2016, was also included in the poll at 4%. "Rasmussen has me at 4% in a race I am not even running in, and Ed Laplante at 2," he said. "I am asking every one of my supporters to vote Laplante.” > *“That is 6%. And if Laplante finishes at 4, the Constitution Party earns its own ballot line in New Hampshire for 2028\. I have talked to people all across this state who want to run under that banner."* Under [state law](https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LXIII/652/652-11.htm?ref=ivn.us), a political organization qualifies for party recognition if its gubernatorial or US Senate candidate receives at least 4% of the vote in the preceding state general election. Not all of Day’s surveyed support would be needed to get Laplante there. But this also assumes the poll accurately depicts the preferences of state voters and if Day can convince his supporters to vote for Laplante. Having run before, Day has firsthand experience with close elections. He received nearly 18,000 votes in 2016 while Democrat Maggie Hassan defeated Republican Kelly Ayotte by just 1,017 votes. This provides a historical comparison, but there is no way to say how Day’s voters would have cast their ballots if he was not in the race—or if they would have voted at all. The reason Day was included in the latest Rasmussen Poll is because he was a potential candidate this year. On August 31, a judge granted him a preliminary injunction ordering the state to accept his declaration of intent if he otherwise qualified. He says he beat the state, not with a lawyer, but with AI. Now he wants to deploy similar tools in federal campaigns. "I was running for this seat myself. I won the court case, and I had the certified signatures in hand," Day said. > *"The only reason I did not file them is that I was told some of my demands had been met. That was a lie. So, I am not a candidate this year. I am the margin, in four states, with a budget."* According to the announcement, StarkFreedom is preparing its Federal Election Commission registration as an independent expenditure-only committee (a super PAC). Day says the goal is to spend $2.5 million on the targeted elections. Under[ ](https://www.fec.gov/data/committees/pac-party/?ref=ivn.us)[FEC rules](https://www.fec.gov/data/committees/pac-party/?ref=ivn.us), super PACs can accept unlimited contributions but must make their expenditures independently of the candidates they support or oppose. StarkFreedom says it will announce its remaining three Senate targets on Thursday, September 24. ### Did Trump's FBI Just Tip Maine and the Senate to Democrats? URL: https://ivn.us/did-trumps-fbi-just-tip-maine-and-the-senate-to-democrats/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:49:35.000Z Every so often, a piece of investigative journalism arrives that totally blows my mind. On Tuesday, [ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/fbi-susan-collins-navatek-campaign-donations-investigation?ref=ivn.us) published one. Reporters William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Molly Redden and Kirsten Berg drew on FBI evidence, thousands of pages of court records and dozens of interviews to reconstruct how a Hawaii defense contractor called Navatek bought its way into the federal budget, and who helped it get there. It is the first installment in a series; it is investigative reporting at its finest, and every Mainer (and American) should read it. The central figure in the investigation is Maine’s senior US Senator Susan Collins, whose influence is scrutinized alongside Navatek. For decades, Navatek had lived off federal money that Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye steered home. Then [Inouye died](https://alaskapublic.org/news/2012-12-18/hawaii-senator-daniel-inouye-passes-away?ref=ivn.us) in 2012, [Congress retired the earmark](https://www.cagw.org/all-about-earmarks-a-brief-history/?ref=ivn.us), and Martin Kao, who rose from chief financial officer to CEO and eventually owner of Navatek, had to find a substitute patron to keep the contracts flowing. Kao's answer was to cultivate the [lawmakers who write the spending bills](https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/about/history?ref=ivn.us). His recipe called for a few ingredients: a university partner in the right state, a generous upfront donation, a stable of expensive lobbyists, and patience while the dollars worked their way into the defense budget. Inside Navatek, people simply called it “the method.” Eric Schiff, a former Navatek executive, told ProPublica how it felt to watch that recipe work. > *“It was eye-opening for me, frankly. ‘Oh my God, all of it is for sale. It’s all for sale,’” Schiff said.* Maine offered everything “the method” required: a research university eager for partners and a senior senator on the Appropriations Committee. According to Kao, face time with Senator Collins in 2018 carried a price tag: a pledge of campaign money, which is legal if unlovely. Kao arrived at that first meeting with an $8 million proposal to study boat hulls alongside the University of Maine. Investigators would later trace [a burst of Kao family giving to Collins](https://www.wabi.tv/2021/05/19/fbi-investigating-alleged-illegal-contributions-to-sen-collins-reelection-campaign/?ref=ivn.us) that summer, landing just ahead of the moment the [$8 million turned up](https://www.collins.senate.gov/newsroom/senator-collins-joins-celebration-8-million-navy-contract-awarded-navatek-portland?ref=ivn.us) in the Pentagon budget. And when it came time for the US Navy to hand out the money, emails indicate Collins's staff told the service which company they had in mind, in a process meant to be open to all comers. By August 2019, the courtship had gone public. Collins toured Navatek's Maine operation and smiled for the cameras between Kao and JB Turner of Front Street Shipyard in Belfast, the Senator holding a scale model of the company's prototype vessel. Ahead of the visit, Kao had lined up upward of $40,000 in checks from his relatives. When he personally blew through the contribution limit, emails show, he told the campaign to assign the overflow to his father, which an FBI agent would later point out to prosecutors as violating federal election law. The Collins campaign's finance director wrote back with gratitude. Kao told investigators that in a closed-door session before the visit, Collins pointed to her results: "You've seen me deliver." Within weeks, a draft Senate defense spending plan carried [$21.5 million for Navatek's Maine projects](https://mainemorningstar.com/2026/09/22/the-fbi-anti-corruption-squad-was-circling-susan-collins-until-trump-got-in-the-way/?ref=ivn.us), earmarks in all but name. Kao wanted to give more than any candidate is allowed to take. A super PAC faces no such cap. So in the closing weeks of 2019, Scott Reed, chairman of the pro-Collins [1820 PAC](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00698126/?cycle=2020&ref=ivn.us), met with Kao and two of his executives and, by ProPublica's account, made a half-million-dollar ask. Kao told agents his side of the bargain came with conditions: a large new tranche of federal money for Navatek, and a promise that the senator would know exactly who was paying. He says Reed agreed to both. Federal contractors like Navatek are barred from political giving, so Kao dreamed up a front: an LLC called the Society of Young Woman (sic) Scientist (sic) and Engineers, a group with no members, no mission, and no existence beyond its bank account. He emailed Reed the idea. Reed's review: "Very smart." [The front sent $150,000 to the pro-Collins 1820 PAC](https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00698126/1376562/sa/ALL?ref=ivn.us) on 12/31/2019. Seven days later, Reed's operation reached out to [a Navatek lobbyist](https://www.linkedin.com/in/glen-mandigo-59558741/?ref=ivn.us) to get Kao's number because "Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him." Reed says he never talked about Kao or Navatek with Collins or anyone on her staff. Collins's husband, [Tom Daffron](https://www.legistorm.com/person/bio/5839/Thomas%5FA%5FDaffron.html?ref=ivn.us), [worked last year](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28606459-annual-report-for-2025-collins/?ref=ivn.us) for [Chesapeake Enterprises](https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/firms/chesapeake-enterprises?cycle=2019&firm%5Fid=196920&ref=ivn.us), a firm led by Reed, who currently chairs the pro-Collins [Pine Tree Results PAC](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00894709/?ref=ivn.us). Daffron and Reed also worked together as lobbyists for Chesapeake Enterprises more than two decades ago. [In February 2020, Kao brought his team to Collins's office](https://www.propublica.org/article/fbi-susan-collins-navatek-campaign-donations-investigation?ref=ivn.us). Afterward, he told his colleagues the office had committed to $32 million. When the Senate's numbers came out that year, at least $10 million of them traced back to Navatek's pitches. ### **And what did taxpayers get for all this?** By Kao's own admission to agents, very little. ProPublica could not identify a single Navatek product from his years in charge that the military later purchased. The Navy, a former employee said, had no interest in it. > 11/ Even Navatek’s executives were surprised at how far their money went in D.C. > > “It was eye-opening for me, frankly. ‘Oh my God, all of it is for sale. It’s all for sale,’” former executive Eric Schiff said. > > — ProPublica (@propublica) [September 22, 2026](https://x.com/propublica/status/2102352254749802634?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The shell company fooled no one for long, and much of the credit goes to two watchdogs who worked on this for years, way before it became national news in the middle of this year’s reelection campaign. In February 2020, [The Campaign Legal Center](https://campaignlegal.org/update/clc-investigation-leads-criminal-charges-over-straw-donor-scheme?ref=ivn.us) caught a misspelled donor name in the super PAC's filings and asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate. [Nick Grube](https://www.civilbeat.org/author/ngrube/?ref=ivn.us), an investigative reporter at Honolulu [Civil Beat](https://civilbeat.org/?ref=ivn.us), quickly tied the mystery LLC to Navatek; his February 7, 2020 story followed a trail of donations from Kao's orbit to Collins. [Civil Beat kept at it ](https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/03/this-hawaii-defense-contractor-has-emerged-as-a-major-political-player/?ref=ivn.us)through the guilty pleas and the sentencing. > Kao political contributions were sprawling. He dished out donations all over the country and targeted senators on the appropriations committee. > > A [@civilbeat](https://x.com/CivilBeat?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) piece from 2020 detailed some of that giving.[https://t.co/S3YwXpz44W](https://t.co/S3YwXpz44W?ref=ivn.us) > > — Nick Grube (@nickgrube) [September 22, 2026](https://x.com/nickgrube/status/2102496426718630202?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) As the scheme surfaced, the super PAC's attorney, Cleta Mitchell, floated an idea for making the fake society look real: have it award engineering scholarships to young women, with an eye toward Maine, "where the bad press was." > *“*[*According to information available to the Commission,*](https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7690/7690%5F36.pdf?ref=ivn.us) *after the Complaint in this MUR became publicly known, attorney Cleta Mitchell, who represented 1820 PAC, advised Kao to begin making donations from the Society to universities, to put some meat on the bones; Kao understood her advice to mean that Navatek should cause the Society to appear to have a purpose other than the donation to 1820 PAC. Kao also stated that Mitchell advised him to alter the Navatek financial records to make the accounting code appear as if the $150,000 contribution from the Society was a distribution to Kao instead of Navatek’s money and that 1820 PAC should not return the $150,000 because then it would look as though the Society and Navatek had been caught. In an ongoing lawsuit that Navatek brought against Kao and others, emails emerged showing Kao and others mocking the idea of a philanthropic organization assisting women.”* Meanwhile, Kao was digging a second hole, inflating his payroll to extract $13 million in pandemic relief. In April 2021, authorities served Kao with a [search warrant](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20744899-navatek-search-warrant/?ref=ivn.us). In May 2021, [Axios broke the story that the FBI was investigating](https://www.axios.com/2021/05/18/susan-collins-reelection-investigation-finance-scheme?ref=ivn.us). In 2022, [Kao pleaded guilty](https://www.courthousenews.com/racketeering-claims-survive-against-former-defense-contractors-wife?ref=ivn.us) in both matters, including moving some $33,000 to Collins using family members as straw donors. At this point, Kao started talking to the feds in hopes of a lighter sentence. ProPublica says its reporting backed up much of what he claimed, and the FBI agents who reviewed the trove of material seized at his arrest concluded his story mostly checked out. By late 2024, the FBI was pushing to open a wider bribery case that, in their view, might touch lawmakers from both parties. In February 2025, [Kao was sentenced to over seven years in federal prison](https://www.justice.gov/usao-hi/pr/former-hawaii-ceo-sentenced-87-months-imprisonment-covid-relief-fraud-and-bank-fraud?ref=ivn.us). Around the same time, [the investigators themselves](https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/fbi-probes-defense-contractors-contributions-to-sen-susan-collins-11621382437?ref=ivn.us) became [the story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn20eayHHDI&ref=ivn.us). At the Justice Department, the Public Integrity Section fell apart amid the order to drop the Eric Adams prosecution. FBI Director Kash Patel dismantled CR-15, the bureau's unit for cases involving public officials. [Michelle Ball](https://courthousenews.com/fbi-agents-fired-for-work-on-2020-election-probe-sue-claiming-retribution/?ref=ivn.us), one of the agents who heard Kao's confession, lost her job in October 2025, punished for having worked on the special counsel's case about the 2020 election. “We are cleaning up a diseased temple three decades in the making,” Patel said at the time. Kevin Gounaud, Ball’s partner, was forced out in February 2026. Whatever case Kao's confession might have produced is gone. An FBI spokesman insists the bureau looked into Collins long ago and found nothing. Collins's office rejects the entire account. Annie Clark, her most important government aide, dismissed Kao's claims to ProPublica as baseless, said the campaign was never in the room for Kao’s talks with the super PAC, and said the matter ended in 2021 once the campaign returned his illegal donations. On X, Clark was blunter, calling the story "categorically false." > The seven-year-old allegations made against Senator Collins and her staff in this piece are categorically false. There have never been any allegations of wrongdoing by the Collins for Senator campaign, and the campaign was never the target of the FBI investigation. > > ProPublica… [https://t.co/h4YZ9Nxdpe](https://t.co/h4YZ9Nxdpe?ref=ivn.us) > > — Annie Clark (@annieclark25) [September 22, 2026](https://x.com/annieclark25/status/2102418037857022067?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Here is what I want the rest of the country to understand. Mainers did not need an FBI investigation to tell them what a candidate-aligned super PAC is all about. They already voted on it. In November 2024, nearly 75 percent of voters approved Question 1, [capping contributions to super PACs at $5,000](https://mainemorningstar.com/2024/10/23/growing-bipartisan-support-for-maine-initiative-to-get-dark-money-out-of-politics/?ref=ivn.us). Consider what that $5,000 cap means in the context of this corruption scandal. Collins's campaign could accept only $5,600 per election from any one person. Her super PAC could take whatever a donor was willing to give. That gap explains everything. It is why a contractor who had already maxed out and was already routing money through his father and family went looking for a coffee shop and a much bigger door. I chaired Maine Citizens Against Super PACs, which brought Question 1 to the ballot, and I am an intervenor in the lawsuit defending it. Within weeks of the vote, two super PACs sued, and in July 2025 a federal judge blocked enforcement, leaning on SpeechNow v. FEC, the 2010 D.C. Circuit decision that gave birth to super PACs. But the judge also accepted the factual heart of our case: **that a super PAC contribution can be the payment side of a corrupt bargain.** On July 29, Neal Katyal argued our appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, with Larry Lessig at our side. Our argument is simple. Voters are entitled to a government free of corruption. They are also entitled to a government free of the appearance of corruption. The Supreme Court said so in Buckley v. Valeo half a century ago. SpeechNow, by contrast, declared that contributions to super PACs create neither. Tell that to anyone who reads the ProPublica story today. The appearance standard doesn't require a conviction, and I am not asking anyone to convict Susan Collins. No one needs a verdict to know something is wrong when a Hawaiian defense contractor's shell company writes a six-figure check to a senator's super PAC in Maine, the senator's side calls to say thank you, and the contractor leaves her office believing $32 million is on the way. An attorney for the Institute for Free Speech told the First Circuit that the law requires proof of an explicit exchange of money for an official favor. But notice the trap. **According to Kao, his whole operation was built so that no such proof would ever exist. The sensitive conversations happened face to face, never in writing. "That is why I literally had to fly to D.C. almost every week," Kao told the FBI. "Sometimes for a 15-minute meeting."** And as the ProPublica team explains, prosecuting a sitting lawmaker for corruption demands an exceptional level of proof, a bar the Supreme Court has kept raising. The FBI unit assembling that proof has been taken apart. If the only remedy for corruption is catching an explicit deal on paper, and the people making the deals know better than to put them on paper, voters are left with nothing. In any case, the people of Maine refused to accept that. We passed a law. If the First Circuit upholds it, the ruling would conflict with the D.C. Circuit and open a clear path to the Supreme Court. I’m not a lawyer, but Susan Collins may have just handed the justices their Exhibit A. Control of the Senate may well run through Maine this year. Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee, came out swinging. "This is corruption of the highest order," he said. "Susan Collins delivered millions in taxpayer dollars for a corrupt donor bankrolling her campaign, and then Donald Trump helped her cover it up." He demanded a full accounting of every contract and every conversation, and declared that “the jig is up.” Voters will weigh that charge against the senator's denials. No matter who wins in November, the deeper problem outlasts the election. “The method” worked because an unlimited super PAC sat right beside a limited campaign, and because everyone involved understood what to do. Mainers deserve so much better than all of this. More to the point, they know they deserve better. They said so at the ballot box by casting the most votes ever for any initiative in the state’s history. They are saying so now, in a federal courtroom in Boston. And they will decide this November whether it all matters enough to vote Collins out. --- *The full ProPublica investigation, "The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins," by William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Molly Redden and Kirsten Berg, is available at propublica.org and is the first in a series. Nick Grube's original 2020 reporting on the Navatek donations is available at Honolulu Civil Beat (civilbeat.org).* ### One Election. Two Congressional Maps. Missouri Voters Caught in the Middle URL: https://ivn.us/one-election-two-congressional-maps-missouri-voters-caught-in-the-middle/ Last updated: 2026-09-22T20:11:25.000Z **JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.** — Missouri voters are set to decide the fate of a new congressional map in November. However, there is a problem: What congressional map will be used for the general election hasn’t fully been settled. And voting has already begun. On September 21, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a lower district court’s ruling that Missouri must use the congressional districts Republican lawmakers approved in 2025 for the November 3 election. This is because the state already used that map for the August 4 primary. The decision conflicts with an earlier Missouri Supreme Court ruling that determined that the new map cannot legally take effect until voters have a say on the veto referendum, [Proposition A](https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri%5FProposition%5FA,%5FCongressional%5FMap%5FReferendum%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us). Enforcement of the new ruling was delayed until September 28, giving opponents time to seek relief from the US Supreme Court. In the meantime, election officials are proceeding under Missouri's previous congressional map, enacted in 2022. The whole ordeal has turned into a legal nightmare predicted on IVN way back in December. It is also the latest development in a redistricting battle that has gone from a dispute over congressional representation to a much larger question about the authority of voters, state lawmakers, and the courts. ## **How Missouri Got into This Mess** Here is a quick refresher of everything that has happened to this point. In September 2025, Missouri's Republican-controlled Legislature approved HB 1, a mid-decade congressional redistricting plan backed by President Donald Trump. The new map was designed to give Republicans an advantage in 7 of Missouri's 8 congressional districts, compared with the 6 seats the party currently holds. Specifically, it carves up the Kansas City district currently represented by Democratic US Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, dividing portions of the city among multiple congressional districts. However, as soon as HB 1 was approved, the nonpartisan anti-gerrymandering group People Not Politicians started collecting signatures for a veto referendum. Under Article III, Section 49 of the Missouri Constitution, citizens can petition to approve or reject acts of the General Assembly, subject to specified exceptions. Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins tried to reject the referendum, arguing that one of the exceptions is how the Legislature draws new congressional maps. [The Missouri Supreme Court disagreed.](https://ivn.us/missouri-politicians-tried-to-override-voters-the-states-highest-court-said-no-twice/) On September 3, it unanimously ruled that the veto referendum was legal, sufficient, and timely. The court ordered the measure onto the November ballot and prohibited state officials from implementing HB 1 unless voters approve it. In other words, the decision held that the old congressional map—enacted in 2022—has to remain effective until after the election. At which point, it will all come down to Missourians and their vote on Proposition A. A “Yes” vote allows the 2025 map for future elections. A “No” vote keeps the 2022 map in place. The US Supreme Court upheld the decision, but there was a complication. Missouri had already conducted its August 4 primary elections using the 2025 map. And that became the basis for a new federal lawsuit. ### **Federal Courts Are at Odds with Missouri's Highest Court** Republican US Rep. Bob Onder, Republican congressional nominee Rick Brattin, and two voters sued Hoskins, arguing that Missouri could not constitutionally conduct its primary election under one congressional map and its general election under another. At the center of this argument are voters whose districts would shift depending on what map is used. Some Missourians who voted in the primary could see entirely different candidates on their general election ballot. A federal district judge initially sided with the plaintiffs on September 8, but the US Supreme Court temporarily blocked that ruling two days later. Then, on September 21, [the Eighth Circuit issued its ruling, which also favored the plaintiffs](https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/missouri-again-ordered-to-use-gerrymandered-map-supreme-court-likely-to-decide/?ref=ivn.us). The three-judge panel concluded that changing congressional districts between the primary and general election would violate federal constitutional protections governing representation and equal treatment of voters. Further, the panel directed the lower district court to issue a permanent injunction requiring use of the 2025 map, which was subsequently issued with enforcement delayed until September 28. None of what the federal appeals courts decided overturns the Missouri Supreme Court's ruling on Proposition A. It will still appear on the November ballot. Instead, it creates a legal conflict concerning which map can be used in November. The state's highest court says it has to be the 2022 map. Two federal appeals courts say it has to be the 2025 map. The question now is whether the Supreme Court will resolve this dispute with a little over a month until Election Day. ## **There’s Another Complication: Ballots Have Already Been Sent Out** While attorneys argue over constitutional authority, local election officials face an immediate logistical problem. Missouri began mailing ballots to military and overseas voters on September 18\. [Absentee voting for eligible voters begins Tuesday, September 22](https://missouriindependent.com/2026/09/21/appeals-court-backs-missouris-gerrymandered-map-but-decision-is-put-on-hold/?ref=ivn.us). Those ballots were prepared using the 2022 congressional map in accordance with the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision. Election officials warned the Eighth Circuit that changing maps again would require more than replacing candidate names. They would need to determine which voters belong in which congressional districts, generate new ballot styles, reprogram equipment, print replacement ballots, and conduct additional testing. Their main point is that changes could threaten compliance with election deadlines and create significant costs. There is also a larger concern for Missourians: What happens to a voter who has already submitted a ballot under the 2022 map if a court subsequently requires the state to use the 2025 map? Would that ballot still count for the congressional race? Would the voter need to receive another ballot? These questions become trickier with each passing day. One thing is known for sure: Missouri voters, candidates, and election officials have entered uncharted waters filled with uncertainty and confusion due to decisions made my partisan election officials. People Not Politicians attorney Chuck Hatfield has indicated that the organization will seek another stay from the US Supreme Court before the September 28 deadline. ### The Most Dishonest Campaign Ad in 2026? URL: https://ivn.us/the-most-dishonest-campaign-ad-in-2026-newsletter/ Last updated: 2026-09-22T17:48:04.000Z The most dishonest campaign ad of 2026 makes a simple promise: vote yes, and you’ll get **exactly the thing the measure is designed to eliminate**. Alaska’s Yes on 2 campaign is running an audio ad promising to “reject dark money” and “bring back the days of open primaries.” **The only problem?** [**Ballot Measure 2 actually repeals Alaska's open primaries AND eliminates its dark money transparency initiative!**](https://ivn.us/the-most-dishonest-campaign-ad-in-2026/) Yes, the same campaign is trying to [sell open primaries, while trying to end them](https://ivn.us/alaskas-repeal-campaign-is-selling-open-primaries-while-trying-to-end-them/). Elsewhere, in Texas, AG Paxton's closed-primary push just hit a wall in court, moving [**the fight over Texans’ right to vote**](https://ivn.us/texas-gops-closed-primary-push-hits-pause-the-next-fight-is-in-austin/) to Austin. Why does every fight include the party in power v. the voters? Katherine Gehl has the answer: MAGA and the DSA are both products of [**the politics of no competition**](https://ivn.us/maga-the-dsa-and-the-politics-of-no-competition/): a political market the two parties have rigged, and voters are stuck buying from. Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## The Most Dishonest Campaign Ad in 2026? [![Alaska Ballot Measure 2 campaign ad](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-5c413482-43f6-406c-bd58-139c99e058d6.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-most-dishonest-campaign-ad-in-2026/) The Yes on 2 audio ad promises to “reject dark money” and “bring back the days of open primaries.” One problem: **Alaska already has open primaries, and Measure 2 is the thing that would end them**. Shawn Griffiths fact-checks the script, line by line. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/the-most-dishonest-campaign-ad-in-2026/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [MAGA, the DSA, and the Politics of No Competition ](https://ivn.us/maga-the-dsa-and-the-politics-of-no-competition/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/09/Katherine-Gehl.jpg) Katherine Gehl [ ![MAGA, the DSA, and the Politics of No Competition](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/MAGA-DSA-Trump-Mamdani-1.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/maga-the-dsa-and-the-politics-of-no-competition/) [Democrats Gerrymandered David Valadao’s District. Did It Backfire? ](https://ivn.us/democrats-gerrymandered-david-valadaos-district-it-backfired/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Democrats Gerrymandered David Valadao’s District. 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The Next Fight Is in Austin](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/image-4c1d59f0-13fb-487a-b272-a0edf1c951ae.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/texas-gops-closed-primary-push-hits-pause-the-next-fight-is-in-austin/) [People vs Politics: The Documentary About Independents Who Won’t Quit on Fairer Elections ](https://ivn.us/people-vs-politics-the-documentary-about-independents-who-wont-quit-on-fairer-elections/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/09/Robert-Pease.jpg) Robert Pease [ ![People vs Politics: The Documentary About Independents Who Won’t Quit on Fairer Elections](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/Lisa-Rice-and-sandwich-board.png) ](https://ivn.us/people-vs-politics-the-documentary-about-independents-who-wont-quit-on-fairer-elections/) [Alaska Voting Rights PAC Makes Bill Hill Its First Independent Endorsement ](https://ivn.us/alaska-voting-rights-pac-makes-bill-hill-its-first-independent-endorsement/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Alaska Voting Rights PAC Makes Bill Hill Its First Independent Endorsement](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/bill-hill.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/alaska-voting-rights-pac-makes-bill-hill-its-first-independent-endorsement/) [Alaska’s Repeal Campaign Is Selling Open Primaries While Trying to End Them ](https://ivn.us/alaskas-repeal-campaign-is-selling-open-primaries-while-trying-to-end-them/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![Alaska’s Repeal Campaign Is Selling Open Primaries While Trying to End Them](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/image-a0aa6760-700c-488e-b01e-14ceaadb7170.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/alaskas-repeal-campaign-is-selling-open-primaries-while-trying-to-end-them/) [California’s 22nd District Exposes What Political Insiders Still Don’t Get About Latino Voters ](https://ivn.us/californias-22nd-district-exposes-what-political-strategists-still-dont-get-about-latino-voters/) By Kent Price, Latino News Network [ ![California’s 22nd District Exposes What Political Insiders Still Don’t Get About Latino Voters](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/california-22-district.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/californias-22nd-district-exposes-what-political-strategists-still-dont-get-about-latino-voters/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Former California State Senator Steve Peace joins EP60: California’s top-two primary puts DSA-backed Democrats face-to-face with the party’s moderate wing, **in front of the entire electorate, not just the party faithful**. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QApKYWbMrYg&ref=ivn.us) ### *INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES ▶▶▶* ## Is This Mic On? Dan Osborn Meets the Opposition Research Machine [![Dan Osborn](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/dan-osborn-nebraska.png)](https://ivn.us/is-this-mic-on-dan-osborn-meets-the-opposition-research-machine/) Three leaked recordings in two weeks have turned Nebraska’s Senate race into a case study in **the opposition research machine the parties aim at outsiders**. Matt Shinners on Dan Osborn versus the hot mics. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/is-this-mic-on-dan-osborn-meets-the-opposition-research-machine/) ### *VIRAL ▶▶▶* ## Aaron Rodgers: Neither Party Gives “a F\*\*k About Regular People” [![Aaron Rodgers: Neither Party Gives “a F**k About Regular People”](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/Rodgers_Clip.png)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdKaMFrCWhd/?ref=ivn.us) Aaron Rodgers says he doesn’t trust “anybody in politics.” On teammate Cam Heyward’s podcast, the Steelers QB called Democrats and Republicans one “uniparty” running “the same policies.” He has company: **a record 45% of Americans now identify as independent**. [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdKaMFrCWhd/?ref=ivn.us) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voters Can Be Heard in California. The Top-Two Primary Is Worth Defending [![California Top-Two primary](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/california-undo-the-top-two-independent-voters.jpg)](https://ivn.us/independent-voters-can-be-heard-in-california-the-top-two-primary-is-worth-defending/) Lenny Mendonca and Dan Schnur: California voters broke the parties’ grip on primaries in 2010, and the repeal effort raises one fundamental question: **who should get to vote in taxpayer-funded elections?** [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/independent-voters-can-be-heard-in-california-the-top-two-primary-is-worth-defending/) ### *VETERANS ▶▶▶* ## Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff Washington Post Pentagon reporter Dan Lamothe joins Army veteran Paul Rieckhoff to pull back the curtain on **a Pentagon defined by press restrictions, purges, and unexplained leadership shakeups**, plus what the building is (and isn’t) doing about AI. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thIvwFCUKxc&ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### California’s 22nd District Exposes What Political Insiders Still Don’t Get About Latino Voters URL: https://ivn.us/californias-22nd-district-exposes-what-political-strategists-still-dont-get-about-latino-voters/ Last updated: 2026-09-22T15:56:20.000Z *Editor's Note: The following article* [*originally published*](https://calatinonews.com/californias-22nd-district-and-the-myth-of-the-predictable-voter/?ref=ivn.us) *on CALatinoNews.com and has been republished in its entirety on IVN in partnership with the Latino News Network.* For years, I thought California’s Central Valley presented one of the more puzzling electorates I encountered as a public-opinion researcher. I conducted dozens of surveys throughout the Valley, including communities that would eventually become parts of David Valadao’s congressional districts. One pattern was difficult to miss. Democratic registration, particularly among Latino voters, often suggested a considerably more Democratic electorate than appeared on Election Day. Participation was uneven, and Latino Democratic registration did not translate into equivalent electoral strength. By 2016, I was describing Valadao’s district publicly as “a mystery to everyone who has ever looked at it.” It had a large Latino population and a substantial Democratic registration advantage, yet it continued electing a Republican to Congress. Even then, however, there were signs that the mystery might lie less with the voters than with how outsiders understood them. I had seen in my own survey work that Democratic registration and Latino population did not translate automatically into Democratic votes. I had also come to believe that Central Valley political identity could not simply be inferred from the partisan and demographic categories that described the district on paper. A decade later, I am less certain that the voters were ever mysterious. Perhaps our categories were. ## The myth of a single Latino electorate In LatinoLand, Marie Arana begins a discussion she calls “the myth of the Latino vote” with Ronald Reagan’s famous suggestion that Hispanics were Republicans who simply did not know it yet. Democrats have sometimes behaved as though the reverse were true. Both assumptions ask ethnicity to predict political behavior more reliably than it does. Latino voters differ by national origin, generation, occupation, religion, education, income, geography and political experience. My experience in the Central Valley suggested another distinction that is equally important: The population is not the electorate. A heavily Latino district may not produce an equally Latino electorate. Democratic registration advantages do not guarantee Democratic voting, and presidential preferences do not necessarily extend down-ballot. Population, citizenship, registration, likely-voter status, actual turnout and candidate choice represent different stages in the political process. Treating them as interchangeable can make understandable election results appear mysterious. For years, Democratic strategists could look at registration and demographics and see the components of a durable Democratic constituency. Republicans could look at actual election results and see something different. Both were observing real political facts. They were simply not observing the same electorate. ## A politician who kept violating the forecast David Valadao’s career provides an unusually useful case. He first won election to the California Assembly in 2010 and an open congressional seat two years later. He was reelected in 2014 and 2016. Then came 2018. Democrat TJ Cox defeated him by only 862 votes amid the national Democratic wave that transferred roughly 40 House seats and control of the chamber to Democrats. Two years later Valadao returned and defeated Cox, who by then had the advantage of congressional incumbency. Since beginning his elective career in 2010, that 2018 race remains Valadao’s only general-election defeat. Consider 2016\. Hillary Clinton carried the old 21st Congressional District with 55.2% of the vote to Donald Trump’s 39.7% — a margin of 15.5 points. On the same Election Day, Valadao defeated Democrat Emilio Huerta 56.7% to 43.3%. A district that preferred the Democratic presidential candidate by more than 15 points simultaneously returned a Republican congressman by more than 13 points. Aggregate returns cannot reveal how much of the divergence came from crossover voting, turnout differences or ballot roll-off. But they establish something important: presidential partisanship was an exceptionally poor predictor of the congressional outcome. The 2018 loss is revealing for another reason. It is sometimes remembered as evidence that Democrats finally discovered how to mobilize the Central Valley electorate. Democratic organizations certainly worked to increase participation among Latino and younger voters. Yet Cox received roughly as many votes as Huerta had received two years earlier. Much of the decisive movement occurred on Valadao’s side of the ledger during an exceptional national Democratic year. From my experience studying Central Valley elections, I have always regarded Cox’s victory less as proof that Democrats had solved the Valadao problem than as evidence that the political environment of 2018 was finally strong enough to push a Democrat narrowly across the line. Then came 2020\. Cox was now the incumbent. Democrats controlled the House. Joe Biden carried the district comfortably. Valadao won anyway. Without the normal advantage of incumbency, he reclaimed a district whose voters preferred the Democratic presidential nominee. Across those elections, presidential partisanship, incumbency and even a national wave repeatedly failed to predict Valadao’s congressional performance. The question is why. ## The politician who looks like the place National political journalism frequently describes Valadao as a moderate or pragmatic Republican. Those descriptions capture part of his appeal, but perhaps not the most important part. Valadao’s biography is unusually legible in the Central Valley. He was born and raised in Hanford, graduated from the local high school, attended community college and entered his family’s dairy and farming business. Agriculture and water are not abstractions in his political biography. They are the economic world from which he came. None of this makes Valadao an independent disguised as a Republican. He has operated comfortably within Republican politics and was closely associated with neighboring Central Valley Republican Kevin McCarthy. But he has also supplied voters with visible evidence that his party identification does not determine every political decision. Most dramatically, after returning to Congress in 2021, Valadao became one of only 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump after January 6. That did not transform him into a Never-Trump Republican. With Trump again in the White House, Valadao says he communicates with the president and works with the administration. That combination is more interesting than the label “centrist.” Valadao remains institutionally connected to his party while maintaining a strong local identity. He does not have to explain why agriculture matters to him or convince voters that he understands the economic culture of the southern San Joaquin Valley. His biography makes the argument for him. ## When local identity resists nationalization There is a useful historical comparison. For years, Mississippi Democrat Gene Taylor represented a congressional district that voted strongly Republican for president while continuing to send him to Congress by large margins. Taylor developed a local political identity partly independent of the national Democratic Party. Eventually national partisan sorting overwhelmed it, and he lost in the Republican wave of 2010. Valadao presents something resembling the partisan mirror image. The comparison is not ideological. It is structural. Both cases ask the same question: How long can voters maintain a distinction between their judgment of a national political party and their judgment of someone they regard as their local representative? Valadao’s career suggests that nationalization may be powerful without being complete. ## The Valleycrat solution Central Valley Democrats developed their own response to the region’s political culture. There is even a name for it: the “Valleycrat.” The term, attributed to former Assembly Speaker and Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, came to describe Democrats willing to depart from their state or national party on questions such as agriculture, water, oil and taxes when they believed Valley interests required it. But Valleycrat has always communicated more than a set of issue positions. It expresses regional identity. Bakersfield is not Los Angeles. Fresno is not San Francisco. A Valleycrat could therefore communicate something politically useful: I am a Democrat, but I am a Valley Democrat. The strategy rests on a plausible theory of the electorate. Democratic registration has historically overstated Democratic Election Day performance. A Democrat therefore seeks crossover voters by emphasizing ideological moderation, local concerns and some distance from the national party. Rudy Salas represented that tradition when he challenged Valadao in 2022 and 2024\. Jasmeet Bains represented another version of it in the 2026 Democratic primary. National Democrats initially concluded that this remained the best formula. ## When Washington chose a candidate The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee intervened in the 2026 primary on behalf of Bains. The reasoning was conventional. In a highly competitive district, a moderate Democrat with an established legislative record appeared better positioned to win swing voters against an unusually durable Republican incumbent. But Democratic leaders in Kern, Tulare, Fresno and Kings counties backed Randy Villegas and objected publicly to Washington’s intervention. What national strategists regarded as an electability decision could be interpreted locally as an outside institution deciding what kind of Democrat the Valley should nominate. Republicans made almost precisely the same calculation from the opposite direction. A super PAC aligned with House Republican leadership spent money portraying Villegas as a left-wing progressive who was too extreme for the Central Valley. The unusual intervention was widely interpreted as an effort to raise his visibility among Democratic primary voters, reflecting a Republican calculation that a progressive nominee would make for a more favorable general-election matchup. The symmetry was striking. National Democrats preferred Bains because they thought a moderate would be harder for Valadao to beat. National Republicans appeared to prefer Villegas because they thought a progressive would be easier. Democratic primary voters chose Villegas anyway. That does not prove the national parties were wrong. It gives November a more interesting test. ## A different theory of the electorate Villegas is particularly interesting because his biography and scholarship suggest a theory of Central Valley politics different from the traditional Valleycrat approach. He was born and raised in Bakersfield, attended Bakersfield College and CSU Bakersfield, left to earn a doctorate in politics at UC Santa Cruz, and then returned to the Valley to teach political science and serve on a local school board. His dissertation, Voices from the Valley of Vulnerability, examined political participation among young people from mixed-status families in Kern and Fresno counties. His argument was that local contexts could constrain political engagement while community organizations and youth organizing groups could serve as bridges to participation. That is remarkably relevant to the electoral problem Democrats have faced in the Valley. There is no basis for claiming that Villegas constructed his congressional strategy from his dissertation. A dissertation is not a campaign plan. But the parallel is difficult to ignore. The traditional Valleycrat strategy attempts to adapt the Democratic candidate to the electorate that turns out. Villegas may be attempting something different: changing the electorate that turns out. His national associations with Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Working Families Party make it difficult to present him simply as another centrist Valley Democrat. His campaign instead emphasizes economic populism, working families, grassroots organizing and local roots. Whether that strategy works depends on an unforgiving distinction: Registration is not turnout. A Democratic advantage on paper matters only if those Democrats become voters. Villegas therefore has to do more than demonstrate that a favorable electorate exists. He has to help produce that electorate on Election Day. The contrast leaves several explanations in play. The Valleycrat approach emphasizes adaptation and crossover persuasion; Villegas places greater weight on mobilization; Valadao’s history points to the additional power of candidate-specific and local identity. These mechanisms can operate together, and an election result alone cannot tell us which mattered most. ## Local identity in a nationalized election The contrast between Valadao and Villegas is more subtle than “moderate Republican versus progressive Democrat.” Both can legitimately claim Central Valley roots, but they embody different relationships to the place. Valadao represents something close to continuous embeddedness: Hanford, community college, dairy farming, agricultural institutions and Valley politics. Villegas represents departure and return: Bakersfield, local colleges, graduate education outside the region, scholarly study of Valley political participation, and then a return to teaching and public service. Neither biography is inherently more authentic. But both candidates must prevent national political identities from overwhelming their local ones. Valadao must persuade voters that being a Republican congressman does not make him interchangeable with Donald Trump or every position of the national Republican Party. His impeachment vote provides unusually credible evidence for that claim. Villegas faces the reverse problem. Republicans will have every incentive to make Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and the national progressive movement define him rather than his Central Valley career. The race therefore asks the same question of both candidates: When national party labels and local political identities point in different directions, which one do voters use to make sense of the candidate? ## The electorate is not fixed This may be the broader lesson of the race. Campaign professionals commonly speak of “the electorate” as though it were a population waiting to be measured. It is not. The electorate is partly produced by politics. Who registers, who becomes attentive, who is contacted, who is mobilized and who eventually casts a ballot all help determine the electorate that appears. Persuasion asks how to win the electorate likely to vote; mobilization asks whether the electorate itself can be changed. Neither approach is inherently superior. But they are different theories of campaigning. The uncertainty surrounding Latino political behavior makes the distinction particularly relevant. Campaign professionals increasingly describe Latino voters not as a uniform partisan constituency but as regionally diverse and persuadable. The industry has become extraordinarily sophisticated at identifying and reaching Latino voters at the same moment that it has become less certain what the category “Latino voter” actually predicts. That is why the Cox election matters. If 2018 is interpreted simply as proof that Democrats permanently unlocked a latent majority in the district, Valadao’s 2020 return becomes difficult to explain. If instead 2018 is understood as the interaction of an extraordinary national environment with a distinctive local electorate, the sequence becomes more coherent. ## Why CA-22 now matters nationally The puzzle has become sharper in 2026\. California’s new congressional map made Valadao’s district more favorable to Democrats by conventional measures. Democrats now hold roughly a 16-point registration advantage, while a district Donald Trump carried by about six points in 2024 would have given him an advantage of less than two points under the new boundaries. The political arithmetic that has long made Valadao’s survival look improbable has moved still further against his party. That makes the district an unusually useful test of the argument running through this history. The national parties can measure registration, turnout probabilities, precinct behavior and demographics with precision unimaginable to the campaigns I worked on decades ago. But what does that information explain? It can identify a registered Democrat and estimate whether that person is likely to vote. It is much harder to measure whether a voter regards a dairy farmer from Hanford as “one of us,” or whether a professor from Visalia can persuade a marginal voter that participation is worth the effort. Those factors can be studied. But they are not interchangeable with the variables we most easily measure. ## What November can — and cannot — tell us If Villegas wins, it will be tempting to announce that progressivism has discovered a new formula for the Central Valley. That would go beyond the evidence. A victory could result from changed district boundaries, stronger Democratic turnout, the national environment, economic conditions, campaign spending, persuasion, mobilization, dissatisfaction with Republicans or some combination of them. If Valadao wins, it will be equally tempting to declare that the Valleycrat theory was right and that Villegas was simply too liberal. That conclusion would also require evidence. Perhaps Democratic turnout remained depressed. Perhaps Valadao again attracted voters who supported Democrats elsewhere. Perhaps his agricultural and local identity remained unusually powerful. Perhaps voters rejected Villegas ideologically. Or perhaps national conditions shifted. Election results tell us who won. They do not automatically tell us why. ## Perhaps the model is the anomaly For decades, politicians, pollsters and journalists have classified voters using categories that are valuable precisely because they simplify an extraordinarily complicated electorate: Latino or white, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, presidential voter or midterm voter. The trouble begins when description becomes explanation. Arana’s challenge to the idea of a single Latino vote, the Valleycrat tradition, Gene Taylor’s resistance to partisan nationalization and Villegas’s work on political participation all point toward the same conclusion. So does my experience surveying Central Valley voters and Valadao’s remarkable electoral career: the categories we use to describe an electorate do not necessarily explain how that electorate behaves. For years, David Valadao appeared to violate the political characteristics of his constituency. Perhaps he did not. Perhaps ethnicity, registration, turnout, presidential preference, ideology and attachment to a local candidate simply measure different dimensions of political behavior — and we created the contradiction by expecting them to measure the same thing. If so, California’s 22nd Congressional District is not really a story about unpredictable voters. It is a story about the limits of the models we use to predict them. ### MAGA, the DSA, and the Politics of No Competition URL: https://ivn.us/maga-the-dsa-and-the-politics-of-no-competition/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:49:47.000Z *Editor's Note: The following commentary piece* [*originally published*](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2026/08/23/maga%5Fthe%5Fdsa%5Fand%5Fthe%5Fpolitics%5Fof%5Fno%5Fcompetition%5F154431.html?ref=ivn.us) *on RealClearPolitics and has been republished on IVN with the author's express permission.* Despite the narrow loss by Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong in the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary last week, DSA candidates have prevailed in primaries this year from Maine to California. The Democratic Party establishment believed it dodged a bullet in Wisconsin, but this threat is not going away any time soon. The roots of the radical left’s success were seeded almost a decade ago. In 2017, a writer in a Democratic Socialists of America publication laid out a strategy under a plain title: “[Want to Elect Socialists? Run Them in Democratic Primaries.](https://www.dsausa.org/blog/want%5Fto%5Felect%5Fsocialists%5Frun%5Fthem%5Fin%5Fdemocratic%5Fprimaries/?ref=ivn.us)” The Democratic Party, the article conceded, was deeply flawed – but it was the easiest available path for socialists to win elections and build power. Nearly a decade later, that strategy is bearing fruit. Democratic Socialist and allied candidates are winning Democratic primaries, and with them, safe Democratic seats – maybe even some competitive seats. We have seen this before, on the right side of the political spectrum. Donald Trump – who sought the [Reform Party’s presidential nomination](https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/256159-a-look-back-at-trumps-first-run/?ref=ivn.us) in 2000 and registered as an independent in 2011 – ultimately abandoned the outsider path. His nationalist-populist movement could not realistically win elections as a third party – under our rules it would only split conservative votes and hand elections to Democrats. So Trump and his MAGA movement didn’t build. They captured. Trump fought inside the Republican Party, where a committed faction could dominate low-turnout primaries, threaten incumbents, and seize the party’s brand. Today MAGA owns that brand, the infrastructure, the finances, and the power of the GOP. These two stories are usually told as ideological earthquakes – the radicalization of the right, the leftward lurch of the left. They are better understood as the same structural event, produced by the same underlying cause. The cause is the century-long determination of America’s two dominant political parties to retain their power at all costs. To retain their stranglehold on the levers of power they employ a dozen different strategies, ranging from restricting ballot access to manipulating political primaries. But the single rule allowing Democrats and Republicans to keep control is one most of us never even notice – and one that sounds perfectly reasonable: In most U.S. elections, the winner is the candidate with the most votes. The technical term is plurality winners. This seems simple and fair on its face, but it turns out to be wildly consequential – and not in a good way. You see, if the winner is only required to have “the most votes,” that means in any race with more than two candidates, a candidate can win with less than a majority. For example, a candidate can win with 34% in a three-way race, meaning two-thirds of voters preferred someone else. In a five-way race, the winner could emerge with 21%. This dynamic creates the “spoiler” or the “wasted vote.” In plurality winner elections, we often don’t feel free to vote for the candidate we like best, out of fear our vote will inadvertently help elect the candidate we like least. For example, in the 2016 presidential race, if you liked Green Party candidate Jill Stein, you knew you probably shouldn’t vote for her because that would take votes from Hillary Clinton and help elect Donald Trump. The mirror on the right: You may have wanted to vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson, but you knew that would take votes from Trump and help elect Clinton. Plurality winners aren’t just a problem for “fringe” views. They’re the reason so many voters experience November general elections as a choice between the “lesser of two evils.” Consider 2024\. Numerous polls found that most Americans didn’t want a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden – roughly two-thirds said they were tired of the same candidates and wanted someone new. [Clear majorities](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4419421-vast-majority-voters-unenthusiastic-trump-biden-rematch/?ref=ivn.us) of Americans said neither man should run at all. Into that vacuum stepped the group No Labels, whose founder and chief executive, [Nancy Jacobson, reached out to some 30 potential candidates](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2024/04/04/no-labels-abandons-effort-for-unity-ticket-in-2024-presidential-election/?ref=ivn.us) for a centrist “unity” ticket. The names were serious people – Joe Manchin, Larry Hogan, Kyrsten Sinema, Liz Cheney, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley among them. Not one would run. Manchin said the quiet part out loud – he ruled it out publicly stating he [refused to be a spoiler](https://www.axios.com/2024/02/16/joe-manchin-2024-presidential-race?ref=ivn.us). There is the whole trap, in a single word. Under plurality winners, a credible independent – or third-party candidate – doesn’t enter the race as an equal competitor; he enters as a spoiler. The spoiler problem means no votes, no votes means no chance, no chance means no money, no money means no messaging, no messaging means no chance, and no chance means no votes. It is a vicious cycle, and it shuts out new competition before a single ballot is cast. No Labels went looking, in its own words, “[for a hero](https://www.foxnews.com/media/no-labels-declines-field-candidate-2024-presidential-sweeps-hero-never-emerged?ref=ivn.us),” and a hero never emerged. The system disqualified them before the starting line. So why do we do it this way? Because in the early days of our Republic, we made a mistake. At the time, democratic elections barely existed anywhere on earth, so Americans copied the one working model, Great Britain’s. For centuries, the freeholders of each English county gathered at the county court – a public assembly summoned by the sheriff – to choose the “knights of the shire” who would sit for them in the House of Commons, and the town boroughs did the same. The rule was identical and unquestioned: The most votes won, majority or not. There was no mathematical science of voting yet, no menu of alternatives to weigh. So, we reached for the only template in existence and carried it across the Atlantic. We didn’t carefully design our rule for who wins. We backed into it. Today, the plurality winner system is the greatest barrier to entry in American politics. Consider this: In any other industry as large and thriving as the politics industry, with 86% customer dissatisfaction (the [public disapproval of Congress](https://news.gallup.com/poll/708722/disapproval-congress-ties-record-high.aspx?ref=ivn.us) per Gallup’s most recent data), some entrepreneur would see a phenomenal business opportunity and enter the market to give the customers what they want. One would think that a marketplace of ideas so vastly underserved would produce third – or fourth, fifth, and sixth – alternatives. But American politics doesn’t work this way. The cause: plurality elections. Political scientists call this phenomenon [Duverger’s law,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s%5Flaw?ref=ivn.us) the tendency of plurality winners to produce exactly two parties. No new major party has emerged in American politics since the Republicans in 1854. Economists also have a name for this kind of system: a non-clearing marketplace. In a healthy market, competition keeps working until supply rises to meet demand and the market “clears.” Our political market never clears. Economists know why a market gets stuck like this: It’s rarely nature; it’s almost always an artificial barrier. Housing is the textbook case – demand for homes in a thriving city dwarfs supply, yet zoning, permitting, and other government requirements choke off new construction. Plurality winners are the corollary in American politics: the rule that keeps new supply from ever reaching the voters clamoring for it. The demand for a real alternative is enormous and unmistakable. Poll after poll finds a majority of Americans want a third choice. When a market is barred from clearing, the built-up pressure doesn’t vanish – it escapes into the black market. That is precisely what the hostile takeovers are: the black market of a rigged political economy, demand forcing its way in where honest competition is blocked. End plurality winners and let the market clear, and that same energy would flow where it belongs – into new candidates, new ideas, and politicians who must satisfy their general elections customers to survive. Modern attempts to crack the market only prove the rule. Predating No Labels’ effort, in 2012 the financier Peter Ackerman poured his own fortune and energy into Americans Elect, an audacious bid to put a bipartisan “unity” ticket on the ballot through the first-ever national online primary – its nominee required to choose a running mate from the opposing party. Ackerman’s team did something almost unimaginable, winning ballot access in 29 states before a single vote was cast. Then it collapsed, in large part because no credible candidate would step forward. The serious contenders all understood what Ross Perot’s example in the 1990s and, later, Joe Manchin would confirm: Under plurality rules an independent cannot win, only spoil. Americans Elect built the doorway. The spoiler problem meant no one dared walk through it. Even more contemporaneously, a disillusioned Elon Musk vowed only last summer to launch a third party. Within a month, he’d pumped the brakes on it. Money wasn’t the issue – he’s the richest man in the world. The barrier is plurality voting and the dreaded “spoiler” label. This summer, Tucker Carlson merely floated a third party trial balloon, Within days, the chattering class was handicapping how Carlson’s fantasy might spoil Marco Rubio’s chance at the 2028 presidential nomination – and Republican chances generally. ## **Changing the status quo** The most devastating cost of a market with no real competition is not dissatisfying candidates. The true devastation: We don’t get results. Ask a simple question: When did this country last balance its federal budget? [The answer is 1998-2001](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD/?ref=ivn.us). President Bill Clinton and his working relationship with House Speaker Newt Gingrich are generally credited with this accomplishment. But most analysts have missed an essential driver: The last time we had balanced budgets followed soon after the last time we had genuine competition in the presidential general election. In 1992, billionaire Texan Ross Perot used his own fortune to do what our system almost never permits: Compete nationally as an independent because he didn’t mind investing his own money in a spoiler race. His message was blunt – America was drowning in debt – and he delivered it himself, buying up half‑hour blocks of network television for folksy “infomercials” in which he stood before hand‑drawn charts and walked the country through the federal balance sheet. The first edition drew more than 16 million viewers. On the first Tuesday of November, Perot won not a single electoral vote but nearly [one-fifth of the popular vote](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/1992?ref=ivn.us). He lost, but citizens won. Before Perot’s candidacy, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats had balanced budgets on their party platforms. He proved that deficit reduction had a constituency neither party could afford to ignore, or to cede to his nascent Reform Party. Competitive pressure persuaded Clinton and Gingrich that they had to tackle it. In the years that followed, Washington produced four consecutive balanced budgets, the first since 1969\. [Paul Begala confirmed the theory](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ross-perot-didnt-win-but-he-did-change-america/2019/07/10/607db720-a325-11e9-b732-41a79c2551bf%5Fstory.html.?ref=ivn.us) from the inside, writing in the Washington Post at Perot’s death, “I am not sure we would have ever balanced the budget without the pressure Perot and his voters brought to the issue.” Multiple factors contributed to the balanced budgets, but Perot delivered the otherwise never-existent “political will.” Here’s the point: Competition changes results even when it doesn’t change who wins. In Silicon Valley when a breakthrough technology emerges, if it benefits customers it will eventually make it to market. The new company will succeed in the marketplace on its own or it will be acquired or copied. Either way, consumers win. That’s the alchemic brilliance of competition. We desperately need dynamic competition in politics too – not just among candidates but for innovative policy ideas, and competition “to get shit done,” to quote Joe Manchin in a recent interview making the case for independent candidates. In the political marketplace with only two competitors, neither of our two parties are incentivized to tell voters a hard truth or, more importantly, to do hard things like casting votes they know will help the country but perhaps put their political career at risk. Add a third candidate who can, and the truth suddenly has a market. That is why there will never be a real candidate of fiscal sanity – on the debt, or on anything else that demands shared sacrifice or requires dealing powerfully with tradeoffs – until we eliminate plurality winners. In a marketplace with only two competitors, neither wins reelection if they do a hard thing – balancing the budget, reaching a bipartisan compromise on immigration, rethinking health care. So, they don’t. Healthy competition, in any human endeavor, delivers innovation, results, and accountability – all of which are sorely missing in our current politics. If we want the benefits of free market politics, we must tear down the barrier to entry that plurality winners create. The fix is simple: To win, you must earn a majority. A preference for majority winners is neither radical nor new. The Constitution built in a safeguard for the Electoral College: If no candidate wins a majority there, the U.S. House picks the president in a “contingent” election. Massachusetts required a majority to elect its governor from 1780 until 1855\. When no one won a majority outright, the choice fell not to the voters but to the state legislature. [A few states still use majority requirements](https://ballotpedia.org/Runoff%5Felection?ref=ivn.us) today. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, California, and Texas require majority winners in various races and use two-person runoffs to deliver those. The instinct is right. The mechanisms are the problem. Polarized legislatures breaking ties aren’t acceptable today; that method does nothing to eliminate the deterrent effect of spoiler and wasted votes. Traditional runoffs are expensive, they demand a whole second election, and turnout collapses the second time around. Worse, a two-person runoff coming out of a crowded field can simply recreate the spoiler problem, as California’s top-two primary has done – [vote-splitting](https://ballotpedia.org/Top-two%5Fprimary?ref=ivn.us) knocking out the majority’s real choice before the final round. The elegant answer is to [hold runoffs instantly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4HdfuxnsX0&ref=ivn.us). Instant runoffs are mostly new to America, but they’re time tested by other established democracies. The Australians and Irish have used them in various elections for more than a century. And, of course the idea of runoffs isn’t foreign at all given their use in nine states. An instant runoff is exactly the same, except you don’t have to come back to the polls for each new round. Instead, you rank the candidates from your first to last choice all at once (ideally on Election Day or in a mail-in ballot arriving by Election Day) using a ranked ballot. After the polls close, assuming a dynamic five-person race, there are four runoff rounds. 1. In Round One, your vote is cast for your favorite candidate (i.e., the one you ranked first on your ballot) just like always. At the end of the round, the candidate who came in fifth/last place is eliminated. 2. In Round Two with four candidates remaining, your vote is cast for your favorite among the remaining four. At the end of the round, the candidate in fourth/last place is eliminated. 3. In Rounds Three and Four, the process repeats, narrowing the four to three and then three to the final two, at which point, of course, majority wins. Here’s the part people worry about, so let’s be plain: In every round, your vote goes to your favorite candidate still in the race. As long as your first choice is standing, that’s who you’re voting for – round after round. Your lower rankings are just backups. They come into play only if your favorite is knocked out, and then your vote moves to the next name on your list who’s still running. It’s exactly what you’d do in a Georgia or Texas or Louisiana runoff: Your candidate didn’t make it, so you pick your favorite among those who did. The difference is only that you expressed your preference in advance, so you didn’t have to make the trip back to the polling place. One election. Five candidates. Four instant runoff rounds. One vote for each voter in each round. A majority winner. No spoiler. ## **‘Frenemies’ of reform** Those of us pushing for “Final Five Elections” (FFE) know what the ranked ballot conjures in those who are unconvinced. In no small part this is because liberal reformers have spent years giving it a bad name. They’ve deployed it in sleepy, low-turnout, low-information municipal races, and in cities like San Francisco they asked voters to rank long rosters of little-known candidates. Democratic Party reformers added ranked ballots to party primaries in New York City, but they deliberately didn’t install it in the general election because the Democrats didn’t want real competition in November. They prefer knowing who to call “Mr. Mayor” after the Democratic primary in July. Reformers also like to pair a ranked ballot with proportional representation. The first is basically sabotage; the second is just a terrible idea. In both cases, they’re using a tool for the wrong job. The instant runoff has one narrow use case for which it is tailor-made: a November general election with a manageable field of up to five candidates. Used there, it does exactly one job impeccably – it guarantees a majority winner with no spoiler. It’s the key that unlocks healthy competition. That is precisely how we use it in [Final Five Elections](https://finalfiveelections.org/?ref=ivn.us). [FFE is the combination of two simple changes to our election system](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4HdfuxnsX0&ref=ivn.us): First, a single-ballot primary open to every candidate and voter regardless of party, and out of which the top five advance regardless of party; and second, an instant-runoff general election resulting in a majority winner. Open the market; require a majority. That is the whole design, and it is not just theory. In 2017, I published my politics-industry theory out of Harvard Business School with my co-author, economist Michael E. Porter. Our work made its way to Alaska, where prominent Anchorage attorney Scott Kendall used it to design a ballot initiative built around these new rules. In November 2020 Alaska voters passed Final Four Elections (an earlier version of Final Five Elections in which four candidates advance to the general). Alaska became the first state in the nation to choose healthy competition in its elections for Congress and its entire state government. It won’t be the last. You could be forgiven for thinking Final Five Elections are about electing more moderates. They will certainly make that more likely – the market for moderate dealmakers doesn’t clear today, and moderates are essential for delivering consensus solutions to tough policy challenges. But unlike the reformers who imagine that’s the whole point, I don’t see it that way. Reforms that provide artificially disproportionate advantages for moderates (e.g., [Condorcet winners](https://maskin.scholars.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum10606/files/condorcet%5Fvoting%5Fe.maskin%5Fe.foley%5Fmarch%5F2025%5F0.pdf?ref=ivn.us)) are a bad idea. Innovation in any human endeavor usually emerges from what might be considered fringes or extremes. It’s the same for public policy where innovation rarely arises at the current midpoint of public opinion. As Porter and I wrote in 2017, “transformational changes in the U.S. have often begun at the fringes – in decidedly non-moderate camps.” Think civil rights. We need moderates and we need “extremes.” We need a competition of ideas. What Final Five Elections really does is let both markets clear at once – the market for dealmakers and the market for leaders and new ideas. To envision what Final Five Elections would change, watch what’s happening right now – then imagine the same candidates, the same voters, the same political mood, under different rules. This season, Democratic socialists won a string of Democratic primaries in places where the primary is the only election that matters. In Denver’s safe-blue 1st District, 29-year-old Melat Kiros, backed by Bernie Sanders and the DSA, ousted 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette by more than 13 percentage points. In Upper Manhattan, Darializa Avila Chevalier knocked off five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat. Because these are overwhelmingly Democratic seats, that small, committed primary electorate didn’t merely choose a nominee – it chose the member of Congress even though the general election is still months away. General election voters who might have preferred the non-DSA Democrats will never get a say. Now run those same races under Final Five Elections. The socialists would still claim a spot on the November ballot but they could no longer back into the seat as the only Democrat on offer, or as the lesser of two evils. To win, the socialist would have to assemble an actual majority of the entire district. The same logic runs on the right – which is why MAGA would still exist under Final Five Elections but would likely not have rendered establishment Republicans extinct. In Texas, John Cornyn led the first round of the Senate primary and still lost to Ken Paxton in a low-turnout runoff decided by the base – even as analysts judged Cornyn the stronger November candidate. In Louisiana, Bill Cassidy was eliminated by his own party’s primary voters, punished for a vote of conscience against Donald Trump. Under Final Five Elections, Cornyn and Cassidy would each have stood on the November ballot beside their Trump-endorsed challenger (and the leading Democrat) and the whole electorate – not a closed-primary faction – would decide the race. If MAGA earns a majority, MAGA wins. If it doesn’t, the establishment Republican, or an over-achieving Democrat, prevails. To be clear, while I am no fan of the Democratic Socialists’ platform, my objection is not that they might win, it’s that we could back into their agenda – not because a majority of Americans chose it, but because a structural error in our democracy routinely distorts our elections. When and if DSA candidates win and their policies are tried in a laboratory of democracy (as in Mamdani’s grand New York City experiment), I bet voters will discover what history has already shown: Socialism doesn’t work. Under Final Five Elections, voters would have a way back, because traditional Democrats wouldn’t be extinct or new alternatives to the DSA would be able to enter. Under Final Five Elections, Mike Pence Republicans would have market access to compete for the post-Trump right-of-center vote. And for ideas that do work from any of these competitors, they can be adopted by other parties. I do this work because I believe in the value of competition. Even if certain candidates don’t win, some of their good ideas might be adopted by those who do, a la Perot. That’s as it should be. In evaluating Final Five Elections, it’s essential to see that it is not the sum of its parts. It is one machine whose several precision components work only in combination, engineered to deliver a single result: a majority winner drawn from a field of up to five credible candidates in November. Adopt just one component – ranked ballots, say, or some version of an “open” primary – and nothing structural moves. The piece that does the real work is the one most reformers omit: advancing five candidates from a single open primary into the general, so that the decisive, competitive election is November and not a low-turnout party primary. Washington, D.C., shows what happens when that piece is missing. There, reformer Lisa Rice led an impressive campaign to pass Initiative 83, which put ranked ballots in both the primaries and the general and even opened those primaries to the District’s independents – several of the “parts,” adopted at once, with real skill and the best of intentions. But Rice’s hands were tied by D.C.’s [Home Rule Act which bars](https://51st.news/ranked-choice-voting-explained-initaitive-83/?ref=ivn.us) an essential piece – the top-five primary that would carry five candidates into a contested November – and so the dynamics of the election didn’t change in Final Five style because party primaries still exist and each advance only one candidate to the general. As a result, we saw a campaign similar to other DSA races: In June 2026, Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, a democratic socialist, won the Democratic mayoral primary and, in a city this blue, is all but certain to become mayor, with no credible contender waiting in the general. The primary still crowned the winner. Notice, too, what this reveals about the ranked ballot: In a low-turnout, low-information primary, ranking is an unnecessary complication. In Final Five Elections the primary is a simple “pick-one.” You choose your single favorite, as always, and the top five advance; ranking does its real work later, in the general, where it forges a majority from genuine competition. Opening the primary as a stand-alone reform, which is currently advocated by many major reform organizations, is not the missing piece either. The impulse behind it is understandable: If the party primary is the election that truly decides, then shutting independents out of it really is unfair. But the best cure for that unfairness is not to usher outsiders into a party’s nomination; it is to make the general election the contest that matters, so that everyone is finally voting in the election that counts. Making a broken election system “fairer” is not the same as making it work, and we must not let the fix for a real unfairness talk us into a reform that leaves us just as unlikely, or more so, to get results. Many reformers who have adopted my prescription for Final Five Elections nonetheless incorrectly suggest that FFE will weaken parties and describe that as a benefit. I believe those reformers are wrong on both counts. I am a fan of political parties, and, like esteemed political writer [Jonathan Rauch](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/how-american-politics-went-insane/485570/?ref=ivn.us), I want them strong – because in the industries that serve us best, you always find strong players. The trouble with our parties isn’t that they’re strong. It’s that their strength is artificial. They are powerful in the one way no healthy competitor should ever be: They have demonstrated a nefarious talent for keeping rivals out of the market altogether. In the one place they ought to be strong – choosing the candidates who can actually win a November majority and deliver on the party’s agenda – they’ve grown weak, even too weak for their own good or ours. The current system is why Mitch McConnell lamented “candidate quality” in 2022 when he didn’t get the strongest general election candidates out of the Republican primaries. Separate the public function of the election from the parties’ private one of choosing nominees, and we can finally afford to let the parties truly control their candidates, because the voters keep ultimate control at the ballot box. FFE is a win for (well-run) parties and for voters. Now to the critics of Final Five Elections – and I have heard from a lot of you: You say it’s a liberal plot. It isn’t. Final Five forces every candidate, left and right, to win an honest majority. (For a strong proof point, in 2022 Nevada Democrats hired famed partisan lawyer Marc Elias to try to shut down FFE ballot initiatives, and defeating Final Five Elections was about the only thing the D and R parties agreed on in 2022 and 2024\. Neither of them wants new competition.) Critics also say it’s too confusing. But surely Americans are as capable as the Australians and the Irish? And mainlanders as capable as Alaskans? You say it delays results. It doesn’t. As long as the ballots are required to be submitted by Election Day and election authorities release the cast-vote record data, AP can call races on election night just like they do today. You say it’s an incomprehensible algorithm. It isn’t; you can use paper ballots, count manually and conduct a manual recount on any race if you want (though if you want results on Election Day, I’d suggest a computer). Used as a tool to support the emergence of the majority winner in a five-way general election, FFE is none of the things you say it is. So here is my challenge. Don’t just tell me what’s wrong with Final Five Elections. Show me another plan that produces healthy competition of both candidates and ideas and the resulting benefits to customers, a.k.a. American citizens. If you do find a better one, I’ll happily get on board with yours. But assuming you can’t, it means that what the critics of FFE are really defending, whether they admit it or not, is the failed status quo – intense polarization, division and dysfunction, gridlock, party capture, and dismal policy results – over dynamic competition to solve problems. The United States became the most powerful and prosperous nation in human history for a reason we ignore at our peril: We unleashed free market-style competition and let it do its work. Competition is what drives our innovation. Competition is what lifted American life to a standard the world had never seen. America deserves the same exemplary results from free market politics. And a special note to my conservative critics, chief among them the Wall Street Journal editorial page. You should be the last to need convincing. No entity has taught American readers more faithfully than you that market competition positively motivates incumbents and serves customers, and that artificial protectionist barriers to entry are the enemy of both. Yet, you have been consistently hostile to Final Four Elections adopted by Alaska in 2020\. Don’t let the ranked ballot’s abuse in the wrong hands blind you to its one indispensable use. Confined to a five- (or four-) candidate general election, the instant runoff does exactly one job: It demolishes the single greatest barrier to entry in American politics – the spoiler – and forces every candidate to win real competition on the merits. That is not a left-wing scheme (or a right-wing one). It is free markets for our republic, and it is the purest application of your own creed I can offer arriving, at last, in the one market where you have been strangely content to let a protectionist market thrive. Our call to action goes out to all governors and state legislators. The Founders anticipated this moment and, in Article I, handed the power over the machinery of elections to the states. The Constitution provides that “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections … shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” The rules of the game, for both state and congressional elections, are yours to write. Final Five Elections is not a pie-in-the-sky idea; it’s actionable now, by any governor or legislature willing to lead. I can’t imagine a better test case for laboratories of democracy than Final Five Elections in a handful of states. Over time, the results will create demand for expansionor – they won’t. I’m betting on FFE. But of course, governors and legislators can only do what their citizens ask of them. So here’s to you citizens: It is crazy, when you actually stop and think, that we accept our current state of affairs as if we’re powerless. The most detrimental driver of American politics is sitting in plain sight, and almost no one names it. Turn on the news and you’ll hear endless coverage of the DSA’s rise or MAGA’s takeover treated as ideological weather and never as what they actually are: structural, the predictable product of party primaries and plurality rules. Here’s to you, journalists: It is crazy that the people whose whole job is to explain the world keep missing the one explanation that ties it together – that there are barriers to entry, and that those barriers, not the passions of the moment, are why we can no longer solve problems. Here’s to you, business leaders: You of all people should see this instantly, because it is your world exactly – a market, protected incumbents, competition strangled, customers ignored – and yet even you look right past it. Here’s to you, editorial boards, forever demanding better behavior from politicians while ignoring the rules that guarantee the behavior you claim to deplore: We do not need more outrage at the symptoms. We need people to finally understand the cause and then to do something about it. Because the extraordinary thing, once you see it, is that this is not rocket science. In the scheme of political challenges, it’s not overwhelmingly hard. The fix is not a constitutional amendment. It does not require an act of Congress, or the consent of 50 states, or even two. A single state can adopt Final Five Elections on its own, through its legislature or by ballot initiative, at no cost to its neighbors and enormous benefit to its own citizens. As hard as our politics feels, this part is not that hard. And to the frustrated business titans who keep circling this problem without solving it, this one is for you. Elon Musk, enraged at both parties, floated an “America Party.” Howard Schultz, disgusted with the duopoly, explored an independent run. Mark Cuban tells all who will listen that both parties have failed us. Gentlemen: You are brilliant innovators, and you are misdiagnosing the problem. If this were your company, you would never pour a fortune into a doomed product line inside a rigged market. You would fix the market. That is the move here. Stop trying to win the broken game and start championing the rule change that ends its rigging for good. Put the same relentless, systems-level thinking that built your fortunes behind Final Five Elections in a few states, and you will do more for this country than any third-party campaign ever could. At the very least, Mr. Musk, don’t [fund the effort to repeal Final Four Voting in Alaska](https://alaskapublic.org/news/politics/2026-08-11/elon-musk-spends-big-in-push-to-repeal-alaskas-voting-system?ref=ivn.us), the one state in which you could launch your new party without undue barriers. Give me a call. I think you’ve received bad counsel. This has been a long argument. So let me reduce it to its essence – two images. In Image A, our current system, there is virtually no connection – no overlap at all – between our politicians solving problems in the public interest and the likelihood that they get reelected. Sit with that, because it is the whole tragedy in a single sentence: If America’s elected representatives did their jobs the way we actually need them to, they would be more likely to lose those jobs (in their next low-turnout party primary) than to keep them. Congress doesn’t solve problems because, under the current rules, solving problems is not a good way to win an election. In fact, it’s a good way to lose one. No one would ever design a hiring-and-firing system like that on purpose. And yet here we are. Final Five Elections does one essential thing: it creates the connection in Image B. It makes solving problems a good way to win – and to win again. Under these rules, what it takes to get elected finally overlaps with what it takes to serve the public interest, and in that overlap sits everything we have been missing: results and accountability. That overlap is the whole secret. Everything else in this essay – the open primary, the instant runoff, the majority winner, the end of the spoiler – is simply the machinery that produces it. My passion may inadvertently suggest I’m presenting Final Five Elections as the gateway to a political utopia. It’s not. I agree with Winston Churchill that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time ...” Democracy is messy. It is hard. What we have now messy, hard, and bad results. With Final Five Elections, we’d still have messy and hard – but with some good results to show for it. That is utopia for democracy. --- **Katherine Gehl**, former CEO of Gehl Foods, is the author of “The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy” and the architect of Final Five Elections. ### People vs Politics: The Documentary About Independents Who Won’t Quit on Fairer Elections URL: https://ivn.us/people-vs-politics-the-documentary-about-independents-who-wont-quit-on-fairer-elections/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:50:35.000Z As the 2026 election approaches, it’s natural for many independents to look back at the many 2024 state election reform ballot initiatives for open primaries and ranked choice voting while wondering what impact more victories might have had on this current election and the resulting Congress. - A US Senate with a fulcrum of pragmatists to pass major legislation or check the executive branch? - A US House with 50 competitive districts rather than the 20 deciding which party will next attempt to control the chamber? Those possibilities were so intriguing to me as a journalist and lifelong independent that I covered many of those 2024 reform ballot measures as a podcaster (*The Purple Principle*) then as a documentary filmmaker (*People vs Politics)*, compiling over 500 hours of footage across 5 states (AK, NV, ID, MT & CO) and Washington, DC. This was eventually edited down to the 99-minute version of the film playing at the Glendale, Catalina, SOHO festivals this fall—along with others. (Visit [peoplevspolitics.com](http://peoplevspolitics.com/?ref=ivn.us) for a full list) The result, I like to think, is that rare political film by, for, and about independents, spotlighting these democracy-over-party Americans: - **Lisa D.T. Rice**, the charismatic Washington, DC reformer and film’s main protagonist, who wears a sandwich board urging voters to ask why she can’t vote on DC primary day. - **Cesar Marquez**, systems engineer turned Nevada activist with both traditional Catholic and progressive values, who introduces rank choice voting to college students and other volunteers. - **Rebecca Himschoot**, a former science teacher and unaffiliated member of the Alaska House, who doorknocks her Sitka neighborhood encouraging voters to maintain the “top four” voting system passed in 2020. - **Luke Mayville**, the articulate historian & co-founder of Reclaim Idaho, who mobilizes a network of 2,000 volunteers for massive signature gathering and door knocking efforts in 2024. Not to mention a few dozen other indie-minded citizens across the country who we had the privilege to film and interview. As a result, it was a painful process narrowing down the final narrative to six protagonists, even with the consolation of publishing our [Youtube America@250](https://www.youtube.com/@PeoplevsPoliticsDoc/playlists?app=desktop&view=1&sort=dd&shelf%5Fid=4&ref=ivn.us) series profiling those who didn’t make the cut. Those six main protagonists in the final cut do vary greatly in personal background as well as the political environments they work in. But all share the conviction that the lack of truly competitive elections in the US is a critical cause of congressional enfeeblement and the slide toward authoritarianism. This was a view echoed by many members of the nonpartisan group [Veterans for All Voters](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?ref=ivn.us), which is also featured in the film. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/yes-on-1.jpg) Collectively, this diverse group of nonpartisan warriors conveys the most inspiring element of the film. Not only do many Americans recognize the systemic changes needed to revitalize democracy, but they’re also willing to work toward those reforms for months and years at a time with little or no pay and against great opposition from the powers that be. In fact, virtually all of the film’s protagonists are still at work today, in 2026, much as they were in 2024\. As a result, it’s obvious the energy stirred up two years ago is still circulating today. Those connections are most apparent in the [2026 Massachusetts All Party Primary Question 3 campaign](https://ivn.us/poll-51-of-massachusetts-voters-back-scrapping-party-primaries/), [Oklahoma’s open primary campaign](https://ivn.us/tag/oklahoma/) (currently in legal limbo), and [Courageous Colorado’s reforms for 2030](https://ivn.us/colorado-voters-want-every-flavor-the-primary-system-says-red-or-blue/). But they’re also in the vibe around [citizen initiative protection efforts in Missouri](https://ivn.us/missouri-politicians-tried-to-override-voters-the-states-highest-court-said-no-twice/), a campaign finance reform ballot in Montana and the [independent Senate campaigns](https://ivn.us/tag/independent-candidates/) of veterans Dan Osborn (Nebraska), Todd Achilles (Idaho), Seth Bodnar (Montana), and Brian Bengs (South Dakota), as well as many House and down ballot races. [Perot 2.0 Isn’t a Candidate. It’s a MovementIndependent candidates are multiplying, independent voters are organizing, and the two-party system is facing a challenge it thought it had buried decades ago.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-39b28052-4bf0-42d1-8270-5fecf45745c1.png)Independent Voter NewsJohn Opdycke![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ross-perot-aec9d789-e1d8-4943-9766-0c2bdfae8344.jpg)](https://ivn.us/perot-2-0-isnt-a-candidate-its-a-movement/) Reform is then still in the air in 2026 even if on fewer ballots than 2024\. And through festival, community, and educational screenings, *People vs Politics* may play some small part in inspiring new groups of independents to join the movement. Some reforms coalescing for 2028, 2030, and beyond may resemble the 2024 initiatives chronicled in the film. But others may take new forms, learning from past mistakes and recruiting new leaders. Yet, they will still be motivated by the same country-over-party mindsight that to many Americans seems startling, even suspicious at first, then eventually welcome, insightful, and desperately needed. --- **Robert Pease** is co-director of the feature length documentary *People vs Politics* with upcoming screenings at the Glendale, Catalina, Mystic, WYO, SOHO, Utopia and Alexandria Film Festivals. More info at [People vs Politics.com](http://politics.com/?ref=ivn.us). ### Independent Voters Can Be Heard in California. The Top-Two Primary Is Worth Defending URL: https://ivn.us/independent-voters-can-be-heard-in-california-the-top-two-primary-is-worth-defending/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:50:43.000Z *Editor's Note: The following commentary piece* [*originally published*](https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/09/independent-voters-california-top-two-primary/?ref=ivn.us) *on CalMatters by the authors and has been republished on IVN in accordance with the publication's policies on syndication.* When Californians voted to open their state’s closed primaries back in 2010, both major parties fought them every step of the way. [Proposition 14 created a top-two primary](https://lao.ca.gov/ballot/2010/14%5F06%5F2010.aspx?ref=ivn.us), allowing millions of independent voters to take part in the state’s primary elections for the first time and letting every Californian support the candidate of their choice — regardless of party. Republican and Democratic leaders, who rarely agree on anything, opposed Prop. 14 because open primaries loosen the control the parties have long held over who gets to run and who gets to win. A system in which every voter can participate is harder for either party to manage than one in which only its own members decide. So, they fought it. First, they tried to defeat Prop. 14 at the ballot box and[ lost](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F14,%5FTop-Two%5FPrimaries%5FAmendment%5F%28June%5F2010%29?ref=ivn.us). Persuading Californians to give back voting options they had just won proved to be a hard case to make. This past spring, in the middle of one of the most crowded and unpredictable gubernatorial primaries in modern memory, [the argument found a new opening](https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/06/california-primary-election-top-two/?ref=ivn.us). With no clear frontrunner and far more Democrats than Republicans in the race, some worried aloud that the state’s two Republican candidates might claim both runoff spots. In a heavily Democratic state, the prospect of two Republicans facing each other in November, guaranteeing a GOP governor, was enough to cause real anxiety. That outcome would have required every Democratic candidate to stay frozen in place through tens of millions of dollars in advertising and months of rising public attention. As in every election, some candidates rose and others fell. The result — [one Democrat and one Republican on the November ballot](https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/governor/?ref=ivn.us) — is about as ordinary as California elections get, and looks nothing like the disaster that had been predicted. But that brief possibility became the argument for repealing the top-two primary. A [measure to do exactly that has now been filed](https://www.kcra.com/article/effort-repeal-top-two-primary-system-california/71269716?ref=ivn.us), and the attorney general’s office has [issued its official title and summary](https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/initiatives/pdfs/Title%20and%20Summary%20%2826-0004%29.pdf?ref=ivn.us), the first step toward returning California to the closed primaries voters set aside during Barack Obama’s first term as president. The title and summary describe what the measure would repeal. They say much less about what it would put in its place. There is no mention of the closed system that would replace the current open one. There is no mention of the roughly 5.3 million Californians registered without a party who would no longer be able to vote in state primary elections. There is no mention of the many more voters who would be limited to candidates their party has already approved. If the measure does qualify, the attorney general should describe the final language the way the voters would — plainly and completely — so that anyone reading it understands the measure would end their ability to vote in a primary they currently help decide. California is not alone in this. The same fight is playing out at both ends of the political spectrum. In Alaska, the MAGA right is working to [repeal that state’s open primaries](https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/07/29/alaskans-to-vote-on-ballot-measure-that-would-overhaul-state-election-system/?ref=ivn.us). In New York, the socialist left is [resisting efforts to open its primaries](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/nyregion/open-primaries-ny-bloomberg-mamdani.html?ref=ivn.us) to more than a million unaffiliated voters. Even though these are different states at opposite ends of the political spectrum, the same instinct: keep the primary closed to everyone but the party’s own. This is not about liberal or conservative ideology. It is not about which party, which movement or which group wins. It’s about whether we have a real democracy, one in which every voice can compete fairly for representation. That requires every voice to be heard, and it requires it in the one place it fully counts: the ballot box. It cannot happen fairly unless every voter is allowed into that ballot box every time a public election is held on behalf of the state, its voters and the taxpayers who pay for it. That is what Prop. 14 sought to protect almost two decades ago. That is what is worth defending. ### Alaska Voting Rights PAC Makes Bill Hill Its First Independent Endorsement URL: https://ivn.us/alaska-voting-rights-pac-makes-bill-hill-its-first-independent-endorsement/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T15:11:37.000Z Independent Bill Hill just announced the endorsement of the [Voter Protection Project](https://protectvoting.org/bill-hill-earns-national-voting-rights-organization-endorsement/?ref=ivn.us) (VPP). He is the first independent candidate the organization has supported since its founding in 2019. The endorsement of an independent is a shift from the group’s stated mission. The VPP call itself the nation's largest PAC focused on electing Democrats "up and down the ballot" who will protect voting rights and fight for reforms such as same-day registration. By its own count, VPP has endorsed more than 130 candidates, including Sens. Ruben Gallego and Elissa Slotkin in 2024—all Democrats. VPP joins two other national democracy PACs backing Hill. [End Citizens United](https://www.endcitizensunited.org/news/ecu-congratulates-bill-hill-on-advancing-in-ak-al-primary?ref=ivn.us), formed in response to the Supreme Court decision that opened the door to unlimited outside spending, endorsed Hill earlier in the cycle. [Defend the Vote](https://wedefendthevote.org/endorsement/bill-hill/?ref=ivn.us), a PAC that launched a $14 million cycle plan to elect pro-democracy candidates, also endorsed the independent. Like VPP, both groups overwhelmingly back Democrats. The [Alaska Democratic Party](https://alaskademocrats.org/event/bill-hill-fundraiser/?ref=ivn.us) has encouraged its members to support Hill too, though he has refused to say which party he would caucus with. The campaign also said in its release announcing the endorsement that Hill will defend Alaska's voting system from federal interference. That pledge has a concrete target. In 2025, Begich and Arizona Rep. Abe Hamadeh unveiled [legislation](https://rollcall.com/2025/05/01/at-the-races-ranked-choice-voting/?ref=ivn.us) to ban ranked-choice voting in federal elections, which would directly attack the current Alaskan system that was adopted by voters in 2020. That system is also under threat at home. Voters approved top-four primaries and ranked-choice generals by about a point in 2020\. A 2024 repeal failed by 737 votes out of 320,985 cast, and supporters of repeal quickly gathered signatures to try again. [Ballot Measure 2](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FBallot%5FMeasure%5F2,%5FRepeal%5FTop-Four%5FRanked-Choice%5FVoting%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) is on the November ballot. Besides restoring party primaries, it would repeal the 2020 reform's requirement that large donors disclose the true sources of their political contributions. Hill's trying to build a coalition that includes Democrats, independents, and Republicans who are unhappy with the current direction of the party. Such a coalition has worked in the 49th state before, sending Senator Murkowski to her seat in 2002 and reelecting her ever since. Both Hill and Murkowski see the current system as benefiting candidates who are running outside of traditional party infrastructure and support. Whatever happens in Hill's race, Alaska's vote on Measure 2 will decide whether the next independent gets the same opening. ### Alaska’s Repeal Campaign Is Selling Open Primaries While Trying to End Them URL: https://ivn.us/alaskas-repeal-campaign-is-selling-open-primaries-while-trying-to-end-them/ Last updated: 2026-09-25T16:18:33.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* The campaign to repeal Alaska's ranked-choice voting and nonpartisan top 4 primaries is doing something quite dishonest.[ ](https://www.adn.com/politics/2026/09/16/pro-repeal-campaign-runs-ads-claiming-repealing-ballot-measure-2-would-bring-back-open-primaries/?ref=ivn.us)[They are running ads](https://www.adn.com/politics/2026/09/16/pro-repeal-campaign-runs-ads-claiming-repealing-ballot-measure-2-would-bring-back-open-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) saying that overturning Alaska’s nonpartisan system would “bring back the days of open primaries.” Get rid of an open system to bring back…open primaries? [The Most Dishonest Campaign Ad in 2026?A campaign ad in Alaska claims Ballot Measure 2 would bring back open primaries and reject dark money, but the state already has nonpartisan open primaries that the measure would actually repeal and restrict campaign finance transparency.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-2bd455b5-adbc-4b9f-8e31-5d5b1177d7b8.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-5c413482-43f6-406c-bd58-139c99e058d6-027cf414-af04-4066-88bc-3b804cf5fd13.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-most-dishonest-campaign-ad-in-2026/) The current system guarantees every voter can participate. Repeal would return Alaska to partisan primaries, where parties can decide whether or not independent voters are allowed to participate. But the dishonesty points to something important: **the repeal campaign knows Alaska voters like open primaries.** They know voters want to participate without first choosing a political party. They have good reason to know it. Independents make up roughly two-thirds of Alaska’s voters. That is the real story: even the campaign fighting to repeal Alaska’s open system understands that independent voters expect—and want—a voice. ## **What We’re Talking About** ## A New Chapter for the Open Primaries Movement ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-38dd4dcd-70ac-40c4-8d35-382e5b90ff16.png) For years, leaders and activists across the country have been fighting for open primaries—often without a formal structure connecting their work. That’s changing. [We’ve launched a nationwide network of State Leaders and Spokespeople](https://openprimaries.org/state-leaders-and-spokespeople/?ref=ivn.us), bringing together 11 state leaders and 29 spokespeople across more than half the states in the country. These are people who have been in the fight for years, alongside new activists joining the movement. Together, they’re helping build the foundation for a 50-state network. This is an exciting new chapter for Open Primaries: expanding our organization, creating new structures, and bringing more voices into the fight for independent voters. **The movement is growing. Now our organization is growing with it.** [Meet the State Leaders and Spokespeople building the movement nationwide.](https://openprimaries.org/state-leaders-and-spokespeople/?ref=ivn.us) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-e56fff10-59fb-43b4-84ab-d5fcd4933811.png) ## Delaware’s Primary Puts The Spotlight on Independent Voters On Tuesday, Delaware held the **final state legislative primary of the 2026 midterm season** and over 31% of the state’s registered voters who are independents were locked out. Delaware is one of only 14 states with closed primaries. As I told[ ](https://www.delawarepublic.org/politics-government/2026-09-10/early-voting-is-brisk-for-delawares-2026-primary?ref=ivn.us)[Delaware Public Media](https://www.delawarepublic.org/politics-government/2026-09-10/early-voting-is-brisk-for-delawares-2026-primary?ref=ivn.us) ahead of the election: “There is no context where that isn’t a crisis…. That’s particularly because Delaware is in such poor company.” Bethany Beach independent Rich Clair made a related point to the *Delaware State News*: many of the decisions that shape who ultimately holds office are made in the primaries. By the time the general election arrives, he said, “it can be a done deal….“I should have the same ability as anybody else that has an R or a D or a G or an L next to their name to participate in our democracy.” This year underscored just how consequential Delaware’s primaries can be. Twenty-four state legislative primaries were contested — the most since at least 2010 — and 18 incumbent legislators faced primary challengers. Across the state on Primary Day, independent voters participating in **Operation Independent 2026** shared memes on social media alerting fellow Delawareans about this democracy crisis and several went to polling locations to call attention to Delaware’s closed-primary rules. Jamie Kegerise from Wilmington and Bruce Mann from Millsboro talked with voters outside their polling places. Check Out Their Videos: *JAMIE KEGERISE* *BRUCE MANN* Di Pine, a veteran, sent us this report from her polling place: > *“I went to vote today, and I was told I could not. I was registered. I was informed. I was ready to participate. But because I am registered as an independent, Delaware law does not permit me to vote in either major party’s primary….There are so many beautiful things about Delaware, and I care deeply about the community I have built here. That is precisely why this exclusion hurts."* ### **What happens next?** The pressure and momentum to open the primaries grows. This past legislative session, a bill to open the primaries, **HB 188**, sponsored by Rep. Michael Smith, **passed the Delaware House 22–17**, but did not receive final Senate approval before the session ended. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-b34a6d7d-6aac-48c4-9f60-f457446254ee.jpg) Rep. Smith, who is running for reelection to House District 22 this November, plans to re-introduce an open primary bill in the next session. As Smith told the *Delaware State News*: > *“Every election is a taxpayer election. So, if that’s going to be the case, everyone should have access. Or, if not, why aren’t parties paying for it themselves?”* **Stay tuned.** ## **What We’re Reading** ## Perot 2.0 Is Coming — Without Perot Ross Perot won 20 million votes in 1992\. Now, John Opdycke argues, the independent movement is back—and bigger than any one candidate. Independent voters are surging. Open primaries are spreading. The two-party system is facing a new challenge. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-14d290b3-06ac-4ef1-b1a1-4fdcb504bedc.png) [**Read John Opdycke’s full piece on the independent surge of 2026.**](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=NvYtUzbPnLlX3aO0Um%5FbxaAbYkp1%5FI7V5Pm8Zlz6U4arF1nZLVf523niNLtPrk0Y4ENapt-fgKJQZk3lKuwervl4R9g3xcHFihjtPgS-b1hdt91L2szDSuYPEnQFd9Nu&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F128%5F2&n=8) ## **Campaign Updates** ## NYC’s Open Primary Movement Is Starting To Look Like A Movement ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-563b50a9-45c6-4e47-bf7a-77f2d22133bb.jpg) A few weeks ago, we asked:[ ](https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/why-nyc-needs-open-primaries-elections/?ref=ivn.us)[*Will New York City ever get open primaries?*](https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/why-nyc-needs-open-primaries-elections/?ref=ivn.us) The answer may depend less on finding the perfect campaign strategy—and more on whether the 1.2 million independent voters shut out of New York City’s primaries begin organizing as a political force. That is already starting to happen. This week, I joined former Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy and One CIty Rising founder Maria Danzilo for a conversation about bringing open primaries to New York City. The event brought together New Yorkers who have been testifying at Charter Revision Commission hearings, sending emails, organizing their communities and making the case that excluding independent voters from taxpayer-funded elections makes no sense. That’s the important development in New York City. The fight is no longer just about a proposal or a ballot question. It is about building the civic power of the people who have been excluded from the system. As I wrote in [Vital City](https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/why-nyc-needs-open-primaries-elections/?ref=ivn.us), the next chapter cannot simply be another campaign. It has to be a movement. And in New York City, that movement is beginning to take shape. ### **NYC Independents Take It to the Streets of Brooklyn** Open Primaries and Let Us Vote will be hosting a booth at Brooklyn’s historic street festival – The Atlantic Antic – on Sunday, Sept. 27th. We’ll be talking with voters about the unfairness of the NYC primary system that bars 1.2 million voters from participating in the primaries. We’ll be getting signature on the Open Letter to Mayor Mamdani, asking him to meet with independents at a Town Hall. If you are in the NYC area on the 27th come volunteer or stop by and say hello. We’ll be there rain or shine from 12 noon - 6 pm. To register to volunteer, email [cstewart@openprimaries.org](mailto:cstewart@openprimaries.org). ## **Did You Know?** ## Independents Are Rising—and Even Bill Maher Is Noticing On *Real Time*, Bill Maher pointed out what the parties would rather ignore: independents are now the biggest bloc in many states. Voters aren’t checked out. They’re checking out of the partisan food fight—and demanding a say in elections that matter. ## **Activities and Events** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-d8ecf1a4-f612-4f37-a5ca-d2a2d01179cd.png)](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/yxQnAwXURWS7G2FWD%5F0gwA?ref=ivn.us#/registration) ## ***Is This The Year Independents Break Through? A Conversation with Joe Manchin and Adam Brandon*** **Hosted by Open Primaries President John Opdycke** **Wednesday, September 30 | 2:00 PM EDT | Virtual** Independent voters are the largest force in American politics. But when it comes to who holds power in Washington, Republicans and Democrats still have a near-total monopoly. *Could 2026 be the year that begins to change?* Join **Open Primaries President John Opdycke** for a timely conversation with former U.S. Senator **Joe Manchin** and **Adam Brandon**, senior adviser to the Independent Center and former president of FreedomWorks, about their ambitious new effort to elect independent candidates to Congress while challenging the two-party system from the outside. Their goal is to build the infrastructure independent candidates have long lacked and prove that candidates can run and win without a D or R next to their name. The stakes go beyond electing a handful of candidates. Their effort raises a much bigger question: **Why should two private political parties have so much control over who gets elected, how Congress operates and whether independent voices have a seat at the table?** With closely divided chambers, growing dissatisfaction with the two-party system and millions of Americans identifying as independents, even a small number of truly independent members of Congress could have an outsized impact potentially influencing congressional leadership, committee rules and how Washington does business. **Can independents finally translate their numbers into political power? Can candidates compete without the machinery of the two major parties? And could 2026 be the beginning of a fundamentally different kind of Congress?** [Join Joe Manchin, Adam Brandon and John Opdycke for a provocative conversation about breaking the two-party grip and whether this is the year independents finally break through.](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/yxQnAwXURWS7G2FWD%5F0gwA?ref=ivn.us#/registration) ### Texas GOP’s Closed-Primary Push Hits Pause. The Next Fight Is in Austin URL: https://ivn.us/texas-gops-closed-primary-push-hits-pause-the-next-fight-is-in-austin/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T15:11:56.000Z **AUSTIN, Texas**—A federal court effectively told the Republican Party of Texas Friday that—at least for now—if they want primary elections closed, they will have to convince their members in the legislature to do it. This puts the matter on hold until the 2027 legislative session. It wasn’t a dismissal. The court did not rule on the constitutionality of Texas’ open primary system. Instead, US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk[ ](https://www.fox4news.com/news/texas-republican-closed-primary-elections?ref=ivn.us)[paused the GOP’s lawsuit](https://www.fox4news.com/news/texas-republican-closed-primary-elections?ref=ivn.us), stating that the Legislature may soon take steps to close the state’s primary elections on its own. “Prominent Texas politicians support similar legislative action,” Kacsmaryk wrote. Notably, there are also prominent Republicans who either oppose or are skeptical of the state moving to a closed primary system. In fact, this fight may further expose a growing divide within the party. Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton support the change, but outgoing US Sen. John Cornyn has publicly warned that it could hurt the GOP, going so far as to say, “closed primaries are a threat to Texas voters.” > Exactly: Closed primaries are a threat to Texas voters [https://t.co/Do8jHnTAKI](https://t.co/Do8jHnTAKI?ref=ivn.us) via [@dallasnews](https://x.com/dallasnews?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) > > — Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) [June 26, 2026](https://x.com/JohnCornyn/status/2070477207290392869?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Cornyn shared [an op-ed in The Dallas Morning News](https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/article/closed-primaries-threat-texas-voters-gop-22318868.php?ref=ivn.us) written by Suzanne Bellsnyder, editor of the Texas Rural Reporter. “Closing primaries will not broaden participation; it will narrow it further,” Bellsnyder wrote. “That should concern Texans regardless of party. Democracy becomes more representative when more people participate.” > “It becomes less representative when fewer people do.” As previously noted on IVN, participation in May’s Republican primary was [roughly 7.4% of all registered voters](https://ivn.us/texas-gop-looks-at-7-turnout-and-says-lets-make-the-primary-smaller/). That number could shrink even more if the independent voters who chose a GOP ballot are suddenly excluded from these taxpayer-funded elections. Support for closed primaries has existed within the Texas GOP for years. Yet, the legislature has not moved to change the law. Will 2027 be different? That is the question Kacsmaryk wants answered before this case moves any further. ## **How Did Texas Get Here?** In September 2025, the Texas GOP sued then-Secretary of State Jane Nelson, also a Republican, arguing that allowing independents and Democrats to participate in Republican primaries violates the party’s First Amendment right of association. [Will the Texas Republican Party be Successful Where the Hawaiian Democratic Party Failed?The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) is suing Secretary of State Jane Nelson in an effort to close the state’s primary elections to party members only – a move that the Democratic Party of Hawaii (DPH) tried back in 2013 in its state and failed.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-cc0b9a5c-740a-455f-8aee-7134b946513e.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/texas-gop-hawaii-dems-closed-primaries-34abf7ef-c5f5-4bd9-b808-7c3687aad8bf.png)](https://ivn.us/will-texas-republican-party-be-successful-where-hawaiian-democratic-party-failed-2025-09-05/) Under current law, Texas does not register voters by party affiliation. Any registered voter can select either a Republican or Democratic primary ballot, but voters who participate in a primary cannot switch parties for that election cycle’s runoff. Republican leaders argue that the system allows voters who do not support the party to influence its nominees. They blame “crossover voting” for helping incumbent Republicans fend off challengers backed by the party in competitive primaries. Gov. Abbott told the Texas Republican Convention in June that he wants to ensure “only Republicans vote in Republican Primaries.” It’s worth noting that Abbott easily won this year’s primary under a system he claims is producing weaker party candidates. The lawsuit also created an unusual divide among Texas officials. Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose job it is to defend the state in court, sided with the GOP rather than defending the state's existing election law. Nelson [maintained that the Legislature, not the courts, should determine whether the primary system changes](https://ivn.us/why-tx-secretary-state-jane-nelson-doing-attorney-general-ken-paxtons-job-2025-10-14/). Her successor, Robert Howden,[ ](https://ivn.us/new-texas-secretary-of-state-holds-the-line-against-gop-push-to-close-primaries/)[confirmed in August that his office would continue defending the current system](https://ivn.us/new-texas-secretary-of-state-holds-the-line-against-gop-push-to-close-primaries/), while acknowledging lawmakers could change it. In May, [Veterans for All Voters sought to intervene in the debate ](https://ivn.us/veterans-group-to-court-dont-let-party-bosses-shut-independents-out-of-texas-primaries/)through an amicus brief opposing the Texas GOP's effort. The organization argued that closing primaries would exclude millions of Texans who do not affiliate with either major political party. ## **What Does This Mean for Independent Voters?** For now, nothing changes. Independent voters can still participate in Texas primaries without registering with a political party. The next statewide primaries are scheduled for 2028\. What their rights look like then will depend entirely on what the Texas Legislature does next year. ### The Most Dishonest Campaign Ad in 2026? URL: https://ivn.us/the-most-dishonest-campaign-ad-in-2026/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T15:12:07.000Z With each election it is generally expected that campaigns across the US will put out hyperbolic, over-exaggerated, and even outright dishonest ads that target people’s fears, anxieties, and anger to convince them to vote a certain way. To call any ad the “most dishonest” in any cycle is quite the claim, but one out of Alaska may deserve that title. The campaign pushing Ballot Measure 2—which would repeal nonpartisan open primaries, ranked choice voting, and campaign finance transparency rules—put out an audio ad that claims it will do things it doesn’t. Specifically, its script says: > *“\[V\]ote yes on Measure 2 to end the stress of ranked choice voting, reject dark money campaign influence, and bring back the days of open primaries.”* Regardless of how one feels about ranked choice voting or open primaries, this ad is misleading. Alaska already has open primaries. It uses a nonpartisan model in which all voters and candidates participate on a single ballot. Voters can cast a ballot for any candidate in each race, regardless of their party preference. Republicans, Democrats, third party voters, and independents all have access. The top four candidates advance to the general election. Ballot Measure 2 would repeal this open and all-inclusive process and return to a semi-closed, party-controlled primary. [Alaska Is Voting on More Than Ranked Choice Voting. It’s Voting on Who Gets to VoteAlaska voters will decide whether to repeal their nonpartisan election system, which could allow political parties to shut out 60% of voters registered as independents from participating in primaries.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-56cda466-0d5c-477f-b05b-a9a5e0500d65.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-91d9a6e6-394c-4be0-9c00-15d620b35c1d-c32510e1-bb6b-494e-866f-b181b261e91d.jpg)](https://ivn.us/alaska-is-voting-on-more-than-ranked-choice-voting-its-voting-on-who-gets-to-vote/) The most notable distinction between the two systems is that the right to vote under Alaska’s old primary rules was not guaranteed like it is under nonpartisan open primaries. The parties got to decide which voters were allowed to participate in taxpayer-funded elections. Ballot Measure 2 would also [repeal disclosure requirements and “true source” rules specifically targeted at “dark money,”](https://ivn.us/alaskas-ranked-choice-repeal-has-a-dark-money-clause-voters-cant-ignore/) which is how voters knew Elon Musk gave more than a million dollars to a Wisconsin-based PAC in support of it. Prior to these new rules, donors could funnel money through 501(c)(4) groups and certain political action committees (which are colloquially referred to as “dark money” sources) in support of a candidate or measure without their name being outed. The term “dark money” simply refers to the lack of transparency that is often associated with groups of a specific tax status. Absent state regulations, federal law does not require them to disclose their donors/contributors. Ballot Measure 2 would return to a system in which voters may know which group paid for a political ad, mailer, etc, but not always who supplied the money to that group. Yet, national polls show most voters want greater transparency in campaign finance. The Yes on 2 ad has played on radio stations in Alaska, podcast advertisements, and is being [promoted on social media with an AI-generated video](https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active%5Fstatus=active&ad%5Ftype=all&country=US&id=1551179170025685&is%5Ftargeted%5Fcountry=false&media%5Ftype=all&search%5Ftype=page&sort%5Fdata[mode]=total%5Fimpressions&sort%5Fdata[direction]=desc&view%5Fall%5Fpage%5Fid=550705458135288). No on 2 issued a cease-and-desist letter to radio stations across Alaska on September 9, demanding that they stop or refuse to air the ad. Campaign Manager Julia Anastos said, “this is not spin, it is false advertisement.” > “They know it closes our primaries and reopens the door to dark money. Telling voters otherwise isn’t a mistake, it’s deception, and Alaskans deserve better.” Meta says the Facebook ad remains active and has been running since August 18. ### Is This Mic On? Dan Osborn Meets the Opposition Research Machine URL: https://ivn.us/is-this-mic-on-dan-osborn-meets-the-opposition-research-machine/ Last updated: 2026-09-21T15:32:13.000Z **OMAHA, Neb.**—The Nebraska Senate election is heating up as we head into the final two months ahead of the election. Independent Dan Osborn is challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts. Osborn is making his second independent run, having lost to Sen. Deb Fischer by less than 7 points in 2024\. Democratic Party leaders supported a primary candidate who said she would step down and let Osborn run head-to-head against the Republican, so no Democrat is on the ballot in a state Trump carried by roughly 20 points in 2024. Two recent polls show a different picture of the race. [A new SurveyUSA poll](https://results.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=d94236a7-5861-4b7f-9d81-d5a81ab786cc&ref=ivn.us) shows Osborn leading 46% to 42%, while [another poll by Wedgewood Polls](https://www.270towin.com/2026-senate-polls/nebraska?ref=ivn.us) has Ricketts leading 52-48 (there’s little information on Wedgewood Polls, so it’s hard to determine their methodology or veracity). In either case, it’s a close race, leading to an increase in the number of attack ads being levied at the independent. Recently, these ads have featured alleged recordings of Osborn taking contradictory stances on various issues. ## **The Three Recordings** **Recording 1: ICE and trans athletes.** The first set of recordings circulated around Sept. 1\. In it, Osborn talks about his win path, noting that he needs 10-15% of Republicans to vote for him to win. Referring to Nebraska Democratic State Chair Jane Kleeb, he highlights that he’s not going to repeat Democratic talking points around abolishing ICE or trans athlete participation in women’s sports. The Ricketts campaign claims this shows he’s aligned with the Democratic viewpoint but won’t publicly state it. Osborn rebuts that by saying the audio makes it clear he told the Democrats he wouldn’t support their position, and that he’s an independent actor. **Recording 2: The border wall.** Politico reported the second recording on Sept. 8\. It comes from a private July meeting with Latino and Black Democrats, where Osborn[ called the wall "a symbol of racism"](https://www.newsweek.com/dan-osborn-chances-of-beating-gop-senator-after-border-wall-audio-leaks-12415545?ref=ivn.us) that does nothing. That differs from his 2024 ad saying he'd help Trump build it. When an attendee suggested he was changing his rhetoric to win votes, Osborn said[ there is a campaigning side and a governing side](https://www.rawstory.com/dan-osborn-2677829235/?ref=ivn.us). In a statement to Politico, he credited Trump with securing the border and said he'd support a wall where it makes sense. **Recording 3: Trump voters.** The Omaha World-Herald published the third recording on Sept. 16\. In it, Osborn describes hypothetical Trump supporters in Red Cloud, Nebraska, whom he calls "Billy Bob" and "Mary Jane," as[ wanting to feel like they're on the winning team](https://www.wowt.com/2026/09/16/nebraska-senate-race-dan-osborn-called-out-by-ricketts-after-audio-recording-leaked/?ref=ivn.us). At one point he says their "lives suck." Asked on CNN whether that was his voice, Osborn said,[ "It sure sounds like me."](https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/16/politics/nebraska-senate-dan-osborn-trump-voters-audio?ref=ivn.us) He said he didn't remember the context, apologized to anyone offended, and argued he was describing voters' anger at the political system. In each case, the Ricketts campaign, or its supporters, claim that it shows a politician in lockstep with Democratic views that’s willing to say different things to different people to gain support. The Osborn campaign, on the other hand, highlights it as a candidate who is willing to take stances that differ from the Democratic Party’s and argues that the quotes are taken out of context, as they’re part of Osborn discussing why people are so angry with the political system, rather than judging people for feeling that way. ## **What Opposition Research Is** Opposition research, or "oppo," is[ the systematic gathering and analysis of information](https://goodparty.org/blog/article/opposition-research-guide-for-political-campaigns?ref=ivn.us) about political opponents. That includes voting history, public statements, financial records, and business dealings. Campaigns use it to shape strategy, and it can also surface inconsistencies voters may want to know about. It’s used to draw contrasts between a candidate and their opponent, as well as highlight positions the opponent has taken that are unpopular or contradict earlier stances. Well-run campaigns also[ research their own candidates](https://www.gonominee.com/insights/what-is-opposition-research-and-why-it-matters?ref=ivn.us) so they aren't caught off guard by attacks on their own record. The industry calls this "self-research" or a vulnerability study. ### **Both parties have built dedicated infrastructure for it** Part of the infrastructure that both major parties have built over the decades of their dominance is research firms. These consultants maintain books on major candidates and incumbents, and they provide them to aligned candidates during campaigns. They also provide research and “tracking” services. The research is described above. Tracking, on the other hand, is paying individuals to follow opposing candidates around to record their statements. These statements are then clipped and used in attack ads, or fed to journalists, to damage their opponents’ campaign. With the race in Nebraska much closer than the Republican incumbent would like, it’s likely that they are using this infrastructure built up by the Republican Party to begin to identify areas of weakness for Osborn, and to have trackers following him to capture audio such as the clips that have recently been released. There is also likely a trove of material generated during his last run in 2024. Independents, on the other hand, don’t have this infrastructure established. There are some firms out there who will work with aligned independents, but even then, the candidates themselves haven’t been vetted through self-research during prior campaigns. When someone has “come up” through a party, from state representative to federal candidate, the ones with major baggage have generally been identified and told not to run. ## **Effect of Leaks Is Unclear** Independent candidates don't have a party committee research shop or an allied super PAC building research files for them, or vetting them before opponents do. Osborn, with the Nebraska Democratic Party standing aside for him, has more institutional support than most independents. But he is still exposed in ways a party nominee might not be. Whether leaks like these hurt a candidate is less clear than it used to be. Many felt that President Trump’s Access Hollywood statements would sink his candidacy, but he has now won two presidential contests, the second with a popular vote win as well as an electoral college one. Political scientist Brian Hamel has found that scandals once reliably cost incumbents votes, but[ in today's nationalized, polarized campaigns they no longer do](https://www.niskanencenter.org/why-scandals-dont-add-up-to-damage-candidates/?ref=ivn.us). Other research finds that partisans[ judge scandals about the other party's politicians more harshly](https://goodauthority.org/news/do-political-scandals-even-matter-any-more/?ref=ivn.us) than the same information about their own, and that a scandal in a voter's own party can make that voter[ more loyal, not less](https://theconversation.com/americans-keep-voting-for-scandal-prone-candidates-because-they-just-dont-want-the-other-party-to-win-284913?ref=ivn.us). Those protections all run through party loyalty. An independent candidate courting voters from both parties has no partisan base to fall back on in the same way. There’s not much research on how these things will impact independents, as there aren’t a lot of independent campaigns to underlie that research. At the same time, what voters say they want may cut in a candidate's favor: - **Honesty.** In Change Research's May and June 2026 polling, honesty and integrity were[ the most-cited traits voters want in a candidate](https://changeresearch.com/the-anatomy-of-the-ideal-candidate/?ref=ivn.us). They appeared in roughly one in four responses, consistently across party lines. - **Changing positions.** The evidence is mixed. Survey experiments have found the public[ penalizes politicians who flip-flop](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2022/11/11/while-the-public-punishes-politicians-who-flip-flop-criticism-from-the-media-may-backfire/?ref=ivn.us). But a 2025 study found that politicians who changed positions in response to evidence[ were rated warmer and more competent](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440251377997?ref=ivn.us) and drew stronger voting intentions. That advantage faded or reversed when their new stance was one respondents disagreed with. - **Working with both parties.** In a June 2026 national survey by the Independent Center, 69.5% of respondents said they'd be[ likely to vote for a strong, well-funded independent](https://independentcentervoice.com/insights/june-2026-national-survey-on-independent-candidates?ref=ivn.us) who shared their views and would work across the aisle. That included 62.7% of Republicans and 71.3% of Democrats. Osborn's recordings can be read in more than one way: as candor about the anger he hears from Nebraska voters and a willingness to both criticize and agree with the parties on different issues; or as a candidate saying different things to different audiences to garner support. We’ll need to wait for further polling, or even election results in November, to know which of these two views of the independent take hold among the Nebraska electorate. ### Democrats Gerrymandered David Valadao’s District. Did It Backfire? URL: https://ivn.us/democrats-gerrymandered-david-valadaos-district-it-backfired/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T15:12:20.000Z [GOP US Rep. David ](https://valadao.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us)[Valadao](https://valadao.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us) has never won his seat in Congress on Republican votes alone because too few Republicans live in the district where he was raised, lives, and runs his family farm. He is a moderate Republican, has won California's 22nd Congressional District five times since 2012 and lost it only once in 2018, by just 800 votes. He beat former Democratic Assemblymember Rudy Salas by three percentage points in 2022 and beat him again in 2024 by 1,692 votes, on a ballot Donald Trump carried. This year, however, the registration math got even worse for him, although he did get the opponent he wanted: Democrat Randy Villegas. ## **Democrats Gerrymandered the District** Proposition 50 suspended California's independent redistricting commission and gave the Democratic legislature the pen, which drew a new map designed to flip up to five Republican-held seats. The 22nd was one of them. According to the *California Target Book* 2026 analysis, the new lines shed around 60,000 heavily Republican voters out of Tulare, Kings, and Kern and replaced them with Democrats from Fresno and Bakersfield. A Trump +5.8 percent district became a Trump +1.7 percent district. The Democratic registration advantage widened from 11.7 points to 16.2 points. ***Among the territory the Democrats’ new map cut loose was Hanford, in the Central Valley, where the incumbent Congressman Valadao was raised, where his family's dairy sits, and where he lives.*** According to the California Target Book, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put the seat on both its “Districts in Play” and “Red to Blue” lists. ## **The Dem-on-Dem Brawl to Get on the November Ballot** The Democratic Party spent the spring at war with itself over which Democrat would make it into the top two against Valadao. The DCCC recruited Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a Bakersfield physician and moderate member of the party who is also part of the [California Problem Solvers Caucus](https://ivn.us/someone-in-sacramento-is-actually-trying-to-solve-problems/). [Someone in Sacramento Is Actually Trying to Solve ProblemsCalifornia’s Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of 26 lawmakers, is quietly working to solve real problems like housing costs and energy by passing bills without partisan conflict.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-498905a9-f9e3-46b7-a00a-ae36ebf98f1e.png)Independent Voter NewsDan Schnur![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-problem-solvers-704e44c9-b8fa-44ea-ac24-c70d77900825.jpg)](https://ivn.us/someone-in-sacramento-is-actually-trying-to-solve-problems/) Bains has a very independent streak. For example, she was the only California Democrat in the Legislature to vote against Governor Gavin Newsom's Proposition 50 redistricting bill. The New York Times called her a "Valleycrat," a traditional pick whose politics were more typical for a swing district like CD22\. The[ ](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)[California DSA voter guide](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us), by contrast, called her a "conservadem." Democrat Randy Villegas, a full-time college professor, challenged Bains from the left, running on a platform of Medicare for All, refusing corporate PAC money, and carrying the endorsements of the Working Families Party, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Ro Khanna, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Dolores Huerta, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and David Hogg's group, Leaders We Deserve. The[ ](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)[California DSA's 2026 primary voter guide](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us) recommended Villegas. > *“This race is an easy choice for DSA members: vote for Randy Villegas in California’s 22nd Congressional District.” - California DSA Voter Guide 2026* Outside groups spent $8,669,735 across 28 committees before a single vote was counted in June, according to independent expenditure filings for the cycle. Much of it was Democrats spending against Democrats. [New Democrat Majority](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00859660/?ref=ivn.us) put $750,946 into stopping Villegas. [Blue Dog's BDA PAC](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00305318/?ref=ivn.us) added $600,000, Democratic Majority for Israel's PAC another $500,000, and Health Care Saves Lives $307,315\. The money ran the other direction too. [The Working Families Party PAC](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00606962/?ref=ivn.us) spent $232,817 against Bains, Progressive Promise spent $375,000, and American Priorities spent $330,000. The support side split the same way. [314 Action Fund](https://www.314action.org/?ref=ivn.us) put $1,193,600 behind Bains and [Project 218](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00871368/?ref=ivn.us) added $999,419\. Villegas drew $450,169 from Leaders We Deserve, $441,035 from the Working Families Party PAC, and $200,000 from the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC. Bains called Villegas "radical Randy." Republicans called him a socialist. The California Democratic Party never settled on either of them: its pre-endorsement conference sent the race to caucus with Villegas at 55 percent. The convention vote ended with Bains at 56 percent and no endorsement issued, according to California Target Book. The DCCC supported Bains, and it was controversial. Afterward, [Axios reported](https://www.axios.com/2026/06/09/democrats-house-primary-california-villegas-bains?ref=ivn.us) that House Democrats supporting Villegas were threatening to withhold dues from the DCCC over the whole affair. **In the June 2nd primary, only 79,757 voters showed up to vote, just shy of 25 percent of the district’s registered voters.** | **Candidate** | **Party** | **Ballot Designation** | **Votes** | **%** | | ---------------- | ---------- | --------------------------- | --------- | ------ | | David G. Valadao | Republican | Congressman/Dairy Farmer | 32,491 | 40.74% | | Randy Villegas | Democrat | Teacher/Business Owner | 25,808 | 32.36% | | Jasmeet Bains | Democrat | Family Doctor/Assemblywoman | 21,458 | 26.90% | ## **Republicans Got the Opponent They Paid For** The [Congressional Leadership Fund](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00353888/?ref=ivn.us) is the super PAC aligned with House Republican leadership. In the primary, it spent $131,025 supporting Valadao and $86,097 attacking Villegas, which the *California Target Book* describes as an effort to lift him past Bains. The New York Times reported that a[ ](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/us/politics/gop-mystery-pac-midterms.html?ref=ivn.us)[Republican super PAC had quietly spent money boosting Villegas](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/us/politics/gop-mystery-pac-midterms.html?ref=ivn.us), assuming he would be the easier opponent for Valadao. Republicans wanted the more liberal of the two Democrats. They got him. ***Since the primary, the Congressional Leadership Fund has spent $784,756 against Villegas. It is now the largest single source of spending against the candidate it paid to advance.*** The California Target Book says Valadao is the only Republican on the ballot who is creating a "five alarm fire" for his party. The gap between votes cast for the Republican and votes cast for the two Democrats makes it difficult to argue he is not at a disadvantage in November. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in August that state party chair Rusty Hicks acknowledged there is "some work to be done" in the Central Valley, and that Paul Mitchell, the consultant who helped draw the Prop 50 maps, named the 22nd as one of the two hardest seats his party has to win. ## **Half a Million in the District are on Medicaid** According to MSNOW, the district has the highest number of Medicaid recipients in the entire nation, with nearly half a million enrollees. ## **Nearly One in Three Voters Belongs to No Party** More than 100,000 voters in CD 22 are not affiliated with either major political party. According to the latest registration data from [votercount.ai](http://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us), party registration in California's 22nd Congressional District (327,369 total registered voters) breaks down as follows: Democrats lead with 132,719 voters (40.54 percent), followed by Republicans with 90,457 (27.63 percent) and Non-Partisan with 77,870 (23.79 percent). The remaining 8 percent is split among American Independent (13,679), Peace and Freedom, Libertarian, Green, and other minor parties. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-5099a5d3-dd0b-4924-a850-7433b8bc1130.png) In 2024, Trump carried this district 49.57 percent to 47.78 percent over Kamala Harris. Steve Garvey beat Adam Schiff here in the Senate race. On the same ballot, Valadao beat Salas by 1,692 votes. Voters approved Proposition 35 on permanent Medi-Cal funding with 72.84 percent but rejected Proposition 3 on the constitutional right to marriage, against the statewide result. ## **David Valadao (Republican, Incumbent)** [David Valadao](http://www.valadaoforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us), born April 14, 1977, served one term in the state Assembly before winning this congressional seat in 2012. He is a managing director of his family's Hanford dairies and owns 1,000 acres of farmland where they grow almonds, corn, and wheat as dairy feedstock. In Congress, he serves on the [House Agriculture Committee](https://agriculture.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us) and the powerful[ House Committee on Appropriations](https://valadao.house.gov/news/email/show.aspx?ID=VLZIBOWQKTGSK&ref=ivn.us) during the 119th Congress, where he chairs the[ Legislative Branch Subcommittee](https://appropriations.house.gov/subcommittees/legislative-branch-0?ref=ivn.us). He also chairs the Republican Governance Group. He and his wife, Terra, have three children. Valadao’s father, Eduardo, grew up in the Portuguese Azores as the youngest of eight and helped run the family dairy.[ ](https://calmatters.org/?ref=ivn.us)[CalMatters](https://calmatters.org/?ref=ivn.us) reported that Eduardo and his wife Maria bought their first cows a few years after immigrating and their own farmland several years after that in the early 1970s; that their son was expected to buck hay and feed the cows before school; and that Valadao later declared bankruptcy to clear the farm's delinquent loans. His popularity with voters from outside the GOP rests heavily on his vote to impeach[ President Donald Trump after January 6, 2021](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/24/text?ref=ivn.us).[ ](https://www.notus.org/congress/david-valadao-trump-relationship?ref=ivn.us) [NOTUS (now the Washington Sun) reported in January](https://www.notus.org/congress/david-valadao-trump-relationship?ref=ivn.us) 2026 that Valadao is one of only two members of the GOP still serving after voting to impeach Trump. The President has[ ](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-endorses-challenger-dan-newhouse-voted-impeach-rcna147659?ref=ivn.us)[endorsed primary challengers](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-endorses-challenger-dan-newhouse-voted-impeach-rcna147659?ref=ivn.us) to other members of Congress who voted to impeach him, but never to Valadao. Valadao[ ](https://www.notus.org/congress/david-valadao-trump-relationship?ref=ivn.us)[told NOTUS](https://www.notus.org/congress/david-valadao-trump-relationship?ref=ivn.us) in January 2026 that he and Trump speak regularly, keep an open line, and that the White House understands he holds a district Republicans need to win; if it does not work out, he would go back to milking cows. Asked by the[ ](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/years-defying-odds-californias-david-130238613.html?ref=ivn.us)[Associated Press](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/years-defying-odds-californias-david-130238613.html?ref=ivn.us) about the impeachment vote, he said he would let history decide how to interpret anything he has done. Valadao did not back Trump in 2016, but he did in 2020\. He has declined to say how he voted in 2024\. His campaign literature promised to put people before political parties. In Washington, D.C., he is an active member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, which brings together equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans to find common-ground policy solutions. > I enjoyed touring the Porterville Air Attack Base with [@Cal\_Fire](https://x.com/CAL%5FFIRE?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) to learn more about the critical role they play in protecting the Central Valley and the southern Sierra. As wildfires continue to become more frequent and severe, the dedicated firefighters and air crews stationed… [pic.twitter.com/v7lzOKgRH7](https://t.co/v7lzOKgRH7?ref=ivn.us) > > — Rep. David Valadao (@RepDavidValadao) [August 7, 2026](https://x.com/RepDavidValadao/status/2085832855528390949?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Valadao broke ranks with his fellow Republicans and voted to extend ACA health care subsidies. However, Dan Walters, the columnist from CalMatters, said Valadao’s vote for the [Big Beautiful Bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/text?ref=ivn.us) could be his downfall. The law cut an estimated $28.4 billion from Medi-Cal and stripped insurance from an estimated 3.4 million Californians. Valadao had [repeatedly promised not to vote for Medi-Cal cuts](https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/07/valadao-congress-republican-regret-bill/?ref=ivn.us), and two-thirds of his constituents are on the program, according to Walters. Valadao led California Republican representatives in pushing to halt the July 1, 2026, state gas excise tax increase, which raised the tax from 61.4 to 63.4 cents per gallon. He blames fuel prices on Sacramento rather than Tehran, telling a Bakersfield station in March after the war started that California has always had the highest prices in the country. California Farm Bureau president Shannon Douglass praised Valadao for pushing House leadership on emergency funding for specialty crop growers. > I was proud to join [@RepMoolenaar](https://x.com/RepMoolenaar?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) and 24 of my colleagues in urging additional specialty crop assistance for our nation's producers. Strengthening support for our farmers helps provide stability for domestic supply chains, gives growers greater certainty as they navigate rising… [pic.twitter.com/4jittLW2nU](https://t.co/4jittLW2nU?ref=ivn.us) > > — Rep. David Valadao (@RepDavidValadao) [July 25, 2026](https://x.com/RepDavidValadao/status/2080805982221836569?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) He has taken more than $30,000 this cycle from dairy, chicken, and sugar producer committees. He opposed Proposition 50. On data centers, Valadao told the Sacramento Bee on September 6 that the facilities matter to the economy and national security, that Valley families already face high bills and water worries, and that the right approach listens to local input. He did not say whether he supports a moratorium. He told Politico that using the issue as a political weapon sounds irresponsible. His scorecards run along party lines. In 2024, he rated 100 percent with the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Right to Life Committee, 92 percent with the National Rifle Association, 25 percent with the National Education Association, and 19 percent with Progressive Punch. He raised $4.93 million for the cycle and had $3.37 million cash on hand at the end of June. ## **Randy Villegas (Democrat)** [Randy Villegas](https://www.villegasforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us), born November 12, 1994, was elected to the [Visalia Unified School District board](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vITHgi-NqA&ref=ivn.us) in 2021\. He is a full-time college professor. He describes himself as the son of Mexican immigrants. He grew up in Bakersfield and worked as a mechanic in his family’s auto shop and at the SWAP meet every weekend from his early high school years through college. He co-sponsored both of his parents for citizenship. > *“As a family auto shop owner, I know firsthand that small businesses are the backbone of our economy.” - Randy Villegas* He is highly educated. He graduated from Golden Valley High School in 2012, earned an associate's degree from Bakersfield College, and a bachelor's in political science from CSU Bakersfield in 2017\. He has a master's and a doctorate in politics from UC Santa Cruz. He served as the president of the UC Santa Cruz Graduate Student Association. He is a member of the United Auto Workers ([UAW Region 6](https://www.uawregion6.org/newsletter/july-newsletter-building-an-independent-working-class-political-movement?ref=ivn.us)). When he attended UC Santa Cruz from 2017 to 2022, the campus experienced a [major, historic strike](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/video/news/local/uc-santa-cruz-grad-students-strike/2238880/?ref=ivn.us). The DSA voter guide says, “he was a member as a student at UC Santa Cruz, where he organized and struck for cost of living and housing equity.” He interned for Rep. John Garamendi and at the[ ](https://doloreshuerta.org/?ref=ivn.us)[Dolores Huerta Foundation](https://doloreshuerta.org/?ref=ivn.us), taught band (percussion) in the Kern and Santa Cruz schools for seven years, and he has been a member of the faculty at the [College of the Sequoias](https://catalog.cos.edu/areas-study/political-science/?ref=ivn.us#facultytext) since 2020. The[ ](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us)[California DSA's 2026 primary voter guide](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us) recommends Villegas as an “exciting candidate,” describing a platform of Medicare for All, taxing the top 1%, AI regulation, and universal childcare as aligned with the DSA. > *“Oliver Ma isn’t the only exciting candidate to come out of the Central Valley this election cycle. CA-22 is one of the districts restructured by Prop 50, giving Dems the best chance to flip it in decades, and after running milquetoast candidates for years, Randy Villegas, a Visalia school board trustee and organizer, is a candidate who may be able to flip it not just for Democrats but for working people…This race is an easy choice for DSA members: vote for Randy Villegas in California’s 22nd Congressional District.” - CA-DSA Voter Guide* The[ ](https://www.nrcc.org/?ref=ivn.us)[National Republican Congressional Committee](https://www.nrcc.org/?ref=ivn.us) has published at least five releases since July calling Villegas a socialist. Valadao told [the AP](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/years-defying-odds-californias-david-130238613.html?ref=ivn.us) that many of his constituents fled countries with socialist-leaning governments and that Villegas is running on those policies. Villegas ran in the primary against both major political parties. His ads paired images of Valadao and fellow Democrat Bains and argued that they are both beholden to the same corporations. On the night he advanced, the Modesto Bee reported his declaration that the valley is not for sale. In August, Villegas called for a one-year moratorium on new data centers in the Valley and proposed five federal standards, including paying the full cost of electricity and infrastructure, avoiding water waste, and building with local unions. ## **100,000 Independents Will Decide** Valadao has won this seat five times without a Republican majority, which means he’s traditionally attracted some of the more than 100,000 voters unaffiliated with either major political party. The average age of these unaffiliated voters is just 39.2 years — a young cohort. About 69 percent are under 45, and just 10 percent are 65+. Ethnicity among the independent voters skews strongly Hispanic: among those with a known ethnic background, 70.9% are Hispanic (69,403), followed by English/Welsh (13.9%), Scots (2.0%), and Indian/Hindu (2.0%). Independent voters have a history of low turnout. In the 2024 general (presidential), only 37,424 voted — a 35.9 percent turnout rate. In the 2022 general (midterm) only 17,446 voted — a 16.7 percent turnout rate. ## Campaign Could Cost $50 Million Before All Is Said and Done Independent expenditures across the cycle now total $10,471,243. The[ ](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/years-defying-odds-californias-david-130238613.html?ref=ivn.us)[Associated Press, citing AdImpact](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/years-defying-odds-californias-david-130238613.html?ref=ivn.us), reported on September 5 that Republicans have spent or booked more than $13 million in airtime and digital through Election Day, with Democrats at $12.6 million, making CA-22 one of the five most expensive races in the country. ### How California's Top-Two Primary Puts DSA vs. Democrats to the Test (Steve Peace) | EP59 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/how-californias-top-two-primary-puts-dsa-vs-democrats-to-the-test-steve-peace-ep60/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:34.000Z California's top-two primary was built for exactly this moment: DSA-backed Democrats facing off against the party's moderate wing in front of the entire electorate, not just a partisan base. The man who wrote that law, former state senator Steve Peace, joins Cara McCormick to break down whether his system is working the way he designed it. Steve Peace, author of California's top-two primary, walks through the wave of Democrat-on-Democrat races reshaping the state, including Orange County's AD68 fight between DSA-recommended Jesse Lopez and moderate David Penaloza (who finished the primary within a thousand votes of each other) and the South Bay's AD66 battle between Paul Seo, known for his weekly town-hall "coffee klatches," and DSA-backed Sara Dean. Peace argues these races are the real test of nonpartisan primaries, since Republicans and independents, not just Democratic insiders, now get a say in who wins. He digs into why "moderate" candidates often struggle to define a positive agenda, cites polling showing a striking share of Democrats say they'd back a candidate their own party did NOT endorse, and lays out his core argument that partisan primaries, not the parties themselves, are the root cause of Congress's dysfunction. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/how-californias-top-two-primary-puts-dsa-vs-democrats-to-the-test-steve-peace?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5QlBb0856CYzFH4JGeO62o?si=29B8SeWCT1S3Khj7v39Opg&ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-californias-top-two-primary-puts-dsa-vs-democrats/id1680559155?i=1000790375921&ref=ivn.us)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, **Cara McCormick** sits down with former **California state senator Steve Peace**, author of the state's **top-two primary** law, to unpack a wave of **Democrat-on-Democrat races** where **DSA-backed candidates** are squaring off against the party's moderate wing in front of the full electorate rather than a closed partisan base. Peace argues these races are the clearest proof of concept for **nonpartisan primaries**, since districts that are statistically unwinnable for Republicans now let **Republicans and independents** help decide the outcome, something that never happens in closed-primary states like **New York**. They dig into **Orange County's AD68 race**, where DSA-recommended **Jesse Lopez** finished the primary less than a thousand votes ahead of moderate **David Penaloza**, with Peace noting Lopez's platform (**Medicare for All**, rent control, opposition to **ICE**) is far clearer than her opponent's, a gap he sees as the biggest risk for so-called mainstream Democrats statewide. The conversation turns to **AD66** in the South Bay, where mayor **Paul Seo** has built support through weekly 'coffee klatch' town halls against DSA-backed **Sara Dean**, with Peace framing Seo's willingness to listen as the real antidote to ideological politics. Peace cites striking internal **polling** showing roughly a third of Democrats say they'd back a candidate their own party did *not* endorse, a dynamic he says is already toppling establishment picks in races nationwide, including a recent **Maine congressional primary** upset. He connects rising support for populist candidates on both flanks to decades of wage stagnation and the disappearance of **middle-class 'middleman' jobs**, arguing voters across the spectrum are converging on the same diagnosis (concentration of wealth) even if their prescriptions differ. Peace repeatedly returns to his core thesis that **partisan primaries**, not the parties or elected officials themselves, are the root cause of **Congress's dysfunction**, tying it back to his [**IVN piece** on the 'imperial presidency' and Fareed Zakaria's CNN special on the same theme](https://ivn.us/fareed-zakaria-makes-the-case-for-letting-independents-vote-in-primaries/). The episode closes with a detour into AI-doom rhetoric and a broader meditation on democratic patience, with Peace warning against 'stampeding' politicians into rigid positions and invoking **Al Gore's 2000 concession** as a model for tolerating incremental, non-violent political change. ### On the Ballot, But Not the Stage: Illinois Independent Faces Familiar Debate Lock Out URL: https://ivn.us/on-the-ballot-but-not-the-stage-illinois-independent-faces-familiar-debate-lock-out/ Last updated: 2026-10-08T20:13:39.000Z **CHICAGO, Ill.** — Independent gubernatorial candidate Collin Corbett held a press conference outside WTTW Chicago studios Tuesday demanding access to an upcoming candidate forum on October 13 that will feature Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and Republican Darren Bailey. Corbett has cleared the ballot access requirements he needed to make it on the November ballot. The Illinois State Board of Elections lists him and running mate Carolyn Schofield as active independent candidates for governor and lieutenant governor. But independent candidates nationwide know all too well that as challenging as making it on the ballot can be—it is not the only obstacle they face. They may share the same ballot with the major party candidates, but the rules often prevent them from sharing the same stage. "We Independents make up 47% of the electorate, nearly double each major party. The Independent candidate belongs on the forum stage," Corbett said. > *"Further, moderates are 38% of the electorate in Illinois, a larger share than liberals or conservatives. Moderates deserve to see a mainstream candidate on the forum stage."* Readers who have followed IVN for a while know this is an issue we have covered extensively for nearly two decades: Candidates outside the two major parties are regularly denied access to the forums, debates, and polling that help voters see them as viable alternatives. ## The 15% Wall WTTW’s [reported criteria](https://www.theillinoize.com/articles/pritzker-bailey-one-joint-appearance?ref=ivn.us) require a candidate to receive at least 15% support (excluding the poll’s margin of error) in a professionally conducted independent survey after the primary. [Everything You Need to Know About the Commission on Presidential DebatesThe first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is scheduled for Tuesday, September 29, at 9 pm (Eastern). Plenty of commentators, though, have questioned whether either candidate should debate the other from a campaign strategy standpoint. Others have wondered if a substantive debate on the nation’s most![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-3ac93c91-5977-4f25-b4dc-17b3370446e5.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ivn-default-1156ec8e-9f6a-45fd-8c4a-b8a47f177a53.png)](https://ivn.us/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-commission-on-presidential-debates/) If that number sounds familiar, it is because it is a rule that is also used in presidential debates and [has been challenged in court](https://www.scribd.com/document/269400519/Level-the-Playing-Field-et-al-v-FEC?campaign=VigLink&ad%5Fgroup=xxc1xx&source=hp%5Faffiliate&medium=affiliate&campaign=VigLink&ad%5Fgroup=xxc1xx&source=hp%5Faffiliate&medium=affiliate). The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) adopted rules for debate inclusion back in 2000 that are still used to this day. One of them is known as the “15% rule.” Presidential candidates are required to poll at 15% in 5 national polls handpicked by the commission to qualify. [Even in 2024](https://ivn.us/downfall-commission-presidential-debates-good-thing-2024-09-04/), when the Trump and Biden campaigns ditched the CPD, CNN used the same rule. It is partly responsible for the exclusion of then independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. As a result of the "15% rule," there has not been a third candidate on the presidential debate stage since Ross Perot in 1992\. And history shows how this creates a conundrum for independent candidates. They need polling support to get into debates, but debates and media coverage are among the primary ways lesser-known candidates build the name ID needed to improve their polling. And because the press and pollsters determine that they are not viable, they are often left out of the conversation entirely. Corbett currently faces a similar hurdle. One September survey that included him put his support at 4.1%, compared with 51.3% for Pritzker and 30.8% for Bailey. ## WTTW Had a Rule That Went One Step Further to Exclude Independent Candidates For a time, the polling threshold was not the only obstacle Corbett faced. The Illinoize [reported in August](https://www.theillinoize.com/articles/pritzker-bailey-one-joint-appearance?ref=ivn.us) that WTTW’s criteria also required a participant to be “the nominee of a political party recognized under state law.” The criteria separately gave WTTW discretion to add candidates it considered newsworthy. This went beyond the presidential debate rules. The CPD, which may or may not be used in future elections, does not have an explicit requirement that candidates belong to a political party. An independent theoretically could qualify by satisfying the polling requirements. Even if the deck is heavily stacked against them to do it. Corbett’s campaign says its attorneys sent WTTW a letter on September 10 arguing that the party requirement was not viewpoint-neutral and therefore unlawful. The campaign says WTTW has since dropped it. ## WTTW Has Used Broader Forums Before Corbett also argues WTTW has not consistently used polling thresholds to determine who gets featured in a candidate forum/debate. There is precedent for broader inclusion. WTTW [announced that 9 candidates in Chicago’s 2023 mayoral election](https://www.wttw.com/about/pressroom/2023/01/24/wttw-news-announces-february-7-2023-chicago-mayoral-forum?ref=ivn.us) would participate in its February 7 forum. Eight ultimately appeared. A [major poll](https://www.wbez.org/politics/2023/02/08/garcia-vallas-and-lightfoot-top-chicago-mayors-race-poll?ref=ivn.us) conducted immediately before that forum found that only 2 of the 8 candidates, Paul Vallas and Lori Lightfoot, polled above 15%. The current mayor, Brandon Johnson, polled at 11%. Johnson placed fifth in that poll (Jesús “Chuy” García polled highest at 20%, but dropped out before the forum). WTTW [also announced this year](https://www.wttw.com/about/pressroom/2026/08/25/wttw-news-present-live-forum-candidates-chicago-school-board-president?ref=ivn.us) that 5 candidates for Chicago School Board president would be invited to its September forum. Four ultimately participated. In the mayoral and school board races, simply being on the ballot was enough. However, the rules are different for the gubernatorial forum. "WTTW is selectively enforcing rules to shield the major parties and silence Independent voices," Corbett said. > *"Illinois voters deserve an opportunity to compare every candidate who earned a place on their ballot. All three of us should stand on stage and answer tough questions about how we're going to make life affordable for working families."* Watch the full press conference above. ### Independent Candidates Are Taking Idaho by Storm in 2026 URL: https://ivn.us/independent-candidates-are-taking-idaho-by-storm-in-2026/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T15:12:38.000Z On September, three independent candidates shared a stage in Coeur d'Alene. About 100 people filled the Harding Family Center's gymnasium for the[ DART Independent Candidate Forum](https://cdapress.com/news/2026/sep/11/independent-candidates-make-their-case-at-dart-forum/?ref=ivn.us), a group that backs qualified, moderate candidates regardless of party. There, Todd Achilles, John Stegner, and Sarah Zabel each argued that the two-party system is failing Idahoans…and Americans. The forum was a snapshot of a statewide pattern. Idaho Republicans have not lost a U.S. Senate race since 1974\. Yet this November, independents are on the ballot for Senate, governor, and both U.S. House seats. ## **The Field** **Todd Achilles, US Senate (**[**IVN interview**](https://ivn.us/todd-achilles-says-the-two-parties-broke-congress-now-he-wants-idaho-to-help-break-their-grip/)**).** Achilles is an Army veteran who was a Republican before 2024\. He then served as a Democratic state representative and resigned in July 2025 to run for Senate as an independent. In July, the Ada County Democratic Central Committee gave Democratic nominee David Roth an ultimatum to show his campaign was viable [Roth then dropped out](https://ivn.us/the-democrat-is-out-in-idaho-now-its-independent-todd-achilles-vs-jim-risch/) of the race. **John Stegner, Governor.** Stegner served as a judge for 25 years, first as a district judge and then on the Idaho Supreme Court. He was a Republican for much of his life before launching his independent campaign in early 2026\. As of July, he had[ raised $393,332](https://idahocapitalsun.com/2026/07/07/independent-john-stegner-launches-campaign-for-idaho-governor/?ref=ivn.us), the most of any candidate challenging Gov. Brad Little. The field also includes Democrat Terri Pickens and Libertarian Paul Sand. Stegner framed his run around families leaving the state. He said his three daughters no longer live in Idaho "because they felt they couldn't afford to live here." **Sarah Zabel, 1st Congressional District (**[**IVN Interview**](https://ivn.us/the-republican-party-left-gen-sarah-zabel-now-shes-running-against-it/)**).** Zabel is an Air Force veteran who was a registered Republican for three decades. She’s taking on incumbent Rep. Russ Fulcher. ## **Why Are Independents Surging In Idaho? Several Reasons.** ### **1\. Idahoans register Republican, but don't all identify that way** [Idaho's voter rolls](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/id?ref=ivn.us) are 61.9% Republican, 11.5% Democratic, and 25.2% independent. But party identification tells a different story. In [Boise State's 2026 Idaho Public Policy Survey](https://www.boisestate.edu/sps/2026-idaho-public-policy-survey/?ref=ivn.us), about 40% of respondents identified as Republicans, about 38% as independents, and about 15% as Democrats. One explanation is Idaho’s primary system. Idaho adopted a closed primary system in 2011\. In recent primaries, only the Democratic Party let unaffiliated voters participate. An unaffiliated Idahoan who wants a say in the state's decisive Republican primaries has to register Republican, likely inflating those registration numbers. ### **2\. The Democratic Party is too small to compete** With Democrats at 11.5% of registered voters (and 15% of voter identification), the party's own officials have pushed toward independents. The Ada County committee told Roth it was concerned his campaign was not positioned for what it called the best political environment Idaho had seen in decades. ### **3\. Independents disagree with the status quo on key issues** | Question | Independents | Republicans | Democrats | | ---------------------------------- | ------------ | ----------- | --------- | | Idaho on the wrong track | 43% | 19% | 69% | | Expect economy to get worse | 51% | 24% | 62% | | Housing affordability is top issue | 44% | 31% | 50% | | Support abortion-rights initiative | 63% | 46% | 92% | This discrepancy between how independents view the state and key issues and the policies being promoted by the Republicans who represent them suggests a lane for independent candidates. ## **What Idaho Is Testing** Idaho's independents are not betting that the state has stopped being conservative. Their theory is narrower. Many Idahoans registered Republican because it was the only primary that mattered, and those voters, joined by the state's unaffiliated voters, may treat a general election ballot differently. Especially if the independent candidates can build a coalition of these voters and Democrats, who make up a small, but potentially decisive, portion of the electorate. This group doesn’t believe they can win statewide with a candidate that has a (D) next to their name, so they may be willing to vote for a candidate with an (I) who is more aligned with them than the Republican candidates. Idaho voters chose to keep the closed primary in 2024, which means November is the one election this cycle where every voter can choose any of these candidates. If the gap between registration and identification translates into votes anywhere, it will be in a state where independents are running at every level of the ballot. ### Polygraphs, Purges, and the Snake Pit Inside Hegseth’s Pentagon. What is the Pentagon Doing About AI? URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/polygraphs-purges-and-the-snake-pit-inside-hegseths-pentagon-what-is-the-pentagon-doing-about-ai/ Last updated: 2026-09-17T18:07:19.000Z Washington Post national security reporter Dan Lamothe returns to Independent Americans to break down what it actually looks like to cover Pete Hegseth's Pentagon in 2026 — no press conferences since May, no embeds in an active conflict, a four-star purge with no explanations, Dan Driscoll's resignation, polygraphs inside the building, paid military influencers on the federal payroll attacking reporters on X, a 60 Minutes segment that played like propaganda, General Dan Cain's growing credibility problem, and the AI void at the top of the Defense Department. Host Paul Rieckhoff and Dan lay it all flat in the kind of no-BS conversation you won't get anywhere else. **Get the latest episodes of Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff on the podcast's** [**YouTube channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentamericans?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### America Has an Uncontested Election Problem. Here’s What Can Be Done URL: https://ivn.us/america-has-an-uncontested-election-problem-heres-what-can-be-done/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:51:39.000Z *Editor's Note: The following commentary piece* [*originally published*](https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/uncontested-election?ref=ivn.us) *on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN in partnership with the publication.* Politics nerds have many ideas about how to strengthen American democracy; however, few directly address silent elections. For example, ranked-choice voting does nothing to encourage more candidates to run if there are not enough. Term limits increase turnover, but even newcomers can frequently run uncontested in general elections if they have won competitive primaries. Fortunately, the cause isn’t hopeless. For one, tightening campaign finance laws would put potential challengers on more even footing with corporate-backed politicians, encouraging more candidates to run. Independent redistricting would also help. The *Cook Political Report*, a poll aggregator, considers only 69 of America’s 435 House districts competitive. Fair redistricting means more competitive districts and therefore more contested elections. However, independent redistricting can only help so much. In Massachusetts, where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 3-1, it is impossible to draw many competitive districts. It is therefore unsurprising that Massachusetts has the highest rate of uncontested congressional elections despite receiving an A grade for district fairness from the *Princeton Gerrymandering Project*. Fortunately, uncontested elections are not inevitable. Direct interventions that focus on the problem can reduce their occurrence. One often-overlooked proposal is open primaries. With open primaries, a single primary occurs for all parties from which two or more of the highest vote-getters—regardless of party affiliation—advance to the general election. Open primaries ensure that the important electoral decisions occur in general elections—where they receive more turnout and attention—instead of primaries. [Alaska](https://thefulcrum.us/open-primary-ranked-choice-voting?ref=ivn.us) implemented open primaries in 2022 and enjoyed its most competitive election season in a decade: only 12% of state legislature elections were uncontested. California has adopted the system as well, and in 2024, only one California state assembly election was uncontested, and no state senate seats were, suggesting that open primaries can create electoral competition. California has more ideas to offer than just open primaries. One is district size. California’s state assembly has only 80 seats, creating constituencies 2.5x the size of any other state house district in America. And with one million people per district, California’s state senators represent more constituents than US Representatives. More people means more potential candidates. California’s competitive elections are buoyed by California’s generous benefits for elected officials. State legislators in California are the highest paid in the country and receive a strong benefits package. California’s system is not perfect. Many barriers to entry, especially for working-class individuals, still exist. However, it’s enough to consistently produce contested elections for the most important offices. Another potentially impactful reform is multi-member districts, where multiple elected officials represent one district. Studies show that multi-member districts can greatly reduce the rate of uncontested elections. Competitive elections require fewer total candidates with multi-member districts because a district of 30k people needs only four candidates to competitively elect three legislators (four candidates for three spots), whereas three districts of 10k people need six candidates total to competitively elect one legislator each (two candidates for one seat in each district). Multi-member districts also help new candidates by letting them challenge multiple incumbents simultaneously and get elected by beating just one. Multi-member districts are already used in parts of the United States, including for state house elections in Arizona, South Dakota, and Washington, all of which had relatively few silent elections in 2024, when they last elected their state houses. Institutional reforms can help increase the number of candidates who run, but some barriers are innate to the political process, or at least to the political culture. Political office is often a demanding, underappreciated job where politicians struggle to make the change they want. What’s more, aspiring politicians must invest massive amounts of time into a campaign before they can start doing the job—and often, they lose. Tahirah Amatul-Wadud knows what it’s like to lose an election better than most. In 2018, Amatul-Wadud challenged incumbent Richard Neal for the Democratic nomination in Massachusetts’ 1st congressional district and lost. A lawyer and long-time district resident, she was motivated to run because she felt the country was moving in the wrong direction and that Neal was letting it happen. Outspent 21-1 by Neal, then running for his 16th congressional term, Amatul-Wadud was always a long shot. “Sometimes we romanticize these David and Goliath moments,” she told me, “but it's very risky to be David.” Ultimately, she lost by a 70-30 vote margin. When I asked her about her now eight-year-old loss, Amatul-Wadud spoke with hints of nostalgia as she told me she is proud to have run. “People got to see an African-American woman, in hijab, on television,” she says. “It mattered that my pictures were in the newspaper. It mattered that I was on the television, debating the congressman. And it didn't just matter to little black girls and boys and little Muslim girls and boys. It mattered to every young person.” No single reform can guarantee quality contested elections, but a cultural change can. In Canada’s 1867 parliamentary elections (the country’s first), 25% of seats were won by “acclamation”. Silent elections remained common for several decades, but eventually—and not due to any specific policy—the practice faded: no Canadian parliamentary seat has been won by acclamation since 1957. Canadian democratic institutions and culture promote contested elections. For one, Canada has four national parties, helping ensure at least two parties run a candidate in every district. Additionally, election season in Canada is short and doesn’t include a primary, meaning that candidates need not invest nearly as much time as they do in America. One of Canada’s minor parties, the Rhinoceros Party, demonstrates the difference between Canadian and American political culture. Founded in 1967, the satirical Rhinoceros Party has advocated for filling the Canadian Senate by lottery and putting more green cars on the street (as in painted green). The party had its best year in 1980, when it captured 1% of the popular vote, and more recently ran 29 candidates in 2025\. Though deeply unserious, Canada’s Rhinoceros Party makes politics fun and encourages politically disillusioned voters to engage. Amatul-Wadud is a big believer in the importance of culture. “We have to raise the dignity of being an elected leader, by encouraging people to run who we think have not only the skills, but the moral compass to do so and to support them financially and with our time.” If America can create that cultural shift, American democracy will be all the better. We may be witnessing the start of such a shift. Amatul-Wadud’s opponent, Neal, is now finishing his 38th year in Congress. In total, he has won 11 general elections and 13 primaries uncontested, but in 2026, he faced a primary challenger, and in November he will face a general election challenger. This shift may be underway, not because of an institutional reform, but because we are in an urgent political moment that is inspiring unconventional candidates to run small campaigns whose impact is anything but. America must use that energy to sustain a cultural shift before it runs out of longshot candidates. --- **Rafael Gonzalez* is an MPP student at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Before graduate school, he worked for Boston Consulting Group, the World Food Programme, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has previously been published by* [*Public Seminar*](https://publicseminar.org/2026/04/we-need-industrial-agriculture/?ref=ivn.us) *for an article on industrial agriculture.* ### Chula Vista Has Waited 34 Years for a University. How Much Longer Does California Need? URL: https://ivn.us/chula-vista-has-waited-34-years-for-a-university-how-much-longer-does-california-need/ Last updated: 2026-09-15T20:33:17.000Z Some people consider business and public service as conflicting activities – one focused on financial leadership and the other on servant leadership. In my experience and to my great satisfaction I have found them to be complementary. Being successful in business has made me a better public servant and being active in public service made me better in business. Today, I am able to bring both perspectives to an effort that has been more than three decades in the making — creating a four-year, public university in Chula Vista. Thanks to my appointment by California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, I am one of 14 members of the South County Higher Education Task Force whose charter is to develop and present to the Legislature a detailed plan to make this happen with a deadline of July 1, 2027. And that led me to make a proposal to the Task Force on August 28 that was a result of my two “careers” in real estate and in public service — to exempt the South Bay University project from CEQA to get it done faster. ## A Bit of History I earned my real estate license before graduating high school and have enjoyed a successful career in the real estate business since 1972\. Two years after starting out, I earned my real estate brokers license and four years after that, started my first company, which exists to this day. Over the course of five decades, I have handled real estate sales, acquisitions and loan negotiations totaling more than $4 billion. My other career, in public service, began when I served on the Chula Vista City Council from 1982 to 1992\. During that time, the Council identified and set aside land for a university. To say it has been a long time coming is an understatement, but I will come back to that. That second career has included 12 years as a California Coastal Commissioner, the longest tenure in the Commission’s history. I was the first appointee to the California Judicial Performance Commission created by a state ballot in 1994 and a South Bay Commissioner on the Port of San Diego Board for seven years. Along those lines, my community service included 31 years on the Board of St. Vincent de Paul, the real estate arm of Father Joe’s Villages, including four years as chair, and numerous other for-profit and nonprofit boards. Here is what I learned. ## One Hand Washes the Other Building a business — generally succeeding in business — teaches you very important skills in financial management, human resources, sales and marketing, leadership and more. Those skills are greatly valued in public and community service. As an established, proven, successful business leader, you can bring a level of expertise to the table that the public sector or the nonprofit sector can rarely afford. Successful public service teaches you very different but no less important skills. These include focus on mission, serving the greater good, and the inestimable value of collaboration, inclusiveness, and transparency. And patience because not much happens fast in the public sector. Trust me, those skills pay off big time in business and counterbalance the focus on financial gain exemplified by the quarterly report. They help you take a longer view, focus on mission and values, and regard employees and partners as essential to a business’ success. ## Why a CEQA Exemption? What is now the Chula Vista University and Innovation District has already been through the environmental review wringer, with the City of Chula Vista certifying the final environmental impact report (EIR) in 2018\. In 2024, the city further determined that the site did not require any further review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). But we all know that big development projects can be held up for years by litigation supposedly justified under CEQA. Developers prize certainty and litigation risk puts certainty at risk. A CEQA exemption for this project would significantly reduce risk of delay. I have watched public projects get bogged down by sometimes good intentions and sometimes selfish intentions driving lawsuits under CEQA, so I am acutely aware of the risks. Having developed a lot of real estate, I know that time is literally money. Delays increase costs of materials, labor, related infrastructure, any required mitigation and more. When I suggested the Task Force ask California State Assemblymember David Alvarez to pursue a CEQA exemption for the project, I did so with both perspectives in mind — the business perspective and the public service perspective. Because it was not on the agenda, the Task Force will need to revisit it at a future meeting. If they concur and we succeed, I may actually get to see this vitally important project come to fruition, providing the South Bay region with economic, educational, workforce innovation and regional competitiveness benefits, 34 years after I helped get it started. --- **David Malcolm* is President of Cal West Apartment Inc.* ### The Election Sprint Is Here. Maine Voters Sound Anything but Sold. URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/the-election-sprint-is-here-maine-voters-sound-anything-but-sold/ Last updated: 2026-09-15T19:38:09.000Z *Editor's Note: This podcast* [*originally published*](https://www.unorganizedterritory.org/p/choosing-a-senator-001-dawna-sargent?ref=ivn.us) *on Jay Field's Substack, Unorganized Territory and has been cross-posted on IVN with permission from the author.* The Labor Day weekend is the traditional kickoff of the final sprint to the election in November. Summer vacations are over. Kids are back in school. Parents return to work. And voters begin to focus on the issues and choices at hand. **What’s the economy like right now?** **Paula St. Germaine: You drop a hundred bucks every time you go to the store. I’m done. I don’t go anywhere. I don’t anything for fun. I don’t do anything. We just sit home.** **Dawna Sargent: I tend to lean Republican.** **Is it likely you’d vote for the senator again this time?** **Dawna Sargent: It depends on what my options are.** I met Dawna Sargent and Paula St. Germain during a mid-week visit to the Windsor Fair. Early voting in Maine begins in less than a month. Every week—between now and Election Day on November 3rd— Unorganized Territory is talking to voters, with a special focus on the issues, emotions, perceptions and personal challenges shaping their views of the candidates in Maine’s U.S. Senate race, a crucial contest in the battle for control of Congress. We’re glad you’re along for the ride. ### Alaska’s Ranked Choice Repeal Has a Dark-Money Clause Voters Can’t Ignore URL: https://ivn.us/alaskas-ranked-choice-repeal-has-a-dark-money-clause-voters-cant-ignore/ Last updated: 2026-09-17T13:20:23.000Z **ANCHORAGE, Alaska** —Alaskans know Elon Musk put $1.5 million into a political action committee that is heavily funding the effort to repeal the state’s election system. Here’s the catch: The only reason they know is because of campaign-finance transparency rules the repeal effort wants to eliminate. This is an aspect of Ballot Measure 2 that is getting less attention because the focus of the ‘Yes’ campaign has solely been on ranked choice voting. The measure repeals an election reform package from 2020, [which was also designated Ballot Measure 2](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FBallot%5FMeasure%5F2,%5FTop-Four%5FRanked-Choice%5FVoting%5Fand%5FCampaign%5FFinance%5FLaws%5FInitiative%5F%282020%29?ref=ivn.us), that did 3 things: 1. It implemented a nonpartisan Top Four open primary in which all voters and candidates participate on a single ballot, regardless of party; 2. It added ranked choice voting to general elections; and 3. It put in place new campaign finance rules and disclosure requirements targeting “dark money” in elections, especially money coming from out-of-state sources. As [previously discussed on IVN](https://ivn.us/alaska-is-voting-on-more-than-ranked-choice-voting-its-voting-on-who-gets-to-vote/), there is more at stake than just ranked choice voting. If Top Four is repealed then a process in which any voter can pick any candidate they want in any race will be replaced with a system in which the parties decide if they can vote at all. And, [as the Sightline Institute highlights in a new analysis](https://www.sightline.org/2026/09/10/ballot-measure-2-would-allow-dark-money-back-into-alaskas-elections/?ref=ivn.us), it would also unwind significant portions of the campaign-finance disclosure system approved by voters. This is something opponents of the new system left out of their first repeal attempt in 2024\. But not this year. The official ballot summary says the measure would remove disclosure rules dealing with digital advertising, out-of-state donations, undisclosed donations and the “true source” of political contributions. It would also eliminate some penalties for campaign-finance violations. ## The Musk Money Makes the Point The disclosure issue became much harder to ignore after Alaskans learned in August that Musk dumped a lot of money into the repeal effort. He gave $1.5 million to the Wisconsin-based PAC, Aurora Action Network. Aurora subsequently gave $1 million to the repeal campaign. Under Alaska’s current system, political organizations receiving significant contributions cannot always shield the original source of the money behind layers of PACs and nonprofits. The 2020 reforms created “true source” disclosure requirements for certain contributions above $2,000. Sightline notes that before those rules existed, an estimated $15.5 million in political spending entered Alaska campaigns between 2014 and 2020 from unknown sources. Notably, that money came from across the political spectrum. Everyone took advantager of outside money. The 2020 reforms put in provisions that allowed voters to know, for the first time, who was actually writing the checks. Supporters of Ballot Measure 2 dispute the idea that the existing rules have solved Alaska’s dark-money problem. Repeal Now Treasurer Bethany Marcum told a state hearing that disclosure requirements are particularly burdensome for smaller campaigns. She also asserted that lengthy disclaimers consume advertising space without meaningfully informing voters. “In our opinion, the money overwhelms the disclaimer,” she said. The people backing repeal also argue that the central purpose of Ballot Measure 2 is to restore traditional party primaries and single-choice general elections after several cycles under ranked choice voting. “Much of the advertising for “Yes on 2” never mentions the measure’s transparency rollback, and it’s easy to see why,” writes Robyn Sundlee at Sightline. > “National polls confirm that most individuals, regardless of party, want more transparency in campaign finance, not less.” One poll comes from the [Brennan Center for Justice](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/poll-voters-want-solutions-government-corruption?ref=ivn.us), which found overwhelming cross-party support for greater transparency. It is almost a 90-10 issue across the board. In August, [more than 70% of voters approved Ballot Measure 1 in the primary](https://ivn.us/alaska-caps-campaign-cash-now-voters-face-a-dark-money-fight/), restoring limits on how much individuals and political groups may contribute directly to candidates. > 72% of AK voters supported imposing campaign contribution limits by voting for BM1. > > If Ballot Measure 2 passes it will \*repeal\* those limits for contributions to [#AKGOV](https://x.com/hashtag/AKGOV?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) & LG candidates before they even go into effect. > > Was BM2 drafted this way on purpose? Or was it… [https://t.co/GmGG12lZIG](https://t.co/GmGG12lZIG?ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/gmmLuHaJBo](https://t.co/gmmLuHaJBo?ref=ivn.us) > > — Scott Kendall (@scooterkendall) [September 15, 2026](https://x.com/scooterkendall/status/2099677417090793773?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) November will put a very different campaign-finance question before voters: How much should they be allowed to know about the people trying to influence their vote? How they vote on Ballot Measure 2 will determine whether or not they know the next time someone drops $1.5 million in a state election and who that person is—whether it is Elon Musk, George Soros, or someone else. ### The Socialists Are Coming. URL: https://ivn.us/california-special-your-independent-guide-to-november/ Last updated: 2026-09-15T16:20:05.000Z Sometimes California’s election system 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. 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. This November, [**five competitive contests**](https://ivn.us/tag/california-2026/) for seats in the state Legislature feature a DSA-backed or recommended Democrat against a more mainstream Democrat. These races 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. Check out our independent coverage of those important races below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## DSA on One Side, Labor and Cops on the Other: South Bay Independents Get the Deciding Vote [![South Bay state Senate race](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/south-bay-elections.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dsa-on-one-side-labor-and-cops-on-the-other-south-bay-independents-get-the-deciding-vote/) Cara Brown McCormick on the South Bay’s state Senate fight: the Democratic Socialists on one side, labor and law enforcement on the other — and **the deciding vote belongs to independents**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/dsa-on-one-side-labor-and-cops-on-the-other-south-bay-independents-get-the-deciding-vote/) ### *CALIFORNIA NEWS ▶▶▶* [East LA: Independent Voters May Decide Whether or Not Socialists Win Senate Seat ](https://ivn.us/east-la-independent-voters-may-decide-whether-or-not-socialists-win-senate-seat/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![East LA: Independent Voters May Decide Whether or Not Socialists Win Senate Seat](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/east-los-angeles-senate-race.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/east-la-independent-voters-may-decide-whether-or-not-socialists-win-senate-seat/) [Latino Independents Could Decide California in 2026—If Anyone Bothers to Reach Them ](https://ivn.us/latino-independents-could-decide-california-in-2026-if-anyone-bothers-to-reach-them/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/08/alex-segura.jpg) Alex Segura, Latino News Network [ ![Latino Independents Could Decide California in 2026—If Anyone Bothers to Reach Them](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/latino-voters-california-elections-independent-voters.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/latino-independents-could-decide-california-in-2026-if-anyone-bothers-to-reach-them/) [Forget Brooklyn. Socialism's Next Test Runs Through West LA, and Independents Are the Judges ](https://ivn.us/forget-brooklyn-socialisms-next-test-runs-through-west-la-and-independents-are-the-judges/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Forget Brooklyn. Socialism's Next Test Runs Through West LA, and Independents Are the Judges](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/southern-california-elections-1.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/forget-brooklyn-socialisms-next-test-runs-through-west-la-and-independents-are-the-judges/) [Young Voters are Following This Latino Trend ](https://ivn.us/young-voters-are-following-this-latino-trend/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/IMG_5249.png) Chad Peace [ ![Young Voters are Following This Latino Trend](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/latino-voters-young-voters.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/young-voters-are-following-this-latino-trend/) [DSA on One Side, Labor and Cops on the Other: South Bay Independents Get the Deciding Vote ](https://ivn.us/dsa-on-one-side-labor-and-cops-on-the-other-south-bay-independents-get-the-deciding-vote/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![DSA on One Side, Labor and Cops on the Other: South Bay Independents Get the Deciding Vote](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/south-bay-elections.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/dsa-on-one-side-labor-and-cops-on-the-other-south-bay-independents-get-the-deciding-vote/) [California’s Election Referees Wear Party Jerseys. Two Amendments Aim to Change That. ](https://ivn.us/californias-election-referees-wear-party-jerseys-two-amendments-aim-to-change-that/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![California’s Election Referees Wear Party Jerseys. Two Amendments Aim to Change That.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-01c81d4d-c6df-43d9-89bf-3f6c171ab595.png) ](https://ivn.us/californias-election-referees-wear-party-jerseys-two-amendments-aim-to-change-that/) [Orange County, Birthplace of the Reagan Revolution, May Be About to Elect a Socialist ](https://ivn.us/orange-county-birthplace-of-the-reagan-revolution-could-elect-a-democratic-socialist/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Orange County, Birthplace of the Reagan Revolution, May Be About to Elect a Socialist](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/orange-county-elections-1.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/orange-county-birthplace-of-the-reagan-revolution-could-elect-a-democratic-socialist/) [Kevin Kiley Left the Republican Party Over Gerrymandering. Now He's Testing Whether an Independent Can Beat the Map Drawn to Defeat Him. ](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Kevin Kiley Left the Republican Party Over Gerrymandering. Now He's Testing Whether an Independent Can Beat the Map Drawn to Defeat Him.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/Kevin_Kiley.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) [San Francisco Democrats Just Said No to Taxing Billionaires ](https://ivn.us/san-francisco-democrats-just-said-no-to-taxing-billionaires/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![San Francisco Democrats Just Said No to Taxing Billionaires](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/san-francisco-democrats-prop-40.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/san-francisco-democrats-just-said-no-to-taxing-billionaires/) ### *PROPOSALS ▶▶▶* ## Guide to California’s Proposals for Independent-Minded Voters [![California ballot proposals guide](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-ee871cb8-2142-4145-869c-4971c4378d59.jpg)](https://ivn.us/guide-to-californias-proposals-for-independent-minded-voters/) Voter ID. A billionaire tax and the two measures built to counter it. A nonpartisan Secretary of State. A constitutional right to vote. **Everything on California’s November ballot, decoded for independent-minded voters**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/guide-to-californias-proposals-for-independent-minded-voters/) ### *LATINO ▶▶▶* ## Don't Let a Signature Kill Your Vote: The California Latino Voter's Survival Guide to November [![California mail ballots](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/california-rejected-mail-ballots-latino-voters.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dont-let-a-signature-kill-your-vote-the-california-latino-voters-survival-guide-to-november/) Alex Segura of the Latino News Network: with Prop 39 confusion swirling and **mail-ballot rejections at a decade high**, here’s what Latino voters actually need to know before November — starting with the signature. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/dont-let-a-signature-kill-your-vote-the-california-latino-voters-survival-guide-to-november/) ### *INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES ▶▶▶* ## Kevin Kiley Left the Republican Party Over Gerrymandering. Now He's Testing Whether an Independent Can Beat the Map Drawn to Defeat Him. [![Rep. Kevin Kiley](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Kevin_Kiley.jpg)](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) California’s own Kevin Kiley walked away from the Republican Party over the gerrymander — and now he’s running as an independent in a CA-6 redrawn specifically to defeat him. **If he wins, the label beats the map**. Matt Shinners reports. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joins EP57 on defying his own party’s pressure to drop out of the California governor’s race — and why **the voters, not party bosses, should decide who stays in**. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlfdrKykXrU&ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### In Orange County, Will Jessie Lopez Give Dem Socialists A Win Over Moderate David Penaloza? URL: https://ivn.us/orange-county-birthplace-of-the-reagan-revolution-could-elect-a-democratic-socialist/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T21:59:23.000Z The well-publicized midterm battles between democratic socialists and moderate Democrats are mostly over nationwide. Closed primaries have determined the winners: whoever turned out the most committed sliver of Democrats won, and in many places it's been the candidate backed by the DSA. California does its elections differently. Every voter got the same ballot on June 2; the top two finishers advanced regardless of party, and all voters will decide the general election. This November, the county that launched Ronald Reagan and named its airport after John Wayne, and its 68,000 independents, will decide between the DSA-recommended [Jessie Lopez](https://www.votejessielopez.com/?ref=ivn.us) and [David Penaloza](https://davidpenaloza.com/?ref=ivn.us), a moderate Democrat, ## **Assembly District 68** ### **David Penaloza (D) vs. Jessie Lopez (D)** The pair of Democrats finished the June 2 primary fewer than a thousand votes apart, Penaloza at 33 percent and Lopez at 31 percent. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZD7gInPz1g/?ref=ivn.us) The California Democratic Socialists of America [recommend Lopez](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us) over Penaloza. SEIU California, UFCW 324, NUHW, the Working Families Party,[ ](https://ourrevolution.com/category/endorsement/ca/?ref=ivn.us)[Our Revolution](https://ourrevolution.com/category/endorsement/ca/?ref=ivn.us), and US Senator Bernie Sanders have all endorsed Lopez. Lopez also has the endorsement of[ ](https://ballotpedia.org/Endorsements%5Fby%5FCAIR-CA%5FPAC?ref=ivn.us)[CAIR-CA PAC](https://ballotpedia.org/Endorsements%5Fby%5FCAIR-CA%5FPAC?ref=ivn.us), a political action committee funded by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and led by[ ](https://www.memri.org/reports/cair-la-director-hussam-ayloush-november-2023-islamic-society-orange-county-event-israel?fbclid=IwAR28kMilcLCuEibcujo3HvLkRt-MhyOrhdMEQue4vB-%5FzVLxX0i5c91vS7Q%5Faem%5FASP62ZHLa-pMbXZp-nGFzXOZ1TCO8j%5F2cEMnIirYnMF3nM5%5FMs4qzHghUc5EZLnvEr-VGpOQUEI13qWkmXE9vxEk&ref=ivn.us)[Hussam Ayloush](https://www.memri.org/reports/cair-la-director-hussam-ayloush-november-2023-islamic-society-orange-county-event-israel?fbclid=IwAR28kMilcLCuEibcujo3HvLkRt-MhyOrhdMEQue4vB-%5FzVLxX0i5c91vS7Q%5Faem%5FASP62ZHLa-pMbXZp-nGFzXOZ1TCO8j%5F2cEMnIirYnMF3nM5%5FMs4qzHghUc5EZLnvEr-VGpOQUEI13qWkmXE9vxEk&ref=ivn.us). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-14-at-3.44.58---PM-1.png) Because this election pits two current Santa Ana councilmembers against one another, voters can compare their voting records side by side. Lopez and Penaloza have voted on different sides of economic and voting bills for the past six years. In her first year on the council, Lopez was the deciding vote for the rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinance, which passed 4-3, making[ ](https://voiceofoc.org/2021/10/santa-ana-becomes-first-orange-county-city-with-rent-control/?ref=ivn.us)[Santa Ana the first city in Orange County with its own rent control law](https://voiceofoc.org/2021/10/santa-ana-becomes-first-orange-county-city-with-rent-control/?ref=ivn.us). The DSA advocates for universal rent control and strong tenant protections as part of its platform, treating[ ](https://www.dsausa.org/blog/less-rent-more-control/?ref=ivn.us)[housing as a human right](https://www.dsausa.org/blog/less-rent-more-control/?ref=ivn.us) rather than a for-profit commodity. Penaloza voted against the 2021 rent control ordinance, calling it rushed and saying its $300,000 allocation came from one-time money that would deepen city debt. Lopez supported Measure DD[ ](https://ocindependent.com/2023/10/santa-anas-progressive-council-majority-wants-non-citizens-to-vote-in-city-elections/?ref=ivn.us)[allowing noncitizens to vote](https://ocindependent.com/2023/10/santa-anas-progressive-council-majority-wants-non-citizens-to-vote-in-city-elections/?ref=ivn.us) in Santa Ana local elections. The DSA’s platform, unveiled in 2026,[ ](https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/dsa-unveils-new-platform-including-radical-structural-changes-to-us-government-dsa-melot-kiros-democrat-party-republicans?ref=ivn.us)[supports noncitizen voting](https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/dsa-unveils-new-platform-including-radical-structural-changes-to-us-government-dsa-melot-kiros-democrat-party-republicans?ref=ivn.us). Penaloza opposed Measure DD. > *“Shall the City of Santa Ana City Charter be amended to allow, by the November 2028 general municipal election, noncitizen City residents to vote in all City of Santa Ana municipal elections?” (*[*Measure DD*](https://ballotpedia.org/Santa%5FAna,%5FCalifornia,%5FMeasure%5FDD,%5FNoncitizen%5FVoting%5Fin%5FMunicipal%5FElections%5FAmendment%5F%28November%5F2024%29?ref=ivn.us)*, Failed 40-60)* Lopez was harshly criticized before the June 2 primary for her vote in favor of putting Measure FF on the ballot: a 556 percent council pay raise for herself and other elected officials in Santa Ana. *"The proposed amendment would increase the salary of Councilmembers and the Mayor from $12,000 a year ($1000 per month) to $78,698.07 a year ($6558.17 per month)..."* Penaloza voted against raising his own pay. Lopez created[ ](https://santa-ana.gov/police-oversight-commission-complaint-form/?ref=ivn.us)[Santa Ana’s Police Oversight Commission](https://santa-ana.gov/police-oversight-commission-complaint-form/?ref=ivn.us) to investigate police misconduct. In late 2023, California DSA chapters actively campaigned to help Lopez survive a highly contentious recall election. The DSA celebrated the successful defense of her seat as a major win in Southern California. Voters rejected it 56-44. [Santa Ana: Jessie Lopez Tried To Enlist Other Tenants In Attempt To Sabotage Sale Of Landlord’s House - OC IndependentSanta Ana Councilmember Jessie Lopez attempted to enlist her fellow tenants in her efforts to sabotage the sale of the house where she was renting a bedroom, according to documents filed by her former landlord in his successful civil complaint against Lopez. The landlord, Hector Orellana, successfully sued Lopez for $35,000 in damages. OC Independent \[…\]![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/cropped-V2_Logo-Mark-270x270-097f4c50-d6be-4bda-9ca4-bed422702ac2.png)OC IndependentMatthew Cunningham![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/jessie-lopez-OIC-44622016-091a-4dcf-9117-318e58a387ab.jpg)](https://ocindependent.com/2024/10/santa-ana-jessie-lopez-tried-to-enlist-other-tenants-in-attempt-to-sabotage-sale-of-landlords-house/?ref=ivn.us) Penaloza is supported by the California Democratic Party, California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, retiring Assemblymember Avelino Valencia, former Representative Katie Porter, the California Teachers Association, and nearly all of California’s public safety unions. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db%5FKm29pyRx/?ref=ivn.us) Lopez is 37 and was born and raised in Santa Ana. She is the daughter of immigrants and worked two jobs to put herself through school. She earned an associate's degree from Santa Ana College and a bachelor's in sociology from Cal State Long Beach. In 2020, she won the Ward 3 seat on the Santa Ana City Council and was elected to the Orange County Central Committee the same year. She was reelected to the council in 2024. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTyzD85DxYe/?ref=ivn.us) David Penaloza was born January 6, 1988, and has lived in Orange County his entire life. His father was tragically killed by a drunk driver when he was three, and he credits his mother and the surrounding community with holding the family together. His website says he learned to swim and played baseball at the Memorial Park Community Pool, and swam and played water polo for Saddleback High. He earned a bachelor's degree in English language and literature from Cal State Los Angeles in 2011. While still a student, Penaloza started working part-time in the office for[ ](https://www.modifiedplastics.com/color-science-inc?ref=ivn.us)[Color Science, Inc](https://www.modifiedplastics.com/color-science-inc?ref=ivn.us)., an Orange County manufacturer. He worked at the company for 16 years, moving through shipping and receiving, sales, payroll, project quality, and regulatory compliance, and became director of regulatory affairs in 2019. Penaloza won a seat on the Santa Ana City Council in 2018 and won again in 2022\. His current term ends on December 8, 2026. He is president of the[ ](https://www.cacities.org/Resources-Documents/Member-Engagement/Professional-Departments/City-Managers/Welcome-Packet-Documents/Regional-Managers-Brochure-2014?ref=ivn.us)[League of California Cities Orange County Division](https://www.cacities.org/Resources-Documents/Member-Engagement/Professional-Departments/City-Managers/Welcome-Packet-Documents/Regional-Managers-Brochure-2014?ref=ivn.us) and chair of the Transportation Corridor Agencies. He previously served as the large city representative for the[ ](https://ochft.org/?ref=ivn.us)[Orange County Housing Finance Trust](https://ochft.org/?ref=ivn.us). His campaign credits him with more than 2,000 new housing units, five new parks, street and infrastructure repairs, the city's first new library in sixty years, and a refinancing of the city's pension debt. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DVhEv%5FpErT3/?ref=ivn.us) Among the repairs he led was restoring the same Memorial Park pool where he learned to swim, which had not been renovated since 1965. He is a member of Elks Lodge #794 and has volunteered with the Children's Resource Center through the[ ](https://illuminationhealthhome.org/?ref=ivn.us)[Illumination Foundation](https://illuminationhealthhome.org/?ref=ivn.us). He lives in Santa Ana with his wife, former Garden Grove councilmember[ ](https://ballotpedia.org/Kim%5FNguyen-Penaloza?ref=ivn.us)[Kim Nguyen-Penaloza](https://ballotpedia.org/Kim%5FNguyen-Penaloza?ref=ivn.us), who ran for Congress in 2024 and lost, and their two children, Penelope and Lucas. Democrats hold 48 percent of the district's registration and Republicans 22 percent, leaving 68,000 voters, or 30 percent, registered with neither party, including 54,000 No Party Preference. The district lies entirely within Orange County: half in Santa Ana, roughly 30 percent in Anaheim, and 20 percent in the city of Orange. It is majority Latino, with Latinos comprising 56 percent of voting-age citizens. Fifty-seven percent of households rent at a median of $2,050, while the median home value is $709,000, which is why rent control has been an issue; 36 percent of residents are foreign-born, and 20 percent are noncitizens, which is why Measure DD reached the ballot. Angel Stadium, the Honda Center, Chapman University, Santa Ana College, and the Bowers Museum fall inside its lines. ### Democratic Socialists Bet on Sara Deen Over Paul Seo in California's South Bay URL: https://ivn.us/dsa-on-one-side-labor-and-cops-on-the-other-south-bay-independents-get-the-deciding-vote/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T19:48:57.000Z The question of where socialism goes next in America will not be answered in New York. It will be answered 3,000 miles west, in places like California's South Bay. Candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and its regional affiliates have proven consistently effective inside closed Democratic primaries, where a compact and motivated bloc can carry a race and nobody outside the party is ever consulted. California does not offer that terrain. There are no closed elections here. On June 2, every voter in the district received an identical ballot, and the two highest finishers advanced regardless of party. In the state's deepest blue districts, that occasionally produces a November choice between two Democrats with no Republican anywhere on the ballot. Assembly District 66 fits that description. No Republican advanced, which puts the district's 97,000 independents in position to decide between the DSA-recommended [Sara Deen](https://www.saradeenforca.com/meet-sara/?ref=ivn.us) and [Paul Seo](https://www.paulseo.com/?ref=ivn.us), the moderate. ## **Assembly District 66** ### **Paul Seo (D) vs. Sara Deen (D)** Seo and Deen finished two points apart coming out of the primary, at 27 percent and 25 percent. [Seo](https://www.paulseo.com/?ref=ivn.us), a popular [mayor in Rancho Palos Verdes](https://www.rpvca.gov/1582/Mayor-Paul-Seo?ref=ivn.us), is a deputy state attorney general and an Army veteran who spent seven years prosecuting serious and violent felonies for the Los Angeles County District Attorney. Seo has assembled a coalition of organized labor and law enforcement [endorsements](https://www.paulseo.com/endorsements?ref=ivn.us): the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, IAM District 947, and USW Local 675 alongside the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, and the Los Angeles Police Protective League. He has pledged to increase funding for police, sheriff's deputies, prosecutors, and the Highway Patrol. [Deen](https://www.saradeenforca.com/meet-sara/?ref=ivn.us) is a [Pakistani-American](https://www.newarab.com/news/pakistani-american-candidate-runs-california-legislature?ref=ivn.us) dentist and presides over the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District board. The [California Democratic Socialists of America](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us) voter guide says, *“Sara Deen is clearly positioned as the progressive candidate in this not-very-progressive district, so we recommend that you should vote for her.”* Deen asked DSA-LA to remove its recommendation from its voter guide. "We asked for it to be removed because it misrepresents my values and equates Muslim Americans with socialism - giving opponents a safer way to attack my identity instead of my record," she said. Later, she said that she "did not intend to say that DSA-LA itself equates Muslim-Americans with socialism." *"What I meant to say is that political opportunists took DSA-LA's recommendation, which I never sought, and used it to feed a false narrative - painting Muslim-American leaders as secret socialists, communists, or dangerous outsiders."* Deen is also endorsed by the California Teachers Association, the California Dental Association, the California Women's List, the National Women's Political Caucus, and [Indivisible South Bay](https://www.instagram.com/indivisiblesouthbayla/p/DWw0zz6Ekas/?ref=ivn.us). [Initiate Justice Action](https://ijaction.org/?ref=ivn.us), a criminal justice reform group, recommended Deen as its “harm reduction” candidate, citing the law enforcement backing of Seo as a negative. Deen is 47 and lives in a $4-million house in Rancho Palos Verdes with her partner, who is also a doctor. She has contributed to [CAIR-CA PAC](https://ballotpedia.org/Endorsements%5Fby%5FCAIR-CA%5FPAC?ref=ivn.us), sending $1,000 to a political action committee associated with [Hussam Ayloush](https://www.memri.org/reports/cair-la-director-hussam-ayloush-november-2023-islamic-society-orange-county-event-israel?fbclid=IwAR28kMilcLCuEibcujo3HvLkRt-MhyOrhdMEQue4vB-%5FzVLxX0i5c91vS7Q%5Faem%5FASP62ZHLa-pMbXZp-nGFzXOZ1TCO8j%5F2cEMnIirYnMF3nM5%5FMs4qzHghUc5EZLnvEr-VGpOQUEI13qWkmXE9vxEk&ref=ivn.us). She has faced calls for her resignation from the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District board over her social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war. In October 2023, Deen spoke from the main stage at the California Democratic Party's convention in Sacramento, [calling for a cease-fire in Gaza](https://www.dailybreeze.com/2023/10/30/manhattan-beach-girls-verbally-spar-over-israel-hamas-war-ire-rumors-threats-follow/?ref=ivn.us) as delegates cheered and chanted "cease-fire now." > Rabbi Steven Jacobs & Dr. Sara Deen stand in solidarity to condemn islamophobia and antisemitism during the 2023 November Endorsing Convention. [#Organize2Win](https://x.com/hashtag/Organize2Win?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/sIoAPsJqVh](https://t.co/sIoAPsJqVh?ref=ivn.us) > > — California Democratic Party (@CA\_Dem) [November 18, 2023](https://x.com/CA%5FDem/status/1725948621567517126?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Deen was joined at the podium by Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs, who condemned abuses by both Hamas and the Israeli government, and the convention later drew scrutiny over the safety of Jewish delegates. Deen said she has facilitated [New Ground Muslim Jewish Partnership for Change](https://mjnewground.org/?ref=ivn.us), a program pairing Jewish and Muslim high schoolers for a year of dialogue, and described the rise in antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate as "two sides of the same coin." Democrats hold 43 percent of the district and Republicans 27 percent, leaving 97,000 voters, or 30 percent, registered with neither party, of whom 75,000 are No Party Preference. The district takes in the heart of the South Bay in Los Angeles: Torrance, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, El Segundo, Gardena, Lomita, San Pedro, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Suburban and affluent, voters from this district favored Joe Biden by a whopping 63 percent in 2020\. Its population of roughly 474,000 is 44 percent non-Hispanic white, 23 percent Asian, 21 percent Latino, and 4 percent Black. It’s one of the most Asian-American districts in the California legislature. \[Author's note: This article has been updated to include the fact that Sara Deen asked the Democratic Socialists of LA to remove their recommendation of her from their voter guide.\] ### Democratic Socialists Eye Westside Win With John Erickson Over Brian Goldsmith URL: https://ivn.us/forget-brooklyn-socialisms-next-test-runs-through-west-la-and-independents-are-the-judges/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T19:49:00.000Z ## **Senate District 24** ### **John Erickson (D) vs. Brian Goldsmith (D)** The fate of American socialism will not be settled in New York. It will be settled in districts like this one, roughly 3,000 miles west. Democratic Socialists have become skilled at a specific task: winning closed Democratic primaries, contests decided by a narrow and energized slice of the party while everyone else watches from the outside. California removes that advantage. The state does not hold closed elections. On June 2, every voter received the same ballot, and the two leading candidates advanced to the general election no matter what party they belonged to. In the bluest corners of the state, that occasionally leaves November voters choosing between two Democrats. Senate District 24 is one of those places. Because no Republican qualified for the general, Republicans and independents on the Westside will pick between John Erickson, recommended by the DSA, and Brian Goldsmith, a moderate Democrat. According to [votercount.ai](http://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us), 199,320 registered voters are neither Democratic nor Republican (out of 665,754 total — that's the Non-Partisan, American Independent, Libertarian, Green, Peace and Freedom, and other/unknown registrations combined). The top two candidates were separated in the June 2 primary by just 2 points: Erickson at 21 percent and Goldsmith at 19 percent. Erickson ran third on election night and climbed to first as late ballots were counted. The California [Democratic Socialists of America recommended Erickson](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us) as the field's leading progressive. Whether that recommendation helps or hurts Erickson depends on whether the 162,000 No Party Preference voters and other independents from the Westside of LA turn out to vote and pick a side. [Erickson](https://www.johnerickson4senate.com/?ref=ivn.us), 40, a West Hollywood councilmember and former mayor who came to California from Wisconsin, spent his career at [Planned Parenthood Los Angeles](https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-los-angeles?ref=ivn.us), where he was a vice president, and at the Alliance for a Better Community. He is endorsed by the California Labor Federation, the Working Families Party, and the California Teachers Association. At the California Democratic Party's February endorsing convention, Erickson took just 8 percent. [Goldsmith](https://www.briangoldsmith.com/?ref=ivn.us) has endorsements from voters across the political spectrum. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdANwULPYEI/?ref=ivn.us) Goldsmith is a media consultant, journalist, and first-time candidate, raised more than $2 million (more than anyone else in the primary) and assembled a roster of national support from across the political spectrum that includes Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, [Pete Buttigieg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aqUj67I5Fg&ref=ivn.us), Antonio Villaraigosa, Rick Caruso, and Katie Couric, along with CAL FIRE Local 2881, ILWU, and the Teamsters. Registered Democrats (326,289) outnumber Republicans (140,145) by more than 2 to 1 in this district. Voters registered either No Party Preference or independent of the two major parties make up a solid 30 percent of voters in the general. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-1da5bf37-efe3-4653-868b-460da194fbbd.png) California Senate District 24 includes the cities of Agoura Hills, Beverly Hills, Calabasas, El Segundo, Gardena, Hermosa Beach, Hidden Hills, Lomita, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach, Rolling Hills, Rolling Hills Estates, Santa Monica, Torrance, West Hollywood, and Westlake Village, and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Bel Air, Beverly Grove, Brentwood, Fairfax, Holmby Hills, Hollywood, Hollywood Hills, Little Holmby, Mid City West, Pacific Palisades, Playa del Rey, Sunset Hills, Venice, Westwood, Westwood Village, and the unincorporated Los Angeles County communities of Santa Monica Mountains and Marina Del Rey. Affluent, heavily Democratic, and expensive to campaign in, the race to represent SD24 could be California's most costly legislative contest this year. ### Election Day Is November 3. For 390 House Seats, It's Already Over URL: https://ivn.us/election-day-is-november-3-for-390-house-seats-its-already-over/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:51:47.000Z 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](https://www.uniteamerica.org/primary-problem?ref=ivn.us) from Unite America finds that 390 of the 435 seats in the US House (roughly 90%) can be safely predicted right now. *Update 9/22/26: Unite America updated its figures, finding 383 US House have already been decided.* 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](https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings?ref=ivn.us) 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](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/crowning-congress-150-candidates-have-already-effectively-won-without-a-single-vote?ref=ivn.us) 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](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-data/primary-elections?ref=ivn.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](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/the-2026-midterms-primary-turnout-trends-as-of-july/?ref=ivn.us) 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. ### Democratic Socialists Think Rascón Can Beat Moderate Hernandez on Their Home Turf URL: https://ivn.us/east-la-independent-voters-may-decide-whether-or-not-socialists-win-senate-seat/ Last updated: 2026-10-15T00:04:13.000Z ***The future of socialism in America will not be decided in New York. It will be decided in places like East Los Angeles, 3,000 miles away.*** ## Senate District 26 ### **Sara Hernandez (D) vs. Sarah Rascón (D)** Socialist candidates have gotten very good this year at winning closed Democratic primaries, where a small, motivated electorate can carry a race, and no one outside the party is ever asked to weigh in. But California does not hold closed elections. Every registered voter was given the same ballot on June 2; the top two finishers advanced to the general regardless of party, and in the state's bluest districts, that sometimes produced two Democrats in November and no Republican at all. Senate District 26 is a prime example. No Republican is on the ballot, so the 144,000 independent voters in this East LA district will be the deciders in a general election matchup between the [DSA-recommended](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us) Sarah Rascón and Sara Hernandez, a moderate Democrat. This could definitely be a DSA pickup seat. State Senate District 26 in East LA contains the highest concentration of DSA-LA members in Southern California, and Rascón carries the DSA endorsement. In the June 2 primary, Hernandez emerged with a commanding 34 percent to Rascón's 21 percent. [Hernandez](https://www.sarahernandez.com/?ref=ivn.us), a trustee of the Los Angeles Community College District and a housing, immigration, and environmental attorney who began her career teaching middle school for the Los Angeles Unified School District, holds degrees from Duke, Loyola Marymount, and Loyola Law School and lives in Eagle Rock. She has the [endorsements](https://www.sarahernandez.com/endorse?ref=ivn.us) of the California Teachers Association, the California Federation of Labor, IUOE Local 12, and much of the elected Democratic establishment, including sitting state senators who would become her colleagues. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DXxh5V6P0i1/?ref=ivn.us) [Rascón](https://www.rasconforsenate.com/?ref=ivn.us), who grew up in El Sereno and lives in Glassell Park, comes out of sustainability and environmental justice work: she served as director of county and regional affairs for Mayor Karen Bass, worked for then-Assemblymember Jimmy Gomez and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, sat on the East Los Angeles Planning Commission, and served on the board of CicLAvia. The Democratic Socialists of America, the California Working Families Party, and the New Deal Democrats endorsed her. The [California DSA voting guide](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us) recommended Rascon because “she supports Single Payer healthcare via CalCare, repealing the Ellis and Costa-Hawkins Acts and reforming Proposition 13.” Rascón also supports the “full liberation of Palestine.” > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DceNCwLyrze/?ref=ivn.us) According to [votercount.ai](http://votercount.ai/?ref=ivn.us), Democrats hold just shy of 60 percent of registrations and Republicans just 11 percent, leaving 144,000 voters, or 29 percent, registered with neither party, 116,000 of whom are No Party Preference (NPP). The unaffiliated bloc in SD26 is nearly three times the size of the Republican electorate. With no Republican on the ballot and two Democrats offering sharply different politics, those voters are the swing. If independents and NPP voters turn out, they will decide it. Senate District 26 runs through central and eastern Los Angeles: Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, Highland Park, Los Feliz, Koreatown, and the industrial city of Vernon. It is heavily Latino and immigrant, and at candidate forums this spring, residents asked about immigration enforcement, public health, and the environment. ### California 2026: The Candidates, Choices, and Elections That Show How Much Power Independent Voters Really Have URL: https://ivn.us/california-2026-the-candidates-choices-and-elections-that-show-how-much-power-voters-really-have/ Last updated: 2026-09-22T20:14:00.000Z Since the passage of California’s Nonpartisan Primary, [IVN](https://ivn.us/) 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.](https://ivn.us/west-virginias-switch-to-closed-primaries-has-been-a-train-wreck/) 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. ## Voter Guides and Races To Watch (Check Back for More Updates) ### **Statewide** [**Guide to California’s Proposals for Independent-Minded Voters**](https://ivn.us/guide-to-californias-proposals-for-independent-minded-voters/) ### **US Congress** [**Democrats Gerrymandered David Valadao’s District. Did It Backfire?**](https://ivn.us/democrats-gerrymandered-david-valadaos-district-it-backfired/) ### **Assembly and Senate** [**East LA: Independent Voters May Decide Whether or Not Socialists Win Senate Seat**](https://ivn.us/east-la-independent-voters-may-decide-whether-or-not-socialists-win-senate-seat/) [**Forget Brooklyn. Socialism's Next Test Runs Through West LA, and Independents Are the Judges**](https://ivn.us/forget-brooklyn-socialisms-next-test-runs-through-west-la-and-independents-are-the-judges/) [**DSA on One Side, Labor and Cops on the Other: South Bay Independents Get the Deciding Vote**](https://ivn.us/dsa-on-one-side-labor-and-cops-on-the-other-south-bay-independents-get-the-deciding-vote/) [**Orange County, Birthplace of the Reagan Revolution, May Be About to Elect a Socialist**](https://ivn.us/orange-county-birthplace-of-the-reagan-revolution-could-elect-a-democratic-socialist/) ### Ad-A-Palooza: Maine’s Senate Race Is Being Fought One Commercial Break at a Time URL: https://ivn.us/ad-a-palooza-maines-senate-race-is-being-fought-one-commercial-break-at-a-time/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:51:54.000Z *Editor's Note: This commentary piece* [*originally published*](https://substack.com/home/post/p-215074497?ref=ivn.us) *on the author's Substack, "Unorganized Territory," and has been republished on IVN with permission and by request of the author.* The NFL is back—so back baby! But in the final stretch of a volatile, cranky election year, all good things come with a price. If you live in Maine and tuned in to watch the Pats lay that big fat egg on Wednesday night, you may have seen this. Or this. Or maybe this. The onslaught of ads come back to back to back. They can make you want to turn your TV off and chuck the remote in the nearest body of water. Or just hit mute repeatedly, though that requires a level of vigilance that’s antithetical to the whole idea of chilling with friends and family and watching the game. Some of you, however, may share my unfortunate affliction of needing to understand why you’re being served up different ads at different times. I’m truly sorry if this is the case. But in all seriousness, what is the rhyme or reason behind the ads you’re seeing? It’s actually a great week to ponder this question, in part because CNN just dropped the first high-quality[ poll on Maine’s U.S. Senate race ](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28608783-cnn-poll-conducted-by-ssrs-maine/?ref=ivn.us)since Troy Jackson became the Democratic nominee. The poll—with deep and rich cross tabs—is a fascinating snapshot of a very close race. It surveyed a total of 880 registered voters, then weighted the sample to a likely voter pool. Overall, Troy Jackson leads Susan Collins 48% to 45% with a margin of error of +/- 3.7%. Beneath the horse race number are a slew of more telling data points and trends that shed light on all those ads people in Maine are seeing on their TVs, tablets and smart phones. When sampled by political party and ideology, both senate candidates are getting over 90% of the vote in their respective parties, while Unenrolled/Independents are split more or less evenly between Collins and Jackson. President Trump’s overall job approval rating in the poll is just 31% with 67% of those surveyed disapproving of his performance as president. Diving deeper into the Trump disapprovers cohort is where the poll really gets interesting. Troy Jackson is winning 71% of this group, while Collins is getting 20%. What does this mean? Shouldn’t Jackson be drawing more support from Trump disapprovers in light of the President’s historically low approval rating? Well, it’s kind of like the old “It’s complicated” relationship status on Facebook. Deeper in the cross tabs is this nugget: 18% of Trump disapprovers want the GOP to retain control of Congress—a number that matches, almost exactly, the 20% support number Collins is getting from this same group. What’s clear is that a certain number of these Trump disapprovers will support Susan Collins no matter what. The good news for Troy Jackson is that some percentage of them remain open to persuasion. 17% report they’re still persuadable, while 4% haven’t chosen a candidate yet. Further, Troy Jackson’s favorable/unfavorable ratings among Trump disapprovers is 52%/25%, which means roughly 23% have no opinion of thus far. So what does some of this data tell us about all those ads we’re seeing? First, it’s worth noting that both campaigns have internal polls that likely show trends that are similar to those in the CNN survey, but also reach some different conclusions as well. Unlike Graham Platner, who achieved universal name ID in Maine in a short period of time, Troy Jackson is still unknown to a sizable group of persuadable voters who could decide a close election. Troy Jackson’s campaign wants these folks to see him as an authentic, blue collar Mainer from a humble rural background, who’s spent his life fighting powerful interests on their behalf. Hence the ad with Jackson and his mother. The Collins campaign, by comparison, is racing to define Jackson in a very different way. They want this group of persuadable voters to see him as an out of touch leftist radical, promoting policies that would unshackle big government and take money from voters’ pockets through higher taxes. Hence the spots tying Jackson to a far left, DSA-aligned agenda and out of control property tax hikes. Susan Collins’s strongest calling card with this group is the same one she’s relied on in past successful reelection campaigns: her political identity/brand as a moderate, stable presence in Washington, who advocates successfully for Maine without rocking the boat too much. In a close election, the Jackson campaign needs to undercut this brand with just enough persuadable voters to get their guy across the finish line. With Trump’s approval at an all-time low and 84% of voters in the CNN poll expressing dissatisfaction with the overall direction of the country, ads like the one above from WinSenate make sense. The argument is more nuanced than “Collins is a rubber stamp” for Trump. It’s that on certain key votes impacting the economy, health care, civil liberties and reproductive freedom Collins has forgotten where she comes from and is hurting Maine people. ### West Virginia's Switch to Closed Primaries Has Been a Train Wreck URL: https://ivn.us/west-virginias-switch-to-closed-primaries-has-been-a-train-wreck/ Last updated: 2026-09-25T16:18:14.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* West Virginia closed its Republican primary for the first time in nearly three decades. [Then the voters spoke.](https://westvirginiawatch.com/2026/09/10/data-shows-big-jump-in-wv-voters-choosing-no-party-ballot-in-closed-republican-may-primary/?ref=ivn.us) More than **21,000 West Virginians chose a “no party” ballot** in May — a staggering **74% increase from 2022**. At the same time, Republican ballots fell **22%**, even as Republican registration continued to grow. That’s not a ripple. **That’s a revolt.** The lesson from West Virginia’s experiment is brutally simple: when you slam the door on independent voters, they don’t magically become Republicans. They don’t disappear. They show up — and they find the biggest election they’re still allowed to participate in. And in West Virginia, that meant statewide judicial races. Independents joined Democrats to reject several of Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s Supreme Court picks. The state’s own data shows just how many voters were pushed to the sidelines. **25.2% of registered West Virginians were unaffiliated** heading into the primary — roughly 302,000 people. West Virginia wanted to know what happens when you close the primary door. **Now we know.** The independents don’t go away. **They just stop playing by the parties’ rules.** ## **What We're Talking About** ## We Changed the Conversation ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/media-coverage.png) For years, Open Primaries has been making the case that millions of independent voters are being shut out of the elections that decide who represents them. **In 2026, that message broke through.** This spring, we made a major investment in media—and the results have been extraordinary. Across national, regional and local outlets, independent voters and primary reform became a story in their own right. From *CNN*, *NBC*, *CBS* and *NPR* to *The Washington Post*, *The Atlantic*, USA Today and *PBS*, primary reform reached audiences far beyond the traditional world of election reform. And our campaigns in states and cities across the country generated sustained local coverage that brought the national conversation back home. But the biggest change wasn't the amount of coverage. **It was the conversation.** Primary rules are no longer just an obscure election-law issue. They are increasingly part of a much bigger debate about independent voters, political representation and the future of American democracy. **We didn't just get more media. We helped change what the media—and the country—is talking about.** And we're just getting started. [**Read the full report.**](https://www.canva.com/design/DAHR%5F5eT2Zc/XDJndmBmdq8jH1y0qDnGVA/view?utm%5Fcontent=DAHR%5F5eT2Zc&utm%5Fcampaign=designshare&utm%5Fmedium=link2&utm%5Fsource=uniquelinks&utlId=h3aca44e52d) ## **What We're Watching** ## The Independent-Turned-Democrat Leading Iowa’s Governor’s Race Has a Big Promise Rob Sand is now the Democratic nominee for governor of Iowa. But he started out as an independent—and he’s making independent voters a central part of his campaign. And right now, **he’s ahead in the polls.** [Rob Sand Hopes to Win Iowa Independents with One Promise: He’ll End Closed PrimariesIowa State Auditor Rob Sand, an independent-turned-Democrat, is running for governor on a platform to replace closed party primaries with an open “people’s primary” where all voters can participate regardless of party affiliation.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-bdc4fad4-b354-4a58-8219-48389a33e61e.png)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Rob-Sand-Event-e0b1f313-6aad-4c4b-b88e-9a58069be1a9.png)](https://ivn.us/rob-sand-hopes-to-win-iowa-independents-with-one-promise-hell-end-closed-primaries/) [The latest Emerson College poll has Sand leading Republican Zach Lahn 49% to 46%.](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6067538-sand-lahn-turek-hinson-iowa-poll/?ref=ivn.us) Other recent polls have also put Sand ahead. His pitch to Iowa’s hundreds of thousands of independent voters is remarkably simple: **end the closed primaries and let them vote.** Sand wants to replace Iowa’s party primaries with what he calls a **“people’s primary,”** where every eligible voter can participate regardless of party affiliation. His proposal would put all candidates on one primary ballot, with the top four advancing to the general election. For an independent-turned-Democrat, the message is striking: **Sand isn't asking independents to join the Democratic Party. He's promising to change a system that shuts them out.** Sand has put the issue bluntly: **“Why do we make independent voters less equal?”** That is a pretty extraordinary question to hear from a Democratic gubernatorial nominee. But it may also be the most important question on the Iowa ballot this year. Watch Open Primaries President John Opdycke as he interviews Sand on The Primary Buzz. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/LetUsVote--2--1.png) ## **What Are Independents Talking About?** **Chris Jerome**, independent activist from Arizona, is the host and creator of [The Radical Independent](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=50w5vJoxvXTZfDxVOUy42AxRWpxDkGkIsy6VFeMI7T0ZeVRiB4cfrroVFI9%5FHeGYt34uoieQ255ZrszAZfRL1Q&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F127%5F2&n=6), a YouTube channel that advocates for socio-cultural changes and election reforms to fix a broken system. He recently sat down with independents Steve O’Hara from Florida; Tanya Hutchins from DC; Mark Ewoldt from Colorado and Tom Graf from Pennsylvania. They had a far-reaching conversation about their experiences and perspectives on being independent voters, the problem with the primaries, the political party control over the electoral process, and more. This is the second installment of Chris’ series, “Why are you an independent?”. You can follow along on his YouTube channel. ### **Independents Speak Out** **Dr. Jessie Fields,** Harlem physician and longtime activist, sat down with Bree Doldron at Harlem Week last month and shared her thoughts on being independent and the need for full voting rights. **Heather Miller**, a design and brand strategist from Chicago recently found the Open Primaries movement through a conversation with one of our volunteers, Kate Henselmans. Kate is a regular volunteer with our Independent Phone Operation and invited Heather to attend the Power Hour. Heather sent us a video about why she is an independent. [CHECK IT OUT.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om3O2G7mbeU&feature=youtu.be&ref=ivn.us) **We want to hear your thoughts!** Send us a video on why you’re an independent. You can send it to Bree Doldron, our National Organizer at [**bdoldron@openprimaries.org**](mailto:bdoldron@openprimaries.org)**.** ## Did You Know? ### ARIZONA SOS ADRIAN FONTES HAS BEEN A LONGTIME SUPPORTER OF INDEPENDENT VOTERS AND OPEN PRIMARIES ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/fontes.png) ## **What We're Listening To** ## [*Firewall Podcast*](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-warned-you/id1199693682?i=1000788823687&ref=ivn.us): John Opdycke insists that “independents are voters who insist there has to be a better way!” Open Primaries President John Opdycke joins Bradley Tusk, host of the *Firewall Podcast,* to make the case that America’s founders warned us about the power of political parties—and that today, 41% of Americans identify as independent while closed primaries lock them out of the elections that actually decide who governs. Opdycke discusses the impact of nonpartisan primaries in California, Open Primaries’ legal fight against closed primaries, and why the battle over primary reform is ultimately about power, not ideology. ### [***Louisville Public Media***](https://www.lpm.org/news/2026-09-09/listen-group-pushes-open-primaries-in-kentucky-amid-independent-voter-uptick?ref=ivn.us) **— Jeremy Gruber on Kentucky’s Independent Voters** I join Louisville Public Media to discuss Kentucky’s surge in independent voters and the growing push to open the state’s closed primaries. Independents grew faster than Democrats and Republicans combined in July, but remain shut out of the taxpayer-funded primaries that increasingly determine who governs. ## **In Case You Missed It** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/lisa-rice-grow-democracy-dc.png) Open Primaries is thrilled to congratulate **Lisa Rice** on receiving the [Excellence in Advocacy Award](https://www.wgr.org/page/Excellence%5Fin%5FAdvocacy%5FAwards?ref=ivn.us)! Lisa is the stalwart leader of the successful campaign for open primaries in Washington, D.C., founder of [**Grow Democracy DC**](https://www.growdemocracydc.org/?ref=ivn.us), and a national spokesperson for the open primaries movement. Her leadership, persistence, and commitment to giving every voter a voice have helped put open primaries firmly on the national reform agenda. **Congratulations, Lisa! This honor is richly deserved.** ## **Campaign Updates** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/respect-mo-voters.png) ## MISSOURI POLITICIANS TRIED TO STOP THE VOTE. THE COURT SAID NO. TWICE. Twice in one day, Missouri’s Supreme Court sent the same message to state officials: you don’t get to decide whether voters get a say. [Missouri Politicians Tried to Override Voters. The State’s Highest Court Said No — TwiceMissouri’s highest court unanimously rejected efforts by state officials to block two ballot measures, ruling voters retain the right to reject a new congressional map and strengthen protections for the citizen initiative process.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-2be625c8-cfaa-4c2c-8d13-ec4cfe5fe808.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-530b5a37-899c-40c0-bd5e-9014d1e66ca2-23551baf-c01d-44ad-a55b-2dcad89aa5ce.jpg)](https://ivn.us/missouri-politicians-tried-to-override-voters-the-states-highest-court-said-no-twice/) The court unanimously cleared the way for a referendum allowing Missouri voters to decide whether to reject the legislature’s new congressional map. It also ordered an initiative strengthening Missouri’s citizen initiative process onto the ballot. The cases involve different issues, but the principle is the same: Missouri’s constitution gives citizens direct power—and politicians can’t simply take it away when they don’t like how that power is being used. This November, Missouri voters will get the last word. **Want to get involved? Join the** [**Respect Missouri Voters Coalition**](https://respectmovoters.org/?ref=ivn.us)**.** ## **Activities and Events** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/independents-break-through.png)](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/yxQnAwXURWS7G2FWD%5F0gwA?ref=ivn.us#/registration) ## ***Is This The Year Independents Break Through? A Conversation with Joe Manchin and Adam Brandon*** **Hosted by Open Primaries President John Opdycke. Wednesday, September 30 | 2:00 PM EDT | Virtual** Independent voters are the largest force in American politics. But when it comes to who holds power in Washington, Republicans and Democrats still have a near-total monopoly. *Could 2026 be the year that begins to change?* Join **Open Primaries President John Opdycke** for a timely conversation with former U.S. Senator **Joe Manchin** and **Adam Brandon**, senior adviser to the Independent Center and former president of FreedomWorks, about their ambitious new effort to elect independent candidates to Congress while challenging the two-party system from the outside. Their goal is to build the infrastructure independent candidates have long lacked and prove that candidates can run and win without a D or R next to their name. The stakes go beyond electing a handful of candidates. Their effort raises a much bigger question: **Why should two private political parties have so much control over who gets elected, how Congress operates and whether independent voices have a seat at the table?** With closely divided chambers, growing dissatisfaction with the two-party system and millions of Americans identifying as independents, even a small number of truly independent members of Congress could have an outsized impact potentially influencing congressional leadership, committee rules and how Washington does business. **Can independents finally translate their numbers into political power? Can candidates compete without the machinery of the two major parties? And could 2026 be the beginning of a fundamentally different kind of Congress?** [Join Joe Manchin, Adam Brandon and John Opdycke for a provocative conversation about breaking the two-party grip and whether this is the year independents finally break through](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/yxQnAwXURWS7G2FWD%5F0gwA?ref=ivn.us#/registration). ### SHOCK UPSET: Incumbent Governor Loses Rhode Island Primary, Where Independent Ken Block is on November Ballot URL: https://ivn.us/shock-upset-incumbent-governor-loses-rhode-island-primary-where-independent-ken-block-is-on-november-ballot/ Last updated: 2026-09-10T17:49:39.000Z **PROVIDENCE, R.I.**—When Ken Block launched his campaign for governor, he told the [Rhode Island Current](https://rhodeislandcurrent.com/2026/04/02/ken-block-is-running-for-governor-again-this-time-as-an-independent/?ref=ivn.us) that he was running as an independent because "\[m\]y flavor of politics doesn’t align well with either political party. Political parties by definition imply a healthy dose of partisanship—I am a problem solver, a manager, and the problems that Rhode Island suffers from aren’t problems that partisanship can address.” He also said that avoiding a "messy, expense, and damaging" primary process was a strategic factor. Instead, Block collected the necessary signatures to secure his line, and then he waited. That wait ended Wednesday night after a relatively messy, expensive, and damaging primary that led to an unexpected outcome: the defeat of incumbent Gov. Dan Mckee by Helena Foulkes for the Democratic nomination. Foulkes challenged Mckee in 2022, and the different outcome is being attributed to frustration with housing costs and frustration over a project involving the Washington Bridge. On the Republican side, the race still hasn't been called because of a separation between candidates of [only 279 votes](https://rhodeislandcurrent.com/2026/09/09/rhode-island-gop-primary/?ref=ivn.us). Currently, Aaron Guckian, who positioned himself as a moderate during the primary, leads Elaine Pelino, who has aligned herself with President Trump's MAGA movement. Two other independent candidates—Jasjit Gotra and C.D. Reynolds—will also appear on the November ballot. As [we wrote in July](https://ivn.us/rhode-islands-voters-left-the-parties-now-the-candidates-are-following/), Block has spent nearly two decades attacking the two-party system from inside it, outside it, and around it. He founded the Moderate Party of Rhode Island and ran as its gubernatorial candidate in 2010, [finishing fourth with 6.5%](https://ballotpedia.org/Ken%5FBlock?ref=ivn.us) in the race that put independent Lincoln Chafee (I) in office, then lost the 2014 Republican gubernatorial primary to Allan Fung by 10 points. Block's [platform](https://www.blockforgovernor.com/issues.php?ref=ivn.us) deals with a variety of Rhode Island-specific issues, from housing to transportation, truck tolls, cost of living, and budgeting. The most fleshed-out section of his platform, however, deals with social and cultural issues, but not as you might expect. Rather than wading into the culture wars, Block cites them as a way of avoiding real governance, promising to prioritize "effective governance over social disputes." He pledges, as governor, to focus on problem solving rather than ideology. The only general-election polling released so far is from months ago, and it includes incumbent Mckee, who has now been eliminated from contention. In a state where [a majority of registered voters have already left both parties](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ri?ref=ivn.us), and where there's no incumbent on the ballot, Block's long commitment to a new path for Rhode Island might just appeal to an electorate that's clearly clamoring for change. ### How Trump's Own Mail-In Voting Rule Could BACKFIRE on Republicans | EP58 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/how-trumps-own-mail-in-voting-rule-could-backfire-on-republicans-ep58/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:32.000Z The fight over President Trump’s mail-in voting rule continues to escalate: a whistleblower leak says just one bad envelope could get an entire batch of mail ballots sent back, threatening to derail elections in states that already have ballots prepared for the midterms. Chad, Shawn, and Ethan dig into the real mechanics of the USPS rule now tied up in its third round of injunctions, from the barcode and voter-list requirements to the states'-rights argument that could ultimately doom it at the Supreme Court. From there they connect the dots to Missouri, where the state Supreme Court just forced officials back to the old 2022 congressional map for the general election after a last-minute Secretary of State maneuver blew up. The conversation pivots to Fareed Zakaria's new mainstream case for opening up primaries to independents, and why Chad thinks "imperial presidency" might be the wrong label for what's really going on. They close out with California's messiest primary fights, where Democratic Socialists and moderate Democrats are battling it out and independent voters could decide who wins, plus a quick note on San Francisco Democrats voting down their own billionaire tax. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/how-trumps-own-mail-in-voting-rule-could-backfire-on-republicans?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Ei24zxFWYRpZGidNErz0Y?si=9ZRxeC4vSoqkmrY3Lsf8Yw&utm%5Fsource=copy-link) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-trumps-own-mail-in-voting-rule-could-backfire-on/id1680559155?i=1000788769147&ref=ivn.us)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, hosts **Chad Peace** and **Shawn Griffiths** (with **Ethan Handelman** filling in) break down the **USPS mail-in ballot rule**, now facing its third round of court **injunctions** after a whistleblower leak revealed that a single non-compliant envelope could get an entire batch of mail ballots sent back to election officials. Shawnwalks through the mechanics: envelopes must carry a specific barcode and official mail ballot logo, and states must submit voter lists to a USPS portal for verification, requirements the Trump administration insists are about mail processing, not voter eligibility. Chad questions the rule's timing and design, comparing it to manufacturing tolerance standards and arguing it seems built to let a single error torpedo large batches of ballots, then raises the states'-rights irony: Republicans pushing federal control now could hand Democrats the same tool later. [Can USPS Still Stop Your Mail Ballot? 7 Things Voters Need to Know NowA federal judge blocked mandatory USPS rules for mail ballots through the November election, but the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to overturn that decision. Here’s what voters need to know about the fast-changing legal battle.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-4622f6ac-6fed-4142-ad21-d2ceb271f956.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-62ccdea1-e5fd-4994-8b75-c2fefdffc153-e47cf875-3ff4-4f16-ac3c-c63333a488f1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/can-usps-still-stop-your-mail-ballot-7-things-voters-need-to-know-now/) The conversation shifts to Missouri, where the [Missouri Supreme Court](https://ivn.us/missouri-politicians-tried-to-override-voters-the-states-highest-court-said-no-twice/) forced officials back to the **2022 congressional map** for the general election after the Secretary of State's last-minute push to block a redistricting referendum backfired, a case Shawn frames as a lawfulness issue rather than a gerrymandering ruling. Chad connects the mail-ballot fight to **Fareed Zakaria's** recent commentary on the **imperial presidency**, arguing the label misses the mark; he suggests what critics call executive overreach might better be understood as a populist response to a **closed primary system** that produces unrepresentative Congresses. The hosts turn to **California's** messiest primaries, where **Democratic Socialists (DSA)** candidates are squaring off against moderate Democrats in safely blue districts, meaning **independent voters** and even Republicans could end up deciding outcomes that would be settled outright elsewhere. Shawn notes the irony of [**San Francisco** Democrats voting down their own **billionaire wealth tax**](https://ivn.us/san-francisco-democrats-just-said-no-to-taxing-billionaires/), breaking with the state party once the local tech industry's stakes became personal, a small but telling sign of how practical consequences can reshape progressive politics on the ground. The episode closes with **C**hadpreviewing **Cara McCormick's** upcoming deep dive into California's independent-voter-deciding races and a plug for the show's **no party preference voter outreach program** ahead of the midterms. ### Kentucky Independents Just Outregistered Both Parties Combined. Yet, They're Still Shut Out URL: https://ivn.us/kentucky-independents-just-outregistered-both-parties-combined-yet-theyre-still-shut-out/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:46:09.000Z *Editor's Note: The following commentary piece* [*originally published*](https://thefulcrum.us/elections/kentucky-independent-voter-surge-closed-primaries-reform?ref=ivn.us) *on The Fulcrum and was cross-published on IVN in partnership with the publication.* Kentucky’s political establishment has just been handed a number it should not be able to ignore. In July, more Kentucky voters registered as independent or “other” than registered as Republicans and Democrats combined. More than 8,500 Kentuckians registered to vote, and the “other” category grew by 2,530 voters, compared with 2,483 new Republicans and a decline of 32 Democrats. Secretary of State Michael Adams put the meaning of those numbers plainly: “Neither party can prevail in a statewide race with only its base; both must reach out to the center.” He is right. But there is an even bigger problem. Kentucky is the only Southern state with a closed primary system, shutting [independent voters](https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/independent-voters-primaries?ref=ivn.us) out of most primaries. Nearly 384,000 Kentuckians are now registered outside the two major parties, roughly 11 percent of the electorate, and that number is growing faster than either party. This makes little political sense, particularly for Republicans. The Republican Party’s success across the South has been built in no small part on its ability to forge an alliance with voters who do not see themselves as traditional Republicans. Veterans, [young voters](https://thefulcrum.us/young-voters-are-frustrated-with-their-options-for-2024?ref=ivn.us), Latinos, and African Americans all showed historically high levels of independent identification. The lesson should be obvious: neither party can afford to treat independent voters as people who only matter after the candidates have been chosen. Yet that is effectively what Kentucky does. Kentucky taxpayers pay to administer these elections. They fund the polling places, election workers, ballots, voting machines and the public infrastructure that makes the primary possible. These are publicly administered elections, not private club meetings, and in an increasingly uncompetitive political environment they are often where the real decision is made about who will hold public office. Yet hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians who help pay for that system are excluded because they have chosen not to join a political party. That is not just a democratic problem. It is a political one for both parties. By shutting independents out until November, Kentucky parties are making it harder to build the broad coalitions they need to win and govern. And they do not necessarily have to wait for Frankfort to act. Kentucky’s political parties have the power to open their primaries. In *Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut*, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that a political party’s First Amendment associational rights can protect its decision to allow independent voters to participate in the primaries. No new law needs to be passed. Either party can choose to welcome these voters. They should. The argument that independents have chosen not to join a party and therefore have chosen not to participate gets the problem exactly backward. Independence is not apathy. It is a deliberate political choice. Asking voters to surrender that independence simply to participate in a public election is not inclusion. It is coercion. Imagine if the state of Kentucky asked Republican voters to “just register Democrat” or vice versa in order to vote. The outrage would be immediate and justified. There is also reason to believe Kentucky’s independent electorate is even larger politically than its registration numbers suggest. An Open Primaries poll in New York City found that 39 percent of registered Democrats described themselves as really independent voters who had registered Democratic specifically to participate in primaries. The same dynamic is likely among the Republican electorate in Kentucky. The point is that voters should join parties because they believe in them, not because outdated election rules force them to. Thirty-four states already allow independent voters to participate in at least some partisan primaries. These are red states, purple states, and blue states. Kentucky stands alone in the South. It should not be proud of that distinction. With independents now approaching half of the national electorate, the question is no longer whether these voters are a growing political force. It is whether Kentucky’s political parties are prepared to build a political system around the voters they increasingly need to win. Kentucky’s independents are registering. They are growing. They are paying for these elections. It is time to let them vote. ### Independent National Convention 2026: America’s Independent Movement Is Entering the Same Room URL: https://ivn.us/independent-national-convention-2026-americas-independent-movement-is-entering-the-same-room/ Last updated: 2026-09-10T14:29:07.000Z From **September 23–25, the Independent National Convention will convene at the JW Marriott in Washington, D.C.** *With 45% of Americans identifying as independent, the people and organizations working beyond the two-party system face the next challenge: turning numbers into political power.* Because the emergence of a large independent constituency does not automatically produce an **independent movement**. A movement requires more than shared dissatisfaction with the status quo. It needs relationships, institutions, leadership, common standards, political infrastructure and places where people working on different pieces of the problem can encounter one another. ## Redefining ‘Independence’ The goal isn’t for every independent to think the same way about every topic. It is to identify the common ground and unifying framework beneath the typical talking points. To me, that suggests a more useful definition of political independence itself: not another ideology or tribe positioned between left and right, but a **higher standard of representation**. Can a public official exercise independent judgment? Can voters have meaningful choices and think for themselves as they cast their vote? Can candidates and elected leaders remain accountable to constituents rather than becoming wholly dependent upon partisan institutions or special interests? The emerging independent movement is increasingly organized around a shared diagnosis: the current political system has structural flaws, corruption and poor representation are not confined to one side, and civic integrity must become more important than partisan loyalty. This creates the common ground needed to build the cohesion for a united independent movement. ## From A Collection of Efforts to An Ecosystem For years, organizations seeking to develop the U.S. independent sector often worked in parallel silos. The Independent National Convention was created to resolve this fragmentation, and this year’s lineup underscores that purpose. Former Massachusetts Lt. Governor **Kerry Healey**, now Executive Chair of the **Forward Party**, and Forward CEO **Lindsey Williams Drath** will participate. Forward is building party infrastructure around the country while emphasizing state-level organization and political competition outside the traditional two-party structure. **Amanda Griffiths**, Vice Chair of the **Libertarian National Committee**, represents a political tradition that predates most of today’s independent organizations and America’s most established alternative-party infrastructures. **John Opdycke**, founder and president of **Open Primaries**, brings more than three decades of work in independent politics and an organization focused specifically on opening primary elections to more voters. **Nick Troiano**, executive director of **Unite America**, represents another major branch of the ecosystem: philanthropic investment in structural election reform, including primary reform. **Adam Brandon**, Senior Advisor to the **Independent Center** and a co-founder of the Independent Leadership Council, will bring yet another lens focused on understanding and organizing voters who do not feel represented by the traditional partisan system and advocating for viable, federal independent candidates. **Marianne Williamson**, a bestselling author and former independent candidate, will bring another dimension to the gathering, exploring questions of political culture, public values and the moral character of governmental leadership. And former Congressman **Dennis Kucinich** adds a seasoned perspective. Kucinich served eight terms in Congress and returned to electoral politics in 2024 by running for the House as an independent. The overarching goal is to get organizations and leaders working in independent politics to operate in more synergistic relationships with one another in order to increase the overall effectiveness of the American independent sector. ## Then Come the Independent Candidates Confirmed participants include **Dan Osborn**, the independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Nebraska; **Seth Bodnar**, the former President of the University of Montana, now an independent Senate candidate in Montana; and veteran **Brian Bengs**, the independent Senate candidate in South Dakota. They will be joined by **Bill Hill**, an independent candidate for Alaska's at-large House seat who advanced through Alaska's top-four primary, and sitting Congressman **Kevin Kiley of California**, who formally changed his affiliation from Republican to independent earlier this year and is now listed by the House historian as an Independent. Campaigns that would normally operate in separate silos will be in the same room, appearing together on one stage and giving the national independent community an unusual opportunity to see a federal candidate cohort as part of a broader movement rather than as isolated campaigns. ## The Next Challenge is Coordination John Opdycke recently [wrote about the resurgence and increasing diversity of the independent movement.](https://ivn.us/perot-2-0-isnt-a-candidate-its-a-movement/) His argument raises what I believe is the next logical question: **What does an emerging movement do once it realizes that it exists?** It has to build. It needs durable backbone institutions instead of election-cycle organizations. It needs relationships between funders, candidates, reformers and organizers. It needs pathways for citizens who have left the parties. It needs standards that allow independence to mean something more substantive than the absence of a "D" or an "R." America does not lack independent people. America now needs independent organizations and leaders to develop enough shared infrastructure and mutual trust to become a formidable political force. On September 23, many of the people currently working to create that capacity will enter the same room in Washington. For those who want to observe, participate in, or better understand that emerging ecosystem, the **Independent National Convention runs September 23–25 in Washington, D.C.** Program information and registration are available at the[ Independent National Convention](https://independentnationalconvention.com/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). --- **Christopher Life** is the founder and CEO of United Independents and Executive Producer of the Independent National Convention. ### How The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Changes the Way Americans See Third Parties URL: https://ivn.us/how-the-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact-changes-the-way-americans-see-third-parties/ Last updated: 2026-09-10T13:49:55.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is a guest commentary piece submitted to IVN, an open platform for independent-minded voters. If you disagree with this perspective or have an opinion on this topic or any other,* [*join the conversation and submit an article*](https://ivn.us/publish/)*.* If the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) had been active during post-1900 presidential elections, it would have fundamentally changed how voters perceive [the competitiveness of third-party candidates](https://www.aei.org/commentary/third-party-candidates-face-a-high-hurdle-in-the-electoral-college/?ref=ivn.us). By shifting the presidency from a state-by-state "winner-take-all" contest to a national plurality model, the NPVIC would have removed structural psychological barriers that historically marginalized third-party campaigns. ## NPVIC - What It Is **The Mechanism:** Participating states pass laws [pledging their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote](https://www.lwv.org/blog/what-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact?ref=ivn.us) (the total number of individual votes cast across all 50 states and D.C.). **The Trigger:** The compact does not change the US Constitution. It stays inactive until enough states join to reach 270 electoral votes, the magic number required to win the presidency. **The Result:** Once activated, it guarantees that the candidate who receives the most votes across the entire country wins the White House, without needing a constitutional amendment. **Current Status:** As of August 31,2026, 18 states and Washington, D.C., representing 222 electoral votes, have enacted the compact, needing 48 more electoral votes to take effect. Voters would have viewed third-party competitiveness through three distinct shifts in political strategy and voting behavior: ## **Eradication of the "Spoiler Effect" Panic** Under the traditional Electoral College, voters are highly prone to strategic voting due to fear of the "spoiler effect". For instance: In 2000, left-leaning voters in Florida viewed Ralph Nader as a risk that could—and ultimately did—hand the state's electors to George W. Bush. Under the NPVIC, regional boundaries disappear. A vote for Nader in Florida or California would have simply been added to a single national pool. Because states in the compact pool their electors, voters would know a third-party vote in a "swing state" carries no more penalty than a vote anywhere else. Voters would view third-party choices as viable expressions of preference rather than wasted votes or active acts of self-sabotage. ## **Amplification of Flat National Popular Vote Strength** [Historically](https://fairvote.org/a%5Fhistory%5Fof%5Findependent%5Fpresidential%5Fcandidates/?ref=ivn.us), several post-1900 third-party candidates achieved massive popular support but looked completely uncompetitive in the Electoral College. In 1992, Ross Perot won an astonishing 18.9% of the national popular vote but received zero electoral votes because his support was spread evenly rather than concentrated in single states. Under the NPVIC, Perot's 19.7 million votes would have placed him a mere 14 percentage points behind George H.W. Bush and 24 points behind Bill Clinton nationally. Voters looking at mid-campaign polling would see a candidate like Perot as a legitimate contender for a plurality win rather than a mathematical impossibility, drastically boosting their perceived competitiveness and media coverage. ## **Shift from Regional Fringes to Mainstream Viability** Under the standard system, the only post-1900 third-party candidates to win electoral votes were those leveraging explicit regional gridlocks (e.g., Strom Thurmond in 1948 or George Wallace in 1968, who capitalized on deep Southern segregationist pockets). The Electoral College forced third parties to be deeply localized to matter. The NPVIC flips this incentive. A candidate would no longer need to sweep an entire geographic state to win its electors. Voters would begin to view third-party candidates not as regional, single-issue fringe groups, but as broad national coalitions capable of assembling a nationwide plurality. --- ## **The Plurality Paradox: A New Strategic Calculus** While the NPVIC makes third-party candidates appear more viable, it also introduces a new psychological calculus for voters: the fear of a low-threshold plurality winner. Because the NPVIC operates on a simple national plurality (whoever gets the most individual votes nationwide wins), a strong three- or four-way split could allow a candidate to win the presidency with only 35% of the national vote. | **Historical Election Example** | **Actual Outcome (Electoral College)** | **Voter Perception Under NPVIC** | | ---------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **1912** (Teddy Roosevelt / Progressive) | Roosevelt split the Republican ticket, allowing Woodrow Wilson to sweep the Electoral College. | Voters would view Roosevelt (27%) and Taft (23%) as equally capable of overtaking Wilson (42%) if just a small sliver of national voters shifted. | | **1992** (Ross Perot / Independent) | Perot was mathematically eliminated before election night due to winner-take-all mechanics. | Voters would see a legitimate three-way race where any candidate could capture a thin 38% plurality victory. | | | | | ## **In Summary** If the NPVIC were enacted, voters would stop viewing third parties as systemic glitches. Instead, they would view them as fully rational choices capable of competing on a level playing field, transforming the American electorate's psychology from "picking the lesser of two evils" to a genuine multi-candidate marketplace. ### Guide to California’s Proposals for Independent-Minded Voters URL: https://ivn.us/guide-to-californias-proposals-for-independent-minded-voters/ Last updated: 2026-09-10T09:00:20.000Z **SAN DIEGO, Calif** —California voters registered No Party Preference are not a small slice of the electorate. They account for nearly 5.3 million registered voters in the state (22.82% of the electorate), and this does not count voters registered with a party that consider themselves independent-minded. Following a record turnout in the nonpartisan Top Two primary, largely driven by independents, it is clear these voters are not only paying attention to what is happening in their state, but they are engaged, and can reshape the California political landscape. [It’s Official: California Voters Will Decide on Billionaire Tax, Voter ID, and 12 Other Measures This NovemberWhether the billionaire wealth tax survives will come down to a simple count: if Proposition 40 beats both Proposition 41 and Proposition 42 this November, it will stand. If either of them beats it, the tax will get erased anyway.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-d79dd439-a167-4bd3-8169-ce1013dd4eb3.png)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/California-ballot-measures-8d59a260-af6e-4ce6-b34a-80c8e9111589.jpg)](https://ivn.us/its-official-california-voters-will-decide-on-billionaire-tax-voter-id-and-12-other-measures-this-november/) On the statewide November ballot, there are 4 high-profile propositions in which independent-minded voters will cast the most decisive votes ahead of and on Election Day: Prop 39 on Voter ID, Prop 40's billionaire tax, and two competing measures—Props. 41 and 42. Polling shows Democrats and Republicans are sharply divided over Props. 39 and 40, while independent-minded voters are less predictable. A [UC-Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll](https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/08/17/california-prop-40-the-billionaire-tax-holds-lead-in-new-uc-berkeley-igs-poll/?ref=ivn.us) found 54% of likely NPP voters, specifically, opposed Prop. 39, while they were split over Prop. 40\. Meanwhile, Props. 41 and 42 have large pools of undecided voters. In a close statewide contest, a voting bloc representing nearly one-quarter of California's electorate is large enough to determine the fate of these closely watched propositions, especially when these voters do not move uniformly with either major party. In the legislature, there are two proposed amendments — ACA 23 and ACA 24 — that will not be on the November ballot. However, they directly impact the voting rights of independent voters and their confidence in the elections process. ACA 23 asks a fundamental question: Should the state’s top elections official run with a party label? Meanwhile, ACA 24 would explicitly make it clear that no voter can be denied the right to vote in any integral stage of the taxpayer-funded elections process for any reason. Here is a quick guide on where all 6 proposals stand. ## Proposition 39: Require Voter ID and Citizenship Verification **What It Does:** [Prop. 39](https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/39/index.htm?ref=ivn.us) requires voters to show government-issued identification when casting a ballot in person. For Californians who vote by mail, they have to place the last 4 digits of their ID number on their ballot envelope. The latter requirement is important because most voters in the state cast a mail-in ballot either by drop box, mail, or they return it to a polling location/elections office. If the number on the envelope doesn’t match their voter registration, their ballot could be invalidated. The California Voter ID Initiative also requires election officials to produce an annual report on the percentage of voters whose citizenship has been verified and requires California to offer free voter ID cards. Its cost, [according to the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO)](https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Proposition?number=39&year=2026&ref=ivn.us), falls between tens of millions and the low hundreds of millions. IVN has followed the proposal since before [it qualified for the ballot](https://ivn.us/california-voter-id-initiative-just-made-the-ballot-2026-04-27/), including how its provisions differ from the federal SAVE America Act, which has stricter citizen verification and voter ID requirements. [California’s Voter ID Initiative is Way More Chill Than Trump’s SAVE ActA proposed California ballot initiative would amend the state constitution to add an initiative that aims to “deter and detect voter fraud by maintaining accurate voter registration records and confirming eligibility to vote...”![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-023e9d50-0b74-47fb-87fb-df70ab44dc2b.png)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-voter-id-initiative-vs-save-act-election-law-comparison-2026-1-9b32e24b-f2ec-4158-9c55-87a0b09fea73.png)](https://ivn.us/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10/) **Who Supports It:** Yes on 39 is sponsored by California Asm. Carl DeMaio’s group, Reform California. Its supporters include the Transparency Foundation, Latino American Political Association, California Women's Leadership Association, and Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. The Yes campaign argues that an ID requirement would increase confidence in elections while preserving vote by mail and other existing voting options. They also emphasize the requirement for free voter ID. **Who Opposes It:** The official opposition includes ACLU California Action, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters of California. US Sen. Alex Padilla, the California Nurses Association and California School Employees Association also signed arguments against the proposition. Opponents say California already verifies voters and that the measure adds unnecessary barriers and costs. They also raise privacy concerns about placing identification digits on mail-ballot envelopes and argue that voters without readily available documentation could be disproportionately affected. **Follow The Money:** According to the Fair Political Practices Commission's September 8 reporting, the top contributors to the Yes campaign have put in about $15.4 million. Wisconsin businessman Richard Uihlein accounts for $10.5 million, while Reform California's ballot-measure committee has contributed just over $3 million. Nicole Shanahan, Douglas Leone, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and others have also contributed. On the No side, top contributions across two committees total roughly $9.7 million. The largest listed donors include the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, Reed Hastings, SEIU organizations, construction labor groups, the California Teachers Association, Quinn Delaney, ACLU of Northern California, and the California Donor Table. *Note: Campaign-finance figures in this guide are based on the California Fair Political Practices Commission's top-contributor disclosures available September 8, 2026\. They do not represent a complete accounting of all campaign receipts or expenditures and will change as additional reports are filed.* **What Does Polling Say:** In August, Berkeley IGS found 42% of likely voters supported Prop. 39 and 51% opposed. Republicans backed it 93%, while 80% of Democrats opposed it. Among NPP voters, 36% supported the measure and 54% opposed it. [CalMatters reported in March](https://www.facebook.com/calmatters/posts/a-2025-poll-from-the-uc-berkeley-institute-of-government-studies-showed-a-majori/1374297358075121/) that a 2025 Berkeley IGS poll found that 54% of voters supported showing voter ID when casting a ballot. The poll was conducted before Prop 39 was certified for the ballot. ## Proposition 40: The Billionaire Tax **What It Does:** [Prop. 40](https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/40/index.htm?ref=ivn.us) imposes a one-time tax of up to 5% on covered assets exceeding $1 billion for certain California taxpayers. Covered assets include businesses, securities, art, collectibles, and intellectual property. Real property and some pension and retirement assets are excluded. The LAO states that 90% of the revenue generated from this wealth tax has to be directed toward healthcare and 10% toward food assistance or education-related programs. It is projected to generate tens of billions of dollars that will be spent over several years. LAO also says it could potentially reduce ongoing state income-tax revenue from billionaires by less than $1 billion annually. IVN previously [took a deep dive into how the wealth tax would work](https://ivn.us/how-it-really-works-the-california-billionaire-wealth-tax-2026-03-03/) and later reported on the negotiations that failed to remove it from the November ballot. **Who Supports It:** Prop. 40 is sponsored by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West. US Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Ro Khanna, the California Nurses Association, and California LULAC are among those backing it, and the California Democratic Party has endorsed it. Supporters say the tax would require an extremely small number of ultra-wealthy Californians to replace healthcare and safety-net funding affected by federal cuts. They argue that the state can raise substantial revenue from accumulated billionaire wealth without increasing taxes on middle- or lower-income Californians. **Who Opposes It:** Opposition crosses some of California's usual partisan and interest-group lines. Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes it, as does Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra. Organizations that oppose it include the California Teachers Association, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, California Medical Association, California Primary Care Association, California School Boards Association, California Professional Firefighters, State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, California Chamber of Commerce, and California Taxpayers Association. The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee [also voted 17-4 in August to oppose the measure](https://ivn.us/san-francisco-democrats-just-said-no-to-taxing-billionaires/), setting up a big-stage showdown between center-left Democrats and the DSA. Opponents argue that taxing wealth rather than income may encourage wealthy taxpayers and businesses to leave California, reducing future income-tax collections. They also argue that a one-time revenue source does not solve California's long-term healthcare funding problems and object to exempting the new revenue from existing constitutional spending and school-funding rules. **Follow The Money:** SEIU-UHW and its affiliated political committees account for about $31.4 million in top reported contributions to the committee supporting Prop. 40 and opposing Props. 41 and 42 (which are countermeasures to Prop 40). On the other side, Building a Better California, whose top donors include Google co-founder Sergey Brin and venture capitalist John Doerr, has contributed $29.5 million to one No on 40 committee. Ripple Labs and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen have each contributed $5 million to another opposition committee. Altogether, the FPPC lists roughly $40.2 million in top contributions to the two Prop. 40 opposition committees. **What Does Polling Say?** Berkeley IGS found 48% of likely voters supported Prop. 40 when asked in August, 41% opposed, and 11% were undecided. Democrats supported it 70%, Republicans opposed it 80%, and NPP voters were split. ## One Thing Voters Need to Know About Props. 40, 41, and 42 Understanding Prop. 40 requires understanding the next two propositions. Props. 41 and 42 contain provisions saying that conflicting measures on the same ballot do not take effect if they do not receive more Yes votes. In other words, if Prop 40 passes, but Prop. 41 or Prop. 42 also passes with more affirmative votes, a court could find the measures conflict and prevent Prop. 40 from taking effect. ## Proposition 41: Ban New Taxes That Conflict with State Spending Limit (A Countermeasure to Prop. 40) **What It Does:** [Prop. 41](https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/41/index.htm?ref=ivn.us) prohibits new state taxes from being designed so that their revenues are excluded from California's voter-approved state spending limit. This is important because Prop. 40 specifically exempts revenue from its billionaire tax from this limit. Further, new statewide special taxes would require the State Auditor—an independent, nonpartisan office—to review the programs that would receive the money before voters decide on the tax and conduct recurring audits afterward. **Who Supports It:** The official [Yes argument](https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/41/arguments-rebuttals.htm?ref=ivn.us) is signed by the California Society of CPAs, former California State Auditor Tom Hayes, and the California Taxpayers Association. Former State Controller Steve Westly and the CalAsian Chamber of Commerce are also featured in the Yes campaign's case. Supporters emphasize the auditing provisions. They argue voters should receive independent information about programs before approving taxes to fund them and that tax revenue should remain subject to California's existing spending restrictions. **Who Opposes It:** SEIU-UHW, which sponsored Prop. 40, leads the No campaign. Opponents focus less on the merits of audits themselves and more on Prop. 41's interaction with Prop. 40\. Their argument is that the measure was placed on the ballot primarily to give opponents another way to defeat the billionaire tax. **Follow The Money:** The financial disparity is substantial. Building a Better California has contributed $58.25 million to the Yes on 41 committee, while Reform California has added about $21,800\. Building a Better California lists Brin and Doerr as its top donors. The opposition is funded through the same SEIU-UHW committee backing Prop. 40 and opposing both Props. 41 and 42\. That committee reports roughly $31.4 million in top contributions, but the FPPC specifically cautions that those dollars support activity involving all three measures and cannot be attributed entirely to Prop. 41. **What Does Polling Say?** The August Berkeley IGS poll found 35% of voters supported Prop. 41 and 37% opposed it. Roughly a quarter of voters were undecided, reflecting much lower awareness of Props. 41 and 42 than the billionaire-tax fight. ## Proposition 42: Ban New Taxes on Personal Property (Another Countermeasure to Prop. 40) **What It Does:** [Prop. 42](https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/42/index.htm?ref=ivn.us) amends the state Constitution to prohibit new state taxes on personal property. The definition includes business interests, intellectual property, financial assets, retirement accounts, and investment accounts. It would also prohibit certain retroactive taxes and would apply to taxes enacted or taking effect beginning January 1, 2026. Like Prop. 41, it includes a conflict clause. If Prop. 42 and Prop. 40 both pass, but Prop. 42 receives more Yes votes, a court could determine that Prop. 40's billionaire tax conflicts with the new constitutional ban and cannot take effect. **Who Supports It:** The Yes campaign includes the California Professional Firefighters, State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, Peace Officers Research Association of California, AMVETS Department of California, California Small Business Association, and senior and retirement groups. Supporters frame Prop. 42 more broadly than the Prop. 40 fight. They say Californians should have constitutional protection against future state taxes on retirement funds, savings accounts, pensions, and other property that represents money on which taxpayers may already have paid income taxes. They also argue that taxpayers should not be subjected to new taxes applied retroactively. **Who Opposes It:** Again, SEIU-UHW leads the No campaign. Opponents argue that the measure's immediate purpose is to block Prop. 40 and that references to ordinary Californians' retirement and savings accounts obscure the fact that its passage could also protect the assets targeted by the billionaire tax. **Follow The Money:** This is currently the biggest of the three related campaigns measured by FPPC-listed top contributions. Building a Better California has contributed $64.25 million to the Yes on 42 committee, with Reform California adding roughly $22,500. The No campaign uses the combined SEIU-UHW committee supporting 40 and opposing 41 and 42, with approximately $31.4 million in top reported contributions spread across those efforts. **What Does Polling Say:** Berkeley IGS found 40% of likely voters supported Prop. 42 in August and 37% opposed it, with roughly a quarter still undecided. ## ACA 23: Make California's Secretary of State a Nonpartisan Office This one is not on the November ballot, but it could go before voters in a future election. It directly addresses a question increasingly being asked by voters: Should the official administering elections represent a political party while doing it? **What It Would Do:** [ACA 23](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260ACA23&ref=ivn.us) amends the California Constitution to make the Secretary of State a nonpartisan office, joining judges, county and city offices, school offices, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Candidates would still campaign and voters would still elect the Secretary of State. The difference is that political parties could not formally nominate candidates for the office and a candidate's party preference would not appear on the ballot. IVN [first reported on the amendment](https://ivn.us/california-amendment-introduced-to-take-party-politics-out-of-the-office-that-runs-elections/) shortly after it was introduced and later covered the broader push to separate California's election administration from partisan offices. [California’s Election Referees Wear Party Jerseys. Two Amendments Aim to Change That.California legislators introduce two constitutional amendments to remove party control from elections: one making the secretary of state a nonpartisan office, another transferring ballot language authority to a nonpartisan body.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-5725e489-8082-4504-9a02-d948265bbba8.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-01c81d4d-c6df-43d9-89bf-3f6c171ab595-1cfc9fff-17bd-4cf4-a95d-be6a4c5a949d.png)](https://ivn.us/californias-election-referees-wear-party-jerseys-two-amendments-aim-to-change-that/) **Who Introduced It:** ACA 23 was jointly introduced on August 10 by Republican Assemblymembers Natasha Johnson of Lake Elsinore and Josh Hoover of Folsom. The introduced version lists no additional joint authors or coauthors. **Who In the Legislature Supports It:** State Sen. Roger Niello publicly joined Johnson and Hoover to call for its passage. At their Sacramento press conference, they were joined by Assemblymembers Carl DeMaio, Alexandra Macedo, Laurie Davies, Diane Dixon, Stan Ellis, Kate Sanchez, Tri Ta and David Tangipa, all Republicans. Their attendance demonstrated support for the proposal, though they were not listed as coauthors on the introduced text. **Who Outside the Legislature Supports or Engages With It.** Former Assemblyman and current Secretary of State candidate Don Wagner and Victor Marani of the American Independent Party joined the lawmakers at their press conference. IVN also spoke with Election Reformers Network founding executive director Kevin Johnson about the underlying idea. Johnson said states should consider reforming the Secretary of State but argued that simply removing the party label does not go far enough. He suggested combining nonpartisanship with qualification and conflict-of-interest rules. That broader concept also has historical precedent. IVN Editor Shawn Griffiths noted in his coverage that the bipartisan Carter-Baker Commission [recommended greater nonpartisanship and conflict-of-interest protections in election administration in 2005](https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac%5Fassets/1/6/Exhibit%20M.PDF?ref=ivn.us). **Who Opposes It:** ACA 23 has not had a policy hearing, so there is no committee analysis identifying a formal opposition coalition and no legislative roll call showing who opposes it. **Where It Stands:** ACA 23 was introduced on August 10 and is still listed only as “from printer” in legislative tracking. That timing proved critical. Beginning August 17, the Legislature was in a floor-session-only period in which ordinary policy committees could not meet, and August 31 was the last day for each chamber to pass legislation before final recess. The Assembly now lists itself as adjourned for final recess. ACA 23 received neither a committee nor a floor vote. Therefore, it cannot advance from the 2025-26 session. The proposal would have to be reintroduced in the 2027-28 Legislature. If it is, it would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers before being sent to voters. 2028 would be the earliest ballot opportunity for it. ## ACA 24: Guarantee The Right to Participate in Publicly Funded Elections ACA 24 is founded on a simple idea: the right to vote comes from citizenship, not from joining a political party. And it would enshrine this idea into the California Constitution. **What It Would Do:** [ACA 24](https://ivn.us/a-dozen-california-democrats-defend-independent-voters-against-a-party-driven-effort-to-undo-the-top-two-nonpartisan-primary/) adds language to the California Constitution stating that an eligible voter cannot be excluded from “meaningful participation at any integral stage of any publicly funded election,” including a primary election, for any reason, including party preference. California's nonpartisan Top Two system already allows every registered voter to vote for any candidate in primaries for congressional and state voter-nominated offices. ACA 24 would prevent the state from moving to an election system that does not guarantee equal access to taxpayer-funded elections. The amendment came amid a separate campaign to “Undo the Top Two,” which is collecting signatures for a potential 2028 ballot measure to repeal California's nonpartisan primary system and restore partisan primaries. The Secretary of State cleared that initiative for circulation in July. [California Legislators Lead Landmark Voting Rights AmendmentA coalition of California Democrats wants to put independent voters’ right to participate in publicly funded elections into the state Constitution — but getting it before voters will require Republican support.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-d1d7ef6f-009d-4185-ab0c-f538156bc0de.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-right-to-vote-amendment-329f8992-d638-41cb-b001-8d6765b38772.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-legislators-lead-landmark-voting-right-amendment/) **Who Introduced It:** Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen (D-Elk Grove) is the lead author. The introduced text lists David Alvarez, Anamarie Ávila Farías, Blanca Rubio, and Lori Wilson as joint authors. Coauthors are Patrick Ahrens, Jasmeet Bains, Lisa Calderon, Mike Gipson, Corey Jackson, Alex Lee, Tina McKinnor, Blanca Pacheco and José Luis Solache. All 14 lawmakers who signed onto ACA 24 are Democrats. **Who In the Legislature Supports It:** Because ACA 24 hasn’t had a committee or floor vote, the only legislators formally on record supporting it are its author, joint authors, and coauthors. Nguyen describes the amendment as “a voter-centered bill, not a party bill,” while Wilson argues that eligibility to participate should not depend on choosing a political label. Like ACA 23, if the amendment moves through the legislature it needs a two-thirds vote in both legislative chambers, which means Democratic votes alone are not sufficient. The proposal needs Republican support as well. **Who Outside the Legislature Supports It:** The amendment is sponsored by [More Choice California](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us), a coalition of election reform advocates and organizations, [led by the Independent Voter Project (IVP)](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us). The coalition includes co-chairs like Lenny Mendonca, a former economic advisor to Gov. Newsom, and Anne Marie Schubert, a former Republican and Sacramento County district attorney. Supporters argue that if taxpayers fund an election that plays an integral role in choosing public officials, a voter’s right to participate comes from their status as a citizen and eligible voter rather than membership in a private political organization. **Who Has Signaled Opposition.** There is no formal legislative opposition yet on record. However, the Undo The Top Two campaign is pushing an initiative not only to go back to partisan primaries, but would remove “[all voters may vote](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-crossed-out-all-voters-may-vote/)” from the state constitution. “Undo the Top Two” is led by longtime Democratic consultant Steven Maviglio. He is joined by former California Republican Party Chair Ron Nehring, Republican Asm. Carl DeMaio, California labor leader Lorena Gonzalez, and California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks. None of these figures have explicitly stated their position on ACA 24\. However, the goals of Undo the Top Two conflict with the amendment’s guarantee that party preference cannot be used to exclude voters from publicly-funded primary elections. This includes the nearly 5.3 million voters registered No Party Preference. **Where It Stands:** ACA 24 was introduced on August 24\. Legislative records show no action beyond its introduction and printing. By that point, the Legislature was already in its floor-session-only period. It received no committee hearing and no vote before final recess. Like ACA 23, ACA 24 is finished for the 2025-26 legislative session. However, this issue is not going away and should remain on voters’ radar because supporters are determined to give them the final say. **Primary sources for this guide:**[ ](https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us)[California Secretary of State 2026 Official Voter Information Guide](https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) ·[ ](https://www.fppc.ca.gov/search-filings/top-10-contributors-list/november-2026-general-election/?ref=ivn.us)[FPPC November 2026 Top Contributors](https://www.fppc.ca.gov/search-filings/top-10-contributors-list/november-2026-general-election/?ref=ivn.us) ·[ ](https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/08/17/california-prop-40-the-billionaire-tax-holds-lead-in-new-uc-berkeley-igs-poll/?ref=ivn.us)[UC Berkeley IGS proposition polling](https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/08/17/california-prop-40-the-billionaire-tax-holds-lead-in-new-uc-berkeley-igs-poll/?ref=ivn.us) ·[ ](https://ivn.us/its-official-california-voters-will-decide-on-billionaire-tax-voter-id-and-12-other-measures-this-november/)[IVN's overview of the November ballot](https://ivn.us/its-official-california-voters-will-decide-on-billionaire-tax-voter-id-and-12-other-measures-this-november/) ·[ ](https://ivn.us/california-amendment-introduced-to-take-party-politics-out-of-the-office-that-runs-elections/)[IVN coverage of ACA 23](https://ivn.us/california-amendment-introduced-to-take-party-politics-out-of-the-office-that-runs-elections/) ·[ ](https://ivn.us/california-legislators-lead-landmark-voting-right-amendment/)[IVN coverage of ACA 24](https://ivn.us/california-legislators-lead-landmark-voting-right-amendment/) ### We've Made Elections Fairer, But Independents Still Can't Win URL: https://ivn.us/weve-made-elections-fairer-but-independents-still-cant-win/ Last updated: 2026-09-09T13:32:55.000Z This year, [217](https://www.newsweek.com/independents-surge-maps-candidates-rejecting-gop-democrats-12182978?ref=ivn.us) independents have filed to run for Congress across 153 separate races. Most will never appear on a ballot. Of those who do, almost none will win. That isn't a verdict on the candidates. It's what happens when one person takes on a system designed to ensure they never stand a chance. A party's nominee only needs to make it through a primary. Once that hurdle is cleared, they inherit a turnkey operation and a label voters recognize. None of it has to be built from scratch. It was built for the last nominee and will be there for the next. An independent clears one hurdle only to face another. And another. And another. Gathering signatures — a few hundred in one state, several thousand in another. Building a volunteer network from scratch. Hiring staff, also from scratch. Buying voter data the parties give their nominees for free. And spending half the campaign explaining why a vote for them isn't wasted. Maybe the biggest hurdle of all is convincing themselves the rest is even worth it. Some of the obstacles independents face can be legislated away — ballot access, primary reform, the way votes are counted. The others have nothing to do with the rules. Today, dozens of organizations are doing serious work on the first list. Almost no one is paying attention to the second. Eight years ago, Unite America tried. They [backed 30 independent candidates](https://docsend.com/view/kin2dgkeqq8e5e6y?ref=ivn.us) and lost almost every race. But Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is the infrastructure it will take for independents to win. Donors and data. A reputation with voters. And perhaps most important, people who've done it before. None of that gets built in one cycle. Their own debrief called the work "a worthwhile endeavor." Unite America has since found success backing ballot measures. But reform alone isn't enough. California has had fifteen years to prove it. It hasn't. Top Two primaries were supposed to open elections to independent candidates. In 2024, exactly [one](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/prior-elections/statewide-election-results/general-election-nov-5-2024/statement-vote?ref=ivn.us) of the state's 52 congressional districts had an independent in the general election. Since the system was implemented, only twelve independents have made it past the primary — and none have won. Reform didn't remove the problem. It just moved it. An independent in California faces in June what an independent everywhere else faces in November. A fairer election with the same two choices isn't progress. The solution is to start small. Not thirty candidates in one cycle, but one or two — in districts with an open lane and an incumbent voters have reason to fire. Build the infrastructure every party nominee takes for granted. Then do it again. Win one, and the next candidate doesn't start from zero. Until then, the 217 will become a handful, and the handful will lose. Pundits will say voters don't want an alternative. The truth is simpler: nobody gave them one with a real chance to win. ### Don't Let a Signature Kill Your Vote: The California Latino Voter's Survival Guide to November URL: https://ivn.us/dont-let-a-signature-kill-your-vote-the-california-latino-voters-survival-guide-to-november/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:46:00.000Z *Editor's Note: This article* [*originally published*](https://calatinonews.com/california-ballot-access-2026-latino-voter-guide/?ref=ivn.us) *on CALatinoNews.com and has been cross-published on IVN in partnership with Latino News Network.* California voters heading into the November election face two different questions about ballot access. One is immediate. How can voters make sure the ballot they cast is actually counted? The other could reshape future elections. Proposition 39, which will appear on the November 3 ballot, would add new identification requirements for voting in California if approved. Both questions have gained urgency after California rejected nearly 150,000 mail ballots during the June primary, the highest rejection rate in more than a decade. For Latino communities, voting rights advocates say the combination of proposed changes, complicated mail ballot rules, and uneven access to election information makes understanding the system especially important. [California rejected 148,241 mail ballots in the June 2 primary, about 1.7 percent of all mail ballots cast. More than 93,000 were rejected because they were late, while roughly 52,000 had signature related problems, including missing or nonmatching signatures.](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/prior-elections/statewide-election-results/primary-election-june-2-2026/statement-vote?ref=ivn.us) Kim Alexander, president and founder of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said in an interview with California Latino News that voters can significantly reduce the risk of rejection by changing when and how they return their ballots. “Every election, some ballots get rejected,” Alexander said, pointing to late ballots and signature problems as the main causes. Her strongest advice is simple. Do not wait until Election Day to put a ballot in the mail. California requires mailed ballots to be postmarked by November 3 and received by county election officials no later than November 10\. State election officials are urging voters who use the mail to send their ballots at least a week before Election Day. Alexander told CALN that voters who want to eliminate the possibility of a late postmark can avoid the mail entirely and return their ballots to an official drop box, voting location or county election office. There is a particular risk for people who wait until November 3. A ballot dropped into a mailbox after the final collection can receive a November 4 postmark, making it too late even if the voter deposited it on Election Day. California election officials advise anyone who must mail a ballot that day to take it inside a post office and request a manual postmark from a postal employee. Alexander is encouraging voters to act even earlier this year. Halloween falls on Saturday, October 31, three days before the election. “We’re encouraging voters to celebrate both Halloween and Election Day by turning in your ballot to a drop box or voting site that day,” she said. Returning a ballot early can have another benefit. It gives county officials more time to process it, increasing the chance that the vote will be reflected in the first results released on election night. For people voting by mail, Alexander said the next major risk after timing is the signature on the return envelope. County officials compare that signature with signatures already in the voter’s record, often one associated with a California driver’s license or state identification card. If the signatures do not compare closely enough, the ballot can be set aside. The same can happen if a voter forgets to sign the envelope. Alexander advises voters to make the signature on the ballot envelope resemble the signature they normally use on their driver’s license or identification record. A signature problem does not automatically mean the vote is lost. California law requires counties to notify voters when an envelope is unsigned or the signature is determined not to compare with the one on file. The voter then has an opportunity to correct, or cure, the problem. Alexander said voters should respond as soon as they receive such a notice rather than waiting for the deadline. Some counties allow voters to cure a signature electronically using a phone or tablet, an option the California Voter Foundation would like to see expanded statewide. Voters in some counties also have another option. A process often called “Sign, Scan and Go” allows voters to bring a completed mail ballot to a participating voting location, check in and cast it as an in person ballot. The California Voter Foundation says the option can bypass the mail ballot signature verification process and allow the ballot to be scanned at the voting site. The organization found that 31 of California’s 58 counties offered some form of the practice during the June primary. Voters should check with their county election office before relying on the option because it is not available everywhere. Alexander also urged Californians to use the state’s ballot tracking system. “The single best thing a voter can do is sign up for BallotTrax before Election Day,” she told Latino News Network. California’s [Where’s My Ballot](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-status/wheres-my-ballot?ref=ivn.us) service allows voters to receive text, email or phone notifications showing when their ballot was mailed, received and counted. It can also notify voters if there is a problem requiring action. The service is available in every California county. Alexander said only about 5.4 million of California’s roughly 23 million registered voters are currently enrolled in the tracking system. Before any of that, however, voters need to make sure their registration is accurate. The regular registration deadline for the November election is October 19\. [Voters can confirm their registration and mailing information through the California Secretary of State.](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/general-election-november-3-2026/key-dates-deadlines?ref=ivn.us) Missing the October 19 deadline does not necessarily prevent someone from voting. California offers same day conditional registration from October 20 through Election Day. [Every active registered voter in California will automatically receive a mail ballot. Counties must begin mailing them by October 5, with ballot drop off locations opening by October 6.](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/general-election-november-3-2026/key-dates-deadlines?ref=ivn.us) While Californians navigate the current system, they will also decide whether some of its fundamental rules should change. Hector Villagra, vice president of policy advocacy and community education at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, explained in an interview with Latino News Network that confusion surrounding Proposition 39 is one of the issues Latino voters should pay particular attention to before November. “Proposition 39 is worth highlighting because it is not the law,” Villagra said. That distinction matters. Proposition 39 is on the November ballot, but its proposed identification requirements do not apply to the November 3 election. If approved, the constitutional amendment would require voters to present government issued identification when voting in person. People voting by mail would have to provide the last four digits of a selected government issued identification number on their ballot envelope. [The measure would also require state and local election officials to make efforts to verify the citizenship status of registered voters and report annually on the percentage of voters whose citizenship has been verified.](https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Proposition?number=39&year=2026&&ref=ivn.us) A yes vote would establish the additional identification requirements. A no vote would leave the current signature based system in place. Villagra said MALDEF believes the additional requirements could place greater burdens on naturalized citizens, lower income voters, older voters, people with disabilities, students and people whose names or addresses differ among government records. For November, however, the current rules remain in effect. That means voters should not assume campaign messages about Proposition 39 describe what identification they need to cast a ballot this year. For Villagra, the challenge goes beyond identification requirements. “The largest problem is that California often treats language access as the translation of a ballot rather than as an end to end voting service,” Villagra told California Latino News. A voter may interact with signature correction notices, envelope instructions, ballot tracking alerts, election websites and provisional ballot information before the process is complete. Villagra said those materials are not always translated as completely or clearly as the ballot itself. Bilingual staffing and telephone assistance can also be inconsistent, particularly at smaller, rural or temporary voting locations. Federal law requires translated election materials in jurisdictions that meet certain population and literacy thresholds. California law extends some language requirements to additional precincts. But Villagra argued that a translated reference ballot is not the same as making the entire voting process accessible in a voter’s preferred language. Official information can also arrive after misinformation has already circulated through social media and community networks, he said. Villagra wants election officials to provide information earlier and publish more detailed data about ballot rejection and curing rates, including information broken down by language preference, age, geography and race or ethnicity. Alexander said language and access barriers can make an already complicated process more difficult. She pointed Latino voters to NALEO Educational Fund’s bilingual voter assistance hotline at 1 888 VE Y VOTA, or 1 888 839 8682\. The Election Protection Hotline is available at 1 866 OUR VOTE, or 1 866 687 8683\. The California Secretary of State also provides Spanish language voter assistance at 800 232 VOTA, or 800 232 8682. Voters who encounter problems at a voting location have additional protections. Someone whose name does not appear on the voter list can ask to cast a provisional ballot. Voters who are already in line when polls close at 8 p.m. have the right to remain in line and vote. People who need assistance because of a disability or language barrier can also ask for help. Taken together, Alexander and Villagra’s advice comes down to preparation. Check your registration before October 19\. Understand that Proposition 39 is a proposal voters will decide in November, not a requirement for voting in the November election. If voting by mail, return the ballot early and carefully sign the envelope. Track it after returning it. If election officials flag a problem, respond immediately. California’s debate over identification, ballot access and election administration will continue beyond November. For individual voters, however, knowing the rules already in place can determine something much more immediate. Whether their vote makes it into the final count. --- **Alex Segura* is Managing Editor for Latino News Network West, overseeing California Latino News and Washington Latino News. He is a journalist based in California with more than a decade of experience covering U.S. politics, immigration and Latino communities.* ### Trump Appeals to SCOTUS to Resolve Mail-in Ballot Chaos URL: https://ivn.us/trump-appeals-to-scotus-to-resolve-mail-in-ballot-chaos/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T19:27:36.000Z Trump's executive order from March required the USPS to create national standards for delivering mail-in ballots. Less than two months from Election Day, nobody can say for certain **what happens to your ballot after you mail it**. USPS published its final mail-ballot rule on August 26\. A federal judge blocked it on September 4\. The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court on September 6\. Without a final decision, **North Carolina has already started mailing ballots**. [Shawn Griffiths cuts through the whiplash with 7 things every voter needs to know right now](https://ivn.us/can-usps-still-stop-your-mail-ballot-7-things-voters-need-to-know-now/). Meanwhile, in Missouri, [**politicians tried twice to squash citizen-led initiatives that limit partisan manipulation of elections, but the state’s highest court stopped them both times**](https://ivn.us/missouri-politicians-tried-to-override-voters-the-states-highest-court-said-no-twice/). Now, some voices in the mainstream media are starting to focus on the importance scrutinizing our electoral processes. On CNN, [Fareed Zakaria made the case for letting independents vote in primaries](https://ivn.us/fareed-zakaria-makes-the-case-for-letting-independents-vote-in-primaries/). And in Iowa, gubernatorial candidate [Rob Sand is betting his race on one promise: end closed primaries](https://ivn.us/rob-sand-hopes-to-win-iowa-independents-with-one-promise-hell-end-closed-primaries/). Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## Can USPS Still Stop Your Mail Ballot? 7 Things Voters Need to Know Now [![USPS mail ballots](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/image-62ccdea1-e5fd-4994-8b75-c2fefdffc153.jpg)](https://ivn.us/can-usps-still-stop-your-mail-ballot-7-things-voters-need-to-know-now/) A final USPS rule, a federal injunction, an emergency Supreme Court petition — all in two weeks, with ballots already in the mail. Shawn Griffiths untangles the fast-moving fight over mail voting into **the 7 things voters actually need to know**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/can-usps-still-stop-your-mail-ballot-7-things-voters-need-to-know-now/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [Fareed Zakaria Makes the Case for Letting Independents Vote in Primaries ](https://ivn.us/fareed-zakaria-makes-the-case-for-letting-independents-vote-in-primaries/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Steve-Peace.jpg) Steve Peace [ ![Fareed Zakaria Makes the Case for Letting Independents Vote in Primaries](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/Fareed-Zakaria.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/fareed-zakaria-makes-the-case-for-letting-independents-vote-in-primaries/) [Rob Sand Hopes to Win Iowa Independents with One Promise: He'll End Closed Primaries ](https://ivn.us/rob-sand-hopes-to-win-iowa-independents-with-one-promise-hell-end-closed-primaries/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Rob Sand Hopes to Win Iowa Independents with One Promise: He'll End Closed Primaries](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/Rob-Sand-Event.png) ](https://ivn.us/rob-sand-hopes-to-win-iowa-independents-with-one-promise-hell-end-closed-primaries/) [Missouri Politicians Tried to Override Voters. The State’s Highest Court Said No — Twice ](https://ivn.us/missouri-politicians-tried-to-override-voters-the-states-highest-court-said-no-twice/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Missouri Politicians Tried to Override Voters. The State’s Highest Court Said No — Twice](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/image-530b5a37-899c-40c0-bd5e-9014d1e66ca2.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/missouri-politicians-tried-to-override-voters-the-states-highest-court-said-no-twice/) [Perot 2.0 Isn’t a Candidate. It’s a Movement ](https://ivn.us/perot-2-0-isnt-a-candidate-its-a-movement/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/09/John_Opdycke.jpg) John Opdycke [ ![Perot 2.0 Isn’t a Candidate. It’s a Movement](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/ross-perot.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/perot-2-0-isnt-a-candidate-its-a-movement/) [Did CBS Just Join Trump's Campaign Against Ranked Choice Voting? ](https://ivn.us/did-cbs-just-join-trumps-campaign-against-ranked-choice-voting/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Did CBS Just Join Trump's Campaign Against Ranked Choice Voting?](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/image-f5a0d30b-0135-4614-a4e6-a87eea554ef7.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/did-cbs-just-join-trumps-campaign-against-ranked-choice-voting/) [The Party Labels Are Fading. The Primary Rules Aren’t ](https://ivn.us/the-party-labels-are-fading-the-primary-rules-arent/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![The Party Labels Are Fading. The Primary Rules Aren’t](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/independent-voters-rise.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-party-labels-are-fading-the-primary-rules-arent/) [Forget the Polls. Bettors Are Putting Real Money on These Independent Candidates ](https://ivn.us/forget-the-polls-bettors-are-putting-real-money-on-these-independent-candidates/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Forget the Polls. Bettors Are Putting Real Money on These Independent Candidates](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/09/political-betting-markets.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/forget-the-polls-bettors-are-putting-real-money-on-these-independent-candidates/) ### *INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES ▶▶▶* ## Are The Independent Senate Candidates Really 'Toxic Socialist Democrats'? [![Independent Senate candidates](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/independent-candidates-running-for-senate.jpg)](https://ivn.us/are-the-independent-senate-candidates-reall-toxic-socialist-democrats/) Republicans have a new attack line for the independents running for Senate: they’re secretly “toxic socialist Democrats.” Matt Shinners checks the records of the actual candidates — **and the label doesn’t survive contact with the facts**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/are-the-independent-senate-candidates-reall-toxic-socialist-democrats/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joins EP57 on defying his own party’s pressure to drop out of the California governor’s race — and why **the voters, not party bosses, should decide who stays in**. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlfdrKykXrU&ref=ivn.us) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## San Francisco Democrats Just Said No to Taxing Billionaires [![San Francisco City Hall](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/san-francisco-democrats-prop-40.jpg)](https://ivn.us/san-francisco-democrats-just-said-no-to-taxing-billionaires/) Cara Brown McCormick on the rare public split inside San Francisco’s Democratic Party: **the party refused to endorse a one-time wealth tax on billionaires** — and the fight says a lot about who the party answers to. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/san-francisco-democrats-just-said-no-to-taxing-billionaires/) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### *VIDEO CLIP ▶▶▶* ## Trump Falsely Attacks Ranked Choice Voting in Alaska, Vows to Campaign for Sullivan [![Trump Falsely Attacks Ranked Choice Voting in Alaska, Vows to Campaign for Sullivan](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/Trump_RCV_Clip.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc1hJGegr%5Fk/?ref=ivn.us) President Trump called ranked choice voting “totally dishonest” — claiming someone “backstage” picks the winner — while vowing to campaign for Sen. Dan Sullivan. He’s not alone: **the DNC tried to ban RCV in 2028 primaries this summer before backlash forced a reversal**. Opposition to RCV, it turns out, comes from whichever party holds power — Alaskans have approved the system twice. [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc1hJGegr%5Fk/?ref=ivn.us) ### *VETERANS ▶▶▶* ## Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff Army veteran Paul Rieckhoff on the chaos at the Pentagon — Driscoll out, Hegseth paying trolls on X — and why, **with Democrats moving left and Republicans moving right, politically homeless independents are flexing nationally**. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdzvTv7HOzU&ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### Can USPS Still Stop Your Mail Ballot? 7 Things Voters Need to Know Now URL: https://ivn.us/can-usps-still-stop-your-mail-ballot-7-things-voters-need-to-know-now/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T16:43:58.000Z Less than two months away from Election Day, there is still a great deal of uncertainty around what absentee and mail-in voting is going to look like going into November. [When IVN last examined President Trump’s order to change how the USPS handles mail ballots](https://ivn.us/could-usps-refuse-to-deliver-your-ballot-a-new-election-fight-is-about-to-explode/), the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) just stayed one lower-court injunction, while another order still prevented the final postal rules from taking effect. Yet in only a couple of weeks, much has changed. USPS published its final rule on August 26\. A federal judge blocked its mandatory provisions on September 4\. The Trump administration filed a fresh emergency petition with SCOTUS for temporary relief on September 6. Meanwhile, North Carolina has already begun mailing ballots. Not sure what all is happening on this issue? Or having trouble keeping up with this quickly evolving story? Here are 7 things voters should know as of September 8, including that the new USPS rule is not yet legally enforceable. ## 1\. The USPS Rule Is Now Real — But Much Narrower Than Trump’s Executive Order Trump’s March 31 executive order directed USPS to develop national standards for mail ballots, including state-provided lists and unique ballot identifiers. The final rule adopted by the Postal Service requires election officials sending federal-election ballots through USPS to use specified envelope designs, automation-compatible mailpieces, and unique Intelligent Mail barcodes. Officials would also upload each ballot recipient’s name, address and associated barcodes to a USPS portal. **Here is what has changed from IVN’s original reporting:** Initially, it was believed that if a ballot failed to meet the new requirements, that ballot would be returned to the elections office. However, [a whistleblower](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/whistleblower-postal-service-new-mail-ballot-system/?ref=ivn.us) leak revealed that the USPS could refuse an entire batch of federal ballots if a single one has a problem. This means one ballot could prevent several ballots deemed in compliance by the USPS from being delivered to voters. ## 2\. USPS Does Not Decide Whether You Are Eligible to Vote Under the final rule, state and local election officials — not USPS — determine who is eligible to vote and who receives a mail ballot. Voters would not enroll themselves with USPS. The agency cannot refuse to send a ballot to an otherwise eligible voter. It can only return ballots to the appropriate elections office for technical issues in relation to its rule. USPS also says it would not open ballots, check party affiliation, or determine whether a completed ballot should be counted. Does this absolutely guarantee zero shenanigans on the part of postal workers? No. But if there are any issues receiving a ballot, a voter can contact their county’s elections office. Further, the verification process does not apply to returned ballots once they are in the mailstream. A returned ballot should be delivered straight to the appropriate elections office without interruption. The rule’s primary enforcement point is therefore when election officials send ballots to voters, not when voters send completed ballots back. ## 3\. A Federal Judge Says USPS Likely Crossed from Regulating Mail Into Regulating Elections [On September 4](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-09-04/judge-again-halts-usps-mail-ballot-plan-citing?ref=ivn.us), US District Judge Indira Talwani—who has been at the center of the legal side of this matter—issued a preliminary injunction blocking the mandatory portions of the rule through the November 3 election. It is worth noting all of the injunctions in relation to this case have come from Talwani. She concluded that the USPS requirements regulate the manner of elections, authority that is primarily granted to the states under Article I of the US Constitution even for federal elections. Congress may alter those rules, but only in certain situations. Talwani noted that Congress never delegated its Elections Clause authority to USPS and separately found the agency likely exceeded its statutory postal authority. ## 4\. The Trump Administration Says This Is a Mail Rule, Not an Election Rule [In the Administration’s latest Supreme Court filing](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/09/trump-administration-again-appeals-mail-in-ballot-dispute-to-the-supreme-court/?ref=ivn.us), Solicitor General D. John Sauer calls the postal policy a “lawful and modest” exercise of powers Congress gave USPS under federal postal law. The government argues states still control voter eligibility, ballot deadlines, and vote counting. USPS is simply regulating how election mail enters the federal mail system. Trump framed his March executive order around election integrity, saying while signing it that the administration wanted to stop what he described as widespread cheating. Postmaster General David Steiner said Friday that USPS believes it acted within its authority and emphasized that voter information in the portal would come entirely from states, without USPS changing or questioning their lists. ## 5\. Election Officials Say Timing Could Make Compliance Impossible Talwani’s ruling says election officials in roughly half the states and Washington, D.C., submitted evidence that complying with the USPS rule this close before the midterms would likely be impossible. North Carolina [began mailing approximately 260,000 ballots on September 4](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/us/politics/north-carolina-mails-first-ballots-of-fall-as-trump-tries-to-restrict-them.html?ref=ivn.us). Washington expects about 5.1 million and reported that some printing vendors could not redo ballot envelopes on the required timeline. Wisconsin’s election commission chair said ensuring every absentee voter was entered into the USPS system would be [“virtually impossible.”](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/09/04/wisconsin-election-officials-warn-mail-in-ballots-order-is-unworkable/91585114007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=false&gca-epti=undefined&gca-ft=0&gca-ds=sophi&ref=ivn.us) A whistleblower separately alleged development of the portal was rushed and inadequately tested. USPS says the concerns were taken seriously but says its quality, security, and testing standards were not compromised. ## 6\. The Supreme Court Has Not Ruled That Trump’s Policy Is Constitutional On August 24, the Supreme Court stayed an earlier injunction because the states’ original challenge was premature. When that lawsuit was filed, USPS had not yet issued a final rule, so the court found the alleged injury too speculative. The Court did *not* decide whether the eventual USPS rule was lawful. Once USPS finalized the rule, states and voting-rights groups challenged the actual policy. Talwani’s September 4 injunction addresses that final rule. The administration then filed a new Supreme Court application Sunday seeking to lift the injunction. ## 7\. So, What Is Actually in Effect Right Now? As of September 8, USPS cannot make its new requirements for absentee and mail-in ballots mandatory for the November 3 election. States may voluntarily participate in parts of the system when consistent with state law. Voters themselves do not have to register with USPS, submit information to a federal portal, or change how they request a mail ballot. The Trump administration’s newest Supreme Court application remains pending. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has ordered opponents to respond by 4 p.m. EDT on September 9. That means the legal situation will likely change again soon. For now, though, voters should follow the mail-voting rules provided by their state and local election officials. The new mandatory USPS system is not currently controlling how November ballots are sent. ### Are The Independent Senate Candidates Really 'Toxic Socialist Democrats'? URL: https://ivn.us/are-the-independent-senate-candidates-reall-toxic-socialist-democrats/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T17:23:03.000Z Republicans have converged on their messaging against the independent Senate candidates running in Nebraska, South Dakota, Idaho, and Montana: “Dan Osborn, Brian Bengs, Todd Achilles, and Seth Bodnar would work in lockstep with the toxic socialist Democrats to enact their woke agenda and raise taxes for American working families,” National Republican Senatorial Committee national press secretary Bernadette Breslin said (via [NOTUS](https://www.notus.org/campaigns/republican-independent-candidates-midterm-elections?ref=ivn.us)). It is not an isolated line. Sen. Jim Risch’s campaign manager, Marc Kilmer, called Achilles “a liberal Democrat masquerading as an ‘independent.’” Pete Ricketts’ deputy campaign manager, Max Oberg, said the campaign’s approach was to expose Osborn’s “far-left views and the Democrat infrastructure behind his campaign.” Rob Skjonsberg, a senior adviser to Sen. Mike Rounds, pointed to Bengs’ use of ActBlue as proof “he’s a Democrat.” Montana Republican nominee Kurt Alme has called Bodnar a “Democrat in disguise” (via [Breitbart](https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/08/25/exclusive-kurt-alme-montanas-democrat-in-disguise-seth-bodnar-runs-on-liberal-actblue-cash-should-refund-1-76m/?ref=ivn.us)). The framing definitely has some evidence for it. Bengs ran for Senate as a Democrat in 2022\. Achilles was appointed and then elected to the Idaho House as a Democrat before leaving the party in 2025\. The Nebraska Democratic Party endorsed Osborn. Bodnar’s candidacy was encouraged by former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. Democratic nominees withdrew in Idaho, Nebraska, and South Dakota, leaving three of the four in one-on-one races. Osborn, Bengs, and Bodnar have all raised money through ActBlue, a traditionally Democratic fundraising platform, though one which permits independents on [a case-by-case basis](https://help.actblue.com/hc/en-us/articles/16870103876631-can-i-use-actblue?ref=ivn.us) that does focus on alignment with the Democratic platform. However, when digging past the candidates’ histories and use of certain fundraising tools and into their publicly stated positions, do they stand in “lockstep” with the Democratic Party, or have they demonstrated publicly that they’re willing to stake out different stances? Are they more aligned with Democrats or Republicans, or neither? How do their stances align with polling on independents? This analysis uses current forms of the major party platforms (and, in the Republicans case, their enacted legislation and executive orders given their current control of the Executive and Legislative branches). It also uses the websites of the independent candidates and their public statements, as well as polling that pulled out independent sentiment on key issues. Let’s look at the major issues and where there’s alignment and space between the independent candidates and the major parties. ## **1\. The Economy** | Republicans | Tariffs as a central economic tool; extension of tax cuts; deregulation; energy production expansion. | | ----------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Democrats | Deficit reduction via taxing high earners and corporations rather than spending cuts: billionaire minimum tax, increased corporate rate, closing carried interest and stepped-up basis. Opposes Trump’s tariffs. $15 federal minimum wage, PRO Act. | ### **Polling** | Measure | All | Independents | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --- | ------------ | | Disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs (ABC/WaPo/Ipsos, Feb. 2026) | 64% | 72% | | Say economy has gotten worse since Jan. 2025 (same) | 48% | 52% | | Support raising income tax rates on upper-income Americans to cut the debt (Gallup, fall 2025) | 63% | 62% | | Support tariffs as a debt-reduction revenue tool (same) | 41% | 35% | ### **Candidates** - **Bengs** — Frames affordability and cost of living as a top-three priority alongside money in politics and healthcare. Funds his healthcare expansion through taxes on billionaires and corporations. Platform includes balancing the budget and paying down the debt. - **Achilles** — Calls the national debt a “bright red line” and says he is the more conservative candidate in the race on fiscal grounds, citing the debt’s growth under Risch. Would close tax loopholes used by corporations and the ultra-wealthy, ban non-compete agreements, and “fight against corporate socialism.” Says national investments like the IRA and CHIPS Act needed corresponding revenues attached. - **Bodnar** — Launched on the debt, tariffs, and the cost of housing, healthcare, and child care. Calls tariffs “taxes that are crushing our ag producers and small businesses” and the tariff regime “nonsensical.” - **Osborn** — Populist economic framing: close corporate loopholes, end subsidies to profitable industries, raise the minimum wage, pass the PRO Act. Also has a [cut-waste-and-balance-the-budget](https://www.osbornforsenate.com/ngfp-cut-waste-and-balance-the-budget?ref=ivn.us) plank and would have Congress reclaim tariff authority. ### **Conclusion** On taxing the wealthy, all four sit close to the Democratic platform, which aligns with a solid majority of independents (62%). On tariffs, all four oppose the Republican position, which is also where 72% of independents are. Many discuss the debt as a central issue and being out of control under both parties, separating themselves from both the Republicans and Democrats. --- ## **2\. Healthcare** | Republicans | 2024 platform commits to no cuts to Social Security or Medicare but is thin on healthcare specifics. HSA expansion. (In practice, the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill made Medicaid changes that many argue are cuts.) Focus on discounting pharmaceuticals. | | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Democrats | Protect and expand the ACA; make premium tax credits permanent; expand Medicare drug negotiation to 50 drugs a year; extend the $35 insulin cap and $2,000 out-of-pocket cap to all. Notably does not include a public option or a lower Medicare eligibility age. | ### **Polling (Gallup annual Health and Healthcare survey)** | Measure | All | Independents | | ------------------------------------------------------------ | --- | ------------ | | Federal government should ensure all Americans have coverage | 62% | 65% | | Prefer government-run system | 46% | 47% | ### **Candidates** - **Bengs** — The most expansive plan of the four: a five-stage overhaul extending ACA coverage to age 30, enhancing subsidies, lowering Medicare eligibility to 55, creating a public option, and funding it with taxes on billionaires and corporations. This is **to the left of the Democratic platform**. - **Achilles** — Sequences healthcare third, behind corruption and the debt: “After tackling corruption, we can tackle our national debt. After that, we can tackle healthcare.” Has not released a comparably detailed plan. - **Bodnar** — Rural-delivery focus: telehealth expansion, rural workforce incentives, opposition to cuts to critical access hospitals, and an explicit commitment to defend Medicaid expansion. Frames it as working “with Senators from all sides.” His position is more limited than the Democratic position and aligns with the stated goals of both parties. - **Osborn** — Anti-profiteering framing: don’t let insurance companies make healthcare decisions, stop subsidizing Big Pharma, block private equity takeovers of providers. Said he would not have voted for the reconciliation bill, citing a dialysis facility closure in Chadron he attributes to its Medicaid cuts. ### **Conclusion** This is the section where the Republican claim comes closest to holding — but imprecisely. Bengs overshoots the Democratic platform. Bodnar and Osborn are defending existing programs against cuts, a position 65% of independents share. --- ## **3\. The Second Amendment** | Republicans | Opposition to new federal restrictions; the 2024 platform defends the right to keep and bear arms without new limits. | | ----------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Democrats | Universal background checks, reinstating the assault weapons and high-capacity magazine ban, safe storage requirements, a national red flag law, repealing the gun industry’s liability shield, ending online gun and ammunition sales, and incentivizing state licensing. | ### **Polling (Gallup crime poll, most recent available with crosstabs)** | Measure | All | Independents | Republicans | Democrats | | -------------------------------- | --- | ------------ | ----------- | --------- | | Gun sale laws should be stricter | 56% | 56% | 25% | 89% | | Support assault weapons ban | 52% | 50% | 27% | 82% | | Support handgun ban | 20% | 22% | 6% | 33% | ### **Candidates** - **Bengs** — The only one of the four with a documented record supporting platform-aligned measures: as a Democratic candidate in 2022 he backed universal background checks and red flag laws. Whether those positions carry into his independent campaign is unresolved on his current platform. - **Achilles** — [Policy page](https://www.achillesforidaho.com/policies?ref=ivn.us) states Idaho already decided how Idahoans carry “and we got it right,” and that his job is “to keep Washington out of the way and protect Idahoans’ rights.” - **Bodnar** — Frames it as a privacy principle: government has “no business in our bedrooms, no business in our doctor’s office, no business at our gun cabinets either.” - **Osborn** — Says he is “fundamentally in favor of the Second Amendment” and that law-abiding citizens must always have the right to bear arms, while saying he would defer to law enforcement on specific measures. ### **Conclusion** The clearest divergence from the Democratic platform of any issue in this list. Three of four are explicitly opposed to new federal restrictions. Independents split almost exactly on an assault weapons ban (50%), so this is not a position with a clear independent-voter consensus behind it in either direction, and, for the most part, the Independents align with the Republicans. --- ## **4\. Immigration** | Republicans | The 2024 platform’s first two planks are sealing the border and carrying out “the largest deportation operation in American history.” That has played out via an expansion of ICE’s budget and mandate, as seen in a number of cities and operations during Trump’s term. | | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Democrats | Border enforcement paired with expansion: more Border Patrol agents, immigration judges, asylum officers, and fentanyl detection, plus expanded legal immigration and protections for long-term undocumented residents and Dreamers. | ### **Polling** | Measure | All | Independents | | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------ | --------------- | | Disapprove of how ICE is doing its job (Quinnipiac, July 2026) | 60% of RVs | 67% | | Say immigration is a good thing for the country (Gallup, mid-2026) | — | 73% | | Prefer immigration kept at present levels (same) | — | 37% plurality | | Favor citizenship path for those brought here as children (same) | 81% | between R and D | | Favor deporting all undocumented immigrants (Gallup, 2025) | 38%, down from 47% | — | ### **Candidates** - **Bengs** — Expand legal immigration; faster work authorization; more pathways to permanent status. Robust border protection and funding, but reactive instead of proactive. - **Achilles** — Support CBP with staffing and funding; ensure farmers/ranchers have necessary workers (after hiring local workers); modern visa system. - **Bodnar** — Has said he could work with Trump and Republicans on border security and immigration reform, alongside prescription drug pricing. - **Osborn** — The most documented and the most cross-pressured. Ran a 2024 ad offering to help build the border wall, though recently audio leaked where he called it a “symbol of racism.” Previously said Trump is doing a good job securing the border, but has recently been critical of ICE because of its divisiveness and fiscal waste; has called illegal immigration “detrimental to every American worker” while affirming legal immigration’s economic value. CNN’s KFile reported in June that Osborn said in 2021 he helped alert federal immigration authorities to a company allegedly using undocumented replacement workers. Seems to be similarly torn to many independents - wanting to crack down on illegal immigration, support legal immigration, and protect American workers, but viewing certain actions taken by the current Administration as going too far to achieve these goals. ### **Conclusion** Most of the Independent candidates are critical of current Republican policy on immigration, but their criticisms align with the shift in opinion of Independents - there’s alignment on goals but not methods. The candidates are largely to the right of Democrats on border security and enforcement against illegal immigrants, while more aligned with them on legal immigration. --- ## **5\. Abortion Rights** | Republicans | The 2024 platform mentions abortion once, opposing “late term abortion” and invoking the 14th Amendment while stating that states are free to pass laws on the issue. No federal ban endorsed. | | ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Democrats | Pass legislation restoring Roe as the law of the land; strengthen contraception access; protect IVF; repeal the Hyde Amendment. | ### **Polling** | Measure | All | Independents | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ----- | ------------ | | Abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances (Gallup, May 2026) | 48% | 48% | | Identify as pro-choice (same) | 53% | 54% | | Abortion should be legal in most or all cases (PRRI 50-state, 2025) | \~60% | 65% | \*Note: Much more than any other issue, wording for these questions has a large impact on responses, as seen by the discrepancy in the first and third column here. Where most people seem to be is that abortion is a tough topic, where there should be more freedom earlier in the pregnancy and less freedom later in the pregnancy, with people being flexible with where they believe the line should be between permissiveness and restriction. ### **Candidates** - **Bengs** — Supports codifying Roe and opposes a federal 15-week ban. In a candidate questionnaire he argued the Court “got it wrong” and that the Roe standards “were right the first time.” Has previously favored a constitutional right-to-privacy amendment as a more durable alternative to statutory codification. - **Achilles** — No detailed public position. - **Bodnar** — Frames it as government non-interference: “no business in our doctor’s office.” No detailed position on federal legislation located. - **Osborn** — A Roman Catholic who has described himself as personally pro-life, says he does not support “extreme national measures to ban abortion” and that the decision belongs to a woman and her doctor. ### **Conclusion** While they all use different language to describe their position (outside of Achilles, who has been a bit silent on the issue), their conclusions align more with the Democratic position of keeping legislation (both federal and state) outside of the decision process. --- ## **Balance of Power** Accusations of these candidates being in “lockstep” with the Democratic Party are overblown. While they do share policy alignment with the Democrats on several issues, those positions tend to align with where a majority or plurality of independents are (and, frequently, registered voters as a whole). However, the more consequential divergence might be over their stated positions on caucusing. While some have made pledges not to caucus with either party, should several of these candidates get elected and deny either side a majority, they would likely determine the rules of the chamber and who is leading it. Based on our interviews with these individuals, it seems likely that they’d press for things that would increase the power of individual members of the Senate to get things done. They’ve pledged to push for rules that would require single-topic bills, and for an up-or-down vote on all bills, not just those that have support of the majority party. They’ve pushed for votes on key agenda items that align with independent preferences—things like a ban on stock trading, on money in politics, on gerrymandering, on term limits, and healthcare. Is it more likely that the Democrats would agree to these requirements than the Republicans? A strong argument can be made for that position, especially given the focus on removing money from politics, ending partisan gerrymandering, and expanding healthcare coverage in a way that aligns with the views of independents that are closer to the current position of the Democratic Party. However, they also share a lot of ground with Republicans on immigration and border security, on a focus on rural healthcare and farming/ranching industries, and especially on the Second Amendment. In a Senate where Independents have forced the rules to allow for single-issue bills raised by the minority party, there’s a lot of room for Republicans to advance their agenda with this fulcrum even if the Independents have voted for a Democratic leader. In short, the Independents seem to be less in lockstep with Democrats and more in lockstep with a majority of Americans—not just on policy, but also on how the Senate itself should work. ### Rob Sand Hopes to Win Iowa Independents with One Promise: He'll End Closed Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/rob-sand-hopes-to-win-iowa-independents-with-one-promise-hell-end-closed-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T15:59:40.000Z A Suffolk University poll conducted August 20-23, 2026, found Iowa State Auditor [Rob Sand](https://robsand.com/?ref=ivn.us) ahead of Republican businessman Zach Lahn by four points, 48 percent to 44 percent, among 500 likely voters, within a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 points. On its own, a four-point lead in a governor's race is not remarkable. What makes this one worth watching is what Rob Sand says he’ll do if he wins. Sand is an independent-turned-Democrat running in a state that President Donald Trump carried by more than 13 points in 2024. He knows full well his path to victory runs directly through independent voters, so his central appeal to them is unusually literal: he is promising to let them vote in Iowa's primaries for the first time. If Iowa elects Sand this November, it would put a serious political reformer into statewide office who favors structural changes that would give all voters the right to participate in elections regardless of political party. ## Polling is Clear: If Iowa’s Independents Show Up to Vote in November, Sand Will Be Governor An Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey conducted August 2-4, 2026 found Sand leading Lahn 48 percent to 43 percent, with 7 percent undecided. **That same poll found Sand had the highest favorability of any statewide candidate it tested, at 51 percent favorable and 31 percent unfavorable.** Independent voters broke for Sand by a 26-point margin, 58 percent to 32 percent. Those same swing voters backed Trump by roughly 17 points in 2024. Even one in ten Trump voters said they would support Sand for governor. A New York Times/Siena poll had Sand up 48 percent to 47 percent, and a Fox News poll had him ahead 53 percent to 44 percent. As of late August 2026, the RealClearPolitics polling average showed Sand ahead of Lahn by about five points, 49 percent to 44 percent. The Cook Political Report said Sand "has been running one of the strongest campaigns in the country this cycle." ## Independents Outnumber Democrats In Iowa Half a million people are currently locked out of the state's closed party primaries, and, for the first time, there is a candidate for governor who says he’ll give them the right to vote. According to Iowa Secretary of State data as of August 2026, the state had 712,087 registered Republicans, 528,758 registered Democrats, and 559,741 voters registered with no party affiliation. ## How This Could Actually Happen There are solid reasons why Sand is competitive. **He has excellent name recognition.** This is because he has won statewide office twice, elected auditor in 2018 and reelected in 2022, and he is the only Democrat currently holding statewide office in Iowa. Voters are already accustomed to seeing his name on the statewide ballot, and they are used to voting for him. **The national political environment, even in Iowa, is not helpful to Republicans.** GOP candidates are underperforming in races they always win, including governor's races in Georgia and Ohio, and Senate races in Texas and North Carolina **Midterms always tend to be bad for the party holding the presidency.** In Iowa specifically, Trump's job approval is 43 percent approve and 51 percent disapprove among voters. **Iowa has elected Democrats to prominent office before.** Most famous is Tom Harkin, who represented the state in the US Senate for three decades, from 1985 to 2015\. Iowans, in other words, do not vote in lockstep. **Voters in Iowa love democracy.** As the home of the first-in-the-nation caucuses, Iowa is a true heavyweight in American presidential politics. Every four years, the entire nation watches as Iowa voters convene at caucuses in the middle of winter, taking the mechanics of democracy seriously. Sand's structural-reform pitch could really resonate with voters across the ideological spectrum who want to help fix our broken politics. ## **Sand Supports a Nonpartisan "People's Primary" Where All Citizens Can Vote** The most interesting thing about Sand's campaign is his promise to voters to give them more voice and choice in elections. ***Sand's central platform plank is a proposal to scrap Iowa's closed party primaries in favor of a single, open contest he calls a "people's primary."*** Every candidate for a given office, regardless of party, would appear on one ballot, and every eligible voter, regardless of party registration, could vote in it. "Rob supports having a public primary where all eligible voters can participate, which would finally make independent voters equal in our state," his campaign website states. "From that, the top 4 candidates can advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation." From that all-candidate primary, the top four vote-getters would advance to the general election, which Sand proposes should be decided by approval voting, a system used in Fargo, North Dakota. Voters could approve as many of the four finalists as they like, and whoever collects the most approval votes wins. Sand's argument is that such a system rewards candidates who can build cross-party coalitions rather than those who merely energize their own base. He talks about it constantly. On his "100 Town Hall Tour," a pledge to visit every county in Iowa, he framed the state's own history as evidence. "We didn't send Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley to the United States Senate together because we, oops, didn't notice they were in opposite political parties," he said at a Grundy Center stop. At a stop in Independence, Iowa, he was blunter: > *"I think our political system is broken. Mostly because it's run by two private clubs and they're more interested in beating up on each other than they are in solving our problems."* ## An Independent Turned Democrat Criticizing Both Parties Sand has been willing to criticize Democrats and Republicans. He was a registered independent first. “I don’t tend to like the party politics stuff,” he told Politico’s Jonathan Martin during an interview for the popular podcast, [On the Road.](https://www.politico.com/podcasts/on-the-road-with-jonathan-martin?ref=ivn.us) “We have a fundamentally broken two-choice political system,” he said. “I don’t think that either the Democratic or the Republican parties are solving enough problems to deserve special legal privileges.” Of the two-party system, he says: “My inclination is, I want it to be shaken up.” Sand is stressing that he isn't beholden to the Democratic Party. He promoted an independent and a Republican to senior positions in his office. "I think that when different people who think differently from each other work together, we actually get to better answers," he has said. "I know my values haven't changed, even if the parties' may have moved." Sands thinks that one-party dominance "gets unbalanced" over time. On the trail, he has framed most of Iowa's problems as stemming from a decade of single-party control broadly, not just Republican rule. He has also criticized Democratic Party-controlled states, saying California and New York "are not utopia.” "You can put something in a place, and it does OK for a little while," he said. "But if it's there for too long, it gets unbalanced. You got to take it out and put something else in." **In his reform pitch, he poses two questions many voters ask themselves:** > *"Why do we have to only pick from the lesser of two evils?* > *"Why do we make independent voters less equal?"* ## Will the Best Idea Win No Matter Which Side It Comes From? Sands calls his platform the "[Truer Better Agenda.](https://robsand.com/issues/opportunities-for-all?ref=ivn.us)" He said he wants to be accountable and transparent about his agenda because it "undergirds everything else" elected officials do. "I think the vast majority of Iowans, no matter where they line up politically, would agree with these ideas," he said. The planks include banning stock trading among politicians, strengthening whistleblower protections for public employees, adding transparency rules to the state's Education Savings Account program, and enacting term limits and age limits for elected officials. “We should have term limits. We should have age limits,” he said at a [Town Hall in mid-August](https://www.c-span.org/clip/campaign-2026/rob-sand-shares-his-top-campaign-issues/5205145?ref=ivn.us). A separate water-quality proposal would create a notification system to alert Iowans via text, robocall, and public release when drinking-water nitrate levels or swimming-water E. coli levels reach unsafe thresholds, tied to his own upbringing, fishing in Decorah with his father, and now with his two sons. ## The Resumé [Born and raised in Decorah](https://robsand.com/about/?ref=ivn.us), Sand graduated from [Brown University](https://www.brown.edu/?ref=ivn.us) with a degree in political science as a [Truman Scholar](https://www.truman.gov/?ref=ivn.us), then earned a law degree from the [University of Iowa](https://uiowa.edu/?ref=ivn.us) in 2010. When he was in college, he worked as a fashion model in Paris and Milan. He spent roughly seven years as an Iowa assistant attorney general and the state's chief public-corruption prosecutor, where he led the investigation into what his office describes as the largest lottery-rigging scheme in American history, the subject of his book ["The Winning Ticket](https://bernsteinliteraryagency.com/blog/the-winning-ticket-by-rob-sand/?ref=ivn.us).” He also prosecuted the [Iowa Film Office tax-credit scandal](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-jan-19-la-fi-ct-onlocation-20110119-story.html?ref=ivn.us). As auditor, he created the [Public Innovation and Efficiency program](https://www.auditor.iowa.gov/pie/pie-online?ref=ivn.us), now used by all 99 Iowa counties and copied elsewhere. His investigations have surfaced cases including a $436,000 embezzlement at a Des Moines-area nonprofit and nearly $55,000 in improper spending at a county health department. If Sand wins in a state Trump carried by double digits, his proposed overhaul would be a notable break from how most states run their elections. It would echo the all-candidate primary systems already in use in Alaska, which uses Top Four, and in California and Washington, which use Top Two. It would also be a rare case of a structural-reform candidate winning statewide in a red state, and political reformers well beyond Iowa's borders will be watching closely to see whether it can be done. ### Fareed Zakaria Makes the Case for Letting Independents Vote in Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/fareed-zakaria-makes-the-case-for-letting-independents-vote-in-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:45:51.000Z Anyone who cares about history and the American system of checks and balances ought to consider checking out [Fareed Zakaria's special](https://www.cnn.com/videos/title-2569880?ref=ivn.us) that aired on CNN this week. "The Imperial Presidency" borrows its title from [Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s](https://www.neh.gov/about/awards/national-humanities-medals/arthur-m-schlesinger-jr?ref=ivn.us) 1973 book, written after Watergate, and traces the case back to the Magna Carta and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut to argue that constraining the executive is an eight-century inheritance. Zakaria argues that constraint is now eroding in a way he calls "unprecedented in scale," with America, the "oldest constitutional democracy in the world," sliding toward illiberal democracy. He begins in 1215, when the [Magna Carta](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/magna-carta/british-library-magna-carta-1215-runnymede/?ref=ivn.us) first forced a king to accept limits on his power. Under the [Articles of Confederation](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation?ref=ivn.us), there was no president, and the failure of that weak arrangement led to the [Constitutional Convention](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/convention-and-ratification?ref=ivn.us). The Founders detested monarchy, so what emerged was an executive with checks and balances within a system in which the legislature, in Madison's phrase, "[necessarily predominates](https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/james-madison-federalist-no-51-1788?ref=ivn.us)." Madison wanted a genuinely weak president. This is why in the Constitution, Congress is Article I, “the first branch” of government. The president's job is to [faithfully execute the laws](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S1-C8-1-3/ALDE%5F00013934/?ref=ivn.us), not to make policy on his own. ## **"In America, the law is King.”** This design held, more or less, through the nineteenth century. President Lincoln wielded enormous executive power during the Civil War, but that power swung back to Congress once the war ended. Zakaria explains that the balance between Congress and the Executive kept restoring itself until the Cold War, after which it changed. President Truman started the Korean War without a congressional declaration of war. President Eisenhower toppled Iran's government in a coup. President Johnson had the Gulf of Tonkin. Then came President Nixon, the imperial presidency at full extension: a secret expansion of the war in Vietnam, the impoundment of funds Congress had appropriated, domestic spying, targeting of political enemies, all descending into Watergate. “[When the president does it, that means it is not illegal](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7352372-when-the-president-does-it-that-means-it-is-not?ref=ivn.us),” Nixon famously said. Nixon stubbornly refused to turn over the tapes, relenting only under a Supreme Court order, leading to his resignation amid the threat of impeachment. The pendulum swung back again—a wave of post-Watergate reformers reasserted congressional authority, determined that an imperial presidency would not happen again. That resolve lasted until the tragedy of 9/11, when then-Vice President Dick Cheney resurrected the "[unitary executive theory](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/unitary%5Fexecutive%5Ftheory%5F%28uet%29?ref=ivn.us)," first proposed by Ed Meese, Reagan's second Attorney General. Meese argued that the Founders never wanted a weak president and that the president should have complete control over executive agencies. The Supreme Court killed the extreme version of that theory 7-1 in [*Morrison v. Olson*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/487/654/?ref=ivn.us), written by Chief Justice Rehnquist, a conservative's conservative, with only Justice Scalia in dissent. As Secretary of Defense, Cheney had tried to get the first President Bush into the Gulf War without congressional approval, and though Congress approved that war anyway, Cheney said he "would certainly have recommended to the president to go further." After 9/11, as Vice President to the second President Bush, Cheney saw his opening. Things would "[have to be done quietly, without any discussion](https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20010916.html?ref=ivn.us)," he said, effectively a blank check to wage war, with secret legal memos supplying the architecture. Cheney, the broadcast surmises, is responsible for the modern imperial presidency. President Obama entered office as a constitutional law professor who had criticized Bush's expansions of power. But a Republican Congress refused to work with Obama; indeed, they were openly determined to [make him a one-term president](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/11/when-did-mitch-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/?ref=ivn.us), so they stopped him at every turn. ***“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” Senator Mitch McConnell said in 2010.*** In frustration, President Obama declared in 2011, “We can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will," and so he issued executive order after executive order: a 30 percent emissions-reduction target by 2030, a minimum-wage raise for hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and a health insurance mandate. Republicans took to calling him "[King Obama](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/27/king-obama-monarch-constitution-column/8312137/?ref=ivn.us)." But it was [DACA](https://www.uscis.gov/DACA?ref=ivn.us) in 2012, deferring deportations, that pushed the GOP over the edge, and Zakaria draws a straight line from that anger to Donald Trump's 2016 “Make America Great Again” message, in which he proclaimed, "I alone can fix it." President Trump's first term was all about unitary power. He asserted near-absolute control over the executive branch and refused to spend money Congress had legally appropriated, an impoundment championed by [Russell Vought](https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/people/russell-vought/?ref=ivn.us), which triggered a [35-day shutdown](https://ffis.org/budget-brief/three-week-cr-ends-government-shutdown/?ref=ivn.us). Congress gave him $1 billion for a border wall. When that wasn’t enough money, Trump declared a national emergency at the Mexican border and [diverted nearly $4 billion from the military budget](https://www.npr.org/2020/02/13/805796618/trump-administration-diverts-3-8-billion-in-pentagon-funding-to-border-wall?ref=ivn.us) instead. His administration froze roughly $200 million in Ukraine aid while pressuring Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, the episode that got him [impeached](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S4-4-9/ALDE%5F00000035/?ref=ivn.us) but acquitted by a GOP-controlled Senate. President Biden governed against a totally gridlocked Congress and canceled student loan debt by executive action. In 2024, the Supreme Court, 6-3, [granted presidents broad immunity](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939%5Fe2pg.pdf?ref=ivn.us) for official acts, prompting Justice Sotomayor's dissent: "[In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-court-gives-president-power-king?ref=ivn.us)." [Fifty-two criminal charges against Trump](https://ballotpedia.org/Donald%5FTrump%5Findictments,%5F2023-2025?ref=ivn.us) were dropped as a result. Now, in Trump's second term, Zakaria argues, he has gone further still, eliminating USAID and the Department of Education, openly prosecuting political enemies, what Zakaria frames as a "super-imperial presidency." ## The Super-Imperial Presidency is Our Own Damn Fault Zakaria's closing diagnosis is that the American downfall is our own fault. The world adopted the American model of constrained government so completely that Americans now assume the checks and balances will hold on their own, with no one tending them. He says our assumption that "because it has endured for so long, it needs no repair,” has created an America that is a victim of its own success. ***He says that “we have been slow to scrutinize our own system, recognize its weaknesses, and improve it."*** He claims our shock at Trump’s imperious behavior has "curdled into fatigue." He says we are guilty of a "failure of imagination" in telling ourselves, "This is America, we're different.” ## The Answer is Nonpartisan Primaries What Zakaria misses is a) the obvious diagnosis and b) the simple remedy. In his defense, he is not alone. But if he reads the transcript of his own show, he, and the rest of us, will see that the diagnosis is on the tip of his tongue in each succeeding paragraph describing the American journey from the Articles of Confederation to the hopeless partisanship of the moment. The disease is the same one Zakaria correctly notes was top of mind for the Constitution’s authors: Partisanship. This is precisely why the Constitution rejected the parliamentary model in which the Chief Executive is selected by the legislative body. Instead, they created a buffer by melding the Senate and House power balance and delegated that formula to an “Electoral College.” What they could not account for was the creation of electoral primaries, decades of court decisions, and state legislative rule-making, almost always supported by both major political parties. All of that has been combined with modern communication platforms, conspired to make everything hyper-partisan from messaging to fundraising. It is the rise of this duopoly, not the particular action of either party, that inevitably led to the rise of the “Imperial Presidency.” Every single “presidential act” expanding executive power had its origin in a paralyzed Congress. Zakaria describes this but appears not to appreciate its significance. The truth is that Congress gave away its power so comprehensively that both congressional caucuses see their role as “How do we elect the next president?” rather than “How do we make public policy?” It is a systemic death spiral that will continue to accelerate until we do one simple thing: abolish closed partisan primaries. Why? The explanation is as simple as the solution. More than 90 percent of all congressional members win or lose their seats, not in general elections when everyone is allowed to vote, but in low-turnout primaries where the most emotionally partisan voters dominate and independent voters are generally prohibited from participating. It should surprise no one that politicians who want to keep their jobs do so by pandering to their most strident voters, who control primary outcomes that seem to produce general-election runoffs between “two bad choices.” The more perverse consequence is the paralyzed “do nothing” Congress that leads inevitably to the Imperial Presidency. Zakaria is not alone in looking past the obvious. Perhaps the most bizarre example is the DSA platform that calls for the elimination of the entire constitutional system in favor of a Parliamentary Congress that would, in turn, select a “President” (more accurately, “Prime Minister”). In classic unintended consequence fashion, the DSA proposal compounds every problem the left is concerned about: A do-nothing Congress now selects a do-nothing executive, cementing a status quo that the left surely does not intend to perpetuate. A Congress full of members who only survive re-election by pleasing or obstructing a president cannot legislate and will remain weak. The immigration bill in February 2024 is the clearest recent example of this. A bipartisan group of senators wrote the most conservative immigration package in a generation, and it collapsed within days after presidential candidate Trump told Republicans in Congress not to hand the sitting president (Biden) a win. Trump's hold on Congress works through closed primaries. It is how John Cornyn lost a Texas runoff after twenty-four years in the Senate once Trump endorsed his opponent, and how everyone else in the building learned what crossing him costs. He is not going to give that up. The solution is to allow Congress the independence to reassert itself as the first branch. A member who only answers to a closed party electorate has every reason to protect a president or presidential candidate of their own party. A member who answers to everyone in the district does not. If you want to do something about the imperial presidency, start by letting independents vote. Open every election, primary and general, to every voter, so that power rests with the individual citizen rather than with membership in one of the two major parties. That is what makes a member of Congress accountable to voters rather than to a president or a party base. Gallup found last year that 45 percent of American adults call themselves independents, the highest figure it has ever recorded. Let independents vote in primaries. It requires no constitutional amendment, no new method of counting ballots, and no new form of government, and it does not ask voters to learn anything. Washington, California, and Alaska already hold nonpartisan primaries in which every candidate appears on a single ballot, and every voter can cast it. The figure who has carried opposition to nonpartisan primaries to its logical extreme is Donald Trump. That places him in the same position as parts of the left that resist real primary reform in favor of more elaborate fixes: proportional representation, sprawling packages intricate enough that their advocates spend most of their energy arguing with one another over the details. What the two have in common is a reluctance to let the public decide and a belief that they understand the problem better than ordinary voters do. Opening primaries assumes the opposite: that a larger electorate makes better decisions than a small group of insiders. A Congress chosen only by a closed partisan base has every incentive to shield a president of its own party rather than defend the institution. A Congress chosen by every voter in the district lacks that incentive. Open the primaries, and Congress has reason to remember what it was designed to be. ### San Francisco Democrats Just Said No to Taxing Billionaires URL: https://ivn.us/san-francisco-democrats-just-said-no-to-taxing-billionaires/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:45:36.000Z **SAN FRANCISCO**—The dominant party in America's most progressive city just refused to endorse a tax on billionaires. On August 26, the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee voted 17-4 to oppose [Proposition 40](https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Proposition?number=40&year=2026&ref=ivn.us), the one-time tax on the assets of California's ultra-wealthy that will appear on the November ballot. A proxy for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi voted "no endorsement." After the vote, progressive activists booed and shouted, "shame on you," and several committee members walked out in protest. [How It Really Works: The California Billionaire Wealth TaxCalifornia’s proposed billionaire wealth tax has become one of the most consequential policy debates in the nation.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-80c57cc7-00db-4cca-95f6-17409b6f8b5f.png)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/HIRW_TheWealthTax-34859f63-48f1-4e7e-86cb-4b78f2783c1d.jpg)](https://ivn.us/how-it-really-works-the-california-billionaire-wealth-tax-2026-03-03/) In a city long regarded as a bastion of the "wokest of the woke," what the vote shows is a moderate wing of the party willing to decisively and publicly break with the ascendant DSA-aligned populists who have been pushing Prop 40. Voting party members warned that a state-level tax would drive venture capitalists and startup founders out of California, damaging the tech economy on which the city’s tax base depends. "This measure has a lot of loopholes: mainly that you can leave California and not pay it," said Emma Hare, an SFDCCC vice chair and co-author of the competing resolution, according to Politico California Playbook. The committee endorsed a competing resolution calling for a national wealth tax instead. SFDCCC chair Nancy Tung framed the vote as a disagreement over method, not values. "San Francisco Democrats care deeply about addressing inequality and making California more affordable, but Proposition 40 is the wrong approach," she told Politico. ## A Rare Break from the State Party The state Democratic Party narrowly endorsed Prop 40 earlier in the summer, and it’s rare for local party committees to not just follow suit. Indeed, San Francisco's leaders had to go out of their way to amend their own bylaws over the summer specifically to make this vote against Prop 40 possible. In doing so, they lined up with Gov. Gavin Newsom, gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, and Mayor Daniel Lurie, [all of whom oppose the measure](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook-pm/2026/08/24/on-the-fence-over-prop-40-01047505?ref=ivn.us). ## **"Woke 1.0 Was Crazy"** The moderates on the committee see themselves as a leading indicator. In earlier reporting, Politico quoted SFDCCC vice chair Eric Kingsbury saying San Francisco often experiences the consequences of leftward policy before other cities. "We tend to be at the bleeding edge, and we saw a lot of the negatives of some more extreme policies earlier than most," Kingsbury said. > "[Woke 1.0](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/style/woke-1-aoc-dsa.html?ref=ivn.us) was crazy," he added, saying the city "saw some of that really peak and the tides start to recede before" other blue cities. San Francisco's broader rightward drift inside the Democratic coalition is driven by years of frustration over homelessness, crime, and school closures. Mayor Lurie, a moderate and an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, recently helped defeat a local union-backed ballot measure in the June primary that would have raised taxes on large corporations and their CEOs. Lurie has built genuine popularity in the city by taking a tough, pragmatic line on public safety and street disorder, and that record is giving the moderate wing of his party room to run. His opposition to the billionaire tax also aligns with the city's economic interests. San Francisco is the world's leading hub of AI and tech innovation, home to a concentration of billionaires and venture capital that the local economy depends on keeping in town. City Hall has every incentive to keep those billionaires from leaving, and a state-level wealth tax is exactly the kind of measure that could push them out. ## **The DSA is Having a Moment** The [San Francisco chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America](https://dsasf.org/about/?ref=ivn.us) has a track record of activism, including leading a controversial protest at a February 2026 news conference held by Mayor Daniel Lurie. > At an event this afternoon, a group of individuals that were chanting "tax the rich" began to shout "tax the Jews." This was an event I put on with Supervisor Mahmood, labor leaders, and dozens of workers to announce a plan that creates more jobs for those workers and housing for… > > — Daniel Lurie 丹尼爾·羅偉 (@DanielLurie) [February 25, 2026](https://x.com/DanielLurie/status/2026802319388717149?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Nationally, the DSA has been having a moment. DSA-aligned candidates have won primaries and races across the country this cycle. [The DSA Class of 2026: 11 Democrats Running as SocialistsHere are 11 candidates calling themselves socialists out loud in 2026.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-0164d8c3-ef8b-4819-a6bc-0260bcae71fe.png)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez-DSC-Candidates-d05a249c-042d-4d21-8b9e-1bd5a72b3e95.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-dsa-class-of-2026-11-democrats-running-as-socialists/) Melat Kiros won a Colorado congressional primary. DSA-aligned candidates picked up seats on the Los Angeles City Council. Most of this was carried forward by the momentum of Zohran Mamdani's mayoral win in New York. The rise of the DSA is one of the more heavily covered storylines of the cycle, the kind of narrative that gets called ascendant, inevitable, the future of the party. But if the DSA and its allied populist left cannot win over the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, the party body in one of the most liberal cities in America, where exactly will they win over the moderate Democrats? San Francisco is supposed to be the friendly room. If a one-time tax on billionaires cannot clear the SFDCCC, one wonders how it will clear anywhere. ## The Union Backers Push Back The labor coalition behind Prop 40 was quick to dismiss the significance of the San Francisco vote. SEIU-UHW, the lead union backing the measure, called it irrelevant to the statewide picture. Suzanne Jimenez, the union's chief of staff, told Politico that opposition from "about a dozen regional party bureaucrats, many of whom have business ties to billionaires," was "irrelevant" and called the vote "performative." The measure's backers are betting on organizing. Facing a wave of opposition spending, SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan says he is leaning on relational, volunteer-to-voter outreach that he says is being deployed "not... at this scale before." ## A National Fault Line On September 1, 2026, the US House passed Rep. Jeff Crank's resolution condemning socialism in all its forms, naming the Democratic Socialists of America directly, by a vote of 220-192\. A handful of Democrats crossed over to vote yes, including those facing tough reelection fights in newly redrawn districts. This is the same instinct the San Francisco County party members displayed when they refused to endorse Prop 40: Democrats are putting public distance between themselves and the DSA, and the party's populist left more broadly. Neel Sannappa, chair of the California Democratic Party's progressive caucus, argues the movement remains alive and well in California, pointing to down-ballot results, including [Mai Vang's challenge](https://www.maiforus.com/?ref=ivn.us) to Rep. Doris Matsui, [Randy Villegas's race](https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/06/22nd-district-primary-villegas/?ref=ivn.us), [Jane Kim's insurance commissioner campaign](https://www.janekim.org/?ref=ivn.us), and [DSA-aligned wins in the mayor’s race and on the Los Angeles City Council](https://forward.com/news/848543/nithya-raman-dsa-endorsement-israel-los-angeles-mayor/?ref=ivn.us). Sannappa acknowledged that this year's progressive campaigns lack a breakout figure. "I really don't feel as though we had somebody who was carrying the Bernie mantle or was the equivalent of Mamdani in the race," he told Politico. In the June 2, 2026 California gubernatorial primary, Tom Steyer ran as the most progressive candidate in the field, and the organized left wing was totally on board, especially once Eric Swalwell made his unceremonious exit from the race. Our Revolution, the Bernie Sanders-aligned group, endorsed Steyer. > Billionaires should not exist. [https://t.co/hgR6CeFvLa](https://t.co/hgR6CeFvLa?ref=ivn.us) > > — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) [September 24, 2019](https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1176481898685710337?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) California DSA's [own voter guide](https://www.californiadsa.org/voterguide?ref=ivn.us) gave Steyer warm treatment. For many, it was odd to see the left supporting a billionaire when for years they have argued that billionaires should not exist. Prop 40 is on the November ballot, and its fate rests with voters, not committee proxies. Nevertheless, when the ruling party in America's most progressive city refuses to endorse a tax on billionaires, it says something about how far the Democratic establishment is willing to go to draw a line against its own left flank. ### Missouri Politicians Tried to Override Voters. The State’s Highest Court Said No — Twice URL: https://ivn.us/missouri-politicians-tried-to-override-voters-the-states-highest-court-said-no-twice/ Last updated: 2026-09-07T18:29:05.000Z **ST. LOUIS**—Missouri voters will get the final say on two consequential amendments this November after the state’s highest court handed the secretary of state and partisan officials back-to-back unanimous defeats in a single day. The national press prominently covered one of these decisions: On September 3, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution does not prohibit voters from overturning a new congressional map drawn by the legislature. Their ruling means a referendum from People Not Politicians will be on the ballot. In a separate decision, the court ordered election officials to put Amendment 6 on the ballot as well. The proposal is designed to make it harder for state lawmakers to interfere in the citizen initiative process. The two cases are different. But they share a common thread: Partisan officials attempted to prevent voters from exercising powers reserved to them under Missouri law. And twice, the court said they couldn’t. ## Voters Get the Final Say on Congressional Redistricting In September 2025, the Republican-majority in the Missouri Legislature approved HB 1\. The bill put in place a new congressional map that was meant to give the GOP one additional seat by carving up the Kansas City district held by US Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D). People Not Politicians immediately responded and gathered signatures for a referendum that would put the question to voters on whether they approve or reject the new map. The group submitted over 300,000 signatures. On August 4, primary election day and the deadline for ballot measure certification, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins [said it didn’t matter how many signatures the referendum got](https://ivn.us/missouri-secretary-of-state-admits-popular-amendment-qualified-says-voters-still-wont-get-a-say/) because voters could not do anything about legislative redistricting. [The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously disagreed.](https://peoplenotpoliticiansmo.org/von-glahn-v-hoskins-ruling/?ref=ivn.us) The court concluded that the state constitution gives citizens referendum power over “any act of the general assembly,” and the redistricting bill was no exception. Because the referendum petition was legal, sufficient, and timely, the court said HB 1 never legally took effect. State officials have already petitioned the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to hear this case, arguing in part that it is too late to go back to the 2022 congressional map because it was already used in the August primary. They argue this will cause confusion. However, unless SCOTUS intervenes, voters will decide if the new map remains in place for future elections through Proposition A. > Supreme Court of Missouri has ruled: Missourians will vote on politicians' rigged map! Vote No on Prop A on Nov 3\. [pic.twitter.com/66G7ClhhBK](https://t.co/66G7ClhhBK?ref=ivn.us) > > — PeopleNotPoliticiansMO (@PeopleNotPolsMO) [September 3, 2026](https://x.com/PeopleNotPolsMO/status/2095634652283203585?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) ## Then, the Court Put Amendment 6 Back on the Ballot [On the same day](https://www.stlpr.org/government-politics-issues/2026-09-03/respect-missouri-voters-initiative-petitions?ref=ivn.us), the Missouri Supreme Court also rejected Hoskins’ attempt to prevent a proposed amendment that would make the state’s initiative and referendum process a fundamental right from appearing on the general election ballot. Amendment 6 also prohibits lawmakers from weakening those powers and would require approval from at least 80% of both legislative chambers before lawmakers could amend or repeal laws enacted through the initiative process. Or, enact laws similar to measures voters rejected by referendum. [Missouri Secretary of State Admits Popular Amendment Qualified — Says Voters Still Won’t Get a SayMissouri’s Secretary of State admitted in court that a proposed amendment to protect citizen initiatives had enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, but is still refusing to put it before voters.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-8fa6b18b-8604-43b2-b8f7-9bb093ff0525.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-d2e0d927-7161-4416-837c-1b2f3a84af55-abac1edb-abec-40cc-8d48-e5087a92a269.jpg)](https://ivn.us/missouri-secretary-of-state-admits-popular-amendment-qualified-says-voters-still-wont-get-a-say/) Respect Missouri Voters gathered more than 367,000 petition signatures to qualify the amendment for the ballot, but Hoskins rejected it on the grounds that it violated the state’s single-subject rule. While a lower court agreed that the proposal should stay off the ballot, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed that ruling in another unanimous opinion. The justices not only rejected pre-election claims that the proposal violated Missouri’s single-subject requirements, but they also said the secretary of state lacked authority to revoke a ballot title that had already been certified. [Veterans for All Voters](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?ref=ivn.us) Founder Eric Bronner, who supports the amendment, was quoted by KCUR, saying: > *“More than 367,000 Missourians signed petitions to put Amendment 6 before the voters. They followed the process, did the work, and earned a place on the ballot. Now the politicians are out of the way, and the decision belongs where it should have been all along — with Missouri voters.”* ## **A Bigger Question About Who Holds the Power** The Missouri Supreme Court did not rule on whether either initiative was good policy. It simply protected the mechanisms that allow citizens to make choices on what *they* think is good policy—or isn’t. In one case, voters used the referendum to challenge something lawmakers had already done. In the other, they used the initiative process to propose new limits on what lawmakers could do in the future. Both efforts were nearly stopped by the state’s chief elections officer before Missourians had a chance to vote. Now, barring federal intervention in the redistricting fight, voters will get the last word on both amendments. ### The Party Labels Are Fading. The Primary Rules Aren’t URL: https://ivn.us/the-party-labels-are-fading-the-primary-rules-arent/ Last updated: 2026-09-25T16:17:10.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* Millions of independent voters are shut out of the elections that determine who makes the decisions affecting their lives. That exclusion is especially powerful for independent voters of color. Housing. Health care. Jobs. Education. The issues are deeply personal. But too often, the political process is closed to the very people living with the consequences. In this video, Open Primaries board member Dr. Jessie Fields makes the case for opening primaries-and giving independent voters a real voice in the decisions that shape their families and communities. Read on for Dr. Field’s report from the field as she joined the Defend the Vote rally in our nation's capital this week. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/LetUsVote--2-.png) ## **As Summer Ends, A Trio of Postcards from the Movement** ### **From Washington, DC:** Dr. Jessie Fields, Open Primaries National Board member, attended the March on Washington/Defend the Vote Rally in Washington DC on August 28th, organized by Rev. Al Sharpton. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/jessie-fields--2-.png) ### **From NYC:** A Message to Mayor Mamdani from Independent Jeff Aron: ### **From Texas:** **A Message to GOP Leaders** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/sandi-hebly.jpg) Sandi Hebley has a message to TX GOP leadership – hands off our primary voting rights. [Check out her Letter here.](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/THE-DALLAS-MORNING-NEWS-Sandi-Hebley-08202026.pdf?ref=ivn.us) ## **What We're Reading** ## **The Independent Voters We’re Not Counting** What if the independent voter explosion is even bigger than we think? [In his latest op-ed](https://www.thecentersquare.com/opinion/article%5F23d0d4dd-4bd7-45f6-b0d3-02c4569f3022.html?ref=ivn.us), I argue that we’re missing a huge part of the story: millions of Americans are registered Democrats or Republicans but don’t actually consider themselves members of those parties. The numbers are startling. [In New York City](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/), nearly 4 in 10 registered Democrats say they’re really independents-and among Latino Democrats, just one in three actually identify as Democrats. The political system is still counting these voters as party members. The voters themselves have moved on. [As I note](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=dnIrh-RmrW06dGSfbsrz0ZLp5Y5O6sy2WGQ1ORa2eIK8RtrH-ip%5F6ULnkvTP6tOb7Aw6ZIya99OUfvG0cDoh%5FBMQJ4eMmIY39t-gSlhktmC6Xs9ry9YH%5FtS0a%5FuQxgFn&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F126%5F2&n=7): ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/gruber-quote.png) ## **Independents Speak Out** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/oprah.jpg) ## **It's Past Time to Reform Maryland's Primaries** Delegate Qi, who came of age in China’s cultural revolution, represents one of the largest immigrant districts in Maryland and has been widely heralded for energizing immigrant voters through her campaigns. In the following piece, she speaks forcefully of why so many immigrants of color are averse to party politics, registering as independent voters and then finding their voice wiped out in closed primary elections just as it was in the authoritarian regimes they left behind. As someone who knows very well what real authoritarianism is and what the promise of democracy demands, Delegate Qi [talks about the need to let independents into the election process](https://www.baltimoresun.com/2025/11/21/maryland-primary-elections/?ref=ivn.us) and why that’s so critical to preserving American democracy. As Delegate Qi notes: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/maryland-delegate-qi.png) [Read her powerful oped here.](https://www.baltimoresun.com/2025/11/21/maryland-primary-elections/?ref=ivn.us) ## **Did You Know?** ## **Record Low Competition in the Midterm General Elections Expected** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/unnamed--4-.png) Two reports, from [Unite America](https://www.uniteamerica.org/primary-problem?ref=ivn.us) and the [Cook Political Report](https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings?ref=ivn.us), offer sober predictions for the competitiveness of this year’s midterm general elections for Congress. The Cook report expects only 17 of the 435 House seats to be up for grabs between Republican and Democratic Party candidates with the rest firmly in control of either party. Meanwhile, a Unite analysis found 90% of U.S House and 80% of U.S Senate seats already predetermined. As Unite concluded: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/unite-america-quote.jpg) ## **Activities/Events** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/open-primaries-lisa-rice-event.png)](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/S59uL4--T0ulEdbx7SogoQ?ref=ivn.us#/registration) ### **The Personal Touch: Building Campaigns for Open Primaries that Inspire Voters** *What D.C.’s Successful Open Primaries Campaign Can Teach Reformers Nationwide* *September 10 at 2:00 PM ET. Featuring Lisa Rice, Founder of Grow Democracy DC. Moderated by Open Primaries President John Opdycke* Winning open primaries isn’t about policy. It’s about enfranchising voters who are shut out and building trust that changing the rules creates positive possibility and opportunity. If voters are not inspired, don’t trust campaign leadership, and don’t see a relationship between open voting and improving their lives - who cares what the policy is. In 2024, 73% of D.C. voters approved Initiative 83, voting to open the city’s taxpayer-funded primary elections and deploy ranked choice voting in the general election. But after the measure passed, ranked choice voting was implemented, and open primaries was shelved by the city council - leaving nearly 100,000 independent voters shut out. For nearly two years, the will of the voters was blocked. But **Lisa Rice, founder of Grow Democracy DC**, and her team don’t know how to take no for an answer - thank god! Please join us for a discussion about how the DC team went to the mattresses and forced the city council to implement open primaries in the nation’s capital. **Open Primaries President John Opdycke** will sit down with Lisa to explore what the D.C. campaign can teach reformers across the country: How do you make structural reform personal? How do you build a coalition that lasts beyond Election Day? And how can campaigns connect with and inspire voters in ways that move political leaders to act? [Join us on **September 10 at 2:00 PM ET**](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/S59uL4--T0ulEdbx7SogoQ?ref=ivn.us#/registration) for a behind-the-scenes conversation about what it takes to turn voter support into lasting political change. ### Did CBS Just Join Trump's Campaign Against Ranked Choice Voting? URL: https://ivn.us/did-cbs-just-join-trumps-campaign-against-ranked-choice-voting/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:45:25.000Z On Wednesday, CBS News published an article titled, “[Alaska's top 4 primary means a felon and 2 candidates with the same name will be on November ballot.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alaska-ranked-choice-voting-primary-results/?ref=ivn.us)” It’s a provocative headline that sounds like it’s for an op-ed piece. But it isn’t. It is written like a news piece. It also comes at the same time President Donald Trump is criticizing ranked choice voting in Alaska and a second repeal campaign is underway to undo the election reforms approved by voters in 2020. Does this mean there is a connection between Trump’s position and CBS’s choice in headlines? Not necessarily. The CBS headline isn’t technically wrong about the outcome. There are two Dan Sullivans in the US Senate race, including a Daniel J. Sullivan who Republicans accuse of being a Democratic plant, and a convicted felon in the at-large US House election. Alaska's nonpartisan primary advances the four candidates who receive the most votes, regardless of party, which means multiple Republicans, multiple Democrats, or candidates with no party affiliation can all advance together. But there is an important distinction between **who is allowed to run** and **who advances from the primary**. And this distinction is getting lost as a result of a narrative that blames nonpartisan primaries and ranked choice voting for the particular oddities in this year’s elections in Alaska. President Trump, who has endorsed repeal in Alaska, [attacked ranked choice voting again Wednesday](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-rants-against-crooked-ranked-193104547.html?ref=ivn.us) while discussing the Senate race. He called it a “crooked form of voting” and “totally dishonest.” Trump then offered a description bearing little resemblance to how ranked choice voting actually works: “They throw everybody into a hat and somebody backstage that nobody knows picks a winner.” Earlier this year, he called the voting reform “disastrous, and very fraudulent.” Against that backdrop, a national headline suggesting Alaska's Top Four system “means” voters are getting a felon and two Dan Sullivans risks reinforcing the same narrative: *Look at these bizarre candidates. Look at this bizarre election system.* Except the “bizarre” candidates aren't a product of ranked choice voting. Notably, when CBS News published the article, it had a headline that said "ranked-choice voting," not "top 4 primary." ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot_3-9-2026_142522_mail.google.com.jpeg) The story was then updated. Ranked choice voting (RCV) is not used in Alaska's nonpartisan primary. All voters and candidates participate on a single ballot. Voters choose one candidate. The four candidates who receive the most votes advance. RCV comes afterward, in November. Voters may rank the four candidates in order of preference. If no one receives a majority of first-choice selections, the candidate in last place is eliminated and their voters’ next choices are transferred accordingly. This process continues until one candidate has a majority. Since there are 4 candidates, this means at most two rounds of elimination. RCV has nothing to do with candidate eligibility. And when it comes to the specific things that the CBS News headline points at (a felon, same names), neither does the type of primary system used. For example, Democratic US House candidate Eric Hafner [is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in New York](https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/08/31/in-alaskas-u-s-house-race-two-of-the-final-candidates-dont-live-in-alaska-and-one-is-in-prison/?ref=ivn.us). His felony conviction is eye-catching. But the Constitution establishes only three qualifications for the House: 1. A representative must be at least 25, 2. A US citizen for 7 years; and 3. An inhabitant of the state in which they are running when elected. Neither federal nor state law explicitly states that felons are not allowed to run for Congress or any federal office (e.g. we have a president convicted of felonies). In fact, when it comes to Hafner, the more significant constitutional question [is his residency](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/26/alaska-us-house-primary-federal-prisoner-eric-hafner?ref=ivn.us), not his conviction. What primary system Alaska has or the voting method it uses in the general election doesn’t change any of this. Hafner could have sought a party nomination under Alaska's previous system. Before Top Four, Alaska also allowed candidates who were not party nominees to qualify directly for the general election through nominating petitions. For statewide federal office, that required signatures equal to 1% of the voters who participated in the preceding general election. ## Two Dan Sullivans Aren't a Top Four Invention Either Then there is Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and challenger Daniel J. Sullivan (also a Republican). The state initially attempted to disqualify the latter Sullivan after concluding his candidacy was intended to confuse voters. But the courts disagreed. The Alaska Supreme Court [ordered the state to put him on the ballot](https://alaskapublic.org/news/politics/elections/2026-06-29/alaska-justices-sound-skeptical-of-extreme-remedy-in-case-of-2-dan-sullivans?ref=ivn.us), upholding a lower-court finding that election officials could not create an additional “good faith” qualification that wasn't found in the Constitution, state law, or election regulations. That is a candidate-qualification issue, not an election-system issue. Under Alaska's old partisan election system, two people named Dan Sullivan could have run against each other in a Republican primary. Or, the second Sullivan could have qualified directly for the general election through the state’s petition process. Top Four changes **how they advance**. Ultimately, it is not the parties that decide. It is the voters. Every voter is guaranteed the right to vote in the primary, including the state’s independent majority (**63% of the electorate**). And they can choose anyone they want on the ballot. They can vote for a Republican in the US House race and a Democrat or independent or third-party candidate for US Senate. They are free to make those types of choices. This is the issue being overlooked by the press. ## The Press Isn’t Talking About the *Real* Voting Rights Issue at Stake The bizarre-candidate storyline obscures what Alaska's nonpartisan primary actually changed. Before 2022, Alaska used separate party ballots under a closed system, which restricted independent voter access. A majority of voters didn’t have the freedom to participate or have the choices they do today. And their right to vote in these taxpayer-funded elections was not guaranteed. One party allowed it. The other didn’t. And for the parties that did allow it, voters could only choose from candidates of that party in every single contest. That is the difference between a nonpartisan voter-nominated system and a partisan primary system. The first is founded on the principle that the right to vote derives from citizenship. The latter requires voters to first pick a party in order to have a meaningful say in elections. In other words, if Ballot Measure 2 passes in November, 63% of registered voters officially listed as undeclared or nonpartisan will no longer be guaranteed the right to vote in elections they fund. That should be the headline story. ### The Democratic Party Told Him To DROP OUT. He Said No. (Antonio Villaraigosa) | EP57 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/the-democratic-party-told-him-to-drop-out-he-said-no-antonio-villaraigosa-ep57/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:31.000Z When the polls said two Republicans might take the top two spots, California Democratic Party leadership went to work getting Democrats out of the governor's race. Antonio Villaraigosa was one of them. He said no - and he says the whole thing left a black mark on the party. The first Latino mayor of Los Angeles, former Speaker of the California Assembly, and recent candidate for governor sits down with the Independent Voter Podcast and doesn't flinch. He walks through the pressure campaign on himself, Xavier Becerra, Tony Thurmond and Betty Yee, why he never believed the two-Republican scenario for a single second, and what it says about a party that spent its money on polls instead of turnout. Along the way he goes after the $40 trillion national debt, the Pentagon's $1.5 trillion budget ask, and tax cuts he says the country can't afford - plus why he thinks independence is a mindset, not a party registration. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/the-democratic-party-told-him-to-drop-out-he-said-no-antonio-villaraigosa?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1MdFuZRw5btodOve0qx0Mk?si=uNOb8u67RASExy19IHap3w&ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-democratic-party-told-him-to-drop-out-he-said-no/id1680559155?i=1000787521608&ref=ivn.us)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, hosts **Cara McCormick** and **Chad Peace** sit down with **Antonio Villaraigosa**, the first Latino **mayor of Los Angeles** and former **Speaker of the California Assembly**, fresh off his run in the last **California gubernatorial election**. He opens by explaining a campaign-trail line that stuck with voters: "if you want to be loved, get a dog," tying it to his belief that being respected matters more than being popular, especially when it means breaking from his own party. Villaraigosa gets specific on fiscal policy, noting the **national debt** just crossed **$40 trillion** and connecting his long involvement with the **Fix the Debt** organization to his time running the city of Los Angeles. He argues wartime spending in **Iraq**, **Afghanistan** and **Iran** has crowded out domestic priorities like **Medicare** and **Social Security**, and flags the Pentagon's **$1.5 trillion budget** request alongside **Trump-era tax cuts** he says the country can't afford. The conversation turns personal when Villaraigosa admits he misses having **Barack Obama** and **Bill Clinton** in the White House, framing his critique of the current economy around working people who can't keep up with the cost of living while high earners benefit disproportionately from tax policy. Cara presses him on the party pressure campaign to clear the 2026 primary field, and Villaraigosa confirms he, **Xavier Becerra**, **Tony Thurmond** and **Betty Yee** were all pushed by **California Democratic Party** leadership to drop out over fears that two Republicans, **Chad Bianco** and **Steve Hilton**, could take both top two primary spots. He says flatly he never believed that outcome for a second, calling it statistically implausible even as insiders panicked. He goes further, arguing the party spent money on polling instead of turnout and persuasion, and says the failed strategy "left a black mark" on that whole effort, especially since one of the candidates they tried to sideline is now positioned to be the next governor. Chad, Cara, and Villaraigosa then debate **voter ID**, with Villaraigosa explaining his opposition to **California Proposition 39**, arguing there's no documented widespread voter fraud in the U.S. and that ID requirements burden lower-income and older voters. Cara notes a New Jersey DMV case involving roughly **6,500 noncitizens** found on voter rolls and Chad challenges him to identify the changes he believes would make a voter ID bill acceptable. Villaraigosa concedes that he'd need to review the amendment line by line, but maintains his opposition to the current version and to the federal **SAVE Act**. Chad closes the debate by pivoting to the show's core mission, arguing that **closed primaries** in states like New York and New Jersey disenfranchise far more voters than ID rules do, since independents there are legally barred from voting in taxpayer-funded primaries. Villaraigosa agrees that trust in both parties is collapsing and says Democrats and Republicans alike will have to "put the country before the party" to win back independent and decline-to-state voters, before signing off and confirming he plans to back Becerra in the general election. ### Pentagon In Chaos. Driscoll Out. Hegseth Paying Trolls on X. Plus: Independents Flex Nationally URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/pentagon-in-chaos-driscoll-out-hegseth-paying-trolls-on-x-plus-independents-flex-nationally/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T16:09:07.000Z Army Secretary Dan Driscoll just walked into the Oval Office and resigned to President Trump personally — a Ukraine hawk, a drone-defense innovator, and a JD Vance ally who had finally had enough of Pete Hegseth. Paul Rieckhoff joins Connell McShane on News Nation to break down the flag officer promotions Hegseth has frozen, the reporting that he's paying people inside the Pentagon to troll Americans on X, an Iran war going poorly, and why Hegseth is on thinner ice than anyone else in the cabinet. Then to the Senate map — Ed Markey beating Marine veteran Seth Moulton in a closed Massachusetts primary that locked out more than 60% of the state's independents, and the rise of independent veteran candidates Todd Achilles in Idaho, Brian Bengs in South Dakota, and Seth Bodnar in Montana. Independent is an Attitude. Stay vigilant. **Get the latest episodes of Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff on the podcast's** [**YouTube channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentamericans?ref=ivn.us)**.** Paul Rieckhoff joins Connell McShane for his weekly appearance on NewsNation as Army Secretary Dan Driscoll becomes the latest high-level departure from a Pentagon in turmoil — with Axios reporting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth now has fewer leaders and fewer critical weapons six months into the war with Iran. "Chaos is the norm under Hegseth," Paul says, and the turnover is staggering. He argues Driscoll's exit matters most because he quit: a voice of conscience and reason on the inside, an innovator strong on Ukraine and drone defense, and a close ally of JD Vance who resigned to Trump personally and voiced his concerns on the way out. Paul reads it as a breaking point that exposes a widening cleavage inside the Pentagon — one deepened by Hegseth blocking promotions for senior officers, reporting about staff paid to troll critics online, and plans to summon senior leaders back to Washington for another culture-war address. With the Iran war going badly and Sen. Thom Tillis calling for his replacement, Paul says Hegseth is on thinner ice than anyone else in the cabinet. On the midterms, Paul reads Ed Markey's win over Marine veteran Seth Moulton as another victory for the Democratic left inside the party — and another loss nationally. Progressives and the DSA can reliably turn out in primaries, he argues, but those wins become general election nightmares once the map moves to purple and red states. With Democrats moving left and Republicans moving right, more and more moderates and independents are left politically homeless. Paul points to Massachusetts as a case study: plenty of independents, but a closed primary where the general election is effectively over before it starts. Citing polling on where independents actually stand — strong support for taxing corporations and billionaires, majority support for government-provided health care, and notably low support for continued military and economic aid to Israel — he argues this is what the future looks like. Independents are already the outright majority in Rhode Island and outnumber both parties in New Hampshire, with primaries there next week, and at least five or six Senate races now feature increasingly competitive independent veterans, including Todd Achilles in Idaho, Brian Bengs in South Dakota, and Seth Bodnar in Montana. ### What Voters Deserve from Our Energy Future: 6 Strategies for Reliable, Affordable Power URL: https://ivn.us/what-voters-deserve-from-our-energy-future-6-strategies-for-reliable-affordable-power/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T15:37:31.000Z Most American voters want the same basic things from our energy system: lights that stay on, gas they can afford, jobs that pay the bills, and clean air and water for their kids and grandkids. You shouldn’t have to pick just one of these. You deserve all of them. For more than a century, oil and gas powered almost everything in our lives. They helped build the modern United States and supported millions of jobs. They were what we had, and they were necessary. But today, new technologies are opening the door to cheaper, cleaner, and more secure energy—from solar and wind to advanced batteries and fusion power. We don’t need to “shut off” oil and gas overnight. We need a smart “all-of-the-above” approach that keeps what works while building what’s next. Below are 6 strategies American voters should expect and ask for from any serious energy plan: ## 1\. An “All-of-the-Above” Energy Strategy You shouldn’t be forced into an either-or choice: oil and gas or clean energy. A strong America needs both right now. Oil and gas still power cars, trucks, planes, farms, and many factories. They keep people warm in winter and cool in summer. Turning them off quickly would mean higher prices and less reliability, which hits working families first. At the same time, solar, wind, geothermal, fusion, and other clean sources are getting cheaper, safer, and stronger every year. A smart plan keeps using oil and gas while we build up cleaner options. That means modernizing old systems, reducing waste and pollution, and gradually shifting more and more of our energy to sources that are cleaner and cheaper over time. ## 2\. Reliable Power and Fair Prices Most voters don’t wake up thinking about “energy policy.” They think about their power bill, their gas tank, and whether the grid will fail in a heat wave or winter storm. You deserve a system that puts reliability and fair prices first. That means investing in the power grid so it can handle storms, heat, and growing demand from things like electric cars and data centers. It means using different kinds of energy so if one source is strained, others can fill the gap. Oil, gas, fusion, hydro, solar, wind, and more can work together. When leaders promise big changes but ignore reliability, regular people pay the price. Voters should expect plans that keep energy steady, strong, and affordable. ## 3\. Honest Information, Not Spin Energy debates are full of scare tactics. One side may say, “If we move to clean energy, the economy will collapse.” Another may claim, “If we keep using oil and gas, the planet is doomed tomorrow.” Most voters know the truth is more complicated. You deserve clear, honest information, not headlines designed to make you angry or afraid. A fair conversation should tell you the real costs and benefits of each energy source. Oil and gas are powerful and reliable, but they pollute and are tied to global tensions. Solar and wind are clean and getting cheaper, but they depend on weather and need better storage. Nuclear is steady and carbon-free, but people worry about safety and waste. Leaders owe you plain talk about trade-offs, timelines, and how changes will affect your bill, your job, and your town—not just talking points. ## 4\. Investment in the Future: Fusion Power and Salt Batteries Oil and gas powered the last century; new technologies can power the next. Many scientists are working on fusion, a type of energy that copies how the sun makes power. We're seeing recent breakthroughs with enormous potential. If we can get it to work at scale, fusion could give us huge amounts of energy with no smokestacks and very little waste. Some experts see fusion as the future of energy, and predict that practical fusion plants may be only five years away. We're also seeing rapid progress in advanced batteries, including designs that use common materials like salt. A typical lithium battery is like a phone battery that gets weaker every year. But sodium batteries are tough. They can be charged and emptied over 10,000 times. This means your car battery could easily last 20 years or a million miles—long enough to pass the car down to your kids. Salt batteries go further in the cold. This is another game-changer. Lithium batteries "freeze up" and lose power in the winter. Sodium batteries love the cold. They keep 90 percent of their power even at 40 degrees below zero. In a blizzard, a sodium car will actually go much further than a lithium car because it doesn't waste energy just trying to stay warm. Voters should look for leaders who support strong research and development in these areas. Oil and gas will still matter for years, but building the next wave of energy now can mean cheaper, cleaner, and more secure power down the road. ## 5\. Respect for Workers and Communities Energy isn’t just about machines and wires. It’s about people and places. Many American families depend on oil, gas, and coal jobs. Their work has powered this country for generations. Moving toward new forms of energy should not mean turning our backs on them. A fair plan respects workers in traditional energy fields and gives them real options, not just slogans. That can mean retraining programs, incentives to bring new energy projects into old energy towns, and help for small businesses that depend on these industries. New jobs should be good jobs, with solid pay and benefits. Voters can ask a simple question of any energy plan: Does it protect and honor the people who built America’s energy system while preparing the next generation for the jobs of the future? ## 6\. Putting Families Ahead of Special Interests Big money has always played a part in energy decisions, from oil and gas companies to large utilities and even some clean energy firms. But regular voters are the ones who feel the results: higher bills, local pollution, or power failures. You deserve an energy policy that puts families and communities first, not lobbyists. That means more transparency about who is funding which policies. It means rules that prevent any one group from writing all the laws in its own favor. It also means listening to people who live near refineries, pipelines, wind farms, and power plants, instead of treating them as an afterthought. When leaders put families first, they focus on health, safety, and long-term stability—not just short-term profit or political wins. ## A Future That Works for Everyone American voters don’t all agree on politics, but most agree on this: we want energy that is reliable, affordable, and as clean as we can reasonably make it. Oil and gas helped build the country and are still important today. At the same time, new tools—from solar and wind to fusion power and salt-based batteries—give us a chance to aim for cheaper, cleaner, nearly limitless power in the years ahead. You shouldn’t have to choose between keeping the lights on now and building a better future. A strong “all-of-the-above” energy strategy can honor the past, meet today’s needs, and open the door to tomorrow’s breakthroughs. The real question is not whether we pick one source over another, but whether we build an energy system that finally works for the people who depend on it most: American families, workers, and communities. --- **Dustin Dunbar**, an Independent, is running for U.S. presidency. As founder/CEO of [FreeHealthInsuranceHelp.com](https://l.gourl.es/l/d28a1c13b0525e51000ddb4536679167b6051f9f?w=RWRpdG9yQGl2bi51cw&u=5002439&ref=ivn.us) (since 2009) and division manager for HealthMarkets before that, he's assisted tens of thousands of Americans. He founded the wellness non-profit [AlcoholFreeRevolution.org](https://l.gourl.es/l/220e83f40ddbd44a672337fbb77e694c53bff1e7?w=RWRpdG9yQGl2bi51cw&u=5002439&ref=ivn.us), is a real estate entrepreneur, was an appraiser for First Alliance Mortgage, and modeled for Ford Model Agency. He holds a PhD in psychology from Saybrook University. His books include [*You're Doing Great! And Other Lies Alcohol Told Me*](https://l.gourl.es/l/c453f3f4286f492130fa13d056ea3f10887c5005?w=RWRpdG9yQGl2bi51cw&u=5002439&ref=ivn.us)*,* [*Her Holiness*](https://l.gourl.es/l/7f0f48f4b950b3ff4c31cbbb9fd6d91874a203a6?w=RWRpdG9yQGl2bi51cw&u=5002439&ref=ivn.us), and [*Make America Whole Again: A Blueprint for Leading the AI Age, Empowering Global Security, and Reuniting the Nation*](https://l.gourl.es/l/2e08f829135997c1aab6c74e606803b9b5013080?w=RWRpdG9yQGl2bi51cw&u=5002439&ref=ivn.us)*.* Learn more at [**Dustin-Dunbar.com**](https://l.gourl.es/l/098595c5e9f747675726649b5c39c3c5f39243be?w=RWRpdG9yQGl2bi51cw&u=5002439&ref=ivn.us)**.** ### Why Undoing Top Two Would Be a Step Backward for California URL: https://ivn.us/why-undoing-top-two-would-be-a-step-backward-for-california/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:45:06.000Z Steve Maviglio recently posted a tweet asking a snarky question: How many independent candidates actually made it into the top two this year to be considered in California's general elections? The implication was clear. If independents aren't winning, the argument goes, then the state's nonpartisan Top Two primary system isn't really serving them, so why not scrap it? > How many independent candidates are on the November ballot in California? It’s time to [@undotoptwo](https://x.com/undotoptwo?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) so voters have choices. [https://t.co/nUbwVQRlYk](https://t.co/nUbwVQRlYk?ref=ivn.us) > > — Steven Maviglio (@stevenmaviglio) [August 28, 2026](https://x.com/stevenmaviglio/status/2093370865266364785?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) It's a clever question. It's also a disingenuous one because the Top Two open primary in California isn’t designed to elect an independent candidate; it’s designed to allow independent voters to participate alongside party members and elect anyone they want. Maviglio, a Democratic Party political operative, is the formal proponent of "Undo the Top Two," a 2026 ballot-measure campaign to repeal the nonpartisan Top Two primary that California voters adopted in 2010 and return the state to partisan primaries. His coalition is an odd bipartisan mix: former California Republican Party chair Ron Nehring, Reform California's Carl DeMaio, labor leader Lorena Gonzalez, and California Democratic Party chair Rusty Hicks. Their shared complaint is that Top Two primaries sometimes produce same-party general election matchups, Democrat against Democrat or Republican against Republican, leaving some voters without a candidate from their own party on the November ballot. Now Maviglio is complaining the system does not produce independent candidates. Maviglio calls all of this undemocratic. But look at what he's actually proposing to fix it. Closing California's primaries wouldn't give independents more power. It would take away the only power they currently have. Here's the reality: more than 5.2 million Californians are registered with No Party Preference. Under a closed primary system, all of these voters would lose the ability to help choose candidates in taxpayer-funded primary elections. They wouldn't just have less influence. They'd have none, unless they registered with a party they don't actually belong to. Most same-party general election matchups don't happen because independents are being shortchanged by the Top Two format. They happen because of how a particular district actually votes. A heavily Democratic district produces two Democrats in November because that's what the electorate there wants. A heavily Republican district does the same in reverse. That's not a flaw in the system. That's the system reflecting the voters who live there. What Maviglio's proposal would actually do is hand control back to party insiders, the people who benefit most when primaries are restricted to registered partisans and closed off to everyone else. It's no coincidence that his coalition includes party chairs from both sides of the aisle. Party leadership doesn't love the Top Two primary because it dilutes their control over who advances to the general election. Closing the primaries again would restore that control, at the direct expense of independent voters. And the timing could not be worse. California is in the middle of a real shift in how people register to vote. Voters are leaving both the Democratic and Republican Parties in meaningful numbers, including a notable trend among Latino voters moving away from party registration and toward independent status. These aren't fringe voters. They are a growing, diverse bloc that increasingly doesn't see itself reflected in either party. Locking primaries behind party membership right as more Californians are choosing not to affiliate with one would disenfranchise exactly the voters who are trending toward independence. Independent voters are not a loophole in California's election system that needs to be closed. They are the fastest-growing segment of the electorate, and they are already paying for these elections with their tax dollars. They deserve to continue to have a voice in every publicly funded election, including the primary, not just the general. Maviglio is now trying to frame this as a fight about fairness for minor-party candidates. It isn't. It's a fight over who holds power in California elections: the millions of voters who have chosen not to affiliate with either party, or the party insiders who would rather they didn't get a say until November. Power in California's elections should rest with the voters, all of them, not with the people trying to write independents out of the process while pretending they are on their side. That principle already has real backing in Sacramento. [Fourteen California Democrats](https://getmorechoice.org/right-to-vote?ref=ivn.us) just introduced [ACA 24](https://ivn.us/a-dozen-california-democrats-defend-independent-voters-against-a-party-driven-effort-to-undo-the-top-two-nonpartisan-primary/), a constitutional amendment that would guarantee every voter the right to participate in publicly funded elections regardless of party affiliation. Their willingness to defend that right, even against leaders and political operatives from their own party, is exactly the kind of voter-first leadership California can be proud of. ### Irvine Elected Its Mayor With 39% of the Vote. Now Voters Can Change the Rules URL: https://ivn.us/irvine-elected-its-mayor-with-39-of-the-vote-now-voters-can-change-the-rules/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:44:56.000Z **IRVINE, Calif.**—In 2024, [Larry Agran](https://www.mayorlarryagran.org/?ref=ivn.us) won a seven-candidate mayoral race in Irvine with less than 39% of the vote. That same year, the winners of five-candidate contests in City Council Districts 1 and 2 each captured less than a third of the vote. Under Irvine's current "choose-one" plurality voting system, that is enough to win. A measure headed to Irvine voters this November would change how those winners are decided. [Measure D would adopt ranked choice voting](https://ballotpedia.org/Irvine,%5FCalifornia,%5FMeasure%5FD,%5FRanked-Choice%5FVoting%5FMeasure%5F%28November%5F2026%29?ref=ivn.us) (RCV) for mayoral and city council elections, replacing the plurality system that has produced winners without majority support. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/Da1n-Bqk-dq/?ref=ivn.us) Under RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated, and those ballots are redistributed to each voter's next choice. The process repeats until one candidate has a majority and is declared the winner. Irvine is not the only Orange County city considering ranked choice voting. An OC Superior Court judge has [ordered Huntington Beach to implement RCV](https://voiceofoc.org/2026/06/oc-judge-orders-huntington-beach-to-switch-to-a-new-election-system/?ref=ivn.us) as soon as this November's general election, a remedy meant to address complaints that the city's at-large elections disenfranchise minority voters. Huntington Beach is challenging that ruling in court rather than following the route many cities and school districts have taken in recent years, switching to district elections to head off similar lawsuits. [OC Registrar of Voters Bob Page](https://ocvote.gov/community/election-official-partnership/staff-directory?ref=ivn.us) has said he cannot offer a cost estimate for what a ranked-choice election would run, because his office has never administered one. In a letter filed in the Huntington Beach case, Page said the county does not currently have a state-certified voting system capable of conducting a ranked-choice contest. ## How the Measure Reached the Ballot On April 28, the [Irvine City Council voted 4-3](https://voiceofoc.org/2026/07/irvine-asks-voters-to-change-election-system-while-budget-deficit-looms/?ref=ivn.us) to direct the City Attorney to present a draft ordinance and cost analysis by May 15\. The push began when council members [Betty Martinez-Franco](https://www.bettyforirvine.com/?ref=ivn.us), [Kathleen Treseder](https://www.treseder4irvine.com/?ref=ivn.us) and [Melinda Liu](https://www.melindaliuirvine.com/?ref=ivn.us) sent the city manager a letter requesting the discussion, explaining that RCV eliminates "spoiler effects" and ensures the broadest possible community support. "Those of us who are close to the elections know who the spoilers are and who's doing it, but the public at large wouldn't necessarily know," Treseder said. Martinez-Franco framed the effort as "giving Irvine voters more choice." She added, "I like the fact that we can rank all of our candidates and we have that choice, but for those who are purists and want one candidate and one vote, they can still do that. It's a choice for everybody." On July 14, the council voted 4-3 to place Measure D on the November 3 general election ballot. Martinez-Franco, Treseder, and Liu secured the necessary fourth vote from Councilmember [William Go](https://cityofirvine.gov/city-council/councilmember-william-go-district-2?ref=ivn.us). Mayor Agran and council members [James Mai](https://cityofirvine.gov/city-council/vice-mayor-james-mai-district-3?ref=ivn.us) and Mike Carroll voted no, the same opponents as in April. Treseder introduced the measure, arguing it would help stop special interests from using "spoiler" candidates to split the vote. Liu framed her support as a matter of deferring to voters. "This is something that will fundamentally change the way Irvine residents choose their representatives, and the decision to adopt it belongs to the voters," she said, adding, "My personal opinion doesn't matter at that point, because it is up to the voters." If passed, Measure D directs the city to transition to RCV for elections after January 1, 2028, provided the shift is technically and financially feasible. Current OC voting machines don't support RCV, but the city attorney said the expectation is that they will by November 2028. ## How Opponents of RCV Use Cost to Win Points Cost has emerged as the central point of debate. Some news coverage has reported that the switch could substantially increase election expenses, with one report suggesting it could roughly quadruple them. Measure D ties any transition to a cost cap of 0.23% of the city budget, which, city staffers estimated, would translate in 2028 to about $750,000\. If implementation exceeds that cap, the council will scrap RCV for the 2028 election. For now, the city has allocated $15,000 to put the measure before voters. But the ultimate price tag remains uncertain, and opponents are leaning in on that uncertainty. “Moving to a new system — can we do that technically? And at what cost?” Mayor Agran asked. “And this is all speculation, but I’m almost certain you can’t do it for $700,000\. We can’t even hold a simple special election in Irvine for $700,000\. But to change all the technology and the ballot and everything associated with it — especially when we’re first in — I’ve been told would cost millions.” "If it's $1.5 million, if it's $2 million, $3 million, we don't know. We're just guesstimating how much it's going to cost," Mai said. Irvine is also grappling separately with a projected budget shortfall in the coming years, a concern raised by residents who argued that the added expense and voter-education burden are not worth it. The cost concerns dominating Irvine's debate echo a familiar pattern in ranked choice voting fights across the country, where opponents' inflated estimates have often preceded far smaller actual bills. Maine offers the clearest history: When citizens voted to adopt RCV, then-Secretary of State Matt Dunlap (a staunch opponent of RCV) projected the switch could cost up to $1.5 million. The reality came in well below that. According to the Maine secretary of state's office, the added cost for the 2018 cycle, startup costs plus costs for the primary and general elections combined, totaled $441,804, with 90% of that cost stemming from the cost of printing an extra page of ballots. Irvine City Clerk Carl Petersen said the city’s last general election cost about $340,000. ## **Nonpartisan Coalition Backing RCV** Supporters of a switch to RCV argue that the current system leaves too many voters unrepresented. The measure has drawn support from across the political spectrum. Both the [Democrats of Greater Irvine](https://www.democratsofgreaterirvine.org/?ref=ivn.us) and the [California Libertarian Party](https://ca.lp.org/?ref=ivn.us) have endorsed it. Tiffany Im, a Libertarian resident of the Woodbury neighborhood, says RCV lets voters "look beyond party labels." [Dr. Kev Abazajian](https://sites.uci.edu/abazajian/?ref=ivn.us), a UCI physics professor and chair of Democrats of Greater Irvine, frames the measure as a matter of majority rule rather than partisanship. [Branda Lin](https://www.instagram.com/brandalinirvine/?ref=ivn.us), director of [Voter Choice Irvine](https://www.voterchoiceirvine.org/?ref=ivn.us), says RCV means voters can "vote their conscience" without fear of casting a wasted vote. Lin points to Irvine's recent elections, where spoiler candidates and vote splitting have routinely produced winners with only about a third of the vote. The reform is not new to California or the country. [Arash Sayadi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/arashsayadi?ref=ivn.us), Orange County Coordinator at [CalRCV](https://www.calrcv.org/?ref=ivn.us), says roughly 17 million Americans already live in places that use RCV, including about 50 cities, counties, and states, as well as statewide elections in Maine and Alaska. Seven California cities use it, beginning with San Francisco in 2004, followed by Redondo Beach, Berkeley, Oakland, Albany, San Leandro and Eureka. If Measure D passes, Irvine would become the first Orange County city to adopt RCV. Redondo Beach was the first city in Southern California to do so, in 2025. Perhaps the most notable endorsement for RCV in Irvine is from the Orange County Register's editorial board, whose favorable take stands out given the paper's conservative-leaning reputation. The board invoked the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis's description of states as "laboratories of democracy" and said it was "intrigued" by the council's decision. It also noted that San Francisco's "moderate, reform-minded" Mayor Daniel Lurie won under RCV and wrote of its openness to rule changes that improve choice and representation rather than engineer partisan outcomes, with a caveat that "it's best to limit expectations." RCV's main goal, the board wrote, is to better reflect voters' will. It said it doubts that RCV is a "panacea" for the nation's political divisions, but it likes that cities are experimenting. Not everyone is convinced. Mayor Agran has publicly cautioned against overpromising what RCV can deliver, saying he sees attractive features in the system but does not want people to "delude" themselves about what it actually delivers. A quick author's note: [Rey López-Calderón](https://www.prorepcoalition.org/team/rey-l%C3%B3pez-calder%C3%B3n?ref=ivn.us), a strategic advisor for More Equitable Democracy, and I have been longtime figures in ranked choice voting advocacy and are graduates of [University High School in Irvine](https://universityhigh.iusd.org/?ref=ivn.us). When we were students there, Agran was serving his first term as mayor of Irvine, which ran from 1982 to 1984\. Agran, now 81, holds that same office again today, roughly 45 years later. ### Washington Finally United America: 89% Say Government Corruption Is Widespread URL: https://ivn.us/washington-finally-united-america-89-say-government-corruption-is-widespread/ Last updated: 2026-09-07T18:31:18.000Z In a political system that incentivizes division and hyper-partisanship, there isn't much coming out of Washington that can unite voters. But there is one issue that is bringing nearly everyone together: They think government corruption is everywhere. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/09/Gallup-Perceived-Corruption.png) A record-high 89% of Americans believe corruption is widespread throughout the US government, [according to Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/713933/record-high-say-government-corruption-widespread.aspx?ref=ivn.us). This is a 10-point jump from just one year ago—the largest single-year increase since 2006-2007. And independent voters are even more pessimistic. Gallup found 90% of independents believe corruption is present in every corner of government, up 12 points from 2024\. That puts independents roughly in line with Democrats, at 91%, while 83% of Republicans say the same. Think about that for a second. It is getting harder and harder to identify 80-20 issues, much less 90-10, but clearly US voters look at what is happening at the federal level and nearly everyone agrees: something stinks. Notably, Gallup is not making any determination of how much illegal or illicit conduct exists in government. It only records perception. However, perception matters when it comes to democratic legitimacy. A political system cannot simply assume public confidence when overwhelming numbers of its citizens, both party members and independents, believe the system itself is compromised. Especially, when the system does not incentivize those in power to change this perception. The number of Americans who believe corruption is widespread in government hasn't dipped below 70% at any point in modern history. And yet, those in power have done nothing to clean up Washington. In the minds of voters, it is only getting dirtier. ## Independent Voters Aren't Just Following the Partisan Tide Independent voters are an important bloc to examine here because their perception is not influenced by who is in the White House or who has the majority in Congress. Democratic attitudes toward corruption shifted dramatically after control of the White House changed. Just 57% of Democrats said government corruption was widespread during President Biden's final year in office. That jumped to 76% during President Trump's first year back in office and now stands at 91%. Republicans have been more consistent. About 8 in 10 currently see widespread corruption, even with Republicans controlling the White House and Congress. But the skepticism among independents has persisted, regardless of which party is in power. Their confidence in the legislative and executive branches, along with the government's ability to handle major problems, has fallen more than 20 points since the 1970s. That type of decline matters when examining the growth of independent voters. Gallup reported in January that a record 45% of US adults identified politically as independent in 2025, compared with just 27% each identifying as Republicans or Democrats. In some states, registered independent voters make up the majority (look at Alaska, Colorado, and Massachusetts.) Gallup polling alone may not prove that perceived corruption and institutional distrust are two factors in the rise of independents. But the trends are difficult to ignore side by side: **Voters are refusing to join a party at the same time confidence in those parties and institutions controlled by them remains extraordinarily low.** ## This Isn't Just One Poll Gallup's corruption numbers fit a much larger pattern. Pew Research Center [reported in December](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/12/04/public-trust-in-government-1958-2025/?ref=ivn.us) that just 17% of Americans trusted the federal government to do what is right always or most of the time. At the same time, [an AP-NORC poll](https://apnorc.org/projects/2026-the-publics-priorities-and-expectations/?ref=ivn.us) found only 11% of Americans were extremely or very confident that the federal government could make progress on the nation's biggest problems. Among independents, that number was just 5%. And Gallup reported in July that average confidence across 14 major American institutions stood at only 27%, a figure that has remained below 30% for five consecutive years. Twelve of the 14 institutions tracked were at or near their historic lows. There is a bigger issue here than whether voters approve of Donald Trump, congressional Republicans, Democrats, or any individual politician. Presidents change. Congressional majorities change. The party voters blame changes. The distrust doesn't. When 90% of independent voters believe corruption is widespread, the question for America's political establishment isn't simply how to win their votes in November. It's why they should trust the system asking for their votes in the first place. ### Perot 2.0 Isn’t a Candidate. It’s a Movement URL: https://ivn.us/perot-2-0-isnt-a-candidate-its-a-movement/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:43:58.000Z *Editor's Note: This commentary* [*originally published*](https://thefulcrum.us/elections/your-site-com-perot-2-0-the-independent-movement-resurgence?ref=ivn.us) *on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN as part of a joint partnership with the publication and the Latino News Network.* On February 20, 1992, Texas businessman Ross Perot appeared on *Larry King Live* and set in motion a significant challenge to the two-party status quo. *I’m not asking to be drafted. But if the people want to register me in all 50 states, I’ll promise you this: between now and the conventions we’ll get both parties’ heads straight.* Hundreds of thousands of Americans responded. Volunteers put him on the ballot. By June he was leading in the polls. Even after dropping out of the race for a month (someone should write a book about why he did that), he received 20,000,000 votes. The Perot movement shook up American politics. The major parties reacted. First, they developed *competing* strategies to get voters back in line. The Republicans were the clear winners in this regard. They crafted the [Contract with America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract%5Fwith%5FAmerica?ref=ivn.us) and, in 1994, secured their first Congressional majority in 70 years by preaching balanced budgets (delivered) and term limits (lost in the mail). The Democrats floundered. They preached campaign finance reform and practiced triangulation, both of which failed to capture the spirit of radical change that Perot unleashed. The crime bill locked up hundreds of thousands of people of color in the name of public safety, and campaign finance reform unintentionally unleashed a geyser of cash into the system. They also advanced a *cooperative* strategy to ensure there could never be another Perot. The rules, norms, and culture of politics (ballot access, sore loser laws, fusion, media coverage, debates, the FEC and more) were tweaked to diminish the likelihood of an independent insurgency ever again capturing the American people’s imagination. Independents fought back. Many of us attempted to convert Perot’s candidacy into a durable third force, the Reform Party. We fought hard and worked hard, but we ultimately failed, not because there wasn’t interest, but because we could not figure out how to build an anti-party party while under constant attack from both major parties. Perot never got the parties’ heads straight. We were not able to build a third-party alternative. But independents are not averse to failure! We’ve gotten back on the horse and are driving new candidacies, new reforms, and new conversations to inspire Americans to take our country back from power-crazed partisans. In the 1990s we failed to create a new political party. In 2026, we are breaking new ground. Here’s what I’m seeing: 1\. **Independent candidacies are surging.** Even the New York Times has to admit [something is brewing](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/us/politics/independent-candidates-challenge-republicans.html?ref=ivn.us), although they have the nerve to write about it as if it is a Democratic Party strategy! Thousands of people are running for local, state, and federal offices as independents. Joe and Heather Manchin partnered with Adam Brandon to form the [Independent Leadership Council](https://youtu.be/qRVp6wqfbbI?si=w6eZmcolMEwrQQdT&ref=ivn.us) and are working to ensure the American people have the opportunity to send 3-5 independents to Congress -- independents who won't caucus with either party once elected. [Independent Veterans of America](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us), the [Forward Party](https://www.forwardparty.com/?ref=ivn.us), the[ Good Party](https://goodparty.org/?ref=ivn.us), [United Independents](https://independentnationalconvention.com/?ref=ivn.us), [Independent Voice,](https://www.independent-voice.com/?ref=ivn.us) and many others are inspiring and supporting insurgent independents from Maine to Washington. When I first got involved in independent politics in the late 1980s, independent candidacies tended to be single-issue crusades to make a point, not change the game. That has evolved dramatically. Find the independent candidates running in your state. Chances are they are running to save our country from a failing [two-party system](https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/leaving-a-political-party?ref=ivn.us), not to champion a pet issue. 2\. [**Independent voters**](https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/independent-voters-primaries?ref=ivn.us) **are surging.** 10,000 Americans change their [voter registration](https://thefulcrum.us/how-to-register-to-vote-2658378153?ref=ivn.us) status from D or R to I every week. [CNN puts independents at 48%](https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/16/politics/cnn-poll-political-parties-independent-democrats-republicans?ref=ivn.us) of the electorate. Latino independent turnout in California primaries has[ surged ](https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article316626339.html?ref=ivn.us)[40%](https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article316626339.html?ref=ivn.us) since 2022, three times the overall turnout growth. New Mexico independents won the right to vote in primaries in 2024, and [38,000 of them voted in the 2026](https://newmexico.letusvote.org/?ref=ivn.us) contests despite confusing information from county boards of elections. Independent voters in NYC flooded charter commission hearings with a simple message - I can’t vote! - and made primary reform the [most talked-about issue of 2025\. ](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/nyregion/new-york-open-primary-elections.html?ref=ivn.us)In states where they cannot fully participate, independents are [going to court](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us), putting measures [on the ballot](https://coalitionforhealthydemocracy.org/?ref=ivn.us), and/or [pressuring legislators](https://www.baltimoresun.com/2025/11/21/maryland-primary-elections/?ref=ivn.us) to fix the situation. In states where they can vote, independents are participating in higher numbers. In 2026, Ross Perot 2.0 is shaping up - without a Ross Perot. A combination of organized efforts and organic developments. Independent candidacies and open primaries. A movement built around the core American principles of fairness and competition. Open Primaries let all voters vote in every election for whomever they want. Independent candidates expose the dismal record of the [bipartisan](https://thefulcrum.us/can-bipartisanship-survive-rise-the-independent-voter?ref=ivn.us) cartel and create new governing possibilities. Some campaigns are well funded and highly strategic. Others are micro-funded grassroots responses to on-the-ground partisan dysfunction. It’s a movement. And we are stronger than before. Make no mistake, the parties are paying close attention. They are not stupid. They know the American people are fed up with gerrymandering, incompetence, self-enrichment, and blame-the-other-side opportunism while our position in the world deteriorates. In the 1990’s, they were able to put the independent genie back in the partisan bottle. But Perot 2.0 (Perot-without-a-Perot) is stronger, more diverse, more flexible, and more appealing. Keep your eye on the independents. --- **John Opdycke* is the president of* [*Open Primaries*](https://openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*, a national election reform organization.* ### Forget the Polls. Bettors Are Putting Real Money on These Independent Candidates URL: https://ivn.us/forget-the-polls-bettors-are-putting-real-money-on-these-independent-candidates/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T17:49:44.000Z Betting markets have emerged as a rather contentious wrinkle in America's obsession with gambling. We've seen individuals banned and fined for betting on themselves or using insider information to trade. Whether you have an account on all the major sites or you think they're ruining society, there are a lot of people putting real money on the outcomes of upcoming elections. For the races featuring independents, there isn't a lot of high-quality polling, with many of the information coming from firms that are hired by the candidates themselves. So, what is going into people's predictions? Is it just vibes, or is there something deeper? Let's take a look at the betting market odds (focusing on Kalshi) and some data points to see where things land. ## Senate Races **Idaho — Todd Achilles (I) vs. Jim Risch (R)** Kalshi: **Achilles 5%, Risch 95%** Idaho voters skew hard Republican: [The Independent Voter Project (IVP) puts registration at 61.9% Republican, 11.52% Democratic, and 25.19% independent](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/id?ref=ivn.us), under a semi-closed primary system. Donald Trump carried the state by more than 30 points in 2024\. Achilles' 5% isn't nothing in a state this red, but the registration math explains why the market treats Risch as a near-certainty. **Montana — Seth Bodnar (I) vs. Kurt Alme (R)** Kalshi: **Bodnar 9%, Alme 91%** Montana doesn't register voters by party, so [IVP's figures here are modeled estimates: roughly 44.74% Republican, 26.39% Democratic, 28.87% independent](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/mt?ref=ivn.us), run under an open primary. Trump won the state by about 20 points in 2024\. Bodnar's four-way race — with a Democrat still on the ballot splitting the anti-Republican vote — helps explain why his number sits below Osborn's despite a similar pitch. **Nebraska — Dan Osborn (I) vs. Pete Ricketts (R)** Kalshi: **Osborn 31%, Ricketts 69%** Osborn is the standout of the group. [IVP has Nebraska at 49.71% Republican, 25.92% Democratic, 22.16% independent](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ne?ref=ivn.us), under a semi-closed primary — a solidly red state on paper. But with the Democratic Party formally clearing the field for him, Osborn is pulling 31 cents on the dollar, by far the strongest independent number in this batch. **South Dakota — Brian Bengs (I) vs. Mike Rounds (R)** Kalshi: **Bengs 5%, Rounds 95%** Like Montana, South Dakota's party breakdown is modeled rather than self-reported: [IVP estimates 51.19% Republican, 22.61% Democratic, 25.6% independent](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/sd?ref=ivn.us), in a closed-primary state. Despite Bengs also getting a cleared Democratic field, his price sits at the bottom of the pack alongside Achilles. **Colorado — Bob Chew (Forward Party) vs. John Hickenlooper (D)** Kalshi doesn't list Chew as a separate contract here — the market is a straight binary at **Democratic 94.7%, Republican 5.3%**, meaning there's no clean number to pull for him specifically. Worth noting given the state's registration profile: [IVP shows Colorado with an independent majority at 50.67%, ahead of Democrats (24.66%) and Republicans (22.23%)](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/co?ref=ivn.us), under a semi-open primary. That's arguably the most fertile registration environment of any race here for an independent — Kalshi just isn't pricing it as one. **Mississippi — Ty Pinkins (I) vs. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R)** Same situation: Kalshi tracks this as **Republican \~93%, Democratic \~7-8%**, with no independent line for Pinkins. [IVP's modeled data puts Mississippi at 29% Republican, 24.08% Democratic, and 46.9% independent](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ms?ref=ivn.us) — independents are the plurality — under an open primary. Trump won the state by 23 points in 2024. ## House Races **California's 6th District — Kevin Kiley (I) vs. Richard Pan (D)** Kalshi: **Pan 96.5%, Kiley 6.5%, Republican 1%** This is the mirror image of the Senate races: an independent running in hostile territory. [CalMatters rates CA-06 Safe Democratic, with district registration at 39% Democratic, 31% Republican, and 22% no-party-preference](https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/us-house/?ref=ivn.us) — a district redrawn under Prop 50 specifically to disadvantage Kiley's old Republican registration. Running as an independent got him through the Top Two primary, but Kalshi doesn't see it getting him much further. **Alaska At-Large — Bill Hill (I) vs. Nick Begich (R)** Kalshi: **Begich 83%, Hill 21%, Democratic 1%** Alaska is the one place in this entire set where the registration numbers actually favor an independent outright: [IVP has Alaska's electorate at 63.42% independent/unaffiliated, versus just 23.16% Republican and 11.71% Democratic](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ak?ref=ivn.us), run through the state's nonpartisan top-four primary — the same system that elected Mary Peltola in 2022\. The Cook Partisan Voting Index still rates the seat R+6 on paper. Hill's 21% is the second-best number of any independent tracked here, trailing only Osborn. ## The Pattern Line these eight races up and a rough order emerges: Osborn (31%) and Hill (21%) are the two independents Kalshi treats as genuinely live, both running in states or districts where either the registration math is unusually favorable to non-party candidates (Alaska) or the opposing party has functionally exited the race (Nebraska). Bodnar (9%) and Kiley (6.5%) sit in the next tier — competitive enough to register real money, not competitive enough to be called close. Achilles and Bengs (5% each) are priced as true long shots despite cleared Democratic fields, which says something about how much registration math still outweighs field-clearing in the market's eyes. And Chew and Pinkins aren't priced as independents at all — Kalshi's structure simply doesn't have a slot for them yet, regardless of what the underlying voter registration numbers might suggest about their theoretical ceiling. ### Poll: 51% of Massachusetts Voters Back Scrapping Party Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/poll-51-of-massachusetts-voters-back-scrapping-party-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T15:48:48.000Z **BOSTON, Mass.**—Massachusetts voters are heading to the polls Tuesday under a partisan primary system that a majority of voters want to replace, according to new polling data. A [UMass Amherst/WCVB poll](https://recorder.com/2026/08/24/massachusetts-voter-poll-ballot-questions/?ref=ivn.us) found 51% of registered voters would definitely or probably support ditching separate Democratic and Republican primaries for a nonpartisan open primary in which all voters and candidates, regardless of party, participate on a single ballot. The proposal is set to appear on the November ballot as Question 3\. Under the reform, the top two vote-getters would advance to the general election similar to the primary models in place in California and Washington. The poll found that 32% of respondents said they would probably or definitely vote against the change, while 17% were undecided. Along with the results, the timing of the poll is notable. UMass Amherst/WCVB surveyed 800 registered voters between August 5-12 and released the findings while early voting was underway for the September 1 primary. This means many of these respondents were asked how they felt about the current partisan system while actively participating in it. ## How Massachusetts Primaries Work Now Massachusetts uses a primary system that divides voters into two camps: There is the Democratic ballot and then there is the Republican ballot. For voters registered with a party, they can only vote in that party’s primary. Independent voters (registered unenrolled) must choose Republican or Democrat. Independents can participate without joining a party, but the only candidates they will see on their ballot are running under the party they choose. This system is commonly referred to as a semi-open partisan primary. Tuesday's most prominent contests highlight just how limited the choices can be under a partisan system. Democratic voters are choosing between incumbent US Sen. Ed Markey and US Rep. Seth Moulton, while Republican John Deaton has no primary opponent. Meanwhile, Republicans have a competitive gubernatorial primary between Michael Minogue and Brian Shortsleeve, while Democratic Gov. Maura Healey is running unopposed. Many races farther down the ballot offer even fewer choices. In several congressional districts, one party has no candidate at all, while numerous candidates face no primary opposition. So, when an independent voter picks a party ballot, they are sacrificing having a say entirely in some elections. Question 3 would fundamentally change that structure. ## One Ballot for Everyone Under the proposal, Democrats, Republicans, independents and other candidates would appear together on the same primary ballot. And, all voters—party members and independents—can choose any candidate they want in each race. Even voters registered with a party who want to vote for a candidate outside that party can do so—something they are barred from doing under the current system. Every voter would receive the same ballot regardless of party affiliation, and the two candidates that receive the most votes would advance to November. The change covers elections for governor and other statewide offices, the legislature, US Senate, US House, and certain county offices. It would not change presidential primaries, much like the systems in California and Washington. Question 3 is not simply about opening primary elections. Independent voters technically already have access in Massachusetts, even though it is not guaranteed if the parties suddenly decide they want to close the primaries. The measure gives every voter a couple of things they don’t have: the guaranteed right to an equal vote and the ability to consider all candidates, shifting from a party-nominated process to a voter-nominated process. ## An Unusual Opposition Coalition Much like the Top Two repeal effort in California, Question 3 has [produced strange political bedfellows](https://commonwealthbeacon.org/newsletter/odd-bedfellows-progressive-critics-join-democratic-republican-party-bosses-to-oppose-election-reform-ballot-question/?ref=ivn.us). The Massachusetts Democratic Party opposes it, along with labor organizations including the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, AFT Massachusetts and several SEIU locals, as well as progressive organizations. The Massachusetts Republican Party also opposes the measure, though it is not part of the formal No on 3 coalition. Opponents argue Massachusetts already gives independent voters access to primaries and say the top two system could weaken political parties, make it harder for minor parties to reach November, and increase the influence of large campaign donors. Supporters focus on the lack of choice and competition under the current system—particularly in a state where so many elections go uncontested. In 2026, [nearly 60% (59% to be specific) of legislative races](https://www.aol.com/articles/election-season-dawns-many-races-182807000.html?ref=ivn.us) drew only one candidate across both the primary and general election. Read that again. Only one candidate in 60% of elections. Voters are expected to have a choice between listed candidates in just 82 of the state’s 200 legislative districts. “Unenrolled (or independent) voters, who make up 65 percent of the electorate in the state and lag in turnout in the primaries, are also sidelined in the most consequential stage of the election cycle,” said Danielle Allen, convening chair of the Coalition for Healthy Democracy. > *“While it might seem simple to declare a party long enough to vote and then go back to being unenrolled, being forced to pick a party’s ballot — and subsequently being shut out of races that appear on the other party’s ballot — appears to be a disincentive to participation for unenrolled voters. Turnout rates are, indeed, lower for unenrolled voters in primary elections, and they are more likely to vote when they do not have to choose a partisan ballot.”* She added that when voters “are taken for granted, accountability slips and urgency disappears. When urgency disappears, problems linger. Housing remains unaffordable. Health care doesn’t meet needs. Costs keep rising.” The Coalition for Healthy Democracy is the sponsor of Question 3. The Yes on 3 coalition also includes State Auditor Diana DiZoglio, former Gov. Deval Patrick, former US Rep. Joe Kennedy III, former Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, and the NAACP, among other individuals and groups. ### **The Polls Point to an Uncertain Future for Question 3** The UMass Amherst/WCVB poll shows that Question 3 has an advantage, but not a comfortable one. Only 20% of voters said they would definitely vote yes. Another 31% said they probably would. On the other side, 19% were firmly opposed and 13% probably opposed the measure. That leaves a large portion of the electorate either persuadable or undecided with two months of campaigning ahead. ### They're Attacking the Last Frontier URL: https://ivn.us/theyre-attacking-the-last-frontier/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T15:26:24.000Z In November, Alaskans will be asked again whether to keep their nonpartisan primary system. After failing twice, national [Republican leaders and funders are pouring buckets of money to get their closed primary back](https://ivn.us/alaska-made-elections-matter-again-now-they-want-to-kill-the-system/). And they're trying to take out several other good-government reforms along with it. ‘Ballot Measure 2’ would repeal the state’s Top Four nonpartisan primary, eliminate ranked choice voting, and roll back the dark-money disclosure rules voters approved in 2020\. [The fine print nobody reads](https://ivn.us/alaska-is-voting-on-more-than-ranked-choice-voting-its-voting-on-who-gets-to-vote/): **60% of Alaska voters who can now vote in primary elections would lose that right if Ballot Measure 2 passes**. Democratic Party leadership in New York City is taking the same position as their Republican friends in Alaska. In New York, [1.2 million independents are not allowed to vote in primary elections](https://ivn.us/nyc-keeps-silencing-independents-now-1-2-million-voters-are-building-a-movement/), and no one in the Party seems to mind. Maybe that's why, around the country, **there's been an uprising of credible** [**independent candidates who actually have a shot to win**](https://ivn.us/one-thing-is-clear-in-2026-independent-candidates-are-no-longer-just-spoilers/) races for major offices this year. Or, maybe that's why [young voters are following the Latino trend](https://ivn.us/young-voters-are-following-this-latino-trend/): registering as independent voters in record-breaking numbers. Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## Alaska Is Voting on More Than Ranked Choice Voting. It’s Voting on Who Gets to Vote [![Alaska voters at the polls](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/image-91d9a6e6-394c-4be0-9c00-15d620b35c1d.jpg)](https://ivn.us/alaska-is-voting-on-more-than-ranked-choice-voting-its-voting-on-who-gets-to-vote/) Shawn Griffiths on what Ballot Measure 2 actually does: repeal the Top Four primary, kill ranked choice voting, gut disclosure — and give party insiders the power to decide **whether 60% of Alaska’s voters get a meaningful say at all**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/alaska-is-voting-on-more-than-ranked-choice-voting-its-voting-on-who-gets-to-vote/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [Young Voters are Following This Latino Trend ](https://ivn.us/young-voters-are-following-this-latino-trend/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/IMG_5249.png) Chad Peace [ ![Young Voters are Following This Latino Trend](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/latino-voters-young-voters.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/young-voters-are-following-this-latino-trend/) [NYC Keeps Silencing Independents. Now 1.2 Million Voters Are Building a Movement ](https://ivn.us/nyc-keeps-silencing-independents-now-1-2-million-voters-are-building-a-movement/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![NYC Keeps Silencing Independents. Now 1.2 Million Voters Are Building a Movement](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/nyc-mamdani.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/nyc-keeps-silencing-independents-now-1-2-million-voters-are-building-a-movement/) [Susan Collins Has Defied Political Gravity for 30 Years. Trump May Finally Pull Her Down ](https://ivn.us/susan-collins-has-defied-political-gravity-for-30-years-trump-may-finally-pull-her-down/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/08/Jay-Field.jpg) Jay Field [ ![Susan Collins Has Defied Political Gravity for 30 Years. Trump May Finally Pull Her Down](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/susan-collins-maine-senate-race.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/susan-collins-has-defied-political-gravity-for-30-years-trump-may-finally-pull-her-down/) [Alaska Made Elections Matter Again. Now They Want to Kill the System ](https://ivn.us/alaska-made-elections-matter-again-now-they-want-to-kill-the-system/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/08/IPI.jpg) Election Solutions Bulletin [ ![Alaska Made Elections Matter Again. Now They Want to Kill the System](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/alaska-elections-matter.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/alaska-made-elections-matter-again-now-they-want-to-kill-the-system/) [“I Know What You Are”: When You Leave the Political Tribe, You Become the Enemy ](https://ivn.us/i-know-what-you-are-when-you-leave-the-political-tribe-you-become-the-enemy/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/08/25d0f9fa0390-Carlos_De_Castro_0009_Large-1.jpeg) Carlos De Castro Pretelt [ ![“I Know What You Are”: When You Leave the Political Tribe, You Become the Enemy](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/independent-candidates.png) ](https://ivn.us/i-know-what-you-are-when-you-leave-the-political-tribe-you-become-the-enemy/) [A Supreme Court Ruling Built for the Major Parties Is Helping Idaho Libertarians ](https://ivn.us/a-supreme-court-ruling-built-for-the-major-parties-is-helping-idaho-libertarians/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![A Supreme Court Ruling Built for the Major Parties Is Helping Idaho Libertarians](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-9c8c6502-0f77-4f8e-8165-8f722686671f.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/a-supreme-court-ruling-built-for-the-major-parties-is-helping-idaho-libertarians/) [The Opioid Crisis Was Never Only Rural and White ](https://ivn.us/the-opioid-crisis-was-never-only-rural-and-white/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/08/Dr-Lynn-Webster.jpg) Lynn Webster, M.D. [ ![The Opioid Crisis Was Never Only Rural and White](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/Opioid-Crisis-1.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-opioid-crisis-was-never-only-rural-and-white/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Trump’s new USPS ballot rule has both parties scrambling — and the truth is more complicated than either side’s spin. On EP56, the hosts break down what the rule actually does and why this week’s Supreme Court ruling is **far more limited than the headlines suggest**. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6L5SA3-aBs&ref=ivn.us) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## Before a California Bill Gets a Vote, It Has to Get Past Blanca Pacheco [![Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-27-at-4.55.06---PM.png)](https://ivn.us/before-a-california-bill-gets-a-vote-it-has-to-get-past-blanca-pacheco/) Cara Brown McCormick profiles Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, chair of the Assembly Rules Committee — **the gatekeeper who decides which bills get hearings, how fast they move, and whether laws take effect immediately**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/before-a-california-bill-gets-a-vote-it-has-to-get-past-blanca-pacheco/) ### *INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES ▶▶▶* ## One Thing Is Clear in 2026: Independent Candidates Are No Longer Just Spoilers [![Independent candidates in 2026](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/seth-bodnar.jpg)](https://ivn.us/one-thing-is-clear-in-2026-independent-candidates-are-no-longer-just-spoilers/) Matt Shinners surveys the fall landscape: one-on-one Senate showdowns, real money, and growing campaign infrastructure. Independents are heading into November **with a real chance to win — not just to matter**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/one-thing-is-clear-in-2026-independent-candidates-are-no-longer-just-spoilers/) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### *VETERANS ▶▶▶* ## Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff Army veteran Paul Rieckhoff’s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Wednesday: the Afghan allies America still hasn’t brought home — and **independent veterans surging in Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota, with Todd Achilles up 5 on Sen. Jim Risch**. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK-C5shqGYc&ref=ivn.us) ### *VIDEO CLIP ▶▶▶* ## Viral ‘Looksmaxxer’ Calls AOC ‘Beautiful’ — and Claims He’s ‘Not Political’ [![Viral ‘Looksmaxxer’ Calls AOC ‘Beautiful’ — and Claims He’s ‘Not Political’](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/Clavicular_AOC_Clip.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/DcMR-l5iqq5/?ref=ivn.us) Streamer Clavicular says his “I can fix her” post about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was mostly a bit — “I just tweeted that for engagement” — but he insists he’s “simply not political.” His audience? The least partisan in the country: **a record 45% of Americans now identify as independent, including 56% of Gen Z**. [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/DcMR-l5iqq5/?ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### Alaska Is Voting on More Than Ranked Choice Voting. It’s Voting on Who Gets to Vote URL: https://ivn.us/alaska-is-voting-on-more-than-ranked-choice-voting-its-voting-on-who-gets-to-vote/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T19:14:55.000Z Alaska voters will once again vote on a measure to repeal its nonpartisan election system. Those fighting to preserve the system have gone to the courts to make a simple case: It’s only fair that voters know exactly what is on their ballot. Specifically the consequences of Ballot Measure 2, which would give parties the ability to shut out 60% of Alaska voters registered as independents. This is what attorney Scott Kendall [argued before the Alaska Supreme Court](https://www.juneauindependent.com/post/alaska-supreme-court-to-rule-on-question-of-bias-in-raked-choice-ballot-measure-language?ref=ivn.us) last week. Ballot Measure 2 would repeal Alaska’s nonpartisan Top Four primary, eliminate ranked choice voting in general elections, and repeal campaign finance disclosure provisions approved by voters in 2020. It would likely mean going back to a closed partisan primary system where the partisan political minorities in the state have the most say over representation and party leaders and aligned special interest groups have outsized influence over election outcomes. The court [ultimately ruled that the state’s language was “true and impartial,”](https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/08/28/alaska-supreme-court-affirms-states-election-ballot-measure-language-with-one-change/?ref=ivn.us) ordering only one additional sentence explaining changes to how candidates for governor and lieutenant governor would run. The revised ballot language was released Friday. But the court’s ruling does not change the fact that Ballot Measure 2 is missing some crucial fine print. ## **Who Gets to Vote Becomes the Party’s Call** Under Alaska’s current system, every voter receives the same primary ballot. All candidates compete together, regardless of party, and the top four voter-getters advance. Voters can vote for any candidate they want in any race. If they wanted, they could vote for a Republican in the state’s at-large congressional contest and then vote for a Democrat or an independent or third party candidate for US Senate in the same election. This is freedom that Ballot Measure 2 would strip away by replacing that system with closed party primaries, which force voters to pick a party to get a meaningful vote in publicly funded elections and restrict their choices to candidates of that party. That is, if the parties let them vote at all. The official summary now tells voters that they would choose a party ballot “unless prohibited by the party’s bylaws.” The actual text of the measure goes further. It says political parties may establish rules that expand or limit participation, and if a party’s bylaws exclude nonpartisan or undeclared voters, election officials “may not permit” those voters to cast that party’s ballot. This was central to Kendall’s case. He argued that voters should not have to piece together what restoring “political party primaries” means for their own voting rights. He told the justices that the measure gives parties the power, “at the stroke of a pen,” to prevent independent Alaskans from participating in primaries. The state disagreed. Assistant Attorney General Laura Fox argued that the legal question was not whether judges could write a better summary, but whether the existing language crossed Alaska’s statutory threshold of being accurate and impartial. The Supreme Court largely agreed. Supporters of the repeal also challenged parts of the state’s wording. Attorneys for Repeal Now objected to terms including “repeal” and “true source,” arguing that some language was confusing or carried partisan implications. Those objections were also largely rejected. It is the second consecutive election in which Alaskans will vote on repealing the system. A similar measure failed in 2024 after a recount by just 743 votes. ## **California Is Having the Same Fight** Nearly 3,000 miles away, California is confronting a similar dispute. A proposed initiative called “Undo the Top-Two” seeks to repeal Proposition 14, the 2010 voter-approved reform that created California’s nonpartisan Top Two primary. Today, like in Alaska, voters can vote for whomever they want, regardless of their party preference. The difference between the two systems is that in California, 2 candidates advance instead of 4\. However, the authors of Prop 14, the Independent Voter Project (IVP), and More Choice California support expanding to a system similar to Alaska. The California attorney general’s circulating summary says the initiative would repeal that system and require the legislature to establish partisan primaries in which each party’s winning candidate advances to November. IVP and More Choice [argue that description still leaves out the most important consequence](https://ivn.us/content/files/2026/08/MCC%5FUndo-Top-Two-Ballot-TItle-and-Summary-Letter-to-AG%5F072126.pdf). In a July 21 letter to Attorney General Rob Bonta, they said voters need to know that the initiative would not merely change how candidates advance. It would eliminate the constitutional structure that guarantees every voter access to the primary. Like in Alaska, Undo the Top Two seeks to return to a primary system in which the parties can decide who can and cannot participate. The Supreme Court held in *California Democratic Party v. Jones* (2000) that when an election selects a political party’s nominee, the state cannot force that party to associate with nonmembers. It made a critical distinction between these types of partisan nomination contests from a nonpartisan primary in which voters are not selecting party nominees. That means California lawmakers could create an open or semi-open system after Top Two is repealed. But, IVP argues, they could no longer guarantee the universal access voters have today if political parties objected. In both Alaska and California, voters are being asked to repeal nonpartisan primaries founded on the fundamental principle that the right to vote derives from citizenship, not from joining a political party. All citizens deserve an equal vote, including independent voters. When party insiders try to repeal these systems, reform advocates assert that simply saying a measure “restores political party primaries” doesn’t tell voters enough — because what is at stake is much deeper than that. What’s at stake is their right to vote. In Alaska, the Supreme Court has decided that such fine print isn’t needed. California may be the next place where that question gets tested. ### Susan Collins Has Defied Political Gravity for 30 Years. Trump May Finally Pull Her Down URL: https://ivn.us/susan-collins-has-defied-political-gravity-for-30-years-trump-may-finally-pull-her-down/ Last updated: 2026-08-31T14:26:23.000Z *Editor's Note: The following commentary* [*originally published*](https://www.alamy.com/washington-united-states-06th-aug-2026-sen-susan-collins-r-me-departs-senate-republican-luncheons-at-the-us-capitol-in-washington-dc-on-thursday-august-6-2026-vance-discussed-pending-nominations-iran-the-save-act-and-other-legislative-items-ahead-of-august-recess-collins-is-one-republican-no-vote-for-acting-attorney-general-todd-blanche-to-be-attorney-general-photo-by-bonnie-cashupi-credit-upialamy-live-news-image744169141.html?imageid=EAF589FE-2D44-4C84-B9C0-77A57F52F16B&pn=1&searchId=46296d0cb47eb4938c4462d32ed40595&searchtype=0&ref=ivn.us) *on the "Unorganized Territory" Substack and has been republished on IVN with permission from the author.* It’s accepted as conventional wisdom: politically, there aren’t many places more independent-minded or idiosyncratic than Maine. The nation’s most rural state has more Unenrolled voters than Republicans or Democrats. A majority of its towns manage their annual business through an arcane series of community meetings in late winter or early spring, where residents gather in gymnasiums or grange halls and repeatedly thrust placards into the air to vote on the list of questions on their local warrant. Twice, in the past half century, Independents have served in the state house as Maine governor. One of them, Angus King, is now a U.S. Senator—an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Maine’s retiring Congressman, Democratic Representative Jared Golden, has frequently bucked his party’s leadership on issues that divide his district, where Donald Trump won three straight times. More than any other politician, statistic or governing custom, it’s King and Golden’s colleague in the Maine delegation, Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins, whose three-decades in Washington now embody the unpredictable, norm-defying nature of politics in Maine. But as Labor Day, and the sprint to November 3rd loom, there’s growing evidence that the dynamics that have allowed Collins to maintain her grip on the electorate may not be enough to fight off the ill winds of 2026. On August 19th, Susan Collins stood on the weathered, cracked pavement at the former Lincoln Paper and Tissue Mill, dilapidated buildings behind her and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright by her side. Collins, Wright and business and community leaders had gathered to promote upcoming construction of a 50-acre, 85-megawatt battery facility that would store enough energy to power 65,000 homes. The project is partially funded by a grant from a program created under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, which Collins helped to negotiate. The senator has also delivered $7.5 million for other redevelopment projects at the site through her position on the Appropriations Committee. Though not a campaign event, it was the type of official engagement that has nonetheless delivered consistent political benefits to the Senator throughout her time in office, especially in years when she’s faced the voters. Local television stations show up in droves, cover the proceedings, and produce segments for digital and TV audiences, who view them sometimes before or after seeing one of the non-stop ads from the Senator’s reelection campaign, touting the massive sums she’s delivered for projects, initiatives and infrastructure in every corner of the state. It’s been a remarkably effective strategy that’s helped Collins to defy political gravity and hang on as the only Republican U.S. Senator in a state that has repeatedly voted against her party in Presidential elections. But the days immediately before and after the event in Lincoln show why 2026 may be the year when Maine’s electorate finally sheds some of its nonconformist cred and follows the national mood and zeitgeist. In recent months, Donald Trump’s cabinet secretaries, including Chris Wright, have faced withering questioning from journalists and lawmakers on the administration’s tariff policies, the surge in energy prices due to the war, and whether the U.S. had been adequately prepared for the likelihood that Iran would halt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. These same officials have also been fanning out across the country to tout policies and programs in states with Senate and House races that will decide the makeup of the next Congress. These visits are routine in an election year. They become a little trickier to navigate in years like this one, where the president is persona non grata, doesn’t seem to care all that much about his political blast radius, and where each new day brings the promise of more unwanted headlines for the party in power. Consider the past two weeks inside the political crucible Susan Collins now inhabits. On Monday August 17th Reuters/Ipsos released a poll showing President Trump’s approval rating had fallen two points to an all-time low of 33%—a much lower number at this point in a midterm cycle than those of recent predecessors whose parties went down to wave-like defeats in November. The poll sparked a new round of recriminations in the press and political class about the sinking fortunes of Trump and his party. Collins met up with Wright and others in Lincoln two days later. None of Trump’s cabinet secretaries are all that popular right now. But the event did give the Senator a chance to focus on the work she does for Maine in Washington > *The planned facility will not only breathe new life into a vacant former mill site. It will also create new jobs and strengthen energy security and grid reliability in central Maine. Once completed, it will be the first facility of its kind in New England able to provide enough electricity to power approximately 65,000 homes, roughly every household in Penobscot County, for 100 hours.* > > *The project received a nearly $150 million federal award through a grid resilience program I helped establish as a lead negotiator of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. I also secured a total of $7.5 million through my role on the Senate Appropriations Committee for infrastructure improvements and continued redevelopment at the Lincoln Technology Park, where the new energy storage facility will be located.* [**Sen. Susan Collins, @SenatorCollins on X, August 20, 2026**](https://x.com/SenatorCollins/status/2090468424975524070?ref=ivn.us) Any reprieve was short lived. The following day came news that Vice President JD Vance, who is political kryptonite to everyone except the hardest of the hardcore MAGAs, would return to Maine the following week to campaign for Republicans. Trump then unleashed a political earthquake on Saturday, dropping 50% tariffs on $20B worth of Canadian goods after trade talks between the two neighbors fell apart. The president’s lack of concern for members of his own party running for reelection in Northern border states, and his disregard for the economic impact on effected industries and businesses, unleashed a circular firing squad among Republicans in tough races with Democratic challengers, who were more than happy to pile on. The president’s lack of concern for members of his own party running for reelection in Northern border states, and his disregard for the economic impact on effected industries and businesses, unleashed a circular firing squad among Republicans in tough races with Democratic challengers, who were more than happy to pile on. > The on-again/off-again trade talks between the U.S. and Canada lead to higher costs, risk, and uncertainty for Maine businesses. If the Administration proceeds with these tariffs, they will increase costs for Maine families, as most businesses will have no choice but to pass on… > > — Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) [August 22, 2026](https://x.com/SenatorCollins/status/2091247135026970930?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) > Having spent most of my life working along the border, I know how vital trade with Canada is to Maine. ⁰ > > Trump’s tariffs are a direct tax on working families. Susan Collins can criticize them online all she wants, but when given the vote to stop them from raising costs, she… [pic.twitter.com/INS9uxhTKP](https://t.co/INS9uxhTKP?ref=ivn.us) > > — Troy Jackson (@TroyJackson207) [August 23, 2026](https://x.com/TroyJackson207/status/2091618488611725352?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) On Monday, with the media feasting on the political and economic fallout of a deepening trade war, JD Vance landed in Bangor, motorcaded to Brewer and took the stage at defense technology company Compotech. Vance went on to frame the election as a desperate fight against the dark forces of socialism. Susan Collins did not attend the Vance event. Neither did gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles, a MAGA adjacent Republican, who trails Democrat Hannah Pingree by double digits in the polls. Charles’s has aligned himself, unapologetically, with much of the president’s agenda, and [in recent audio leaked to the Bangor Daily News](https://www.bangordailynews.com/2026/08/26/politics/elections/bobby-charles-donald-trumps-border-czar-send-ice-to-maine-polls-joam40zk0w/?ref=ivn.us), said he’d ask Donald Trump to deploy ICE agents to secure the vote at Maine polling places. His decision to skip the event was a bit of a surprise. Collins’s absence was anything but. For Collins to defy the odds and win again in November, a few things need to happen. Trump supporters in Maine must be convinced to get off their couches in a depressing election year for MAGA, and turn out for a senator they’ve never been all thrilled with. Voters in the middle—Republican, Democrat and Unenrolled—must support her again in the same decisive way they did six years ago. The problem, this time around, is the uniquely horrible political landscape for the party in charge. It makes her race six years ago, where she trailed in every single poll before Election Day, look like a walk in the park. In 2026, the bad news just keeps coming. On Tuesday, trade tensions escalated further as Canada announced $20B in retaliatory, dollar-for-dollar tariffs against the U.S. Then, the following evening, a bit of good news for Maine’s lobster industry: [Finance Canada would leave seafood off the list](https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2026/08/list-of-products-from-the-united-states-subject-to-counter-tariffs-effective-september-8-2026.html?ref=ivn.us). > I very much appreciate Canada’s decision to remove seafood and fish products from its retaliatory tariff list. These tariffs would have caused tremendous harm to Maine’s lobstermen, disrupting one of their most important markets during the fall fishing season. > > I urge the U.S. to… > > — Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) [August 27, 2026](https://x.com/SenatorCollins/status/2093020090736238686?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Donald Trump, of course, had his own “special” surprise ready in response to Canada’s retaliation. On Thursday, the president sat at his desk in the Oval Office, an easel off to his right displaying a map of the Great Lakes that looked like it would be a perfect fit in the geography nook of an elementary school classroom. Except this map appeared to contain an error. That lake, the one all the way to the left with Toronto and the greater Rochester area along its shores, had been renamed Lake America. A short time later, lest anyone tuning in think it was all a big joke, an aide placed a leather-bound executive order in front of Trump. The president signed it and the name change was official. ### Alaska Made Elections Matter Again. Now They Want to Kill the System URL: https://ivn.us/alaska-made-elections-matter-again-now-they-want-to-kill-the-system/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:43:49.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is the Election Solutions Bulletin (ESB) newsletter from August 28, 2026\. ESB is a project of the Institute for Political Innovation.* How to Restructure Voting to Get Things Done and Save Democracy - Look to Alaska, the laboratory testing an election system that aims to increase competition and get better results for voters. - The results of the first round of 2026 voting for Senate in Alaska: a large field, an incumbent who finishes second but may still win, a Democratic Socialist who isn’t a spoiler, and two candidates with the same name. - An independent who fishes for a living finishes a strong second in the Alaska U.S. House race. - Opponents are trying for a second time to repeal Final Four Elections in Alaska. Why is Elon Musk, who wanted to start a third party, giving $1.5 million to the campaign? - The big question: Is the new election system achieving its goal in Alaska? - At least 84% of U.S. House races are decided before the general election even takes place. ## **Alaska Is the Unlikely Laboratory to Test the Best U.S. Election Systems** Californians are considering whether to revert to closed party primaries, keep their current Top Two process or adopt a more sweeping change. To help them make a decision, they should look to Alaska, the only state so far with[ ](https://finalfiveelections.org/?ref=ivn.us)[Final Four Elections](https://finalfiveelections.org/?ref=ivn.us) (FFE). FFE comprises a primary, or first round, open to voters and candidates of all parties and independents, followed by a November general election in which the four or five candidates with the most first-round votes contend. The winner of the general election is determined by an instant runoff process, where the candidate with the least votes is eliminated in each round. When two are left, the one with the majority is the winner. In 2017, Katherine Gehl, a former manufacturing CEO with a deep interest in election mechanics, wrote a [Harvard Business School report](https://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/research/Pages/research-details.aspx?rid=84&ref=ivn.us) with Michael Porter, the university’s well-known expert in corporate competition policy. The report addressed the unhealthy competition in politics created by party primaries and plurality voting, and first proposed this combination of open primaries and instant-runoff general elections. The report then[ ](https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/12/opinions/reform-american-political-primaries-gehl?ref=ivn.us)[made its way to Alaska](https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/12/opinions/reform-american-political-primaries-gehl?ref=ivn.us) and to a Republican lawyer named Scott Kendall, who had worked for Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and independent former Gov. Bill Walker. Kendall wrote a [bold ballot initiative](https://alaskansforbetterelections.com/event-recap-better-elections-hosted-by-commonwealth-north/?ref=ivn.us) around Final Four Voting, an earlier version of Final Five. Alaska voters adopted FFE in a ballot initiative in 2020, and the system was deployed for the first time in elections in 2022\. Two years later, Alaskans narrowly [ ](https://ivn.us/alaska-reject-repeal-top-4-ranked-choice-voting-repeal-2024-11-14/)[rejected a ballot measure](https://ivn.us/alaska-reject-repeal-top-4-ranked-choice-voting-repeal-2024-11-14/) to repeal the system. Now, opponents of FFE are trying to repeal it once more on Nov. 3. Alaska is the laboratory to determine how well this change can work. We’ll discuss the effects so far a bit later in this newsletter. First, let’s look at this year’s elections in the state. ## **How an Incumbent Republican Senator May Be Saved by the New Alaska Voting System** [Alaska held its latest primary](https://ballotpedia.org/United%5FStates%5FSenate%5Felection%5Fin%5FAlaska,%5F2026?ref=ivn.us) on Aug. 18\. In the race for U.S. Senate, 16 candidates participated, including the two-term incumbent, Republican Dan Sullivan. He faced six other Republicans, three Democrats, and candidates from the Green, Libertarian and Alaskan parties plus a few unaffiliated contenders. Among the Democrats was former Rep. Mary Peltola, who lost her U.S. House seat in the 2024 election. Peltola placed first with 48.1% of the vote; Sullivan (“Daniel S. Sullivan” on the ballot) was second at 42.7%. A Republican named Dan J. Sullivan (simply “Dan Sullivan” on the ballot) received 2.4% and a Democrat, David Leslie, 1.1%. In two months, the four will compete in the general election, where voters will be able to rank their choices, and a majority winner will emerge. (We will get to the Sullivan vs. Sullivan issue below.) This race is the marquee event in November for Alaska and possibly for the nation. It could determine control of the Senate. Leslie, the fourth-place finisher in the first round, is an Alaska Native and Democratic Socialist. In a remarkable[ interview with Northern Journal](https://www.northernjournal.com/this-democratic-socialist-could-cost-mary-peltola-votes-in-november-but-he-says-hed-actually-boost-her/?ref=ivn.us) three days after the election, he explained how, under the FFE process, he would not draw votes away from Peltola like a spoiler under legacy systems but, instead, could help her. Leslie’s big issue is the treatment by Israel, with U.S. support, of Palestinians, whose condition he believes is similar to that of his own Native people. “I really wanted to see Mary Peltola explain why she took AIPAC money, and then commit to not taking it, to saying that there are allegations of human rights abuses and crimes against humanity and genocide, and address that,” he said. Leslie also disagrees with what he sees as Peltola’s lukewarm positions on mitigating climate change and opposing the excesses of ICE. “Obviously,” said the interviewer Nathaniel Herz, “there is a concern among liberals, progressives — I think even among some folks who are very closely aligned with you politically — that your presence in the race…risks making you a spoiler to Peltola.” Leslie responded: **Mary Peltola is obviously better than Dan Sullivan in so many ways, but we can't be running campaigns on not being as bad as the other person…. By having someone who will take a strong stance on Palestine and Gaza, I am encouraging people to show up to the ballot who normally wouldn't, and will rank her second.** He explained, “These people have strong moral convictions, which is good — but they need someone to get them to the polls in the first place. I am that candidate that will allow these people to vote their values, and then they will rank Mary Peltola second. If I was not in this race, they would not be there at all.” Leslie received only 1.1% of the vote in the primary, but the general election will be close, and his supporters could tip the balance. “I am running so that more progressives, liberals, and Democrats show up — so they will at least rank me and Peltola, so we can get Dan Sullivan out of office,” he said. Leslie also says that Alaskans, now with four years of experience, have better knowledge of the FFE system. “I have had people express concern that people will only vote for who they believe in the most, and ultimately end up submitting an exhausted ballot,” he told Herz. “I really, truly believe we are still fully understanding the importance of ranked choice voting, as we continue to relitigate it.” The candidate added: **There are some people who are only going to vote for one person, and that is their right. But we must exercise our rights and tools of democracy to make sure that we get the best candidates we can. And I believe ranked choice voting is that way, and again, I am only running because we have it. It is so important that we maintain it and we use it to its fullest extent.** In addition, if Peltola wants the votes of Leslie’s supporters, she may adjust her own views on his most important issues – just as independent Ross Perot, running for President in 1992, helped move Democrat Bill Clinton toward balancing the federal budget when he came to office. Paul Begala, chief strategist for the Clinton-Gore campaign,[ ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ross-perot-didnt-win-but-he-did-change-america/2019/07/10/607db720-a325-11e9-b732-41a79c2551bf%5Fstory.html?ref=ivn.us)[gave credit to Perot](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ross-perot-didnt-win-but-he-did-change-america/2019/07/10/607db720-a325-11e9-b732-41a79c2551bf%5Fstory.html?ref=ivn.us) for making “deficit reduction a central pillar of his economic plan.” The Alaska Senate race has developed into a demonstration of the benefits of more competition in a general election. “There is so much power” in the FFE system, said Leslie. “It has been so important for us to have that in Alaska. We are setting the path for so many other states to join us.” The Senate race has also drawn attention because of the third-place finisher, whose name, like the Senator’s, is Dan Sullivan, or “Petersburg Dan,” as he’s called for his residence. Kendall, the originator of FFE in Alaska, wrote in an[ ](https://www.adn.com/opinions/2026/08/12/opinion-our-nation-has-a-long-history-with-election-stunts-alaskas-current-system-is-built-to-neutralize-them/?ref=ivn.us)[opinion piece in the Anchorage Daily News](https://www.adn.com/opinions/2026/08/12/opinion-our-nation-has-a-long-history-with-election-stunts-alaskas-current-system-is-built-to-neutralize-them/?ref=ivn.us) on Aug. 12: **National partisan operatives want to weaponize these similar names by confusing Alaskans who intend to vote for Sen. Sullivan into wasting their votes by mistakenly voting for Petersburg Dan. Most Alaskans find those tactics distasteful, as do I. Regardless of whether you support the incumbent or his main challenger, no one should be rooting for Alaskans’ votes to be wasted by trickery. D.C.-style gamesmanship doesn’t fly up here.** The U.S. has a long history of dirty tricks and political stunts, including[ ](https://reason.com/volokh/2026/08/18/voter-ignorance-and-confusion-caused-by-candidates-with-similar-names/?ref=ivn.us)[similarly named candidates](https://reason.com/volokh/2026/08/18/voter-ignorance-and-confusion-caused-by-candidates-with-similar-names/?ref=ivn.us), to try to influence the outcome of elections, but, Kendall writes, “Unlike the old system, our current system of an open primary and RCV blunts the impact of such shenanigans.” Under the old system, he writes, a candidate like Petersburg Dan could appear on the general election ballot as an independent, causing thousands of votes from a confused electorate to be siphoned off from Incumbent Dan and possibly making him lose. But under FFE, “any voter who is truly confused as to which Dan is which can simply rank them both and be sure that their support for Sen. Sullivan will ultimately be registered in the final results.” Lately,[ ](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/21/fec-republican-meddling-democratic-primaries-00969281?ref=ivn.us)[Republicans](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/21/fec-republican-meddling-democratic-primaries-00969281?ref=ivn.us) and [Democrats](https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2024/a-secretive-group-recruited-far-right-candidates-in-key-us-house-races-it-could-help-democrats/?ref=ivn.us) have been “spending millions to interfere in each other’s closed primaries and run spoiler third-party candidates in the general election,” wrote Kendall. “None of this is unique to our open primary election system in Alaska. The only difference is that Alaska actually has a mechanism for solving the spoiler effect and ensuring a majority winner.” The animosity toward FFE among both Democratic and Republican establishments is easy to understand. The system is a challenge to a duopoly that prefers the unhealthy competition that prevails in every state but Alaska. But much of the anti-FFE sentiment is simply misinformed. A good example is an[ ](https://www.wsj.com/opinion/alaskas-ranked-choice-travesty-7b29a200?ref=ivn.us)[opinion piece by Kim Strassel](https://www.wsj.com/opinion/alaskas-ranked-choice-travesty-7b29a200?ref=ivn.us) of the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 20\. Strassel first argued that too many candidates are running: “insane complexity,” she called it. In fact, Alaska, as she admits, allows practically anyone to run with minimal (or no) signatures required and only a $100 filing fee. When Sullivan first ran, pre-FFE, in 2014, there were eight candidates in three party primaries (Republican, Democrat and Libertarian) and four in the general election (just as now). [That general](https://ballotpedia.org/United%5FStates%5FSenate%5Felection%5Fin%5FAlaska,%5F2020?ref=ivn.us) was instructive. Sullivan won with a plurality – not majority – of the vote. He received 48% to 46% for Democratic incumbent Mark Begich, son of a former U.S. Representative and uncle of a current one. A Libertarian candidate got 4% of the ballots – votes that likely would have gone to Sullivan. In other words, Sullivan nearly lost in a first-past-the-post system, but in an FFE system he almost certainly would have won by a larger margin if the bulk of the Libertarian votes flowed to him in the second or third round. “Alaska’s system dramatically increases the spoiler potential,” wrote Strassel. In fact, FFE is designed to eliminate the spoiler problem. As in the Libertarian example above, votes can’t be siphoned off by a third-party candidate, whose ballots instead will be distributed after the first round of counting. Also, as Leslie said, such a candidate can help a Republican or Democrat by bringing people to the polls who might otherwise stay away. Gehl wrote of FFE in a piece in RealClear Politics on Aug. 23: **It demolishes the single greatest barrier to entry in American politics – the spoiler – and forces every candidate to win real competition on the merits. That is not a left-wing scheme (or a right-wing one). It is free markets for our republic, and it is the purest application of your own creed I can offer arriving, at last, in the one market where you have been strangely content to let a protectionist market thrive.** Strassel also raises the red herring of Petersburg Sullivan, who, of course, would almost certainly be running in the general election as an independent under the old system. He made the runoff, but barely. Under the old system, he would automatically be on the general election ballot. She also cites the millions of dollars funneled into the race to game the first round by skimming votes from Sullivan and Peltola and sending them to fringe candidates. This kind of gaming is becoming common under the systems used by other states, and it is far more difficult for the gaming to have consequences under FFE. For example, in an effort to have an easier time in the general election, Democrats can boost an extremist candidate in a Republican primary by setting up a group to run ads supporting him or her. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri[ ](https://www.businessinsider.com/sen-influenced-primary-to-get-reelected-2015-8?ref=ivn.us)[used this strategy](https://www.businessinsider.com/sen-influenced-primary-to-get-reelected-2015-8?ref=ivn.us) in 2012 to elevate a far-right Republican in his party primary, and it has been deployed by both parties ever since. Under FFE, such a gambit probably would not work because both extremist and moderate would make the general election. Strassel clearly supports Sullivan, and if the primary results are an indication, he would lose to Peltola in the plurality general election that prevails in nearly every state. Under FFE, which requires a majority, Sullivan has a decent chance to retain his seat. ## **In the Alaska U.S. House Race, an Independent Commercial Fisherman Finishes a Strong Second** The race for Alaska’s single U.S. House seat drew 14 challengers to Peltola’s successor, incumbent Republican Rep. Nick Begich III, nephew of Mark. Also running were two other Republicans as well as four Democrats, two Libertarians and six unaffiliated or independent candidates. Nick Begich III finished first with 46.1% of the vote, and Bill Hill, an independent, was second with 30.9%. The third-place candidate, Matt Schultz, a Democrat, dropped out of the general. The number-four and five candidates were also Democrats. Hill, like Leslie, is another unusual candidate. He is a lifelong commercial fisherman and former educator and construction worker. His platform includes “lower costs for working families, protecting reproductive freedom, and taking on corporate greed squeezing everyday Alaskans.” The governor’s race, without an incumbent, attracted 12 Republicans, three Democrats and two unaffiliated candidates. Its outcome was tighter. Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, who was elected to the state House of Representatives at the age of 24 (Alaska’s minimum is just 21), was first with 21.6%; Tom Begich, another Democrat, was second at 20.1%. Tom, a former Minority Leader of the state Senate, is the brother of Mark and the uncle of Nick III. The other two candidates in the general election are both Republicans, splitting 18.8%. Next in line but not making the runoff were four Republicans who received a total of 25.9% of the vote. In addition, Alaska will elect a lieutenant governor, 10 state Senators, and all 40 state Representatives. All the races are Final Four Elections. What makes Alaska different from every other state is that, except in a few legislative races where the incumbent is unopposed, no one knows the day after the primary who the ultimate winners would be. The general election counts. Alaska voters will not be faced with a mass of lesser-of-two-evils choices in November. They will have four choices. There won’t be spoilers, and the winners will all have true majority support. ## **Alaska’s Voting System Welcomes Independents. Why on Earth Is Elon Musk Trying to Repeal It?** Also on the ballot on Nov. 3 is Measure 2, the[ ](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FBallot%5FMeasure%5F2,%5FRepeal%5FTop-Four%5FRanked-Choice%5FVoting%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us)[second attempt to repeal](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FBallot%5FMeasure%5F2,%5FRepeal%5FTop-Four%5FRanked-Choice%5FVoting%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) the Final Four Elections system and replace it with a party primary system and conventional general election. The first try at repeal lost in 2024 by just two-tenths of a percentage point. This time, the repeal effort has the financial support of Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. Also backing repeal are President Trump, who called FFE “ONE OF THE GREATEST THREATS TO DEMOCRACY,” as well as Alaska Republican politicians such as outgoing Gov. Mike Dunleavy and current U.S. Rep. Nick Begich. [Musk gave $1.5 million](https://aws.state.ak.us/ApocReports/Common/View.aspx?ID=7730&ViewType=IE&ref=ivn.us) in July to the [Aurora Action Network](https://www.adn.com/politics/2026/07/28/outside-megadonors-fuel-campaigns-over-the-future-of-alaskas-election-system/?ref=ivn.us), a Wisconsin-based political action committee, which “collected contributions from numerous billionaire megadonors, including Dick Uihlein, Jeff Yass, Timothy Mellon and Hilcorp owner Jeffery Hildebrand,”[ ](https://alaskapublic.org/news/politics/2026-08-11/elon-musk-spends-big-in-push-to-repeal-alaskas-voting-system?ref=ivn.us)[reported Alaska Public Media](https://alaskapublic.org/news/politics/2026-08-11/elon-musk-spends-big-in-push-to-repeal-alaskas-voting-system?ref=ivn.us) on Aug. 11\. “Aurora Action Network then gave the repeal campaign $1 million in late July.” According to the media report, “Musk’s contribution, which make up a sizable share of the repeal campaign’s fundraising, could prove pivotal for the future of Alaska’s elections.” Musk’s support is puzzling. A year ago, he announced the[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKlkLX8oGoY&ref=ivn.us)[formation of a new party](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKlkLX8oGoY&ref=ivn.us), the America Party. As Gehl wrote in her[ ](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2026/08/23/maga%5Fthe%5Fdsa%5Fand%5Fthe%5Fpolitics%5Fof%5Fno%5Fcompetition%5F154431.html?ref=ivn.us)[RealClear Politics piece](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2026/08/23/maga%5Fthe%5Fdsa%5Fand%5Fthe%5Fpolitics%5Fof%5Fno%5Fcompetition%5F154431.html?ref=ivn.us), “Within a month, he’d pumped the brakes on it. Money wasn’t the issue – he’s the richest man in the world. The barrier is plurality voting and the dreaded ‘spoiler’ label.” No state is more hospitable to third-party or independent candidates than Alaska, as we can see in the case of Bill Hill, the independent who finished second in the first round of the race for U.S. House and has a shot at winning under the FFE system. [An Independent Voter News article](https://ivn.us/an-independent-just-broke-through-in-alaska-as-republicans-try-to-kill-the-system-that-made-it-possible/) on Aug. 21 carried the headline, “An Independent Just Broke Through in Alaska – as Republicans Try to Kill the System That Made It Possible.” Opposition to Final Four and Five Elections, in general, is not an exclusive domain of Republicans. In most states, the Democratic establishment doesn’t like it either, as a failed ballot initiative in 2024 in Nevada[ ](https://nevadacurrent.com/2024/11/05/nevada-voters-reject-open-primaries-ranked-choice/?ref=ivn.us)[showed](https://nevadacurrent.com/2024/11/05/nevada-voters-reject-open-primaries-ranked-choice/?ref=ivn.us). As for Alaska, Gehl wrote in RealClear Politics: “Mr. Musk, don’t fund the effort to repeal Final Four Elections in Alaska, the one state in which you could launch your new party without undue barriers….. I think you’ve received bad counsel.” ## **Is Final Four Achieving Its Goal in Alaska?** The 2017 Harvard paper titled,[ ](https://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/why-competition-in-the-politics-industry-is-failing-america.pdf?ref=ivn.us)[“Why Competition in the Politics Industry Is Failing,”](https://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/why-competition-in-the-politics-industry-is-failing-america.pdf?ref=ivn.us) had a specific goal in mind. The authors were not concerned with devising the best system to achieve fairness or equal representation or moderation or civility or speedy results on election night. Those may be nice to have, but the goal was different. It was delivering “optimal democratic outcomes” (ODO) that people want and need. Among those outcomes are “practical and effective solutions” that tackle the nation’s “important problems and expand opportunity.” A solution is a policy “that actually works and makes things better in practice.” Currently, solutions produced by America’s political system are “almost non-existent.” So in assessing whether FFE is working, we should be looking at whether legislators are elected who improve outcomes over time. As governance improves, we should see advances in metrics such as population, GDP, employment and education test scores at the state level. Just as important, other states will take notice and adopt FFE. States are in intense competition for jobs and overall prosperity. Legislators and other public officials are continually scanning the landscape to see what other states are up to. If they see a state with FFE succeeding, they will take notice and take similar action. Legislators in most states are elected under a party primary system, and they will be reluctant to change the process, but their constituents – perhaps with business leaders in the vanguard -- will push them. This dynamic will be super-charged if California, the largest state, adopts Final Five Elections, a later version of Alaska’s Final Four. Just four years is not long enough to see results like job growth, but Alaska has made beneficial changes in the way its legislature operates, paving the way for results we can measure. Alaska, the third-smallest state by population, is also literally an outlier, separated from the rest of the U.S. by 500 miles of Canadian territory. The last time Alaska gave a majority of its votes to a Democratic presidential candidate was 1964, but it does elect independents and Democrats to state legislative and national office. [Only 24% of Alaskans](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ak?ref=ivn.us) are registered Republicans – a lower share than California – and 12% are Democrats. Some 63% are independents. That compares with 45% of Americans who identify as independents, a new record,[ ](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?ref=ivn.us)[according to Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?ref=ivn.us), which does an annual survey. FFE has increased competition in Alaska elections and given more independent candidates a shot at office. As Nick Troiano[ ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/08/24/alaskas-top-four-election-is-model-states-with-party-primaries/?ref=ivn.us)[wrote in the Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/08/24/alaskas-top-four-election-is-model-states-with-party-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) on Aug. 24, “In the first election cycle employing the new system, only [12 percent](https://www.uniteamericainstitute.org/research/alaskas-election-model-how-the-top-four-nonpartisan-primary-system-improves-participation-competition-and-representation?ref=ivn.us) of Alaska’s state legislative general elections were uncontested, half the rate from 2020….. [Seventy percent](https://docsend.com/view/efn8c4xupi2hjpbv?ref=ivn.us) of state and federal general elections in Alaska this fall will feature competitions other than one Democrat versus one Republican, without the fear of [“spoilers.”](https://electionscience.org/education/spoiler-effect?ref=ivn.us) FFE has also fostered cooperation to get solutions.[ ](https://www.csg.org/2025/08/27/civility-and-cooperation-in-the-last-frontier/?ref=ivn.us)[The Council of State Governments issued a report](https://www.csg.org/2025/08/27/civility-and-cooperation-in-the-last-frontier/?ref=ivn.us) that stated: **At a time when statehouses across the nation have become characterized by political rhetoric and partisan divides, a group of state lawmakers in Alaska is quietly taking a different tack and making a go at something rarely talked about in the modern political era: earnest bipartisan cooperation.** The report continued, “Since 2024, leaders in both the Alaska state Senate and House have taken the road less traveled and opted to govern via a bipartisan coalition, composed of Republicans, Democrats and a handful of independents.” Currently, the[ ](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FState%5FSenate?ref=ivn.us)[Alaska Senate](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FState%5FSenate?ref=ivn.us) has 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats, and all but six participate in a bipartisan governing coalition, which is led by a Republican Senate President, a Republican Majority Leader, a Democratic Rules Committee Chairman, and a Finance Committee leadership split between a Republican and Democrat.[ ](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FHouse%5Fof%5FRepresentatives?ref=ivn.us)[The House has its own coalition](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FHouse%5Fof%5FRepresentatives?ref=ivn.us), which includes Republicans, Democrats and Independents. These are the[ ](https://www.stateside.com/state-resource/legislative-partisan-splits?ref=ivn.us)[nation’s only bipartisan governing coalitions](https://www.stateside.com/state-resource/legislative-partisan-splits?ref=ivn.us) (Nebraska has a non-partisan unicameral legislature, but, in fact, it is[ ](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/01/08/first-day-of-2025-nebraska-legislature-underscores-conservative-stronghold/?ref=ivn.us)[heavily Republican](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/01/08/first-day-of-2025-nebraska-legislature-underscores-conservative-stronghold/?ref=ivn.us), with only one Democrat holding a committee chair). Bipartisanship in itself is not an end goal of FFE. The goal is optimal democratic outcomes. Still, it appears the Alaska coalitions are effective. We can’t tell yet, and the outcomes as defined by Gehl and Porter will only be delivered over time. One early step was to move all social or cultural issues, like transgender bathrooms, to the side – “because we wouldn’t find any common ground on them,”[ ](https://www.csg.org/2025/08/27/civility-and-cooperation-in-the-last-frontier/?ref=ivn.us)[said Sen. Loki Tobin](https://www.csg.org/2025/08/27/civility-and-cooperation-in-the-last-frontier/?ref=ivn.us), a Democrat. “Instead, we agreed we’d focus on the top-tier issues that we all decided were the priorities.” The Senate decides those priorities in a January retreat, then parcels out proposed legislation to committees. It’s a slow process, but it seems to be effective. The Senate President, Gary Stevens,[ ](https://alaskasenate.org/accomplishments-2025/?ref=ivn.us)[wrote](https://alaskasenate.org/accomplishments-2025/?ref=ivn.us) that the legislators in 2025 had to deal with “the difficult reality of falling oil prices,” which reduced the revenues “Alaska relies on to fund essential services.” But, wrote Stevens, “by working together across party lines, the Senate passed a budget that protects core services” but dealt with the reality of the state’s fiscal predicament. The jury is still out, but FFE may be starting to produce the results for Alaska that the supporters who that fashioned and advocated the change had predicted. ## **Between 9% and 16% of U.S. House Races Rank as Even Slightly Competitive, Says Cook Report** [According to the Cook Political Report](https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings?ref=ivn.us), 366 U.S. House seats are “solid” (meaning safe) for eight a Republican (182) or a Democrat (184). The total represents 84% of all seats up for election on Nov. 3. Of the remaining 69 seats, 31 fall into Cook’s “likely” category, which tends to mean the opposition has little chance. Only 19 seats are rated “toss-up,” and another 19 “lean” toward one party or the other; combined, those two categories represent a mere 9% of the 435 House contests. Even including Cook’s “likely” category, the proportion is just 16%. Rating races is no science, but, still, it appears very few seats are up for grabs even in this off-year election with the incumbent president[ ](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating?ref=ivn.us)[suffering poor approval ratings](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating?ref=ivn.us). But put all partisan thoughts aside. The truly disturbing message from these statistics is that party primaries will determine 85% to 91% of the people Americans hire to represent them in the U.S. House. And in those primaries the electorate looks very different from the mass of voters in a district. Not only are House races decided in party primaries, so are Senate contests. Today, the vast majority of states are either firmly Republican or firmly Democratic – a recent phenomenon. In just three states – Maine, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – are two-person Senate delegations split between the two parties (we are counting Sen. Angus King, nominally an Independent, as a Democrat). In 1986, there were 23 split delegations; in 2006, there were 15. Gerrymandering, of course, does not explain Senate party homogeneity by state. It appears the main reason is self-sorting, with Democrats concentrating in coastal states and Republicans in the South and center of the country. The problem is not that states favor one party or the other; it is, again, that members of Congress are chosen in low-turnout party primaries. Final Five Elections (FFE) would go a long way toward solving the problem by providing real competition in the general election, producing winners that answer to the entire electorate and more likely to achieve optimal democratic outcomes. ### “I Know What You Are”: When You Leave the Political Tribe, You Become the Enemy URL: https://ivn.us/i-know-what-you-are-when-you-leave-the-political-tribe-you-become-the-enemy/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:43:34.000Z “I know what you are.” An early voter hissed at me as she looked straight into my eyes. She had a deep scowl of disgust on her face. Caught by surprise, since nobody expects a stranger to air such strong combative emotions out of the blue, I tried to reply with something witty, but all I could muster was, “I’d love to hear more.” In reply, she raised her hand to my face and walked past me, refusing to dignify eye contact. It was a brisk sunny morning as I greeted early voters at a community center in Arlington, VA, where I was running as an independent. It has been almost a year since then, but, to this day, I remember the encounter vividly. In part, because I wish I could have had a conversation with her and maybe understood her point of view. As an independent candidate running for office, I prided myself in having an open mind to the various perspectives in our community. But also, what if she did know what I was? Somehow, she had instinctively bit into a core fear; that I will never be enough and that those closest to me are eventually going to see what big failure I am. Being an independent is hard. And yet, despite that, the number of Americans who identify as independents continues to [grow](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?ref=ivn.us). To better appreciate why this is such a meaningful thing, it helps to understand what these individuals are walking away from. Today’s political environment is purpose-built to hold you in a rapt state of fight or flight. It uses focus-group-tested messaging to nudge you in certain ways, using specific words and messages that target your sense of safety. This helps explain what the early voter saw in me: a threat to her and her loved ones. And to be perfectly clear, she is not to be blamed. Our biology is. Every time you “protect” someone from your chosen group, your brain gives you a hit of [dopamine](https://news.vcu.edu/article/2022/06/us-versus-them-harming-the-outgroup-is-linked-to-elevated-activity-in-the-brains-reward?ref=ivn.us), the feel-good chemical. Political operatives have known about this for years, which is why they like to use words that trigger your sense of safety. Over many years, they have slowly programmed us to become instinctively reactive to other points of view. As an independent, you’re going to be on the receiving end of both parties. Yay, free dopamine for everyone! Truth is, more people are increasingly choosing to face the uncertainty associated with not having a political association, rather than continuing to endorse a system which promotes disfunction, theater, and apathy. For all you current and future independents choosing this challenging path, remember to have grace for yourself and others. Understanding the role biology and current incentives play can help lessen the daily friction associated with it. Not having a “group” will make it hard for others to know what you are. You’re in good company. ### NYC Keeps Silencing Independents. Now 1.2 Million Voters Are Building a Movement URL: https://ivn.us/nyc-keeps-silencing-independents-now-1-2-million-voters-are-building-a-movement/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T16:38:18.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* New York City just missed another chance to give 1.2 million independent voters a voice in its primary elections. But the latest defeat may have revealed something more important than another political setback: the movement for open primaries is finally beginning to look like a movement. [In a new long-form piece](https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/why-nyc-needs-open-primaries-elections/?ref=ivn.us), I argue that reformers have spent years searching for the perfect strategy, coalition or campaign. The missing ingredient may be something much more fundamental-organized civic power. The recently concluded NYC Charter Revision Commission hearings offered a glimpse of what that could look like. Independent voters from across the city-teachers, immigrants, veterans, union members, students, retirees and lifelong New Yorkers-showed up and asked a fundamental question: Why are we excluded from elections we help pay for? That question is becoming harder to ignore. With the possibility of an open-primary question [returning to the ballot](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook/2026/08/18/open-primary-proponents-eye-2027-as-their-year-in-nyc-01039777?ref=vitalcitynyc.org), it might be tempting to just focus on that. But I argue that the next chapter of the fight in NYC cannot simply be another campaign. It has to be a movement built by the millions of New Yorkers who have been shut out of their own elections. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/gruber-nyc-quote.jpg) ## **What We're Watching** ### MARYLAND LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR ON CLOSED PRIMARY LEGAL CHALLENGE Maryland’s closed-primary system is facing a challenge in the courts-and the challenge is being led by someone who knows the political system from the inside. Former Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, chief counsel for Open Primaries Education Fund’s lawsuit, sat down with former state Sen. Bobby Zirkin for Across the Aisle to talk about political independence, election reform and why nearly one-quarter of Maryland voters are shut out of taxpayer-funded primaries. Rutherford makes the case plainly: when a primary effectively decides who wins, excluding independent voters isn’t just a political inconvenience. It’s a democratic failure. Watch this powerful conversation about breaking down partisan barriers, giving voters more choice and building an electoral system that rewards candidates for reaching beyond their party’s base. Want to learn more about Open Primaries’ litigation program? [Follow all the cases on our portal here.](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/LetUsVote--2-.png) ## **'Yes on 3' for Nonpartisan Primaries in Massachusetts** This November Massachusetts voters have the opportunity to create a Top Two primary system for the state by voting Yes on Qn #3\. If passed, the initiative would create a nonpartisan primary where all the candidates for an office are on one ballot and all voters receive the same ballot. There is a myth about Massachusetts – that it is a “blue” state. Yet, 65% of voters in Massachusetts are independents – that is more than the members of the Democratic and Republican Party combined. When you look even more closely you discover that 75% of those independents are under 34\. And 70% of people of color in Massachusetts are independents. The current semi-open primary system allows independents to vote in the primaries by picking a party ballot. However, independent voters in MA turn out at very low rates, not wanting to be limited by one party ballot. Check out this video featuring Open Primaries activists Evelyn Dougherty from Boston and Doug Balder from Dartmouth talking about Qn 3. > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dbv6fuMkejq/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Vote YES on 3: All-Party Primaries (@voteyeson3ma)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dbv6fuMkejq/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) Massachusetts has the least competitive state elections in all 50 states! This has been the case for a decade. This fall 60% of state legislative races will be unopposed. Qn 3 was spearheaded by the Coalition for a Healthy Democracy. Chair Danielle Allen believes that Qn 3 will “jumpstart competitiveness” because “...when politicians don’t have rivals, they don’t listen to voters.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/yes-on-3-cathy-stewart.jpg) Last week, National Organizing Director Cathy Stewart spoke at a houseparty for Yes on 3 organized by Joyce Dattner and hosted by Mary Lou Burdick in Cheshire. There was a lively conversation about Qn 3, the growth of independent voters and the advantages of a nonpartisan primary. Stay Tuned – the establishment forces in both parties are opposing the initiative and are likely to come out after Labor Day with some heavy-handed pushback. ## **What happens when you knock on an independent's door?** That is what Hadley Haas, a candidate for the PA State Representative found out when she knocked on Tom Graf’s door in PA. Tom asked Hadley if he could film her and asked her what her view of independents and opening the primaries was. Check out what happened. Great work Tom! ## **All Votes Count Iowa Attends the Iowa State Association of Counties Convention** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/all-votes-count.jpg) The All Votes Count Iowa team had a booth at the Iowa State Association of Counties annual convention where elected officials meet to promote cooperation and discuss cross county issues. Tom Synhorst and Brad Williams, co-founders of All Votes Count Iowa, spoke with 125 County Auditors, Recorders, Treasurers, and Supervisors who stopped by the booth. They shared the effort to pass legislation that would give Independent voters full voting rights in Iowa primaries without being forced to join a political party. The team found broad support from the officials they talked with. They also got important feedback on the cost and administrative challenges for County Auditors under the current, semi-closed primary system in Iowa. Tom Synhorst noted, “Most of those that visited our booth agree that Iowa’s 600,000+ registered Independents should not face obstacles to voting in taxpayer-funded primaries.” ## **What We're Reading** ### **Perot 2.0 Is Coming — Without Perot** In 1992, Ross Perot came out of nowhere, won 20 million votes, and terrified the two-party establishment. The parties spent the next three decades making sure it wouldn’t happen again. They may have failed. [In a new piece](https://thefulcrum.us/elections/your-site-com-perot-2-0-the-independent-movement-resurgence?ref=ivn.us), Open Primaries President John Opdycke argues that something much bigger than a single independent candidate is emerging in 2026: a Perot 2.0 movement without a Perot. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/opdycke-quote--2-.png) Independent candidates are surging. Independent voters are surging. And across the country, voters are fighting for open primaries, challenging closed-party systems in court, and demanding a political system where competition actually exists. The genie is out of the bottle. And this time, there may be no putting it back. [Read John Opdycke’s full piece](https://thefulcrum.us/elections/your-site-com-perot-2-0-the-independent-movement-resurgence?ref=ivn.us) on how 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the independent surge. ## **Fast Takes** **Alabama:** [Who should pay for a closed ALGOP primary?](https://www.lagniappemobile.com/news/who-should-pay-for-a-closed-algop-primary/article%5Fc8fd1da4-5235-43dc-b9b6-89906f9164c1.html?ref=ivn.us) **Alaska:** [Alaska’s alternative to extremism.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/08/24/alaskas-top-four-election-is-model-states-with-party-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) **California:** [Assembly Democrats Defend Independent Voters' Rights In Top Two Nonpartisan Primary](https://ivn.us/a-dozen-california-democrats-defend-independent-voters-against-a-party-driven-effort-to-undo-the-top-two-nonpartisan-primary/) **Florida:** [Florida’s ‘Phantom Candidates’ Are Back And They’re Still Locking Voters Out](https://ivn.us/floridas-phantom-candidates-are-back-and-theyre-still-locking-voters-out/) **Oklahoma:** [500,000 Oklahoma Independents Can Vote on Voter ID Tuesday — But Not for Governor](https://ivn.us/500-000-oklahoma-independents-can-vote-on-voter-id-tuesday-but-not-for-governor/) **Pennsylvania:** [Opening the primaries.](https://community.triblive.com/news/4121752?ref=ivn.us) ## **IN OKC AND BEYOND: MAYOR HOLT MAKES THE CASE FOR OPEN PRIMARIES** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/mayor-holt.jpg) Mayor Holt has been on a tear across the TV talk shows all year, especially after he penned [an essay in the NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/opinion/oklahoma-city-mayor-diversity.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare\&ref=ivn.us) last year crediting his city’s “red state diversity” to its top two primary elections. Watch his interview on CNN: Then watch him discuss how open, nonpartisan primaries have changed Oklahoma City’s political culture: And last year, Mayor Holt joined Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum, former Congressman Mickey Edwards, and Open Primaries President John Opdycke on stage to discuss the importance of letting All Voters Vote. ## **Activities/Events** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/open-primaries-lisa-rice-1.png)](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/S59uL4--T0ulEdbx7SogoQ?ref=ivn.us#/registration) ### **The Personal Touch: Building Campaigns for Open Primaries that Inspire Voters** *What D.C.’s Successful Open Primaries Campaign Can Teach Reformers Nationwide* *September 10 at 2:00 PM ET. Featuring Lisa Rice, Founder of Grow Democracy DC. Moderated by Open Primaries President John Opdycke* Winning open primaries isn’t about policy. It’s about enfranchising voters who are shut out and building trust that changing the rules creates positive possibility and opportunity. If voters are not inspired, don’t trust campaign leadership, and don’t see a relationship between open voting and improving their lives - who cares what the policy is. In 2024, 73% of D.C. voters approved Initiative 83, voting to open the city’s taxpayer-funded primary elections and deploy ranked choice voting in the general election. But after the measure passed, ranked choice voting was implemented, and open primaries was shelved by the city council - leaving nearly 100,000 independent voters shut out. For nearly two years, the will of the voters was blocked. But **Lisa Rice, founder of Grow Democracy DC**, and her team don’t know how to take no for an answer - thank god! Please join us for a discussion about how the DC team went to the mattresses and forced the city council to implement open primaries in the nation’s capitol. **Open Primaries President John Opdycke** will sit down with Lisa to explore what the D.C. campaign can teach reformers across the country: How do you make structural reform personal? How do you build a coalition that lasts beyond Election Day? And how can campaigns connect with and inspire voters in ways that move political leaders to act? [Join us on **September 10 at 2:00 PM ET**](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/S59uL4--T0ulEdbx7SogoQ?ref=ivn.us#/registration) for a behind-the-scenes conversation about what it takes to turn voter support into lasting political change. ### Before a California Bill Gets a Vote, It Has to Get Past Blanca Pacheco URL: https://ivn.us/before-a-california-bill-gets-a-vote-it-has-to-get-past-blanca-pacheco/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:43:24.000Z *This is part of* [*an IVN series*](https://ivn.us/tag/legislative-spotlight/) *profiling the 25 Latinas serving in the California Legislature.* **SACRAMENTO, Calif.** — Roughly 2,000 bills get introduced in the California Assembly during a two-year session, and every one passes through the same set of hands before landing in a policy committee, picking up an author's amendment, or dying without a hearing. Those hands belong to Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, a Downey Democrat now in her second term, who chairs the Assembly Committee on Rules and, since February 2025, the Joint Committee on Rules for both houses. Watch: Blanca Pacheco campaign ad The Rules Committee doesn't produce flashy hearings or headline-grabbing floor fights. The Assembly's own committee list describes its jurisdiction as covering "proposed amendments to the rules and other matters relating to the business of the Legislature." It is language vague enough to obscure how much power the job actually carries. ## It's the referrals, stupid In California, a bill can't get a hearing in the Assembly until the Rules Committee refers it to a policy committee, a step handled by a bill referral consultant on staff. The general rule is that a bill goes to the committee with jurisdiction over its subject. But the judgment calls belong to Pacheco as the chair, and that's where bills get won or lost: sending a measure to one committee gives it one set of odds, sending it to two means it has to clear both in sequence against a legislative calendar full of hard deadlines. A double referral isn't technically a rejection. It just tends to add up to the same thing. Rules controls a second lever, too. Under Joint Rule 58, no bill may be amended to add an urgency clause without the Rules Committee's permission in the house where the amendment is offered. An urgency clause allows a law to take effect immediately rather than the following January, but it also raises the vote threshold to two-thirds. Lawmakers who want this special accommodation have to ask Rules, and the Assembly Daily Journal logs the answers under Pacheco's signature as chair. ## Payroll, offices, and the recess Rules also runs the Assembly as an institution. It appoints every Assembly employee not otherwise covered by statute and can discipline, suspend, or set employment terms for staff. It assigns member offices, signs off on other committees' expenditures, and its chair appoints the chief administrative officer of the Assembly. ## The committee that doesn't go home Under Joint Rule 61(b)(15), from August 17-31 the Assembly meets only in floor session, and no committee may meet for any purpose except conference committees and Rules. That makes Pacheco's committee one of just two still operating this week, as most lawmakers head back to their districts to campaign ahead of the August 31 deadline to pass bills. It stays that way through the recess. The Legislature doesn't formally adjourn sine die until midnight on November 30, and the next session doesn't convene until noon December 7 — but the rules of each house keep the Rules Committees in existence, with the same powers they hold in session, straight through that gap. The Joint Committee on Rules, which Pacheco has chaired since the Senate contingent selected her on February 5, 2025, with Sen. John Laird as vice chair, extends that same reach across both houses. Rules also carries the rights, duties, and powers given to investigating committees under the Joint Rules. ## A first-termer got the gavel Speaker Robert Rivas handed Pacheco the Rules gavel on November 21, 2023, part of his first full slate of committee chairs after replacing Anthony Rendon — even though she'd been in the Assembly less than a year. Rivas said her record of local service made her the right fit despite being new to the chamber. Pacheco called herself "eager to lead a committee with a mission to keep the Assembly running effectively." He reappointed her in his next round of chair assignments on December 27, 2024, a slate that put more women in charge of Assembly committees than at any point in state history. ## She says she is living proof of the California dream Pacheco, 52, grew up in the district she now represents, attending elementary school in Cudahy before graduating from Downey High School. Both of her parents were union members: her mother, Mariana, worked as a nurse at LAC/USC Medical Center and now serves as nursing director at Downey Adult School, and later won an elected seat on the Cerritos College Board of Trustees. Her father, Gonzalo — known as "Gonzo" — drove a public-school bus, worked as a district locksmith, and ran a small landscaping business. As a teenager, Pacheco spent weekends helping him with landscaping, and after earning her black belt, she taught karate alongside him. She earned a bachelor's degree in political science, with a specialization in Chicana/o studies, from UCLA in 1996, then a law degree from Loyola Law School, Loyola Marymount University, in 2002\. At Loyola, she volunteered with the school's Center for Conflict Resolution, mediating disputes for Spanish-speaking residents and local businesses. After law school, she substitute-taught across grade levels in the Downey Unified School District, including a stint as a Spanish teacher at the high school level, and taught part-time in the paralegal program at Downey Adult School. She's practiced law since passing the bar in 2003, running her own law office from 2006 to 2020 with a focus on estate planning, probate and evictions, before joining Olivarez Madruga Lemieux O'Neill in El Monte, where she was most recently an associate. Much of that work has gone to low-income, mostly Spanish-speaking clients pro bono, according to the Downey Patriot, and she's also volunteered through the Southeast District Bar Association and the Mexican American Bar Association. She joined the Kiwanis Club of Downey in 2012 and became president of her local club two years later. That same year, she helped bring Teen Court, an alternative program for youth offenders, to the city. The work earned her the Downey Woman of the Year honor from then-Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia in 2016, and induction into Downey High School's Hall of Fame as an "Exemplary Civic Leader" in 2019. She also worked for a time as a real estate broker at Realty Executives in Pico Rivera, a path she discussed on a [Downey Patriot podcast](https://www.thedowneypatriot.com/podcast/episode-3-blanca-pacheco?rq=blanca%20pacheco&ref=ivn.us). ## First Latina Mayor of Downey Pacheco won a seat on the Downey City Council in 2016 and was reelected in 2020 with 68.8 percent of the vote. She served as mayor in both 2020 and 2022, the first Latina to hold that office in Downey's history. It is the largest city in what's now AD-64\. She also served as president of the League of California Cities' Los Angeles division, the first Downey official to do so, chaired its housing, community and economic development policy committee, and sat on the League's state board as an at-large director. As mayor during the pandemic, she pushed through a 2020 rent moratorium for commercial and residential tenants and worked with Los Angeles County to add COVID testing sites in Downey. Her council tenure also included modernizing every Downey fire station and city park, repaving local roads, installing solar panels and EV chargers at six civic buildings, and partnering with Tree People to plant hundreds of trees around the city. Pacheco was sworn into the Assembly on December 5, 2022, succeeding Cristina Garcia in a seat running from Bell and Cudahy across southeast Los Angeles County into La Habra and Orange County. At her swearing-in, she said she understood the California Dream "because my family has lived it." AD-64 covers the full cities of Santa Fe Springs, Bell Gardens, Downey, La Mirada, Bell, Norwalk, Cudahy and La Habra, straddling Los Angeles and Orange counties along the Interstate 5 corridor. Mapmakers split the counties there to satisfy obligations under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act while balancing population and keeping communities of interest together. Downey and Whittier, for instance, share similar density, economies, transportation needs and public service agencies. As of May 18, 2026, AD-64 had 293,389 registered voters: 48 percent Democratic, 23 percent Republican, and 22 percent no party preference, with smaller shares registered as American Independent, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom, and Green. Democrats have a registration advantage of 25 points. The district's citizen voting-age population is majority Latino, which is why AD-64 is drawn as a Voting Rights Act district. California Target Book data puts Latino CVAP at 65.2 percent, followed by white voters at 20.5 percent, Asian voters at 10.2 percent and Black voters at 3.1 percent, out of a total CVAP of 315,759. The district's overall population runs far larger than its voter rolls. The Census Bureau's 2023 American Community Survey estimates AD-64's total population at 500,485, with Latino residents making up 72.8 percent, white residents 13.3 percent, Asian residents 9.2 percent, and Black residents 2.5 percent. Nearly a third, 31.2 percent, are foreign-born, and 14.3 percent are non-citizens. Median household income is $87,414, with 11.7 percent of residents below the poverty line; homeownership runs slightly ahead of renting, 54.7 percent to 45.3 percent, with a median home value of $666,900 and median rent of $1,834. ## She's got her own priorities Pacheco introduced, and then reintroduced, [AB 64](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB64&ref=ivn.us), the Name Accuracy Act, allowing accents, tildes, umlauts and other diacritical marks on California vital records. Newsom signed it into law in October 2025, so Californians whose names carry those marks can now get birth, marriage, and death certificates that spell them correctly. She also carried [AB 953](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB953&ref=ivn.us), the 2025 law barring foreign nationals from contributing to or spending on state and local ballot measure campaigns (also signed by the governor) and she's a coauthor of ACA24, the California Right to Vote Amendment. [California Legislators Lead Landmark Voting Rights AmendmentA coalition of California Democrats wants to put independent voters’ right to participate in publicly funded elections into the state Constitution — but getting it before voters will require Republican support.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-72a0eb8d-27de-4e58-be7a-e1b4c581fc33.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-right-to-vote-amendment-a2982e40-5d5f-4c1c-b2b2-25ac4f50bfb8.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-legislators-lead-landmark-voting-right-amendment/) Pacheco's 2025-2026 legislative package also included bills tightening oversight of utility cost mandates ([AB 61](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB61&ref=ivn.us), the Ratepayer Protection Act); protecting seniors from financial fraud ([AB 83](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB83&ref=ivn.us), a two-year bill); modernizing juror oath language ([AB 223](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB223&ref=ivn.us)); extending privacy protections to retired judges and court officials ([AB 343](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB343&ref=ivn.us)); making threats against judges an aggravating factor at sentencing ([AB 352](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB352&ref=ivn.us)); setting statewide K9 program standards ([AB 400](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB400&ref=ivn.us)); clarifying trial courts' statements of decision ([AB 515](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB515&ref=ivn.us)); a one-year moratorium on executive-branch rulemaking pending legislative review ([AB 582](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB582&ref=ivn.us), the Regulatory Accountability Act); transparency on student debt owed to colleges ([AB 850](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB850&ref=ivn.us)); reporting requirements on voter-approved bond spending ([AB 905](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB905&ref=ivn.us)); and confidentiality protections for undercover officers ([AB 1178](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB1178&ref=ivn.us)). A twelfth bill, [AB 74](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB74&ref=ivn.us), remains a two-year measure still awaiting direction. Watch this space! [Assembly Democrats Defend Independent Voters Against a Party-Driven Effort to “Undo the Top Two” Nonpartisan PrimaryFourteen California Democrats co-sponsor a constitutional amendment to protect independent voters’ right to participate in all publicly funded elections, including primaries, amid a coordinated effort to repeal the state’s nonpartisan top-two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-e2be8f75-34b0-47fc-a5d8-39866d4edc8d.png)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/dozen-democrats-back-right-to-vote-amendment-03a977ed-e066-44f6-862d-37238acaeae1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/a-dozen-california-democrats-defend-independent-voters-against-a-party-driven-effort-to-undo-the-top-two-nonpartisan-primary/) Beyond Rules, Pacheco serves on the Assembly committees on Appropriations, Governmental Organization, Judiciary, and Local Government, and has sat on select committees covering California's mental health crisis, cybersecurity, domestic violence, ports and goods movement, and workforce development and diversity in the innovation economy. Interest-group scorecards show where she lands on hot-button issues: the National Rifle Association rated her at 0 percent in 2024, while Planned Parenthood of California rated her at 100 percent in 2023. ## She's got a very safe seat, by the numbers AD-64 is totally safe Democratic territory. Pacheco beat Republican Raul Ortiz Jr., a branch manager for Terminix and Dewey Pest Control, 62.5 percent to 37.5 percent in November 2024 — the second time she'd faced him. She beat him 61 percent to 39 percent in 2022, when he ran unopposed in the GOP primary and raised or spent no money. At the top of the ticket that same November, AD-64 voters backed Kamala Harris over Donald Trump 56.47 percent to 40.28 percent. The district’s voters are tough on crime, as evidenced by their approval of Proposition 36's tougher sentencing for drug and theft crimes (73.54 percent to 26.46 percent), and socially tolerant. They approved Proposition 3's constitutional right to marriage 55.11 percent to 44.89 percent. Ortiz has qualified for a third try in 2026, but the money gap tells its own story. As of June 30, 2026, Pacheco had raised $1,047,506 ($263,730 in her most recent period) and spent $513,074, leaving $1,216,409 on hand; Ortiz had raised $12,176 lifetime ($1,622 recently) and spent $9,713, leaving him $2,163. In the June 2 primary, with all 106 precincts reporting and 88,594 votes cast (30.2 percent turnout), Pacheco outpolled Ortiz 58,939 to 29,655 — a margin California Target Book predicts will hold in November. Her current term runs through December 7, 2026\. She has filed for re-election, and term limits would allow her to remain in the Assembly until 2034. ### Young Voters are Following This Latino Trend URL: https://ivn.us/young-voters-are-following-this-latino-trend/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T14:47:26.000Z Every election cycle, we get the same headline dressed up in new numbers. In 2024, Latino voters shifted toward Donald Trump, and the national media treated it like a historic partisan realignment. A tectonic shift. The Latino vote was "coming home" to the GOP. Then, almost immediately, came the speculation about a 2026 backlash and a swing right back toward Democrats. Here's the problem with that framing: it assumes Latino voters are a bloc that gets handed from one party to the other, like a football at midfield. [Axios](https://www.axios.com/2026/02/14/latino-vote-midterms-elections-maga?ref=ivn.us) got closer to the truth when it described the Latino vote as "fragmenting" rather than realigning. And Mike Madrid, a longtime Republican strategist, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, and author of "The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority is Transforming Democracy," put it about as plainly as it can be put. "It's a dealignment," Madrid said on Newsweek's "The 1600" podcast and [in comments to Axios](https://www.axios.com/2026/02/14/latino-vote-midterms-elections-maga?ref=ivn.us). "It's not a realignment." ## What "De-Alignment" Actually Means So what's the difference? A realignment is when a group of voters trades one party jersey for another. A de-alignment is when they take the jersey off entirely. Madrid, who has spent more than three decades studying Latino voters, argues that Latinos aren't uniformly swapping D for R. Plenty of them land in one party or the other for their own individual reasons. But the polling shows something more fundamental going on underneath: Latino voters carry less overriding party loyalty than the historical American norm, and a growing share want no party label at all. That's not a story about which party is winning. It's a story about both parties losing their grip. ## California Is the Proof If you want to see de-alignment in the raw numbers, look at California. An analysis of L2's voter file, compiled in August 2026, lays it out. Latinos make up 35% of California adults, the largest group in the state. But they're under 20% of the state's most likely voters. Madrid calls that "the participation gap," and he's careful to distinguish it from a motivation gap. It's not that Latino voters don't care. It's that the system hasn't historically made their vote count. Now look at how they register. Latino voters in California break out to roughly 55% Democratic, 30% no party or independent, and 16% Republican. That 30% no-party share is well above the statewide independent rate of about 22%. In other words, Latino voters are less partisan than California as a whole, not more. And they're showing up. Latino independent turnout jumped from 11.8% in the 2022 primary to 16.5% in the 2026 primary. That's a roughly 40% jump, about three times the growth of the electorate overall. The June 2026 California primary drew 9,446,461 ballots, a 40.8% turnout. That's the highest gubernatorial primary turnout since the state started keeping records back in 1914\. And here's the part worth sitting with: ballot growth over 2022 ran +56 to 63% among independents (No Party Preference and the American Independent Party), compared to +38% for Democrats and +34% for Republicans. Independents grew fastest. And Latino independents drove a large share of that surge. ## The Rules Are Doing the Work None of this happens in a vacuum. California uses a top-two primary, which lets every voter, regardless of party registration, vote for any candidate on one ballot. The top two vote-getters advance to November, no matter their party. That's not a small detail. That's the whole game. Madrid made this argument in a Sacramento Bee op-ed, [republished by IVN as "California Latinos Showed Up—Now Party Insiders Want to Shut Them Out."](https://ivn.us/california-latinos-showed-up-now-party-insiders-want-to-shut-them-out/) His point: the top-two system is precisely why Latino independents could show up and matter in the 2026 governor's race. And he warned that a campaign to repeal Top Two and restore partisan primaries would disproportionately silence the fastest-growing, least-partisan share of the electorate. He called it "voter suppression aimed at the fastest-growing share of the electorate, dressed up as a return to party order." Voters seem to agree. A [May Independent Voter Project survey](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) found 53% of respondents wanted to keep or expand Top Two, versus only 22% who wanted to eliminate it and return to partisan primaries. ## The Becerra Effect Here's where it gets concrete. Out of a field of more than 60 candidates, Xavier Becerra emerged as a surprise frontrunner in the 2026 governor's race. Becerra, a Democrat and former US Health and Human Services Secretary and California attorney general, is now positioned to become California's first Latino governor in modern history. Reporting attributed his rise partly to growing enthusiasm among Latino voters. Per Madrid's analysis and that reporting, this isn't a coincidence. It's the visible result of the participation trend above. The same de-aligned, independent-minded Latino electorate that top-two primaries let participate fully is the electorate that helped push a Latino candidate to the front of a crowded pack. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/ivc-becerra-poll.png) The numbers back it up. In [polling among Latino voters](https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/819d2c3c-f442-4bbf-83a2-7a0fa53449c1/page/4ARxF?ref=ivn.us), Becerra led runner-up Tom Steyer for first-choice governor by roughly two to one, 32.1% to 13.5%. A [separate Independent Voter Project survey](https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/2dc8dcad-8201-4944-bc51-e9a57c53c7df/page/p%5Fd0jkxwct2d?ref=ivn.us), highlighted by the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/california-governor-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us), found the same pattern once results were isolated for Latino respondents. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/ivc-poll-first-choice-second-choice.png) ## Now the Young Voters Here's the part that should reframe the whole conversation. The behavior we keep filing under "Latino trend" is now showing up across the youngest slice of the electorate, regardless of ethnicity. A [CIRCLE survey](https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/50-million-gen-zs-power-priorities-and-participation?ref=ivn.us) found that 43% of Gen Z voters, ages 18 to 29, report no party affiliation, even though most still nominally lean Democrat or Republican. An [Arizona State University survey titled "Frustrated but Engaged"](https://news.asu.edu/20240624-law-journalism-and-politics-2-out-3-gen-z-voters-arizona-say-they-will-vote-november-asu?ref=ivn.us) found that Gen Z voters are more likely than voters over 30 to register independent or "no party declared." Four in five young respondents said the two major parties don't represent people their age. Those are large numbers. Weak party loyalty. Issue-driven rather than party-driven voting. Participation that depends heavily on whether the rules let their vote actually matter. Those are the exact traits we've spent a decade treating as distinctly Latino. They're becoming the norm for the rising generation of American voters. Latino voters didn't turn out to be the anomaly. They were the preview. They just got there first. ## Where This Goes As more states debate open primaries, ranked choice voting, and how independents get to participate at all, the California experience offers a useful lens. The fight over election rules isn't really a fight about procedure. It's a fight over how much of the fastest-growing, most de-aligned parts of the electorate get heard. The Latino vote showed us what that looks like. The next generation is about to show us how big it gets. ### A Supreme Court Ruling Built for the Major Parties Is Helping Idaho Libertarians URL: https://ivn.us/a-supreme-court-ruling-built-for-the-major-parties-is-helping-idaho-libertarians/ Last updated: 2026-08-31T13:35:32.000Z Remember that Supreme Court decision 4 weeks ago that struck down federal limits on how much political parties could spend in coordination with their federal candidates? Critics asserted that it would unleash a flood of new political spending in elections. And it most likely will. At the time, there were also questions over how this would affect minor parties—both existing and new. While the decision was not limited to Republicans and Democrats, the concern was that an already substantial money gap would become impossible to close. But the Supreme Court’s impact is already trickling down to the states. And the Idaho Libertarian Party is getting the same spending freedom—at least temporarily. US District Judge Amanda Brailsford[ ](https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/idaho/iddce/1%3A2026cv00449/60220/12?ref=ivn.us)[granted a preliminary injunction](https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/idaho/iddce/1%3A2026cv00449/60220/12?ref=ivn.us) last week that prevents Idaho officials from enforcing state contribution limits against coordinated campaign spending by the state’s Libertarian Party. Idaho law currently states that political parties generally cannot contribute more than $2,000 per election to a legislative candidate and $10,000 per election to a statewide candidate. It also treats money spent in coordination with its candidates as an in-kind contribution subject to the same caps. For the Libertarian Party, that restriction is now temporarily gone. While the injunction is in place, the party can exceed state spending limits as it pertains to planned coordinated activity with its legislative and statewide candidates. The injunction isn’t a final ruling but will be in place until Brailsford comes to a decision. [This story](https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article316939693.html?ref=ivn.us) was brought to the attention of IVN by attorney Bill Baber, who started working on the lawsuit in this case immediately after the SCOTUS ruling in [*National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-621%5Fh315.pdf?ref=ivn.us). Baber called the injunction “a victory.” It only applies to the Libertarian Party, not every political party in the state. However, it opens the door for other political parties to pursue their own lawsuits and injunctions in this election cycle. It also does not eliminate ordinary limits on direct monetary contributions, nor does it remove reporting or disclosure requirements. ## **The Supreme Court Decision Behind It** In a 6-3 decision on June 30, SCOTUS ruled that the government generally cannot cap a political party's own spending on campaign activity simply because the party planned that spending with its candidates (i.e. coordinated spending). This does not mean parties can simply give unlimited cash directly to candidates. What they can now do is spend their own money on ads, mailers, and other campaign activities they plan with their candidates without a special cap. The majority reasoned that contribution limits, rules against donors earmarking money for particular candidates, and disclosure requirements provide less restrictive ways to guard against corruption. The dissenting opinion, written by Justice Elena Kagan, who was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that removing coordinated spending limits would invite megadonors to use political parties to funnel their cash to benefit candidates. And because lifting a spending ceiling is inherently more useful to organizations with large amounts of money to spend, well-funded Republican and Democratic committees could take far greater advantage of the ruling than smaller parties. The Idaho ruling doesn’t change that reality. Removing the state’s caps does not suddenly give Libertarians the same fundraising networks of the Republican and Democratic Parties. They won’t be able to spend money they don’t have. However, Brailsford found that Idaho was restricting essentially the same type of coordinated party activity the Supreme Court had just protected. Her injunction means a smaller party–at least for now—does not have to stop coordinating with its candidates because it crosses a statutory ceiling. Other Idaho political parties technically remain subject to the existing limits because Brailsford expressly declined to extend the injunction to anyone beyond the Libertarian Party. However, the constitutional reasoning behind the decision could invite additional challenges. It could also push Idaho officials and lawmakers to reconsider how the state applies its campaign finance laws. There is no doubt that the biggest beneficiaries of the Supreme Court’s ruling will be the two biggest political parties in the US. The system benefits them in so many ways, not just in fundraising and spending. But Idaho shows that minor parties do not have to just sit on the sidelines and accept restrictions placed on them. ### The Opioid Crisis Was Never Only Rural and White URL: https://ivn.us/the-opioid-crisis-was-never-only-rural-and-white/ Last updated: 2026-08-27T19:23:42.000Z The dominant account of America’s opioid crisis is familiar: pharmaceutical companies flooded rural and suburban communities with prescription painkillers; physicians prescribed too freely; and working-class white Americans, already battered by deindustrialization and economic decline, became the principal victims of what researchers famously termed “[deaths of despair](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1518393112?ref=ivn.us).” That account contains important truths, but its dominance obscured a larger reality. The crisis was never singular, and it was never confined to rural or white America. It has always been a patchwork of sub-epidemics shaped by drug type, geography, race, and public policy. Narratives matter because they dictate policy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “[three-wave](https://www.cdc.gov/overdose-prevention/about/understanding-the-opioid-overdose-epidemic.html?ref=ivn.us)” framework—prescription opioids, followed by heroin, followed by illicit fentanyl—encouraged policymakers to understand the crisis primarily as a drug-supply problem. This led to an aggressive push for prescription limits, monitoring programs, and enforcement. Yet even as [prescribing fell](https://www.statista.com/statistics/753149/total-number-of-opioid-rx-prescriptions-in-us/?srsltid=AfmBOop%5Fuf1hEif9avbssR7%5Fu3j6megoklIbF2JMLTKf3KEKipI7en8v&ref=ivn.us) substantially, [overdose mortality continued to rise](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db491.htm?ref=ivn.us), driven by illegally manufactured fentanyl and polysubstance use. The policy response remained trapped in the first chapter while the human toll shifted elsewhere. That fixation carried a racial and geographic bias. When crack cocaine devastated Black communities in the 1980s, the national response emphasized crime, mandatory sentencing, and incarceration. Later, when prescription opioids spread through white communities, drug use was framed through a compassionate public health lens that recognized injured workers and victims of corporate misconduct. White opioid users were granted a degree of social innocence rarely afforded to Black drug users. However, when illicit fentanyl transformed the drug supply, these [biased narratives](https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-23135-2?ref=ivn.us) failed to protect anyone, while the underlying double standard left urban minority communities dangerously exposed. The media system that made rural white suffering emblematic was slower to recognize fentanyl’s devastating toll on racially segregated urban communities. Federal data reveal the resulting blind spot. From [2019 to 2020](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7129e2.htm?ref=ivn.us), drug overdose death rates increased by 44 percent among Black Americans and 39 percent among American Indian and Alaska Native people, compared with 22 percent among white Americans. The disparity persisted even as national overdose mortality began to decline. From [2022 to 2023](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db522.htm?ref=ivn.us), the overdose death rate among white Americans fell from 35.6 to 33.1 deaths per 100,000, while the Black rate rose from 47.5 to 48.9\. American Indian and Alaska Native communities experienced the highest mortality rate of all—65 deaths per 100,000, nearly twice the white rate and one-third higher than the Black rate. These disparities cannot be explained by individual behavior alone. They reflect structural inequalities: residential segregation, underinvested healthcare infrastructure, medical mistrust, and unequal access to office-based buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder. Fentanyl did not enter a socially neutral environment; it entered communities whose vulnerabilities were built over generations. Geography further complicates the story. [County-level research](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33814639/?ref=ivn.us) shows that the opioid crisis is not a single, uniform epidemic but a collection of overlapping epidemics involving [different drugs, populations, and local conditions](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235223000156?ref=ivn.us). Prescription-opioid mortality was concentrated disproportionately in less-populated, predominantly white counties characterized by economic decline, manual-labor industries, occupational injuries, and high rates of disability. Heroin and multi-opioid mortality were more common in urban and racially diverse counties. Yet even the label “urban” can conceal important disparities: a metropolitan county may appear prosperous overall while overdose deaths are concentrated among a relatively small Black population living in deeply disadvantaged and segregated neighborhoods. Rural communities face a different combination of risks, including physically demanding work, chronic pain, geographic isolation, and limited access to healthcare and addiction treatment. [Data from the University of Washington Rural Health Research Center](https://www.ruralhealthresearch.org/publications/1711?ref=ivn.us) highlight this divide: before the federal buprenorphine-waiver requirement was eliminated in 2023, 30.1 percent of rural counties had no waivered clinician in as of 2022, compared with 10.4 percent of urban counties, leaving rural areas with far fewer authorized providers per capita. Conversely, urban residents face structural barriers rather than distance. The physical presence of a hospital does not guarantee equitable care. Black patients encounter insurance and transportation barriers, shortages of culturally responsive clinicians, mistrust rooted in medical discrimination, and treatment pathways stratified by race and class. [Studies show](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37267162/?ref=ivn.us) that office-based buprenorphine has predominantly served white, middle-class patients, while heavily regulated and stigmatized methadone clinics are concentrated in lower-income minority neighborhoods. Despite these differences, rural and urban communities share many upstream drivers: economic insecurity, trauma, frayed social connections, and inadequate behavioral health care. As [social risk frameworks](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19147339/?ref=ivn.us) demonstrate, these forces do not operate in isolation. Four connected domains—economic conditions, social connections, physical environment, and public policy—interlock to shape overdose risk. Job loss connects to housing instability, policing dictates local drug markets, and geographic isolation amplifies provider shortages. Overdose risk does not originate solely within individuals; it is organized by the environment around them. Effective policy requires abandoning a uniform national approach. Rural communities need mobile treatment units, expanded telehealth, reliable transportation, more access to medications for opioid use disorder, and harm-reduction services adapted to geographic isolation. Urban communities require targeted outreach in historically underserved Black neighborhoods, low-threshold treatment, stable housing supports, and fewer criminal-justice barriers. Native populations require a commitment to culturally responsive care. Across all settings, health systems should disaggregate data by race, ethnicity, drug type, and location to audit who is receiving care and who is being left behind. The opioid crisis was never only rural and white. Rural white communities experienced genuine devastation, but their story was mistaken for the whole. Policies that recognize the overdose crisis as a complex patchwork of sub-epidemics—each shaped by distinct drugs, populations, places, and structural conditions—will be more successful in preventing drug-related harm and saving lives. --- **Lynn Webster (he/him), M.D.**, is an addiction and pain specialist. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for U.S. Policy and co-author of *Deconstructing Toxic Narratives: Data, Disparities and a New Path Forward in the Opioid Crisis* (Springer Nature 2026). Learn more at [lynnwebstermd.com](https://l.gourl.es/l/6bb0a9248296d2a103ae08a95a136e8a0cb77a92?u=5002439¬rack=1&ref=ivn.us). ### One Thing Is Clear in 2026: Independent Candidates Are No Longer Just Spoilers URL: https://ivn.us/one-thing-is-clear-in-2026-independent-candidates-are-no-longer-just-spoilers/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:43:14.000Z The US is headed into the final stretch of the 2026 campaign season, and independent candidates are steering toward November with something they rarely have in US politics: a real chance at winning. Or, at the very least, to matter in ways they haven't in previous cycles due to the systemic hurdles they regularly face. In several Senate races, Democratic withdrawals have cleared the way for independents to face Republicans one-on-one. Elsewhere, independent candidates are raising serious money, attracting national attention, picking up endorsements, and testing whether voters are willing to look beyond the two major parties. There is no guarantee that independents will break through. Some candidates remain significant underdogs, others are navigating crowded ballots, and polling is still sparse in many races. But as August comes to a close, the independent candidate story is no longer confined to a few isolated campaigns. From Senate contests in Nebraska, Idaho, and South Dakota to House and governor races across the US, independents are building momentum and an infrastructure that could make the final months of 2026 worth watching. ## Fulcrum Watch: Senate, House, and Governor Updates as August Ends ### Senate Races **Idaho —** [**Todd Achilles**](https://ivn.us/todd-achilles-says-the-two-parties-broke-congress-now-he-wants-idaho-to-help-break-their-grip/) **in a clean two-way race.** Achilles faces Republican Sen. Jim Risch head-on after the Democrat exited the primary. [FEC filings through the end of June](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/ID/2026/?ref=ivn.us) show Risch with a significant advantage: $3.56M cash on hand to Achilles' $194k. Each campaign has released their own [commissioned polls](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/idaho-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) showing very different results. Risch's poll sees him leading by 34 points, whereas Achilles' poll shows Risch up by only 4, with it switching to an Achilles lead of 5 on an "informed ballot" where more information is provided on both candidates. **Montana — a four-way race survives the deadline.** Democrat Alani Bankhead [did not withdraw](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/07/30/bankhead-bodnar-and-the-battle-over-bowing-out/?ref=ivn.us) by Aug. 10, leaving Seth Bodnar (I), Kurt Alme (R), Kyle Austin (L), and Bankhead (D) all on the ballot. [Polls released by Bodnar's campaign](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/montana-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) ahead of the withdrawal deadline showed him even with Alme in a two-way race, but trailing by 15 points in a race with Bankhead on the ballot. The latter is now the reality he's facing in November. **South Dakota —** [**Brian Bengs**](https://ivn.us/he-ran-as-a-democrat-once-brian-bengs-says-never-again/) **gets his one-on-one.** Democrat Julian Beaudion [suspended his campaign Aug. 4](https://ivn.us/a-third-democrat-drops-out-now-independent-brian-bengs-takes-on-incumbent-sen-mike-rounds-head-to-head/), leaving Bengs to face Sen. Mike Rounds directly. Bengs appeared on [CNN with Jeff Zeleny on Aug. 16](https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/16/politics/video/brian-bengs-south-dakota-senate?ref=ivn.us). **Nebraska — Osborn's opponent goes on the attack over caucusing.** The Democratic field is now fully cleared: [Cindy Burbank withdrew, formally leaving Osborn as the only alternative to Sen. Pete Ricketts](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-officially-osborn-vs-ricketts-unless-republicans-stop-it/). A poll commissioned by Osborn ([via Impact Research](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/nebraska-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us)) shows the race dead even, though prediction markets and political handicappers are still rating this leaning towards Republicans. **Colorado —** [**Bob Chew**](https://ivn.us/bob-chew-wants-to-make-colorados-senate-race-about-the-problems-both-parties-duck/) **puts real money behind his message.** Forward Party nominee Bob Chew, a Navy veteran and retired engineering executive, launched a [$1.3 million statewide TV ad buy in August](https://www.coloradopolitics.com/2026/08/12/ticked-off-third-party-u-s-senate-candidate-in-colorado-launches-1-3-million-tv-ad-campaign/?ref=ivn.us) in support of his message. No polling has included the candidate; the campaign is likely hoping this publicity will raise his profile in the public's eye and lead to his inclusion in future instruments. **Mississippi — the field is set.** [Ty Pinkins'](https://ivn.us/ty-pinkins-makes-the-case-for-sending-an-independent-caucus-to-the-senate/) November opponents are now confirmed: incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic nominee Scott Colom. **Looking ahead:** Several of these candidates are slated to appear at the [Independent National Convention](https://independentnationalconvention.com/?ref=ivn.us), set for Sept. 23-25, to discuss what a concerted independent "fulcrum" could do in the US Senate. Each candidate [with whom we've spoken](https://ivn.us/author/matt-shinners/) has given a list of what they'd individually hope to accomplish. ### House Races **California —** [**Rep. Kevin Kiley**](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) **heads into debate season.** (I) Kevin Kiley came out as the top vote-getter in CA-6, despite the district being gerrymandered to be safely Democratic. Neither he nor the other candidate to advance, (D) Richard Pan, broke 25% of the vote. Kiley left the Republican Party but still caucuses with them; looking at the rest of the primary field, the Republican in the race drew 20% of the vote, while Democrats other than Pan received 32.5% of the vote. After publicly sparring over debate commitments, Pan and Kiley particiated in their [first one was held in mid-August](https://www.c-span.org/program/campaign-2026/california-6th-congressional-district-general-election-debate/684224?ref=ivn.us). **Wisconsin —** [Mike Thurow](https://ivn.us/in-the-birthplace-of-the-gop-an-independent-is-coming-for-a-republican-seat/), a Milwaukee Fire Department captain, has drawn attention for a strong independent showing against six-term Rep. Glenn Grothman. He is one of the candidates endorsed by Working Class Heroes Fund, a Dan Osborn-affiliated PAC, highlighting the growing shared infrastructure supporting independent candidates. **Alaska — Hill advances in a crowded field.** Independent Bill Hill, [advanced alongside Rep. Nick Begich](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6028789-bill-hill-alaska-house/?ref=ivn.us) in the Aug. 18 top-four primary. He picked up a boost when [Democrat Matt Schultz suspended his campaign and endorsed him](https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/results/2026/08/18/alaska-us-house-primary-election-results-2026-live-updates/?ref=ivn.us) last month. Begich carries Trump's endorsement and [a lead across the polls](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/alaska-us-house-at-large-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us), but he doesn't break 50% in any, showing room for movement for the independent. ### Governor Races **Maine —** [**Rick Bennett**](https://ivn.us/rick-bennett-quit-the-gop-now-he-wants-to-prove-maine-doesnt-need-either-party/) **stakes out policy ground.** With the governorship open on term limits, Rick Bennett laid out a [climate and natural-resources agenda in Auburn on Aug. 20](https://wgme.com/news/local/independent-gubernatorial-candidate-rick-bennett-discusses-environmental-plan-maine?ref=ivn.us). **Tennessee — a cross-partisan case for** [**Lauren Pinkston**](https://ivn.us/lauren-pinkston-is-betting-tennessee-isnt-as-red-as-it-looks/)**.** [The Chattanooga Times Free Press](https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2026/aug/25/community-voice-independent-pinkston-best-bet-for/?ref=ivn.us) published a letter from a self-described lifelong Democrat and referencing her conservative mother, describing Pinkston as the first candidate they've ever agreed on. ### Upcoming Primaries **Massachusetts — Sept. 1.** **New Hampshire — Sept. 8.** **Rhode Island — Sept. 9.** [Ken Block](https://ivn.us/rhode-islands-voters-left-the-parties-now-the-candidates-are-following/) is running for governor as an independent. **Delaware — Sept. 15.** ### California Just Did the Opposite of Mamdani URL: https://ivn.us/the-right-to-vote-isnt-a-party-perk/ Last updated: 2026-08-27T17:50:24.000Z [Mamdani recently said he's "content" with New York's closed primary system](https://ivn.us/1-2-million-new-yorkers-cant-vote-mamdani-says-hes-content-with-that/) that disenfranchises 1.2 million voters from their taxpayer-funded primary. On Monday, Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen and thirteen fellow California Assembly Democrats introduced [ACA 24, the “Right to Vote” amendment](https://ivn.us/a-dozen-california-democrats-defend-independent-voters-against-a-party-driven-effort-to-undo-the-top-two-nonpartisan-primary/) — authoring a fundamental principal into the California constitution that says just the opposite: **the right to vote comes from citizenship, not from joining a political party.** The timing is no accident in California. [Insiders from both parties ](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/)including a longtime Democratic consultant, a former state GOP chair, and the sitting Democratic Party chair among them, are running a campaign to “Undo the Top Two” and drag California back to closed primaries. Standing in their way: **5.2 million Californians registered No Party Preference**, the fastest-growing bloc in the state, fresh off a record 41% primary turnout. As [Shawn Griffiths writes](https://ivn.us/california-legislators-lead-landmark-voting-right-amendment/), the amendment’s authors just made a bet: **the best defense is a good offense**. Don’t just block the repeal: enshrine the nonpartisan right to vote into the Constitution. Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## California Legislators Lead Landmark Voting Rights Amendment [![California Right to Vote amendment](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/california-right-to-vote-amendment.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-legislators-lead-landmark-voting-right-amendment/) Shawn Griffiths breaks down ACA 24 — who signed on, what it changes, and why it matters that **roughly a third of California’s Latino voters are now registered with no party at all**. Instead of playing defense against the repeal, fourteen legislators moved to make the right to vote permanent. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/california-legislators-lead-landmark-voting-right-amendment/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [9 Ways Ranked Choice Ballots Fix What’s Broken in American Elections ](https://ivn.us/9-ways-ranked-choice-ballots-fix-whats-broken-in-american-elections/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/08/steven-hill.jpg) Steven Hill [ ![9 Ways Ranked Choice Ballots Fix What’s Broken in American Elections](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/ranked-choice-voting.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/9-ways-ranked-choice-ballots-fix-whats-broken-in-american-elections/) [Maryland Tried to Rewrite the Rules for Congressional Maps. A Judge Just Hit the Brakes. ](https://ivn.us/maryland-tried-to-rewrite-the-rules-for-congressional-maps-a-judge-just-hit-the-brakes/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Maryland Tried to Rewrite the Rules for Congressional Maps. A Judge Just Hit the Brakes.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-1a30ea1c-acb4-4313-864b-07e7aed71287.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/maryland-tried-to-rewrite-the-rules-for-congressional-maps-a-judge-just-hit-the-brakes/) [At Harlem Week, NYC Independents Had One Question: Why Can’t We Vote? ](https://ivn.us/at-harlem-week-nyc-independents-had-one-question-why-cant-we-vote/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![At Harlem Week, NYC Independents Had One Question: Why Can’t We Vote?](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/new-york-city-independent-voters-closed-primaries.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/at-harlem-week-nyc-independents-had-one-question-why-cant-we-vote/) [Could USPS Refuse to Deliver Your Ballot? A New Election Fight Is About to Explode ](https://ivn.us/could-usps-refuse-to-deliver-your-ballot-a-new-election-fight-is-about-to-explode/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Could USPS Refuse to Deliver Your Ballot? A New Election Fight Is About to Explode](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-a1c1c290-e7cc-4f95-bd55-27a1afc6e40e.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/could-usps-refuse-to-deliver-your-ballot-a-new-election-fight-is-about-to-explode/) [70% of America’s Elections Had Only One Candidate. That’s a Problem. ](https://ivn.us/70-of-americas-elections-had-only-one-candidate-thats-a-problem/) By Rafael Gonzalez, The Fulcrum [ ![70% of America’s Elections Had Only One Candidate. That’s a Problem.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/uncontested-US-elections.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/70-of-americas-elections-had-only-one-candidate-thats-a-problem/) [500,000 Oklahoma Independents Can Vote on Voter ID Tuesday — But Not for Governor ](https://ivn.us/500-000-oklahoma-independents-can-vote-on-voter-id-tuesday-but-not-for-governor/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![500,000 Oklahoma Independents Can Vote on Voter ID Tuesday — But Not for Governor](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-093663e8-fdcc-4dea-bea3-9e9b4e251999.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/500-000-oklahoma-independents-can-vote-on-voter-id-tuesday-but-not-for-governor/) [She Lost. She Came Back. Then Suzette Valladares Made California History. ](https://ivn.us/she-lost-she-came-back-then-suzette-valladares-made-california-history/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![She Lost. She Came Back. Then Suzette Valladares Made California History.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/Suzette-Martinez-Valladares.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/she-lost-she-came-back-then-suzette-valladares-made-california-history/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Veteran GOP operative Anne Dunsmore traces 50 years in politics — from a lost bet in a D.C. bar to **George H.W. Bush’s inner circle** — and what a half-century inside the machine taught her about how the parties actually work. EP55 of the Independent Voter Podcast. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9d48T-KKdc&ref=ivn.us) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## Assembly Democrats Defend Independent Voters Against a Party-Driven Effort to "Undo the Top Two" Nonpartisan Primary [![California Assembly Democrats back the Right to Vote amendment](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/dozen-democrats-back-right-to-vote-amendment.jpg)](https://ivn.us/a-dozen-california-democrats-defend-independent-voters-against-a-party-driven-effort-to-undo-the-top-two-nonpartisan-primary/) A new constitutional amendment — ACA 24 — would codify that **the right to vote derives from citizenship, not from affiliation with a political party**. The IVN Editorial Board on the broad Democratic coalition putting voters ahead of their own party’s “Undo the Top Two” campaign. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/a-dozen-california-democrats-defend-independent-voters-against-a-party-driven-effort-to-undo-the-top-two-nonpartisan-primary/) ### *CANDIDATE SPOTLIGHT ▶▶▶* ## An Independent Just Broke Through in Alaska — As Republicans Try to Kill the System That Made It Possible [![Independent candidate Bill Hill](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/bill-hill.jpg)](https://ivn.us/an-independent-just-broke-through-in-alaska-as-republicans-try-to-kill-the-system-that-made-it-possible/) Independent Bill Hill just finished second in Alaska’s Aug. 18 top-four primary — earning a head-to-head ranked-choice matchup with Republican Rep. Nick Begich III for the state’s at-large House seat. The twist: **in November, Alaskans also vote on repealing the very system that put an independent in contention**. Matt Shinners reports. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/an-independent-just-broke-through-in-alaska-as-republicans-try-to-kill-the-system-that-made-it-possible/) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### *VETERANS ▶▶▶* ## Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff Army veteran Paul Rieckhoff on Florida’s closed primary locking millions of independents out of taxpayer-funded elections — **including 640,000 veterans** — plus the DSA’s continued march through Democratic primaries. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBmp50Nx1ro&ref=ivn.us) ### *VIDEO CLIP ▶▶▶* ## Viral ‘Looksmaxxer’ Calls AOC ‘Beautiful’ — and Claims He’s ‘Not Political’ [![Viral ‘Looksmaxxer’ Calls AOC ‘Beautiful’ — and Claims He’s ‘Not Political’](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/Clavicular_AOC_Clip.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/DcMR-l5iqq5/?ref=ivn.us) Streamer Clavicular says his “I can fix her” post about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was mostly a bit — “I just tweeted that for engagement” — but he insists he’s “simply not political.” His audience? The least partisan in the country: **a record 45% of Americans now identify as independent, including 56% of Gen Z**. [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/DcMR-l5iqq5/?ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### The TRUTH About Trump’s New USPS Ballot Rule (It’s Complicated) | EP56 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/the-truth-about-trumps-new-usps-ballot-rule-its-complicated-ep56/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:30.000Z President Trump just handed the Postal Service veto power over your mail-in ballot, and Chad and Cara can't agree on whether that's chaos, overreach, or both. This episode, the crew untangles what the USPS's new ballot rule actually does, why the Supreme Court's ruling this week is more limited than the headlines suggest, and why Cara thinks Republicans are abandoning their own Tenth Amendment principles to get it. From there, the conversation shifts to California, where a new constitutional amendment, ACA 24, could guarantee every voter regardless of party the right to participate in publicly funded elections, and where Cara lays out exactly how Democratic and Republican operatives quietly teamed up to try to kill the state's open-primary system after record-breaking turnout. The hosts also dig into the Pentagon's firing of Stars and Stripes' editor-in-chief and a Middle East reporter after they defended the paper's editorial independence, a First Amendment fight with deep roots in military history. Stick around for the final few minutes, where a resurfaced 2013 courthouse video turns into one of the pettier storylines of the Texas Senate race. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/the-truth-about-trumps-new-usps-ballot-rule-its-complicated?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5xtPuiOZ9trj4edxjIyEpA?si=gajyqZCwROCziTGheQ5OTQ&ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-truth-about-trumps-new-usps-ballot-rule-its/id1680559155?i=1000786309736&ref=ivn.us)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, hosts **Chad Peace**, **Cara McCormick**, and **Shawn Griffiths** dig into the **USPS ballot rule**, with Chad arguing that Republicans invoking federal power over mail ballots betrays their own **Tenth Amendment** principles on state control of elections. Shawn[walks through the legal weeds of this week's **Supreme Court** ruling](https://ivn.us/could-usps-refuse-to-deliver-your-ballot-a-new-election-fight-is-about-to-explode/), explaining that the justices only lifted one of two nationwide injunctions (in ***California v. Trump***), while a separate case tied to the **League of Women Voters** remains in place, meaning the rule still isn't enforceable ahead of November. The conversation pivots to **California**, where Carabreaks down [**ACA 24**](https://ivn.us/a-dozen-california-democrats-defend-independent-voters-against-a-party-driven-effort-to-undo-the-top-two-nonpartisan-primary/), a new constitutional amendment introduced by Assemblymember **Stephanie Nguyen** and 13 colleagues that would guarantee every citizen, regardless of party, the right to vote in publicly funded elections. Cara lays out how operatives like **Steve Maviglio**, **Paul Mitchell**, and **Carl DeMaio**, alongside Democratic figures like **Lorena Gonzalez** and party chair **Rusty Hicks**, coordinated an **"Undo the Top Two"** campaign to roll back California's open primary after record turnout. [California Legislators Lead Landmark Voting Rights AmendmentA coalition of California Democrats wants to put independent voters’ right to participate in publicly funded elections into the state Constitution — but getting it before voters will require Republican support.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-4e2621c4-0469-4fb3-9cd8-a555924812d0.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-right-to-vote-amendment-f5c4fcb0-ec76-48e9-ae5d-1a20a808cf59.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-legislators-lead-landmark-voting-right-amendment/) The hosts highlight the turnout numbers driving the fight: California's primary hit over **41% turnout** with a surge among **NPP** (no party preference) and **Latino** voters, a sharp contrast to the roughly 9-10% turnout in **New York City's** closed municipal primary. Caraand Shawnturn to the Pentagon's firing of **Stars and Stripes** editor **Eric Slavin** and reporter **Lara Court** after they defended the paper's editorial independence in reporting on conditions aboard the **USS Abraham Lincoln**, framing it as a First Amendment fight with roots dating back to the Civil War. In the closing segment, the hosts dive into the **Ken Paxton** vs. **James Talarico** Texas Senate race, covering Paxton's push to close the state's primaries despite Texas having no party registration, and a resurfaced 2013 courthouse video showing Paxton pocketing a colleague's pen, now fueling Talarico campaign merchandise. ### Independent Vets Surging In Idaho, Montana, Nebraska & South Dakota. Achilles Up 5 On Risch. URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/independent-vets-surging-in-idaho-montana-nebraska-south-dakota-achilles-up-5-on-risch/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T16:12:03.000Z Five years after Abbey Gate, 13 Gold Star families still have empty seats at the table and Washington still owes them a real accounting — and Paul Rieckhoff refuses to let this anniversary become another partisan food fight. In his weekly Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Wednesday hit with Connell McShane on News Nation, Paul lays out the great American betrayal of Afghanistan, the Afghan allies still hung out to dry, and the surging map of independent veteran candidates the legacy media keeps missing — Todd Achilles up 5 on Jim Risch in Idaho, Seth Bodnar in Montana, competitive races in Nebraska and South Dakota — and the real math behind why 48% of the country is now independent while the two parties sit at 27% each. Independent is an Attitude. Stay vigilant. ### Maryland Tried to Rewrite the Rules for Congressional Maps. A Judge Just Hit the Brakes. URL: https://ivn.us/maryland-tried-to-rewrite-the-rules-for-congressional-maps-a-judge-just-hit-the-brakes/ Last updated: 2026-08-27T01:23:53.000Z Maryland Democrats suffered another setback in their effort to redraw their state's congressional districts Wednesday. Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Robert Thompson ruled that state lawmakers did not follow their own rules when they passed [HB 2100](https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/hb2100?ys=2026RS&ref=ivn.us) with a supermajority. The amendment does not propose a new map, but it makes it harder to challenge redistricting in the future. Since it is a state constitutional amendment, it would not become law unless approved by voters on November 3\. However, Thompson said some of the ballot language was [“intentionally misleading, and this should disqualify the ballot question as currently written.”](https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6053271-judge-blocks-maryland-redistricting-amendment/?ref=ivn.us) His decision is the latest development in an ongoing fight in which Republicans and Democrats have looked for any excuse to redraw congressional maps without waiting for the next census. [John Oliver: The US Needs to ‘Unf--k’ Its MapsJohn Oliver’s redistricting warning is blunt: escalating partisan map wars may win seats now, but it destroys the basic idea that voters choose their representatives.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-37ba6269-3e23-47df-8e1e-53c77cbcb64a.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/John-Oliver-Redistricting-b85eac17-e39c-4a51-bc69-dcc31561eb3e.jpeg)](https://ivn.us/john-oliver-the-us-needs-to-unf-k-its-maps/) ## What Would HB 2100 (Question 3 on the Ballot) Actually Do? The easiest way to understand this amendment is to know that it is step one of a broader effort to get a new congressional map drawn. Simply put, it removes state constitutional restrictions that can be used to challenge a congressional map. The Maryland Constitution says legislative districts should be contiguous and compact and should give due regard to natural boundaries and political subdivisions. [Did the Republicans or Democrats Start the Gerrymandering Fight?The 2026 midterm election cycle is quickly approaching. However, there is a lingering question mark over what congressional maps will look like when voters start to cast their ballots, especially as Republicans and Democrats fight to obtain any electoral advantage possible.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-b11e1e91-a956-4602-bfb2-67de8344f5e0.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/andy-feliciotti-8cvjI48SFtY-unsplash-3e3084ca-52d6-465b-9814-5c143118c1f7.jpg)](https://ivn.us/did-republicans-democrats-start-gerrymandering-fight-2025-11-11/) In 2022, Anne Arundel County Senior Judge Lynne Battaglia [applied those requirements to congressional districts and struck down a Democratic-drawn map as unconstitutional.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/25/maryland-congressional-map-thrown-out-gerrymandering/?ref=ivn.us) The General Assembly subsequently approved a replacement map, and appeals of Battaglia’s ruling were dropped. HB 2100, which would appear on the ballot as Question 3, seeks to prevent a repeat of that decision by: 1. Stipulating that any geographic requirements only apply to legislative districts, and 2. Declaring that the Maryland Constitution does not actually set criteria for congressional district boundaries Congressional maps would remain subject to the US Constitution, federal law, the Voting Rights Act, and any Maryland statutes specifically governing congressional districts. Supporters say Maryland needs to be able to respond to the wave of mid-cycle redistricting that started with Trump in Summer 2025\. Notably, Gov. Moore has pushed for redistricting since California voters approved Proposition 50 last November. He said Maryland cannot “sit on the sidelines” while other states redraw maps for partisan advantage. Supporters also argue that HB 2100 simply clarifies the rules that govern congressional maps. Further, they say it is in line with the constitutional compactness language used by Battaglia in 2022, which they assert traditionally had been understood to apply specifically to state legislative districts. Opponents argue that calling HB 2100 a “clarification” understates what the amendment does and assert that it would remove constitutional guardrails that stopped a gerrymander 4 years ago. There are obvious political stakes involved. Democrats already hold 7 of Maryland’s 8 US House seats. Rep. Andy Harris is the only Republican in the state’s delegation. A map freed from the state constitutional restrictions cited by the courts could mean Democrats will attempt to take all 8 districts before the next census. ## Judge: Lawmakers Didn’t Follow Their Own Rules Opponents also criticized how quickly lawmakers moved the amendment through a special session and the wording voters were supposed to see on the ballot. This is where Wednesday’s court decision comes in. Judge Thompson found that lawmakers failed to comply with a state law setting July 1 as the deadline to certify statewide ballot-question summaries. HB 2100 was signed by Gov. Moore on August 5. He also declared that the ballot language itself was problematic. HB 2100 told voters the amendment would “clarify” Maryland’s redistricting standards. Thompson called that description “intentionally misleading,” finding that legal interpretations accepted by previous courts include congressional districts in constitutional requirements. In other words, the judge determined that the language of the ballot measure makes it sound like Question 3 is not actually making any changes to the language of the Maryland Constitution, when it is. Thompson separately concluded that HB 2100 violated Maryland’s constitutional single-subject requirement because the amendment also addressed whether the Maryland Supreme Court could have original jurisdiction over congressional redistricting cases. However, this fight is not over. Thompson stayed his order so the state could appeal, and Maryland officials immediately took the case to the state Supreme Court. So, the fate of Question 3 and what it means for redistricting in the state remains to be seen. ### California Legislators Lead Landmark Voting Rights Amendment URL: https://ivn.us/california-legislators-lead-landmark-voting-right-amendment/ Last updated: 2026-08-31T13:37:19.000Z California legislators just made a bet that the best defense is a good offense. On August 24, Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen (D-Elk Grove) [introduced ACA 24, the "Right to Vote" amendment](https://ivn.us/a-dozen-california-democrats-defend-independent-voters-against-a-party-driven-effort-to-undo-the-top-two-nonpartisan-primary/). Thirteen other Assembly Democrats signed on as joint authors and coauthors, including Anamarie Ávila Farías, Lori Wilson, David Alvarez, Blanca Rubio, Blanca Pacheco, Lisa Calderón, Alex Lee, Corey Jackson, Patrick Ahrens, Jasmeet Bains, Mike Gipson, José Luis Solache, and Tina McKinnor [ACA 24](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260ACA24&ref=ivn.us) would amend the California Constitution to guarantee that no eligible voter can be shut out of a publicly funded election because of their party, or lack of one. The idea is simple: the right to vote comes from citizenship, not from joining a political party. [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) legal counsel Chad Peace [explained on IVN](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/) that the issue of open vs closed primaries could unite both major parties against the Supreme Court shortly after Democratic and Republican political operatives teamed up to [“undo” California’s Top Two nonpartisan primary](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-crossed-out-all-voters-may-vote/). But now, a coalition of Assembly Democrats are moving the other direction. Instead of just playing defense, they want to codify the underlying right of independent voters to participate in primary elections. The timing isn't an accident. More than 5.2 million Californians are now registered “No Party Preference.” They make up about 23% of the electorate and are the fastest-growing segment in the state. Roughly [one-third of California's Latino voters have no party preference](https://ivn.us/latinos-will-be-the-most-powerful-voting-bloc-once-they-start-voting-in-primaries/). And in the June 2026 primary, [turnout hit 41%](https://ivn.us/california-latinos-showed-up-now-party-insiders-want-to-shut-them-out/)—the highest in state history. [Latino Independents Could Decide California in 2026—If Anyone Bothers to Reach ThemLatino voters with no party preference are poised to play an outsized role in California’s 2026 elections — but both parties may be failing to reach the voters who could decide them.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-531f8e9b-eac7-4b6b-98b8-0216a0a069a6.png)Independent Voter NewsAlex Segura, Latino News Network![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/latino-voters-california-elections-independent-voters-e3a12d38-53c5-4bea-884b-805f73bbdea5.jpg)](https://ivn.us/latino-independents-could-decide-california-in-2026-if-anyone-bothers-to-reach-them/) Think about that. A record share of voters showing up, and a growing chunk of them don't belong to either major party. These are the people a repeal would push back out. ACA 24 also arrives as the state Senate takes up Sen. Sabrina Cervantes's California Voting Rights Act of 2026 ([SB 1164](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F202520260sb1164?ref=ivn.us) and [SB 1360](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F202520260sb1360?ref=ivn.us)). That package would prohibit voter suppression and vote dilution, require jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to get the attorney general's approval before changing voting rules, and require courts to interpret election laws in favor of voters rather than parties. ACA 24 builds on that same foundation, but goes further. It puts this principle directly into the Constitution. Nguyen was direct about the voting rights issue at stake. "This is a voter-centered bill, not a party bill," she said. > *"I have colleagues I respect in both the Republican and Democratic parties who may not agree with me on this, and I understand that. But this measure is not about our parties. It is about the voters we all answer to. Every one of them helps pay for these elections, and every one of them deserves an equal say in who represents them."* Joint author Assemblymember Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City) put it this way: > *"Democracy works best when every eligible voter has a seat at the table. Our political system should make room for every voice, not create barriers. The right to vote is fundamental, and it should never depend on choosing a political label. ACA 24 is about ensuring every voter has the opportunity to fully participate in our democracy."* The reform crowd sees this as writing down what California already does. "The story of this country has been the steady expansion of who gets to vote, and California has been on the right side of that arc," said Peace. > *"We do not leave independent voters out. This amendment simply puts into words a principle our state already lives by, that the right to vote belongs to the citizen and not to any party, and it makes sure no future effort can move us backward."* Amy Tobia, an organizer for RepresentUs San Diego, speaking for [More Choice California](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us), kept it plain: "Voters across San Diego and across California are tired of being told they have to pick a side to have a say.” > *“This amendment is simple. If you are a citizen and you help pay for an election, you should get to vote in it. That is not a partisan idea. It is a basic promise of representation, and it belongs in our Constitution."* Dan Howle, co-author of Proposition 14 and chairman of the Independent Voter Project, framed the stakes against the repeal effort: > *"The Independent Voter Project authored California's nonpartisan primary to give voters the power to control elections. We have spent fifteen years defending that reform in court and in the legislature. The operatives now trying to undo it are acting on behalf of special interests that want to take back that control from the voters."* And the coalition behind all this is not your typical partisan coalition. More Choice California includes co-chairs like Lenny Mendonca, a former economic advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Anne Marie Schubert, a former Republican and Sacramento County district attorney. Add in voices like Mike Madrid, a Lincoln Project co-founder, and Steve Peace, co-author of Proposition 14 and former state finance director. The group spans the spectrum. The constitutional amendment doesn't just pass and stick. ACA 24 needs a two-thirds vote in the legislature, and then it goes to the public for a vote. Two-thirds. In California, that math means Democrats can't do this alone. They need Republican votes. So, here's the question: Will California Republicans buck their own party leadership and the more partisan voices in their base to join this cause, alongside Democrats and independents? ### Could USPS Refuse to Deliver Your Ballot? A New Election Fight Is About to Explode URL: https://ivn.us/could-usps-refuse-to-deliver-your-ballot-a-new-election-fight-is-about-to-explode/ Last updated: 2026-08-27T22:49:14.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** — It didn't take long for Monday's Supreme Court decision on President Donald Trump's [mail-voting executive order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections?ref=ivn.us) to produce the predictable partisan responses. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the court had allowed President Trump to move ahead "for now" with a plan to ["disenfranchise voters across the country,"](https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/08/24/governor-newsom-announces-intent-for-california-to-sue-trump-administration-over-latest-attack-on-voting-new-legislation-introduced-to-defend-democracy/?ref=ivn.us) and vowed another lawsuit against what he called "Orwellian rules." The White House called the ruling a "[major win for the security of American elections](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-trump-mail-voting-order-usps-dhs/?ref=ivn.us)" and said the administration's policies are "commonsense measures" to protect mail ballots. However, SCOTUS’s decision is far narrower than either reaction makes it sound: - It did *not* rule that Trump's executive order on mail voting is constitutional; - It did *not* uphold the Postal Service's new ballot-mail rule; and - It did *not* give the USPS explicit authorization to reject mail-in/absentee ballots for the November election. A separate federal injunction still prevents that from happening. ## First, Here’s What the Supreme Court Actually Did In *Trump v. California*, the court voted 6-3 to lift an injunction obtained by 23 states and Washington, D.C., against portions of Trump's [March executive order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections?ref=ivn.us). Specifically, the majority concluded that the states challenged too early. When the states filed suit, the executive order was a directive for the USPS to put certain policies in place. However, since the final rule did not yet exist, the states were not able to provide sufficient evidence of harm. “Federal courts review final rules, not proposed rules—and certainly not antecedent internal directives to propose a rule. If the Postal Service’s final rule harms the States, they may challenge that rule,” [the majority wrote](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a124%5Fhgci.pdf?ref=ivn.us). The court noted that it was not ruling on the legality of Trump’s order or what future implementation might look like. And, it left the door open to another challenge now that a final rule has been issued. ## So, What Does the Final USPS Rule Do? Under [the USPS rule](https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-17238.pdf?ref=ivn.us) (issued on August 21), election offices must send all mail ballots for federal general, special, and runoff elections in envelopes that contain the Official Election Mail logo, are compatible with postal automation equipment, and include unique Intelligent Mail barcodes. If implemented, election officials would also have to submit certain information through a new Federal Ballot Mail Portal, including a voter's name, mailing address, and the barcodes associated with the ballot envelopes. USPS says birth dates, Social Security numbers, and other voter registration information would not be uploaded. ## Could USPS Refuse to Mail Ballots? Yes — but only if the rule is allowed to take effect for this election and not in the way some of the rhetoric suggests. Before accepting a batch of outgoing federal ballots, USPS would check whether the mailing complies with the rule's preparation and data requirements. The USPS states that noncompliant mailings "will not be accepted" and will be returned to the authorized ballot mailer so the errors can be corrected before the ballots are resubmitted. The issue here is that this creates the possibility that eligible voters will experience a delay in receiving their ballot because of an administrative, technical, or envelope-design problem. It is even possible eligible voters won’t get their ballot at all in some cases. But this is not the same thing as a postal carrier or USPS office deciding which voters should or should not receive a ballot. ## USPS Would Not Decide Who Is Eligible to Vote The USPS does not determine voter eligibility. It doesn’t have the authority—and the president can’t give it this authority. It is the responsibility of the states to decide who is registered and eligible to receive a ballot. The USPS’s rule says it will not manage voter rolls or determine such matters. Further, the postal rule does not verify citizenship, which is an important distinction from Trump’s broader executive order that separately directs DHS to pursue citizenship lists. And once an outgoing ballot has been accepted into the mail, USPS says its existing processing and delivery practices remain in place. ## What About the Ballot a Voter Sends Back? This is an important question that has gotten little attention because it is likely to cause confusion if the rule is allowed to stay. The verification process applies to outgoing ballots mailed to voters from election offices, not returned ballots. USPS specifically amended the final rule to make this clear. So, when a voter mails back their ballot, it won’t go through the same portal-matching process a second time. As long as the return envelope still meets the new design and barcode requirements, it will be delivered directly to election officials. Military and overseas ballots covered by the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) are also expressly exempt from the new rule. ## None of This Is in Effect for November — Yet This is the most important thing voters need to know. On August 11, US District Judge Indira Talwani issued a [nationwide preliminary injunction](https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-17238.pd?ref=ivn.us) preventing USPS from implementing Section 3 of Trump's executive order for November. This is a separate case involving the League of Women Voters, not the states. Talwani ruled that the League was already suffering concrete injuries—specifically to its voter education efforts and harm to its members that rely on mail voting. The injunction bars USPS from refusing to transmit mail-in or absentee ballots or implementing the rule's requirements for November. Since the Supreme Court’s decision regarded an entirely different case, it did not eliminate this injunction. USPS acknowledges the remaining obstacle in its own final rule, saying it will not implement the requirements for 2026 unless the government obtains relief from the injunction. ## Even Then, There Is the Calendar Election administrators have warned that imposing major changes this close to Election Day would create logistical problems. Notably, the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) [told USPS in July that](https://www.nased.org/news/uspsnprmjuly2026?ref=ivn.us): - Election systems are commonly locked down before elections for security and stability; - Many ballot envelopes are purchased months in advance; and - Thousands of election offices and postal employees would need to understand the new procedures. In other words, most states have already purchased the envelopes they will use for the November election. And, this would not only impose a burden on election officials, but USPS employees as well. “In September 2024, NASED, along with our colleagues at the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) and 29 associations of local election officials,[ sent a letter](https://www.nased.org/news/uspsletter924?ref=ivn.us) to then-Postmaster General Louis DeJoy raising our concerns about USPS service going into the November 2024 General Election,” the NASED states. > *“Chief among those concerns was that the service issues our members experienced nationwide demonstrated inconsistent training and guidance provided to USPS employees by USPS leadership. The proposed Ballot Mail rule would represent a significant change in process for USPS employees, and we are concerned there would not be ample time for training in advance of any election in 2026.”* NASED further warned inconsistent enforcement could affect voter participation. A group of election officials assembled by the Bipartisan Policy Center went further, recommending [in a letter that USPS postpone implementation until after the 2026 election](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/testimony-letter/bpc-public-comment-on-usps-proposed-rule-on-ballot-mail-for-federal-elections-2026-10968/?ref=ivn.us). “BPC’s Task Force on Elections has [long recommended](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/voting-experience-2020/?ref=ivn.us) that ‘a one-year lead is the optimal amount of time for the implementation of new policies and procedures’ to ensure election officials have sufficient time to implement and communicate changes,” the letter states. > “Even under extreme circumstances, changes made less than 90 days before an election risk administrative mistakes and voter confusion.” The letter was sent in July. There were 74 days left until Election Day when the final rule was issued. USPS responded to some of the concerns in the final version. For example, election offices do not have to directly integrate voter-registration databases with the federal portal; information can be submitted using an Excel template and supplemented as additional ballots are issued. Whether those changes make nationwide implementation feasible this close to Election Day remains the question. ## What Voters Need to Know Right Now For voters, nothing has actually changed—yet. There is no new USPS registration process for voters. There is no new federal form to receive a mail ballot. Postal workers are not determining voter eligibility or checking citizenship. And USPS cannot currently use the new rule to reject mail-in/absentee ballots for this year’s election. Does this mean the Trump administration will take a mile when SCOTUS gave it an inch? It’s possible. The president often takes a “better to ask forgiveness than permission” approach—except without the forgiveness part. SCOTUS could also eliminate the remaining injunction. Talwani [ruled Tuesday](https://www.reuters.com/world/judge-chides-us-postal-service-over-mail-in-voting-rule-wont-block-it-2026-08-25/?ref=ivn.us) that USPS violated her order by approving a final rule, but wouldn’t block it. Still, her injunction stands. However, it is also possible opposition to Trump's executive order, and the USPS rule could get another injunction now that there is a rule. Democrats filed a new lawsuit Tuesday seeking a preliminary injunction. "Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling did not say that Trump's executive order attacking voting rights is constitutional. But the law is clear: States have the authority to run elections — not the president," party leaders said in a statement. At the moment, this is creating more of a headache on the legal side of the issue than on the election administration side. For now, concerned voters need to take a deep breath. Things have not yet descended into chaos as some would suggest. ### 70% of America’s Elections Had Only One Candidate. That’s a Problem. URL: https://ivn.us/70-of-americas-elections-had-only-one-candidate-thats-a-problem/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:43:05.000Z *Editor's Note: This commentary* [*originally published*](https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/uncontested-usa-elections/?ref=ivn.us) *on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN as part of a partnership with the publication.* Richard Neal, the congressman representing Massachusetts’ 1st district, is concluding his 19th congressional term this year. In many ways, Neal is a typical long-tenured congressperson. However, Congressman Neal is distinguished by having been elected to Congress uncontested more times than anyone in post-civil rights American history. Neal owes his long tenure in part to the uncompetitive elections in western Massachusetts where so-called “silent elections” are common. Some would be challengers may be put off by the fact that he has won seven of his eight contested congressional races by more than 20 points. More often than not, Neal has been uncontested in the Democratic primary as well, however, this year he has competition in both the primary and general election. Jeromie Whalen, a local high school teacher, is challenging Neal for the Democratic nomination in the district, and Nadia Milleron, a lawyer, activist, and political independent, will face the winner. When I spoke with Whalen in February, six months into his campaign against Neal, he relayed a series of frustrations around Neal’s lack of transparency, excessive PAC use, and failure to support progressive causes. To Whalen, Neal epitomizes everything wrong with the Democratic Party. “We've drifted farther and farther from the party that I grew up with and I knew and I loved.” Per the Pew Research Center, 75% of Americans share Whalen’s frustration with America’s federal government. This country has plenty of people with strong opinions, and yet it is lacking candidates. In 2024, 22 congressional races were uncontested. At the state level, they are even more common, with 40% of all state legislator elections being uncontested in 2024, part of an upward trend. Including local elections, 70% of all races in America’s 2024 elections had only one candidate on the ballot. Silent elections have been trending up internationally too, including in Austria, Italy, and Japan. The problem is particularly severe in Japan, where 40% of mayoral elections were uncontested in 2023\. However, this rate is still far behind America, where 71% of mayors were elected uncontested in 2024\. Canada, a country with which America shares many similarities, has had only one “win by acclamation” at the provincial level this century and none at the federal level. The most basic reason for our abundance of silent elections is that America holds so many elections—500k elected positions at the state and local level. Most attract little attention and few candidates. In 2024, city council members and commissioners were uncontested in 70% of races. Niche positions like treasurers, clerks, and judges are uncontested in 90% of races. In 2024, 10,000 elections had no candidates appearing on the ballot at all, primarily in city legislature, school board, and judge elections. The problem isn’t just the number of elected positions, but also that many come with responsibilities that exceed compensation. Most school board positions come with little or no pay. City council members earn $31k on average. Low pay can be workable if elected positions are done concurrently with another job, but they often can’t be due to the workload required and/or the inflexibility of a potential candidate’s primary employer. Though little discussed, many elections advocates recognize the problem and hope to fix it. Last spring, I spoke with Jen Johansen, an elections advocate. She relayed to me that candidate support mechanisms outside of political parties are rare in American politics. That means many candidates rely on party support to run their campaign. However, party leaders are reluctant to provide money and resources to candidates they expect to lose—as is the case in Massachusetts’ 1st district, where the Republican Party has participated in fewer than half the congressional elections this century. In races they expect to win, party leaders discourage multiple candidates from running. This means that candidates not favored by their party are asked to “wait their turn” and support more senior (or better-connected) candidates instead. The turn system and culture of backroom dealing have massively influenced Western Massachusetts, where, in 1988, Ed Boland—a long-time Massachusetts congressman—gave Richard Neal advance notice of his planned retirement, allowing Neal to ready funds and resources before anyone knew he would retire. Thanks to this, Neal went unchallenged in the primary and faced only a Marxist third-party candidate in the general election. I also spoke with Rob Booth, an elections advocate who works for *GoodParty*. “People don’t lack opinions or views,” he told me. “They lack a clear on-ramp or credible plan.” Researchers have found that higher fundraising expectations lead to fewer candidates running for office. These expectations also warp the behavior of candidates who do run. Whalen told me that early in his campaign, a political consultant friend told him he needed to spend days “sitting in a room and calling random people and begging for money." That wasn’t the campaign Whalen wanted to run, and so he didn’t. Consequently, with two weeks to go until the September 1st primary, Whalen’s campaign has spent just $300k, well short of Neal’s 2.1 million—and the 2.1 million Alex Morse, Neal’s last primary challenger, spent in 2020\. Not all candidates share Whalen’s willingness to run at such a financial disadvantage; without strong funding, many candidates simply don’t run. Ballot access is another barrier that can kill campaigns. In most places, ballot access is determined by some combination of filling forms, paying fees, and proving eligibility, but in some places these tasks are particularly onerous. For example, in Georgia, candidates must pay $5220 to run for the US House of Representatives. Non-party affiliated candidates must also collect signatures from 5% of eligible voters in a district. For state house districts, that is typically \~5000 signatures, and for US house districts, typically \~25,000\. Georgia’s rules are strict enough that in 2021, a judge declared them unconstitutional. However, this decision was overturned by a federal appeals court the following year. Even in states with relaxed signature requirements, candidates sometimes have to ensure their signatures include sufficient representation from across their district and that each signer is eligible to sign. “Petition drives can be a place where a lot of campaigns die,” Booth tells me. No single factor is to blame for the epidemic of silent elections in America. However, the sheer number of elections, the challenges of holding elected office, the power of the [two-party system](https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/leaving-a-political-party?ref=ivn.us), the need to raise money, and the logistical challenges of running have together brought far too many American elections to a standstill. --- **Rafael Gonzalez* is an MPP student at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Before graduate school, he worked for Boston Consulting Group, the World Food Programme, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has previously been published by* [*Public Seminar*](https://publicseminar.org/2026/04/we-need-industrial-agriculture/?ref=ivn.us) *for an article on industrial agriculture.* ### Assembly Democrats Defend Independent Voters Against a Party-Driven Effort to "Undo the Top Two" Nonpartisan Primary URL: https://ivn.us/a-dozen-california-democrats-defend-independent-voters-against-a-party-driven-effort-to-undo-the-top-two-nonpartisan-primary/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:42:56.000Z **SACRAMENTO, Calif.** A new constitutional amendment introduced in the California Assembly Monday would guarantee every voter, regardless of party preference, the right to vote in all publicly funded and administered elections. It has drawn support from a notably broad coalition of Democratic lawmakers who are putting voters first. Simply put, this amendment—[ACA 24](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260ACA24&ref=ivn.us)—would codify in the California constitution that the right to vote derives from citizenship, not upon affiliation with a political party. ACA 24 comes on the heels of a coordinated effort by influential figures in both major parties to close California’s primaries, a campaign branded “[Undo the Top Two](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-california-candidates-weigh-in-and-the-responses-might-surprise-you/).” Filed in 2026 by longtime Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio, the repeal effort has attracted a bipartisan roster of party insiders, including former California Republican Party chair Ron Nehring, Reform California chair Carl DeMaio, California Federation of Labor Unions president Lorena Gonzalez, and California Democratic Party chair Rusty Hicks. Their goal is a return to a semi-closed system that would deny independent voters a meaningful choice. More than 5.2 million Californians are registered “No Party Preference,” a bloc that helped elevate 2026 primary turnout to a record 41%, the highest in California history. Since California voters adopted the nonpartisan top-two primary in 2010, the Legislature has come to look far more like the state it represents. [Women’s representation nearly doubled and people of color became a majority of lawmakers for the first time](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/), a shift reformers attribute to opening primaries to every voter rather than to party insiders. Rolling the system back would hand that gatekeeping power back to the parties. It also sits against a larger constitutional question now moving through the courts: [whether the right to vote at a decisive stage of a publicly funded election comes from citizenship or from party membership](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/). On that question, the two parties tend to agree on one thing, that the primary belongs to them. The Right to Vote Amendment draws the opposite line. Sponsored by [More Choice California](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us), a coalition of election reform advocates and organizations led by the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us), it would enshrine into law the following: > *“No eligible voter shall be excluded from meaningful participation at any integral stage of any publicly funded election, including primary elections, on any basis including political party preference.”* It is a simple but far-reaching principle that most voters understand and support. All eligible voters deserve an equal and meaningful vote at all integral stages of a publicly funded election, including primary elections. Neither party should be allowed to use its internal rules or legal standing to override a citizen’s right to vote, a threat More Choice California has explicitly stated comes from “both sides.” Republican leaders and aligned special interests are trying to repeal Alaska’s nonpartisan Top Four system, which includes primaries open to all voters and candidates. [They tried and failed in 2024](https://ivn.us/alaska-reject-repeal-top-4-ranked-choice-voting-repeal-2024-11-14/) but have placed another repeal initiative on the 2026 ballot. Republicans in Texas and South Carolina are suing to close their primaries to party members only. At a moment when California politics is often reduced to intraparty factionalism, a dozen Assembly Democrats from different regions and ideological wings of the party put their names on the same bill, agreeing that the right to an equal and meaningful vote should be protected. Below is a look at the legislative coalition pushing the amendment. ## **Lead Author** **Stephanie Nguyen** (D-Elk Grove) represents the 10th Assembly District and is carrying the amendment as lead author. A daughter of Vietnamese refugees, Nguyen built her career in community nonprofit leadership, serving as executive director of Asian Resources, Inc. and director of the Sacramento Asian Pacific Chamber Foundation. In the Assembly, she has established a reputation as a prolific, detail-oriented lawmaker who authors dozens of bills a session on everything from elder financial abuse protections to health care access. Now she has taken the lead on a constitutional amendment that limits a party’s ability to control election access, including her own party’s, underscoring the nonpartisan nature of the effort. "This is a voter-centered bill, not a party bill," Nguyen said in a statement. > "I have colleagues I respect in both the Republican and Democratic parties who may not agree with me on this, and I understand that. But this measure is not about our parties. It is about the voters we all answer to. Every one of them helps pay for these elections, and every one of them deserves an equal say in who represents them." ## **Joint Authors** ### **Anamarie Avila Farias (D-Martinez)** Representing the 15th Assembly District, Avila Farias brings direct experience fighting for fair representation. Before her election, she served on the Contra Costa County Board of Education, the Martinez City Council, and the California Housing Finance Agency board. She also has a history with voting-rights litigation, having been [involved in a California VRA case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamarie%5FAvila%5FFarias?ref=ivn.us) that forced her local school district to abandon at-large elections in favor of district-based ones. That background gives her a firsthand understanding of what it means when an election system fails to give voters meaningful, equal participation. ### **Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City)** Representing the 11th Assembly District, Wilson has emerged as one of the Assembly’s most independent-minded members. She has been outspoken about the need to strengthen voter trust in elections and has shown a willingness to buck party leadership when she believes it is the right direction for voters. “Democracy works best when every eligible voter has a seat at the table,” said Wilson: > “Our political system should make room for every voice, not create barriers. The right to vote is fundamental, and it should never depend on choosing a political label. ACA 24 is about ensuring every voter has the opportunity to fully participate in our democracy.” ### **David Alvarez (D-San Diego)** Representing the 80th Assembly District, Alvarez came to Sacramento after serving on the San Diego City Council, including as council president, giving him a grounding in the nuts and bolts of local election administration that few state legislators bring to the capitol. His support reflects a pragmatic, voter-access-first approach. ### **Blanca Rubio (D-Baldwin Park)** Representing the 48th Assembly District, Rubio has built a reputation as a coalition-builder willing to work across the aisle on practical governance questions rather than ideological ones. Her willingness to co-sponsor a measure that limits both parties’ control over primaries fits a pattern of putting constituent access above party convenience. ## **Coauthors** The coauthor list reads like a cross-section of the Assembly’s Democratic caucus, spanning generations, regions, and ideological lanes: **Blanca Pacheco** (D-Downey), a former Downey mayor, brings a local-government, good-governance perspective and chairs the powerful Assembly Rules Committee. **Lisa Calderón** (D-Whittier) chairs the Assembly Insurance Committee. One of the state's first Latina legislative aides' decades earlier, she has built a reputation for pragmatic, results-driven policymaking, **Alex Lee** (D-San Jose), one of the legislature’s youngest and most independent voices, has repeatedly shown a willingness to challenge entrenched interests, including his own party’s leadership, on transparency and reform. **Corey Jackson** (D-Moreno Valley) has made a name fighting for underserved Inland Empire communities and challenging entrenched ways of doing business when he sees them working against ordinary voters. **Patrick Ahrens** (D-Santa Clara) represents a newer generation of members who campaigned on government accountability and has carried that theme into their legislative work. **Jasmeet Bains** (D-Delano), a physician and the first Sikh American woman elected to the California Legislature, has not been afraid to break from caucus positions when she believes her Central Valley constituents are better served. **Mike Gipson** (D-Carson), a longtime South Bay-area legislator, brings the perspective of a veteran who has watched primary and election-access fights play out over multiple cycles. **José Luis Solache** (D-Lynwood), a former Lynwood mayor, adds another local-government voice grounded in direct election administration. **Tina McKinnor** (D-Inglewood) has built a legislative record focused on expanding access and representation for her Inglewood-area constituents. ### From Bartender to Bush’s War Room & 50 Years in GOP Politics (Anne Dunsmore) | EP55 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/from-bartender-to-bushs-war-room-50-years-in-gop-politics-anne-dunsmore-ep55/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:29.000Z Anne Dunsmore has been in the room for nearly 50 years of American politics, and it all started because she lost a bet in a D.C. bar. She sits down with Chad Peace and Cara McCormick to tell her story: working the floor with James Baker and Margaret Tutwiler on George H.W. Bush's 1980 campaign, turning around Pete Wilson's reelection from what she calls an "Exxon Valdez" moment, and raising $1.2 billion alongside Michael Ovitz to rebuild UCLA after the Northridge earthquake. Along the way she talks fundraising for Muhammad Ali, being one of the only women in rooms full of "cavemen," and why she never needed to be an ideologue to be effective. By the end, Chad and Cara land on the idea that independent thinkers aren't just riding the tide of American politics, they're the disruption itself. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/from-bartender-to-bushs-war-room-50-years-in-gop-politics-anne-dunsmore?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0NGW8AdkVs9SpRSV2oeQTL?si=bo4Mljs7RUingc5gdiqEPQ&ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-bartender-to-bushs-war-room-50-years-in-gop-politics/id1680559155?i=1000785591573&ref=ivn.us)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, hosts **Chad Peace** and **Cara McCormick** sit down with veteran GOP operative **Anne Dunsmore**, who traces her nearly 50-year career back to losing a bet in a **Washington, D.C.** bar in the late 1970s that sent her onto **George H.W. Bush's** 1980 presidential campaign. Dunsmore describes working her way up from the campaign floor to the inner circle around **James Baker**, **Margaret Tutwiler**, and press secretary **Pete Teeley**, where she befriended Bush's sons **Neil**, **Marvin**, and **Jeb** while handling press in Oregon and Michigan. She recounts building a career in fundraising after politics offered women mostly scheduling or fundraising roles, eventually working with **Muhammad Ali** and later joining **Michael Ovitz** to raise **$1.2 billion** to rebuild **UCLA** after the **Northridge earthquake**. Dunsmore details being brought in to rescue **Pete Wilson's** reelection campaign from what she calls an 'Exxon Valdez' moment, engineering a 180-degree turnaround despite skepticism from an all-male team. The conversation shifts to her advocacy work with **Angel Force USA**, where she raises awareness about the military suicide crisis, citing statistics that a single suicide affects 135 lives and describing the medication and contagion effects within military families. Caraconnects the discussion to the ongoing crisis aboard the **USS Gerald R. Ford**, referencing sailors reportedly attempting suicide during an extended deployment, and criticizes the disconnect between military leadership and service members' mental health needs. Chadand Dunsmore close by reframing independent-minded people not as riding the political tide but as the disruption itself, with Dunsmore coining the phrase 'rogue wave' to describe voters and thinkers who refuse to drift with partisan currents. ### 500,000 Oklahoma Independents Can Vote on Voter ID Tuesday — But Not for Governor URL: https://ivn.us/500-000-oklahoma-independents-can-vote-on-voter-id-tuesday-but-not-for-governor/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T16:16:53.000Z **OKLAHOMA CITY** — Nearly half a million Oklahoma voters will be allowed to weigh in Tuesday on whether voter ID should be enshrined in the state constitution. But those same voters won't be allowed to vote in the most consequential contest: the Republican runoff for governor. That's because the roughly 491,000 voters registered as independents—making up more than 20% of the state's electorate—are locked out of every partisan primary and runoff in 2026. Oklahoma law requires the state to use semi-closed primaries, which means registered party members can vote in their respective party’s primary. However, the parties decide what rights independent voters have in these elections. In previous election cycles, the Democratic Party opened its primaries to independent voters. This year, no party did even though the primaries and primary runoffs are funded, in part, by these voters. The Oklahoma State Election Board says the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian parties have all declined to allow independents to vote in their primaries or runoffs for the 2026 and 2027 election years. So, independents who show up to the polls Tuesday will only have two proposed constitutional amendments on their ballot, including a voter ID proposal (SQ 846) that won’t actually change state law. It will just add existing law to the state constitution. What won’t be on the ballot for independent voters are the elections that will effectively decide who will represent them in state government. ## A Say on Voter ID, But Not the GOP Nominee The race that is getting the most attention Tuesday is the Republican gubernatorial runoff between Attorney General Gentner Drummond and former state Sen. Mike Mazzei. The winner will be considered the odds-on favorite to become the next governor. Registered Republicans, after all, make up a majority of the registered electorate. While Democratic nominee Cyndi Munson will face the winner of the runoff in November, that election is seen as mostly a formality in such a deep red state. Drummond and Mazzei emerged from a nine-candidate June primary separated by less than a percentage point. Drummond received 26.25% of the vote to Mazzei's 25.97%, forcing the runoff because neither received a majority. It will be another test of President Trump’s endorsement power in this midterm cycle as Mazzei was endorsed by him—but with a considerably lower turnout than the 26% of registered voters who participated in the primary. The general rule for runoffs (and this is a late cycle runoff) is take the turnout from the regular election and cut it in half. And, since 1-in-5 Oklahoma voters are denied access, statistics show this election will be decided by a small subset of older, partisan voters. Independent voters also cannot participate in the Democratic US Senate runoff between N'Kiyla Jasmine Thomas and Jim Priest. But they can vote on State Question 844 (dealing with manufacturing property tax reimbursements) and 846 (the voter ID proposal). The Oklahoma State Election Board explicitly states that all registered voters, including independents, are eligible to vote on state questions even when those questions appear during a partisan primary or runoff election. ## What Is State Question 846? SQ 846 would amend the Oklahoma Constitution to require voters to provide proof of identity when voting by any method authorized under state law. It would also direct the legislature to determine through law what qualifies as acceptable proof of identity. Notably, this means Oklahomans will not fully know what future voter ID will look when they cast their ballots Tuesday. However, the state already has a voter ID law. Voters approved it overwhelmingly in 2010, with 74% voting in favor. Current law requires people voting in person to show qualifying identification before receiving a ballot, though voters without identification have an option to cast a provisional ballot. Supporters of SQ 846 argue the amendment would protect voter ID from being eliminated by a future legislature and strengthen confidence in elections. Opponents argue the change is unnecessary because Oklahoma already requires ID and warn that the amendment would give future lawmakers broad power to determine what identification voters must provide—which may be stricter than voters want. ## Oklahoma's Larger Primary Fight The exclusion of independents Tuesday comes as Oklahoma is already embroiled in a separate fight over who gets to participate in primary elections. Supporters of SQ 836 collected more than 209,000 signatures for an initiative that would replace Oklahoma's partisan primaries with a single nonpartisan primary open to every voter and candidate. The top two finishers, regardless of party, would advance to November. [Oklahoma Rejected Nearly 58,000 Signatures for Open Primaries. Now Voters Want Answers.The Oklahoma secretary of state rejected the signatures of an open primary initiative. Now, voters are taking the matter to court.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-420c12f4-96ae-4d6c-8dac-0fa5cdedb5cb.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/oklahoma-open-primaries-3-f78839ea-80ef-4d1f-9363-fddfeb5c8cc0.jpg)](https://ivn.us/oklahoma-rejected-nearly-58-000-signatures-for-open-primaries-now-voters-want-answers/) The secretary of state's office rejected more than 57,000 signatures and certified 142,567 — short of the 172,993 required. Supporters challenged the rejection, and the dispute remains before the Oklahoma Supreme Court following arguments in July. At issue is not just the rejection of so many signatures, but the lack of transparency offered by the secretary of state’s office on why these signatures were rejected. Petitioners do not have the means to determine if their signatures were accepted or rejected. And the campaign for SQ 836 wants clarification. “We all want more faith in our government, but trust is not built by summarily rejecting more than 57,000 signatures without providing a sufficient explanation as to their exclusion,” said Ken Setter, a campaign volunteer. > *“We simply want the ability to identify which signatures were excluded so we can evaluate if they should have been counted.”* Tuesday's election offers a real-time illustration of what that debate is about. Oklahoma's independent voters are considered qualified enough to decide whether to alter the state's constitution and change the rules governing how Oklahomans vote. They just aren't considered eligible to decide in an election they fund who will be their next governor. ### An Independent Just Broke Through in Alaska — As Republicans Try to Kill the System That Made It Possible URL: https://ivn.us/an-independent-just-broke-through-in-alaska-as-republicans-try-to-kill-the-system-that-made-it-possible/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:42:46.000Z Independent Bill Hill is heading to the November ballot after finishing second in Alaska's [Aug. 18 top-four open primary](https://www.elections.alaska.gov/enr26/results/ElectionSummaryReportRPT.pdf?ref=ivn.us), setting up a race against Republican incumbent Rep. Nick Begich III for the state's at-large US House seat. With 396 out of 403 precincts reporting, Begich led with roughly 46.12% of the vote to Hill's 30.89%. In Alaska's system, all candidates run in a single primary. The four candidates with the highest vote totals are then placed on the November general election ballot. Voters use ranked choice voting to rank those four candidates based on their preferences. After the initial vote totals are counted, if no one has received over 50% of the vote, the candidate with the lowest total votes is eliminated. Everyone who voted for that eliminated candidate then has their second preference added to the tabulation, and this process repeats until a candidate has received over 50% of the vote. In this system, then, Democrat Matt Schultz (8.04%) and Democrat Eric Hafner (3.80%) will also appear on the ballot this November. While these numbers aren't final, it's exceedingly unlikely that these top four will change. Matt Schultz [suspended his campaign and endorsed Hill](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6028789-bill-hill-alaska-house/?ref=ivn.us) before the primary, though he did so too late for his name to remain on the ballot. Under the RCV system used in the general election, however, voters are free to vote for Schultz as their first choice and Hill as their second, allowing them to express their preferences without needing to waste their vote on a candidate who is no longer campaigning. Hill, a Dena'ina Athabascan raised in the Bristol Bay village of Kokhanok, spent decades as an educator—teacher, principal, and most recently superintendent of the Bristol Bay School District, a post he retired from in 2023 after being named the state's superintendent of the year. He's also a lifelong Bristol Bay commercial fisherman. A political newcomer, Hill entered the race in January criticizing "billionaires, corporations, and politicians" for rigging the system, and has said he has never registered with either major party. On fundraising, the incumbent Republican is significantly ahead, as is the case with most races between a major party candidate and an independent. [FEC filings](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/house/AK/00/2026/?ref=ivn.us) show Rep. Begich with a $5.5 million total fundraising haul, and a little over $3 million cash on hand heading into the general. Hill has raised a significant sum for someone who doesn't have major party backing—$1.34 million—but he still lags behind the incumbent, while outraising the Democrat ($865k). He heads into the general with $515k cash on hand. An [Aug. 3-5 poll from GBAO](https://thealaskacurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Hill-Memo-081126-v2.pdf?ref=ivn.us)—a Democratic-aligned firm, surveying 500 likely voters with a 4.4% margin of error—showed Begich leading Hill 46-42% head-to-head. However, [another poll done by Alaska Survey Research](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/alaska-us-house-at-large-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) has Begich receiving 48% of the vote in the first round and hitting the 50% threshold in the second. On issues, Hill has emphasized the cost of living, healthcare and grocery prices in rural Alaska, and what he calls corruption tied to concentrated wealth in Washington. He's declined to say which party he'd caucus with if elected. Alaskans adopted the top-four system narrowly in 2020 and then, in 2024, rejected a repeal effort by the [narrowest margin in state history](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FRepeal%5FTop-Four%5FRanked-Choice%5FVoting%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us): 737 votes out of nearly 321,000 cast. Opponents [regrouped quickly](https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/07/29/alaskans-to-vote-on-ballot-measure-that-would-overhaul-state-election-system/?ref=ivn.us), and a new repeal initiative, backed by Alaska Republican Party leaders and gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson, will appear again on the November ballot alongside Hill's own race. This means Alaskans could simultaneously send an independent to Congress and vote to dismantle the system that advocates argue makes independent and new party victories more feasible. ### At Harlem Week, NYC Independents Had One Question: Why Can’t We Vote? URL: https://ivn.us/at-harlem-week-nyc-independents-had-one-question-why-cant-we-vote/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:42:33.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* This past weekend, Open Primaries and Let Us Vote participated in Harlem Week, the annual summer festival celebrating the culture, history, and economic life of the greater Harlem area. Cathy Stewart, National Organizing Director and National Organizer Bree Doldron, and I were joined by two dozen volunteers from across the city who spent the weekend talking about the voting rights of 1.2 million NYC independents, who can’t vote in the publicly funded primaries at our booth. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/harlem-week--2-.png) Hundreds of New Yorkers signed onto the [Open Letter to Mayor Mamdani](https://newyorkopenprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us#Petition) asking him to meet with independents at a Town Hall. We believe the Mayor does not really have a sense of who NYC independents are – 54.5% are people of color,and 49% are under 40\. Most US cities – including DC which just made the switch this year most – allow independents to vote in the primaries. Independents are asking for the opportunity to share with the Mayor the experience of being denied full voting rights. Many of the people we met were thrilled to find our booth – independents who are angry and upset about being turned away on Primary day and felt isolated! Check out what BJ Wheeler had to say about being an independent. We interviewed dozens of people on video – some independents, and some registered with a major party – who wanted to go on record that it’s time for equal voting rights in the city. Check out Briana Strong’s message to the Mayor: > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcEeJ%5FPJbim/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Open Primaries (@openprimaryusa)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcEeJ%5FPJbim/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) And Bree Doldron’s statement: > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcEVrNkpHDW/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Open Primaries (@openprimaryusa)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcEVrNkpHDW/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) Here are some key takeaways from the weekend: When New Yorkers learn that **1.2 million independent voters are shut out of the primaries, they are shocked.** There is tremendous support for equal voting rights for independents. But most people simply don’t know that independents are barred from voting in New York’s primaries. And they are even more surprised to learn that **our primaries are publicly funded — meaning *their* tax dollars help pay for elections that exclude 1.2 million of their fellow New Yorkers.** That tells us we have a lot of work to do — and a tremendous opportunity. Our immediate goal is to secure a meeting with the Mayor. To help make that happen, we need people in every borough and every community to [**sign the Open Letter**](https://newyorkopenprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us#Petition) and add their voices to the call for equal voting rights. There is also a myth circulating in the press that the movement for open primaries in NYC is “anti-Mamdani.” **It’s not.** This movement is about independent voters from communities across the city — joined by Democrats, Republicans and other allies — who believe New York City is stronger when every voter has a voice in every round of our publicly funded elections. Check out this message to the the Mayor from independent leader Torsha Childs from Brooklyn: **This is about something bigger than any candidate or any one election. It is about building a healthier, more inclusive democracy in New York City.** If you live in NYC, be sure to come find our booth at the Atlantic Antic on Sunday, September 27th! ## What We're Talking About ## **Florida Voters Aren’t Done With Open Primaries** In 2020, Floridians had the opportunity to change the system. A constitutional amendment to open the state’s primaries received **57% of the vote** \- a clear majority and more than either presidential candidate (Trump/Biden) received at the time, but not enough to meet Florida’s unusually high 60% threshold for constitutional amendments. Six years later, and the debate over who gets to participate is bigger than ever. Independent voters only continue to grow in the state. Four million Floridians -28% of the electorate -were shut out of this Tuesday’s partisan primaries simply because they aren’t registered with a major party. The issue continues to generate a wave of media attention. Check out all the recent coverage: [The Orlando Sentinel](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2026/08/16/independent-voters-seek-access-to-florida-primaries/?ref=ivn.us), [Florida Politics](https://floridapolitics.com/archives/813897-floridas-independent-voters-lose-out-in-closed-primaries-voting-advocates-warn/?ref=ivn.us), [Florida Phoenix](https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/08/13/as-voters-cast-ballots-advocates-push-to-open-the-states-closed-primary-system/?ref=ivn.us), [Fox News](https://www.fox35orlando.com/video/fmc-00e4c2m3zrtmi7dl.amp?ref=ivn.us) and [Spectrum News](https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2026/08/17/floridas-closed-primaries-leave-more-than--million-independent-voters-out-of-partisan-races?ref=ivn.us). In the [*Orlando Sentinel*](https://openprimaries.org/maxwell-floridas-primaries-are-a-scam-when-voters-are-shut-out/?ref=ivn.us), columnist Scott Maxwell put it bluntly: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/scott-maxwell.png) He points out that closed primaries can leave millions of Floridians without a meaningful vote in races where the primary effectively determines the winner. [A recent survey](https://flopenprimaries.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/FloridaPoll%5F09-25%5Fv7.pdf?ref=ivn.us) of Florida Democrats and independents found that **90% of both groups continue to support open primaries**, while more than 80% said Democrats should open their primary even if Republicans refuse. John Marvin, state coordinator for [Florida Open Primaries](https://flopenprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us), has seen the appetite for change firsthand. As he notes: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/john-marvin-2.png) The question now is not whether Floridians want a conversation about open primaries. It is whether Florida’s political system is ready to catch up with its voters. That’s why Open Primaries is exploring legislative and legal paths to reform, including seeking a sponsor for an open primaries bill in 2027 and considering a constitutional challenge to Florida’s closed-primary system. The 2026 primary may be over, but the movement to open it is just beginning. ## **What We're Reading** ## Independents Reject Team Politics America’s independent voters are done playing political team sports. That’s the powerful message from political analyst John Halpin, who [argues in a piece this week](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Free-Agent-Politics-Independents-Reject-Team-Politics.pdf?ref=ivn.us) that the more than 40% of Americans who don’t identify with either party share one defining trait: they reject binary politics. They don’t want to be told which team to join, which party line to follow, or which side they’re supposed to hate. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/john-haplin.png) Halpin’s argument cuts to the heart of what’s broken in American politics. Democrats and Republicans increasingly demand loyalty in exchange for a voice, while millions of voters are looking for something else: the freedom to judge candidates and ideas on their merits. And yet our election system is built around the teams independents have rejected. In states with closed primaries, independent voters can be shut out of the taxpayer-funded elections that often determine who ultimately takes office. They’re told they’re important enough to win elections-but not important enough to participate in choosing the candidates. The independent voter isn’t the problem with American politics. The problem is a political system designed for voters who no longer exist. Halpin’s piece is a powerful reminder that the independent movement isn’t about creating another political team. It’s about breaking free from the idea that American voters should have to choose one in the first place. ## **In Case You Missed It** ## OP President John Opdycke on CNN Open Primaries President John Opdycke joined CNN to talk about Alaska’s primary system -and why the broader movement toward open primaries is gaining attention. Opdycke made the case that opening primaries to all voters does more than enfranchise independents. It changes how candidates campaign by forcing them to build broader coalitions beyond their partisan base. He also pointed to California as evidence that an open primary can change political behavior. California saw 41% turnout in its most recent primary, compared with just 9% in New York’s closed primary, he noted. He argued that California’s Top Two system has given voters more power and created greater incentives for Democrats and Republicans to work together. Opdycke also weighed in on the different models states are experimenting with. His message: there is no single model every state has to adopt. States should have the freedom to find the system that works for their voters. And he ended with a pointed observation about California: the fact that the parties hate the open primary, he said, is a signal that it is working. ## **Fast Takes** ## Wyoming’s Closed Primary Forces Voters to Pick a Side Wyoming’s closed primary system is forcing voters to make an impossible choice: pick a party months before they even know who’s running. A new [*Jackson Hole News&Guide* report](https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/election/closed-primaries-in-wyoming-force-voters-to-decide-between-statewide-and-local-issues/article%5F0a9d1452-3680-4fbe-92b8-066ccb38a33d.html?ref=ivn.us) captures the absurdity. Teton County voters had to choose between participating in competitive local Democratic races or weighing in on consequential Republican contests for Congress and statewide office. Some switched parties. Others simply had to sit out races they cared about. As one voter put it: “I would have liked to have been able to vote for other people on the other side as well.” That’s not democracy working. That’s a system forcing voters to choose a team before they’re allowed to choose their candidates. ## **Activities/Events** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/open-primaries-lisa-rice.png)](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/S59uL4--T0ulEdbx7SogoQ?ref=ivn.us#/registration) ### **The Personal Touch: Building Campaigns for Open Primaries that Inspire Voters** *What D.C.’s Successful Open Primaries Campaign Can Teach Reformers Nationwide* *September 10 at 2:00 PM ETFeaturing Lisa Rice, Founder of Grow Democracy DCModerated by Open Primaries President John Opdycke* Winning open primaries isn’t about policy. It’s about enfranchising voters who are shut out and building trust that changing the rules creates positive possibility and opportunity. If voters are not inspired, don’t trust campaign leadership, and don’t see a relationship between open voting and improving their lives - who cares what the policy is. In 2024, 73% of D.C. voters approved Initiative 83, voting to open the city’s taxpayer-funded primary elections and deploy ranked choice voting in the general election. But after the measure passed, ranked choice voting was implemented and open primaries was shelved by the city council - leaving nearly 100,000 independent voters shut out. For nearly two years, the will of the voters was blocked. But **Lisa Rice, founder of Grow Democracy DC**, and her team don’t know how to take no for an answer - thank god! Please join us for a discussion about how the DC team went to the mattresses and forced the city council to implement open primaries in the nation’s capitol. **Open Primaries President John Opdycke** will sit down with Lisa to explore what the D.C. campaign can teach reformers across the country: How do you make structural reform personal? How do you build a coalition that lasts beyond Election Day? And how can campaigns connect with and inspire voters in ways that move political leaders to act? [Join us on **September 10 at 2:00 PM ET**](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/S59uL4--T0ulEdbx7SogoQ?ref=ivn.us#/registration) for a behind-the-scenes conversation about what it takes to turn voter support into lasting political change. ### She Lost. She Came Back. Then Suzette Valladares Made California History. URL: https://ivn.us/she-lost-she-came-back-then-suzette-valladares-made-california-history/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:41:43.000Z *She took ten years to finish college and lost more than one race on the way to Sacramento. Now she's the first Latina Republican to ever serve in both houses of the Legislature.* *This is part of* [*an IVN series*](https://ivn.us/tag/legislative-spotlight/) *profiling the 25 Latinas serving in the California Legislature.* It took [Suzette Valladares](https://sr23.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) about ten years to finish her bachelor's degree. She adjusted, tried a different route, and kept going until she was done. That pattern, repeated throughout her education, her career, and her campaigns, is the through-line of her rise to Senate Republican whip and arguably the trait that best explains why she got there. Valladares, 45, is the first Latina Republican to serve in both houses of the California Legislature. She now represents the 23rd State Senate District, and in 2025 she was chosen by Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones to help hold her caucus together on the votes that matter most. ## **Roots in the Valley** Born Suzette Martinez on December 21, 1980, in Sylmar, she is a third-generation Californian whose family story, like so many others, runs through the state's agricultural fields. Her grandfather was a farmworker who worked in the vineyards near Bakersfield. Her father, a mechanic, opened his own small business in the San Fernando Valley. Her mother ran a preschool. Her first job was at Six Flags Magic Mountain. ## **A Degree Finished the Long Way** Valladares started college at a University of California campus but could not afford to stay. Rather than giving up on a degree, she adjusted course: she enrolled at College of the Canyons and earned an associate degree in 2001\. The bachelor's degree in political science from Cal State University, Northridge came about a decade later. The full arc, from her first year of college to her final one, spanned roughly ten years. That climb through community college and a commuter campus is the kind of experience that maps closely onto the lives of many of the voters she now represents. It also set the pattern for how she seems to handle obstacles and setbacks in politics, treating them not as dead ends, but as detours. ## **Building a Résumé Before a Ballot Line** After college, Valladares got the political bug. She worked as a district representative for then-Republican US Rep. Buck McKeon. In 2012, she became Executive Director of Southern California [Autism Speaks](https://www.autismspeaks.org/?ref=ivn.us) and was recognized in the Santa Clarita Business Journal's "40 Under 40." In 2014 and 2015, she served as the California Director of Hispanic Initiatives for the Republican National Committee. This role put her at the center of the party's efforts to reach Latino voters in a state where the GOP had been losing ground for years. ## **The First Loss** Her first attempt at elected office came in 2014, when she ran for the 36th Assembly District. She took 9 percent of the vote in the primary and did not advance. Five years later, she tried again. In 2019, Valladares was initially exploring a bid against Democratic Rep. Katie Hill for a congressional seat. Instead, she pivoted to the 38th Assembly District after then-Assemblyman Dante Acosta stepped down—another adjustment, a different office, a better opening. Running under California's top-two primary system, she defeated fellow Republican Lucie Volotzky in the November 2020 general election, winning the seat with more than 128,000 votes. ## **A Record Built Across the Aisle** In the Assembly, Valladares built a record that reached across party lines. She was a founding member of the bipartisan [Problem Solvers Caucus](https://ivn.us/someone-in-sacramento-is-actually-trying-to-solve-problems/) and served as vice chair of the Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism, and Internet Media Committee. Early in the pandemic, she helped bring vaccine clinics to her community. She also co-authored legislation expanding access to transitional kindergarten and preschool starting at age four, an issue rooted in her own family's work in early childhood education. ## **Another Setback** In 2022, running in the newly redrawn 40th Assembly District, Valladares narrowly lost her reelection bid to Democrat Pilar Schiavo, 50.2% to 49.8%, a margin of a few hundred votes. The loss did not end her political career. In 2024, she ran for California's 23rd State Senate District, the seat left open by termed-out Republican Scott Wilk, and won. The victory returned her to Sacramento and made her the first Latina Republican to serve in both chambers of the state Legislature. Through those years, Valladares carried a personal loss alongside the political ones. Her mother died in 2018 after a battle with cancer. Valladares has continued to run the family preschool, Little Steps of Faith, in Sylmar, serving as CEO and keeping the business her mother built. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DYLRbIDj2jn/?ref=ivn.us) ## **Whip** In 2025, Jones named Valladares [Senate Republican Caucus whip](https://sr23.senate.ca.gov/content/leader-jones-announces-senator-suzette-martinez-valladares-senate-republican-caucus-whip?ref=ivn.us), the member responsible for rallying Republican senators on key votes and ensuring caucus unity. "Suzette is a proven leader who brings passion and a deep understanding of the struggles California families face," Jones said, adding that "as a Latina and a small business owner, she knows firsthand the burdens placed on hardworking Californians by excessive government overreach." Valladares called the appointment "an honor," and credited Jones with having "done an incredible job bringing the party together, expanding the Republican presence in the Senate and holding the Governor and Democratic Majority accountable." She said she looked forward "to working with our caucus and colleagues on both sides of the aisle to prioritize policies that tackle our affordability crisis, expand opportunities for all Californians, and restore public safety in our communities." As Senator, her stated legislative priorities include lowering taxes and the cost of living, [supporting law enforcement and public safety](https://suzettevalladares.com/public-safety-plan/?ref=ivn.us), addressing homelessness and the fentanyl crisis, and parents' rights. She argues that much of [California's cost-of-living crisis is self-imposed](https://suzettevalladares.com/tax-cut-plan/?ref=ivn.us) and that the state can protect its environment without pricing out working families. ## **Patience as a Qualification** The whip's job is to count votes and keep a caucus united, work that rewards patience and persistence over speed, not unlike the slower, harder path she took to a degree and to office. California's biggest problems, the ones lawmakers spend entire careers chipping away at, rarely yield to quick fixes. They take years of incremental effort and the willingness to try again after coming up short. Valladares arrived in Senate leadership having already learned the lesson of adjusting rather than giving up. The same instinct shows up in how she responds when a door closes. When the California Latino Legislative Caucus declined to admit Republicans, [she did not simply accept the exclusion](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-18/republicans-barred-from-joining-the-democrat-led-latino-caucus-form-their-own?ref=ivn.us). She was among those who helped start a separate California Hispanic Legislative Caucus. "For too long, Latino families in California have been priced out of the California dream," Valladares said. "This election cycle, the Latino community sent a very clear mandate to Sacramento saying they want us to focus on issues of affordability, safe communities and success in school, which is why after a historic election of 9 Republican Latino Legislators, we decided to launch our own caucus." Last week, one of her bills met the fate that awaits much minority-party legislation. Her [MAST Act](https://www.avpress.com/news/valladares-human-trafficking-bill-is-defeated/article%5F26101859-20da-41a2-b97f-c5a0de09592d.html?ref=ivn.us), which would have created California's first statewide task force to coordinate the response to human trafficking across government agencies and nonprofits, passed the full Senate without a single no vote and cleared Assembly Public Safety before dying in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. The measure carried an estimated cost of just $289,000 a year. Valladares called it a painful setback and [said she would keep pushing](https://sr23.senate.ca.gov/content/sacramento-kills-valladares-bill-protect-human-trafficking-victims?ref=ivn.us), noting that the major sporting events coming to California can draw a spike in trafficking. It is the same response she has given every other setback: find a new path and try again. She is currently a co-chair of the [Problem Solvers Caucus](https://ivn.us/someone-in-sacramento-is-actually-trying-to-solve-problems/), whose members agree not to work against one another's bills. One of her Democratic co-chairs, Assemblymember [Anamarie Ávila Farías](https://avilafarias.asmdc.org/?ref=ivn.us) of Martinez, has praised Valladares' "practical, solutions-focused leadership, her strong work ethic, and the way she approaches challenges in a collaborative way." Ávila Farías also called her "a big supporter of women" who has "consistently elevated the women around her." When the two work together, Ávila Farías said, "there are no barriers and no identity affiliations or party obstacles. We're about the issues and the problems." Valladares is married to Shane Valladares, and the couple has a daughter, Charlotte. She plays basketball, and her favorite movies are A League of Their Own and Meet Me in St. Louis. ## **The District** Senate District 23 was drawn by nesting Assembly Districts 39 and 40\. It covers the cities of Adelanto, Hesperia, Lancaster, Palmdale, Santa Clarita, and Victorville, plus the surrounding Antelope Valley and Victor Valley, a suburban and commuter region built largely around the aerospace and clean energy industries. About 72 percent of the district lies in Los Angeles County and 28 percent in San Bernardino County. It is one of the more heavily Latino districts in the state. Of its 1,026,515 residents, 49.3 percent are Latino, 30.1 percent are white, 10.4 percent are Black, and 5.8 percent are Asian. Median household income is $86,836, and 13.5 percent of residents live below the poverty line. Among citizens of voting age, Latinos in her district now account for 38 percent, up from 27 percent when the district's predecessor lines were drawn. Her current term ends December 4, 2028\. Her campaign committee is registered as "[Suzette Martinez Valladares for Senate 2028](https://suzettevalladares.com/?ref=ivn.us).” The seat is highly competitive. As of the May 2026 registration report, Democrats made up 38 percent of the district's 614,933 registered voters and Republicans 31 percent, a Democratic edge of 7.41 points. Another 22 percent of voters have declined to state a party preference, a bloc larger than the margin between the two parties. ### 9 Ways Ranked Choice Ballots Fix What’s Broken in American Elections URL: https://ivn.us/9-ways-ranked-choice-ballots-fix-whats-broken-in-american-elections/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:41:28.000Z *Editor's Note: The following commentary* [*originally published*](https://substack.com/home/post/p-211958367?ref=ivn.us) *on the DemocracySOS Substack and has been republished on IVN with permission from the author.* Ranked ballots are one of the wonders of modern representative democracy because they solve real democratic dilemmas that other methods can’t solve. Even a Party List Proportional method offers a voter only a single-choice and thereby replicates one of the worst defects of the truly antiquated “plurality wins all” method. Here’s what I mean. In this [previous DemocracySOS article](https://democracysos.substack.com/p/dum-dum-democrats-about-to-shoot), we reviewed the recent Democratic primaries for governor in Wisconsin and US Senate in Michigan, in which both winning candidates prevailed by an eyelash with less than a majority of the popular vote. In the Wisconsin governor’s race, the winner had only 39.8 percent of the popular vote, meaning three out of every five Democratic voters preferred another candidate. If the supporters of the other candidates in these two races had been allowed to cast a runoff vote to determine the majority winner, a different candidate might have won. In truth, in both races the Democrats can’t be sure that the correct candidates – the candidates preferred by the most voters – actually prevailed. Moreover, a large chunk of the Democratic Party voters wasted their votes on minor spoiler Democratic candidates who had no chance of winning – including some “zombie” candidates who had dropped out and were no longer even running for the nomination! Yet those voters couldn’t change their votes to a continuing candidate. In the 2020 [Democratic presidential primary](https://fairvote.org/report/ranked%5Fchoice%5Fvoting%5Fin%5F2020%5Fpresidential%5Fprimary%5Felections/?ref=ivn.us), more than 3 million voters nationwide cast ballots for candidates who had withdrawn from the race; millions more wasted their vote on a candidate who didn’t reach the 15% threshold used in Democrat presidential primaries to qualify for being awarded delegates. Zombie votes, wasted votes, spoiler candidates, non-majority winners…this is what the Democrats served up in these primaries, which not only is frustrating for voters but also undermines the legitimacy of the non-majority winners and undercuts their ability to beat the Republican candidates in the November general election. If, instead of the “pick-one” plurality system, the Democrats had used an “instant runoff,” otherwise known as “ranked choice voting for single winners” which gives voters the option of ranking their favorite candidates and elect the candidate with majority support, all of these completely unnecessary negative defects – frustrating to candidates, parties and voters alike – would have been avoided. With IRV/RCV, if a voter’s first choice can’t win their vote automatically migrates to the voter’s second choice, and then their third choice, and so on. Or look at the mess of our presidential elections. Since 1992, five out of nine presidential elections saw a candidate win with less than a popular majority. In two of those, the winning candidate had fewer popular votes than the loser. In 2016, if you [added up all the votes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%5FUnited%5FStates%5Fpresidential%5Felection?ref=ivn.us#Results) of center-left candidates, including Democrat Hillary Clinton (48.2%), Green Party candidate Jill Stein (1.1%), add a good chunk of the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson (3.3%) (since he said he wanted “[nothing to do with the GOP](https://reason.com/reasontv/2015/07/16/gary-johnson-trump-pot-election?ref=ivn.us)”), and Evan McMullin (0.5%) who was a former Republican “Never Trumper,” Hillary easily would have crossed the 50% threshold and prevailed in enough states to win the electoral college vote. The same happened in 2000, with the Gore-Nader center-left split allowing George W. Bush to win with [only 47.9%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%5FUnited%5FStates%5Fpresidential%5Felection?ref=ivn.us#National%5Fresults) of the national popular vote. Using instant runoff voting within the 50 states would have changed the outcome of those two presidential elections and elected majority winners. Think of how history would have changed. No Trump, no Bush. Or how about the 1992 victory for Democrat Bill Clinton with [only 43%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992%5FUnited%5FStates%5Fpresidential%5Felection?ref=ivn.us#Results) while independent Ross Perot had 18.9% and the GOP’s George HW Bush pulled 37.5%. If the Perot voters had been allowed to select an “instant runoff” choice, would Clinton have won? Bush and Clinton would have had to woo Perot supporters throughout the campaign; who knows which candidate would have done that most successfully. We accept these bizarre election results as “normal,” as “just the way it is,” but it’s really a national travesty. We elect the most powerful political leader in the world, and in most presidential elections over the last 30 years our defective electoral method was not competent enough to ensure that the most popular candidate – the one preferred by a popular majority – actually won. If we saw this happen in another country on a regular basis, we would call it a Banana Republic. ## **“Majority winners” should be a sacred, inviolate democratic value** There is a simple operative principle at work here: if a candidate wins an election for a single-seat office and has garnered less than a popular majority, that means you can’t be absolutely 100% certain that the right candidate — the most popular candidate — won. Every time that occurs, it violates key democratic values. Throughout US history, there have been 19 out of 47 (40%) presidential elections when the winning candidate won the office with less than a majority (50%) of the national popular vote. Out of these, five winners actually received fewer individual popular votes than their direct opponents, while the rest won with a plurality (the most votes but less than a majority). The lowest ever was Abraham Lincoln in 1860, pulling only [39.7% of the national vote in a very split field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860%5FUnited%5FStates%5Fpresidential%5Felection?ref=ivn.us#Results). But the regional divisions on the cusp of a civil war were so dramatic that Lincoln won 59% of the electoral college vote and the presidency. In 1876, Samuel Tilden won [a 50.9% majority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1876%5FUnited%5FStates%5Fpresidential%5Felection?ref=ivn.us#Results) of the popular vote, yet lost a very controversial electoral college count – by a single vote -- to Ruther(fraud) B. Hayes. It’s understandable why Americans in the 19th century put up with bogus election methods that couldn’t guarantee that the most popular candidate would win. Methods like instant runoff voting/ranked choice voting hadn’t been invented yet, and the challenges of election administration and potential corruption required a degree of systemic simplicity that prevented improvement. But what is our excuse today? Why do we still put up with using an electoral method that sometimes elects the wrong winner and makes voters feel like they can’t vote for their favorite candidates, lest it turns out that vote for a “spoiler” candidate actually contributed to their “greatest evil” candidate winning? A vote for Nader, Perot, etc. helped elect George W Bush and Bill Clinton. But the use of ranked ballots would have changed all that. No question, ranked ballots are a miracle of modern democracy. Let us count the ways that ranked ballots unequivocally improve our elections and our representative government, adding a unique enhancement that no other electoral system can provide. **1) More voter choice liberated voters.** Voters have the option of ranking their ballots, 1, 2, 3, and if their favorite first choice candidate can’t win, their vote automatically moves to their second choice, then their third choice, etc. What a gift this is – voters no longer have to worry about spoiler candidates or feel forced to vote for the lesser of two evils. Voters no longer have to strategically try to figure out which candidates are more likely to win, and can enjoy unprecedented sincerity in their choosing of candidates. In the 2000 presidential election, Ralph Nader voters could have ranked Al Gore second or third, ensuring that when Nader was eliminated from the tabulation because of too little support, their votes would not have been thrown out because they would have had the option of giving their vote to Al Gore. Gary Johnson’s Libertarian voters would have had the option of casting their runoff vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump…Ross Perot voters for Bill Clinton or George HW Bush. No other major electoral system empowers voters like this. This aspect of ranked ballots offers an unqualified improvement for democracy and representative government. **2) Liberates candidates too.** More candidates are liberated to run without fear of playing spoiler, or without fear of splitting the vote with like-minded candidates. For example, multiple progressive candidates can all run in the same race and instead of competing against each other and splitting the votes of their own base of support, causing them all to lose, now that vote can coalesce around the strongest of their bloc’s candidates. The same is true of multiple moderate or conservative candidates. Like-minded candidates can even campaign together, much as Democrats Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander did in New York City’s mayoral election, and like women of color candidates have done in Minneapolis, St. Paul and New York City’s city council elections. Previously those candidates were told “wait your turn, if you run you will split our vote.” But with RCV’s ranked ballots, all those candidates could run at the same time and actually support each other. Do you have any idea what a sea level change this is, during a time when politics has become a bitter, hack attack zero-sum game? [Research](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00344893.2023.2219267?ref=ivn.us#abstract) and [opinion polls](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/04/ranked-choice-voting-is-already-changing-politics-better/?ref=ivn.us) show that voters love this feature about RCV. **3) Incentivizes coalition-building.** The typical “plurality wins all” election encourages candidates to campaign with a strategy of “you against me.” But RCV changes the incentives for how you win. Suddenly you have to attract second and third rankings from the supporters of other candidates. That means you need to be mindful of what you say about those candidates. If you attack them, their supporters will not rank you. Instead, you have to find some degree of common ground. In a San Francisco mayoral election, the two leading progressive candidates co-endorsed each other and did TV ads together, trying to encourage a progressive wave of voters and organizations, instead of “don’t vote for her, vote for me.” In Maine, two Democratic candidates for governor endorsed each other and ran TV ads together (see their ad [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXGTt66fyTI&ref=ivn.us)). Building a coalition with other candidates in turn results in another crucial feature that voters’ love…. **4) Less mudslinging campaigns.** If attacking your opponents may well be a losing strategy, and if finding common ground and building coalitions with other candidates is a winning strategy, then the campaigns themselves become less about slinging mud and personal attacks and more about the issues. In one mayoral election in Oakland using RCV, a leading candidate saw a house with another candidate’s yard sign. In a typical plurality election, this candidate would have skipped that house. Instead, she rang the doorbell and told the homeowner what she had in common with the other candidate, and asked this voter for her second ranking. In Alaska, some candidates [told a similar story](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EP%5Fc-lzuKPg?ref=ivn.us). Less mudslinging, more coalition building. No other electoral system incentivizes this kind of positive behavior among candidates and the organizations supporting those candidates. We have seen this dynamic play out in election after election. **5) Your vote becomes an expression of your personhood.** Imagine you are a gay Republican. In the current “plurality-wins-all” system, you probably will have to pick whether you want to vote for a gay candidate or a Republican candidate, quite possibly a MAGA candidate. With RCV, you can express who you are – rank a gay independent candidate first, a moderate Republican candidate second, perhaps a gay moderate Democrat third. Or how about if you are a moderate Democrat who supports gun owner’s rights and tighter control at the border. You could rank as your first choice a moderate Democrat with a sensible position on border policy, and a pro-gun moderate Republican candidate second. How about a Green Party supporter who strongly supports the Green New Deal. You could rank first a Green candidate for Congress and rank a progressive Democrat second and a pro-environment Republican third. RCV gives the voter a more expressive vote that allows you to define yourself. You aren’t locked into a narrow choice of candidates who don’t represent your fullness. Interestingly, there are some political scientists who are supporters of a Party List PR system, and who criticize this “maximum expression” of ranked ballots. Some political scientists call it “[vote leakage](https://protectdemocracy.org/work/lessons-from-the-history-of-proportional-representation-in-america/?ref=ivn.us)” (or [inter-coalition “vote leakage”](https://jacksantucci.com/docs/papers/rcv%5Freview%5F2020-12-11.pdf?ref=ivn.us)) when a voter’s vote transfers from one political party to another. They see this as a dilution of a political party’s ability to hold onto its votes. Instead of this being a feature that liberates voters to pick their favorite candidates and parties rather than the “lesser evil,” to these academics the votes don’t belong to the voters they belong to the political party who has received the primary allegiance of the voter. The idea that many voters are actually complex mixtures of political sympathies, and that in a mature democracy should be able to express that personal blend, is not valued. While I am fully aware of the desirability of fair and proportional representation along party lines, nevertheless I find this view to have anti-voter consequences. **6) More candidates of color elected.** RCV makes it easier for women and candidates of color to run for office and win. With RCV, women and minority candidates aren’t pressured to wait their turn, nor can they be automatically labelled as “spoilers.” [Research](https://fairvote.org/report/communities-of-color-2024/?ref=ivn.us) finds that candidates of color are more likely to win in RCV elections, in part because voters of color tend to rank more candidates than white voters. And we have seen some remarkable results: women of color and people of color majorities have been elected to city councils as distinctive as Minneapolis, St. Paul, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Oakland. Or look at the miracle of New York City: it’s ridiculous that it has not been more widely reported that, since New York City began using RCV in its 2021 elections, the number of women-of-color elected to the city council has increased from only a handful to 26 out of 51 seats. And the number of women overall has reached 31 out of 51 (61%). Yes, the city council for America’s largest and most dynamic city is majority women-of-color and one of the most racially and gender diverse in the country. New York City has had public financing of campaigns and fusion voting for many years, but not until New Yorkers started using RCV did they see such stunning results. **7) Less polarization.** Because of these features of ranked ballots, including more coalition-building and less mud-slinging, RCV meets the current moment more than other electoral systems. People can come together around the ranked ballots and its full range of choices, around being able to select more than one party or one candidate instead of the same old “you against me,” and not feel trapped into being taken for granted by a single party. PR proponents talk about the importance of “multiparty democracy,” which I agree with, but to the average person “more parties” might well sound like “more conflict.” Because even in a Party List PR system, a certain number of voters would still be stuck in the same old bind of potentially picking a single political party that does not reach the victory threshold and thereby wasting their vote. RCV will result in less polarization and the freedom to pick multiple choices instead of only a single political party or candidate. In states like Alaska, which used to be highly polarized between MAGA Republicans and Democrats, RCV has led to coalition-building *within the legislature* between moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats, who have formed a cross-partisan governing coalition (see [“Alaska – of all places – shows what a bipartisan coalition could look like”)](https://democracysos.substack.com/p/alaska-of-all-places-shows-what-a). For reasons I truly do not understand, [certain political scientists](https://leedrutman.substack.com/p/we-need-more-and-better-parties) see this kind of bipartisan coalition-building as somehow undermining the cohesion and influence of political parties as vote-maximizing entities. **8) Ranked ballots can be used to elect both majority-winners and to elect proportional representation.** Ranked choice voting comes in two different varieties – for electing single-winner offices, in which it functions as an “instant runoff” to elect majority winners in a single election; or for electing legislatures from multi-seat districts, using the “single transferable vote” method (also known as proportional ranked choice voting, PRCV) to elect political parties or nonpartisan groupings of like-minded voters via a system of proportional representation. By using ranked ballots in all elections – from executive offices like president, governor, mayor (instant runoff) to city councils and legislatures (proportional representation) – that allows voters to learn a uniform method in all elections and to lessen the chances of voter confusion. In regard to which PR method is best for the United States, no other major electoral method empowers voters with all the features of proportional ranked choice voting and ranked ballots, not even Party List PR because… **9) Ranked ballots would significantly improve Party List PR methods** Party List PR (PLPR) democracies would be wise to include ranked ballots in their own elections. Proponents of PLPR apparently have not noticed that one-choice PLPR shares one of the worst defects of plurality elections – if a voter picks wrong with their single choice, her/his vote gets wasted. For example, in Germany during a recent election 34 political parties competed but only five parties crossed the 5% threshold and won seats. Votes for the other 29 parties were wasted, resulting in [16 percent of the List vote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%5FGerman%5Ffederal%5Felection?ref=ivn.us#Results) going to losing parties. In Germany’s more recent 2025 elections, there were 29 parties and only six of them won seats. Approximately [20 percent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%5FGerman%5Ffederal%5Felection?ref=ivn.us#Results) of the List vote went to parties that fell short of five percent. Germany could have allowed those voters to rank more than one political party, and if their first choice can’t get elected, their vote would transfer to their next-ranked party. That would reduce the number of wasted votes and increase the proportionality of the elections. Other List PR democracies, including Italy, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia and New Zealand have been plagued by [similar spoiler dynamics](https://democracysos.substack.com/p/the-future-of-us-democracy-olpr-vs) that could be fixed by using ranked ballots. Without ranked ballots in the previous Israeli election using Party List PR, nearly [300,000 anti-Netanyahu votes were wasted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022%5FIsraeli%5Flegislative%5Felection?ref=ivn.us#Aftermath) on small parties that did not win representation, allowing his rightwing, religious bloc to barely squeak out a majority of legislative seats despite winning less than a majority of the popular vote. So, these kinds of “wasted vote” dynamics can have tragic outcomes. Party List-based democracies should improve their electoral systems by incorporating some version of the [Spare Vote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spare%5Fvote?ref=ivn.us), which combines ranked ballots in a List PR system. ## **Ranked ballots, one of the wonders of modern democracy science** Ranked ballots are one of the wonders of modern democracy science and should be incorporated into nearly every election situation, at federal, state and local levels. Minnesota held a public election using ranked choice voting to choose its [new state flag design](https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/unofficial-ranked-choice-poll-opens-for-final-3-minnesota-state-flag-designs/?ref=ivn.us). RCV should be used to elect names of stadiums or sports team, favorite restaurants, it should be used in opinion polls and in any situation in which you want to receive a true representation of majority voter sentiment without worrying about spoilers, wasted votes and too many voters feeling frustrated and disempowered by picking losers. Once I was with a group of colleagues following a political reform conference, and we selected our pitcher of beer by ranking our choices. Even Party List PR elections, whether “closed” or “open,” which together constitute the mostly widely used electoral system in the world, would be improved by allowing voters to rank their favorite choices. Ranked ballots are an unequivocal improvement in representative democracy, and it’s puzzling to me why a [handful of political scientists](https://leedrutman.substack.com/p/how-i-updated-my-views-on-ranked) like to trash them. Some people believe ranked ballots are complicated, or make the voting process more complicated, but there is no research, based on actual, real-world elections, to support that view. In actual fact, there is a lot of bad anti-RCV research out there using questionable methodologies, as attorney Paul Haughey and I have exposed in our report, [“Shaky Political Science.”](https://democracysos.substack.com/p/shaky-political-science-misses-mark) The fact is, millions of voters in the US, as well as millions more in Australia, Ireland and other places, going back many decades, have been using ranked ballots and have handled the task of ranking candidates as easily as they handle the task of ranking their favorite flavors of ice cream or movies. In exit polls from New York City’s RCV elections in 2025, [96% of voters](https://fairvote.org/press/nyc-ranked-choice-voting-poll-2025/?ref=ivn.us) said their ballot was simple to complete, including at least 94% of each racial group; 76% said they want to keep or expand RCV to other elections in New York City. Ranked choice voting has established an impressive track record across the country because it delivers better choices, better campaigns, and better governance. It has been used in a thousand elections by over 16 million voters in over 50 US cities, counties and states, at local, state and federal levels. Six Southern states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina – use ranked choice ballots for their military and overseas voters so they can participate in their states’ delayed two-round runoffs, by having them rank their runoff choices at the same time as their first choice. Another magical use of ranked ballots. If we used RCV on the national level, I have no doubt that it would result in a dramatic improvement in American politics. The attractive features that are on display in RCV elections in dozens of US cities and states are all ones that our national politics desperately need. ### Missouri Voters Got the Signatures. A Judge Says They Still Can’t Vote on Trump-Backed Map URL: https://ivn.us/missouri-voters-got-the-signatures-a-judge-says-they-still-cant-vote-on-trump-backed-map/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:41:18.000Z **JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.** — A Missouri judge ruled Wednesday that voters cannot use the state’s veto referendum process to challenge a new congressional map drawn by Republican lawmakers at the urging of President Donald Trump. The ruling [upholds the decision by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to reject an initiative from People Not Politicians](https://apnews.com/article/redistricting-congress-missouri-trump-gerrymandering-45b51672b78081dc7609e763a0416534?ref=ivn.us), not because it didn’t have the signatures—but because he said the state constitution does not allow it. People Not Politicians submitted more than 300,000 signatures in December to overturn the redistricting effort approved by the state legislature last September. Missouri was the third state to engage in mid-cycle redistricting following Texas and California. The new map, already used in the August primary, was designed to defeat Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver in Missouri's 5th Congressional District and give Republicans one additional seat in the state’s congressional delegation. Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green, elected as a Republican, wrote that the Missouri Constitution does not clearly transfer congressional redistricting authority from the General Assembly to voters through referendum. In response, People Not Politicians said it will appeal. > Another step in the process complete. On to the next. [pic.twitter.com/nAfYDIC9uT](https://t.co/nAfYDIC9uT?ref=ivn.us) > > — PeopleNotPoliticiansMO (@PeopleNotPolsMO) [August 20, 2026](https://x.com/PeopleNotPolsMO/status/2090250318680363084?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) “The most important thing that happened today is that there was a quick ruling from Cole County Circuit Court,” the group said in a statement on Wednesday. > *“Today, Judge Green signed the proposed judgement from the Republican National Committee that upheld Hoskins; certificate of insufficiency for the referendum. In doing so, Judge Green sided with the out-of-state interest (the RNC) who intervened in our case.”* ## The Missouri Constitution Extends Broad Rights to Voters The text of the state constitution makes the dispute more complicated than presented in Green’s ruling, which was basically that since it does not explicitly give voters the right to challenge redistricting efforts, it is not a right they have. Article III, Section 49 says Missourians “reserve power to approve or reject by referendum any act of the general assembly, except as hereinafter provided.” The exceptions spelled out cover laws necessary for the immediate preservation of public peace, health or safety, along with certain state appropriations. Congressional redistricting is not specifically listed. The Missouri constitution also states: > *“When the number of representatives to which the state is entitled in the House of the Congress of the United States under the census of 1950 and each census thereafter is certified to the governor, the general assembly shall by law divide the state into districts corresponding with the number of representatives to which it is entitled, which districts shall be composed of contiguous territory as compact and as nearly equal in population as may be.”* One, this contains no prohibition on referendums. But two, the constitution only explicitly discusses redistricting done *after* the census—which was the standard practice for every state in the US until the current mid-cycle redistricting fight erupted last year. There is also federal precedent that may support People Not Politicians. In *Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant (1916)*, the Supreme Court upheld the use of a citizen referendum to reject a congressional redistricting law. The court cited this decision as precedent more recently in its 2023 *Moore v. Harper* decision The justices brought up the case while explaining that congressional redistricting remains subject to a state's normal lawmaking process. Further, Missouri has done it before. Voters used a referendum in 1922 to reject a congressional map approved by the Legislature. That referendum was never challenged on the grounds that voters lacked the constitutional authority to decide the issue. The ruling on People Not Politicians’ referendum was not the only one on a citizen initiative Green—who is up for re-election this year—made Wednesday. He also [upheld Hoskins' decision to block Amendment 6](https://www.ky3.com/2026/08/20/missouri-court-rejects-petition-proposing-protections-laws-passed-by-citizen-initiative/?ref=ivn.us), proposed by Respect Missouri Voters, which would make it harder for lawmakers to overturn or weaken laws and constitutional amendments approved through citizen initiatives. In his ruling, he agreed with Hoskins that the proposal violated Missouri's single-subject requirement because it made changes affecting multiple constitutional provisions. The secretary of state had [acknowledged that Amendment 6 gathered enough signatures to qualify](https://ivn.us/missouri-secretary-of-state-admits-popular-amendment-qualified-says-voters-still-wont-get-a-say/) for the ballot, and state records also showed the redistricting referendum cleared its signature requirement. Both cases are expected to move quickly to the Missouri Supreme Court. ### Border Patrol STOPPED Her: Becoming a US Citizen LEGALLY is Harder Than Ever | EP54 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/border-patrol-stopped-her-becoming-a-us-citizen-legally-is-harder-than-ever-ep54/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:29.000Z IVP's own producer just became a US citizen, and she's sitting down with Chad and Cara to talk about what it actually took, and what it felt like the moment she finally got to register to vote. Lina Alvarez walks Chad and Cara through her path from a marriage-based green card to studying all 128 US civics questions to passing her citizenship test this month, including the multi-year "removal of conditions" process most Americans never hear about. She describes how the naturalization process changed under the second Trump administration, including processing delays, lost visibility into her case, and a tense moment of being pulled aside for extra document checks at the U.S. border. From there, Chad connects her story to the data driving IVP's coverage all year: nearly 650,000 No Party Preference voters who had never cast a ballot in an off-year primary turned out this cycle, an unprecedented surge. The conversation turns personal and sharper when Cara adds her own gut-punch comparison and a story about a sitting California state senator who still carries her passport everywhere just in case. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/border-patrol-stopped-her-becoming-a-us-citizen-legally-is-harder-than-ever?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ImqxBlBrtfNlJzeblreMB?ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/border-patrol-stopped-her-becoming-a-us-citizen/id1680559155?ref=ivn.us)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, hosts **Chad** and **Cara** welcome their own producer, **Lina Alvarez**, fresh off her naturalization ceremony, to walk through what becoming a **US citizen** actually required, from her original **marriage-based green card** to the **civics test** covering 128 possible questions. Lina details the multi-year **removal of conditions** process tied to a conditional green card, explaining how her case combined that step with her citizenship application after three years of marriage, a timeline that stretches to five years if a marriage ends. The conversation turns to what changed under the **second Trump administration**: Lina describes losing visibility into her case status on the **USCIS** website, unexplained processing delays, and being told not to travel even though her green card was valid. She recounts a tense moment reentering the **United States** from **Colombia** with her husband, when a border officer pulled her aside for extra document checks and cited her nationality, a moment she says rattled her despite having every paper in order. Chad pivots to the data driving **IVP's** coverage all year: nearly 650,000 **No Party Preference (NPP)** and **American Independent Party** voters who had never turned out in an off-year primary voted in California's recent **gubernatorial primary**, a surge he ties to simple rights-education outreach rather than persuasion messaging. Cara compares the border-check experience to having her papers checked on an **East German train** before the fall of the Berlin Wall, then shares that California Senate leader **Monique Limón** still carries her passport everywhere as a precaution. The hosts close by connecting Lina's first-time voter status to **California's** open primary system, noting it's one of only three states, alongside **Alaska** and **Washington**, where voters can cross party lines regardless of registration, and touch on **IVN's** recent front-page feature in the **Los Angeles Times**. ### 3 Million Independents Locked Out of Voting in Florida’s Closed Primary URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/3-million-independents-locked-out-of-voting-in-floridas-closed-primary/ Last updated: 2026-08-20T17:22:37.000Z Paul Rieckhoff breaks down the 3,324,324 independent Floridians — including more than 640,000 veterans — barred from voting in this week's closed primary, why the DSA keeps hijacking Democratic primaries and losing general elections from Florida to Michigan, the independent veterans already on November ballots (Mike Klein and Lacey Villarreal), the widening Senate lane for Stephen Colbert in South Carolina against the installed Darlene Graham, and why Pete Hegseth is campaigning in Iowa while sailors on the USS Lincoln reportedly go without adequate resupply. Independents are not moving the needle. Independents are the needle. Stay vigilant. **Get the latest episodes of Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff on the podcast's** [**YouTube channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentamericans?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### Well, that didn't work URL: https://ivn.us/well-that-didnt-work/ Last updated: 2026-08-19T19:06:35.000Z Some leaders in the Democratic Party are worried their members might have too much of a say over who their presidential nominee is in 2028\. So they tried to ban the use of Ranked Choice Voting. [Didn't work](https://ivn.us/dnc-backs-down-on-ranked-choice-voting-ban-after-backlash/). Meanwhile, [Alaska just ran another nonpartisan primary that is under attack from the other partisan flank](https://ivn.us/alaska-caps-campaign-cash-now-voters-face-a-dark-money-fight/). For the same reason. Control. On the [Independent Voter Podcast](https://ivn.us/podcasts/elon-musks-1-5-million-attack-on-ranked-choice-voting-in-alaska-ep52/), we break down how Musk, the DNC, and state Republicans all ended up fighting the same enemy: **the right of voters to control elections, instead of party insiders**. It's becoming THE national issue that [neither party wants you to talk about](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/). Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## DNC Backs Down on Ranked Choice Voting Ban After Backlash [![DNC ranked choice voting vote](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/image-9249aaa7-c903-4741-9aa0-8db68d232dfe.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dnc-backs-down-on-ranked-choice-voting-ban-after-backlash/) After a week of backlash from voters and reform groups, the DNC shelved its plan to ban ranked choice voting in 2028 presidential primaries - **a rare case of a party establishment backing down when voters push back**. Shawn Griffiths reports. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/dnc-backs-down-on-ranked-choice-voting-ban-after-backlash/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [Alaska Caps Campaign Cash — Now Voters Face a Dark Money Fight ](https://ivn.us/alaska-caps-campaign-cash-now-voters-face-a-dark-money-fight/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Alaska Caps Campaign Cash — Now Voters Face a Dark Money Fight](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-ab9066ab-0928-4b8b-b09a-9fc866f47d52.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/alaska-caps-campaign-cash-now-voters-face-a-dark-money-fight/) [Americans Are Leaving the Two Parties Faster Than the System Can Trap Them ](https://ivn.us/americans-are-leaving-the-two-parties-faster-than-the-system-can-trap-them/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/08/russell-dutton.jpg) Russell Dutton [ ![Americans Are Leaving the Two Parties Faster Than the System Can Trap Them](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/independent-voter-growth.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/americans-are-leaving-the-two-parties-faster-than-the-system-can-trap-them/) [Steve Hilton Blames Sam Altman and Dario Amodei for Making America Fear AI ](https://ivn.us/steve-hilton-blames-sam-altman-and-dario-amodei-for-making-america-fear-ai/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Steve Hilton Blames Sam Altman and Dario Amodei for Making America Fear AI](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/steve-hilton-on-AI.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/steve-hilton-blames-sam-altman-and-dario-amodei-for-making-america-fear-ai/) [68,000 ‘Zombie Votes’ Haunted Wisconsin’s Democratic Primary ](https://ivn.us/68-000-zombie-votes-haunted-wisconsins-democratic-primary/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![68,000 ‘Zombie Votes’ Haunted Wisconsin’s Democratic Primary](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-569ec3c2-baf5-4ce3-a055-9fd63039f38b.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/68-000-zombie-votes-haunted-wisconsins-democratic-primary/) [New Texas Secretary of State Holds the Line Against GOP Push to Close Primaries ](https://ivn.us/new-texas-secretary-of-state-holds-the-line-against-gop-push-to-close-primaries/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![New Texas Secretary of State Holds the Line Against GOP Push to Close Primaries](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/texas-primaries-lawsuit.png) ](https://ivn.us/new-texas-secretary-of-state-holds-the-line-against-gop-push-to-close-primaries/) [We Expect Election Referees to Be Neutral. So Why Do We Make Them Pick a Team? ](https://ivn.us/we-expect-election-referees-to-be-neutral-so-why-do-we-make-them-pick-a-team/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/08/JC-Profile.png) Joseph Cerrone, Ph.D [ ![We Expect Election Referees to Be Neutral. So Why Do We Make Them Pick a Team?](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/california-secretary-of-state-election-administration.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/we-expect-election-referees-to-be-neutral-so-why-do-we-make-them-pick-a-team/) [Lauren Pinkston Is Betting Tennessee Isn’t as Red as It Looks ](https://ivn.us/lauren-pinkston-is-betting-tennessee-isnt-as-red-as-it-looks/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Lauren Pinkston Is Betting Tennessee Isn’t as Red as It Looks](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/Lauren-Pinkston.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/lauren-pinkston-is-betting-tennessee-isnt-as-red-as-it-looks/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Elon Musk, the DNC, and Alaska Republicans all ended up fighting the same enemy this month: **your right to a meaningful vote**. The Independent Voter Podcast breaks down the $1.5 million campaign against ranked choice voting in Alaska — and why the system keeps surviving. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnvyvnltsrA&ref=ivn.us) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## Someone in Sacramento Is Actually Trying to Solve Problems [![California State Capitol](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/california-problem-solvers.jpg)](https://ivn.us/someone-in-sacramento-is-actually-trying-to-solve-problems/) Dan Schnur on the California lawmakers nobody writes headlines about: the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus — 26 legislators quietly passing bills on housing costs and energy **without the partisan combat that stalls everything else in Sacramento**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/someone-in-sacramento-is-actually-trying-to-solve-problems/) ### *VIRAL ▶▶▶* ## Trump Says Michigan’s New Senate Nominee Will Bring a ‘Life of Hell’ [![Trump Says Michigan’s New Senate Nominee Will Bring a ‘Life of Hell’](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/Trump_ElSayed_Clip_Square.png)](https://www.facebook.com/reel/1929666251057831) What happens if “the communists” win? “A life of hell,” according to President Trump — and the example he reached for was Michigan’s brand-new Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed: “When I watch Abdul, he’s full of s---.” Here’s the part the outrage machine skips: El-Sayed got there through one of the few primaries independents can actually vote in — Emerson polling had independents favoring him 60-33, a far wider margin than among Democrats themselves. **Over 7,500 people have already chimed in** — watch the clip and join the conversation. [WATCH NOW ON FACEBOOK](https://www.facebook.com/reel/1929666251057831) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### *VETERANS ▶▶▶* ## Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff Army veteran Paul Rieckhoff sits down with Sen. Joe Manchin and Heather Manchin, who are betting that **a handful of independent victories in 2026 could break the two-party grip on Congress** — and building the organization to make it happen. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKJqh7ARlJg&ref=ivn.us) ### *CANDIDATE SPOTLIGHT ▶▶▶* ## Why Rick Bennett Left the GOP to Run for Governor of Maine Former Maine Senate President Rick Bennett spent decades inside the Republican Party. Now he’s running for governor as an independent — and his reason is not what you think: **the two-party system itself is corrupt, and it’s a major cause of government dysfunction**. Watch EP53 of the Independent Voter Podcast: [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHgIJdTRC3Y&ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### Florida’s ‘Phantom Candidates’ Are Back And They’re Still Locking Voters Out URL: https://ivn.us/floridas-phantom-candidates-are-back-and-theyre-still-locking-voters-out/ Last updated: 2026-08-25T18:29:46.000Z **FLORIDA** — Primary voters went to the polls Tuesday to choose nominees for Florida governor, US Senate, Congress and several state and local offices. But in some cases, the most consequential candidates weren't actually on the ballot. They were write-in candidates who will technically advance to November. But they often raise little or no money, spend little or nothing campaigning, and—in some cases— leave almost no campaign footprint at all. Still, their presence accomplished something much more significant. They determined who was allowed to vote Tuesday. They fit a pattern IVN and other outlets have come to call **“phantom candidates”** — nominal write-in candidates who qualify in races dominated by a single political party but do little or nothing to seriously compete for office. It is not an uncommon phenomenon, and in a closed primary state like Florida, they ensure that the primary stays closed. ## **Florida Primaries Are Closed — But They Can Be Opened Under Law** Florida has one of the oldest closed-primary rules in the country. Registered voters may cast a primary ballot only for candidates of the political party listed on their voter registration. If a voter is not registered with a party, they are shut out entirely. So, Democrats vote in Democratic primaries; Republicans vote in Republican primaries. It is a system that dates back to 1913 and denies more than 3.3 million independent voters an equal and meaningful say in elections. There is one exception to the primary rules that Florida voters created in 1998 Revision No. 11 to the state constitution. It is known today as the Universal Primary Amendment, [which states](https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/constitution?ref=ivn.us): > *“If all candidates for an office have the same party affiliation *and the winner will have no opposition in the general election*, all qualified electors, regardless of party affiliation, may vote in the primary elections for that office.”* In other words, if three Republicans are the only candidates running for an office, the election isn't supposed to be decided exclusively by Republicans. The primary becomes the election, and Democrats and independents are supposed to get a ballot as well The same principle applies in reverse in a Democratic-dominated district. The point of the Universal Primary Amendment (UPA) was to address one of the most glaring consequences of Florida’s closed primary system. Specifically, the issue that many voters in single-party dominated districts were denied any say in who represented them. However, the broad language of the amendment opened the door for a loophole. Enter the write-in candidate. ## **Florida Lawmakers Saw the 'Sham' Candidate Loophole Coming** The loophole was not an accidental oversight. Florida lawmakers immediately identified and debated what would happen if a write-in candidate entered an otherwise one-party race while attempting to implement the UPA. A [September 1999 Florida Senate report](https://www.leg.state.fl.us/data/Publications/2000/Senate/reports/interim%5Freports/pdf/00-36ee.pdf?ref=ivn.us) describes two competing approaches: 1. Senate Bill 710 would have allowed the universal primary to remain open even if the only November opposition was a write-in candidate. 2. A House proposal stated that a qualified write-in would count as general-election opposition and therefore keep the primary closed. According to the Senate's report, lawmakers expressed concern that a person or group could field a “sham” write-in candidate—or phantom candidate—for the specific purpose of keeping a primary and the entire election restricted to party voters. They warned that doing so could thwart the intent of voters. Notably, neither SB 710 nor the House proposal passed. In 2000, then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris [issued an advisory opinion](https://opinions.dos.state.fl.us/searchable/pdf/2000/de0006.pdf?ref=ivn.us) concluding that a qualified write-in candidate counted as general-election opposition. Under that interpretation, the presence of a write-in meant the primary stayed closed. Federal courts have since upheld that interpretation in litigation over the rule. In 2012, voters challenged closed Democratic primaries in both Miami-Dade and Broward counties. In [*Telli v. Snipes*](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/fl-district-court-of-appeal/1614790.html?ref=ivn.us), the Fourth District Court of Appeal held that qualified write-ins count as candidates under Florida law. Notably, the court declined to determine whether a write-in represented “real” or merely illusory opposition. So, in Florida, one person can file as a write-in candidate and turn an election that every voter could have participated in into a party-only primary that will effectively be the entire election. ## **In Marion County, Two Candidates Raised $0 — And 127,131 Voters Were Locked Out** Perhaps the clearest examples Tuesday came in Marion County. Every named candidate for County Commission Districts 2 and 4 was a Republican. Under the UPA, that should have allowed all voters to participate if there was no November opposition. Then two write-in candidates appeared: Mark Okus in District 2 and Leonard Michael Racioppi in District 4\. And so, Tuesday’s primaries remained closed. The [*Ocala Gazette*](https://www.ocalagazette.com/the-write-in-wrinkle/?ref=ivn.us) calculated that 127,131 registered Democrats and independent voters were excluded from the two contests. Without the write-ins, all 263,464 registered voters in Marion County would have been eligible to participate. The campaign finance records may tell the whole story in these elections. The write-in candidates were not on the primary ballot. However, the November election is only a couple of months away. Yet, as of the final pre-primary reporting period, [Marion County election records](https://www.voterfocus.com/ws/WScand/candidate%5Fpr.php?c=marion&ref=ivn.us) showed Okus had raised $0 and spent $0\. Racioppi had also reported $0 in contributions and $0 in expenditures. Meanwhile, the Republican candidates were raising and spending tens of thousands — in some cases well over $100,000 — to win the primary. There is no public evidence establishing that Okus or Racioppi were recruited by one of the Republican campaigns or that they filed specifically to manipulate the primary. But the numbers certainly look suspicious. Zero-dollar campaigns whose primary electoral impact is closing an otherwise universal primary match the pattern Florida election observers have repeatedly identified as a red flag for “phantom” candidacies. ## **Brevard County Showed Exactly What One Write-In Can Do** Brevard County looked almost like a controlled laboratory experiment by comparison Tuesday—showing how UPA should work and the impact a single write-in candidate can have on Florida elections. In Canaveral Port Authority District 3, Republicans Vince Jackson and Greg Loyd were the only named candidates. But write-in candidate Camille Blackburn also qualified. As a result, Brevard election officials told District 3 voters that the race would appear only on Republican primary ballots. Blackburn's [campaign finance reports through August 13](https://www.voterfocus.com/CampaignFinance/candidate%5Fpr.php?c=Brevard&ref=ivn.us) show just $300 in total contributions and $0 in expenditures. Loyd won the primary with 17,695 of the 26,391 total votes cast. Now look at Canaveral Port Authority District 5. Only two Republicans qualified: Carol Craig and Randall May. But unlike District 3, there was no write-in candidate. District 5 became a UPA contest that appeared for all participating Republicans, Democrats and independent voters. The result? 44,125 votes were cast in District 5\. This is 17,734 more than District 3\. Craig won with 57% of the vote. In a single county, it was a tale of two elections: In one race, every voter had the opportunity to vote and many voters took advantage. In the other, one write-in filing shut the door. However, Brevard's County Commission District 4 also followed the same “phantom candidate” pattern. After Democrat Natalie Allen failed to qualify, Republicans Adam Dyer and Rob Feltner were the only named candidates. Write-in candidate Cheyenne Brady-Mogle, however, qualified on June 11. Brady-Mogle [reported no contributions, no in-kind contributions and no expenditures through August 13](https://www.voterfocus.com/CampaignFinance/candidate%5Fpr.php?c=Brevard&ref=ivn.us). The primary remained Republican-only, and Feltner defeated Dyer. ## **The Loophole Works for Democrats, Too** The write-in loophole is not a Republican invention, nor does it only benefit the GOP. For example, look at Tuesday's Democratic primary for Florida House District 13 in Jacksonville. Audrey Gibson and Leslie Jean-Bart were the two Democrats seeking the seat. No Republican qualified. But Brice Gaillard qualified as a write-in candidate for November, which meant the election did not become a universal primary. This one is a particularly unusual case. Gaillard’s [campaign-document page](https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/campaign-docs/?account=92090&ref=ivn.us) contains repeated entries labeled “Fail to File Letter” stretching from June through Election Day. Again, by itself, this does not establish Gaillard's motive. But his presence kept Tuesday’s election closed to only registered Democrats and Gibson won with over 56% of the vote. ## **Florida Has Seen Far More Blatant Cases** Sometimes, there has been stronger evidence suggesting a write-in candidacy was connected to a political campaign. One of the most notorious examples came in the 2016 race for state attorney in Florida's 4th Judicial Circuit. Republicans Angela Corey, Melissa Nelson and Wes White were competing in what otherwise could have become a universal primary. Then, divorce attorney Kenny Leigh entered the race as a write-in. A lawsuit [alleged Leigh was a sham candidate and that one of Corey's campaign managers had filed his paperwork](https://www.courthousenews.com/voters-claim-sham-candidate-in-play-in-fla/?ref=ivn.us). Leigh had also contributed to Corey's campaign, according to reporting on the dispute. However, the courts declined to remove him. The primary stayed Republican-only. IVN [reported on another example in ](https://ivn.us/posts/its-our-republic-if-we-can-keep-it)St. Johns County in 2020, when a write-in candidate emerged hours before the filing deadline in the sheriff's race. More than 90,000 voters were kept from meaningfully participating in the contest. The write-in was Scott C. Boutwell, a registered Republican. His candidacy meant only Republicans could vote in the primary between Rob Hardwick and Chris Strickland. Hardwick won and was the only named candidate on the November ballot. ## **Florida Has Known About This for 27 Years** Most electoral districts in Florida are drawn to be dominated by one party or the other. In Florida, the advantage goes to the Republican Party. There are many instances in which the opposition party doesn’t bother to field a candidate because it would be an expensive and resource-consuming endeavor guaranteed to fail. Voters tried to pass a solution, but trying to work around closed primaries instead of reforming the entire system allowed the parties to exploit the phantom-candidate loophole. Though they may try to hide it, it is clear both parties have known about the loophole since voters approved the universal primary. And they are using it to their advantage at the expense of voters’ rights. Attempts to change the system have repeatedly failed. A bipartisan legislative proposal aimed at closing the loophole died in committee in 2017. The Florida Constitution Revision Commission considered a similar proposal in 2018 but declined to send it to voters. In 2020, 57% of voters approved a nonpartisan Top Two open primary system for state legislature, the governor, and other executive offices. But, because Florida moved the goal post for amendments to 60%, it also failed. ### Alaska Caps Campaign Cash — Now Voters Face a Dark Money Fight URL: https://ivn.us/alaska-caps-campaign-cash-now-voters-face-a-dark-money-fight/ Last updated: 2026-08-19T22:42:11.000Z **JUNEAU, Alaska —** Tuesday was primary election day in Alaska, but there weren't just candidates on the nonpartisan ballot. Voters also overwhelmingly backed limits on campaign contributions, 5 years after a federal court struck down a similar effort. [Ballot Measure 1](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FBallot%5FMeasure%5F1,%5FEstablish%5FCampaign%5FContribution%5FLimits%5Ffor%5FState%5Fand%5FLocal%5FElections%5FInitiative%5F%28August%5F2026%29?ref=ivn.us) was approved with 71% support (as of this writing). The result puts Alaska back in the business of limiting how much individuals and political groups can give directly to candidates—more on that in a bit. However, this will not be the final vote this year on campaign finance reform. In November, Alaskans will vote on another measure that could repeal election reforms adopted in 2020 that implemented the nonpartisan Top Four open primary system used Tuesday and ranked choice voting in the general election. But it also put in place several finance disclosure provisions specifically targeting “dark money” from out-of-state sources. In other words: Alaska voters just decided how much political money can be given directly to candidates. In November, they will decide, among other things, how much information voters are entitled to have about where other political money comes from. Especially at a time when more and more donors are funneling money through entities that—absent state disclosure requirements—can mask who is behind the cash flow. ## **What Does Ballot Measure 1 Do?** The measure adopted by voters on Tuesday establishes new limits for contributions in state and local elections. Here’s what it does: - An individual can give up to $2,000 per election cycle to a candidate; - An individual can give up to $5,000 per year to a political party or other political group; - A group other than a political party can give up to $4,000 per election cycle to a candidate; - Individuals can give up to $4,000 per election cycle to a joint campaign for governor and lieutenant governor, while groups can give up to $8,000; and - Contribution limits will be adjusted for inflation every 10 years beginning in 2031. Notably, it specifically exempts contributions from organizations that make only independent expenditures. These are groups that spend money supporting or opposing candidates, but are not supposed to coordinate directly with campaigns. Think Super PACs. These groups can still accept unlimited contributions, which is important to keep in mind. The measure does not put a ceiling on all money in Alaska politics. It primarily restores limits on money contributed directly to candidates and certain political organizations. Ballot Measure 1 was sponsored by former Alaska Attorney General Bruce Botelho, David Monson and independent state Rep. Calvin Schrage, working with [Citizens Against Money in Politics](https://campaignlimits.org/?ref=ivn.us). Supporters argued that the absence of individual contribution limits after a 2021 court ruling allowed wealthy donors and special interests to exercise disproportionate influence by writing five- and six-figure checks directly to candidates. Opponents, on the other hand, argued the measure restricted political speech and could make it harder for lesser-known challengers to raise enough money to compete with incumbents who already have name recognition and established political networks. ## **Alaska Has Been Fighting Over Contribution Limits for Decades** This isn’t the first time Alaska or its voters have tried to impose individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group contribution limits. Alaska imposed a $1,000 annual individual contribution limit in 1974\. In 1996, lawmakers cut the individual-to-candidate limit to $500 and imposed the same limit on contributions to non-party political groups. The legislature reversed course in 2003, raising those limits back to $1,000. Dissatisfied with this decision, voters stepped in with a ballot measure 3 years later that tried to restore the $500 cap. Also designated Ballot Measure 1, it passed with 73% of the vote. However, it didn’t survive in federal court. The measure was initially upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but in 2019, the US Supreme Court ordered the Ninth to reconsider whether the $500 limit was consistent with modern court precedent. SCOTUS specifically pointed to how low the cap was compared with other states, the fact that the same limit applied to every state office, and the lack of an inflation adjustment. On remand, the Ninth Circuit ruled in 2021 that Alaska had not shown that its $500 individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group limits were sufficiently tailored to withstand constitutional scrutiny. The court noted, among other things, the absence of inflation indexing—something this year’s measure included. The Alaska Legislature almost took care of the issue earlier this year. [HB 16](https://legiscan.com/AK/bill/HB16/2025?ref=ivn.us) contained virtually identical limits and passed the Senate 12-8 and the House 21-19\. But [Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed the bill](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/08/18/dunleavy-vetoed-both-election-bills-the-alaska-legislature-passed-during-its-2026-session/?ref=ivn.us), arguing that such limits only favored self-funded candidates. If the bill had been allowed to become law, it would have canceled the vote on Ballot Measure 1. ## **But Another Campaign Finance Vote Is Coming in November** On November 3, Alaska voters will decide Ballot Measure 2, titled, "An Act Restoring Political Party Primaries, Ending Ranked-Choice General Elections, and Repealing Recent Campaign Finance Laws." The proposal targets the sweeping election reform package approved by a majority of Alaska voters in 2020. That measure replaced closed partisan primaries with a single nonpartisan open primary in which all voters and candidates, regardless of party, participate on the same ballot and the top four candidates advance. It also implemented ranked choice voting in general elections. But the 2020 initiative contained a third major component: tougher campaign finance disclosure requirements intended to expose the original sources behind money spent to influence Alaska elections. The law requires people who contribute $2,000 or more annually to an organization making independent expenditures (e.g. super PACs) in candidate elections to quickly disclose those contributions. It also included "true source" requirements designed to prevent the identity of an original donor from disappearing behind an intermediary organization. And, it imposed additional disclaimer requirements on certain political advertisements funded predominantly by donors outside Alaska. In 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the disclosure system, leaving lower-court decisions allowing the rules to remain in force. The official summary for November's Ballot Measure 2 says the proposal would repeal disclosure rules involving digital advertisements, out-of-state donations, undisclosed donations and the true source of donations. It would also change the definition of a campaign expenditure and eliminate some existing fines. Supporters of the repeal, organized under the Repeal Now campaign, argue that the disclosure requirements are burdensome, particularly for smaller political organizations, and have not stopped undisclosed money from influencing Alaska politics. Opponents, including Protect Alaska's Elections, argue that repealing them would make it easier for wealthy donors and outside organizations to obscure the original source of money spent to influence Alaska voters. This is also not the first attempt to repeal the 2020 reform package. A similar measure failed in 2024 by fewer than 1,000 votes, though that effort left out the new campaign finance rules—which could change how voters look at it. ### Why Rick Bennett Left the GOP to Run for Governor of Maine (NOT What You Think) | EP53 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/why-rick-bennett-left-the-gop-to-run-for-governor-of-maine-not-what-you-think-ep53/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:28.000Z Rick Bennett climbed to the top of Maine's Republican Party - President of the Senate - and now he's running for governor without a party at all. His reasoning is blunt: the parties themselves are a major reason government stopped working. Chad and Cara sit down with the independent candidate for Governor of Maine to talk about why a lifelong Republican with the credentials to play the party game decided to walk away from it. Rick lays out Maine's affordability crisis, the endorsements rolling in from Republicans, Democrats and independents alike, and why he thinks the "spoiler" question is the wrong argument entirely. From there it goes places most election-reform conversations don't: no-bid contracts, a state auditor's report on MaineCare violations, spending up nearly 80% in a decade, and a legislature that hasn't held a public hearing on the budget in six years. Then Cara and Rick get into the federal lawsuit they're both intervening in - and what the other side actually argued out loud in front of the First Circuit. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](https://olasmedia.com/blogs/why-rick-bennett-left-the-gop-to-run-for-governor-of-maine-not-what-you-think?ref=ivn.us)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5FOXUypr9CQlzsAud5USNp?si=fyQ3qbcLRpeSaPE4sT1MQQ&ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-rick-bennett-left-the-gop-to-run-for-governor/id1680559155?i=1000784185877&ref=ivn.us)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentvoterpodcast?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, hosts **Chad** and **Cara** sit down with **Rick Bennett**, the independent candidate for **Governor of Maine** and former **President of the Maine Senate**, who explains why he left the **Republican Party** to run: "the parties are a major contributor" to government dysfunction and voter disillusionment. Bennett points to Maine's history of electing independents statewide, citing **Jim Longley** in the 1970s and **Angus King**, under whom Bennett served as Senate president during a tied chamber that ran on a power-sharing agreement. He argues the real "spoiler" isn't a third candidate but a **two-party system** he calls corrupt and rotten. Cara recounts how her work on a three-way **Maine gubernatorial race** over a decade ago, and being told daily that her candidate would "spoil" the election, led her to discover **ranked choice voting** and eventually help bring it to Maine, though it still hasn't been extended to the general election for governor. Bennett lays out a good-government platform beyond election reform: creating an **inspector general's office**, ending **no-bid contracts**, and responding to a state auditor's report on **MaineCare** violations. He notes Maine spending has risen nearly 80% in a decade and that the legislature hasn't held a public hearing on the budget in six years. The conversation turns to nonpartisan election administration, with Bennett endorsing a proposed **California constitutional amendment** (referenced via **Shawn Griffiths**' reporting) making the **Secretary of State** a nonpartisan office, and revealing that Maine still has its legislature elect the Secretary of State, Attorney General, and Treasurer. Cara discloses that she and Bennett are co-interveners in a **First Circuit Court of Appeals** case defending Maine's **super PAC** contribution limits, a 2024 ballot measure passed by 75% of Maine voters capping contributions at $5,000\. Both describe the opposing side's oral argument, claiming no corruption or appearance of corruption exists, as strikingly weak. Bennett details a prior **Maine ballot measure** he chaired banning foreign government spending in state elections, which passed with 86% support in 2023, the highest percentage ever recorded on a Maine ballot, before immediately being challenged in court. Chad closes by pitching a **California ballot initiative** he and Cara are working on that would bar excluding voters from public elections based on party preference, and Bennett responds by endorsing an **Alaska-style open primary** with ranked choice voting as a model Maine should adopt. ### Americans Are Leaving the Two Parties Faster Than the System Can Trap Them URL: https://ivn.us/americans-are-leaving-the-two-parties-faster-than-the-system-can-trap-them/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:41:08.000Z Ask ten Americans which party they belong to. Almost half will tell you neither. [Forty-five percent](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?ref=ivn.us) of U.S. adults now identify as independents — a record high, and more than either Democrats or Republicans, each at 27%. The more damning fact is that new voters are overwhelmingly rejecting both parties. In Pennsylvania, nearly [70%](https://politicspa.com/independents-continue-to-gain-in-voter-registration-numbers/146085/?ref=ivn.us) of new voters have registered as independents since last September. In North Carolina, that number is over [90%](https://www.thecentersquare.com/north%5Fcarolina/article%5F1792008b-6d86-4e5e-b2c0-619b9aea152a.html?ref=ivn.us). This hasn't happened overnight. Over the last two decades, party dysfunction and a litany of government failures — shutdowns measured in weeks, a ballooning national debt, rising health care costs, crumbling infrastructure — have driven congressional approval down and independent registration up. Today approval sits at [10%](https://news.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx?ref=ivn.us). The results are hard to miss. In the 31 states that record party affiliation, roughly [34 million](https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan%5Faffiliations%5Fof%5Fregistered%5Fvoters?ref=ivn.us) voters — nearly 30% of the electorate — are now independents. That makes them the largest voting bloc in [nine](https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan%5Faffiliations%5Fof%5Fregistered%5Fvoters?ref=ivn.us), and in [three](https://gazette.com/2026/06/21/registered-voters-on-the-eve-of-the-2026-primaries-cronin-loevy/?ref=ivn.us), an outright majority. In more than half of those states, independents are locked out of at least one party's primary — and in [eight](https://www.multistate.us/elections/primary-types-101?ref=ivn.us), including Pennsylvania, out of both. In these states, registering independent means forfeiting your vote in the election that decides most congressional races. Nearly [1.2 million](https://www.spotlightpa.org/pennsylvania-voter-registration/?ref=ivn.us) Pennsylvanians have decided to pay that price, including the 70% of new voters since last September. Before 2016, Colorado's primaries were closed to independent voters. At that time, they made up just [over a third](https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado%5FUnaffiliated%5FElector,%5FProposition%5F108%5F%282016%29?ref=ivn.us#google%5Fvignette) of the electorate. Today they are [over 50%](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/co?ref=ivn.us) — a majority of the entire state. Given a real choice, they chose none of the above. Some argue the independent voter is a myth — that most of these people lean one way or the other and vote accordingly. Even a Newsweek analysis published last month acknowledges that the independent label represents no unified ideology. That may be true. It's also beside the point. Voters are not rejecting the principles each party claims to stand for. They are rejecting the one ideology that unites the parties, and that both practice: party first. But almost 95% of congressional ballots give voters only two choices, and in some, [just one](https://organizations.ballotready.org/research/uncontested-races-us-congress?ref=ivn.us). A ballot with two options tells you nothing about whether a voter wanted either one. A ballot with one tells you even less. Every year, millions of voters are deciding the system doesn't work. They just haven't had any real options. That is beginning to change. The same Newsweek analysis found that [217](https://www.newsweek.com/independents-surge-maps-candidates-rejecting-gop-democrats-12182978?ref=ivn.us) independents are running for Congress this cycle — 170 for the House, 47 for the Senate — across 153 separate races, the highest since 2000\. Dan Osborn is one of them. In 2024, as a first-time candidate with no party behind him — no fundraising arm, no vendor list, no staff who'd done this before — he lost a Senate race to an incumbent by less than [seven](https://ballotpedia.org/United%5FStates%5FSenate%5Felection%5Fin%5FNebraska,%5F2024?ref=ivn.us) points in a state Trump carried by more than [twenty](https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential%5Felection%5Fin%5FNebraska,%5F2024?ref=ivn.us). This time, against a new opponent, he's tied in every major poll. In Montana, a recent [GQR poll](https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-07-28-exclusive-independent-leads-democrat-against-republican-montana?ref=ivn.us) shows independent Seth Bodnar beating Republican Kurt Alme in a two-way race — while the Democrat on the ballot loses to Alme by eight. Most of these campaigns will lose. But it only takes one win for voters to see they have somewhere else to go. --- **Russell Dutton** is the founder of AIM (Alliance for an Independent Majority). He writes on political independence, electoral reform, and the failures of the two-party system. His work has previously appeared on AL.com. ### America’s Democracy Is Cracking. The Revolution to Rebuild It Has Already Begun. URL: https://ivn.us/americas-democracy-is-cracking-the-revolution-to-rebuild-it-has-already-begun/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T17:07:32.000Z *Editor's Note: This commentary* [*originally published*](https://expanddem.substack.com/p/a-coming-revolution-in-american-democracy?utm%5Fsource=post-email-title&publication%5Fid=3699055&post%5Fid=209916216&utm%5Fcampaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=57ya8c&triedRedirect=true&utm%5Fmedium=email) *on the Expand Democracy Substack and was republished on IVN by request and with permission from the author.* Americans’ celebration of 250 years of independence invites reflection on the Declaration of Independence and its values of equality, liberty, and democratic renewal. Those values are a beacon to guide where our nation must go to live up to its promise. We have work to do. Democracy is under profound stress. 20th century rules and norms are straining under 21st century realities: increasing polarization, weakening media, rising economic inequality, and loss of trust in political parties and governing institutions. Americans have elected a president ready to push the boundaries of autocracy and kleptocracy. But out of the ashes comes hope. Our nation has seen major advances for democracy in the wake of the Civil War, the Progressive Era, and the 1960’s. Sustaining American democracy depends on a new wave of major change that speaks to the moment. Here’s a rundown of what is within reach. **Presidential elections by popular vote** *:* Having electors pick the president after being chosen in winner-take-all elections in states is indefensible in a modern democracy. Those rules led presidential campaigns in 2024 to spend more than a billion dollars to influence voters in just a handful of swing states, sidelining everyone else, and allowed Donald Trump to win in 2016 despite decisively losing the popular vote. Enabled by state powers protected in the Constitution, the [National Popular Vote interstate compact](http://nationalpopularvote.com/?ref=ivn.us) could overthrow this system as soon as 2028\. States passing the compact agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in all 50 states and DC. When activated, the popular vote winner is guaranteed to win the White House. To provide that guarantee, the compact must become law in states that collectively hold an Electoral College majority of 270 votes. [Representing 222 electoral votes](http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/?ref=ivn.us), 18 states and the District of Columbia have joined the compact, most recently in Virginia. After this November’s elections, several new states may be ready to adopt the compact and provide the 48 electoral votes necessary to activate it including Arizona, Michigan, Nevada Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The biggest change in our elections since the Voting Rights Act is within reach. ***Ranked choice voting:*** [Ranked choice voting ](https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting-information/?ref=ivn.us#where-is-ranked-choice-voting-used)(RCV) has moved from an exciting idea to deciding presidential elections in Alaska, Maine and Washington, D.C. and electing governors, Members of Congress, and leaders of major cities. RCV clearly provides fairer outcomes for voters, who in exit surveys [show consistent support.](https://fairvote.org/report/exit-surveys-report-2025/?ref=ivn.us) Allowing voters to rank candidates in order of choice upholding majority rule by eliminating the “spoiler” effect, and enabling meaningful consideration of independents and minor parties. Major scaling of RCV depends on having election mechanics that make RCV a “turnkey” option – that is, election official being able to run RCV elections as quickly, easily, and transparently as non-RCV elections. Technology is no barrier to that goal; rather, it comes down to political will. Expect at least three cities to add to the streak of more than 30 straight wins for RCV on city ballots, and ongoing proof of concept in practice. With voters under 50 overwhelmingly in support of RCV, we could see Congress act to remove administrative barriers to RCV in 2029, unlocking progress toward general reimagining voting as ranking. ***Proportional representation for Congress and states***: Our winner-take-all congressional elections are failing spectacularly. Bunkered down in their geographic strongholds, the two parties grow increasingly polarized in a “doom loop” of action and reaction, making the compromises necessary in our federal system increasingly difficult. Voters are deeply skeptical of Congress but feel trapped into picking the lesser of two evils. Women remain poorly represented. This past year, conditions grew far worse. First, Republicans broke the norm against mid- decennial redistricting, triggering a race to gerrymander states that makes voters mere pawns in partisan warfare and results in even fewer competitive districts. The Supreme Court then eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, one of the crown jewels of the civil rights era, by making it nearly impossible to require creation of opportunities for racial minorities to elect candidates of their choice even when experiencing electoral discrimination. Several southern states already have received the Court’s blessing to redraw districts that will gut racial minority representation in their states. Systems of proportional representation (PR) could address all these problems. The norm in most of our peer democracies, PR systems are based on the principle that like-minded voters should elect candidates in proportion to their share of the vote. PR is already used locally in the United States, including in Portland (OR), and has a long history of success as a Voting Rights Act remedy. Congress by statute could adopt forms of PR for congressional elections within states that would open up every corner of the country to healthy multi-party competition and shared representation. Groups like FairVote, Protect Democracy, New America, More Equitable Democracy, and RepresentWomen are leading an energized conversation for change. The [PR Hub ](https://representation.vote/?ref=ivn.us)has formed with a treasure chest of more than $60 million to support change in the states. Congressman Jamie Raskin, who helped persuade the Progressive Caucus to endorse the [Fair Representation Act ](http://www.fairrepresentation.com/?ref=ivn.us)to require all states to enact proportional form of RCV, [reports](https://newrepublic.com/article/211774/coming-census-time-bomb?ref=ivn.us) that his colleagues are eager to learn more. To become viable nationally, one key question must be answered: whether candidate-based systems such as proportional RCV or European-style party-based systems are more likely to earn support from legislators and voters. But the movement for PR is in a whole new place of hope – and the nation in a whole new set of need. **Supreme Court reform, the Senate filibuster, a constitutional right to vote, new states, and overturning Citizens United:** Claiming our democracy will require drawing from the more than 100 ideas featured in Expand Democracy’s newsletters \[LINK..} I’ll close with thumbnails about particular areas of promise. The Supreme Court has been hijacked by a radical majority that has centralized its power, overturned precedents, and blessed the president assuming vast powers with weakened congressional oversight and immunity from prosecution. Expect Congress to propose Supreme Court term limits and ethics reform and pass statutes or constitutional amendments to overturn particularly egregious Court decisions. Court reform and other pro-democracy federal legislation will quite a reformed U.S. Senate. Sen. [Jeff Merkley has laid out a smart path](https://www.brennancenter.org/events/senator-jeff-merkley-how-fix-filibuster?ref=ivn.us) toward reforming the filibuster so that the biggest Senate priorities could be passed by majority vote. To create a more diverse Senate and uphold voting rights, campaigns for Congress to provide statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico are [gathering steam](https://freedcproject.org/principles?ref=ivn.us). Always a source of inequality, money in politics has grown exponentially more problematic in the wake of Supreme Court opinions gutting campaign finance reform. Yet with the support of [American Promise](https://americanpromise.net/?ref=ivn.us), an impressive mix of 25 states has endorsed a constitutional amendment to enable states to regulate campaign spending, bringing it closer to the 38 needed to pass a constitutional amendment. Shorter-term, a new state campaign to use state power over corporate charters to take on dark money will be [tested on the ballot in Montana](https://montanaplan.org/?ref=ivn.us) this November. The right to vote itself has seen great expansion over the past 250 years. Look for congressional action and associated state and local actions to restore the Voting Rights Act, protect voter access, and facilitate innovations in how we cast ballots, learn about our candidates, and participate in government. Such progress is not inevitable, but is within reach. [Expand Democracy](https://expanddemocracy.org/?ref=ivn.us) will be highlighting ways you can be a part of the change. ### DNC Backs Down on Ranked Choice Voting Ban After Backlash URL: https://ivn.us/dnc-backs-down-on-ranked-choice-voting-ban-after-backlash/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:40:28.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** —In the wake of increased attention on a proposed ranked choice voting (RCV) ban, pressure from inside the Democratic Party and out forced the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) to reverse course over the weekend during the party’s summer meeting. The RBC initially approved amending the rules for delegate selection and allocation (Rule 14A) in May by adding two changes: 1. Voters would be prohibited from expressing their preferences for more than one candidate in presidential primaries and caucuses (e.g. like ranking them); and 2. In states where the law allows further expression of preferences (like RCV in Alaska, Maine and DC), the party will only consider first-choice totals for delegate selection and allocation. In effect, this would have banned the use of ranked choice voting, since it is a system that allows voters to rank their preferences. And, it is the only alternative voting method that has passed at the state level (Alaska and Maine). Though in Alaska’s case, the use of RCV has not been expanded by law to include presidential elections like in Maine. [It’s Official: Both Parties Oppose Ranked Choice VotingBoth the Democratic and Republican national committees are now opposing ranked choice voting, with the DNC set to vote Saturday on banning it in 2028 primaries even in states where voters approved it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-dafbe7d2-26a2-4d17-9d1d-d3e1bc6e595c.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-c02104ed-14f4-41c4-9a1a-8bd6579efde3-dba02699-7c65-448b-b36e-b68d72f0e8e1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/its-official-both-parties-oppose-ranked-choice-voting/) The RBC reaffirmed its approval of this change when it met again in June. And for a while, it flew under the radar. That is, until July, when reformers and more outlets—including IVN—[picked up on FHQ’s original reporting](https://www.fhqplus.com/p/the-democrats-and-ranked-choice-voting?ref=ivn.us) on the ban. Frank Leone, who proposed the amended language, argued that RCV was incompatible with the party’s delegate selection process. Notably, multiple state parties used it in 2020 and 2024, and their methods were approved by the RBC. [The DNC Insider Leading the Push to Kill Ranked Choice Voting by 2028Democratic National Committee are close to adopting a ranked choice voting ban in the 2028 presidential primary, despite its use in Maine and Washington, D.C. state law.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-bc3074fa-bf70-435c-9752-66310fa6a02c.png)Independent Voter NewsRob Richie![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-58737776-c13d-432d-9118-3d0081391a18-bb2fd83a-a744-4e47-ad0a-41d407c693d2.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-dnc-insider-leading-the-push-to-kill-ranked-choice-voting-by-2028/) However, when the time came for the DNC body to vote on the RBC’s proposed rules package, Leone offered an amendment to use the same Rule 14A as 2024 (nixing any language that would prohibit RCV’s use). [FHQ reports](https://www.fhqplus.com/p/dnc-reverses-course-on-ranked-choice?ref=ivn.us): > *“\[A\]s this summer meeting in Austin approached, it became clear that there was some resistance to what was viewed by some in and out of the DNC as a ban on RCV in the nomination process. I still do not know if it ultimately would have worked as a ban, but regardless the feeling in the camp against the change was intense. And it is undeniable that if adopted by the DNC, the rule would have significantly limited state parties’ ability to utilize RCV in a way compliant with the other DNC rules.* > *With that backlash as backdrop, then, when the Austin meeting of the DNC got down to the business of hearing the report from the co-chairs of the RBC, Leone stood to offer an amendment to the rules package before the full DNC. His amendment, which was subsequently overwhelmingly passed in a voice vote, reverted the language of Rule 14.A to what it was for the 2024 cycle, to what it had been prior to the May change. That is the language in black above, the language of the rule moving forward for 2028.”* US Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland posted a video on social media, thanking the DNC for dropping the rule change: While Leone argued that RCV was incompatible with DNC rules, his position was based solely on the reform's use in single-winner elections. Raskin explained how it could be used in presidential primaries and caucuses. > I’m delighted the DNC decided against the proposal that would have effectively banned Ranked Choice Voting in the 2028 presidential election. Thank you DNC Members for leaving that choice to the people and party leaders in the states and protecting the popular innovations that… [pic.twitter.com/iIPnJURv0w](https://t.co/iIPnJURv0w?ref=ivn.us) > > — Jamie Raskin (@jamie\_raskin) [August 17, 2026](https://x.com/jamie%5Fraskin/status/2089403162750837110?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Specifically, candidates who fail to reach at least 15% of the vote would be eliminated and their voters’ next applicable choices would be added to the tally. The process eliminates one candidate at a time, until only the candidates who reach 15% or higher remain. “If people cast their ballots for a candidate who ended up with less than 15% of the vote, those votes would not be thrown away,” Raskin said. > *“Ranked choice voting says give us your second choice, your third choice, just in case your first choice person doesn’t yet make it to the 15% threshold for winning delegates.”* The question now is how many state parties will use ranked choice voting in 2028\. It is required by law for presidential elections in places like Maine and DC, but Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, and Wyoming have also used it in Democratic nomination processes. Will more states join them? ### Missouri Secretary of State Admits Popular Amendment Qualified — Says Voters Still Won’t Get a Say URL: https://ivn.us/missouri-secretary-of-state-admits-popular-amendment-qualified-says-voters-still-wont-get-a-say/ Last updated: 2026-08-17T20:58:33.000Z **JEFFERSON CITY** — Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins admitted in a recent court filing that he rejected a proposed amendment that makes it harder for the legislature to weaken the citizen initiative process—even though it had the required signatures. [Respect Missouri Voters](https://respectmovoters.org/?ref=ivn.us) filed a lawsuit to force Hoskins to put the initiative, which he claimed violated the state’s single subject rule, on the ballot. Designated Amendment 6, the initiative amends the state constitution in the following ways: - It enshrines the initiative and referendum petition process as a fundamental right; - It requires ballot summaries and titles to be “clear, unbiased, fair, accurate, and easy to understand”; - It allows courts to revise ballot summaries in the event of a lawsuit; - It prohibits state legislators from weakening or altering ballot initiative powers; - It prohibits the legislature from repealing or changing laws enacted through a citizen initiative or passing laws that violate the initiative through simple majority; - If the legislature attempts to repeal, alter, or pass opposing legislation, the proposed bill must pass with at least 80% of both chambers; and - It preserves the simple majority needed by Missouri voters to pass citizen initiatives. Nearly 370,000 petitions were submitted to put Amendment 6 on the ballot. This far exceeded the roughly 110,000 valid signatures required to qualify. When Hoskins declared Amendment 6 unconstitutional— well after he approved it for petition circulation— he refused to tell reporters how many signatures it got. However, [a recent court filing](https://www.courts.mo.gov/fv/c/Answer%20to%20Petition%20for%20Declaratory%20Judgment%20and%20Injunctive%20Relief%20Under%20Section%20116.200%20and%20Section%20536.150.PDF?courtCode=19&di=3984405&emci=26a35a19-0998-f111-9b33-000d3a11fa30&emdi=0adaa08a-2898-f111-9b33-000d3a11fa30&ceid=31194069&ref=ivn.us) indicates that it had what it needed: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/image-a215e704-c809-4bd9-a274-6fe7177b111f.png) “Instead of letting Missourians vote, Hoskins is blocking the petition even as his own court filing admits that our volunteers gathered more than enough signatures," said Benjamin Singer, co-founder of Respect MO Voters. > *"The Secretary of State is responsible for reviewing signatures to certify a petition so the people of Missouri can be heard. Politicians cannot simply disregard our century-old constitutional freedom to petition.”* A trial on the lawsuit is scheduled for Tuesday, August 18. Hoskins waited until August 4, the last date Missouri law allowed, to announce his decision on Amendment 6\. At the time, Respect MO Voters called it a “brazen disregard for the will of the people.” That same day, more than 80% of voters rejected Amendment 4, which would have imposed tougher initiative rules by requiring an amendment measure to be approved by a majority of voters in each congressional district rather than a statewide majority. “The Amendment 4 outcome reaffirms what we already know – Missouri voters are determined to protect their constitutional right to petition and have their voices heard,” Singer said. > *“Missourians—not politicians—should decide the future of our state, and voters deserve the opportunity to decide Amendment 6 for themselves.”* It is not the only lawsuit Hoskins faces. On August 4, [he also declared a referendum initiative to overturn a legislative gerrymander unconstitutional](https://ivn.us/missouri-drew-a-gerrymander-now-its-secretary-of-state-says-voters-cant-say-no/), claiming the legislature’s redistricting authority cannot be overturned by voters. That initiative, pushed by People Not Politicians, submitted over 300,000 signatures—a third of which Hoskins already refused to count. He declared that he would do everything in his power to protect the new congressional map put in place for the midterms. ### Latino Independents Could Decide California in 2026—If Anyone Bothers to Reach Them URL: https://ivn.us/latino-independents-could-decide-california-in-2026-if-anyone-bothers-to-reach-them/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:40:17.000Z *Editor's Note: The following article* [*originally published in CALatinoNews.com*](https://calatinonews.com/pivotal-latino-independents-could-decide-california-2026/?ref=ivn.us) *and has been republished on IVN as part of a partnership with Latino News Network.* California’s Latino independent voters could play a decisive role in close races this November. However, voting rights advocates say campaigns and election officials have not fully engaged them. According to the California Secretary of State’s [final pre-election registration report](https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and-advisories/2026-news-releases-and-advisories/california-secretary-state-shirley-n-weber-phd-releases-may-18-2026-report-registration?ref=ivn.us), more than 5.2 million Californians were registered with No Party Preference before the June 2026 primary. This group represents 22.82 percent of registered voters, compared with 24.96 percent registered as Republicans. When voters registered with minor parties are included in the broader independent electorate, unaffiliated voters outnumber registered Republicans. Within California’s Latino community, the movement away from the two major parties appears even stronger. S. Chad Peace, legal counsel for the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us), estimated that roughly three in 10 registered Latino voters are not affiliated with either major party. He described them not as politically indifferent, but as voters who increasingly feel that neither party represents them. “This is a choice, not apathy,” Peace told Latino News Network. “Voters, especially younger and more diverse voters, increasingly feel neither party represents them, and they do not want a label attached to how they think.” The Independent Voter Project is a nonpartisan election-reform organization that helped author Proposition 14, the 2010 measure that [established California’s top-two primary system.](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/primary-elections-california?ref=ivn.us) Under that system, candidates for statewide, legislative, and congressional offices appear on the same primary ballot. Voters can select any candidate regardless of their own registration. The two candidates receiving the most votes advance to the general election, even if they belong to the same party. Peace explained that the system allows Californians to remain independent without losing their ability to participate in most primary contests. “For governor, the legislature, Congress, and local offices, every voter receives the same ballot and can vote for any candidate,” Peace said. “No party registration, no crossover request, no second-class ballot.” For Latino voters who do not identify with either major party, political participation is often driven by immediate concerns rather than partisan loyalty, according to Angélica Razo, national director of campaigns and programs at [Mi Familia Vota](https://www.mifamiliavota.org/es/?ref=ivn.us). “Latinos are not thinking of civic engagement in terms of political party,” Razo told LNN. “They are focused on building a better future for themselves and their children and concerned about what they’re paying at the grocery store, in rent and for everyday items.” Razo explained that many Latino voters see dysfunction in Washington and do not believe the political system is helping them in their daily lives. Peace identified the cost of living, housing, jobs, education, and public safety as leading priorities among Latino independent voters. “These are voters who respond to results, not party identity,” he noted. Their political position is not necessarily fixed. Razo warned that immigration enforcement and what she described as attacks on Latino families could influence whether some voters move toward one of the major parties. She compared the current political environment with the response to Proposition 187 in California and Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona—two measures that contributed to Latino political mobilization. “Our families are under constant attack and are being separated, so any prior trends of people moving away from picking a political party are likely to shift,” Razo said. She maintained that one party is making a greater effort to listen to Latino communities, while the other is supporting policies that leave many Latino families feeling threatened. At the same time, she urged Democrats to build trust through consistent outreach and policy work between elections. “It’s not just about voter outreach from parties through election cycles, but outside of election cycles,” Razo added. “Long term civic engagement from Latinos is going to require consistently fighting for our families.” [Latinos account for 38 percent of California’s adult population but only 29 percent of its likely voters, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.](https://www.ppic.org/publication/california-voter-and-party-profiles/?ref=ivn.us) In contrast, white residents represent 36 percent of the adult population but 50 percent of likely voters. Peace argued that the disparity shows Latino voters already possess significant potential influence but do not participate at rates that reflect their numbers. “The problem is participation, not power,” he said. [The Independent Voter Project reported that Spanish-language voters participated at roughly 20 percent in the 2024 primary, compared with about 36 percent among voters who used English-language election materials.](https://ivn.us/latinos-will-be-the-most-powerful-voting-bloc-once-they-start-voting-in-primaries/) While these figures do not represent every Latino voter—as many use English-language materials—Peace said they demonstrate a serious participation gap among those who interact with the election system in Spanish. Razo suggested that some Latino voters remain disconnected because they are overwhelmed and frustrated, rather than because they have deliberately rejected politics. “That is where the work Mi Familia Vota is so important, both from an empowerment angle and an educational perspective,” she explained. “We are giving these voters the tools to both vote and empower their communities to act.” Although No Party Preference voters can participate equally in California’s top-two contests, different rules apply to presidential primaries. Presidential nominations remain controlled by political parties.[ A No Party Preference voter can participate in a party’s presidential primary only when that party permits crossover voting.](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/political-parties/no-party-preference?ref=ivn.us) Some parties allow independent voters to request their presidential ballot, while others restrict participation to registered party members. Peace described the existence of two different systems as a significant source of confusion. “Many No Party Preference voters assume that being independent means they cannot vote in a primary at all,” he explained. “In California’s top-two primary, that is simply false. They can vote in every state and local race.” The confusion is real during presidential elections, he added, because participation depends on rules set by each party. “Closing that education gap, especially in language for Latino communities, is one of the highest leverage things anyone can do to raise participation,” Peace noted. Razo agreed that language access and voter education are critical. “We have to make sure they are educated and aware of how and when to vote,” she said. “Reaching these voters in non ideological ways is the best way to ensure that they have the tools they need.” She called for more trusted places where Latino residents can receive accurate election information in the language they use. “We need more educational touch points and more places to ensure that we are reaching Latinos with credible, smart information,” Razo emphasized. “We know the formula for turning out these voters. Now we need the resources to actually reach them.” Campaign outreach presents another challenge. Peace noted that Democratic and Republican campaigns often prioritize people with a history of regularly voting in partisan elections. Latino independents, particularly Spanish-speaking residents and those with limited voting histories, may receive fewer calls, visits, and campaign messages. “Campaigns chase high-propensity, partisan voters because that is what their models reward,” he argued. “Latino independents, particularly lower-propensity and Spanish-language voters, get left out.” This can create a cycle. Campaigns conduct less outreach because a group has a history of lower turnout, while turnout remains low because voters receive little information or encouragement. “The failure is one of investment and outreach, not of interest,” Peace said. Razo explained that Mi Familia Vota does not ask people to select a party when helping them register. Its organizers focus on explaining when and how to vote and informing residents about the policy positions of candidates. She expects the economy and immigration to dominate many of those conversations before the November election. “The economy and immigration are two issues which are completely intertwined in the minds of voters right now,” Razo said. “Our voters are simultaneously concerned about the cost of living and the possibility that they could be detained, disappeared, or shot because they look like immigrants.” ## **A potentially decisive electorate** Latino independent voters do not vote as a single political bloc; their views, economic circumstances, and political motivations vary widely. In races separated by narrow margins, however, this large and currently under-mobilized population could alter the result. California recorded a turnout rate of 40.8 percent in the June primary, with more than 9.4 million ballots cast, according to the [official certified election results](https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and-advisories/2026-news-releases-and-advisories/california-secretary-state-shirley-n-weber-phd-has-certified-results-june-2-2026-primary-election?ref=ivn.us). Full county and contest data are available through the Secretary of State’s [2026 Statement of Vote](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/prior-elections/statewide-election-results/primary-election-june-2-2026/statement-vote?ref=ivn.us). Peace predicted that their influence could be especially important in competitive congressional and legislative districts, as well as local contests where voter participation and campaign outreach are often lower. “A general election in a midterm year draws lower turnout and thinner margins, so a bloc this large that is currently under-mobilized can decide outcomes,” Peace said. [The Independent Voter Project wants California to retain the top-two system and extend its nonpartisan principle to presidential elections. The organization also supports advancing as many as five candidates to the general election and using ranked-choice voting to select a winner.](https://ivn.us/el-voto-latino-puede-decidir-la-primaria-de-california-el-2-de-junio-la-mayoria-no-va-a-votar/) Peace argued that such a model would provide voters with more choices and encourage candidates to appeal beyond their partisan bases. Critics of the current top two system say it can leave voters choosing between two candidates from the same party and can eliminate minor party candidates before the November election. Peace acknowledged that criticism but maintained that allowing voters rather than party officials to determine who advances is the preferable tradeoff. “The goal of the Independent Voter Project is to put voters before parties and make participation the default,” he said. For Razo, election reform will remain incomplete without sustained investment in voters who are less likely to be contacted by campaigns or election institutions. Latino voters do not necessarily need stronger party identities, she concluded. They need clear information, trusted outreach and evidence that participation can improve conditions for their families. “We just want to make sure they know how and when to vote,” Razo said, “and then educate these voters on the policy agenda of the candidates.” ### We Expect Election Referees to Be Neutral. So Why Do We Make Them Pick a Team? URL: https://ivn.us/we-expect-election-referees-to-be-neutral-so-why-do-we-make-them-pick-a-team/ Last updated: 2026-08-17T16:30:38.000Z America’s secretaries of state are under extraordinary pressure ahead of this year’s elections. On top of the already demanding task of administering elections for millions of voters, they face persistent conspiracy theories about elections and unprecedented legal pressure from the Department of Justice. Amid these challenges, election officials from both parties have demonstrated the integrity and independence the job demands, rebutting false claims of fraud and resisting federal demands that exceed the law. This response is encouraging, but it also illustrates a contradiction at the heart of how we run elections. We expect our election officials to behave impartially, even when political pressure is greatest. Yet in 33 states, the chief election official (usually the secretary of state) is chosen through partisan elections. Twenty-four of those offices are on the ballot this year. Even officials with high standards of integrity and impartiality still must wear the uniform of one team to win and keep office. They must run under a party banner, rely on political networks and donors, and appeal to primary voters. Those conditions create structural pressures that can follow officials throughout their time in office. Research from [Election Reformers Network](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/642dcbc53f522476efc85893/6465544850ec72c5d7d894f0%5FGuardrails%5FGuardians.pdf?ref=ivn.us) finds that from 2000 to 2020, secretaries of state elected in partisan races were three times as likely as appointed secretaries to endorse candidates in the elections they oversaw. They were also more than twice as likely to use their position as a steppingstone to run for higher office. And the concern extends beyond endorsements and political ambitions. Secretaries of state make consequential decisions that affect how elections are run and whether voters trust the results. In recent years, some secretaries have used their power to manipulate citizen initiatives and made policy decisions with political motivations. At a time when confidence in elections is already fragile, real or perceived partisanship on the part of election officials can do significant damage. No other democracy in the world selects their election officials in partisan elections—and fortunately, there are several good alternatives to consider. California lawmakers recently [proposed one solution](https://ivn.us/californias-election-referees-wear-party-jerseys-two-amendments-aim-to-change-that/), making the secretary of state a nonpartisan office. While still being elected, candidates would no longer have party designations on the ballot and could not be nominated by political parties. That approach appears to fit what voters want. More than a decade of polling from the [MIT Election Data & Science Lab](https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/projects/survey-performance-american-elections?ref=ivn.us) finds that large bipartisan majorities believe election officials should be selected on a nonpartisan basis. In 2024, this policy was supported by 76% of survey respondents, including 79% of Democrats and independents, along with 70% of Republicans. Furthermore, research from the [University of Chicago](https://effectivegov.uchicago.edu/primers/nonpartisan-election-administration?ref=ivn.us) suggests that nonpartisan selection of election officials may increase voter trust, even if partisan officials rarely use their authority to actually tip the scales. California's proposal is a promising step forward, but taking party labels off the ballot should be the beginning of the conversation, not the end. A nonpartisan election can still produce a highly partisan election official. Political parties can indicate their support for candidates, partisan donors can finance campaigns, and ambitious politicians can view the office as a first step to a career in politics. States should therefore think more creatively about what qualifications and guardrails this office requires. For example, individuals could be required to have relevant election administration experience or training to qualify for office, much as most states require attorneys general and judges to have legal qualifications. Once in office, secretaries could be prohibited from endorsing or campaigning for candidates in elections they oversee. States could even restrict chief election officials from running for higher office during and shortly after their tenure, reducing their incentive to make decisions with the next campaign in mind. There is also reason to reconsider whether election is the best selection method at all. Appointment can insulate chief election officials from campaigning and eliminate the inherent conflict involved in overseeing one's own re-election. In fact, [research on local election administration](https://www.joshuaferrer.com/publication/electing%5Fleos/electing%5Fleos.pdf?ref=ivn.us) finds that appointed officials significantly outperform elected ones. Building on the example of judicial nominating commissions, states could establish boards of elections experts to vet and nominate a shortlist of qualified candidates for appointment by the governor or state legislature. Or even better, states could separate election administration from the secretary of state's other responsibilities altogether, as ten states already do. Instead, a state election board could select the chief election officer and work collaboratively to ensure impartial election administration. None of these approaches guarantees perfect neutrality—no institutional design can. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s meaningful change that makes impartial conduct more likely and partisan pressure less consequential. Twenty-four chief election officer races this year provide a good occasion to start asking that question. The people entrusted with overseeing elections occupy a fundamentally different role from the politicians competing in them. Our rules for choosing them should reflect that distinction. --- **Joseph Cerrone* is a Senior Research Fellow at Election Reformers Network. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from George Washington University.* ### America’s First Socialist President? His Name Is Donald Trump URL: https://ivn.us/americas-first-socialist-president-his-name-is-donald-trump/ Last updated: 2026-08-17T15:50:59.000Z Forget Mamdani, AOC or El-Sayed. It’s Donald Trump who can lay a strong claim to being America’s first socialist president. The hallmark of socialism is[ control of the means of production](https://www.socialistinternational.org/about-us/declaration-of-principles/?ref=ivn.us). In a manner unprecedented in US history, the federal government under Trump has been gaining direct ownership of American corporations – some of them historic icons. A year ago, the government[ bought 433 million shares of Intel Corp.](https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1748/intel-and-trump-administration-reach-historic-agreement-to?ref=ivn.us), the semiconductor manufacturer. Donald Trump (“Trump sees the government as himself,”[ says Brooke Masters](https://www.ft.com/content/105bd2bb-5e47-48ed-b6e2-229519c642fc?syn-25a6b1a6=1&ref=ivn.us), the US managing editor of the Financial Times in discussing the deal) becomes the largest shareholder in Intel, a half-trillion-dollar corporation, at 10%. When a Japanese company wanted to purchase US Steel, Trump approved the deal only if the government received a[ first-ever “golden share”](https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-139/white-house-secures-corporate-governance-interest-in-the-united-states-steel-corporation/?ref=ivn.us), giving Washington veto power over major corporate decisions. In November, the government made a deal to own up to[ 20% of Westinghouse Electric](https://www.eenews.net/articles/did-trump-just-pick-a-nuclear-national-champion/?ref=ivn.us). In July, the US took an equity stake in[ Global Foundries](https://www.theregister.com/public-sector/2026/07/29/uncle-sam-sees-the-light-offers-globalfoundries-300m-to-pursue-silicon-photonics-while-taking-1-stake/5280620?ref=ivn.us), a profitable chipmaker spun off from AMD, for $300 million. In the past, the government intervened in a crisis to keep a critical company afloat;[ the bailout](https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/19/bush-bails-out-us-automakers-dec-19-2008-1066932?ref=ivn.us) of General Motors and Chrysler in 2008 is the best example. Loans, grants and commitments to purchase products to promote federal priorities have been a regular feature of industrial policy. Those subsidies lean toward socialism. But what the Trump Administration is doing is qualitatively different – a full-on embrace of socialist principles. “They’re converting loan and grant programs into equity stakes,”[ said Brent Cebul](https://www.eenews.net/articles/did-trump-just-pick-a-nuclear-national-champion/?ref=ivn.us), an associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania who researches business-state interactions. He called the Westinghouse deal “an important precedent-setting disjuncture.” The Council on Foreign Relations has a[ deal tracker](https://www.cfr.org/articles/washingtons-growing-portfolio-tracking-u-s-government-investments?ref=ivn.us) that lists two dozen businesses in which the Trump Administration has announced or closed an equity investment. One of them is[ IBM](https://newsroom.ibm.com/ibm-and-u-s-department-of-commerce-announce-americas-first-purpose-built-quantum-foundry?ref=ivn.us), a 115-year-old company that will receive a $1 billion infusion. IBM has a[ market capitalization of $223 billion](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/IBM/?ref=ivn.us) and a stock that’s roughly doubled in the past four years. Another example of a company that doesn’t need the money is[ SandboxAQ](https://www.sandboxaq.com/press/sandboxaq-us-department-of-commerce-500-million-chips-award?ref=ivn.us), an artificial-intelligence start-up backed by NVidia, the most valuable US company, and Alphabet, which ranks third. The US government on June 17[ signed a definitive agreement](https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-awards-500-million-nvidia-backed-sandboxaq-finding-new-chipmaking-materials-2026-06-17/?ref=ivn.us) to acquire an equity stake in SandboxAQ, plus royalty payments on sales. The administration is riddled with Wall Street executives and conservative economists, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Kevin Hassett, the top White House economic advisor, wrote [a recent book](https://www.amazon.com/Drift-Stopping-Americas-Slide-Socialism/dp/1684512654?ref=ivn.us) subtitled *“Stopping America’s Slide to Socialism.”* Yet on Aug. 10, he [told CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/08/10/watch-cnbcs-full-interview-with-white-house-national-economic-council-director-kevin-hassett.html?ref=ivn.us) that President Trump will decide when and whether to sell the government’s Intel stake. Hassett said Trump “has an incredible track record of when to buy and sell things.” Some members of Congress aren’t so sanguine.[ Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said](https://www.notus.org/technology/senate-republicans-break-with-trump-ai-equity-idea?ref=ivn.us) in an interview last month, "I don't think the federal government should be in the business of being an equity holder in private companies." Republican Sen.[ Josh Hawley](https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/06/10/trump-plan-ai-enrich-public/?ref=ivn.us) of Missouri also pushed back. Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana), who[ drafted the foundation](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5471480-young-pushes-back-intel-deal/?ref=ivn.us) of the CHIPS and Science Act, which the White House is using as a justification to own equity, “said at the time the law never intended to let the federal government take a major stake in Intel or any other major company.” This is according to a July 30[ report in *The Hill*](https://thehill.com/policy/technology/6000186-commerce-ai-chips-stakes/?ref=ivn.us) that was headlined, “Commerce Department quietly announces 7 new stakes in private companies.” But where is the outrage from business leaders? Or from conservative think tanks? Not long ago, public enemy number one for the Heritage Foundation was crony capitalism. Holding shares of companies like Intel and U.S. Steel is crony capitalism squared. Inevitably, the Trump Administration will favor companies and industries in which it’s an owner? Yet not a peep out of Heritage. “Republicans once understood the dangers of the federal government picking winners and losers,” said an editorial in the Washington Post on Aug. 3, "but the Trump administration has been hoovering up shares of private companies at a rate that would’ve made Democratic predecessors blush.” Look at[ the deal](https://mpmaterials.com/news/mp-materials-announces-transformational-public-private-partnership-with-the-department-of-defense-to-accelerate-u-s-rare-earth-magnet-independence/?ref=ivn.us) the Defense Department struck in July 2025 with MP Materials. The government will become the company’s large shareholder at 15% while at the same time guaranteeing the purchase of all the rare earth magnets that MP’s new plant produces for 10 years. The agreement doubled the stock price in a month. In the Wall Street Journal last year, Greg Ip, the publication’s chief economics commentator,[ wrote](https://www.wsj.com/economy/the-u-s-marches-toward-state-capitalism-with-american-characteristics-f75cafa8?ref=ivn.us) that “President Trump is imitating Chinese Communist Party by extending political control ever deeper into economy.” Ip says that Trump is following his predecessor, Joe Biden, in his interventions, and he brands the White House policy “state capitalism with American characteristics.” Michael Chapman of the Cato Institute[ pointed out](https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-state-capitalism-hybrid-between-socialism-capitalism-wont-make-america-great-again?ref=ivn.us) that Ludwig von Mises, the political economist of the Austrian School, would have called the Trumpian policy “interventionism” – not quite socialism. The problem, wrote Mises, is that “all the methods of interventionism \[tariffs, price controls, bailouts, etc.\] are doomed to failure.” And that failure inevitably leads to more interventions to fix the failures. I would call it plain old socialism. Sure, Donald Trump is not steeped in Marxism or any other ideology, but he clearly views the state (i.e., himself), not the free market, as the nation’s economic decision-maker and capital allocator. The manifestations go beyond the growing equity control of businesses. For example, [Trump blasted](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trump-demands-lower-gas-prices-oil-companies-chides-chevron-ceo-2026-08-03/?ref=ivn.us) energy companies recently for being too profitable. They should “give some of that back to the public.” He said to reporters, “Chevron, too much money. ExxonMobil, too much. Too much money.” In free markets, rising profits are a necessary signal to boost capital investment, increase production, benefit consumers and perhaps whittle some of the profits of incumbents away. But under socialism, the state decides what is “too much money.” Like socialists the world over, the Trump Administration tries to use classic barriers to the free exchange of goods – tariffs – as a futile means of helping domestic producers and encouraging more onshore investment. In fact, the Trump tariffs,[ the highest in 70 years](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-average-u-s-tariff-rate-since-1890/?ref=ivn.us), have led to[ a decline in manufacturing employment](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP?ref=ivn.us). America rejected socialism for two good reasons: first, it limited personal freedom, and, second, it didn’t work. Yet the socialist ideal still beckons – the idea that the state, embodied either in one person or somehow in the masses, can make people richer or happier by controlling the engines of production. It’s a chimera Donald Trump can’t resist, but the rest of us have to. --- *James K. Glassman was formerly Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the George W. Bush Administration and a senior fellow in economics and technology at the American Enterprise Institute.* ### Someone in Sacramento Is Actually Trying to Solve Problems URL: https://ivn.us/someone-in-sacramento-is-actually-trying-to-solve-problems/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:40:08.000Z Every so often, the California Legislature does something that runs so contrary to its own reputation that it deserves a second look. This is one of those times. Somewhere in the Capitol, while the rest of Sacramento spent the year sorting itself into the usual camps, [a group of 26 lawmakers](https://www.assembly.ca.gov/caucuses/legislative-problem-solvers-caucus?ref=ivn.us) from both parties and both houses has been quietly meeting every other week to do the least fashionable thing in American politics: look at a problem, ask what would actually fix it, and try to pass that. They call themselves the [Problem Solvers Caucus](https://www.assembly.ca.gov/caucuses/legislative-problem-solvers-caucus?ref=ivn.us), and I confess the name made me skeptical at first. Sacramento is full of groups with hopeful names and thin records. But this one is different in a way that turns out to matter enormously, and the difference comes down to a single rule. > We don’t write policy from ivory towers. We see for ourselves, have the conversations, and put in the work to find solutions that are best for Californians. > > — California Problem Solvers Caucus (@CAProblemSolver) [August 14, 2026](https://x.com/CAProblemSolver/status/2088412444209410094?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [Members](https://www.assembly.ca.gov/caucuses/legislative-problem-solvers-caucus?ref=ivn.us) of the Problem Solvers Caucus agree, in writing, not to actively work against one another's bills. That sounds modest until you understand what it replaces. The ordinary machinery of a legislature runs on the opposite assumption, that the other party's win is your loss, and that a good idea carried by the wrong author is a threat to be smothered rather than a proposal to be improved. Strip that reflex out, even partially, and something unusual becomes possible. A Republican and a Democrat can put their names on the same bill without either one lying awake wondering when the ambush is coming. It is the only caucus I know of among the Legislature's 16 non-party groups that operates under such a rule. Of the 2,278 bills introduced last session, only 11 had a Democrat and a Republican signed on together as lead authors. That is less than one-half of one percent. In an institution where cross-party authorship has become almost extinct, this caucus is one of the few places it might still happen. The group's stated concerns are the ones California voters actually name when pollsters ask: the cost of housing, energy, health care, transportation. Its four co-chairs, two Democrats and two Republicans, evenly split between the Assembly and the Senate, meet roughly every two weeks to set an agenda, then bring in practitioners and experts to work through it. The caucus wrote its philosophy into a statement of purpose, and the line that stayed with me was this: that economic prosperity and affordability are not competing priorities but inseparable ones, and that policy should be measured by results, not intentions alone. I have read enough mission statements to be immune to most of them. This one describes a way of governing I wish were far more common than it is. And it produces results. The caucus pushed through the bill that finally made California the last state in the country to legalize E15 gasoline, a change projected to [save drivers around 20 cents a gallon](https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/10/02/governor-newsom-signs-bill-expanding-fuel-options-to-cut-gas-prices/?ref=ivn.us). It co-authored the measure that [freed a stalled $10 billion climate and water bond from a regulatory delay](https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/01/proposition-4-funding-expedited/?ref=ivn.us) that could have held the money up for more than a year. Both passed without a single no vote in either chamber. Fair enough, those were not the bills anyone was spoiling to fight over, and the caucus's harder tests are still ahead. But in a building that struggles to pass a lunch order across the aisle, unanimous is not nothing. What finally won me over, though, was not the caucus in the abstract. It was two of the co-chairs who run it. Neither [Anamarie Ávila Farías](https://avilafarias.asmdc.org/?ref=ivn.us), a Democrat from Martinez, or [Suzette Valladares](https://sr23.senate.ca.gov/about-suzette?ref=ivn.us), a Republican from Santa Clarita, has traded her convictions for the comfort of the mushy middle. They are not "centrists" who split every difference. They are partisans who have decided that being a partisan does not require treating the other side as the enemy. That distinction is why the Problem Solvers Caucus is worth watching. It is not asking anyone to abandon a principle. It is asking its members to hold fast to their principles and still start from a different question: not whether this is a Republican or Democratic idea, but whether it is a good idea and the best one on the table. This kind of effort could certainly be swept away by a tough primary or a bad news cycle. But for now, in a Legislature that too often mistakes conflict for progress, there is a caucus that measures itself by what it actually gets done, and two women at the center of it who keep showing, not just saying, that the work is real. It may not last. Plenty of good things in politics don't. But it is happening, and after the decade we have all just lived through, that strikes me as reason enough to pay attention. ### New Texas Secretary of State Holds the Line Against GOP Push to Close Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/new-texas-secretary-of-state-holds-the-line-against-gop-push-to-close-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-08-15T15:51:14.000Z Legislation to close the primaries has been languishing in the Texas state legislature for years. Last year, some Republicans [went to court](https://www.texaspolicyresearch.com/texas-gop-pushes-to-close-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) to try and change that. I warned Texas lawmakers about importing New York’s closed primary system. As he cautioned [in the *Austin American-Statesman*](https://www.statesman.com/opinion/columns/your-voice/article/texas-not-follow-new-york-s-lead-closed-primary-21065914.php?ref=ivn.us): ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/gruber-texas-quote.jpg) But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responded by taking the extraordinary step [of refusing to defend the state’s election laws](https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/09/texas-republican-lawsuit-ken-paxton-close-primaries/?ref=ivn.us). When fellow Republican Secretary of State Jane Nelson vowed to vigorously defend the open system, she was forced out of office. It appeared the political establishment was closing ranks to pressure a decision in their favor. The big question was whether Nelson’s successor -or any elected leader in Texas for that matter- would stand up for the voters. [Why is the TX Secretary of State Jane Nelson Doing Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Job?In the midst of a Republican Party lawsuit against the State of Texas to close its publicly administered primary elections to party members only, Attorney General Ken Paxton has decided not to defend Texas law.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-5ce61ff6-2b48-4e11-ac54-308e3b7bcefe.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/E8ZGDSPXMAA6Tbm-1bdd2737-4e86-46ec-bc9e-a62b24bc49e1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/why-tx-secretary-state-jane-nelson-doing-attorney-general-ken-paxtons-job-2025-10-14/) Now we have an answer. New Secretary of State Robert Howden[ has told the court](https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/10/texas-closed-primaries-secretary-of-state-robert-howden-gop-lawsuit/?ref=ivn.us) that Texas will continue defending its open primaries - and that if some politicians want to close them, the legislature, not the courts, should decide. The fight over Texas primaries is far from over. But for now, one thing is clear: Texas has a Secretary of State willing to stand up for voters. Now voters need to stand up too - and make clear that Texas’ open primaries belong to them. ## **In Case You Missed It** ## Latino Independents are Changing the Game In 2016, Open Primaries partnered with civil rights attorney [Danny Ortega](https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=btqZf4rdkuwhHN8A&v=rqLk8yiYyGQ&feature=youtu.be&ref=ivn.us) to conduct a [deep dive exploration into the growth of the Latino electorate in Arizona](https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/openprimaries/pages/787/attachments/original/1453841298/Open%5FPrimaries%5F-%5FAn%5FAppetite%5Ffor%5FReform.pdf?1453841298&ref=ivn.us). A key finding was that *81% of Latino voters believe it is important to be independent from both major parties.* Ten years later, veteran political strategist Mike Madrid lays out precisely how the *Independent Latino Mindset* is reshaping California politics—and provoking shadowy political operatives to push for closed primaries. [**Read Mike Madrid’s editorial in the Sacramento Bee**](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Californias-Latino-voters-matter-%E2%80%94-and-some-insiders-want-to-shut-them-out-%5F-Opinion.pdf?ref=ivn.us) It’s a [groundbreaking analysis](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Californias-Latino-voters-matter-%E2%80%94-and-some-insiders-want-to-shut-them-out-%5F-Opinion.pdf?ref=ivn.us) that shows the relationship between the rise of independents - especially Latino independents - and efforts to prevent them from voting. [California Latinos Showed Up—Now Party Insiders Want to Shut Them OutCalifornia’s nonpartisan Top Two primary brought record Latino turnout in the 2026 governor’s race. Now party insiders are pushing to repeal it, which strategist Mike Madrid warns would silence the state’s fastest-growing voting bloc.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-d67b4235-725e-4520-a23f-1c3eb1f7158b.png)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-eba246c9-9398-4706-bba2-716a71c1e570-940d53d7-08f8-43ee-bc04-4f704783a025.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-latinos-showed-up-now-party-insiders-want-to-shut-them-out/) California’s recent gubernatorial primary showed what happens when this emerging electorate has a voice. 41% of voters turned out - compare that to 9% in closed primary New York - the highest turnout for a gubernatorial primary in state history. Driving that turnout were two growing groups: Latino voters and independents. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/mike-madrid-1.png) They call California a blue state. But independent voter registration has surged 50% since 2022, and Latino independent turnout jumped from roughly 11.8% in 2022 to nearly 16.5% this year — a 40% increase, far outpacing overall turnout growth. “Blue” does not capture what is happening in the Golden State. As Latino voters continue moving beyond old party categories, the question is whether our democracy will adapt to include them - or whether political insiders will try to close the door just as these voters are flexing their muscles. ## **What We're Talking About** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/usa-today-1.png) USA Today published a major piece profiling three independent voters as well as Open Primaries President John Opdycke. Kudos to USA Today for being curious about who independent voters are and for spending some time with Open Primaries leaders John Marvin from Florida, Sandi Hebley from Texas, and Sophie Gelling from Pennsylvania. [***USA Today: Independent voters in 3 key states reveal what moves needle for them***](https://openprimaries.org/usa-today-independent-voters-in-3-key-states-reveal-what-moves-needle-for-them/?ref=ivn.us) [*Meet three independent voters weighing their options in key races in the upcoming midterm elections.*](https://openprimaries.org/usa-today-independent-voters-in-3-key-states-reveal-what-moves-needle-for-them/?ref=ivn.us) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/john-marvin-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/sandi-hebly-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/sophie-gelling-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/letusvote-1.png) ## **Connecticut Locks Out Over One Million Independents** Tuesday was primary day across the Nutmeg state with hotly contested primaries from Governor to Congress and state legislators. The largest group of voters was barred from voting in the primaries that so often determine their representatives. Joan Ingalls, lives in a rural area of the state and was out on Primary Day making sure people knew that this was far from a fair election day! She sent an email to State Representative Maria Horn just before the primary asking her to meet to discuss the situation. In her note, Joan wrote: “40% of CT voters are not enrolled in a party. Asking them to register with a party in order to vote in a primary is like asking a Democrat to register as a Republican. It’s asking that in order to exercise their right to vote, they have to deny or give up their beliefs.” To understand more about the picture in CT, check out [my recent op-ed in the CT Insider.](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/opinion-primaries-private-why-paying-102300016.html?ref=ivn.us) ## **A Message to Mayor Mamdani** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/nyc-independents.jpg) *Postcard Illustration by Alice Rydel, Manhattan* Hundreds of NYC independents have been signing and sharing the [Open Letter to Mayor Mamdani](https://newyorkopenprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us#Petition), asking the Mayor to come to a Town hall meeting with NYC independents – now 1.2 million and growing! The Mayor told the media a month ago that he was “quite content” with the current closed primary system. [Paul Rieckhoff: Mamdani’s Board of Elections Quietly Crushes NYC Open PrimariesNYC’s Board of Elections rejected 42,000 petitions demanding open primaries, affecting a million independent voters. Meanwhile, independent candidates in South Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho and Montana are positioning themselves as kingmakers in the Senate.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-c12bf782-5e12-4b89-9f6d-d2d340e287cf.png)Independent Voter NewsRighteous Media![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-f125d309-7ce5-47e9-ae6b-4e49acaa516c-d652f38b-b433-4777-9934-6e3dd2d745c5.jpg)](https://ivn.us/podcasts/paul-rieckhoff-mamdanis-board-of-elections-quietly-crushes-nyc-open-primaries/) Here is the thing – Mayor Mamdani does not have any idea who NYC independent voters are. We’re just a statistic - we’re not real to him. He does not know that we are as diverse as the city, from all boroughs and walks of life. He has not thought about what it feels like to be locked out of elections in a city you love. That’s why we need a meeting. A big town hall meeting. Not a zoom. Not a phone call. A meeting. Up close and personal! Next step – We need to start showing up on social media – telling our stories and tagging the Mayor. Mary Fridley, from Brooklyn sent the Mayor this message: If you live in NYC – make your own video – and post it with the tags #NYOpenprimaires, #MayorMamdani and we’ll share it also. Not on social media, send your video to Cathy Stewart at 917-693-1946 and we’ll post it! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/harlem-week.png) If you live in NYC and are planning to attend Harlem Week – be sure to stop by our booth on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. We’ll be gathering signatures on the Open Letter to the Mayor, and creating lots of video content. We’d love to have you stop by. ## **Fast Takes** ## Democrats Have an Identity Problem ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/nyc-dems-poll.png) [A new survey](https://apnews.com/press-release/ein-presswire-newsmatics/press-release-polling-7be87d6dafe6ce7b4a2f6f41ce0d3a28?ref=ivn.us) conducted by IVC Media and commissioned by Open Primaries of NYC Democrats is detonating a core assumption of reform opponents by revealing a[**striking finding- identity collapse inside the party itself**](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/)**.** Roughly 40% of registered Democrats in NYC say *they are not actually Democrats* but explicitly describe themselves as independents forced into Democratic registration just to vote in the election that decides the outcome. **Indeed, among Latino Democrats, only one in three identify as true Democrats.** This is no longer a party system reflecting voter affiliation-it is a system quietly requiring misclassification to function. The implications land hard in a city-and country- where millions of independent voters are locked out of the elections that determine most outcomes. ## **What We're Reading** ## **This Is Our Primary Now** Alaska’s independents are 65% of the electorate, the largest share in the country. And after decades of fighting over who gets to participate, Alaska’s open primary tradition is once again giving them a voice. In a powerful new [*Anchorage Daily News* op-ed](https://www.adn.com/opinions/2026/08/12/opinion-the-primary-is-no-longer-somebody-elses-election/?ref=ivn.us), former Revenue Commissioner Randy Hoffbeck delivers a simple message: **“This is our primary now.”** That is a remarkable statement in a state whose voters adopted an open primary by referendum in 1947 and defended it for more than 50 years. Alaska understood then what it is rediscovering today: primary elections are public elections, and they should belong to the voters, not the parties. Tuesday is primary day in the Land of the Midnight Sun, and as Hoffbeck puts it: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/randy-hoffbeck.png) **And ICYMI:** [**check out former Alaska State Senator Leslil McGuire and I wrote an OPED on the long history of open primaries in Alaska.**](https://alaskalandmine.com/landmines/lets-restore-alaskas-tradition-of-open-primary-elections/?ref=ivn.us) ## **Activities/Events** ## Become a Stronger Voice for Independent Voters Independent voters are the largest and fastest-growing group in American politics—but too often their voices go unheard. Open Primaries **Independents' Spokesperson Training** is designed to help independent and reform-minded Americans communicate with confidence, tell their stories effectively, and become stronger advocates for open, inclusive elections. Join us on **Thursday, October 15 at 6:30 PM ET** for an engaging Zoom training featuring storytelling, communications coaching, and practical tools you can use immediately. [**Applications are now open**](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvNrt75v8IlPiN4iNGgVpVa7bgQ%5Fh6Loe3ICAyYBePXSf9zw/viewform?ref=ivn.us)**, but space is limited.** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/spokesperson-training-1.png)](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvNrt75v8IlPiN4iNGgVpVa7bgQ%5Fh6Loe3ICAyYBePXSf9zw/viewform?ref=ivn.us) ### Lauren Pinkston Is Betting Tennessee Isn’t as Red as It Looks URL: https://ivn.us/lauren-pinkston-is-betting-tennessee-isnt-as-red-as-it-looks/ Last updated: 2026-08-14T18:14:40.000Z *Building off of our series covering independent candidates for federal races, this article is the first installment profiling independent candidates for governor. Our coverage of independent Senate candidates has centered on a legislative question—what it would take for independents to hold the balance of power in a chamber organized entirely around party. Governors face the opposite problem, and it is a more interesting one. An executive doesn't need a caucus. She appoints a cabinet, proposes a budget, directs agencies, and signs or vetoes what a legislature sends her, all without asking a party's permission. But she also has to govern alongside a legislature that owes her nothing. This series asks independent candidates for governor how they would use the powers of an executive office that no party controls, and what happens when those powers meet a statehouse that one party controls completely.* *We start in Tennessee, with Lauren Pinkston\*.* ## **The Candidate** Lauren Pinkston is a seventh-generation Tennessean who grew up in rural Stantonville and now lives in Columbia. She spent most of her career not just outside politics but outside the country. After earning a[ PhD in International Family and Community Studies from Clemson](https://open.clemson.edu/all%5Fdissertations/2519/?ref=ivn.us), she moved with her husband and children to Southeast Asia. There, she[ launched three businesses](https://pinkstonfortn.com/en/about?ref=ivn.us) employing survivors of human trafficking and political imprisonment while completing her doctoral research internship with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Laos. She returned to Tennessee in 2019 and taught business at[ Lipscomb University](https://lipscomb.edu/news/dr-lauren-pinkston-creating-safer-employment-survivors-human-trafficking?ref=ivn.us) before leaving to run. This is her first campaign for office. She did not plan to run for governor as her first campaign. She planned to run for something local, until her county mayor decided to seek another term—and then she looked at the top of the 2026 ballot and did not like what she found. "There were no serious candidates running for governor in Tennessee, and that is such an important, important job," she said in an interview with IVN. She had considered a state legislative seat first and rejected it for a blunt reason: "I didn't want to be the only independent in our state ledge, just whining for two years." The years abroad shape how she talks about the race. Pinkston lived under a one-party state in Laos and watched an election there in 2016 whose outcome the Communist Party had already decided. She brings it up when Tennessee Republicans reach for Cold War imagery—as when Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the GOP nominee for the seat, [ran an ad](https://www.newsweek.com/marsha-blackburn-destroys-fortune-cookies-in-anti-china-campaign-ad-12175198?ref=ivn.us) set in a diner that her team had dressed up as a Chinese restaurant. "The most communist thing we could do is have a one-party state," Pinkston said. "So, if we are against communism, let's not do that." ## **Why Independent** Pinkston describes herself as a lifelong independent who has voted across ballots since her early twenties and cast a third-party presidential vote in 2016\. "I've been a lifelong independent, and I've never found myself at home with either party," she said. Asked where specifically she falls outside both, she gave three answers. On fiscal policy, she said she believes in "a strong fiscal policy" that she does not think exists in either party anymore. On abortion, she said she values "all life as sacred" but cannot align with the Tennessee ban, which many (both supporters and detractors) characterize as the strictest in the country: "\[T\]hat is putting women's lives at risk here." Her platform calls for[ repealing the total ban](https://pinkstonfortn.com/en/issues?ref=ivn.us) and replacing it with exceptions for lethal fetal anomalies, rape, incest, and trafficking, while opposing taxpayer funding for elective abortions. On guns, she said she believes in protecting the Second Amendment while treating unsecured firearms as a child safety emergency—her platform backs[ secure storage requirements](https://pinkstonfortn.com/en/issues?ref=ivn.us), universal background checks, and a temporary transfer pathway modeled on laws in 21 other states. "Those are some of the criticisms I get on both sides," she said. "But it's where I feel very strongly about standing my ground in the middle." On all policy areas discussed, she pulls from principles and policy ideas on both sides to show where they’re right, where they’re wrong, and how she would find balance between what she characterizes as the two extremes. ## **The Race** As with most independent campaigns, the money gap is significant. Through the most recent filings compiled from the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance (pulled August 10), Pinkston has raised[ $342,264](https://tnfirefly.com/tennessee-governor-race/finance?ref=ivn.us)—including $98,182 in personal loans—with $17,620 cash on hand. Blackburn has raised $10.51 million and holds roughly $6 million in cash. Democratic nominee Jerri Green has raised $850k and has $118k cash on hand. Pinkston's support, however, leans more local. Her contributions are 91% in-state, a higher share than Blackburn's 68% and Green’s 78%. She is also the only independent to actually post campaign finance numbers. In a state where only 25 signatures are required to get on the gubernatorial ballot, a field of around two-dozen candidates has appeared. Pinkston is the only independent on that list to have numbers reflecting the ability to run a real campaign. Despite this, no public poll of the Tennessee governor's race has tested Pinkston by name. The general election matchups on file—Beacon's April survey showing Blackburn over Green 51-27, and an August 2025 Quantus poll showing 49-28—are two-way ballots that fold every other candidate into "undecided." In both polls, that residual category sits at 22 to 23%, highlighting that the preferences of nearly a quarter of the electorate isn’t being properly captured by the existing numbers. ## **The Coalition She Expected vs. The One She Actually Found** Pinkston launched expecting to build a coalition weighted toward Democrats—roughly 60-40, she said. The opposite happened. "I'd say 80% of my calls are coming from Republicans now," she said. Her strongest regions are college towns, particularly rural ones: Knoxville, Jackson and Madison County, Chattanooga, and Cleveland, with about 70% of her support concentrated in Middle Tennessee. She described the core as "the more intellectual voter who has a strong faith lens." She knows this partly because her website lets any voter[ book a phone call](https://pinkstonfortn.com/en/chat?ref=ivn.us) with her directly, and she has kept two days a week open for them all cycle. She described the range: someone who called only to pray over her; a woman in a same-sex marriage who wanted to ask whether Pinkston would work against her and her partner; and a former election denier who found her because someone left one of her campaign cards in a public restroom and now serves as one of her regional leads. She has committed to continuing the calls from the governor's office. "That opportunity to talk to real people," she said, "helps us to keep our finger on the pulse of a state." Her argument for why any of this can work rests on turnout. Tennessee ranked[ 51st out of 51](https://www.thinktennessee.org/blog/were-one-year-out-from-our-next-federal-election-cycle-and-the-august-6-2026-primary-elections/?ref=ivn.us) in the 2022 midterms, with 38.6% of registered voters participating. "We have to reframe the conversation around Tennessee being a deeply red state," Pinkston said, "because we had the lowest voter turnout in the entire nation last midterm." She views getting those non-voters to the election booth as her path to a win in November. ## **Governing Without a Party** Here the gubernatorial case diverges sharply from the Senate one, in both directions. An independent governor of Tennessee would hold real unilateral power. She would appoint a cabinet without clearing names through a party apparatus—the point Pinkston made first when asked what she values most in leadership. "Number one is surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me," she said, describing an intent to appoint people "who are excellent at what they do and who are brilliant in their trade, not people who have given me a lot of money or people who have been the most loyal to me." She framed the freedom to change her mind as a governing asset rather than a liability. But Tennessee's governor has one of the weakest vetoes in the country. A veto is overridden by a simple constitutional majority in each chamber—the same number of votes that passed the bill in the first place. An independent governor facing a Republican majority would have no reliable ability to stop legislation. Pinkston's answer is to work around the veto rather than through it. Her central proposal is a legislative accountability tool run out of the governor's office: verified voter input collected on active bills and mapped publicly in real time, with weekly reports sent to all 33 senators and 99 representatives. She points out that Tennessee has no citizen ballot initiative—changing state law requires an act of the General Assembly—so public preference has no direct route into policy. "That needs to be public source data," she said, so that everyone is aware of where the majority of the state is on key issues. The second half is softer but, by her account, equally deliberate: dinners at the governor's residence with legislators from both parties and their families. She described a statehouse where "there are representatives and senators right now in the state ledge that are actively avoiding each other in the halls, and heckling each other in the halls." Her assessment: "It feels like I'm in middle school when I am there to watch what's going on." On redistricting, she supports an[ independent redistricting commission](https://pinkstonfortn.com/en/issues?ref=ivn.us), along with open primaries, nonpartisan county elections, and state-produced nonpartisan voter guides. ## **Cost of Living, Energy, and Data Centers** Pinkston's economic argument centers on the middle class as a structural load-bearing wall. She describes seven tech companies owning a third of the stock market and warns that data center operators "are going to buy your entire county because they can." She uses SNAP restrictions as her example of how state policy transmits costs upward. Grocery stores price around selling large quantities of items with significant markups like soda, she argues, so cutting those sales raises shelf prices for everyone. "When the middle class gets pinched, then everybody gets pinched." Her platform opposes SNAP restrictions on snacks and soda, backs[ reinstating summer EBT](https://pinkstonfortn.com/en/issues?ref=ivn.us), and calls for eliminating the grocery tax, which she says can be offset by closing affiliate business tax loopholes and keeping shoppers in Tennessee's 40-plus border counties rather than traveling out of state for purchases. Her energy answer for the first 90 days is less about generation than coordination: Tennessee's local electric utilities operate largely independently and, she says, often are not talking to one another about capacity or cybersecurity. She supports accelerating nuclear investment including small modular reactors, protecting TVA from privatization, and clearing local regulatory barriers to renewables. On timelines, she is candid that nuclear power will pay off later—"that's a decision in the first 90 days that pays us forward 10 years from now." She also calls for a statewide moratorium on new data center construction pending real siting standards. Asked what those standards would need to include, she named self-supplied power, water infrastructure investment, and noise limits. She would also like the facilities underground, with waste heat routed to greenhouses—a proposal that doubles as farm policy, giving soybean growers squeezed by tariffs a revenue stream that does not require selling the land. ## **Education, Childcare, and Incarceration** Education is where Pinkston is most fluent and most expansive. A former fourth-grade teacher, she argues that Tennessee's unusually large private-school and homeschool populations leave the public system carrying concentrated need without a diverse funding coalition. She wants to expand education offerings: a Montessori school in every county, nature schools for kinesthetic learners, more STEAM programs, and certification pathways letting students graduate with a credential like a CNA license. Her platform pairs this with[ reduced benchmark testing](https://pinkstonfortn.com/en/issues?ref=ivn.us), higher teacher pay, licensing adjunct instructors for career courses, expanded TCAT scholarships, and screen-limit legislation drawing on Jonathan Haidt's work. She also wants to redirect Education Freedom Scholarship funding toward early childhood education. She also would focus on closing a childcare slot deficit she puts at 90,000, with 24-hour centers sited at workplaces and schools rather than programs running nine to two. "I'm not talking about more Head Start programs," she said. She is looking to solve for childcare issues that working parents actually face. On criminal justice, her platform commits to reducing Tennessee's incarcerated population[ by 15%](https://pinkstonfortn.com/en/issues?ref=ivn.us) in a first term through behavioral health and education investment; second-chance programming; and a full assessment of the state's private prison contracts. She frames it fiscally, citing small counties facing $20-30 million jail rebuild costs when they can’t even afford EMS services: "So much of our tax dollars are being consumed in this obsession with incarceration." She also backs restoring voting rights for people who have completed their sentences, in a state with among the most restrictive felony disenfranchisement regimes in the country. On healthcare, she argues the money already exists. Tennessee is one of a handful of states whose insurance investigative unit is not attached to the attorney general's office or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and she describes a black market in health data operating in that gap. "We could fund healthcare for everybody in Tennessee if we were able to crack down on that more." ## **Assessment** Pinkston's advice to other prospective independents doubles as a description of her own bet. Do not take direction from anyone still tied to a party, she said, because "anyone who has experience in politics cannot speak to this moment." Trust that a balanced person with reasonable policies is already where most voters are, she advises, and accept that the work of finding your voters will be harder than the major party candidates. "It's a lonely place some days, but it's the best place to be." The conventional read of this race is that Tennessee is a Republican state that will elect a Republican governor, and every national forecaster rates it Safe or Solid R. Pinkston's read is that Tennessee is a state where 61% of registered voters did not participate in the last midterm, where more than half of legislative races recently offered no choice at all, and where the resulting margins measure the absence of alternatives rather than the presence of enthusiasm. Both readings can be true, and the second does not automatically produce a win for an independent. But the question she is testing is an interesting one that resonates across the country in increasingly polarized states, where one party dominates the electoral outcomes: is a state's partisan lean a fixed property of its voters, or an artifact of who has bothered to give them something to vote for? Tennessee has spent two decades producing the least participation in the country. Pinkston is the only candidate in the race treating that as an opportunity. If she can excite a voting bloc that has previously sat out of the elections, she’ll have a dedicated voter base that no one else is speaking to. And she’ll have a chance to show the country that solidly red or blue states have change simmering just beneath the surface. \*The author of this article previously worked with Lauren Pinkston when she was a volunteer at the Forward Party. ### Trump’s Birthright Citizenship 2.0 Could Put Him on a Collision Course With Pro-Lifers URL: https://ivn.us/trumps-birthright-citizenship-2-0-could-put-him-on-a-collision-course-with-pro-lifers/ Last updated: 2026-08-14T17:34:44.000Z It has now been 6 weeks since the Supreme Court struck down the President’s executive order on birthright citizenship in *Trump v. Barbara*, 609 U.S. \_\_\_ (2026). [Polling done since the opinion was issued](https://law.marquette.edu/poll/?ref=ivn.us) shows 63 % support the Court’s opinion. The reason for this is I said is immigration is a very personal issue and the Court made clear that the rule is simple: If you are born on US soil you are a citizen unless you are within 4 narrow exceptions—two of which \[the main being Native Americans who were collectively naturalized in 1924 and include DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin\] do not exist anymore. [Commentary: Birthright Citizenship Is More Complicated Than It SoundsKavanaugh saw the constitutional opening for Congress to act. He underestimated how badly Trump’s executive order mangled the law around it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-7f4c1611-3058-42a3-bd2f-6b54a9d8601e.png)Independent Voter NewsIrwin Nowick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/scotus-birthright-decision-cc9fa721-d2fd-40aa-96f8-573c0ca99f6e.jpg)](https://ivn.us/irwin-nowick-kavanaughs-confusing-birthright-decision-is-right-and-still-wrong/) The view of voters is that sleeper cells, birth tourism, and the like can be dealt with without making massive changes. Data points to the fact that of the 3.5 million babies born in the US a year maybe 20,000 are born to persons Trump claims he wants to get at—almost exclusively offspring of tourists. Moreover, if this was such an issue why did Trump make the order prospective affecting only kids yet to be born? While there were murmurings about Congressional actions based on Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence-dissent \[which was internally inconsistent and displeased the person who facilitated his appointment to the Court, to wit the Chief Justice\], and the President stated that he would seek a rehearing he did not do so. Instead, working with his new legal counsel Will Scharf, who is a little more “operational” than former attorneys, he drafted a new Executive Order aka EO 2.0 which purports to work within the Court’s ruling as to the exemptions from birthright citizenship. EO 2.0 has several substantive parts. EO 2.0 does not protect kids of Green Card holders which undermined the entirety of the first Executive Order. Rather, EO 2.0 applies where neither parent is a US Citizen and one additional factor is present. That avoids the whole issue of kids born to citizens in areas under military occupation temporarily. As such, in that regard it only affects kids born where both parents are non-citizens and additional factors are present. As to the policy behind Birthright Citizenship as Justice Kavanaugh noted in footnote 7 of his concurrence in *Trump v. Barbara*, there are a number of legitimate concerns about the Doctrine as understood in the United States. However, as Chief Justice noted in *Trump v. Barbara*, putting aside the 4 exceptions (one of which was mooted by Congress), a decision was made to put into the Constitution to make citizens kids born on US soil to parents who were citizens or were not citizens without elaborate procedures. While a case could be made that the general British System adopted in 1981 is better, the existence of a written constitution takes various policy changes off the table as Justice Scalia noted in *District of Columbia v. Heller*, 554 U.S. 570, 636 (2008). As I said before, the 14th Amendment was collective naturalization which Congress could do assuming the States agreed via ratification. In the case of statutory naturalization, that can be restricted as to persons yet-to-be borne by Congress passing a bill. In the case of the Constitution, that can be changed but by a laborious process. And, as I said before, because there is no general procedure to naturalize children born to non-citizens born on US soil, Executive Order 1 created an anomaly whereby the parents naturalize, foreign born children are derivatively naturalized when the parents naturalize, and the kid born on US soil is stateless. While it would be preferable for the parents to wait to have kids until they are citizens as was the case in my family, not everyone is as intelligent as my grandparents or Justice Alito’s grandparents. Part 1 of EO 2.0 goes after mothers who come to the United States to give birth on US soil to take advantage of the Court’s ruling. As I said before, the easiest way to stop non-citizens from having kids on US soil while not citizens is to prevent the entry of people into the United States. In that regard, the [US DOJ filed charges against naturalization fraud](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6025881-justice-department-marriage-fraud-charges/?ref=ivn.us). And as I said before, whatever one may say as to the President’s policies, no one disputes that a person who is not a US Citizen has no right to be in the United States. To that end the State Department [created a task force to address this on the front end](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6025626-trump-escalates-birthright-citizenship-campaign/?ref=ivn.us). At the same time, as the Supreme Court has held, people who are US Citizens have a constitutional right to enter the United States to have kids protected under the 14th Amendment without a lot of rigmarole. While this portion of the order received some grumblings, it is legally defensible. In fact, in a New York Times article, DHS officials on condition of anonymity stated that this was a call to enforce existing law. The second part of the order seeks to deny automatic citizenship to four categories of children born to non-citizen parents who would otherwise be protected by the 14th Amendment based on the Administration’s view of the parameters of *Trump v. Barbara*. There 4 Categories are as follows: - Category 1: Either parent of that person is an alien enemy, defined to include any member of a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization under 8 U.S.C. 1189 or Specially Designated Global Terrorist, consistent with the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq., and Executive Order 13224 of September 23, 2001 (Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism), as amended. - Category 2: Either parent of that person is a foreign government employee, defined to include: (i) ambassadors; (ii) persons employed by a foreign embassy or consulate who are nationals of that foreign country; (iii) persons employed by a foreign government in an official capacity; and (iv) persons employed by an international organization that possess international-organization immunity; - Category 3: Parent of that person engaged in a commercial transaction to purchase or access birthright citizenship for the person, or engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship, to include: (i) when the parent(s) of the person engage in a commercial transaction to ensure that the person’s mother is present in the United States, or a territory of the United States, to give birth; or (ii) when the parent(s) engage in a commercial transaction with a surrogate present in the United States, or a territory of the United States, to give birth. - Category 4: The person is born in a territory or territorial waters of the United States where citizenship is not conferred by Federal statute. The order has a severability clause. There is a potential two-edged sword—particularly in prosecuting terrorist “evil doers,“ as President Bush the 2nd referred to them in terms of two parts of the order. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the fact that birthright citizenship exists protects the child and has no bearing on the parent. At a recent belated funeral-celebration of life, an attendee who read my prior postings remarked that there are a group of attorneys who specialize in assisting persons who were born to parents on non-immigrant visas or even immigrant visas who wish to expatriate for a series of reasons. Persons often want to expatriate primarily related to taxation. While in theory unilateral expatriation is constitutionally guaranteed, it is not made easy. For one, two sections of the Internal Revenue Code include so-called exit taxes. While Congress does clearly have the power to tax, it is subject to constitutional restrictions. In my view, exit taxes are constitutionally dubious unless assets are sold or otherwise liquidated that generate income as they are in effect “direct taxes,” though this has never been litigated. As the Supreme Court noted in *Moore v. United States*, 602 U.S. 572 (2024) the Constitution prohibits un-apportioned direct taxes which are really property taxes. That is why so-called “wealth taxes” are unconstitutional. That, in turn, gets into a discussion of whether the expatriation tax is a direct tax and whether expatriation is a taxable event absent something akin to liquidation of assets. *Moore* was supposed to decide if “realization” was a constitutional requirement in order to avoid apportionment and thus be an “income tax” within the meaning of the 16th Amendment. It so happened in *Moore* that given the arguments made by Moore's counsel, the case turned into not “realization” but “attribution”. Secondly, for all the concerns of a sleeper cell candidate which was raised by Justice Alito, while the Supreme Court has never directly ruled that only US Citizens can be prosecuted for treason, dual citizens can be as I noted in reference to *Kawakita v. United States*, 343 U.S. 717 (1952). Kawakita was convicted of treason and sentenced to death for war crimes. He was born in the US to Japanese Citizens who could not be naturalized. In 2011 when Joe Lieberman and Scott Brown had a denaturalization proposal, the late Lindsey Graham, for all his oddities but knew his stuff, stated, “Why are we taking the death penalty off the table?” Treason is a capital offense. Putting aside *Kawita*, the issue has arisen in the past in terms of enemy combatants, military commissions, and the like. It suffices to say Congress under its express powers under Clause 10 of Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution to define and punish offenses against the law of nations, of which the law of war is a part, has allowed persons who are US citizens to be tried in some manner for violations of the Laws of War. The Supreme Court has noted that US citizenship of an enemy belligerent does not relieve him or her from the consequences of belligerency which is unlawful because it violates the law of war. And, citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of an enemy government and with its aid, guidance and direction enter the United States bent on hostile acts are “enemy belligerents” within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the law of war. Moreover, Clause 11 of Section 8 authorizes Congress to make rules as to “captures on land and sea”. Putting aside the Law of War situation, the Government has in fact refused to recognize expatriation as occurring in cases wherein the Government sought to prosecute US Citizens for criminal acts committed outside the United States in other places against non-citizens such as sex tourism. The Courts have upheld this under Congress’s “law of nation’s” Foreign Commerce Clause powers, assuming that Congress exercised the power. It suffices to say that any such person can be dealt with. In terms of each of the four categories, after some initial review the ACLU filed a "motion to clarify the preliminary injunction" in *Barbara v. Trump* while another group is seeking to revive an antecedent lawsuit. In my view, parts of Executive Order 2 are valid, while others may not be. I do believe that given my discussion with Civil Procedure legal experts, the Class Actions have to be modified in the sense that they have to be narrowed down. There are likely various procedural obstacles to using these earlier cases to challenge the new executive order and either new actions filed or substantial amendments. In fact, in *Trump v. Barabra*, the ACLU wants the remand process to the District Court in New Hampshire speeded up so it can get a modification order. First, in terms of Category 1, as to children born invaders-alien enemies-Evil Doers, as I noted above this is a two-edged sword. In *Trump v. Barbara*, the Court did not really address this but this involves where the child is born to non-citizens who are part of an occupying force while the territory is in occupation, so the territory is not under US Control. As Justice Story noted in *United States v. Rice*, \[17 U.S. 128 (1819) wherein during the War of 1812, the port of Castine, Maine, was captured by the British forces and during its occupation the British Government exercised civil and military authority over the people, established custom-houses and collected duties on goods\] the area was not subject to US jurisdiction and albeit temporarily not part of the United States. The general rule of International Law is that during foreign occupation persons who were citizens of the territory \[and ergo their offspring\] prior to the moment of occupation do not forfeit their citizenship. Forfeiture only occurs after a peace treaty and lands are exchanged. While Justice Story’s concurrence-dissent in *Inglis v. Trustees of Sailor's Snug Harbor*, 28 U.S. 99 (1830) raised certain questions about this issue, Executive Order 2.0 in effect treats them as citizens even though born outside US Control, albeit temporarily. I believe that the Executive Order 2 was correct because the effect of treating them otherwise would in effect denaturalize without consent in violation of the spirit of *Afroyim v. Rusk*. Putting aside the enemy combatant-treason doctrine, which applies to citizens as noted above and the ability to punish misconduct by US Citizens committed abroad, internment of enemy aliens during times of war has been allowed by federal statute since 1798 and has not been questioned. It occurred to German citizens in World War I and World War II by the United States. However, as far as can be ascertained, the children of German Nationals who were US Citizens were not interned. In terms of Japanese nationals and their children, during World War II, about 120,000 people of Japanese descent were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in ten concentration camps in the United States, operated by the War Relocation Authority. About two-thirds were US citizens. About 127,000 Japanese Americans then lived in the continental US, of which about 112,000 lived on the West Coast. About 80,000 were citizens. In Hawaii, where more than 150,000 Japanese Americans comprised more than one-third of the territory's population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were incarcerated. Many of the children who were concededly US citizens were part of the Beloved “Go for Broke” 442nd Regimental Combat Team or were part of the 100th Infantry Battalion. The 100th was made up of Nisei who were originally members of the Hawaii National Guard. Many 442nd members visited their family in the camps which made for great photos. While there was an attempt in effect to denaturalize these US born citizens \[Rachel E. Rosenbloom, *Litigating Birthright Citizenship In The Shadow Of World War II: The Continuing Relevance Of A Forgotten Case*, 31 Michigan Journal of Race & Law 1 (forthcoming 2026), Northeastern University School of Law Research Paper No. 511Last revised: 28 Jun 2026\] no one disputed that the children born in the camps were US citizens. In fact, the internment of US Citizens of Japanese dissent is now viewed as it should be: a national disgrace. It was upheld by the Supreme Court in part in *Korematsu v. United States*, 323 U.S. 214 (1944). *Korematsu* dealt with entering into a prohibited area not per se forced relocation though that was the effect. In *Ex parte Mitsuye Endo*, 323 U.S. 283 (1944) which was decided the same day as *Korematsu*, the Court unanimously ruled that the US government could not continue to detain a citizen who was "concededly loyal" to the United States. Although the Court did not touch on the constitutionality of the exclusion of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, which it had found not to violate citizens' rights in *Korematsu*, the *Endo* ruling nonetheless led to the reopening of the West Coast to Japanese Americans after their incarceration in camps across the U.S. interior during World War II. In 2018, the Supreme Court overruled *Korematsu* in *Trump v. Hawaii*, 585 U.S. 667 (2018). Chief Justice Roberts' majority opinion \[really unanimous on this point\] stated that "Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and—to be clear—'has no place in law under the Constitution' (quoting Justice Jackson’s *Korematsu* dissent).” (585 U.S. at 710.) Scholars disagreed about whether this constituted "an actual overturning of Korematsu or merely disapproving dictum" until *Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College* \[600 U. S. 181 (2023)\] confirmed *Trump v. Hawaii* "overruled" *Korematsu*. (600 U.S. at 206-207 fn. 3.) Given how Americans feel about veterans and the feeling of shame over the internment, Donald Trump of multiple deferments vs. the 442nd – 100th Battalion is a Republican loser. The Supreme Court has avoided the application of the Alien Enemies Act \[“AEA”\] \[which applies not just in wartime but where there is an invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government\] in terms of who it applies to in terms of non-state actors during times of peace as shown by the litigation in *A.A.R.P. v. Trump*, 605 U.S. 91 (2025) (detainees with pending habeas petitions facing removal under Alien Enemies Act faced "an imminent threat of severe, irreparable harm"). *AARP v. Trump,* which became *W.M.M. v. Trump*, arose from Trump signing a presidential proclamation invoking the AEA seeking to fast track the removal of members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, who were purportedly invading the United States *under* the direction of the government of Venezuela and directed the deportation of certain Venezuelan citizens who had been determined to be part of Tren de Aragua. Since that time, the US effected regime changes in Venezuela and the new President is a Trump ally so it is hardly the case that the Venezuelan Government is now sending invaders into the US. The history of the litigation is set forth at length in the 5th Circuit’s published order today in *W.M.M. v. Trump*, \_\_\_\_F.4th \_\_\_\_ (5th Cir. 2026) and the panel opinion on remand from the Supreme Court in *W.M.M. v. Trump*, 154 F.4th 207 (5th Cir. 2025). The Supreme Court had specifically asked the 5th Circuit to answer two questions: (1) whether the named petitioners’ claims that the President violated the AEA warrant a preliminary injunction and (2) whether the President’s Proclamation violates due process as to a putative class. Justice Kavanaugh wanted the Court to grant certiorari and hear the case on the merits but that was a non-starter. The Supreme Court expressly held that the government could remove the named petitioners and putative class under other laws. (*A.A.R.P. v. Trump*, 605 U.S. 91, 98–99 (2025).) After the Supreme Court remanded the case to the Fifth Circuit, the case was assigned to Judges Leslie Southwick \[a Bush The Younger appointee\]. Andrew Oldham \[a Trump appointee\], and Irma Carrillo Ramirez \[a Biden appointee\]. The panel heard oral arguments on June 30, 2025, and questioned both sides in the case about whether the president's proclamation was reviewable and what notice must be provided to the detainees. On September 2, 2025, the panel ruled 2–1 that Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act was unlawful, and issued a preliminary injunction. The opinion, written by Southwick and joined by Carrillo Ramirez, found that there had been neither an invasion nor a predatory incursion such as to invoke the AEA \[though the panel did note that no one was challenging the statute’s validity itself\] therefore the AEA was likely "improperly invoked." The panel also ruled that 7 days notice was sufficient to address due process concerns. (*W.M.M. v. Trump*, 154 F.4th 207 (5th Cir. 2025).) The government then asked that the 5th Circuit rehear the case en banc, and on September 30, it agreed to do so and vacated the panel's preliminary injunction. (W.M.M. v. Trump, 154 F.4th 319 (5th Cir. 2025).) On January 22, 2026, the Court heard the case En Banc and no ruling was issued until today. The Court held in a published opinion/order today that the case was moot because after oral argument before the En Banc court, the government had removed all three named petitioners under the Immigration and Nationality Act—that is, not the AEA and no one disputed the removal was legal so the case was declared Moot. Justices Ho and Oldham wanted to decide the merits in terms of how the AEA applied and to whom but there were no takers as federal courts are not moot courts. What this suggests is that the Government rather than litigating thorny issues got what it wanted which was removal and decided to make this go away. Moreover, in so far as there was a willingness to continue the current litigation the Fifth Circuit shut that today in two related published orders. First, the Court denied without prejudice class action status because the new class representatives were not in fact purportedly removable under the AEA so they did not represent any class. And any Class representative was not entitled to proceed pseudonymously on appeal, as well as for the sealing of their unredacted motion to add class representatives. The government does not oppose either motion – to likely keep the issue alive – the Fifth Circuit did. As shown in *W.M.M.* litigation there is not much present judicial appetite to litigate how and when the AEA applies in peacetime as to the aliens. While certain judges and law professors may, the judges who decide these issues do not. Given that reality, the real question is whether anyone actually has standing to assert the rights of children of alien enemies-terrorists-evil doers other than such children if they even know they are. The members of these groups who are not US Citizens may be designated Evil Doers and are not allowed in the US, but as far as I can tell these groups do not publish membership lists. To identify members of such groups requires a substantial amount of effort and someone labeled a member of the group [can challenge that designation in a judicial proceeding](https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/other-resources/terrorism-related-inadmissibility-grounds-trig?ref=ivn.us). It suffices to say that the number of AEA offspring children born on US soil to The Evil Doers is likely nil. In almost all cases, given who the parents are, they are either likely to kill the child or abandon them. Such children who are abandoned would be treated as foundlings placed into foster care and in effect naturalized. If such children of Evil Doers were challenged on their citizenship, it would be many years from now and would likely be litigated in an 8 USC 1503 action where the Government would challenge their citizenship under EO 2\. Under the rules governing such actions, once the child is born on US soil the burden shifts to the Government to show why they are not citizens. (See: *Perez v. Brownell*. The Supreme Court explained that the judicial hearing in a § 1503 action "is a trial de novo in which the individual need makes only a prima facie case establishing his citizenship by birth or naturalization." 356 U.S. 44, 47 n.2 (1958), overruled on other grounds by Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967).) The *Perez* Court faced a circumstance where the government agency had denied the plaintiff's citizenship based on the plaintiff's supposed act of expatriation. The Court held that the government "must prove the act of expatriation on which the denial was based by clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence which does not leave the issue in doubt." Id. (citing cases). The reason is that a person claiming US citizenship from birth has constitutional protections under the Fourteenth Amendment that may not extend to a person petitioning for naturalization. (See, e.g., *Afroyim*, 387 U.S. at 267-68 (citizens have a constitutional right to remain citizens); United States v. Kairys, 782 F.3d 1374, 1383 (7th Cir. 1986) (the protections described in Afroyim apply "only to acts committed after citizenship").) The Government would then have to prove that that child is the offspring of a defined Evil Doer who likely is dead. The First Category is an issue if it arises many years from now. As to Category 2, the children of “diplomats,” assuming that the parents have diplomatic immunity, that part of the order is valid. It is true that they could expatriate \[not really discussed\] but it is an after-birth event. As I indicated there is a procedure—and this would have had to be made across the board to be consistent had EO 1 gone through— whereby kids of diplomats can naturalize. There have been cases where kids thought they were citizens (and were told so), but had diplomatic parents. (See: *Moncada v. Blinken*, 680 F.Supp.3d 1190 (C.D. Cal. 2023).) In fact, in other cases, persons served in the military but were deported because they did not know their status and this occurred under the Biden Administration**.** Three, as to the products of birth tourism, this could turn into an internal Republican food fight. Surrogacy is an accepted legal practice in most US States. Surrogacy can take two forms. The first form is to have the child and many-many years down the road have the child seek entry into the United States as a citizen. This does not benefit the mother because she has no rights of admission into the United States. The main form of surrogacy is an arrangement whereby a woman gets pregnant and gives birth on behalf of another person or couple who will become the child's legal parents after birth. People pursue surrogacy for a variety of reasons such as infertility, dangers or undesirable factors of pregnancy, or when pregnancy is a medical impossibility. The Catholic Church is in theory opposed to surrogacy though I know of cases where practicing Catholics use fertility treatments to have kids where the child is fertilized by the father using the mother’s eggs and is planted in a third party who actually births the child. Those children have been baptized and no one has been refused communion because of it. My religion is split on the subject but the Jewish Women I know disapprove of the practice—until they use it. In 2000, the United States enacted a law making it easier for foreign-born children adopted by U.S. citizens to become American citizens. This was encouraged by many “pro-life” groups. The United States Supreme Court in 1957 held that a child born to a non-citizen who was born in the United States precisely so the child could be born in the United States was a 14th Amendment Citizen. (*United States ex rel. Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy*, 353 U. S. 72, 73 (1957).) In oral argument in *Trump v. Barbara*, Chief Justice Roberts asked if Birth Tourism affected the legal analysis before the court and the answer was a non-answer. Justice Sotomayer asked if the Government wanted *Hintopoulos* overruled and the answer was No. In my view, to quote my late mother “kids do not get to pick their parents and the sins of the father should not be inflicted on the children.” That is why the Constitution prohibits “corruption of the blood” as a punishment for treason. Assuming that kids are born here to persons who should not be here, you still have the reality of the kid. Justice Barrett, who is a practicing Catholic and a Mom and therefore thinks like any Mom and has two adopted children, raised the issue of it being about the kid—not the parent. Some people who want to bait her on the citizenship issue \[primarily members of my faith, unfortunately\] do not understand her. As to the surrogacy question, this would likely be viewed as akin to rape and incest exceptions to abortion prohibitions. To paraphrase Henry Hyde, the fact that the child was conceived illegally should not result in the child’s execution. In many cases the kid will be adopted. And, often they may become citizens under the Foundling Provisions in any event. In my view, the way to handle this is to create a process akin to children born abroad and diplomat kids where they are formally naturalized—only in this case a procedure exists to naturalize the child when placed into foster care and particularly so when adopted. As to Category 4, that is really a reaffirmation of the Doctrine of ***The Insular Cases***. The Insular Cases are really a series of decisions on when inhabitants of territories acquired by treaty or conquest are treated as citizens. Prior to the Spanish-American War, acquisition treaties of their own terms collectively naturalized inhabitants as Citizens if they chose to do so—a power that the Supreme Court held repeatedly Congress had to do. As Chief Justice Roberts noted in *Trump v. Barbara*, a person can be a birthright citizen without being born in a State, citing The Slaughterhouse Cases*.* (\[83 U.S. 36, 74 (1873)\]. 609 U.S.at \_\_.) In the treaty settling the Spanish-American War, it left to Congress the determination of governance and citizenship. The term "insular" refers to the territories that were islands administered by the War Department's Bureau of Insular Affairs. Today, the legal rulings outlined in the Insular Cases continue to govern the United States' territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Court established the landmark doctrine of territorial incorporation. This doctrine is the legal principle that makes distinctions on where the Constitution applies in regards to non-contiguous territories of the United States. Incorporated territories are those that the United States Congress deems on a path to statehood, and where the Constitution is applied fully. Alaska and Hawaii were former incorporated territories that are now admitted into the statehood. On the contrary, unincorporated territories are not on track to statehood, and thus, effectively allowed for the Constitution to apply differently. It so happened that, except with respect to American Samoa, Congress in effect granted citizenship and full constitutional rights to residents of Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. As to the Philippines, while governed by the US from 1898 until 1946, for a series of reasons Filipinos were not granted citizenship or collectively naturalized, though military members were and as a result their kids born in the US are fully protected under even the narrow view of the 14th Amendment. No one is challenging Category 4 given the precedent of the Insular Cases and the fact that it only applies to residents of American Samoa. ### California’s Election Referees Wear Party Jerseys. Two Amendments Aim to Change That. URL: https://ivn.us/californias-election-referees-wear-party-jerseys-two-amendments-aim-to-change-that/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:39:38.000Z **SACRAMENTO, Calif.**—Republican Assemblymembers Josh Hoover and Natasha Johnson led a press conference Thursday to announce two proposed amendments that get partisan politicians out of the most powerful election roles. The first amendment was their jointly filed ACA 23 to make the secretary of state a nonpartisan office. The second was SCA 3, which was re-introduced this week by Sen. Roger Niello of Fair Oaks. SCA 3, which Niello says he has been working on since 2006, would strip the attorney general of the authority to write ballot measure titles and summaries and give it to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. [California Amendment Introduced to Take Party Politics Out of the Office That Runs ElectionsAssemblymembers Josh Hoover and Natasha Johnson introduce constitutional amendment to make the secretary of state’s office nonpartisan, addressing concerns about conflicts of interest in election administration.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-2ecf9e7b-2781-424d-9c7d-8ecd2f91c3b0.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-amendment-secretary-of-state-nonpartisan-73247824-f1a6-45e8-86b9-c5234e329bea.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-amendment-introduced-to-take-party-politics-out-of-the-office-that-runs-elections/) Like the secretary of state, the attorney general is a partisan office. Candidates run partisan campaigns, try to get party endorsements, and always face pressure from party leaders to act in a partisan manner. Both proposals have the same goal: Take party politics out of the administration of elections. “Combined we believe these reforms will help restore trust in our elections,” Hoover remarked. “Elections only work if people who vote in them can trust the process, and right now that trust is at an all-time low,” said Johnson. “One thing is very clear: Allowing partisan offices to oversee our elections is a recipe for disaster.” Her remarks are backed by polling data. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/Majorities-Concerned-About-Political-Pressure-Ballot-Handling.png) Gallup [released new survey numbers](https://news.gallup.com/poll/712955/election-concerns-run-high-ahead-2026-midterms.aspx?ref=ivn.us) in July that found that 67% of US voters were concerned “a great deal” or “a fair amount” that political leaders will try to pressure election administrators to manipulate election outcomes this year. This includes 66% of independent voters. As already reported on IVN, ACA 23 would amend the state constitution to add “secretary of state” to the list of elected positions required to be nonpartisan along with judicial, school, county, and city offices. This means when candidates run for the office, a party designation will not appear next to their name on the ballot, and they cannot be nominated by a party or a party’s central committee. Adopting ACA 23 would move California in a direction recommended by bipartisan bodies like the [Carter-Baker Commission](https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac%5Fassets/1/6/Exhibit%20M.PDF?utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), which noted that the US is one of the only democracies in the world that lets party members run elections. “The secretary of state oversees our elections, certifies the results, and shapes how ballots get to voters,” Johnson said. > “And yet, that person runs for office with a party label next to their name, nominated by a party, and ultimately—whether they will admit it or not—they answer to that party SCA 3 would transfer authority to write ballot measure titles and summaries from a partisan executive office to a nonpartisan legislative body. This information is what voters see in state-issued information guides and on the ballot. How the language of a measure is written can sway a voter and it is not uncommon for voters, campaigns, and stakeholders to accuse the attorney general of trying to influence the outcome of an election with the words they choose. Just this year, advocates of a statewide voter ID initiative—led by Assemblymember Carl DeMaio of San Diego—[sued the attorney general’s office](https://kdhnews.com/news/politics/voter-id-backers-sue-california-attorney-general-over-ballot-description/article%5Fdf9dae36-8e87-53f8-aa15-c7f5af0c4504.html?ref=ivn.us) over the title of their initiative, "Prohibits Citizens From Voting Unless They Present Government-Issued Identification." Niello pointed out that the initial title before DeMaio’s group, Reform California, turned in enough signatures to qualify the proposal for the ballot was, "Establishes Additional Voter Identification and Citizenship Verification Requirements." The plaintiffs argued that the change was not “impartial” as required by law. However, Judge Jennifer Rockwell in Sacramento [denied their petition](https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/california-judge-greenlights-democrat-ag-rob-bontas-biased/?ref=ivn.us), ruling the AG’s materials were accurate and fell within the "considerable latitude" the office gets under state election law. > “This has been a continual abuse of the attorney general putting his or her thumb on voters’ opinions with regard to a biased title and summary statement,” Niello said. Niello argued that voters need greater trust that the information they are getting is free of party influence. The press event also included other Republican officials and candidates, like Don Wagner, who will face incumbent Secretary of State Shirley Weber in November and Assemblymember DeMaio. Both ACA 23 and SCA 3 are state constitutional amendments, which means they need two-thirds of the Assembly and the Senate to clear the legislature. Then, the proposals must be approved by a majority of California voters. ### Elon Musk's $1.5 Million Attack on Ranked Choice Voting in Alaska | EP52 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/elon-musks-1-5-million-attack-on-ranked-choice-voting-in-alaska-ep52/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:27.000Z Elon Musk just quietly put $1.5 million behind a network aimed at killing Alaska's Top Four open primary. The kicker: the same measure would repeal the transparency law that let anyone find out he paid for it. Then the crew digs into Musk's money in Alaska: who's really behind the repeal, why MAGA wants Alaska's system gone, and why Chad argues closed primaries are voter suppression on a scale that dwarfs every voter ID fight in the country. Cara's back from the California Politico Agenda Summit in Sacramento with a Nancy Pelosi scoop about what she actually told Joe Biden before he dropped out - and Chad refuses to let Pelosi off the hook. Along the way: a New York poll where a third of Democrats admit they're not really Democrats and Abdul El-Sayed's viral shot at John Fetterman. [Poll Finds that a Majority of New York Democrats Don’t Really Want to be DemocratsNew polling finds most registered Democrats support letting independents vote in Democratic primaries — and nearly 4 in 10 say they only registered Democratic because New York City gives them no other meaningful choice.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-40f8ac15-620a-4cb6-8f6d-61ef2922aa7a.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/new-york-voters-NYC-democrats-46963b02-9896-4afd-9569-041bb895bec5.jpg)](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) **This episode is sponsored by the Independent Voter Project and produced by Olas Media. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyLIs900abY403f0PYb2Z6A?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, hosts Chad, Cara, and Ethan dig into **Elon Musk's** controversial funding of Wisconsin-based "Aurora Network," which has funneled roughly $1 million toward repealing **Alaska's Top Four nonpartisan open primary** system — one of the most closely watched **ranked choice voting** (RCV) states in the country. The hosts highlight that the repeal effort also targets a **campaign finance transparency** measure, meaning voters would lose visibility into who's bankrolling the fight against **election reform**. Chad argues this puts Musk, Alaska Republicans, and national Democrats on the same side against **open primaries**, framing the effort as part of a broader, coordinated push — echoed in **California's "Undo the Top Two" initiative** and closed-primary battles in **New York**, Florida, and Texas — to roll back **nonpartisan primary** reforms nationwide. [The Voting Rights Case That Could Turn Both Parties Against the Supreme CourtOne question is playing out in courtrooms, on ballots, and in legislatures across the country: who controls primary elections, the parties or the voters. Only SCOTUS can settle it, and when it does, it will put both parties on one side and the voters on the other.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-7f14e014-a2e2-475c-ae78-c19a78e91566.png)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/3DW4C9D-f0c86d41-dd84-4d1f-be00-91e996f9181d.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/) The conversation turns to **closed primaries** and **voter suppression**, with Chad making the case that barring **independent voters** from primary elections — unless they falsely register with a party — amounts to a modern-day **poll tax** and a violation of First Amendment association rights. Citing journalist **Mike Madrid's** [*Sacramento Bee* op-ed](https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article316626339.html?ref=ivn.us), the hosts note that **Latino and Asian voters** register as **independents** at disproportionately higher rates than white voters, undercutting the narrative that closing primaries protects minority representation. They also reference an **Open Primaries-commissioned poll** in New York City showing that roughly a third of self-identified Democrats — and nearly half of Latino Democrats — say they register with the party purely to have a "meaningful vote" in the dominant **primary election**, not out of genuine partisan affiliation. Beyond policy, the trio riffs on current political theater: **Nancy Pelosi's** comments at the California Politico Agenda Summit about urging President Biden toward a cognitive test before he dropped out, plus Chad's ongoing critique of her ripping up Trump's State of the Union speech. They also discuss the viral clip of Michigan Senate candidate **Abdul El Sayed** sparring with John Fetterman, and close with lighter banter on political charisma, **gerrymandering**, and the state of **congressional term limits** discourse. ### 68,000 ‘Zombie Votes’ Haunted Wisconsin’s Democratic Primary URL: https://ivn.us/68-000-zombie-votes-haunted-wisconsins-democratic-primary/ Last updated: 2026-08-13T18:29:50.000Z Perhaps the most watched election this week was the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin, in which Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly defeated the DSA candidate, state Rep. Francesca Hong. It was a chance for the media to focus on the ongoing “civil war” within the party between center-left Democrats and the growing influence of Democratic Socialists. Crowley’s win, by just under 3,800 votes, was presented as a sign that the DSA still hasn’t taken over the party in critical swing states. But what is missing from the conversation is that the most consequential votes were not for Crowley or Hong. They were the over 68,000 votes that had been cast for candidates who were no longer in the race. ## The "Zombie Vote" Three candidates dropped out of the race before the August 11 primary—Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez in mid-July, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes on July 30, and Missy Hughes in June. However, Rodriguez and Barnes dropped out after many voters already cast an absentee ballot. Early voting for the primary began on July 28\. However, early absentee voting began earlier than that. County clerks started mailing out requested absentee ballots by June 25—well before Rodriguez and Barnes announced their exit. More than 150,000 ballots [had been cast by August 3](https://www.weau.com/2026/08/03/wisconsin-primary-voter-guide-what-you-need-know-before-aug-11/?outputType=amp&ref=ivn.us)—meaning tens of thousands of voters had already cast their ballots before voters knew who the last candidates standing would be. Rodriguez finished in fifth place with 32,688 votes, Barnes finished close behind with 32,415 votes. Even Hughes almost reached the gap between Crowley and Hong at 3,237\. In total, more than 68,000 ballots were cast for a candidate who suspended their campaign. These are what the national voting reform group FairVote calls [“zombie votes.”](https://fairvote.org/68000-zombie-votes-decide-wisconsin-governor-primary/?ref=ivn.us) The votes exist, but they are for candidates no longer running. The voter can’t do anything about it. They can’t change their vote. Once the ballot is cast, there are no “do-overs.” Under the current system, there is no way to know who these voters would have preferred among the remaining candidates. Would Crowley have won by a bigger margin? Would Hong have beaten him? Would it have been an even tighter race? These are questions that will never be answered. FairVote argues this is where reform matters. If, for example, Wisconsin used ranked choice voting and voters ranked candidates in order of preference, observers would know who Rodriguez voters preferred of the top performing candidates. And who Barnes voters preferred. The point of ranked choice voting is not solely to get to a majority winner. It is also to show who voters would cast a ballot for if their top pick wasn’t in the race, dropped out, or were otherwise removed from the ballot. Under ranked choice voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference (first choice, second choice, third choice, etc). If no candidate gets a majority of the vote—in this case, no candidate cleared 40%— then the last place candidate is eliminated, and their voters’ next choices are factored into the results. Subsequent rounds of instant runoff are held until a candidate has over 50% of the vote. The point is to give every voter a chance to have a say in the final outcome without their ballot being discarded entirely for voting for a candidate who performed poorly or dropped out. For example, once Barnes and Rodriguez were eliminated under ranked choice voting, their voters’ next choices would be added to the tabulation. The people who cast a ballot for them would still have a vote that counts. ## A Problem That Impacts Millions of Voters Every Election FairVote asserts that the “zombie vote” issue is a problem nationwide, especially in presidential preference elections. The group reports that in 2020, [3 million Democratic primary votes](https://fairvote.org/report/ranked%5Fchoice%5Fvoting%5Fin%5F2020%5Fpresidential%5Fprimary%5Felections/?ref=ivn.us) went to a candidate that had already bowed out of contention. This is one reason many ranked choice voting supporters oppose an effort within the national Democratic Party [to ban the use of ranked choice voting in 2028](https://ivn.us/its-official-both-parties-oppose-ranked-choice-voting/), which would adopt a similar policy already in place within the Republican Party. Voters cannot be expected to predict party maneuvering. Candidates don’t drop out solely for personal reasons. In 2020, the Democratic field cleared quickly in order to unite behind Biden. This year, in Wisconsin, it was about the party establishment vs. the DSA. FairVote and other voting reform advocates assert that voters should not be denied meaningful choice in an election because of the never-ending game of chess the two major parties play to give themselves an advantage. “With ranked choice voting, voters need not worry about reading the tea leaves in a shifting field; if their first choice drops out, their vote counts for their next choice,” writes Matthew Oberstaedt and Avery Hyde for FairVote. “This ensures every voter has a say in the election, no matter when they vote. ### Senator Joe Manchin, Heather Manchin, And Their Plan to Break the Two-Party Machine URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/senator-joe-manchin-heather-manchin-and-their-plan-to-break-the-two-party-machine/ Last updated: 2026-08-12T20:40:16.000Z For the first time on **Independent Americans**, **Senator Joe Manchin** and his daughter **Heather Manchin** sit down with Paul Rieckhoff to lay out how they intend to break the grip of the rigged two-party system — and to introduce the vehicle they're doing it with: the **Independent Leadership Council**, their new organization built to recruit, fund and elect independents to Congress. Joe Manchin knows what a single honest vote can do. He was the deciding vote in a 50-50 Senate and got more done in the 117th Congress than most Congresses manage in a generation. Heather Manchin brings the business mind — mapping the billions flowing to the left and the billions flowing to the right, and the politically homeless sensible majority stranded in the middle. Together they argue this is the tipping point: a handful of independent seats in the House and Senate could change everything. The conversation goes deep on **Montana**, where combat veteran **Seth Bodnar** now has a true three-way shot after the DSCC's preferred Democrat refused to step aside and the GOP hand-picked a Trump rubber stamp. Joe and Heather explain why independent veterans are the natural leaders of this movement, why the “spoiler” slander is draconian and antiquated, and why building a leadership pipeline from mayors and school boards up to the Senate is how you actually rewire American politics. It's candid, tactical and deeply hopeful — about turning frustration into structural power, and doing it before the 2026 midterms. **Get the latest episodes of Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff on the podcast's** [**YouTube channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentamericans?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### Steve Hilton Blames Sam Altman and Dario Amodei for Making America Fear AI URL: https://ivn.us/steve-hilton-blames-sam-altman-and-dario-amodei-for-making-america-fear-ai/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:39:27.000Z [Steve Hilton](https://stevehiltonforgovernor.com/?ref=ivn.us) spent part of an interview on August 11 explaining why California should make it easier to build AI data centers, and part of it blaming two of the industry's most prominent executives for the reason it has become so controversial. "I think two of the founders in particular, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, have been just a disaster for the reputation of the industry," Hilton said, in a conversation with POLITICO's Sasha Issenberg at Politico’s The California Agenda Sacramento Summit. > "Of course they've had tremendous success in terms of their businesses. But the narrative that they've been spinning for years has been catastrophic for public trust in their own industry." > WATCH LIVE: California’s GOP gubernatorial candidate [@SteveHiltonx](https://x.com/SteveHiltonx?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) joins our [@sissenberg](https://x.com/sissenberg?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) to discuss his endorsement from Trump, what the state’s Republicans can learn from the UK’s Conservative Party and more. > > Tune into the [@POLITICOLive](https://x.com/POLITICOLive?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Sacramento… > > — POLITICO (@politico) [August 11, 2026](https://x.com/politico/status/2087294265537999296?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Hilton, the Republican gubernatorial candidate facing Democrat [Xavier Becerra](https://www.xavierbecerra2026.com/?ref=ivn.us) in November, argued that years of warnings from the labs themselves about what artificial intelligence might do to the economy created the public backlash now shaping local fights over where the technology gets built. "It's because you told them to fear what you're building," he said. He described resistance to data centers as a stand-in for something larger. "The data center thing is a tangible proxy for a generalized concern about AI," he said, adding that the concern is legitimate and that he takes it seriously. Hilton said California's hostility to data center construction is pushing projects to Texas and Ohio, and that the state will lose the manufacturing that follows. He said AI-driven automation is going to erode the cost advantage of overseas production and enable a wave of reshoring, and that none of it reaches California without a change in approach. On regulation, he offered a formulation he said he had used in a speech in San Francisco the night before. "I think we're in danger of both over and under regulating at the same time," he said. He named children's safety and the intersection of AI, creativity and copyright as areas where he holds strong views. Issenberg noted that Hilton talked more about breaking up large technology companies before he became a candidate, and asked whether it was fair to say voters have heard less of it this year. "Yeah, I think that's fair," Hilton said. He said his priority as governor would be reducing regulatory and litigation pressure on business generally, and that the technology sector was not where the emergency is. "The tech sector is doing fine," he said. He identified entertainment and agriculture as the two industries he would prioritize. Hilton grounded his argument against one-party rule and cited Fareed Zakaria's program on CNN, which he said laid out a devastating case against California's sixteen years of Democratic control after the June primary. He ran through the list as he recalled it. The doubling of the budget. The homelessness crisis. The highest taxes and the worst results. The highest cost of living in the country. The highest unemployment rate of the fifty states. The highest poverty rate. The worst business climate. Asked who represents the interests of business in Sacramento, Hilton did not name anyone. He cited California's last-place ranking in Chief Executive magazine's annual state survey and said the state is the most overregulated in the country. "Nobody is really representing the interests of business in Sacramento," he said. "The lobbyists may think they are." He said litigation risk is an under-discussed part of the problem, and offered two figures without attributing them to a source. Fifty percent of California businesses, he said, are being sued right now. And there is a 90% chance that starting a business in California ends in a lawsuit. Hilton said housing was the first issue he studied when he moved from media into policy work. He wrote a CEQA reform measure similar to the one going before voters this November and said he was pleased to see it there. He listed capping developer impact fees and simplifying building regulations as steps he considers broadly acceptable across party lines, and said Democratic primary rivals including Matt Mahan, Katie Porter and Antonio Villaraigosa had found common ground with him on that. Hilton said he believes in local control and would not override city or county decisions about density. "Rather than forcing housing into communities that don't want it, let's allow housing to be built in places that do want it," he said. He anticipated the objection. "I don't call it sprawl," he said. "I call it the California dream." Issenberg, who edited POLITICO's California ballot measure coverage before becoming its managing editor for enterprise, pressed Hilton twice on his own political history. Hilton ran strategy for British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Issenberg asked what lessons the Conservative Party's 2010 return to power after thirteen years in opposition might hold for a California Republican facing sixteen years of one-party control. Hilton answered in general terms. A positive vision of the future, he said, and close attention to the cost of living. With the Conservatives now out of power and at risk of falling to third place, Issenberg asked which faction better represents the British right today. "I'm afraid I don't really follow it at all," Hilton said. He said his focus is on California. Hilton predicted his own odds at becoming governor. "I know I'm probably the only person in this room that actually thinks I can win this election," he admitted. ### Elon Musk Enters the Election Reform Chat URL: https://ivn.us/elon-musk-enters-the-election-reform-chat/ Last updated: 2026-08-12T18:28:40.000Z The parties are playing offense everywhere this week: [Elon Musk has poured $1.5 million into repealing Alaska’s Top Four open primary](https://ivn.us/elon-musk-is-trying-to-kill-alaskan-voting-rights/), while the DNC votes Saturday to ban ranked choice voting in 2028 — making it official that [**both parties now oppose RCV, even where voters made it law**](https://ivn.us/its-official-both-parties-oppose-ranked-choice-voting/). Meanwhile, there's a wild \[sarcasm\] idea out of Sacramento: **the person who runs your elections shouldn’t be partisan.** Assemblymembers Josh Hoover and Natasha Johnson just introduced [a constitutional amendment to make California’s Secretary of State nonpartisan](https://ivn.us/california-amendment-introduced-to-take-party-politics-out-of-the-office-that-runs-elections/) — taking the office that administers elections out of party hands entirely. **The referee shouldn’t wear a jersey?** The bill really isn't about what's going on in California, frankly. Just look at Missouri, where [a partisan secretary of state just told voters they aren’t allowed to say no to partisan gerrymandering](https://ivn.us/missouri-drew-a-gerrymander-now-its-secretary-of-state-says-voters-cant-say-no/). Or [New York City, where the new City administration says 1.2 million voters don't have a right to vote in their taxpayer funded primaries](https://ivn.us/1-2-million-new-yorkers-cant-vote-mamdani-says-hes-content-with-that/). When the officials who control elections answer to a party first, **the voters are the ones who get overruled ...** [Every Time. Everywhere.](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/) Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## Elon Musk is Trying to Kill Alaskan Voting Rights [![Elon Musk](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/elon-musk-campaign-spending.jpg)](https://ivn.us/elon-musk-is-trying-to-kill-alaskan-voting-rights/) Cara McCormick reports: Elon Musk has funneled $1.5 million into the campaign to repeal Alaska’s Top Four open primary — **the system that lets every Alaskan vote in every taxpayer-funded election, regardless of party**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/elon-musk-is-trying-to-kill-alaskan-voting-rights/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [California Amendment Introduced to Take Party Politics Out of the Office That Runs Elections ](https://ivn.us/california-amendment-introduced-to-take-party-politics-out-of-the-office-that-runs-elections/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![California Amendment Introduced to Take Party Politics Out of the Office That Runs Elections](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/california-amendment-secretary-of-state-nonpartisan.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/california-amendment-introduced-to-take-party-politics-out-of-the-office-that-runs-elections/) [Pelosi Finally Reveals What She Told Biden Before He Dropped Out ](https://ivn.us/pelosi-finally-reveals-what-she-told-biden-before-he-dropped-out/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Pelosi Finally Reveals What She Told Biden Before He Dropped Out](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/nancy-pelosi-joe-biden.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/pelosi-finally-reveals-what-she-told-biden-before-he-dropped-out/) [It's Official: Both Parties Oppose Ranked Choice Voting ](https://ivn.us/its-official-both-parties-oppose-ranked-choice-voting/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![It's Official: Both Parties Oppose Ranked Choice Voting](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-c02104ed-14f4-41c4-9a1a-8bd6579efde3.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/its-official-both-parties-oppose-ranked-choice-voting/) [The Republican Party Left Gen. Sarah Zabel—Now She’s Running Against It ](https://ivn.us/the-republican-party-left-gen-sarah-zabel-now-shes-running-against-it/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![The Republican Party Left Gen. Sarah Zabel—Now She’s Running Against It](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/Sarah-Zabel.png) ](https://ivn.us/the-republican-party-left-gen-sarah-zabel-now-shes-running-against-it/) [Missouri Drew a Gerrymander. Now Its Secretary of State Says Voters Can’t Say No. ](https://ivn.us/missouri-drew-a-gerrymander-now-its-secretary-of-state-says-voters-cant-say-no/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Missouri Drew a Gerrymander. Now Its Secretary of State Says Voters Can’t Say No.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-4e4f1ee3-1f6c-44fd-944b-0a7a178a9e73.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/missouri-drew-a-gerrymander-now-its-secretary-of-state-says-voters-cant-say-no/) [Alabama GOP Wants Independents Out of Its Primaries ](https://ivn.us/alabama-gop-wants-independents-out-of-its-primaries/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![Alabama GOP Wants Independents Out of Its Primaries](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/alabama-gop-closed-primaries.png) ](https://ivn.us/alabama-gop-wants-independents-out-of-its-primaries/) [The Case That Could Bring an End to Super PACs ](https://ivn.us/the-case-that-could-bring-an-end-to-super-pacs/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![The Case That Could Bring an End to Super PACs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/end-super-pacs.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-case-that-could-bring-an-end-to-super-pacs/) [In the Birthplace of the GOP, an Independent Is Coming for a Republican Seat ](https://ivn.us/in-the-birthplace-of-the-gop-an-independent-is-coming-for-a-republican-seat/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![In the Birthplace of the GOP, an Independent Is Coming for a Republican Seat](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/mike-thurow.jpeg) ](https://ivn.us/in-the-birthplace-of-the-gop-an-independent-is-coming-for-a-republican-seat/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast We dig into the escalating battle between citizen-led direct democracy and entrenched political power — starting in Missouri, where **voters crushed a partisan power grab and the state blocked them anyway**. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ageCmcqK96c&ref=ivn.us) ### *VIRAL ▶▶▶* ## Michigan’s New Senate Nominee Goes Off on John Fetterman — and Predicts He Won’t Run Again [![Michigan’s New Senate Nominee Goes Off on John Fetterman — and Predicts He Won’t Run Again](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/ElSayed_Fetterman_Clip_Preview.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/Db4KFhNj4qg/?ref=ivn.us) Will John Fetterman even run again in 2028? Michigan’s new Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed doesn’t think so - and he wasn’t polite about it. **Over 300,000 viewers have already watched the** [**full clip**](https://www.instagram.com/p/Db4KFhNj4qg/?ref=ivn.us)**.** [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/Db4KFhNj4qg/?ref=ivn.us) ### *VETERANS ▶▶▶* ## Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff Army veteran and Independent Americans host Paul Rieckhoff on the NYC Board of Elections quietly rejecting 42,000 petitions demanding open primaries — **locking roughly a million independent voters out** — plus the independent veterans making moves in South Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho, and Montana. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE1Gn%5F27gRU&ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### Pelosi Finally Reveals What She Told Biden Before He Dropped Out URL: https://ivn.us/pelosi-finally-reveals-what-she-told-biden-before-he-dropped-out/ Last updated: 2026-08-12T16:00:10.000Z In an [August 11 interview](https://www.c-span.org/program/campaign-2026/speaker-emerita-nancy-pelosi-discusses-key-policy-issues/683928?ref=ivn.us) with Politico's Jonathan Martin in Sacramento, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi delivered a scoop about the private meeting she had with Joe Biden, just before he withdrew from the 2024 race. Asked whether she regretted not speaking up earlier about President Biden's decision to run for reelection in 2024, Pelosi said no, and gave her most detailed account yet of their private conversation. "Let me say what I did about Joe Biden, because it has been written about in a way that did not really happen," she said. "I only said to President Biden, I have come to question the polling that you have and how your campaign is being conducted. I think there has to be a better campaign to win the White House." Asked how Biden responded, Pelosi said: "We were prayerful, Catholic. We had a lovely meeting. It was only the two of us, except when you put somebody on the phone to talk about the polls." She said Biden told her: > "I get tested every day in what I'm doing." > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db6wQDlj1Qf/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Independent Voter (@independentvoter)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db6wQDlj1Qf/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) Pelosi said the account of the meeting that circulated afterward "did not come from me," and that she never discussed it publicly. "I had never talked to anybody about this," she said. She added that she does not know who around Biden may have recognized the need for a change sooner. "Whoever knew, whoever knew, family knew, I don't know," she said. "They should have, because this was a great man." > Pelosi said those close to Biden during his reelection campaign should have shared what they knew about his mental acuity. > > “When you think of the debate and how sad that was, that’s really when we learned,” [@SpeakerPelosi](https://x.com/SpeakerPelosi?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) told [@jmart](https://x.com/jmart?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) at [@POLITICOLive](https://x.com/POLITICOLive?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us)'s Sacramento Summit👇 [pic.twitter.com/WMNFO6S8r4](https://t.co/WMNFO6S8r4?ref=ivn.us) > > — POLITICO (@politico) [August 11, 2026](https://x.com/politico/status/2087283688841048551?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Pelosi clearly also wanted to discuss California. She said that "power is in numbers” and confidently predicted that California will gain five new Democratic members of Congress in 2026, pushing the state's House delegation to 48 members, figures she called "very substantial" when viewed as a percentage of the whole. Pelosi said that if the Democrats take back the House, California Reps. Jared Huffman and Zoe Lofgren would become chairs of committees, and that many other California Democrats would hold subcommittee gavels, with Rep. Pete Aguilar and Rep. Ted Lieu already part of the party's leadership team. It's "not just about numbers, it's about quality," Pelosi said, calling Lofgren "remarkable" and noting she will chair the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Pelosi recalled growing frustrated after Democrats lost the House majority in 1994\. By 2000, with California's delegation split 26-26 and national Democrats needing seven seats to retake the majority, she told colleagues she would personally deliver four or five of those seats, on one condition: > "I have to run the show in California." California Democrats flipped their delegation from 31-21 that year, she said, netting a five-seat class that included Adam Schiff, Jane Harman, Mike Honda, Hilda Solis and Susan Davis. "We won five seats!" she said. Pelosi said her goal for November is thirty seats flipped nationally, and she weighed in on a competitive California race for her former seat: "I respect everyone. But I am for [Connie Chan](https://www.conniechansf.com/?ref=ivn.us) to win that seat." As for why any of it matters, she put it simply: "This is about having elections for the future." "We want to honor the values of our founders and honor the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform to protect our freedom," she said, "and we want to address and be worthy of the aspirations of our children, to make the future better for them." Pelosi said when she first arrived in Congress, only 23 of 435 members were women. She said today 96 women in Congress are Democrats, and "we want more." She said heading the Democratic Women's Caucus was among the biggest joys of her career. > "Collaboration is what I think women do very well." Today, she proudly noted, 70 percent of the Democratic caucus is made up of women, people of color or LGBTQ members, while acknowledging the group still has its "diversity of opinion" and "some disagreement." She spoke proudly of her own rise to power in the country. The speakership, she said, is "the third highest most powerful job in the country," after president and vice president, and being the first woman to hold it was "a special honor" made possible by the courage of colleagues and allies around her. She discussed the different layers of political work necessary to make change: "Without the outside groups we cannot succeed on the inside," she said. "Our volunteers in politics, our VIPs, our insider network can accomplish so much." Her job right now, she said, "is to make sure we win and that we win big in November, and that is about every member represents his or her own district." As she put it: "The job description and the job title are one and the same: representative." "Let me talk about me for a second," Pelosi said. She never set out for any of this. "If I had other aspirations when I came to Congress, then I wouldn't gain the confidence of the people," she said. "I'm a legislator. I was successful in becoming the first woman because people trusted me when I said, ‘let's build a consensus for a difficult challenge.’” Her advice to anyone weighing a run is to ask "what's your path." "I never intended to run for Congress," she said. "I never intended to run for Speaker." She recalled the moment she decided to run. By then, she had had "five children in six years and seven days," she said. She was recruited to run for Congress by Sala Burton, and left the final decision to her then 16-year-old daughter, Alexandra. She'd be gone three nights a week when Congress was in session, she told her. "Whatever you say, I will do." Alexandra's answer changed the course of history: "Mother, get a life." As Pelosi put it: "What teenage girl would not want her teenage mother outside of the house three days a week?" Her husband was "lovely about it," Pelosi said, and so she ran. She pushed back on the idea that her early dynamic with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had been rocky. "When she came, we didn’t have a rocky relationship. All we are saying to folks is, look, this is a legislative place. It is not a rally," Pelosi explained. "If you have a rallying cry, take it to the rally, but don't expect it to become the legislative agenda for people who represent completely different districts." She called working with Ocasio-Cortez "a joy" and praised her as "operational," which as Martin remarked, was high praise coming from her. Asked about Gov. Gavin Newsom's presidential ambitions, she stopped short of an endorsement and said he was "very hard working.” When asked whether she'd remain partisan in her [upcoming role at UC Berkeley](https://npi.berkeley.edu/?ref=ivn.us), Pelosi called it "almost emancipation from partisan politics." "Not from politics, but partisanship," she clarified, "because I think I can play a role in trying to bring people together." She recalled a Congress where "we have Democrats and Republicans and differences of opinion and respect for each other," adding, "we viewed each other as patriots and differences of opinion, that was a great thing." She pointed to UC Berkeley's most popular new class this fall, on "how to understand another person's perspective." "Is that not beautiful? Isn't that what we should be trying to do?" she asked. > "Leaving the politics to the issues, not policies of personal destruction as they have been doing to me, but just on the issues: where do you stand on the policy? Where can you find common ground?" That, she said, is what the Founders had in mind in giving the House two-year terms. Pelosi explained that around the time of the Declaration of Independence, the framers began writing "the blueprint for democracy," the Constitution, and the House of Representatives mattered enormously to them: unlike the Senate, it gave the public full, proportional representation from the start. Madison and Jefferson believed the House has a "spiritual relationship" with the people, she said, and that is the reason for its two-year terms, to keep members perpetually running for re-election. The House functions as a constant check on the president, and she said pointedly that the 2026 midterms will be "a referendum on our president." Pelosi didn't hold back on the current state of the opposition, saying Republicans "are destroying our democracy, shattering hopes and dreams and aspirations of our founders." ### IA-1 Is the Tightest District in America. Independent Michael Bridgford Sees That as an Opening. URL: https://ivn.us/ia-1-is-the-tightest-district-in-america-independent-michael-bridgford-sees-that-as-an-opening/ Last updated: 2026-08-12T15:43:08.000Z *Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain almost entirely unrepresented in Congress. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home.* *A handful of high-profile independent candidates are trying to change that in 2026\. They are often covered as fringe candidates whose stories are told through the lens of how they'll impact the outcome between a Republican and a Democrat, rather than on their own terms. This series exists because independent voters deserve better than that.* *Michael Bridgford is running for US House in Iowa's 1st Congressional District.* ## **The Candidate** Michael Bridgford is a 41-year-old self-employed financial adviser from Bettendorf who had never run for office before this cycle. He was[ raised on a seventh-generation family farm](https://www.thegazette.com/news/politics/independent-candidate-michael-bridgford-enters-iowa-s-1st-congressional-race/article%5F34bf50eb-15e7-4a1d-ae92-7863b023d78d.html?ref=ivn.us) outside the Quad Cities in Joy, Illinois; attended public schools; and[ earned an MBA from Northwestern](https://www.aol.com/news/michael-bridgford-mounts-independent-campaign-110417699.html?ref=ivn.us). He has told interviewers that his family's experience in the[ 1980s farm crisis](https://who13.com/news/politics/iowa-politics/meet-independent-candidate-for-congress-michael-bridgford/?ref=ivn.us) shaped how he thinks about economics, and he has voted for and been registered with both parties over the course of his life. His campaign launched with four pillars—[lowering costs and restoring fiscal sanity; putting Iowa producers first; ending the culture wars; and revitalizing rural health care](https://www.ourquadcities.com/news/local-news/michael-bridgford-bettendorf-announces-congressional-run-for-1st-district/?ref=ivn.us)—alongside an anti-corruption package of term limits, age maximums, and a congressional stock trading ban. This platform has since expanded to include other topic areas. ## **The Race** Iowa's 1st spans 20 counties in the southeast corner of the state. It is, by margin, the closest House district in the country. Rep. Miller-Meeks (Republican) won it in[ 2024 by 799 votes](https://www.iowapublicradio.org/political-news/2026-05-29/iowas-1st-congressional-district-miller-meeks-christina-bohannan-primary-election?ref=ivn.us) after a districtwide recount. That’s two-tenths of a point in a district Trump carried by more than eight, and a significant shift from the \~20,000 votes she beat her Democratic opponent by just 2 years earlier. Her first win, in 2020, came by just six votes. [The Cook Political Report rates it a toss-up](https://www.cookpolitical.com/house/race/483086?ref=ivn.us). November will be the[ third consecutive Miller-Meeks–Bohannan matchup](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/07/23/rep-miller-meeks-and-bohannan-to-meet-for-third-consecutive-election-in-iowas-1st-district-on-november-3-2026/?ref=ivn.us). That repetition is central to Bridgford's pitch. "They've just beaten each other up so much with negative ads now heading into this third election," he said in an interview with IVN. The registration math is the other half of the argument. As of August, the district had[ 153,396 active no-party or other party voters, 166,348 Republicans, and 144,161 Democrats](https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/pdf/VRStatsArchive/2026/CongAug26.pdf?ref=ivn.us), according to the Iowa Secretary of State. No-party beat out the Democrats for the second largest bloc, and, because Iowa runs[ partisan primaries that require a party declaration](https://www.independentcenter.org/articles/why-iowa-is-an-independent-voter-hotspot?ref=ivn.us), those numbers are likely soft as people register in a party to vote in the primary. If Bridgford can consolidate that voting bloc behind his campaign, it could lead to an unexpected outcome in November that wouldn’t be seen in the primary vote totals. The money, as is often the case in races with independents, is not close. IA-1 is at the top of the target list for the Democratic Party, and the money pouring into the race for both major party candidates reflects that. [Through June 30](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/house/IA/01/2026/?ref=ivn.us), Miller-Meeks has raised roughly $7.21 million, and Bohannan has raised roughly $7.05 million, with[ about $4.7 million and $5.5 million on hand](https://www.thegazette.com/news/politics/republicans-outspending-dem-candidates-in-u-s-house-races/article%5Fc4f63734-870e-5b5b-a3df-6189f6e12f32.html?ref=ivn.us), respectively. Bridgford raised roughly $190,000. While the money discrepancy is stark, Bridgford expects the top of the ticket to help him. Iowa has open races for[ governor and US Senate](https://www.npr.org/2026/06/02/g-s1-125550/iowa-election-results-josh-turek-zach-lahn?ref=ivn.us)—Rob Sand against Zach Lahn, and Josh Turek against Ashley Hinson. He points to[ Lahn's primary upset of Trump-endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra](https://iowastartingline.com/news/zach-lahn-iowa-primary-2026/?ref=ivn.us) as evidence of an independent streak in Iowa's electorate, and argues both gubernatorial nominees "are talking more to independents than they are to partisans." If that focus increases the vote share of independents in November, that presents an opening for Bridgford. ## **The Polling** The most recent public survey of the district is the[ Bullfinch Group poll conducted for the Independent Center](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/iowa-us-house-1-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us), fielded in mid-July across five races featuring independent candidates. Bridgford says the Bullfinch survey tested a three-way race between him and the two major party candidates. He reports that the survey (which isn’t fully released) put him at 11%, with only 21% of voters having formed an opinion of him and two of three of those viewing him favorably. According to him, this shows that he isn't behind on preference so much as on recognition, against two candidates on their third campaign. "I've basically been in this 105 or so days," he said. If that 21% number can increase substantially while the 2-to-1 favorability split holds, there is a lot of upside for the independent. ## **Building Independent Infrastructure That Doesn't Exist** Independent candidates frequently run into an infrastructure problem, where campaign experts and tools aren’t immediately available the way they are for major party candidates. "A lot of vendors we talked to love the campaign, love the message, but just said, you know, we'd be blacklisted if we were to work with you," he reported. In the tightest seat in the country, no consultant with party clients wants to be the firm that helped the independent. His campaign instead has relied on personal connections and University of Iowa students, whom he describes as the campaign's operational backbone. He calls it "a snowball that's turned into an avalanche." That avalanche is starting to grow nationally. We’ve reported on the network being built around the independent Senate candidates, and that’s started to expand to independent House candidates, at least regionally. But the movement has also seen a lot of national attention over the past month with Sen. Manchin’s announcement of an independent initiative. Bridgford was one of the candidates who[ convened in West Virginia at the behest of the former Senator](https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/24/politics/joe-manchin-recruit-independent-candidates?ref=ivn.us) for the launch of the Independent Leadership Council, alongside Rep. Kevin Kiley, Seth Bodnar, and Todd Achilles. Attendees signed the council's *Declaration of Independence*—a three-part pledge to work towards open primaries, engage in cross-aisle work, and explain their votes to their constituents. He has also taken the[ Political Integrity Pledge](https://integrityindex.us/pledge?ref=ivn.us), promising to turn down corporate PAC money and accepting a personal ban on stock trading while in office, as well as working to overturn *Citizens United*. His read on what a win would do is infrastructural rather than legislative. "The idea that if just two, three, four people can win this year, you're going to have 25, 30, 50 people run the next election," he said. "And then on the other side of it, also having the infrastructure for it." ## **The Two-Year Test** What separates Bridgford's policy answers from the movement's usual register is that he refuses to promise things a single House term cannot deliver. His tenor is realistic and practical rather than grandiose and utopian/apocalyptic. Asked about health care—Medicare for All, a public option, enhanced ACA subsidies—he declined all of it on feasibility grounds. "I'm running here to be elected in 2026, and right now President Trump is president, and he'll likely be the president through 2028," he said. "I just don't see any plausibility to those being put in place in the next two years." What he'd pursue instead is price transparency: "Health care is one of the only places where you don't know what you're paying. You get home two weeks later, you get a bill, and it's a made-up number." The same discipline runs through his fiscal answers. He backs a deficit cap at 3% of GDP and a pay-as-you-go rule, but concedes the emergency carve-out immediately—war, pandemic, financial crisis—with a supermajority override. "The problem is those are the times when we need to be running big deficits," he said. "But we do it then, and then we keep doing it after we get through it, and that's what's unacceptable." Closing the gap, he says, takes both revenue and cuts, and he named corporate taxation at the high end and Pentagon end-of-year "use it or lose it" spending as places to start. On housing, he mentions the good in the[ 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which became law in July](https://www.npr.org/2026/07/10/nx-s1-5885027/housing-bill-without-trump-signature?ref=ivn.us) without Trump's signature, but argues mortgage rates near 7% won't fall until the fiscal picture improves. His leverage strategy is scoped the same way. He would not vote for Mike Johnson or Hakeem Jeffries —"if it was 217, 217, and one, and I was the one, I wouldn't be voting for either"—and would trade his speaker vote for single-issue bills instead of omnibus packages, a floor vote on term limits, and a rewrite of how committees are constituted so the majority doesn't hold total control. ## **The Assessment** Bridgford is running the hardest version of the independent play: no party infrastructure, a fraction of the money, and a three-way race against opponents with high name ID in a district previously decided by 799 votes. Both major parties see their chances at a House majority running through a win in the district. But the thing worth noticing is what he isn't doing. The independent lane has a persistent temptation toward the grand promise—that breaking the two-party grip will unlock everything at once. Bridgford has declined that framing repeatedly, in an interview where the easier answer was always available. His answers are incremental, practical, and, maybe most importantly, realistic. For a movement whose credibility problem often stems from making promises about quick and major changes for the better with a single election cycle of wins, while at the same time failing to make any electoral headway, the self-restraint is notable. The district has seen razor-thin margins, and the independent voter bloc is large and hasn’t had a say in who will appear on the general election ballot. With Rep. Miller-Meeks and Bohannon being that matchup for the third time in a row, many of those voters might decide it’s time to try something new. How many will make that decision will be what to watch out for in November. ### California Amendment Introduced to Take Party Politics Out of the Office That Runs Elections URL: https://ivn.us/california-amendment-introduced-to-take-party-politics-out-of-the-office-that-runs-elections/ Last updated: 2026-08-25T18:34:05.000Z **SACRAMENTO, Calif.** — Two Republican Assembly members in California have introduced an amendment to the state constitution designed to take partisan politics out of election administration. In California, candidates for secretary of state run under a party label, they campaign on partisan issues, and while in office they oversee their own elections as well as the elections of party candidates they may support on the campaign trail. The ballot may be nonpartisan. Campaigns run under the state’s Top Two open primary system. But the office isn’t— something critics argue presents a clear conflict of interest. Republican Assemblymembers Josh Hoover (AD-7) and Natasha Johnson (AD-63) want to at least separate the office from party labels. On August 10, they [introduced ACA 23](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260ACA23&ref=ivn.us), which adds “secretary of state” to the list of offices required by the state constitution to be nonpartisan. Offices already required by law to be nonpartisan are “judicial, school, county, and city offices, including the Superintendent of Public Instruction.” No public statements have been released yet by either Assembly member on the amendment. IVN reached out to Assemblymember Hoover’s office for comment and will update the article with any remarks. Hoover was recently appointed by Assembly Republican Leader Alexandra M. Macedo to be the Minority Floor Leader. He is a member of the California Legislative Problem Solvers Caucus and has [built a reputation for working across the aisle in Sacramento](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/josh-hoover-165420?ref=ivn.us). Under ACA 23, when candidates file to run for California’s top elections office, a party label won’t appear next to their name on the ballot and candidates cannot be nominated by a political party or party central committee. Because it is a constitutional amendment, the issue will go before voters if it gets approval from two-thirds of the state Assembly and the Senate. This is not a new idea in Sacramento. A nearly identical measure, ACA 10, was introduced in the 1999-2000 legislative session with the same goal of making the secretary of state's office nonpartisan. It failed then. However, at a time when public opinion polls show broad concern over partisan influence in elections, there may be higher demand for this type of reform. For example, Gallup [released new survey findings](https://news.gallup.com/poll/712955/election-concerns-run-high-ahead-2026-midterms.aspx?ref=ivn.us) at the end of July that found that 67% of US voters are concerned “a great deal” or “a fair amount” that political leaders will try to pressure election administrators to manipulate election outcomes. “States should definitely be thinking about reforming the secretary of state, but more is needed than just making their election nonpartisan,” said Kevin Johnson, founding executive director of the Election Reformers Network. > *“That reform could be combined with nonpartisan qualifications like those for the Citizens Redistricting Commission, and preventions against a secretary of state running for a partisan position after they leave office.”* The Election Reformers Network, founded in 2017, has studied this issue for years. Johnson argues that electing a partisan official to oversee a state’s elections makes the United States a global outlier among democracies. No other developed democracy in the world gives political parties such control over elections. The concern is straightforward: When candidates loyal to a party are in charge of elections, including their own party’s contests and their own re-election bids, it is like letting the players of a baseball team officiate the rules of their games. This is a concern not restricted or confined to a single party and has been identified by bipartisan commissions in the past as an area that needs reform. The [2005 Carter-Baker Commission](https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac%5Fassets/1/6/Exhibit%20M.PDF?ref=ivn.us)–co-chaired by Jimmy Carter and James Baker–recommended nonpartisan selection of key election officials and conflict-of-interest standards designed to insulate election administration from partisan political activity. On page 50 of the commission’s report, it explicitly calls for “nonpartisan election administration” and says states should consider transferring election authority from elected secretaries of state to a chief election officer who would serve as a nonpartisan official. It even proposes that such officials be approved by a two-thirds legislative majority to encourage bipartisan support. ACA 23 doesn’t go that far, but it does address one of the biggest concerns tied to election administration in the US. For now, the amendment has just been introduced. The path to becoming law includes clearing committee review, securing two-thirds votes in both the Assembly and the Senate, and then winning approval from California voters as a statewide ballot measure. Each of these steps is a significant hurdle on its own, and the last time a nearly identical proposal was floated, it did not survive the process. Whether ACA 23 is more successful remains to be seen. Stay tuned to IVN for more on this story. ### Texas Banned Gas-Station THC. Talarico Says It’s a Gift to the Cartels URL: https://ivn.us/texas-banned-gas-station-thc-talarico-says-its-a-gift-to-the-cartels/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T17:25:08.000Z **AUSTIN, Texas**—A statewide ban on most intoxicating hemp-derived THC products took effect in Texas on Friday, July 31, 2026, roughly seven years after the Texas Legislature legalized hemp in the first place. The Texas Supreme Court overturned an injunction that prevented Texas from enforcing its classification of manufactured delta-8 as a Schedule I controlled substance. Almost overnight, the policy became a wedge issue in one of the most closely watched US Senate races in the country. The 2026 midterm between Democratic nominee [State Rep. James Talarico](https://jamestalarico.com/?ref=ivn.us) and Republican nominee [Attorney General Ken Paxton](https://www.kenpaxton.com/?ref=ivn.us) was already drawing national attention, with [recent polling](https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/election-2026/2026/08/10/559012/james-talarico-ken-paxton-poll-houston/?ref=ivn.us) showing Talarico either leading or roughly tied with Paxton—an unexpectedly competitive picture for a Texas Senate seat. The new prohibition in Texas targets synthetically created or derived forms of THC, including delta-8, delta-10, THCA flower, and THCP, the very products that have filled shelves at smoke shops, gas stations, and online storefronts across the state since 2019. Talarico is against the ban, calling it "a gift to the cartels" and warning that Texas is "going back to the days of prohibition," according to Houston Public Media. Talarico also framed the ban as a matter of government overreach. > *"This is the nanny state at its worst. This is big government at its worst."* Talarico's framing lets him court libertarian-leaning voters and the powerful Texas hemp industry at the same time, a coalition that could matter in a race with Paxton that is this tight. [Paxton's approach](https://ivn.us/paxton-concedes-he-has-conflict-interest-texas-primary-lawsuit-2025-10-13/) has been the opposite of Talarico's. As Texas attorney general, he has taken a hard public line against cannabis decriminalization, and he has sued a number of Texas municipalities that he accused of adopting local policies designed to blunt enforcement of state drug laws. His record leaves little doubt about where he stands on loosening restrictions. Houston Public Media reported that it reached out to Paxton for comment on the prohibition but had not received a response by publication. Paxton's silence comes even as he has been drawn into the legal fight over the ban. The attorney general has been named as a defendant in at least one federal lawsuit brought by hemp retailers and distributors, who argue the prohibition is an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce under the 2018 Farm Bill. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat like Talarico, has taken a hard line against intoxicating hemp products, the opposite posture from his Texas counterpart. Newsom pushed through emergency regulations in 2024 and later signed [Assembly Bill 8](https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CEH/DFDCS/Pages/FDBPrograms/FoodSafetyProgram/AssemblyBill8FAQ.aspx?ref=ivn.us), folding intoxicating hemp products into California's regulated cannabis system and banning synthetic cannabinoids like delta-8 outright. As of January 1, 2026, hemp flower, pre-rolls that contain hemp flower or hemp-derived cannabinoids, and inhalable cannabis products containing THC derived from hemp cannot be sold, offered, or provided in California. As IVN reported in "[*Is Texas About to Be More Chill Than California on Hemp*](https://ivn.us/texas-about-be-more-chill-hemp-california-2025-06-19/)," Newsom framed the crackdown as a matter of protecting children from unregulated products, arguing: > *"We will not sit on our hands while bad actors in the hemp industry target our children with dangerous and intoxicating hemp products containing THC at our retail stores." - California Governor Gavin Newsom* Newsom, an all-but-declared candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, seems opposed to Talarico on the core question of whether to restrict gas-station THC, a reminder that the hemp divide does not sort neatly along party lines even as it shapes a marquee US Senate contest in Texas. The underlying problem traces back to a loophole in how hemp was legalized. IVN's investigative series details how the 0.3% delta-9 THC threshold allowed unregulated, untested "gas station hemp" to proliferate right alongside licensed, lab-tested cannabis, a dynamic laid out in "[*How It Really Works: The Unfair Fight Between Legal Cannabis and Unregulated 'Gas-Station' Hemp*](https://ivn.us/how-it-really-works-unfair-fight-between-legal-cannabis-and-unregulated-gas-station-hemp-2025/)." While Texas and California debate hemp policy at the state level, Congress has been moving toward a nationwide crackdown of its own. A provision enacted in the [FY2026 Agriculture appropriations act heavily restricts hemp](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF13136?ref=ivn.us) products by capping total THC limits at a tiny 0.4 milligrams per container, effectively wiping out the intoxicating hemp market forever. [On August 8, 2026, the US Senate voted to delay this forthcoming ban](https://www.valleynewslive.com/2026/08/08/senate-passes-delay-federal-hemp-ban-giving-industry-more-time/?ref=ivn.us). If approved by the House, it will grant a brief extension until December 11, 2026, giving the industrial hemp industry a final window to lobby for regulation over an [outright federal ban](https://ivn.us/congress-moves-ban-unregulated-intoxicating-hemp-being-sold-gas-stations-nationwide-2025-06/). ### The Republican Party Left Gen. Sarah Zabel—Now She’s Running Against It URL: https://ivn.us/the-republican-party-left-gen-sarah-zabel-now-shes-running-against-it/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T16:18:41.000Z *Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain almost entirely unrepresented in Congress. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home.* *A handful of high-profile independent candidates are trying to change that in 2026\. They are often covered as fringe candidates whose stories are told through the lens of how they'll impact the outcome between a Republican and a Democrat, rather than on their own terms. This series exists because independent voters deserve better than that.* *In Idaho's 1st Congressional District, Sarah Zabel is running for the US House of Representatives.* ## **The Candidate** Sarah Zabel spent 31 years in the Air Force, retiring in 2018 as a major general specializing in[ communications, computer systems, and cybersecurity](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/who-i-am?ref=ivn.us). She is an Air Force Academy graduate who counts[ 19 moves in 31 years](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/who-i-am?ref=ivn.us)—Japan, Germany, Qatar, and nine states—before settling on land she bought in Bayview, on Lake Pend Oreille, in 2013 while still on active duty. She took possession of the house she built there in 2020. ## **An Independent—But Not an Anti-Partisan** Zabel's explanation for running outside the parties is meaningfully different from most independents in this series, and she is careful about the distinction. She is not against parties. She is waiting for one to come back. "I have a coherent political ideology, and it is not represented by either of the parties," she told IVN. She was a Republican for three decades, becoming an independent in 2018 because "Republicans were full MAGA, and I could not embrace the MAGA philosophy at all. I could not embrace the Democratic philosophy at all." But she frames that as a potentially temporary condition. "I'm a used-to-be Republican, Republican heritage. Would like to be a Republican again, but they got to come back this way." And she extends the hope to both sides: "I really hope both of the parties come back to the middle. But I'm not confident of it." She has a historian's patience about the whole arrangement. "We've had different parties come and go over time. I don't know if these two parties will survive or if they will be replaced by something." Her own party of the future would center "on business, make sure it's fair to the people, have a safety net." She even rejects the standard polling shorthand for people like her: "The terminology that people like Gallup use, which is 'independent leans Republican'—no, that still doesn't describe it, because this independent would vote against MAGA every single day of the week." The label she does use came from an unusual, and very modern, place. Having written out her policy positions, she fed them into an AI model and asked what political philosophy they described. It came back *Eisenhower Republican*. Her campaign now makes the case explicitly, arguing the Republican Party[ abandoned the tradition that "built the interstate highway system, the GI Bill, and the research investments that created American technological dominance"](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us) in favor of the belief "that tax cuts alone would provide the investment necessary to feed the economy." ## **The Analytical Method** Zabel's platform is the most extensively developed of any independent House candidate this series has covered—in fact, it might be one of the most extensively developed of any candidate for any office. She also organizes her platform in an interesting manner, starting with [four convictions](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/what-i-stand-for?ref=ivn.us) from which individual positions are derived. Rather than building her platform around policy, she builds it around principles, letting the specific ideas grow from her core beliefs. She describes writing it as a research project. When she decided to run, "you can't just say no, no, no. You've got to say what does yes look like? What does good look like?" So she taught herself healthcare policy, Social Security, economics, and tax—"all that stuff that I just assumed that the people that we hired to do the job, that they were doing the job. Bad assumption." Where a worked-out consensus already existed, she adopted it rather than inventing her own. On Social Security, she took most of a Brookings Institution framework she describes as deliberately bipartisan. Her site is also candid about what remains unfinished: AI and digital integrity is flagged as[ the area "where policy is least developed—the problem is genuinely new."](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/what-i-stand-for?ref=ivn.us) She also runs a[ live Q&A on the first and third Tuesdays of every month](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us), open to anyone. Asked what people bring to them, she described a mix. Some attendees come to accuse her of being a Democrat in disguise. Most come to talk about healthcare. ## **Affordability and the Debt** Zabel treats affordability and the national debt as the same ledger viewed from two sides. Her platform notes the country now[ pays more in interest on the debt than it spends on defense](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/what-i-stand-for?ref=ivn.us), and she supports "tax reform that asks more from those with the highest earnings—not to punish success, but because the alternative is a debt trajectory that no serious person defends," paired with spending and regulatory reform. On the cost of living in Idaho specifically, her prescriptions are structural:[ drop broad tariffs](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/what-i-stand-for?ref=ivn.us) to lower construction and insurance costs; build a workforce sufficient to construct housing; target tariffs where necessary to create positive outcomes for American businesses and farmers; and revamp temporary work permits to match actual agricultural needs of the state. Idaho's dairies and ranches, she notes, operate year-round, while the H-2A visa program covers nine months of seasonal work—a mismatch she says leaves crops in the field and businesses on the edge. ## **Healthcare** Healthcare is where her approach leads to the clearest break with both parties. She argues the Democratic focus on insurance addresses one of four cost centers and ignores three others—[hospital services; physician services; and prescription drug costs—that grow at 5.8% a year](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/health-care?ref=ivn.us) by CMS projections. Her core diagnosis is that the standard market answer doesn't apply. "Health care doesn't behave like a normal market: adding competition doesn't automatically bring prices down, and in rural Idaho there often isn't any competition to add." Adding a second hospital, her platform argues, is like building a second airport next to the first—you get underutilization of both, not price competition. She does not endorse Medicare for All, and her reasoning is the rural cross-subsidy: rural hospitals don't break even on Medicare and Medicaid patients today and stay open by charging private insurers more, so extending government reimbursement rates to all payers removes that. "For Idaho's First District—where in many communities there is one hospital, one clinic, one option—that gamble isn't abstract." She is explicit and realistic in a way that many business leaders but few politicians are, admitting that if her own structural reforms fail, some other ideas she currently dismisses "deserve\[\] a serious hearing." Her health care proposals run across all[ four pillars](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/health-care?ref=ivn.us): site-neutral payments and antitrust enforcement against hospital consolidation; funded comparative effectiveness research and real price transparency; patent reform, expanded Medicare negotiation, international reference pricing, and a surtax on excess pharmaceutical profits; and using that surtax revenue as a bridge to restore expired ACA subsidies. She puts the local stakes at an estimated 35,000 Idahoans who lost Marketplace coverage when enhanced subsidies expired at the end of 2025. ## **Corruption** On corruption, Zabel supports banning congressional stock trading and is immediately clear about its limits: "even though that still leaves a loophole, because you can't really ban the trading of somebody's spouse or somebody's child." This proposal reflects a recognition of deeper problems in our public sphere. “I fully agree that corruption is rampant and it's awful, and we need to do something about it. And I'm not even at the point where I can put together the list of things that we need to do." Outside of a stock trading ban, she puts forward several ideas on institutional accountability to tackle public corruption, which her platform treats as the structural version of the same problem:[ restructuring inspectors general to report directly to Congress, strengthening whistleblower protections, and restoring congressional oversight of federal agencies and the use of military force](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/what-i-stand-for?ref=ivn.us). She cites the War Powers Act and Idahoans detained at a family event in Wilder in the same breath. The analytical approach to her policy platform also informs what she *won’t* put forward in her platform. Asked about primary reform—which she calls "a huge part of making our government answerable to the people"—she declined to propose a federal fix. "Primaries are a state issue, and I believe that the federal government needs to be limited." Campaign finance reform, she noted, is the federal lever that helps, and where she’d focus her reform efforts. ## **The Case Against Fulcher** Zabel's critique of Rep. Russ Fulcher, seeking a fifth term, is that he substitutes gestures for governance. She points to his sponsorship of legislation reviving short-term, limited-duration health plans—"junk insurance"—as a non-solution to healthcare costs, and to his introducing a One Subject at a Time Act weeks after voting for the roughly 900-page One Big Beautiful Bill Act he had campaigned against on fiscal grounds. She also faults him on public lands—more than[ 60% of Idaho is federally held](https://www.zabelforcongress.com/what-i-stand-for?ref=ivn.us), and Fulcher[ has backed transferring and selling some of it](https://idahocapitalsun.com/2026/06/11/you-are-witnessing-an-independent-movement-in-idaho-politics/?ref=ivn.us), while she supports the Public Lands in Public Hands Act. ## **The Race, and the Network** ID-01 is[ rated R+22](https://www.cookpolitical.com/house/race/482946?ref=ivn.us), the 21st most Republican district in the country. Fulcher[ won the May 19 primary with 78.2%](https://ballotpedia.org/Idaho%27s%5F1st%5FCongressional%5FDistrict?ref=ivn.us); Kaylee Peterson took the Democratic nomination with 87.1% and faces Fulcher for the third consecutive cycle after losing by 45 points in 2024\. Fulcher has[ raised $662,615, holding $244,699 on hand](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/house/ID/01/2026/?ref=ivn.us) through late April. Zabel's coalition is aimed at moderate Republicans first. She lives in Bonner County and says some of her volunteers are "hardcore MAGA flag-flying people who are actively campaigning for me" because "they want things to work. They want to fix Social Security. They want to fix the debt." One of the most useful things she disclosed is infrastructural. Asked which organizations have helped, she said the most valuable group has no name at all—an ad hoc network of independents across neighboring states that she credits Todd Achilles's campaign manager with convening. "\[I\]t's just been a godsend." Achilles, the independent challenging Sen. Jim Risch, is[ now in a one-on-one race after the Democratic nominee withdrew this week](https://ivn.us/the-democrat-is-out-in-idaho-now-its-independent-todd-achilles-vs-jim-risch/). Zabel has also hired a team from "a growing list of consultants who work specifically with independents"—a scarce commodity, since most operatives risk "poisoning themselves with their preferred base by supporting an independent overtly." Her advice to prospective independents is operational: start early, map your own network, learn how your state and district parties actually work, and find a compliance professional immediately. ## **Assessment** Asked what would make her time in Congress worthwhile, Zabel gave a deadline rather than a wish list: put Social Security on track, get debt reforms started in a form both parties can claim as their own, and get ahead of AI and deepfakes before the 2028 presidential election. "Turn the Titanic away from the iceberg within six years. That's my goal." ID-01 is not a district anyone flips on the merits of a policy platform alone, and Zabel is running against a four-term incumbent with a heavy resource advantage. But she has produced the most substantive body of policy work in this series, and a rationale for independence that doesn't depend on hating parties, only on noticing that neither one currently represents her. Tariffs are hitting the district in which she’s running particularly hard, and her policy platform and way of talking about problems makes it hard for anyone to seriously argue she’s a Democrat in disguise. The appeal of her approach—practical, rational, results-oriented—has already seen some Republicans buck the party to serve as volunteer leads on her campaign. This November will test how deep that shift can go. ### Despite National and Local Pressure, Montana's Democratic Senate Candidate Stays On the Ballot URL: https://ivn.us/despite-nation/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:39:18.000Z Montana's US Senate race is going to November as a four-way contest. Democratic nominee Alani Bankhead did not withdraw by[ Monday's 5 p.m. deadline](https://www.montanarightnow.com/missoula/bankhead-says-family-targeted-including-underage-daughter-as-u-s-senate-withdrawal-deadline-approaches/article%5Fd98992be-6011-4cc9-9656-49835280b56f.html?ref=ivn.us), despite pressure from local and national Democrats. This decision puts Montana in contrast with [Idaho](https://ivn.us/the-democrat-is-out-in-idaho-now-its-independent-todd-achilles-vs-jim-risch/), [South Dakota](https://ivn.us/a-third-democrat-drops-out-now-independent-brian-bengs-takes-on-incumbent-sen-mike-rounds-head-to-head/), and [Nebraska](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-officially-osborn-vs-ricketts-unless-republicans-stop-it/), where the Democrat dropped out of the race to clear the way for an independent candidate to take on the Republican head-to-head. The outcome had been telegraphed for weeks. Both Bankhead and Bodnar have repeatedly made public statements that they did not plan to drop out of the race. The two[ met twice in late July](https://www.ktvh.com/news/montana-politics/bodnar-bankhead-meet-but-still-not-in-alignment-on-way-forward-for-u-s-senate-race?ref=ivn.us) with state party executive director Emily Marburger present as an observer but were unable to reach an agreement that would allow for either to take on Republican candidate Kurt Alme without the other in the race. **The money isn't close. The polling tells a few conflicting stories, depending on source.** Bodnar has raised [roughly $3.2 million](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/MT/2026/?ref=ivn.us), more than Bankhead and Alme combined. Alme has raised just shy of $2 million. Bankhead has not cleared $60,000. Polling sponsored by pro-independent groups shows Bodnar as the stronger general-election candidate.[ A GQR survey paid for by the nonprofit Contours](https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-07-28-exclusive-independent-leads-democrat-against-republican-montana?ref=ivn.us) found Bodnar beating Alme 50–44 head-to-head, while Bankhead lost 44–52.[ ](https://www.newsweek.com/montana-senate-seth-bodnar-democrat-republican-independent-12185515?ref=ivn.us) [Tavern Research, polling before the primary](https://www.newsweek.com/montana-senate-seth-bodnar-democrat-republican-independent-12185515?ref=ivn.us), had Bodnar tied with Alme at 50 and Alme beating Bankhead 56–44. Republican-sponsored polling inverts it. An[ NRSC survey provided to the Republican-aligned Washington Reporter](https://washingtonreporter.news/exclusive-polling-and-democratic-infighting-give-republican-kurt-alme-early-lead-in-montana-senate-race/?ref=ivn.us) showed Alme leading Bodnar 50–43 head-to-head, but only 49–46 over Bankhead. Most recently, [a poll by Hart Research](https://forwardmontana.org/results-of-new-polling-on-the-montana-u-s-senate-election/?ref=ivn.us) commissioned by Forward Montana has Bodnar’s support rising while Bankhead’s falls. In a four-way race (including the Libertarian), Alme leads with 45% to Bodnar’s 30% and Bankhead’s 15%. Head-to-head, they have an Alme-Bodnar matchup tied at 46%, whereas in the Alme-Bankhead matchup, the Democrat loses 52-38\. In these head-to-head matchups, both candidates receive around 90% of the Democratic vote, while Bodnar does significantly better with independents. With Alme, Bankhead, and Bodnar all on the ballot in November, comparisons can be made between the outcomes in Montana vs. Idaho, Nebraska, and South Dakota. We’ll be sure to analyze those results when they’re released. ### Elon Musk is Trying to Kill Alaskan Voting Rights URL: https://ivn.us/elon-musk-is-trying-to-kill-alaskan-voting-rights/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:39:08.000Z **ANCHORAGE, Alaska** —Elon Musk has put more than a million dollars behind an effort to roll back Alaska's Top Four open primary system, according to reporting by the [Anchorage Daily News](https://www.adn.com/politics/2026/08/07/worlds-wealthiest-man-spends-big-to-repeal-alaskas-voting-system/?ref=ivn.us). He does not live in Alaska and does not vote there. Musk, the richest man in the world, funneled $1.5 million into a Wisconsin-based PAC called the Aurora Action Network. That PAC passed $1 million of his money to a campaign called "Repeal Now," the Alaska committee backing a "Yes" vote on Ballot Measure 2, which goes before voters on November 3, 2026. In 2020, Alaska voters approved a citizens’ initiative allowing for a nonpartisan primary open to all voters and candidates, regardless of party preference. The top four candidates in each race then advance to a general election that uses ranked choice ballots The new system was first used in 2022 and again in 2024\. In 2024, Alaska voters also rejected a repeal attempt by roughly 700 votes out of more than 334,000 cast. Now, Musk is funding a second effort to repeal that system, which would revert Alaska to closed partisan primaries and traditional pick-one elections. The measure he is supporting would also roll back campaign finance disclosure laws that currently let Alaska voters track when outside donors are spending in state races. Attorney Scott Kendall, who was part of the reform campaign in 2020, noted that the only reason we know about Musk's spending in Alaska is because of these new disclosure rules. Without them, Musk could inject huge sums of cash into Alaska elections like this without anyone knowing the source. > The irony that [@Downing907](https://x.com/Downing907?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) won’t acknowledge? > > The \*only\* reason we know that Musk dropped over $1 million into AK’s elections is because of our law banning Dark Money… > > …the very law that Musk donated to help repeal—if successful next time he can donate in secret.[#akleg](https://x.com/hashtag/akleg?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [https://t.co/2wfAccMQ5g](https://t.co/2wfAccMQ5g?ref=ivn.us) > > — Scott Kendall (@scooterkendall) [August 8, 2026](https://x.com/scooterkendall/status/2085903066449269076?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The Aurora Action Network's funders also include Dick Uihlein, Jeff Yass, Timothy Mellon, and Hilcorp owner Jeffery Hildebrand, according to the reporting. Judy Eledge, chair of the repeal campaign, was quoted by the Anchorage Daily News about the megadonor support: > *"It's hard to even put into words the gratitude that we feel that these titans of industry would show interest in our small state."* Money is flowing on both sides. The group defending Alaska's current system has raised more than $5 million. Alaska's measure isn't the only front in the fight over political transparency and campaign spending. In Maine, Equal Citizens and Citizens to End Super PACs fought and won a ballot measure capping super PAC contributions at $5,000\. It was an effort organized three years ago by Harvard law professor and Equal Citizens founder Larry Lessig,[ whose challenge to the legal underpinning of super PACs is now before the First Circuit Court of Appeals.](https://ivn.us/the-case-that-could-bring-an-end-to-super-pacs/) Musk launched a short-lived third party, the America Party, in July 2025 amid a public break with President Trump. However, [more than a month after the announcement, the party still had no candidates and had taken no formal steps toward getting on a ballot](https://ivn.us/how-elon-musks-third-party-planning-going-2025-08-13/). One assessment of what it would take for the party to matter asserted that it should run nonpartisan, citizen-led campaigns pressuring states to adopt [open primary laws like the ones already used in California and Alaska](https://ivn.us/posts/7-things-elon-musk-needs-do-if-america-party-wants-be-more-meme-2025-07-08) — the same Alaska primary system Musk is now funding an effort to repeal. Musk has said he plans to spend $100 million across midterm states this year, and Alaska is just one target of that spending. ### Paul Rieckhoff: Mamdani's Board of Elections Quietly Crushes NYC Open Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/paul-rieckhoff-mamdanis-board-of-elections-quietly-crushes-nyc-open-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-08-10T20:03:45.000Z The independent movement is surging — and the machine is fighting back. Paul Rieckhoff breaks down the biggest under-covered story of the week: Mayor Mamdani's Board of Elections quietly rejected 42,000 petitions from New Yorkers demanding open primaries, a direct shot at the one million independents disenfranchised by New York's rigged partisan system. Paul also digs into the Politico report that Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie and Joe Kent are sowing the seeds of a new third-party project at Carlson's Maine compound — and why a third party is not the same thing as being independent. Then an exclusive with South Dakota independent veteran Brian Bengs, who now has a cleared head-to-head against unpopular Republican incumbent Mike Rounds after the Democrat dropped out. Bengs — a dual-service veteran and expert in the law of armed conflict — makes the case on the unauthorized Iran war, tariffs as a surgical tool versus a wrecking ball, the affordability crisis hitting South Dakota farmers, rural veteran healthcare, and why he refuses to caucus with either party. With Dan Osborn in Nebraska, Todd Achilles in Idaho and potentially Seth Bodnar in Montana all clearing head-to-head shots, the independent fulcrum in the Senate is no longer a talking point. It's a plan. **Get the latest episodes of Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff on the podcast's** [**YouTube channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@independentamericans?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### It's Official: Both Parties Oppose Ranked Choice Voting URL: https://ivn.us/its-official-both-parties-oppose-ranked-choice-voting/ Last updated: 2026-08-10T17:37:36.000Z On Saturday, the Democratic National Committee is scheduled to meet, during which its membership body will vote on a proposal to ban [ranked choice voting](https://ivn.us/tag/ranked-choice-voting/) in the party’s 2028 nomination proceedings—even in states where voters have made the reform law. The party is getting encouragement to do this, but not from its members. It is being cheered on by people on the other side of the political aisle. In [an op-ed](https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/08/the-dnc-discovers-the-perils-of-election-reform/?utm%5Fsource=recirc-desktop&utm%5Fmedium=article&utm%5Fcampaign=river&utm%5Fcontent=native-latest&utm%5Fterm=first) in the conservative-leaning National Review, *Save Our States* executive director and ranked choice voting critic Trent England makes the case that the Democratic Party should do what Republicans have done in several states and approve a ranked choice voting ban. “This is causing an understandable uproar, since progressive and socialist Democrats are the ones pushing RCV around the country,” England writes. > *“The DNC would be right to take a stand against it, since RCV — like many other ‘election reforms’ — makes the election process more difficult, less meaningful, and harder to trust.”* England writes a lot about the added complexity under ranked choice voting compared to first-past-the-post. He talks about how ballots will come with more instruction and how voting will be slower because voters rank candidates instead of just choosing a single person. He talks about the phenomenon of ballot exhaustion, which happens when all of the candidates a voter has ranked have been eliminated and thus their ballot doesn’t count toward the final results (something [studies have shown represent a small fraction of ballots under RCV](https://arxiv.org/html/2602.14329v1?ref=ivn.us)). “Perhaps this is why 19 states have laws banning RCV in their elections,” England writes. However, he doesn’t mention that all 19 are Republican-controlled states that have no history of using ranked choice voting in their elections. Thus, the bans do not come from any experience with the reform. They exist simply because of a common position among Republican officials to oppose ranked choice voting. A position many Democratic leaders and insiders also share. The DNC ranked choice voting ban was proposed and approved by the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) in May. It amends the stipulations for delegate selection and allocation in two specific ways: 1. Ranked choice voting would be prohibited in presidential primaries and caucuses; and 2. In states where ranked choice voting is law, the party will only consider first-choice totals for delegate selection and allocation. So, even in jurisdictions where voters have approved ranked choice voting—like in Maine and with 73% support in DC—the full use of it will be prohibited by the party, rendering it effectively pointless in presidential preference elections. If approved by the entire DNC body, the ban will mirror the ranked choice voting ban already adopted by the Republican National Committee. [DNC Could Ban Ranked Choice Voting in 2028Maine and Washington, D.C. may still use ranked ballots, but Democrats would allocate delegates as though voters never ranked anyone beyond first place.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-ce7e4d6c-371d-43ab-8685-4341de571ccb.png)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-6cf991d2-331d-4c14-addc-e6923066ec27-9db67020-e872-464a-b715-f494a0a14564.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dnc-could-ban-ranked-choice-voting-in-2028-even-where-voters-made-it-law/) The argument by those pushing the ban, like RBC member Frank Leone, is ranked choice voting is incompatible with the party’s delegate selection process because it is used in single-winner elections. Presidential primaries and caucuses are not single-winner. Party rules dictate that any candidate who gets over 15% of the vote in a presidential preference election—be it a primary or caucus—can add to their delegate count. However, while the ban initially flew under the radar, it has garnered more attention over the last couple of weeks, especially from [long-time reform advocates like Kyle Bailey](https://mainemorningstar.com/2026/07/30/maine-democrats-may-be-unable-to-rank-presidential-primary-under-proposed-dnc-rule/?ref=ivn.us), who points out that there are multiple ways to use ranked choice voting. For example, any candidate who falls under 15% in an election can be eliminated and their voters’ next applicable choices would count toward how many delegates the remaining candidates get rather than not counting at all. Six state Democratic Parties have already used ranked choice voting in presidential cycles: Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, and Wyoming. This means the RBC has already approved the use of ranked choice voting systems. Its members did not determine the reform to be incompatible in 2020 and 2024. Further, former FairVote CEO and President of Expand Democracy Rob Richie [points out on IVN](https://ivn.us/the-dnc-insider-leading-the-push-to-kill-ranked-choice-voting-by-2028/) that ranked choice voting is popular among Democratic voters (and not just progressives) who have used the reform. “A recent [University of New Hampshire poll](https://scholars.unh.edu/survey%5Fcenter%5Fpolls/981/?ref=ivn.us) found that among registered Democrats in Maine, the state’s RCV law is supported by an overwhelming 84% to 6% margin,” Richie writes. Yet party insiders are still pushing the ban anyway. Reports on the proposal, including on IVN, have put more focus on it, which may be why the DNC chair removed the public RBC meeting on Thursday and replaced it with a private, closed-door dinner. > 🚨 DNC update: to friends and voters who wrote to me urging me to vote against the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee’s proposed BAN on ranked choice voting in presidential primaries: the Chair removed the PUBLIC Rules & Bylaws committee meeting that had been set for next Thursday,… [pic.twitter.com/wW4tZuLF4j](https://t.co/wW4tZuLF4j?ref=ivn.us) > > — @ChristinePelosi (@ChristinePelosi) [August 7, 2026](https://x.com/ChristinePelosi/status/2085842268196671648?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) “As a member of the DNC Executive Committee, I cannot over-stress my disappointment in turning an open debate into a closed door session,” Christine Pelosi tweeted. > *“I will take the fight for ranked choice voting to the Executive Committee and will join in the floor fight on Saturday as these are the only options available. We need radical transparency to restore trust. This ain’t it!”* Republicans like to call ranked choice voting a “Democrat reform” (as well as a [“communist”](https://ivn.us/michigan-gop-kicks-out-rcv-advocates-calls-them-communists-over-reform-republicans-use-2026-04-06/) and “socialist” reform), but Democratic officials and party insiders have a history of opposing the reform as well. Democrats in Nevada, for example, opposed a citizen-led ballot measure in 2024 that offered both nonpartisan primaries and ranked choice voting. They made the same argument as England that the voting method was too complex. Notably, surveys in jurisdictions that use ranked choice voting find that most voters say it is simple, fair, and easy. What’s more, once they try it, they tend to support continued use. In Redondo Beach, California, [61% of voters supported ranked choice voting after first using it in 2024](https://ivn.us/report-california-has-tried-ranked-choice-voting-for-20-years-the-scare-tactics-dont-hold-up/). A 2024 poll across San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro found that 70% of voters said they wanted to keep using it as well. These voters represent more than what Trent England calls an “RCV-supporting fringe.” The Democratic majority in the Colorado Legislature [amended an election administration bill](https://ivn.us/governor-polis-signs-bill-suppresses-voice-colorado-voters/) that same year to make it harder to adopt ranked choice voting at the state level. Like the DNC, they did this without voter input. In Maine, Democratic officials like Governor Janet Mills and former Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap opposed implementation and expansion of ranked choice voting. In DC, the Democratic Party sued to block Initiative 83, the 2024 measure approved by 73% of voters. [Why Trump Really Hates Alaska’s Ranked Choice VotingPresident Trump called Alaska’s ranked choice voting system “disastrous” and “very fraudulent” on Friday. He gave his “complete and total support” to the repeal effort heading to Alaska’s 2026 ballot.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/ivn-square-logo-e4d4c62a-a136-4899-adcb-60cae38f3efd.png)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/donald-trump-alaska-ranked-choice-voting-repeal-c1b7bc0f-2cff-499b-893b-580f6b2417c3.jpg)](https://ivn.us/why-trump-really-hates-alaskas-ranked-choice-voting-2026-04-13/) Now, the DNC looks like it may move forward with a ban supported by President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. It is supported by GOP-aligned megadonors like Elon Musk, who has [committed over a million dollars](https://thealaskastory.com/elon-musk-backed-group-gives-1-million-boost-to-alaska-campaign-to-repeal-ranked-choice-voting/?ref=ivn.us) to repeal the nonpartisan election system in Alaska. It is a system that includes ranked choice voting in the general election. > The irony that [@Downing907](https://x.com/Downing907?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) won’t acknowledge? > > The \*only\* reason we know that Musk dropped over $1 million into AK’s elections is because of our law banning Dark Money… > > …the very law that Musk donated to help repeal—if successful next time he can donate in secret.[#akleg](https://x.com/hashtag/akleg?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [https://t.co/2wfAccMQ5g](https://t.co/2wfAccMQ5g?ref=ivn.us) > > — Scott Kendall (@scooterkendall) [August 8, 2026](https://x.com/scooterkendall/status/2085903066449269076?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The reason both parties oppose ranked choice voting, as revealed by party insiders speaking anonymously, goes beyond perceived issues of complexity or transparency or voter confidence. [According to the Bipartisan Policy Center](https://ivn.us/party-insiders-just-torched-the-biggest-excuse-against-open-primaries/), opposition to nonpartisan election reforms, whether it is all-candidate open primaries or ranked choice voting, has to do with reduced certainty over election outcomes. Party insiders know how to win under the current system. The elections are more predictable, party leaders have more control over candidates, and aligned-special interests have more impact with every dollar they spend. Nonpartisan election reforms have a documented history of making elections less predictable and more competitive. The parties don’t like that—even if these reforms have support from a majority of their voters. ### In the Birthplace of the GOP, an Independent Is Coming for a Republican Seat URL: https://ivn.us/in-the-birthplace-of-the-gop-an-independent-is-coming-for-a-republican-seat/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T20:20:50.000Z *Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain almost entirely unrepresented in Congress. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home.* *A handful of high-profile independent candidates are trying to change that in 2026\. They are often covered as fringe candidates whose stories are told through the lens of how they'll impact the outcome between a Republican and a Democrat, rather than on their own terms. This series exists because independent voters deserve better than that.* *In Wisconsin's 6th Congressional District, Mike Thurow is running for US House.* ## **The Candidate** Mike Thurow is a 39-year-old union fire captain and HAZMAT team director with the Milwaukee Fire Department, a lifelong Mequon resident, and a father of four. Before he[ became a professional firefighter in 2013](https://www.wuwm.com/wisconsins-6th-congressional-district-candidates-2026?ref=ivn.us), he spent nearly a decade working at Health Care for the Homeless. Ask him why he isn't running with a party and the answer arrives with a Founding Father attached. "I ran as an independent because I am an independent," Thurow told IVN. > "I also am a history buff, and I think George Washington had it right. The two-party system is probably one of the most corrosive things we can have in our country. When you're putting on a political jersey, trying to make your side win, we're not moving this country ahead." The historical reflex is not a tic. It is how he argues. Asked about Congress's failure to govern, he reaches for the Federalist Papers—"when we're stuck in trying to win and not govern, things go downhill. We've known that from the dawn of our country." Asked about AI displacing workers, he starts with "modernization throughout time immemorial." Asked about Social Security, he goes back to the Great Depression, "looking at what people actually were dealing with when old age hit, which we knew was going to happen." ## **The Race** Wisconsin's 6th runs from the Milwaukee suburbs in Ozaukee County, up the Lake Michigan shoreline, and out into the farm counties. It is[ rated R+8 by Cook](https://www.cookpolitical.com/house/race/485576?ref=ivn.us) and has not elected a Democrat in decades. Rep. Glenn Grothman has held it since 2015 and[ won most recently with roughly 61% in 2024](https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin%27s%5F6th%5FCongressional%5FDistrict%5Felection,%5F2024?ref=ivn.us). Thurow appears directly on the November 3 general election ballot, and Grothman is unchallenged in the Republican primary. The Democrats will select their candidate on August 11. [Fundraising totals tell a common story](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/house/WI/06/2026/?tab=election-data&ref=ivn.us), with incumbents generally outraising their challengers, and party candidates backed by party donors outraising independents. Grothman has raised $929,019 and is sitting on $829,735 cash on hand. Thurow has raised nearly $170k, just edging out Democrat Bradley Smith’s $166k (both well ahead of the other Democrat in the primary, Amanda Bell, with $42k raised). Thurow has about $63k of that in the bank still. He has pledged not to accept [corporate PAC money](https://www.thurowforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us), so he went into this race knowing that he’d have to approach his campaign differently. "We're not going to outraise. We're going to outwork everybody in this campaign," he said, describing a ground operation built out of union halls, farm visits, and town halls. ## **The Polling** [Tavern Research surveyed 437 likely voters](https://www.tavernresearch.com/research-and-writings/wi06-grothman-independent-halves-margin?ref=ivn.us) online from May 18 to 28, with a 6.0% margin of error. Grothman led a generic Democrat 61-39 and Democrat Brad Smith by the identical 61-39\. Against Thurow, the margin closed to 55-45—a swing of 12 points from the Democrat. The district is 46% Republican, 25% Democratic, and 24% independent. The pollster's caveat is that Thurow’s name recognition sits at 10%, leaving open whether his share is a durable lane or a parking spot for voters who won't back a Democrat and don’t like the Republican incumbent. Separately, Thurow's campaign has[ publicized internal polling showing him leading Grothman 46-39 on an informed ballot](https://www.wispolitics.com/2026/thurow-campaign-new-polls-show-mike-thurow-cuts-grothmans-lead-in-half-in-wi-06/?ref=ivn.us)—a campaign-released figure. ## **The Case Against the Incumbent** Thurow's indictment of Grothman is about function, not ideology. "Your primary goal is to be the closest arm of the federal government to the people," he said. Grothman, in Thurow’s assessment, has “basically been a rubber stamp." His example of this is the reconciliation bill: > "We have rural hospitals that are affected by this. He knew it was going to be a problem. He said before this all came up, cutting Medicaid would be a mistake, and then he still voted for it anyways. And when he got asked about it, he had no response." Then the firefighter's framing: "You can talk all you want. Your actions speak way louder than any words will, and his inaction speaks volumes." ## **Affordability** Thurow treats the cost of living as a monopoly problem. His platform pledges[ stronger federal oversight of utilities, pharmaceuticals, and essential goods](https://www.thurowforcongress.com/platform?ref=ivn.us), grid modernization to bring energy costs down, and breaking up concentration in food supply chains "from seeds and pesticides to meat packaging and farm equipment." He backs an expanded child tax credit—"my wife and I are raising four kids"—funded by closing tax loopholes, reducing wasteful spending, and cracking down on fraud. On the housing front, he wants to expand affordable housing programs and enact a ban on private equity buying single-family homes, calling the practice “insane.” He also wants to[ ban surveillance price setting,](https://www.thurowforcongress.com/platform?ref=ivn.us) the practice of setting an individual's price based on a profile built from their personal data. The right to repair may be his sharpest affordability argument, and he offered the most interesting theory of why it turns up on nearly every independent platform. "Every American feels if I spend my money to buy something, I should be able to make sure that thing continues to operate and can't be bricked by a third party for some software update," he said. > "I've seen John Deere bricking a tractor... You paid half a million dollars to use this piece of equipment, and all of a sudden, because there's a glitch, you have to wait for a certified software person to come out and look at it." Independents can focus on this issue, he argued, because "we don't have any corporate donors." ## **Healthcare** Thurow's healthcare proposal starts with a comparison rather than a system. > "If you start looking at Congress, the healthcare they receive when you're a member of Congress, they seem to like it a lot. They seem to fight for that subsidization of their healthcare. If they can afford it for themselves, every American should be able to have the same buy-in." His argument is based on his professional experience as a first responder in an ambulance. "As an EMT first responder, I can tell you when you don't insure people, it's not like they stop using the medical system. What they do is they use 911 as their primary care.” He says this is the most ineffective and expensive way to handle healthcare. His platform also targets pharmaceutical pricing directly, calling for[ Medicare to negotiate all drug prices, a block on private equity from acquiring healthcare and senior care facilities, and price caps on drugs developed with taxpayer money](https://www.thurowforcongress.com/platform?ref=ivn.us). On Social Security, the fix is the payroll cap. "The fact that Elon Musk stops paying for Social Security within the first few minutes of the New Year is not good for a system that's supposed to be a societal insurance program for every American." Remove it, he argued, and the cliff moves far enough out to allow real deliberation instead of benefit cuts made in haste. ## **Corruption** Anti-corruption is where his platform is most concrete:[ bans on stock and cryptocurrency trading by members of Congress and the president; campaign finance reform; term limits of four House terms and two Senate terms; a gerrymandering ban; and reinstating the prohibition on stock buybacks](https://www.thurowforcongress.com/platform?ref=ivn.us). He wants the trading ban to have teeth. "You don't get elected to public service to make yourself better \[off\]." Being found to profit off of your office, he argues, should be immediately disqualifying to continue in that office. On money in elections, he offered the clearest image of the interview: > "It doesn't matter if we say there's freedom of speech. If someone has a bullhorn and they can put it next to every voter's ear, the well-spoken, articulate American that wants to change this country will never have a chance to actually get their message out because they're being drowned out." If overturning *Citizens United* requires a constitutional amendment, he said, "we got to do it"—while pursuing what Congress can pass now, chiefly ranked choice voting with multi-member districts. He is unusually direct about the limits of his own expertise, and how he’d overcome them. "I'm trained as a firefighter. There's a lot of things you learn in the fire academy, but I'm fully aware of my limitations. I'm open to talking to anybody that has a good way to address \[problems\]." On term limits, he intends to be bound by his own proposal whether or not it passes. "I'm a fire captain. That's my job. You lead by example. You can't say this is for all of you, but not me." ## **Turnout, and Ripon** Asked what he would tell independents planning to sit out November, Thurow gave the district a history lesson about itself, bringing up the birth of the Republican Party in Ripon, which sits in the 6th. He tailors it to his independent campaign. > “When you have two parties that aren't actually showing up for you, you don't need to go to a party. You just get people together and you show we're going to vote on our values. And all of a sudden, we get Abraham Lincoln a few years after that. We've done it before. We can do it again." To anyone considering an independent run, his advice was succinct: "Do it." He followed with the following metaphor: "The government as a whole is a car. It's going to drive us somewhere, and if you're not in the driver's seat, someone else is going to jump in there, and you're not going to like where you end up." ## **Assessment** WI-06 is a test of whether the independent label alone can move an R+8 district, and the one public poll says it moves it twelve points' worth—from a 22-point Democratic loss to a 10-point independent one. That is a real shift, but it is not a win. Thurow trails by a margin outside the margin of error in that poll, faces an incumbent with more cash on hand, and depends on a ground game reaching voters who overwhelmingly do not yet know his name. What he has is a message that speaks to history and the economic distress Americans are facing, a district with an actual precedent for third-party insurgency, and the fact that both parties have spent a decade making his central claim for him. The low name recognition is both a liability and an opportunity, the latter if he can get in front of enough voters ahead of the November election to make that “informed voter” where he leads into reality. Asked what would make eight years in Congress worth it, he described his four kids and said he wanted to hand them "a government that is better than I have. That actually lives up to the ideals this country is founded upon." He has until November to convince the 6th District that an independent is the way to get there. ### Alabama GOP Wants Independents Out of Its Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/alabama-gop-wants-independents-out-of-its-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:39:00.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* The Alabama Republican Party [has added closed primaries](https://alabamareflector.com/2026/08/03/at-summer-meeting-alabama-gop-votes-for-closed-primaries-rejects-lawsuit-disqualifications/?ref=ivn.us)—requiring voters to register with a party before participating—to its official party platform. The move follows an unsuccessful effort in the state legislature this year to require party registration for primary voting. The proposal passed the House but stalled in the Senate amid concerns about the impact on independent voters. But some Republicans are pushing back against the party line. State Representatives Andy Whitt and Phillip Rigsby [publicly opposed closing primaries](https://1819news.com/news/item/whitt-rigsby-oppose-closed-primaries-cite-heavily-independent-districts-claim-not-a-good-look?ref=ivn.us), citing the large number of independent voters in their districts. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/andy-whitt.jpg) The party’s decision comes as Republican organizations in other states pursue similar efforts. The South Carolina Republican Party is currently seeking through litigation to restrict participation in its primaries and limit voting to registered party members. ## **What We're Talking About** ## Latino Independents are Changing the Game In 2016, Open Primaries partnered with civil rights attorney [Danny Ortega](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqLk8yiYyGQ&ref=ivn.us) to conduct a [deep dive exploration into the growth of the Latino electorate in Arizona.](https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/openprimaries/pages/787/attachments/original/1453841298/Open%5FPrimaries%5F-%5FAn%5FAppetite%5Ffor%5FReform.pdf?1453841298&ref=ivn.us) A key finding was that *81% of Latino voters believe it is important to be independent from both major parties.* Ten years later, veteran political strategist Mike Madrid lays out precisely how the *Independent Latino Mindset* is reshaping California politics - and provoking shadowy political operatives to push for closed primaries. [**Read Mike Madrid’s editorial in the Sacramento Bee**](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Californias-Latino-voters-matter-%E2%80%94-and-some-insiders-want-to-shut-them-out-%5F-Opinion.pdf?ref=ivn.us) It’s a [groundbreaking analysis](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Californias-Latino-voters-matter-%E2%80%94-and-some-insiders-want-to-shut-them-out-%5F-Opinion.pdf?ref=ivn.us) that shows the relationship between the rise of independents - especially Latino independents - and efforts to prevent them from voting. California’s recent gubernatorial primary showed what happens when this emerging electorate has a voice. 41% of voters turned out - compare that to 9% in closed primary New York - the highest turnout for a gubernatorial primary in state history. Driving that turnout were two growing groups: Latino voters and independents. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/mike-madrid.png) They call California a blue state. But independent voter registration has surged 50% since 2022, and Latino independent turnout jumped from roughly 11.8% in 2022 to nearly 16.5% this year — a 40% increase, far outpacing overall turnout growth. “Blue” does not capture what is happening in the Golden State. As Latino voters continue moving beyond old party categories, the question is whether our democracy will adapt to include them - or whether political insiders will try to close the door just as these voters are flexing their muscles. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/letusvote.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/usa-today.png) Last Saturday, USA Today published a major piece profiling three independent voters as well as Open Primaries President John Opdycke. Kudos to USA Today for being curious about who independent voters are and for spending some time with Open Primaries leaders John Marvin from Florida, Sandi Hebley from Texas, and Sophie Gelling from Pennsylvania. [*USA Today: Independent voters in 3 key states reveal what moves needle for them*](https://openprimaries.org/usa-today-independent-voters-in-3-key-states-reveal-what-moves-needle-for-them/?ref=ivn.us) [*Meet three independent voters weighing their options in key races in the upcoming midterm elections.*](https://openprimaries.org/usa-today-independent-voters-in-3-key-states-reveal-what-moves-needle-for-them/?ref=ivn.us) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/john-marvin.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/sandi-hebly.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/sophie-gelling.png) ## **Campaign Updates** ## NYC’s Closed Primary System Faces a Reckoning ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/new-york-open-primaries.png) New York City’s closed primary system is facing its biggest challenge in decades, because a [growing number of voters and media outlets](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=BNRWL4hEeoln4MPArxZ2VPwCxSKSP5h8nGzGdgEdNay8n6NU9X8ffezBEC48exVJRxASEAhvFygLMqO3OhcFUnpw3V0Q%5FmAN29Rp04g6VPlSvKXeomhO%5FfvTx6NQMDa1&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F122&n=10) are asking a simple question: **Why should anyone have to join a political party they don’t believe in just to vote?** [On the latest IVN Podcast](https://ivn.us/podcasts/truth-40-of-nyc-democrats-arent-really-democrats-jeremy-gruber/), I discussed a new IVN/Open Primaries poll (add link to the poll here) that exposed a stunning reality: four out of ten registered Democrats in New York City do not actually consider themselves Democrats. They registered with the party because the system gave them no other way to participate. Among Latino voters, the disconnect is even greater, roughly two out of three registered Latino Democrats do not identify with the party they are enrolled in. As I explained, this reveals “the big lie” behind closed primaries: they are not simply about protecting parties. They often force voters into political identities they do not share in order to participate in publicly funded elections. And those elections determine who runs New York City. [In his AMNY op-ed, “Meet us Mayor Mamdani: The case for opening primaries to NYC independent voters,”](https://www.amny.com/opinion/case-opening-primaries-nyc-independent-voters/?ref=ivn.us) I challenged Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s support for the current system and issued an invitation: Meet us. Listen to us. Let us vote. Independent voters are not a political abstraction. They are 1.2 million New Yorkers, one in four voters, including more than half a million Black, Latino, and Asian New Yorkers. They represent 54% of the city’s independent voters and a majority of Gen Z and millennial voters. Over the past year, hundreds of independent New Yorkers testified before Charter Revision Commissions, asking for nothing more radical than the right to participate in elections that determine their leaders. While efforts to place open primaries before voters this year were blocked, the movement continues, with a citizen-led effort advancing toward a 2027 ballot vote. The debate has now drawn national attention. [In the Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/opinion/both-parties-try-to-block-direct-democracy-5aba1d13?ref=ivn.us), Howard Husock criticized New York City leaders for blocking a public vote on open primaries, arguing that the closed system excludes more than one million independent voters from the elections that effectively decide who governs the city. Husock highlighted the contradiction of leaders who champion expanding democracy while preventing voters from deciding whether to end political exclusion. The question facing New York is simple: should public elections belong to all voters or only those willing to join a political party? ## **Independent Movement** ## Manchins’ Bet on Independents Former Senator Joe Manchin and daughter Heather Manchin, founder of [Americans Together](https://americanstogether.org/?ref=ivn.us), have launched the [Independent Leadership Council](https://independentleadershipcouncil.com/?ref=ivn.us), [a new effort to recruit, mentor, and support independent candidates](https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/24/politics/joe-manchin-recruit-independent-candidates?ref=ivn.us) for Congress across the country. The new effort is the result of joining the [Independent Center](https://www.independentcenter.org/?ref=ivn.us) with Americans Together. Senator Manchin says the goal isn't to create a third party, but to help elect leaders who can work with either party-and challenge both when necessary. With independent candidates running competitive races from California to Montana, Idaho, Iowa, and Alaska, the initiative reflects a growing belief that America's 47% independent majority deserves stronger representation. Manchin also pointed to one of the biggest barriers facing that movement: closed primaries, arguing they allow ideological factions to "hijack the system" by excluding millions of independent voters from the elections that matter most. The independent movement is growing-and so is the case for opening America's democracy. ## **What We're Reading** ## Closed Primaries Don't Protect Parties. They Corrupt Them Defenders of closed primaries argue that political parties should decide who participates in choosing their nominees. But America's closed primary system produces the exact opposite result. Across the country, millions of voters are joining political parties they don't actually support-not out of conviction, but because it's the only way to vote in the elections that matter. Instead of protecting parties, closed primaries dilute them with coerced members. As Open Primaries President John Opdycke [wrote this week in the Fulcrum](https://thefulcrum.us/elections/voters-want-progress-parties-want-control-open-primaries?ref=ivn.us), if parties truly want membership made up of genuine believers, they should embrace open and nonpartisan primaries. Then party registration would mean what it ought to mean: a voluntary expression of political conviction, not a government-imposed prerequisite for participating in democracy. As he notes: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/opdycke.png) **And ICYMI: check out Froma Harrop’s syndicated column** [***Closed primaries are driving America crazy***](https://www.breezecourier.com/editorials/closed-primaries-are-driving-america-crazy-55423e0f/?ref=ivn.us)**, quoting Opdycke.** ## **Fast Takes** - Baltimore Sun: [Redistricting madness show why we need open primaries.](https://www.baltimoresun.com/2026/08/02/bobby-zirkin-redistrict-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) - Washington Post: [All ten Congressional seats in WA are competitive because of top two primaries.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/results/2026/08/04/washington-house-primary-election-results-2026-live-updates/?ref=ivn.us) - Tucson Sentinel: [Open AZ primaries to increase independent voter participation.](https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/080426%5Fscott%5Fprimaries%5Fop/scott-open-az-primaries-increase-independent-participation/?ref=ivn.us) - Dakota Free Press: [Runoff suggest superiority of open primary](https://dakotafreepress.com/2026/07/31/kirby-runoff-suggests-superiority-of-open-primary/?ref=ivn.us). - CT Insider: [Most Connecticut voters can’t vote in the primaries](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/most-connecticut-voters-cant-vote-100000036.html?guccounter=1&ref=ivn.us). ## **In Case You Missed It** ## Missouri Voters Defend Their Right to Direct Democracy Missouri voters delivered a decisive message: they will not surrender their power to decide the future of their state. By an overwhelming 60-point margin, [voters rejected Amendment 4](https://www.stlpr.org/government-politics-issues/2026-08-04/missouri-amendment-4-amend-state-constitution?ref=ivn.us), a proposal that would have made citizen-led ballot initiatives among the hardest in the nation to pass. The measure would have required future constitutional amendments to win not only a statewide majority, but also support from a majority of voters in each of Missouri’s eight congressional districts. Critics warned that the change would have allowed a small number of voters in a handful of districts to override the will of millions of Missourians. The victory is also a major boost for the [Respect Missouri Voters Coalition](https://respectmovoters.org/?ref=ivn.us), which is working to place an initiative on the ballot this November to make the state’s initiative process more open, accessible, and fair. By rejecting efforts to restrict direct democracy, Missouri voters have strengthened the case for reforms that protect — rather than limit — the people’s ability to participate. ## **Activities/Events** ## Become a Stronger Voice for Independent Voters Independent voters are the largest and fastest-growing group in American politics—but too often their voices go unheard. Open Primaries **Independents' Spokesperson Training** is designed to help independent and reform-minded Americans communicate with confidence, tell their stories effectively, and become stronger advocates for open, inclusive elections. Join us on **Thursday, October 15 at 6:30 PM ET** for an engaging Zoom training featuring storytelling, communications coaching, and practical tools you can use immediately. [**Applications are now open**](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvNrt75v8IlPiN4iNGgVpVa7bgQ%5Fh6Loe3ICAyYBePXSf9zw/viewform?ref=ivn.us)**, but space is limited.** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/spokesperson-training.png)](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvNrt75v8IlPiN4iNGgVpVa7bgQ%5Fh6Loe3ICAyYBePXSf9zw/viewform?ref=ivn.us) ### Missouri Voters Crushed a Partisan Power Grab - the State Blocked Them Anyway | EP51 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/missouri-voters-crushed-a-partisan-power-grab-the-state-blocked-them-anyway-ep51/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:27.000Z Missouri voters showed up and shut down the legislature's attempt to gut citizen initiatives - and then, hours before polls closed, the Secretary of State went in front of a camera and declared their 300,000-signature people's veto unconstitutional anyway. Cara McCormick, Ethan Handelman, and Shawn Griffiths break down what actually happened in Missouri: the legislature's repeat attempts to raise thresholds and choke off petition drives, the mid-cycle gerrymander that made Missouri the third state to redraw its maps in 2025, and the pile-on that followed — a third of signatures thrown out, an ICE referral aimed at petition circulators, a Black Friday mass text campaign, and a map that never got suspended the way the law says it should. From there it's the DNC's August 15 vote to bar ranked choice voting from the delegate process, a Maine primary where 72% of voters picked a nominee the party swapped out anyway, and the case for a mandatory retirement age that applies to everyone on the taxpayer's dime (inspired by Mitch McConnell’s 50 day Senate absence). **This episode is sponsored by the Independent Voter Project and produced by Olas Media. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** **The Independent Voter Podcast also has its own YouTube channel! If you enjoy these conversations,** [**subscribe to our dedicated channel**](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyLIs900abY403f0PYb2Z6A?ref=ivn.us) **for full episodes, interviews, and future content.** ## **Episode Highlights** In this episode of the Independent Voter Podcast, hosts Ethan, Cara, and Shawn dig into the escalating battle between citizen-led **direct democracy** and entrenched political power. Missouri voters delivered a decisive blow against state legislators trying to restrict **citizen initiatives** and the "people's veto," even as Secretary of State Denny Hoskins [moved to invalidate an **anti-gerrymandering** referendum](https://ivn.us/missouri-drew-a-gerrymander-now-its-secretary-of-state-says-voters-cant-say-no/) backed by over 300,000 signatures. The hosts connect this fight to a wave of **mid-cycle redistricting** battles playing out in Missouri, Texas, and California, framing it as a national test case for **ballot access** and **election integrity**. Meanwhile, the show turns to a bombshell development from the **Democratic National Committee (DNC)**, which is poised to effectively [neutralize **ranked choice voting (RCV)**](https://ivn.us/dnc-could-ban-ranked-choice-voting-in-2028-even-where-voters-made-it-law/) in delegate allocation — a move that would undercut voter-approved RCV laws in Maine and Washington, D.C., and reignite the debate over whether the presidential nomination process is truly democratic. [The DNC Insider Leading the Push to Kill Ranked Choice Voting by 2028Democratic National Committee are close to adopting a ranked choice voting ban in the 2028 presidential primary, despite its use in Maine and Washington, D.C. state law.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-55823766-4d59-4c7e-a8ec-4685a697bc7d.jpg)Independent Voter NewsRob Richie![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-58737776-c13d-432d-9118-3d0081391a18-a25d77d9-8cb6-414a-bc6c-4ef92603e506.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-dnc-insider-leading-the-push-to-kill-ranked-choice-voting-by-2028/) The conversation also spotlights the growing fight over **money in politics** and **campaign finance reform**, centered on Maine's Question 1 ballot initiative capping **super PAC** contributions at $5,000 — a measure that passed with nearly 75% voter approval and is [now before the First Circuit Court of Appeals](https://ivn.us/the-case-that-could-bring-an-end-to-super-pacs/). The hosts unpack how this case could finally force the Supreme Court to rule on **super PAC** contribution limits, a question left open since *Citizens United*, and tie it directly to Elon Musk's outsized political spending through America PAC ahead of the 2026 **midterm elections**. A new Gallup poll showing two-thirds of Americans fear politicians will pressure election officials to alter outcomes underscores just how urgent the **election trust** conversation has become for **independent voters** and reform advocates alike. Rounding out the episode, the hosts tackle **term limits** and **age limits** in Congress, using Senator Mitch McConnell's prolonged public absence and President Trump's record-low approval ratings as launching points for a broader look at generational turnover in American politics. They highlight independent Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn's self-imposed two-term pledge as a model for accountability outside the two-party system. Packed with commentary on **electoral reform**, **voter dealignment**, and the structural incentives keeping career politicians in power, this episode is essential listening for anyone following the fight for **nonpartisan election reform** and a more accountable democracy. ### A Third Democrat Drops Out. Now Independent Brian Bengs Takes on Incumbent Sen. Mike Rounds Head-to-Head URL: https://ivn.us/a-third-democrat-drops-out-now-independent-brian-bengs-takes-on-incumbent-sen-mike-rounds-head-to-head/ Last updated: 2026-08-07T18:15:26.000Z South Dakota's U.S. Senate race collapsed into a two-candidate contest on August 4, when Democratic nominee Julian Beaudion[ withdrew](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/08/04/democrat-exits-senate-race-south-dakota-clearing-way-independent/?ref=ivn.us), leaving independent Brian Bengs in a one-on-one race against Republican incumbent Mike Rounds. State law required any such petition to be filed by 5pm on the first Tuesday in August, and Beaudion filed right under the deadline. The Secretary of State certified the request the same day. The state Democratic Party has said [they don’t plan to nominate a replacement](https://southdakotasearchlight.com/briefs/party-will-not-replace-withdrawn-us-senate-candidate-sd-democratic-official-says/?ref=ivn.us). The structural argument Bengs made when[ IVN interviewed him in June](https://ivn.us/he-ran-as-a-democrat-once-brian-bengs-says-never-again/) was that the party label, not the candidate, was a key obstacle in a state where his own[ 2022 run as a Democrat](https://ballotpedia.org/Brian%5FBengs?ref=ivn.us) ended at 26.1% against John Thune. He now gets to test that claim without a Democrat on the ballot. Rounds is treating the consolidation as confirmation of his own framing, calling Bengs a “fake independent” being run by the Democratic Party in recent [fundraising emails](https://bluestemprairie.substack.com/p/julian-beaudion-south-dakotas-democratic). South Dakota is now the third Senate race where a Democrat cleared the field for an independent.[ David Roth exited in Idaho](https://ivn.us/the-democrat-is-out-in-idaho-now-its-independent-todd-achilles-vs-jim-risch/) for Todd Achilles and [Cindy Burbank withdrew in Nebraska](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-officially-osborn-vs-ricketts-unless-republicans-stop-it/) ahead of Dan Osborn's challenge to Pete Ricketts (since that article was written, the challenge to her withdrawal has ended). Contrast this with Montana, where Democrat Alani Bankhead has said she is staying in against Seth Bodnar, even as [behind-the-scenes maneuvering](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/08/03/democratic-party-weighs-legal-options-in-turbulent-senate-race/?ref=ivn.us) suggests that that might change ahead of the August 10 deadline. None of this changes the underlying reality on the ground in South Dakota. Trump[ carried the state](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6010117-south-dakota-senate-race-julian-beaudion-withdraws-bid/?ref=ivn.us) by just under 30 points in 2024, and Cook Political Report rates the seat Solid Republican. However, it significantly changes the math. In a three-way race, the anti-Rounds vote would be split between two candidates. Now, in a head-to-head without a Democrat, the test is whether the Independent can build a coalition that overcomes the strength of the incumbent. ### Party Insiders Just Torched the Biggest Excuse Against Open Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/party-insiders-just-torched-the-biggest-excuse-against-open-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-08-06T20:28:49.000Z One of the most common arguments made by party leaders and insiders against opening primary elections is that the “other side” will sabotage the election. Members of the opposing party will infiltrate and weaken the party from the inside. Yet, according to [a new report](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/parties-and-electoral-reform-insights-from-political-operatives/?utm%5Fsource=sfmc&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=20260804+-+Governance+-+Newsletter&utm%5Fterm=https%3a%2f%2fbipartisanpolicy.org%2freport%2fparties-and-electoral-reform-insights-from-political-operatives%2futm%5Fid=153987&sfmc%5Fid=546008919&sid=1ddiao50ws) from the Bipartisan Policy Center, many of the people whose careers depend on winning partisan elections not only reject this notion—they think allowing independent voters to participate produces stronger candidates. The report, titled *Parties and Electoral Reform: Insights from Political Operatives*, examines how Democratic and Republican insiders view open partisan primaries, ranked choice voting, nonpartisan primaries, and other proposed changes to American elections. Its most striking takeaway is that party operatives were generally receptive to allowing independent voters to participate in partisan primaries—and largely dismissed the notion of organized crossover sabotage. This comes at a time when open primaries are being rejected in Democratic strongholds like New York and party operatives on both sides of the aisle are trying to close these taxpayer-funded elections in [California](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-crossed-out-all-voters-may-vote/), [Colorado](https://ivn.us/colorado-judge-rejects-state-gops-attempt-deny-independents-access-primaries/), [Texas](https://ivn.us/texas-gop-looks-at-7-turnout-and-says-lets-make-the-primary-smaller/), [South Carolina](https://ivn.us/south-carolina-gop-lost-in-the-legislature-now-they-want-a-judge-to-close-the-primaries/), and more. ## **The ‘Primary Raiding’ Threat Gets Laughed Out of the Room** The Bipartisan Policy Center interviewed 12 current and former political operatives during the spring of 2026—evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. This group included former party leaders, consultants, elected officials, and senior campaign staff. Most had experience at the national level. It is important to note that the term “open primaries” in the report is used to describe open partisan systems. Or, systems that allow independent voters to participate in a party’s nomination contests. When researchers raised the common concern that partisans might cross over and manipulate the opposing party’s primary, one former Republican campaign committee chair dismissed the scenario as implausible. Both parties have used the argument of “party raiding” or “party sabotage” in court, [from the Hawaii Democratic Party to the Texas GOP](https://ivn.us/will-texas-republican-party-be-successful-where-hawaiian-democratic-party-failed-2025-09-05/). And yet, neither has yet to produce sufficient evidence to the courts that voters behave this way. In fact, academic research shows that while these types of schemes may be presented by party insiders, voters don’t treat elections like they are some kind of game. In the paper, "[Analysis of Crossover and Strategic Voting](https://web.archive.org/web/20100625234325/http:/polmeth.wustl.edu/media/Paper/alvar99b.pdf)," R. Michael Alvarez at the California Institute of Technology and Jonathan Nagler at the University of California-Riverside looked at the 1988 Super Tuesday primaries and concluded: > *"By carefully examining the voters' evaluations of the available candidates, and the voters' perceptions of the candidates' chances of winning both the primary and general election, we have been able to demonstrate that fewer than 2% of voters in the primary engaged in raiding behavior."* Examinations of [more recent elections](https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2019/02/do-primary-voters-strategically-vote-in-the-oppositions-primary/?ref=ivn.us) show the same thing. John Johnson at the Marquette University Law School found in 2019 that in Wisconsin, a state with open partisan primaries, "there is no evidence that this kind of voting behavior occurs at all." Further, researchers in both studies found that in the few cases of crossover voting, the voters' motivations were not to sabotage the party, but to vote for their first-choice candidate or avoid wasting their vote. In other words, most people just want a meaningful say in who represents them in government—something millions of independent voters are denied under closed primary systems. The BPC report also points to research showing that allowing independent voters into partisan primaries has only a modest effect on partisan registration and does not cause a massive wave of voters to become independent simply to interfere with the other party’s election. Other operatives saw independent participation as potentially beneficial. One respondent’s assessment was blunt: “So open primaries are great…the pros might outweigh the cons.” Another said open primaries can force candidates to connect with voters they will need in November, producing nominees who are better prepared to compete in the general election. That finding cuts directly against the argument that parties must exclude independent voters to protect themselves. According to some of the people responsible for electing Democrats and Republicans, a broader primary electorate can make their candidates stronger. ## **Party Operatives Are Focused on Winning—Not Protecting Party Purity** The BPC report also highlights a disconnect between how the public sees political parties and how party organizations view themselves. Every operative interviewed agreed on what they perceive to be the central purpose of a political party—winning elections, not determining the party’s ideology or policing whether candidates are sufficiently loyal to the platform. This too tears into the argument against open primaries. Specifically, the idea that closed primaries are needed to ensure partisan or ideological purity. Yet even party operatives don’t think this should be the focus of their organizations. One operative reduced the party’s role to three functions: message, money, and mobilization. Others said parties should recruit viable candidates, provide campaign infrastructure, raise resources, and maximize the number of seats they win. None of the respondents said it was the party’s job to shape its ideological composition. Instead, they described something more pragmatic: an electoral apparatus designed primarily to put candidates in office. Their relative openness to independent voters follows that logic. If independent participation helps select a candidate capable of winning the general election, some insiders see it as an asset rather than an intrusion. ## **The Parties Admit They Ignore the Primaries That Matter Most** The major parties often pay little attention to primaries in districts safely controlled by one party. They focus their money and influence on competitive seats where the identity of the nominee could determine the party’s success or failure. Take, for example, all the coverage of DSA vs establishment Democrats in states like Michigan. These types of contests are happening all over the country, but the party isn’t as focused on them in safe New York districts as they are in a Michigan US Senate race. In safe districts, the parties are reluctant to spend resources because almost any nominee from the dominant party is likely to win the general election. Here’s the problem with that: Party leaders argue that primaries belong to them. Yet their own operatives say the parties frequently disengage from the primaries that effectively determine who will hold office. In other words, millions of independent voters are excluded from the most critical elections that decide their representation in the name of protecting a process that the parties, aligned campaign committees, voter mobilization groups, and fundraisers have little interest in managing. ## **Insiders Remain More Suspicious of RCV and Nonpartisan Primaries** The respondents were less receptive to ranked choice voting and nonpartisan primary systems. Some argued ranked choice voting was difficult to explain. Others asserted that it could generate mistrust. Or, it would obscure political accountability. Previous BPC research, however, found election officials can successfully implement ranked choice voting when they receive adequate funding, preparation time, and assistance with voter education. At the end of the day, even operatives who support open partisan primaries want to maintain some level of control over the process. In the BPC’s report, operatives said they preferred familiar election rules because they already know how to campaign under them. Nonpartisan primaries and ranked choice voting create an electoral environment that is less predictable. This is at the core of party operatives' resistance. They know how to win under the current system and cannot predict exactly how candidates, voters, donors, and opposing parties will behave under a new one. It doesn’t matter that nonpartisan open primaries give all voters, regardless of party preference, more choice. It doesn’t matter how further a voter can express their preferences under ranked choice voting. It is about maintaining a system under which they know they can win. ## **What Independent Voters Should Take Away From This** The BPC report is based on a small group of anonymous insiders, not a representative survey of party officials. It reveals what these insiders are willing to admit about the current system when their names aren’t attached to their statements. Specifically, that what reformers have said for decades about closed primaries is correct: They don’t protect the party from sabotage (the idea of “party raiding” isn’t even taken seriously by some of the professionals charged with protecting the parties’ electoral interests). They don’t protect party purity. And, they don’t produce the strongest candidates. Opening primaries, on the other hand, give independent voters meaningful access to elections that matter, especially in primary contests that the parties aren’t interested in managing because they know the seat is safe Further, when independent voters have access to primary elections, the system can produce stronger candidates—more appealing to the broader electorate because they were not merely chosen by a small group of highly-motivated partisan voters. Independent participation is good for turnout, good for democracy, and even good for the parties’ November prospects. That’s the takeaway. Party insiders admitted in these interviews that open primaries create a better system, even as formal party organizations try to shut out independents or keep them locked out. ### The Case That Could Bring an End to Super PACs URL: https://ivn.us/the-case-that-could-bring-an-end-to-super-pacs/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:38:48.000Z Harvard law professor and [Equal Citizens](https://equalcitizens.us/?ref=ivn.us) founder [Larry Lessig](https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/lawrence-lessig/?ref=ivn.us) says the country is taking on water, and the leak he's trying to patch isn't necessarily the only one that's sinking the ship. Speaking at the [P&T Knitwear Bookstore](https://ptknitwear.com/?ref=ivn.us), Lessig reportedly reached for a [Titanic](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/?ref=ivn.us) metaphor to describe the state of American democracy: > "The captain of the Titanic hits the iceberg, looks out on the deck, and there's a whole bunch of ice on the deck. He thinks, OK, we can fix this. We can clean the deck, and then the engineer tells him that there's a gash in the hull, and six of the 16 watertight compartments are filling with water, and so they know it doesn't matter if they clear the deck. The ship is going down." > "Then they gotta convince people to get into lifeboats. Which, in the middle of the Atlantic, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the winter, on the fricking Titanic, it's really hard, 'cause people are like, we're on the Titanic. Like, why do we have to get in a lifeboat?" > "All the work I've been doing for 20 years, and the work that the anti-gerrymandering people are doing – that, in my view, is the equivalent of the ice on the deck," he said. "We know how to fix it." > "But I actually think there's a gash in the hull, and the gash in the hull is the world of engagement-based media, which profits from turning us into ignorant people who hate each other." Nevertheless, Lessig’s most recent effort to fix our leaky politics started three summers ago in Maine, when his nonprofit Equal Citizens organized an effort with [Citizens to End Super PACs](https://www.endsuperpacs.org/?ref=ivn.us) to gather signatures for a ballot initiative capping contributions to super PACs at $5,000. > The First Circuit will hear DTA v. Schneider on July 29, 2026! [pic.twitter.com/Yolgc6Wo0s](https://t.co/Yolgc6Wo0s?ref=ivn.us) > > — Equal Citizens (@EqualCitizensUS) [July 2, 2026](https://x.com/EqualCitizensUS/status/2072508664523444564?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Lessig collected signatures himself in a rural county on Election Day 2023, and a man he met was collecting signatures for a different cause — putting Donald Trump on the state's 2024 Republican primary ballot — but he signed on immediately after reading Lessig’s initiative. "It's not a partisan issue in Maine or anywhere in the country," Lessig recalled him saying. "Everybody gets it." The official ballot title was as follows: ***“Do you want to set a $5,000 limit for giving to political action committees that spend money independently to support or defeat candidates for office?"*** [Question 1 passed](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/a-voter-approved-maine-limit-on-pac-contributions-sets-the-stage-for-a-legal-challenge/?ref=ivn.us) with 74.9 percent of the vote. **The AP called it "**[**an emphatic vote**](https://apnews.com/article/maine-referendum-super-pac-donation-limits-dccfd8f49c4337b1d9e7053a0e3a4fef?ref=ivn.us)**" in a** [**record turnout**](https://www.pressherald.com/2024/11/26/record-number-of-maine-voters-cast-ballots-in-2024-election/?ref=ivn.us) **election on November 5, 2024.** The measure got [600,191 votes](https://ballotpedia.org/Maine%5FQuestion%5F1,%5FLimit%5FContributions%5Fto%5FSuper%5FPACs%5FInitiative%5F%282024%29?ref=ivn.us), more than any initiative or candidate has ever gotten in the history of Maine. Two super PACs promptly sued. The State of Maine agreed to wait to implement the law pending the outcome of the federal lawsuit. A US district court judge found that contributions "can serve as the quid in a quid pro quo arrangement," but she struck the law down anyway, citing Supreme Court precedent. Legal experts have called her ruling a win in disguise, because she accepted the factual argument. At the time, Lessig said the judge "has, in effect, written the question for appeal." On July 29, [that appeal was argued in Boston](https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2026-07-29/federal-appeals-court-hears-arguments-over-maine-limits-on-super-pacs?ref=ivn.us) by attorney [Neal Katyal](https://www.milbank.com/en/professionals/neal-katyal.html?ref=ivn.us). If [Katyal’s argument](https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/oralargs/25-1705%5F20260729.mp3?ref=ivn.us) was persuasive enough, it could produce a circuit split that lands the case before the Supreme Court. You can hear Katyal’s oral argument along with the other oral arguments [here](https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/oralargs/25-1705%5F20260729.mp3?ref=ivn.us). > Just back from 1st Circuit oral arguments in the case to uphold Maine's Anti-SuperPAC law. If you want a master class in oral advocacy, listen to Neal Katyal defend the law here:[https://t.co/Yt3NVIxjX0](https://t.co/Yt3NVIxjX0?ref=ivn.us) > > (Also, if you want to hear what well-prepared judges sound like!) > > Fingers… > > — Lessig 🇺🇦 (@lessig) [July 29, 2026](https://x.com/lessig/status/2082587844002910427?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Lessig thinks the justices will seize the chance to finally rule on the issue of individual contributions to Super PACs. “The issue that this case would raise is not asking the Supreme Court to change its jurisprudence, not asking them to overturn Citizens United,” he said. Asked how it ends at the Supreme Court, Lessig has been positively bullish: "Seven votes." [Another Way Podcast - Equal CitizensJoin our fight to end the corruption of our democracy![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/cropped-equal-citizens-favicon-270x270-f4bff423-1d9b-45fa-9566-8a8091f73148.png)Equal CitizensLawrence Lessig![](https://equalcitizens.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/lessig-circle.png)](https://equalcitizens.us/anotherway/?ref=ivn.us) This story is based on reporting by Steven Rosenbaum for Yahoo News. [The author is an intervenor in the lawsuit described](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/a-voter-approved-maine-limit-on-pac-contributions-sets-the-stage-for-a-legal-challenge/?ref=ivn.us) in this news item. [Citizens to End Superpacs](https://independentvoterproject.org/our-reforms/end-superpacs?ref=ivn.us) is an affiliate of [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) and the [Foundation for Independent Voter Education](https://www.independentvoterfoundation.org/?ref=ivn.us). ### California Latinos Showed Up—Now Party Insiders Want to Shut Them Out URL: https://ivn.us/california-latinos-showed-up-now-party-insiders-want-to-shut-them-out/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T03:33:59.000Z Political strategist, IVN commentator, and *The Latino Century* author Mike Madrid has a blunt warning for California: The campaign to repeal the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary would disproportionately silence the fastest-growing segment of the electorate. In a new[ ](https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article316626339.html?ref=ivn.us)[Sacramento Bee op-ed](https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article316626339.html?ref=ivn.us), Madrid argues that Latino voters—particularly those who do not align with either major party—played a significant role in California’s record-setting June primary. The state counted more than 9.4 million ballots, the highest turnout for a California gubernatorial primary since recordkeeping began in 1914\. Turnout among Latino independent voters tracked near 16.5%, roughly 40% higher than in 2022. Their participation is also growing three times faster than the electorate overall. Madrid points to Xavier Becerra’s success in the governor’s race as evidence of what can happen when these voters participate. Becerra advanced from a crowded field while billionaire Tom Steyer, who ran what Madrid characterized as the race’s most partisan campaign, fell short. The larger issue, Madrid argues, is that Latino voters are moving away from strict loyalty to both major parties. California’s Top Two system allows them to vote for any candidate without first choosing a party ballot. Repealing the system would once again make their participation dependent on rules established by the political parties. Madrid calls the repeal campaign **“voter suppression aimed at the fastest-growing share of the electorate, dressed up as a return to party order.”** Polling suggests Latino voters are not asking California to go backward. A [May Independent Voter Project survey](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) found that 53% wanted to retain Top Two or expand the number of candidates who advance. Only 22% supported eliminating the nonpartisan system and restoring partisan primaries. Madrid’s message is simple: Latino independents showed up, helped reshape California’s most important statewide race, and demonstrated their growing political influence. Party insiders should not respond by shutting the door in their faces. ### [Read Mike Madrid’s full op-ed in The Sacramento Bee.](https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article316626339.html?ref=ivn.us) ### The Voters Who Weren’t Supposed to Show Up URL: https://ivn.us/the-voters-who-werent-supposed-to-show-up/ Last updated: 2026-08-05T17:39:58.000Z Tom Steyer ran the most partisan primary campaign in California — and got beat by **the voters who are usually not there**. [That's the message from Mike Madrid to the Sacramento Bee](https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article316626339.html?ref=ivn.us). June’s gubernatorial primary counted 9,446,461 ballots — **the highest turnout for a California governor’s primary since the state started keeping records in 1914**. The fastest-growing slice of that electorate? Latino independents, whose turnout is tracking near 16.5% — a roughly 40% jump over 2022, three times the growth of the electorate as a whole. Madrid — author of “The Latino Century” — connects the dots: **Latinos are dealigning from both parties faster than any group in the country**, and none of it happens without the open primary that hands every voter the same ballot. And they just changed the course of history in California. Madrid calls efforts to close California's primaries: **“voter suppression aimed at the fastest-growing share of the electorate, dressed up as a return to party order.”** More news to think about, independently, below. [READ MIKE'S FULL OP-ED](https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article316626339.html?ref=ivn.us) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [The Voting Rights Case That Could Turn Both Parties Against the Supreme Court ](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/IMG_5249.png) Chad Peace [ ![The Voting Rights Case That Could Turn Both Parties Against the Supreme Court](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/3DW4C9D.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/) [Washington’s Top Two Primary Put Four Independent Veterans in the Parties’ Way ](https://ivn.us/washingtons-top-two-primary-put-four-independent-veterans-in-the-parties-way/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Washington’s Top Two Primary Put Four Independent Veterans in the Parties’ Way](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-b32d113a-bc94-428c-8512-aaeb17151b09.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/washingtons-top-two-primary-put-four-independent-veterans-in-the-parties-way/) [The Troy Army Just Took Maine—Now It Has to Take Down Susan Collins ](https://ivn.us/the-troy-army-just-took-maine-now-it-has-to-take-down-susan-collins/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/08/Jay-Field.jpg) Jay Field [ ![The Troy Army Just Took Maine—Now It Has to Take Down Susan Collins](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/image-3fbad588-c237-4f93-b221-069d4caf4062.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-troy-army-just-took-maine-now-it-has-to-take-down-susan-collins/) [America’s Closed Primary System Runs on Fake Party Membership ](https://ivn.us/americas-closed-primary-system-runs-on-fake-party-membership/) By John Opdycke [ ![America’s Closed Primary System Runs on Fake Party Membership](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/closed-primaries-independent-voters.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/americas-closed-primary-system-runs-on-fake-party-membership/) [Dan Osborn is Ready to Represent the Working Class in Congress. Is Nebraska Ready to Let Him? ](https://ivn.us/dan-osborn-is-ready-to-represent-the-working-class-in-congress-is-nebraska-ready-to-let-him/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Dan Osborn is Ready to Represent the Working Class in Congress. Is Nebraska Ready to Let Him?](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/Dan-Osborn-profile.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/dan-osborn-is-ready-to-represent-the-working-class-in-congress-is-nebraska-ready-to-let-him/) [The DNC Insider Leading the Push to Kill Ranked Choice Voting by 2028 ](https://ivn.us/the-dnc-insider-leading-the-push-to-kill-ranked-choice-voting-by-2028/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/rob-richie.jpg) Rob Richie [ ![The DNC Insider Leading the Push to Kill Ranked Choice Voting by 2028](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/image-58737776-c13d-432d-9118-3d0081391a18.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-dnc-insider-leading-the-push-to-kill-ranked-choice-voting-by-2028/) [With 30 Days Left, Monique Limón Decides What Moves in the California Senate ](https://ivn.us/with-30-days-left-monique-limon-decides-what-moves-in-the-california-senate/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![With 30 Days Left, Monique Limón Decides What Moves in the California Senate](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/08/monique-limon.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/with-30-days-left-monique-limon-decides-what-moves-in-the-california-senate/) [JB Pritzker Says Democrats Must Fight—But Dodges the Open Primaries Question ](https://ivn.us/jb-pritzker-says-democrats-must-fight-but-dodges-the-open-primaries-question/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![JB Pritzker Says Democrats Must Fight—But Dodges the Open Primaries Question](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/image-74ca19be-986e-4600-89e6-7a8ded3b6ca7.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/jb-pritzker-says-democrats-must-fight-but-dodges-the-open-primaries-question/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Jason Faler spent 27 years in an Army uniform. Now he’s running for Congress in Oregon’s 6th District as an independent — **against both parties and the ballot-access barriers built to keep candidates like him out**. He joins the Independent Voter Podcast for EP50. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBkNfNOiyq0&ref=ivn.us) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## With 30 Days Left, Monique Limón Decides What Moves in the California Senate [![California Senate leader Monique Limón](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/monique-limon.jpg)](https://ivn.us/with-30-days-left-monique-limon-decides-what-moves-in-the-california-senate/) California’s first Latina Senate leader enters the session’s final month holding the gavel that decides **which of hundreds of bills live or die**. Cara Brown McCormick on what Monique Limón moves — and what she buries. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/with-30-days-left-monique-limon-decides-what-moves-in-the-california-senate/) ### *VIDEO CLIP ▶▶▶* ## Did JB Pritzker Just Accidentally Endorse Open Primaries? [![Did JB Pritzker Just Accidentally Endorse Open Primaries?](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/Pritzker_Preview.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbl-UkdlBGX/?ref=ivn.us) Asked point-blank on Paul Rieckhoff’s Independent Americans podcast whether he’d stand up for independents getting an equal vote, the Illinois governor slipped — saying the country should have “more competitive primaries,” before catching himself: “sorry, general elections.” The slip matters: Illinois voters must publicly request a party ballot, and **roughly 41% of Illinois voters identify as independent — more than either party** — yet none of them can vote for the best candidate regardless of party. [Read Shawn Griffiths’ full story on IVN](https://ivn.us/jb-pritzker-says-democrats-must-fight-but-dodges-the-open-primaries-question/). [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbl-UkdlBGX/?ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### Missouri Drew a Gerrymander. Now Its Secretary of State Says Voters Can’t Say No. URL: https://ivn.us/missouri-drew-a-gerrymander-now-its-secretary-of-state-says-voters-cant-say-no/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T18:38:38.000Z **St. Louis** —Tuesday wasn’t just primary election day in Missouri. It also marked the deadline for Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to certify ballot measures for November. Among them was a veto referendum to overturn a legislative gerrymander signed into law in September 2025\. However, instead of revealing how many valid signatures the measure had—Hoskins declared it unconstitutional. The referendum, [sponsored by People Not Politicians (PNP)](https://peoplenotpoliticiansmo.org/?ref=ivn.us), would repeal HB 1, which put in place a new congressional map designed to give Republicans 7 of the state’s 8 US House districts. Missouri became the third state to move forward with a mid-cycle gerrymander in 2025 following Texas and California. PNP’s campaign began immediately following the bill’s passage in the legislature. Hoskins asserts that a legislative redistricting plan cannot be subject to a voter referendum. When asked how many valid signatures the measure had during a news conference Tuesday, he refused to answer. “Whether they had one signature or 500 million signatures doesn’t really matter because they are unconstitutional,” he said. > Where we go from here. [pic.twitter.com/KdoEm73x7o](https://t.co/KdoEm73x7o?ref=ivn.us) > > — PeopleNotPoliticiansMO (@PeopleNotPolsMO) [August 4, 2026](https://x.com/PeopleNotPolsMO/status/2084752490902262117?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) In response, PNP accused Hoskins of “making a last desperate attempt to silence the people’s voice in Missouri,” and vowed to take the matter to court. In a statement, the group’s executive director, Richard von Glahn, said: > *“Missourians will have the final say in November and a chance to vote no to politicians’ desperate power grabs.”* PNP submitted more than 300,000 signatures to put its veto referendum on the ballot. It needs about 110,000 of them to be verified in order to qualify for the ballot. However, from the start of the campaign, it ran into problems with Hoskins and other Republican leaders. First, Hoskins said he wouldn’t count approximately 100,000 signatures because PNP collected them before the referendum was approved for petition circulation. He cited a Missouri law that no longer exists because it was ruled unconstitutional. Hoskins has also said he will do everything in his power to protect the new map. [Missouri’s Gerrymander Faces a Citizen Veto, but State Officials Aren’t Taking ‘No’ for an AnswerPeople Not Politicians (PNP) submitted over 305,000 signatures last week to freeze a congressional gerrymander passed by the Missouri Legislature in September. However, state officials are doing everything they can to pretend this citizen revolt isn’t happening.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-626b56da-f53b-43ff-8ace-c8789c6e7b45.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/missouri-redistricting-cca13e1f-cb61-48d7-94aa-b39121f2fc7b.png)](https://ivn.us/missouris-gerrymander-faces-citizen-veto-state-officials-arent-taking-no-answer-2025-12-19/) Advanced Micro Targeting, Inc., the signature gathering group hired by PNP, [alleged in a lawsuit](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/missouri-trump-redistricting%5Fn%5F693b07a1e4b053d6e8f0e259?ref=ivn.us) that its contractors were bribed to switch sides. And if the contractors refused, they were threatened and harassed. Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway filed a lawsuit in federal court attempting to get the referendum ruled unconstitutional. It was dismissed. But Hanaway also [reported PNP to ICE](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article313026819.html?ref=ivn.us), alleging it was using undocumented migrants to collect signatures. Then, on Black Friday, the Republican National Committee sponsored a mass statewide text to Missouri voters warning them not to trust “out of state” signature gatherers trying to trick them while shopping. After PNP submitted its petitions on December 9, Republican officials still implemented the new congressional map on Dec. 11\. PNP argues that once the signatures were submitted, HB 1 should have been suspended until a public vote. [Missouri Map Mayhem: GOP Officials Try Everything to Block Citizen Veto on Extreme GerrymanderMissouri state officials are getting slammed with lawsuits over a new congressional map that People Not Politicians (PNP) says should be frozen after it submitted over 300,000 signatures to let voters decide to keep or reject the map.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-5490663a-0c2b-4335-9aa8-07cfa25ea39d.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/getty-images-pkuhK2_SqLA-unsplash-a10336b0-790a-409b-bd9c-67c4af5f26e8.jpg)](https://ivn.us/missouri-map-mayhem-gop-officials-try-everything-block-citizen-veto-extreme-gerrymander-2025/) Multiple lawsuits were filed. Not all by PNP. Some wanted HB 1 ruled unconstitutional. This was rejected all the way up to the Missouri Supreme Court. PNP filed a complaint against Hoskins for refusing to count a third of its signatures, but a judge delayed ruling on the matter. In March, PNP reported that data from the secretary of state’s office showed that its referendum had enough signatures to be certified. And yet, Hoskins still waited until the last possible minute to make his decision on it. And now, he has determined that it is unconstitutional. It was always a card Hoskins had to play. The federal judge that dismissed Hanaway’s lawsuit said that the secretary of state had the authority to reject the referendum, at which point it would be a matter for state courts to resolve. And now, it will be. It’s notable that on the same day Hoskins rejected the referendum, he also rejected [another measure](https://missouriindependent.com/2026/05/04/missouri-group-turns-in-signatures-for-amendment-to-protect-ballot-initiatives/?ref=ivn.us) that would have restricted the legislature’s ability to amend citizen initiatives approved by voters. He said it violated the state’s single subject rule. Meanwhile, Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected an amendment proposed by the legislature that would make it harder for voters to amend the state constitution. If approved, Amendment 4 would require an amendment measure to be approved by a majority in each congressional district rather than a statewide majority. Eight in ten voters rejected it. ### In Texas, Bobby Pulido Shows Neither Party Can Gerrymander the Latino Vote URL: https://ivn.us/in-texas-bobby-pulido-shows-neither-party-can-gerrymander-the-latino-vote/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:53:43.000Z This is a recording from a live interview on August 4 with Bobby Pulido on the future of Texas, Latino voters, and the Democratic Party. Can Democrats win back working-class Latino voters? In this episode, I sit down with Bobby Pulido—Grammy-winning Tejano music star turned Democratic congressional candidate—to discuss one of the most important political realignments in America. We explore Bobby’s journey from the stage to the campaign trail, why he believes South Texas is ready for a different kind of politics, and what Democrats must do to reconnect with the working-class families who have been drifting away from the party in recent elections. Recent polling has shown Pulido gaining significant momentum in one of the nation’s most closely watched congressional races. (Cook Political Report⁠) Topics include: - Bobby Pulido’s transition from Tejano music icon to congressional candidate - Why Latino voting patterns are changing across Texas and the United States - The economic issues driving Hispanic voters away from traditional partisan loyalties - What Democrats must do to earn back the trust of working-class voters - The future of South Texas politics and the 2026 elections - Immigration, affordability, jobs, and the changing American electorate The Latino vote is not disappearing—it’s evolving. Understanding that evolution may determine the future of American politics. **Be sure to follow Mike's Substack,** [***The Great Transformation***](https://greattransformation.substack.com/)**, for more conversations on politics, demographics, and the transformation of the American electorate.** ### With 30 Days Left, Monique Limón Decides What Moves in the California Senate URL: https://ivn.us/with-30-days-left-monique-limon-decides-what-moves-in-the-california-senate/ Last updated: 2026-08-07T15:17:25.000Z **SACRAMENTO, Calif.** —Monique Limón's grandfather came to California from Mexico through the [Bracero Program](https://braceroarchive.org/about?ref=ivn.us), which from 1942 to 1964 brought millions of contract laborers north to work American farms. The word comes from brazo, Spanish for arm: a bracero is one who works with his arms. Limón's grandfather picked strawberries in Oxnard and tomatoes in Salinas. Her father worked as a gardener. Limón now holds one of the three most powerful positions in California government, and she carries a copy of her passport when she moves through the state she helps run. "Just in case," [she told the Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-01-04/this-california-political-leader-wants-federal-immigration-reform-first-she-has-to-survive-trump?ref=ivn.us). She is a U.S. citizen and the president pro tempore of the California Senate, the first Latina, the first woman of color and the first mother to lead the chamber. That she still keeps her documents on her says something about 2026 and the year she stepped into the job, and about the district she represents, where federal immigration agents have detained people walking to the grocery store and a farmworker died during a raid this summer. Lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Monday with 30 days left in the legislative session and hundreds of bills still alive. Limón will decide which of them reach a vote. She can determine where a bill is sent, who hears it and whether it ever reaches the Senate floor, authority that makes her one of the most consequential figures in Sacramento as the Legislature races to finish work on housing, health care, immigration, energy, public safety and the cost of living. Limón, 46, became the 50th president pro tempore in November. **She is governing in a Legislature where the Democratic Party holds a supermajority. Yet according to her office, 87 percent of the legislation she authored in the Assembly and Senate received bipartisan support.** Republican [Sen. Roger Niello](https://sr06.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) of Fair Oaks told the Los Angeles Times that Limón listens and is someone Republicans can work with. IVN's analysis demonstrates that Limón has not built bipartisan support by avoiding difficult subjects. Her bills have targeted high-interest consumer loans, medical debt, salary transparency, oil drilling, cancer treatment and the regulation of state financial institutions. As Senate pro tem, she faces an [$18 billion budget deficit](https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5101?ref=ivn.us), massive federal funding reductions and a caucus whose members represent sharply different regions and priorities. [Sen. Caroline Menjivar](https://sd20.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) of Los Angeles called Limón "una chingona," or "a badass," during her swearing-in, according to the Sacramento Bee. [Sen. Laura Richardson](https://sd35.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) of Inglewood had high praise. "Don't underestimate Senate pro Tem Monique Limón," Richardson said. "She's listening, she's aware, she's prepared." Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton [wrote](https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2026-01-19/skelton-monday-politics-newsletter-monique-limon?ref=ivn.us) that Limón's calm demeanor "masks an inner toughness." ## **The awesome power behind a committee assignment** [The Senate Rules Committee](https://srul.senate.ca.gov/members?ref=ivn.us), which Limón chairs, determines which committee receives each bill. What sounds like administrative housekeeping can decide whether a measure lives long enough to receive serious consideration. A proposal she sends to a hostile committee may never advance. A bill referred to another committee can be slowed, rewritten or held without a vote. Committee chairs control hearing schedules, testimony and amendments, and Limón decides who holds those chairmanships. Rules also manages Senate operations and staff, confirms appointments and makes every committee assignment in the chamber, and Limón holds appointment power over state boards and commissions. [Sen. John Laird](https://sd17.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) of Santa Cruz was chosen by Limón to lead the Budget Committee. ***Limón appointed women to chair all five budget subcommittees.*** She selected Sen. Angelique Ashby of Sacramento, who had also sought the Senate presidency, as majority leader. She retained [Mariana Sabeniano](https://marianacoronasabeniano.com/?ref=ivn.us) as her chief of staff, whom Limón believes is the first Latina ever to serve as chief for a California Senate president pro tempore. She appointed [Sens. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas](https://sd28.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) of Los Angeles, [Laura Richardson](https://sd35.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) of Inglewood and [Akilah Weber Pierson](https://sd39.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) of San Diego, all members of the [California Legislative Black Caucus](https://cablackcaucus.org/?ref=ivn.us), in chairmanships and leadership posts. ## **Her first budget as Senate leader** [The Senate passed the 2026-27 budget on June 30 by a vote of 29-9-2](https://sbud.senate.ca.gov/system/files/2026-06/legislatures-version-of-the-budget-summary.pdf?ref=ivn.us), sending the agreement negotiated with the Assembly and governor's office to Newsom. "The Senate began this budget process by introducing a foundation that would not only address the long-term deficit but also mitigate the devastating cuts by the federal government," Limón said. "The bill signed today does both." The agreement funded 22,770 additional childcare spaces in 2026-27 as part of an effort to add 206,800 spaces statewide. It maintained core funding for In-Home Supportive Services after proposed cuts were rejected. It continued support for the Victims of Crime Act program and protected homeless housing assistance, CalFood and immigration legal aid. The budget also settled the state's [Proposition 98 obligation to K-12 schools](https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5110?ref=ivn.us) and preserved funding for affordable housing and homeownership programs. It established the foundation for a program intended to reduce taxpayer subsidies to large corporations whose employees rely on Medi-Cal rather than employer-provided health insurance. Senate leaders said they expected the proposal to generate billions of dollars for health care. NAMI California credited Limón, Newsom and Speaker Rivas with restoring [Proposition 1 behavioral health funding](https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/behavioral-health-transformation/proposition-1-an-overview/?ref=ivn.us) and protecting services for people with severe mental illness. The budget vote was not bipartisan. California budget agreements rarely draw Republican support, and Democrats hold a supermajority in the Senate. Limon still has to work hard to keep her own caucus together. Senators are competing for the same limited state resources, and the federal cuts made by the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have increased the pressure on lawmakers significantly. "Spending big is not something that is within our means at this moment," Limón told reporters in January, according to CalMatters. ***She learned to govern through budget cuts.*** She was [elected to the Santa Barbara Unified School District board in 2010](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE0VSWqrkl0&ref=ivn.us) and served for six years. Kate Parker, who served with her, told CalMatters that the district faced repeated budget problems during that time. When reductions became necessary, Parker said, Limón tried to keep them as far from classrooms as possible. The state budget is far larger and more politically complicated, but the basic decision is familiar: When the government cannot pay for everything, which services receive protection? During the remaining 29 days of the session, Limón will ask that question for every bill carrying a significant price tag. ## **She uses her power** On June 17, while Newsom and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis were outside California, Limón served as acting governor. She became the first Latina Senate president pro tempore in state history to sign legislation while holding that role. SB 1080, authored by Republican Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares of Santa Clarita, addressed the certification of county records. Three measures from the Senate Local Government Committee dealt with state validation statutes. ## **A family cheer** Before Limón addressed reporters ahead of her Capitol swearing-in, a chant broke through from an adjoining room. "Monique! Monique! Rah! Rah! Rah!" The ceremony drew about 150 guests, most of them relatives who traveled from the Central Coast. Her parents, Jesús and Oralia Limón, immigrants from Mexico, sat in the front row. [Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero](https://courts.ca.gov/policy-administration/chief-justice-patricia-guerrero?ref=ivn.us) administered the oath in the Senate chamber. "This state and this country have allowed for the daughter of immigrants, first-generation college-bound, ESL learner, granddaughter of a Bracero, to lead the incredible State Senate," Limón said. "This is what California is about." Her election was unanimous, but of course it followed a successful internal campaign for the seat. Limón secured support from a majority of Senate Democrats during a politically chaotic week in June 2025, as [federal immigration operations provoked protests in Los Angeles](https://abcnews.com/US/timeline-ice-raids-sparked-la-protests-prompted-trump/story?id=122688437&ref=ivn.us) and lawmakers faced a deadline to pass the budget. A second ceremony was held at the Marjorie Luke Theatre at Santa Barbara Junior High School. Former Vice President [Kamala Harris](https://kamalaharris.com/?ref=ivn.us) administered the oath. "Decades ago, I stood on this stage as a student in this school," Limón said. "And today, I stand with you here as the new leader of the California State Senate." Limón spoke about the importance of becoming the first person with her background to hold the office, but also about the obligation created by that distinction. ***"Being the first is important," she said. "Ensuring we are not the last is even more so."*** ## **"Education is a vehicle"** Limón's focus on household economics and public education was evident long before she entered politics. In 2004, the Santa Barbara Independent profiled the 25-year-old Limón for her work with the California Student Opportunity and Access Program, known as [Cal-SOAP](http://www.csac.ca.gov/cal-soap?ref=ivn.us). As a child, Limón sometimes went along on her father's summer gardening jobs. "This is what happens when you don't have options," he told her. The lesson shaped how she talked about her early career. "Education is a vehicle," Limón told the Santa Barbara Independent. A college education might not guarantee a six-figure salary, she said, but it could give students choices. Limón became the first person in her family to graduate from college with help from the [Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara](https://www.sbscholarship.org/?ref=ivn.us). She earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, where she worked with a Latino student recruitment and retention organization. She later earned a master's degree in education from [Columbia University](https://www.columbia.edu/?ref=ivn.us) and returned to the Central Coast. At Cal-SOAP, Limón worked from an office at Santa Barbara Junior High School. Her job was to advise low-income and minority students from elementary school through community college, meet with every high school senior in the district, and to conduct workshops for parents who had never attended college. She later worked at UC Santa Barbara, including as assistant director of the [McNair Scholars Program](https://mcnairscholars.com/?ref=ivn.us), which prepares first-generation and underrepresented students for doctoral study. She also mentored students at Santa Barbara City College. The Santa Barbara Independent named her a Local Hero for that work more than a decade before she was elected to the Legislature. Limón has described herself as an "accidental politician." She began looking toward politics after concluding that education counseling could not reach the conditions surrounding a student. College advice could not address a family's housing needs, for example. She was elected to the Assembly in 2016, and the Senate in 2020, and her legislative record has focused ever since on those surrounding conditions: wages, consumer debt, medical bills, childcare, housing and access to health care. ## **The record she brings to the gavel** Limón's longest-running body of work is focused on consumer financial protection. Her [2019 Fair Access to Credit Act](https://www.leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=201920200AB539&ref=ivn.us) capped interest on consumer installment loans between $2,500 and $10,000 at 36% plus the federal funds rate. In 2020, [she wrote the law that converted the Department of Business Oversight into the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation](https://dfpi.ca.gov/about/history/?ref=ivn.us). She strengthened the agency's enforcement authority in 2025. Limón authored [a 2024 law barring health care providers from reporting patients' medical debt to credit agencies](https://sd21.senate.ca.gov/news/2024/september/governor-newsom-signs-medical-debt-legislation-authored-senator-monique-limon?ref=ivn.us). It also requires hospitals and debt collectors to maintain records showing how they pursue that debt. Her 2022 Pay Transparency for Pay Equity Act requires employers with at least 15 workers to include salary ranges in job postings. Forbes named her one of 50 people changing the future of work that year. She followed the measure in 2025 with legislation strengthening pay-equity enforcement. She expanded access to paid family leave and required employers to provide lactation rooms. Her health care record includes capping out-of-pocket costs for anti-cancer medication at $250, creating a $5 million Alzheimer's awareness grant program and expanding insurance coverage for biomarker testing used in cancer treatment. Her 2025 legislation required home care aides to complete Alzheimer's and dementia training before renewing their registrations. She also expanded access to California's Migrant Childcare and Development Program for children of farmworkers. Limón has repeatedly stayed with legislation after initial failure. A law requiring annual public reporting on appointments to state boards and commissions took five years and survived four gubernatorial vetoes before Newsom signed it in 2025. During her swearing-in, Limón reminded Governor Newsom of that history while he sat behind her. ## **Oil, wildfire and the housing divide** Limón's environmental record is rooted in a coastal district shaped by oil spills, offshore drilling and wildfires. She authored a 2022 law establishing setback distances around new oil and gas wells and protections for residents living near older wells. She pursued a 2021 fracking ban that failed in the Legislature before Newsom later imposed a version of the policy. She also worked on the [clean water and wildfire bond approved by voters in 2024 as Proposition 4](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F4,%5FParks,%5FEnvironment,%5FEnergy,%5Fand%5FWater%5FBond%5FMeasure%5F%282024%29?ref=ivn.us) and led a Senate working group on the state's [cap-and-invest program](https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/natural-gas/greenhouse-gas-cap-and-trade-program?ref=ivn.us). More recently, Limón proposed additional public participation and safety requirements in response to efforts to restart a pipeline associated with the [2015 Refugio oil spill](https://darrp.noaa.gov/oil-spills/refugio-beach-oil-spill?ref=ivn.us), which released approximately 21,000 gallons of crude oil along the Santa Barbara County coast. **Housing presents a more difficult policy divide** Limón has supported affordable housing and homeownership funding and has identified housing costs as a major problem for California families. But she declined to support several high-profile bills intended to accelerate development, including [SB 9](https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/planning-and-community/sb-9-fact-sheet.pdf?ref=ivn.us), [SB 423](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202320240SB423&ref=ivn.us) and [SB 79](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260SB79&ref=ivn.us). The proposals sought, through different approaches, to allow greater density or reduce approval barriers for qualifying projects. ## **The passport, and why she carries it** Nearly 150 people were detained during immigration operations in Limón's district in late December, according to the Los Angeles Times. Limón said residents had been taken while walking to the grocery store. In July, farmworker [Jaime Alanís García](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-farmworker-dies-immigration-raid-rcna218467?ref=ivn.us) died after falling roughly 30 feet from a greenhouse roof during an immigration raid at [Glass House Farms](https://glasshousefarms.org/?ref=ivn.us) in Camarillo, in her district. Limón spoke about him on the Senate floor and described the fear he expressed to his family during his final moments. As a teenager, Limón marched with her parents against [Proposition 187](https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/california-proposition-187?ref=ivn.us), the 1994 California ballot measure that sought to deny publicly funded services to people in the country illegally. Limón has argued that immigration enforcement is both a human and an economic issue. Raids can leave families afraid to enter public spaces, farms without workers and crops unharvested. "We need federal immigration reform," she told the Los Angeles Times in January. "And that includes a comprehensive look at the state of immigration, the benefit of immigration, the benefit of our immigrant community. That is not just in all the taxes they pay, but certainly their contributions to so many sectors of our economy as well." "We can't let what's happening be something that we normalize," she said outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Santa Maria. Immigration will remain part of the Senate's final-month work through proposals involving legal services, health care and state protections for immigrant communities. ## **Defending a fellow member of the Senate** Limón's responsibilities extend beyond legislation and budgets. In late June, [Sen. Scott Wiener](https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us), a San Francisco Democrat running for the congressional seat Nancy Pelosi is vacating, was [confronted by activists at Dolores Park](https://www.ktvu.com/video/fmc-pcitvvnqr1gz3g7z?ref=ivn.us) as he walked to a trans-led Pride Shabbat service. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaIR2bPuP%5FT/?ref=ivn.us) [Wiener said members of the group screamed at him](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaIR2bPuP%5FT/?hl=en&ref=ivn.us), surrounded him, made physical contact and invoked Israel during the confrontation. Video of the encounter drew millions of views online. It followed a separate incident at a sports bar earlier that week. Limón joined the [Senate Democratic Caucus](https://democrats.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) and [California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus](https://lgbtqcaucus.legislature.ca.gov/home?ref=ivn.us) in condemning the harassment. Their statement described Wiener as a determined advocate for the LGBTQ community and said he was entitled to dignity and respect. The activists came from Limón's own side of the political spectrum. She condemned the conduct anyway. San Francisco [Mayor Daniel Lurie](https://www.sf.gov/profile--daniel-lurie?ref=ivn.us) and [Republican Congressman James Gallagher](http://gallagher.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us) also spoke out. Wiener's opponent in the congressional race, [San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan](https://www.sf.gov/district-1-supervisor-connie-chan?ref=ivn.us), did not directly condemn the incident when asked. She instead rejected threats of violence and hate speech in general terms. This episode showed another part of leading a legislative chamber: deciding when conduct directed at one of its members requires an institutional response, even when the criticism comes from people aligned with your own party. ## **The district she brings to Sacramento** Senate District 21 includes all of Santa Barbara County and portions of Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties. It covers Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Camarillo, Santa Paula, Fillmore, Santa Maria, Lompoc, Guadalupe, Goleta, Carpinteria, Solvang and Grover Beach. As of the May 18 voter registration report, Democrats accounted for 45.77 percent of the district's 591,051 registered voters. Republicans made up 25.51 percent. **Another 122,739 voters, or 20.77 percent, were registered with No Party Preference.** Those NPP voters have no caucus in Sacramento or party leadership organized around their interests. [Under California's top-two primary](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/primary-elections-california?ref=ivn.us), they receive the same ballot as partisan voters and help choose which two candidates advance to the general election. Limón has watched the Central Coast move politically from red to purple to blue over the course of her life, describing the change as a gradual transition rather than a sudden realignment. Her district remains safely Democratic. **Twenty-five Latinas, up from eight** Before California adopted the [top-two primary](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/), eight Latinas held seats in the Legislature. [Twenty-five serve today](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/), representing one in five lawmakers. Women now hold 49% of all seats in the Legislature, a state record. George Skelton, who began covering the Capitol in 1961, has noted how different the institution looked when he arrived. At the time, the 120-member Legislature included one woman and no Latino lawmakers. The significance of Limón's election is not limited to representation. The bigger question is what policies change when someone with her life experiences and background controls committee assignments, budget negotiations and the Senate floor. Limón has pointed to childcare as one example. Once treated primarily as a private concern for women, it is increasingly debated as an economic issue because it determines whether parents can work. For the next 30 days, Limón will decide which bills reach the floor and which quietly do not, holding more say over what California does next than almost anyone in the state, and carrying her passport while she does it. *IVN will profile the remaining Latinas serving in the California Legislature over the coming months.* ### Washington’s Top Two Primary Put Four Independent Veterans in the Parties’ Way URL: https://ivn.us/washingtons-top-two-primary-put-four-independent-veterans-in-the-parties-way/ Last updated: 2026-08-04T18:05:27.000Z Four independent veterans are running for offices in Tuesday’s primary in Eastern Washington—each representing a different military branch, level of government, and a different path through the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary. Nate Powell, for example, is running for Congress. Danny Tarkenton wants to become Spokane County’s prosecuting attorney. Aaron Croft is seeking a state House seat. And Ronald McCoy is running for the state Senate. One thing they all have in common is that they have been endorsed by Independent Veterans of America (IVA), founded by Paul Rieckhoff to “identify, inform, and unite independent veterans and give them a voice at all levels,” [according to the group’s website.](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/mission/?ref=ivn.us) These candidates will not appear together on every voter’s ballot, though their races cover overlapping constituencies inside Washington’s 5th Congressional District. However, all four of them are competing under the same nonpartisan primary rules: Every voter and candidate participates on a single primary ballot, regardless of party, and the top two candidates advance to November. This system gives independent voters AND candidates something they rarely receive elsewhere. Specifically, an equal place in the primary. Washington became the first state in the US to adopt this type of nonpartisan, voter-nominated system when voters approved it with nearly 60% of the vote in 2004, and it has been used in elections since 2008. ## **The Eastern Washington Electorate** [According to data from ](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/eastern-washington-independents/?ref=ivn.us)[IVA](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/eastern-washington-independents/?ref=ivn.us): - Washington’s 5th Congressional District contains **53,106 veterans** and approximately **131,260 independents**. - Spokane County has **41,887 veterans** and **87,999 independents**. - Washington’s 6th Legislative District has an estimated **13,858 veterans** and **25,386 independents** - The 7th District has **12,394 veterans** and **26,057 independents**. Notably, these figures are estimates—not official registration totals. Washington does not register voters by political party. IVA calculated the numbers by applying a statewide estimated independent share of roughly 21% to the adult population in each constituency. The statewide figure for independent voters comes from [data compiled by the Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/wa?ref=ivn.us). The veterans figures come from the American Community Survey. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/08/image-1767986e-51d6-4cea-8621-909cfaae8c7b.jpg)](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/eastern-washington-independents/?ref=ivn.us) ## **Nate Powell: The Crowded Congressional Fight** A Marine Corps veteran and Spokane firefighter, Nate Powell has arguably the most difficult path of the four—just looking at the numbers. There are 12 candidates running in Washington’s 5th Congressional District, including Republican incumbent Michael Baumgartner, 5 Democrats, and 5 candidates identified as independent. Powell must finish ahead of at least 10 of them to reach November. He has framed his campaign around working-class representation, arguing that Congress has become dominated by wealthy donors, corporate interests, and career politicians. His priorities include the cost of living, health care and the national debt. He describes himself as a union firefighter, father, and veteran running because neither major party has adequately represented working families. [When the House is on Fire, You Call a Firefighter. Nate Powell is Hoping to Come Out of a Crowded Primary Unsinged.Asked about independents planning to sit out November, Powell had a direct message for them: “Everybody has to vote. It is the one piece of power that you really have.”![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-37597a52-24bd-4742-9ba2-ed0eef0551dc.jpg)Independent Voter NewsMatt Shinners![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Nate_Powell_2026_updated-ddb9bc6e-3ccc-40af-a999-900883c4d53d.jpg)](https://ivn.us/when-the-house-is-on-fire-you-call-a-firefighter-nate-powell-is-hoping-to-come-out-of-a-crowded-primary-unsinged/) The district-wide numbers give Powell the largest independent-veteran electorate of the four candidates: 53,106 veterans and an estimated 131,260 independents. But he is also in the largest and most fragmented candidate field. ## **Danny Tarkenton: An Independent Prosecutor in a Two-Candidate Race** Danny Tarkenton, an Army National Guard veteran, is running for Spokane County prosecuting attorney against Republican incumbent Preston McCollam. Her candidacy stands out because unlike the other 3 veterans featured in this piece, she is guaranteed a spot in November. Tarkenton is a Gonzaga Law graduate and former Spokane County deputy prosecutor. After returning from Iraq, she studied philosophy, psychology and forensic psychology. She says this academic path shaped her belief that public safety requires addressing the behavior and conditions that repeatedly send people through the justice system. Her campaign emphasizes evidence-based prosecution, breaking cycles of harmful behavior and keeping the office independent of party pressure. Because there are only two active candidates in this race, all Tarkenton has to do is meet Washington’s minimum requirement of receiving at least 1% of the vote to advance to the general election. Tuesday’s primary is therefore less about surviving for her than establishing a baseline for November. It will be a test to see if an independent challenger can begin the general election within striking distance of an incumbent Republican. ## **Aaron Croft: One Independent, One Democrat, One Republican** Air Force veteran Aaron Croft is running in Washington’s 6th Legislative District, which includes communities around northwest Spokane County, Fairchild Air Force Base, Airway Heights and Medical Lake. Croft served nearly 22 years in the Air Force, including as a combat search-and-rescue helicopter pilot. He faces former Spokane City Council member Jonathan Bingle, a Republican, and Democrat Julia Payne. Three candidates. Two spots in November. Croft’s campaign has focused on lowering living costs, expanding health care coverage, challenging monopolistic business practices, and removing election barriers for independent candidates. IVA also lists ranked choice voting among his reform priorities. The math is more straightforward than Powell’s situation: He does not have to deal with a large candidate field. He does not have to defeat both major parties. He only needs to defeat one of their candidates. ## **Ronald McCoy: One Independent Against Three Republicans** Ronald McCoy, a retired Navy petty officer and former mayor of Chewelah, is running for the state Senate in Washington’s heavily rural 7th Legislative District. His campaign focuses on many of the same issues as the other independent veterans featured: rural health care access, affordable housing, small-business development, and job creation—particularly for younger residents to remain in northeastern Washington. This is a race that pits McCoy against 3 Republicans, including incumbent Sen. Shelly Short, Brandon Ray Medina, and David Swoap, which creates a unique opportunity for him to take one of the top two spots in November. Three Republicans are competing for overlapping voters, which means they will split the Republican base. McCoy, on the other hand, can consolidate independents, crossover voters, and residents looking for an alternative to an all-Republican November contest. There is no guarantee that the Republican candidates will split the vote enough for McCoy to advance. However, there are enough veterans and independents in the district to prevent the GOP from treating the primary as an exclusively internal party competition. ## **The Parties Don’t Get the Final Say** Washington’s system does something only two other states (Alaska and California) do: It allows independent candidates and voters to compete and participate under the same rules as everyone else. It also ensures every voter can vote for any candidate they want, regardless of party. Voters are not forced to pick a party. They are not limited to the options of one side or the other. Their options are the entire field. This does not, on its own, guarantee independent candidates an advantage. Powell has to survive a 12-candidate congressional field. Croft must beat either a Democrat or a Republican. McCoy must leapfrog at least two Republicans. The system does not guarantee anyone or any party a place in November. It guarantees voters have the most control over who advances—and does not condition the right to vote on joining a political party. This gives the four campaigns featured here access to opportunities they would not have under party-nominated processes. The parties do not get to decide whether these independent veterans deserve to be considered. Washington voters do. ### The Troy Army Just Took Maine—Now It Has to Take Down Susan Collins URL: https://ivn.us/the-troy-army-just-took-maine-now-it-has-to-take-down-susan-collins/ Last updated: 2026-08-05T00:51:15.000Z *Editor's Note: This commentary* [*originally published*](https://www.unorganizedterritory.org/p/the-aroostook-county-cage-match?ref=ivn.us) *on Jay Field's Substack "Unorganized Territory," and has been republished on IVN with permission from the author.* After writing about [the recent Democratic U.S. Senate debate](https://www.unorganizedterritory.org/p/and-in-this-corner?r=4pd0b8&ref=ivn.us), I imagined we’d all be making plans last week to crank up the Whirly Pop and gather Thursday night in the living room for Maine’s latest fifteen minutes of fame: a prime-time debate on CNN. A whole hour of Maine on CNN. Wow. What would a watching nation learn about us? It sounded both a little scary and too good to be true, which it was. The “Troy Army” had other plans. A quick explainer for those failing to read these ***important dispatches*** or not following Maine’s Senate race as closely as the recent World Cup. Maine Democrats had a shit show on their hands as it became clear that Graham Platner’s baggage would finally subsume his charismatic candidacy and impressive grassroots movement. The party needed a process for picking a new nominee—in a crucial race, on a tight timeframe—that was more open and inclusive (or at least appeared to be) than the rushed Joe Biden to Kamala Harris coronation two years ago that only served to reinforce the scale of Biden’s blunder in running for a second term in the first place and denying Democrats a competitive primary. A redo of the senate primary was out of the question. Instead, the Maine Democratic Party asked interested candidates to declare by July 15 and then set a date of July 25 for a special nominating convention. Democrats in Maine’s sixteen counties had a short window to sign up to be delegates to the convention. Each county then held a caucus on July 18 or 19 where Democrats voted on proportional slates of delegates to represent them and choose a new Senate candidate. As the caucuses got underway, word began to spread on social media of a move—en masse, county by county—to elect slates of delegates pledged to Troy Jackson. By the time the caucuses wrapped, Jackson’s opponents had all withdrawn and Maine’s new presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate was on a conference call thanking his team of grassroots organizers and volunteers across the state. [Thus far, Maine Democrats appear to have made ](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/07/23/maine-democrats-pull-off-a-july-surprise-douglas-rooks/?copylink=true&ref=ivn.us)[the best of a bad](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/07/23/maine-democrats-pull-off-a-july-surprise-douglas-rooks/?copylink=true&ref=ivn.us)[ ](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/07/23/maine-democrats-pull-off-a-july-surprise-douglas-rooks/?copylink=true&ref=ivn.us)[situation](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/07/23/maine-democrats-pull-off-a-july-surprise-douglas-rooks/?copylink=true&ref=ivn.us)[. Though reporters covering the caucuses did note collect](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/07/23/maine-democrats-pull-off-a-july-surprise-douglas-rooks/?copylink=true&ref=ivn.us)ive pockets of Democrats who felt blindsided or disenfranchised by the quick coronation, the process was as open and transparent as possible under the compressed timeframe. In hindsight, Troy Jackson’s complete domination should not have come as a surprise. The[ progressive policies](https://www.jacksonformaine.com/priorities?ref=ivn.us) he backs are similar to those at the center of Graham Platner’s rise. Unlike Platner, Jackson began the work of organizing around—and fighting for—these principles more than two decades ago. > Jackson’s journey from the North Woods into politics began nearly 30 years ago, at a protest at the Canadian border. > > “For the second day in a row, a group of American loggers parked their pickup trucks in the middle of the road near a remote border crossing in northwestern Aroostook County. The loggers are upset with the way Canadian logging companies are doing business in Maine,” a news report at the time said. > > Jackson was among a group of unemployed loggers who used their pickup trucks to blockade the St. Pamphile border crossing with Canada. They were protesting what they said were labor law violations by companies that hired Canadian loggers to cut American wood in the vast timber lots near Jackson’s hometown of Allagash. > > Then just 31 years old, Jackson joined the protesters in arguing that American woodcutters were losing job opportunities or working for less. [***Troy Jackson is about to go under the national microscope. Here’s a look at his past***](https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2026-07-28/troy-jackson-is-about-to-go-under-the-national-microscope-heres-a-look-at-his-past?ref=ivn.us), Steve Mistler, Maine Public, July 28, 2026 Jackson already has his own network of longtime advisers, volunteers, labor unions and other supportive groups in place from his run for governor and his many years of grassroots organizing in Aroostook County and vote whipping in Augusta. Before Platner’s withdrawal was even official, Jackson’s network mobilized rapidly to solidify already established alliances with Platner’s movement and appeal directly to all voters who cast primary ballots and drove record-breaking turnout on June 9th. ## **The General Election** What [limited polling](https://www.bangordailynews.com/2026/07/21/politics/elections/poll-troy-jackson-vis-susan-collins/?ref=ivn.us) there’s been thus far on Collins v. Jackson shows a margin of error contest ahead. It’s tempting—with the stakes so high—to believe the spin coming from one side or the other about why their candidate will win or why their opponent is fatally flawed. Take all of this with a grain of salt, and with knowledge of the partisan passions it’s meant to inflame. I think this race is likely to remain tight with either side capable of pulling out a victory in November. There are a few overarching dynamics hanging over the election that will continue to shape the strategies the campaigns pursue. 1. **The Political Environment** Recent national polling continues to show a dismal political environment for President Trump and the Republican Party. > Several findings in the latest Fox News Poll show voters are unhappy and want major change, which bodes well for Democrats in November: President Donald Trump’s job approval remains near a record low, more Democrats are motivated to vote, Republicans join Democrats and independents in rating the economy negatively, and 4 in 10 voters want “dramatic” or “revolutionary” change. Plus, more view the GOP as tied to elites than the Democratic Party. > > Voters say Democrats can better handle income inequality (+22 points), healthcare (+21), inflation (+10), the economy (+9), and foreign policy (+7). Republicans hold the advantage on crime (+7 points), while government spending (Democrats +3) and national security (R +2) are more evenly divided. On immigration, the GOP had an 8-point edge in April. Now, Democrats are preferred by one point. [**Fox News Poll: Voters want major change amid economic and political discontent**](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-voters-want-major-change-amid-economic-political-discontent?ref=ivn.us)July 22, 2026 As summer grinds on, the Congressional recess nears and regular folks *(you know, normal people, not the politically obsessed)* put out the do-not-disturb sign for August, the national political press is always looking for conflict-leaden storylines to drive clicks and page views in an otherwise dead zone. The upheaval on the Democratic side of arguably the nation’s most important U.S. Senate race has been a gift from the digital media gods. It has all the ingredients of a brisk summer page turner consumed in a tanning session or two at the beach. There is scandal and political intrigue. The race to find a suitable replacement for a unique candidate in a unique election. Hope and uncertainty over said replacement. And fresh opportunities for fiery segments on CNN, MS NOW and Fox News on the political counter narrative of the summer: the evolving fight inside the Democratic Party between DSA-aligned candidates and those backed by the “normie” establishment. But Donald Trump is Donald Trump: a man incapable of ceding the spotlight to anyone or anything for long—Republicans locked in tight re-election races be damned. The recent and predictable collapse of the Iran cease fire has plunged the U.S. back into a war that’s inflicting [compounding economic damage](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/iran-war-gas-prices-mortgage-rates-rcna588816?ref=ivn.us) on average Americans by the day. Trump’s recent unhinged speech on election security raised dystopian fears about what sort of meddling he might be capable of. Tariffs are back from the dead with Trump’s recent moves to put new levies on more than 80 countries, including Canada, in an attempt to circumvent the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court. And in Maine, the recent killing of a Columbian immigrant by an ICE officer with an unstable history has put everything voters dislike about Trump’s draconian approach to immigration enforcement back in the spotlight. So despite summer distractions, political or otherwise, the overall environment for the GOP hasn't changed, is unlikely to get any better and could get much worse between now and Election Day. 1. **The Collins Money Advantage** Despite the adverse political environment, Susan Collins retains a decisive money advantage over her opponent. In her latest campaign finance filing, Collins reported having $11 million in cash on hand. Troy Jackson reported raising $2 million in the days before and after he officially became the nominee. Jackson faces two major challenges. His grassroots network in Maine, a formidable asset on key priorities like on-the-ground organizing and turnout, is under pressure to raise enough in small dollar donations to begin making up ground on Collins in the overall campaign money race. Quickly standing up a national fundraising network and donor base for Jackson will also be crucial. The challenge facing the campaign on PAC funding is more daunting. > Ms. Collins is relying on a web of deep-pocketed outside groups, funded largely by billionaire megadonors, to spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising promoting her and attacking the Democratic nominee. Her campaign, her allies and other groups aligned with Senate Republican leadership have already reserved about $60 million in airtime through the fall, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. > > That is far more than the roughly $24 million that Senate Democrats’ main super PAC and its affiliates have allocated to ads in Maine, though more could be on the way. [***After Democratic Shake-Up, Susan Collins Holds Enormous Cash Edge in Maine***](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/25/us/politics/collins-jackson-maine-senate-fundraising.html?ref=ivn.us), The New York Times, Saturday July 25, 2005 When Platner was the nominee, PACs aligned with Collins were a major driver of the advertising strategy (more below) being used to make the race competitive under hostile conditions. This basic approach does not appear to be changing despite Democrats midstream candidate switch. So national unions and Democratic PACs aligned with Jackson’s message and agenda must find a way to make up ground. It’s a tough assignment—even in an election year where so many fundamentals favor Democrats. ## **How Susan Collins Wins** For all of the upheaval in this race on the Democratic side, Collins’s path to victory remains the same as it was a month ago—with a few tweaks around the edges. To prevail in November, Collins must find a way to reassemble her 2020 electoral coalition of Republicans and Unenrolled and moderate Democratic voters—especially those ticket splitters who’ve previously pulled the lever for outgoing Governor Janet Mills and Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden. It’s not a stretch to say that if Collins had her way this would mostly be accomplished via “feel good” advertising and stories about the $1.5 billion she’s brought to Maine over the past five years as a member of the Senate Appropriations committee. Collins wants voters to focus on what life would be like in Maine without her seniority and influence in Washington. The problem is that 2026 is a uniquely horrible year for incumbents. Susan Collins’s job approval rating is decisively underwater in most polling, mirroring the electorate’s deep discontent with President Trump and his performance on the issues Mainers and Americans say they care about the most. It’s the challenging political environment that’s shaping how Collins, her political team and the outside PACs supporting her are using the vast financial resources at their disposal. As in her past re-election efforts, Mainers are being bombarded with direct mail and ads on their TVs, smart phones and social media feeds reminding them of the countless ways their lives are being improved by the federal funding Collins delivers on an annual basis. But to an even greater extent than in 2020, victory can only be achieved if the alternative is seen as weak, dangerous, radical, corrupt, out of touch or all of the above. Senator Collins previewed an initial line of attack against her new opponent last week. When Graham Platner was the nominee, PACs supporting Collins ran non-stop adds attacking the Democrat’s growing list of character issues. It was one easy storyline, served up daily, about the risk of trading a known quantity for a charismatic, yet unstable, untrustworthy newcomer. Collins and her team seemed increasingly comfortable running against Platner. Troy Jackson’s emergence complicates their strategy. As it was with Platner, defining Jackson negatively is critical to Collins’s success. Her “Bernie Bros” comment ties into one theme Maine voters should expect to hear more of between now and November: Jackson as a radical, outside of the mainstream socialist who backs a far left agenda that has been discredited by voters in the past. Shortly after Jackson’s official nomination, the Pine Tree Results PAC debuted its first ad in the rejiggered race. The hope here is that Platner will be the gift that keeps on giving though it seems dubious that Maine voters will hold Jackson responsible for Platner’s sins. Collins-aligned PACs are already expanding their lines of attack against Jackson to include his temperament as a leader and his record during his years in the legislature. The question is whether they’ll find anything that sticks in a year where so much of the focus is on dissatisfaction with the president and his party, and with elected officials seen as aiding and abetting the various messes voters are so angry about. ## **How Troy Jackson Wins** On Saturday morning, Troy Jackson capped a whirlwind two weeks by accepting the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in a room full of excited delegates and supporters in Bangor. While Jackson faces a difficult challenge, the ingredients for victory in November exist. So how does he pull it off? First, restating the obvious, there needs to be an immediate ***all hands on deck effort*** to level the financial playing field, at least somewhat, heading into the fall campaign. Sara Gideon outspent Susan Collins in 2020 and had nothing to show for it. Money isn’t everything in politics, but it’s important, especially in federal races. To win this race, Troy Jackson must assemble his own unique coalition of Democrats, and Unenrolled or Independent voters who have consistently chosen Collins over her previous Democratic opponents. Let’s start with rank and file Dems who make up a majority of the party’s registered voters. In 2020, as I noted in a [piece](https://open.substack.com/pub/jayfield/p/collins-v-platner-a-may-snapshot?r=4pd0b8&utm%5Fcampaign=post&utm%5Fmedium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true) back in May, Susan Collins beat Sara Gideon among Republicans by margin of 91% to 4%. But Gideon only managed to best Collins among Democrats by a 84% to 13% margin. To win this race, I think Jackson needs to win Democrats in 2026 by roughly the same margin that Collins won Republicans in 2020. There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic that he can do this. In the current political environment, Democrats are angry and seem ready to crawl over broken glass to get to the polls. This enthusiasm gap with Trump not on the ballot also means it’s likely that some hard core MAGA folks stay home, which would give Jackson a little more wiggle room on the margins he needs with Democrats. Sara Gideon was not a candidate who lit the Democratic base on fire. Graham Platner was doing that in 2026\. But while Platner’s charisma was powerful, I don’t believe he would have assembled such a huge following so quickly if he was selling steak knives, bibles or wind chimes. He gave voice to a rage and discontent about how far the country has fallen under Donald Trump, his unhinged second administration and a system of politics and governance controlled and practiced by the wealthy elite in both parties. Troy Jackson has been giving voice to these unpleasant truths for decades. Yes, he doesn’t have Platner’s charisma. And guess what? It’s not going to matter. What Jackson lacks in cigarette-tinged, gravelly, central casting eloquence he makes up for with life experiences that are more authentically Maine than his predecessor in the race, and on equal footing with the other politician from the County he faces in November. - Jackson is a fifth generation logger - He was born to a 16 year old mother, raised Catholic and grew up poor - He first made a name for himself in 1998 by leading a weeklong logging blockade of the U.S. Canada border in protest of alleged unfair labor practices by large corporate forestland owners - He was first elected to the Maine legislature as an Independent in 2002 before becoming a Democrat - He served as President of the Maine Senate from 2018 to 2024 - Some refer to him by his nickname: “Johnny Cash of the Allagash.” The Troy Jackson story is a story built for the current political moment in Maine. But that doesn’t mean it will automatically catch fire. For that to happen, there will need to be a strong spirit of egoless collaboration between the core group of folks that have been in the trenches with Troy for a long time and newcomers whose expertise will be needed to have a real chance of winning. Graham Platner’s campaign built one of the best grassroots volunteer political armies Maine has ever seen. But there was clear tension between Platner, his campaign and the Maine Democratic Party as things fell apart. Troy Jackson’s team and the Maine Democratic Party must now do ***whatever is necessary*** to mend any fences, acknowledge the scale of Platner’s organizing achievement and get the architects of his voter outreach operation energized and fully on board to elect Troy. Finding the right mix of messaging for specific segments of the electorate is also critical. A vast majority of Maine Democrats are already highly motivated to vote against Susan Collins. They’re likely to be receptive to messages like these and others that drive contrasts between the lived reality of lower-and middle-income working people in Maine and the financial circumstances of those who have ***benefitted the most*** from key Trump priorities like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Susan Collins voted to advance out of committee before ultimately opposing it on the Senate floor. It’s not hard to imagine an ad where footage of the president showing off architectural sketches of his ballroom or arch fades to a dimly lit kitchen table and a Maine couple, agonizing over a home heating oil bill, as a narrator hits Collins for not doing more to protect them from the consequences of Trump’s grandiose fixations. The problem for Jackson and his team is that candidate messaging and campaign advertising like this is less likely to sway the small, but influential bloc of independent voters that will decide this election. These are folks who have voted for Collins before, multiple times in many cases. They feel like they know her and are not likely to be convinced, even when presented with selective evidence from her voting record, that she has left Team Maine for Team Billionaire. So how does the Jackson campaign reach these folks and convince them to dump Collins? The best politicians are able to use an opponent’s recent record in office to frame an election as a choice about the future. Those same independent voters in Maine who’ve voted for Susan Collins over and over again are most likely pretty unsettled about the direction America is heading in under Donald Trump and an unchecked Republican Party. They have kids, grandkids, jobs, businesses, mortgages, rent payments, health care premiums, auto loans, investment accounts and 401Ks. And when they look out at the country, they see a reckless war of choice, high gas and energy prices, an unstable economy with persistent inflation, violence in the streets (otherwise known as immigration enforcement), threats to free and fair elections, an unstable chief executive and no oversight or accountability being exercised by others in positions of leadership. And it scares them. To win the support of enough of these voters, Troy Jackson doesn’t need to convince them that Susan Collins has somehow changed or is someone she’s not. He simply needs to make a persuasive daily case that returning the Republicans to the majority in Congress—and leaving the president’s power unchecked—will put the nation’s economic security and the economic security of every Maine family at risk. --- **Jay Field** is a writer, reporter, audio producer and the creator of ***Unorganized Territory*** on Substack. A former [award-winning](https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-field-438bb56/details/projects/?ref=ivn.us) public radio journalist, Jay has worked at NPR stations in San Francisco, Chicago and Maine; has contributed to NPR national news programs; and helped launch TimberHP, a start-up inside a hundred-year-old paper mill, manufacturing wood fiber construction insulation for the first time in North America. ### America’s Closed Primary System Runs on Fake Party Membership URL: https://ivn.us/americas-closed-primary-system-runs-on-fake-party-membership/ Last updated: 2026-08-03T15:18:53.000Z *Editor's Note: This commentary from Open Primaries President John Opdycke* [*originally published*](https://thefulcrum.us/elections/voters-want-progress-parties-want-control-open-primaries?ref=ivn.us) *on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN in partnership with the publication.* Advocates for closed primaries believe that political parties should be allowed to limit participation to registered party members. Their logic is…logical. *Why should Elks Club Members have a say in Rotary Club Business?* But Americans are looking for ways to make our country better, logical or otherwise. They don’t care about the self-serving rules and arguments that the two-party cartel has set up to keep us siloed. They want to vote. They want to impact. They want to be heard. So, let’s dive deeper into what is really going on in states that legally bar independents from voting. It’s wild! Open Primaries and the Independent Voter Project [conducted a poll](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) in early July of 1400 registered Democrats in New York City. We asked them a simple question: “Why did you decide to register to vote as a Democrat?” The answers will astound you. 48% said that they registered to vote as a Democrat because they are a proud member of the Democratic Party, or because they usually vote Democratic, and so it made sense to join the party. 39% said *I’m not a Democrat, I’m an independent; I registered to vote Democrat to be able to vote in primaries*. The remaining 13% were either Republicans or unsure. Almost half of Democrats in New York City…are not Democrats. If the goal is to ensure that only party members are involved in selecting party nominees, then the closed system is a complete failure. Hundreds of thousands of independents have registered as Democrats simply because they want a say in who will represent them. And New York is not an anomaly. I was talking with my friend Joe Kirby about these numbers, and he brought me up to speed on what’s happening in real time in South Dakota. Joe is a lifelong Republican, a conservative businessman, and a staunch advocate for nonpartisan primaries. We’ve worked together for a decade to advance the open primary conversation in the Mt. Rushmore State - and we both have the scars to show for it. The South Dakota GOP primary for Governor was on June 2\. No candidate cleared 35%, so a runoff was held on July 28 to decide the winner. Between June 3 and July 13 - the deadline to change your registration - thousands of South Dakota independents and Democrats changed their [voter registration](https://thefulcrum.us/how-to-register-to-vote-2658378153?ref=ivn.us) to Republican in order to vote in the runoff, which is the de facto General Election. “They didn’t suddenly become Republicans,” Joe told me. “They simply wanted a meaningful voice in choosing the person who will likely become South Dakota’s next governor. And the biggest lesson isn’t simply who won. It is that thousands of South Dakotans wanted a voice in the election that really mattered. For one election, South Dakota experienced something resembling an open primary. Participation broadened. The winning candidate earned support from a larger and more representative electorate. The process worked much as advocates of open primaries have long argued it would.” Both New York and South Dakota exposed that our crazy system of partisan voter registration and closed primaries forces millions of Americans to join private organizations that don’t believe in just to participate and have a voice. And party activists claim that closed primaries keep their parties pure! It’s actually the exact opposite. If political parties want to limit membership to true believers, they should a) embrace open and nonpartisan primaries and nonpartisan voter registration. Then the only reason to join a party is that you believe in it, not because you’ve been coerced into joining just to vote. --- **John Opdycke* is the president of* [*Open Primaries*](https://openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*, a national election reform organization.* ### Dan Osborn is Ready to Represent the Working Class in Congress. Is Nebraska Ready to Let Him? URL: https://ivn.us/dan-osborn-is-ready-to-represent-the-working-class-in-congress-is-nebraska-ready-to-let-him/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:53:31.000Z *Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain mostly unrepresented in federal office. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, almost always leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home.* *A handful of high-profile independent candidates for the US Senate are trying to change that. 2026 is seeing one of the largest surges of interest in independent candidates in recent memory. However, these candidates are often covered as fringe candidates, and stories about them focus more on how they'll impact the outcome of the election between a Republican and Democrat than they do on the substance of the candidate's campaign.* *This series exists because the independent electorate deserves better than that. Over the coming months, IVN is conducting in-depth interviews with independent candidates across the country—not just horse-race conversations about polling and fundraising, but substantive discussions about the issues independent voters actually care about.* *In Nebraska, Dan Osborn is running for US Senate.* --- ## I. The Candidate Dan Osborn graduated from Omaha's Roncalli Catholic High School in 1994\. He then joined the Navy, [serving four years aboard the USS Constellation](https://www.osbornforsenate.com/meet-dan?ref=ivn.us) before moving on to the Nebraska Army National Guard. In 2004, he took a job as an industrial mechanic at the Kellogg's plant in Omaha and joined the union, where he eventually rose to president of BCTGM Local 50G. In that role, he [led the 77-day 2021 strike](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/tag/kelloggs-strike/?ref=ivn.us) that stopped the company's proposed benefit cuts and kept the plant open. He was later terminated by Kellogg's, an action he attributes to his union role, and now works as a steamfitter with Local 464. The through-line from the plant floor to the campaign is the same sentence he has been repeating for three years: working people deserve a seat at the table in Washington. In 2024, running as an independent against Republican Sen. Deb Fischer, that message got him [46.5% of the vote](https://smartpolitics.lib.umn.edu/?p=459719&ref=ivn.us)—a roughly seven-point loss in a state Donald Trump carried by 20\. It was the strongest independent performance in a Nebraska Senate race in the direct election era, and it convinced him to run again immediately. --- ## II. The Race The field cleared for Osborn in the space of about a week in July. On July 16, the secretary of state's office [verified at least 6,096 valid signatures](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/07/16/nebraska-nonpartisan-us-senate-candidate-dan-osborn-qualifies-for-november-ballot/?ref=ivn.us) against the 4,000 required, officially placing him on the November ballot. The next day, Democratic nominee Cindy Burbank, who won her primary in May on an explicit promise to step aside, filed paperwork to withdraw. Secretary of State Bob Evnen initially floated keeping her on anyway, then [announced on July 21](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/07/21/nebraska-secretary-of-state-says-democrat-cindy-burbank-wont-appear-on-us-senate-ballot/?ref=ivn.us) that state law gave him no discretion to refuse a declination, while calling the maneuver "a cynical manipulation of the ballot process." The result is a head-to-head between Osborn and incumbent Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts. Sen. Ricketts is the son of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts and a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. He served as Nebraska's governor from 2015 to 2023 before being appointed to the Senate in 2023 when Sen. Ben Sasse left to become president of the University of Florida. He won the special election to finish that term, and he won the Republican primary for this cycle with roughly 82% of the vote. He’s been endorsed by President Trump. The fundraising totals tell a story of two different styles of campaign. Ricketts has raised $11.2 million through June 30—of which \~$5.3 million is a contribution from himself and $3.6 million came from other committees, leaving roughly $2.2 million from individual donors. Osborn's campaign reports $5.8 million raised with an average second-quarter contribution of about $40 and no corporate PAC money. Osborn's framing at his ballot-qualification press conference was blunt: "Ricketts believes spending is free speech, he believes his voice is louder because he can write a bigger check." Nebraska's registration numbers explain why this is still an uphill race. As of July, the state had [620,000 registered Republicans, 328,000 Democrats, and 282,000 nonpartisans](https://sos.nebraska.gov/sites/default/files/doc/elections/vrstats/2026VR/Statewide-July-2026.pdf?ref=ivn.us)—a Republican plurality of nearly 50%. Public polling has consistently shown a close race when Osborn and Ricketts are placed head-to-head, with Osborn ranging from one point behind to five points ahead. That polling comes with a significant caveat: nearly all of it has been sponsored by Osborn's campaign or by groups aligned with him or other independents. What is notable is not the toplines but the absence of any survey showing Ricketts pulling clear, or even ahead by more than the margin of error. --- ## III. What 2024 Taught Him Osborn's answer on what he brought forward from the last cycle itself speaks to the increased professionalism of his independent campaign. "We have numbers now," he said. "We have data of how we performed in every county, so we've identified where we need to do better and what our actual win numbers are." That county-level model can now serve the basis for field operations rather than a guess. The second asset is recognition. Osborn puts it at 86% statewide. "I don't have to spend the first half hour of every conversation explaining who I am." The third is a volunteer network that returned, showing a high level of grassroots enthusiasm that’s reflected in his small-dollar fundraising advantage. The one thing he says he got wrong was social media, which he now describes as a major channel he underinvested in. He also is more direct in his criticism of Ricketts—Osborn called him "the Lex Luthor of Nebraska" and said that as a two-term governor "he ran the state like a mob boss." But what he says of both of his senatorial opponents from the past two cycles is the part that matters to him most: "They're just backbenchers that will rubber stamp whatever their party tells them to do.” Even when, Osborn says, it isn’t working for the people in Nebraska. --- ## IV. The Coalition Osborn's coalition-building is being built on the backbone of a grueling campaign schedule. He did 200 public town halls in 2024 alone. By the time we spoke in July, he had already done more than 90 this cycle, with a commitment to reach all 93 counties. He described driving twelve miles up a rancher's driveway to have a conversation with a Republican voter—not to pitch, but to ask what he wanted from a US senator and what he felt he was getting. On the specific problem of independent turnout—recent polling suggests about 30% of independents nationally plan to sit out the midterms—his pitch is less about mobilization mechanics than about identification. "If you're talking about team mentality, that's whose team I'm playing for: the people that are frustrated with the two-party doom loop that we're stuck in. Not passing farm bills, not passing immigration reforms. They're working for the money interests, the lobbyists, the special interests that fund campaigns." --- ## V. Money in Politics: The Fulcrum Through-Line Every independent Senate candidate in this series has been asked what they would demand before helping either party organize a Senate majority—the "fulcrum" strategy that the six of them have been developing in coordination. [Ty Pinkins](https://ivn.us/ty-pinkins-makes-the-case-for-sending-an-independent-caucus-to-the-senate/) laid out a detailed list of single-issue bills and rules changes for the first day of a new Congress. [Bob Chew](https://ivn.us/2026/06/17/campaigns/bob-chew-wants-to-make-colorados-senate-race-about-the-problems-both-parties-duck/) added procedural items on reconciliation and restoring the 60-vote threshold for confirmations. [Todd Achilles](https://ivn.us/todd-achilles-says-the-two-parties-broke-congress-now-he-wants-idaho-to-help-break-their-grip/) framed the whole exercise as a constitutional reform wave. Osborn's answer is narrower and, he argues, upstream of all of it. "For me, it really is money in politics," he said. "Money in politics touches so many, if not every, issue that's out there. If you're taking their money, you've got to do their bidding." Citizens United is a Supreme Court ruling, he acknowledged, so the near-term work is finding ways to combat its effects rather than waiting on a reversal. He also thinks the demonstration matters as much as the legislation. "Just existing in the Senate with a win, and doing it in a way where we didn't take defense contractor money or AIPAC money or railroad money or Facebook money or AI money or cryptocurrency money—just existing in that realm is going to show so many other people, and hopefully voters across the country, that we need to highlight this." His shorthand for the problem comes from Robin Williams: politicians should wear NASCAR jackets with their sponsors' patches, so voters know in advance how they'll vote. --- ## VI. Term Limits, Done Right When asked about his own commitment to term limits outside of legislation implementing them, his response was hilariously blunt. "I'm 51 years old. Twelve years puts me—yeah, I want to retire someday, man. I don't need to sign a pledge. I know it's going to be two and out." But his substantive objection is more interesting than the personal one. Term limits alone, he argues, make the lobbying problem worse rather than better. "The thing that has to live next to it—that's actually more important than term limits—is a complete ban on any former member of Congress becoming a lobbyist. They have a whole Rolodex of all the power players in Washington and all the people with the money. They could probably be way more effective as a lobbyist with those contacts than they could as an actual lawmaker." He points to Nebraska's own unicameral as the cautionary example: term limits there are too short, and the result is a pipeline of former state senators who now influence the body as lobbyists more than they did as members. His package is three-part and interlocking—term limits, a lifetime lobbying ban, and a stock trading ban with actual enforcement. "Those three things together could be very powerful, but you have to do term limits right." On age limits, he was more equivocal, noting that voters keep reelecting older members and that "the devil you know versus the devil you don't" seems to be doing real work. But the underlying concern is straightforward: "At some point that decline that is inevitable in all of us is going to happen, and we don't want that to happen while they're in these very high positions that affect so many people's lives." --- ## VII. Growth and Fairness Osborn's economic platform runs under the name Growth and Fairness, and the two halves are meant to be inseparable. On the revenue side, he identifies two targets: the Department of Defense, which has never passed an audit despite billions in unaccounted assets—"I'm not suggesting we cut defense spending," he was careful to add—and the roughly 50 multinational corporations that park profits overseas rather than repatriating them. "I pay my fair share. They should too." On healthcare, he resists jumping to a coverage model before addressing structure. "We don't want to put the cart ahead of the horse. It is about breaking up the monopolies, making sure corporations like CVS can't vertically integrate the entire system where they profit at every single level." The argument he makes most often is not a moral one but a growth one: at small business roundtables across the state and when talking with independent ranchers and farmers, health insurance is the number one issue every single time. "That's their Achilles' heel. If you could reduce that for people, you would see a massive boom—people wanting to start their own businesses, smart people who don't have to be stuck in a factory." The same antitrust logic drives his small business platform. Driving across Nebraska, he said, nearly every town has a Dollar General placed just outside the city limits, with revenue flowing to a company in Tennessee. He believes the chain's purchasing model may violate the Robinson-Patman Act, the Depression-era law meant to ensure small grocers can buy the same goods at the same price as large chains. "Dollar General doesn't help anybody out… The mom and pop grocery shops I've gotten to visit—they're awesome." Asked what he would need to accomplish to consider a Senate tenure worthwhile, he named four: Social Security solvency through lifting the payroll tax cap; right-to-repair laws with teeth, including for military contracts; aggressive privacy protection, especially against surveillance pricing, license plate readers, and algorithmic targeting of children; and, above all, getting big money out of politics. "If I could get the money out of politics, the dominoes will fall. Corruption will be lessened by default." On war powers, made particularly relevant now because of the ongoing war in Iran, he was direct. He called it an illegal and unjust war, argued that the 60-day window in the War Powers Resolution reflects a mobilization timeline that no longer exists, and delivered the line that summarizes his view of the institution he wants to join: "Congress needs to grow a spine." --- ## VIII. Assessment Osborn enters the general election with the structural setup no independent Senate candidate has had in modern memory: a cleared field, a two-way race against an incumbent who is struggling to break away in available polling, near-universal name recognition, a functioning county-level field model, and a fundraising base of small donors deep enough to compete without a party behind it. He is arguably the most viable independent Senate candidate in the country this cycle. The obstacles are also real. Ricketts can self-fund without limit and has already demonstrated the willingness. Nebraska's Republican registration advantage is close to 50%. The polling showing a tied race is almost entirely campaign-aligned, and he recently lost an election among the same electorate while having many of these same advantages. What distinguishes Osborn within this series is that he is running the least abstract version of the independent argument. He does not have a constitutional theory or a procedural wish list. He has a strike, a plant closure, a recent legitimate campaign, and a message about the working class that resonates throughout his background. Whether that translates into the roughly four points he needs to find between 2024 and 2026 is the question November will settle. --- *This interview was conducted July 20, 2026.* ### The DNC Insider Leading the Push to Kill Ranked Choice Voting by 2028 URL: https://ivn.us/the-dnc-insider-leading-the-push-to-kill-ranked-choice-voting-by-2028/ Last updated: 2026-08-07T15:17:40.000Z *Editor’s Note: This commentary piece was originally part of* [*Expand Democracy*](https://expanddem.substack.com/?utm%5Fsource=substack&utm%5Fmedium=email)*’s weekly newsletter and was converted into a stand-alone op-ed on IVN by request of and with permission from the author.* Democratic National Committee insiders are poised to ban the use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in selecting their presidential nominee in 2028 – overriding presidential primary laws in Maine and Washington, D.C, and squashing great interest in this use of RCV among state legislators and the many state parties who run their own primaries. Presidential primaries are among the most [compelling use cases for RCV.](https://ivn.us/americas-closed-primary-system-runs-on-fake-party-membership/) They draw crowded fields of candidates that voters get to know and are eager to rank rather than be limited to one. Parties must unite their big tent of voters, and RCV rewards unifying candidates. The sequential nature of primaries is a problematic fit with early voting – in 2020, for example, [more than three million Democratic voters](https://fairvote.org/the-wasted-votes-wheel/?ref=ivn.us) cast a ballot for a candidate who had withdrawn before that vote was counted. [DNC Could Ban Ranked Choice Voting in 2028Maine and Washington, D.C. may still use ranked ballots, but Democrats would allocate delegates as though voters never ranked anyone beyond first place.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-3dffcd3d-dc83-41b7-b69d-c3b98f480aed.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-6cf991d2-331d-4c14-addc-e6923066ec27-365c8d4e-8dce-4476-96ea-af22df60d986.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dnc-could-ban-ranked-choice-voting-in-2028-even-where-voters-made-it-law/) But the senior citizens who dominate the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) reflect the conservatism I’ve found among many older people on adopting RCV. The [age gap in support for RCV](https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public%5Finterest/election%5Flaw/american-democracy/our-work/what-we-know-about-ranked-choice-voting-2025/?ref=ivn.us) is breathtaking. While that makes me optimistic for the future of RCV as a reform, it reflects a short-term challenge in a nation that too often looks and acts like a gerontocracy. Even among seniors, however, support for RCV is strong among Democrats. Maine, for example, has the nation’s oldest median age, yet its voters adopted RCV for state and congressional elections on the ballot in 2016, ratified that support in a 2018 referendum, and had its legislature extend RCV to presidential primaries and general elections heading into 2020\. A recent [University of New Hampshire poll](https://scholars.unh.edu/survey%5Fcenter%5Fpolls/981/?ref=ivn.us) found that among registered Democrats in Maine, the state’s RCV law is supported by an overwhelming 84% to 6% margin. Maine’s Democratic Party leaders of course want to keep using RCV for presidential primaries.[ Washington, D.C. voters are also enthusiastic](https://fairvote.org/press/poll-78-of-dc-voters-say-ranked-choice-voting-is-simple/?ref=ivn.us) about RCV after its successful rollout in primaries this June in the wake of 73% of voters passing RCV for all DC elections, including the 2028 presidential primaries. State Democratic Party leaders in Alaska, Hawaii and Wyoming used RCV in 2020 and want to use it again, as do other states like Iowa. But the [Rules and Bylaws Committee recently passed language](https://www.fhqplus.com/p/the-democrats-and-ranked-choice-voting?ref=ivn.us) mirroring the position of national Republicans who voted to block use of RCV after the GOP in the U.S. Virgin Islands used RCV in 2024\. The proposed rule would ignore any rankings on an RCV ballot by only awarding delegates based on first choices. While some RBC members are protesting that this proposed rule is not a “ban,” that’s disingenuous. It would be analogous to a rule that vote-by-mail ballots could be cast in a presidential primary, but only in person votes would count toward awarding delegates. That would as effectively ban vote-by-mail as the proposed rule bans RCV. The RBC’s surprise attack on RCV was organized by Frank Leone, a long-time opponent of RCV who had badly lost local battle about using RCV among Democrats in his previous city of Arlington (VA) and his current home of Washington, D.C. Leone’s tactic was to mislead RBC colleagues that RCV is somehow incompatible with the party’s long-time proportional representation requirement. That claim is absolutely false, yet RBC leaders like Leone and RBC co-chair Jim Roosevelt have shamelessly [made that argument in Maine news articles](https://mainemorningstar.com/2026/07/30/maine-democrats-may-be-unable-to-rank-presidential-primary-under-proposed-dnc-rule/?ref=ivn.us) about the controversy. ### Oregon’s Closed Primaries Are on Trial—and So Is Forced Party Membership URL: https://ivn.us/oregons-closed-primaries-are-on-trial-and-so-is-forced-party-membership/ Last updated: 2026-08-07T15:18:37.000Z A major constitutional challenge to Oregon’s closed primaries is no longer just a courtroom fight - it is now a growing public debate across the state. After Open Primaries [filed an amicus brief drafted by me to the Oregon Court of Appeals](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Amicus-Brief-court-stamped.pdf?ref=ivn.us) supporting [the brief filed](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Appellants-Opening-Brief-and-ER-1.pdf?ref=ivn.us) by plaintiffs [Mark Porter and ](https://ivn.us/oregon-activist-sues-over-closed-primaries-i-shouldnt-have-join-party-have-voice-2025-07-01/)[*Our Primary Voice*](https://ivn.us/oregon-activist-sues-over-closed-primaries-i-shouldnt-have-join-party-have-voice-2025-07-01/), the case [has gained major visibility](https://kpic.com/news/local/lawsuit-argues-oregon-closed-primary-election-system-violates-state-constitution-republican-democrat-politics-ballot-independent-voter-elections?ref=ivn.us) in multiple outlets. That coverage was followed by wider attention in political reporting, radio discussion, digital commentary, and social media, where independent voters and reform advocates have been amplifying the stakes of the case. As Porter declared in bringing the suit: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/image-971d7705-9e96-4f6d-b39f-47877105bfdb.png) At the center of the lawsuit is a simple but consequential constitutional question: **Can the state require citizens to join a private political party in order to vote in a public election?** Our brief argues that it cannot. [It makes a legal argument](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Amicus-Brief-court-stamped.pdf?ref=ivn.us) rooted in both voting rights and freedom of association. The Constitution protects the right to join a political party, but it also protects the right **not** to join one. The state should not be allowed to condition access to a taxpayer-funded public election on party membership. The brief also challenges the longstanding assumption that party primaries are purely private affairs. In Oregon, as in many states, primaries are created by state law, administered by public officials, funded by taxpayers, and used to nominate candidates for public office. In many communities, they are the elections that matter most. Excluding voters from that process is not simply a party rule - it raises a serious constitutional problem. As I noted: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/image-4c38c329-c4b6-42d5-8225-a77b6d328f09.png) The attention this case is receiving shows that the argument is breaking through. What began in Oregon is now helping frame a broader national debate about whether public elections belong to all voters or only to party members. **Want to learn more?** Open Primaries is building the nation's [first coordinated litigation platform](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) dedicated to primary reform and independent voter rights with cases across the country. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/image-d6a803d6-9b53-4cab-b025-0422175cecc7.png) ## **OPEN PRIMARIES AT NCSL – Conversations and Connections** The [National Conference of State Legislatures](https://www.ncsl.org/?ref=ivn.us) held its Annual Summit in Chicago this week and Open Primaries was there. Cathy Stewart, National Organizing Director and Bree Doldron, National Organizer manned the Open Primaries booth, joined by Open Primaries board member, David Cherry who lives in the Windy City. They spoke with legislators, staff members and voters from across the country about the need for independent voters to have full voting rights. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/image-663e0562-4efc-4cdb-b92d-a5f94dfa9eec.png) The team spoke with legislators from Washington, Alaska, and Maine who shared the positive impact of open primaries in their state. Check out Washington Rep. Lisa Parsley’s comments below; and Hailey Pucker who shared the perspective of an independent voter in CO. The team had the chance to talk with African American legislative leaders in South Carolina and Alabama, where the open primary system is coming under attack and how this would negatively impact their communities. Del. Lily Qi stopped by and shared a message about her commitment to continuing to advance legislation to open the primaries in MD to over one million independents. Delaware State Sen. Eric Buckson and his wife Jennifer also visited the booth. Sen. Buckson was a Senate cosponsor of [HB 188](https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=142403&ref=ivn.us), a bill to open the primaries that passed the House of Representatives this spring. Sen Buckson is hopeful about the prospects for the bill in the next session. Jennifer Buckson is an independent and has never been able to vote for her husband in the primaries! We had the opportunity to talk with legislators, staff and voters from Hawaii to West Virginia to Connecticut about who independent voters are, the growing movement for open primaries, and the importance of all voters having equal voting rights in public primaries. There were spirited discussions, curiosity and many new connections made. ## **What We’re Watching** ## Changing the National Narrative This week, OP President John Opdycke joined the [Politics Guys podcast](https://politicsguys.com/can-open-primaries-break-the-two-party-cartel/?ref=ivn.us) to discuss the tension between the rise of independent voters and dominance of “dogwhistle” politics. It’s a great interview. And in case you missed it, John appeared on [Meet the Press](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Jt8ykQo3Q&ref=ivn.us), [The Chuck Toddcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/interview-only-w-john-opdycke-why-closed-partisan-primaries/id1156592336?i=1000777037103&ref=ivn.us), [Takeout with Major Garrett](https://www.cbsnews.com/video/case-for-open-primaries/?ref=ivn.us), and [535 News](https://535.news/interviews/john-opdycke-jul-23-2026/?ref=ivn.us) to discuss the growing primary reform movement. ## **Campaign Updates** ## Who’s Afraid of Open Primaries? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/image-29fadd86-3722-4f6d-8493-c5f0aca364bd.png) This week, [New York Open Primaries](https://newyorkopenprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us).showed that our campaign is doing exactly what it needs to do: forcing public officials and political insiders to confront an issue they have avoided for far too long. City Council Speaker Julie Menin [spoke favorably about opening the system](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=yKzJfnAl0kU&ref=ivn.us), but stopped short of taking a formal position. That alone is a sign of progress. The pressure is building, and the political establishment can no longer ignore the 1.2 million independent voters shut out of the elections that so often decide who governs New York City. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, meanwhile, [said he is "content" with New York City's closed primary system](https://newyorkopenprimaries.org/amny-op-ed-a-progressive-mayor-shouldnt-defend-an-exclusionary-election-system/?ref=ivn.us). That is a remarkable position for someone who claims to oppose entrenched political interests and fight for ordinary people. As the American Enterprise Institute’s Howard Husock [notes this week](https://www.aei.org/commentary/zohran-mamdani-faces-a-telling-decision-on-election-reform/?ref=ivn.us), “one might think that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has less than zero in common with Republicans in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kansas, Idaho, and Florida. Yet they share a common approach to elections: excluding independent voters from party primaries. One could even call it disenfranchising independents.” The Working Families Party [is also being forced into the open](https://wnyc.org/browse/shows/episode/simplecast/cbc0a3eb-00ea-4e36-b2bf-8f1a85b66253?ref=ivn.us). For years, WFP worked to block open primaries while avoiding public accountability on the issue. Why? Because open primaries threaten the insider influence they have built as a small but powerful special interest in Democratic Party politics. When a group of roughly 20,000 fights to keep 1.2 million independents locked out, it is fair to ask who they really speak for. The campaign is heating up, the silence is breaking, and every week brings more momentum. Join the campaign, sign the petition, and help us open New York City's primaries at [New York Open Primaries](https://newyorkopenprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us). ## **What We’re Reading** ## How Voters Become “The Boss” Again As the founder of [Best of Tennessee](https://bestoftn.us/?ref=ivn.us), Chloe Akers has spent the last several years asking a simple but powerful question: **Who do our elected officials really answer to?** Her work has focused on helping Tennesseans understand that the state's most consequential elections often happen long before November, when far fewer voters participate. [In this week’s feature](https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2026/07/30/be-the-boss-vote-in-the-august-6-primary-election/91102869007/?ref=ivn.us), Chloe explains how low-turnout primaries have shifted political accountability away from the majority of voters-and why showing up in the primary may be the single most important step Tennesseans can take to make their voices matter again. As Chloe notes: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/image-0dd050bc-b311-4955-9ff8-932d50cd48e5.png) ## **Fast Takes** ## ICYMI: A Declaration for America’s 250th Birthday For the Fourth of July, Open Primaries marked America’s 250th birthday by releasing the [*Declaration of Independents*](https://openprimaries.org/declaration-of-independents/?ref=ivn.us)\-a call to affirm that political rights belong to citizens, not parties. The piece celebrates the growing independent movement while highlighting a basic democratic principle: every voter deserves an equal voice in taxpayer-funded elections. Independent voters from across the country have now joined together in a powerful spoken-word performance of the *Declaration of Independents.* Check it out! ## **Activities and Events** ## Become a Stronger Voice for Independent Voters Independent voters are the largest and fastest-growing group in American politics—but too often their voices go unheard. Open Primaries **Independents' Spokesperson Training** is designed to help independent and reform-minded Americans communicate with confidence, tell their stories effectively, and become stronger advocates for open, inclusive elections. Join us on **Thursday, October 15 at 6:30 PM ET** for an engaging Zoom training featuring storytelling, communications coaching, and practical tools you can use immediately. **Applications are** [**now open**](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvNrt75v8IlPiN4iNGgVpVa7bgQ%5Fh6Loe3ICAyYBePXSf9zw/viewform?ref=ivn.us)**, but space is limited.** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/image-bc3a1dc3-47b1-4dce-9caf-150b148fe788.png)](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvNrt75v8IlPiN4iNGgVpVa7bgQ%5Fh6Loe3ICAyYBePXSf9zw/viewform?ref=ivn.us) ### 27 Years in Uniform, Now Running Against BOTH Parties in Oregon (Jason Faler) | EP50 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/27-years-in-uniform-now-running-against-both-parties-in-oregon-jason-faler-ep50/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:26.000Z A 27-year Army officer with three deployments looked at Congress and decided the problem wasn't which party was winning - it was that both of them were. So Jason Faler is running in Oregon's 6th with no letter behind his name. Jason walks us through the road from four-generation Oregonian to combat tours in Baghdad and the Horn of Africa to healthcare administrator and professor - and the "frog in the boiling water" moment that finally pushed him to run. He lays out the number almost nobody in Oregon knows: unaffiliated voters went from 22% of the electorate in 2012 to roughly 40% today, which means the largest voting bloc in his district belongs to no party at all. We get into why so many veterans end up in nonpartisan reform, why he won't just run in a primary and take the easy path, and what it actually costs to get on a ballot when your two opponents ran unopposed. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ## Episode Highlights Jason Faler, an independent congressional candidate running in Oregon's 6th Congressional District, joined the Independent Voter Podcast to explain why he's rejecting party labels in his bid for Congress. A fourth-generation Oregonian and soon-to-be Army colonel with nearly 27 years of military service — including multiple combat tours in Iraq and intelligence work in the Horn of Africa — Faler also brings two decades of healthcare administration experience and teaches healthcare law at OHSU/PSU's joint school of public health. He left the Republican Party after his first deployment to Baghdad, growing disillusioned with hyperpartisanship and political extremism. Now running as a true independent candidate, Faler argues that both major parties have abandoned the American people in favor of party loyalty, fueling the toxic polarization, congressional gridlock, and lack of political decorum that define modern Washington. At the heart of Faler's independent political campaign is a data-driven case about the changing American electorate: independent voters now make up the largest voting bloc in Oregon's 6th District — and in most congressional districts nationwide — jumping from roughly 22% in 2012 to nearly 40% today. Faler contends that the old political calculus branding a vote for a third-party candidate or non-affiliated candidate as a "wasted vote" or "spoiler vote" no longer holds, given how dramatically the independent voter movement has grown. Still, he faces steep structural barriers to ballot access that major-party candidates don't: independent candidates in Oregon must gather thousands more petition signatures than their Democrat and Republican rivals just to qualify for the general election — a systemic obstacle Faler says is designed to protect party insiders and shut out independent politicians and nontraditional candidates. Faler's campaign taps into a broader national conversation around electoral reform, ballot access reform, and voter dealignment, echoing themes championed by groups like Veterans for All Voters and the ranked choice voting movement. He argues that veterans, having sworn an oath to the Constitution rather than to any political party, are natural independents — and that Congress needs more members who understand the true cost of war and sacrifice. Ultimately, Faler frames his run not as a symbolic protest candidacy but as a genuine bid to win, positioning Oregon as a potential trailblazer for independent political representation and a model for breaking the two-party stranglehold on American democracy nationwide. ### JB Pritzker Says Democrats Must Fight—But Dodges the Open Primaries Question URL: https://ivn.us/jb-pritzker-says-democrats-must-fight-but-dodges-the-open-primaries-question/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:53:16.000Z Illinois Governor JB Pritzker says the identity crisis in the Democratic Party is between those who cave and those who are willing to fight for the American public, but while he makes the case for being a fighter—the question is: Will this apply to independent voters? Specifically, for their voting rights in publicly funded and administered elections. Paul Rieckhoff hosted Pritzker on his podcast, [Independent Americans](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG%5FD36OeiIq1%5FIZsv3pGSpw?ref=ivn.us). The two discussed several topics, including the president’s insults at the governor, his rising-star status in the Democratic Party, and the lingering threat of the Insurrection Act dangling over Chicago. “We’re going to stand up and push back as we did before, and as you pointed out, we won in the Supreme Court about his fight to bring National Guard into the city of Chicago,” Pritzker said. He added that he does not want the federal government “invading us for purposes other than what is good for the people of our state,” and the administration should not send in troops unless and until state governors ask. This transitioned into a conversation about the identity crisis within the Democratic Party, as the Democratic Socialists of America continue to rise in influence. But Pritzker says recent events have shown the real divide is between “Team Cave” and Team Fight.” “You’ve seen so many people who aren’t willing to stand up and push back,” he said. Pritzker uses the deaths of US citizens in Minneapolis during the ICE deployment earlier this year as an example. He said he told another governor at the time that all Democratic governors should show up in Minneapolis, join protesters, and “make a statement that this is not right.” > *“That governor said to me, not exaggerating, ‘you know, I am really not sure that other governors are going to want to do that. How about we have a Zoom call?’ And I thought, really? You’re missing the moment here.”* Rieckoff said he understands the distinction between “Team Cave” and “Team Fight,” but he pressed the governor on what this means for independent voters. Independents want a fighter, but millions of them are locked out of publicly-funded primary elections. In Illinois alone, over 40% of the electorate identifies as independent, [according to L2 Data compiled by the Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/il?ref=ivn.us). These voters often fly under the radar in national conversations, but with more governors speaking out in favor of open primaries, like Wes Moore in Maryland and Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Rieckhoff asked Pritzker if he would go on the record in support as well. However, Pritzker immediately shifted the topic to redistricting, saying that what would be better would be a national law that requires independent redistricting commissions to draw more competitive districts. He even corrected himself when he initially said there should be more competitive primaries, because he believes the focus should be on the general election. “I believe we should have more competitive primaries—sorry—general elections. But I think the way to do that is to make sure we got districts where there is a chance of someone from either party possibly winning,” Pritzker remarked. Rieckoff responded from a position of essentially: why not both? He agreed that the national redistricting bill was long overdue, but he didn’t let Pritzker off the hook on the subject of open primaries. He asserted that it is time for the “players to stop being the referees,” but the parties also need to stop running elections when they get public funding. “We’re putting public money and using public schools and public election booths to run private primaries where all of us can’t vote,” he said. “All of that seems inequitable. We’re going to challenge it all the way to the Supreme Court and say it is unconstitutional.” > *“But there is a rising movement of folks who want to be able to have an equal vote, and until the primaries are truly open and not run by the parties, we’re not going to get that.”* And yet, Pritzker never addressed the issue directly in their conversation. He talked about how important it is to win over independents and if independent voters want change, they can swing an election or run a candidate of their own (despite his previous observation about the lack of competitiveness in the US). But he never actually answered the question. Rieckhoff put Pritzker as a “Yes” for independent redistricting reform, but a “TBD” on open primaries. Check out the full interview above. ### Accountability in America: The Issue Both Parties Escape May Be What Unites Americans URL: https://ivn.us/accountability-in-america-the-issue-both-parties-escape-may-be-what-unites-americans/ Last updated: 2026-07-30T17:25:58.000Z Americans disagree on many things — taxes, immigration, healthcare, foreign policy, and almost every major issue in public life. But one question increasingly cuts across ideological lines: when will those in power who commit crimes actually face consequences? Trust in American institutions is collapsing. People do not trust the government to tell the truth. They do not trust Congress to act in the public interest. They do not trust agencies to police themselves. They do not trust that the same standards applied to the rest of us are being applied to them. America does not only have a corruption problem. It has an accountability problem. The purpose of law is not simply to control the people to keep a safer and smoother-running society. Law also exists to control the government. It is supposed to create a clear, unbiased standard for how power relates to citizens. It tells the government where its authority begins, where it ends, and what process must be followed before power can be used against the people. Take the Fourth Amendment. It does not say that people should not commit crimes. It tells the government what it is and is not allowed to do when it suspects someone of a crime. Law enforcement cannot simply decide it wants access to your home, your property, your records, or your life because it feels suspicious of you. The government has to meet a standard. It has to justify its power. It has to follow a process. But what happens when the people who are supposed to write, enforce, and uphold the laws are also the ones violating public trust? We see it everywhere. Take for example the Hunter Biden laptop story being censored from the internet during an election, the $100 million Palisades fire fund never making it to a single victim, the Epstein files that we were promised showing up as pages colored in black sharpie, major fraud scandals in Minnesota, and special interests helping shape the very laws they profit from. We have laws, but the enforcement mechanism is failing. That is why Americans see fraud, corruption, censorship, cover-ups, insider dealing, and special interests co-creating laws for their benefit at our cost — and then nothing happens. Every time, the public gets the same routine. One side says it is a scandal. The other side says it is a political attack. Then after a week, there is a new crisis, and everyone forgets about the last one. Americans have political fatigue. At least more Americans are realizing that this two-party-controlled system is doing exactly what it was built to do: concentrate power, build walls, and create rules that make it harder for anyone else to get in and disrupt the status quo. But more of us need to take this perspective. If our only response to corruption is to point at someone else’s corruption, then we are not defending justice. We are defending teams — teams that do not work for us and do not represent us. And the people in power know it. They know that if they can keep voters angry enough at the other side and loyal enough to defend their own, they can get away with just about anything. If an investigation begins, or is even threatened to begin, they call it weaponization. If documents are requested, they call it harassment. If wrongdoing is exposed, they call it misinformation, a distraction, or a political stunt. And as long as their voters repeat the talking points, the pressure for real accountability disappears, which is exactly why we need consistent standards. Trust is not restored through speeches, slogans, hearings, or campaign promises. Trust is earned through accountability. And accountability means consequences that apply equally regardless of party, power, position, money, status, or usefulness to a political agenda. That is where Americans may still have common ground. We may disagree on a lot of hot topics, but most of us know something is deeply wrong when public trust is violated and no one is held responsible. If you agree, we want to send a message and show how many people believe we need equal accountability. Sign this [petition](https://theindependentmovement.org/Accountability-should-apply-to-everyone?ref=ivn.us) to enforce real accountability and consequences for those in power And if you are tired of being told that our only choices are red team or blue team, we invite you to come to the Independent National Convention, September 23rd through 25th in Washington, D.C. We are bringing together leaders from across party lines who agree It’s time to forge a new path forward, together. If you want to hear real solutions, new perspectives, and how we can lead this country in a better direction, get yourself a ticket at [independentnationalconvention.com](http://independentnationalconvention.com/?ref=ivn.us). --- **Jennifer Esteban** is the President and co-founder of United Independents and Executive Director of the Independent National Convention, where she helps lead a growing movement to strengthen independent political leadership, expand civic participation, and build a more representative and accountable American democracy. ### The Democrat Is Out in Idaho Senate Race. Now It’s Independent Todd Achilles vs. Jim Risch URL: https://ivn.us/the-democrat-is-out-in-idaho-now-its-independent-todd-achilles-vs-jim-risch/ Last updated: 2026-08-07T15:18:47.000Z **BOISE, Idaho** —David Roth, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Idaho, [ended his campaign](https://idahocapitalsun.com/2026/07/28/idaho-democrat-david-roth-ends-campaign-for-us-senate-seat-held-by-risch/?ref=ivn.us) Tuesday evening, leaving independent Todd Achilles as [the only well-funded challenger](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/ID/2026/?ref=ivn.us) to Republican Sen. Jim Risch. Roth's statement did not mention Achilles. It did not mention Risch either. Instead, the Idaho Falls consultant said he had "concluded that I can make the greatest difference by focusing my time and energy on helping Democrats win up and down the ballot." Whether he will endorse anyone in the Senate race remains unanswered. Before the Democratic primary, Roth said there was pressure for the Democrats to stand down in the race, but he pushed for them to field a candidate. "I met with Todd, and we talked about it, and we're just too far away on issues that I think are absolutely critical," he [told the Idaho Capital Sun](https://idahocapitalsun.com/2026/07/28/idaho-democrat-david-roth-ends-campaign-for-us-senate-seat-held-by-risch/?ref=ivn.us) on July 8, citing single-payer health care and housing investment as points of divergence from what he characterized as Achilles' more moderate positioning. The pressure for Roth to drop out of the race had been building since the May primary. Former Democratic Rep. Larry LaRocco [argued publicly](https://www.lmtribune.com/opinion/idaho-democrats-need-to-fish-or-cut-bait-before-november-09852508?ref=ivn.us) that Roth should follow the example of Nebraska's Cindy Burbank, who withdrew in favor of [Dan Osborn](https://ivn.us/), and consolidate the anti-Risch vote behind a single candidate. On July 8, [Ada County Democrats sent Roth a letter setting a deadline](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jul/18/idaho-democrats-think-jim-risch-could-be-beaten-bu/?ref=ivn.us): raise $50,000 and produce a campaign plan by Aug. 12, or the county party's executive committee would consider endorsing Achilles instead. Roth's campaign has raised roughly $8,600 this cycle, according to FEC data. Achilles has raised more than $692,000\. Risch's war chest sits above $3.3 million. ### DNC Could Ban Ranked Choice Voting in 2028 — Even Where Voters Made It Law URL: https://ivn.us/dnc-could-ban-ranked-choice-voting-in-2028-even-where-voters-made-it-law/ Last updated: 2026-07-31T18:17:46.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** — The Democratic National Committee is scheduled to meet on August 15 and there is an item on the docket—quietly being advanced by the party’s Rules & Bylaws Committee (RBC)—that bans the use of ranked choice voting in 2028. This not only would affect presidential preference contests where the state party has elected to use the voting reform—but states and jurisdictions where voters made it clear at the ballot box that they want to use it. First reported by [FairVote Action](https://fairvoteaction.org/the-democratic-partys-proposed-ban-on-ranked-choice-voting-in-2028-presidential-primaries/?ref=ivn.us), the proposed rule change to the party’s delegate-selection process dictates two things: 1. Ranked choice voting would be prohibited in presidential primaries and caucuses; and 2. In states where ranked choice voting is law, the party will only consider first-choice totals for delegate selection and allocation. The party’s central committee does not have authority to rewrite a state’s election laws. However, in its nomination proceedings, it is not required to consider the law when it comes to delegates or even how it selects its nominee. For example, the party can ignore the results of a primary entirely—as it has done in the past. The same would apply to ranked choice voting. RCV has been approved for presidential primaries in Maine and for all city elections in Washington, DC. The proposed DNC rule says these places can still print ranked-choice ballots, but the party won’t consider the full results. Either way, it is a ban on ranked choice voting. ## **What The DNC Is Considering** Party rules state that presidential delegates are awarded proportionally. Under the Democrats’ traditional rules, a candidate generally must receive at least 15% of the vote statewide or within a congressional district to qualify for delegates from that jurisdiction. This is [referred to in Rule 14 as the “fair reflection” of voters’ presidential preferences.](https://www.fhqplus.com/p/the-democrats-and-ranked-choice-voting?ref=ivn.us) Several members of the RBC offered an amendment to this rule in May that bans the use of ranked choice voting when determining delegate eligibility and allocation. The committee revisited the change in June and allowed the restriction to advance. However, the rule is not official for the 2028 presidential election until voted on by the entire 450-person DNC body. [Just A Reminder, The Presidential Nomination Process Has Never Been About DemocracyVice President Kamala Harris is slated to make her speech at the DNC Thursday, in which she will formally accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States. It is a historic moment that has not come without scrutiny.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-20d72793-ee72-48c3-807e-6287f553ad44.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/53915838050_fe4b16b0e8_k-5957cf62-bdb5-4032-ab20-c73d08632055.jpg)](https://ivn.us/just-reminder-presidential-nomination-process-has-never-been-about-democracy-2024-08-21/) A ranked choice voting system designed around the Democratic threshold would not immediately eliminate a candidate’s chances at delegates if they don’t reach at least 15% in the first-choice total. Candidates below this threshold can be eliminated and their ballots would be transferred to the voters’ next-ranked candidate. For example, a voter whose first choice finishes with 8% could still help a second choice reach the delegate threshold. Six state Democratic Parties have used ranked choice voting in their presidential nomination processes since 2020, including Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, and Wyoming. The proposed DNC rule would outright ban ranked choice voting in 5 of these states. This includes Alaska, which uses ranked choice voting for statewide, legislative, and US House and Senate elections, but never approved an RCV law for presidential elections. In Maine, the full function of ranked choice voting would be meaningless. Maine [expanded the use of the reform to presidential elections in 2019](https://legislature.maine.gov/LawMakerWeb/dockets.asp?ID=280072188&ref=ivn.us). Under the new rule, Democrats may still use a ranked-choice ballot in 2028, but only their first-choice will count for delegates. Their second, third, and subsequent choices would be disregarded. DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee Co-Chair Jim Roosevelt has defended the proposal by arguing that ranked choice voting is currently incompatible with the party’s proportional delegate system because conventional ranked choice voting determines a single winner. What Roosevelt describes is only one kind of ranked choice voting. It can also consolidate support among candidates who meet a proportional threshold without awarding every delegate to the final RCV winner. In fact, as 6 states have already used ranked choice voting in these contests, the DNC previously approved this type of arrangement. ## **The DNC Approved Ranked Presidential Voting Before It Moved to Ban It** Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the [RBC unanimously approved ranked choice voting plans](https://fairvote.org/it%5Fs%5Fofficial%5Fdnc%5Fapproves%5Fplans%5Fof%5Ftwo%5Fstates%5Fto%5Fuse%5Franked%5Fchoice%5Fvoting%5Fin%5Fcandidate%5Fselection%5Fprocess/?ref=ivn.us) submitted by the parties in Hawaii and Kansas. Alaska and Wyoming later used similar systems, while Nevada used ranked ballots for early participation in its caucuses. The RBC didn’t determine then that the change was incompatible with its rules. Instead of eliminating candidates until only one remained, these party-run contests transferred votes away from candidates who failed to reach the DNC’s 15% delegate threshold. Delegates were then divided proportionally among the candidates who remained viable. Five Democratic contests ultimately used ranked ballots during the 2020 nomination process. For example, in Hawaii, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders both gained votes as candidates below the delegate threshold were eliminated. And, more than 96% of participating voters had their ballot count toward a candidate who received delegates. It is also worth noting that the proposed RCV ban was considered after [reports from late 2025](https://www.axios.com/2025/11/24/democrats-ranked-choice-voting-2028-primaries?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) indicated that DNC Chair Ken Martin and other party officials were discussing an expansion of ranked choice voting in 2028. At the time, supporters argued that allowing backup choices could reduce negative campaigning and prevent votes from being stranded with candidates who drop out before ballots are counted. But less than a year later the RBC is moving in the opposite direction. The question is, why? What changed from Democratic leaders determining it to be so compatible with the delegate-selection rules that they wanted to expand it to members of the RBC deciding to ban it? ## **State Election Results Do Not Control DNC Delegates** Control of the presidential nomination process has always belonged to the parties. It has never been controlled by the states. Even if state law allows for open primaries or ranked choice voting, the party can always ignore the results of these elections. It can choose to kick independent voters out. Or take away a state’s ability to allocate its own delegates. It can choose which candidates appear on the ballot and if a state will even hold a presidential preference contest. States still administer most presidential primaries. Taxpayers still pay for them. But voters have never directly nominated a presidential candidate. What they are doing is determining delegates based on the party’s rules. It’s the party’s rules that matter. Not the state’s–which has created tension between election laws and party rule changes. ### **Florida and Michigan: Millions Voted, the DNC Cut Their Power** [In 2008](https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL34222.html?ref=ivn.us), Florida and Michigan scheduled their presidential primaries earlier than the DNC calendar allowed. Florida’s date was established by its legislature, but the national party still stripped the state of its entire convention delegation. Michigan was penalized for the same reason. The DNC later agreed to seat the states’ full delegations. However, each delegate received only half a vote. Their full voting power was restored immediately before the convention, after the nomination contest had effectively ended. In other words, their voting power was restored only after the nomination was already locked in for Barack Obama. The state elections were legal. Florida and Michigan still counted the ballots. But the vote count ended up meaning nothing in the presidential nomination process because the party ultimately decided which voters mattered. ### **New Hampshire: A State Primary With Zero Delegates** In 2024, New Hampshire law required the secretary of state to schedule its presidential primary at least seven days before any similar primary. The DNC adopted a calendar that placed South Carolina first and ordered New Hampshire to vote later. This went against long-standing tradition that New Hampshire was the first-in-the-nation primary in order to give President Biden a schedule that looked better for him. [DNC Tells New Hampshire Voters Their Primary Is “Meaningless”The Democratic Party is facing criticism over recent decisions that diminish the role of voters in the democratic process. The cancellation of the presidential primary in Florida and the exclusion of challengers to incumbent President Joe Biden from primary ballots in various states were just the st![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-272aaf86-ec5a-4a99-bbfe-fcdbe37730c1.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/kamran-abdullayev-P8QgGU2y3Ps-unsplash-1-af97a090-f16b-4e75-90e6-fb0e4827aa46.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dnc-tells-new-hampshire-voters-their-primary-meaningless/) New Hampshire held its legally mandated January 23 primary anyway. More than 120,000 Democrats participated, and President Joe Biden won as a write-in candidate. But the DNC declared the contest unsanctioned and assigned it zero delegates. State Democrats later conducted a separate party process that allowed the state’s delegation to be seated. In other words, the votes cast in the publicly-administered primary did not formally determine the delegates. ## **What This Means for Maine and Washington, DC** Maine law requires ranked choice voting in presidential primaries much like New Hampshire law requires it to be the first-in-the-nation primary. However, Maine also stipulates that the allocation of national convention delegates must follow reasonable procedures established by the party. The Maine Democratic Party’s 2024 delegate-selection plan [already blended state election law with national party rules](https://static.repmyblock.org/USPrez/2024/DNC/ME%5F20230423%5FDNC%5FDelegateSelectionPlan.pdf?ref=ivn.us). It called for an RCV presidential primary while allocating delegates proportionally among candidates who reached the party’s 15% threshold. The plan also acknowledged that it required review and approval from the RBC. The proposed 2028 rule would change which round determines whether candidates reach that threshold. Voters who participate in the presidential primary could still use ranked choice ballots, but the party would freeze the delegate calculation at the first round of tabulation. In Washington, DC, 73% of voters approved ranked choice voting and open primaries under Initiative 83 in 2024\. The RCV provision was for all city elections involving District and federal offices, which applies to presidential contests when at least 3 candidates appear on the ballot. For a presidential primary that awards delegates proportionally, the District’s rules eliminate candidates below the political party’s delegate threshold and transfer their ballots to the voters’ next-ranked candidates. But the law also expressly allows political parties to allocate delegates under their own party rules. Thus, the DC Board of Elections could conduct the ranked tabulation required by District law. The Democratic Party could then allocate delegates using only first-choice totals under its national rules. But the result could be confusing for voters. DC might certify one candidate as the RCV winner, publish rounds showing how voters’ preferences transferred, and then send a delegation based on a different calculation that ignores those transfers. ## **The Ballot Can Say One Thing. The Party Can Go Another Direction.** The DNC does not have to outlaw ranked choice voting in Maine or DC to neutralize it in the Democratic presidential nomination. It only has to decide that ranked results will not determine delegates. The party has used this authority before—and in [many more ways](https://ivn.us/just-reminder-presidential-nomination-process-has-never-been-about-democracy-2024-08-21/) than described in this single article. It has even [successfully defended its right to ignore primary results](https://ivn.us/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporation-with-no-obligation-to-follow-our-rules/) in court under the current system. States may control when polling places open, ballot design, and how election officials tabulate votes. But the party controls whether those votes matter and to what extent they will count in the most important presidential elections. Because delegates, not the voters, choose the candidates. ### New Yorkers Say Albany Is Broken — and Want Open Primaries and Fairer Ballot Access URL: https://ivn.us/new-yorkers-say-albany-is-broken-and-want-open-primaries-and-fairer-ballot-access/ Last updated: 2026-07-29T18:32:10.000Z **LITTLE FALLS, N.Y.** — Unite NY surveyed voters across the state of New York and one thing is abundantly clear from the results: The state’s political system is not working for them. According to the group’s [July 2026 Voter Empowerment Index](https://www.uniteny.org/our-work/voter-empowerment-index/?ref=ivn.us), roughly 6 in 10 registered voters believe New York’s political system is unhealthy. An even larger majority believes the people running the state are not listening: - 71% of voters do not believe their vote affects who ultimately runs New York, while - 67% said the state government does not listen to people like them. These figures show an electorate that is not just frustrated with the state of representation in New York. It shows a voting population that wants the rules changed. [80% of Buffalo Voters Asked for More Choice. The Charter Commission Said NoProposals for semi-open primaries, ranked choice voting and expanded ballot access will not appear on the November ballot.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-d75598dd-4552-497c-9481-d1b418e0a681.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/buffalo-ny-60d3858b-25da-4e42-8100-cf20dd68ea6a.jpg)](https://ivn.us/80-of-buffalo-voters-asked-for-more-choice-the-charter-commission-said-no/) In fact, two-thirds of New Yorkers surveyed support at least some change to how voting works in the state. Meanwhile, 68% want changes to the rules governing who can run for office. “New Yorkers understand that a healthy democracy requires having meaningful choices at the ballot box,” said [Unite NY](https://www.uniteny.org/?ref=ivn.us) Executive Director Anthony Thomas. > *“They want independents to have a voice in taxpayer-funded primary elections, qualified candidates to have a fair opportunity to reach the ballot and elections that encourage candidates to appeal to the broader community.”* ## **Open Primaries Draw Bipartisan Support** Two-thirds of registered New Yorkers support allowing independent voters to participate in primary elections. And support crosses party lines: - 62% of Democrats support open primaries. - 64% of Republicans support open primaries. - 77% of independent voters support open primaries. New York currently conducts closed partisan primaries, which means voters must register with a political party before they can participate in these taxpayer-funded elections. [In New York, 7% of Voters Just Decided for the Other 93%NY Partisan Primary Proves Superiority of California’s Nonpartisan Primary System.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-a29dbb3c-27a1-410f-87bf-7697ca69b796.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/new-york-primary-eelctions-b95f9801-82f0-46ad-ad7c-67c272389c0d.jpg)](https://ivn.us/7-of-voters-just-decided-for-the-other-93/) These primaries produce low turnouts and attract highly motivated partisan voters or ideological movements that make up only a handful of voters. And yet, these races frequently decide who ultimately gets elected because of how safe a district is for one party or the other. In other words, independent voters are locked out of the elections that matter most. ## **Voters Want a Fairer Path to the Ballot** There was even stronger support among New Yorkers for making it easier for independent candidates to compete. Unite NY found that 82% of registered voters believe independent candidates should face the same or lower petition-signature requirements as candidates representing the major parties. Further, two-thirds support ballot-access reform more broadly. Independent and minor-party candidates often face different qualification rules than major-party candidates, creating additional hurdles before voters ever have an opportunity to consider them. For more than 8-in-10 New York voters, that disparity is not justified. ## **Ranked Choice Voting Receives More Mixed Support** Unite NY also surveyed respondents on ranked choice voting. Support for it, however, was less overwhelming. A little more than 4 in 10 voters said ranked choice voting would be beneficial in both local and statewide elections. This reform allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference rather than selecting only one. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice support, the lowest performing candidates are eliminated and their voters’ next choices are applied to the tally until a majority winner is determined. New York City already uses ranked choice voting in party primaries and special elections for city offices. Voters approved the reform back in 2019 and it was used for the first time in 2021. ## **Voters Want More Than New Politicians** The survey’s findings reveal a distinction that elected officials often overlook—or just ignore. New Yorkers are not only dissatisfied with individual politicians. Broad majorities question whether the current system allows their votes to matter. People may disagree on candidates, parties, and policy. But the July Voter Empowerment Index shows substantial agreement that ***a political system that ignores voters, locks them out, and protects established candidates must be reformed.*** Voters are asking for more choice. The July 2026 Voter Empowerment Index surveyed 1,667 registered voters across New York state. ### The Supreme Court will Need to Answer this Question, Sometime Soon URL: https://ivn.us/the-supreme-court-will-need-to-answer-this-question-sometime-soon/ Last updated: 2026-07-28T19:26:11.000Z **Does the right to vote derive from citizenship, or upon joining a political party?** The Supreme Court has never answered this question. But it is the question being asked in **eight states at once**: independent voters are suing to open closed primaries in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Wyoming, while the parties sue to shut open ones in Texas and South Carolina. Ballot measures are moving in Massachusetts, Florida, and Colorado — and in California, party insiders are trying to repeal the state’s own **nonpartisan** primary and replace it with the old closed primary system. Ultimately, the Supreme Court will have to settle the question: If primary elections are an important part of our public election process, can any state exclude voters from participation because they exercise their first amendment right NOT to join a political party? And as [IVP's legal strategist lays out this week](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/), this is an issue that creates unusual coalitions, on both sides of the issue. Coincidentally, or not, a former Republican is now the great hope of Maine's Democratic Party. Not coincidentally, IVN's own Cara McCormick was [the first to predict](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGA63EbPLc8&ref=ivn.us) how and when he would replace the disgraced Graham Platner. Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## The Voting Rights Case That Could Turn Both Parties Against the Supreme Court [![U.S. Supreme Court](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/3DW4C9D.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/) **Does the right to vote in a decisive, taxpayer-funded election come from citizenship, or from party membership?** [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [Arizona’s Primary Is Open—That Is, Until the Parties Decide Otherwise ](https://ivn.us/arizonas-primary-is-open-that-is-until-the-parties-decide-otherwise/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Arizona’s Primary Is Open—That Is, Until the Parties Decide Otherwise](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/arizona-primary-elections-independent-voters.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/arizonas-primary-is-open-that-is-until-the-parties-decide-otherwise/) [1.2 Million New Yorkers Can't Vote. Mamdani Says He's 'Content' With That. ](https://ivn.us/1-2-million-new-yorkers-cant-vote-mamdani-says-hes-content-with-that/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![1.2 Million New Yorkers Can't Vote. Mamdani Says He's 'Content' With That.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/zohran-mamdani-open-primaries.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/1-2-million-new-yorkers-cant-vote-mamdani-says-hes-content-with-that/) [Murkowski Says No to Trump’s SAVE America Act — and Alaska’s Primary System Shows Why She Can ](https://ivn.us/murkowski-says-no-to-trumps-save-america-act-and-alaskas-primary-system-shows-why-she-can/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Murkowski Says No to Trump’s SAVE America Act — and Alaska’s Primary System Shows Why She Can](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/image-0c7baf0a-d98f-4dc0-941e-4978e6368ffa.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/murkowski-says-no-to-trumps-save-america-act-and-alaskas-primary-system-shows-why-she-can/) [Kevin Kiley Left the Republican Party Over Gerrymandering. Now He's Testing Whether an Independent Can Beat the Map Drawn to Defeat Him. ](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Kevin Kiley Left the Republican Party Over Gerrymandering. Now He's Testing Whether an Independent Can Beat the Map Drawn to Defeat Him.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/Kevin_Kiley.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) [Ana Kasparian Goes Off on Newsom's Prisons Record ](https://ivn.us/ana-kasparian-goes-off-on-newsoms-prisons-record/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Ana Kasparian Goes Off on Newsom's Prisons Record](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/Newsom_Kasparian.png) ](https://ivn.us/ana-kasparian-goes-off-on-newsoms-prisons-record/) [Nebraska’s Senate Race Is Officially Osborn vs. Ricketts—Unless Republicans Stop It ](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-officially-osborn-vs-ricketts-unless-republicans-stop-it/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Nebraska’s Senate Race Is Officially Osborn vs. Ricketts—Unless Republicans Stop It](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/Dan-Osborn.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-officially-osborn-vs-ricketts-unless-republicans-stop-it/) [No Watchdogs Allowed: How the U.S. Is Quietly Shutting Out Election Scrutiny ](https://ivn.us/no-watchdogs-allowed-how-the-u-s-is-quietly-shutting-out-election-scrutiny/) By Ancuta (Anna) Hansen, The Fulcrum [ ![No Watchdogs Allowed: How the U.S. Is Quietly Shutting Out Election Scrutiny](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/image-997e7711-9d29-46b8-b53b-703c5b717d80.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/no-watchdogs-allowed-how-the-u-s-is-quietly-shutting-out-election-scrutiny/) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast The Independent Voter Podcast digs into Troy Jackson — the Maine logger and former Senate president running to become **the first real working-class voice in the U.S. Senate** — plus the election-integrity flashpoints brewing in California and New Jersey. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGA63EbPLc8&ref=ivn.us) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## Kevin Kiley Left the Republican Party Over Gerrymandering. Now He's Testing Whether an Independent Can Beat the Map Drawn to Defeat Him. [![Rep. Kevin Kiley](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Kevin_Kiley.jpg)](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) Kevin Kiley walked away from the Republican Party over the gerrymander — and now he’s running as an independent in a CA-6 redrawn specifically to defeat him. If he wins, **the only independent in the House will have proven the label can beat the map**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/) ### *GOING VIRAL ▶▶▶* ## Ana Kasparian Rips Newsom’s Crime Record — ‘A Complete and Utter Disaster’ [![Ana Kasparian Rips Newsom’s Crime Record — ‘A Complete and Utter Disaster’](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Kasparian_Clip_Preview.png)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbJXTaDDcF2/?ref=ivn.us) Is the sharpest criticism of Gavin Newsom’s crime record now coming from the left? In a clip that has racked up over 100,000 views, Young Turks host Ana Kasparian called Newsom’s leadership in California **“a complete and utter disaster”** on CNN — pointing to four prematurely closed prisons, packed county jails, and a May budget that initially proposed zero new dollars for voter-approved Prop 36\. [Watch the clip](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbJXTaDDcF2/?ref=ivn.us), then read [Cara Brown McCormick’s full story on IVN](https://ivn.us/ana-kasparian-goes-off-on-newsoms-prisons-record/). [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbJXTaDDcF2/?ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### When the House is on Fire, You Call a Firefighter. Nate Powell is Hoping to Come Out of a Crowded Primary Unsinged. URL: https://ivn.us/when-the-house-is-on-fire-you-call-a-firefighter-nate-powell-is-hoping-to-come-out-of-a-crowded-primary-unsinged/ Last updated: 2026-07-31T18:18:31.000Z *Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain almost entirely unrepresented in Congress. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home.* *A handful of high-profile independent candidates are trying to change that in 2026\. They are often covered as fringe candidates whose stories are told through the lens of how they'll impact the outcome between a Republican and a Democrat, rather than on their own terms. This series exists because independent voters deserve better than that.* *In Washington's 5th Congressional District, Nate Powell is running for the US House.* ### **The Candidate** Powell is a 39-year-old Spokane fire lieutenant and first time candidate. He enlisted in the Marine Corps out of high school, completed two active-duty deployments, then came home and[ joined the Spokane Fire Department in 2012](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jun/23/firefighter-nate-powell-thinks-eastern-washington-/?ref=ivn.us), rising to lieutenant in 2024\. He's a member of IAFF Local 29. His entry into politics traces to the 2025 reconciliation bill. "When the Big Beautiful Bill got passed last year, those cuts to Medicaid specifically within it I knew were going to affect the people that I saw at work every day, and I knew I needed to stop just flapping my gums and actually do some work," he said in our interview on July 23rd. After doing other work in his community, he ended up running when another firefighter who was gearing up for a run got deployment orders. Powell is candid that he wouldn't be running without outside recruitment. He[ acknowledged to the Spokesman-Review](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jun/23/firefighter-nate-powell-thinks-eastern-washington-/?ref=ivn.us) that the Working Class Heroes Fund—the hybrid PAC[ founded by Nebraska independent Dan Osborn](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/nebraska-senate-candidate-dan-osborn-launches-pac-weighs-future-run-rcna180684?ref=ivn.us), who will appear in the next interview in this series—approached him first. Direct monetary support was minimal; what mattered, he said, was access to campaign staff he "wouldn't even know where to start" finding otherwise. ### **The Race** Washington's 5th spans[ 16,053 rural square miles](https://www.rangemedia.co/5th-congressional-primary-2026/?ref=ivn.us) including Spokane, Pullman, and Walla Walla, rated R+5 by Cook. Freshman Rep. Michael Baumgartner won it in 2024 with 60.6%,[ running well ahead of Trump](https://www.rangemedia.co/5th-congressional-primary-2026/?ref=ivn.us) in a district Trump carried with 53.9%. The August 4 top-two primary is what makes Powell's run mathematically possible. "We have top two primary, which is fantastic for an independent," he told IVN. The field is[ eleven challengers deep](https://ballotpedia.org/Washington%27s%5F5th%5FCongressional%5FDistrict%5Felection,%5F2026%5F%28August%5F4%5Ftop-two%5Fprimary%29?ref=ivn.us)—six Democrats, five independents including Powell—against the incumbent, who is running as the sole Republican in the field. This makes him the favorite for one of the top-two slots, especially with the strong incumbent advantage. According to FEC filings through July 15, Powell has raised about $360,000, third behind Baumgartner’s $1.7 million and 2024 nominee Carmela Conroy's $396,000 (she took 18.3% in the primary and then lost to Baumgartner in the general). Powell does have more cash on hand than Conroy ($110k vs $74k), but Baumgartner is sitting on just shy of a million dollars, giving him a solid cash advantage. ### **The Polling** [Tavern Research polled 578 likely voters](https://www.tavernresearch.com/research-and-writings//wa-05-baumgartner-leads-democrats-trails-independent?ref=ivn.us) May 18-25 (margin of error 5.6%) and found Baumgartner leading every Democrat tested by 6-8 points — but trailing Powell, 47-53\. Independents drove the entire gap: they backed Baumgartner 52-48 against a generic Democrat but flipped to Powell 69-31\. The pollster's own caveat needs to be kept in mind: 83% of respondents didn't recognize Powell's name, and it’s yet to be seen how it will shift if he wins the primary and Baumgartner starts using that campaign money in ads against him.. ### **Why He Left Both Parties** "My set of policy positions doesn't have a comfortable home with the two-party system," Powell told IVN. "I'm a guy from organized labor. I don't feel like either political party has been focused on working people the way that I would like to see." He reframes the political axis entirely: "The issues that we are facing are not left-right issues; they are top-bottom issues. We've let billionaires and multinational corporations pay lobbyists to buy our politicians to own our government. Both parties are part of that." His critique of Baumgartner is pointedly not personal. "He seems like he's a good guy... and then he went to Washington, D.C., and just got totally subsumed by his party—votes however his party would like him to vote, even if it's not in the best interests of the people here." That tracks the record: [Baumgartner votes with Republicans 99% of the time, by LegisLetter's count](https://legisletter.org/legislator/michael-baumgartner-B001322/votes?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). ### **Economic Ideas: Wages, Not Price Controls** Affordability is Powell's central issue, and his fix runs through wages rather than prices. "There's no real mechanism for the government to lower prices... we found through COVID that large corporations just hold on to those high prices and increase profits. So to close this gap, we need to increase wages," he said, pointing to stronger enforcement at the Department of Labor, NLRB, CFPB, and FTC, plus passage of the PRO Act to protect the right to organize. On healthcare, he backs Medicare for All but positions it pragmatically: "In a perfect world, it's single-payer Medicare for All... but I'm also pragmatic, willing to compromise, and I will support whatever the most realistic thing that gets people healthcare is." On the national debt, which his[ platform projects](https://natepowellforcongress.com/priorities/?ref=ivn.us) will consume nearly 50 cents of every tax dollar by 2050, Powell wants parity between how labor, capital gains, and corporate income are taxed: "The idea that capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than my labor... is problematic for wealth equality in this country." On Social Security, his fix is narrower: eliminate the income cap on payroll taxes, which he says buys "an extra 20 or 30 years of runway" before the program hits a shortfall. ### **Government Reform** Powell's reform agenda includes[ banning insider stock trading by members of Congress, term limits, and overturning Citizens United](https://natepowellforcongress.com/priorities/?ref=ivn.us)—anchored, he says, in the fact that only 2% of Congress comes from the working class. On AI, he views the technology as key to the economy of the future. He doesn’t want to ban it; he wants regulatory authority left with states and localities rather than preempted federally, aimed specifically at data centers: "That AI buildout needs to be regulated in a way where individual ratepayers aren't picking up the tab on higher energy prices," through requirements that data centers bring their own power generation and pay to upgrade the grid they strain. It's a live issue at home—Spokane County commissioners are[ currently weighing a data center moratorium](https://www.rangemedia.co/spokane-county-commissioners-to-consider-data-center-moratorium/?ref=ivn.us). ### **Turning Out the Vote** Asked about independents planning to sit out November, Powell had a direct message for them: "Everybody has to vote. It is the one piece of power that you really have. But also get out there and do some work, because nothing is going to change if we do not work to fix it." He points to his own decision to run as the model he's asking voters to follow. ### **Practical Advice for Would-Be Independents** Asked what he'd tell someone weighing an independent run, Powell—a political outsider ten months into his first campaign — gave the most concretely practical answer in this series: **The infrastructure exists now.** "There is infrastructure now to support independent candidates in a way that there has never been before," especially for people like him with no political background. "I was not a poli sci major or anything like that." **You need a bridge to reach it.** "You need a bridge to that infrastructure to get started if you want to run a serious and viable campaign," which means proactively contacting the national organizations that support independents—the system, he says, is "insular and hard to navigate if you have never been a part of it." He specifically noted the Forward Party as one of the organizations that independents should reach out to for early support. **Expect to define yourself from scratch.** "People want to figure out what type of independent you are in a way that they don't have to with the major political parties." A party label does work for a candidate that an independent has to do alone, race by race, voter by voter. His summary: "You gotta get connected to the system if you want to run as an independent." ### **Assessment** WA-05 will be an interesting test of the power of the independent label in 2026\. The “safe” bet is that the Republican incumbent will take the top spot in a Republican-leaning district where he is the only Republican on the ballot; and the second slot will go to the Democrat with the most money and with a history of running in the district. However, the field is split, with six Democrats in the race. The independent field has options, as well, though Powell outstrips their fundraising by an order of magnitude. The labor credentials, veteran status, and work as a firefighter will carry a lot of weight in the district, potentially leading to him shoring up the independent vote. And the polling showing him as the only one who can beat Baumgartner is a strong message to a Democratic base that is looking to take seats from Republicans. If the Democratic base splits between the six party members and Powell based on that calculation, there’s a clear path for him to win on August 4th…and in November. It’s important to remember, however, that the poll also showed a low level of name recognition. That’s an opportunity as much as a liability, though a win in the primary would go a long way to getting voters in the district to learn about who he is. This race will be a very interesting one to watch, so set a calendar reminder for yourself for the 4th. ### The Voting Rights Case That Could Turn Both Parties Against the Supreme Court URL: https://ivn.us/the-voting-rights-case-that-could-turn-both-parties-against-the-supreme-court/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T18:14:31.000Z **The fight, state by state:** Voters suing to open closed primaries in **Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Wyoming**. Parties suing to close open primaries in **Texas, South Carolina**. A repeal fight in **California**. Ballot efforts in **Massachusetts, Florida, South Dakota, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Washington D.C., Alaska**. A new law in **New Mexico**. There is one question underneath the fights over primary elections spreading across the country, and it is not complicated. Does the right to vote at a decisive stage of a publicly funded election come from citizenship, or from joining a political party? That single question is being asked right now in at least eight states, in three different venues. Independent voters are suing to get into closed primaries. Political parties are suing to close open ones. And voters and legislatures are being asked to decide it directly. The forms differ. The [question does not](https://ivn.us/the-fight-over-open-primaries-is-now-a-fight-over-who-owns-democracy/). The newest move came this week. On July 21, 2026, the Independent Voter Project, author of California's Proposition 14, and More Choice California sent the Attorney General an informational letter about the official description voters will read for a measure to repeal California's nonpartisan primary, asking that the ballot title and summary tell voters plainly that it would strip a right they now hold. It is the same question California confronted at the ballot in 2010, that Florida confronted in 2020, that South Dakota and Nevada confronted in 2024, that Massachusetts voters may decide in 2026, and that federal judges in Texas and South Carolina are being asked to decide today. No single state can end the argument, because the answer turns on the U.S. Constitution. Sooner or later it goes to the Supreme Court, which turned away its most recent chance in October 2025\. When the Court finally takes it up, the alignment will be unusual. For once the two parties want the same thing, control of the primaries they run with public money. A ruling that the right belongs to the voter would override closed-primary Democrats in the Northeast and primary-closing Republicans in the South in a single decision. This is analysis, not prophecy. But the structure of the fight points one way: both parties on one side, and the voters on the other. ## **The Same Question, Asked Every Way It Can Be Asked** The contest has no single battlefield. It moves between three, and the movement itself is the story. When reformers win a court ruling, the parties turn to the legislature. When they win at the ballot box, the parties go to court. Each venue can change one state's rules, but none can resolve the constitutional question at the center, which is why the same fight keeps reappearing in a new form somewhere else. ## **Voters Trying to Open Closed Primaries** ***In the courts*** **Maryland.** Five unaffiliated voters represented by former Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, working with the Open Primaries Education Fund, [sued the state in May 2025](https://ivn.us/posts/lawsuit-challenges-independent-voter-suppression-under-closed-primaries-maryland-2025-05-28) in *Bryson v. Moore*. They argue the partially closed primary charges all taxpayers while shutting out nearly one million voters who decline to join a party, citing the state constitution's guarantee of the right to vote in "all elections held in this State." A judge found they had standing in October 2025, then dismissed the case in November, ruling the constitution does not require access to a party's nomination process. The appeal is pending. Gov. Wes Moore, the named defendant, has [said the closed system "has run its course,"](https://ivn.us/governor-moore-real-nonpartisan-reform-is-making-changes-when-its-not-convenient-for-your-party-2026-05-04/) though critics note he has not moved to change it. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DXxdn7UkcLo/?ref=ivn.us) **Pennsylvania.** A group of independent voters including radio and television host Michael Smerconish, backed by Ballot PA, [sued for the right to vote](https://ivn.us/taxed-silenced-pennsylvania-independents-sue-right-vote-2025-07-15/), refiling in Commonwealth Court in December 2025 after the state Supreme Court declined to fast-track the case. Roughly 1.4 million voters registered outside the two parties are barred under Section 2812 of the Election Code. The petition leans on an analysis by Carnegie Mellon mathematician Wesley Pegden, who found the median voting influence of major-party voters in legislative races from 2002 to 2020 was nearly double that of independents, because party voters effectively get two elections and independents get one. **Oregon.** Our Primary Voice and voter Mark Porter [sued Secretary of State Tobias Read](https://ivn.us/posts/oregon-activist-sues-over-closed-primaries-i-shouldnt-have-join-party-have-voice-2025-07-01) in June 2025 in *Porter v. Read*, arguing the closed primary conflicts with a constitutional list of voter qualifications that names only age, residency, and registration. Roughly 1.3 million Oregonians, about 43 percent of the electorate, are registered outside the two parties, now the state's largest bloc, and they are shut out of the primary that decides most races. The case awaits a summary-judgment ruling, and a parallel ballot initiative to open the primaries has stalled short of the signatures it needed. **Wyoming.** In *Malcom v. Gray*, voters [challenge the state's 2023 crossover-voting ban](https://wyofile.com/wyoming-supreme-court-considers-constitutionality-of-crossover-voting-ban/?ref=ivn.us) and its 96-day party-switch deadline. A district judge upheld the laws in November 2025\. The Wyoming Supreme Court, with Secretary of State Chuck Gray as the named defendant, heard oral argument on June 10, 2026, making this the case furthest along at a state high court. Plaintiffs include Jim Roscoe, a former legislator and the state's only independent lawmaker. ***At the ballot box, 2020 to 2026*** Where the courts are closed, voters have gone to the ballot, and the same question has [appeared on it again and again](https://ivn.us/posts/2024-recap-lessons-learned-successes-and-failures-statewide-primary-reform-2024-12-19). It usually takes the form of replacing party primaries with a single ballot open to all candidates and voters, sometimes paired with ranked-choice voting in the general election. In 2024 alone the question was on the ballot in five states, and party-aligned committees and outside interests outspent the reformers in most of them. **Massachusetts.** The most active current effort. A top-two primary initiative backed by the Coalition for a Healthy Democracy would replace party primaries for state offices with a single ballot. The attorney general certified it in 2025, supporters turned in enough signatures, and in June 2026 the state's Supreme Judicial Court [rejected a challenge](https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/06/22/all-party-primary-mass-sjc-november-ballot?ref=ivn.us), part of it brought by members of the Democratic State Committee, clearing the way toward the 2026 ballot. **Florida.** A 2020 top-two amendment drew 57 percent, short of the state's 60 percent supermajority requirement, and a new top-two initiative failed to qualify for the 2026 ballot. The court route ran through Michael Polelle, a retired law professor who [took his own case to the Supreme Court](https://ivn.us/posts/retired-attorney-takes-voting-rights-case-all-way-supreme-court-himself-2025-09-09) after being shut out of his county's primaries as an unaffiliated voter. He filed in 2022, the Eleventh Circuit upheld the closed primary, and the justices denied review in October 2025, leaving both routes closed for now. **South Dakota.** Amendment H in 2024 would have created a top-two primary for state and congressional offices. Voters rejected it, about 58 percent opposed. **Nevada.** Question 3, a top-five open primary with ranked-choice voting, passed in 2022 but had to pass twice to amend the constitution. It failed the second vote in 2024, amid heavy opposition spending, so it did not take effect. **Colorado.** Proposition 131 in 2024, a top-four primary with ranked-choice voting, was rejected by voters. **Arizona.** Proposition 140 in 2024 would have replaced party primaries with a single nonpartisan ballot. It failed. Arizona is also where the exclusion is starkest: independents can request a party ballot in most primaries, but [not in the presidential primary](https://ivn.us/arizonas-primary-is-open-that-is-until-the-parties-decide-otherwise/), which they still fund as taxpayers. **Idaho.** Proposition 1 in 2024, a top-four primary with ranked-choice voting, was rejected. **Washington, D.C.** Initiative 83 in 2024 created semi-open primaries and ranked-choice voting with 73 percent support, giving about 85,000 independents a vote. The Council first funded only the ranked-choice piece, then in June 2026 [voted to fund the open primary](https://ivn.us/2026/06/23/open-primaries/independent-voters-win-dc-council-votes-to-fund-semi-open-primaries/) too. **Alaska.** Voters kept the state's top-four open primary with ranked-choice voting in 2024, defeating a repeal by 664 votes, about two-tenths of a point, confirmed after a recount. ***In the legislature*** **New Mexico.** After *Chavez v. Oliver*, filed in 2018, revived a stalled effort, the legislature passed SB 16, and the state [opened its primaries to unaffiliated voters](https://ivn.us/posts/its-official-new-mexico-has-opened-its-primaries-independent-voters-2025-04-08). The semi-open law took effect July 1, 2025, letting more than 330,000 independents, about a quarter of the electorate, vote in a major party's primary without joining it. They used it for the first time in the June 2, 2026 primary, which featured contested races for governor in both parties. It is the clearest recent win for voter access, and it came from lawmakers rather than a court or a ballot measure, which is why the parties elsewhere are fighting on all three fronts at once. ## **Parties Trying to Close Open Primaries** **Texas.** Texas runs an open primary with no party registration; voters choose a Republican or Democratic ballot each cycle, so no registered voter is denied a vote. In September 2025, the Republican Party of Texas sued in federal court, *Republican Party of Texas v. State of Texas*, arguing that letting non-Republicans vote in its primary [violates the party's First Amendment right of association](https://ivn.us/veterans-group-to-court-dont-let-party-bosses-shut-independents-out-of-texas-primaries/), and asking that participation be limited to registered Republicans in a state with no party registration. The case split the state's own leadership. Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose job is to defend state law, sided with the party and asked the court to strike the open-primary provisions. That left Secretary of State Jane Nelson defending Texas law against her own attorney general, with private counsel, on standing and jurisdiction. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn broke with Gov. Greg Abbott and Paxton, warning that closing the primary could backfire on the GOP. Veterans for All Voters moved to file an amicus brief for the open primary, noting Texas has 1.5 million veterans, more than 700,000 of them independents, who would be shut out. **South Carolina.** South Carolina also runs an open primary with no party registration. In July 2026, the state Republican Party, led by chairman Drew McKissick, [sued the state election commission](https://scdailygazette.com/2026/07/08/sc-gop-sues-to-close-primaries-to-registered-republicans/?ref=ivn.us) in federal court seeking party registration and a closed primary, on the same First Amendment theory, after two bills to close the primary stalled in the legislature. These party-driven suits, more than any voter challenge, are the ones most likely to carry the question up to the Supreme Court, because this time it is a political party asking for the ruling. ## **California: The Reverse Fight, to Keep an Open Primary** **California.** California is where the question is sharpest, because voters already hold the right the others are fighting over. The state runs a single nonpartisan primary in which every voter, regardless of party, votes for any candidate for congressional and state office. The Constitution calls it a "voter-nominated" system. (Cal. Const., art. II, § 5.) There are no party nominees. Every candidate appears on one ballot. In May 2026, Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio filed a constitutional amendment to repeal it. The effort picked up bipartisan muscle fast, with former state GOP chair Ron Nehring endorsing it and Reform California's Carl DeMaio pledging funding and signature gatherers to what is now called ["Undo the Top-Two."](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) If it qualifies and passes, it would reach voters in November 2028 and take effect in 2030\. The lineup behind the repeal is the national alignment in miniature. A Democratic operative, a former Republican state chair, and a Republican organizer are working the same side, because their shared interest is not partisan advantage but restoring party control over who may participate in the primary. On the parties-versus-voters divide, the "Undo the Top-Two" backers sit with the parties. What they are trying to take back from California voters is exactly what the Texas and South Carolina parties are asking federal courts to hand them. On July 21, 2026, IVP and More Choice California sent Attorney General Bonta an informational letter about the circulating title and summary his office issued on July 14\. They did not file a legal challenge. They asked only that the official ballot title and summary, if the measure qualifies, [tell voters plainly](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-crossed-out-all-voters-may-vote/) that it repeals the existing right of every voter to vote for any candidate in the primary and returns control over participation to the parties. As IVP legal counsel S. Chad Peace wrote, a voter reading the current summary "would not understand that the measure removes a right the voter now holds." The point is constitutional. Under *California Democratic Party v. Jones*, 530 U.S. 567 (2000), the state cannot compel a party to open its nomination to non-members. So once nomination returns to the parties, the universal right Californians hold today cannot be restored by statute. It exists only because the primary is nonpartisan. Standing against the repeal is [More Choice California](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/), a cross-party coalition backing a Right to Vote Amendment for Article II, Section 2, which would bar excluding any eligible voter "from meaningful participation at any integral stage of any publicly funded election, including primary elections, on any basis including political party preference," while leaving parties free to run their own privately funded nomination process. Roughly 5.3 million No Party Preference voters, per the Secretary of State's May 2026 report, and nearly 6.9 million counting minor-party registrants, would have that existing right written into the constitution. ## **How the Courts Have Ruled Before** None of this is new law, and the precedents cut in more than one direction. In *Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut*, 479 U.S. 208 (1986), the Court held a party may open its own primary if it chooses. In *California Democratic Party v. Jones*, 530 U.S. 567 (2000), it struck California's blanket primary, ruling the state may not force a party to let outsiders pick its nominee. Those cases protect a party's control over its own nomination. But the reverse claim has failed. In *Democratic Party of Hawaii v. Nago*, 833 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir. 2016), the Hawaii Democratic Party tried to force the state to close its open primary and lost, and the Supreme Court denied review in 2017\. That is the precedent the Texas and South Carolina parties are testing again. The Independent Voter Project has litigated the voters' side directly, challenging New Jersey's closed primary in *Balsam v. Guadagno* (2015) and testing related ground in California in *Boydston v. Weber* (2023); the Court denied review in both. IVP, Open Primaries, and the Forward Party then urged the Court to take [*Polelle*](https://ivn.us/retired-attorney-takes-voting-rights-case-all-way-supreme-court-himself-2025-09-09/) in 2025, noting that 57 percent of Florida voters had backed a nonpartisan primary in 2020\. The Court declined again. ## **The Question Only One Court Can Settle** The Supreme Court answered part of this in 1941\. In *United States v. Classic*, 313 U.S. 299, it held that where the primary is an integral part of choosing who governs, the right to vote reaches the primary too. In most districts today, drawn safe by partisan gerrymanders, the primary is the election and the general is a formality. Closing that primary to party members does not merely inconvenience independents. It removes them from the only vote that decides the outcome, while still charging them to run it. Every state fight is a version of this. A ballot measure in South Dakota, a lawsuit in Wyoming, a party's federal complaint in Texas, a repeal in California, a statute in New Mexico. Different instruments, one question: do the parties own the primary, or do the voters. State courts and state ballots can move a single state, but they cannot bind the others or settle the federal issue, so the question keeps escalating. It ends in one place. When the Supreme Court takes it up, the usual alignment breaks. The voters shut out are not partisans losing a policy fight. They are the fastest-growing bloc in the electorate, asked to fund a nominating process built to keep them on the sidelines. And the two parties, which agree on almost nothing, agree on this: the primary belongs to them. A ruling that it belongs to the voters would be a defeat both parties share. That is the case that could turn both of them against the Court, and it is coming whether the justices welcome it or not. *Disclosure: The Independent Voter Project co-publishes IVN and* [*has been a party or amicus in several of the matters*](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/in-the-courtroom?ref=ivn.us) *described above, including Balsam, Boydston, Polelle, and the California effort. IVP legal counsel S. Chad Peace authored the July 21 letter to the Attorney General.* ### The First REAL Working-Class Senator? Troy Jackson Explained | EP49 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/the-first-real-working-class-senator-troy-jackson-explained-ep49/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:26.000Z Everyone's calling Troy Jackson the establishment's safe replacement for Graham Platner. Here's the thing: Jackson has defied Democratic Party leadership more than Platner ever did - and he's got two decades of receipts. Cara called the whole Maine shakeup before it happened - Platner out, Troy Jackson in - and she explains why she saw it coming and why she's genuinely excited about it. Chad and Cara break down what makes Jackson different: a Senate president who bucked his own party's leadership to back ranked choice voting, outperformed other Democrats with Trump voters, and would be the first bona fide working-class U.S. Senator in a chamber of 100\. **This episode is sponsored by the Independent Voter Project and produced by Olas Media. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn.us) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ## Episode Highlights This episode of the Independent Voter Podcast digs into the turn of events in the Maine Senate race — and why Troy Jackson, the man replacing Graham Platner, may be more independent than the movement candidate he's succeeding. Hosts Chad, Cara, and Ethan open with Cara's now-vindicated prediction: the moment Platner withdrew, she knew Jackson would end up as the nominee. But the bigger story, she argues, is what grassroots organizers in Maine just proved — thousands of people with a personal stake in politics can organize around a goal and win, giving an ugly saga what she calls "kind of a nice ending." The hosts then challenge the red-vs-blue narrative that this was simply the establishment swapping in a safe pick. Platner, Chad argues, was riding a **partisan far-left wave**, while Jackson has repeatedly stepped out of the party line — most notably breaking with Democratic Party leadership to support ranked choice voting, and outperforming other Democrats with Trump voters. Cara, who watched Jackson defy leadership from inside one of the three most powerful offices in a state capitol, explains how Senate presidents, speakers, and governors control the committees where bills go to die — and why it matters that Jackson used that power differently. At 58, with two decades of fighting for Maine people behind him, he'd also be the first bona fide working-class U.S. Senator among all 100. The conversation pivots to Trump's nationally televised speech claiming the 2020 election was rigged and citing a Department of Homeland Security list of 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote. Cara was mid-argument that the president had lost his mind when a press release crossed the transom: New Jersey's new Democratic governor, Mikie Sherrill, announced the state's motor-voter system had registered roughly 6,000 people who said **they weren't U.S. citizens**. That becomes the episode's central theme: both can be true. You don't have to be an election denier to recognize real problems — like California taking 38 days to certify an election — and you don't have to accept every extrapolation as fact. The hosts argue partisans on both sides have turned politics into a world where one side admits no cons and the other admits no pros. Case in point: California's Attorney General just reissued the ballot title for the state's **voter ID initiative** at the eleventh hour — changing "establishes additional voter identification and citizenship verification requirements" to "prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government issued identification." The hosts ask whether anyone can honestly call that neutral, and Cara recalls fighting the same battle in Maine when Shenna Bellows wrote a loaded title for the Super PAC initiative. Chad closes with a breakdown of California's ballot harvesting rules: the only state allowing harvesters to collect unlimited ballots with no relationship to the voter, a three-day return rule with no enforcement mechanism, and ballots accepted up to seven days after the election. The result, he argues, isn't proof of a conspiracy — it's a **system with no chain of custody** that leaves voters arguing about trust because nobody can prove anything. ### Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Backfire: Six Fatal Mistakes—and One Big Failure to Research the Justices’ Own Family Histories URL: https://ivn.us/trumps-birthright-citizenship-backfire-six-fatal-mistakes-and-one-big-failure-to-research-the-justices-own-family-histories/ Last updated: 2026-07-30T19:50:02.000Z It was three weeks ago that the Supreme Court struck down the President’s executive order on birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara. While there were murmurings about Congressional actions based on Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence-dissent \[which was internally inconsistent and displeased the person who facilitated his appointment to the Court, to wit the Chief Justice\], and the President has stated that he will seek a rehearing. However, that would only expose more flaws with the Executive Order and the legal mistake as to trying to explain United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 469 (1898). However, there was no public outcry because the voters already made clear with their views. Based on family history and other factors they were satisfied with and agreed with the generally understood status quo. The easiest way to stop non-citizens from having kids on US soil while not citizens is to prevent the issuance of Green Cards and to restrict the entry of people into the United States. Whatever one may say as to the President’s policies, no one disputes that a person who is not a US Citizen has no right to be in the United States. At the same time, as the Supreme Court has held people who are US Citizens have a constitutional right to enter the United States to have kids protected under the 14th Amendment. In the three-week period there has been an exhaustive analysis of the Court opinions, concurrences, and dissents. The one key point that is overlooked is that no one has discussed the Justices’ family histories. To its credit, the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/us/politics/supreme-court-birthright-family-histories.html?ref=ivn.us) did an article before oral argument after hiring genealogists and legal experts as to each Justice’s background. Justice Gorsuch comes from the Pool of Citizens made citizens by operation of law by virtue of the Constitution as adopted in 1789 aka “We the People”. Three of the Justices \[Thomas, Jackson and Sotomayor\] ancestors were collectively naturalized by Acts of Congress either by the 1866 Civil Rights Act or the 1917 Puerto Rico Naturalization Act. Justice Alito was born to a parent who was made a citizen via derivative naturalization well before he was born. As to Justice Kavanaugh the sequencing was not clear but all his ancestors naturalized well before he was born as was the case with Justice Coney-Barrett. However, as to Justice Kagan and Chief Justice Roberts, while their ancestors were all naturalized, it was clear that their parents, grandparents or great grandparents were born before their parents naturalized. In fact, the Times piece called Chief Justice Roberts whose ancestors were Slovakians and Irish a direct beneficiary of Birthright Citizenship which I am sure he read. The article also raised issues as to Justice Coney-Barrett’s family. As I have often said, immigration is all about families. I would make two additional points to quote my late mother. One is that you do not get to choose your biological parents. The Constitution reflects that fact because the Treason Clause of the Constitution bars Treason Convictions as acting as an “Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.” Corruption of the Blood is basically an ad infinitum disability on the heirs of the person convicted of Treason. And, two, “Moms are moms, their spouses are their projects and their children are their life.” Or to quote Nancy Pelosi who has 5 kids, “Moms and Grandmas are Lionesses when it comes to protecting their offspring.” You have 4 female Justices, 2 of whom are Moms. I can assure you that the Girls all talked about this at Conference. In the case of the Chief Justice the Government was in effect retroactively challenging his citizenship. And, in the case of Justice Coney-Barrett the Government was challenging several of her family members citizenship. To quote Willie Lewis Brown, Jr. that was a “career ending decision”. I would make the following legal points in case they were overlooked. One, all the Justices agreed on 3 of the 4 points I made in my treatise of three weeks ago: (i) that children born on US soil to US Citizens while they were citizens \[however they became citizens\] were citizens themselves and could not be denaturalized without their express consent under Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967); (ii) that children born abroad to US Citizens\[s\] were citizens subject to certain condition subsequent that Congress could impose; and (iii) that children born abroad to non-citizens to become citizens had and have to go through a naturalization proceeding of some kind. In the case of children born abroad to non-citizens if below a certain age they were and are derivatively naturalized when the parents naturalize. That in fact was the case with Justice Alito’s father who was naturalized by that procedure and Justice Alito was born well after his father naturalized which likely affected his views. Secondly, Chief Justice Roberts’ discussion of “subject to jurisdiction” equated the use of that term in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to have the same meaning in the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment which provides that “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." As such, the Chief Justice adopted the reasoning of Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) even though he did not cite Plyler. Instead, he cited The Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, 11 U.S. 116 (1812) given his homage to Chief Justice Marshall. I would add that the language of the 14th Amendment was modified by a last-minute Amendment by Senator William Pitt Fessenden of Maine to include “persons naturalized within the United States” before the “subject to jurisdiction” language which was intended per Professor Thomas Lee of Fordham to recognize the Right of Expatriation – discussed below. Three, for all the talk about Domicile, the Chief Justice noted that residency-domicile in the 14th Amendment only appeared once and that was as to State Citizenship for diversity litigation purposes and maybe as to the original Comity Clause which addressed an issue in Dred Scott. He correctly noted citing the Slaughterhouse Cases noting that a person could be a US Citizen without being a citizen of a State. Four, as to dual citizens, Justice Kavanaugh did acknowledge that children born on US soil to Dual Citizens were citizens. Justice Thomas in his dissent stated that the domicile condition he read into the 14th Amendment avoided the “Dual Citizenship” concern. In all deference to Justice Thomas – and Expatriation did not receive a full discussion – given that many-many countries do not accept Unilateral Expatriation. The fact that one is domiciled here and naturalized here does not mean that the other country accepts that citizenship. Five, in terms of the four exceptions to automatic citizenship at birth judicially recognized in the 14th Amendment, all the Justices agreed on the exceptions though Justice Kavanaugh mangled it in terms of the children being born to foreigners themselves without the second qualification that the area be outside U.S. Control. Justice Thomas’s dissent actually articulated them well. Justice Kavanaugh did acknowledge that children born on US soil to Dual Citizens were citizens. In essence, the dissenters conceded that where the parents were not citizens, they were in essence born beyond the jurisdiction of US control. Taking the four exceptions, the rational for the same are as follows: - As to children of diplomats, they were in essence – even if born in a US hospital – were under diplomatic immunity. While it is true that they could expatriate \[not really discussed\] but is an after-birth event. As I indicated there is a procedure - and this would have had to be made across the board to be consistent had the EO gone through - whereby kids of diplomats can naturalize. - As to children born to persons who are part of an occupying force while the territory is in occupation, the territory is not under US Control. As Justice Story noted in United States v. Rice, \[17 U.S. 128 (1819) wherein during the War of 1812, the port of Castine, Maine, was captured by the British forces and during its occupation the British Government exercised civil and military authority over the people, established custom-houses and collected duties on goods\] noted that the area was not subject to US jurisdiction and albeit temporarily not part of the United States. The general rule of International Law is that during foreign occupation persons who were citizens of the territory \[and ergo their offspring\] prior to the moment of occupation do not forfeit their citizenship. Forfeiture only occurs after a peace treaty and lands are exchanged. While Justice Story’s concurrence-dissent in Inglis v. Trustees of Sailor's Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. 99 (1830) raised certain questions about this issue, the President’s Executive Order in effect treats them as citizens even though born outside US Control albeit temporarily. I believe that the Executive Order was correct because the effect of treating them otherwise would in effect denaturalize without consent in violation of the spirt of Afroyim v. Rusk. - As to children born to Indians, Justice Thomas correctly noted Indians they were considered born in enclave akin to foreign territories. Native Americans had been collectively naturalized selectively and were made citizens across the board in 1924, so that is a moot issue. - As to children born on foreign public vessels to noncitizens, in U.S. waters, that vessel was not considered US territory. The converse is also true. In United States v. Flores, 289 U.S. 137 (1933), the Court held that a murder committed on a US flagged vessel on the Congo River was committed in US Territory. In my view, besides not understanding the Chief Justice’s background, the Government did not adequately deal with all the pre-existing precedent that accepted the breadth of Wong Kim Ark. Justice Kavanaugh correctly noted that the Executive Order contravened a federal statute, 8 U.S.C. §1401(a). However, at that point to guide Congress on what it could and could not do would be in the nature of an advisory opinion. While in various state constitutions the highest court is expressly empowered to do so, that is not allowed by the United States Constitution, In terms of specifics, a slew of mistakes was made from the get go. Mistake One was including LPR Holders as being protected. While designed to avoid embarrassing Marco Rubio and possibly Usha Vance, LPR holders are still non-citizens. Domicile and citizenship at birth have nothing to do with each other. In fact, it led Justice Gorsuch to argue that children of illegal aliens had more rights than persons born here to persons legally and “temporarily” here. Mistake Two was not dealing with the current code section as to Foundlings and the fact that an allegedly Pro-Life Administration was in essence arguing for babies to be dumped at fire stations and in garbage cans to hopefully be found and placed for adoption. If the idea was to have the kid and leave, that is already in effect US Law. Mistake Three that the Administration made is in not wanting to touch or directly deal with Wong Kim Ark. I believe that the Administration could have explained Wong Kim Ark as being a case of statutory naturalization and the rest of it being dicta as Justice Alito argued. That would have dovetailed with Justice Kavanaugh’s statutory argument but that would still fail for the present purposes because of the bar to advisory opinions. Mistake Four is that whatever else is clear, contrary to Justice Thomas’s dissent, the 1866 Civil Rights Act naturalized more than freed slaves or free African Americans. In fact, the rational for Dred Scott was that Congress had not allowed African Americans as a Class to naturalize in an individual naturalization proceeding so they as a class were not citizens. This ignored the fact the Congress had collectedly naturalized via treaties and implementing statutes African Americans as a class prior to Dred Scott. In fact, as to Asians who could not per se naturalize in a naturalization proceeding until the 1950s because of Congressional statutes often ended up being naturalized via other procedures. At oral argument Justice Sotomayor mentioned United States v. Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923) to goad the Government into saying it was in fact seeking retroactive denaturalization which it denied. The Government instead stated that the rule in Sessions v. Morales-Santana, 582 U.S. 47 (2017). Sessions held that the Immigration and Nationality Act’s gender-based difference in physical presence requirements for unwed U.S. citizen parents violated the Fifth Amendment’s de-facto Equal Protection Clause component. Morales-Santana involved a situation where the mother was a US Citizen but Morales-Santana was born abroad out of wedlock. There were different time periods in terms of US physical presence in the United States and as such the ability to convey derivative citizenship. In an 8-0 decision, the court found that the difference in physical presence requirements violated the equal protection clause and due process. The case had implications for Congress's plenary power over immigration and the issue of statelessness. The remedy the court provided was to make the longer physical presence requirements apply to both unwed fathers and unwed mothers. The alternative option was to extend the shorter requirement for unwed mothers to unwed fathers. They argued that applying the shorter requirement would unfairly discriminate against married couples who are held to the longer requirement. However, Morales-Santana was a situation where the 14th Amendment did not apply and there was a statutory procedure – albeit perfunctory – to naturalize the child. As to Thind, 1923, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian Sikh man who identified himself as an Aryan, was ineligible for naturalized citizenship in the United States. In 1919, Thind filed a petition for naturalization under the Naturalization Act of 1906 which allowed only "free white persons" and "aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent" to become United States citizens by naturalization. It so happened that Thind also served in the US military during World War I. After his petition was granted, government attorneys initiated a proceeding to cancel Thind's naturalization and a trial followed in which the government presented evidence of Thind's political activities as a founding member of the Ghadar Party, an Indian independence movement headquartered in San Francisco. Thind did not challenge the constitutionality of the racial restrictions. Instead, he attempted to be classified as a "free white person" within the meaning of the Naturalization Act based on the fact that Indians and Europeans share common descent from Proto-Indo-Europeans. The Court unanimously rejected Thind's argument, adding that Thind did not meet a "common sense" definition of white, ruling that Thind could not become a naturalized citizen. The Court concluded that "the term 'Aryan' has to do with linguistic, and not at all with physical characteristics, and it would seem reasonably clear that mere resemblance in language, indicating a common linguistic root buried in remotely ancient soil, is altogether inadequate to prove common racial origin." As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision finding that no person of Indian origin could become a naturalized American, the first person from the Indian subcontinent to become an American citizen, A. K. Mozumdar, had his citizenship revoked. A decision on his appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that revocation. Up to fifty Indian Americans had their citizenship revoked between 1923 and 1927 as a consequence of the Thind ruling. As they had given up citizenship elsewhere to become naturalized United States citizens, when their United States citizenship was revoked, these Indians became stateless. Even Thind's own lawyer, Sakharam Ganesh Pandit, was targeted for denaturalization. However, Pandit successfully argued before the Ninth Circuit that revoking his citizenship would do him and his wife unfair harm under the equitable estoppel doctrine. His citizenship was upheld, and the Bureau of Naturalization subsequently cancelled its pending denaturalization cases against Indian American citizens. Thind however was granted naturalization because Congress passed the Nye-Lea Act, which made World War I veterans eligible for naturalization regardless of race. Based on his status as a veteran of the United States military during World War I, he was finally granted United States citizenship nearly two decades after he first petitioned for naturalization. In 1946, President Truman signed the Luce–Celler Act which reversed the Thind decision by explicitly extending racial eligibility for naturalization to natives of India, and set a token quota for their immigration at 100 per year. Mistake Five was that there were additional factors present in Wong Kim Ark that were not discussed but are relevant to my sequencing argument noted below. Wong Kim Ark was born prior to the Exclusion Acts so what happened thereafter was irrelevant. If the argument is that because the parents could not naturalize in an individual proceeding, neither could African Americans at the time of the adoption of the 1866 Civil Rights Act or the adoption of the 14th Amendment. That being the case, the underpinnings for the dissent in Wong Kim Ark evaporated. The inability to naturalize in an individual proceeding was the criteria in Dred Scott to hold Blacks could not be citizens. The entire purpose of the 1866 Civil Rights Act was to collectively naturalize them and others as a class. In fact, today there is no bar based on sex, creed or color to naturalizing persons in an individual proceeding. The parents of Wong Kim Ark were not described in the contemporary record as “illegal aliens”; they were Chinese subjects who maintained a domicile and residence in San Francisco at the time of their son’s birth. However, to assert that they resided permanently in the United States is false. Shortly after Wong Kim Ark’s birth they left the United States never to return. Moreover, equating “permanent domicile and residence” in 1898 with today’s green‑card status is legally and historically mistaken. As Justice Thomas noted correctly, relying on its enforcement powers under the 14th Amendment reenacted the 1866 Civil Rights Act in 1870 to “make legal” what it did in 1868 with the addition that Africans could be naturalized in an individual proceeding. As noted above, when Wong Kim Ark was a child, his parents took him back to China. His parents never returned to the United States, while he returned to California with an uncle a few years later and worked as a dishwasher and cook in a mining camp in the Sierra Nevada mountains. In 1889, he left for China and returned to his family's village in Taishan, Ong Sing. While in Taishan, Wong Kim Ark married Yee She, who was from a village near his familial one. He returned to California in 1890, where he settled in San Francisco and resumed working as a cook, leaving behind in Taishan not only his parents but also his wife, who gave birth to their first son after he left. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, he as a laborer could not bring his wife to the United States even if a citizen. Upon arrival alone at San Francisco in July 1890, he was readmitted on the ground that he was a native-born citizen of the United States, but only after an unnamed Bureau of Immigration official left a note in his file questioning the veracity of his claim of birth in the United States. In November 1894, Wong sailed to China for another temporary visit to his family in Taishan. It was only after the third re-arrival within the United States was his citizenship questioned. The only rational for exclusion was that he was not a citizen. In Thind the Government as to Thind’s lawyer lost on equitable estoppel grounds. While in INS v. Miranda, 459 U.S. 14 (1982) (per curiam) the Court limited equitable estoppel in immigration cases it did not eliminate it. As noted in Miranda that “(i)n two cases involving denial of citizenship, the Court has declined to decide whether even ‘affirmative misconduct’ would estop the Government from denying citizenship, for in neither case was ‘affirmative misconduct’ involved.” Id., at 788\. In my view, Wong Kim Ark involved affirmative misconduct. In fact, it appears that the domicile issue was raised in the context of Expatriation which involved Wong Kim Ark being taken back to China as a child. While Expatriation was noted by the Chief Justice in his Trump opinion as being a back-end transaction, he did not get full explanation. Expatriation is a doctrine on which America is built on. In essence it states that irrespective of the views of the sovereign’s, one can effectively and unilaterally renounce one’s citizenship in a country. While Chief Justice Marshall noted in Murray v. Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. 64 (1804) noted the unsettled question of whether an American citizen “can divest himself absolutely of” his citizenship, the same Congress that adopted the 1866 Civil Rights Act and sent to the States the 14th Amendment passed a statute that President Johnson signed recognized the right of all persons to expatriate and change their citizenship. The actual formalities of doing so weren’t put in statute until 1907 and that statute was invalidated in Afroyim and was subsequently rewritten and partially sustained as re-written in Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U.S. 252 (1980). Vance built on Afroyim by holding that a United States citizen cannot have their citizenship taken away unless they have acted with an intent to give up that citizenship. The Supreme Court overturned portions of an act of Congress which had listed various actions and had said that the performance of any of these actions could be taken as conclusive, irrebuttable proof of intent to give up U.S. citizenship. However, the Court ruled that a person's intent to give up citizenship could be established through a standard of preponderance of evidence (i.e., more likely than not) — rejecting an argument that intent to relinquish citizenship could only be found on the basis of clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence. In fact, it was not until Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939) in a decision authored by Chief Justice Hughes that a child born in the United States to naturalized parents on U.S. soil \[Elg was born after her parents naturalized\] is a natural born citizen and that the child's natural born citizenship is not lost if the child is taken to and raised in the country of the parents' origin and cannot be stripped of the same absent an affirmative and voluntary renunciation. Mistake Six which was the coup de grace and the ultimate Career Ending Decision was the Government’s inability to address sequencing. Sequencing is basically a short hand way of saying when did certain events happen and in what order. In private practice at the law firm where I got my start my mentor – Les Bell – always said pay attention to details and always focus on the core issue in a case. Given that it was by design that I went to a Catholic affiliated law school \[my father’s firm basically set up the retirement plans for Priests all over the US for which he received a thank you and audience with Pope Paul in Rome in 1971 when Abe and Roz went on a European Tour\] which taught thinking on one’s feet, all the professors emphasized that one needed to know procedure and evidence. You could pick up the substantive law doing research because there were a slew of books and treatises on that. In fact, at that law firm I was assigned to deal with law and motion issues and creditors remedies precisely because it was research oriented. The reason for the Civil Law and Motion assignments was because it was akin to Moot Court a day though with real world consequences. I spent most of my time on the 8th Floor of the LA Superior Court where Judicial Greats such as John Cole, Bob Weil, Leon Savage, Dickran M. Tevrizian and Irving Schimer put us through our paces. One of the main advantages was that the Judges would post tentative rulings by 4:00 pm the day before the hearing stating what issues they were focused on. I was in the car to get to Hill Street before 5:00 pm to read the Tentative so I knew what the judge was thinking about. It was much more specific than the questions presented in the average cert petition. Over time, I branched out to creditors’ remedies which involved often priority of lien rights. I will simply say – as Steve Peace can attest to - that our firm was often hired by financial institutions to fix their messes. The reason I became so adept at chaptering in the Legislature was because it is basically sequencing and extinguishment of lien rights albeit in another forum. It is also why in my Fiona Ma Star-Poobah Intern Capacity I deal with reimbursement issues associated with healthcare. Because the crux in the Citizenship dispute was over children born to non-citizens when the parents were not citizens, one would think people would focus in on what the law was understood to be prior to Dred Scott v. Sanford as to ordinary White Europeans. Dred Scott and Wong Kim Ark were based on the inability of the parents to naturalize in a traditional naturalization proceeding. The better question is the citizenship status of those whose parents were able to naturalize in a naturalization proceeding when the parents were not citizens. The Government could not answer the main question lurking in the case which is a common scenario today and existed at the time of the adoption of the 14th Amendment. That scenario was and is the child is born on US soil to a non-citizen \[most often legally here\] and the parents subsequently become citizens, what is the status of that child and is there a procedure to make that child a citizen? There could be numerous permutations on that issue such as the parent\[s\] naturalize after the child reaches adulthood \[think Kamala Harris\] or the parent dies when the child is still a Minor. I know of cases in the last scenario. In fact, you could have a scenario under the Government’s position wherein the parent naturalizes, the child born abroad is derivatively naturalized when the parent naturalizes, and the child born on US soil is in limbo because while legally here he was born on the wrong type of visa. Being in a temporary status is not permanent. Under the immigration laws persons temporarily admitted into the United States can obtain “adjustment of status” which is statutorily recognized as a process to apply for lawful permanent resident status (also known as applying for a Green Card) when you are present in the United States. This means that you may get a Green Card without having to return to your home country to complete visa processing. While the Government sought to allay that fear as to children born LPR Holders, there are many-many children born to people legally here who are not citizens and naturalize but the child was born before the parents obtained a Green Card. This is not just Kamala Harris, its likely Usha Vance, and likely several of Donald Trump’s siblings given his grandfather’s “unique” citizenship history. Given that I defer on these issues to Moms, while as a policy matter Mommy – at least the Mommies I know – believe it is stupid to have a kid before one is a citizen, not everyone thinks like my grandmother or the Mommies I know. Moreover, as Justice Scalia noted the effect of a written Constitution is to take certain policy options off the table. And, this was a personal issue with Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kagan and Justice Coney-Barrett and the Government did not address it. Given how central the sequencing issue was, that it got scant attention in the oral arguments \[being raised only once by Justice Alito\] and almost none of the Briefs is shocking and shows that the Justice’s clerks were not doing their jobs. I would have – just as with the Tentative Rulings – instructed Counsel to brief the following two issues: (i) prior to Dred Scott was the view on the citizenship status of children born on US soil to non-citizens who were White Europeans; and (ii) what was the effect of the derivative naturalization statute on children born on US Soil to non-citizens who were not in the excluded classes in terms of the historical understanding? Justice Alito in his dissent argued that sequencing was a non-issue because it rarely arose before the 20th Century because naturalization was quick. However, sequencing was not an issue for Justice Alito because it was done in the right order in his case. Doing my due diligence, I asked several historians about sequencing who have written on the early practices. Most responded with “good question”. I did get a good response from Professor Carrie Hyde at UCLA who thought based on the 1790 Naturalization Act which was passed by the 1st Congress that if the parents naturalized, then the kids born on US Soil were retroactively naturalized to their date of birth and kids born abroad were naturalized as to the date of naturalization. This would be akin to the 1981 British Citizenship Act which adopted modified Jus Sanguinis. However, the reason sequencing did not arise during the Founding Era is twofold. First, any change would be purely prospective. And, two, James Madison foresaw the issue. The initial Naturalization Act of 1790 had three provisions: (i) making sure that children born abroad to US citizens were citizens at birth; (ii) creating the basic framework for naturalization for those born abroad; and (iii) recognizing derivative citizenship. Derivative citizenship has three forms: (i) when the parent naturalizes, the child ipso facto naturalizes and that is still the case today, (ii) the child of a citizen \[if born in the parent’s country\] becomes a citizen and that is the case today; and (iii) children born to a non-citizens born within the territory of the new nation who would become citizens once the parents naturalized. This is a form of Jus Sanguinis. The language of the 1790 act as to derivative citizenship covered not just kids born abroad but was very broad and was clearly intended as a principle to cover kids born here to non-citizen parents before the parents naturalized and could naturalize. In fact, I emailed Professor Carrie Hyde at UCLA who has written on the general citizenship topic about the 1790 Act and my thoughts and she thought I might be right. While the language of the 1790 Act changed over time, the view as to derivative citizenship being the basis for US law on the front end was not challenged as to free white persons born to people who naturalized or could naturalize. Critical in this regard is that in 1790, because anyone treated as US Citizen by virtue of the operation of law aspects of the 1789 Constitution, by definition it only applied to persons who came here after 1790 because any free person who was within the boundaries of the US was a citizen and any kids they had would be born to citizens – despite the revisionist history in Dred Scott. As such, what Madison was thinking about was what would happen in 20 plus years. In fact, there was very little immigration to the United States prior to the Irish Potato Famine and the failed European Revolutions of 1848\. What naturalization that did occur was the United States acquiring territories via treaty or conquest and then on a case-by-case collectively naturalizing based on the circumstance the residents of that territory which the Supreme Court as noted before repeatedly upheld. However, the Founders were thinking about all these issues because the fight for Independence really started in 1763 with the end of the French and Indian Wars and did not culminate until the adoption of the Constitution in 1789. When the United States came into being in 1789 as one nation, by definition almost all of the population had been British Subjects. The median age of the population was 16 years and there were approximately 4 million people in the United States per the 1790 census. Because of the Treaty of 1783, the United States consisted on the 13 Colonies plus all the land East of the Mississippi South of Canada and north of what Spain held as territory – primarily parts of Southern Alabama and Mississippi and Florida. \[As an aside, While in theory Britian “lost” the overall War of Independence, in the scheme of things the American Revolution morphed into a World War just as George Washington \[Judith and I saw Young Washington which was a great movie\] precipitated the French and Indian War which morphed into a world war, both wars worked out just fine for the British Empire.\] Britain gave up all the territory it did for several geo-political reasons. The end result was that the United States was a vastly underpopulated area which in many ways relied on Britain for external security. That being the case, the Founders needed to bulk up the free population. While Americans had high birth rates, it was nowhere sufficient to populate this vast area so it needed immigrants. The easiest way to get immigrants is to assure them that they and their kids and grandkid would have a better life to assure that they could easily as would their kids become citizens irrespective of place of birth. I therefore believe the 1866 Civil Rights Act recognized or affirmed that the pre-existing view of derivative citizenship applied, to wit that derivative citizenship in at least three forms exists: (i) when the parent naturalizes, the child ipso facto naturalizes and that is still the case today, (ii) the child of a citizen \[if born in the parent’s country\] becomes a citizen and that is the case today; and (iii) children born to a non-citizens born within the territory of the new nation who would become citizens once the parents naturalized or could be naturalized. As to persons who could be naturalized in a naturalization proceeding i.e. whites, Dred Scott did not dispute that children born on US soil to non-citizens where the parents could naturalize where citizens at birth by operation of law even if the parents never naturalized for whatever reason. Dred Scott also did not dispute that Congress at least as to non-Blacks could collectively naturalize anyone it wanted. That would include Indians living on or off Reservations. At the same rime prior to Dred Scott and to this day, absent Congressional Approval no one born abroad can ipso facto become a citizen. As Justice Gray noted in Wong Kim Ark, to hold that the Fourteenth excludes from citizenship the children, born in the United States, of citizens or subjects of other countries would have been to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage who had always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States. And, as the Chief Justice noted in Trump v. Barbara, putting aside the 4 exceptions – one of which was mooted by Congress, a decision was made to put into the Constitution to make citizens kids born on US soil to parents who were or were not citizens without elaborate procedures. As I said before, the 14th Amendment was collective naturalization which Congress could do assuming the States agreed via ratification. In the case of statutory naturalization, that can be restricted as to persons yet-to-be born by Congress passing a bill. In the case of the Constitution, that can be changed but by a laborious process. ### Ana Kasparian Goes Off on Newsom's Prisons Record URL: https://ivn.us/ana-kasparian-goes-off-on-newsoms-prisons-record/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:52:57.000Z Ana Kasparian, co-host and executive producer of The Young Turks, offered a blunt critique from the left of California Governor Gavin Newsom's record on crime during a recent appearance on CNN, arguing that his handling of public safety policy has undermined the state's own voters. In [a clip being widely circulated online](https://x.com/adamcarolla/status/2076914062534033516?ref=ivn.us), Kasparian said: *"I will concede that Gavin Newsom's leadership in California has been a complete and utter disaster. He changes his ideology depending on what he thinks is fresh and what's hip at any given moment. Seventy-six percent of Californians voted in favor of something known as* [*Prop 36*](https://ivn.us/10-million-votes-proposition-36-takes-effect-california-ushering-new-approach-drug-and-theft/)*, which is to roll back some of the soft-on-crime policies. That requires funding. \[Newsom\] has been pushing back on adequately funding the efforts to essentially roll back those policies."* Asked whether she believed it was important to invest in fighting crime, Kasparian replied without hesitation: "100 percent yes." She went on to argue that Newsom's approach has fallen short even by the left's own standards, saying the state got early prison closures instead of the substantive reforms progressives had hoped for: *"I think the left wanted prison reform. The left wanted better police training. The left wanted real reforms where people aren't getting shot as they're running away from cops, unarmed. What we got instead was the premature closure of four prisons. Gavin Newsom is preparing to shut down the fifth state prison. As a result, the county \[jails\] are full to the brim of inmates, and then what they do is they end up releasing people early because they don't have room for them."* > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DbJXTaDDcF2/?ref=ivn.us) The Young Turks is one of the largest and longest-running progressive news outlets online. "Defund the police" was the rallying cry from the party's activist left in 2020, but now Kasparian is making the opposite argument: that closing prisons hasn't worked, leaving facilities full and forcing early releases. Her comments add an influential voice from the left to the criticism of [Newsom's record on prisons](https://ivn.us/history-california-criminal-justice-and-prison-reform-initiatives-1994-2025-2025-05-13/) as he gears up for a 2028 campaign for President. State budget estimates show [Prop 36](https://ivn.us/10-million-votes-proposition-36-takes-effect-california-ushering-new-approach-drug-and-theft/) is expected to add more than 1,500 people to the prison population once fully in effect. Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Macomber has testified before lawmakers that closing a prison doesn't reduce how many people the state is holding; it just relocates them. “The downside of prison closures, it does impact public safety,” Macomber said. *“The folks at that prison that gets closed, the incarcerated, they don’t go home. I move them to other prisons. They go on wait lists for rehab and programming. We add more overcrowding, more double-celling, more challenges.”* “If we want to reinvent our system, we need more interaction, more rehab programs for our population,” Macomber said [at a hearing in March](https://calmatters.org/justice/2026/03/close-california-prisons/?ref=ivn.us). Newsom has closed four state prisons since taking office: facilities in Blythe and Tracy, one in Susanville, and the state ended its contract with a privately run prison in Kern County. A fifth, the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, Riverside County, is already closing and is expected to shut down by October, bringing the total to five. Kasparian’s stat on the [Prop 36 vote](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F36,%5FDrug%5Fand%5FTheft%5FCrime%5FPenalties%5Fand%5FTreatment-Mandated%5FFelonies%5FInitiative%5F%282024%29?ref=ivn.us) needs a small correction. She said 76 percent of voters approved it. The certified result was 68.4 percent, [still a landslide](https://ivn.us/10-million-votes-proposition-36-takes-effect-california-ushering-new-approach-drug-and-theft/), just not quite as large as she said. Proposition 36 garnered majority support in all 58 counties and had the highest overall vote share of the ten measures on the November 2024 ballot—an unprecedented level of statewide agreement on a criminal justice policy. ### Kevin Kiley Left the Republican Party Over Gerrymandering. Now He's Testing Whether an Independent Can Beat the Map Drawn to Defeat Him. URL: https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-left-the-republican-party-over-gerrymandering-now-hes-testing-whether-an-independent-can-beat-the-map-drawn-to-defeat-him/ Last updated: 2026-08-07T15:18:56.000Z *Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain almost entirely unrepresented in Congress. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home.* *A handful of high-profile independent candidates are trying to change that in 2026\. They are often covered as fringe candidates whose stories are told through the lens of how they'll impact the outcome between a Republican and a Democrat, rather than on their own terms. This series exists because independent voters deserve better than that.* *In California's 6th Congressional District, Rep. Kevin Kiley serves as the only independent currently serving in the House of Representatives, and he’s running for reelection in a district gerrymandered to end that service.* ### **The Candidate** Kevin Kiley is a Rocklin native who spent his entire political career as a Republican before this year. He represented the 6th District in the California State Assembly from 2016 to 2022 before getting elected to Congress in 2022 in California's 3rd District, winning reelection in 2024. This March, Kiley filed for reelection with no party affiliation and days later[ asked the clerk of the House](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/breaking-california-republican-congressman-quits-173326851.html?ref=ivn.us) to reflect his independent status on the official roster, effective immediately. He became[ the 10th member of Congress](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/03/11/rep-kevin-kiley-becomes-the-10th-member-of-the-u-s-congress-to-change-party-affiliation-since-2000/?ref=ivn.us) to change party affiliation since 2000 and the only sitting independent in the chamber. Asked whether the decision was difficult, Kiley described it as the culmination of a series of events that showed how partisan and broken Washington has become and said it felt like the right thing to do "when the whole gerrymandering circus got out of control." The circus in question was a nationwide drive to mid-decade redistricting. Normally, the redistricting process follows the decennial census. Required by the Constitution, this census sees changes to populations across the US and leads to potential reapportionment of representatives and redrawing of districts. This year, however, many states decided to engage in a redistricting war, including California. California passed independent redistricting over a decade ago, which meant that redistricting mid-cycle would require a public vote. Proposition 50, the November 2025 ballot measure that allowed California to bypass its independent redistricting commission and pass a new Democratic-friendly House map before the 2026 midterms passed by nearly 30 points. The new map dismantled Kiley's 3rd District. Rather than[ challenge fellow Republican Rep. Tom McClintock](https://www.aol.com/articles/kiley-swaps-safe-seat-shifting-212840486.html?ref=ivn.us) in the safer 5th District, Kiley chose the much bluer 6th—the one that includes his hometown. ### **The Race** The redrawn 6th District covers portions of Yolo, Sacramento, and Placer counties, including West Sacramento, Natomas, parts of northern Sacramento, and sections of Roseville, Rocklin, and Citrus Heights. It was engineered to elect a Democrat: while Kiley's original district went for Donald Trump by four points in 2024, the[ new 6th favored Kamala Harris by nine points](https://www.aol.com/articles/kiley-swaps-safe-seat-shifting-212840486.html?ref=ivn.us). The June 2 top-two primary tested whether an independent incumbent could survive on that terrain. He did. Kiley led the seven-candidate field with 46,921 votes (24.3%), followed by former Democratic state Sen. Richard Pan with 44,805 (23.2%) and Republican Michael Stansfield with 38,823 (20.1%). Pan[ edged out Stansfield](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/congressional/4590364/california-6th-congressional-district-primary-results-kevin-kiley/?ref=ivn.us) for the second runoff spot, narrowly avoiding a rare California race that would have boxed out a Democrat entirely. The primary math cuts both ways. Kiley finished first without a party. But[ Democratic candidates combined for approximately 55.7%](https://www.elkgrovenews.net/californias-redrawn-6th-district-gives-richard-pan-a-path-but-kevin-kiley-remains-a-formidable-opponent/?ref=ivn.us) of the primary vote, meaning Pan's path in November runs through consolidating a coalition that already exists on paper, while Kiley must hold Republicans who just voted for Stansfield and win over unaffiliated and crossover voters. On fundraising, Kiley currently leads Pan. Through their 6/30 FEC filings, Kiley has raised just shy of $3 million, while Pan is just under $1.1 million. Kiley is also sitting on $2.1 million cash on hand, having spent only a third of his total receipts during the primary. That’s compared to Pan’s $360,000. ### **Governing as the Only Independent** Kiley's answer to how independence has changed his approach in Washington is that it hasn't—it formalized it. "I always approach my role as being a representative of all constituents," he said in our interview. "Being an independent is a reflection of that." He has a recent data point to cite. In June, Kiley's office received a[ 2026 Democracy Award from the Congressional Management Foundation](https://www.congressfoundation.org/democracy-awards?ref=ivn.us) for Best of Constituent Service — a competitive program that[ drew more than 150 applications](https://sierrawave.net/rep-kevin-kiley-receives-2026-democracy-award-for-best-of-constituent-service/?ref=ivn.us) from over 80 offices across both chambers, with 18 recipients selected across seven categories. In accepting the award, Kiley said his office has[ closed more than 6,000 individual cases](https://www.easternsierranow.com/rep-kiley-honored-with-2026-democracy-award-for-best-of-constituent-service/?ref=ivn.us), returning over $21 million directly to constituents and helped the district receive over $315 million in federal grants. Among the grants he points to is a[ $22.5 million award](https://www.abc10.com/article/entertainment/television/programs/to-the-point/californias-congressional-district-6-election-results-where-the-vote-stands/103-39220611-2595-4eee-b732-dd609bc90a24?ref=ivn.us), secured working with both the Biden and Trump administrations, to address traffic congestion around Highway 65 and I-80. ### **The Reform Agenda: Redistricting First** Immediately bucking party leadership, one of Kiley’s first moves as an independent was to introduce a bill to combat the redistricting war that led to his defection from the Republican Party. His[ bill would prohibit states from redrawing congressional maps](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/california-republican-moves-ban-middecade-170800256.html?ref=ivn.us) more than once every 10 years, after the census, unless a federal court orders it—a ban that would apply to red-state and blue-state gerrymanders alike. When House leadership declined to move it, Kiley[ introduced a discharge petition](https://www.axios.com/2026/05/13/kevin-kiley-redistricting-discharge-petition?ref=ivn.us) in May to force a floor vote, one of the few tools rank-and-file lawmakers have to bypass leadership. The bill has drawn fire from both party establishments — which, for a candidate running against the two-party duopoly, is not the worst place to be. A spokesperson for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries[ dismissed it as "unserious legislation"](https://www.axios.com/2026/05/13/kevin-kiley-redistricting-discharge-petition?ref=ivn.us), while Kiley has also publicly criticized Speaker Mike Johnson for failing to advance legislation curbing partisan redistricting. Beyond the mid-decade ban, Kiley told IVN he wants independent redistricting commissions in every state, open primaries and other reforms "so that you don't have the two parties controlling everything and a system that breeds people on the extremes rather than people who want to solve problems," and a voter ID requirement, which he notes most voters support. He also wants structural change inside the House itself: more avenues for getting bills to the floor beyond leadership discretion or the rare discharge petition, including giving bills a right to a vote based on cosponsor count, and a cultural shift away from party-line procedural votes. He notes that the party-line norm lets "a handful of people hold the whole institution hostage based on unrelated demands." ### **The Anti-Corruption Agenda** Corruption consistently ranks near the top of the issues independent voters care about, and Kiley's second major post-party legislative push targets it directly. In late June, he joined Democratic Reps. Kristen McDonald Rivet, Greg Landsman, and Eugene Vindman to introduce the[ No Profiting from Public Service Act](https://mcdonaldrivet.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-mcdonald-rivet-leads-bipartisan-effort-stop-insider-trading-public?ref=ivn.us), which would ban politicians, Supreme Court justices, and other federal officials (including executive appointees) from trading stocks and using prediction markets to wager on government and politics. The bill goes further than most prior stock-trading bans: it would also[ bar spouses and dependents from owning and trading stocks, and extend coverage to candidates for Congress](https://abcnews.com/Politics/battleground-house-members-introduce-prediction-market-ban-politicians/story?id=134317055&ref=ivn.us). "There are many ways to make government more transparent and accountable," Kiley told IVN, describing the principle behind the bill as ensuring officials "can't make money on public service." ### **The Caucus Question** Like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Angus King, who caucus with Democrats, Kiley has said he will[ caucus with Republicans through the end of the 119th Congress](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/03/11/rep-kevin-kiley-becomes-the-10th-member-of-the-u-s-congress-to-change-party-affiliation-since-2000/?ref=ivn.us). What happens after that is genuinely open. Current House rules effectively require members to caucus with a party to receive committee assignments — a structural penalty on independence that Kiley wants eliminated. He told IVN he would ask the Speaker to change the rule so independents can serve on committees without joining either conference, and that in a new term he would decide his affiliation based on "what's best for constituents and what would restore the House to truly being the People's House." That answer will not satisfy critics on either side. Pan's campaign argues the independent label is cosmetic, citing[ vote analyses showing Kiley has voted with Trump-backed positions](https://www.capradio.org/articles/2026/07/06/kevin-kiley-challenges-richard-pan-to-debate-series-in-d-6-race/?ref=ivn.us) in the overwhelming majority of votes where the president's position was publicly known. Kiley's counter is his record since the switch — including providing what he called the[ decisive signature on the discharge petition that forced a vote on the Ukraine Support Act](https://kiley.house.gov/posts/rep-kiley-issues-statement-following-house-passage-of-ukraine-support-act?ref=ivn.us), and voting against legislation to dismantle the Department of Education from his position chairing an Education and Workforce subcommittee. ### **Turning Out the Independent Vote** Kiley is candid about the disillusionment among unaffiliated voters, some of whom polling suggests plan to sit out November entirely. "I understand where a lot of folks are coming from," he said, pointing to primaries in many states that shut out independents and to his own singular status: "I'm the only independent member of the House even though half the country" identifies outside the parties. Independents, he argues, are "vastly underrepresented," and the only remedy is showing up, "making their voice heard and making their presence felt" by supporting candidates with a demonstrated willingness to work across the aisle and reform the system so collaboration becomes structurally easier, not just personally admirable. ### **The Debate Standoff** The clearest current flashpoint in the race is Kiley's challenge to Pan for[ five debates across the district](https://www.capradio.org/articles/2026/07/06/kevin-kiley-challenges-richard-pan-to-debate-series-in-d-6-race/?ref=ivn.us), which he argues would prevent the race from being decided by campaign ads, party organization, and outside spending. Pan has yet to commit to a single date, venue, or format, though his campaign says he looks forward to having a conversation to help voters decide. IVN covered[ the standoff in detail](https://ivn.us/the-only-independent-in-congress-wants-five-debates-his-democratic-opponent-wont-commit-to-one/). Asked what he would tell voters on a debate stage, Kiley said he would start with his record—constituent services, federal grants delivered—and draw a contrast with Pan's twelve years in a state Legislature he characterizes as the most extreme in the country, presiding over the nation's highest cost of living. His sharpest charge: that Pan "always does what he's told by party leaders" and that his refusal to commit to debates reflects a campaign strategy of "reading talking points handed to him by Washington, D.C." ### **Assessment** CA-6 is the purest test case of the 2026 cycle for a question that matters well beyond Sacramento: whether a candidate can survive a map drawn specifically to end his career by refusing to play the game the map assumes. The newly drawn district's fundamentals favor Pan, with Harris winning the district by nine points. However, the incumbent advantage is real, and voters have demonstrated a willingness to vote for people who are willing to buck their party leadership to fight for popular reforms. His constituent services record suggests a candidate who has made many inroads in improving the lives for his constituents, but many of them are no longer voters in the district he hopes to represent because of the redistricting effort. [As districts become more gerrymandered, margins necessarily get closer](https://ivn.us/the-gerrymandering-wars-have-a-wild-card-independent-voters/). And as independent voters make up a larger and larger share of the vote, those smaller margins are going to result in unexpected outcomes. If Kiley wins in the newly-drawn CA-6, a district drawn to create a safely Democratic seat, the only independent in the House will have proven that the label can beat the gerrymander that created it. ### No Watchdogs Allowed: How the U.S. Is Quietly Shutting Out Election Scrutiny URL: https://ivn.us/no-watchdogs-allowed-how-the-u-s-is-quietly-shutting-out-election-scrutiny/ Last updated: 2026-07-21T17:40:37.000Z *Editor’s Note: The following commentary* [*originally published*](https://thefulcrum.us/elections/the-new-fight-over-election-observation?ref=ivn.us) *on The Fulcrum, and was cross-published on IVN in partnership with the publication.* As a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the U.S. has signed the foundational agreement committing all participating states to open elections to external scrutiny and inviting fellow members to observe through the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The 2024 ODIHR observation mission to the U.S. [found](https://odihr.osce.org/odihr/589239?ref=ivn.us) the fundamentals reassuring—a well-run process, active engagement, free campaigning—but issued 31 recommendations to align U.S. elections with international standards and commitments. Four stand out: federal pre-clearance legislation against discriminatory election-law changes; reassessing the Electoral College; balanced representation in election administration; and guaranteed access for international and nonpartisan observers—notable, since 17 states still legally bar international observation, which is at odds with commitments made by all 57 OSCE states. Yet over a year later, follow-through is thin: no pre-clearance restoration, no Electoral College review, unchanged observer-access laws. Where movement exists—in disinformation tools, in financial disclosure—it remains piecemeal. ## **An Uncomfortable Convergence** As part of its methodology, ODIHR typically deploys a Needs Assessment Mission (NAM) months in advance, followed by a report and, depending on the findings, an observation mission. This was the sequence before 2024's vote, but as of this writing, ODIHR's public [calendar](https://odihr.osce.org/odihr/elections?ref=ivn.us) lists the November 3, 2026, U.S. midterms as upcoming, with no needs assessment or any other recorded activity. The pre-election assessment should already have happened. This isn't proof Washington declined to invite ODIHR—but it breaks with recent cycles, arriving as the administration steps back from other multilateral engagement. The OSCE's founding agreement is reciprocal: every state invites others to observe its elections. A cluster of authoritarian and backsliding states has quietly abandoned that accord. Russia blocked ODIHR from its 2021 State Duma elections and issued no invitation for the 2024 elections. Belarus hasn't invited ODIHR since 2020\. Tajikistan's 2025 mission was canceled due to accreditation delays. Georgia invited ODIHR less than a month before its 2025 local elections—which ODIHR said was incompatible with credible observation. None formally renounced their commitments; they simply made the invitation late, conditional, or absent. The U.S. pattern for 2026 sits uncomfortably close to that category: no rejection on record, just an absence where an invitation should be. Perhaps the writing was on the wall all along, since in 2024 several state election officials [refused](https://www.oscepa.org/en/documents/election-observation/election-observation-statements/united-states-of-america/statements-27/5110-2024-general/file?ref=ivn.us) to meet with ODIHR observers due to perceived concerns about foreign interference. ## **Diverging Tactics Abroad** Disengaging from scrutiny at home doesn't predict behavior abroad, where Russia and the U.S. diverge sharply in method—even as the underlying instinct to influence outcomes rather than submit to independent assessment looks similar. Russia has built a parallel institution. In April 2026, under the patronage of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Moscow hosted a [conference](https://russian-election-monitor.org/kremlins-new-fake-electoral-observation-ecosystem-from-domestic-mimicry-to-global-scaling/?ref=ivn.us) that drew over 150 delegates from 60-plus countries, formally establishing the International Association for Political and Electoral Expertise (IAPEE), which is backed by Russia's Presidential Administration, the Foreign Ministry, and the Central Election Commission. Its governing board includes figures with documented histories in the occupied Ukrainian territory and Belarus's 2020 election. IAPEE mimics the form of observation—recruitment, deployment, published findings—while replacing oversight with reciprocal validation, in which governments endorse each other's elections. Lavrov [cast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vmua382u7c&ref=ivn.us) it as an "immune response by the global majority" against Western "electoral neocolonialism". Russia has already invited IAPEE to observe its own September 2026 State Duma vote—a model built for export across the Global South. The United States has hollowed out its own infrastructure, then filled the gap with partisan actors. Rather than building a rival institution, the Trump administration [cut](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5297844?ref=ivn.us) funding to organizations that long conducted standards-based assessments abroad—the National Democratic Institute and the Carter Center among them—as part of a broader dismantling of USAID's democracy programming. That withdrawal hasn't meant disengagement—just a different kind of engagement, as diplomats, appointees, and members of Congress move into the space once occupied by professional missions. The House Intelligence Committee [led](https://intelligence.house.gov/2025/12/01/house-intel-chairman-crawford-leads-bipartisan-codel-to-honduras-to-observe-presidential-election/?ref=ivn.us) a [bipartisan](https://thefulcrum.us/can-bipartisanship-survive-rise-the-independent-voter?ref=ivn.us) election observation mission to Honduras in November 2025\. Republican Senator Bernie Moreno [observed](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/world/americas/colombia-election-de-la-espriella-trump.html?ref=ivn.us) Colombia's 2026 election while making his preferences for a winning side known, prompting claims of interference. The U.S. Embassy in Peru [deployed](https://x.com/USEMBASSYPERU/status/2058640910691217422?ref=ivn.us) its own observers nationwide during the tense 2026 runoff—prompting [allegations](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/06/11/mdlf-j11.html?ref=ivn.us) [of influence](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/06/11/mdlf-j11.html?ref=ivn.us) from left-wing outlets. A long-term Trump [ally](https://www.trey4tx.com/about?ref=ivn.us) and political nominee led a U.S. “election observation” delegation and [traveled](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-sends-election-observers-romania-presidential-election-rerun-2025-05-02/?ref=ivn.us) to Romania in May 2025 to monitor the presidential rerun. These deployments fall short of the [Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation](https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dop-eng.pdf?ref=ivn.us), which requires comprehensive, long-term observation across the pre-election, election-day, and post-election periods, oriented toward the process rather than any particular result, and culminating in timely, accurate, impartial public findings. Members instead offered political commentary, praised favored administrations, or lent their presence as a marker of U.S. support—grey-zone validation rather than genuine observation. ## **Same Effect, Different Design** Russia and the U.S. aren't running the same playbook. Moscow builds an alternative community—a charter, training pipeline, governing council—to escape post-2022 isolation while preserving the appearance of norm-following on its own terms. Washington constructs no new institutions; it quietly disengages from the ones that exist, while funding cuts create a vacuum that diplomats, appointees, and members of Congress fill ad hoc. The functional result converges: standards-based scrutiny is displaced by actors serving a political-influence agenda—propping up favored governments or candidates within each country's sphere of interest, while the language of observation lends unearned legitimacy. In both, a government's posture toward oversight abroad mirrors its posture at home: diminished tolerance for scrutiny domestically and grey-zone validation internationally are two expressions of the same retreat from accountability. ## **What Would Change the Trajectory?** Domestically, effective steps can be taken before the 2026 midterms: issue an ODIHR invitation without delay; repeal or preempt state laws that bar international and nonpartisan observers; and address the 2024 recommendations. Internationally, the U.S. should restore the boundary between diplomacy, partisan endorsement, and impartial observation. First, the U.S. should rebuild support for missions meeting the Declaration of Principles criteria. Second, it should bar members of Congress, appointees, and embassy staff from self-designating as "election observers" unless they have a genuine, independent mission. Finally, it should use the U.S. platform inside the OSCE to defend the [Copenhagen Document](https://odihr.osce.org/odihr/elections/14304?ref=ivn.us) against Russia's sovereignty-first alternative—while closing the gap between what Washington asks of others and what it accepts for itself. --- **Ancuța (Anna) Hansen* is the director of Perseveras Consulting.* ### Arizona’s Primary Is Open—That Is, Until the Parties Decide Otherwise URL: https://ivn.us/arizonas-primary-is-open-that-is-until-the-parties-decide-otherwise/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T21:25:08.000Z **PHOENIX, Ariz.** — Arizona calls its primary system "open," because state law allows independent voters to participate. But here's the thing: They only get to vote in these taxpayer-funded elections as long as the political parties allow it. Here's how it works. Arizona’s [Citizens Clean Elections Commission](https://www.azcleanelections.gov/no-party?ref=ivn.us) says the state has an “open primary provision,” meaning voters who are not registered with a recognized political party may participate without changing their registration. Members of a recognized political party have to vote in that party's primary. This doesn't just apply to Republicans and Democrats, but Greens, Libertarians, and voters registered with the No Labels Party. To vote in these taxpayer-funded contests, independent voters first have to request a party’s ballot. They may only choose one, and they are limited to the candidates on that party's ballot. Imagine for a second that an independent voter in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District believes David Schweikert would be the strongest Republican candidate for governor but prefers Amish Shah in the Democratic primary for Congress. That voter cannot support both. If a voter wants to vote Schweikert in the Republican gubernatorial primary, they must select a Republican ballot. But then they can only choose from Republican candidates in every other election. Their ballot would limit their congressional choices to Republicans like Jay Feely, Joseph Chaplik, and John Trobough. If they want to vote for Shah (or another Democrat) in the congressional race, the same voter has to select the Democratic ballot—and give up any say in the closely watched Republican contest for governor. And still, Arizona calls this an "open" system. Additionally, independent voters must jump through extra hurdles to get a primary ballot compared to registered party members. For example, a registered Democrat enrolled in the Active Early Voting List automatically receives a Democratic ballot. The same applies to registered Republicans. However, an independent on this list still has to request a party ballot or select one at an in-person voting location. In Maricopa County, the available choices include Democratic, Republican, No Labels or an eligible local nonpartisan ballot. In the current election cycle, an independent voter had to contact their county recorder and identify a preferred ballot before the July 10 mail-ballot request deadline. If they missed the deadline, they have to vote in person. [Arizona Made Voting Hard Enough for Independents. Then It Sent Me Two Ballots.Is this an effort to minimize the independent vote? It sure feels like it. It is already very difficult for independents to vote in the primary—this is just further muddying the waters.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-1294d31b-0b09-425b-b4a3-c5643cb36e39.jpg)Independent Voter NewsSherry Harrison![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Arizona-Vote-696f7357-6053-484b-8149-a87d17349af3.jpg)](https://ivn.us/arizona-made-voting-hard-enough-for-independents-then-it-sent-me-two-ballots/) ## One-Third of Arizona Voters Do Not Belong to a Party The restrictions and limitation put on independent voters affects a sizable portion of the electorate. Arizona has more than 4.3 million registered voters heading into the July 21 primary. Republicans make up 35.39% of the electorate, while Democrats account for 28.11%. Independent voters are not far behind Republicans. Nearly 1.5 million voters in Arizona —34.6% of the electorate—are categorized by the secretary of state as “Other,” which is primarily used for voters who do not affiliate with any party. These voters are essential to winning statewide elections in November, especially in 2026\. Arizona is ground zero to one of the most competitive and hotly contested gubernatorial races in the US. But the system does not ask independent voters which candidates they prefer. It tells them to first pick a side, and then they can choose from the candidates a single party gives them. That is not the same thing. ## An Open Primary? It Is Until the Parties Say It Isn't The terminology used by the state is misleading. In a fully open partisan primary, voters may choose which party primary to participate in regardless of their registration. In fact, in fully open partisan primary states voters often do not register with a party. This is not the case in Arizona. Under nonpartisan open primaries, all voters and candidates participate on a single ballot—regardless of party. This moves away from a partisan-nominated process and becomes a voter-nominated process. This election model, used in Alaska, California, and Washington, is the most open, inclusive, and inviting primary system in the US. It is also not the type of primary system Arizona uses. Arizona's system is only open in the sense that independent voters can choose a party ballot, a choice that can be taken away from them by party leaders in any election cycle. Case in point, the Libertarian Party's primary is closed. In [*Arizona Libertarian Party v. Hobbs*](https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/05/31/17-16491.pdf?ref=ivn.us), the Ninth Circuit explained that, under Arizona law, established parties decide whether unaffiliated voters may participate in their primaries. **Private political organizations decide where the right to vote begins and ends for independents in publicly funded elections.** This is why the state's terminology is misleading, because it is not an open system. Not really. Independent voters are not guaranteed a vote in the primary. State law does not guarantee the right to full and meaningful participation in elections. What Arizona actually has is a semi-closed system that was adopted by voters in 1998 under Proposition 103, a constitutional amendment intended to allow voters without a party affiliation to participate in partisan primaries. Voters may not have understood then how much power the parties would still have over elections, who gets to vote, and what candidates they can pick. They also may not have known how confusing the process would become. If an independent voter is unintentionally registered with a party and they don't know it—say, for example, the No Labels Party, they can't request another party's ballot. They can either vote in that party's primary or not vote at all. Further, independent voters are still required to join a party to participate in presidential preference elections (what the state calls its presidential primaries). So, the rules for independents change each election cycle. ## Arizona Rejected a Single-Ballot Primary in 2024 Voters had an opportunity to adopt a nonpartisan primary two years ago. [Proposition 140](https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona%5FProposition%5F140,%5FSingle%5FPrimary%5Ffor%5FAll%5FCandidates%5Fand%5FPossible%5FRCV%5FGeneral%5FElection%5FInitiative%5F%282024%29?ref=ivn.us) would have eliminated separate partisan primaries for most offices and placed candidates together on one primary ballot. Every voter would have the opportunity to select any candidate they wanted in each election. However, the measure didn't specify what type of nonpartisan primary model would be used. It did not explicitly state that Arizona would adopt a Top Two model like California or a Top Four model like in Alaska. Instead, it left that up to the Arizona Legislature—creating ambiguity that allowed opponents to confuse the matter. Many of them even called Prop 140 a ranked choice voting measure, when it wasn't. The proposal ultimately failed in November 2024, leaving Arizona’s party-based primary system in place. [Arizona Rejected Primary Reform in 2024, But Voters Don’t Support the Status Quo EitherElection Day was mostly a rough night for election reformers across the board, from primary reform to new voting methods to gerrymandering. However, it would be a mistake to suggest that this means voters are okay with the status quo.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-cf785289-0ef6-4cb1-85b3-ef286f3939cf.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/nils-huenerfuerst-yPGXOJNofgA-unsplash-53dc764e-a3da-4f13-b4b3-4cacdbf68ced.jpg)](https://ivn.us/arizona-rejected-primary-reform-2024-they-dont-support-status-quo-either-2024-11-12/) However, this does not mean Arizona voters do not want reform. A separate measure appeared on the same ballot, [Proposition 133](https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona%5FProposition%5F133,%5FRequire%5FPartisan%5FPrimaries%5Fand%5FProhibit%5FPrimaries%5FWhere%5FCandidates%5FCompete%5FRegardless%5Fof%5FParty%5FAffiliation%5FAmendment%5F%282024%29?ref=ivn.us), that would have amended the constitution in 3 ways: - It required partisan primaries across the state for partisan offices. - It banned the use of all-candidate and all-voter nonpartisan primaries. - It ensured the state's direct primary law superseded local charters, meaning cities and counties could not adopt their own primary systems. Approximately 58% of voters rejected this proposition. It's a signal that voters are open to a more inclusive and less complex primary process that gives them more choice. But they may want to know what exactly it is they are voting for next time. ## Access Is Not the Same as Choice Arizona independents are not outright prohibited from Tuesday’s primary. They can request a party ballot. They can vote in person. They can participate without formally changing their registration. But participation comes with several asterisks: 1. Independent voters must choose a party ballot before they can choose candidates—and they can only select one. 2. They must know that they always have to request a party ballot—even if they are on the active list to vote by mail. 3. The candidates they prefer across different races may not all appear on the same party’s ballot. 4. Not all primaries are open to them, and it is always possible a party could close their primaries in any given election cycle. 5. They have to double check their registration to make sure they are not registered with a party by accident. 6. Their ability to participate in primaries can be taken away from them—because it is not a right guaranteed by Arizona law. Arizona gives independent voters more access than a fully closed partisan-primary system. But it does not provide the same choice or freedoms available in a fully open, nonpartisan, voter-nominated process. It remains a system that conditions access on choosing a political party, limits candidate choice, and creates steps that can be unnecessarily cumbersome or confusing. The door may be open to independent voters, but only after they choose which party controls what they see on the other side. ### Nebraska’s Senate Race Is Officially Osborn vs. Ricketts—Unless Republicans Stop It URL: https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-officially-osborn-vs-ricketts-unless-republicans-stop-it/ Last updated: 2026-07-28T17:14:45.000Z Independent Dan Osborn is[ officially on Nebraska's November ballot](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/07/16/nebraska-nonpartisan-us-senate-candidate-dan-osborn-qualifies-for-november-ballot/?ref=ivn.us), the secretary of state's office announced Thursday, verifying at least[ 6,096 valid signatures](https://klin.com/2026/07/16/nebraska-task-force-one-heading-to-flood-ravaged-texas/?ref=ivn.us) against the 4,000 required. A day later, Democratic nominee Cindy Burbank, who won the May primary on a promise to step aside and let Osborn take on incumbent Republican Sen. Ricketts in a head-to-head race, [filed paperwork](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/07/17/democrat-cindy-burbank-files-paperwork-to-drop-out-of-nebraska-us-senate-race/?ref=ivn.us) declining the nomination. If it holds, that leaves the two-way race Osborn and state Democrats have wanted: independent against Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts, with no Democrat splitting the anti-Ricketts vote. ### **The state of the race** The money tells the structural story. Through June 30, Osborn had[ raised about $5.75 million for the cycle](https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/S4NE00207/?ref=ivn.us)—roughly 96% from individual donors, nothing from his own pocket—and held $2.42 million on hand. [Ricketts has raised $11.2 million through June 30](https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/S6NE00129/?ref=ivn.us), with $5.25 million as a contribution to his own campaign, $3.6 million from other committees, and $2.2 million from individuals. Head-to-head polling has been close but almost entirely sponsored by Osborn’s campaign or groups aligned with the candidate. [Recent polling](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/nebraska-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) has Osborn +5 on the incumbent, with earlier polls showing him down 1\. No poll shows the Republican pulling clear in a state Trump carried by 20 points. ## **The Fight Over Letting Democratic Candidate Burbank Leave** [This race has been a mess from the start](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-a-mess-and-we-have-our-voting-system-to-thank/). The Democratic primary featured a Trump supporter and the eventual winner, Cindy Burbank, who won the nomination promising to drop out of the race and let Osborn take on Ricketts head-to-head. She's filed to remove herself from the ballot in November, but her exit isn't guaranteed. Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen said he would[ ask Attorney General Mike Hilgers](https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news-articles/burbank-declares-intention-to-drop-out-of-senate-race-but-fight-over-ballot-may-not-be-over/?ref=ivn.us) whether the state must honor her withdrawal, filed roughly two weeks before the August 3 deadline. The irony: Evnen's office spent the spring trying to keep Burbank *off* the primary ballot as a bad-faith candidate, only for the state Supreme Court to[ reinstate her](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/nebraska-democratic-senate-candidate-burbank-140306636.html?ref=ivn.us). Now it's weighing whether to force a nominee to stay on a ballot she's asked to leave—keeping a Democrat in a race the Democratic Party has tried to clear for Osborn. ## **What To Watch** Hilgers' guidance is the immediate flashpoint—whether Nebraska accepts Burbank's declination or tries to keep her name on the ballot, and whether that spawns another lawsuit before August 3\. Beyond that, watch Republican Party spending: [with the Supreme Court's *NRSC v. FEC* ruling lifting coordination limits](https://ivn.us/the-supreme-court-just-made-americas-two-party-money-problem-worse/), a national party is now free to spend unlimited sums defining Osborn—firepower that landed late against him when he ran in 2024. ### Murkowski Says No to Trump’s SAVE America Act — and Alaska’s Primary System Shows Why She Can URL: https://ivn.us/murkowski-says-no-to-trumps-save-america-act-and-alaskas-primary-system-shows-why-she-can/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:52:45.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** — In his address to the nation Thursday, President Donald Trump once again demanded that congressional Republicans pass the SAVE America Act. However, one member of his party has stood out for her defiance—US Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). Murkowski made her position unmistakable [in a Wall Street Journal op-ed](https://www.wsj.com/opinion/why-im-voting-against-the-save-america-act-139faa0b?ref=ivn.us). “While I support the bill’s core tenets … I remain opposed to it,” Murkowski wrote. [California’s Voter ID Initiative is Way More Chill Than Trump’s SAVE ActA proposed California ballot initiative would amend the state constitution to add an initiative that aims to “deter and detect voter fraud by maintaining accurate voter registration records and confirming eligibility to vote...”![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-4ba15180-238c-4295-a88f-3c0cbfed8400.jpg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-voter-id-initiative-vs-save-act-election-law-comparison-2026-1-d1657195-ee08-442e-8af5-31e8208d61a0.png)](https://ivn.us/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10/) She does not object to the core principle of the legislation. Specifically, that only citizens should vote. She does not reject voter ID either. However, she spoke to the specifics of the bill, and how this is not simply about keeping noncitizens from voting. It is about how the bill’s sweeping federal requirements, compressed implementation schedule, and restrictions on mail voting would create serious barriers for eligible Alaska citizens. “As written, the SAVE America Act isn’t a simple fix to safeguard elections, as proponents claim," she wrote. "It would impose costly new barriers and prevent some, perhaps many, from voting, while also creating chaos before the November elections.” At a time when control of Congress has turned nearly every major vote into a national partisan battle, Murkowski’s rejection of the SAVE America Act stands out because her stated reasoning is not about which party benefits. It is about how the bill would affect the Alaskans she represents. It is a notable example of how Alaska’s nonpartisan election system gives elected officials more room to answer to voters rather than party leaders. ## **Murkowski: The Bill Does Not Work for Alaska** The SAVE America Act would require people registering to vote in federal elections to provide documentary proof of US citizenship. Currently, voters have to swear on penalty of perjury that they are a citizen. Thus, the bill shifts the burden of proof from the government to the individual. The Senate version also includes stricter identification requirements for voting in person and new restrictions affecting mail ballots. But Murkowski argues that the bill’s supporters are ignoring the practical consequences of it. Specifically, in a state like Alaska. Alaska allows voters to register to vote through an online portal. The SAVE America Act would effectively do away with online voter registration of any kind because voters would have to present citizenship documents directly to elected officials. This, Murkowski said, would not be as big of an issue in many states—but in Alaska, it would make it all but impossible for many lawful citizens to register. “Alaska has only six election offices where that requirement could clearly be met,” she wrote. “Six places in a state more than twice the size of Texas, where roughly 80% of our communities, and about 20% of our population, aren’t connected by road.” Reaching an election office for many voters would require an expensive flight, favorable weather, and hours of travel. > *“Say you are an 18-year-old living in Savoonga, on a remote island in the Bering Sea, who wants to register to vote for the first time. If the SAVE America Act passed, your only option would be to buy a ticket on Bering Air to Nome, which runs about $780 round-trip. A night at the Aurora Inn would be more than $300\. So, not counting food and local transportation, it would cost more than $1,000 just to register to vote.”* For a fisherman in Unalaska, located on the Aleutian Islands, the round-trip ticket alone would cost $1,500, according to Murkowski. She has also raised concerns about tribal identification cards that may not contain the expiration dates, photographs, or other information demanded under the SAVE America Act. Further, only about half of the state’s electorate has a passport. For women who have changed her last name after marriage, they may have to “wait one to two months to receive certified copies of their vital records.” Then, there is the issue of mail-in voting. Murkowski noted that more than 50,000 Alaskans voted absentee in 2024, It is not merely a convenience for many rural, military, elderly, and disabled residents in Alaska—it’s a necessity. “I have expressed my concerns with the SAVE America Act for months. I filed several amendments when it came to the Senate floor. No effort has been made to correct its flaws,” she wrote. ## **Trump Turns the Bill into a Loyalty Test** President Trump addressed the nation on July 16 to discuss the 2020 elections, declassified documents about foreign interference, and claimed more than 200,000 noncitizens were on voter rolls across the country—among other things. All of this he used to call on Congress once again to pass the SAVE America Act. “Congress must pass the SAVE America Act,” he said, before urging Americans to call their representatives and demand its passage “without delay.” He renewed his demand for documentary proof of citizenship, photo identification and a nationwide prohibition on most mail voting. For Trump, this isn't just about election security. It is a loyalty test. In the past, he has threatened to withhold endorsements from Republicans who opposed it and his signature from any other bill sent to his desk. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/trump-trith-social.jpeg)](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116244486426312346?ref=ivn.us) The president has also called on Republican lawmakers who stall or oppose his agenda to be “primaried,” endorsing challengers who emerge in otherwise safe Republican districts that will be more loyal to him. Three Republican incumbents in Congress have lost their seats in 2026 to a Trump-backed challenger in their primaries. Not because of the SAVE America Act, but because Trump was dissatisfied with them for other reasons: - US Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who lost to a candidate recruited by Trump; - US Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who has long been targeted by Trump; and - Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who lost a primary runoff after Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. This isn’t a new phenomenon in American politics. Primaries are often weaponized by a political party or ideological movement to keep lawmakers in line, and while it often works, Murkowski wasn't afraid to pen her op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. She is the only sitting Republican in Congress who has made her opposition to the SAVE America Act unambiguous. To understand why, look at how elections are now conducted in Alaska. Murkowski is no longer elected under a partisan primary system. Her political future is not solely in the hands of party leaders and/or a small group of highly motivated partisan or ideological voters with a vendetta. Her political future rests with all Alaska voters. ## **Murkowski’s Seat Would Be Filled by a Trump Loyalist If Not for Nonpartisan Primaries** In most states, a Republican senator who openly defies a Republican president risks being challenged in a low-turnout party primary. The threat does not have to be explicit. Lawmakers understand that angering the party’s leadership, activists, or aligned-special interest groups can cost them endorsements, campaign money, and the voters who dominate closed primaries. Alaska changed that calculation. After voters [passed Ballot Measure 2 in 2020](https://ivn.us/alaska-becomes-first-in-the-nation-to-approve-top-4-primary-with-ranked-choice-voting/), every candidate for state and federal office appears on the same nonpartisan ballot, regardless of party—and, every eligible voter can vote for any candidate they want in each race. The four candidates who receive the most votes in the primary advance to the general election. Voters then use ranked choice voting to determine the winner. These reforms moved Alaska away from a party-nominated system that locked out 60% of the electorate registered independent of a political party. So, even before primary election day, minority rule was a guarantee. The new system not only allows the independent majority to participate in critical taxpayer-funded elections, but lets them pick any candidate they want. They can choose a Republican in one race and a Democrat or Independent in the next. Trump cannot simply threaten Murkowski with being primaried. He and/or the party can back another campaign, but candidates won’t only be competing for a narrow slice of Republican voters. They have to reach beyond their base support. This distinction was tested in 2022. Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka, who attacked Murkowski from the right and received the Alaska Republican Party’s endorsement, ran to unseat the incumbent. It is believed that if Alaska still used closed primaries, she would have knocked Murkowski out before the general election. “Our key findings were: We don’t think Murkowski would have won if it were not for Top 4, at least when compared to a closed primary system,” said Dr. Christian R. Grose, a Political Science professor at the University of Southern California, in a 2024 IVN interview. [New Research: Populism A Key Factor with Cross-Partisan Support for Alaska’s Top 4 ElectionsNew research shows that the nonpartisan Top 4 system used in Alaska not only has broad support among Republicans, Democrats, and independents, but in 2022 elected candidates in statewide elections that had appeal that went beyond their party.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-39591602-b940-497a-a3fe-7945458b46cc.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/getty-images-rm864yT2Llo-unsplash-25113dc0-89d8-4d7a-9bce-aa23a388c60a.jpg)](https://ivn.us/new-research-populism-key-factor-cross-partisan-support-alaskas-top-4-elections-2024-08-11/) Instead, both candidates advanced from the nonpartisan primary. In the ranked choice general election, Murkowski built a broader coalition that included Republicans, independents, and voters who initially supported Democratic candidate Pat Chesbro. Murkowski ultimately defeated Tshibaka 53.7% to 46.3%. At the time, Trump [called Alaska’s elections](https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-speech-political-rally-anchorage-alaska-july-9-2022/?ref=ivn.us) “a total rigged deal” and potentially “crooked as hell.” On Murkowski, Trump said, “She knew she could not win a straight-up election”—suggesting again that Alaska’s system is crooked. He did not offer any anecdotal evidence for these claims. Murkowski knows first-hand how easy it is to be ousted by her party under a partisan primary system. In 2010, she lost the Republican primary and then won the general election through an extraordinary write-in campaign. She has long demonstrated an unusual ability to survive outside normal party structures. But Alaska’s current system means she no longer needs to pull off a historic feat simply to let Alaska voters judge her record at the ballot box. In April, Trump ramped up his attacks on Alaska’s nonpartisan elections. He [urged Alaskans to repeal the system](https://alaskawatchman.com/2026/04/11/trump-champions-alaskas-effort-to-ditch-fraudulent-ranked-choice-voting/?ref=ivn.us) in November, calling ranked choice voting in particular “disastrous” and “very fraudulent.” The repeal effort has his “complete and total support.” Republican leaders and aligned special interest groups are attempting for the second time to repeal voter-approved reform. They failed to pass a repeal measure in 2024 in a true nail-biter, 49.9%-50.1%. On the subject of Alaska elections, Trump has mostly focused on ranked choice voting. However, he has explicitly endorsed closed primaries. For example, [in 2022](https://ivn.us/trump-supports-closed-primaries-thats-not-very-populist/), he declared that “only Republicans” should vote in Republican primaries. Notably, [a 2025 peer reviewed study](https://openurl.ebsco.com/EPDB%3Agcd%3A4%3A36479572/detailv2?sid=ebsco%3Aplink%3Ascholar&id=ebsco%3Agcd%3A187380637&crl=f&link%5Forigin=chatgpt.com&ref=ivn.us) by political scientists Todd Donovan, Caroline Tolbert and Nathan Micatka compared Alaska’s final partisan midterm primary in 2018 with its first Top Four primary in 2022. They found: - Overall primary turnout increased. - The largest proportional increases were among political independents, younger voters and liberals. - Participation also increased to some extent among ideological moderates. - The primary electorate consequently became less dominated by traditional party voters. Alaska is already seeing how a more inclusive and inviting process shifts candidate and lawmaker incentives. Under a conventional party-primary system, a lawmaker’s immediate concern may be whether the president, party committee, or aligned organization will support a primary challenger. This incentivizes loyalty to these groups above everything else. Under Alaska’s system, the more important question is whether the lawmaker can assemble a majority coalition among all voters in both the primary and in November. The incentive shifts to broader accountability. The system does not mean Murkowski does not have to defend her stance on the SAVE America Act to Alaska Republicans who support Trump. But she can also make her case to rural residents who depend on mail voting. She can speak to the concerns of Alaska Native communities whose tribal identification may not meet federal requirements, eligible voters who may find registration more cumbersome (or even impossible), and independent voters who do not take instructions from either party. Alaska’s election system ensures the final decision about who represents the state in Congress belongs not to Trump, not to Republican Party officials and not to a small partisan-primary electorate — but to Alaska voters. ## **Where the SAVE America Act Stands** As of July 20, the SAVE America Act has not passed Congress and according to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota), it has no clear path through the upper chamber. The House approved its version of the bill in February. The Senate voted 51-48 in March to begin considering the measure, with Murkowski voting against proceeding. Debate later stopped without a final passage vote. There was an attempt to add the bill to a budget reconciliation package in June, but it failed 48-50 in June. Murkowski was joined in opposition by Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, and Thom Tillis. House Republicans are now exploring alternate routes, including attaching SAVE Act provisions to spending legislation. This approach, however, faces the Senate’s 60-vote threshold unless Republican senators agree to weaken or eliminate the filibuster. Trump has demanded the Senate scrap the filibuster entirely, but there is not currently enough Republican support for that either. In other words, the bill is alive as a political demand but stalled as a bill. ### Rick Bennett Quit the GOP. Now He Wants to Prove Maine Doesn’t Need Either Party. URL: https://ivn.us/rick-bennett-quit-the-gop-now-he-wants-to-prove-maine-doesnt-need-either-party/ Last updated: 2026-09-09T17:24:51.000Z *Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain largely unrepresented in executive office. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, almost always leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home.* *A handful of high-profile independent candidates for office are trying to change that in 2026\. They are often covered as fringe candidates whose stories are told through the lens of how they'll impact the outcome between a Republican and a Democrat, rather than on their own terms. This series exists because independent voters deserve better than that.* *In Maine, that candidate is current State Senator and gubernatorial candidate Rick Bennett.* --- ## I. The Candidate Rick Bennett is a lifelong Mainer from Oxford. He came of age politically in the early 1980s, drawn to the optimism of the Reagan-era Republican message, and spent the next four decades inside the party structure, serving multiple terms in the Maine House and Senate. He became Senate president in 2001 through a power-sharing arrangement with an evenly divided chamber, chaired the Maine Republican Party from 2013 to 2017, and served as a Republican elector for Donald Trump in 2016\. He ran as the Republican nominee for Maine's 2nd Congressional District in 1994 and sought the Republican Senate nomination in 2012\. Outside of elected office, he has run ValueEdge Advisors, an institutional investor engagement firm he founded in 2014. In June 2025, after being reelected to the state Senate the previous year, Bennett announced he was unenrolling from the Republican Party to run for governor as an independent. He describes what drove him there in terms he'd clearly been sitting with for a while: the parties, he says, have gone "deeper, darker, and dumber into this cesspool of politics that is really driving a lot of ordinary people not just out of politics, but out of the public space entirely—and I think that's intentional." He continued: "There are people who are putting their kids through college by keeping us fighting with each other rather than solving issues." --- ## II. The Race The 2026 Maine governor's race is an open seat, with the incumbent term-limited out. The field settled after the June 9 primaries into a three-way general election: Democrat Hannah Pingree, Republican Bobby Charles, and Bennett. Pingree is the frontrunner in polling and with political handicappers. A former Maine House Speaker and policy advisor in the Mills administration, she has raised more than $2 million for the general election and carries a long list of institutional endorsements. Charles, a lawyer and former naval intelligence officer who worked for several Republican administrations, won a crowded primary and has aligned himself closely with President Trump. Bennett has raised approximately $617,000 to date—behind both opponents but more than enough to field a professional campaign staff. *Update 9/9/26: Bennett's campaign reached out to IVN to report that he is now at approximately $800,000 raised.* Maine has elected two independent governors in its history: James Longley (1975-79) and Angus King (1995-2003), both under the same plurality system that applies to this general election. Bennett noted pointedly that both won without ranked-choice voting. "This is a straight-up three-way race, and I can win it on that basis," he said. --- ## III. Why Independent, and Why Now Bennett's explanation for leaving his party reflects that he spent a lot of time as a leader in a major political party. And yet, he voted against Republican attempts to ban transgender athletes from female sports. He was one of two Republicans to vote for a package addressing Maine's MaineCare deficit. He was already governing as an independent before he formally became one. What changed in June 2025 was the decision that modeling cross-partisanship from inside the GOP was no longer sufficient—that the system itself needed to be challenged directly. "The only way to do it is to adopt a different model away from the two parties. I'm running as an independent because I want to govern. I intend to govern as an independent." He describes the bipartisan feedback inside the State House: sitting lawmakers from both parties approach him in the corridors and say, quietly, "Thank God you're running as an independent. This place is deeply broken, and it needs fixing." The people closest to the machinery, he says, know best how failed it is. --- ## IV. What He's Hearing, and What He'd Do About It Bennett has organized his platform around three pillars: making life more affordable, growing and rejuvenating Maine's economy, and restoring trust in government. The voters he is appealing to, he said, understand that. They are not looking for short-term wins; they are looking for a governor willing to work on long-term solutions. On affordability and the economy, he mentions conversations he has with *employers* about the difficulty of attracting the new workers they need to grow because of housing costs—a different perspective on an issue than is usually brought up. He brings up the fact that Maine has the oldest population in the country when discussing healthcare costs. Key problems he’d like to address are the loss of dozens of nursing homes in rural Maine, a closed hospital, and shuttered birthing centers. He also wants to address infrastructure spending in a world where there are fewer non-electric cars on the road, meaning that the gas tax used to fund things such as roads in Maine goes down drastically. The third pillar, restoring trust in government, is enough of a focus that earlier in the week of our interview, Bennett announced a package of fiscal prudence and transparency measures. He will create an Office of Inspector General that reports directly to the governor, designed to respond to whistleblower complaints immediately rather than wait for the state auditor's methodical review cycle. He will conduct a top-down review of state contracting and procurement, with a stated goal of making no-bid contracts the exception rather than the default. And he will overhaul the state's freedom-of-access laws, citing a story where a news station was told it would cost $200,000 to access information that should be freely available to the public. He plans to appoint Maine's first Chief Digital Officer, with a mandate to drive the cost of government records access to near zero. He will also split the Department of Health and Human Services—Maine's largest agency, which he described as simply too large to be held accountable—into two separate entities. He frames the accountability argument not just as a good-government exercise but as an antidote to voter alienation. People who feel like they have no visibility into what their government is doing are people who disengage. Engagement, he argues, requires transparency, and transparency requires systems. --- ## V. The RCV Primary and the Path to November Maine's ranked-choice voting system applies to the primary and to federal general elections, but not to the gubernatorial general. Bennett noted the quirk in the RCV data from this year's primaries: 77% of Democratic primary voters did not select Hannah Pingree as their first choice; 63% of primary voters did not choose Bobby Charles as their first choice. Combined, that's roughly 260,000 primary voters whose preferred candidate didn't prevail—voters Bennett described as voters he's actively working to earn. On electoral reform more broadly, he favors the Alaska model: a fully open primary across all candidates, with the top finishers advancing to a general decided by ranked-choice voting. Maine's current semi-open primary—where unenrolled voters can choose which party's ballot to request—was where Bennett voted for the first time in the Democratic primary this June. He supports continuing and expanding RCV, though he was candid about an implementation problem in this year's primary: the count took a long time, with some ballot collection issues, which he worries feeds election integrity concerns even when the outcome is legitimate. --- ## VI. Representing Independents When asked how he would represent the interests of independents if he became governor, he said he doesn't plan to govern for any particular slice of the electorate, because the job doesn't permit it. "I'm just going to represent every Mainer. That's what they want. I don't check people's party ID." He drew on a more personal frame than most: he was Senate president when Angus King was serving his first term as independent governor, and in the months of this campaign, he has met separately with three of King's former cabinet members. Each of them told him the same thing, without coordination: the best thing about serving in King's cabinet was that the question "what's good for the party" was never on the table. The question was always: what's good for Maine. --- ## VII. Assessment The polling and resource gaps are significant, and the presence of both a Republican and a Democrat in the race means that not only is this a three-way race, but one where members of each party might fear a vote for an independent gives the other party’s candidate an edge. But the structural conditions are more favorable to an independent in Maine than almost anywhere else in the country. The state has elected independent governors twice. The unaffiliated voter population is 32.3% of the population, even if they are currently leaning strongly toward the Democrat. And Bennett, unlike most candidates who describe themselves as independent, has a legislative record that highlights a willingness to buck party leadership, even if he himself served in that capacity at times. His path runs through the primary voters whose candidates didn't survive RCV, the independents that make up an equal share of Maine’s electorate as members of either party, and through whatever slice of moderate Republicans conclude that Charles is too closely aligned with Trump to be credible in a state that voted for Harris by seven points in 2024\. Whether that coalition adds up to a plurality in a three-way race is what November will answer. --- *This interview was conducted July 16, 2026.* ### 1.2 Million New Yorkers Can't Vote. Mamdani Says He's 'Content' With That. URL: https://ivn.us/1-2-million-new-yorkers-cant-vote-mamdani-says-hes-content-with-that/ Last updated: 2026-07-17T18:05:23.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz." This week is a special edition all about New York City.* This week, the fight over New York City's closed primary system moved into a new phase. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/nyc-independent-voters.jpg) After Mayor Zohran Mamdani [said he was “content” with the city's closed primaries](https://www.amny.com/politics/mamdani-content-nyc-primary-system-open/?ref=ivn.us), Open Primaries President John Opdycke, Board Member Dr. Jessie Fields, activist Angel Martinez, and I responded in five major pieces of media that approached the issue from distinctly different directions. On **NY1**, I went back and forth with host Errol Louis over the central question at the heart of the debate: is this really an issue about political parties and their nomination processes, or is it a voting rights issue? My answer was clear: when publicly funded elections determine who holds public office, excluding 1.2 million New Yorkers from participating is a question of access to democracy. [In the New York Daily News](https://letusvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/NYCs-closed-primaries-harm-voting-rights.pdf?ref=ivn.us), Open Primaries Board Member Dr. Jessie Fields places the debate squarely in the history of the voting rights movement. Drawing on her experience as an African-American woman, a physician working with marginalized communities, and an independent voter, Fields argued that the exclusion of independent voters—54.5% of whom are people of color—represents a new frontier in the struggle for equal access to political power. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/jessie-fields.png) [In IVN](https://ivn.us/my-vote-is-my-right-not-a-party-privilege/), veteran and educator Angel Martinez laid the issue of closed primaries right at the foot of the U.S. Constitution. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/unnamed--1-.png) [In an AM New York op-ed](https://www.amny.com/opinion/progressive-mayor-shouldnt-defend-exclusionary-election-system/?ref=ivn.us), I take the argument directly to the mayor's own political philosophy. A progressive administration that challenges institutions that concentrate power, he argued, should not defend a closed primary system simply because it is longstanding. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/unnamed--2-.png) And taking the message national, [OP President John Opdycke joined CBS News’ Major Garett last night on “The Takeout”](https://www.cbsnews.com/video/case-for-open-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) to talk about the rise of independent voters nationally and how closed primaries are contributing to the partisanship plaguing American politics. Five pieces. Five different arguments. But together, they reflect the expanding nature of the fight now underway in New York City. The debate is no longer confined to whether political parties should be able to control their own primaries. It is increasingly about whether 1.2 million New Yorkers—54% of which are voters of color—should be excluded from publicly funded elections that, in a city like New York, often determine who will actually hold office. After two years of organizing, independent voters are no longer content to be treated as statistics on voter registration rolls. They are increasingly prepared to make sure their voices are part of the debate. ## Mayor Mamdani: Come Meet the Independents ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/NYCCRC-meeting.jpg) We are now [extending an invitation to Mayor Mamdani](https://www.amny.com/opinion/progressive-mayor-shouldnt-defend-exclusionary-election-system/?ref=ivn.us): come to an independent voter town hall. Let us introduce you to 200 or 300 of the real people who cannot vote where it matters most. They are New Yorkers from every borough and every background who are excluded from the primary elections that determine who represents them. Many have spent years being told that the answer to their exclusion is simply to join a political party they do not belong to. We are not asking the mayor to endorse a candidate or take sides in an electoral outcome. We are not attacking him. We are asking him to meet the people most directly affected by the system he says he is “content” with. The mayor has built his political identity around challenging institutions that concentrate power and leave people out. We are asking him to apply that same spirit of inquiry here. Come hear directly from the people who cannot vote in the elections that determine who represents them. ## The Old Political Players Are Trying to Define a Movement They Didn't Build As independent voters have become more organized and the issue has gained more attention and A LOT more traction, the effort to define the debate has begun. This week, *The New York Times* published two pieces[here](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/nyregion/open-primaries-ny-bloomberg-mamdani.html?ref=ivn.us)—and [here](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/nyregion/who-would-benefit-from-open-primaries-in-new-york.html?ref=ivn.us)—that helped advance a familiar narrative: that open primaries are the project of wealthy donors, political consultants, or politicians who have lost power. It’s ironic since just last year they [covered the debate](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/nyregion/open-primary-elections-nyc.html?ref=ivn.us) a little differently and a lot more favorably. What they can’t see—or even imagine—is that ordinary voters are standing up and working together to demand change. But they better learn how. The people showing up at Charter Revision Commission hearings, speaking to the media, organizing their friends and neighbors, and demanding to meet directly with the mayor are not waiting for a political consultant to tell them how to make the case. They are not waiting for a wealthy donor to fund the conversation. They are making the case themselves. That is what makes the current moment so important. The everyday voters demanding change are beginning to claim the narrative from the people who have traditionally tried to control it. Check out our good friend from [Independent Veterans of America](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us) and fellow NYer [Paul Rieckhoff’s assessment here](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7482994044772564993/?ref=ivn.us). The question is now whether the people who are actually shut out of the system will finally be allowed to speak for themselves. In New York City, they are. ## NYC Democrats Signal Support for Open Primaries as Party Labels Blur Across the City ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/nyc-dems-support-open-primaries.png) [A new survey](https://apnews.com/press-release/ein-presswire-newsmatics/press-release-polling-7be87d6dafe6ce7b4a2f6f41ce0d3a28?ref=ivn.us) conducted by IVC Media and commissioned by Open Primaries is adding fuel to the fire by detonating a core assumption of reform opponents. Among registered Democrats in New York City, 51% support opening primaries to independent voters, with just 23% opposed. The city’s dominant political institution is now, according to its own voters, something they want to open up. [**But the more striking finding isn’t about policy-it’s about identity collapse inside the party label itself.**](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) Roughly 40% of registered Democrats say *they are not actually Democrats* but explicitly describe themselves as independents forced into Democratic registration just to vote in the election that decides the outcome. Indeed, among Latino Democrats, only one in three identify as true Democrats. This is no longer a party system reflecting voter affiliation-it is a system quietly requiring misclassification to function. The implications land hard in a city where over a million independent voters-54% of whom are people of color- are locked out of the elections that determine most outcomes. ## It Didn't Start This Week ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/nyc-crc.png) This fight is the result of two years of organizing. Last year, when then Mayor Adams convened the first Charter Revision Commission, Open Primaries organized hundreds of independent voters to participate directly in the process. They came to hearings, shared their experiences, and helped make the exclusion of independent voters the number one testimony to issue before the Commission. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Sheryl-Williams.png) It also created a strong media climate for reform with coverage in the Daily News [here](https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/07/21/independent-voters-in-nyc-must-count/?ref=ivn.us), [here](https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/06/01/let-new-york-city-independents-vote/?ref=ivn.us), [here](https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/02/06/nyc-should-respect-independent-voters/?ref=ivn.us), [here](https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/07/07/open-primaries-will-aid-local-democracy/?ref=ivn.us), [here](https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/07/21/charter-panel-fails-nyc-voters/?ref=ivn.us), [here](https://openprimaries.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/A-bitter-year-for-independent-voters.pdf?ref=ivn.us), [News 12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpiTOJTcPRI&ref=ivn.us), the [NY Post](https://nypost.com/2025/04/30/us-news/nyc-charter-revision-commission-to-recommend-overhaul-to-primaries-target-city-councils-zoning-power-sources/?ref=ivn.us), [Gothamist](https://gothamist.com/news/if-you-want-to-switch-parties-for-an-nyc-primary-re-register-by-valentines-day?ref=ivn.us), [City and State](https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2025/04/nyc-charter-revision-commission-seriously-considering-election-reforms/404426/?oref=csny-category-lander-river&ref=ivn.us), [NY1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCZFTiXAPKU&ref=ivn.us) and dozens of others. That forced the Commission to engage. It conducted a historic review of the city's elections and ultimately produced recommendations [and a final report](https://www.nyc.gov/assets/charter/downloads/pdf/2025/7-21-2025-charter-revision-commission-adopted-final-report-digital.pdf?ref=ivn.us) that included extensive discussion of the exclusion of more than one million independent voters and the finding that NYC must act on the issue. They also commissioned a detailed voting rights analysis of top two from former US Attorney Loretta Lynch and the top law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. [Their findings?](https://www.nyc.gov/assets/charter/downloads/pdf/2025/lynch%5Fnyvra%5Freport.pdf?ref=ivn.us) That open primaries in New York City would strengthen the ability of protected classes, including Black, Hispanic and Asian voters, to participate in the political process. When a new Charter Revision Commission, under Mayor Mamdani, began its work this year, [the movement came back big time](https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2026/06/talk-open-primaries-dominates-first-coge-hearing/414079/?ref=ivn.us). Some of the independent voters who had testified the year before returned, but they were joined by many, many more New Yorkers who were new to the process and new to the movement. The result was a larger and broader group of independent voters demanding to be heard. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/crc-meeting-images.png) But this time, despite the growing number of independent voters participating in the process, the Commission did not meaningfully connect with the issue-save a powerful exchange with Dr. Fields and her fight to raise awareness across the city. That contrast is important. The first Commission helped bring the issue into the formal conversation about the city's future. The second saw an even broader group of independent voters come forward, but did not meaningfully engage with what they were saying. The movement had grown. The NYC media climate is at an all-time high. See my appearance on News 12: And the issue is gaining national attention. Watch OP President John Opdycke as he joins Open Primaries NYC supporters Jeff Aron, Ed Brady and Torsha Childs on MSNOWs *Morning Joe*: Yet the exclusion remains. And when we speak with NYC voters, they are crystal clear-that’s not right. And that is what brings us to the current moment. ## Next Week, We Take the Message Directly to City Hall Next week, Open Primaries will launch a dedicated campaign site, petition and sustained public effort calling on Mayor Mamdani to meet with independent voters in New York City. We will be contacting his office directly-through the front door and through every other channel available to us-to deliver the same message: come meet the people who cannot vote where it matters most. The goal is to bring together 200–300 independent New Yorkers and give them the opportunity to tell the mayor directly what it means to be excluded from the elections that determine who represents them. We know that if the mayor meets with independents, their stories will be impossible to ignore. The debate over open primaries in New York City has been building for years. This week, it entered a new phase. Now the people at the center of the issue are stepping forward to claim the conversation for themselves. ### They're ERASING 71% of the Vote: How Maine Democrats Replace Graham Platner | EP48 URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/theyre-erasing-71-of-the-vote-how-maine-democrats-replace-graham-platner-ep48/ Last updated: 2026-10-19T16:51:25.000Z Graham Platner won Maine's Democratic Senate primary with 71% of the vote and record turnout - and none of it matters anymore. Cara, Shawn, and Ethan break down how an obscure section of Maine election law lets 600 party delegates in Bangor erase the biggest primary win in state history. After a barely-there vetting process collapsed under press scrutiny, Platner withdrew - and now the Maine Democratic Party has until July 27 to hand-pick his replacement, with no ranked choice voting and no input from the independents who helped elect him. The crew digs into who's really pulling the strings, why Troy Jackson ("the Johnny Cash of the Allagash") could become the only working-class senator out of 100, and what this saga says about anti-establishment energy from Obama to Trump to the DSA. Then the conversation takes a turn: the sudden death of Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell's "proof of life" photo, and whether it's finally time for an age limit on every federal job. Plus, a lingering question about Graham's final trip to Ukraine that the hosts can't quite shake. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ## Episode Highlights This episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast** dives into the chaos surrounding the **Maine Senate race** after **Graham Platner's** withdrawal amid allegations and vetting failures. Hosts Cara, Ethan, and Shawn break down how the **Maine Democratic Party** is now using an obscure section of **election law** to replace a candidate who won with 71% of the vote, bypassing **ranked-choice voting** in favor of a multi-round **party delegate process** set for July 25t in Bangor. The conversation highlights a glaring flaw in **partisan primaries**: independent voters who helped hand Platner a record-breaking primary win are now shut out of the replacement process entirely, reigniting the case for a **nonpartisan primary model** like California's, where all voters — not just party insiders — decide who advances. The hosts also unpack the contenders vying for the nomination, including **Troy Jackson**, a working-class former Maine Senate president backed by labor unions, and how party establishment figures like Governor Janet Mills and Chuck Schumer are maneuvering behind the scenes. The discussion widens into a broader analysis of **political polarization**, **closed primary systems**, and why low-turnout primaries empower the most ideologically extreme wings of both parties — fueling the rise of groups like the **Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)** and **MAGA** alike. Comparisons are drawn to **Eric Swalwell's** exit from California's gubernatorial race and to **Barack Obama's** enduring popularity as a symbol of "hope and change" politics, contrasted with today's more combative political climate. Rounding out the episode, the hosts pivot to the death of **Senator Lindsey Graham** at 71 and use it to launch into a pointed debate over **congressional age limits** and **term limits**, questioning whether aging lawmakers like **Mitch McConnell** can effectively represent constituents. They also critique the **Democratic Party's candidate vetting process**, arguing that better screening — not internet cancel culture — is the real solution to avoiding future **Platner-style scandals**. The episode closes with reflections on **voter accountability**, **establishment politics**, and why authenticity and anti-establishment appeal continue to resonate with **independent voters** across the political spectrum. ### Party Leaders: Why Have Elections When We Can Just Appoint Who We Want? URL: https://ivn.us/party-leaders-why-have-elections-when-we-can-just-appoint-who-we-want/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T18:39:38.000Z There's an old superstition that things always come in threes. This summer, it seems as if politicians needing to be replaced in office or on the ballot fits the bill. South Carolina's replacement has already happened. After Sen. Lindsey Graham died July 11, Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Graham's younger sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to serve out his term. Because Graham had already won the June primary, a special Republican primary on August 11 will choose the November nominee. The insiders get the placeholder, but the voters still get the seat. In Maine, Graham Platner won June's semi-open primary with record turnout, then withdrew July 10 over a sexual assault allegation he denies. Those voters won't pick his replacement—a 601-delegate party convention on July 25 will. As [IVN reported last week](https://ivn.us/maine-democrats-are-about-to-lock-independents-out-of-the-process-again/), that locks out the 31.5% of Maine's electorate registered as unenrolled—the same voters that will be needed to beat Susan Collins, including many who were able to vote in the Democratic primary. The third seat hasn't opened yet, and the fight is already on. Sen. Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized since June 14\. Kentucky Republicans have spent five years legislating around who fills his seat: a 2021 law let the governor appoint from a list supplied by the departing senator's party, then a 2024 revision scrapped appointments entirely, and required a special election. While the motive to strip Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear of power was bad, the outcome was good, putting the power to select their senator in the hands of Kentuckians. However, Gov. Beshear has already indicated that he plans to use legal channels to challenge the law and appoint a replacement himself. This carries eerie resemblances to the 2024 Democratic presidential process, which decided to skip a primary despite significant questions about President Biden’s ability to run for and serve out a second term based on health concerns that were highlighted during the first presidential debate. Even though a serious contender, Rep. Dean Phillips, had thrown his hat in the ring. After Biden made the decision to drop out of the race, it wasn’t a primary that decided the next candidate, but rather a decision by party bosses to put forward Vice President Kamala Harris—a decision which many say contributed to her defeat in November. Those three Senate seats are the headline. It may seem to make the superstition true. But the reality is that this practice is endemic to our political system. [Kentucky is one of only 5 states](https://www.congress.gov/crs%5Fexternal%5Fproducts/IF/HTML/IF11907.web.html?ref=ivn.us) that call for an automatic special election, with others involving appointment for some period of time, usually by the governor. State legislatures can sometimes see a significant portion of their “elected” officials get their start through an appointment. And parties will frequently play games with filing deadlines to make sure that only their preferred candidates show up on the ballot. ## **Maryland: Appointment As The Front Door to Office** Maryland might be the poster state for this practice. Under the state constitution, when a legislative seat comes open, the governor appoints a replacement whose name is submitted by the central committee of the same party as the departing member—and when the committee forwards a single name, the governor's sign-off is effectively a rubber stamp. Roughly two dozen party insiders, not the district's voters, choose who represents tens of thousands of people. This is not an occasional backstop. It is a primary pathway into the legislature. Of the 188 members of the Maryland General Assembly,[ nearly a quarter first arrived by appointment rather than election](https://marylandmatters.org/2024/01/31/advocates-renew-press-to-change-how-legislative-vacancies-are-filled/?ref=ivn.us). The reason this matters is the second-order effect. Appointees enter the next election as incumbents, usually running on a slate alongside the district's other sitting legislators. It is a structural advantage that reformers inside the party call[ wildly undemocratic](https://marylandmatters.org/2026/01/15/making-the-case-for-placeholder-candidates-to-fill-vacant-elected-seats-when-parties-not-voters-pick/?ref=ivn.us), precisely because it hands newcomers the benefits of office before a single voter has weighed in. The district becomes very hard to contest. Montgomery County's District 16 has become the case study. Between early 2023 and mid-2024, the district saw four separate openings in its House and Senate delegation, each filled by the roughly two dozen members of the county Democratic Central Committee rather than by voters. It was not until the[ 2026 primary](https://marylandmatters.org/2026/06/08/after-raft-of-appointments-district-16-voters-will-finally-get-their-say/?ref=ivn.us) that residents got their first chance to weigh in on incumbents who had never before appeared on a ballot. Compounding the problem is what some in Maryland call the domino effect. When a senator resigns, the seat is often filled by appointing a sitting delegate—which opens a second seat that is also filled by appointment. A single strategically timed exit can install two officeholders, neither of whom faced voters to get there. ## **Utah: The Governor's Pen, The Party's Hand** Utah reaches a similar result through a different door. On paper, the governor fills legislative vacancies. In practice,[ as Ballotpedia notes](https://ballotpedia.org/How%5Fvacancies%5Fare%5Ffilled%5Fin%5Fstate%5Flegislatures?ref=ivn.us), the party holds the real power, because it recommends the successor and the governor appoints that person. What distinguishes Utah is the machinery behind the recommendation: a delegate system that concentrates nominating power in a small pool of activists. State delegates, chosen at neighborhood caucuses, can be summoned to special nominating conventions when an elected official vacates a seat mid-term, and at a Utah convention a candidate who clears 60% of the delegate vote becomes the nominee outright. A few hundred delegates—sometimes a few dozen in a given district—can effectively seat a legislator. ## **Illinois: Timing The Exit So Only One Successor Can File** Illinois's 4th Congressional District shows the same move executed through the calendar rather than an appointment. In November, Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García[ announced he would not seek reelection two days after the filing deadline had passed](https://www.aol.com/articles/democrat-patty-garc-gains-party-021038529.html?ref=ivn.us), leaving his chief of staff, Patty García as the only Democrat on the ballot, despite two others having indicated they were considering a run if the incumbent weren’t in the race. These two—Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez and organizer Mayra Macías—ended up declaring as independents, which raised the signature requirements for the candidates from a few hundred to over ten thousand. It isn’t an isolated incident: [Montana's Steve Daines](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5772231-steve-daines-retirement-maneuver/?ref=ivn.us) timed a retirement announcement to minutes before the filing deadline, with another candidate filing his intent to run 5 minutes later (and only 3 minutes before the deadline). ## **The Through-Line** Lay these cases out and the stakes come into focus. Only a handful of state legislatures throw it to the people, with most relying on a gubernatorial appointment (usually controlled by party leadership). Over a quarter of state legislators may have taken office not through an election but through an appointment. And it’s not just appointments. As we’ve seen in Illinois and Montana, candidates aren’t above using the filing calendar and their incumbency to coordinate with hand-chosen successors to limit competition at the ballot box. Plenty of reforms have been put forward to solve the issue: mandatory special elections, caretaker pledges, disqualifying appointees from the next primary, opening primaries to unaffiliated voters. What's missing, in state after state, is any incentive for the people who benefit from the current system to change it…unless, as we’ve seen in Kentucky, it’s to remove power from someone from a different political party. And even in that case, it’s yet another example of how political parties can warp our electoral systems to vest power in themselves rather than in the voters. ### Veteran Leader Calls CA Primary Repeal Effort a ‘Shameful’ Return to Partisan Segregation URL: https://ivn.us/veteran-leader-calls-ca-primary-repeal-effort-a-shameful-return-to-partisan-segregation/ Last updated: 2026-07-15T21:00:45.000Z **SACRAMENTO, Calif** – California Attorney General Rob Bonta released the official title and summary for the “Undo the Top Two” initiative Tuesday, which aims to repeal a primary process that gives every voter, regardless of party, the ability to choose any candidate they want. > New: [@stevenmaviglio](https://x.com/stevenmaviglio?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us)'s ballot measure to do away with California's top two primary system continues to move forward > > Remember, the initiative will be on the November 2028 ballot, meaning it will affect the 2030 election and onwards > > The top two or "jungle primary" system was… [https://t.co/SJX8e8mebZ](https://t.co/SJX8e8mebZ?ref=ivn.us) > > — Jenny Jiin Huh 🇰🇷🇺🇸 (@jenny\_huh) [July 14, 2026](https://x.com/jenny%5Fhuh/status/2077162987182596307?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) According to the summary, it would ditch the nonpartisan Top Two model with a partisan system that “requires the Legislature to establish a new process for primary elections \[...\] whereby each party’s candidates who receive the most votes would advance to the general election.” The initiative makes no mention of voters’ rights in primary elections. In fact, it eliminates language in the California Constitution that says “all voters may vote.” [‘Undo The Top Two’ Crossed Out “All Voters May Vote”They say independents can vote. Their initiative strips the constitutional guarantee that lets every voter choose any candidate they want.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-845a1073-d04f-4f44-87c7-aafdbd4baba9.jpg)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-primary-vote-552147b8-fc62-4e07-860c-bbce277b74fc.jpg)](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-crossed-out-all-voters-may-vote/) The effort is being led by California Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio, who [filed his initiative](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) in response to fearmongering that two Republicans would advance in the governor’s race—which didn’t happen. Maviglio has the support of former California Republican Chair Ron Nehring and MAGA-aligned Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio. DeMaio [has even committed funding](https://www.reformcalifornia.org/news/reform-california-backs-initiative-to-repeal-cas-failed-top-two-primary-system?ref=ivn.us) through his group Reform California as well as volunteers for signature gathering. The goal is to return California to a system of semi-closed partisan primaries. Instead of every voter receiving the same ballot and getting a say in who advances to the general election, each recognized political party would receive their own ballot and advance nominees. It replaces a voter-nominated system with a party-nominated system. It is a system that tells independent voters—who account for more than 6 million registered voters in California—that they have no right to vote in taxpayer-funded primaries. The parties get to decide what rights they have. Some parties might choose to let independents participate on their ballot, which would limit their choices to the candidates of that party. Voters will just have to trust the party leaders and operatives who say they will. But the point is that the right to complete and meaningful participation in publicly funded and administered elections would no longer be guaranteed as it is by the state constitution today. In response to “Undo the Top Two,” [Veterans For All Voters](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?ref=ivn.us) founder and nonpartisan reform leader Eric Bronner posted on X that “going back to partisan segregation is shameful,” and noted the majorities of veterans and young voters who would be denied meaningful choice. > Going back to partisan segregation is shameful, and it ignores the will of the 55% of military veterans and 61% of younger people (ages 18-24) who are Independent. We want more choices, and more competition in every single election. [@MoreChoicesAZ](https://x.com/MoreChoicesAZ?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [@ivn](https://x.com/ivn?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) > > — Eric Bronner (@EricBronner1) [July 15, 2026](https://x.com/EricBronner1/status/2077429954057216194?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) (IVP) general counsel Chad Peace noted on IVN that this is what the heart of the debate is about: “Undo The Top Two” asserts that political parties are the building blocks of democracy, while reformers like Bronner and IVP argue that voters are the building blocks. In its response to Bronner, "Undo the Top Two" even said, “Under the Top Two, virtually no Independent candidates ever make it to the November ballot. Ditto other parties. Voters want more choices, not a ballot with 2 candidates from the same party.” It is worth noting that the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has found that [more than 60% of voters](https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-their-government-may-2026/?ref=ivn.us) have been satisfied with their choices under Top Two. There is a way to give voters more choice in November without going backward. IVP, which authored California’s Top Two primary, encourages upgrading the system so that four or five candidates advance to the general election. And, to ensure a majority winner, an alternative voting method like ranked choice voting would be used. It is a proposal modeled after Alaska elections and is something Bronner and Veterans for All Voters have advocated for since the organization’s founding. [A Judge Just Ordered Huntington Beach to Give Voters More ChoiceA California court’s ranked choice voting remedy is about Latino representation. But it also reflects a larger reality: election systems built around narrow political coalitions routinely leave independent voters outside the room.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-310bf6ed-ba92-4dd5-a079-c8836a1a453c.jpg)Independent Voter NewsDan Schnur![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/huntington-beach-ranked-choice-voting-94770a62-0213-4a98-b432-471b4f1da4ef.jpg)](https://ivn.us/a-judge-just-ordered-huntington-beach-to-give-voters-more-choice/) This would preserve a nonpartisan primary system that gives every voter an opportunity to vote for whomever they want in each election, regardless of party, while satisfying the main complaint against Top Two, which is that there aren’t enough candidates in November. IVP is leading [More Choice California](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us), a coalition of reform advocates, in an effort to not only rebuke the Top Two repeal effort, but push for a Top 4 or Top 5 system. According to the More Choice website, one of its first priorities will be the "California Right to Vote Amendment," which states that no voter can be excluded from participating in a meaningful way at any integral stage of publicly funded elections on any basis, including party preference. This includes primary elections. ### DNC Chair Makes a Big Mistake URL: https://ivn.us/dnc-chair-makes-a-big-mistake/ Last updated: 2026-07-15T18:16:11.000Z **A "schtick"**? That was former DNC chair Jaime Harrison this week, on MS NOW's debate stage, waving off the voters who have given up on both parties as a gimmick. Nearly half the country now refuses to claim allegiance to either party, and **the former chair downplays that reality as... theater**. You don't have to be an independent to notice what that reveals: a leadership more comfortable mocking voters than trying to understand them. Across the table, independent veteran Paul Rieckhoff wasn't buying it. "**Most of the Democratic Party should be fired**," he shot back, pointing to independent candidates like Montana's Seth Bodnar as the actual future. [IVN has the exchange](https://ivn.us/former-dnc-chair-ridicules-independents-calls-them-a-schtick/). **Here's what the "schtick" line really tells you**. The establishment doesn't mock independents because they're a joke. **They mock independent-minded voters because they still control the rules of the game**, and it intends to keep it that way. This week alone, [South Carolina Republicans asked a judge to close their primaries](https://ivn.us/south-carolina-gop-lost-in-the-legislature-now-they-want-a-judge-to-close-the-primaries/) so independents don't have a voice. **Buffalo's charter commission told 80% of voters who backed a new election reform proposal, "No."** And Maine Democrats ran out the clock so there was no special election at all: [Graham Platner got "Joe Biden'd"](https://ivn.us/graham-platner-just-got-joe-bidend/) at the last minute, **so voters never got to weigh in**. If independent voters really are a "schtick," [party operatives sure are scared](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-crossed-out-all-voters-may-vote/) of the punchline coming for their charade. Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## Former DNC Chair Ridicules Independents — Calls Them a 'Schtick' [![Former DNC chair Jaime Harrison](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Jamie-Harrison.jpg)](https://ivn.us/former-dnc-chair-ridicules-independents-calls-them-a-schtick/) On MS NOW’s debate stage, former DNC chair Jaime Harrison **dismissed the independent movement as a “schtick”** — and Paul Rieckhoff fired back that “most of the Democratic Party should be fired.” Watch the clash over whether independents are a gimmick or the Democrats’ real problem. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/former-dnc-chair-ridicules-independents-calls-them-a-schtick/) ### *CALIFORNIA ▶▶▶* ## The Only Independent in Congress Wants Five Debates. His Democratic Opponent Won’t Commit to One. [![Rep. Kevin Kiley](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/image-18e6323a-cd9c-45f2-be86-1cfa3b7511fe.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-only-independent-in-congress-wants-five-debates-his-democratic-opponent-wont-commit-to-one/) Independent Rep. Kevin Kiley has challenged his Democratic opponent, former state senator Dr. Richard Pan, to five debates in California’s redrawn 6th District — arguing voters, not attack ads, should decide the race. **Pan won’t commit to a single one**, apparently betting the district’s blue lean carries him in November. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/the-only-independent-in-congress-wants-five-debates-his-democratic-opponent-wont-commit-to-one/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [South Carolina GOP Lost in the Legislature—Now They Want a Judge to Close the Primaries ](https://ivn.us/south-carolina-gop-lost-in-the-legislature-now-they-want-a-judge-to-close-the-primaries/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![South Carolina GOP Lost in the Legislature—Now They Want a Judge to Close the Primaries](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/south-carolina-gop-sues-close-primaries.png) ](https://ivn.us/south-carolina-gop-lost-in-the-legislature-now-they-want-a-judge-to-close-the-primaries/) [80% of Buffalo Voters Asked for More Choice. The Charter Commission Said No ](https://ivn.us/80-of-buffalo-voters-asked-for-more-choice-the-charter-commission-said-no/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![80% of Buffalo Voters Asked for More Choice. The Charter Commission Said No](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/buffalo-ny.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/80-of-buffalo-voters-asked-for-more-choice-the-charter-commission-said-no/) [Maine Democrats Are About to Lock Independents Out of the Process—Again ](https://ivn.us/maine-democrats-are-about-to-lock-independents-out-of-the-process-again/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Maine Democrats Are About to Lock Independents Out of the Process—Again](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/image-faacdac7-9f4f-4788-ae08-d8162864290e.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/maine-democrats-are-about-to-lock-independents-out-of-the-process-again/) [The DSA Surge Has One Real Challenger—Independents ](https://ivn.us/the-dsa-surge-has-one-real-challenger-independents/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/07/NAthan-Smolensky.webp) Nathan Smolensky [ ![The DSA Surge Has One Real Challenger—Independents](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/zohran-mamdani-dsa-candidates.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-dsa-surge-has-one-real-challenger-independents/) [Rhode Island’s Voters Left the Parties. Now the Candidates Are Following. ](https://ivn.us/rhode-islands-voters-left-the-parties-now-the-candidates-are-following/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Rhode Island’s Voters Left the Parties. Now the Candidates Are Following.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/rhode-island-independent-candidates.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/rhode-islands-voters-left-the-parties-now-the-candidates-are-following/) [Massachusetts Insiders Tried to Kill Primary Reform. Voters Get the Final Word. ](https://ivn.us/massachusetts-insiders-tried-to-kill-primary-reform-voters-get-the-final-word/) By Kevin Johnson [ ![Massachusetts Insiders Tried to Kill Primary Reform. Voters Get the Final Word.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/Massachuseets-More-Choice.webp) ](https://ivn.us/massachusetts-insiders-tried-to-kill-primary-reform-voters-get-the-final-word/) [My Vote Is My Right—Not a Party Privilege ](https://ivn.us/my-vote-is-my-right-not-a-party-privilege/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/07/Angel-Martinez---1.jpeg) Angel Martinez [ ![My Vote Is My Right—Not a Party Privilege](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/right-to-vote.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/my-vote-is-my-right-not-a-party-privilege/) ### *FEATURED PODCAST ▶▶▶* ## Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff takes on a brutal news week: a collapsed Iran ceasefire and 140 U.S. strikes across the region, the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham and the scramble over his seat, and another death tied to ICE. **One independent voice cutting through the two-party spin.** [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImMrUXz2DQw&ref=ivn.us) ### *GOING VIRAL ▶▶▶* ## Sen. John Fetterman Calls His Phone a 'Drone,' Confuses Logan Paul [![Sen. John Fetterman Calls His Phone a 'Drone,' Confuses Logan Paul](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Fetterman_Clip_Preview.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/DawB8oqDcSb/?ref=ivn.us) Why does Sen. John Fetterman keep holding his phone up mid-interview? On the IMPAULSIVE podcast, hosts Logan Paul and Mike Majlak were sure he was scrolling social media — and **a confused back-and-forth followed**, with Fetterman briefly calling the phone a “drone” before clearing it up: it’s live captioning that helps him process conversations since the 2022 stroke that nearly killed him. He likens it to glasses: “I know how to read, but I use that as a tool.” [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/DawB8oqDcSb/?ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### *LATEST EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Political strategist and author Mike Madrid joins the Independent Voter Podcast to unpack why so many Latino voters swung to Trump — and then to Zohran Mamdani. His answer is **the one neither party wants to hear**: these aren’t ideological voters, they’re anti-establishment ones the two-party system keeps misreading. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe2h8sedyR8&ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### California Quietly Changed the Rules. Thousands of Murder Cases Could Soon Be Back on the Table. URL: https://ivn.us/california-quietly-changed-the-rules-thousands-of-murder-cases-could-soon-be-back-on-the-table/ Last updated: 2026-07-23T20:13:28.000Z Most Californians have never heard of **BPH RN 25-01**. They probably should. With little public attention and no vote of the Legislature, California has quietly adopted one of the most sweeping changes to its post-conviction review process in decades. On July 9, the [California Office of Administrative Law](https://oal.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) approved new regulations adopted by the [California Board of Parole Hearings](https://www.ca.gov/departments/50/?ref=ivn.us) (BPH), establishing a formal process through which the Board may recommend certain incarcerated people for executive clemency or for recall of sentence and resentencing after they have served at least 25 years in prison. [The regulations were filed with the Secretary of State](https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/bph/wp-content/uploads/sites/161/2026/07/OALs-Approval-of-Regulations.pdf?ref=ivn.us) the same day and will take effect on Oct. 1, 2026. Known as [**BPH RN 25-01**](https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/bph/statutes/reg-revisions/?ref=ivn.us), the regulations are formally titled *Consultations; Commutation and Recall of Sentence Recommendation Assessment Process for Recommendation of Incarcerated Persons for Commutation of Sentence under Penal Code Section 4801 and Recommendation of Incarcerated Persons for Recall of Sentence and Resentencing under Penal Code Section 1172.1.* The rulemaking process began with public notice on Sept. 5, 2025\. Yet outside a relatively small circle of criminal justice attorneys, corrections officials, and victims' advocates, few Californians appear to know the regulations even exist. That may soon change. According to Board of Parole Hearings documents, **2,456 inmates will become immediately eligible** for review when the regulations take effect. By Dec. 31, 2035, that number is projected to grow to **3,959**. Reviews are expected to begin in 2027, with hearings beginning in 2028. The regulations apply to inmates who have served at least 25 years in prison, including those serving **life without the possibility of parole (LWOP), long-term life sentences, and other lengthy prison terms**. Notably, this could bring one of the most infamous murder cases in modern American history back into the spotlight. [Scott Peterson](https://cjlf.org/victims/laci-conner-peterson?ref=ivn.us), who was found guilty in 2004 of murdering his wife, Laci, and unborn son, Conner, will be among the inmates eligible for sentence review under the new regulations. Peterson could become eligible for release. Only a narrow group of inmates is excluded, including those sentenced to death, certain offenders required to register under [Penal Code Section 290](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes%5FdisplaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=290.&lawCode=PEN&ref=ivn.us), and some inmates already approaching parole hearings. According to the [Criminal Justice Legal Foundation](https://cjlf.org/?ref=ivn.us) (CJLF), the eligible population could include inmates convicted of child murder, serial murder, mass murder, torture murder, gang-motivated murder, hate-crime murder, and the murders of police officers and firefighters. The regulations do **not** automatically reduce anyone's sentence or guarantee release. Instead, they establish a formal process through which the Board of Parole Hearings may determine whether an inmate should be recommended to the governor for commutation of sentence or recommended to a court for recall of sentence and resentencing under existing California law. But for critics, the regulations represent far more than a new administrative procedure. They raise a fundamental question about who has the power to reshape criminal sentences in California. Can an administrative agency create an entirely new system for reconsidering sentences imposed decades ago by judges and juries? That question will now go before California's courts. [CJLF announced last week that it will sue](https://cjlf.org/protect-victims?ref=ivn.us), arguing the Board exceeded its statutory authority by creating what the organization describes as "a de facto parole system through bureaucratic regulations." The organization says the Board lacked statutory authority to create the process, that the regulations conflict with California's life-without-parole sentencing laws, that they violate the constitutional separation of powers, that they conflict with victims' rights protections under Marsy's Law, and that they violate California's Administrative Procedure Act. CJLF also argues that "many victims believe the regulations fundamentally change sentences imposed by courts and juries without legislative approval." For victims' families, however, the legal arguments are only part of the story. Imagine believing a criminal case ended decades ago. Imagine believing the sentence "life without the possibility of parole" meant exactly what it said. Then imagine opening your mailbox years later to learn that the person convicted of murdering your spouse, your child, your parent, or your sibling is [once again the subject of legal proceedings](https://cjlf.org/victims/sandra-cantu?ref=ivn.us). That is the future many victims' advocates fear these regulations could create. According to CJLF, families could once again find themselves preparing victim-impact statements, attending Board of Parole Hearings proceedings, participating in resentencing hearings, following commutation proceedings, responding to appeals, and reliving crimes they believed had long since reached their legal conclusion. The organization argues that the regulations risk retraumatizing survivors and reopening emotional wounds that many families spent decades trying to heal. "Life without parole (LWOP) sentences were imposed to ensure offenders would never again seek release," CJLF states in a fact sheet released after the regulations were approved. "These regulations undermine that expectation." The foundation has begun assembling a statewide coalition of victim advocacy organizations, crime survivors, prosecutors, law enforcement associations, and public safety organizations to oppose the regulations. It is also seeking victims and surviving family members whose cases could be affected as it prepares public education efforts and pursues litigation. Supporters of the regulations see the issue differently. The Board of Parole Hearings has framed the regulations as a standardized assessment process under existing California statutes governing commutation and recall of sentence. Under that view, the Board is not creating a new power to release inmates. It is creating procedures for exercising powers that already exist under California law. CJLF is making the case that this is ultimately about more than parole, commutation, or resentencing. It is about the reach of administrative government. It is about whether one state agency can fundamentally alter the practical effect of some of California's most serious criminal sentences through regulation rather than legislation. And it is about whether thousands of victims' families who believed the hardest chapter of their lives had finally closed may soon be asked to open it once again. “For more than three decades as a prosecutor and as Sacramento County's elected District Attorney, I stood with victims and their families as courts imposed sentences designed to protect the public and provide finality. These regulations create a new administrative process to reconsider some of California's most serious criminal sentences—including Life Without the Possibility of Parole—without clear legislative authorization,” said Anne Marie Schubert, President and CEO of CJLF. “The people of California expect changes of this magnitude to be made by their elected representatives, not through administrative regulations. Victims were promised finality. The law should keep that promise." For a regulatory change with consequences this far-reaching, it has unfolded with remarkably little public attention. ### 10 Ways the Two-Party System Controls Your Ballot Before Election Day URL: https://ivn.us/10-ways-the-two-party-system-controls-your-ballot-before-election-day-2/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T18:15:17.000Z Voters are told that democracy happens on Election Day in November. In most cases, this is not true. By the time voters enter a polling place, open a mail ballot, or pull up their county’s voting portal, many of the biggest decisions have already been made: who makes the ballot, who gets to vote, what choices voters have, and whether their district was designed to produce a real election. The United States does not have one national election system. It has 50 state systems, thousands of local rules, and two political parties that have significantly more control over public elections than any other developed democracy allows. With so many different election rules across the US, it can be difficult at times for voters to navigate the process. This complexity is not just confusing; it is designed to be controlling as well. Here are 10 ways the two-party system shapes your ballot long before you cast it. ## **1\. Closed Primaries Block Independent Voters from the Election That Actually Matter** Many voters are told that the *real* election—the election that matters most—is in November. But this isn’t true for over 90% of races, especially in the midst of an ongoing mid-cycle gerrymandering fight that has reduced the number of competitive elections even more. In most districts, Election Day in November is little more than a formality. A single party dominates the district, which means the real contest occurs in that party’s primary months prior. And independent voters are often locked out. Or, the process is [so convoluted and complex](https://ivn.us/arizona-made-voting-hard-enough-for-independents-then-it-sent-me-two-ballots/) that it is difficult for independents to navigate the rules. For a time, the number of states with closed primary systems was on the decline. However, under an environment in which 47% of the nationwide electorate identifies as independent, party leaders are frantically trying to close these taxpayer-funded elections. NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he is [“quite content”](https://www.amny.com/politics/mamdani-content-nyc-primary-system-open/?ref=ivn.us) with the closed primaries in his city, despite the fact that they deny 1.2 million independent voters a meaningful say in a city controlled at every level by the Democratic Party. Closed primaries are [known for their low turnout](https://ivn.us/7-of-voters-just-decided-for-the-other-93/). In fact, only 1 out of every 6 registered Democrats in NYC turned out for the 2026 primaries. Republican Parties in South Carolina, Texas, and Colorado have turned to the courts to close their primaries because the legislature will not change state law or—in the case of Colorado—voters made their desire for open primaries clear at the ballot box. [Texas GOP Looks at 7% Turnout and Says: Let’s Make the Primary SmallerKen Paxton won the Republican Senate runoff with roughly 4.7% of registered Texas voters. Now the Texas GOP wants fewer voters in its primaries.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-cb1f72a4-4fdc-466a-9621-b786ae2eb219.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/texas-attorney-gemeral-ken-paxton-b34ed6dc-3302-4bee-9823-a496edeb9ab5.jpg)](https://ivn.us/texas-gop-looks-at-7-turnout-and-says-lets-make-the-primary-smaller/) Under closed primary systems, a voter can be registered, eligible, informed, and willing to participate—and still be told they cannot vote in the contest that will effectively decide who represents them just because they choose not to identify with a private political club. ## **2\. Party Registration Is Often The Price of Admission** In some states, voters must formally affiliate with a political party before participating in elections. That means a voter may have to join a private organization they do not support simply to have a meaningful say in who represents them. But party registration can be required for more than voting. In some states, like New York, the law says voters have to be affiliated with a party just to be [an election inspector](https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ELN/3-400?ref=ivn.us) or judge. Other states, like Arizona, [require election boards](https://www.azleg.gov/ars/16/00531.htm?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) to provide representation from the two largest parties. Independents need not apply. Parties don’t just control who gets to vote, but who gets to administer and oversee elections. ## **3\. Party Insiders Often Shape Who Reaches The Ballot** Candidates in every state must navigate filing rules, signature requirements, party endorsements, fundraising expectations, consultant networks, donor relationships, and institutional support. However, for candidates outside the Republican and Democratic Parties, these obstacles are much steeper at every step. They face higher signature requirements, more restrictive petition rules, smaller fundraising windows, and often lack any institutional support. [12 Groups Building a Political Escape Hatch from the Two-Party DuopolyLuckily, there are organizations out there who are endorsing independent-minded candidates as well as candidates who support reforms key to unlocking independent political power.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-27cb9bc6-1834-409e-bc0e-6994980ff24d.jpg)Independent Voter NewsMatt Shinners![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/independent-canddiate-organizations-endorsements-25d59ea0-9e53-4849-a561-1efec9d20c53.jpg)](https://ivn.us/12-groups-building-a-political-escape-hatch-from-the-two-party-duopoly/) On top of that, major parties and/or their candidates often challenge the legitimacy of independent and minor-party campaigns. This forces candidates to drain what money they have on legal expenses just to fight for their ballot line. Major-party candidates also benefit from built-in name recognition, voter data, volunteer infrastructure, and a media ecosystem that treats their nomination contests as the only races worth watching. The result is a ballot that often reflects what political institutions were willing to permit—not the full range of candidates voters might want. ## **4\. Ballot Access Rules Can Keep New Voices Out** Independent and minor-party candidates routinely face requirements that major-party candidates do not. They need to collect large numbers of signatures, meet strict deadlines, pay filing fees, overcome challenges to petitions, or qualify separately for every election cycle. For example, [in Alabama](https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/files/pdf/lsa/ALI/election%5Fhandbook/Alabama%5FElection%5FHandbook%5F21st%5FEdition.pdf?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), an independent candidate for most statewide or district offices must collect signatures equal to 3% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. This is among the highest statewide requirements. [In Georgia](https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20172018/164253?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), the requirement is 1% of the registered electorate eligible to vote for any given race. This means non-major-party candidates have to collect tens of thousands of signatures just to qualify for US House races. A [2025 presentation](https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/document/docs/default-source/house-study-committee-document-library-page/2025/blue-ribbon-election-procedures/10-16/04-brian-allen-presentation---10-16-25.pdf?sfvrsn=1c2bf22%5F2&utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) to a Georgia legislative committee asserts that the state’s rules make qualifying for many partisan offices “practically impossible” for independent and minor-party candidates. When the system makes it easy for Democrats and Republicans to appear on the ballot while forcing everyone else through a legal and procedural obstacle course, voters are not receiving equal access to political competition. They are receiving a curated ballot. ## **5\. Gerrymandering Decides Your Election Before Candidates Announce** As previously stated, more than 90% of elections in the United States are safe for one of the two major parties. This is partly because of an escalation in partisan gerrymandering—or how politicians draw their own electoral boundaries. Legislative district lines determine which voters are grouped together, which communities are divided, and whether either party has a realistic chance to win. In heavily gerrymandered districts, the outcomes are functionally predetermined. Gerrymandering is nothing new. It has existed in the US even before the ratification of the US Constitution. However, what was once a process that occurred once every 10 years has increasingly become more frequent. [Did the Republicans or Democrats Start the Gerrymandering Fight?The 2026 midterm election cycle is quickly approaching. However, there is a lingering question mark over what congressional maps will look like when voters start to cast their ballots, especially as Republicans and Democrats fight to obtain any electoral advantage possible.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-1c70405c-a5cf-447f-8ee7-416eee4ba969.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/andy-feliciotti-8cvjI48SFtY-unsplash-ff77b212-8211-4e86-b1ca-fc4fcdf80184.jpg)](https://ivn.us/did-republicans-democrats-start-gerrymandering-fight-2025-11-11/) Especially, following a mid-decade redistricting fight that began in the summer of 2025 and continues today. Some states, like California and Virginia, have even moved to suspend independently drawn maps to retaliate for gerrymandering in another state. The message this sends to voters is that even in states where they passed anti-gerrymandering reform, partisan lawmakers are more than willing to circumvent independent redistricting commissions and other failsafe proposals when control of Congress is on the line. ## **6\. Safe Districts Turn Elections Into Partisan Gatekeeping Contests** A safe district is when one party has such a strong advantage that the general election is merely a taxpayer-funded formality. According to Cook Political Report, this now accounts for about 94% of US House elections. As explained already, this makes primaries the only election that matters in many cases. However, there is another consequence at the state level: When districts are too safe, no one bothers to challenge the incumbent or party in power. BallotReady reports that [40% of state legislative races in 2024 only had one candidate](https://organizations.ballotready.org/research/uncontested-races-state-leg-2024?ref=ivn.us). This is nationwide. The numbers can be jaw-dropping when looking at individual states. For example, 75% of open state house races in Massachusetts went uncontested by one of the two major parties. It makes the competition outlook in US elections even worse, especially in contests where the incumbent knows they won’t have to face any kind of competition or challenge—whether it is from within their own party or outside their base. ## **7\. Runoff Rules Can Shrink the Electorate Even Further** Some states require a primary winner to receive a majority of the vote. When no one clears that threshold, the top candidates advance to a separate runoff. This extra election comes at a cost—both to taxpayers and voter choice. The general rule for primary runoffs: take the primary turnout and cut it in half. In low turnout partisan primaries, this means the winner in the most decisive elections are chosen by 4% of the total voting population or less. Meanwhile, the runoff electorate becomes smaller, older, more partisan, and more motivated, while everyone else is less likely to show up a second time (or are not allowed to vote at all). The idea is straightforward—the nominee needs a majority—but the outcome is far from majority approval. ## **8\. Presidential Primaries Are Party Events Paid for By Taxpayers** There is perhaps no greater example of how the two major parties control elections than presidential primaries and caucuses, which may look like ordinary elections—but they aren’t, even when compared to other primary elections. Voters don’t actually pick a nominee when they vote in a presidential primary. That is, if the parties let them participate at all. They are voting for how delegates will be allocated in each state and the parties have full control over the rules. [Just A Reminder, The Presidential Nomination Process Has Never Been About DemocracyVice President Kamala Harris is slated to make her speech at the DNC Thursday, in which she will formally accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States. It is a historic moment that has not come without scrutiny.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-7bc46d7d-274a-4624-9e0c-032d4756378d.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/53915838050_fe4b16b0e8_k-ed313e0f-d803-4f29-9358-3c3b3d9d1b7c.jpg)](https://ivn.us/just-reminder-presidential-nomination-process-has-never-been-about-democracy-2024-08-21/) Both the Republican and Democratic Parties decide if there will be debates, if candidates can appear on the ballot, what order the primaries are held, and if they don’t get their way on that—they can decide to strip a state of their delegates. They can even cancel primaries and outright tell voters in a state, [“You don’t matter.”](https://ivn.us/dnc-tells-new-hampshire-voters-their-primary-meaningless/) Presidential primaries are really presidential preference elections. Some states even explicitly call them that, and the parties can decide whether or not these taxpayer-funded contests actually mean anything. Think Joe Biden in 2020\. The eventual Democratic nominee, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, wasn’t on the ballot in the primaries. And while none of this may sound democratic, it is all perfectly legal and has been successfully defended in court. [DNC to Court: We Are a Private Corporation With No Obligation to Follow Our RulesUpdate: A federal judge dismissed the DNC lawsuit on August 28\. The court recognized that the DNC treated voters unfairly, but ruled that the DNC is a private corporation; therefore, voters cannot protect their rights by turning to the courts: To the extent Plaintiffs wish to air their general grievances![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-1679e13f-d8d2-4ff0-b4e7-e7f6aecca7c0.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Project![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ivn-default-7e6e49d4-5107-428d-8d87-27e2c039646a.png)](https://ivn.us/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporation-with-no-obligation-to-follow-our-rules/) ## **9\. Debate Rules Decide Which Candidates Voters Get to Hear** The parties don’t just have control over primary debates. They have control over the general election debates as well. At first, they did this through the Commission on Presidential Debates, which set insurmountable barriers for independent and third-party candidates to overcome. [Everything You Need to Know About the Commission on Presidential DebatesThe first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is scheduled for Tuesday, September 29, at 9 pm (Eastern). Plenty of commentators, though, have questioned whether either candidate should debate the other from a campaign strategy standpoint. Others have wondered if a substantive debate on the nation’s most![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-291f5ff2-d4bc-403c-a9ed-059f8911b86f.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ivn-default-86245f1c-6e23-4f07-bada-9fb390104ab7.png)](https://ivn.us/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-commission-on-presidential-debates/) Notably, the last time there were more than two candidates on a debate stage run by the debate commission was Ross Perot in 1992\. Then, in 2000, it changed its rules. The most consequential was the 15% rule, which states that candidates must poll at 15% or higher in 5 national polls handpicked by the commissioners. Without media coverage or inclusion in the polls, this rule alone discouraged many potentially viable independent candidates from running. Then, in 2024, both the Trump and Biden campaigns ditched the debate commission and demanded that the campaigns have more control over the time, place, and format of the debates—and the media gave it to them. [Did the Major Party Campaigns Just End the Commission on Presidential Debates?President Joe Biden’s campaign issued a challenge to former President Donald Trump Wednesday to two debates: One in June and one in September. The debates have to be hosted by a news outlet and will not be conducted in front of a crowd.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-f644ab15-b3e4-49bc-a7e8-a1912b1dde4e.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/50561441523_2aab32fb92_k-f05d0b16-fe68-4565-9254-ab0330d18b6b.jpg)](https://ivn.us/did-major-party-campaigns-just-end-commission-presidential-debates/) Despite the CPD being founded by and composed of leaders and members of both parties, Trump and the RNC accused it of Democratic favoritism, while Biden and the DNC accused it of not enforcing its rules on etiquette. The outcome was the same. The parties ultimately dictated who got access to the national audience and candidates outside the two-party structure were excluded before voters had a genuine chance to evaluate them. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle: Candidates are excluded because they lack support (and because the two major parties don’t want competition). They lack support because voters rarely see them (because the media reinforces two-party control). And voters rarely see them because the system has already decided they are not viable. That is not a free marketplace of ideas. It is a political bouncer at the door. ## **10\. The Ballot Itself Is Built Around Two-Party Assumptions** Even when voters have other options, the ballot is often designed around a Democrat-versus-Republican framework. Media coverage follows the same script. Polling questions reinforce it. Fundraising systems reward it. Election-night analysis treats every race as a red-versus-blue scoreboard. Meanwhile, independent candidates and reform-minded alternatives are treated as side stories—unless they become disruptive enough to threaten the major parties. Then, they are just “spoilers.” The two-party system does not need to compete for votes because it structures the choices voters are allowed to make. ## **Voters Are Asked to Trust a System They Did Not Design** The takeaway from all of this should not be anti-party. None of this means political parties should not exist. Voters have every right to organize around shared values, nominate candidates, and compete for power. Parties play a legitimate role in the democratic process. But public elections should not be designed primarily around protecting private political organizations—nor should they be controlled by them. The central question should be simple: **Does the system give voters meaningful choices and meaningful influence?** When independent voters—who make up 47% of the national electorate—are excluded from decisive primaries, when districts are drawn to eliminate competition, when ballot-access rules favor the same two institutions, and when most races are effectively settled before November, the answer is clearly **NO**. The two major parties control far too much of what happens before voters ever get the ballot. That does not mean they shouldn’t exist, but this is why reformers are addressing equal voting rights for independents, how candidates are elected, and the need for more choice. ### The DSA Surge Has One Real Challenger—Independents URL: https://ivn.us/the-dsa-surge-has-one-real-challenger-independents/ Last updated: 2026-07-14T14:30:53.000Z Last month, the shores of New York City were hit by a wave of deep blue (some might argue Red) as a slew of Democratic Socialists of America members, backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, scored major wins in the primaries. At the Congressional level, Claire Valdez won the Democratic nod for NY-7, Darializa Avila Chevalier won in the 13th, and former DSA member Brad Lander took the nomination in the 10th. All of these districts are contained within New York City, and everyone is deep blue, meaning that all three of these candidates are heavy favorites to coast through the November elections. Much has been made about the polarizing nature of these candidates, about what they intend to do and what they’ll be able to do once elected, about controversial statements and stances. While I won’t be getting into that here, it’s fair to say that there’s quite some concern around the DSA’s success, and how much of it is yet to come. And for the many across the political spectrum who would want to viably challenge these types of candidates in places like New York, the good news is that you absolutely can—but not through the usual means. Here's what's not going to happen any time soon: old-school, moderate Democrats with establishment ties beating well-funded progressive challengers. This year’s wins are no fluke. Mamdani and his progressive wing of the party have capitalized upon long-simmering dissatisfaction among Dems with the old guard, and they have capitalized upon the nature of the closed primary system. In NYC, [the roughly half-million voters who turned out in the Democratic primary](https://gothamist.com/news/voter-data-shows-lower-turnout-but-pockets-of-engagement-boosted-insurgent-candidates?ref=ivn.us) on June 25 represented about a sixth of the party’s registered voters. Specifically, they represented the most politically active and politically passionate portion of the party—the perfect audience for loud, brash progressives who can preach to their choir. It’s not clear how much opening the primaries will affect things, either. The group Open Primaries recently released an excellent essay [making the case on principle](https://www.amny.com/opinion/progressive-mayor-shouldnt-defend-exclusionary-election-system/?ref=ivn.us) for why NYC shouldn’t stick with a primary structure that excludes the city’s 1.2 million registered independent voters. But the practical reality is that independents could still simply register with a party just to vote in its primary—some do, most don’t. Perhaps more importantly, the new mayor and his progressive allies don’t seem all that interested in opening the primary, despite popular support, making that barrier a difficult one to lift. Here's what else isn't going to happen: Republicans winning in the November general against Valdez, Lander, Chevalier, and the like. These candidates are vying to represent districts with [respective Partisan Voting Indices](https://www.cookpolitical.com/cook-pvi/2025-partisan-voting-index/district-map-and-list?ref=ivn.us) of D+25, D+32, and D+32 again. In layman’s terms, it ain’t happening. But PVI is a measure purely of Republican vs Democrat competitive dynamics — just because the other major party can’t compete, doesn’t mean no one can. And here’s where the independent candidates enter the picture. The model for independents competing in lopsided political districts has been demonstrated. In 2022, Evan McMullin ran for Senate in deep-red Utah and earned some 43% of the vote, far outperforming any recent challenger to the state’s Republican incumbents. Two years later, Dan Osborn ran for Senate in Nebraska (R+13), finishing with close to 48%. Now, Osborn and Montana’s Seth Bodnar [headline a slew of independent challengers across our nation’s frontier](https://independentcenter.substack.com/p/the-independents-are-here?r=8gqbt1&utm%5Fcampaign=post&utm%5Fmedium=web&triedRedirect=true), poised to challenge incumbents in largely lopsided districts where there’s a current lack of serious political competition. And while the most prominent independent challenges this year are taking place in deep red areas of the country, there’s no reason the same fundamental strategy can’t be applied to the deep blues as well. In places like NYC, there is currently no viable second option in most general elections. Coalition-minded independents can address a critical market need, positioning themselves particularly against divisive partisan opponents who don’t appeal to great portions of the general election populace. What could such a winning coalition look like? Well, it would feature a great many independent voters—those who have been cut out of the closed primary process. It would feature some number of Republicans, whose voices are currently completely ignored in these districts. It would feature disaffected Democrats unhappy with the options their primaries are giving them. Put it all together, and you’ve got a numbers advantage on your hands—PVI be damned. Ultimately, this isn’t about the DSA itself. It’s about creating real voter choice in places that need it. It’s about fostering healthy competition in more of our elections, and creating, through that competition, greater accountability for our elected leaders. Whatever you may think about them, Mamdani and his allies have played the political game well. They won in June and will likely win in November. Moving forward, they deserve a worthy opponent, and the independent movement can offer them just that ### Rhode Island’s Voters Left the Parties. Now the Candidates Are Following. URL: https://ivn.us/rhode-islands-voters-left-the-parties-now-the-candidates-are-following/ Last updated: 2026-07-14T12:45:48.000Z In 2014, Allan Fung and Ken Block competed for the Republican nomination for governor of Rhode Island. Fung, then the mayor of Cranston, beat Block by 10 points in the primary before losing the general election to Democrat Gina Raimondo. Twelve years later, both men are back on the ballot. They’re running for different offices. They’re running with different messaging. And, this time, they’re running under a different label: Independent. This will be Ken Block’s third bid for governor. Allan Fung, a two-time Republican nominee for governor and the party's 2022 candidate for Congress, announced last month that he has left the Republican Party and is running as an independent for a state House seat in District 15\. Their parallel departures from the Republican Party are the most visible examples of a broader shift in the Ocean State, where 21 independent candidates have filed to run for state office this year in a state where a majority of registered voters no longer affiliate with either major party. ## **The Voters Left First** The candidates are following the electorate. [51.3% of the state's registered voters are now unaffiliated](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ri?ref=ivn.us), making them a straight majority in the state. Rhode Island consistently ranks among the states with the highest share of unaffiliated voters in the country, and one of the few where independents make up over 50% of the electorate. Other states that fit that description? Massachusetts, Colorado, and Alaska. That registration picture sits uneasily next to the state's political reality. Democrats dominate the General Assembly, hold every statewide office, and haven't lost a statewide election to a Republican since 2006\. The result is a state where most voters have formally opted out of the party system while the party system continues to decide nearly everything. This year, 11 independents have declared for the state legislature and another 10 for statewide general offices, though nine of them are in the governor’s race alone. It's not a record; 39 independent legislative candidates filed in 2022\. But the profile of who is running has changed. ## **Block's Third Act** Ken Block has spent his career running against the two-party system from different angles. In 2010, he founded the Moderate Party and ran for governor under its banner, finishing fourth with 6.5% of the vote. The winner of that cycle? Lincoln Chafee, running as an independent (see more on that below). In 2014, he tried the major-party route and lost the Republican primary to Fung. Now, the Barrington software engineer has settled on the label that arguably fit him all along. "My flavor of politics doesn't align well with either political party," Block said in an interview with the [*Rhode Island Current*](https://rhodeislandcurrent.com/2026/04/02/ken-block-is-running-for-governor-again-this-time-as-an-independent/?ref=ivn.us). > "Political parties by definition imply a healthy dose of partisanship—I am a problem solver, a manager, and the problems that Rhode Island suffers from aren't problems that partisanship can address." Interestingly, his company was hired by Pres. Trump’s campaign to look into allegations of voter fraud in 2020\. After not finding any, he wrote a book about the experience. Block's campaign calls out what he calls a crisis of competence, or, alternatively, the cost of incompetence. He highlights two stories of RI governance: the abrupt closure of the westbound Washington Bridge, which he has hammered relentlessly—including on billboards along Route 195—and a state payroll debacle that may have exposed employee Social Security numbers. The strategic logic of Block's independent run is straightforward. The governor's race is dominated by a high-profile Democratic primary rematch between incumbent Gov. Dan McKee and former CVS executive Helena Foulkes, while the Republican field—Aaron Guckian, Elaine Pelino, and Robert Raimondo—is competing for a nomination that hasn't produced a statewide winner in two decades. In a state where the Republican brand is arguably a heavier liability than no brand at all, running unaffiliated lets Block skip a September primary and spend the summer talking directly to the general electorate. ## **Fung's Break** Allan Fung's independent turn is, in some ways, the more surprising of the two. Fung was for years one of the Rhode Island GOP's biggest success stories: a popular mayor of the state's second-largest city, twice the party's nominee for governor, and its 2022 candidate in the 2nd Congressional District race. Now, he’s running as an independent for House District 15—a seat with deep personal resonance. His wife, Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung, represented the district for two terms, and it contains Cranston, the city of which he served as mayor. The seat is currently held by Republican Chris Paplauskas, who won his first term in 2024 by 22 votes. (Seriously, people, vote!) ## **The Chafee and Healey Precedents** Rhode Island independents have something most of their counterparts nationally lack: proof of concept. In 2010, Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican US senator, won the governorship as an independent (in the election where Block received over 6% of the vote as a third-party candidate). Chafee remains the state's first and only independent governor, though he later joined the Democratic Party while in office. Four years later, Robert Healey demonstrated a different kind of viability. Running as the Moderate Party's nominee in the same 2014 race where Fung and Block fought for the GOP nomination, Healey captured 21.4% of the vote, finishing third behind Raimondo and Fung while famously reporting that he spent just $35 on his entire campaign. Healey's showing remains one of the most cost-efficient results in modern American electoral history and evidence that a meaningful share of Rhode Island's electorate will vote outside the two parties when given a credible reason. ## **The July 17 Test** Before any independent gets to test those theories in November, they have to survive Rhode Island's ballot access gauntlet. Independent candidates must gather validated signatures from registered voters—1,000 for governor, as few as 50 for a state House seat—without the party infrastructure that helps major-party candidates navigate the process. Block has hired four signature circulators and describes the sprint bluntly: "It's a do-or-die type thing. You either deliver the signatures or you're out." History suggests attrition is coming. Of the 39 independent legislative candidates who filed in 2022, only 21 made the ballot, according to reporting by the [*Rhode Island Current*](https://rhodeislandcurrent.com/2026/07/13/the-odds-are-against-independents-running-for-office-in-ri-21-candidates-are-running-anyway/?ref=ivn.us). The Rhode Island Department of State expects to finish certifying signatures and confirming ballot placement by Friday, July 17\. That’ll be the first time to see if Rhode Island might repeat its history of electing independent candidates to high office. ### The Only Independent in Congress Wants Five Debates. His Democratic Opponent Won’t Commit to One. URL: https://ivn.us/the-only-independent-in-congress-wants-five-debates-his-democratic-opponent-wont-commit-to-one/ Last updated: 2026-07-13T19:08:38.000Z **SACRAMENTO, Calif.** – US Rep. Kevin Kiley (NPP), the only sitting member of the US House registered independent of a party, says his general election opponent in California’s 6th Congressional District, Dr. Richard Pan, refuses to debate him. “I almost feel sorry for him,” Kiley posted on X. “He thought he could coast into office on Newsom's gerrymander. No one explained to him that people still get to vote.” > My opponent Richard Pan is refusing to agree to any debates. I almost feel sorry for him. He thought he could coast into office on Newsom's gerrymander. No one explained to him that people still get to vote. [pic.twitter.com/PqVKhtYblG](https://t.co/PqVKhtYblG?ref=ivn.us) > > — Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) [July 8, 2026](https://x.com/KevinKileyCA/status/2074901093696635060?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) He shared an interview with Dr. Pan, in which the Democrat and former state senator was asked about a challenge to at least 5 debates throughout the congressional district. Pan said, “We’re going to have an ongoing conversation.” > “That’s what’s most important. That the voters know who they get to vote for and what each of us stand for.” Pan added that he will make sure this happens by Election Day. However, he did not address the congressman’s challenge directly. Kiley is currently the representative for California’s 3rd Congressional District. After the district boundaries were changed under [Proposition 50 in 2025](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F50,%5FUse%5Fof%5FLegislative%5FCongressional%5FRedistricting%5FMap%5FAmendment%5F%282025%29?ref=ivn.us#tabnavigation-republicanmoredemocratic-1), he chose to run for re-election in the newly-redrawn 6th District and in March left the Republican Party to be an independent. CA-3 was among the most drastically altered districts under Prop 50, which amended the constitution to not only allow the suspension of an independent map, but to allow partisan gerrymandering. Analysis shows that the district went from R+4 (a relatively competitive seat) to D+12\. Cook Political Report has since moved CA-3 to Solid Democrat. But Prop 50 also kept CA-6 Solid D as well. Notably, 39% of the registered electorate in CA-6 are Democrats compared to the 30.63% registered with the Republican Party. This presents an opening for the 22% of voters registered No Party Preference to decide this race. It would be an unintended consequence of Prop 50—which was designed to give Democrats 5 additional US House seats. If the map performs as aggressively as some projections suggest, their party could control up to 92% of seats in California’s congressional delegation. Kiley came in first in the June 2 primary, despite a crowded field of party candidates. And while Democratic consultants and operatives raised alarms mid-count of a Democrat lockout, Dr. Pan got the second spot in the general election. On June 22, shortly after Kiley and Pan were established as the top two candidates, Kiley [issued a 5-debate challenge](https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article316222648.html?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), arguing that it would prevent the race from being decided by campaign ads, party organization, and outside spending. “This will assure that this election is a contest of ideas, a contest of ideas that is truly decided by the voters,” he said. The issues Kiley said he wants Pan to answer for include: - California’s cost of living and Pan’s support for the 2017 transportation package that increased gasoline taxes and vehicle fees. - Taxes affecting Social Security income, the child tax credit and state-and-local-tax deductions. - Housing policy and tax incentives for affordable housing. - Pan’s support for COVID-era public-health restrictions and California’s prolonged school closures. - Homelessness, public safety, and energy costs. In response, Pan’s campaign said it looked forward to “debating ‘MAGA champion’ Kevin Kiley and holding him accountable for voting with Donald Trump 98% of the time,” However, so far, he has not committed publicly to a time, place, or format for a debate. It’s important to note that contrary to what Kiley says, Pan hasn’t outright refused to debate him—but the statements from Pan and his campaign embrace the stated purpose of a debate without committing to participating in one. If an “ongoing conversation” is needed so voters understand the candidates’ positions, Kiley has presented Pan with at least 5 face-to-face opportunities. It would also be a chance for Pan to test Kiley’s declared independence. Kiley says he left the party out of frustration with hyper-partisanship and gerrymandering. A debate would give Pan the opportunity to press his argument that Kiley’s new registration is political camouflage, and give Kiley the opportunity to identify the votes, positions, and beliefs on which his independence has amounted to more than a new ballot designation. So, what’s the holdup? This dispute is about more than whether two candidates are willing to stand on the same stage. It is about whether a district engineered to favor one party will still produce a competitive general election in which both candidates must answer directly to voters. Five debates would give Kiley and Pan opportunities to reach communities across a district spanning portions of Sacramento, Placer, and Yolo counties. They would also allow voters to hear from the candidates outside the ads and party messaging that will increasingly shape the race. There is no question that Democrats are going into November with a considerable structural advantage. The district is rated Solid D, and registered Democrats outnumber Republicans. But California’s nonpartisan primary advanced an independent incumbent and a Democratic challenger to November, giving No Party Preference voters a potentially meaningful role. Pan’s campaign argues that Kiley remains a “MAGA champion” and a Republican in all but name. Kiley argues that Pan expects the district’s new boundaries to carry him into office. A debate stage is where both claims can be tested. The question is whether Pan will rely on the district’s manufactured partisan advantage—or give voters the opportunity to determine how deserved that advantage is. ### My Vote Is My Right—Not a Party Privilege URL: https://ivn.us/my-vote-is-my-right-not-a-party-privilege/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:52:36.000Z *"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..."* Those opening words of the Constitution are more than an introduction. They are the foundation of American representative government. They affirm that political power originates with the people and that government derives its legitimacy from those it serves. Yet today, millions of registered voters across the United States are prohibited from participating in publicly funded primary elections simply because they choose not to affiliate with a political party. In many jurisdictions, those primary elections—not the general election—effectively determine who will hold public office. This is not merely an administrative rule. It is a question of democratic representation. Supporters of closed primaries argue that political parties, as private associations, should have the right to choose their own nominees. That argument deserves consideration. Political parties are an important part of our political system. However, when primary elections are administered by the state, financed with public funds, and used to determine who will appear on the general election ballot, another question deserves equal consideration: **Should citizens who help finance those elections be excluded from participating in them?** The Constitution establishes representative government, but it does not establish political parties or party primaries. Those institutions evolved over time. James Madison warned in *Federalist No. 10* that factions could place their own interests above the public good. George Washington echoed that concern in his Farewell Address, cautioning that excessive party spirit could divide the nation and weaken republican government. The issue, therefore, is not whether political parties should exist. Rather, it is whether the public electoral process should exclude millions of otherwise eligible voters because they choose political independence. Research suggests that more inclusive primary systems increase participation and broaden representation. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center's report [*The Effect of Open Primaries on Turnout and Representation* (2024)](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/the-effect-of-open-primaries-on-turnout-and-representation/?ref=ivn.us), fully open, open-to-unaffiliated, and nonpartisan primary systems tend to produce electorates that better represent unaffiliated voters while increasing participation among independent voters. That conclusion is reinforced by peer-reviewed research. In the *Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy*, Nathan K. Micatka, Caroline J. Tolbert, and Robert G. Boatright found that individuals living in nonpartisan primary states were significantly more likely to vote than those living in closed or semi-closed primary states, with independent voters benefiting the most from those reforms. Public opinion reflects similar concerns. A [national survey commissioned by Unite America](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/new-poll-as-midterms-loom-voters-back-open-primaries-to-make-congress-work-better?ref=ivn.us) found that 59 percent of Americans believe party primaries contribute to political division, 70 percent believe Congress is failing to address the nation's most pressing challenges effectively, and 71 percent support requiring states to hold open primaries—including majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents. New York illustrates this democratic paradox. More than one million registered New York City voters are unaffiliated with a political party, leaving them unable to vote in Democratic or Republican primary elections—even though those primaries often determine who will ultimately hold office in a city where one party dominates many races. During the recent public discussion over primary reform, Mayor Zohran Mamdani stated that he was "quite content" with the current system. Whether one agrees with that position or not, the broader constitutional question remains: **Should political independence come at the cost of meaningful participation in publicly funded elections?** The [Declaration of Independence](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript?ref=ivn.us) states that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed." Consent is meaningful only when citizens have a genuine opportunity to participate in selecting those who govern them. When the decisive election occurs during the primary, excluding a substantial portion of the electorate raises legitimate questions about representation and democratic legitimacy. America has long been described as the great democratic experiment. Like every enduring experiment, our democracy should be willing to examine whether its institutions continue to reflect its founding principles. Expanding meaningful participation does not weaken democracy; it reinforces the legitimacy of representative government. This question is not merely academic. It is one of civic principle. As a United States Army veteran, educator, and independent voter, I have dedicated much of my adult life to public service and civic education. Those same convictions led me to testify before the New York City Charter Revision Commission in support of expanding access to primary elections. My testimony was not offered on behalf of a political party or a candidate. It was offered in defense of a constitutional principle: that every eligible citizen should have a meaningful opportunity to participate in the democratic process. Ultimately, this debate is larger than any election, any candidate, or any political party. It asks whether our electoral system fully reflects the promise contained in the Constitution's opening words. *"We the People."* Those words do not distinguish between Democrats, Republicans, independents, or voters with no party affiliation. They simply recognize **the people**. If representative government truly derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed, then our electoral system should strive to include all of the people in the elections that matter most. My vote is my right. It should not depend on my party affiliation. *Angel Martinez is a veteran, an educator and an independent. He lives in Sunset Park in Brooklyn and is an activist with Open Primaries.* --- ## Works Cited Bipartisan Policy Center. *The Effect of Open Primaries on Turnout and Representation*. Bipartisan Policy Center, Nov. 2024, [https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/the-effect-of-open-primaries-on-turnout-and-representation/](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/the-effect-of-open-primaries-on-turnout-and-representation/?ref=ivn.us). Accessed 9 July 2026. "The Constitution of the United States." *National Archives*, [https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution?ref=ivn.us). Accessed 9 July 2026. "The Declaration of Independence: A Transcript." *National Archives*, [https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript?ref=ivn.us). Accessed 9 July 2026. Madison, James. *Federalist No. 10*. National Archives, [https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0178](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0178?ref=ivn.us). Accessed 9 July 2026. Micatka, Nathan K., Caroline J. Tolbert, and Robert G. Boatright. "All Candidate Primaries, Open Primaries, and Voter Turnout." *Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy*, vol. 5, no. 3, 2024, pp. 363–385\. doi:10.1561/113.00000105. United States Vote Foundation. *Primary Election Types by State*. [https://www.usvotefoundation.org](https://www.usvotefoundation.org/?ref=ivn.us). Accessed 9 July 2026. Unite America. "New Poll: As Midterms Loom, Voters Back Open Primaries to Make Congress Work Better." *Unite America*, 27 Jan. 2026, [https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/new-poll-as-midterms-loom-voters-back-open-primaries-to-make-congress-work-better](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/new-poll-as-midterms-loom-voters-back-open-primaries-to-make-congress-work-better?ref=ivn.us). Accessed 9 July 2026. Washington, George. *Farewell Address*. 19 Sept. 1796\. *National Archives*, [https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-george-washingtons-farewell-address](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-george-washingtons-farewell-address?ref=ivn.us). Accessed 9 July 2026. ### Former DNC Chair Ridicules Independents — Calls Them a 'Schtick' URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/former-dnc-chair-ridicules-independents-calls-them-a-schtick/ Last updated: 2026-08-10T22:05:36.000Z Paul Rieckhoff faces off with former DNC chair Jaime Harrison on MS NOW's The Moment with Katy Tur, in a heated debate over the future of the Democratic Party — sparked by the collapse of the party's Maine Senate candidate and the two-week scramble to find a replacement to take on Susan Collins. Paul argues the episode is a symptom of a deeper failure: a party that keeps losing, run by a generation of "establishment leaders and grifters" who should face a real reckoning. "Most of the Democratic Party should be fired," he says (starting at 14:03), making the case for a new generation of competent, compelling candidates — and for independents as part of the answer. He points to genuine outsiders like Montana's Seth Bodner, running as an independent, and argues a candidate free of establishment baggage can win in places like Maine and Nebraska, where the progressive playbook that works in New York, LA, and Seattle doesn't. ### 80% of Buffalo Voters Asked for More Choice. The Charter Commission Said No URL: https://ivn.us/80-of-buffalo-voters-asked-for-more-choice-the-charter-commission-said-no/ Last updated: 2026-07-10T16:59:54.000Z **BUFFALO, N.Y.** — Buffalo voters want a chance to vote on a series of election reform proposals, including open primaries, ranked choice voting, and better ballot access rules for independent candidates. But they won’t get the opportunity. The Buffalo Charter Revision Commission (CRC) voted Wednesday against advancing proposals that would have put these proposals on the November ballot. The CRC’s decision was not about implementation—nor would it have been an indication of support if they advanced the proposals. It would have simply let voters have a say. Unite NY says it commissioned a poll in June that found 80% of Buffalo voters supported placing election reform on the ballot, whether they supported individual proposals or not. The group says the results also showed: - 67% of respondents supported opening primary elections. - 67% supported reducing the number of signatures independent candidates need to qualify for the ballot. - 50% supported ranked choice voting. The Western New York Ranked Choice Voting Coalition, chaired by Unite NY, also collected nearly 500 signatures urging the mayor, deputy mayor, the Buffalo Common Council, and the CRC to place election reform on the agenda for its July 8 meeting. And still, the commission said no. Unite NY Executive Director Anthony Thomas questioned how thoroughly the CRC evaluated the reforms, pointing to what he described as the chair’s acknowledgment that the ranked choice voting proposal had not been read. “It is unclear the Charter Revision Commission understands what the proposals are or how they work,” Thomas said. > “Voters deserve the chance to decide whether these reforms belong on the ballot, and we are leaving all options on the table as we consider next steps.” Supporters argue reform is particularly urgent because Buffalo’s general elections frequently offer voters little or no competition. Since 2011, the city’s 9 Common Council districts have produced 36 opportunities for contested general elections. Only 13 featured more than one candidate, according to Unite NY. The remaining 23 races — nearly 64% — had no opposition. The path to reform doesn’t necessarily end here. Unite NY said advocates are considering their next steps, though did not offer details. In NYC, the group is looking to circumvent Mamdani’s CRC by [submitting over 45,000 petition signatures](https://ivn.us/petition-drive-to-let-independents-vote-delivers-45-000-signatures-to-nyc-clerk/) directly to the city clerk for a nonpartisan open primary proposal. What comes of this remains to be seen. When I asked the people at Unite NY if they would pursue the same thing in Buffalo, they said they were keeping all options on the table. ### South Carolina GOP Lost in the Legislature—Now They Want a Judge to Close the Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/south-carolina-gop-lost-in-the-legislature-now-they-want-a-judge-to-close-the-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:52:21.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* After failing yet again to convince the legislature to close South Carolina's primaries, the South Carolina Republican Party has [filed a federal lawsuit](https://www.foxcarolina.com/2026/07/08/could-sc-end-open-primaries-republicans-sue-decide-who-gets-vote-their-elections/?ref=ivn.us) seeking to restrict participation in Republican primaries to registered party members. The case mirrors a [similar lawsuit filed by the Texas Republican Party](https://www.texastribune.org/2026/06/18/texas-closed-primaries-republican-party-greg-abbott/?ref=ivn.us), where litigation is also underway to limit who can vote in taxpayer-funded primary elections. The South Carolina lawsuit is the latest front in a growing national campaign by party organizations to use the courts to shut millions of independent voters out of public elections. The strategy has already suffered several legal setbacks: earlier this year, the Colorado Republican Party advanced a similar [constitutional challenge and lost in federal court](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/national-gop-bid-to-close-colorado-primary-rejected-by-court?ref=ivn.us), and the Hawaii Democratic Party also failed in its effort to close taxpayer-funded primaries through litigation several years ago. **But perhaps the goal is more political than legal.** In Texas the GOP’s lawsuit has put [successful pressure on legislators to move forward legislation](https://texasscorecard.com/state/texas-leadership-begins-to-align-behind-closed-primary-push/?ref=ivn.us) that had been languishing to close the primaries. That’s the power of going to court. Either way, at stake is nothing less than who gets to participate in the elections that often determine who ultimately holds public office. Open Primaries is closely evaluating these cases and will continue monitoring developments as this legal battle over the future of public primary elections unfolds. ## **What We're Talking About** ## John Opdycke Takes the Open Primaries Message to Meet the Press Open Primaries President John Opdycke joined *Meet the Press* this week to discuss how America’s primary election system is out of step with the country. “Every single week, 10,000 Americans change their voter registration from Democrat or Republican to independent,” Opdycke said. “It’s now 48% of the country, the fastest growing segment of the electorate. And yet, our election system is set up where independents are seen as interlopers and outsiders.” [America’s Primary System Is Feeding Both MAGA and the Democratic SocialistsOn Meet the Press, Open Primaries President John Opdycke explained that the country’s political extremes are thriving because party primaries reward small ideological electorates while treating independent voters like outsiders.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-3f8588e8-19d0-4a56-a2ad-54657025e2c5.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/mamdani-trump-070e8340-39c3-42c8-a3bf-ce64eb11748a.jpg)](https://ivn.us/americas-primary-system-is-feeding-both-maga-and-the-democratic-socialists/) He pointed to states like Alaska, California, and Washington that have moved toward nonpartisan primaries where every voter gets the same ballot and the same choices. The message: if we want elections that represent the public, we need a system that gives the public a voice. ## **What We're Watching** ## Wes Moore Talks Reform. Maryland Voters Are Still Locked Out. Maryland Governor Wes Moore recently joined Paul Rieckhoff of Independent Veterans of America to talk about the corrosive effects of closed primaries and the urgent need to fix a political system that too often rewards the loudest extremes while silencing millions of voters. But there is a striking contradiction: the same Governor warning about the failures of America’s political system has so far remained silent about the closed primary system in his own state. Maryland’s independent voters are shut out of the elections that often decide who holds power. [Open Primaries is challenging that system in court](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/maryland-litigation-case-page/?ref=ivn.us) alongside former Lieutenant Governor Boyd Rutherford, with Governor Moore among the defendants. And reform is not coming only from outside the governor’s party. Lily Qi, a Democratic member of the Maryland House of Delegates, [has introduced legislation to open Maryland’s primaries](https://openprimaries.org/past%5Fvirtual%5Fdiscussions%5F2026/?ref=ivn.us) and give every voter a voice. The question now is whether Governor Moore’s calls for political reform will remain national talking points-or whether he will stand up for the more than 1 million Maryland voters currently excluded from the process in his own backyard. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/letusvote-1.png) ## **NYC Independents Insist on Being Seen!** There are 1.2 million independents across New York City who cannot vote in primary elections. They are not a statistic—they are teachers, entrepreneurs, parents, and neighbors who are locked out of the elections that often determine who governs their city. And they are making sure they are heard. At this week's NYC Charter Revision Commission hearings in Staten Island and Manhattan, more than two dozen independents testified or submitted written testimony demanding the most basic right in a democracy: the right to vote. Many who traveled to speak were never called, but they showed up to make clear that 1.2 million New Yorkers cannot be ignored. Among those who testified was Angel Ayon, who shared his story of immigrating from Cuba, building a successful architecture firm, and achieving the American dream—only to still be denied a voice in the elections that matter most. Edwin Hernandez, founder of Building Progress, testified alongside his son, saying: > *"I am an American born citizen, a proud New Yorker and I am 1 of the 1.2 million constituents locked out of elections—unable to cast a vote at the polls due to discriminatory practices and biased policies."* The Manhattan hearing was held at the historic Riverside Church, and of the more than a dozen independents who traveled to be heard, only two people were given the opportunity to testify as the Commission gave priority to people testifying on efficiency issues. Independent voting rights being sidelined. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/independent-voters-NYC-commission.jpg) Dr. Jessie Fields spoke about the fight for independent voting rights as a civil rights issue. Quoting the late civil rights attorney Michael Hardy, she reminded the Commission that: *"Segregating unaffiliated voters, preventing them from meaningful participation in the primaries, is inherently unequal."* Max Bissonnette, a high school student from Manhattan and the founder of the Instagram account NYopenprimary (you should follow) shared his story of going to testify. [Check it out](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=Li44u7YAXPWD9yBpUd2T27XZ7LUUOGlUy2D-T4YRrNcSM9-6HWEpmIFlNFf%5FaN%5F%5F&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F118&n=11). The final Commission hearing is in Queens on July 13\. But one thing is already clear: NYC independents are not backing down. They will continue organizing and fighting until every voter has an equal voice. ## **Fast Takes** ## Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes Gets It ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/adrian-fontes.png) ## **In Case You Missed It** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/delaware-open-primaries-bill-1.png) Something extraordinary is happening in Delaware. Last week, Rep. Smith's [HB 188](https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=142403&ref=ivn.us)\-which would open Delaware's taxpayer-funded primary elections to independent voters-passed the Delaware House, the farthest an open primaries bill has ever advanced in the first year it was introduced. It did so with a majority of members from both parties-a rare feat. That's not just a legislative victory. It's proof that the political landscape is changing. For months, independent voters have been showing up everywhere. They packed committee hearings. They met with legislators. They refused to be ignored. Young and old. Black, white, and Latino. Veterans, election workers, lifelong independents, and former Democrats and Republicans alike stood together to demand something simple: if taxpayers fund elections, every taxpayer should have a voice. Their organizing changed the outcome. A committee that appeared ready to kill the bill instead voted to advance it because independent voters made themselves impossible to ignore. Congratulations to Rep. Smith for his bold leadership, and to our incredible partners at the ACLU of Delaware, Indivisible Delaware, Future Caucus, and Unite America. Most of all, congratulations to the thousands of independent Delawareans who are showing that when independents stand up….the political establishment notices. There’s still a long road ahead in Delaware. If you live in Delaware or know someone who does and want to get involved, please email National Organizing Director Cathy Stewart at [cstewart@openprimaries.org](mailto:cstewart@openprimaries.org). ## **Campaign Updates** ## Kentucky’s Primary Day: Independents Protest Their Exclusion ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/kentucky-independents.png) On Primary Day, hundreds of thousands of Kentucky independents were barred from voting in the elections that shape their government. To call attention to this exclusion, [Let Us Vote Kentucky](https://kentucky.letusvote.org/?ref=ivn.us) and [Veterans for All Voters](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?ref=ivn.us) held a picket in Louisville, where voters highlighted how closed primaries deny citizens a voice in the very elections their tax dollars support. “This is not a partisan issue, it’s a participation issue,” said LTC Mark Ritter (ret.), leader of Let Us Vote Kentucky. “Hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians are paying taxes for primary elections they cannot participate in.” The message was simple: Kentucky’s elections belong to all Kentuckians. With more than 348,000 independent voters locked out, the fight to open primaries is a fight for a stronger, more inclusive democracy. ### Graham Platner Just Got Joe Biden'd URL: https://ivn.us/graham-platner-just-got-joe-bidend/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T19:16:15.000Z When POLITICO dropped a sexual-assault allegation on Graham Platner this week, Maine’s Democratic establishment didn’t rush to defend its own primary front-runner. It went looking for the exit. We called it. Before the national press connected the dots, IVN’s Cara McCormick laid out exactly how [Graham Platner is about to be “Joe Bidened”](https://ivn.us/exclusive-graham-platner-is-about-to-be-joe-bidened/) — pushed aside not by the voters who backed him, but by party insiders working a quiet provision of Maine election law that lets them hand-pick a replacement if he’s gone by July 13. Sound familiar? It’s the same machinery that retired Joe Biden from the 2024 ticket without a single primary vote being recast. [Prediction markets are already pricing in a Platner exit](https://ivn.us/kalshi-has-a-new-candidate-in-striking-distance-of-susan-collins-as-odds-point-to-platner-exit/). This is the part the two-party story never tells you: the same insiders who lecture the rest of us about “protecting democracy” keep a trapdoor under every primary winner they decide they can’t afford. It's the same reason why [Mike Madrid said Latino voters backed Trump ... and Mamdani](https://ivn.us/podcasts/why-latino-voters-backed-trump-then-mamdani-not-what-you-think-mike-madrid/) on the latest episode of the Independent Voter Podcast. And it's the same partisan incentives we cover everyday on IVN. This week, Open Primaries president John Opdycke went on Meet the Press to explain why [America’s primary system is feeding both MAGA and the Democratic Socialists](https://ivn.us/americas-primary-system-is-feeding-both-maga-and-the-democratic-socialists/) — and why nearly half the country never gets a real say. Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## America’s Primary System Is Feeding Both MAGA and the Democratic Socialists [![Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/mamdani-trump.jpg)](https://ivn.us/americas-primary-system-is-feeding-both-maga-and-the-democratic-socialists/) IVN’s Shawn Griffiths breaks down why closed primaries reward the loudest 4% on each side — fueling the MAGA right and the DSA left alike — while nearly half the country watches from the sidelines, and what the nonpartisan fix actually looks like. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/americas-primary-system-is-feeding-both-maga-and-the-democratic-socialists/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [Exclusive: Graham Platner is About to Be Joe Bidened ](https://ivn.us/exclusive-graham-platner-is-about-to-be-joe-bidened/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Exclusive: Graham Platner is About to Be Joe Bidened](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/Graham-Platner-scandal.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/exclusive-graham-platner-is-about-to-be-joe-bidened/) [Kalshi Has a New Candidate in Striking Distance of Susan Collins as Odds Point to Platner Exit ](https://ivn.us/kalshi-has-a-new-candidate-in-striking-distance-of-susan-collins-as-odds-point-to-platner-exit/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Kalshi Has a New Candidate in Striking Distance of Susan Collins as Odds Point to Platner Exit](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/Susan-Collins.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/kalshi-has-a-new-candidate-in-striking-distance-of-susan-collins-as-odds-point-to-platner-exit/) [Maine Democrats Are About to Lock Independents Out of the Process—Again ](https://ivn.us/maine-democrats-are-about-to-lock-independents-out-of-the-process-again/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Maine Democrats Are About to Lock Independents Out of the Process—Again](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/image-faacdac7-9f4f-4788-ae08-d8162864290e.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/maine-democrats-are-about-to-lock-independents-out-of-the-process-again/) [Who Is Troy Jackson? The Progressive Populist in Maine Who Has Won In Trump Country ](https://ivn.us/who-is-troy-jackson-the-progressive-populist-in-maine-who-has-won-in-trump-country/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Who Is Troy Jackson? The Progressive Populist in Maine Who Has Won In Trump Country](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/Troy-Jackson.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/who-is-troy-jackson-the-progressive-populist-in-maine-who-has-won-in-trump-country/) [6 US Cities that Show America What Independent Leadership Looks Like ](https://ivn.us/6-us-cities-that-show-america-what-independent-leadership-looks-like/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![6 US Cities that Show America What Independent Leadership Looks Like](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/independent-cities-riverside-california.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/6-us-cities-that-show-america-what-independent-leadership-looks-like/) [12 Groups Building a Political Escape Hatch from the Two-Party Duopoly ](https://ivn.us/12-groups-building-a-political-escape-hatch-from-the-two-party-duopoly/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![12 Groups Building a Political Escape Hatch from the Two-Party Duopoly](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/independent-canddiate-organizations-endorsements.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/12-groups-building-a-political-escape-hatch-from-the-two-party-duopoly/) [The Two Parties Built Safe Seats. Independents Are Learning How to Break Them ](https://ivn.us/the-two-parties-built-safe-seats-independents-are-learning-how-to-break-them/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/07/NAthan-Smolensky.webp) Nathan Smolensky [ ![The Two Parties Built Safe Seats. Independents Are Learning How to Break Them](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/independent-candidates-break-safe-seats-gerrymandering-2026.png) ](https://ivn.us/the-two-parties-built-safe-seats-independents-are-learning-how-to-break-them/) ### *NEW EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Political strategist and author Mike Madrid joins the Independent Voter Podcast to unpack why so many Latino voters swung to Trump — and then to Zohran Mamdani. His answer is the one neither party wants to hear: these aren’t ideological voters, they’re anti-establishment ones the two-party system keeps misreading. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe2h8sedyR8&ref=ivn.us) ### *NEED TO KNOW ▶▶▶* ## 10 Organizations Independent Voters Need to Watch From ballot access and open primaries to independent candidates and ranked choice voting, these are the groups quietly building the next phase of the voter-first movement. The list runs from Open Primaries and the Independent Voter Project working to crack open closed primaries, to the Forward Party building an alternative to the two-party system, to American Promise’s fight for a campaign-finance amendment and Unite NY’s ranked-choice push — 10 organizations every independent should have on their radar. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/10-organizations-independent-voters-need-to-watch/) ### *VIDEO CLIP ▶▶▶* ## Mike Madrid: Neither Party Is Going to Fix a System They Built [![Mike Madrid: Neither Party Is Going to Fix a System They Built](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Madrid_Clip_Preview.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/DaTpd2HDPp%5F/?ref=ivn.us) Can either party fix a broken political system? Not a chance, argues strategist Mike Madrid — because fixing it was never their job to begin with. [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/DaTpd2HDPp%5F/?ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### Maine Democrats Are About to Lock Independents Out of the Process—Again URL: https://ivn.us/maine-democrats-are-about-to-lock-independents-out-of-the-process-again/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:52:10.000Z **AUGUSTA, Maine**—Graham Platner announced Wednesday that he is dropping out of the US Senate race in Maine amidst new sexual assault allegations and mounting pressure for him to withdraw. He made the announcement via an 11-minute video shared on his socials: > My name might be on the ballot right now, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine. [pic.twitter.com/RKVyLU76tm](https://t.co/RKVyLU76tm?ref=ivn.us) > > — Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) [July 9, 2026](https://x.com/grahamformaine/status/2075009677495058687?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Platner recognized all that he would lose if he didn’t drop out: his endorsements, his ability to fundraise, access to voter data, and more. There was no avenue for him to continue. And now the question is, how will his replacement be chosen? Well, it won’t be the same democratic process that got Platner the nomination. Maine now has semi-open primaries, which became law in 2022\. Independent voters had an opportunity to choose a party ballot during the June 9 primary, and the state saw record turnout—up 49% from the last comparable primary. Turnout in the Democratic primary, specifically, increased by 70%. Independent voters took part in these elections. Some of them voted for Platner. Some of them voted for other candidates. But they had a say in taxpayer-funded elections they didn’t have prior to 2022. However, the Maine Democratic Party has made it clear that they won’t be a part of the decision to replace Platner. > MDP Statement on Democratic U.S. Senate Nomination Process [pic.twitter.com/QuLie9cjQE](https://t.co/QuLie9cjQE?ref=ivn.us) > > — Maine Democrats (@MaineDems) [July 8, 2026](https://x.com/MaineDems/status/2074999584871293020?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The party announced a few hours before Platner released his video that it was going to hold a nomination convention. It did not give the full details, but reports indicate that it will be a convention of up to 600 delegates. About 500 of these delegates will be chosen by county committees, which reportedly will happen this weekend. > NEW: Maine Democratic Party leadership told its members on an ongoing call that it wants to hold a nominating convention to choose its next Senate candidate, two people on the call tell me and [@KevinJFrey](https://x.com/KevinJFrey?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us). > > County committees would choose their delegates this weekend. The party… > > — Will McDuffie (@wrmcduff) [July 8, 2026](https://x.com/wrmcduff/status/2074978902900961601?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a video statement promising an open, inclusive, and transparent process. The party has—for the most part—held up the transparency part. But if the process were to be open and inclusive, why not invite independent voters to participate? > Update from Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson on the Maine Senate race. [pic.twitter.com/Jzj9ofinU8](https://t.co/Jzj9ofinU8?ref=ivn.us) > > — Maine Democrats (@MaineDems) [July 8, 2026](https://x.com/MaineDems/status/2074653501771194683?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The [most recent voter registration data](https://www.maine.gov/sos/elections-voting/voter-data?ref=ivn.us) posted by Maine’s secretary of state is dated March 7\. It shows 282,314 “unenrolled” voters—as in unenrolled with a party. This is 31.5% of the active registered electorate. These are the voters who will decide whether US Sen. Susan Collins stays in office or if Democrats flip the seat. In order to win a statewide election, candidates in Maine ***need*** the support of independents. Yet, state law still gives the Democratic and Republican Parties an avenue to not only ignore the results of the primary—but take away an independent voter’s right to a meaningful vote in state elections. Many potential replacements for Platner have already thrown out their names for consideration. Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson [was among the first to file](https://ivn.us/who-is-troy-jackson-the-progressive-populist-in-maine-who-has-won-in-trump-country/). There is also Nirav Shah, who, like Jackson, ran for the Democratic nomination for governor. [Kalshi Has a New Candidate in Striking Distance of Susan Collins as Odds Point to Platner ExitPrediction markets are already pricing in a post-Platner race—and the name that is closing the gap with Collins before any announcement has been made may help the party avoid a full Joe Biden situation.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-6eecb672-ed5b-4e4d-a120-2a4bba0269d9.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Susan-Collins-a9923072-58d4-48b9-99cb-98430511b773.jpg)](https://ivn.us/kalshi-has-a-new-candidate-in-striking-distance-of-susan-collins-as-odds-point-to-platner-exit/) As did Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who says she is “[the best person to beat Susan Collins](https://x.com/OutFrontCNN/status/2075018992864137225?ref=ivn.us).” All three of these candidates were on the statewide ballot in June and garnered the support from some of the same Mainers who voted for Platner. > Graham Platner ended his Senate campaign, & Maine Dems will pick a new nominee. > > Among potential replacements are 3 candidates from the Dem gov primary. Ranked choice voting meant those candidates are relatively unscathed from the primary – and have support from most Dem voters. [pic.twitter.com/O594shqLgQ](https://t.co/O594shqLgQ?ref=ivn.us) > > — FairVote (@fairvote) [July 9, 2026](https://x.com/fairvote/status/2075231777115840977?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) These contenders also received support from at least some independent voters. It would benefit the party to know which one has the most appeal outside the party, even though that is not the priority of Democratic leaders. The statement put out by Murphy-Anderson did not mention picking someone who best represents Maine voters. She talked specifically about “Democrats having confidence” in the process and beating Collins. She promised an open and inclusive process, but based on the information that has been reported about the party’s plans—it is going to lack both. The party will only have a two-week window to decide Platner's replacement, but that doesn’t mean they have to shut out Maine voters. Especially, the independent voters who will determine the fate of whomever they choose. ### America's Primary System Is Feeding Both MAGA and the Democratic Socialists URL: https://ivn.us/americas-primary-system-is-feeding-both-maga-and-the-democratic-socialists/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T18:43:03.000Z While on opposite sides of the political spectrum, the rise of Trump loyalist candidates on the Republican side and Democratic Socialists on the Democratic side can be attributed to the same thing: ***The use of single-party primaries that draw a small group of highly motivated ideological hardliners and create an incentive for candidates to appeal to political minorities that do not represent the electorate as a whole.*** In many cases, these contests [are closed and lock out millions of independent voters](https://ivn.us/7-of-voters-just-decided-for-the-other-93/) or make the process so confusing or cumbersome for independents ([like in Arizona](https://ivn.us/arizona-made-voting-hard-enough-for-independents-then-it-sent-me-two-ballots/)) that they are discouraged from participating. And even when they are open to independents, candidates don't try to appeal to these voters because they know they only need a handful of the electorate to win, which in states like New York and Maryland can mean less than 4% of voters. [Texas GOP Looks at 7% Turnout and Says: Let’s Make the Primary SmallerKen Paxton won the Republican Senate runoff with roughly 4.7% of registered Texas voters. Now the Texas GOP wants fewer voters in its primaries.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-09d17e89-4a27-4bf4-8e01-bcfbf3c48187.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/texas-attorney-gemeral-ken-paxton-c2807bdf-06e6-43f1-b632-9c98b1f2dd39.jpg)](https://ivn.us/texas-gop-looks-at-7-turnout-and-says-lets-make-the-primary-smaller/) [Open Primaries](https://openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us) President John Opdycke appeared on Meet the Press this past weekend to discuss this issue. "A number of states have eliminated party primaries and gone to people's primaries where everyone gets to vote for whomever they want, just like in the general election," he explained. Three states have a nonpartisan primary model: Alaska, California, and Washington. California and Washington advance the top two candidates, regardless of party. Alaska advances four candidates to November and uses ranked choice ballots to determine a majority winner. In all 3 states, every voter—Republican, Democrat, independent, third party—get the same ballot. They get the same choices. They are not limited on which candidates they can pick. "Every single week, 10,000 Americans change their voter registration from Democrat or Republican to independent," Opdycke added. > "It's now 48% of the country, fastest growing segment of the electorate. And yet, our election system is set up where independents are seen as interlopers and outsiders, and they don't quite fit in the structure of the existing system." Opdycke is part of a growing list of reform leaders who are increasingly being featured in the national media spotlight, getting legacy outlets to talk about what independent voters and reformers have known for decades. Specifically, the country is in the political mess it is in today because the system tells millions of independent voters to sit out while it encourages hyper-partisanship and division. The standard argument against open primaries from party leaders and partisan interests that benefit from the status quo argue that primaries are a private affair and non-members shouldn't pick party nominees. They assert that opening primaries deprives party members of their ability to select candidates who "adhere to the principles and policies for which" their party stands. Opdycke counters by saying that the system being described is the one closed primaries already create, citing [a poll commissioned by Open Primaries and the Independent Voter Project](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) that found New Yorkers are joining the dominant party just for the right to vote. "We found that 40%—40%!—of registered Democrats \[in NYC\] are actually independents and Republicans," he said. "People join a party only to gain the right to vote." He added that if closed primary advocates want partisan purity, then they should want an open system that doesn't force voters to join their party just so they can have a meaningful vote in elections. Check out the full interview above. ### America Can’t Afford Another President Who Loses the Popular Vote URL: https://ivn.us/america-cant-afford-another-president-who-loses-the-popular-vote/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T17:39:25.000Z *Editor's Note: This commentary* [*originally published*](https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/national-popular-vote-interstate-compact-2677059542?ref=ivn.us) *on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN in partnership with the publication. Disagree with the article?* [*Submit your take*](https://ivn.us/publish/)*.* The challenge for continuing the American Experiment is recovering from the "Second Gilded Age" (1980s to the present). As of early 2026, the U.S. national debt is 122% to 125% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This situation has been exacerbated since 2000, when the U.S. national debt as a percentage of GDP was 33% to 35%. Americans can attribute this worsening situation to two non-popular vote presidents, Bush-43 and Trump-45\. Directly, during their terms, and indirectly, with the aftermath of the 2008 Great recession and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 1894, toward the end of the 19th century “Gilded Age," the U.S. national debt was approximately 7% of gross domestic product GDP. [Minority rule](https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/threats-to-democracy/majority-rule-23709326?ref=ivn.us) occurs when a numerical or ideological minority holds the power to consistently thwart the will of the majority or govern over them. It thrives through the coordinated reinforcement of specific electoral, institutional, and legal mechanisms. The extension of the "second Gilded Age" was achieved through several interconnected mechanisms of minority rule, which shielded hyper-concentrated wealth and corporate power from democratic accountability, as follows: Minoritarian rule of the winner-take-all (WTA) electoral college: Because 48 states allocate all electoral votes to the statewide winner, a candidate can secure the presidency while losing the popular vote. This enables the election of administrations that prioritize corporate deregulation and tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, even when the broader electorate demands reform. Electoral manipulation: Once institutions are in place, the mechanisms of voting can be altered to ensure the ruling minority maintains an electoral advantage. Partisan gerrymandering: Lawmakers manipulate district boundaries to pack opposition voters into a few districts or spread them out thinly, allowing the minority party to retain a governing majority of seats despite winning fewer total votes statewide. Voter suppression: Stricter voting regulations—such as rigid voter ID requirements, purges of voter rolls, and the reduction of early voting—disproportionately restrict access for minority communities and lower-income voters. Institutional counter-majoritarianism: certain governing structures are explicitly designed to over-represent specific geographic or demographic groups at the expense of population equality. Malapportionment of legislatures: In systems like the U.S. Senate, low-population rural states receive the same representation as highly populated urban centers. This allows a minority of the population to block national legislation. Legislative obstruction: Minority groups utilize built-in procedural hurdles within deliberative bodies to stop majority action. The Filibuster: In legislative chambers, this rule requires supermajorities (e.g., 60 out of 100 votes) to pass routine legislation or end debate. This allows a minority of legislators to veto the entire legislative agenda. Judicial entrenchment: When the ruling minority controls the executive and legislative branches, they can appoint lifetime judges who share their ideological preferences. Counter-Majoritarian Courts: Appointed judges can use the power of judicial review to overturn laws passed by the majority, strike down civil rights protections, and further enable restrictive voting and campaign finance laws. Money in politics and concentrated wealth allows well-funded, organized interest groups to exert outsized influence over the political process compared to the general populace. Dark Money: Unregulated or anonymous campaign contributions allow a wealthy few to fund sympathetic candidates, lobby for specific policies, and run mass media campaigns that shift the political agenda. From a fiscal standpoint, America can ill afford another non-popular vote president. While the Constitution allows state legislatures to determine the method of elector selection, the Framers did not mandate the winner-take-all electoral college system currently used by 48 states. This system concentrates campaign attention on a few "swing states" while rendering millions of votes in "safe states" effectively irrelevant. Few would deny that minority rule is the proverbial “can of worms” to remedy; however, the prevention of a future non-popular vote president will potentially reduce institutional counter-majoritarianism of the U.S. Senate and the counter-majoritarian courts. Reducing the influence of money pouring into presidential politics since the 2010 *Citizens United* decision may actually be possible by addressing the WTA structure of the electoral college. By changing how electoral votes are allocated, the incentive to concentrate money in a few swing states could be reduced. The winner-take-all feature of the electoral college narrows the focus of massive campaign expenditures in a “Funnel Effect” to a handful of closely divided battleground states. Because candidates have little to gain from spending in states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind, they concentrate all their financial resources on 15 or 16 states, or in some cycles, as few as seven key swing states. All this could change if the "battleground state" phenomenon were taken away from the wealthy, as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) would accomplish. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is a pragmatic, state-based initiative designed to ensure that the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes across fifty states and the District of Columbia wins the presidency. It aims to achieve this without requiring a constitutional amendment, operating instead within the existing electoral college framework by utilizing states' constitutional authority to appoint electors. If enough states join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) to reach 270 electoral votes, the United States will effectively shift from a WTA regime to a national popular vote system for electing the President. As of early 2026, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has been adopted by seventeen states and the District of Columbia, which collectively hold 209 electoral votes. The compact requires 270 electoral votes (a majority of the 538 total) to take effect. It currently needs sixty-one more electoral votes to become active. Legislative elections will be held on November 3, 2026, for eighty-eight state legislative chambers in forty-six states. In 2026, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) will be a relevant issue in several state elections, particularly in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. As the compact needs sixty-one more electoral votes to hit the 270-vote threshold, these purple or contested states are key battlegrounds where legislative control could determine whether they join the 18 jurisdictions already signed on. --- **Hugh J. Campbell,* Jr., CPA, is a* [*Governance*](https://thefulcrum.us/corruption/corruption-perception-index-2023-2667125422?ref=ivn.us)*, Risk & Compliance (GRC) professional and a student of W. Edwards Deming, the American statistician often credited as the catalyst for the Japanese economic miracle after WWII. He is a ccontributor with The Fulcrum.* ### Massachusetts Insiders Tried to Kill Primary Reform. Voters Get the Final Word. URL: https://ivn.us/massachusetts-insiders-tried-to-kill-primary-reform-voters-get-the-final-word/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T16:38:20.000Z *Editor's Note: This commentary* [*originally published*](https://democracyguardrail.substack.com/p/a-message-to-ma-political-leaders) *on Election Reformers Network's Substack, The Guardrail, and was republished on IVN by request and with permission from the author.* Baystate voters will decide this November whether to reform the state’s primary election system, now that a last-ditch challenge by Democratic insiders has [failed](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/22/metro/massachusetts-party-primaries-sjc-ballot-question/?ref=ivn.us) in court. That’s good news: voters should be in the driver’s seat of our democracy, and the parties should get on board with the greater competition and accountability that reform will create. The initiative, called the [All-Party Primary (APP)](https://coalitionforhealthydemocracy.org/?ref=ivn.us), is designed to fix structural flaws that give Massachusetts the [least competitive elections in the nation](https://coalitionforhealthydemocracy.org/?ref=ivn.us). In most races, the party primaries, which most voters skip, decide who wins. That means officeholders reflect the preferences of the narrow primary electorate, not all voters. Our primaries put the parties first, not the voters, who can’t choose among all candidates, and rarely see meaningful competition. If the familiar seems good enough to you, consider this: party primaries provide a key weapon for Donald Trump to punish opponents and dominate the Republican Party. Both sides exploit the current system to “primary” officeholders who step out of line, stifling the problem-solving and compromise-making our [country needs](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/07/opinion/populism-democratic-primaries-david-brat/?ref=ivn.us). The All-Party Primary changes the equation through a new first-round election that is open to all candidates and all voters. The two top finishers, regardless of party, advance to the general election. This change makes the general election the rightful focus, creates more competition in both rounds, and expands accountability to the full electorate. If Massachusetts voters want, the system can easily accommodate ranked choice voting through a future ballot measure. Research in states that use versions of this system (Alaska, California, Louisiana, Nebraska, and Washington) finds more [competitive](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/state-politics-and-policy-quarterly/article/participation-and-competition-in-toptwo-elections-tradeoffs-in-election-reform/C853759B1B596B91619DBE301B78D3DF?ref=ivn.us) elections, more [accountability](https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/state-elections-policy-choices-and-accountability?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), and less [polarization](https://www.uniteamericainstitute.org/research/californias-top-two-primary-the-effects-on-electoral-politics-and-governance?ref=ivn.us). And from a political party perspective, these benefits came with little political cost, since in each state the same party stayed in the majority after adoption of the reform. What changes instead is how parties are incentivized, both on the campaign trail and in office. According to [recent polling](https://emersoncollegepolling.com/massachusetts-2026-poll/?ref=ivn.us) from Emerson College, majorities of Democratic and unaffiliated voters in Massachusetts plan to vote yes, along with a significant plurality of Republicans. The support makes sense, since Massachusetts voters already use a similar system for local offices like mayor and municipal elections. **Nevertheless, insiders on both sides oppose the reform.** Part of the reason is a way of thinking about reform that prioritizes the *political* over the *structural*. Assumptions about who will benefit from new rules usually dominate the discussion, not why the status quo needs fixing. Missing the structural forest for the political trees can cause real damage, as a sobering example of failed Electoral College reform illustrates. In the 1960s and 70s, Congress nearly passed an amendment for direct election of the president, before losing out to diehard southern Democrats. Surprisingly, opponents of reform also included leading civil rights champions of the day. They argued for keeping the Electoral College in order to protect the status of Black voters as “a critical group of swing voters” sought by both parties in northern battleground states like New York and Illinois (as [documented](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/behind-the-book/alex-keyssar-why-do-we-still-have-the-electoral-college?ref=ivn.us) by scholar Alex Keyssar). Of course, those states soon became reliably Democrat, and that “critical swing status” disappeared. But the Electoral College remained unchanged — and soon elected popular-vote-loser Donald Trump as president. This example is worth raising because some Democratic Party insiders and progressive leaders seem to be making a similar political miscalculation in their opposition to All-Party Primaries, albeit on a smaller scale. They argue that billionaires and other wealthy campaign donors will have greater influence under APP than the current system, but [research](https://www.uniteamericainstitute.org/research/the-influence-of-special-interests-in-primary-elections?ref=ivn.us) finds the opposite to be true. Ideological PACs that cater to the wealthiest and most extreme voices have greater impact in states with the *current* party primary system. Opponents also argue that APP will disadvantage women and people of color, but here too researchers draw the opposite conclusion. Women candidates [perform better](https://www.uniteamericainstitute.org/research/are-women-competitive-under-all-candidate-primaries?ref=ivn.us) in All-Party Primaries. And by reducing re-election rates, APP opens *more* opportunities for minorities and women to advance in politics. On their side of the aisle, Republican leaders oppose APP because in some solidly Democratic districts, there could be no Republican candidate in the general election. But arguably, the GOP needs just such pressure, and the demands of robust competition at the primary level, to grow beyond its current [paltry support](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ma?ref=ivn.us) in the state. The case for primary reform – and for it being in the parties’ self-interest – gets even stronger from a national perspective. Recent attention-grabbing wins for far-left candidates in New York and other states perfectly demonstrate the polarizing impact of a system dominated by low-turnout party primaries. For the parties these results are a huge headache, putting winnable seats at risk and bringing attention to fringe policy ideas well beyond their actual support. With gerrymandering now making almost every House seat uncompetitive, it just doesn’t make sense to keep a system that decides who’ll represent a 750,000-person district based on a vote by just tens of thousands in a party primary. I’m proud to support the APP initiative, which is led by the [Coalition for Healthy Democracy](https://coalitionforhealthydemocracy.org/?ref=ivn.us) and its founder Danielle Allen, and to have [testified in support of APP in the state legislature](https://www.electionreformers.org/articles/ern-executive-director-kevin-johnson-testifies-in-support-of-massachusetts-all-party-primary-initiative?ref=ivn.us). At [Election Reformers Network](https://www.electionreformers.org/?ref=ivn.us), we believe in a voter-centric democracy where parties win or lose based on their leaders and their policies, not their control of the rules. APP fits that vision perfectly. ### The DEA Is Coming for 7-OH — The Gas-Station Opioid Hiding in Candy Packaging URL: https://ivn.us/the-dea-is-coming-for-7-oh-the-gas-station-opioid-hiding-in-candy-packaging/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T16:27:37.000Z Tens of thousands of Americans buy Kratom products at gas stations and smoke shops every year, and a growing share of that market is now made up of 7-OH, a concentrated form. Concentrated 7-OH is increasingly recognized as having potential for abuse because of its ability to bind to opioid receptors. Many buyers are seeking a natural way to manage pain, anxiety, or opioid withdrawal, because that's how it's marketed: as an herbal supplement, not a drug. It comes in colorful, candy-like packaging. In most states, there's no minimum age to buy it. California parents have said their teenagers were able to purchase 7-OH products at convenience stores, become addicted, and in some cases overdose. To protect public safety, the DEA is moving to put concentrated 7-OH Kratom compounds in the same legal category as heroin and LSD. On July 1, the [DEA filed two notices to place 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, into Schedule I](https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2026/07/01/dea-temporarily-schedule-7-oh-and-related-substances-protect-public?ref=ivn.us) of the Controlled Substances Act. One notice covers 7-OH above a certain strength. The other covers three related lab-made compounds that don't occur naturally in kratom. HHS reviewed the science first and found that these substances have no accepted medical use and a high risk of abuse, the standard needed to justify a Schedule I ban. "Today's action targets highly concentrated, synthetic 7-OH products, which pose a growing threat to public safety and health," said DEA Administrator Terrance Cole. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. agreed: "7-OH, MP, MGM-15, and MGM-16 are dangerous opioids that fuel addiction and put American lives at risk." Kratom leaves naturally contain a small amount of 7-OH. That's not so much the DEA's concern. The problem is products that concentrate the 7-OH far beyond natural levels. [One study](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jm010576e?ref=ivn.us) found that concentrated 7-OH is 14 times more potent than morphine. Texas's attorney general says some products test as high as 96% 7-OH, and Pennsylvania has had more than 10 patients need ventilators after exposure. ## **California has been hit hard, too** The Los Angeles County medical examiner has linked seven deaths to kratom and 7-OH since January 2025, all of them otherwise healthy adults between 18 and 40\. That led the LA County Board of Supervisors to approve a motion in February to find ways to prevent more deaths. Governor Gavin Newsom's office has also cited 242 kratom-linked deaths statewide between 2020 and 2022, with 27 blamed on kratom alone. The state of California acted even before the DEA did. After a bill to restrict 7-OH failed in the Legislature in 2025, the state's health department declared in October that *any kratom or 7-OH product* sold for consumption is illegal, a stricter rule than the federal one since it makes no exception for natural kratom leaf. The state has seized more than $5 million worth of product. ## **DEA is in a waiting period** Filing a notice doesn't make anything illegal right away. DEA must wait at least 30 days after publishing the notices, which occurred on July 6, before the Attorney General can issue a temporary scheduling order, which would last two years if issued. Federal scheduling wouldn't preempt state law, so California's rules would remain in effect regardless of the DEA's process. 7-OH isn't the only unregulated intoxicant IVN has been reporting on. [How It Really Works: The Unfair Fight Between Legal Cannabis and Unregulated ‘Gas‑Station’ HempWhen President Richard Nixon told the nation on June 17, 1971, that drug abuse was “public enemy number one,” he formally launched the War on Drugs and cemented cannabis in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-a11abd01-e2d2-43e8-a43c-d95d019bba6f.jpg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/hirw_reelsog-9b78707c-a9ee-44a0-8e71-b6fcfade9ee6.png)](https://ivn.us/how-it-really-works-unfair-fight-between-legal-cannabis-and-unregulated-gas-station-hemp-2025/) Congress recently[ closed a Farm Bill loophole](https://ivn.us/how-it-really-works-unfair-fight-between-legal-cannabis-and-unregulated-gas-station-hemp-2025/) that let "gas station hemp" products like delta-8 and THCA flower spread largely unchecked; that ban takes effect November 12\. A special FDA resource, [“Hiding in Plain Sight,”](https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-consumers-and-patients-drugs/hiding-plain-sight-7-oh-products?ref=ivn.us) provides more information on the risks of 7-OH. ### Who Is Troy Jackson? The Progressive Populist in Maine Who Has Won In Trump Country URL: https://ivn.us/who-is-troy-jackson-the-progressive-populist-in-maine-who-has-won-in-trump-country/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:52:00.000Z **AUGUSTA, Maine**—As calls increase for Graham Platner to withdraw from the US Senate race against incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, a name that continues to pop up as a potential replacement for him is former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson. As of this writing, Platner has not dropped out, but most if not all of the high-profile Democrats and lawmakers who have supported him have rescinded their endorsements and pressure is mounting from Augusta to Washington, DC, for him to exit. Under Maine law, Platner would need to formally withdraw by 5 pm EDT on July 13\. The Democratic Party would then have until July 27 to name his replacement. Regardless of what decision Platner makes or how long it takes for him to make it, Jackson has already filed paperwork to explore a Senate bid. This comes after IVN was the [first to report](https://ivn.us/kalshi-has-a-new-candidate-in-striking-distance-of-susan-collins-as-odds-point-to-platner-exit/) that prediction markets were already looking at him as a top contender. Jackson’s name is not just speculation. He has positioned himself for the possibility. But who is Troy Jackson, and why has he become a serious option in a race against Republican Sen. Susan Collins? ## **A Logger Who Built a Career in Trump Country** Jackson is not a conventional Maine Democrat. The 58-year-old former logger from Allagash, located in Maine’s northern St. John Valley, began working in the woods as a teenager and helped lead a 1998 border blockade protesting the use of Canadian logging contractors, which local workers believed was driving down wages. That experience helped shape [his populist, labor-oriented political identity](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/04/30/a-maine-progressive-in-trump-country-troy-jackson-seeks-the-blaine-house/?ref=ivn.us)—and his path has had quite the independent streak. Jackson first ran for the Maine House as a Republican in 2000, lost, then ran as an independent in 2002 and won. He joined the Democratic Party before his 2004 reelection, citing mutual support for collective bargaining rights for independent loggers and trucking contractors. Yet, despite joining the party, Jackson has continued to win elections in territories that have become increasingly Republican. He is fondly referred to as the “Johnny Cash of the Allagash.” He represented northern Aroostook County in the Maine House from 2002 to 2008 and in the Maine Senate from 2008 to 2014 and again from 2016 to 2024\. He served as Senate president from 2019 through the end of his final term in 2024. Jackson's supporters say his ability to win in a region President Donald Trump carried by double digits in recent election cycles gives him a political profile few Maine Democrats can claim. He himself says many voters will [support progressive candidates they believe will fight for them](https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2026-04-17/your-vote-2026-profile-troy-jackson-democrat-for-governor?ref=ivn.us). ## **Where Does Jackson Stand Politically?** In terms of his position in the Democratic Party, Jackson is firmly on its progressive-populist wing, especially on economics. This is an added reason why so many people are floating his name to replace Platner. He is a candidate that holds the same positions, can carry the same energy, but has decades of political seasoning (and vetting). Jackson ran for governor in the 2026 cycle. His campaign centered on lowering prescription drug costs, expanding childcare, building affordable housing, strengthening labor protections, and curbing the political influence of private equity and large corporate interests. He supports Medicare for All nationally and a public health insurance option in Maine. His legislative record includes a 2018 law intended to make brand-name prescription drugs more accessible to generic manufacturers. As Senate President he sponsored a 2019 measure that created a prescription drug affordability board and pursued other drug-cost reforms. Jackson has also championed childcare policy. During his gubernatorial campaign, [it was noted](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/04/30/a-maine-progressive-in-trump-country-troy-jackson-seeks-the-blaine-house/?ref=ivn.us) that he played a major role in a 2023 overhaul that expanded subsidy eligibility and increased payments for childcare workers. On social issues, Jackson currently supports: - Abortion rights, - Tribal sovereignty for the Wabanaki Nations, - LGBTQ protections under the Maine Human Rights Act, - Wilderness protection, and - A path toward 100% clean energy by 2040 His positions have not always been static. Jackson previously identified as anti-abortion in 2012 before later adopting a pro-abortion-rights position. He also moved from receiving an NRA endorsement earlier in his career to supporting new gun restrictions after the 2023 Lewiston mass shooting. His critics will likely focus on these evolutions, but his supporters will argue that it reflects a political career that has not followed a rigid ideological script. As Maine Senate president, Jackson authored and championed legislation that expanded ranked choice voting to presidential elections—signaling his support for nonpartisan voting reform to improve elections. He did not win the Democratic nomination for governor. However, he came in third and was part of a three-candidate ranked choice coalition with Shenna Bellows and the winner, Hannah Pingree, who secured her win after all, but two candidates were eliminated. Prior to his elimination, he trailed the second-place candidate, Nirav Shah, by 12,000 votes. However, part of the reason Jackson is being considered to replace Platner may have to do with the unity it would represent with Pingree at the top of the party’s ticket. After all, the ranked choice coalition is partly credited for Pingree’s win, since all three candidates encouraged their supporters to rank the other two members. ## **What Sets Him Apart from Other Possible Replacements?** The most obvious distinction is that Jackson combines progressive politics with a distinctly rural, working-class background. He is a rare Democrat who could say he has garnered support in Republican-leaning regions. Even in areas Trump won by double digits. He is not a former statewide executive, like Gov. Janet Mills. He is not a public-health figure, like former Maine CDC director Nirav Shah. He is not best known as an election administrator, like Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. And unlike Bellows, he has not lost to Collins already. He has a demonstrated record of winning in territories where Democrats often struggle, while still taking progressive positions on health care, labor, abortion rights, housing, and taxes. There is also his political resume. As Senate president, Jackson was one of the most powerful elected officials in Augusta, leading the chamber during major fights over prescription drugs, labor rights, childcare, energy, and tribal sovereignty. Further, Jackson replacing Platner offers the party a different path than it took in 2024, when the national party ignored calls for voter input and forums before replacing Joe Biden at the top of the presidential ticket with Kamala Harris. He may not have run for Senate, but Jackson was still on the statewide ballot. He got votes. He was part of a popular ranked choice coalition that included the Democratic nominee for governor. And he checks off many of the same progressive boxes as Platner. Jackson was endorsed by US Sen. Bernie Sanders during his gubernatorial campaign and has strong ties to organized labor. He received the backing of every single union in Maine in the primary. ## **Who Is Making the Case for Jackson?** The clearest public endorsement of Jackson—so far—as a possible replacement for Platner has come from US Rep. Ro Khanna of California. [The Washington Post reported](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/07/07/graham-platner-has-six-days-decide-whether-drop-out-heres-how-that-would-work/?ref=ivn.us) that Khanna, after withdrawing his support for Platner, promoted Jackson as a potential successor. Former Maine state Sen. Bruce Bryant, a retired mill worker who served with Jackson, has also made the broader case for his political identity. Bryant told the Portland Press Herald that Jackson has spent years fighting for “the little guy” and would not be intimidated by big money. It's not a formal Senate endorsement, but it helps explain why Jackson has an existing coalition: labor allies, progressives, rural northern Maine voters, and voters looking for someone with a blue-collar biography rather than a conventional political resume. Whether or not Jackson replaces Platner remains to be seen. Platner has suggested he will stay in the race unless he gets to pick his replacement and remains on the ballot. However, pressure is boiling over, and the possibility of Jackson is more than speculation. His exploratory filing suggests he is serious about being on the Senate ballot in November. ### The Two Parties Built Safe Seats. Independents Are Learning How to Break Them URL: https://ivn.us/the-two-parties-built-safe-seats-independents-are-learning-how-to-break-them/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:51:50.000Z A week after the voting had actually happened in his district, independent congressman Kevin Kiley was declared the top vote-getter in his CA-6 jungle primary. Kiley, who had been elected as a Republican but left his party following redistricting, earned few headlines for advancing without major party backing. But he might be the most consequential winner of the night. Kiley joins a growing field of high-profile independent campaigns that will be making noise in November. Dan Osborn, a blue-collar union leader running for Senate in Nebraska, [leads his Republican incumbent](https://www.norfolkneradio.com/news/new-independent-poll-osobrn-leads-ricketts-by-five-points-in-senate-race/article%5F498950a7-18c4-48bc-99fa-4ede83623dc5.html?ref=ivn.us) by five points in recent polling. Todd Achilles, also making a Senate bid, [leads incumbent Jim Risch](https://www.thebullfinchgroup.com/post/for-immediate-release-independent-todd-achilles-surges-on-informed-ballot?ref=ivn.us) in head-to-head polling in Idaho. Seth Bodnar, a Green Beret and former university president running for Senate in Montana, [has outraised every partisan opponent in the race](https://dailymontanan.com/2026/05/26/bodnar-outraises-alme-in-pre-primary-filings-submits-signatures-for-ballot/?ref=ivn.us). There are more making House bids. In Alaska’s at-large congressional district, Bill Hill — a commercial fisherman, construction worker, teacher, and small business owner — [leads incumbent Nick Begich by five points](https://billhillforalaskans.com/new-poll-shows-bill-hill-can-beat-nick-begich/?ref=ivn.us) on an informed ballot. Nate Powell, a firefighter in Eastern Washington, [leads his own incumbent by six](https://natepowellforcongress.com/new-poll-shows-baumgartner-leads-democrats-trails-independent-nate-powell/?ref=ivn.us) in recent head-to-head polling. And now Kiley, who earned more votes in the primary than any of his Republican or Democratic opponents, faces a head-to-head contest of his own in California. Should some of these candidates win in November, it would be much more than an upset. It would be the emergence of a replicable model for challenging the major parties—one that could fundamentally change the math of gerrymandering It could bring real competition and accountability to districts that have gone without either and could bring about the greatest incentive shift in our politics in more than three decades. Here's what makes the model work: nearly all of these candidates are running in one-party strongholds—districts or states so lopsided that the general election has traditionally been a formality. In these races, an independent isn't a third option dividing a competitive field; they're a second option in a race that otherwise has only one. That's also what makes independent success in these strongholds so threatening to the existing system—and so important for fixing it. Gerrymandering, as a political strategy, only works when the math is predictable. Districts get drawn lopsided because lopsided districts reliably produce lopsided outcomes. The moment that an independent can run as a credible option in a "safe" seat, the entire calculus of rigging a district falls apart. An environment where neither Democrats nor Republicans are able to viably compete becomes one where independents can jump in and make it a contest. The same dynamic creates something that has been largely absent from American congressional politics: genuine accountability. Safe districts produce unaccountable legislators—representatives who answer to their primary base and no one else, because no one else has ever posed a real threat. Independent competition changes that calculus immediately, and not just in the cycle where it happens. If enough of these candidates win—if a small but meaningful bloc of independents arrives in Washington unwilling to swear fealty to either party machine—something more significant becomes possible. Neither major party holds a working majority without them. The zero-sum logic that has paralyzed Congress begins to break down. Compromise stops being a liability and starts being a survival tool. The competing perspectives of both parties, currently weaponized against each other, can begin to function as what they were always supposed to be: complementary inputs in the search for workable solutions. We're not there yet. If we look closely at some of the promising polling for these independent contenders, we may ask how much the informed ballot, used in the Alaska and Idaho surveys, represents likely voter behavior. After all, voters on election day aren’t working with perfect information. And indeed, the informed ballot tends not to reflect what would happen were the election to be held today, but it shows something important: **the more voters know, the likelier they are to vote independent.** As much as the notion that independents never win can be self-defeating, the realization that they can compete, and that they *are* competing, can be self-propelling. For Kiley. Osborn, Achilles, Bodnar, Hill, Powell, and many more, a long road remains between now and November. Visibility and perceived viability remain the greatest challenges for independent candidates, and the major parties will spend heavily to reinforce the narrative that none of what they’re doing can work. But the opportunity to change our politics, in 2026, is real. And it deserves our attention. --- *Nathan Smolensky is a political messaging and communications strategist specializing in independent campaigns, and the author of* Common Ground from the Ground Up. ### 12 Groups Building a Political Escape Hatch from the Two-Party Duopoly URL: https://ivn.us/12-groups-building-a-political-escape-hatch-from-the-two-party-duopoly/ Last updated: 2026-07-07T15:01:06.000Z If you’re looking for independent candidates, it can be hard to find them. They lack the national infrastructure of candidates running as a member of the two major parties. The legacy media won’t cover them because they view them as irrelevant or potential spoilers, thus making it more likely that they fail to gain traction because they’re not receiving equal coverage. If you want to find these candidates in your area, you have to look elsewhere. Luckily, there are organizations out there who are endorsing independent-minded candidates as well as candidates who support reforms key to unlocking independent political power. [10 Organizations Independent Voters Need to WatchFrom ballot access and open primaries to independent candidates and ranked choice voting, these groups are shaping the next phase of the voter-first reform movement.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-5ab00541-9f53-4bf9-b386-3af973e8bc8d.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/independent-voters-organizations-election-reform-8575761f-5745-44e1-bff4-9ac2a7856a2c.jpg)](https://ivn.us/10-organizations-independent-voters-need-to-watch/) Below is a list of several of those organizations. They fall into three buckets. The first bucket is groups explicitly built to identify and endorse independent candidates. The second is political parties outside the two-party duopoly, signaling their independence in the same way that a band signing to an indie label refuses to be a part of a system they view as detrimental. The third is reform and advocacy organizations pushing structural changes independents tend to favor—open primaries, ranked-choice voting, ending *Citizens United*, term limits—whose endorsement lists lean heavily Republican and Democrat, since most of their targets are sitting members of Congress or state legislators who could vote on reform legislation. These organizations all have different criteria for their endorsements, as well as different policies on when they endorse (e.g., some won’t endorse until after the major party primaries are done). --- ## Independent Groups These organizations focus specifically on finding, vetting, and endorsing independent and nonpartisan candidates. ### [**Independent Action**](https://www.independentaction.org/?ref=ivn.us) - Focus: Political action committee dedicated to electing independent candidates to federal and state office. - Criteria: Candidates must run and campaign as independents, unaffiliated with either major party. - Endorsement page: [independentaction.org](https://www.independentaction.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### [**Independent Veterans of America (IVA)**](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/candidates/?ref=ivn.us) - Focus: Veteran-led organization mobilizing politically independent veterans as candidates and organizers. - Criteria: Candidates must be veterans running as independents; IVA's 2026 list spans U.S. House and Senate races in Idaho, Mississippi, Illinois, California, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Montana. - Endorsement page: [independentveteransofamerica.org/candidates](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/candidates/?ref=ivn.us) ### [**Our House**](https://ourhouseunited.us/home?ref=ivn.us) - Focus: PAC and political movement built around a multi-cycle "Leverage Strategy"— identifying, endorsing, and funding a strategic coalition of independent-minded candidates to build a working independent bloc over time. - Criteria: Candidates must run as independents or post-partisan reformers (the group's endorsements include "Independent Republican," "Independent Democrat," and straight independent labels) committed to anti-corruption and public accountability; candidates apply directly through the PAC. - Endorsement page: [ourhouseunited.us/home](https://ourhouseunited.us/home?ref=ivn.us) (scroll to bottom) ### [**Independent Center**](https://independentcentervoice.com/election2026?utm%5Fsource=news.independentcenter.org&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=7-in-10-americans-would-support-an-independent-candidate&%5Fbhlid=9324a49ed5c36f4ca3ebdf40436befabbb9ff5c9#key-races) Note that the Independent Center doesn’t officially endorse candidates, but it does list races where there are independents running viable campaigns. While you won’t see the Independent Center advocate for an independent candidate, you can find independent candidates by looking at the races they’re interested in, warranting their inclusion on this list. - Focus: National advocacy group tracking and promoting competitive independent candidacies. - Criteria: Races with registered independents running in races that the Center’s experts believe will be competitive. - List of races: [independentcentervoice.com/election2026](https://independentcentervoice.com/election2026?utm%5Fsource=news.independentcenter.org&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=7-in-10-americans-would-support-an-independent-candidate&%5Fbhlid=9324a49ed5c36f4ca3ebdf40436befabbb9ff5c9#key-races) ### [**GoodParty.org**](https://goodparty.org/team?ref=ivn.us) - Focus: Organization that builds tools to help independent candidates win their races despite lacking the advanced infrastructure of the two major parties. - Criteria: Candidates must run and serve as independent, nonpartisan, or third-party (not Democrat or Republican), decline endorsements from either major party, and raise a majority of funds from individuals rather than PACs, lobbies, unions, or corporations. Full criteria: [goodparty.org/team](https://goodparty.org/team?ref=ivn.us) --- ## New Parties New political parties function as their own endorsement engines, nominating and backing candidates the way a party ordinarily would—just from outside the two dominant labels. Overlap with the "independent groups" category above is real (Forward-aligned candidates, for instance, often run as registered independents), but a party's endorsement can function differently: it might come with a ballot line, a brand, a platform, and, in some cases, institutional infrastructure. ### [**Forward Party**](https://www.forwardparty.com/candidates/?ref=ivn.us)\* - Focus: Cross-partisan party backing candidates—Forward candidates, independents, Democrats, and Republicans—who commit to practical problem-solving and structural reform. - Criteria: Candidates must support some form of election reform aligned with Forward's platform (open primaries, ranked-choice/approval/STAR voting, etc.); the party does not require ideological uniformity or use of its own label, but it does require pledging to uphold key values you can read [here](https://www.forwardparty.com/pledge/https://www.forwardparty.com/pledge/?ref=ivn.us). - Endorsement page: [forwardparty.com/candidates](https://www.forwardparty.com/candidates/?ref=ivn.us) ### [**Green Party**](https://www.gp.org/2026%5Fcandidates?ref=ivn.us) - Focus: Left-of-center third party running its own candidates on a platform built around environmental policy, social justice, grassroots democracy, and nonviolence. - Criteria: Candidates must run under the Green Party ballot line and align with the party's [Four Pillars platform](https://www.gp.org/the%5Ffour%5Fpillars?ref=ivn.us). - Endorsement page: [gp.org/2026\_candidates](https://www.gp.org/2026%5Fcandidates?ref=ivn.us) ### [**Libertarian Party**](https://lp.org/meet-our-candidates/?ref=ivn.us) - Focus: Third party organized around limited government, individual liberty, and free markets. - Criteria: Candidates must run under the Libertarian ballot line and generally align with the [party's platform](https://lp.org/platform-page/?ref=ivn.us) on civil liberties and reduced government intervention. - Endorsement page: [lp.org/meet-our-candidates](https://lp.org/meet-our-candidates/?ref=ivn.us) ### [**Alliance Party**](https://theallianceparty.com/pages/current-candidates?ref=ivn.us) - Focus: Centrist party formed from the 2018 merger of a dozen state-level independent and centrist parties (including the Modern Whig Party and the American Party of South Carolina), running candidates on transparency and anti-corruption themes. - Criteria: Candidates must run under the Alliance Party ballot line or one of its state affiliates (Independent Party of Connecticut, Reform Party of Florida, among others) and commit to [the party's core values](https://theallianceparty.com/pages/summary?ref=ivn.us), including term limits and rejecting "party machine" politics. - Endorsement page: [theallianceparty.com/pages/current-candidates](https://theallianceparty.com/pages/current-candidates?ref=ivn.us) \- Note that they haven’t made any endorsements yet for the ‘26 cycle. --- ## Issue and Reform Advocacy Groups These groups don't organize around the independent/major-party distinction at all—they endorse or certify whoever supports their specific reform, regardless of party. Because most sitting legislators who can act on these reforms are Democrats or Republicans, these lists skew heavily toward major-party officeholders. They're useful to independent voters less as a roster of independent candidates and more as a scorecard of who—in either party—is actually willing to act on the structural issues independents tend to prioritize. In short, these groups can help independents find major-party candidates supporting reform efforts that empower independents, especially in races where there are no independent options on the ballot. Fair warning: Currently, members of the Democratic Party are more likely to endorse these reforms, so these lists skew heavily in that direction. Term limit advocacy is the exception, where support is more likely to be seen on the Republican side of the aisle. ### [**End Citizens United**](https://www.endcitizensunited.org/endorsements?ref=ivn.us) - Focus: Campaign finance reform group aimed at overturning *Citizens United* and reducing the influence of dark money in elections. - Criteria: Candidates must commit to campaign finance reform and rejecting corporate PAC money. - Endorsement page: [endcitizensunited.org/endorsements](https://www.endcitizensunited.org/endorsements?ref=ivn.us) ### [**FairVote—Ranked Choice Voting Endorsers**](https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/endorsers/?ref=ivn.us) - Focus: Voting-reform organization tracking elected officials, candidates, and organizations that have endorsed ranked-choice voting. - Criteria: Public endorsement of RCV as a voting method; the list mixes candidates, sitting officials of both parties, and outside organizations rather than functioning as a traditional candidate slate. - Endorsement page: [fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/endorsers](https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/endorsers/?ref=ivn.us) ### [**U.S. Term Limits**](https://termlimits.com/120th-congress-signers/?ref=ivn.us) - Focus: The country's largest term-limits advocacy group, pushing a constitutional amendment capping House members at three terms and senators at two. - Criteria: Candidates and sitting members of Congress sign a pledge to co-sponsor and vote for the U.S. Term Limits Amendment. - Endorsement page: [termlimits.com/120th-congress-signers](https://termlimits.com/120th-congress-signers/?ref=ivn.us) --- Remember: Endorsements from these three buckets answer different questions. A group like Our House or GoodParty.org endorsing a candidate says something about that candidate's independent status. A party endorsement says a candidate has institutional backing outside the duopoly, but not necessarily independence from any party structure itself. And a reform group's endorsement says nothing about party at all—only that a candidate, usually Republican or Democrat, has taken a position independents care about. *\*The author of this piece was a senior member of the Forward Party team and was involved in the creation of the endorsement process and criteria, and in the establishment of the Forward Party’s value-based pledge.* ### It's Official: California Voters Will Decide on Billionaire Tax, Voter ID, and 12 Other Measures This November URL: https://ivn.us/its-official-california-voters-will-decide-on-billionaire-tax-voter-id-and-12-other-measures-this-november/ Last updated: 2026-07-07T14:21:58.000Z On June 28, California’s Secretary of State certified [14 statewide measures](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/qualified-ballot-measures?ref=ivn.us) for the November 3 ballot, five placed there by state lawmakers directly and nine that earned their way on through citizen signature gathering. All fourteen now carry the official proposition numbers. A measure that gathers enough signatures does not lock into the ballot right away. It enters a waiting period that ends on a deadline called E minus 131, the last day its backers can still walk away from it, usually in exchange for something better. This year that deadline fell on June 25, and four separate negotiations came down to the wire. Three ended in a deal. One did not. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association squared off against state lawmakers first, and it was the biggest trade of the bunch. The Jarvis group, led by Jon Coupal, agreed to drop its own tax measure once the Legislature passed a replacement, [Proposition 43](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F43,%5FTwo-Thirds%5FVote%5FRequirement%5Ffor%5FLocal%5FSpecial%5FTax%5FInitiatives%5Fand%5FProperty%5FTax%5FInitiative%5FProhibition%5FAmendment%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us), which moves the vote threshold for local special taxes from a bare majority up to two-thirds, while lawmakers also quietly killed an older 2024 measure that Jarvis allies had taken to calling the poison pill. Coupal pronounced the outcome "a tremendous turnaround.” The California Hospital Association and the state's health care unions settled the next dispute. The unions had qualified a measure capping executive pay at nonprofit hospitals, the hospital association had qualified one limiting how much unions could spend on ballot campaigns, and rather than fight either one out in front of voters, both sides simply agreed to drop them altogether. Uber and California's trial lawyers reached the third deal. One measure would have limited what accident victims could recover in medical costs and legal fees, backed by Uber; the other would have made rideshare companies more liable for driver misconduct, backed by the trial lawyers themselves. When a settlement closed on June 18, each side got something: new passenger safety commitments from Uber, and new limits on certain medical expense claims for the attorneys, with both measures coming off the ballot in exchange. The fourth negotiation is one that never came together. Governor Gavin Newsom spent the weeks before June 25 trying to talk the health care union SEIU-UHW into withdrawing its billionaire wealth tax measure, Proposition 40\. [Proposition 40 would tax the assets of roughly two hundred California billionaires](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F40,%5FOne-Time%5FWealth%5FTax%5Ffor%5FState-Funded%5FHealthcare,%5FEducation,%5Fand%5FFood%5FAssistance%5FPrograms%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us), at a rate of up to 5 percent paid out over five years, with $9 of every $10 raised going toward health care for low-income residents and the rest split between education and food assistance. The Governor expended quite a bit of his political capital and brought serious firepower to the effort to get rid of the billionaire tax measure, recruiting Planned Parenthood, the state's teachers union, its primary care association and its medical association to help make his case. Union leader Dave Regan said no anyway, and Proposition 40 emerged intact. [Proposition 40](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F40,%5FOne-Time%5FWealth%5FTax%5Ffor%5FState-Funded%5FHealthcare,%5FEducation,%5Fand%5FFood%5FAssistance%5FPrograms%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) will not get a free ride, though. Two measures that will also make the ballot are [Proposition 41](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F41,%5FProhibit%5FExcluding%5FNew%5FState%5FTaxes%5Ffrom%5FSpending%5FLimit%5Fand%5FRequire%5FSpecial%5FTax%5FAudits%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us), which would require audits of any program funded by the new tax and would route that new revenue through the state's existing spending cap, the rule that forces surplus money back to taxpayers or into education instead of wherever the tax was meant to send it. [Proposition 42](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F42,%5FProhibit%5FNew%5FTaxes%5Fon%5FRetirement%5FHoldings,%5FPersonal%5FAssets,%5Fand%5FSavings%5Fand%5FLimit%5FRetroactive%5FTaxes%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) would ban new taxes on personal property and *any tax applied retroactively*, in language broad enough to reach the very categories of wealth that Proposition 40 is written to tax. Both Prop 41 and 42 carry the same trigger: if they and the wealth tax (Prop 40) all pass together, only the one with the most votes survives, and the rest are wiped out. [Proposition 1](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F1,%5FVeteran%5Fand%5FHousing%5FAssistance%5FPrograms%5FBond%5FMeasure%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) would authorize an $11 billion dollar bond for affordable housing and veterans' homeownership. [Proposition 37](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F37,%5FSecond%5FMortgage%5FHomebuyer%5FProgram%5Fand%5FRevenue%5FBond%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) would set up a $25 billion mortgage assistance program for middle-income buyers. [Proposition 2](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F2,%5FBudget%5FStabilization%5FAccount%5FCap%5FIncrease%5Fand%5FGann%5FLimit%5FChanges%5FAmendment%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) would raise the state's rainy day fund cap from 10 to 20 percent of general fund revenue while allowing some of that money to pay down $20 billion dollars in federal unemployment insurance debt. [Proposition 3](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F3,%5FRenew%5FState%5FIncome%5FTax%5FIncrease%5Ffor%5FEducation%5FFunding%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) would make permanent an existing income tax of up to 12 percent on households earning more than $721,000 as couples or $360,000 as individuals, a measure the California Taxpayers Association opposes. [Proposition 4](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F4,%5FAllow%5FPublic%5FFinancing%5Fof%5FElection%5FCampaigns%5FMeasure%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) would legalize public financing of political campaigns for the first time since 1988, [Proposition 5](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F5,%5FEliminate%5FState%5FOfficer%5FRecall%5FSuccessor%5FElections%5FAmendment%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) would change how the state fills a vacancy after a recall election, and Proposition 39 would require voter ID at polling places. [Proposition 44](https://holdclinicsaccountable.org/?ref=ivn.us), also sponsored by SEIU-UHW, would require community health clinics to spend 90 percent of their revenue on direct patient care, while [Proposition 38](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F38,%5FEstablish%5FImmunology%5Fand%5FImmunotherapy%5FResearch%5FInstitute%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) would authorize an $8.4 billion dollar bond for immunology research. [Proposition 45](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F45,%5FExpedited%5FEnvironmental%5FReview%5FProcess%5Ffor%5FCertain%5FProjects%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) would speed up environmental review under state law for housing, transportation and clean energy projects. Whether the billionaire wealth tax survives will come down to a simple count: if Proposition 40 beats both Proposition 41 and Proposition 42 this November, it will stand. If either of them beats it, the tax Governor Newsom couldn't kill in June will get erased anyway, just later, and by voters instead of by him. ### Kalshi Has a New Candidate in Striking Distance of Susan Collins as Odds Point to Platner Exit URL: https://ivn.us/kalshi-has-a-new-candidate-in-striking-distance-of-susan-collins-as-odds-point-to-platner-exit/ Last updated: 2026-07-07T22:05:53.000Z **AUGUSTA, Maine** — The [latest sexual assault allegations](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/06/graham-platner-sexual-assault-allegation-00987737?ref=ivn.us) against US Senate candidate Graham Platner have shaken the political landscape not only in Maine, but across the US—and speculation is rising that Platner will drop out soon. Especially, as his own party’s leadership is calling for it. > Statement from Maine Democratic Party Leadership on Allegations Against Graham Platner [pic.twitter.com/dzPDFOck9X](https://t.co/dzPDFOck9X?ref=ivn.us) > > — Maine Democrats (@MaineDems) [July 6, 2026](https://x.com/MaineDems/status/2074249756449140867?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Not only that, but US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand released a joint statement that said, “Platner needs to immediately withdraw \[...\] and allow Maine Democrats the opportunity to choose a new candidate.” To clarify, it won’t be Democratic voters who pick his replacement. It will be the party’s leadership. But endorsements from high-profile Democrats and lawmakers are being rescinded faster than the news cycle can keep up with it all. The writing is all but on the wall at this point. As [explained by IVN author Cara Brown McCormick](https://ivn.us/exclusive-graham-platner-is-about-to-be-joe-bidened/), state law gives Platner until July 13 to drop out of the race. Then, the Democratic Party has until July 27 to name his replacement. This means that the record-breaking primary turnout this year may not mean much in the end. That is unless the party picks a candidate who actually got votes in the same election—which may not mean Gov. Janet Mills. Mills suspended her campaign for US Senate ahead of the primaries but still managed to get 19% of the vote. Kalshi prediction market released new odds Monday for the US Senate race in Maine. And while many may expect incumbent US Sen. Susan Collins to go up in the percentages or Mills' name to appear—neither happened. Instead, a new candidate emerged: former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson. > 🚨BREAKING: Susan Collins’ odds to win the Maine Senate race have dipped below 40% [pic.twitter.com/MvRUtEiYR6](https://t.co/MvRUtEiYR6?ref=ivn.us) > > — Kalshi Politics (@KalshiPolitics) [July 6, 2026](https://x.com/KalshiPolitics/status/2074235143208734930?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Jackson was not on the ballot for US Senate this cycle, but he was on the ballot for governor. He finished third in the Democratic gubernatorial race and was last to be eliminated under ranked choice tabulation. His final vote count was 60,000 before he was eliminated. He finished behind winner Hannah Pingree and runner-up Nirav Shah. Some may ask: Why would Shah then not be considered in the prediction markets if Democrats are looking at that race for a replacement? The answer: Ranked choice voting. Maine cannot use ranked choice voting for gubernatorial general elections, but it did use it in the primary. Jackson may have come in third, but he was part of a [three-candidate ranked choice coalition with Pingree and Shenna Bellows](https://ivn.us/maines-best-political-story-has-nothing-to-do-with-graham-platners-sexting/). This means each of the candidates encouraged their supporters to pick them first, but to rank the other two candidates on the ballot after them. This alliance led to Pingree coming from behind and winning the Democratic nomination. Pingree is a former Speaker of the Maine House. Jackson is a former Senate President. They have already formed a coalition on the campaign trail. This is something the Democratic Party may consider. And it would mean avoiding a full Joe Biden moment by picking a replacement who wasn’t on the ballot at all and thus had zero votes to their name. Kalshi has Jackson’s odds of winning the Maine US Senate race at 31% to Collins’ 39%, and Platner hasn’t dropped out yet nor has the Democratic Party announced who might replace him ahead of the deadlines. This is evidence that the prediction markets factor in more than just how many votes potential candidates receive. Again, Shah got second place in the gubernatorial primary and had 12,000 more votes than Jackson before Jackson was eliminated. But [McCormick reports](https://ivn.us/maines-best-political-story-has-nothing-to-do-with-graham-platners-sexting/) that Shah did not join a ranked choice coalition, and he relied on some of the standard partisan attack strategies under traditional voting methods. It is also noteworthy that Mills, who was already on the ballot for Senate, is not in the prediction markets. But there seems to be some doubts within her party that she can beat Collins. “While I was always excited by Platner, one of the things many can't seem to grasp is Dems never really had a choice. There was and is ZERO chance Mills could beat Collins in November. That's still true,” [said Kevin St. Jarre](https://www.facebook.com/kevin.st.jarre/posts/pfbid0NKcriurjKeCrqmGjsuhY5brfcVmqtnbjKqYMDt23g9mADFVwyVodXoBLGfTzQn63l), journalist for the Cape Courier and a high school social studies teacher at Cape Elizabeth High School. > *“If Platner drops out, the Dem leadership will pick his replacement as the Dem nominee. The only person who has a shot is Troy Jackson.”* On Platner, Pingree called the allegations against him “deeply disturbing.” Like others in her party, she also says Platner needs to drop out and adds that no party should stand behind someone with allegations of assault. “Graham Platner should exit the race immediately,” she said. > My statement on Graham Platner: > > These allegations are deeply disturbing. Jenny Racicot is a woman who has shown real courage in sharing her story — what she's describing is serious, credible and cannot be dismissed. > > For Maine, for the future of control of the US Senate, and… > > — Hannah Pingree (@PingreeHannah) [July 6, 2026](https://x.com/PingreeHannah/status/2074268388428239330?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Pingree adds that Platner “tapped into something real—voters hungry for change showed up with real passion and energy.” Notably, this does not only mean Democrats, as the state now allows independents to vote in primary elections. > NEW: [@TroyJackson207](https://x.com/TroyJackson207?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us)'s Instagram account gained over 2,000 followers in 5 hours today, the highest growth compared to [@nirav\_maine](https://x.com/nirav%5Fmaine?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) and [@shennabellows](https://x.com/shennabellows?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us). > > He has the momentum. [pic.twitter.com/FbXO8yNJ0E](https://t.co/FbXO8yNJ0E?ref=ivn.us) > > — Mandy Zhang 🗳️ (@mandyzhang08) [July 7, 2026](https://x.com/mandyzhang08/status/2074340172607451352?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) “That energy doesn’t have to go away. It needs a new candidate to carry it forward," she concluded. One can only speculate whether the “new candidate” she is talking about is her friend, Troy Jackson. ### Exclusive: Graham Platner is About to Be Joe Bidened URL: https://ivn.us/exclusive-graham-platner-is-about-to-be-joe-bidened/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:51:40.000Z *Update 5:00 PM EDT, 7/6/26: The Maine Democratic Party has* [*officially called for Graham Platner to drop out of the Senate race*](https://x.com/MaineDems/status/2074249756449140867?ref=ivn.us)*.* Graham Platner spent the weekend before the Fourth of July doing what an insurgent Senate candidate is generally not advised to do during a patriotic holiday: disappear. He skipped a parade in Machias and by Sunday morning had postponed a town hall in Augusta. Monday brought word from the Gorham Democrats that the candidate was not feeling well, and by early afternoon, a previously scheduled Sanford event had simply vanished from Mobilize, as though it had never been announced in the first place. The Platner campaign did not respond to the Bangor Daily News this morning when asked exactly what was going on. What was going on, according to multiple Democrats who spoke with the BDN, was an expectation that a national outlet was about to publish something damaging enough that the candidate needed a few days to prepare for it, or perhaps to hide from it. And then, as if on cue, [POLITICO published an exclusive](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/06/graham-platner-sexual-assault-allegation-00987737?ref=ivn.us), on-the-record sexual assault allegation, July 6, 3:18 p.m. EDT, by Jessica Piper and Adam Wren. > Multiple Democrats told the Bangor Daily News they expected a national outlet to drop a story about Graham Platner Monday or Tuesday[#MaineSenate](https://x.com/hashtag/MaineSenate?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [https://t.co/v6uAnNBg46](https://t.co/v6uAnNBg46?ref=ivn.us) > > — Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) [July 6, 2026](https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2074197457173434395?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The allegation is that Jenny Racicot, 41, a Maine resident who had an on-and-off relationship with Platner for more than two years, says he entered her home uninvited and intoxicated in late 2021 and forced sex on her despite her repeated objections. She described one moment as realizing "this is no longer my choice." She says she cut off contact afterward and told him it was not consensual. Platner called the allegations "troubling, serious, and false" and said any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically untrue. > [pic.twitter.com/9itIt4Mw25](https://t.co/9itIt4Mw25?ref=ivn.us) > > — Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) [July 6, 2026](https://x.com/grahamformaine/status/2074214272628916296?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Reporters in Maine noted, with the weary recognition of people who have watched this particular movie before, that the rumor cycle was an uncanny replay of the one that preceded last month's primary and New York Times story, a story built on [the accounts of three ex-girlfriends who described Platner in terms ranging from unsettling to abusive and violent](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/politics/platner-maine-senate-girlfriends-relationships.html?ref=ivn.us), allegations he has also denied. Traders on the prediction market Kalshi, who tend not to indulge in weary recognition so much as arithmetic, moved the odds of a Platner withdrawal from 2 percent to more than 9 percent over the course of Monday morning. Polymarket is putting the odds of Platner dropping out at 38 percent. > BREAKING: Odds Graham Platner drops out of the ME Senate race soar, amid rumors of a potential new scandal dropping. > > 38% chance. [pic.twitter.com/SBsUJNuPhj](https://t.co/SBsUJNuPhj?ref=ivn.us) > > — Polymarket (@Polymarket) [July 6, 2026](https://x.com/Polymarket/status/2074186977105109064?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Whatever the court of public opinion eventually makes of this woman's account, there is another story here Maine voters—in particular—need to know. Even after Platner won [more than seventy percent of the vote](https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2026-06-11/graham-platner-gets-more-primary-votes-than-any-other-democratic-senate-candidate-in-maine-history?ref=ivn.us) in a June 9 primary that set an all-time turnout record for a Democratic Senate contest in Maine, the party that nominated him retains, tucked into an unglamorous corner of election law, a mechanism to take that nomination back. Most voters, understandably, assume that winning a primary settles the matter, that the person whose name appears on the November ballot is simply whoever collected the most votes in June. Maine law disagrees. Buried in [Title 21-A, section 374-A](https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/21-a/title21-Asec374-A.html?ref=ivn.us) of the state's election statutes is a provision built for exactly this kind of situation: a primary winner who becomes, in the party's estimation, more liability than asset before the general election arrives. The mechanism works like this. If Platner were to withdraw from the race voluntarily on or before 5 p.m. on July 13, the Maine Democratic Party would have a two-week window, until 5 p.m. on July 27, to select someone else to replace him on the ballot. > Statement from Maine Democratic Party Leadership on Allegations Against Graham Platner [pic.twitter.com/dzPDFOck9X](https://t.co/dzPDFOck9X?ref=ivn.us) > > — Maine Democrats (@MaineDems) [July 6, 2026](https://x.com/MaineDems/status/2074249756449140867?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) You read that right. Platner’s replacement would not be chosen by voters at all. The party's own charter says only that a nominating meeting, convened by an appointee of the party chair, would decide, in accordance with state law, who the new nominee is. Miss the July 13 deadline, and the option effectively disappears, since the law after that point only permits a replacement in the case of death or a catastrophic, permanently incapacitating illness, not a garden-variety scandal. In other words, the tens of thousands of Mainers who turned out on June 9 to hand Platner a record primary victory do not have the final word on their party's nominee. A comparatively small group of Democratic officials does, for exactly fourteen days, and only if Platner agrees to step aside himself. Nobody can force him out. But if he can be persuaded, guilted, embarrassed, cajoled, or simply worn down into leaving on his own before the deadline, the party gets to pick his successor without ever going back to voters. None of this is a secret. Newsweek, Fox News, the Washington Examiner, and the Portland Press Herald all wrote about the provision back in late May and early June, when the [sexting](https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/graham-platners-wife-flagged-sexually-explicit-texts-to-his-senate-campaign-628ec832?ref=ivn.us) revelations first broke in the Wall Street Journal, and [a national Democratic Party official told Time magazine](https://time.com/article/2026/06/08/the-democrats-platner-problem/?ref=ivn.us), on condition of anonymity, that Platner had a deadline circled on the calendar to weigh his own ambitions against the party's broader chances of holding the seat. > Swalwell 2.0 summer has arrived, that’s all I will say. > > — Michael Trujillo (@mikehtrujillo) [July 6, 2026](https://x.com/mikehtrujillo/status/2074211841195286790?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Representative Jared Golden, whose name keeps surfacing in hypothetical replacement scenarios, has already ruled himself out and gone further, arguing publicly that overriding a primary electorate's choice is simply bad practice, whatever the statute allows. Janet Mills, for her part, has left her options open. Peter Hamby, the political journalist, noted that it was strange for a campaign otherwise willing to fight back in public, as it had when Platner's wife released a video defending their marriage and when Platner himself sparred publicly with Senator John Fetterman, to go quiet in front of the Bangor Daily News specifically. Another rumor is that pollsters are testing alternative Democratic candidates against Collins. Republicans arguably had less interest in seeing all of this surface before July 13 than after, since a wounded Platner remains a weaker general election opponent than a fresh nominee chosen by party officials with electability, rather than authenticity, top of mind. Senator Susan Collins currently leads Platner by three points in a Fox News poll taken in late June, while several other surveys have shown Platner clinging to leads of 1 to 4 points, comfortably within the margin of error. That a Democrat is fighting for a toss-up in a state that backed Kamala Harris by 7 points in 2024, in a midterm cycle where the generic congressional ballot favors Democrats nationally by double digits, is itself a data point about how much altitude Platner's baggage has already cost the party, regardless of whatever the next 48 hours produce. Which brings us back to the headline. What happened to Joe Biden in the summer of 2024 was not, in the end, a story about one bad debate performance so much as a demonstration that a party's donor class, elected officials, and strategists can, when sufficiently alarmed, create a consensus that overrides what voters already decided, provided the machinery for doing so exists and the person at the center of it can be guilted into agreeing to leave. Maine Democrats have the machinery. What they do not yet have, and may never get, is a Graham Platner willing to use it. He has said, more than once, that stepping aside has never crossed his mind. Whether that remains true past July 13 may depend less on Graham Platner than on how many more Mondays like this one his party is willing to survive. ### 'Saving America' Starts by Fixing the Elections Most Voters Never Get to Vote In URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/saving-america-starts-by-fixing-the-elections-most-voters-never-get-to-vote-in/ Last updated: 2026-07-06T16:52:38.000Z Chad Peace, legal strategist for the Independent Voter Project (IVP), was featured on Dr. David D. Schein's ***Saving America*** podcast to discuss a topic of growing importance in America's hyper-partisan ecosystem: Primary elections are far more important than many voters realize—and many voters are denied access to them. Peace starts off talking about [Measure K in San Diego](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/authored-initiatives/san-diego-measure-k?ref=ivn.us), which was IVP's successful 2016 initiative to ensure that city elections do not end in the primaries, but in November when the most voters participate. Prior to Measure K, if a primary candidate got 50%+1 of the vote, they won outright. There would be no general election, meaning most San Diego voters did not get a say in local representation. "The goal of all the consultants was to load all the money and all the stuff so that you'd get candidates elected in June," Peace said. > *"There would never really be a discussion about who the next representative would be because they'd get elected in the primary."* It is a reality many voters know across the US, but not always so directly. In most elections in the US—at all levels—the district or seat is so safe for one party or the other that the primary is the election that matters most. The winner of the primary is the de facto winner, and the general election is treated mostly as a formality under partisan primary systems. This episode was recorded prior to the June 2 primary in California, which uses a different type of primary election. It uses a nonpartisan Top Two primary authored by IVP and approved by voters under Prop 14 in 2010. Critics like to call it a "jungle primary"—a term Peace says is an intentional pejorative. Prior to June 2, party operatives said the chaos of the system would result in a two-Republican governor's race. This doomsday prophecy in a state that heavily favors Democratic candidates didn't happen. But even if it did, Peace asks: What is the solution? Go back to a closed system that locks out nearly 7 million independent voters? States that have closed primary elections, like New Jersey, reveal the consequences of these elections. Millions are shut out of contests they fund while winners in mostly safe seats are elected with less than 4% of the total electorate. Most Californians don't want that type of system. Peace says instead California should look to Alaska as a model to expand on nonpartisan reform. Alaska's primary works nearly the same, except it advances four candidates, not two. Then, it uses ranked choice ballots to ensure the winner in the general isn't crowned with less than 50% of the vote. In California, this would ensure that all voters get a say, can choose any candidate they want, and get [**more choice**](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us) in June *and* November. No one is locked out and everyone has a voice when it matters most. Peace talks about this and more with Dr. Schein. Check out the full episode above. ### Don't Hold Your Breath Waiting for Politicians or Their Consultants to Fix Gerrymandering URL: https://ivn.us/dont-hold-your-breath-waiting-for-politicians-or-their-consultants-to-fix-gerrymandering-2/ Last updated: 2026-07-06T15:42:17.000Z In 2018, a nonprofit worker in Michigan named [Katie Fahey](https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/one-womans-facebook-post-leads-michigan-vote-against-gerrymandering/?ref=ivn.us) posted a message online asking if anyone else was tired of politicians drawing their own districts. She had no campaign experience and no political base. Within two years, the ballot initiative she built, called [Voters Not Politicians](https://votersnotpoliticians.com/?ref=ivn.us), had written an independent redistricting commission into the Michigan constitution. Hollywood eventually made a documentary about it, [Slay the Dragon](https://www.magpictures.com/slaythedragon/?ref=ivn.us), which is a fairly accurate description of [what she had actually done](https://theamericanleader.org/leader/katie-fahey/?ref=ivn.us). California voters had already done something similar a decade earlier. [The Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) supported both Proposition 11 in 2008 and Proposition 20 in 2010, handing the state's congressional map to an independent citizens commission instead of the legislature. Neither reform came from Congress, a caucus, a task force, a political consultant, or a framework; both came from voters who grew tired of waiting and took matters into their own hands. This brings us to the Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus, which unveiled a Gerrymandering Reform Framework on July 1 calling for national standards and an end to mid-decade map redraws. (The particulars are covered by Independent Voter News [here](https://ivn.us/the-gerrymandering-arms-race-is-breaking-democracy-and-congress-knows-it/).) Their big plan landed a few months before a midterm election in which independent and No Party Preference voters have grown loud about their disgust with gerrymandering. That disdain is not exactly irrational, especially since 94% of House seats are considered safe for one party or the other, according to the Cook Political Report. One of the framework's earliest fans is a California political consultant who reposted the caucus's press release, calling it important and necessary and adding that the country needed to enter 2031 with real, standardized reform. He did not mention, in that post, that he has spent years drawing California's congressional districts for Democrats, or that he is paid each time those districts get redrawn. It is possible to cheer for the end of a war you are paid to help wage, though it is not obvious why anyone should mistake the cheering for sincerity. The caucus's own math is not encouraging at all. Every single one of these representatives knows full well that nothing becomes law without a majority. No majority is attainable in the current House unless Republican Speaker Mike Johnson and Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries agree on something—an event with no recent precedent. The immediate mess we find ourselves did not start with Congress either. President Donald Trump pushed Texas to redraw its map outside the normal 10-year cycle, and Texas obliged him. Governor Gavin Newsom then asked California voters for permission to respond, temporarily setting aside the state's own independent commission to draw a map of the legislature's choosing. Voters agreed, wiping California's gold standard of independent redistricting off the books. As of May 2026, 10 states—Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah—had new congressional maps. Before 2025, according to Ballotpedia, only two states had conducted voluntary mid-decade redistricting since 1970. So here is one truth about partisan gerrymandering: the people in Congress or the political consultants currently getting any credit for wanting to fix it are not the people with the power to do so, and the people who do have that power were never in Washington to begin with. Katie Fahey did not need Congress, and neither did the voters of California, thanks to the power of direct democracy. Congress can keep issuing frameworks for as long as it likes; a framework requires no votes and changes nothing. A ballot initiative requires signatures, patience, and nobody's permission, not in Sacramento and not in Washington, which is presumably why it remains the only version of reform that has ever actually worked. ### 10 Organizations Independent Voters Need to Watch URL: https://ivn.us/10-organizations-independent-voters-need-to-watch/ Last updated: 2026-07-06T14:21:32.000Z Independent voters are no longer a political afterthought. They are the majority. And when these voters look at the state of politics in the US, they see the lack of accountability, representation, competition, and meaningful choice that the system produces. Because the system—at every level—is designed to benefit two private political corporations: The Republican and Democratic Parties. Across the country, organizations are building campaigns around a simple but disruptive premise: voters should not have to join a private political party to have a meaningful say in publicly funded elections. Some are fighting to open primaries. Some are recruiting and supporting candidates outside the two-party lanes. Others are taking on gerrymandering, campaign spending, ballot access, and ranked choice voting. Their strategies differ and they may not agree on everything, but their work is converging around a growing demand for more voice, more competition, and more choices. Here are 10 organizations independent voters should watch in the months and years ahead. ## **1\. More Choice California** [**More Choice California**](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us) is the newest group on this list. Still, it is composed of state leaders and pioneers who have been active in the reform space for decades—and are responding to a threat from party operatives to “Undo the Top Two” and take choice away from 6.9 million independent California voters. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-291554c1-8a9e-44e8-8b4a-3a678d860a6f.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal-70b87b9c-d2cb-4788-b0af-d19528fb4d79.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) More Choice California is advancing two proposed constitutional amendments: - A “Right to Vote Amendment” that would codify the right to vote for every eligible voter to participate in publicly funded primaries, regardless of party, and - A “More Choice Amendment” that would move California from its current nonpartisan “Top Two” system to a nonpartisan Top 4 (or 5) system using instant runoffs in the general election. The coalition is devoted to protecting California’s nonpartisan primary and giving voters more than two options when turnout is highest in November. If more than two candidates advance to the November ballot, voters can rank their options in order of preference. The Independent Voter Project leads More Choice California. The coalition's Honorary Co-Chairs are: - Lenny Mendonca, former chief economic advisor to Governor Gavin Newsom, - Former California Assembly Minority Leader Kristin Olsen-Cate, - Reform leader John Palmer, and - Former Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert. See the full list of advisors [on the coalition’s website](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us). Its committee, stacked with former elected officials, reform advocates, veterans, and third-party voices, will be worth watching as the debate over California’s primary system intensifies. ## **2\. Independent Veterans of America** [**Independent Veterans of America**](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us) (IVA) is organizing politically independent veterans into a national force in elections and public life. Founded by Paul Rieckhoff—veteran, organizer, author, podcaster, political strategist, and reform leader—IVA’s mission is to build a large community of independent veterans who can help reform elections, expand participation, combat extremism and disinformation, and support a new generation of public-service leaders. > For [#IndependenceDay](https://x.com/hashtag/IndependenceDay?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) (and in the wake of that abysmal debate), we’ve launched an inspiring and urgent new project to recruit, support and elect independent veteran candidates for elected office. Introducing [#IndependentVeteransOfAmerica](https://x.com/hashtag/IndependentVeteransOfAmerica?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us)[@IndyVetsAmerica](https://x.com/IndyVetsAmerica?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/JTbIkKZlgG](https://t.co/JTbIkKZlgG?ref=ivn.us) > > — Independent Veterans of America (@IndyVetsAmerica) [July 2, 2024](https://x.com/IndyVetsAmerica/status/1808153408253153324?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) IVA understands that veterans are uniquely positioned to challenge party-first politics because many have already put service to the country above partisan identity. > A reminder on this Independence Day. > > Learn more at [@IndyVetsAmerica](https://x.com/IndyVetsAmerica?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us): [https://t.co/PnDKnpzE9k](https://t.co/PnDKnpzE9k?ref=ivn.us). > > And help us change it. [#LetUsVote](https://x.com/hashtag/LetUsVote?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) 🗳️🇺🇸 [pic.twitter.com/vOgdTHabOe](https://t.co/vOgdTHabOe?ref=ivn.us) > > — Paul Rieckhoff🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@PaulRieckhoff) [July 4, 2026](https://x.com/PaulRieckhoff/status/2073535326631440445?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Unlike many reform groups that focus solely on policy, IVA is also building the infrastructure veterans need to run as independent candidates. Its 2026 [endorsed-candidate list](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/candidates/?ref=ivn.us) includes veterans running for U.S. House and Senate in several states, including: - Idaho, - Mississippi, - Illinois, - California, - Nebraska, - Pennsylvania, - South Dakota, and - Montana. IVN has [featured articles](https://ivn.us/tag/independent-candidates/) on some of these candidates, and author Matt Shinners will continue to cover them as we head into November 2026\. The organization has also been vocal about closed-primary exclusion, recently shining a light on the millions of independent voters shut out of primaries in states like New York, Maryland, and Utah. ## **3\. Veterans for All Voters** [**Veterans for All Voters**](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?ref=ivn.us) (VAV) is another veteran-led organization focused on reducing polarization and strengthening accountability in American politics. Its work centers on support for the powerful combination of nonpartisan open primaries and instant runoff voting. The group’s preferred reform is Final Five Voting, but it also pushes anti-gerrymandering efforts and greater transparency around money in politics. Its central message is “Country Over Party,” framing political and structural reform as a continuation of public service rather than another partisan project. The group is building a national network of veterans, military families, and supporters who can advocate locally for reforms that empower voters. > 5 miles covered, 6 memorials visited, 300lbs of food donated to neighbors facing housing insecurity. > > Thank you to our VAV NY leaders for helping lead such a meaningful event. [#NYCMemorialDayRuckMarch](https://x.com/hashtag/NYCMemorialDayRuckMarch?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/ARwNt3hlsi](https://t.co/ARwNt3hlsi?ref=ivn.us) > > — Veterans for All Voters (@OperationVAV) [May 27, 2026](https://x.com/OperationVAV/status/2059764836678906316?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) In response to a recent Supreme Court decision that said states can allow a grace period for mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day but received after, VAV called it “a win for military voters, overseas citizens, everyday Americans.” > *“Veterans for All Voters was proud to sign on to an amicus brief defending that principle on behalf of military members, veterans, and their families. When a service member follows the rules and casts a ballot on time, that vote should count. Period.”* VAV helps normalize election reform within communities often viewed as politically diverse yet highly trusted by the public. It has helped reform efforts spanning from Nevada to New Mexico to Washington, D.C ## **4\. Independent Voter Project** The [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) has been a major force in the independent voter movement for more than two decades, from sponsoring California’s nonpartisan Top Two primary in 2010 to challenging closed-primary systems in court and educating independents about their voting rights. Top Two is what the organization is best known for, but it also recently ran a [successful independent voter turnout program](https://ivn.us/californias-most-powerful-voting-bloc-is-the-one-staying-home/) during California’s 2026 primary elections and authored [Measure K](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/authored-initiatives/san-diego-measure-k?ref=ivn.us) in San Diego to ensure city elections don’t end before November. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, IVP leads More Choice California. The group’s influence extends well beyond California. Its current work includes legal strategy, voter-access campaigns, research, and media through IVN and the [Independent Voter Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyLIs900abY403f0PYb2Z6A?ref=ivn.us). Its litigation efforts span from California to Florida and New Jersey. In June, IVP co-sponsored a virtual town hall with the Forward Party and Open Primaries focused on ballot-access barriers in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. These are three states where independent voters and candidates face their own challenging obstacles. As more states debate nonpartisan primaries and independent voter rights, IVP remains one of the organizations most directly involved in moving reform ideas from theory into campaigns and courtrooms. ## **5\. Forward Party** The [**Forward Party**](https://www.forwardparty.com/?ref=ivn.us) is trying to build something that many voters say they want: a political home distinct from the Democratic and Republican parties. Still, few organizations have successfully sustained a growing and lasting alternative to the manufactured two-party system. Or as reformers have come to call it—the “duopoly.” > The duopoly does hear you and listen to you... > > ...as long as you're in the Left/Right 10%. > > Let's build something for the rest of us. > > — Forward Party (@Fwd\_Party) [June 30, 2026](https://x.com/Fwd%5FParty/status/2072077921703940463?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The Forward Party supports candidates who identify as independents, Forward, Democrats, Republicans, and more provided they align with its emphasis on practical problem-solving, accountability, and reducing partisan dysfunction. Candidates must also support some type of election reform that aligns with the party’s principles (e.g. open primaries, ranked choice voting/approval voting/STAR voting, etc.) Forward has [endorsed independent congressional and Senate candidates](https://www.forwardparty.com/candidates/?ref=ivn.us) in multiple states in 2026, [backed an independent gubernatorial candidate in Rhode Island](https://www.blockforgovernor.com/?ref=ivn.us), and supported a lawsuit challenging Texas ballot-access requirements for independent statewide candidates. It's a noteworthy approach because the party does not demand ideological uniformity or insist that every candidate use the Forward label. This is something many parties expect from their candidates, especially the Republican and Democratic Parties. Instead, this unique party—co-founded by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd-Whitman—is attempting to build an electoral ecosystem in which candidates outside the major-party establishment have more support, visibility, and viable routes to office. ## **6\. Open Primaries** [**Open Primaries**](https://openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us) is one of the country’s clearest and most persistent advocates for the idea that no voter should have to join a political party to vote. It has pursued this mission through state campaigns, litigation, education, research, and partnerships with local reform groups. Most recently, the organization [filed a lawsuit challenging Maryland’s use of closed primary elections](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/maryland-litigation-case-page/?ref=ivn.us) on behalf of individual voters in the state—one of a growing number of cases it has directly been involved in or supported. It even launched a [litigation portal](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) this year to help voters keep track of these efforts, and it tracks the complicated and often confusing primary rules that govern voters across the country. Open Primaries, along with the Independent Voter Project, commissioned a poll in June that found most Democrats in NYC want primaries opened to independent voters, and the group continues to lead reform efforts in the city. [Poll Finds that a Majority of New York Democrats Don’t Really Want to be DemocratsNew polling finds most registered Democrats support letting independents vote in Democratic primaries — and nearly 4 in 10 say they only registered Democratic because New York City gives them no other meaningful choice.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-90218e62-07dc-4a52-9d26-a6b9a7ac6c30.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/new-york-voters-NYC-democrats-403e9769-95da-4e59-8169-6f365dfcff66.jpg)](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) For America’s 250th birthday, the group released the [‘Declaration of Independents,’](https://openprimaries.org/declaration-of-independents/?ref=ivn.us) which is a statement from independent voters across the country affirming that voting rights belong to citizens, not parties, and every voter should enjoy equal voice, treatment, and dignity. Open Primaries also took part in an independent voter turnout campaign in New Mexico, where semi-open primary elections were used for the first time in 2026\. Anyone interested can keep up with the latest news by checking out [“Primary Buzz”](https://ivn.us/tag/primary-buzz/) every week. ## **7\. American Promise** [**American Promise**](https://americanpromise.net/?ref=ivn.us) is a cross-partisan reform group with one mission and one mission only: To ratify the “For Our Freedom Amendment.” And in that effort, it has made significant progress by building support state-by-state to gain bipartisan support in Congress. Its leaders and volunteers have petitioned state legislatures across the US to put on the record their support for an amendment that would give Congress and state lawmakers the authority to pass and enforce campaign finance rules they deem necessary. This is increasingly difficult as Supreme Court decisions block efforts and rules aimed at reining in unchecked spending—the latest case being *National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC* in 2026\. “This case is part of a long line of federal court decisions dating back to the 1970s, and until something changes, waves of lawyers will continue to bring cases to the Court to knock down anti-corruption guardrails and the American people will be left with even less say over money in politics, not because they ever voted for that, but because those choices were taken out of their hands by the Supreme Court," said American Promise Co-Founder and CEO Jeff Clements [The Supreme Court Just Made America’s Two-Party Money Problem WorseThe court struck down a post-Watergate limit on coordinated party spending, clearing the way for Republican and Democratic committees to pour unlimited money into races—and making it even harder for independents to compete.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-448084a8-ad63-480d-a3fd-03900c409f1b.jpg)Independent Voter NewsMatt Shinners![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/supreme-court-campaign-finance-ruling-0b31b9aa-8edc-41a1-9bf3-cca78dafb9de.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-supreme-court-just-made-americas-two-party-money-problem-worse/) American Promise argues that for nearly 200 years of the nation’s history, voters and their elected leaders set the rules for money in politics, until the Supreme Court began stripping that authority away over the past 50 years. Its work is cross-partisan by design and remains focused on the mission. The group does not endorse candidates. It does not get involved in campaign politics. It remains committed to achieving a constitutional amendment that has broad public support. And its strategy is working. Half of the US states have passed some form of resolution supporting an amendment that does exactly what American Promise is proposing. To ratify an amendment, it needs 38 states. In June, US Rep. Tom Barrett of Michigan [introduced a resolution in Congress](https://barrett.house.gov/media/press-releases/barrett-launches-fifth-pillar-blueprint-better-america-reform-campaign-finance?ref=ivn.us) proposing a constitutional amendment on campaign finance, reflecting the core solution American Promise has long advanced: restoring the authority of Congress and the states to set reasonable rules for money in elections. Clements said: > *“Twenty-five state legislatures — representing red, blue and purple states alike — have called on Congress to support this amendment, often with unanimous support. We thank Representative Barrett for heeding the growing call of Americans and our states to move the constitutional amendment process forward.”* The role money plays in elections is a major concern among Americans. If the debate over party power is really about whether voters or political insiders control the system, campaign-finance rules are one of the places where that fight is most visible. ## **8\. The People** [**The People**](https://www.thepeople.org/?ref=ivn.us) is a nonpartisan civic-engagement organization built around a broader question: How do every day Americans find common ground and take action together in a political environment designed to keep them divided? The group describes its mission as helping create a government that is truly “of, by, and for the people,” with programs that combine election reform, civic education, facilitation training, and public dialogue. Executive Director Katie Fahey quickly became a rising star in the independent reform space when, in 2018, she led the Voters Not Politicians campaign to adopt independent redistricting in Michigan. Fahey’s campaign grew from a Facebook post into a statewide ballot initiative, [Proposal 2](https://ballotpedia.org/Michigan%5FProposal%5F2,%5FIndependent%5FRedistricting%5FCommission%5FInitiative%5F%282018%29?ref=ivn.us), which passed with 61% of the vote. Although Fahey is a leading voice in the anti-gerrymandering space, she has emerged as a role model for other reform efforts—something that has carried over to The People, which does not focus on a single type of reform. The group co-founded the Respect Voters Coalition, which works to protect citizen-led ballot initiatives and direct democracy. It also operates Operation Vote America, citizen-engagement forums, and Deliberations.US, which brings nonpartisan political conversations into schools, universities, and communities. ## **9\. Unite NY** [**Unite NY**](https://www.uniteny.org/?ref=ivn.us) is building a statewide reform movement around the slogan “More Voices. More Choices.” Its agenda includes 5 pillars of reform: ranked choice voting, open primaries, ballot-access reform, term limits, and a citizen ballot-initiative process. The argument is that New York’s political system has become too closed, too restrictive, and too insulated from the voters it is supposed to serve. The group’s work is particularly noteworthy because New York combines closed primaries, which shut out 3.7 million independent voters, with some of the country’s most restrictive ballot access laws. Unite NY is currently working on reform efforts in Buffalo, including open primaries, ranked choice voting, and improved ballot access. It is asking the city's charter revision commission (CRC) to put these reforms on the ballot. It also [submitted more than 45,000 petitions](https://gothamist.com/news/open-primary-advocates-petition-to-force-question-on-ballot?ref=ivn.us) signed by New York City voters to open primary elections to all voters in the Big Apple. It comes after multiple attempts to get the city's CRC to put an initiative on the ballot. The proposal calls for a nonpartisan primary in which all voters and candidates participate on a single ballot. Using ranked choice ballots, the election would advance 3 candidates to November, where RCV will also be used. To circumvent the CRC, the city council now has to take up the proposal or more signatures may need to be collected. In February, Unite NY released its [2026 Voter Empowerment Index](https://www.uniteny.org/our-work/voter-empowerment-index/?ref=ivn.us), which found substantial support among New York voters for changing election rules, including open primaries and other reforms to improve ballot access for third-party candidates. ## **10\. Rank MI Vote** [**Rank MI Vote**](https://rankmivote.org/?ref=ivn.us) is a Michigan-based, volunteer-led organization advocating for ranked choice voting. The group argues that ranked ballots would give voters more choice, reduce the spoiler effect, allow candidates to win broader support, and make campaigns less dependent on partisan fear and negativity. Its message to Michigan voters is simple: “Vote Your Hopes, Not Your Fears.” The organization has already helped build a substantial grassroots network and points to ranked-choice voting victories in Michigan cities including Ann Arbor, East Lansing, Kalamazoo, and Royal Oak. Its statewide 2026 ballot campaign was paused after organizers concluded they would not collect enough signatures in time. Still, the group has said its broader campaign for ranked-choice voting will continue. In a hotly contested battleground state like Michigan, Rank MI Vote has a chance to further lead in reform, garnering substantial attention and support. ### Petition Drive to Let Independents Vote Delivers 45,000 Signatures to NYC Clerk URL: https://ivn.us/petition-drive-to-let-independents-vote-delivers-45-000-signatures-to-nyc-clerk/ Last updated: 2026-07-06T14:07:38.000Z **NEW Y ORK CITY** — [Unite NY](https://www.uniteny.org/?ref=ivn.us) submitted more than 45,000 signatures to the New York City Clerk's office on July 2, seeking to put a question on the ballot to let voters decide whether to open the city's closed primary system and use ranked-choice voting for its municipal elections. Under current law, more than 1.1 million New York City registered voters are unaffiliated and are barred from voting in primaries. New York is a total outlier among major cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston all hold some form of nonpartisan municipal elections. Unite NY’s petition is unique in some important ways. The new law, if passed, would create a June primary election **open to all registered voters**, similar to the nonpartisan primaries in California, Washington, and Alaska. In the primary, voters can rank up to five candidates, and the Top 3 finishers advance to the general election in November. The petition route taken by Unite NY allowed its organizers to bypass the city's [Charter Revision Commission process](https://citizensunion.org/document/2026-02-24/explainer-charter-revisions-commissions-appointed-by-prior-mayors/?ref=ivn.us), which typically originates ballot questions on election rules. It’s a good thing, because right now that whole process is mired in a morass. A[ lawsuit](https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2026/06/eric-adams-charter-revision-commission-sues-get-open-primaries-ballot/414518/?ref=ivn.us) was filed this week by members of [a so-called “zombie” commission that former Mayor Eric Adams created on his last day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV%5FImnJUNac&ref=ivn.us) in office. That commission had as its first order of business establishing an open primary, but the administration of current New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani shut it down. Mayor Mamdani urged the state legislature to draft and pass [a new provision](https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2026/05/20/eric-adams-charter-commission-moves-forward-without-mamdani-s-support?ref=ivn.us) in the state budget allowing him to disband the Adams commission. Whether the Unite NY petition question reaches this year's ballot depends on timing under state municipal law and on [a separate commission Mayor Mamdani has since formed](https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2026/06/talk-open-primaries-dominates-first-coge-hearing/414079/?oref=csny-author-river&ref=ivn.us), which is expected to draft its own ballot questions for voters. [Talk of open primaries dominates first COGE hearingMayor Zohran Mamdani’s first Charter Revision Commission meeting was haunted by Eric Adams’ last commission![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-32x32-b9fe489a-b2fd-4858-9fd7-cae2cfad26fd.png)City & State New YorkSahalie Donaldson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/open-graph-d9351df0-536d-47b9-85b0-d38088022e83.jpg)](https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2026/06/talk-open-primaries-dominates-first-coge-hearing/414079/?oref=csny-author-river&ref=ivn.us) [Citizens Union](https://citizensunion.org/about/?ref=ivn.us) has [this](https://citizensunion.org/document/2026-02-24/explainer-charter-revisions-commissions-appointed-by-prior-mayors/?ref=ivn.us) excellent explainer on the charter revision process in NYC. On July 3, the organization [announced its support](https://citizensunion.org/document/2026-07-03/citizens-union-welcomes-open-primary-referendum-through-voter-petition/?ref=ivn.us) for the open primary referendum. “Citizens Union has [supported open primaries](https://citizensunion.org/document/2025-07-07/fact-sheet-opening-new-york-citys-closed-primary-system/?ref=ivn.us) for decades because it delivers on our good government mission to advance fair and open elections,” said John Avlon, the Chairman of Citizens Union of New York. > ***“Right now, 1.1 million New Yorkers – disproportionately under the age of 40 and in communities of color – are effectively disenfranchised from the elections that matter most. We need a new era of reform in New York to refocus our elections back to all the people, not the parties. That’s the essence of ‘one person, one vote.’" - John Avlon*** A 2025 Charter Revision Commission report found that open primaries drew more public testimony than any other single topic it considered. Nevertheless, that particular commission declined to put open primary reform on the ballot when it had the chance. “The need to reform the closed primary system is crystal clear. But the particular alternative that New York should adopt is not. As a result, the Commission is declining to place a reform proposal on the ballot this November,” they wrote at the time. Mayor Mamdani has not signaled his support or opposition to the open primaries measure. Talk of open primaries dominated the mayor's first Charter Revision Commission meetings in June. ### Millions of Americans Declare Their Independence on America's 250th Birthday URL: https://ivn.us/millions-of-americans-declare-their-independence-on-americas-250th-birthday/ Last updated: 2026-07-07T22:07:25.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* ## First, Some Breaking News: Delaware Open Primaries Bill Advances ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/delaware-open-primaries-bill.png) Something extraordinary is happening in Delaware. This week, Rep. Smith's [HB 188](https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=142403&ref=ivn.us)\-which would open Delaware's taxpayer-funded primary elections to independent voters-passed the Delaware House, the farthest an open primaries bill has ever advanced in the first year it was introduced. It did so with a majority of members from both parties-a rare feat. That's not just a legislative victory. It's proof that the political landscape is changing. For months, independent voters have been showing up everywhere. They packed committee hearings. They met with legislators. They refused to be ignored. Young and old. Black, white, and Latino. Veterans, election workers, lifelong independents, and former Democrats and Republicans alike stood together to demand something simple: if taxpayers fund elections, every taxpayer should have a voice. Their organizing changed the outcome. A committee that appeared ready to kill the bill instead voted to advance it because independent voters made themselves impossible to ignore. And the numbers tell the same story. Just a few years ago, Open Primaries projected that independents would make up 27% of Delaware voters by 2035\. *We were wrong!* They're already 34% today, making them the state's second-largest voting bloc. At today's growth rate, they'll become the largest voting bloc in Delaware within just a few years. In the last year alone, Democratic registration fell by 20,000 voters, Republican registration dropped by 10,000, and independent registration grew by 17,000. The old political map is disappearing before our eyes. Congratulations to Rep. Smith for his bold leadership, and to our incredible partners at the ACLU of Delaware, Indivisible Delaware, Future Caucus, and Unite America. Most of all, congratulations to the thousands of independent Delawareans who are showing that when independents stand up….the political establishment notices. There’s still a long road ahead in Delaware. If you live in Delaware or know someone who does and want to get involved, please email National Organizing Director Cathy Stewart at [cstewart@openprimaries.org](mailto:cstewart@openprimaries.org). ## **What We're Talking About** ## A Declaration for America's 250th Birthday As America prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence tomorrow, millions of independent voters are raising their voices to declare that the promise of 1776 belongs to every citizen. Recently Open Primaries released the *Declaration of Independents*\-a modern declaration affirming that political rights belong to citizens, not political parties. It calls for a simple but fundamental principle: every voter should enjoy equal voice, equal dignity, and equal rights in the democracy their tax dollars support. [**READ THE DECLARATION**](https://openprimaries.org/declaration-of-independents/?ref=ivn.us) Now, that declaration has come to life. Independent voters from across the country have joined together in a powerful spoken-word performance of the *Declaration of Independents*, celebrating America's Semiquincentennial while reminding us that the nation's democratic journey is still unfinished. Their voices reflect the millions of Americans who have chosen political independence and believe that love of country should never require allegiance to a political party. Today, independents are America's largest voting bloc. More than 10,000 Americans leave the political parties every week, and nearly half of all voters now identify as independents. Yet millions remain locked out of taxpayer-funded primary elections and denied an equal voice in choosing the leaders who govern them. The Declaration is both a celebration of America's founding ideals and a call to complete them. Two hundred and fifty years after the founding, the work of building a democracy that truly belongs to all of us continues. This Independence Day, we celebrate not only our nation's past, but its democratic future. ## **What We're Watching** ## Open Primaries Goes Prime Time The conversation about open primaries is reaching bigger audiences across the country. Open Primaries President John Opdycke joined Open Primaries NYC supporters Jeff Aron, Ed Brady, and Torsha Childs on MSNBC's *Morning Joe* to make the case for opening New York City's closed primary system and ensuring every voter has a meaningful voice in the elections that matter most. John also appeared on [The Julie Mason Show](https://sxm-publish-clips.content-ingest.siriusxm.com/clip/4c905411-1fee-4e51-ad01-d230157b8df6?ref=ivn.us) on Sirius/XM Radio, where he discussed why open primaries are essential to a healthier, more representative democracy and why the growing number of independent voters demands a modern election system. From national television to nationally syndicated radio, the movement for open primaries is reaching new audiences-and bringing the case for reform into the mainstream. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/letusvote.png) ## **Independent New Yorkers: Persistent and Insistent** ### *With National Organizing Director Cathy Stewart* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/new-york-independent-voters-open-primaries.png) The NYC Charter Revision Commission continued its citywide hearings this week in Brooklyn and the Bronx. While the Commission is charged with examining government efficiency, one issue continues to dominate the public testimony: voting rights for New York City's 1.2 million independent voters. Independent New Yorkers showed up again-veterans, immigrants, young voters, lifelong New Yorkers-each telling a different story but delivering the same message: Let Us Vote. Army veteran and teacher Angel Martinez reminded the Commission that the Constitution begins with "We the People," not "We the Parties." As one of the city's 1.2 million independents, he asked why citizens who pay for public elections are denied the right to participate in them. "We serve a nation, not a party," he said. In the Bronx, Belkis Pérez described immigrating to the United States in 1979 and becoming a citizen in 1987, only to discover that choosing not to join a political party meant being shut out of the elections that matter most. You can watch her testimony here: Brooklyn resident Vanessa Rudin called closed primaries "taxation without representation," comparing them to being invited to dinner but told only those wearing red or blue are allowed to eat—while everyone else is expected to help clean up afterward. Michael Tagariello, a leader with Veterans for All Voters, reminded the Commission that this issue keeps rising because New Yorkers keep raising it. "Last year, open primaries were not expected to be a central issue of the Commission. Then New Yorkers showed up, and it became one of the top issues considered. It happened again this year. That matters." Open Primaries National Organizer Bree Doldron, a lifelong Brooklynite, spoke for a new generation of voters: "I'm here as a member of the most independent generation our country has ever seen-Gen Z. Personally, I am tired of the endless partisan gridlock, and my generation is, too." You can[ read her testimony here.](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=tQMEO5vs93pJbkpn8qtL0H4XySYUIaMPun%5FPcGuOz9QayuS7NPmSBTYo6-zXKaBBBaszwSk3xQvPKqa4tHsVUA&e=c3170d9db096bda9e46ad322481d657f&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F117%5F2&n=8) The message is getting through. At the Brooklyn hearing, Commission Chair Patrick Gaspard acknowledged that the Commission has heard substantial testimony on open primaries and assured attendees the issue will be part of its deliberations. There are three public hearings remaining, and independent voters will be at every one. We're not asking for special treatment. We're asking for the right to participate in the publicly funded elections that determine who represents our communities. **If you live in NYC and want to testify** – email [cstewart@openprimaries.org](mailto:cstewart@openprimaries.org). ## **Fast Take** ### **The Conversation Is Changing on Open Primaries** Two opinion pieces published just one week apart-one from *Bloomberg*'s Editorial Board and the other from American Enterprise Institute scholar Samuel Abrams in *The New York Sun*\-underscore something we've been saying for years: America's closed primary system is no longer a niche reform issue. It has become a central question about the health of our democracy. The [*Bloomberg* editorial](https://openprimaries.org/american-democracys-biggest-losers-voters-in-closed-primary-states/?ref=ivn.us) makes the democratic case. It argues that in one-party districts, closed primaries routinely produce elections decided by a tiny fraction of voters, leaving everyone else with little or no meaningful choice in November. The result is lower participation, more ideological politics, and elected officials who are accountable to narrow partisan constituencies rather than the broader public. [Samuel Abrams approaches the problem from a different direction](https://www.aei.org/op-eds/why-new-yorks-phantom-majority-will-be-thwarted-in-primary-elections/?ref=ivn.us). Drawing on [new Open Primaries polling](https://apnews.com/press-release/ein-presswire-newsmatics/press-release-polling-7be87d6dafe6ce7b4a2f6f41ce0d3a28?ref=ivn.us), he shows that nearly four in ten registered Democrats in New York City say they are really independents who registered with the party simply to vote in its closed primary. His argument is striking: closed primaries don't just exclude voters—they pressure millions of Americans to hide their true political identity in order to participate. These essays come from very different institutions and make different arguments. But they arrive at the same conclusion: closed primaries distort representation, weaken democratic competition, and deny millions of Americans a political system that reflects who they really are. When respected voices across the ideological spectrum begin examining the same structural problem from different perspectives, it's a sign that the debate is changing. The question is no longer whether closed primaries create democratic costs. It's whether states are willing to modernize election systems that increasingly fail the voters they are supposed to serve. ## **Making Headlines** **Connecticut:** [Why more than 1 million Connecticut voters can't vote in August primaries](https://www.ctinsider.com/politics/article/connecticut-elections-closed-primaries-elections-22314861.php?ref=ivn.us) **Florida:** [Florida’s universal primary system is a farce that needs changing](https://www.tampabay.com/viewpoints/2026/07/01/florida-elections-universal-primary-write-in-candidate/?ref=ivn.us) **Oregon:** [Initiative to open Oregon primaries may have stalled, but work to end election injustice continues.](https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2026/06/29/initiative-to-open-oregon-primaries-may-have-stalled-but-work-to-end-election-injustice-continues/?ref=ivn.us) **South Carolina:** [SCGOP hoping new vote and potential lawsuit could close primary elections.](https://www.wyff4.com/article/potential-lawsuit-could-close-primary-elections-sc/71788766?ref=ivn.us) **Texas**: [Cornyn says closed primaries could backfire on Texas GOP, breaking with Abbott, Paxton](https://www.texastribune.org/2026/06/26/texas-john-cornyn-closed-primaries-republican-party-greg-abbott-ken-paxton/?ref=ivn.us) ## **In Case You Missed It** ## Washington, D.C. Voters Win a Major Victory: Open Primaries Are Coming ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/dc-open-primaries.png) [Democracy won a major victory in Washington, D.C. last week](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5937013-dc-council-allows-independents-vote/?ref=ivn.us). In 2024, D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved ballot initiative 83 to open the city’s taxpayer-funded primary elections, with 73% of voters voting yes. The message from voters was clear: every citizen should have a voice in elections that determine who governs. But for nearly two years, the will of the voters was blocked. The D.C. Council refused to fund and implement the measure, leaving nearly 100,000 independents - including many voters of color -shut out of the elections that effectively decide who represents them. Last week, that changed. The Council reversed course and passed a resolution to fund and implement open primaries, putting the reform on track to take effect for the 2028 elections. Watch campaign leader Lisa Rice as she breaks down the big win on Fox5 News this past weekend: ​​Congratulations to Lisa Rice, [Grow Democracy DC](https://www.growdemocracydc.org/?ref=ivn.us), and every D.C. voter who fought to make this victory possible. ## **Campaign Updates** ## Massachusetts Heads Toward November ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/massachusetts-open-primaries-initiative.png) Momentum continues to build behind Massachusetts' proposed Top-Two Primary ballot initiative. Last week, [the state's Supreme Judicial Court unanimously rejected a legal challenge](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/6/29/allen-top-two-primary/?ref=ivn.us), clearing a major hurdle for the measure to reach voters this November. Just days later, supporters submitted their second round of petition signatures, putting the initiative on track for the ballot. The campaign is already drawing fierce opposition from the Massachusetts Democratic Party, [whose state committee voted to oppose the proposal](https://www.dotnews.com/2026/04/29/democratic-state-committee-opposes-open-state-primaries/?ref=ivn.us), arguing it would weaken party primaries and allow Republicans greater influence. Reform advocates counter that the measure would create more competitive elections, give every voter an equal voice in the primary, and reduce the number of uncontested races in a state where independents make up the majority of registered voters. With the legal fight largely settled, the campaign now moves squarely into a high-stakes political battle over how Massachusetts chooses its candidates and who gets a real voice in its elections. ### 6 US Cities that Show America What Independent Leadership Looks Like URL: https://ivn.us/6-us-cities-that-show-america-what-independent-leadership-looks-like/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T18:48:10.000Z Independent candidates face structural barriers at every level of American politics—ballot access restrictions, fundraising disadvantages, and the near-total dominance of two-party infrastructure. The problem is only getting more stark with recent rulings such as this week’s *NRSC v. FEC*, where the Supreme Court ruled that First Amendment considerations bar limits on how much money political parties can spend in support of their candidates. [The Supreme Court Just Made America’s Two-Party Money Problem WorseThe court struck down a post-Watergate limit on coordinated party spending, clearing the way for Republican and Democratic committees to pour unlimited money into races—and making it even harder for independents to compete.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-f29f8415-54ed-4ed4-8b80-81cfd6eda599.jpg)Independent Voter NewsMatt Shinners![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/supreme-court-campaign-finance-ruling-181ff390-99aa-485f-bb64-84b48629f999.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-supreme-court-just-made-americas-two-party-money-problem-worse/) But the absence of independent officeholders is not absolute. At the local level, a number of mayors governing major American cities have been elected outside of party structures, winning competitive races and building governing records, showing American voters what independent leadership can mean. While some of these officeholders are more closely affiliated with major parties than others, they have all publicly spoken on their independence. The six mayors profiled here represent large cities. Their tenures span economic revitalization, mental health reform, infrastructure investment, and public safety—evidence that independent governance isn't just a ballot-line novelty, but a functional model with a track record. Counting up from the city with the lowest population, we have… --- ## **Hillary Schieve—Reno, Nevada (pop. \~273,000)** Schieve first won Reno's mayoralty in 2014 and has been reelected twice since, most recently in 2022\. She went on to serve as the 81st President of the United States Conference of Mayors—its first president who was an independent politician. She’s driven on diversifying the city's economy beyond gaming and tourism, drawing tech firms and remote workers to Reno as a lower-cost alternative to Silicon Valley. She drew national attention—including a spot on Politico's "[America's 11 Most Interesting Mayors](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/25/most-interesting-mayors-america-215295/?ref=ivn.us)" list—for the revitalization of the Midtown District and public arts investment, and was named 2019 Elected Arts Advocate of the Year. --- ## **Suzanne LaFrance—Anchorage, Alaska (pop. \~290,000)** LaFrance, a registered nonpartisan, unseated incumbent Republican mayor Dave Bronson in the 2024 election, taking 53.54% of the vote to Bronson's 46.46%. She previously chaired the Anchorage Assembly during a tense relationship with Bronson's administration, leading inquiries into certain hirings and alleged ethical lapses. As mayor, she has emphasized bipartisan coalition-building, crossing party lines in legislative endorsements that included a Republican, a Democrat, and an independent candidate in the same announcement. She has prioritized engaging with individuals who are going to be most affected by policy changes before implementing them, such as getting buy-in from snowplow drivers before installing GPS devices on their vehicles. She also has worked to increase transparency between her office and the public, creating websites to highlight the delivery of public services. Unemployment has fallen under her watch from 4.3% to 3.3%, and she extended the homeless shelter system from seasonal to year-round. --- ## **Patricia Lock Dawson—Riverside, California (pop. \~317,000)** A Riverside native and environmental scientist by training, Patricia Lock Dawson was first elected mayor in 2020 and won reelection in March 2024, having previously served nine years on the Riverside Unified School District board. Her signature initiative is a self-organized "Bipartisan Forum," a standing group of seven Democrats and seven Republicans convened since 2021 to tackle homelessness, mental health reform, and public safety outside partisan structures—work she credits with helping pass California's CARE Court mental-health legislation, connecting adults with untreated mental illness to care and housing services. Under her leadership, Riverside has secured over $300 million in state and federal dollars to address needs in infrastructure, homelessness, and workforce development. In October 2025 she was selected to lead Big City Mayors, a coalition of California's 13 largest-city mayors. --- ## **Rick Blangiardi—Honolulu, Hawaii (pop. \~350,000)** Blangiardi describes his independence as: "I'm an independent. Always have been. I am liberal in some areas and conservative in others, and I don't believe either party can lay claim to all of the best ideas in every area." A longtime television executive who ran Hawaii News Now, he was elected Honolulu's mayor in 2020 and reelected outright in the August 2024 primary. His tenure has included addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and expanding the Honolulu rail system. He revived the city’s Private Activity Bond program to issue bonds for affordable housing and has focused on negotiating changes to local police contracts to improve recruitment efforts. --- ## **Jim Ross—Arlington, Texas (pop. \~400,000)** A former Marine, Arlington police SWAT officer, and restaurateur, Jim Ross was first elected mayor in a 2021 runoff and has since won reelection twice, including a third and final term in May 2026\. Ross said he has "brought over 27,000 new jobs to Arlington" and "increased the average wage by more than 20%" during his two terms. He is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. In 2025, he publicly called for a legal and ethical review of a Tarrant County redistricting proposal tied to the national gerrymandering wars. He described it as highly unusual, explicitly invoking his independence: "I don't call myself a Democrat or a Republican—I want what's best for the residents of Arlington." He’s also worked to secure private capital investments for the city, claiming over $1.1 billion in investment since he took office. --- ## **Yemi Mobolade—Colorado Springs, Colorado (pop. \~500,000)** Mayor Mobolade is the public servant on this list who most clearly puts forward the independent label as key to his governing philosophy. His victory in conservative stronghold Colorado Springs shows the power of an independent message. Taking office in June 2023, his tenure has emphasized public safety staffing, including efforts to hire hundreds of police officers. These efforts have led to declines in homicide rates, motor vehicle thefts, and overall property crime. Police response times have been cut in half, and 911 responders have more than doubled their early call response rate. Suicide rates are down significantly. He secured a $820 million road-renewal bond, and his administration has filled hundreds of thousands of potholes during his tenure. He has built a reputation around community engagement, focusing on delivering on priorities that members of his city are most interested in. --- When looking at the accomplishments of these mayors, what sticks out as a throughline? A focus on infrastructure and public safety. Filling potholes, hiring police officers, and building houses. Efforts to bring disparate voices together, and a focus on acting transparently. In short, when you put party platforms aside and work to represent the people, you can get a lot of things accomplished to improve people’s day-to-day lives. *Note: Several mayors in jurisdictions that have nonpartisan local elections have been excluded from this list when public statements from them about being independents and not tied to either party couldn’t be found, and their status as independents couldn’t be verified.* ### A Judge Just Ordered Huntington Beach to Give Voters More Choice URL: https://ivn.us/a-judge-just-ordered-huntington-beach-to-give-voters-more-choice/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:51:25.000Z **HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif.** \- A judge has tentatively ordered Huntington Beach to overhaul how it elects its city council with ranked choice voting after finding that the city’s at-large system violates the California Voting Rights Act by diluting Latino voting power. The remedy is a complete shakeup in how elections function after the court determined that the city’s current system does not offer under-represented groups a seat at the table. Orange County Superior Court Judge Craig L. Griffin [ordered the city to adopt ranked choice voting](https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/392432-huntington-beach-tentatively-ordered-to-adopt-ranked-choice-voting?ref=ivn.us) for its city council elections and end its staggered-election system in which city council elections took place in different cycles. In other words, all 7 seats have to be elected at the same time every 4 years. This decision aligns with the principles of the "California Right to Vote Amendment" offered by [More Choice California](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us), which states that "no eligible voter shall be excluded from meaningful participation at any integral stage of any publicly-funded election." This includes nonpartisan city elections and primaries. "No private corporation, political party, or associational right shall supersede this prohibition." ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/more-choice-right-to-vote-amendment-2.png) Griffin's order is tentative and could still face further litigation or change. But its significance is already clear: a court is treating more choice voting reform not as a trendy experiment or a partisan weapon, but as a remedy to voter disenfranchisement. It also comes at a time when party operatives on both sides of the aisle in California are trying to strip voting rights away from independent voters—a political designation shared not only by a quarter of the state’s registered voting population, but by a third of Latinos. ## **More Choice Reform Is Increasingly Becoming the Answer to Voting Rights Disputes** The ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by Huntington Beach resident Victor Valladares and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, which argued that the city’s current system has disadvantaged Latino voters, particularly in the Oak View neighborhood. The court concluded that Huntington Beach’s at-large election structure does make it harder for Latino voters to elect candidates of their choice, but dividing council elections into districts would conflict with the city charter’s requirement for at-large elections. Griffin steered away from remedies that focused solely on race—like trying to draw individual districts of influence for Latinos. This was a point of contention between plaintiffs and the city. Instead, he focused on a nonpartisan alternative—ranked choice voting. “Regardless of remedy imposed, some charter eggs will be broken in the making of this omelet,” Griffin wrote. **“Ranked-choice voting continues to allow voters full participation in the elections** as contemplated by the city charter.” Since the elections that use ranked choice voting would decide all 7 city council seats in one election, the model used would have to be a multi-winner, proportional form of ranked choice voting instead of having individual runoffs for each seat. Put simply, voters would rank candidates in order of preference, and ballots would transfer as candidates are elected or eliminated until all 7 seats are filled. A seat is filled once a candidate reaches a certain vote threshold. The point is not to produce a winner with 50% support for every seat. It is to make sure that a large, cohesive minority of voters can win representation instead of being shut out by a citywide winner-take-all sweep. This isn’t the first time a legal dispute has been resolved with this specific reform. However, it is the first time a judge has explicitly ordered it rather than the parties involved reaching a settlement. In 2019, Eastpointe, Michigan, [adopted proportional ranked choice voting](https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-agreement-city-eastpointe-michigan-under-voting-rights-act?ref=ivn.us) through a settlement with the US Department of Justice after the DOJ challenged the city’s council-election system under Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act. The agreement was the first use of ranked choice voting to resolve a federal VRA case. The city used RCV to elect two council members in 2019, and FairVote reported that [82% of voters ranked at least two candidates in that election](https://fairvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/eastpointe-two-pager.pdf?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). Earlier this year, [Newburgh, New York](https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/hudson-valley/news/2026/03/20/newburgh-town-voting-rights-lawsuit?ref=ivn.us), agreed to adopt proportional ranked choice voting as part of a settlement in a lawsuit alleging that its at-large system also diluted Black and Latino voting power. Notably, what connects all 3 jurisdictions is not party advantage. It is the growing recognition that election design can either lock underrepresented voters out of power or give them a viable path to meaningful choice. ## **Above All Else, This Is About Representation** Historically, these types of cases would result in a city being ordered to switch to district voting and carve up the electorate. But Griffin recognized that voting reform is a credible and legitimate solution when a governing body fails to reflect the city it governs. The judge said it himself. The remedy he went with was to ensure that ***all voters*** still got to participate in a meaningful way under the city charter. Ranked choice voting does not guarantee any particular candidate or demographic group a seat. However, it gives every voter the ability to further express themselves in city elections that are already nonpartisan and open to every eligible citizen, regardless of party. It also incentivizes candidates to reach beyond their base support—because the one who does will get a seat on the city council. This distinction matters. Independent voters are often treated as politically invisible because they are not organized under a party label. But a system that rewards coalition-building over partisan gatekeeping gives them more leverage. And when independent voters know they have more leverage in elections, they participate. Just look at turnout in the 2026 statewide primaries in California. Research shows approximately a third of Latino voters are registered “No Party Preference" (NPP). This is the largest percentage within any ethnic demographic group and does not count Latinos registered with a party, but identify as independent. The 2026 primary elections under nonpartisan primaries saw an increase in turnout not just among statewide voters (increasing from 33% in 2022 to roughly 40% in 2026), but among independents (who made up more than a quarter of voters) and Latinos ([26% of the turnout](https://tracker.politicaldata.com/?type=statewide&tab=3&ref=ivn.us)). There were no systemic barriers that got in the way of these voters participating. Every voter received the same ballot and could choose any candidate they wanted. And, when independents saw the power they held in statewide contests, they voted. Now, operatives from both major parties want to take this away, including from independent Latinos. They want to go back to a system that carves up the electorate amongst themselves, and tells voters: pick a side or don’t vote. If the concern is that there are not enough candidates on the November ballot, there is a solution that does not mean dividing up voters and splitting up choice. The [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) (which authored California’s nonpartisan Top Two primary) encourages California to expand on Top Two and advance 4 or 5 candidates. It joins other reform leaders in the [More Choice California coalition](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us) to advance this reform. Then, voters can use ranked choice voting to determine which candidate in November crosses a majority threshold. It doesn’t strip the constitutional guarantee that all voters get ***full participation,*** and it offers a remedy that has already been approved by the courts. ***Dan Schnur is the Academic Advisor for the More Choice California coalition. He is a Lecturer at the UC–Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Public Policy, and the USC’s Annenberg School of Communications, where he teaches courses in politics, communications and leadership.*** ### Why Latino Voters Backed Trump—Then Mamdani (NOT What You Think) | Mike Madrid URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/why-latino-voters-backed-trump-then-mamdani-not-what-you-think-mike-madrid/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T19:29:32.000Z The same young Latino voters who swung to Donald Trump in 2024 just handed New York to Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani - and no, they haven't changed their minds about anything. Strategist Mike Madrid explains why the fastest-growing bloc in American politics is walking out on both parties at once. Madrid - author of The Latino Century - joins the show to blow up the way both parties read the Latino vote. His case: what looks like voters lurching right, then left, then right again is actually a dealignment - a conscious rejection of the entire two-party system, driven by class and generation far more than ethnicity. The crew digs into California's Latino turnout surge behind Becerra, why New York's closed primaries produced a dismal 9% turnout, and what really went down at the first-ever National Latino Summit in D.C. Stick around for his blunt advice on how voters can break the cycle of partisanship. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the Independent Voter Podcast, Chad, Ethan, and Cara sit down with political strategist Mike Madrid, author of [*The Latino Century*](https://greattransformation.substack.com/p/the-latino-century-how-americas-largest), to unpack why **Latino voters** have become the fastest-growing bloc of **independent voters** in America. Mike argues this isn't a partisan realignment but a **"dealignment"** — a rejection of both parties driven not by race or ethnicity, but by class and generation. He points to **record independent voter turnout** in California's gubernatorial primary and contrasts it with **New York's closed primary system**, where turnout lagged far behind. The conversation dives deep into **open primaries vs. closed primaries**, with Mike explaining how California's Top Two nonpartisan primary system empowers unaffiliated voters while New York's rules force voters to register with a party just to have a voice. Contrast this with the Independent Voter Project's [ongoing legal strategy](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/in-the-courtroom?ref=ivn.us) — including lawsuits and amicus briefs in New Jersey, California, and Florida — which frames closed primaries as a fundamental **voting rights issue** rather than a partisan one. Mike highlights striking generational data, including a 2016 primary split where Latino voters under 30 broke overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders while older Latino voters backed Hillary Clinton, underscoring that age — not ethnicity — is the real driver of political independence today. Mike closes with a call to action: leave your political party, reject the hyperpartisan power structures, and support structural reforms like ranked choice voting and first-past-the-post elimination. He frames political parties as power-accumulation vehicles rather than problem-solvers, arguing that only structural change — not candidate loyalty — will fix a "crumbling" two-party system. Listeners can follow Madrid's ongoing analysis on his Substack newsletter, [*The Great Transformation*](https://greattransformation.substack.com/). ### The Gerrymandering Arms Race Is Breaking Democracy—and Congress Knows It URL: https://ivn.us/the-gerrymandering-arms-race-is-breaking-democracy-and-congress-knows-it/ Last updated: 2026-07-03T17:15:46.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.**—Members of Congress have spent much of the last year watching states redraw congressional maps and have taken little action to intervene. Now, the Problem Solvers Caucus in the US House is saying "enough." The caucus unveiled a new [Gerrymandering Reform Framework](https://problemsolverscaucus.house.gov/uploadedfiles/finalized%5Fgerrymandering%5Fwg%5Fframework.pdf?ref=ivn.us) on July 1 that calls for nationwide standards, limits on mid-decade redistricting, reduced partisan control over the process, and a clearer federal system for resolving disputes. > Today, our Problem Solvers Caucus unveiled a bipartisan Gerrymandering Reform Framework rooted in a principle I have long worked to advance: voters should choose their representatives—not the other way around. > > Two hundred and fifty years after our founding, American… [https://t.co/fzMKjqtTio](https://t.co/fzMKjqtTio?ref=ivn.us) > > — Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick 🇺🇸 (@RepBrianFitz) [July 1, 2026](https://x.com/RepBrianFitz/status/2072436653659242805?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The proposals have not been turned into legislation yet. But it is a notable admission from at least some members of Congress that the current redistricting free-for-all is digging a deeper grave for democracy in the US. “Representative government works best when voters choose their elected officials—not the other way around,” said US Rep. Jeff Hurd (CO-3), co-lead of the Problem Solvers Caucus Gerrymandering Working Group. > *“Fairly drawn districts help keep members accountable to the people they represent, strengthen our institutions, and encourage the kind of practical, results-oriented leadership Americans expect.”* Polls [regularly show](https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54644-most-americans-say-partisan-gerrymandering-should-not-be-allowed-april-24-27-2026-economist-yougov-poll?ref=ivn.us) most Americans want to see an end to partisan gerrymandering. It has created a political environment in which 94% of House seats are safe for one of the two major parties, according to Cook Political Report. But even independent maps have been sacrificed during the current conflict and some members of the Problem Solvers Caucus represent states where the party in power is considering escalation, like Colorado and New York. So, the question is: How effective will this reform framework be? Because the idea that voters should pick their representatives, not the other way around, shouldn’t be controversial. And yet, in modern America—it somehow is because the parties have made it controversial. ## **The Redistricting Arms Race Has Left the Station** Congressional districts are traditionally redrawn once every 10 years after the Census, reflecting population shifts and keeping districts roughly equal in size. At least, that is how redistricting is supposed to work, but it rarely is the priority in places where politicians draw the maps The 2025-26 election cycle has become the most aggressive period of mid-decade redistricting in modern history. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that 10 states have changed congressional maps since summer 2025: Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah (the new map was ordered by a judge). Other states have considered, attempted, or litigated similar moves, like in Virginia where the legislature put a referendum on the November 2025 ballot, but state courts struck it down on procedural grounds after the election. The result is a race in which neither major party can credibly claim innocence. Republicans redraw maps where they have the power. Democrats look for opportunities to counter-redraw maps where they control the process (like Proposition 50 in California). Each side calls the other party’s map rigging while treating its own map as self-defense. As John Oliver [noted on his HBO show this week](https://ivn.us/john-oliver-the-us-needs-to-unf-k-its-maps/), the knee-jerk reaction to retaliate and escalate may seem satisfying for party members in the short-term, but voters demanding it now may not like how the fight ends. The Problem Solvers Caucus describes the trend as a “race to the bottom”—and that is something few would dispute. ## **What the Problem Solvers Caucus Is Proposing** The framework outlines four broad reforms. 1. It restricts congressional redistricting to once every 10 years after the decennial Census. 2. It calls for nationwide standards that reject partisan advantage and incumbent protection as legitimate goals in drawing congressional districts. 3. It supports reducing partisan influence through reforms like independent redistricting or process changes like algorithmic mapping. 4. It calls for a consistent federal process to resolve congressional redistricting disputes. The Problem Solvers Caucus is not demanding that every state adopt one identical redistricting model. Instead, it is signaling that Congress should create rules that make it harder for partisan officeholders to manipulate maps behind closed doors. The exact legal language and metrics that will define these universal standards and goals has not been fully written out or decided. However, the framework calls for stability, transparency, consistent standards, respect for communities, and fewer incentives for partisan manipulation. “Two hundred and fifty years after our nation’s founding, we are reminded that American self-government rests on one enduring principle: the people are sovereign,” said Problem Solvers Caucus Co-Chair US Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-1). > *“That principle is diminished when congressional lines are drawn to protect politicians, predetermine outcomes, or reward the extremes at the expense of the broad center of the country. Redistricting reform demands a single standard, applied fairly to both parties, because both parties have been drawn into the same race to the bottom.”* ## **Many States Have Gone All In on Gerrymandering—Will Congress Act?** The Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in [*Rucho v. Common Cause*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422%5F9ol1.pdf?ref=ivn.us) closed the federal courthouse door to most partisan-gerrymandering claims. It ruled that these claims present a political question beyond the reach of the courts. But *Rucho* did not say Congress is powerless. In fact, the court specifically noted that the Constitution gives Congress authority to regulate certain aspects of congressional elections. Article I, Section 4 gives states the initial power to determine the “Times, Places and Manner” of congressional elections, but it also gives Congress authority to “make or alter” those regulations to a certain degree. To what degree is a matter for the courts to interpret. However, this is the opening the Problem Solvers Caucus is trying to use. Congress has already adopted certain uniform standards as it pertains to elections (e.g. a recognized Election Day and registration requirements). The question is whether enough members of Congress are willing to support rule changes that could make their own elections less predictable. The Problem Solvers Caucus is essentially calling on incumbents to support proposals that would make their stations less guaranteed, since most only need to get through a low-turnout primary to secure election. The framework does not yet specify what “objective criteria” means in practice. Would Congress require compactness? County preservation? Competitive districts? Limits on partisan asymmetry? Protections for communities of interest? How would it handle states with unusual geography or rapidly changing populations? Who decides when a state has crossed the line? And how do they make that decision? A new federal court process could bring consistency. It could also simply create a new venue for partisan litigation unless Congress defines clear rules and strict timelines. Even then, litigation is still likely. And while independent commissions are frequently presented as the solution, not all commissions are created equal. Some truly remove politicians from the process. Others simply relocate partisan bargaining into a different room. Research has found that reforms can reduce partisan bias and improve competitiveness when they actually constrain partisan actors, but commissions that leave party leaders with significant control can be far less effective. This is why the details will matter more than the rhetoric. The Problem Solvers Caucus is finally saying openly what too many politicians avoid: Both parties have abused redistricting power, and neither party can be trusted to restrain itself when control of Congress is on the line. That is the correct diagnosis. The harder part is turning it into law. The caucus says it will spend the coming months developing legislation and building support among election experts, legal scholars, and stakeholders across the political spectrum. But will the bill it produces simply tell states to be fair and hope for the best? Or, will it produce enforceable national standards, transparent mapping requirements, meaningful public participation, clear judicial review, and protections against partisan opportunism? America has seen many bipartisan statements declaring that gerrymandering is bad—including from people who have poured gasoline on the current fire. It needs a Congress that will actually act. ### SCOTUS Just Strengthened the 2-Party System URL: https://ivn.us/scotus-just-strengthened-the-2-party-system/ Last updated: 2026-07-01T19:22:15.000Z The headlines call Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling a First Amendment victory. Read the fine print. In a 6-3 decision, the Court struck down the limit on how much the two major parties can spend in lockstep with their own candidates — a guardrail that had stood since the post-Watergate reforms of the 1970s. Coordinated money is the most valuable money in politics, worth far more dollar-for-dollar than any super PAC. The Court just removed the ceiling on it — **but only if you belong to one of the two clubs.** [Matt Shinners breaks down what actually changed](https://ivn.us/the-supreme-court-just-made-americas-two-party-money-problem-worse/). This isn’t campaign finance reform. It’s the two-party system writing itself a bigger check. For the [nearly half of Americans who now call themselves independent](https://ivn.us/47-independent-the-two-party-system-has-lost-the-country-it-claims-to-represent/), the message is blunt: the game just got more expensive, and the rules still don’t include you. The same story is playing out everywhere this week. [Democratic Socialists are racking up wins in low-turnout closed primaries](https://ivn.us/the-dsa-class-of-2026-11-democrats-running-as-socialists/), and Zohran Mamdani says the model can win “anywhere” — [watch the clip](https://www.instagram.com/p/DaQm9SkErJO/?ref=ivn.us). But turnout was only 9% in New York, while the [nearly half of Americans who now call themselves independent](https://ivn.us/47-independent-the-two-party-system-has-lost-the-country-it-claims-to-represent/) were unable to participate. Representative? Even worse, Jeremy Gruber from Open Primaries joins the [Independent Voter Podcast](https://ivn.us/podcasts/truth-40-of-nyc-democrats-arent-really-democrats-jeremy-gruber/), to talk about our recent poll showing 40% of NYC Democrats don't even like their own party! Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## The Supreme Court Just Made America’s Two-Party Money Problem Worse [![Justice Brett Kavanaugh shakes hands with a U.S. senator](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Kavanaugh_Handshake.png)](https://ivn.us/the-supreme-court-just-made-americas-two-party-money-problem-worse/) IVN’s Matt Shinners breaks down what actually changed, why coordinated spending is far more valuable to a campaign than independent expenditures, and how the decision tightens the two parties’ grip. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/the-supreme-court-just-made-americas-two-party-money-problem-worse/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [Commentary: Birthright Citizenship Is More Complicated Than It Sounds ](https://ivn.us/irwin-nowick-kavanaughs-confusing-birthright-decision-is-right-and-still-wrong/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/irwin-headshot-1.jpg) Irwin Nowick [ ![Commentary: Birthright Citizenship Is More Complicated Than It Sounds](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/scotus-birthright-decision.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/irwin-nowick-kavanaughs-confusing-birthright-decision-is-right-and-still-wrong/) [‘Undo The Top Two’ Crossed Out “All Voters May Vote” ](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-crossed-out-all-voters-may-vote/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/IMG_5249.png) Chad Peace [ ![‘Undo The Top Two’ Crossed Out “All Voters May Vote”](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/california-primary-vote.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-crossed-out-all-voters-may-vote/) [The DSA Class of 2026: 11 Democrats Running as Socialists ](https://ivn.us/the-dsa-class-of-2026-11-democrats-running-as-socialists/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![The DSA Class of 2026: 11 Democrats Running as Socialists](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez-DSC-Candidates.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-dsa-class-of-2026-11-democrats-running-as-socialists/) [He Ran as a Democrat Once. Brian Bengs Says Never Again. ](https://ivn.us/he-ran-as-a-democrat-once-brian-bengs-says-never-again/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![He Ran as a Democrat Once. Brian Bengs Says Never Again.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/Brian-Bengs.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/he-ran-as-a-democrat-once-brian-bengs-says-never-again/) [NY Independents Watch DC Open Its Primaries and Ask: 'Why Not Us?' ](https://ivn.us/ny-independents-watch-dc-open-its-primaries-and-ask-why-not-us/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![NY Independents Watch DC Open Its Primaries and Ask: 'Why Not Us?'](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/new-york-independent-voters-primaries.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/ny-independents-watch-dc-open-its-primaries-and-ask-why-not-us/) [Arizona Made Voting Hard Enough for Independents. Then It Sent Me Two Ballots. ](https://ivn.us/arizona-made-voting-hard-enough-for-independents-then-it-sent-me-two-ballots/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/07/sherrycartoon.jpg) Sherry Harrison [ ![Arizona Made Voting Hard Enough for Independents. Then It Sent Me Two Ballots.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/07/Arizona-Vote.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/arizona-made-voting-hard-enough-for-independents-then-it-sent-me-two-ballots/) [In New York, 7% of Voters Just Decided for the Other 93% ](https://ivn.us/7-of-voters-just-decided-for-the-other-93/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![In New York, 7% of Voters Just Decided for the Other 93%](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/new-york-primary-eelctions.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/7-of-voters-just-decided-for-the-other-93/) ### *NEW EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast We sit down with Jeremy, Senior VP of Open Primaries, to dig into a new IVP/Open Primaries poll of registered NYC Democrats - and what it reveals is wild. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycjp48aoKS4&ref=ivn.us) ### *VIDEO CLIP ▶▶▶* ## Zohran Mamdani Says Democratic Socialists Can Get Elected President 'Anywhere' [![Zohran Mamdani says democratic socialists can get elected president anywhere](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/07/Mamdani_Social_Preview.png)](https://www.instagram.com/p/DaQm9SkErJO/?ref=ivn.us) Can a democratic socialist really get elected "anywhere"? NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani says voters want the model to go national — for any position, up to and including president. But the DSA’s recent wins came in low-turnout closed primaries that lock out millions of independents, raising the real question: is it broad appeal, or **just who shows up**? [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/p/DaQm9SkErJO/?ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### *ANNOUNCEMENT ▶▶▶* ## IVN Joins Forces with Latino News Network & The Fulcrum to Expand Voter-First Journalism [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/IVN_Fulcrum_LNN_Announcement-1.png)](https://ivn.us/independent-voter-news-joins-forces-with-latino-news-network-and-the-fulcrum-to-expand-voter-first-journalism/) Independent Voter News (IVN) has entered into a collaborative partnership with the Latino News Network (LNN) and The Fulcrum, bringing together three outlets whose editorial missions converge on a shared conviction: that American democracy is best served by journalism that reaches the people most often left out of the conversation. [LEARN MORE ON IVN](https://ivn.us/independent-voter-news-joins-forces-with-latino-news-network-and-the-fulcrum-to-expand-voter-first-journalism/) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### Arizona Made Voting Hard Enough for Independents. Then It Sent Me Two Ballots. URL: https://ivn.us/arizona-made-voting-hard-enough-for-independents-then-it-sent-me-two-ballots/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:51:15.000Z As a registered independent living in Arizona, the rule to vote in the primary is I have to declare for a party and ask for a ballot. So, I followed the rules and called to request the ballot for the party I wanted. The woman who answered the phone (sounded like I woke her up) told me that I am registered ‘No Labels.’ I told her I have never heard of ‘No Labels,’ and that I am an independent. She said I had to go on the website and reregister to change my affiliation. I asked how I became a ‘No Labels’ to begin with, but she had no answer. The website no longer recognized my login information, which meant I had to do it in person —downtown. Fast forward, this last weekend I received two ballots. One for ‘No Labels’ and one for the declared party. So here are some of my questions. Do I vote on both ballots? Do I go to jail if I do? Are ‘No Labels’ voters allowed to request a different ballot? Do ‘No Labels’ voters have to vote just on a ‘No Labels’ ballot? When did they change my affiliation? Why did they change it? Are all independents now called ‘No Labels’? Are ‘No Labels’ treated the same as independents? If I vote on the declared party ballot, will it count? Is there anything illegal about what is going on? If changes were made, why didn’t the Recorder notify us and address the issue? Does the Recorder even know what is going on in her department? Is this a one-time mistake or are all independents now getting ‘No Labels’ ballots? If not a mistake, then what is it? A failure to communicate? Why is the Recorder not updating the voters of what has transpired and what is required of them? How do they know if they are voting in a legal manner? I feel my voting rights have been compromised and I’m still not sure which ballot/ballots I am legally allowed to use. *\[According to this ballot, ‘No Labels’ voters are only voting in the governor category. I don’t know if this is what ‘No Labels’ voters are required to do, expected to do, only allowed to do, or if it is a new thing, an always thing, or just this one-time thing. I don’t know, I have never heard of ‘No Labels’.\]* Is this an effort to minimize the independent vote? It sure feels like it. It is already very difficult for independents to vote in the primary—this is just further muddying the waters. Last election, I had to change my affiliation and declare a party for the primary. This required them to send a new voting card. I changed back to an independent before the general election, requiring them to send another new voter card. It's a waste of taxpayer money, postage, paper, ink, and time. It would make more sense to have all qualified candidates listed with their party affiliation and all registered voters receive the same ballot. Think about it, we are only allowed to vote a certain number of times in each category anyway. What difference would it make? Candidates with the highest percentage move on to the general election. Why does it have to be so difficult? Is the intent of this cumbersome system to discourage independent voters from voting? This process makes me understand why so many don’t vote in the primary. Voting rights should apply equally to all voters regardless of party affiliation. This process isn’t equal to all. Check out the Chad Peace show on the Law Matters podcast dated June 29, 2026 (see above)—there is more to it. ### The Supreme Court Just Made America’s Two-Party Money Problem Worse URL: https://ivn.us/the-supreme-court-just-made-americas-two-party-money-problem-worse/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:51:04.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in *National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC* that limits on how much political parties can spend in direct coordination with their own candidates violate the First Amendment. In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court struck down a federal cap that had governed coordinated spending between candidates and their parties since the post-Watergate reforms of the 1970s. This ruling overturns a 2001 precedent set in *FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee* upholding these limits that have been in place for over 50 years. The Sixth Circuit initially upheld the caps, citing the binding 2001 precedent, but it flagged the limits as out of step with the Supreme Court's newer campaign finance doctrine. The Supreme Court agreed to take a second look, using this case to overturn the limits and further push the United States in the direction of unlimited (and unprecedented) campaign spending. ## **What Changes** To understand the changes, it’s important to understand the general state of play. It’s easy to get lost in a sea of PACs, Party Committees, and candidates. In general, you can think of political spending as falling into one of two buckets. The first is **coordinated spending**: Money spent by a group that is in contact with a candidate for office, and so they spend money in ways that the candidate thinks will help her the most. The second is **independent expenditures**—money spent by an outside group without direct contact with the candidate. So, the former type of expenditure is more *valuable* dollar-for-dollar because the candidate can help direct its spending, while the unlimited spending opened by *Citizens United* through super PACs must be independent. However, though that money is less “efficient,” there’s a whole lot more of it. Now, however, the Supreme Court has ruled that political party committees can spend as much money as they want in coordination with candidates (though limits on how much an individual can contribute to a party committee still stand…for now). ## **The Post-Watergate Throughline** The coordinated spending limit wasn't a stray regulation—it was a piece of the architecture Congress built after Watergate to keep concentrated money out of the wiring of individual campaigns. The Federal Election Campaign Act, amended substantially in 1974 in direct response to the Nixon-era money scandals, created the modern framework of contribution limits, disclosure requirements, and the FEC itself. The Supreme Court's 1976 ruling in *Buckley v. Valeo* upheld contribution limits as a corruption check while striking down spending limits as a speech restriction—a distinction that has shaped, and been steadily eroded by, every major campaign finance case since. That erosion has been a fairly direct line: *Citizens United v. FEC* in 2010 allowed corporations to spend unlimited sums in candidate elections as long as the expenditures were independent of the campaigns; the Court eliminated aggregate contribution limits in 2014; and in 2022's *FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate*, the Court struck down a cap on using post-election funds to repay candidate loans. Tuesday's ruling in *NRSC v. FEC* removes the coordinated-spending cap that was one of the last structural levers Congress had left to prevent large donors from routing money around individual contribution limits by funneling it through party committees instead. Justice Kavanaugh framed the limits as actively counterproductive to party strength, writing that keeping them in place would "help consign political parties to continued second-tier status as compared to outside groups." Justice Kavanaugh, please don’t threaten us with a good time. He went further, writing that "weakened political parties distort the political system," and the majority opinion characterized the decision as one that "treats all political parties equally" and would let parties "participate more freely and compete more fully in the political process." Of course, Constitutional originalists—we mean people who wrote the Constitution—believed that *strong* political parties distort the political system. Washington dedicated a portion of his farewell address to a warning against parties. John Adams called them “the greatest political evil” (while admitting they were allowed under the Constitution). Madison viewed parties as likely inevitable, but that they’d need to be regulated to prevent them from damaging the country. ## **Money Has Skewed Our Elections. More Money is Going to Skew Them Even More.** It's true that all political parties are being treated the same under the new rule. The Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the Forward Party, and any other ballot-qualified party committee in the country have all had their caps removed. But, first, none of these other parties has fundraising within several orders of magnitude of the Republican or Democratic Party. Having the cap removed when you’re not up against the limit doesn’t really do much to make you more competitive and bring more choices to the American people. And, second, a candidate who wants to run *without* party support is now forgoing the potential for unlimited coordinated spending from a national committee with deep pockets. These candidates will be operating in a world where their major party opponents could see near unlimited spending in the race. This reality was recognized in the Sixth Circuit’s opinion, which noted in passing that the existing system of party fundraising advantages already "give\[s\] national parties and their candidates a financial advantage over independents and regional third parties." ## **Why This Matters for 2026 and Beyond** 2026 is seeing one of the broadest and deepest benches of independent candidates in recent memory. We’ve [covered a number of independents running for Senate](https://ivn.us/tag/independent-candidates/), many of whom were keeping pace with the fundraising totals for major party candidates. Now, the parties are free to spend an *unlimited amount* of money in those races to drown out the independent voices that are just starting to gain steam. Yes, there are still limits on how much money individuals can give to political party committees. Yes, there are still limits on some ways in which money can be spent, especially money directly contributed to candidate committees. However, recent Supreme Court jurisprudence has been consistent in its view that limits on spending in campaigns are largely abridgements of the First Amendment. There’s no guarantee that any of these limits or restrictions will survive the next major challenge. As the rift between what’s allowed in our political system and what people want to be allowed in our political system deepens, it’s no wonder that efforts such as those in MT and HI, as well as calls for a Constitutional amendment to overturn *Citizens United*, continue to build up steam. ### Commentary: Birthright Citizenship Is More Complicated Than It Sounds URL: https://ivn.us/irwin-nowick-kavanaughs-confusing-birthright-decision-is-right-and-still-wrong/ Last updated: 2026-07-03T15:38:49.000Z ## **OVERVIEW** The reason that my analysis is so lengthy and detailed is that I have been thinking about the Trump v. Barbara issue for at least 3 years. As such, making minor changes in this memo to explain the Court’s opinion was not that difficult. For all the drama on Trump v. Barbara and “birthright citizenship,” people were making this far too complicated. In fact, I was initially very underwhelmed by the briefs filed in Trump v. Barbara. Having the resources to do so, I was tempted to use some of my “legacy revenues” to hire Richie Bernstein who was Justice Scalia’s clerk and my father’s second wife’s son to file a Nowick Family Amicus Brief. However, the later briefs filed aligned with my views so I decided not to do so. The core issue was not the Executive Order per se which in my view was the usurpation of the power of Congress as Justice Kavanaugh noted in his concurrence. Saying that, I do not know how a test case would have been created otherwise. Rather, the rational for the Executive Order based on legal arguments dating back 30 plus years as to whether the current understanding as to who automatically was made a citizen at birth by being born within the US where the parents were not citizens at the time of birth is based on the 14th Amendment itself or by a Congressional statute adopted by Congress in the exercise of its enumerated powers to establish a floor above the minimum floor set by the 14th Amendment itself. Because of Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967) whoever is granted or made or automatically is a citizen because he or she was within a category of persons who were made citizens at birth on US soil cannot be stripped of the same save by voluntary action aka no retroactivity. The issue of persons who went through a traditional naturalization proceeding is a little different because if there is fraud in the procurement which requires a formal judicial proceeding with high standards of proof. The real issue was whether Congress could change the law prospectively as to persons to be born where the parents are not citizens at the time the child is born in the United States and under what parameters. In my view the 6-3 Court majority got it right and Justice Gorsuch’s dissent agreed that temporary visitor’s – however defined and in fact in the Guidance neutered that exception were not protected – but children of long term “illegal; aliens” were protected which is the view of Professor Thomas Lee. \[\] As such, Gorsuch in fact is of the view that children born to long time illegal aliens are protected but Uscha Vance and Kamala Harris might not be. Justice Alito in his dissent did note the historical background but did not get into the “declaration of intent” theory that could have been made. My views are somewhat closer to the Chief Justice’s rational than Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence, and I think Justice Gorsuch dissent scorched the Government. Justice Kavanaugh invoked the doctrine of “Constitutional Avoidance” to give a roadmap to how Congress could act maybe. Justice Kavanaugh in his concurrence stated that Congress had statutorily taken the maximalist view articulated in United States v. Wong Kim Ark as to who were citizens at birth but could prospectively add exceptions *akin* to the 4 exceptions – whatever they were. However, Justice Kavanaugh overlooked the fact that the Guidance offered as to how the implementation of the Executive Order would work basically neutered the order save as to those unlawfully present. And, the “Foundling Provision” still exists and how that would play in is unclear. It would mean more abandoned babies, those kids still being citizens, and nothing being done to spur adoptions of those kids. In fact, Justice Gorsuch’s dissent disagreed with the main part of the Executive Order. It was very clear that 5 Justices wanted to shut this entire debate down completely. The Chief Justice argued that the debates over the 14th Amendment showed a Congressional intent accepted by the states that ratified the Amendment to naturalize and treat at birth everyone born on US Soil subject to depending on one’s views of 3 or 4 groups of newborns – groups that are miniscule today. Invoking the Spirit of America 250, the Chief Justice concluded: > “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights— to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 600 (Sen. Trumbull). We keep that promise today.” The bottom line is that the Government did poor lawyering. The Trump Administration overall destroyed itself at the beginning with its arguments. It would have been better off noting that given the declaration of intent procedure at that time, only children of parents who intended to become citizens would have been protected by the 14th Amendment itself automatically. However, that would have meant that LPR holders were not protected but others might be. That, would also raise additional questions and put Marco Rubio’s status at risk. And the issue of naturalizing children born on US Soil where no procedure exists now would be raised. It would also be an admission that its actions violated statutory rules. It is also clear that by injecting a “domicile requirement” – whatever that means and was never raised in the Wong Kim Ark litigation until at the opinion stage – domicile which no place appears in the 14th Amendment save as to residence in a state. In fact, as the Chief Justice noted “The principal dissent (but not the Government) at times seems to directly equate domicile and national citizenship.” I also am not surprised by Justice Brown getting personal on Justice Thomas and vice-versa over who has embraced the Dred Scott decision. What I had expected was for the Court to succinctly overrule parts of Dred Scott but to do so would require people to review each holding and reject the same which would expose ideological faultlines. I am also not surprised that everyone invoked President Lincoln for their position which shows the reverence that he is held in to this day. As such, overall, given the tenor of the oral argument and the briefs, I am not shocked by the ruling, Moreover, judges are people first and have their own family situations. What people forget is that the Supreme Court today is made up of 4 women, 2 African Americans, 1 Jew, and 6 Catholics. Justice Gorsuch is the only mainline White Protestant Justice to sit on the Supreme Court since the retirement of John Paul Stevens in 2010\. He and his two siblings were raised Catholic and attended weekly Mass. His wife, Louise, is British-born; the two met while Gorsuch was studying at Oxford. Justice Barrett has several adopted children who were born abroad. Justice Barrett has kids, 2 of whom are adopted and are non-White and went through naturalization procedures. She did not want to put other families through that. The US Supreme Court in essence is now the national version of the backgrounds of appellate court justices of such states as California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. These are states with very large late 19th Century to this day large immigrant ancestry populations or non-white populations and the judges reflect that. It also reflects who is going to and graduating from Law School. As a bonus \[to paraphrase Willie Lewis Brown, Jr.\] as we approach America 250 the Justices all took the opportunity to do a shout out to African Americans for the citizenship rights of all Americans. As I have often said, African Americans should and do take great pride in the sacrifices that those who came before them made that lead to the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments so that this Nation under God would lead to a New Birth of Freedom. Simply put, we all stand on the shoulders of giants. In that vein, I am probably one of the few white life members of the National African American Gun Owners Association. Whenever I go into a sporting goods store and see someone of color filling out the paperwork, I thank them and point out that the rights we enjoy. They often look at me askance and I encourage them to google me and the LA Times and other articles popup. I then often have a selfie with the applicant and the counter clerk and I have them email it to me which in turn I will email to the various gun rights and hunting groups and ask why hasn’t the NRA plaque the cast of *Glory*? ### **MY FAMILY BACKGROUND** As this is the first time that I have actually posted an article for IVN I wanted to give some family background. I am the grandson and great grandson of immigrants. They all became American citizens as soon as they could, they all owned their own homes, on my mother’s side, her extended family served in the military in the Spanish American War, World War I \[\] World War II and Korea. Her two brothers – my uncles - served during World War II and Korea. On my father’s side, he, his brother, and at least one of my cousins served in the military. My ancestors set very high expectations for my parents and the rest of my family. My parents, particularly my mother aka Roz albeit a DLG \[Daddy’s Little Girl\] and heiress-lite that she was - set high expectations for my sister \[Mrs. G of the DCBC courtesy of Roz\] and I but particularly moi and impressed upon my sister and I how lucky we were to be American Citizens, what is now called American Exceptionalism \[aka “Only in America”\] as well as the importance of “giving back” via a hand-up – not a handout. \[\] My mother and all her friends in her Mah Jong set \[which included non-Jewish women \[\]\] might be well off but they were very-very tough and were armed to the teeth. No one was making their kids into lampshades. There was no nuance on their views on America’s role in the World being part of the Greatest Generation. Their foreign policy was Harry Truman dropping the bomb. Growing up, given where I lived and who the parents were, every single father \[and often mothers\] served in the Military in some capacity. You could go into any professional office where the parents worked and see on the walls not just professional diplomas and licenses, but also pictures of the partners in uniform and honorable discharge certificates. Had my mother not died when I was a freshman in college certain aspects of my life likely would have turned out differently. It is likely that I would do 2-4 years of military service as a junior officer after I graduated from college before I pursued a post graduate degree. The reason is that at period the military was desperate to coordinate with colleges to get recruits. Growing up, albeit in very privileged circumstances on the North Shore of Long Island near but not on Long Island Sound, I heard all the stories about my family crossing the Atlantic, the chaos of Ellis Island and people passing through the naturalization process. Until the 1920s, assuming one was legally admitted into the country and was a White European, made the declaration of intent, and after a probationary period of a few years, was sworn in as a Citizen as soon as they could. As to the issue of citizenship at birth, on my grandmother’s wall of the house she owned was her framed citizenship certificate from 1915\. I once asked her why she waited until after she naturalized in 1915 to start having children and her response was multi-faceted as my father was born in 1925\. One, she wanted to make sure that her husband was “on program”. And, two, she wanted no questions as to her children being American Citizens at birth. My mother’s father naturalized well before she or my uncles were born for the same reasons. In early 2025 my S.O. Ms. Judith M. Garvey \[\] because we both have the resources to do so \[RMD’s and otherwise\] - wanted the option to travel abroad. Being “on program” I had to apply for a passport. I had not had a passport since 1975 when I did Kibbutz duty in *Northern Israel* where-in I lost 40 pounds. As part of that process because of Real I.D. I had my Birth Certificate. I made an appointment at the Yolo County Law Library in Woodland which in my view is the best law library in Northern California. I had my photos taken at the Triple A and went through the process. I asked the law librarian as to how did the State Department know that I was a citizen and the answer was that they had Census and other records that went back to well before my great grand-parents naturalized which suggests that the documentary concerns some have voiced may be overblown at least as to persons born through the 4th or 5th generation naturalized in the last 125 years. Part of the problem that the Executive Order raised is that native-born citizens born to citizens absent a contested proceeding do not get a Citizenship Certificate – that must be changed so that is issued automatically along with the birth certificate. That is unlike persons born abroad who go through a naturalization proceeding who do get a certificate. ## **BACKGROUND TO EXECUTIVE ORDER** ### **WHY NOW AND WHAT THE E.O. PROPOSED** As noted above, certain elements of the Republican Party obtained the ear of President Trump \[whose own family has issues \[\]\] which started this discussion though it likely would have occurred no matter what. Since the 1980’s certain conservative “legal scholars” have asserted that the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 164 (1898) resulted in those who disagreed with that assertion on all spectrums to run to the Law Library to counter those arguments. President Reagan because of various factors was very pro-immigrant in essence squashed this effort. The net result was this has been a 40 plus year dispute in the making. It has also led to an exponential increase in people obtaining birth certificates and passports, seeking naturalization as soon as possible – which is a good thing - the use of genealogy sites, and tv programs such as “Who do you think you are?” and “Finding your roots”. What this activity also resulted in Americans having to think through these issues in terms of their family and friends. Polling suggests that support for the broad view of citizenship at birth has increased exponentially because of this. While the legal commentators get into a dispute that centers on whether the United States adopted citizenship at birth by Jus Soli aka soil \[aka born here with certain exceptions you are a citizen\] vs. Jus Sanguinis \[aka birth via parent(s) determine citizenship irrespective of where you were born you acquire the citizenship via your parents\] it is not so cut and dried. US Citizenship law is sui generis aka a “one off” based on specific factors. It is the legal version of Rascal Flatts “*God Bless the Broken Road that led me straight to you*”. Great Britain which now follows a modified Jus Sanguinis, it was and is a hybrid too. The reason is that as English Citizenship was evolving, it was against the background of the development of a far-flung Empire where the motto was that “The sun never sets on the British Empire”. Citizenship rules were created by statute as issues arose. Because subject to International Law, Great Britian does not have a written Constitution Parliament can do a lot of things Congress cannot. As Justice Scalia noted in District of Columbia v. Heller, the existence of a written Constitution of necessity takes various policy choices off the table. 554 U.S. 570, 636 (2008) The President’s Executive Order that started the litigation was not moving 100% to a Jus Sanguinis system but a modified system. It was flawed internally and in fact went far beyond protecting LPR holders as evidenced by the implementation plan. The order stated the United States would not recognize United States citizenship, to persons: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth. In terms of implementation, because of the litigation blocking the Executive Order there was no formal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) rules on this but it has prepared an internal policy plan for how to enforce the order if the litigation cleared. If you read the [implementation plan](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-alerts/IP-2025-0001-USCIS%5FImplementation%5FPlan%5Fof%5FExecutive%5FOrder%5F14160%20%E2%80%93%20Protecting%5Fthe%5FMeaning%5Fand%5FValue%5Fof%5FAmerican%5FCitizenship.pdf?ref=ivn.us), the order does not discuss the steps I listed below in terms of universal issuance at reduced costs of Certificates of Citizenship at birth. However, it did discuss creating a path for citizenship for those born here to non-citizens that does not exist now. Moreover, the UCISC implementation plan swept into the *protected class* basically everyone but certain narrow categories. It would change behavior in that more babies would be abandoned and naturalized under the Foundling Provision. And, it would put additional strains on the foster care system. \[\] The inclusion of LPR holders showed how ill thought out the Order is as they are NOT citizens. The whole basis for the Government’s argument and many of the Amicus Briefs was tied to “allegiance.” The inclusion of the children of Legal Permanent residents – a category that did not exist until the 1920s’- made no sense for inclusion as birthright citizenship in its truest sense is only tied to allegiance logically which, in turn, only applies to citizens and persons born to citizens as Judge Sorokin noted in Doe v. Trump, 766 F.Supp.3d 266, 283 (D. Mass. 2025) At the same time, under the Executive Order, if a parent is a US Citizen or someone who is considered a long term and legal resident where the other parent is a member of an invading army, their child would be a citizen which was likely contrary to the Common Law view at the time of the founding. This was noted by Judge Boardman in CASA v. Trump, Inc. who stated that “*This exception to citizenship by birth plainly does not apply to the children described in the Executive Order*.” 763 F.Supp.3d 723, 741 fn. 5 (D. Md. 2025) Given that the Executive Order was not retroactive while raising a series of issues it was itself ripe for legal challenge because it was totally contrary to what many had assumed was the law. \[\] In fact, if the aim was to address Birther Toursim, the fact that the child would be a US citizen at birth. In fact, mother has every incentive to secretly leave the country. The child left behind would come under the foundling citizenship provision and likely would then be part of the foster care system and hopefully quickly adopted. \[\] What the parent did does increase the likelihood of deportability of the parent as the Supreme Court noted in United States ex rel. Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 353 U.S. 72 (1957) but has no effect on the child. \[\] ### **THE E.O. PROPOSED A MODIFIED VERSION OF THE POST 1983 BRITISH SYSTEM** *As a policy matter*, if writing on a clean slate without reference to the Constitution and current statutory regime, there are legitimate policy reasons for prior to starting families at least one parent is a citizen. My grand-mother’s choice was the right choice for my family. In speaking to my focus group – the women inside the Swing Space, I know at least 3 women who naturalized and then waited to start a family. To the extent that the E.O. had a policy focus, it was trying to move gradually to the British system in effect since 1983 which because it does not have a written Constitution it can do. Britain allows naturalization of children who are born to parents who are not citizens to be treated as citizens if they lived continuously in the UK for the 1st 10 years of their life. To be a British citizen if you were born in the UK, it depends on when you were born and your parents’ circumstances. - If you were born before 1983, you are automatically a British citizen if you were born in the UK before 1 January 1983, unless: - Your father was a diplomat working for a non-UK country. - Your father was “an enemy alien in occupation” and you were born in the Channel Islands during World War 2 This is with the exception of Native Americans akin to what the United States held in Wong Kim Ark. - If you were born in the UK on or after 1 January 1983 when one of your parents was a British citizen or ‘settled’ \[aka LPR status\] in the UK you are automatically a citizen. - You were born on or after 1 January 1983 you are a British Citizen if either exists: - You’re under 18 and since your birth one of your parents became a British citizen, or got permission to stay in the UK permanently. That is a form of derivative naturalization that has existed in the United States since the founding. - Born in the UK on or after January 1, 198B3 and before July 1, 2006: - Both of your parents were not British citizens or settled in the UK or your father was a British citizen or settled in the UK and was not married to your mother; and - You must not have spent more than 90 days outside the UK in each of the first 10 years of your life. - Born in the UK on or after July 1, 2006, and either exists: - Automatically a British citizen if, when you were born, one of your parents was a British citizen or settled in the UK. - When you were born, neither of your parents were British citizens or settled in the UK and not have spent more than 90 days outside the UK in each of the first 10 years of your life. As such, the UK as to a child born to a non-citizen or LPR holder, the child becomes a British citizen either by living in the UK for the 1st 10 years of one’s life or a parent naturalizes before you turn 18\. As a result, you are in a sense ***derivatively*** naturalized. Britian because of the 1st 10-year rule follows a modified form of the doctrine of Jus Sanguinis. \[\] Given the British example, for any change to play itself out per the Executive Order in 99.9 percent of the cases would take many years to implement which is what happened with the Real ID ACT. Real ID was not fully implemented until 2025 even though it was adopted in 2005\. In terms of implementation, because of the litigation blocking the Executive Order there was no formal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) rules on this but it has prepared an internal policy plan for how to enforce the order if litigation cleared. If you [read the implementation plan](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-alerts/IP-2025-0001-USCIS%5FImplementation%5FPlan%5Fof%5FExecutive%5FOrder%5F14160%20%E2%80%93%20Protecting%5Fthe%5FMeaning%5Fand%5FValue%5Fof%5FAmerican%5FCitizenship.pdf?ref=ivn.us), the order does not discuss the steps I listed below in terms of universal issuance at reduced costs of Certificates of Citizenship, It also does not address the need for statutory changes to address the status of kids born to persons who are here under non-immigrant visas who ***adjust their status*** and become citizens in terms of their citizenship and how if it or could be acquired. Adjustment of status is a process created by Congress in 8 U.S.C. § 1255 that allows eligible immigrants already present in the United States to apply for green cards without departing the country. The process has existed since 1960, when Congress expanded the modern adjustment of status framework to allow eligible immigrants already in the United States to complete the green card process domestically. This remains an important component of the U.S. immigration system, eliminating the need for many applicants to leave the country and seek permanent residence through U.S. consulates abroad. Each year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants become lawful permanent residents through this process. In fiscal year 2024 alone, nearly 783,000 individuals received green cards through adjustment of status. For more than six decades, adjustment of status has been a well-established feature of U.S. immigration law, routinely administered by Republican and Democratic administrations, and supported through congressional appropriations as the principal pathway for eligible applicants already in the United States to obtain lawful permanent residence. While Trump has proposed changing this somehow to require people to leave there was an immediate pushback and the Trump Administration is rethinking its position. I should add that Trump himself has made inconsistent comments on this issue suggesting he wants to create a pathway to citizenship for certain students. A recent report stated because of Trump’s comments and actions, international student enrollment had dipped 17%. Declining tuition spending translated to $1.1 billion in lost revenue for universities, and almost 23,000 fewer jobs. International enrollees disproportionately pursue technical degrees, including in scientific, technology, engineering, and mathematics domains aka STEM. The President’s immigration policies have included a constriction of legal immigration pathways, too. It has enacted travel bans affecting dozens of countries, tightened refugee admission requirements, and rehauled the process by which many highly skilled foreign students can come to the U.S. for school, and eventually work. Last year, the administration ordered changes to the H-1B visa program, which allows companies to hire highly skilled and specialized workers. The overhaul required employers to shell out $100,000 for each application, up from around $5,000 previously. A federal judge struck down the order earlier this month, a decision the administration said it would appeal. Putting aside the merits of these changes, there is a policy against stateless children. ## **WHAT THE CONSTITUTION AS INTERPRETED PRIOR TO 1857 DEFINED AS A CITIZEN** The issue of citizenship status of children has been an issue since the Founding. There were and are 5 categories of children whose Citizenship has been litigated since the Founding. The five categories are: - Category 1 consists of children born inside the United States to US Citizens. - Category 2 consists of children born inside the United States who Congress under its collective power of Mass Naturalization naturalized. - Category 3 consists of children born abroad to US Citizens. - Category 4 consists of children born outside the United States to non-citizens. - Category 5 consists of children born on US soil to non-citizens who were never collectively naturalized explicitly by a Congressional statute. As to ***Category 1***, because of the Treaty of 1783 where Britain recognized American Independence while the US Supreme Court held that the date was for determination of citizenship was July 1, 1776, after the Revolutionary War, questions arose as to the property rights under the Treaty of 1783 as to “citizens” vs. “non-citizens”. In series of decisions by Chief Justice Marshall and Justice Joseph Story, the Supreme Court held that the pool of persons born on US soil prior to July 1, 1776 and who stayed here after the Treaty of Paris in 1783 or were born on US soil prior to the adoption of the Constitution whose parents were State Citizens or resided within the territory that Great Britain ceded to the United States and stayed here were made United State Citizens by operation of law at the time of the adoption of the Constitution in 1789. In addition, from the Founding, as the United States Supreme Court has recognized that children born to US Citizens on US soil who were citizens at the time of giving birth were Citizens without any additional requirements or procedures. That is still the case today. This is pure Jus Sanguinis and Section 1 of the 14th Amendment recognized or confirmed that fact***.*** The cases so recognizing that legal fact include, but are not limited to: Inglis v. Trustees, 28 U.S. 99, 100-101 (1830), Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242 (1830), United States v. Ritchie, 58 U.S. 525, 539 (1854), Dred Scott v. Sanford, 63 U.S. 393 (1857), The Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S 36, 72-74 (1872), Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-169 (1874), Boyd v. Nebraska, 143 U.S. 135\. 163 (1892). The significance of being in Category 1 beside automatic citizenship at birth, persons born on US soil to Citizens or who were collectively naturalized on US soil cannot not be stripped of their citizenship involuntarily. That second protection was the holding in 1967 in Afroyim, Afroyim noted that Chief Justice Marshall had long taken that view and one of the reasons that the 14th Amendment was to protect from Congressional action denaturalization of people who were made citizens by the 14th Amendment or who Congress had previously collectively naturalized or in future aka freed slaves and others. In terms of denaturalization proceedings, that involves situations where persons in an individual naturalization process made false statements to gain citizenship. While Congress has the power to enforce the 14th Amendment via Section 5 thereof, it cannot purport to interpret the same as the Supreme Court held 8-1 in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997) As to ***Category 2***, Category 2 individuals are persons who might be in Category 5 but for the fact that Congress naturalized them when the US acquired territory via Treaty or the War Power, or decided to exercise jurisdiction over an area, or admitted an area as a state, or otherwise. This would include Blacks as a Class because of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, Native Americans, Foundlings, people residing in an area that the US acquired via treaty. Because this was mass naturalization via statute there was no individual naturalization proceeding. Large numbers of people were naturalized as part of a treaty or Congress passing a law saying congratulations, your group are now citizens. This form of collective naturalization was approved of repeatedly by the Supreme Court. The significance of being in Category 2 like Category 1 is that these persons collectively naturalized cannot not be stripped of their citizenship involuntarily per Afroyim. \[\] As to ***Category 3***, because being born in a foreign country, those children would be in an analogous situation to someone who was born in the US to a non-citizen. However, following English precedent, the 1st Congress in 1790 collectively naturalized them at birth if their parents were US Citizens assuming certain conditions precedent and subsequent existed. Under the doctrine of “Contemporaneous Understanding” as elucidated by Chief Justice William Howard Taft – the 1st Originalist – that a Congressional action when Framers of the Constitution where subsequently elected to Congress which enacted the statute was strong evidence of the validity of such legislation. Since Day 1, via statute Congress has made clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that, subject to certain residency requirements on the parents, someone born to a U.S. citizen parent generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to where the birth takes place. This issue often comes up as to Presidential eligibility as to Republican candidate’s aka: Barry Goldwater \[issue involved being born in Arizona pre-statehood but Arizona was incorporated territory – non issue because of Slaughterhouse Cases\], George Romney \[birth in Mexico to LFS Polygamists\], John McCain \[born in a hospital just outside Panama Canal Zone – non issue because of 1790 Act\], Ted Cruz \[birth in Canada - non issue because of 1790 Act\] and Marco Rubio \[born in Florida to LPR holders\]. Cruz and Rubio when it affected them went all in on the maximalist Wong Kim Ark view in litigation. In 1971 in Rogers v. Bellei,401 U.S. 815 (1971) the United States Supreme Court held that the 14th Amendments protections did not apply to an individual who received an automatic congressional grant of citizenship at birth, but who was born outside the United States. That person could lose his or her citizenship for failure to fulfill any reasonable residence requirements which the United States Congress may impose as a condition subsequent to that birth abroad. Rogers further held that the 14th Amendment’s grant of citizenship only applied to persons born within the United States and “incorporated: territories”. The statute under which Bellei was stripped of his citizenship was repealed by the U.S. Congress in 1978\. Given Morales-Santana and the Government’s concession in Barbara, Category 3 is protected by Afroyim. As to ***Category 4***, there has never been a dispute that children born outside the USA to non-citizens to become citizens have to go through a naturalization proceeding of some type. In many cases, if the person is below a certain age when the parents naturalize, the child naturalized via derivative naturalization. The real dispute is as to ***Category 5*** which is the 14th Amendment issue. The Constitution as originally adopted in 1789 contained no definition of United States citizenship. However, it referred to citizenship in general terms and in varying contexts: qualifications for members of the House; qualifications for Senators; eligibility for the office of President citizenship as affecting judicial power of the United States. And, vested Congress with the power to "establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization." The historical reviews suggest that the 1789 Constitution's lack of definitional specificity may well have been attributable in part to the desire to avoid entanglement in the then-existing controversy between concepts of state and national citizenship and with the difficult question of the status of slaves. That situation was changed by the 1866 Civil Rights Act, the adoption of the 14th Amendment, and the reenactment of the 1866 Civil Rights Act in 1870 after the 14th Amendment was ratified. As noted above, from the founding children of citizens born to Citizens on US soil were constitutionally US Citizens or who were collectively naturalized or who were born after the parent\[s\] went through a naturalization proceeding. The first naturalization act, passed by Congress on March 26, 1790 (1 Stat. 103), provided that any free, white, adult alien, male or female, who had resided within the limits and jurisdiction of the United States for a period of 2 years was eligible for citizenship. Under the act, any individual who desired to become a citizen was to apply to “any common law court of record, in any one of the states wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least.” Citizenship was granted to those who proved to the court’s satisfaction that they were of good moral character and who took an oath of allegiance to the Constitution. Under the system established by the act, aliens could be naturalized not only in Federal courts, but also in State and local courts, and the children of successful applicants, if under 21 years of age, automatically became citizens. The act of January 29, 1795 (1 Stat. 414) increased the period of residence required for citizenship from 2 to 5 years. *It also required applicants to declare publicly their intention to become citizens of the United States and to renounce any allegiance to a foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty 3 years before admission as citizens.* Immigrants who had “borne any hereditary title, or been of the order of nobility” were also required to renounce that status. These actions could be taken before the supreme, superior, district, or circuit court of any State or Territory, or before a circuit or district court of the United States. On April 14, 1802, Congress passed an act (2 Stat. 153) that directed the clerk of the court to record the entry of all aliens into the United States. The clerk collected information including the applicant’s name, birthplace, age, nation of allegiance, country of emigration, and place of intended settlement, and granted each applicant a certificate that could be exhibited to the court as evidence of time of arrival in the United States. Certain doubts had arisen as to whether State and local courts were included within the description of U.S. district or circuit courts. The act of 1802 reaffirmed that every State and Territorial court was considered a district court within the meaning of the laws pertaining to naturalization, and that any persons naturalized in such courts were accorded the same rights and privileges as if they had been naturalized in a district or circuit court of the United States. The act of 1802 was the last major piece of naturalization legislation during the 19th century. A number of minor revisions were introduced, but these merely altered or clarified details of evidence and certification without changing the basic nature of the admission procedure. The most important of these revisions occurred in 1855, when citizenship was automatically granted to alien wives of U.S. citizens (10 Stat. 604), and in 1870, when the naturalization process was opened to persons of African descent (16 Stat. 256). Until the early 20th Century, the procedure began with the filing of a declaration of intention, which recorded the applicant’s oath to the clerk of the court that it was his or her bona fide intention to become a citizen of the United States, to reside permanently therein, and to renounce all allegiances to other nations. This could be filed as soon as one got off the boat or traveled by land into the United States. Within a period of 2 to 3 years after filing the declaration, the applicant could petition the court for citizenship, presenting at this time the affidavits of two witnesses with personal knowledge of the applicant, stating that the applicant had resided in the United States for the waiting period years and possessed a good moral character. In fact, the probationary period was reduced substantially for persons with military service. \[\] The petition then became the last step in the procedure, provided the judge found the findings and recommendation of naturalization officials favorable and satisfactory. If so, the applicant would take an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and laws and renounce all foreign allegiances, and the judge would issue an order of admission to citizenship and grant the applicant a certificate of citizenship. However, a judge could also order a continuance of the investigation or deny the petition, listing the reasons for the denial. A major change in this procedure occurred in 1952, when the filing of the declaration of intention was eliminated. As such, while constitutionally prior to 1868 it appeared that as to the Constitutional floor, the United States only recognized citizenship at birth if one of the parents was a citizen. However, statutorily if a declaration of intent to naturalize was filed which included renunciation of foreign citizenship at that point the children were derivatively naturalized irrespective of place of birth. This was a form of citizenship in waiting. It is obvious that because of all of the briefs filed that the Justices or their clerks were doing their research and thinking about this issue. In fact, in oral argument in Trump v. Barbara Justice Alito who generally does his homework stated that those kids irrespective of place of birth were naturalized by operation of law when the parents naturalized or the declaration of intent was filed. \[Transcript of oral argument at Page 109\]. \[\] Excluded from the pool of citizens or expectant pool of citizens created in 1789 by the Constitution or statutes implementing Congressional powers were children of diplomats, a category of children born in areas controlled by an occupying force, slaves \[more below\] and members of Indian tribes who were viewed as foreigners though Congress could and did collectively naturalize them En Masse over time. The pool of citizens did include persons who were state citizens when the Constitution irrespective of race, creed, color, or sex. In addition, the Supreme Court in 1857 in Dred Scott v. Sanford, 63 U.S. 393 (1857) held that Free Blacks were not citizens even if they were state citizens at the time of the adoption of the constitution. ***It is very clear that this was historically inaccurate***. Dred Scott was opaque on whether Congress under the power of collective naturalization could even naturalize Blacks though the court held – based on prior actions – that Native Americans could be made Citizens by Congressional action. In fact, Congress had made certain Native Americans Citizens as part of land cessions and had as part of treaties of annexation had allowed free persons irrespective of color to become citizens. While Congress allowed only Caucasians to go through an individual naturalization proceeding it did not inhibit collective naturalization. There were two Supreme Court cases in the ante-bellum period that addressed the status of the citizenship status of children born to non-citizens, The two cases were McCreery’s Lessee v. Somerville, 22 U.S. 354 (1824) and Levy v. McCartee, 31 U.S. 102 (1832) McCreery v. Somerville concerned the title to land in the State of Maryland, it was assumed that children born in that State of an alien who was still living, and who had not been naturalized, were "native-born citizens of the United States.” As the Supreme Court noted in Wong Kim Ark, without such assumption the case would not have presented the question decided by the court, which, as stated by Justice Story in delivering the opinion, was "whether the statute applies to the case of a living alien ancestor, so as to create a title by heirship, where none would exist by the common law, if the ancestor were a natural-born subject." McCreery was cited in Wong Kim Ark WITH APPROVAL. Levy v. McCartee, 31 U.S. 102 (1832) concerned another property inheritance dispute, Justice Story, held that the case must rest for its decision exclusively upon the principles of the common law. He stated by that law a child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject; quoting the statement of Lord Coke in Co. Lit. 8a, that "if an alien cometh into England and hath issue two sons, these two sons are indigence, subjects born, because they are born within the realm;" and saying that such a child "was a native-born subject, according to the principles of the common law, stated by this court in McCreery v. Somerville." In neither McCreery or Levy we do not know whether the parents had taken the steps to start the process of naturalization. We do know as Justice Alito observed that derivative citizenship has always existed but its most common form was to children born abroad to US Citizens and children born abroad to non-citizens who then naturalized in the USA. However, logically there is no difference as to derivative citizenship where the child is born in the USA to non-citizens where the parents then become citizens. In fact, that scenario was very common if not explicitly recognized in statute prior to 1866 because in essence the declaration of intent which is a form of Expatriation which is constitutionally protected acted as not being subject to a foreign power, it is in a sense a form of jus sanguinis. ## **WHERE DRED SCOTT COMES IN** The core of the dispute as to children born within the United States to persons who are non-citizens arose from situations where the parents *could not* as a class be naturalized in an individual naturalization proceeding under the statutes in effect at that time, to wit non-whites. That is where Dred Scott v. Sanford comes in. ***THE HOLDING IN DRED SCOTT THAT AFRICAN AMERICANS AS A CLASS COULD NOT BE CITIZENS WAS WRONG.*** As Justice Curtis noted in his dissent, African Americans were at the time of the Founding in at least half of the colonies state citizens and became via operation of law US Citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and their descendants were citizens via jus sanguinis. Moreover, via treaties African Americans were collectively naturalized En Masse as even Dred Scott held was a power of Congress. Because Dred Scott ***deservedly*** is held is such disrepute, no one talks about the actual multiple holding\[s\] in Dred Scott which was litigated as a diversity case – not a federal question case. Dred Scott was born in 1799 in Virginia as a slave. He passed from owner to owner and at one point he was taken to an army post in Minnesota. While parts of Minnesota were encompassed within the Northwest Territory where slavery was banned under the Northwest Ordinance which Congress under the its powers under the Territories Clause \[US Constitution Art. IV § 3, cl. 2\] prohibited via legislation enacted in the 1st Congress. The Army post where Scott was held as a slave was part of the Louisiana Purchase and was north of the line where slavery was banned by the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise line was repealed by the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act. Scott eventually sued for his freedom and the case reached the United States Supreme Court. The Scott case raised two issues. First, did Scott have standing to invoke diversity jurisdiction under Article III of the Constitution. Section 2 of Article III provides for federal “judicial power” to hear “Controversies . . .between Citizens of different States” and between State Citizens and “foreign States, Citizens or Subjects” —the so-called citizenship and alienage diversity jurisdiction? The Court held 7-2 that Scott could not invoke diversity as African Americans as a class were not citizens for purpose of Section 2 of Article IIII. Nor, were they “aliens” because alienage assumed voluntarily being within the United States and there was no history that anyone of that race came to the United States voluntarily. 60 U.S. at 411. In addition, Dred Scott held that because Black persons were not US Citizens, they were not among the “Citizens of each State” entitled to non-discrimination against out-of-state citizens under Article IV, Section 2 \[the Comity Clause\], just as they were not state citizens under Article III, Section 2 entitled to sue in federal court under the diversity jurisdiction. Given many Northern States had “Negro Exclusion” exclusion laws, the ruling on the Comity Clause. Rather, what set people off was the holding that the Missouri Compromise was invalid and the implication thereof that because of the “Right of Transit” Slavery could become National. The main basis for this conclusion was that Africans had never voluntarily came to this country and Congress prohibited their naturalization in a normal naturalization proceeding. Dred Scott actually encompassed numerous holdings some of which are still good law and others are not. The holdings in Dred Scott were as follows: Holding 1 of Dred Scott was that “the People” and “Citizens” were synonymous terms. That holding has not been overruled. Holding 2 of Dred Scott was that after the Constitution was adopted only Congress could via various procedures naturalize someone. That holding has not been overruled Holding 3 of Dred Scott was that the pool of citizens at the time of the founding were those who were citizens of the 13 Colonies and the lands ceded by Great Britain to the new nation by the Treaty of 1783\. This was acknowledged in a series of cases decided well before Dred Scott v. Sanford, See: e.g.: United States v. Ritchie, 58 U.S. 525, 539 (1854); Inglis v. Trustees, 28 U.S. 99, 100-101 (1830), Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242 (1830). This was reaffirmed in Boyd v. Nebraska, 143 U.S. 135\. 163 (1892). Holding 4 of Dred Scott was that even though there were free African Americans in at least 5 of the 13 Colonies which became states who had full citizenship rights therein \[and many served in the Continental Army as Ken Burn’s recent documentary pointed out\] they were not made US Citizens by operation of law by the Constitution when adopted. Justice Curtis in his Dred Scott dissent demolished this argument. This was clearly overruled by the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. In fact, as to the Missouri Compromise which was declared invalid in Dred Scott, there were two Missouri Compromises. The 2nd Missouri Compromise arose because of a clause in Missouri's new constitution, written in 1820, which required the exclusion of "free negroes and mulattoes" from the state. The act of admission stated that the exclusionary clause of the Missouri constitution should "never be construed to authorize the passage of any law" impairing the privileges and immunities of any U.S. citizen. If African Americans were not citizens, why was this provision needed. The answer was that it was needed because of the Comity Clause. As noted above, the rational for the position that Blacks as a class could not be citizens is that Chief Justice Taney accurately stated that Congress in the first Naturalization Act only allowed whites to naturalize \[hints of the dissent in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 64 (1898)\]. However, this had no effect on what occurred prior to the actual enactment of the Constitution and in effect was recognized by the same as Justice Curtis noted in his dissent. And, it would in effect void ab initio collective naturalization that had naturalized African Americans in various circumstances by Treaties and other Congressional actions. In fact, at the time of the adoption of the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendments, only whites could naturalize in a naturalization proceeding. Blacks could not be naturalized in an individual naturalization proceeding until 1870\. These anomalies are not unique in American law. Since the Founding foreign born citizens who are naturalized cannot become President or Vice President but can vote in the elections to decide who is President or Vice President. Similarly, persons 18 years or older who cannot serve as President or as Senators or as House Members because of age cannot themselves hold these offices until they reach a minimum age can vote in elections to select these representatives. In terms of slaves themselves, the Constitution as adopted in 1789 allowed for the Slave Trade for 20 years and prohibited Congressional interference in the same until 1808 though imported slaves could be the subject of import taxes. The effect of this was that all slaves brought in before 1808 and their offspring were treated as legal property and not contraband. Holding 5 of Dred Scott was the observation that the Comity Clause in the Constitution which protects against interstate discrimination against “citizens” only applies to protect *United States Citizens*. That is still good law. Non-citizens are now protected by the Equal Protection Clause. Holding 6 of Dred Scott was that despite the history of the Northwest Ordinance, Congress had no power under the Territories Clause to adopt the Missouri Compromise line. This was ***totally*** contrary to the universal view at that time as articulated by Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in American Insurance Company v. Canter, 26 U.S. 511 (1828) Holding 7 of Dred Scott was that the United States pursuant to the Treaty or War Clauses of the Constitution could not acquire lands to be ruled as de-facto Colonies. While that may make critics of the Insular Cases \[\] happy, as of today the Insular Cases are still binding precedent. Holding 8 of Dred Scott was an assertion or admission that Congress apart from an individual naturalization proceeding could via statute or treaty naturalize En Masse persons. That clearly included Indians \[which Congress did piecemeal En Masse prior to 1924\] and anyone else apart from maybe slaves. The specific quote as to non-whites is: “Now, the Constitution does not limit the power of Congress in this respect to white persons. *And they may, if they think proper, authorize the naturalization of any one, of any color, who was born under allegiance to another Government. But the language of the law above quoted, shows that citizenship at that time was perfectly understood to be confined to the white race; and that they alone constituted the sovereignty in the Government*. “Congress might, as we before said, have authorized the naturalization of Indians, because they were aliens and foreigners. But, in their then untutored and savage state, no one would have thought of admitting them as citizens in a civilized community. And, moreover, the atrocities they had but recently committed, when they were the allies of Great Britain in the Revolutionary war, were yet fresh in the recollection of the people of the United States, and they were even then guarding themselves against the threatened renewal of Indian hostilities. No one supposed then that any Indian would ask for, or was capable of enjoying, the privileges of an American citizen, and the word white was not used with any particular reference to them.” 60 U.S. at 419-420. ***Given Holding 8***, the assertion Blacks could not be citizens is NONSENSE. The fact is that Congress through other enumerated powers had collectively naturalized various African Americans in treaties and statutes. Collective naturalization has occurred from the very beginning of the Republic as Chief Justice Marshall noted in American Insurance Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 26 U.S. 511, 542-544 (1828). In fact, in Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94 (1884) the Court noted that pursuant to its Indian Commerce Clause and Territorial Powers Congress had naturalized En Masse various members of Indian Tribes and had the power to do so. This was in fact a power that Congress exercised in 1924 across the board. Elk v. Wilkins was an attempt by an individual to self-naturalize which has never been allowed. Elk used certain language in Dred Scott (56 U.S. at 420) to make that argument. Dred Scott was ***rightfully*** condemned at the time. In Taney’s home state of Maryland, there are about 75,000 to 80,000 free blacks. When the state legislature proposed a new set of draconian black laws that would either remove them or re-enslave them, people organized, gathered petitions, went to Annapolis as part of an effort that ultimately defeated the legislation. ## **THE 1866 CIVIL RIGHTS ACT AS A RESONSE TO DRED SCOTT** While during the Civil War Attorney General Bates argued that Dred Scott was wrongly decided and African Americans could be citizens, others were not so sure what Dred Scott allowed or did not allow as to Congressional action. At the time the Civil War ended, between the Emancipation Proclamation and the adoption of the 13th Amendment, 4 million slaves were emancipated. That included 500,000 emancipated by the 13th Amendment and 3.5 million by the Emancipation Proclamation. There were probably another 500,000 free Blacks. That represented in excess of 12% of the population within the United States. While some have asserted that mass deportation was not constitutionally allowed, given that deportation procedures existed at the Founding and in fact was the remedy for people brought into the US in violation of the 1808 Clause mass removal was an option. Given what I have read about President Lincoln’s position, he evolved from mass deportation to selective naturalization – specifically as to pre-existing free Northern Blacks who met literacy requirements and Blacks who served in the military and were honorably discharged. In fact, he was recorded as saying he would not return to slavery or deport no matter the political cost persons who he referred to as the Black Warriors of Olustee and Port Hudson. Then and now, it is a truism there are two ways that Americans accept marginalized groups into its society and overcome prejudice: (i) the playing field; and (ii) the battlefield. Americans love their athletes who prove their worth and they love their military members. During the Civil War, Frederick Douglass used his stature as the most prominent African American abolitionist to recruit men of his race to volunteer for the Union army. He did that at Lincoln’s urging as the Union Army needed soldiers and the expectation would be that for their services. they would be made citizens. That is also why Lincoln encouraged immigration and there was expedited naturalization of soldiers and sailors. Without Jackie Robinson and the Tuskegee Airman there would not have been a successful Civil Rights movement. Similarly, the horrific treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII would have not been compensated but for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team’s exploits in WWII as documented in the movie *Go For Broke*. In terms of my own family, my mother was agnostic about JFK until she saw an episode of Navy Log about PT 109\. After that, he was “Our Jack the Mensch”. The list goes on and on. That is why many movies \[produced and written by people of my faith\] end with stirring calls to the hearts of Americans: - *Red Tails*: “We were not assigned, we were requested.” - *Action in the North Atlantic*: “That isn’t a miracle. Its American Seamanship”. - *Crash Dive*: “That’s the Navy, the United States Navy”. - *Yankee Doodle Dandy* – half the movie. - *An American Romance* or *The American Miracle*: “*If Pop was willing to take a chance on America, then America was willing to take a chance on Pop.”* - *Sergeant York*: Various lines in the ending of the movie. After a substantial lapse of time, because of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks leadership we are seeing a comeback of these historical movies, i.e. *Saving Private Ryan*, *Band of Brothers, The Pacific*, *Windtalkers*, *Hacksaw Ridge*, *42*, *Sarah’s Oil*, *The Six Triple Eight, Lucky Strike, Greyhound*. Judith and I just saw *Pressure* which is about D-Day and we will see *Young Washington*. In any event, Andrew Johnson – being a white Southerner – wanted slavery and slaves gone. What we do know is that there were millions of people whose legal status was in flux. At that point, Congress without Lincoln’s guidance had the issue as to what to do about these people and it had ZERO respect for Andrew Johnson. While the 13th Amendment ended human slavery \[and subsequently Section 4 of the 14th Amendment barred retroactive compensation for what was clearly a “taking”\] the status of the African Americans was a live issue. Congress had to act. All we know is what Congress did or thought it was doing in 1866 and 1868\. As the United States Supreme Court noted in 1906 as to the status of the freed slaves: “One thing more: at the close of the Civil War, when the problem of the emancipated slaves was before the nation, it might have **left them** in a condition of alienage, or established them as wards of the government, like the Indian tribes, and thus retained for the nation jurisdiction over them, or it might, as it did, give them citizenship. It chose the latter. By the 14th Amendment it made citizens of all born within the limits of the United States and subject to its jurisdiction. By the 15th it prohibited any state from denying the right of suffrage on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and by the 13th it forbade slavery or involuntary servitude anywhere within the limits of the land. *Whether this was or was not the wiser way to deal with the great problem is not a matter for the courts to consider.* It is for us to accept the decision, which declined to constitute them wards of the nation or leave them in a condition of alienage where they would be subject to the jurisdiction of Congress, but gave them citizenship, doubtless believing that thereby in the long run their best interests would be subserved, they taking their chances with other citizens in the states where they should make their homes.” Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1, 19 (1906) Hodges in so far as its limited Congress's Thirteenth Amendment enforcement power was in effect overruled in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968) by giving Congress relatively wide latitude both to determine what qualifies as a badge or incident of slavery and how to legislate against it. See, e.g.: United States v. Hatch, 722 F.3d 1193 (10th Cir. 2013) \[Extensive discussion\]. In any event, Congress using what it thought to be its 13th Amendment enforcement power under Section 2 of the 13th Amendment as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 – passed over a Presidential Veto - addressed the status of freed slaves and previously free Blacks. The actual text of Section 1 of the 1866 Civil Rights Act stated: ‘Be it enacted . . . , That all persons born in the United States and *not subject to any foreign power*, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.” The 1866 Act was clearly collective naturalization which Congress could do under various powers of the Constitution. Given that Blacks were stateless under Dred Scott they were not subject to a foreign power and Native Americans where really at that point wards of the Government as Hodges noted so but for “Indians not taxed” they would have been naturalized en masse as that is what occurred in 1924. During the debate on the 1866 Civil Rights Act, everyone agreed it would collectively naturalize African Americans as a class - those living and those yet to be born within the United States even though Blacks could not naturalize in an individual naturalization proceeding at that time. That was addressed in 1870\. One of the issues as to the 1866 Act was whether besides African Americans, who else were being naturalized collectively. The debates suggest that while the 1866 Civil Rights Act which was initially about the naturalization of African Americans it veered into the issue of children of people born here to people who were born abroad. Given the Right of Expatriation and the declaration of intent-renunciation procedure which could occur just off the boat, assuming that the parents as a class where not barred from naturalizing, the parents and hence their children were not subject to any foreign power that conferred automatic citizenship at birth. There is no doubt therefore that under the naturalization procedures in effect during the 1860’s of which Congress was aware of, because of the declaration of intent process which required the applicant to renounce any allegiance to a foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, that absent the debate as to Gypsies, Chinese, etc., on the 1866 Act, that the Members of Congress were collectively naturalizing or affirming the citizenship of children of persons who had renounced foreign allegiance and made the declaration of intention and who could naturalize in a naturalization proceeding.. Naturalizing En Masse the children of those who could naturalize in the 1866 Civil Rights Act is an example of MEMBER PROTECTION because of broader issue related to racial sensitivities. As I have often said, African Americans should and do take great pride in the sacrifices that those who came before them made that lead to the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments so that this Nation under God would lead to a New Birth of Freedom. Simply put, we all stand on the shoulders of giants. Moreover, save for the debate as to the legislation naturalizing the children of those who could not naturalize, the assumption \[which would be the equivalent of persons admitted on immigrant visas and who under the declaration of intent procedure could vote\] would be somewhat consistent with ***some*** of the views supporting the Executive Order. What is very clear is that Republicans were very concerned over political attacks over the elevation of Black Citizenship rights over the native-born children of white immigrants. The parent - having filed the Declaration of Intent - were themselves certain to be naturalized and ergo voters. And, if those persons were naturalized, their children irrespective of place of birth were likely derivatively naturalized when the parents naturalized arguably retroactive to the date of birth. The language of the initial 1866 legislation pre amendment could have denaturalized or put into question the status of the children of recent Irish and German immigrants born in the United States who had filed the declaration of intention. Under the rubric of Member Protection, it appears that a decision was made by Lyman Trumbell and Charles Sumner to “naturalize everyone” including the children of immigrants born here to deflect from attacks of favoritism of Blacks over the children of Irish or German. *As such, in many ways it was because of African Americans that we have the citizenship system and voting rights system we have today*. The issue of children who were born to at least one Chinese parent also came up and the ***intent*** was to naturalize them clearly even though their parents could not naturalize – which also true for Africans until 1870\. At the time of the adoption of the 1866 Civil Rights Act while there was some Chinese immigration to the United States, it was overwhelmingly male. To the extent that there were marriages, it was primarily Chinese-white interracial marriage in the United States. Single Chinese women were not allowed to immigrate often because of the stigma that these women were prostitutes. The 1875 Page Act was drafted in such a manner so as to bar their entry into the United States. In fact, the 1870 Census showed while there were 65,000 Chinese admitted into the United States, there were only 5,000 females in this category, and less than 500 children born here to Chinese nationals. However, it is very clear from the history of the 1866 Act that those 500 +/- children were collectively naturalized at birth. Moreover, Chinese even after the Exclusion Acts were collectively naturalized in various situations, one example being Hawaii. There was a sizeable Chinese population in Hawaii prior to the 1898 Annexation agreement. The Treaty of Annexation included a provision for collective naturalization by choice which was carried over into the 1900 Hawaii Organic Act which “incorporated” Hawaii as a US Territory. Because of that Act, Attorney Generals Griggs and Knox both opined in 1901 that a person of Chinese ancestry who on Aug. 12, 1898, were citizens of the Republic of Hawaii, became citizens of the United States by virtue of the Organic Act. In fact, in his veto message of the 1866 Act Andrew Johnson raised the question as to why the naturalization of children of foreign born was needed if current law addressed that. Because of concerns as to Congressional power to collectively naturalize people under the 1866 Civil Rights Act and for other reasons, Section 1 of the 14th Amendment was adopted. Section 1 of the 14th Amendment provided that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The 14th Amendment reads much *differently* than the 1866 Civil Rights Act. As Justice Kavanaugh noted at oral argument, had the 14th Amendment read the same as the 1866 Civil Rights Act, while Congress would have had to retain the Declaration of Intent procedure and would have had to adopt a procedure to naturalize children born her to non-citizens \[a procedure that exists as to Children of diplomats\] the parameters of who was protected by the 14th Amendment initially would be much clearer. It is clear that the 14th Amendment recognized that the children of citizens were citizens and it retroactively *naturalized* and made Citizens whoever Congress had done so by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or otherwise or where it would subsequently choose to make citizens. They were per Afroyim protected from involuntary denaturalization. However, given the disparate language between 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment, the *question is whether the 14th Amendment made the 1866 Civil Rights Act the Constitutional Standard for citizenship and locked in the criteria who was a citizen at birth under whatever criteria the 1866 Civil Rights Act created. If it did, given the Congressional debates in the Senate, it is game over in terms of future legislative action. If on the other hand, the 14th Amendment simply treated as citizens children born to citizens on US soil and protected those granted citizenship \[however obtained\] from denaturalization, then there maybe space for Congress to act prospectively.* Most of the discussions as to the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause turn on the meaning of “subject to jurisdiction” and what does that mean? The term “jurisdiction” is used in various portions of the Constitution as to Court jurisdiction and the 13th Amendment barring slavery and involuntary servitude, and in the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and has different meanings depending on the context. The “subject to jurisdiction” language in the citizenship clause in the 14th Amendment clearly excludes persons born to persons where both have diplomatic immunity. It also likely means children born to a parent of invading army born in an area under that army’s occupation and thus temporarily outside the United States given previous US Supreme Court decisions. Under the Executive Order if one of the parents was a US Citizen that child would be a US Citizen. And, it would have included enrolled members of an Indian tribe not paying taxes. The term “Indians not taxed” is not in Section 1 but Section 4 of the 1th Amendment. Professor Thomas H. Lee at Fordham Law School has extensively written on this issue. He argues that the 14th Amendment would automatically recognize the naturalization at birth the children of long time “illegal aliens” but Congress could prohibit citizenship for kids of “temporary sojourners” – whatever that means. Other professors argue that because “illegal aliens” are here without consent they are not protected by the 14th Amendment but children of persons here legally other than persons born to true tourists are protected. ## **POST RATIFICATION LITIGATION SINCE 1868** The Supreme Court post ratification of the 14th Amendment discussed the 14th Amendment in 5 cases in the 1800’s. In the Slaughterhouse Cases – a 5-4- opinion that in essence gutted the “Privileges or Immunities Clause” of the 14th Amendment though that Clause is making a comeback because of Justice Thomas and a host of scholars including the Brothers Amar – one of whom is a Professor at UC Davis School of Law, Justice Miller stated: “The first section of the fourteenth article to which our attention is more specially invited opens with a definition of citizenship -- not only citizenship of the United States, but citizenship of the States. No such definition was previously found in the Constitution, nor had any attempt been made to define it by act of Congress. It had been the occasion of much discussion in the courts, by the executive departments, and in the public journals. It had been said by eminent judges that no man was a citizen of the United States except as he was a citizen of one of the States composing the Union. Those, therefore, who had been born and resided always in the District of Columbia or in the Territories, though within the United States, were not citizens. “Whether this proposition was sound or not had never been judicially decided. But it had been held by this court, in the celebrated Dred Scott case, only a few years before the outbreak of the civil war, that a man of African descent, whether a slave or not, was not and could not be a citizen of a State or of the United States. This decision, while it met the condemnation of some of the ablest statesmen and constitutional lawyers of the country, had never been overruled, and if was to be accepted as a constitutional limitation of the right of citizenship, then all the negro race who had recently been made freemen were still not only not citizens, but were incapable of becoming so by anything short of an amendment to the Constitution. “To remove this difficulty primarily, and to establish clear and comprehensive definition of citizenship which should declare what should constitute citizenship of the United States and also citizenship of a State, the first clause of the first section was framed. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." “The first observation we have to make on this clause is that it puts at rest both the questions which we stated to have been the subject of differences of opinion. It declares that persons may be citizens of the United States without regard to their citizenship of a particular State, and it overturns the Dred Scott decision by making all persons born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction citizens of the United States. That its main purpose was to establish the citizenship of the negro can admit of no doubt. The phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States. “The next observation is more important in view of the arguments of counsel in the present case. It is that the distinction between citizenship of the United States and citizenship of a State is clearly recognized and established. “Not only may a man be a citizen of the United States without being a citizen of a State, but an important element is necessary to convert the former into the latter. He must reside within the State to make him a citizen of it, but it is only necessary that he should be born or naturalized in the United States to be a citizen of the Union. It is quite clear, then, that there is a citizenship of the United States, and a citizenship of a State, which are distinct from each other, and which depend upon different characteristics or circumstances in the individual.” 83 U.S 36, 72-74 (1872) Subsequently in Minor v. Happerset which involved female voting rights prior to the adoption of the 19th Amendment, the Court stated: “There is no doubt that women may be citizens. *They are persons, and by the fourteenth amendment ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ are expressly declared to be ‘citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’ But, in our opinion, it did not need this amendment to give them that position. Before its adoption the Constitution of the United States did not in terms prescribe who should be citizens of the United States or of the several States, yet there were necessarily such citizens without such provision.* There cannot be a nation without a people. The very idea of a political community, such as a nation is, implies an association of persons for the promotion of their general welfare. Each one of the persons associated becomes a member of the nation formed by the association. He owes it allegiance and is entitled to its protection. Allegiance and protection are, in this connection, reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other; allegiance for protection and protection for allegiance. “For convenience it has been found necessary to give a name to this membership. The object is to designate by a title the person and the relation he bears to the nation. For this purpose, the words ‘subject,’ ‘inhabitant,’ and ‘citizen’ have been used, and the choice between them is sometimes made to depend upon the form of the government. Citizen is now more commonly employed, however, and as it has been considered better suited to the description of one living under a republican government, it was adopted by nearly all of the States upon their separation from Great Britain, and was afterwards adopted in the Articles of Confederation and in the Constitution of the United States. When used in this sense it is understood as conveying the idea of membership of a nation, and nothing more. “To determine, then, who were citizens of the United States before the adoption of the amendment it is necessary to ascertain what persons originally associated themselves together to form the nation, and what were afterwards admitted to membership. “Looking at the Constitution itself we find that it was ordained and established by ‘the people of the United States,’ and then going further back, we find that these were the people of the several States that had before dissolved the political bands which connected them with Great Britain, and assumed a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth, and that had by Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, in which they took the name of "the United States of America," entered into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attack made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever. “*Whoever, then, was one of the people of either of these States when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, became ipso facto a citizen — a member of the nation created by its adoption. He was one of the persons associating together to form the nation, and was, consequently, one of its original citizens. As to this there has never been a doubt. Disputes have arisen as to whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time, but never as to their citizenship if they were.* “Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides that ‘no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,’ and that Congress shall have power ‘to establish a uniform rule of naturalization’ Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization. “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. The words ‘all children’ are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as ‘all persons,’ and if females are included in the last, they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact, the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea. “Under the power to adopt a uniform system of naturalization Congress, as early as 1790, provided ‘that any alien, being a free white person,’ might be admitted as a citizen of the United States, and that the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under twenty-one years of age at the time of such naturalization, should also be considered citizens of the United States, and that the children of citizens of the United States that might be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, should be considered as natural-born citizens. These provisions thus enacted have, in substance, been retained in all the naturalization laws adopted since. In 1855, however, the last provision was somewhat extended, and all persons theretofore born or thereafter to be born out of the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were, or should be at the time of their birth, citizens of the United States, were declared to be citizens also. “As early as 1804 it was enacted by Congress that when any alien who had declared his intention to become a citizen in the manner provided by law died before he was actually naturalized, his widow and children should be considered as citizens of the United States, and entitled to all rights and privileges as such upon taking the necessary oath; and in 1855 it was further provided that any woman who might lawfully be naturalized under the existing laws, married, or who should be married to a citizen of the United States, should be deemed and taken to be a citizen. “From this it is apparent that from the commencement of the legislation upon this subject alien women and alien minors could be made citizens by naturalization, and we think it will not be contended that this would have been done if it had not been supposed that native women and native minors were already citizens by birth. “But if more is necessary to show that women have always been considered as citizens the same as men, abundant proof is to be found in the legislative and judicial history of the country. Thus, by the Constitution, the judicial power of the United States is made to extend to controversies between citizens of different States. Under this it has been uniformly held that the citizenship necessary to give the courts of the United States jurisdiction of a cause must be affirmatively shown on the record. Its existence as a fact may be put in issue and tried. If found not to exist the case must be dismissed. Notwithstanding this the records of the courts are full of cases in which the jurisdiction depends upon the citizenship of women, and not one can be found, we think, in which objection was made on that account. Certainly none can be found in which it has been held that women could not sue or be sued in the courts of the United States. Again, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, in many of the States (and in some probably now) aliens could not inherit or transmit inheritance. There are a multitude of cases to be found in which the question has been presented whether a woman was or was not an alien, and as such capable or incapable of inheritance, but in no one has it been insisted that she was not a citizen because she was a woman. On the contrary, her right to citizenship has been in all cases assumed. The only question has been whether, in the particular case under consideration, she had availed herself of the right.” 88 U.S. 162\. 165-170 (1875) In Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94 (1884) Elk argued that he in effect self-naturalized by leaving the tribe and becoming an Indian taxed. The Court rejected that argument because as Dred Scott noted since 1791 no one had the power to self-naturalize. The Court did note that pursuant to its Indian Commerce Clause and Territorial Powers Congress had naturalized En Masse various members of Indian Tribes and had the power to do so. This was in fact a power that Congress exercised in 1924 across the board. In Boyd, the Collective Naturalization case the Court recounted the longstanding history on this issue and stated: “Naturalization is the act of adopting a foreigner, and clothing him with the privileges of a native citizen, and relator's position is that such adoption has neither been sought nor obtained by respondent under the acts of Congress in that behalf. “Congress in the exercise of the power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization has enacted general laws under which individuals may be naturalized, but the instances of collective naturalization by treaty or by statute are numerous. “Thus, although Indians are not members of the political sovereignty, many classes of them have been made citizens in that way. Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94\. By the treaty of September 27, 1830, provision was made for such heads of families of the Choctaws as desired it, to remain and become citizens of the United States. 7 Stat. 335\. By the treaty of December 29, 1835, such individuals and families of the Cherokees as were averse to a removal west of the Mississippi and desirous to become citizens of the States where they resided were allowed to do so. Ibid. 483\. By the act of Congress of March 3, 1843, it was provided that on the completion of certain arrangements for the partition of the lands of the tribe among its members, ‘the said Stockbridge tribe of Indians, and each and every of them, shall then be deemed to be, and from that time forth are hereby declared to be, citizens of the United States, to all intents and purposes, and shall be entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities of such citizens.’ 5 Stat. 47, c. 101, § 7\. And such was the act of March 3, 1839, 5 Stat. c. 83, pp. 349, 351, relating to the Brothertown Indians of Wisconsin. “The act of Congress approved February 8, 1887, 24 Stat. 388, c. 119, was much broader, and by its terms made every Indian situated as therein referred to, a citizen of the United States. “Manifestly the nationality of the inhabitants of territory acquired by conquest or cession becomes that of the government under whose dominion they pass, subject to the right of election on their part to retain their former nationality by removal or otherwise as may be provided. “All white persons or persons of European descent who were born in any of the colonies, or resided or had been adopted there, before 1776, and had adhered to the cause of independence up to July 4, 1776, were by the declaration invested with the privileges of citizenship. United States v. Ritchie, 17 How. 525, 239; Inglis v. Trustees of Sailors' Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99\. In McIlvaine v. Coxe's Lessee, 4 Cranch, 209, it was held that Mr. Coxe had lost the right of election by remaining in New Jersey after she had declared herself a State, and had passed laws pronouncing him to be a member of the new government; but the right itself was not denied. Shanks v. Dupont, 3 Pet. 242. “Under the second article of Jay's treaty (8 Stat. 116, 117), British subjects who resided at Detroit before and at the time of the evacuation of the Territory of Michigan, and who continued to reside there afterwards without at any time prior to the expiration of one year from such evacuation declaring their intention of becoming British subjects, became ipso facto to all intents and purposes American citizens. Crane v. Reeder, 25 Michigan, 303. “By section three of Article IV of the Constitution, ‘new States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.’ The section, as originally reported by the committee of detail, contained the language: ‘If the admission be consented to, the new State shall be admitted on the same terms as the original ones. But the legislature may make conditions with the new States concerning the public debt which shall be then subsisting.’ These clauses were stricken out, in spite of strenuous opposition, upon the view that wide latitude ought to be given to the Congress, and the denial of any attempt to impede the growth of the western country. Madison Papers, 5 Elliot, 381, 492, 493; 3 Gilpin, 1456. ‘And paragraph two was added, that ‘the Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State.’ “By article three of the treaty of Paris of 1803, (8 Stat. 200, 202,) it was provided that ‘the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the religion which they profess.’ “It was said by Mr. Justice Catron, in his separate opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 525: ‘The settled doctrine in the state courts of Louisiana is, that a French subject coming to the Orleans territory, after the treaty of 1803 was made, and before Louisiana was admitted into the Union, and being an inhabitant at the time of the admission, became a citizen of the United States by that act; that he was one of the inhabitants contemplated by the third article of the treaty, which referred to all the inhabitants embraced within the new State on its admission. That this is the true construction I have no doubt.’ " 143 U.S. at 162-164 The last and most important case was Wong Kim Ark. Wong Kim Ark as a person was unique in that he was born after the adoption of the 1866 Civil Rights Act but before the adoption of the Chinese Exclusion Acts in San Francisco. \[\] He was also born into a two-parent Chinese mercantile family who could emigrate – but not naturalize – even under the Exclusion Acts. In short, he was the perfect Upper Middle-Class child-plaintiff. Because of treaty agreements – despite the constitutional doctrine of the right to expatriate – Wong Kim Ark’s parents, at the time of his birth, were subjects of the Emperor of China, but had a long-standing residence in the United States. The parents were not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China. As noted above, in the 1870 Census there were approximately 65,000 Chinese nationals in the US, 5,000 of whom were women. There were also approximately 500 children born in the United States to Chinese nationals, Wong Kim Ark went on a trip to China but had been denied re-entry to the United States after the return based on the Exclusion Acts. He was held in detention but filed for a writ of habeas corpus. The legal costs were born by San Francisco Chinese Aid Associations. Via habeas corpus, he challenged the government's refusal to recognize his citizenship, and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor holding he was a US Citizen at birth and could not be de-naturalized. That was foreshadowed by Justice Stephen Field who was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Lincoln in 1863 and therefore had a contemporaneous understanding of the basis for the Civil War Amendments. In fact, the Slaughter-House Cases, which has since been received much deserved criticism, Justice Field's dissent focused on the Privileges or Immunities clause, not the Due Process clause (which was important in the dissent of Justice Bradley as well as the dissent of Justice Swayne) as the basis for “incorporation” of the Bill of Rights Against State action. While Justice Field was hardly modern in his racial attitudes, in his 1884 district court ruling in In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905 (1884) he declared that children born in U.S. jurisdictions are U.S. citizens regardless of ancestry and irrespective of whether the parents could naturalize. He further stated that the rule prior to the Civil War was that the children of parents who could naturalize who were born on US soil were citizens. If one looks at Wong Kim Ark – the whole domicile issue now being raised as justification for the Executive Order was not litigated in the lower courts in that case. The term “residence” in the 14th Amendment applies to a US Citizen who resides within a state and addresses the Comity Clause issue raised in Dred Scott. Given that there is agreement that Wong Kim Ark was naturalized at birth by the 1866 Civil Rights Act it is clear that he could not be involuntarily denaturalized under Afroyim which should have ended the discussion. However, the Supreme Court's majority went further and concluded that the phrase “subject to jurisdiction” referred to being required to obey U.S. law. Under this rational, only those with Diplomatic Immunity are covered though native Americans raise unique issues. On this basis, they interpreted the Citizenship Clause to grant citizenship to children born in the United States with a reference to the 1866 Civil Rights Act test with only a limited set of exceptions based on English common law. The Court held that being born to alien parents was not one of those exceptions even if the parents could not naturalize under the laws in effect at that time. \[\] The Wong Kim Ark dissenters – Chief Justice Fuller and Justice Harlan – did not dispute that Congress could allow for citizenship by birth children born in the United States of parents who were not citizens. But on the other hand, the 14th Amendment ***did not*** arbitrarily make citizens of children born in the United States of adults who, according to the will of their native government and of this government, are and must remain aliens. In other words, this was an issue of Congressional choice not constitutional mandate. **However, the 1866 Civil Rights made a choice to naturalize at least the class of people that included Wong Kim Ark which could not be subsequently be revoked because of the 14*th *Amendment. In terms of statutes being inconsistent with Treaties, the Supreme Court also has stated that Congress possesses the power to breach and abrogate a treaty by passing later-in-time legislation that conflicts with U.S. treaty obligations.** The dissenters also argued that “being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” meant not being subject to any foreign power - that is, not being claimed as a citizen by another country via jus sanguinis—an interpretation which, in the minority's view, would have excluded children claimed as a citizen by another country via jus sanguinis (inheriting citizenship from a parent). The dissent also noted the potential anomaly that a person born to a US Citizen abroad under the natural born citizen clause might not be able to become President or Vice President but the child of a parent who was not and could not become a citizen could. However, that concern was obviated by the 1790 Act that declared an American born abroad to US Citizen parents was a natural born citizen which under the doctrine of “contemporaneous understanding” was and is controlling. In fact, that view was confirmed by the courts as to Ted Cruz’s eligibility because while born in Canada his mother was an American citizen at the time of his birth. Elliott v. Cruz, 137 A.3d 646v (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2016), affirmed 134 A.3d 51 (Pa. 2016) (mem.), cert den. 580 U.S. 867 (2016) Taken to its logical conclusion, it would also mean that persons born on US Soil to non-citizens of any kind while the parents were not citizens would not be eligible either. That would rule out Charles Evans Hughes and Marco Rubio. The dissent also would have rejected dual citizenship which has always caused anxiety for the State Department but is recognized in US Law. See, e.g.: Mandoli v. Acheson, 344 U.S. 133 (1952). In fact, dual citizenship may result not by choice but by fiat. As such, the Supreme Court noted in Rogers v. Bellei, that as to persons born in the US is protected from having his or her citizenship terminated from not having made a choice. 401 U.S. 815, 831-833 (1971) I have read and re-read Wong Kim Ark three times. In my view, the Supreme Court majority in Wong Kim Ark basically went “all in” on citizenship by expansively holding that the 1866 Civil Rights Act was constitutionalized by the 14th Amendment and treated as naturalized at birth citizens everyone born on US soil to foreign parents save as to children born to parents who were not citizens as part of invading armies, diplomats \[assuming both were non-citizens – and children of diplomats can obtain LPR status and then naturalize\], and Indian’s part of tribes \[Indians “not taxed” and that is found in Section 4 of the 14th Amendment\] and they were collectively naturalized in 1924\. In fact, as to Chinese and other Asians not born in the United States, when Hawaii was annexed by Treaty in 1898 and organized as the Territory of Hawaii in 1900, the Act stated that any person who was a citizen of the Republic of Hawaii on or before August 12, 1898 would also be a citizen of the United States, and any citizen of the United States who resided in the islands on or after August 12, 1898 would have to live there to become a citizen of the Territory of Hawaii. As two US Attorney Generals at the time formally opined all persons irrespective of race who were Citizens of Hawaii \[which included large numbers of persons of Chinese, Filipinos, and Japanese ancestry\] were made US Citizens by the Organic Act aka Collective Naturalization. \[\] In terms of the exceptions, they have largely been mooted. - As to native Americans, the whole issue of Native Americans was mooted because Congress collectively naturalized them En Masse as Dred Scott itself held it had the power to do. As such, I would say given the passage of time \[I doubt that there many original Native Americans naturalized in 1924 still alive\] essentially all of them are birthright citizens being born to citizens as noted in Minor. See: Iowa Mutual Ins. Co. v. LaPlante, 480 U.S. 9, 18 fn. 10 (1987) - As to children of diplomats, at one point because of a 1907 Congressional Act, women who married non-citizens were held to have expatriated themselves. That was upheld by the Supreme Court in Mackenzie v. Hare, 239 U.S. 299 (1915). Expatriation in that form was very unpopular within the Republican Party among upper class women. Theodore Roosevelt signed the 1907 Act without checking with his wife who TR usually listened to. The 1920 Republican Platform promised to pare back or repeal the law which Congress did during the Harding Administration, save as to women who married persons who could not be naturalized. \[\] Because of Vance v. Terrazas and Afroyim, Mackenzie v. Hare and its implications have been nullified. In 8 USC 1481 there is no reference now to marriage as an expatriating event. In so far as the foreign diplomat exclusion still has any meaning, the President in effect in his executive order treats children of diplomats where one parent is a citizen or a LPR holder as US Citizens and in effect by executive action treated some potential number of persons who might not otherwise be viewed as US Citizens by the State Department as US Citizens. - As to children of occupying armies, this exception has never been litigated in practice. 8 USC 1481(a)(7) provides if that expatriation will occur if by voluntarily performing with the intention of relinquishing United States citizenship by committing any act of treason against, or attempting by force to overthrow, or bearing arms against, the United States, violating or conspiring to violate any of the provisions of section 2383 of title 18, or willfully performing any act in violation of section 2385 of title 18, or violating section 2384 of title 18 by engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, if and when he is convicted thereof by a court martial or by a court of competent jurisdiction. In so far as the occupying forces exclusion still has any meaning, again the President in effect his executive order overruled the State Department if one parent is a citizen or a LPR holder at the time of birth. As such, whether rightly or wrongly decided in all its applications, Wong Kim Ark as the Chief Justice and Justice Kavanaugh noted has been taken to mean that children born on incorporated US soil are citizens with the 3 caveats noted above which are mostly obsolete. 5 of the Justices held that it was a decision interpreting the Constitution as theDistrict Court noted in CASA, Inc. v. Trump, 763 F.Supp.3d 723, 738-740 (D. Md. 2025) and thus per City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997) only the Supreme Court may abrogate it unless there is a constitutional amendment. Justice Kavanaugh opined that the statutory language is based on the 1866 Civil Rights Act when coupled with Afroyim that once made a citizen, one cannot be involuntarily stripped of the same. As such, Congress could prospectively act. The related statutory question is what was posed by the Court as a way to avoid the Constitutional issue. As the 1st Circuit noted in Doe v. Trump, Congress codified Wong Kim Ark in 8 USC 1401(a) which was in essence collective naturalization. 157 F.4th at 84-85\. The same basic points were made by Amicus Members of Congress noted in their brief of April 29, 2005 in Trump v. Casa, 606 U.S. 831 (2025). There was also an extensive discussion in the brief as to Hintopoulos \[but not of the specifics\]. No one has discussed the “Foundling Provision” in 8 USC 1401(f) which provides that: “The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: …. (f) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States.” Section 1401(f) is the so-called “foundling provision” and was adopted to comply with Treaty obligations. This is a classic example of place of birth citizenship naturalization – only no one knows where the baby was born. Having gone to Hebrew School I know well the Story of Moses. In the Old Testament, the story of Moses in the bulrushes is told in Exodus 2:1-10\. To save her child from Pharaoh's order to kill all male Hebrew infants, Moses' mother hid him in a basket of reeds and placed it in the river. Pharaoh's daughter found the basket and took Moses in as her son, naming him Moses. Moses was raised in the palace, but eventually led his people out of Egypt. The wrong policy choices will result in a spike in abandoned babies and into foster care though it could result in more adoptions. In any event, the Supreme Court has not questioned the breadth of Wong Kim Ark as a matter of law in numerous cases as Chief Justice Roberts noted: - In Weedin v. Chin Bow, \[274 U.S. 657 (1927)\] in an opinion by Chief Justice Taft – the original “Originalist”, he stated \[referring to Wong Kim Ark\] “The majority in that case, as already said, held that the fundamental principle of the common law with regard to nationality was birth within the allegiance of the government and that one born in the United States, although of a race and of a parentage denied naturalization under the law, was nevertheless, under the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, a citizen of the United States by virtue of the jus soli embodied in the amendment. The majority in that case, as already said, held that the fundamental principle of the common law with regard to nationality was birth within the allegiance of the government and that one born in the United States, although of a race and of a parentage denied naturalization under the law, was nevertheless, under the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, a citizen of the United States by virtue of the jus soli embodied in the amendment. *The attitude of Chief Justice Fuller and Mr. Justice Harlan was that at common law the children of our citizens born abroad were always natural-born citizens from the standpoint of this government, and that to that extent the jus sanguinis obtained here; that the Fourteenth Amendment did not exclude from citizenship by birth children born in the United States of parents permanently located here who might themselves become citizens; nor on the other hand did it arbitrarily make citizens of children born in the United States of adults who, according to the will of their native government and of this government, are and must remain aliens*.” 274 U.S. at 670 - In Morrison v. People of State of California \[291 U.S. 82 (1934)\] the Court observed that: “A person of the Japanese race is a citizen of the United States if he was born within the United States. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 He is a citizen, even though born abroad, if his father was a citizen, provided, however, that this privilege shall not exist unless the father was at some time a resident of the United States as well as a citizen, and provided also that such a child, who continues to reside abroad, shall, in order to receive the protection of this government, be required upon reaching the age of eighteen years to record at an American consulate his intention to become a resident and remain a citizen of the United States, and shall be further required to take the oath of allegiance to the United States upon attaining his majority. R.S. s 1993; 8 U.S.C. s 6 (8 USCA s 6); Weedin v. Chin Bow, 274 U.S. 657; see also R.S. s 2172; 8 U.S.C. s 7 (8 USCA s 7). But a person of the Japanese race, if not born a citizen, is ineligible to become a citizen, i.e., to be naturalized. The privilege of naturalization is confined to aliens who are ‘free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent. “291 U.S. at 85 - In Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939), the Supreme Court in the case of a child born in the United States to previously naturalized parents on U.S. soil is a citizen under the 14th Amendment and that the child's citizenship is not lost if the child is taken to and raised in the country of the parents' origin, provided that upon attaining the age of majority, the child elects to retain U.S. citizenship "and to return to the United States to assume its duties." The Court went on to say in an opinion by Chief Justice Hughes that “on her birth in New York, the plaintiff became a citizen of the United States. *Civil Rights Act of 1866,14 Stat. 27*; Fourteenth Amendment, § 1; United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649\. In a comprehensive review of the principles and authorities governing the decision in that case -- that a child born here of alien parentage becomes a citizen of the United States -- the Court adverted to the ‘inherent right of every independent nation to determine for itself, and according to its own constitution and laws, what classes of persons shall be entitled to its citizenship.” 307 U.S. at 328-329. - In Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633 (1948) the Court noted that while Oyama’s father being born abroad could not be naturalized he was a natural born citizen noting that “\[B\]y federal statute, enacted before the Fourteenth Amendment but vindicated by it, the states must accord to all citizens the right to take and hold real property.” 332 U.S. at 640\. The basis for Omaya was that the 1866 Act in essence naturalized him. - By way of background, constitutionally to show treason, the defendant generally has to be a US Citizen. \[\] To commit treason abroad one must be a US Citizen. In Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717 (1952) Kawakita was sentenced to death for treason and various war crimes. The Supreme Court noted that Kawakita was a US Citizen even though his parents were Japanese citizens. He was therefore a citizen despite Japanese law treating him as a citizen of Japan. Id at. 719\. The main issue in the case was whether Kawakita had expatriated himself in a valid manner. The Court split 6-3 on the expatriation issue against Kawakita. His sentence was subsequently commuted and President Kennedy as a condition of commutation insisted that Kawakita renounce his U.S. citizenship and self deport to Japan. - In United States ex rel. Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 353 U.S. 72 (1957) the Supreme Court observed that a child born on United States soil to *temporary* residents was ipso facto a United States citizen. It did not state the legal basis for that comment but I assume it was by virtue of the 1866 Civil Rights Act and Wong Kim Ark. In Hintopoulos, the mother entered the US legally and the child was born while the mother had legal presence. - In INS v. Errico 385 U.S. 214 (1966) the Supreme Court observed the child of couple born on US soil that entered the United States by misrepresentation acquired United States citizenship at birth. - In Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815 (1971) reaffirmed its prior holdings as to Wong Kim Ark but that Section 1 of the 14th Amendment had no application to citizenship rights for an individual born abroad. In Bellei an individual who received an automatic congressional grant of citizenship at birth, but who was born outside the United States, may lose his citizenship for failure to fulfill any reasonable residence requirements which the United States Congress may impose as a condition subsequent that citizenship. The relevant statute has since been repealed. - In INS v. Rios-Pineda, 471 U.S. 444 (1985) the Supreme Court observed that the child of persons without legal presence born on US soil are citizens but it does not appear that the issue was argued directly. - In Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420 (1998), all the Justices accepted the breadth of the holding in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 702 (1898) that subject to the 3 exceptions, a new born becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization. ## **WHAT IS NEXT AS A SPUR TO ACTION** There may be three positive results from this besides people learning history and Justice’s Thomas and Jackson duking it out over Dred Scott. The President claims that there is room for action by Congress – I doubt that but that does not mean consideration should be given to the following issues: One, what the President has started may for various reasons result eventually in an actual and official centralized registry of US citizens. There is now as to naturalized citizens a registry via the citizenship certificate process which is how the State Department to could confirm that I am the grandson of a naturalized citizen for a passport which I did at Ms. Garvey’s request. In the case of naturalized citizens, they have those documents. As Senator Gil Cedillo once noted, naturalized citizens and their children have their documents. Rather, the potential brunt of this will be initially imposed on US born citizens who were born on incorporated US soil to parents who themselves are US Citizens at birth, they do not have Citizenship certificates because the family goes back 8 or 9 generations. These people are typically Trump voters in Red States. That means that rules on proof of Citizenship needs to be modernized and made much more conclusive. There are two such documents: (i) Form N-600; or (ii) U.S. Passport. Form N-600 which is an application for a Certificate of Citizenship. The passport is also issuable. However, Form N-600 Application for Certificate of Citizenship issued by USCIS, after an approved Form N-600 application is a permanent document — it does not expire. Once issued, it can only be cancelled through formal proceedings the Certificate of Citizenship constitutes conclusive proof of U.S. citizenship in both judicial and administrative proceedings. The problem is that Certificates of Citizenship are not issued to children of citizens born on US Soil. That needs to change immediately, and the parents should be able to apply for one at the hospital. A U.S. passport is issued by the Department of State. Under 22 U.S.C. § 2705 — a valid, unexpired U.S. passport carries identical legal weight to a Certificate of Citizenship as proof of citizenship, for the passport’s period of validity. The passport should be used for what it was intended – a travel document. Both Citizenship Certificates and Passports will satisfy an I-9 employment verification, get your child on an international flight, and establish citizenship for virtually any administrative purpose while they are current. The differences are in cost, processing time, and Secondly, there is no procedure – save as to children of diplomats - to naturalize persons born on US soil born to non-citizens for the reason it was not thought needed since 1868 and does not exist today. The Guidance document set forth above notes: “Children born in the United States to fathers who are not United States citizens, lawful permanent residents, or U.S. nationals and mothers who are in lawful but temporary status do not acquire United States citizenship at birth. DHS and USCIS will propose appropriate action to ensure that birth in the United States to individuals who possess lawful immigration status does not result in any negative immigration consequence for the child. “Presently, children of parents present in the United States on diplomatic visas are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1401(a) but are entitled to acquire lawful immigration status by registering. See 8 CFR 101.3\. USCIS intends to broaden this practice to permit the children of aliens that possess lawful but temporary status to register to acquire any lawful status that at least one parent possesses. This section of the Code of Federal Regulations addresses the existing population of children whose situation is most closely analogous to the alien children of mothers in lawful but temporary status, as it governs the provision of status to the children of foreign diplomatic officers born in the United States but not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. To fill any regulatory gaps before such a proposal could be implemented, the Department would propose to defer immigration enforcement against such children.” There are countless cases of persons born here to persons who are here legally on non-immigrant visas of one kind or another. Kamala Harris was born in Oakland to two foreign students. Her mother never naturalized but her father did later in life. Similarly, Usha Vance was born in San Diego County to Telugu Indian immigrant parents and raised in an upper-middle-class lifestyle. We do not know on what visa her parents came or if she was born after her parents obtained LPR status or are now citizens. Her husband has made comments which are inconsistent on this topic. The implementation guidelines do not call for statutory changes. The only way to address that is to create an across-the-board procedure on this to explicitly naturalize the children irrespective of place of birth. I would conclude that while certain elements of the Republican Party will trash the decision, the Republicans avoided a real masher basher. Even under the Executive Order, the real practical and immediate issue over the next several years is not per se the status of future children born on US soil as of a date certain as that would sort itself out. Rather, the Court avoided the spectacle of how parents of the child show their citizenship status at the time the child is born in terms of what they show up with at the medical facility. What documents do they need to establish their citizenship so that their children are birthright citizens? That would have played itself out on TV. ### You Want Supreme Court Term Limits? Here’s the Constitutional Wall Standing in the Way. URL: https://ivn.us/you-want-supreme-court-term-limits-heres-the-constitutional-wall-standing-in-the-way/ Last updated: 2026-06-30T22:21:42.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.**—June 30 marked the end of the latest term for the Supreme Court and just like it always does, its most hotly debated and attention-grabbing cases were saved for the very end. This term was no exception, tackling issues that will be talked about for days, months, and even years after the decisions: - In a 6-3 decision, SCOTUS ruled that President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants violates the 14th Amendment of the Constitution ([*Trump v. Barbara*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-365%5F4hdj.pdf?ref=ivn.us)). - The court ruled that states can ban transgender athletes from competing in school sports, concluding that such a ban does not violate the Equal Protections Clause of the 14th Amendment. ([*West Virginia v P.B.J.*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-43%5F2b35.pdf?ref=ivn.us)) - The court struck down limits on how much political parties can spend on campaign activities in coordination with candidates, ruling that such limits violated the parties’ First Amendment rights ([*National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm'n*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-621%5Fh315.pdf?ref=ivn.us)) But another debate has also resurfaced: Should term limits be imposed on Supreme Court justices? The answer may depend on how people view the current court’s record. An individual dissatisfied with how the justices rule may think it means lifetime appointments are bad. Or, a person’s view may be influenced by their general belief that all branches of government should have term limits. IVN asked its audience what they thought, and the question quickly garnered hundreds of responses. One reader, Dylan Beabout, said, “Support if no chance for re-appointment.” He added: “Oppose with extreme degree \[if\] there's \[a\] chance of re-appointment. The insularity SCOTUS has from politics is too important.” Mike Butcher wrote: > “We have already seen the filing of certain cases delayed intentionally, sometimes for over a year, when a particular Justice was nearing retirement and various replacements are being discussed. Attorneys on either side are waiting for the possible appointment of a Justice more favorable to their position. I’m not opposed to term limits but loopholes need to be identified and addressed first.” Nick An said, “Every single office should have term limits.” Several readers said they didn’t support term limits, per se, but age limits or mandatory retirement ages—such as 72\. So, it would not be based on the number of terms served but end lifetime appointments. The public argument is easy to understand. The actual path to reform is not so easy. Supreme Court justices are not elected. They are not subject to recall. They do not face mandatory retirement ages. Once confirmed, they can remain on the bench for life unless they resign, retire, die, or are impeached and removed. To understand why, look to the US Constitution. [Article III](https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/article-iii?ref=ivn.us) says federal judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,” language long understood to mean life tenure unless a judge voluntarily leaves or is impeached. Technically, since the language is not explicit, Congress could try to pass a law. But even if enough members of Congress agreed to impose a mandatory 18- or 20-year limit on justices, the court could rule the law violates the Constitution. So, how possible would term limits be? ## **The Cleanest Path: Amend the Constitution** The cleanest path does not mean an easy path. The Supreme Court does not have authority over the Constitution. Its authority is to determine the constitutionality of existing laws that are challenged based on the justices’ legal interpretation of the Constitution. Thus, the most “legally durable” way to impose Supreme Court term limits would be amend the Constitution itself. But since it is the Supreme Law of the Land, this process is intentionally brutal. Congress would have to approve the proposed amendment by a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate. Then three-fourths of the states—or 38—would have to ratify it. Neither the president nor the Supreme Court have a formal role in this process. It is up to Congress and/or the states. This brings up a second route: two-thirds of state legislatures can call for a convention to propose constitutional amendments. But this path has never been used, and it raises its own political and legal questions about how such a convention would operate. In other words, any amendment to the Constitution—term limits or other—would require something Washington has almost forgotten how to produce: broad, lasting agreement across party and state lines. It is not impossible. But Congress has not passed a constitutional amendment since 1978\. There is also the question of what the amendment would look like. What term limits would be imposed? Would current justices be affected by it? Etc. One common model is an 18-year term with a new appointment every two years. Under that system, each president would generally receive two appointments per four-year term instead of relying on retirements, deaths, and political timing. This model was brought up multiple times in the IVN Facebook comment section. Opponents argue that life tenure is a safeguard against judges becoming politicians in robes. If justices are regularly swapped out by an executive branch that keeps swinging between two parties, it could threaten the independence of the judiciary even more. In February, [US Rep. Tom Barrett introduced a constitutional amendment that would impose 20-year terms on federal judges](https://barrett.house.gov/media/press-releases/barrett-introduces-constitutional-amendment-establish-term-limits-federal?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), including Supreme Court justices, while applying the change only to future appointees. “Our federal courts are responsible for upholding our most fundamental rights and liberties,” Barrett said. “Lifetime appointments were designed to protect judicial independence, but instead have too often emboldened judges to wield their enormous power long after they should have retired. ## **The Faster Path: Congress Tries it By Statute** The route many people who support Supreme Court term limits prefer is a law passed by Congress. It would be faster and would require less barriers to implementation than a Constitutional amendment. But faster does not mean full proof. One idea supporters think is feasible is that Congress could pass a law creating fixed terms of *active service* on the Supreme Court—say, for example, 18 years—then move justices into a form of “senior status” afterward. Under this model, a justice would not be removed from the federal judiciary. They would still hold an Article III judicial office and could potentially hear lower-court cases, fill in for recusals, or perform administrative duties. The argument is that this would preserve “good Behaviour” tenure while preventing any one justice from occupying an active Supreme Court seat indefinitely. While supporters say Congress already has authority to structure the federal judiciary and has previously used senior-status systems for judges, critics see a major constitutional problem. And it all comes to language. Article III does not say federal judges may keep their jobs until Congress decides they should become semi-retired. It says they hold their offices during good behavior. The [Library of Congress’s Constitution Annotated](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S1-10-1/ALDE%5F00013554/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com&%5F%5Fcf%5Fchl%5Ff%5Ftk=uZv3e%5FycsMc0X6pKHxupPrNDKtW4wvzrn7SQ5szSmpw-1782845970-1.0.1.1-tt.KknKenglDyXVEPKReilzaHjs3JvrMiQSREeb%5FQWk) describes that protection as life tenure. Again, unless a judge resigns voluntarily or is impeached. The Congressional Research Service has similarly concluded that most commentators believe Congress could not impose a term or age limit on Supreme Court justices without a constitutional amendment. In other words, a statutory change by law would almost certainly trigger a constitutional challenge. And who would have the final say over whether Congress can limit Supreme Court service? The Supreme Court. ## **The Term Limit Debate Continues** On paper, support for term limits is there. A [February 2026 Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll](https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/two-thirds-of-americans-want-term?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) found that two-thirds of Americans support 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices. Also of note, a June 2025 Reuters/Ipsos poll found that [only 20% of Americans viewed the court as politically neutral](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/americans-dont-see-supreme-court-politically-neutral-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2025-06-15/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), while 58% disagreed. It did not ask about term limits but offered context into how the public views the Supreme Court. Whether someone supports term limits on the court or not, there are political realities that make such a reform a tall hurdle to clear in a hyper-partisan environment that incentivizes division over every issue. The Supreme Court has lifetime tenure because the Constitution says judges hold office during good behavior. Changing that reality requires either changing the Constitution itself or persuading the court that Congress has such authority. The comments on IVN’s Facebook page reflect how broad this debate can be, but it also reflects something real: Independent-minded voters are losing trust at all levels of government because they are frustrated with a system that puts everything in terms of “red versus blue.” Even the debate over the Supreme Court (imposing term limits, adding more justices, etc.) quickly becomes an ideological fight between two opposing sides. Meanwhile, the nuance of the issue gets lost entirely. ### John Oliver: The US Needs to 'Unf--k' Its Maps URL: https://ivn.us/john-oliver-the-us-needs-to-unf-k-its-maps/ Last updated: 2026-06-29T23:27:24.000Z Comedian and late-night series host John Oliver made his latest episode of *Last Week Tonight* about redistricting and its consequences on the 2026 midterms. And while Oliver breaks down the ongoing mid-cycle redistricting fight, he also wraps things up with one message: “America needs to ‘unf–k’ its maps.” He specifically said this in response to the knee-jerk reaction from Democrats that their party should continue to respond like California and “fight fire with fire” as Republicans further gerrymander states they control. He explained it might seem satisfying in the short-term, but in the long term, they “may not like how that fight ends.” Oliver correctly notes that gerrymandering in the US goes back centuries. It is something that foreign leaders find baffling when they come to the US and congressional elections are explained to them. Because no other developed democracy lets private political parties have as much control over elections as the US (a point Oliver kind of breezes through). Oliver’s biases can be debated, but he's not wrong that the current mid-cycle fight started with Republicans in Texas, then escalated with Democrats in California and Republicans in Missouri, and now 9 states have gerrymandered their maps in the last two years: Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas. Utah also adopted a new map in 2025 that was ordered by a court, which is why it is not included in the count. But state lawmakers have tried to escalate in 8 other states: Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, New York, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington. Virginia voters temporarily adopted a new map that would have given Democrats an advantage in all but one district. State courts ended up declaring the vote a violation of the state constitution on technical and procedural grounds. This mid-cycle gerrymandering fight is expected to escalate further following the Supreme Court's decision in *Louisiana v. Callais*, which in part said the Voting Rights Act cannot compel a state to draw minority-majority districts. States now have even greater room to argue that they are redrawing their maps for political purposes because SCOTUS already ruled in *Rucho v. Common Cause (2019)* that federal courts will not interfere in a partisan gerrymander. Four states used *Callais* to quickly push through new maps: Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama. Democrat-controlled states like Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, and New York could decide to join in as well. One House Democrat even said there is a nuclear option in Illinois that would create a 17-0 map for Democrats. States continue to evaluate their options, but as they do, the idea that the US House is meant to accurately represent the population of each state ceases to mean anything. It is not about representation. It is about control—and who has it. This isn't new. While Illinois may consider a nuclear option, it already has one of the worst gerrymandered maps in the US, just like Texas or Florida. Both parties gerrymander—and they always have. [The 10 Worst Gerrymandered States in the CountryMonday marked another escalation in the mid-cycle redistricting fight between Republicans in Texas and Democrats in California – with one in another special session to add 5 more GOP seats, and the other maneuvering to counter this with 5 new Democratic seats.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-55606d27-9c1c-4396-ac72-e2e193181198.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ChatGPT-Image-Aug-18--2025--02_38_38-PM-93000354-43c2-48dd-9af8-b31abcd53e26.png)](https://ivn.us/10-worst-gerrymandered-states-country-2025-08-18/) Oliver makes the point that escalation does not get the US closer to a system where “voters choose their representatives, and not the other way around.” Some reforms he suggests are popular. Others would be hotly debated. But he is right about one thing: the current situation is clearly “untenable.” Check out the full segment above. ### The DSA Class of 2026: 11 Democrats Running as Socialists URL: https://ivn.us/the-dsa-class-of-2026-11-democrats-running-as-socialists/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:50:54.000Z For most of American history, the word socialist conjured Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Castro, which is why calling yourself one was considered political suicide in this country. Then Bernie Sanders rebranded it as something gentler and more Scandinavian in variety, not to be feared. So many Americans believed him that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went from bartending in the Bronx to Congress, and Zohran Mamdani was sworn in on January 1 as the Democratic Socialist mayor of the largest city in America. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) had 6,000 members before Sanders ran for president in 2016\. It has over 100,000 today. This year, the movement is on the ballot across the country. Here are 11 candidates calling themselves socialists out loud in the midterms. ## **1\.** [**Melat Kiros**](https://www.kirosforco.com/?ref=ivn.us)**, Congressional Candidate, Colorado's 1st District — Primary: June 30, 2026** A self-described democratic socialist endorsed by DSA's Denver chapter and DSA nationally, Kiros is challenging 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette. A recent Data for Progress poll shows her leading DeGette by five points. She is also endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Justice Democrats. *(Source: Colorado Sun: "Melat Kiros is a lawyer who was fired from her law firm after writing an article defending pro-Palestinian student protestors. She is running as a Democratic Socialist.”)* ## **2\.** [**Nithya Raman**](https://www.nithyaforthecity.com/?ref=ivn.us)**, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles** A DSA member and Los Angeles City Council member, Raman was down eight points on election night before the late mail vote arrived from neighborhoods targeted by the Progressive/DSA ground operation, [fueled by Tom Steyer's governor's race spending](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/). She climbed from third to second over five days, overtaking Republican Spencer Pratt and landing in a November runoff against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. Polling shows Bass would have beaten Pratt by 18 points but trails Raman by four. *(Source: Wikipedia: "Raman, a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America.")* ## **3\.** [**Janeese Lewis George**](https://janeesefordc.com/?ref=ivn.us)**, Candidate for Mayor of Washington D.C.** A DSA member since 2018 and self-described democratic socialist, Lewis George won the Democratic mayoral primary on June 16 with 53 percent of the vote, defeating former Council member Kenyan McDuffie by 16 points. She is the first self-described democratic socialist on the DC Council since 1998\. As the Democratic nominee in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, she is the presumptive next mayor. Trump has threatened to invoke the Home Rule Act should she take office. The DSA's Washington chapter mobilized more than 300 members to canvass for her. *(Source: Wikipedia: "She joined the Democratic Socialists of America in 2018.")* ## **4\.** [**Claire Valdez**](https://clairevaldezforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us)**, Congressional Candidate, New York's 7th District** A DSA member, UAW labor organizer, and former New York City DSA membership chair, Valdez defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso by more than 20 points in the Democratic primary for New York's 7th Congressional District on June 23\. She is expected to win the general election in November, making her the DSA's first cadre candidate in Congress. She was endorsed by Mayor Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, and the UAW. *(Source: NYC-DSA: "Assemblymember Claire Valdez is a union organizer, artist, and proud democratic socialist.")* [In New York, 7% of Voters Just Decided for the Other 93%NY Partisan Primary Proves Superiority of California’s Nonpartisan Primary System.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-ae944e50-ed6a-40b8-a45d-0d343ef1557c.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/new-york-primary-eelctions-71dbf096-0940-4375-becb-f296a84458b8.jpg)](https://ivn.us/7-of-voters-just-decided-for-the-other-93/) ## **5\.** [**Darializa Avila Chevalier**](https://www.darializaforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us)**, Congressional Candidate, New York's 13th District** A DSA member, Avila Chevalier, defeated five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in the Democratic primary for New York's 13th District on June 23\. The race drew millions in outside spending, including from AIPAC. She will represent Upper Manhattan and part of the Bronx. *(Source: The Intercept: "Avila Chevalier, who defeated five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat — the Hispanic caucus chair — is a DSA member.")* ## **6\.** [**Chris Rabb**](https://www.chrisrabb.com/?ref=ivn.us)**, Congressional Candidate, Pennsylvania's 3rd District** A self-described democratic socialist who joined DSA in 2026, Rabb won the 3rd Congressional District primary in Philadelphia on May 19 by nearly 15 points. He was endorsed by the Philadelphia DSA chapter, the Working Families Party, Justice Democrats, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. *(Source: Wikipedia: "He joined the Democratic Socialists of America in 2026, but stated in an interview with Jacobin that he has identified as a democratic socialist for years.")* ## **7\.** [**Aber Kawas**](https://aberforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us)**, State Senate Candidate, New York Senate District 12** A self-described democratic socialist, Kawas won her primary on June 23rd as part of the DSA's sweep of Queens. She was endorsed by Mayor Mamdani and Bernie Sanders. *(Source: NYC-DSA: "Aber Kawas is a Palestinian community organizer and democratic socialist.")* ## **8\.** [**Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez**](http://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us)**, US Representative, New York's 14th District** A DSA member and self-identified democratic socialist first elected in 2018, Ocasio-Cortez won her 2026 primary on June 23 with 87 percent of the vote. She chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is frequently mentioned as a 2028 presidential contender. *(Source: Ballotpedia: "Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.")* ## **9\.** [**Rashida Tlaib**](https://tlaib.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us)**, US Representative, Michigan's 12th District** A DSA member, self-identified democratic socialist, and the only Palestinian American in Congress, Tlaib has represented the Detroit and Dearborn area since 2019\. She was censured by the House in 2023 for her criticism of Israel. Her 2026 primary is scheduled for August 4 in a solidly Democratic district. *(Source: Wikipedia: "Tlaib is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.")* ## **10\.** [**Oliver Larkin**](https://www.oliverforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us)**, Congressional Candidate, Florida's 23rd District** A DSA member since 2020, Larkin is challenging incumbent Representative Jared Moskowitz in the August 18 Democratic primary. He was the first candidate nationally endorsed by DSA this cycle and is backed by four Florida DSA chapters. He has raised over $325,000 from more than 5,000 grassroots donors. *(Source: Broward DSA endorsement statement: "Larkin worked on democratic socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign and has been a DSA member since 2020.")* ## **11\.** [**Brittany Kubicek**](https://brittanyforri.com/?ref=ivn.us)**, Candidate for Rhode Island House District 5** A DSA member running as an independent socialist, the only candidate on this list not running as a Democrat, Kubicek is challenging incumbent Democrat Anthony DeSimone. Her platform includes a $30 minimum wage, a statewide rent freeze, and a public takeover of Rhode Island's energy companies. *(Source: Rhode Island DSA Field Notes: "RI DSA organizer Brittany Kubicek announced her campaign for Rhode Island House District 5.")* ### ‘Undo The Top Two’ Crossed Out “All Voters May Vote” URL: https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-crossed-out-all-voters-may-vote/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:50:41.000Z The consultants behind the "Undo the Top Two" initiative claim their measure protects the right of independent voters to participate in primary elections. The text of their own initiative says the opposite. > The politicians who put the top 2 on the ballot and the dark money group [@ivn](https://x.com/ivn?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) will say anything to preserve their power. The truth: initiative says indps can vote in primaries, which is what the law says in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, new England states, and now DC. [https://t.co/TYTRbJBj3m](https://t.co/TYTRbJBj3m?ref=ivn.us) > > — Undo the Top Two (@undotoptwo) [June 25, 2026](https://x.com/undotoptwo/status/2070174300842467453?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Here is what they are not saying, or don’t understand. Any partisan primary forces a conflict that does not have to exist: the right of voters to cast a meaningful vote, against the right of a political party to control who picks its nominees. The [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us)'s position is simple: the building block of a democracy is the voter. The people pushing to undo Top Two are building on a different premise. To them, the building blocks of democracy are the political parties. That difference is the whole fight. And it is a fight the US Supreme Court has already focused on California. ## **“Undo the Top Two” Wants Primaries to Serve Political Parties** "Undo the Top Two" eliminates California’s current nonpartisan primary and puts a semi-closed primary in its place. A semi-close primary changes the fundamental purpose of the primary election. A nonpartisan primary treats every voter and candidates exactly the same. The purpose is for all voters to nominate candidates, regardless of party, to the general election ballot. [In New York, 7% of Voters Just Decided for the Other 93%NY Partisan Primary Proves Superiority of California’s Nonpartisan Primary System.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-a32fe0ae-b7a3-4325-962e-dd94cb3c3e7b.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/new-york-primary-eelctions-f4413107-8cf0-4812-ac81-484f666ed6be.jpg)](https://ivn.us/7-of-voters-just-decided-for-the-other-93/) A semi-closed primary allows political parties and their members to utilize the taxpayer-funded primary election to nominate a candidate to represent THE PARTY on the general election ballot. In a semi-closed primary, voters who are not members of a qualified political party have no right to participate in primary elections. Under the “Undo the Top Two” measure, the only way an independent voter gets to participate is if a party chooses to “allow” them to participate. That system exists in several states. New Mexico opened its primaries to independents for the first time this year. Washington, D.C. approved funding to do the same after voters passed Initiative 83. It is also true that these systems give independents a say. A limited say, and only if a political party decides to open a given primary election. If they do, the voter is still confined to one party's candidates in every contest, with none of the choice a nonpartisan primary provides. Technically, independent voters **could** still have a limited say in the election. That is where the truth ends. ## **What The Initiative Text Actually Does** Nowhere in the initiative does it grant No Party Preference (NPP) voters the right to participate in primaries. Independent and NPP voters are not even mentioned. Not once. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/data-src-image-04b0113a-2dba-4d6d-af7d-3c18a3966777.jpeg) What the measure does is strike the existing constitutional guarantee that "a voter nominated primary election shall be conducted" and that "all voters may vote at a voter nominated primary election for any candidate." In its place: "The Legislature shall provide for primary elections for partisan offices." That is the swap. A guarantee that every voter may vote for any candidate is replaced with a direction to the Legislature to run private partisan primaries. The promise of equal voter access is removed from the Constitution. "Just trust us" is the only assurance independent voters have to access the primary election—at all. ## **The Jones Problem They Don't Mention** The proponents have said publicly that they want to "restore" and "go back to" the system California used before Proposition 14\. That word choice runs through their website and the press coverage. There is a problem with going back, and it is a legal one they leave out. Before Top Two, California briefly ran a blanket primary, where every voter received a ballot listing every candidate and the top finisher from each party advanced to the general. The political parties sued to kill it. In [*California Democratic Party v. Jones*, 530 U.S. 567 (2000)](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/567/?ref=ivn.us), the Supreme Court struck it down. The Court held that forcing a party to let non-members help choose its nominee is a severe burden on the party's First Amendment right of association. As Justice Scalia wrote for the Court, the conflict in that case existed only because the state created the conflict by forcing parties to associate with non-members. So, the parties cannot constitutionally run the blanket primary they once had. *Jones* forecloses it. That leaves the closed or semi-closed partisan primary as the only realistic destination of a repeal, because the party gets the power to decide whether independents get in at all. That is the part they omit. They invoke "the truth" while leaving out the one ruling, their *own* ruling, that defines what "going back" can legally mean. ## **Why the 'Rights' Framing Matters** The deeper point is the one the courts have wrestled with for decades, and it is why IVP treats this as a voting rights question, not a policy preference. In [*United States v. Classic*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/313/299/?ref=ivn.us), 313 U.S. 299 (1941), the Supreme Court held that when a primary is an integral part of the election process, the right to vote in it is protected just as the right to vote in the general election is. In [*Gray v. Sanders*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/372/368/?ref=ivn.us), 372 U.S. 368 (1963), the Court rooted "one person, one vote" in a case about a primary, holding that voters are entitled to an equally meaningful vote at every integral stage of the process. Read together, those cases stand for a straightforward idea: a meaningful vote includes the stages that actually decide elections, and in most California districts, the primary is that stage. A nonpartisan, voter-nominated primary honors that. Every voter and every candidate are on one ballot, on equal footing. A partisan primary does the reverse. It conditions full participation on joining one of two private organizations, which is exactly the burden IVP and others have spent years challenging in court, including in [a petition to the US Supreme Court arising out of New Jersey's closed system](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/in-the-courtroom/balsam?ref=ivn.us). [SCOTUS Considers Challenge to Closed Primaries -- Here’s Why It Is Such a Big DealIn a dramatic step forward for litigation challenging closed primaries, the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated they are going to conference to discuss whether to grant a writ of certiorari to Polelle v. Florida Secretary of State; a case challenging Florida’s closed primaries that Open Primaries has s![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-9a1359bc-ec43-40d6-8d74-cbf7409c32dd.jpg)Independent Voter NewsJeremy Gruber![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/stephen-talas-91v9Lg2uQ8M-unsplash-5153ebf8-8af1-4c56-88a5-dc7f195a9e5c.jpg)](https://ivn.us/scotus-considers-challenge-closed-primaries-heres-why-it-such-big-deal-2025-09-26/) That is the conflict "Undo the Top Two" skips over. And the selective storytelling does not stop at *Jones*. They cite [New Mexico](https://ivn.us/new-mexicos-first-semi-open-primary-exposed-the-cost-of-locking-voters-out/), but leave out that reformers spent more than a decade chipping away at partisan resistance in a state where half the legislative seats regularly go uncontested. Reform failed repeatedly before the Legislature finally gave independents a limited right to vote. They cite [DC](https://ivn.us/independent-voters-win-dc-council-votes-to-fund-semi-open-primaries/), but leave out that Democratic leadership sued to block Initiative 83 and fought to keep open primaries and ranked choice voting from taking effect at all. It took two years of pressure before the DC Council honored what nearly three-quarters of voters approved. They cite Colorado, but leave out that the Colorado GOP keeps litigating to close the primaries, the same posture [Republicans have taken in Texas and Democrats have taken in states like Hawaii](https://ivn.us/will-texas-republican-party-be-successful-where-hawaiian-democratic-party-failed-2025-09-05/). There is also their own recent record on trusting them at their word. The California Constitution promises independent redistricting and bars partisan gerrymanders. Some of the same operatives backing “Top Two” repeal argued in 2025 that [Democrats "had to" gerrymander,](https://ivn.us/democrats-drive-out-anti-trump-base-propel-proposition-50-victory-2025-11-04/) that they were “fighting fire with fire.” Just trust them. ## **This Is the Voting Rights Discussion We Need to Have** Does the taxpayer funded election process belong to political parties, or to voters? "Undo the Top Two" says its initiative gives independents the right to vote in taxpayer-funded primaries. The text does not. In fact, they remove the fundamental right to vote in the primary and significantly limit voter choices. Under the “Top Two” nonpartisan primary, California is only one of three states where every voter, and candidate, is treated equally. If the real complaint is that voters want more candidates from more parties to choose from in November, there’s a way to do that. Keep the nonpartisan primary and simply [advance more candidates to the general election](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us). ### He Ran as a Democrat Once. Brian Bengs Says Never Again. URL: https://ivn.us/he-ran-as-a-democrat-once-brian-bengs-says-never-again/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:50:31.000Z Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain mostly unrepresented in federal office. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, almost always leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home. A handful of high-profile independent candidates for the US Senate are trying to change that. 2026 is seeing one of the largest surges of interest in independent candidates in recent memory. However, these candidates are often covered as fringe candidates, and stories about them focus more on how they'll impact the outcome of the election between a Republican and Democrat than they do on the substance of the candidate's campaign. This series exists because the independent electorate deserves better than that. Over the coming months, IVN is conducting in-depth interviews with independent Senate candidates across the country—not just horse-race conversations about polling and fundraising, but substantive discussions about the issues independent voters actually care about. In South Dakota, that candidate is Brian Bengs. --- ## I. The Candidate Brian Bengs grew up in South Dakota, attended Northern State University, and spent the better part of his adult life as a military officer, serving as a JAG attorney—a military prosecutor and federal ethics advisor—before retiring and returning to the state. He taught law and society to undergraduates at Northern State, a class he describes with genuine affection: > "I got to pick hot button topics—abortion, affirmative action—and enforce the rules of, we're going to have a civil discussion about this. You can say whatever you think as long as you're doing it in a respectful manner, and I'm going to dissect your argument." He has a law degree and a deep, working familiarity with constitutional history that surfaces constantly in his policy thinking—he's the kind of candidate who answers a question about money in politics by tracing the constitutional amendment process back to 1787 and building a novel legal argument from there. A lifelong independent, he decided to run as a Democrat for Senate in 2022 against John Thune, who now serves as the Senate Majority Leader, losing by 27 points. He's running again in 2026, this time as an independent, against incumbent Republican Senator Mike Rounds. --- ## II. The Race Bengs is running against two-term Republican Sen. Mike Rounds. Rounds has raised $3.9 million this cycle and carried $2.7 million cash on hand through May 13, per [FEC filings](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/SD/2026/?ref=ivn.us). Bengs has raised $666,000 with $58,000 cash on hand. Democrat Julian Beaudion rounds out the field with $210,000 raised and $3,000 cash on hand. South Dakota has approximately [600,000 registered voters](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/sd?ref=ivn.us), split roughly 51% Republican, 23% Democrat, and 26% independent. The state has been a Republican stronghold in federal races for decades. In head-to-head [polling](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/south-dakota-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) between Rounds (Republican) and Beaudion (Democrat), the incumbent handily wins 56-31\. But a head-to-head between Rounds and Bengs tells a different story: 44-40, a race within the margin of error, and with Bengs’ name recognition lower than the incumbent’s. The same polling has the three-way general at 43-23-18, with Bengs running 5 points ahead of the Democrat—a gap that is the foundation of his argument that he, not Beaudion, is the viable path for the roughly 29% of South Dakotans who want a change. While it needs to be noted that the poll in question was sponsored by Bengs, no one—including Beaudion—has released a poll with different results. --- ## III. Why Independent: A Lesson Learned at Parades Bengs describes himself as a lifelong independent, outside of his brief stint as a Democrat to run for Senate in 2022\. On that experience, Bengs in unequivocal: "I would never run as a Democrat again. That was my takeaway. The whole experience from the ‘22 race was soul sucking and exhausting." He describes a scene that repeated itself throughout that campaign: approaching voters at parades and county fairs, including people in Trump hats, introducing himself as a candidate, and telling them he could guarantee they'd agree on at least two, probably three things. He'd run down the list—big money controls politics, healthcare should be affordable, Congress needs term limits—and they'd nod along. "Generally it was all three. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good." Then he'd ask for their vote in November. "And the first words out of their mouth were: So what are you?" When he said he was running as a Democrat, the conversation ended. "I'll never vote for a Democrat. Sometimes there was an expletive in there. The takeaway was that the letter was more important than what I was saying. The ideas that they agreed with me on did not matter so much as what team are you playing for, what jersey do you have." --- ## IV. The Issues That Unite Everyone Those three issues—money in politics, healthcare affordability, and term limits—are not accidental choices. Bengs has talked to thousands of South Dakotans across the state and says he has "yet to meet a person who disagrees" with the idea that big money controls politicians. His campaign website frames the entire race around that premise: that Big Money has corrupted both parties to the point where regular people who play by the rules can no longer afford the lifestyle their parents had, and that the only way to fix it is to send people to Washington who don't owe anything to the system that built the problem. Term limits poll at 80%+ support nationally and have for 40 years. "There's some low-hanging fruit that the vast majority of people agree with, and yet the two-party system refuses to address." His platform calls for term limits of two terms in the Senate and six in the House, and he has pledged to abide by his own limit regardless of whether it becomes law—[a pledge shared by at least one other independent Senate candidate this year](https://ivn.us/todd-achilles-says-the-two-parties-broke-congress-now-he-wants-idaho-to-help-break-their-grip/). On healthcare, his platform calls for a five-stage overhaul of the system—extending ACA coverage to 30, enhancing ACA subsidies, lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55, creating a public option, and paying for it by levying taxes on billionaires and corporations. He notes that the structural pricing problems that make U.S. healthcare cost roughly twice what comparable wealthy countries pay per capita also need to be addressed. Medical debt is already the leading cause of personal bankruptcy; the status quo, he argues, isn't sustainable. While these three policy areas are central to Bengs’ argument to voters, they’re far from the only policy areas he discusses on his website. Many candidates speak in generalities about their platform, or leave details fuzzy, but Bengs presents long-form articles discussing how he would approach myriad problems. Democrats and Republicans have the benefit of a party platform that allows people to understand how they would approach most policy areas, but independents lack that. Bengs has made sure that, absent a national “independent” platform, voters can understand where he stands on many key issues. Asked what two things would make his time in the Senate worthwhile: "Getting money out of politics to the maximum extent possible would be the single biggest accomplishment I think of my career and of Congress. And I’d also like to get healthcare affordable, so people don't have to worry about, ‘Don't call the ambulance, because I can't afford that.'" --- ## V. History, Antitrust, and Teddy Roosevelt Bengs has a historian's instinct for finding the right precedent. He invokes the 1912 election —Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose run, the antitrust era, the moment when a large section of the American public decided that concentrated corporate power had gone too far and something structural had to change. He points out that South Dakota gave Roosevelt his highest popular vote margin of any state in that race (auth. By percent of the vote). The history is both inspiration and argument: South Dakota has responded to this message before, and the conditions are similar enough to take seriously. On antitrust specifically, Bengs uses the example of the meatpacking monopoly, a through-line from Roosevelt’s first term in 1902 and a problem Bengs sees today. The candidate’s argument? When Roosevelt took his first actions against the big six meat-packing companies, those firms controlled about 50% of the industry. Today, four companies control 80-85% of beef packing in the United States, and they've been credibly accused of price fixing within the last decade. "We need to do something about it. We need more competition. That's the same answer that we need in the political system." His platform calls for aggressive antitrust enforcement on Big Ag, and he’s making this argument directly to ranchers who, he says, are getting squeezed on both ends—by consolidation in inputs and in processing. He connects corporate consolidation directly to inflation: robust antitrust enforcement, he argues, would go "a fair distance to addressing the cost of things immediately" because the current pricing power of consolidated industries flows straight to consumers' grocery bills and gas receipts. --- ## VI. Money, the Constitution, and a Novel Legal Theory On campaign finance, Bengs goes beyond the standard "overturn Citizens United" position with a constitutional argument he developed from his international law background that is genuinely unusual in this space. His starting point: the Constitution's amendment process was written when every state legislature had the authority to amend its own state constitution. Over the past 75 years, every state except Delaware has shifted to requiring a popular vote to change its state constitution. Bengs' argument is that this represents a fundamental change in constitutional facts—that state legislatures have ceded the authority they once had to ratify national constitutional amendments, because that power has passed to the people directly. If correct, it would mean that a constitutional amendment banning unlimited corporate political spending could be ratified by popular vote in every state except Delaware, bypassing the legislatures that have consistently protected the current system. He frames it as unconventional but grounded: "I've got this crazy idea—I'll be crazy for a bit." His fallback, if the legal theory doesn't hold, is a state-by-state strategy, exemplified by the work being done in neighboring Montana to rein in corporate political spending through a change in corporate chartering using the initiative process. South Dakota, Bengs notes, was the first state to adopt the ballot initiative process. He also supports a mechanism of drowning out billionaire spending through public financing, highlighting a South Dakota precedent: in 2016, voters passed a ballot initiative providing roughly $100 per registered voter as a voucher to allocate to candidates in small increments. The legislature nullified it before it went into effect. "There is an appetite for it," he said. "And given the amount of money flowing into politics now, if we allowed $100 per registered voter, you'd end up with roughly the amount of money the billionaires are dumping into our elections right now—but it would actually reflect what voters want." --- ## VII. The Fulcrum and What Bengs Would Demand Bengs is part of the same coordinated group of independent Senate candidates described in earlier pieces in this series, and he mentioned that the group’s list of their shared platform as to how they’d leverage the fulcrum should be released in the next few weeks. (For more on how other candidates in the group describe the strategy, see our pieces on [Todd Achilles](https://ivn.us/todd-achilles-says-the-two-parties-broke-congress-now-he-wants-idaho-to-help-break-their-grip/), [Bob Chew](https://ivn.us/bob-chew-wants-to-make-colorados-senate-race-about-the-problems-both-parties-duck/), and [Ty Pinkins](https://ivn.us/ty-pinkins-makes-the-case-for-sending-an-independent-caucus-to-the-senate/).) When discussing the groups’ leverage, Bengs starts with an interesting note: the easiest theoretical option for the two parties would be to cooperate with each other and nullify independent leverage entirely—"but that seems like it does not happen anymore, because of the way the political system is structured." If, as he expects, that doesn’t happen, Bengs says he'd push for campaign finance reform, and a national prohibition on gerrymandering, as the concessions a major party would need to make for him to support them (not caucus with them, as the group is very clear in stating). --- ## VIII. Assessment The obstacles are familiar: a 6- or 7-to-1 fundraising deficit against Rounds, a Democrat in the race who complicates the coalition math, and a state where registered Republicans make up a majority of the electorate. But Bengs brings something to the race that is harder to quantify than fundraising totals: the combination of a JAG officer's methodical precision, a professor's command of the Constitution and our history, and a direct personality that doesn’t shy away from hard questions while refusing to talk down to voters. He’s spending his days traveling throughout the state, campaigning to anyone who will listen. His practical proposals to restore power to voters, his novel constitutional theory on amendment ratification, his TR-to-today antitrust argument—these aren't talking points, they're the product of someone who has been thinking hard about these problems for a long time and is running as an independent because he believes the parties won’t solve any of the problems that he sees facing this country. The 13-point platform release in the coming days will be worth watching as the clearest statement yet of what the group of independent candidates is prepared to demand. If it reflects the detail and thought that has gone into Bengs’ policy platform, it should give voters a clear view of what they can vote for in November. --- *This interview was conducted June 25, 2026.* ### NY Independents Watch DC Open Its Primaries and Ask: 'Why Not Us?' URL: https://ivn.us/ny-independents-watch-dc-open-its-primaries-and-ask-why-not-us/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:50:19.000Z Democracy [won a major victory in Washington, D.C. this week](https://ivn.us/independent-voters-win-dc-council-votes-to-fund-semi-open-primaries/). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/dc-open-primaries.png) In 2024, D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved ballot initiative 83 to open the city’s taxpayer-funded primary elections, with 73% of voters voting yes. The message from voters was clear: every citizen should have a voice in elections that determine who governs. Watch DC voters talk about what it means to be shut out in their city: But for nearly two years, the will of the voters was blocked. The D.C. Council refused to fund and implement the measure, leaving nearly 100,000 independents - including many voters of color -shut out of the elections that effectively decide who represents them. This week, that changed. The Council reversed course and passed a resolution to fund and implement open primaries, putting the reform on track to take effect for the 2028 elections. **This victory belongs first and foremost to the voters who organized, mobilized, and demanded that their voices be respected. And special recognition goes to Lisa Rice, founder of Grow Democracy DC, whose leadership and persistence powered this movement from the beginning.** Lisa built the coalition, educated voters, and kept the pressure on when many moved on after the ballot initiative passed. The lesson from Washington is powerful: voters are ahead of the political establishment. Across the country, millions of Americans are questioning why elections paid for by the public can exclude the public. The people of D.C. spoke in 2024\. This week, their elected officials finally listened. Congratulations to Lisa Rice, [Grow Democracy DC](https://www.growdemocracydc.org/?ref=ivn.us), and every D.C. voter who fought to make this victory possible. ## **What We're Talking About** ## Voters Question Why DC and Not NYC? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/dc-initiative-83-team.png) The fight for open primaries is gaining momentum in New York City - and independent voters are making their voices impossible to ignore. This week, independent voters showed up **in droves at Charter Revision Commission hearings in Queens and Staten Island** to demand a simple answer: **If Washington, D.C. can move toward open primaries, why not New York City?** At the Staten Island hearing [where I testified](https://openprimaries.org/crc%5Fhearing%5Fjune%5F2026%5Fjeremygruber/?ref=ivn.us), we engaged the CRC Chair in a lengthy discussion about what it means to tell voters: “just join a party if you want a voice.” I challenged the idea by asking Commissioners to imagine the city telling Democrats they had to join the Republican Party in order to participate in an election that determines their representation. The outrage would be immediate - and justified. [Poll Finds that a Majority of New York Democrats Don’t Really Want to be DemocratsNew polling finds most registered Democrats support letting independents vote in Democratic primaries — and nearly 4 in 10 say they only registered Democratic because New York City gives them no other meaningful choice.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-4c04b250-e0aa-47f1-8a8f-042093bf7c80.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/new-york-voters-NYC-democrats-2dc8d93c-6357-42e6-881a-bc5bf3d9b5f8.jpg)](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) That is the reality facing more than **1 million independent voters in New York City**, including a majority who are voters of color. > **\*It’s not just registered independents.** [**A new survey**](https://apnews.com/press-release/ein-presswire-newsmatics/press-release-polling-7be87d6dafe6ce7b4a2f6f41ce0d3a28?ref=ivn.us) **conducted by IVC Media detonates a core assumption of “party membership”. Roughly 40% of registered Democrats in NYC say *they are not actually Democrats* but explicitly describe themselves as independents forced into Democratic registration just to vote** And the issue is gaining national attention. Watch OP President John Opdycke as he joins Open Primaries NYC supporters Jeff Aron, Ed Brady and Torsha Childs on MSNOWs *Morning Joe*: [The timing could not be more urgent.](https://www.amny.com/news/nyc-open-primary-advocates-press-mamdani-panel/?ref=ivn.us) New York’s latest Democratic primary once again exposed the problem with a closed system, with turnout hovering around just **10% of registered Democratic voters**. In a city where the Democratic primary often determines who wins the general election, millions of New Yorkers are effectively shut out of the most important elections. Watch OP SVP Jeremy Gruber as he joins News 12 NY to lay out the problem: The contrast with Washington, D.C. is becoming harder to ignore. After D.C. voters approved open primaries with **73% support in 2024**, grassroots organizers kept fighting until leaders agreed to fund and implement the reform. New Yorkers are asking: why not here? ## **Campaign Updates** ## A Million Marylanders Are Shut Out and They’re Fighting Back This week Maryland held its primary elections, and more than 1 million voters were told they don’t get a say. Amber Ivey was one of them. [A plaintiff in Open Primaries lawsuit challenging the state's closed primaries](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us), she wants to participate in the elections that will likely decide who represents her community - but because she is not affiliated with a political party, she is locked out. [As she told Maryland Matters](https://marylandmatters.org/2026/06/19/unaffiliated-voters-air-grievances-on-eve-of-primary-theyre-excluded-from/?ref=ivn.us): ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Amber-Ivery-Quote.png) That is the heart of the growing fight for open primaries in Maryland: whether elections funded by taxpayers should be open to all eligible voters. Former Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford is representing Ivey and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit arguing that Maryland should not fund elections that exclude a quarter of the state’s voters. The case does not challenge political parties’ right to organize or choose their nominees - it challenges the government’s role in financing a system that denies citizens a meaningful voice. The stakes are growing. As Open Primaries Senior Vice President Jeremy Gruber [told WBAL News Radio](https://www.wbal.com/episode/june-23rd-2026-primary-election-day-latest-in-iran-kier-starmer-resigns-jeremy-gruber-jordana-miller?ref=ivn.us), when elections are increasingly decided in low-competition environments, closing the primary means denying millions of voters the only meaningful opportunity they have to influence who governs. **Maryland voters are asking a simple question: Why should anyone have to join a private organization just to vote in a public election?** ## **What We're Watching** [Independent Veterans of America](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us) leader Paul Rieckhoff has been all over the airwaves this primary season talking about the fight for independent voter rights. This week he joined the panel on CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront on New York City primary night and argued the evening was a perfect illustration of the problem with closed primaries. With fewer than 500,000 people deciding the fate of a city of five million voters, Paul says New York City is "ground zero" - a closed system where roughly a million independents like him can't cast a ballot at all, millions more voters stay home, and partisan turnout machines run the tables. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/letusvote.png) ## **Operation Independent 2026** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Maryland-poll.png) Over one million independent Marylanders were locked out of the primaries on Tuesday. [Independent Voters of Maryland](https://www.independentvotersmd.org/?ref=ivn.us) (IVM), [Veterans for All Voters](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?ref=ivn.us), and [Let Us Vote](https://letusvote.org/?ref=ivn.us) took action across the state to draw attention to what it is like to be excluded from being able to vote. In Laurel, independent activists were outside the polling place at Laurel Elementary School. They had a simple request – LET US VOTE– and a simple goal, to let fellow Marylanders know that their unaffiliated neighbors don’t have equal voting rights. They were joined by DJ Clark. The night before the Primary, DJ was looking up who to vote for and making his plan to vote when he discovered that because he is unaffiliated with a private political party he cannot vote. Which rightfully made him mad! He found information about the rally and came to join and protest being shut out. This was the first time that DJ had even participated in a rally. A couple of hours away, Joseph Nicholas who works as a Quality Control Inspector for a machinist company took time out on a rainy primary day to go to his polling place. Joseph is 23 years old and has been an independent since he first registered to vote when getting his driver’s license. Initially, he registered as an independent because he was “not that aware of politics and did not want to align with a party. As I became more aware of the political environment, I became disenfranchised with both parties.” Joseph is not alone, according to Gallup, 56% of Gen Z voters are independent. Joseph participated in Operation Independent because he wants to have the ability to vote and wants to “actually dedicate myself to this issue instead of being complacent.” Independents taking action – whether in the rain, at a polling place, with a letter to their elected official, testifying at a hearing – is what drives change and builds power. If you want to be involved in the fight for independent voting rights, reach out to [cstewart@openprimaries.org](mailto:cstewart@openprimaries.org). ## What We're Reading ## Steve Peace on Bill Cavala and the Fight Over California’s Open Primaries Legacy [In a sharp reflection](https://ivn.us/bill-cavala-would-have-laughed-at-californias-latest-closed-primary-scheme/), former California legislator and reform architect Steve Peace revisits the legacy of legendary strategist Bill Cavala and what it means for today’s renewed push to roll back California’s open primary system. Cavala, who died in 2009 just before voters approved the Top Two nonpartisan primary, spent his career inside California’s closed partisan system but ultimately became a behind-the-scenes supporter of opening primaries to all voters. A UC Berkeley professor and longtime adviser to legislative leaders, he came to believe that voters, when given the chance, make decisions more wisely than political insiders often assume. Peace contrasts that outlook with today’s effort by political consultants to repeal Top Two and restore closed primaries — a move that would once again exclude nearly 7 million No Party Preference and minor-party voters from participating in primary elections. The piece points to California’s experience since adopting Top Two: broader participation, sustained public support, and a more representative legislature. It frames Cavala’s legacy as a reminder that when voters are included, they tend to support systems that keep them included. In an era of renewed institutional pushback, Peace’s reflection lands as both history and warning: the fight over primary elections is ultimately a fight over whether democracy expands or contracts. ## **Juneteenth and Black Voter Power: Why Open Primaries Matter Now** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/breaking-the-barriers-open-primaries.png) [A new essay, *“Breaking the Barriers: Why America Needs Open Primaries Now,”*](https://home.forwardparty.com/breaking%5Fthe%5Fbarriers%5Fwhy%5Famerica%5Fneeds%5Fopen%5Fprimaries%5Fnow?ref=ivn.us) reframes the fight for open elections through the lens of Black voter power and unfinished civil rights work. Written by Bree Doldron, National Organizer at Open Primaries, and Nate Roseboro of the Forward Party Black Voters Committee, the piece highlights how closed primaries disproportionately exclude voters of color - including millions of Black voters who are increasingly choosing to identify as independent. As the nation marked Juneteenth this past week, the authors argue this moment demands more than reflection - it requires confronting systems that still limit political participation. In many states, Black voters who step outside party affiliation are effectively shut out of the elections that determine their representation. The essay points to a growing shift: younger Black voters are far more likely to identify as independent than previous generations, challenging old assumptions about party loyalty and political power. At its core, the piece makes a direct claim: you cannot talk about Black political power in 2026 without talking about access to primary elections. **That’s been the mantra of Open Primaries Board member and Harlem-based physician Dr. Jessie Fields for decades.** [**Check out her compelling words**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd6A-Cs-wjc&ref=ivn.us) **as she speaks out before the CRC and the National Action Network.** ### In New York, 7% of Voters Just Decided for the Other 93% URL: https://ivn.us/7-of-voters-just-decided-for-the-other-93/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:50:10.000Z The early turnout numbers for the New York primary this year are brutal. While the media would prefer to characterize the results on June 23 as a harbinger of things to come in the midterm general elections, it was instead a reminder that in much of the country, not only are elections decided well ahead of November, but they are decided by a small handful of voters. In New York, specifically, this means 4% or less of the total registered electorate (a number that shrinks even further when looking at all eligible voters) decide the winner under a closed primary system that locks out [3.7 million independent voters](https://ivn.us/3-states-voted-tuesday-more-than-5-million-independents-were-told-to-stay-out/). > 5 million voters. 500,000 decided everything. [pic.twitter.com/pnRgWQ0FQn](https://t.co/pnRgWQ0FQn?ref=ivn.us) > > — 🎙Independent Americans (@indy\_americans) [June 25, 2026](https://x.com/indy%5Famericans/status/2070100161838109130?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) At a statewide level, the only office that even had a primary was for Comptroller and only on the Democratic side. In that race, [New York’s Board of Elections reports](https://nyenr.elections.ny.gov/?ref=ivn.us) approximately 939,000 votes were cast out of more than 6 million enrolled Democrats. That is 15.6% of eligible Democratic voters—and 7.5% of all registered voters in a state where the Democrat is all but guaranteed to win because registered party members make up half of the voting population (48%). With 90% of precincts reporting, the projected winner for Comptroller, incumbent Thomas DiNapoli, has 576,131 votes. That’s only 4.6% of the 12.5 million registered voters in New York. The state's primary system discourages competition and voter participation so much that the governor and attorney general primaries went uncontested. Gov. Kathy Hochul will easily sail to re-election without needing to defend her party nomination. But even when there are primary contests to watch, whether at the state level or in congressional and state legislative districts, the races are often so safe for one party or the other that the majority party’s primary is all that matters. Contrast that with California, which uses a nonpartisan, open, voter-nominated system. Every voter gets the same ballot, regardless of their party affiliation or lack thereof, no one is locked out, and everyone gets to choose from any candidate they want. They can choose a Democrat in one race, a Republican in another, and a No Party Preference candidate in a third if they want. The choice is theirs and all voters have the opportunity to weigh in on who makes it to November. As a result, voters can see a stark difference in outcomes and incentives. For one, the primary turnout better reflects the overall electorate in California. According to the [PDI ballot tracker](https://tracker.politicaldata.com/?type=statewide&tab=3&ref=ivn.us), about 21% of voters who participated in the 2026 primaries were registered outside the two major parties. This is close to the share of No Party Preference voters in the state at-large. Republicans made up 29% of the turnout and Democrats made up half of voters, only slightly higher than their overall share of the registered electorate. When independent voters were part of [a concentrated voter outreach program](https://ivn.us/californias-most-powerful-voting-bloc-is-the-one-staying-home/), their turnout increased which contributed to 4 out of every 10 voters in the state participating – a figure that comes from the California secretary of state. Without question, independent voters made a difference in which candidates advanced. What the outcome would have looked like without this voting group is a matter for speculation, but New York may offer some insight. Independent voters don’t get a say in taxpayer-funded primary elections in New York. Only registered party members can participate in these low-turnout contests where candidates of each party appear on separate ballots. The incentive for a candidate to win is different. The person who can appeal to a small but motivated ideological group has the greatest advantage. Case-in-point, look how well the Democratic Socialists of America did. DSA candidates had their biggest night in New York on June 23, advancing 2 candidates in US House races in NY-7 and NY-13, a state Senate candidate, and 5 state Assembly candidates in races that are considered safe for the Democratic nominee. [In NY-13](https://nyenr.elections.ny.gov/HomeNoJS.aspx?ref=ivn.us), Darializa Avila Chevalier beat five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat in the Democratic primary with about 32,790 votes. The district has more than 338,000 registered Democrats, meaning her winning vote total represents less than 10% of her party. That is just looking at enrolled Democrats, who are allowed to participate under the state’s closed primary rules. Yet, only 1-in-10 did, and this turnout percentage drops even more when looking at the electorate at large. To understand how safe a district NY-13 is for the Democratic nominee, Harris took it with 79% of the vote in 2024\. US Sen. Kristen Gillibrand got 83% that same year while Espaillat won re-election with a similar 83.5%. And Espaillat is also DSA-aligned. All the winning candidate needs are 1 out of every 10 Democrats to win—a low bar that doesn’t take much to clear, much in the same way the Tea Party and MAGA were able to mobilize a fraction of GOP voters to change the makeup of the Republican Party in red states over the last decade. The DSA looks like it took a page out of this playbook and has found success under partisan primary systems, particularly closed models that lock independent voters out entirely. ## **A Tale of Two Systems** California and New York may be similar in partisan make up. Democrats make up nearly half the electorate in both states. But the 2026 election cycle was a tale of two systems. One open. One closed. One voter-nominated. The other partisan-nominated. One that produced one of the highest primary turnouts in the country. The other that produced one of the lowest. One that incentivized broader voter outreach. The other that was decided by a small fraction of the electorate. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-66931c01-3467-4aa2-8032-0a12e0349637.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal-bae615a0-90e5-48ae-b5ec-31396a1ca325.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) Party operatives and insiders on both sides of the aisle in California have mobilized to “Undo the Top Two.” This would return California to a system that looks similar to New York, locking out 6.9 million independent voters and removing the ability to choose any candidate. If voters want to know what this would mean for election results—New York may offer them a glimpse into what would happen under party-controlled elections. ### TRUTH: 40% of NYC Democrats Aren't Really Democrats | Jeremy Gruber URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/truth-40-of-nyc-democrats-arent-really-democrats-jeremy-gruber/ Last updated: 2026-06-25T20:25:34.000Z Four out of ten registered Democrats in New York City don't actually consider themselves Democrats - they just had no other way to vote. Jeremy Gruber of Open Primaries breaks down the poll that exposes how closed primaries quietly force voters into a party they don't believe in. We sit down with Jeremy, Senior VP of [Open Primaries](https://openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us), to dig into a new IVP/Open Primaries poll of registered NYC Democrats - and what it reveals is wild. Jeremy lays out "the big lie" about open vs. closed primaries, why \~40% of NYC Democrats (and two out of three Latino Democrats) don't identify with the party they're registered in, and how a 10% turnout primary ends up deciding who actually runs the city. Then Jeremy lays out why almost everyone - the media, secretaries of state, even civil rights groups - has the importance of primaries exactly backwards. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ## Episode Highlights In this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, Shawn, Cara, and Ethan sit down with special guest **Jeremy Gruber**, Senior Vice President of **Open Primaries**. The conversation centers on a groundbreaking **IVC Media poll** conducted in **New York City** that exposes a critical flaw in the **closed primary system**: nearly **40% of registered Democrats** don't actually identify with the **Democratic Party**. These voters are registered with the party solely to participate in what is effectively the only election that matters in a one-party city. With over **1.2 million independent voters** locked out of **New York City primaries**, Gruber argues that **closed primaries** don't protect party integrity—they force **independent voters** and unaffiliated voters to misrepresent their identity just to exercise a basic **voting right**. It is a dynamic he calls the "big lie" of the **open vs. closed primary** debate. The episode dives deep into **low voter turnout** in **partisan primaries**, with New York's most recent primary drawing only **10% turnout**—meaning highly organized factions like **Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)** candidates wield outsized influence in **primary elections**. Gruber and the hosts draw comparisons to **semi-open primary** reforms in **Washington DC** — [where the DC Council recently voted to fund **Initiative 83**](https://ivn.us/independent-voters-win-dc-council-votes-to-fund-semi-open-primaries/) — and to **New Mexico's open primary** rollout, where even after the system opened, **voter education** failures by election officials left independents unaware they could participate. But California's **nonpartisan top-two primary** offers a model for reform, noting that the **Independent Voter Project (IVP)** ran a [**no party preference (NPP) voter outreach**](https://ivn.us/californias-most-powerful-voting-bloc-is-the-one-staying-home/) program to drive **primary election turnout** among independent voters. Gruber stresses the urgent need for **independent voter organizing** and **civic education** to counter a media and civil society ecosystem that continues to prioritize **general election** turnout over **primary election** engagement — despite the fact that **90% of US elections** are decided at the primary stage. He emphasizes that **independents are the largest and fastest-growing voter bloc** in America, yet remain largely unorganized and misunderstood. With **Open Primaries** pursuing a multi-pronged strategy of **litigation**, **legislation**, **ballot initiatives**, Gruber makes the case that the **nonpartisan primary movement** is entering a pivotal moment in the fight for **voting rights** and systemic reform. ### SurveyUSA: The Argument that Ranked Choice Voting Is 'Too Confusing' for Voters is A Lie URL: https://ivn.us/surveyusa-the-argument-that-ranked-choice-voting-is-too-confusing-for-voters-is-a-lie/ Last updated: 2026-06-24T21:02:46.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** – Critics warned that voters would be confused by ranked choice voting. Some lawmakers argued DC was moving too fast. Others pushed to delay implementation, suggesting the city’s election infrastructure was not ready. But after District voters used ranked choice voting for the first time, voters appear to have a different view. A [new SurveyUSA poll](https://fairvote.org/press/poll-78-of-dc-voters-say-ranked-choice-voting-is-simple/?ref=ivn.us) conducted June 12-18 among 542 likely and actual DC voters found that 78% said their ranked choice voting ballot was simple to complete, compared to just 15% who said it was difficult. [Independent Voters Win! DC Council Votes to Fund Semi-Open Primaries85,000 registered independent voters now have the right to vote in taxpayer-funded primary elections, as approved by two-thirds of District voters.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-8494852b-ecff-4164-bfed-4f446ade516d.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/washington-dc-vfunds-open-primaries--1-d5f7c025-a740-4e56-be64-7e67adb7c109.jpg)](https://ivn.us/2026/06/23/open-primaries/independent-voters-win-dc-council-votes-to-fund-semi-open-primaries/) But among voters who had already cast a ballot in the June 16 primary, the number rose to 87% who said it was easy. For context, 73% of voters approved Initiative 83 in 2024, which called for ranked choice voting and semi-open primaries. The polling data suggests there isn’t any remorse over that decision. It is also further proof that voters can handle ranking their choices just fine. “Ranked choice voting gives voters more voice and more power, and I am excited to see voters taking advantage of it,” said Lisa D.T. Rice, CEO of Grow Democracy DC and proposer of Initiative 83. The city implemented the ranked choice voting half of Initiative 83 first. But after Tuesday, [when the DC Council voted to fund and implement the open-primary component](https://ivn.us/2026/06/23/open-primaries/independent-voters-win-dc-council-votes-to-fund-semi-open-primaries/), the other half of the voter mandate is moving forward as well. Polling suggests voters are ready for both. That voter education work will continue – as we also implement the other half of Initiative 83, and let independents vote in DC’s primary elections,” Rice said. [She Quit Her Party. Then She Couldn’t Vote. | Lisa RiceIn this episode of the Independent Voter Podcast, Chad and Shawn sit down with Lisa Rice, founder of Grow Democracy DC and a leading voice in the election reform movement.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-8492a1b3-c1b2-4c4c-b6ea-eb5f23f19581.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Podcast![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/image-544-f5c8e4ce-737f-4cb0-a067-94eb6ce4d096.jpg)](https://ivn.us/2026/06/18/podcast/she-quit-her-party-then-she-couldnt-vote-lisa-rice/) ## **Voters Say Ranking Candidates Is Easy — And They Want to Do It** According to the SurveyUSA results, nearly three-quarters of respondents (74%) said they support being able to rank candidates on their ballots. Only 18% opposed it. Voters also reported strong familiarity with the new system. Seventy-one percent (71%) said they understand ranked choice voting “extremely” or “very well,” while another 23% said they understand it somewhat well. Only 5% said they do not understand it. But DC voters were not merely able to fill out their ballots. Many used the new system as intended. Sixty-nine percent (69%) said they ranked two or more candidates in at least one race. Only 24% said they ranked only one candidate. And their reasons show why ranked choice voting has become increasingly attractive in crowded elections: - 59% said ranking allowed them to express their support for all the candidates who aligned with their values; - 47% said it gave their vote more power; - 47% said it helped make sure their vote counted; and - 46% said it gave them more say in who wins. Advocates say this is the heart of ranked choice voting. Instead of forcing voters to abandon their preferred candidate out of fear of “wasting” a vote, the ballot lets them express a fuller range of preferences. For voters who ranked only one candidate, the most common explanation was not confusion. Fifty-six percent (56%) said they simply liked only one candidate. And that is their choice under a ranked choice system. “Everywhere ranked choice voting is used, voters say they like and understand it – and that is the case in Washington, DC,” said Deb Otis, Senior Director of Research and Policy at FairVote, which first published the poll results. > *“Ranked choice voting is off to a strong start in the nation’s capital. With RCV, voters get more choice and majority winners in crowded fields – a far cry from what we see in other states and DC’s own history, where candidates have routinely won with 20 or 30% of the vote.”* SurveyUSA also found that 68% of DC voters believe independents should be allowed to vote in primary elections. Only 16% disagreed. And now, they will get what they want thanks to the continued efforts of reformers who would not stop demanding the DC Council honor Initiative 83. The council’s move to fund and implement the semi-open primary provision means DC is now closer to delivering the full reform package voters approved in 2024. ### NY Shows What CA Might Look Like Without Top-Two URL: https://ivn.us/ny-shows-what-ca-might-look-like-without-top-two/ Last updated: 2026-06-24T18:10:41.000Z Mayor Zohran Mamdani's slate swept Tuesday night in New York. In a closed primary state this blue, **the** **election is over**. November's general election is a formality. Three contested House races. Two unseated incumbents. The deciding factor was a small, motivated bloc of activist voters, turned out by volunteers, in low-turnout races where **most of the electorate did not or could not participate**. California's nonpartisan Top-Two was designed to give every voter a chance to participate in a meaningful primary and general election. Now, party operatives want to go back to a system like New York. As [Steve Peace argues this week](https://ivn.us/2026/06/24/commentary/bill-cavala-would-have-laughed-at-californias-latest-closed-primary-scheme/), even Bill Cavala knew better than to disenfranchise 6.9 million voters. Good news from D.C. The [Council voted to fund semi-open primaries](https://ivn.us/2026/06/23/open-primaries/independent-voters-win-dc-council-votes-to-fund-semi-open-primaries/), giving 85,000 independent voters access to the taxpayer-funded elections that decide who governs them. The architect of that reform, Lisa Rice, [joined us on the Independent Voter Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg2o4mTf1eY&ref=ivn.us) this week. Worth a listen. Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## The Plan to Strip 6.9 Million Californians of Voting Rights Could Haunt Politicians [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Bill-Cavala-1.png)](https://ivn.us/2026/06/24/commentary/bill-cavala-would-have-laughed-at-californias-latest-closed-primary-scheme/) Even one of the most partisan operatives in California history, the late Bill Cavala, understood why open primaries matter. A legendary Democratic strategist who spent four decades inside the old closed-primary system - senior aide to Willie Brown, architect behind a generation of Assembly Speakers - Cavala still became a key backer of Proposition 14. Now, there is a contingent of political operatives attempting to force California back to closed primaries. Undoing Top Two, Steve Peace argues, would tell 6.9 million independents they can't vote in taxpayer-funded primaries unless they join a club they've already chosen to leave. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/2026/06/24/commentary/bill-cavala-would-have-laughed-at-californias-latest-closed-primary-scheme/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [BREAKING: Independent Voters Win! DC Council Votes to Fund Semi-Open Primaries ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/23/open-primaries/independent-voters-win-dc-council-votes-to-fund-semi-open-primaries/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![DC Council funds open primaries](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/washington-dc-vfunds-open-primaries--1.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/23/open-primaries/independent-voters-win-dc-council-votes-to-fund-semi-open-primaries/) [The DC Council Has One More Chance to Let Independents Vote. Now is the Time to Get it Done! ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/19/election-reform/the-dc-council-has-one-more-chance-to-let-independents-vote-now-is-the-time-to-get-it-done/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/Lisa-Rice-1.jpeg) Lisa D.T. Rice [ ![DC City Hall open primaries](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/DC-City-Hall-Open-Primaries-Elections-Initiative83.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/19/election-reform/the-dc-council-has-one-more-chance-to-let-independents-vote-now-is-the-time-to-get-it-done/) [3 States Voted Tuesday. More Than 5 Million Independents Were Told to Stay Out. ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/23/election-reform/3-states-voted-tuesday-more-than-5-million-independents-were-told-to-stay-out/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/03/ivp_logo-02.png) IVN Editorial Board [ ![Closed primaries New York Maryland Utah](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/closed-primaries-independent-voters-new-york-maryland-utah-2026.png) ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/23/election-reform/3-states-voted-tuesday-more-than-5-million-independents-were-told-to-stay-out/) [Poll Finds that a Majority of New York Democrats Don't Really Want to be Democrats ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/18/ivp-poll/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![New York voters NYC Democrats](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/new-york-voters-NYC-democrats.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/18/ivp-poll/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) [In New York, Latino Democrats Aren't Even Democrats ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/19/election-reform/in-new-york-latino-democrats-arent-even-democrats/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/Mike-Madrid.jpg) Mike Madrid [ ![New York Latino voters Democratic Party](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/new-york-latino-voters-democratic-party-elections.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/19/election-reform/in-new-york-latino-democrats-arent-even-democrats/) [No Party. No Big Money. No Problem: How an Independent Mayor Beat the Machine in Ridgecrest ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/22/campaigns/no-party-no-big-money-no-problem-how-an-independent-mayor-beat-the-machine-in-ridgecrest/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Travis Endicott Ridgecrest](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/travis-endicott.png) ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/22/campaigns/no-party-no-big-money-no-problem-how-an-independent-mayor-beat-the-machine-in-ridgecrest/) [47% Independent: The Two-Party System Has Lost the Country It Claims to Represent ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/19/primary-buzz/47-independent-the-two-party-system-has-lost-the-country-it-claims-to-represent/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![Independent voter](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/independent-voter.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/2026/06/19/primary-buzz/47-independent-the-two-party-system-has-lost-the-country-it-claims-to-represent/) ### *NEW EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Lisa D.T. Rice, the driving force behind DC's Initiative 83 to permit ranked choice voting and open primaries, joins the show to explain how a missing ballot turned her into one of the most relentless reformers in the country. She breaks down why closed primaries are really a voting-rights problem, how she took on two fights at once - **open primaries and ranked choice voting** \- in the heart of a 95% one-party city. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg1trJf7iYQ&ref=ivn.us) ### *OPINION CLIP ▶▶▶* ## Here's Why Spencer Pratt REALLY Lost in LA: Steyer-Funded Ballot Harvesting [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Pratt_LA_Clip.png)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZsiqBeDXQf/?ref=ivn.us) Did Democrats cheat to push Nithya Raman past Spencer Pratt in the LA mayor's race? No, says IVN's Cara McCormick - **what happened was legal**, and in her words "better than cheating." Watch the full clip for more: [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZnlke2j8ZX/?ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### *ANNOUNCEMENT ▶▶▶* ## IVN Joins Forces with Latino News Network & The Fulcrum to Expand Voter-First Journalism [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/IVN_Fulcrum_LNN_Announcement-1.png)](https://ivn.us/independent-voter-news-joins-forces-with-latino-news-network-and-the-fulcrum-to-expand-voter-first-journalism/) Independent Voter News (IVN) has entered into a collaborative partnership with the Latino News Network (LNN) and The Fulcrum, bringing together three outlets whose editorial missions converge on a shared conviction: that American democracy is best served by journalism that reaches the people most often left out of the conversation. [LEARN MORE ON IVN](https://ivn.us/independent-voter-news-joins-forces-with-latino-news-network-and-the-fulcrum-to-expand-voter-first-journalism/) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### The Plan to Strip 6.9 Million Californians of Voting Rights Could Haunt Politicians URL: https://ivn.us/bill-cavala-would-have-laughed-at-californias-latest-closed-primary-scheme/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:49:59.000Z Legendary political strategist [Bill Cavala](https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/william-cavala-obituary?pid=137915712&ref=ivn.us) died in December 2009, six months before [California voters approved Top Two](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/authored-initiatives/top-two-primary?ref=ivn.us) and opened their primaries to every candidate and every voter regardless of party. He spent his entire career within the old closed primary system, and despite his rich partisan credentials, he became a major behind-the-scenes supporter of Proposition 14. Cavala was a UC Berkeley political science professor who gave nearly four decades of his life to teaching and public service, as a trusted senior aide to Speaker Willie Brown and a key campaign strategist for every Speaker who followed Brown, including Cruz Bustamante, Antonio Villaraigosa, Bob Hertzberg, Herb Wesson, Fabian Nunez, and Karen Bass. He helped John Garamendi and Jackie Speier get elected to Congress. He pioneered the use of targeted direct mail in California. “To say Bill was a campaign genius or had great political acumen was like saying Beethoven was a great musician or Hemingway had a way with words,” Bob Pence, an acolyte of Cavala told Paul Hefner at Capitol Weekly who wrote [this moving tribute](https://capitolweekly.net/obituary-bill-cavala-a-master-political-strategist-and-mentor-to-the-pros/?ref=ivn.us). “There is no shortage of us who passed Bill’s wisdom and advice off as our own thoughts.” Yes, his office was a wreck of paper and cigarette smoke, and his door stayed open to whoever wandered through. Yes, champagne was his preferred tool of persuasion, both for talking candidates into running and, for talking them out of it. Oakland Post publisher Paul Cobb remembered him in the Hefner tribute as having “the aura of the gambler who knew when to politically fold them." Which is what comes to mind reading the news this week out of Sacramento, where a group of California's most prominent political consultants, from both parties, are still pushing a ballot initiative to repeal Top Two and return California to closed partisan primaries. They are calling it, with admirable bluntness, "Undo the Top-Two." Cavala, one suspects, would have wanted to see the polling. Because here is the math. California has 23 million registered voters. Nearly 6.9 million of them, registered as having no party preference or as members of a minor party, declined to join either major political party. That is 30 percent of the electorate, more than the entire Republican registration in the state. Undoing Top Two means telling those voters they may no longer participate in primary elections unless they sign up with a club they have already decided not to join. The case for repealing Proposition 14 was built this spring on the premise that two Republicans might finish in the top two in the June 2 governor's race, locking Democrats out of November. The math behind the case for repeal was also suspect. [California's registration](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/report-registration/15day-primary-2026?ref=ivn.us) is 45 percent Democratic and 25 percent Republican. A 25 percent undecided column in those polls was, by any reasonable reading, mostly Democratic. Nevertheless, the chair of the state Democratic Party publicly [called on fellow Democrats to drop out](https://cadem.org/open-letter-to-the-democratic-candidates-for-governor/?ref=ivn.us) a full three months before the election to prevent such an outcome. What ended up happening is that a Democrat and a Republican advanced. So, the crisis, having done its work, took its leave. Unfortunately, the proposal to repeal Top Two did not. Near the end of his career, Cavala wrote a paragraph explaining why, in one of his final races, he had sent likely voters just one piece of mail despite having nearly a million dollars to spend: > *"Those of us who have been successful in this business know that while individual voters can be inattentive to the point of stupidity, electorates have a way of absorbing information and making wise collective decisions. Campaigns are an effort to affect this process by supplying prejudicial information. But when electorates come to a conclusion, they cease to be in the market for information. They tune out a campaign as ambient noise."* After the 2012 election cycle, 59 percent of likely California voters said Proposition 14 was mostly a good thing. By 2024, [that number had risen to 68 percent](https://www.ppic.org/blog/california-voters-and-the-top-two-primary/?ref=ivn.us), with majority support across political groups and along the ideological spectrum. The market, as “the professor” might have said, is closed. It is also worth noticing [what 16 years of Top Two actually produced](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/). In the 2009-10 session, the last elected entirely under the old closed primary system, the California Legislature was 73 percent male and 62 percent white in a state where people of color already constituted a majority. Today, women hold 49 percent of all the seats. People of color hold 55 percent. **Latina women went from 8 to 25.** Under Top Two, the most diverse legislature in California history was elected by the broadest electorate in California history. Make of that what you will. Somewhere in Sacramento, one of the consultants behind Undo the Top-Two could eventually find himself sitting across from a client who took his advice. A former legislator who supported this insanity. A legislator who simply could not explain to 30 percent of her constituents why she voted to take away their right to vote. The polling is clear. California NPPs who trust neither major party overwhelmingly want to keep the current nonpartisan open primary system (78 percent). But so do NPPs that favor Democrats by very wide margins (89 percent), and even NPPs that favor Republicans (54 percent), despite President Donald Trump’s firm opposition. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/data-src-image-23f8ade6-6cff-4297-bf61-ae25e6aedb18.png) IVP Jan. 2026 Voter Survey of 1,755 No Party Preference voters in CA. Unlike the political operatives, academics, data geeks, and political press who obsess over deciphering the “outcome” of giving every voter an equal voting right, voters simply see open nonpartisan primaries for what they are — a voting rights issue. The outcomes? That’s entirely up to the voters. Not the political parties, not financial contributors, not political activists, left, right, or center. One of the fading legacies of the Bill Cavala era is what State Capitol folks called “member protection.” There is little doubt that “the professor” would have chuckled through heavy drags on a cigarette as he quietly derailed any talk of nonpartisan primary repeal with one of his patented colloquialisms, “Wise politicians never lose track of the fact that, collectively, the voters are smarter than we are.” ### 3 States Voted Tuesday. More Than 5 Million Independents Were Told to Stay Out. URL: https://ivn.us/3-states-voted-tuesday-more-than-5-million-independents-were-told-to-stay-out/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:49:49.000Z Tuesday featured primary elections in 3 states—New York, Maryland, and Utah—that are being framed as a battle for the future of the Democratic and Republican Parties, a test of ideological factions, a referendum on Trump, and a preview of November’s midterms. All of these things are true. But there is a more important story that much of the political press will ignore: In all 3 states, millions of voters are told that their tax dollars can fund the election, but their votes are not welcome in it. The reason? They committed the gravest sin in a system designed at every level to benefit two private political parties—they dared to register as independents. New York and Maryland hold closed primaries. Utah calls its system partially open, but the state’s Republican primary—the contest that often matters most in a deep red state—is closed to independent voters. Different states. Different political cultures. Same message: Join a party, or sit down. ## **The Biggest Election Story Is Who Cannot Vote** [Independent Veterans of America](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us), a group founded and led by Paul Rieckhoff, broke down the numbers: More than 5 million independent voters across the 3 states were shut out of many of Tuesday’s most consequential contests. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/data-src-image-146d1309-1b36-48e3-ae12-ef47bc54bfff.jpeg) In New York, roughly 3.7 million registered voters are not enrolled in either major party. That is nearly 30% of the state’s electorate. 1.2 million of these voters are in New York City alone, accounting for 1-in-5 registered voters in the city. Yet both the state and the city run one of the most restrictive primary systems in the country. Unless a voter enrolled in a party months before the primary election, they cannot cast a ballot in any of Tuesday’s contests. > The Senate finally votes to stop Trump on Iran. The Weird Note From His Assistant. > > A Huge Primary Night in NY, MD, SC and UT. And America’s Huge Primary Problem. “A Million Independents Like Me Can't Vote" > > My weekly Tuesday Primary Night segment on CNN’s OutFront with Erin… [pic.twitter.com/L04AqGP7iF](https://t.co/L04AqGP7iF?ref=ivn.us) > > — Paul Rieckhoff🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@PaulRieckhoff) [June 24, 2026](https://x.com/PaulRieckhoff/status/2069587980654727285?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) It does not matter if the Democratic primary effectively decides the general election in their district. It does not matter if they pay taxes. They are out. [47% Independent: The Two-Party System Has Lost the Country It Claims to RepresentThis growing shift raises a fundamental question: Can a system designed by partisans for partisans remain legitimate when the country is going independent?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-8d1cd19a-68c0-4f70-b29c-7148e0fd9a9d.jpg)Independent Voter NewsJeremy Gruber![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/independent-voter-ea790194-2657-41f3-badf-ebf4bcc9bf64.jpg)](https://ivn.us/47-independent-the-two-party-system-has-lost-the-country-it-claims-to-represent/) Maryland offers the same exclusion. More than one million voters are independent, roughly one-quarter of the electorate, but the state also uses closed partisan primary elections. Then there is Utah, which prefers to call its system partially open, but the truth is—the party with the most control over election outcomes intentionally keeps independent voters locked out. It is just a different kind of closed system. Independent Utahns may request ballots for certain party primaries. But the Utah Republican Party primary remains closed to voters who are not registered with the party. In a state as red as Utah, the GOP primaries regularly decide who will get elected. “Partially closed sounds like a compromise. In practice it means: you may vote in the primaries that don't count, and you're barred from the one that does,” Rieckhoff states. ## **In Most Cases, The “Primary” IS the Election** Political insiders routinely describe primaries as internal party business. They argue party nominations should only be decided by party members. But there are two flaws to this argument. One, these elections are publicly funded and administered. It isn't just party members funding them. Second, these primary elections are oftenthe election that matters—and party leaders know it. In heavily Democratic New York districts, the majority party’s nominee is seen as the de facto winner. In heavily Republican Utah districts, the GOP nominee holds the same advantage. When independent voters are excluded, they are not merely missing a preliminary round. They are being barred from the decisive election. The general election in more than 90% of contests is less about choice, and more of a formality. Millions of Americans are reduced to spectators in elections that determine their representation. They can vote in November, yes—but only after the meaningful choice has already been made for them by a smaller pool of party-approved voters. That is not equal participation. It is a two-tiered electorate. It is a system in which independents are treated as second-class voters. ## **Publicly Funded. Privately Gated.** The central contradiction is impossible to ignore. These primaries are not private events held in a party’s headquarters. Election officials administer them. Poll workers staff them. Counties and states budget for them. Taxpayers fund them. But when unaffiliated voters arrive, they are told the election is not "theirs." A voter does not lose their citizenship because they refuse to wear a red jersey or a blue jersey. They do not become less entitled to representation because they reject the tribal identities that have driven 47% of Americans to identify as independent. Yet closed primaries punish independence by design. The system tells voters: You are free to think for yourself, and register as you want, as long as you do not expect equal voting rights. If you want that, then join a party. And both major parties treat party registration as proof that voters belong to them. It is not. Open Primaries and the Independent Voter Project commissioned [a poll](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) that found nearly 40% of registered Democrats in New York City say they are independent voters who only registered with the party to vote in primary elections. This may explain at least in part why a majority of Democrats in the city support changing the rules to let independents participate in primary elections and even more (60%) think the Democratic Party should open its primaries even if the rules aren’t changed. Many voters register with a party because their state gives them no other practical option. They register because they want access to a meaningful election, not because they have suddenly developed loyalty to a political brand. This, of course, does not represent all voters. In closed primary states like Oregon and Nevada, registered independents actually outnumber both major parties because they refuse to play the parties’ game—even if it means they are punished by the system for that choice. ## **The Consequence: 6% of The Electorate Has Already Elected Half of Congress** Tuesday’s primaries in New York, Maryland, and Utah illustrate what may be the defining story of the 2026 midterms: Most congressional races are being decided in low-turnout party primaries long before most voters see a general-election ballot. According to [Unite America](https://www.uniteamerica.org/primary-problem?ref=ivn.us), 90% of US House races are expected to be uncompetitive in November. As of Tuesday, 51% of the House had already been effectively decided by just 6% of eligible voters nationwide. That is not a representative democracy. It is a system in which a small, highly partisan slice of the electorate picks Congress while the overwhelming majority of voters are left choosing between a foregone conclusion and staying home. And if voters think Congress has completely lost touch with the American public as a result, it is because its members have. The voters determining these electoral outcomes are not representative of the electorate as a whole. Unite America reports that the primary electorate is four times more partisan than the general electorate. In other words, the people with the most power over who represents everyone are often the people least reflective of everyone. This is what happens when millions of voters are disenfranchised and told they don’t get a meaningful voice. This is what happens when the largest voting bloc in the country is locked out of elections. ### Independent Voters Win! DC Council Votes to Fund Semi-Open Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/independent-voters-win-dc-council-votes-to-fund-semi-open-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:49:36.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** \- The DC City Council voted Tuesday to honor the will of 73% of the District’s electorate and fully fund Initiative 83, which along with ranked choice voting, gives 85,000 registered independent voters the right to participate in taxpayer-funded primary elections. The initiative was approved by voters in 2024, but when the DC Council set the FY2026 budget last year, they only funded the ranked choice voting portion. Tuesday’s budget vote ensures city residents get the full reform proposal they wanted. “This is a victory that is more than a decade in the making,” said Lisa D.T. Rice, the proposer of Initiative 83 and the CEO of Grow Democracy DC. > *“In 2014, the first ranked choice voting and open primaries bills were introduced in Council – together – but languished for years. In 2023, DC voters took our fate into our own hands and launched Make All Votes Count DC. We kept those two reforms together and put Initiative 83 on the ballot, and in 2024 – after 10 years of inaction – a supermajority of DC voters chose to reform our elections.”* Under a semi-open primary system, registered party members have to vote in their respective party’s primary. Independent voters—who have been locked out of these critical contests—can choose between a Republican, Democratic, or Statehood Green ballot. [DC’s First Ranked Choice Election Just Exposed How Many Votes the Old System Left BehindIn DC’s first ranked choice election, tens of thousands of voters stayed in the fight after their first choice fell short—something the old plurality system would have treated as a dead end.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-8cd4e824-581e-4167-9b85-b24bd27372cc.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/washington-DC-primary-election-ranked-choice-voting-095ef678-d421-42d1-b3ee-874d30c03367.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dcs-first-ranked-choice-election-just-exposed-how-many-votes-the-old-system-left-behind/) In a city like DC, where Democrats hold nearly every possible elected position and Republican registration falls in the single digits, most races are effectively decided in the Democratic primary. This means the primaries are the only elections where there is any real choice. “I am thrilled the Council has demonstrated they agree with voters that the system works best when more people can participate,” said Rice. > “In an era of mass dilution of voting rights, this is a victory for our democracy in DC and across the country. DC voters have proven that, though democracy is not guaranteed, it can grow stronger if we never give up on fighting for it.” The council faced increasing pressure from voters, reformers, and even legacy media outlets like The Washington Post, which penned multiple editorials calling out District officials for not honoring the will of voters. Rice thanked council members Brooke Pinto, Christina Henderson, Charles Allen, Matthew Frumin, Janeese Lewis George, Brianne Nadeau, Zachary Parker, Robert C. White, Jr. for their support. She specifically noted that Henderson picked up the torch for open primaries this year while Pinto led the effort last year. ### No Party. No Big Money. No Problem: How an Independent Mayor Beat the Machine in Ridgecrest URL: https://ivn.us/no-party-no-big-money-no-problem-how-an-independent-mayor-beat-the-machine-in-ridgecrest/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:49:27.000Z *Much of the national conversation about independent politics focuses on candidates. Less attention goes to the independents who have already won and are now doing the actual work of governing without a party behind them.* *This is the first installment in a new IVN series profiling independent elected officials in an attempt to address that shortcoming.* *These independent elected officials show not only that such campaigns are viable, but also what leadership looks like when it isn't filtered through party platforms, caucus discipline, or the demand for rigid ideology. This series will talk to sitting independent officials about how they won office, how they govern, and how they interact with and represent their constituencies.* *We start with Travis Endicott, the independent mayor of Ridgecrest, California.* As a federal employee, Travis Endicott is bound by the Hatch Act, which he reads as requiring him to run for office as an independent. But, in speaking with the Mayor of Ridgecrest, California —home to the Navy's China Lake testing facility—Endicott makes clear the law only formalized a decision he'd already made for himself. "I've felt party-less for a long time," he said. A former political science professor, Endicott described the same dynamic that shaped his independent identity long before he sought office: "When I talk to my Republican friends, I feel like a Democrat. When I talk to my Democratic friends, I feel like a Republican." He doesn't agree with either fully, he said, but sees the freedom to "pick and choose what I like about different policy angles from both parties" as the point, not a liability. He sees both sides as getting some things right and some things wrong, and he sees some issues where he doesn’t believe either party is correct. ## Running Without a Party That freedom from party constraint became the organizing idea of his 2024 campaign—and, in his telling, a test of whether voters would engage differently with a candidate who didn't come pre-sorted. Endicott said he hoped that running without a "D" or "R" next to his name would prompt voters to slow down and ask who he actually was. By his account, and by the vote totals on election night, it worked. His campaign ran on roughly $550 of his own and constituent money, plus a donation from [Independent Veterans of America](https://ivn.us/the-last-trusted-americans-veterans-lead-the-way-in-independent-campaigns/), and was built almost entirely on door-knocking. "I just went and knocked on doors and handed out pamphlets and had really good discussions with individuals," he said. He estimated he reached two to three thousand doors over the course of the race that saw about 11,000 people vote—including, memorably, one night during the Harris-Trump presidential debate, when several residents asked him to simply leave a brochure rather than pause the broadcast. Some voters pressed him on national hot-button issues such as abortion and immigration. His approach to answering these questions? He’d respond that he didn't feel obligated to answer as a mayoral candidate. "As a mayor, or someone running for mayor, I can't control that, so I didn't feel compelled to have an answer for them, because that's outside my bounds," he said. Other voters, ones he believed were more likely to consider his candidacy, simply wanted to know whether he'd follow through on what he was saying. Especially, on the issue that he says actually pushed him toward running in the first place: a city contract with a surveillance firm Endicott said could track flights and movements of federal personnel visiting China Lake, the military installation that anchors Ridgecrest's economy. "That's terrifying. We should not know that," he said of the tracking capability. He worked to end the contract. Endicott was running against a self-identified Republican opponent, the CEO of a local bank, in a campaign defined by a financial mismatch he didn't shy away from describing: his opponent reported close to $20,000 in campaign funds against Endicott's own outlay of under $1,000\. The disparity showed up in the usual ways—yard signs, mailers—and Endicott said it was precisely what pushed him into the door-to-door strategy as a substitute for paid outreach. He said he and his wife were home sick with norovirus on election night when his son walked in to tell him he was leading in the count. Endicott won with roughly 5,800 votes, a few hundred ahead of the incumbent. He described local press coverage as fair, crediting reporter Darla (A. Baker) at the *Ridgecrest Daily Independent* for substantive questioning during the race, including a candidate forum against the sitting mayor. Endicott said voters responded well to a habit some campaigns avoid: admitting uncertainty. "I got more good and positive feedback from saying 'I don't know' than trying to provide some bogus answer," he said. ## A Governing Philosophy Built on "Walking, Not Talking,” to the Middle Endicott frequently invokes a line he's used publicly before: that most politicians talk to the middle, but few actually walk to it. Pressed on what the political middle actually looks like—acknowledging that a "moderate" in coastal California and a "moderate" in Texas can look very different—Endicott drew on his academic background, citing Philip Converse's research on ideological constraint, later replicated, finding that only about 10 percent of the public reasons consistently through a fixed ideological lens. The other 90 percent, in his framing, are effectively moderates on an issue-by-issue basis, whatever party label they've adopted. "It's just way too easy to assign yourself to a party you might not agree with everything \[about\]," he said, arguing that label loyalty makes voters reluctant to criticize their own side. Asked what "walking to the middle" looks like in an actual elected official, Endicott pointed to former Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, a Democrat who voted with Republicans in a Republican-leaning state because, in Endicott's telling, "That's what his constituents wanted." For Endicott, that willingness to set aside personal or party preference in favor of constituent will is the practical definition of compromise—a word he said has become politically toxic. He extended the logic to his own approach in office: he personally opposed a local casino project on moral grounds, but after researching crime and alcohol-incident data and finding no significant spike associated with casinos elsewhere, he concluded he had no standing to block something the public wanted and that could generate revenue for the city. He drew a contrast with issues he considers genuine threats to civil liberties, where he said the calculus changes. Civil liberties recur as a central policy focus for Endicott, and he argues it's one of the rare areas where he sees authentic, organic bipartisan agreement among Ridgecrest residents. He said he's watched residents who normally disagree at city council meetings find common ground opposing both Flock (an AI-driven camera system for issuing citations) and a proposed AI data center nearby, even as he himself recognizes Flock's usefulness in specific cases, including a kidnapping case he said the cameras helped resolve. "Civil liberties to me is one of those things that crosses that boundary," he said, calling it the kind of issue that should command bipartisan support at the federal level. The current two major parties, however, have issues with failing to protect civil liberties. Asked whether both parties share a vulnerability to what he views as authoritarian tendencies—the encroachment on civil liberties he's pushed back against in Ridgecrest—he was direct: "I think it's the parties that we have \[that\] have ended up in that place." The frustration, in his telling, is that civil liberties should be exactly the kind of issue that produces federal bipartisan action, yet the reflexive opposition that now defines congressional politics prevents it. "We're in the age of, if the Republican Party says something, the Democrats have to be opposed, and if the Democrats say something, the Republicans have to be opposed," he said. In Ridgecrest, he sees constituents from opposite sides of the aisle arriving at the same conclusion on surveillance and data; in Washington, he sees two parties that have made opposition their default posture and can’t get these compromise positions enacted. His diagnosis for how the parties ended up here? Mayor Endicott pointed to social media incentives that reward viral confrontation over legislative results and Richard Fenno's *Homestyle* from the 1970s on how the shift to commuter flights—letting members of Congress fly home rather than live in Washington together—eroded the informal relationships that used to make compromise possible. "The idea that we have to make out someone who disagrees with us as an enemy is what's ruining politics," he said. ## Governing As an Independent: Freedom, But A Narrower Mandate In office, Endicott said he hasn't experienced overt exclusion for lacking a party affiliation. He described workable relationships with individuals from both parties: Republican Rep. Vince Fong's office, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff's staff, and Republican state Sen. Shannon Grove. Such work has helped secure local wins for his constituents, such as securing the funding to keep the OB ward open at Ridgecrest's local hospital, which serves the military base population. If those individuals don’t have the care they need to start or expand their families nearby, he reasons, they might move away, hurting both the local economy and national security. He attributed the relatively smooth dynamic between him and elected officials from the two major parties in part to the scale of his office: he's not asking federal or state partners to move on abortion or immigration, but on "common-sense" local asks like that hospital funding. "I'm not trying to make waves with my asks, because at the local level, I don't feel like I need to," he said. He was more circumspect about how constituents categorize him. Without a party, he said, he's often treated by default as a third "tribe" until a specific conversation establishes common ground issue by issue. He traced his comfort holding that position back to his experiences in the military and his teaching career. In the former, he would have long conversations with people with whom he disagreed during long shifts; in the latter, he said he made students argue positions they personally opposed as an exercise in understanding the other side. "My goal was never to have my students know what I believed on any policy issue," he said. Asked about the practical costs of running without party infrastructure, Endicott named the obvious one—money—but also pointed to a less tangible benefit: independence itself. He said other local candidates who ran within a party structure described having to seek approval before speaking publicly on issues. "I don't have any of them. I can just be me and talk \[about\] what I want to talk about," he said, adding that his only real liability is "if I put my foot in my mouth." Even then, he noted that his willingness to admit when that happened or to state that he didn’t know an answer to certain questions was seen as refreshing by many with whom he spoke. ## Building a Network That Foesn't Fully Exist. Yet. Endicott said he has no plans to seek higher office, citing his career in military intelligence and the toll public scrutiny has already taken on his family—including his wife being jokingly addressed as "First Lady of Ridgecrest" by hospital colleagues, and his son getting the nickname of "Governor" on his football team. He does, however, intend to seek re-election as an independent. He has tried, with limited success so far, to build connective tissue among other independent and IVA-endorsed candidates. During his own 2024 run, he said he reached out to other independent veteran candidates hoping to trade strategy and lessons learned. Most of those efforts didn't result in ongoing contact. He met [Idaho Senate candidate Todd Achilles](https://ivn.us/todd-achilles-says-the-two-parties-broke-congress-now-he-wants-idaho-to-help-break-their-grip/) for the first time earlier this week and said he hopes to follow up. His broader hope is for something more regular, even if just a group chat or informal network among independents to share what works and what doesn't between campaigns (Achilles and several other Senate candidates have openly discussed their own efforts to support each other and coordinate their messaging on a Senate fulcrum). His advice to anyone considering an independent run, at any level, was unadorned: run if you believe you can genuinely help your community, and recognize that independents are positioned to bridge divides precisely because they aren't bound to defend a party line. He added a separate, more personal warning for independents engaging with the public, particularly online: avoid being baited into the kind of viral confrontation that, he said, algorithms and audiences reward regardless of whether it serves any actual constituent. "More people read and watch *how* you react than what you're actually trying to get through," he said. That advice might very well apply to governing as an independent, as well. As more independents gain office, an increasingly independent electorate will be looking to make sure that results in a style of governance, and legislative outcomes, that reflect what they feel is missing from the two-party system. Each of these individuals will have an outsized influence on whether voters believe electing independents result in the changes they hope to see. ### DC’s First Ranked Choice Election Just Exposed How Many Votes the Old System Left Behind URL: https://ivn.us/dcs-first-ranked-choice-election-just-exposed-how-many-votes-the-old-system-left-behind/ Last updated: 2026-06-22T17:11:24.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** — The District of Columbia conducted its first ever ranked choice-election on June 16, and according to preliminary analysis from the ranked choice voting advocacy group, FairVote, the results exposed a basic flaw in the way DC traditionally elected people: *Candidates could win powerful offices with most voters choosing someone else.* Prior to the implementation of ranked choice voting, winners could be determined by plurality, which in large candidate fields would result in the leading candidate getting well under 50%—sometimes close to 30% or less. In other words, it was a system where most voters who participated did not actually get a chance to weigh in on who they preferred among the top candidates. But [FairVote says](https://fairvote.org/preliminary-results-from-the-first-ranked-choice-voting-election-in-washington-dc/?ref=ivn.us) ranked choice voting did exactly what supporters promised it would do. It allowed voters to support their favorite candidate first without being erased from the final decision when that candidate was eliminated. The result: tens of thousands more voters remained part of the process in DC’s most crowded Democratic primaries. ## **The At-Large Race Was (Literally) the Biggest Test** Perhaps the biggest and best example of the impact ranked choice voting had was the Democratic primary for the District’s at-large council seat. It was a race that drew nine candidates, which meant a majority winner was possible—but not likely. Under the old system, Oye Owolewa’s 34% of first-choice votes would have been enough to win the party nomination outright. That is how DC politics worked for years. A crowded field split the vote, a candidate grabbed a plurality, and the rest of the electorate got told that 34% was a mandate when two-thirds of voters chose someone else as their top pick. This is how the current seat holder, Anita Bonds, won her position in 2022\. In fact, the results were nearly identical. Bonds took 36% of the vote. Ranked choice voting, which was part of the voter-approved Initiative 83 that Bonds and other Democratic city leaders opposed and even sued to block, changed that. After 8 rounds of ranked-choice tabulation, FairVote reports that Owolewa’s preliminary support rose to 51%. Roughly 30,000 additional voters had their ballots count for one of the three finalists after their initial favorite was eliminated. The analysis found that 89% of voters in the at-large contest expressed a preference among the three finalists. Among voters whose first choice did not make the final three, 71% had ranked at least one finalist somewhere else on their ballot. Put another way, most voters got a say in the final outcome between the top performing candidates. The old system simply would have ignored them. “\[Owolewa\] will be heavily favored to win the general election – and if he does, he will enter office with majority support and a clear mandate to lead,” FairVote’s Deb Otis, Avery Hyde, Matthew Oberstaedt write. DC is a one-party town. Democrats control all executive offices and every city council seat that the rules allow them to hold. Republican registration is in the single digits, while 1-in-5 voters are registered independent. This illustrates how important primary elections are, and even though DC voters approved semi-open primaries along with ranked choice voting under Initiative 83 with 73% of the vote, the DC Council refused to open primaries to independent voters in 2026. FairVote notes that DC had—up until reform— repeatedly elected candidates in Democratic primaries with less than 50% of the vote. This means a relatively small slice of voters effectively decided who governs. The old system did not require candidates like Owolewa and Bonds to build support beyond their base. It required only that they finish ahead of everyone else in a fragmented field. The point of ranked choice voting, according to advocates, is it creates a different incentive. Candidates who want to win crowded races now have reason to appeal not only to their core supporters, but also to voters who may rank someone else first and them second or third. ## **Ward 1 Shows the Same Pattern** The Ward 1 Democratic Council primary produced a similar result. Aparna Raj led the first-choice count with 47% (closer to a majority, but still short of it), while Miguel Trindade Deramo had 21%. This triggered a ranked-choice tabulation and after 4 rounds, Raj reached 52% and won the nomination. FairVote found that 96% of Ward 1 voters expressed a preference among the three finalists. Of voters whose first choice was eliminated, 71% had also ranked at least one of those finalists. ## **DC Voters Did Not Break the Ballot** Critics of ranked choice voting often predict confusion, spoiled ballots, and a public unable to navigate a ballot that asks them to simply rank candidates like they would rank their favorite movies. The data shows DC’s first ranked-choice election does not support that argument. FairVote reports that 99.6% of ballots cast in the Democratic mayoral primary were valid, indicating that voters did not just understand their ballot, they had no problem filling it out. The mayoral race did not even require a ranked-choice tabulation because Janeese Lewis George won a majority of first-choice votes. FairVote emphasizes this point to note that ranked choice voting does not manufacture extra rounds where they are not necessary. When a candidate wins majority support immediately, the race is over. The system only kicks into its fuller function when voters are divided across large candidate fields—like in the at-large council race and Ward 1—and no one has a majority. In both cases, the preliminary results show that voters used their rankings. Again, this refutes the claim that ranked choice voting is confusing to voters. ## **The Person Who Put Ranked Choice Voting on the Ballot Says There Is Still Work to Be Done** The DC Board of Elections is still processing eligible late-arriving mail ballots, so the numbers remain preliminary and may change before certification. But the data suggests the first ranked-choice election did not break democracy, as critics warned. In the two races that went to ranked-choice tabulation, FairVote found that 90% of voters expressed a preference among the three finalists. And in both races, 71% of voters whose first choice was eliminated still had a ballot that counted for one of the finalists. Grow Democracy DC CEO and Initiative 83 proposer Lisa D.T. Rice notes on IVN that reform work is not finished. She points out that the DC Council still has an obligation to fund open primaries, which roughly three-quarters of voters approved in 2024. “These are taxpayer-funded elections. Every voter should be able to cast a ballot. It is time to fund implementation of semi-open primaries,” [she writes](https://ivn.us/the-dc-council-has-one-more-chance-to-let-independents-vote-now-is-the-time-to-get-it-done/). The DC Council will decode the FY2027 budget on June 23\. The question is, will councilmembers fully honor the will of voters—and the democratic process? ### The DC Council Has One More Chance to Let Independents Vote. Now is the Time to Get it Done! URL: https://ivn.us/the-dc-council-has-one-more-chance-to-let-independents-vote-now-is-the-time-to-get-it-done/ Last updated: 2026-06-23T19:31:18.000Z History isn’t only about what’s happened in the past. We make history as we move through our daily lives. And that’s what’s happening right here, right now in Washington, DC. Yes! We made history on Tuesday, June 16 when, in the primary elections, ranked choice voting was used in DC for the first time ever. This means that, when those who go on to hold office in January 2027, they will have been approved with support of the majority of voters. DC’s Democratic primary is a fait accompli for all but one contest on the general election ballot which follows in November. For the DC Council and mayoral contests, this primary ***was*** the definitive election. How did this change come about? My name is Lisa Rice. I am a native Washingtonian, current District resident, and passionate democracy reformer. I care about this democracy of ours, as frayed as it is, and believe our path to restoration will only be successful when we put voters first. In 2023, I proposed a change to our election system here in DC. Initiative 83 combined two powerful voter-centric reforms – ranked choice voting **and** semi-open primaries. It won in November 2024 with 73% of the vote. *We the people made a law!!* When it came to funding, the Council chose to break apart the two elements and in 2025 appropriated funds in the FY26 budget *only* for the implementation of ranked choice voting, leaving semi-open primaries out in the cold. That was then. This is now. And we’re turning up the heat! The Council is working through the FY27 budget, with a final vote scheduled for Tuesday, June 23\. This is their opportunity to do the right thing and appropriate funds for semi-open primaries, to let independents vote. For a total cost of just $1.1 million in a $21.2 billion budget, the cost to fund semi-open primaries is a rounding error. I’ll put it into even sharper focus. **For $0.40 per resident, this can be funded.** That’s half the cost of a postage stamp. C’mon now! Let’s get real, this isn’t about money, it’s about political will. [DC Says Democracy Costs Too Much. Its Budget Says Otherwise.The DC Council says open primaries are too expensive, but the city’s budget shows the real issue isn’t the price tag — it’s whether independent voters are a priority.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-454785b9-6304-4130-ad8a-277513718ba0.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/washington-dc-primary-election-c6b2003f-36c2-45e6-b450-5b733741c093.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dc-says-democracy-costs-too-much-its-budget-says-otherwise/) In an era of mass dilution of voting rights, I'm still mourning the Supreme Court’s *Louisiana v. Callais* decision to gut the Voting Rights Act, which quickly opened the door to a wave of redistricting laws across the country to disenfranchise people of color. Nationally, Democrats decried these measures. And yet the DC State Democratic Committee tried everything in its power to keep me from voting. The irony of that is sickening. While rank and file Democrats stood strongly behind Initiative 83 – this is, after all, a voting rights issue – the party leadership led opposition to these changes. But they lost. A recent court decision once again rejected their lawsuit. We should celebrate this rare victory for voter enfranchisement by making those reforms a reality. Tuesday’s primary results, though not yet official, show there is a leadership change on the horizon. And many of those about to assume leadership of the DC Democratic State Committee are supporters of these policy changes. If his numbers hold, the Committee’s next National Committeeman will be Philip Pannell, the treasurer of the Initiative 83 campaign. Philip has joined me in my efforts to persuade the DC Council to fund semi-open primaries. Just a couple of days ago he said, “I strongly believe DC’s current closed primary system is a form of political exclusion, electoral segregation and voter suppression.” With new party leadership about to take charge, I believe the political will I mentioned earlier may find new resolve. I’m not a partisan, but I’m pretty sure that with opposition walking out the door, it will be an easier political path for those who were hesitant to support funding to now find their way to voting yes to fund semi-open primaries. These are taxpayer-funded elections. Every voter should be able to cast a ballot. It is time to fund implementation of semi-open primaries. Now. Just get it done! ### 47% Independent: The Two-Party System Has Lost the Country It Claims to Represent URL: https://ivn.us/47-independent-the-two-party-system-has-lost-the-country-it-claims-to-represent/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:49:17.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* [A new CNN poll](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=-NhS9Cc9VZ0nIjuT4UGR9vE2jtvQMSMUZ9BVFx8xQClBHIdGU-Sl8JcSmGceyg7MpeXYadmELFeGvFtenXKa7WWDjktxmLWaf0cISYYcMiFyoOgec7YF30oWkzyoBCg5g4e9Bt6Ct8ukjHExjLaixg&e=f3c596d8a79dc173b9acafbc1e4db5f3&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F115&n=2) delivers a number that should reframe American politics: **47% of Americans now identify as political independents**, the highest level in more than a decade of CNN’s tracking. Nearly half the country no longer claims affiliation with either major party. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/independent-voters.png) Democrats stand at 27% and Republicans at 26%. What was once a *stabilizing* two-party system is now out of sync with growing numbers of people fatigued by red vs blue. Among registered voters, the picture is even more stark. Independents account for 41%, compared to 31% Democrats and 28% Republicans. The result is a widening structural mismatch: a political system still governed by two parties that no longer command majority allegiance, controlling access to elections in a country where independence is now the plurality identity. Still, over the past year, most political coverage has continued to mischaracterize independents by collapsing them back into Democratic or Republican “leaners,” effectively denying the scale of the shift. But a growing stream of reporting, such as this new poll, now recognizes independents as the defining political bloc of our era. This growing shift raises a fundamental question: Can a system designed by partisans for partisans remain legitimate when the country is going independent? ## What We're Talking About ## NYC Democratic Voters Signal Support for Opening Primaries as Party Labels Blur Across the City [A new survey](https://apnews.com/press-release/ein-presswire-newsmatics/press-release-polling-7be87d6dafe6ce7b4a2f6f41ce0d3a28?ref=ivn.us) conducted by IVC Media and commissioned by Open Primaries and the Independent Voter Project doesn’t just suggest change in New York City politics-it detonates a core assumption of it. Among registered Democrats in New York City, 51% support opening primaries to independent voters, with just 23% opposed. The city’s dominant political institution is now, according to its own voters, something they want to open up. [**But the more striking finding isn’t about policy-it’s about identity collapse inside the party label itself.**](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) Roughly 40% of registered Democrats say *they are not actually Democrats* but explicitly describe themselves as independents forced into Democratic registration just to vote in the election that decides the outcome. Indeed, among Latino Democrats, only one in three identify as true Democrats at all. [In New York, Latino Democrats Aren’t Even DemocratsLatino voters are not drifting left or right. They are rejecting a political system that treats ballot access as a party privilege.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-8cf763ba-b607-4e10-9a06-d2b7287ab151.jpg)Independent Voter NewsMike Madrid![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/new-york-latino-voters-democratic-party-elections-7e048c5b-580b-4afa-8d45-2880997f4fc6.jpg)](https://ivn.us/in-new-york-latino-democrats-arent-even-democrats/) This is no longer a party system reflecting voter affiliation-it is a system quietly requiring misclassification to function. The implications land hard in a city where over a million independent voters-54% of whom are people of color- are locked out of the elections that determine most outcomes. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/opdycke-quote.png) ## **The Revolt Against Closed Primaries Is Exploding in America’s Biggest Cities** The frustration with closed primaries is no longer simmering - it is erupting. After **DC** voters overwhelmingly approved an open primary ballot initiative in 2024 with **73% support**, only to see the City Council refuse to fund it, close to 100,000 Washington voters were once again shut out of a system they rejected in elections this week. Undeterred independents protested at the polls including [Grow Democracy DC](https://www.growdemocracydc.org/?ref=ivn.us) founder Lisa Rice, OP supporter Tanya Hutchins and [Veterans for All Voters](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?ref=ivn.us) CEO Alberto Ramos: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/grow-democracy-dc-picket.png) Now voters in **Maryland and New York** are confronting the same exclusion as they head toward their own closed primaries. Check out Open Primaries Board member and Harlem-based physician Dr. Jessie Fields as she speaks out before the CRC and the National Action Network on how closed primaries are the civil rights issue of our time and her decades-long battle for voting rights for independents: The demand is growing louder: voters, not parties, should decide who gets to vote. Watch OP SVP Jeremy Gruber as he breaks down what’s happening in DC, Maryland, and across the country on FOX 5 News. ## In Case You Missed It **Louisiana:** [Independents still have access to the state’s primaries, for now.](https://lailluminator.com/2026/06/15/louisiana-primary-elections/?ref=ivn.us) **New York:** [Let New Yorkers Decide on Open Primaries.](https://www.nydailynews.com/2026/06/14/let-new-yorkers-decide-on-open-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) **Oklahoma**: [Second objection filed to rejection of state question for open primaries in Oklahoma.](https://kiowacountypress.net/content/second-objection-filed-rejection-state-question-open-primaries-oklahoma?ref=ivn.us) **Texas:** [Abbott Announces Support To End Open Primaries In Texas – “Only Republicans Will Vote In Republican Primaries”](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/abbott-announces-support-end-open-201817328.html?guccounter=1&ref=ivn.us) **Washington D.C**.: [DC Says Open Primary Costs Too Much. Its Budget Says Otherwise.](https://ivn.us/dc-says-democracy-costs-too-much-its-budget-says-otherwise/) ## **Twenty Five Years – Everything (and Nothing) has Changed** ## *With National Organizing Director Cathy Stewart* Twenty-five years ago this month, Michael Bloomberg stood on the steps of City Hall in his first press conference as a NYC Mayoral candidate. Back then, Mike was a 50 to 1 longshot, running on the Republican and Independence lines - NYC has “fusion voting” that allows candidates to run on multiple ballot lines. I was there as a leader of the NYC Independence Party. We brought the issue of opening the primaries in NYC to Mike - and if you want all the juicy details, buy [this book](https://www.amazon.com/Independents-Rising-Outsider-Movements-Post-Partisan/dp/0230339123/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=2B4XYT75HSRMN&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.HaceFnIqeOSc6yAl5b1Jcw.rox7ov%5FTOee7fTP%5FMVkjoI6%5F1Sl9HoBgJWMG%5Fui9TAA&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=Independents+Rising+by+Jacqueline+Salit&qid=1781781533&sprefix=independents+rising+by+jacqueline+salit%2Caps%2C120&sr=8-1&ref=ivn.us)! Mike stayed true to his word and empaneled a Charter Revision Process to push forward on letting all voters vote. I remember the first public hearing like it was yesterday. Dozens of independent voters showed up to testify. But ACORN and Working Families Party activists actually tried to shut down the hearing! The police had to be called. The entire Democratic Party apparatus said “No Way” to letting independents vote. They ridiculed us and when we finally got a measure on the ballot, they crushed us by 35 points. My colleagues and I - Dr. Jessie Fields, Dr. Lenora Fulani, Harry Kresky, Fred Newman, John Opdycke, Jackie Salit and hundreds of independent voters and activists across the city - got the ball rolling way back in 2002\. And here we are 25 years later. It’s a whole new day, but our opposition is beating the same drum. Here’s what they said in 2002 - the same things they are saying now! “Open Primaries will disempower people of color.” *Ironic, given that 54% of the 1.2 million independent voters in NYC are Asian, African-American, or Latino.* “Open Primaries will invite mischief and party raiding.” *Dead wrong - it’s actually the opposite and our new polling proves it. Closed primaries force people to join parties they don’t believe in!* “We don’t need open primaries - we have public financing of campaigns in NYC!” Or as [Brad Lander put it during the 2025 Charter Revision Commission hearings](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hlvVHixBwzc?ref=ivn.us) – “I don’t see an urgent reason to overturn how we’ve been doing things here for generations.” So, let’s keep up the pressure. If you live in New York City, you can help by testifying in person or in writing - shoot me an email at [cstewart@openprimaries.org](mailto:cstewart@openprimaries.org) and I will get you all the details on how to do that. If you don’t live in NYC, you can help by doing a volunteer phone shift or [donating money](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/?utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F115&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries) to help expand our “independent to independent” texting operation. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/the-verdict.png) ## **Wyoming Supreme Court Takes Up a Fundamental Question: Who Gets to Participate in Public Elections?** A major fight over the future of voting rights in Wyoming is now before the state’s Supreme Court. The court [recently heard arguments](https://www.kotatv.com/2026/06/12/wyoming-supreme-court-considers-constitutionality-crossover-voting-ban/?ref=ivn.us) in a case challenging Wyoming’s “crossover voting ban” - a law that prevents voters from changing party affiliation within 96 days of a primary election. Prior to the ban, voters were allowed to change affiliation up to and including on Election Day; creating a de facto open primary. The question before the court goes to the heart of voter access in the state: **how far** **can the government restrict when citizens may affiliate with a political party in order to participate in taxpayer-funded elections?** The plaintiffs argue that Wyoming’s law violates state constitutional protections guaranteeing the “untrammeled exercise of the right of suffrage” and equal political rights. They contend that the restriction does not protect elections - it simply locks voters out of meaningful participation in the contests that often determine who represents them. The case is supported by Open Primaries, which is working with attorneys and advocates across the country on legal challenges involving closed primaries and barriers that prevent independent voters from participating in public elections. The state argues the case is not about voting rights, but about protecting political parties’ ability to control their nominations and prevent “strategic voting”. But the justices repeatedly returned to the central constitutional question: **when does regulating party participation cross the line into restricting a citizen’s right to vote?** At stake is a core issue facing states across the country: whether primary elections -which are publicly funded and often decisive -can exclude large numbers of voters from the democratic process. As independent voters continue to grow nationwide, courts and lawmakers are increasingly confronting a basic reality: the rules governing elections shape who gets a voice. The Wyoming Supreme Court’s decision could have implications beyond the state’s borders. Several states, including first-to-vote in the nation New Hampshire, use a similar system to the one formerly employed in Wyoming. We’ll keep you updated on the Court's decision. In the meantime, you can read all about cases challenging closed primaries around the country [on our litigation portal](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us). ### Buffalo Voters Want City Hall to Stop Gatekeeping Elections, New Poll Finds URL: https://ivn.us/buffalo-voters-want-city-hall-to-stop-gatekeeping-elections-new-poll-finds/ Last updated: 2026-06-19T15:14:40.000Z **BUFFALO, N.Y.** – Buffalo voters are sending a clear message to City Hall: the city’s elections are failing to provide voters with sufficient choice, representation, and a meaningful voice. [According to Unite NY](https://www.uniteny.org/?ref=ivn.us), new polling data shows strong support among Buffalo voters for reforms that would open elections to independent voters, reduce barriers for independent candidates, and give voters more say in who represents them. The nonpartisan better elections group commissioned the poll to gauge voter sentiment on 3 reforms in particular that it has put before the city’s charter revision commission (CRC): Open primaries, ranked choice voting, and expanded ballot access. Unite NY says two-thirds of Buffalo voters support open primaries. Additionally, 60% said open primaries would give voters more say and 59% said they would result in fairer elections. Buffalo election rules are identical to the state when it comes to primary elections. Only registered party members can participate in their respective party’s primary. Independent voters are barred from these taxpayer-funded elections. The group’s account of the findings show that the most popular reform idea is reducing the number of signatures independent candidates need to qualify for the ballot to match that of major party candidates (which is notably less). Sixty-seven percent (67%) support this change, while a slight majority (51%) also support ranked choice voting. “When voters overwhelmingly support open primaries and expanded ballot access, they are telling us the current system does not give enough people a meaningful voice,” said Unite NY Executive Director Anthony Thomas. Thomas added that the Western New York RCV Coalition “represents tens of thousands of Buffalo voters who want meaningful electoral reform” and called on the Buffalo CRC and Common Council to put these reforms before voters. Unite NY is the chair of the Western New York RCV Coalition, which the group describes as a coalition of organizations working to expand the 3 reform proposals asked about in the poll. Other organizations in the coalition include: PPG Buffalo, 1199 funds, Clean Air Coalition WNY, Voice Buffalo, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters Buffalo, Buffalo Health Equity, Buffalo Jewish Federation, and Stronger Together Buffalo. The CRC recently [advanced all three proposals for charter language drafting](https://ivn.us/buffalo-city-hall-tried-to-kill-pro-voter-reform-before-voters-could-weigh-in/). This does not mean they are guaranteed for the ballot. However, it is a critical step in that direction. Reform advocates argue voters should have the final say. Unite NY’s poll is also an indication of broader support for systemic change in New York at-large. Open Primaries and the Independent Voter Project [released polling data this week](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) that showed most Democrats in New York City want primaries opened to independent voters. Further, several Democrats reported that they are only party members because they want a meaningful vote in city elections, [including 1-in-3 Latino Democrats](https://ivn.us/in-new-york-latino-democrats-arent-even-democrats/). They say they are really independent voters, but don't want to be locked out. The question is: Will New York become the next reform battleground to advance more choice and equal voting rights for independent voters? There are a growing number of reform groups and voters in the state that certainly hope so. ### In New York, Latino Democrats Aren't Even Democrats URL: https://ivn.us/in-new-york-latino-democrats-arent-even-democrats/ Last updated: 2026-06-19T01:56:30.000Z Latino voters are not behaving like swing voters. They are behaving like alienated voters. They punished Republicans for scapegoating them in 2018\. They punished Democrats for economic incompetence in 2024\. They are now punishing Republicans again for the cruelty and chaos of Trump's second term. It’s clear to anyone watching that Latinos are now the largest swing group in America moving by historic margins between Democrats and Republicans, punishing whichever party is in power. What’s even more obvious is that this is a clear rejection of partisan allegiances. We’re not witnessing a realignment of partisan voting behavior—we’re watching a dealignment away from both parties by epic proportions. Two new data points published this month confirm the pattern and add something to it. The deeper story is not who is getting the Latino vote. It is whether the system lets them vote at all without first joining a club they no longer believe in. A [new poll of New York City Democrats](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/) found that only 40% of registered Democrats describe themselves as proud members of the party. A statistically equivalent 38% said they registered Democratic for one reason: to vote in the primary, which in most NYC districts is the only election that decides anything. The Latino crosstab is the headline. Just one in three Latino Democrats in New York City, 33%, actually consider themselves Democrats. That is the lowest share of any racial or ethnic group surveyed. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Latino_Dem_Question-1.png) Among Latino Democrats, the largest single group, 39%, said they are really independents who registered with the party to gain access to the ballot. This is what closed primaries produce. They do not produce loyalty. They produce compliance. Latino voters in New York are doing what the rules force them to do. They are not endorsing the party in the process. California does not have this problem in the same form because California does not have closed party primaries. Under the nonpartisan Top Two system passed by voters in 2010, every voter receives the same ballot. Every candidate appears on it. Voters do not have to register with a party to participate, and no party gets to decide whose vote counts. The 2026 primary data shows the consequence. According to [Political Data Inc.'s California ballot tracker](https://tracker.politicaldata.com/?type=statewide&tab=3&ref=ivn.us), as of June 15, Latino turnout in the June primary climbed from 19% in 2022 to 26% in 2026\. That 7-point gain is the largest of any ethnic group in the state. The Latino share of all returned ballots also rose considerably, bolstering the overall 2026 primary turnout—which the secretary of state's unofficial count places at [40.7%](https://dp.electionresults.sos.ca.gov/returns/status?ref=ivn.us#15-day) of the registered voting population (up from 33% in 2022). In a state where Latinos are not required to belong to a party in order to vote, they are participating near the highest rate I have seen in three decades of doing this work. A late-May Independent Voter Project [poll of 1,189 California Latino registered voters](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) found that only 22% want to eliminate the nonpartisan primary and return to a closed system. A majority, 53%, want to keep it or expand it. [Latinos Will Be the Most Powerful Voting Bloc, Once They Start Voting in PrimariesCalifornia’s nonpartisan primary system is built around a simple promise: Every voter gets a say. But, not every voter takes advantage of this. There is a noticeable turnout gap with Latino voters, in particular, who could completely reshape the electoral landscape if they participate.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-ddfc27a1-a53f-4a92-83a7-a101c0f7ee67.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/latino-voters-california-primary-elections-dcb14c7a-fe20-4221-8908-2da35d0d077d.jpg)](https://ivn.us/latinos-will-be-the-most-powerful-voting-bloc-once-they-start-voting-in-primaries/) The national picture is consistent. A new [NBC News poll](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/republicans-are-losing-young-latino-independent-support-rcna350185?ref=ivn.us) released June 15 found 64% of Latino voters disapprove of the job President Trump is doing. Anyone reading that as a return to the Democratic Party is about to make the same mistake the Republican Party made in 2024. Latino voters are not punishing Trump because he is a Republican. They are punishing him because his tariffs raised the cost of lumber and drywall in an industry that employs 1-in-5 Latino men, and because his mass deportation campaign turned churches and schoolyards into staging grounds. They reacted to what those policies did to their families and their paychecks. They are not swinging. They are fleeing. The Democratic Party has spent a generation assuming demographic change would deliver the Latino vote on a schedule. It will not. Class is now a stronger predictor than ethnicity for how Latino voters move politically, and the Democratic coalition has drifted away from working-class concerns at exactly the moment Latinos became the fastest-growing share of the working class. The Republican Party has spent the same generation assuming cultural affinity would eventually deliver a permanent center-right coalition. It will not, at least not while the party is openly hostile to immigrants and indifferent to grocery prices. The result is what the data now shows in plain English. In closed-primary states like New York, Latino voters register Democratic because they have to, then tell pollsters they are not really Democrats. In open-primary states like California, they show up in larger numbers and refuse to commit in advance. The current effort to repeal California's Top Two primary moves in exactly the wrong direction. It would return California to the system New York still uses. It would shrink the share of Latino voters whose ballots actually decide elections. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-1550854f-d96d-4e6d-9f5e-aac5ba19207a.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal-b72e7805-34e5-4aed-8184-d6af0d9cff65.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) The party that is self-aware enough to learn this lesson first will dominate American politics for the next generation. What I would add now is that the lesson is not only about messaging or candidate quality. It is about the rules. New York's data shows what happens when the system controls the voter. California's data shows what happens when the voter controls the system. Both parties are losing their hold on the Latino vote. The question is whether the rules will continue to allow the political parties to disguise that fact. ### Poll Finds that a Majority of New York Democrats Don’t Really Want to be Democrats URL: https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:49:08.000Z **NEW YORK CITY** \- A new poll released this week from Open Primaries and the Independent Voter Project (IVP) found most Democrats in New York City support opening the city’s primaries to independent voters. But there is an even more explosive finding. According to the survey, nearly 40% of registered party members say they consider themselves independent voters who are only registered with the Democratic Party for one reason: to vote in primary elections. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/NYC-Democrat-Party-ID.png) “The current closed primary system forces people to lie in order to vote,” said John Opdycke, president and founder of [Open Primaries](https://ivn.us/poll-finds-that-a-majority-of-new-york-democrats-dont-really-want-to-be-democrats/). > “Thirty-nine percent admit they're independents who were forced to register as Democratic just to get access to the ballot. Our opponents insist that closed primaries are necessary to protect the integrity of the process. It’s actually the opposite.” Open Primaries and [IVP](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) commissioned IVC Media to conduct the poll from June 11–12, 2026\. It featured 1,394 registered Democrats in NYC who voted in at least one of the 2024 or 2025 general elections. It has a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points at 95% confidence. New York City conducts local elections using a closed partisan primary system, meaning only registered Republicans and Democrats can participate in their respective party’s primaries. Independent voters are barred from these taxpayer-funded elections. This means 1-in-5 voters—or nearly 1.2 million New Yorkers—who are registered unaffiliated. [Want Fair Elections in New York City? Ranked Choice Isn’t Enough Without Open PrimariesA lot of people are talking about democracy reform in New York City, especially since the implementation of ranked choice voting. But while ranked choice voting in party primaries is novel, let’s be honest: it’s not “small-d” democratic. The fact is, the general election still uses a plurality votin![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-2f94b33c-c565-43cc-8287-f6ec2f433e66.jpg)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/NYC-Open-Primarie_Join-to-Vote-4e6f0429-4773-4b7a-8ddc-5531c83b3b51.png)](https://ivn.us/want-fair-elections-new-york-city-ranked-choice-isnt-enough-without-open-primaries-2025-05-28/) Since only party members can vote in the primaries, independents are left with two options: Join a party or don’t vote. Turns out, when coerced by the system, many of them have chosen to join the Democratic Party just to have a meaningful say in local elections. NYC leans heavily Democrat. The party holds all executive offices and nearly all seats on the city council—46 to the Republican’s 5\. In most contests, the Democratic primary ***is*** the election, and independents know it. Independent voters have petitioned NYC Charter Revision Commissions (CRC) year after year to put an open primary measure on the ballot. In 2025, dozens of New Yorkers showed up to hearings to demand the right to vote in elections they fund. [NYC Independents Line Up to Demand Open PrimariesThe New York City Charter Revision Commission, which is tasked with proposing policy changes to city government, held its first public meeting this week since it released a preliminary report that considers a potential end to the city’s closed primaries.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-e610acf4-d672-4a1f-8d7f-e015e963a498.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/getty-images-P3o7FOv3xjA-unsplash-f6dc2928-d661-498f-a743-894bb1117bb6.jpg)](https://ivn.us/nyc-independents-line-demand-open-primaries-2025-05-23/) The CRC considered different proposals. It even [acknowledged all the voters who are shut out of taxpayer-funded elections](https://www.nyc.gov/assets/charter/downloads/pdf/2025/7-21-2025-charter-revision-commission-adopted-final-report-digital.pdf?ref=ivn.us) because of the closed system in place—-including more than half (54%) of registered independents who are voters of color. However, the CRC ultimately chose not to move forward with any kind of open primary proposal, whether it be a nonpartisan all-voter and all-candidate open primary or new rules that would simply allow independent voters to pick a party ballot in partisan primaries. The poll found that just over 50% of surveyed Democrats said they would support an initiative to open NYC primaries to all voters. Just under 27% said they opposed, leaving nearly 23% who said they were “not sure.” [5 Influential Forces in NYC that Threaten the Success of Open PrimariesNew York City’s Charter Revision Commission (CRC) is considering a proposal to adopt a nonpartisan “Top Two” open primary system, which would allow the city’s 1.1 million independent voters to cast a ballot in primary elections they pay for.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-2d5db670-867e-4cde-aeb7-0fbf3d9b5b97.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/openprimaryc-b8d09485-cddd-4c65-92c2-a09b3606e303.png)](https://ivn.us/5-influential-forces-nyc-threaten-success-open-primaries-2025-07-14/) The poll also found that even if the primary system doesn’t change, 60% of registered Democrats believe the New York Democratic Party should allow independents to vote in the 2028 primary. Only 20% disagreed. Even among self-described “proud Democrats” (who made up 40% of respondents), a majority said independents should be allowed to participate in the 2028 Democratic primary. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/NYC-Democrat-Support-Open-Primaries.png) “New York independents have been forced into a box: give up their independence or give up their voice,” Opdycke said. “This is not a choice — it’s a disenfranchisement. And even Democrats want it to end.” A new CRC has been formed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Open Primaries plans to attend an upcoming commission hearing in Staten Island on June 23\. It will enter the findings of the poll into the public record, including: - Only 40% of registered Democrats in NYC call themselves “proud party members.” - A “statistically equal” 39% say they are really independents, but are registered with the party just so they can vote in primaries. - Among Latino Democrats, specifically, only 1-in-3 (33%) actually consider themselves Democrats. This is the lowest share of any racial or ethnic group surveyed. - 60% of NYC Democrats believe the party should allow independents to vote in the 2028 primary—only 20% disagree. - A majority of self-described “proud Democrats” say independents should be able to vote in the 2028 Democratic primary. The date is notable and symbolic since June 23 is primary election day in New York. In order to participate, voters would have had to register or re-register with a private political party by June 13\. This is the condition both the state and city put on an individual’s right to vote. However, the more data that comes to light about what disenfranchisement means under closed primaries, the more voters—even party members—demand change. A majority support opening the process. A larger majority support allowing independents into the 2028 Democratic primary. And several Democrats say their party registration is less an expression of partisan loyalty than a workaround for exclusion. That is a serious problem for a system built on the assumption that party registration equals party identity. The question now is whether city leaders will keep defending a system that even many Democrats are no longer willing to defend. ### **Methodology** The poll was conducted by IVC Media from June 11–12, 2026, through an MMS-to-web survey of 1,394 New York City registered Democrats who voted in at least one of the 2024 or 2025 general elections. Results were weighted to the L2 voter-file population by race, gender, and age. The margin of error is ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. IVC has made its research crosstabs available for members of the media upon request. ### She Quit Her Party. Then She Couldn't Vote. | Lisa Rice URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/she-quit-her-party-then-she-couldnt-vote-lisa-rice/ Last updated: 2026-06-25T20:26:42.000Z Lisa D.T. Rice, the driving force behind DC's Initiative 83 to permit ranked choice voting and open primaries, joins the show to explain how a missing ballot turned her into one of the most relentless reformers in the country. [DC Political Machine Refuses to Implement Landmark Voting Rights InitiativeThe DC City Council has refused to fully fund and implement Initiative 83, the semi-open primary and ranked choice voting measure that was approved by 73% of voters in 2024.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-f8ed47e5-d69b-4ea1-ad7c-a31e684ab109.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/dc-independent-voters-locked-out-2026-primaries-9ea8f7bd-0b05-44df-922a-2ce4e312bc2a.jpg)](https://ivn.us/we-cant-afford-it-is-never-an-acceptable-excuse-to-deny-independents-a-vote-2026-05-11/) She breaks down why closed primaries are really a voting-rights problem, how she took on two fights at once - open primaries and ranked choice voting - in the heart of a 95% one-party city, and how rooting reform in everyday issues like food deserts is what actually wins elections. Then comes the gut-punch: voters passed her initiative with 73%, and she still couldn't cast a ballot. Stick around for the protest she threw in response, the go-go song she commissioned to troll the city council, and the lawsuit threat she says she "wouldn't put past someone." **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ## Episode Highlights In this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, Chad and Shawn sit down with **Lisa Rice**, founder of **Grow Democracy DC** and a leading voice in the **election reform movement**. Rice shares how her own **voter disenfranchisement** — losing access to her right to vote in primaries after leaving the **Democratic Party** to become an **independent voter** — ignited her activism in Washington, D.C. As a board member of **Unite America** since 2017, Rice brings a national perspective to local battles, arguing that **independent voters** and **unaffiliated voters** are taxpaying citizens who deserve full participation in **taxpayer-funded elections**, regardless of **party affiliation**. Rice spearheaded **Initiative 83**, a landmark **ballot initiative** that passed with a historic **73% of the vote** in 2024, adding D.C. to the growing list of jurisdictions to adopt **ranked choice voting (RCV)** and paving the way for **semi-open primaries**. Despite the overwhelming victory with voters, the **D.C. City Council** has yet to fund the semi-open primary component, setting up a critical **budget vote** that Rice and her coalition are actively lobbying. [DC Says Democracy Costs Too Much. Its Budget Says Otherwise.The DC Council says open primaries are too expensive, but the city’s budget shows the real issue isn’t the price tag — it’s whether independent voters are a priority.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-2348626b-980b-467e-ad9e-529b14c34712.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/washington-dc-primary-election-9ab13bd5-4b34-41c8-a833-2c4c9fec3849.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dc-says-democracy-costs-too-much-its-budget-says-otherwise/) Rice connects her D.C. fight to a growing **national democracy reform** movement, citing ongoing efforts in states like **Colorado**, **Oklahoma**, **Maine**, and **California** as evidence that **nonpartisan primary reform** and **ranked-choice voting** are gaining momentum across the country. She encourages **independent voters** feeling isolated to find community, noting that 1-in-5 D.C. residents are **unaffiliated voters** — a silent majority ready to mobilize. For those looking to get involved or support the push for **open primaries** and **voting rights**, Rice directs listeners to [**GrowDemocracyDC.org**](https://www.growdemocracydc.org/?ref=ivn.us) and emphasizes that systemic **election reform** only succeeds when it's rooted in the everyday concerns of real voters. ### California’s Top-Two Primary Has a Plurality Problem—And It's Easy to Fix URL: https://ivn.us/californias-top-two-primary-has-a-plurality-problem-and-its-easy-to-fix/ Last updated: 2026-06-17T21:38:51.000Z The June 2 California governor's primary ended without the Republican lockout that Democratic strategists had feared, but only narrowly. [With 99 percent of results in](https://apps.npr.org/primary-election-results-2026/states/CA.html?ref=ivn.us), Democrat Xavier Becerra leads with 28 percent of the vote and Republican Steve Hilton advanced in second place with nearly 25 percent. Democrat Tom Steyer, who had been polling competitively for months, finished third with 23 percent and is out of the race entirely. More than 2.1 million Steyer votes played no role in determining who advances to November. In a state where [Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one](https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/03/california-governor-candidates/?ref=ivn.us), the top-two system converted a fragmented Democratic majority into a close race decided by a few percentage points. [Critics PROVED WRONG About the “Top-Two” Primary in California (It WORKS)Political outsiders and independent voters shaped the outcome, debunking the disinformation campaign pushed by establishment party insiders who manufactured a fear narrative about two Republicans potentially advancing.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-2378f556-b3da-4e7f-b37b-6414b566bc90.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Podcast![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/6-4-Thumbnail-V3-a2d7a90f-eafc-4782-8e96-472bc4a9164e.png)](https://ivn.us/podcasts/critics-proved-wrong-about-the-top-two-primary-in-california-it-works-2/) This is not a failure of individual candidates nor of all-candidate primaries, but the result of a plurality voting system in the primary that is not designed to handle competitive, multi-candidate fields. The good news is that the fix does not require a constitutional amendment but instead by a simple statute. For future Top Two primaries, legislators could pass laws to enact ranked choice voting (RCV) in the primary and more reasonable ballot access and a write-in option in November elections with RCV. Under the top-two rules, two Republican candidates with a combined total below 40% could advance to November over a fractured Democratic field. This happened in [Washington State’s Top Two election for state treasurer in 2016](https://www.sightline.org/2025/11/11/will-an-electoral-glitch-send-a-republican-to-patty-murrays-seat-in-2028/?ref=ivn.us), and nearly happened again in another key statewide race in 2024. ## **The Seattle Model of Top Two Elections** Seattle voters have adopted all of these changes, with RCV in the primary now [moving toward implementation](https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/elections/ranked-choice-voting-in-seattle?ref=ivn.us). Voters will rank candidates in order of preference, with the candidate with the fewest votes being successively eliminated and those votes counting for the next ranked choice until two candidates remain. Those two advance to the November general election, [as Proposition 14 requires](https://ballotpedia.org/Seattle,%5FWashington,%5FProposition%5F1A%5Fand%5F1B,%5FApproval%5FVoting%5FInitiative%5Fand%5FRanked-Choice%5FVoting%5FMeasure%5F%28November%5F2022%29?ref=ivn.us), and ensure the majority of voters are never locked out. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-75500ee0-1156-47ec-b74b-8bd3a8684884.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal-0347a657-d73b-49d3-a8e3-06759b7d67b7.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) Consider how this would have changed June 2\. Rather than Steyer's nearly 20 percent of the vote going to waste and Becerra barely surviving on a plurality, RCV would have redistributed lower-ranked candidates' votes until two candidates had majority support. The outcome might have been the same, or it might not, but it would have better reflected California voters' true preferences rather than how well campaigns managed the coordination problem of a crowded field. The evidence base for this approach is now substantial. [Research synthesized in a 2025 American Bar Association report on RCV](https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public%5Finterest/election%5Flaw/american-democracy/our-work/what-we-know-about-ranked-choice-voting-2025/?ref=ivn.us) finds that RCV elections consistently produce winners with broader support, reduce spoiler dynamics in multi-candidate fields, and reward unifying candidates. These findings translate directly to the coordination problem California faces. Voters consistently tell pollsters they like RCV after voting with it, and numerous states and cities have seen voter turnout surge after adopting RCV. With sufficient time for planning, California will be able to tally RCV results as quickly and transparently as its non-RCV elections. The statewide experience in Maine and Alaska is instructive on legislative reception as well. In Maine, where RCV has been used for federal elections since 2018, [the legislature has repeatedly acted to expand and clarify its use](https://fairvote.org/maine-supreme-court-maintains-status-quo-on-ranked-choice-voting/?ref=ivn.us) and added it for presidential elections in 2019, and is seeking to extend it to the governor this year. In Alaska, [research published in *Political Research Quarterly*](https://openprimaries.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/New-research-2024-electoral-innovation-and-RCV.pdf?ref=ivn.us) found the state's top-four/RCV system is associated with more unifying candidates winning elections, and a 2024 poll found that [82% of Maine voters described RCV as easy to use](https://fairvote.org/maine-supreme-court-maintains-status-quo-on-ranked-choice-voting/?ref=ivn.us) and more popular than ever in the state. These findings represent a growing scholarly consensus that RCV, when properly implemented, delivers the representative outcomes that plurality systems in crowded fields cannot. ## **Why This Moment Matters** This reform has a germane behavioral component. Watch any California governor's debate and the incentive problem of the current system is clear. One student observer at the April Pomona College debate left "[more confused than ever](https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/04/governor-race-primary-debate/?ref=ivn.us)" after candidates descended into what one participant called something “[worse than my teenagers at dinner](https://www.kqed.org/news/12081726/candidates-look-to-distinguish-themselves-at-chaotic-governors-debate?ref=ivn.us)." [California Wanted a Governor’s Race. It Got a Political Cage Match.We looked at all the negative things the 8 major candidates for governor said about each other, about Donald Trump and MAGA, about Democrats, and about California — from debates, interviews, and paid ads, in their own words.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-54d48850-d05b-41d9-aa51-ea5cc5635451.jpg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-governor-candidates-negativity-d492252e-0980-4ae1-af90-96375bbb82e7.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-wanted-a-governors-race-it-got-a-political-cage-match/) Debate moderators [warned against a "food fight"](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/california-governor-candidates-tangle-immigration-homelessness-tense-d-rcna343978?ref=ivn.us) at the outset of a subsequent debate. The candidates ignored the warning, trading personal insults alongside policy attacks despite sharing broadly similar positions on most major issues. In a crowded field governed by plurality rules, candidates face structural pressure to distinguish themselves through negative attacks instead of persuasive appeals. This occurs because the difference between moving forward or being knocked out often hinges on securing only a tiny fraction of votes. RCV changes that calculus with great examples from recent [gubernatorial debates among Maine Democrats and Republicans](https://fairvote.org/how-ranked-choice-voting-is-impacting-the-maine-primary/?ref=ivn.us). Because candidates aim to be ranked favorably by a wider audience, there is a reduced incentive to engage in personal attacks that could alienate potential supporters. The political science literature shows that, across RCV and plurality jurisdictions, voters in RCV jurisdictions were significantly more likely to [report campaigns as less negative](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379416000299?ref=ivn.us). My [research, co-authored with fellow scholars](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026137942400074X?ref=ivn.us), finds that RCV is associated with increased voter mobilization, driven in part by the more civil and candidate-accessible campaign environment the system creates. The 2026 governor's race is attracting attention from a political class that typically does not engage with electoral system design. Candidates, party officials, and journalists are now asking, "Why does California's system produce this kind of strategic pressure?” That attention creates a window for legislators to introduce a concrete, technically sound proposal for future elections that speaks directly to an observed failure rather than asking the public to accept an abstract argument for electoral innovation. The Seattle model is well-suited to that moment. It's incrementally understandable, keeps the voter-approved top-two system, adds a clear ranking mechanism to the primary, and expands voter choice in the general election. It does not require a ballot measure campaign nor ask California to take a leap of faith on an untested system. And most pressingly, it directly addresses the coordination problem currently consuming Democratic Party attention in the governor's race, not by restricting competition, but by making it safer. ### Bob Chew Wants to Make Colorado’s Senate Race About the Problems Both Parties Duck URL: https://ivn.us/bob-chew-wants-to-make-colorados-senate-race-about-the-problems-both-parties-duck/ Last updated: 2026-06-18T13:54:09.000Z Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain mostly unrepresented in federal office. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, almost always leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home. A handful of high-profile independent candidates for the US Senate are trying to change that. 2026 is seeing one of the largest surges of interest in independent candidates in recent memory. However, these candidates are often covered as fringe candidates, and stories about them focus more on how they'll impact the outcome of the election between a Republican and Democrat than they do on the substance of the candidate's campaign. This series exists because the independent electorate deserves better than that. Over the coming months, IVN is conducting in-depth interviews with independent Senate candidates across the country—not just horse-race conversations about polling and fundraising, but substantive discussions about the issues independent voters actually care about. In Colorado, that candidate is Bob Chew, running on the Forward Party line. --- ## I. The Candidate Bob Chew grew up in a middle-class family in Cleveland, Ohio, and paid his own way through a chemical engineering degree at Case Western Reserve University. He served as an officer aboard a nuclear submarine in the Navy before co-founding a company to provide technical, operational, and project management consulting. That company grew from four employees to roughly 750, with operations across North America, Europe, and Asia, and now has $150 million in annual revenue. He transitioned the company to employee ownership in 2008 and remained as CEO until 2021. Chew was a registered Republican as recently as last August. He launched his Senate campaign in March 2026 on the Forward Party line, one of five candidates nominated at the Colorado Forward Party's assembly. --- ## II. The Race Chew is running for the seat held by Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper, the former Denver mayor and Colorado governor seeking a second term. Hickenlooper qualified for the ballot by collecting petition signatures, bypassing the state party assembly process. Meanwhile, primary challenger state Sen. Julie Gonzales (a progressive running against what she calls "do-nothing" Democrats) won nearly 75% of delegate support at the Democratic assembly, putting her directly onto the primary ballot. The Republican nominee, state Sen. Mark Baisley, ran unopposed in his party's assembly and won’t face a challenger in the June 30th primary. On the fundraising front, Hickenlooper has raised nearly $9 million, with $4 million in cash on hand as of [the most recent FEC filing](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/CO/2026/?ref=ivn.us) on March 31\. Gonzales has raised in the mid six figures, spending down to about $114,000 by the end of Q1; Baisley reported just $32,000 through Q1, with $6,100 cash on hand. Chew is self-funding the early stages of his campaign, having already put in $150,000 to launch, with plans to put in up to $2 million total. For context, Sen. Hickenlooper spent over $40 million to win this seat in 2020 from incumbent Republican Cory Gardner, in what became one of the ten most expensive Senate races in the country that cycle. Colorado has trended more blue over the past 6 years, and this race is seen by most political handicappers as solidly Democratic. [On voter registration](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/co?ref=ivn.us): Colorado has nearly 4 million registered voters, with nearly 53% of them not registered with either party (\~2.1 million). Democrats maintain a minor advantage over Republicans, with 993,000 to 898,000 registered voters, respectively. Hickenlooper's favorability has slipped heading into this cycle. A [March 2026 bipartisan poll](https://copollinginstitute.org/release/heightened-concerns-over-prices-of-gas-and-utilities-add-to-affordability-crisis-and-increased-economic-pessimism-in-colorado/?ref=ivn.us) from the Colorado Polling Institute found him at 43% favorable and 43% unfavorable, a five-point net erosion from the prior year driven largely by Democratic and unaffiliated voters. [Colorado Voters Want Every Flavor. The Primary System Says Red or Blue.Courageous Colorado released a new ad that lightheartedly pokes fun at a system that limits voter choice to only two options in the primaries while calling on the state to adopt all-candidate and all-voter open primary elections.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-52a98476-9d08-490f-860c-dd3d89f52ede.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/courageous-colorado-open-primaries-1-3e1debfb-8e4c-4890-88bd-bcc057178ee9.jpeg)](https://ivn.us/colorado-voters-want-every-flavor-the-primary-system-says-red-or-blue/) Among likely Democratic primary voters, a [more recent survey](https://www.coloradocommunityresearch.com/past-polls-surveys/undecided-voters-define-colorado-democratic-senate-primary-despite-near-universal-name-id-for-hickenlooper?ref=ivn.us) found him leading Gonzales 38-30, but with just 19% describing themselves as very favorable toward the incumbent. Notably, 25% of voters are still undecided, and Gonzales’ name recognition is under 50% of likely primary voters, giving her a clear path to the Democratic nomination. --- ## III. Why Run Outside Both Parties Chew's entry into this race starts with a diagnosis. The federal government runs a deficit of roughly $1.8 trillion annually (spending over $7 trillion; raising $5 trillion) and neither party will address it seriously, because the first one to do so hands the other a political weapon. "I knew that neither major party is going to talk seriously about our debt, how to bring down the deficit spending, social security insolvency, because the first party that does, the other party is going to skewer them, right? Put them on a pike, like the Vikings did," Chew said. Both parties have built their electoral strategy around fear of the other side rather than affirmative arguments for governance. "You got the two parties that are all doing nothing but fear of the other. If the other party gets elected, it will be the end of civilization as we know it. That's basically the narrative." That combination—issues neither party will touch and a two-party dynamic optimized for fear rather than governing—is what led him to the Forward Party\*. His decision to run as the party’s nominee was both principled and practical. When he reviewed the party’s nine core principles, he found them easy to agree with; practically, a Forward Party nomination meant he didn't need to collect ballot petition signatures. He recognizes running outside of a major party machine makes his candidacy seem like a long-shot. His pitch to voters deterred by the odds? "If voters want to listen and have their voice heard, they can vote for me. And if they want to listen to the fear of somebody being a spoiler, or fear of the other party getting elected, that's their choice. But at least I'm going to give them a choice." --- ## IV. The Economy: His Central Focus, and the Top Issue for Independents Chew's economic argument is built around the national debt as a looming problem, but also a driver of a lot of the economic woes faced by the average American today. His focus isn’t new: he voted for Ross Perot in 1992 when Perot's near-singular focus on deficit spending attracted 19% of the popular vote. "One could say that as a result of that 19% showing up, politicians woke up to that issue. For a while, we had a reduction in deficits, we actually got to zero and a slight surplus for a couple years toward the end of Clinton's time." Chew said. He sees his candidacy in a similar light: whether or not he wins, a strong vote total on a platform of fiscal responsibility sends a message that the political cost of avoiding the issue is higher than both parties currently believe. On closing the budget gap, he's dismissive of the idea that cutting waste, fraud, and abuse can close a $1.8 trillion annual shortfall. He instead discusses healthcare spending: the US spends about 19% of GDP on healthcare ([the CMS places it around there](https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/historical?ref=ivn.us)), roughly double what most other Western countries spend. He cited Dartmouth research (*auth.* [*here*](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953623002848?via%3Dihub&ref=ivn.us) *and* [*here*](https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/addressing-greed-health-care-if-not-us-and?ref=ivn.us)*, for the complex story*) that he says estimates that perhaps half of that gap reflects waste, fraud, and inefficient delivery—overbilling, provider fraud concentrated in senior-heavy markets, a system where "\[h\]ospitals make more profit dispensing medicines than do the companies that make the medicines." Having run a company with employees across China, Singapore, Ireland, Italy, the UK, and Canada, he's seen employees in every one of those markets demand private coverage even within government-run systems. He says he could support basic Medicare for All “where you don’t end up with a $100,000 hospital bill hanging over your head” for a decade, but he also believes that “people have to be willing to pay for it.” He connects fiscal discipline directly to housing affordability: the national debt drives long-term bond rates, which drive mortgage rates. A credible, durable debt reduction plan would produce an immediate market response—lower bond rates, lower mortgage rates, lower effective cost of homeownership—without requiring targeted housing legislation. The ESOP decision at his company belongs in his nuanced frame of approaching the economy. He doesn't oversell it: "There are situations where an ESOP works very well, and then as industries change, the need for capital changes, and a 100% ESOP isn't always great at providing capital to grow, to acquire." But it reflects his view of what healthy capitalism looks like: ownership and incentives aligned with workers, the private sector creating jobs, government ensuring stability and a level playing field. > "Businesses, the private sector, is what creates jobs, not government. Government has to assure a level playing field, fairness, no cheating. But if they try to create jobs, they do it pretty poorly, as the Soviet Union showed." Asked what two things would make his Senate tenure worthwhile, he didn't hesitate to reiterate this economic focus: putting Social Security on a sustainable path and establishing a credible plan to bring down the national debt, paired with concrete steps to reduce total healthcare spending. "Will I be able to say I restored the American dream? No. Will I be able to say that I contributed to making it more achievable? Yes," he said. This type of balanced speech permeates the candidate’s discussion of his campaign. He’s aware of the economic difficulties facing many Americans. As a small business owner, he’s been able to help some individuals achieve the American dream. He sees the government as having one role in promoting economic prosperity, and he would see his role as a senator in having a part to play in spreading the American dream to more people. --- ## V. The Practical Theory of the Race Chew's view of how an independent with fewer resources (money, party infrastructure) becomes competitive is mechanical: money generates name recognition, name recognition generates poll results, and poll results attract more money. His $2 million in self-funded seed money is meant to start that cycle, but he was clear that attracting outside money depends on demonstrating traction first. "To attract more money, you've got to show traction in order for people to believe in an independent." While he lacks the established campaign infrastructure of a major party candidate, his campaign team has real experience. A media firm that has worked for Nikki Haley and Bill Cassidy, a consultant whose career goes back to John McCain, and a Colorado-specific political operative are helping to ensure that his campaign is run professionally. His coalition targets are the 52% of unaffiliated voters, moderate Republicans "fed up with the current state of the Republican Party," and, to a lesser degree, moderate Democrats willing to look past a party label in a race where Republicans are seen as having a long-shot chance, at best, in a year where Democrats are ahead on the generic ballot. His best receptions on the trail have come from people with no particular political engagement, such as hotel clerks reacting with genuine surprise that an independent candidate exists at all, which he reads as evidence that unaffiliated voters are an underserved audience. His theory of how the race gets interesting comes from polling ahead of the Republican and turning it into an effectively two-person contest against Hickenlooper. With several Senate seats that were viewed as safely Republican shifting toward the Democrats, it’s possible the national Republican infrastructure decides that Colorado isn’t worth the investment. In that world, Chew’s self-funding might be enough to get him in this position, especially if national interest in the independent Senate candidates (driven largely by Osborn’s run in Nebraska) increases name recognition for the other candidates on this unofficial slate. --- ## VI. Building the Fulcrum: A List Taking Shape Every independent Senate candidate interviewed for this series so far has discussed some conversations they’ve had with the other independent Senate candidates around what they could accomplish as a fulcrum, denying both sides an automatic majority in the upper chamber. (For a fuller account of how the other candidates in the group describe this strategy, see our interviews with [Todd Achilles](https://ivn.us/todd-achilles-says-the-two-parties-broke-congress-now-he-wants-idaho-to-help-break-their-grip/) and [Ty Pinkins](https://ivn.us/ty-pinkins-makes-the-case-for-sending-an-independent-caucus-to-the-senate/).) The group has been working toward a joint list of non-negotiables; what they would demand before helping either party organize a Senate majority. When asked for his non-negotiables, Chew brought up several procedural considerations. The first item he endorsed is that the Senate actually pass budgets through regular order: "That's job number one for the legislative branch, is to pass budgets, and they don't do it." His own addition targets the reconciliation process, which he wants narrowed back to its original purpose: resolving small discrepancies between House and Senate versions of the same bill, rather than serving as a routine vehicle to bypass the 60-vote filibuster. His second addition targets the confirmation process. He references changes to the judicial nomination process, starting with Democrat Harry Reid’s 2013 move to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for federal judicial nominations; Republicans later extended that to Supreme Court nominations. Chew wants to restore the 60-vote threshold for all judicial and Cabinet confirmations, pointing to the historical norm of 90-plus votes for secretaries of defense as evidence of what bipartisan vetting once produced. Chew noted that the group will be releasing a joint list sometime over the summer. When it drops, it will be the most concrete jointly-authored statement yet of what a coordinated independent bloc would demand in exchange for helping either party organize the chamber. --- ## VII. Assessment Chew is running a long shot in a deep-blue state against a well-funded incumbent (though there is a path to an upset in the June 30 Democratic primary), on a party line with no federal electoral track record. He doesn't argue otherwise. What he argues is that his self-funded campaign, run by people with real campaign experience, can generate enough traction to make people believe his run is viable, leading to increased fundraising, leading to more visibility, leading to better polling, in a virtuous cycle. If he can ride the $2 million he’s putting into the campaign to besting the Republican in some polls, he can turn the race into a two-person race against the Democrat. Short of that, even if he doesn’t win, he thinks his campaign can force the fiscal conversation he's after, and that a strong vote total, even short of a win, sends the same kind of message Ross Perot sent in 1992: that the political cost of avoiding the debt is much higher than the damage that would come from attack ads from opponents. What distinguishes him within this series is the pairing of private-sector specificity with procedural seriousness. He has spent decades running a global company, and he brings an engineer's impatience with solutions that don't scale. His non-negotiables on the Fulcrum Caucus platform—on reconciliation and the 60-vote confirmation threshold—reflect a candidate who has thought carefully about how the Senate's own rules have contributed to the problems we are currently facing. The candidate himself notes that neither party touches issues of the debt, healthcare, and Social Security’s solvency because of the lines of attack they will face. The big question is whether Coloradans are ready to have a conversation that’s going to require tough decisions and nuance in a political climate that’s increasingly tense, and in an election cycle where many believe the stakes are uniquely high. Will those attacks he notes would be flung between the parties, when aimed at him, prevent his campaign from taking off? But with a nationwide slate of independent candidates, $2 million ready to be deployed, and campaign staff with real experience, Chew’s in a better position than many to force a conversation he believes is necessary. Both Perot and the Tea Party movement showed that a conversation around the deficit and debt can lead to support that major party leadership didn’t know was out there. In a state where the majority are independents, focusing on an issue others avoid might be enough to break through the noise. --- *This interview was conducted June 12, 2026.* *This article was edited after publication to correct an error on the dates around Chew's transition of his company to employee ownership and stepping down as CEO.* *\*The Author of this piece was a senior member of the Forward Party, though he was never involved in any conversations about Bob Chew.* ### Maine Ran Out of Ballots. Here's Why URL: https://ivn.us/maine-an-out-of-ballots-heres-why/ Last updated: 2026-06-17T16:57:34.000Z Maine just reminded the country what a healthy primary looks like. Turnout on June 9 was so strong that some towns ran out of ballots. Election officials are now running the ranked-choice tabulation in five races, the ninth time the state has used the system statewide. The usual fearmongering showed up on cue. [The panic machine is already coming up empty](https://ivn.us/maines-ranked-choice-count-starts-and-the-panic-machine-is-already-losing/). We've also got news of our own. IVN has entered a [collaborative partnership](https://ivn.us/independent-voter-news-joins-forces-with-latino-news-network-and-the-fulcrum-to-expand-voter-first-journalism/) with the Latino News Network and The Fulcrum. Three outlets, one shared conviction: American democracy is best served by journalism that reaches the people most often left out of the conversation. The rest of the week's coverage stays on the same fault line. Steve Peace explains [why California fraud claims can't be proved either way](https://ivn.us/fraud-may-very-well-be-happening-in-california-but-you-cant-prove-it-heres-why/). John Palmer makes the case to [fix Top-Two rather than scrap it](https://ivn.us/dont-scrap-top-two-fix-its-strategic-voting-problem/). And Jeremy Gruber reports on [New York City independents](https://ivn.us/nyc-independents-turn-up-the-heat-on-a-system-built-to-ignore-them/) pushing back on a system built to ignore them. And if you want to go deeper this week, there's a free event worth your time. This Thursday, June 18, from 5:30 to 6:30 PM ET, the Forward Party and Open Primaries are hosting a [virtual town hall on ballot access](https://ivn.us/virtual-town-hall-to-examine-ballot-access-barriers-in-new-mexico-texas-and-arizona/) in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. Featuring Jeremy Gruber of Open Primaries and Oliver Hall of the Center for Competitive Democracy. Free and open to all. Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## Maine’s Ranked-Choice Count Starts, and the Panic Machine Is Already Losing Three high-profile contests are headed to RCV: the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial primaries and the Democratic race in Maine's 2nd Congressional District, none of which produced a majority winner on election night. Results are expected before Friday's Juneteenth holiday - and despite the usual round of fearmongering, **the panic machine is already coming up empty**. [READ FULL ARTICLE](https://ivn.us/maines-ranked-choice-count-starts-and-the-panic-machine-is-already-losing/) ### *SIGN UP ▶▶▶* ## This Thursday: Virtual Town Hall on Ballot Access in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/FWD_Townhall-1.png)](https://ivn.us/virtual-town-hall-to-examine-ballot-access-barriers-in-new-mexico-texas-and-arizona/) Take a close look at three states where the stakes are high with Jeremy Gruber of Open Primaries and Oliver Hall of the Center for Competitive Democracy and dig into the barriers facing independent and non-major-party candidates. [Join by video here](https://meet.google.com/avz-bdxm-xam?ref=ivn.us) on Thursday. [ADD TO YOUR CALENDAR](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/render?action=TEMPLATE&text=Virtual%20Town%20Hall%3A%20Ballot%20Access%20in%20New%20Mexico%2C%20Texas%2C%20and%20Arizona&dates=20260618T213000Z/20260618T223000Z&details=Examining%20ballot%20access%20laws...%0AJoin%20Google%20Meet%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fmeet.google.com%2Favz-bdxm-xam&ref=ivn.us) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [Maine's Ranked-Choice Count Starts, and the Panic Machine Is Already Losing ](https://ivn.us/maines-ranked-choice-count-starts-and-the-panic-machine-is-already-losing/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Maine ranked choice count](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/maine-ranked-choice-count.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/maines-ranked-choice-count-starts-and-the-panic-machine-is-already-losing/) [Don't Scrap Top-Two. Fix Its Strategic Voting Problem. ](https://ivn.us/dont-scrap-top-two-fix-its-strategic-voting-problem/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/03/1576175142139-1.jpg) John E Palmer [ ![California voter headed to vote](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/california-voter-headed-to-vote.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/dont-scrap-top-two-fix-its-strategic-voting-problem/) [DC Says Democracy Costs Too Much. Its Budget Says Otherwise. ](https://ivn.us/dc-says-democracy-costs-too-much-its-budget-says-otherwise/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Washington DC primary election](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/washington-dc-primary-election.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/dc-says-democracy-costs-too-much-its-budget-says-otherwise/) [NYC Independents Turn Up the Heat on a System Built to Ignore Them ](https://ivn.us/nyc-independents-turn-up-the-heat-on-a-system-built-to-ignore-them/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![New York City](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/new-york-city.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/nyc-independents-turn-up-the-heat-on-a-system-built-to-ignore-them/) [Maine Let Independents In — Then Made Candidates Earn a Majority ](https://ivn.us/maine-let-independents-in-then-made-candidates-earn-a-majority/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Maine semi-open primary ranked choice voting](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/maine-semi-open-primary-ranked-choice-voting-independent-voters.png) ](https://ivn.us/maine-let-independents-in-then-made-candidates-earn-a-majority/) [Fraud May Very Well Be Happening in California. But You Can't Prove It. Here's Why. ](https://ivn.us/fraud-may-very-well-be-happening-in-california-but-you-cant-prove-it-heres-why/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Steve-Peace.jpg) Steve Peace [ ![California late vote count election fraud accusations](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/california-late-vote-count-election-fraud-accusations.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/fraud-may-very-well-be-happening-in-california-but-you-cant-prove-it-heres-why/) ### *ANNOUNCEMENT ▶▶▶* ## IVN Joins Forces with Latino News Network & The Fulcrum to Expand Voter-First Journalism [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/IVN_Fulcrum_LNN_Announcement-1.png)](https://ivn.us/independent-voter-news-joins-forces-with-latino-news-network-and-the-fulcrum-to-expand-voter-first-journalism/) Independent Voter News (IVN) has entered into a collaborative partnership with the Latino News Network (LNN) and The Fulcrum, bringing together three outlets whose editorial missions converge on a shared conviction: that American democracy is best served by journalism that reaches the people most often left out of the conversation. [LEARN MORE ON IVN](https://ivn.us/independent-voter-news-joins-forces-with-latino-news-network-and-the-fulcrum-to-expand-voter-first-journalism/) ### *NEW EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Chad, Shawn, and Cara break down the five-day vote count that knocked Spencer Pratt out of the LA mayoral runoff - and **why "fraud" is the wrong story**. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg1trJf7iYQ&ref=ivn.us) ### *GOING VIRAL ▶▶▶* ## Gavin Newsom Accuses Trump of Sending Federal Agents to Harass Wife's Friends [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Untitled-design--11-.png)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZnlke2j8ZX/?ref=ivn.us) Why are federal agents knocking on the doors of Gavin Newsom's wife's friends? Our clip of Newsom has received over 200K views and counting [on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZnlke2j8ZX/?ref=ivn.us). [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZnlke2j8ZX/?ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) ### Independent Voter News Joins Forces with Latino News Network and The Fulcrum to Expand Voter-First Journalism URL: https://ivn.us/independent-voter-news-joins-forces-with-latino-news-network-and-the-fulcrum-to-expand-voter-first-journalism/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:48:59.000Z Independent Voter News (IVN) has entered into a collaborative partnership with the [Latino News Network](https://latinonewsnetwork.com/?ref=ivn.us) (LNN) and [The Fulcrum](https://thefulcrum.us/?ref=ivn.us), bringing together three outlets whose editorial missions converge on a shared conviction: that American democracy is best served by journalism that reaches the people most often left out of the conversation. IVN has been called liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian, socialist, and anarchist, usually depending on which article a reader happened to disagree with. The label that fits best is none of them. IVN is an open platform for journalists bound not by ideology but by [a simple etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/): civil dialogue, honest inquiry, and the foundational belief that the right to vote derives from citizenship, not party affiliation, and that every voter deserves a voice that matters. It has developed a depth of expertise in election reform, working with journalists, researchers, and policy analysts who cover nonpartisan reform, voter data, and election law. [Why We Call Ourselves Independent Voter NewsFor 15 years, we have published more than 14,000 articles written by people from different walks of life, different parts of the country, and different political backgrounds.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-f59c3de8-189f-48b9-a252-2d6b62ab4223.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Independent-Voter-News-Who-We-Are-e836bdec-792f-4c84-9e78-4aedf5486f0e.png)](https://ivn.us/why-we-call-ourselves-independent-voter-news-2026-04-01/) “To this day, IVN remains one of the only open platforms that was built by and for independent-minded voters,” said Shawn Griffiths, Editor-in-Chief of IVN. > “For nearly two decades, we have delivered news and information that goes beyond the two-sided narrative voters are inundated with and speaks to the frustrations voters have with the nation’s hyper-polarized political system. We look forward to working with The Fulcrum and LNN on the mutual goal of reaching and informing voters who feel left out of the process.” The Fulcrum, a project of the [Bridge Alliance Education Fund](https://www.bridgealliance.us/?ref=ivn.us), was built as a platform where political insiders and outsiders alike can be informed, engage, and act on repairing democratic institutions. Its founding funders include the Hewlett Foundation, Arnold Ventures, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and the Unite America Institute, among others. LNN was founded in 2012 by Diane Alverio, a retired journalist and former president of the [National Association of Hispanic Journalists](https://nahj.org/?ref=ivn.us) (NAHJ), to address the near‑total absence of English‑language news serving Hispanic and Latino communities in Connecticut. What began as a single state‑based outlet has grown, under the leadership of Hugo Balta and Adriana Balta Naranjo, into a network of nine local and national multiplatform news sites dedicated to community‑centered journalism. Balta also serves as Executive Editor of The Fulcrum, where he leads solutions‑journalism and DEI initiatives. A veteran of multimedia journalism with leadership roles at NBC, Telemundo, CBS, ESPN, and The Chicago Reporter, he is the only journalist to have served twice as president of the NAHJ and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2016. “Partnering with IVN strengthens our shared commitment to voter‑first journalism," said Balta. > "Together, we’re expanding access to trusted, community‑centered reporting that rises above partisanship and reflects the full diversity of our democracy.” The collaboration will center on shared content, cross-platform distribution, and a broader commitment to the kind of journalism that treats voters, all voters, as the constituency that matters most. ### Don't Scrap Top-Two. Fix Its Strategic Voting Problem. URL: https://ivn.us/dont-scrap-top-two-fix-its-strategic-voting-problem/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:48:49.000Z The votes are in, the gubernatorial primary has been called, and the political apocalypse never arrived. For months, California Democrats warned of a nightmare scenario: a fractured Democratic field could split the vote so badly that two Republicans would advance to the general election. The possibility dominated the conversation and triggered handwringing about California's top-two system. Yet when the dust settled, California got one Democrat and one Republican advancing to November. The sky didn't fall. The dreaded two-Republican scenario never materialized. Once again, Democratic fears of a top-two disaster proved unfounded. No surprise, a combination of donors, campaign professionals, party leaders, media coverage, and ultimately voters themselves were never likely to allow such an outcome. The incentives built into California's top-two system pushed everyone toward consolidation long before ballots were cast. To be fair, one wild card did emerge. Eric Swalwell's departure from the race triggered a seismic reshuffling of support that almost nobody anticipated. Suddenly, a significant bloc of Democratic voters had to find a new home. That consolidation of support among fewer Democratic candidates may well have been the single biggest factor preventing the catastrophe many Democrats feared. Yet even if Swalwell had remained in the race, the election still would have exposed a deeper problem embedded within the top-two system itself. The governor's primary became an exercise in strategic voting. With only two candidates advancing, polling increasingly suggested that the race had narrowed to Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton, and Tom Steyer. For supporters of Katie Porter, Matt Mahan, Chad Bianco, Antonio Villaraigosa, Tony Thurmond and others, the calculation became less about who they most wanted as governor and more about the potential downside of voting for someone with little chance of advancing. ***A Bianco supporter may have concluded that voting for Hilton was the best way to stop Steyer. A Porter supporter may have reasoned that Steyer offered the best chance to block Hilton. Some Mahan supporters may have viewed Hilton as preferable to a more progressive Democrat and adjusted accordingly.*** In each case, voters faced the same question: if my favorite candidate can't win, who should I support instead? In the *San Francisco Chronicle*, opinion columnist and editorial board member [Emily Hoeven's sub-header read](https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/governor-california-vote-election-22278879.php?ref=ivn.us): "Many politicos view it as inevitable that Hilton will face off against either Becerra or Steyer in November. Don't let that impact how you vote." That's admirable advice. But wouldn't it be nice to have a system where voters could follow her advice without any adverse consequences? What voters were doing throughout this primary was attempting to simulate a ranked ballot in their heads. They were asking themselves: "If my candidate can't win, where would I want my vote to go next?" A ranked ballot simply allows voters to express those backup preferences directly. Instead of trying to guess which candidates are viable, voters can support their true favorite while indicating who they prefer if that candidate falls short. A Porter supporter could rank Porter first and Steyer second. A Mahan supporter could rank Mahan first and Hilton second. A Bianco supporter could rank Bianco first and Hilton second. ***Nobody would be forced to abandon a favorite candidate simply to avoid helping one they dislike.*** Unfortunately, some Sacramento political operatives from both major parties are responding to this election by proposing to turn back the clock and restore closed partisan primaries. That would be a mistake. The most important innovation of top-two wasn't only that it advanced two candidates. It was that it created a nonpartisan primary in which every voter in California could participate and every candidate running had to appeal to the entire electorate. Under partisan primaries, candidates know their first electoral hurdle is winning over their party's most active voters. Under a nonpartisan primary, candidates know their first date with the voters is with everyone. That changes incentives. It rewards candidates who can reach beyond their partisan base. In many districts, top-two has also produced same-party November contests. In deep-blue districts, Democrat-versus-Democrat races can provide voters with meaningful choices that would never emerge from a closed, partisan primary. The same is true in heavily Republican areas. California should preserve those strengths. But we can do better than top-two. A top-four or top-five primary paired with a ranked ballot in November would preserve the benefits of a nonpartisan primary while eliminating much of the strategic voting that now distorts election outcomes. Under top-five, this year's finalists might well have included Becerra, Hilton, Steyer, Porter, and Mahan. Instead of narrowing the field to two candidates in June, Californians could evaluate a broader range of choices in November, when turnout is far higher and the electorate is most representative. For single-seat offices such as governor, mayor, or attorney general, a top-four or top-five primary followed by an instant runoff (RCV) general election in November makes a great deal of sense. Legislative elections present different challenges, and proportional systems may ultimately offer a better solution there. But for statewide executive offices, expanding voter choice while ensuring majority support is a straightforward improvement. The lesson from this governor's race is simple: voters should not have to choose between voting honestly and voting effectively. California shouldn't retreat from top-two; it should expand and improve it. More choice in November. Fewer wasted votes. Winners with broader support. And a nonpartisan primary that continues to encourage candidates to govern with the entire electorate in mind. That's moving forward, not backward. ### Virtual Town Hall to Examine Ballot Access Barriers in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona URL: https://ivn.us/virtual-town-hall-to-examine-ballot-access-barriers-in-new-mexico-texas-and-arizona/ Last updated: 2026-06-19T16:43:39.000Z Ballot access is one of the least visible and most consequential parts of American elections. Long before voters weigh in, the rules governing who can even appear on the ballot quietly shape the choices they're given - and for independent and third-party candidates, those rules are often the steepest hurdle of all. This Thursday, June 18, a [virtual town hall](https://home.forwardparty.com/ballot%5Faccess%5Ftown%5Fhall?ref=ivn.us) co-sponsored by the Foundation for Independent Voter Education (FIVE), the Forward Party, and Open Primaries will put those rules under the microscope, focusing on three states where the stakes are especially high: New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The conversation runs from 5:30 to 6:30 PM ET and is free and open to the public. ## Who's on the panel The event features two advocates who have spent years working on the front lines of electoral reform. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Jeremy-Gruber.png) Jeremy Gruber, Senior Vice President of Open Primaries [Jeremy Gruber](https://ivn.us/mike-duggans-exit-exposes-the-independent-movements-biggest-blind-spot/) is the Senior Vice President of Open Primaries, a national nonprofit dedicated to more open and inclusive election systems. A lawyer and public policy advocate, Gruber has helped enact more than 60 state and federal laws and regulations and regularly testifies before state legislatures on opening the primaries. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Oliver-Hall.jpg) Oliver Hall, founder of the Center for Competitive Democracy He'll be joined by Oliver Hall, founder of the Center for Competitive Democracy. A nonpartisan 501(c)(3) focused on increasing electoral competition, the organization has litigated extensively to protect the rights of voters, candidates, and parties to participate regardless of affiliation. Hall is also the author of *Death by a Thousand Signatures*, a study of restrictive ballot access laws and the decline of electoral competition in the United States. The discussion will be moderated by Sarah Lenti. ## What the panel will cover Rather than treating ballot access as an abstraction, the town hall is built around a practical, state-by-state comparison. Topics include the specific requirements and constraints each state imposes, how New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona differ from one another, and the particular barriers independent and non-major-party candidates face in getting onto the ballot. Just as importantly, the conversation is meant to be solutions-focused. Panelists will discuss opportunities for reform and cross-partisan collaboration, along with concrete pathways for citizens who want to get involved in advocacy. ## Why it matters for independent voters With independents now among the largest blocs of the American electorate, the structural rules that govern candidate access have a direct bearing on whether those voters see themselves represented on the ballot. The town hall is designed to deepen public understanding of how these systems work, surface real candidate and voter experiences, and turn that awareness into informed civic action. ## How to attend The event is free. Readers can join by video or phone: - **Date:** Thursday, June 16 - **Time:** 5:30 to 6:30 PM ET / 2:30 to 5:30 PM PT [ADD TO YOUR CALENDAR](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/render?action=TEMPLATE&text=Virtual%20Town%20Hall%3A%20Ballot%20Access%20in%20New%20Mexico%2C%20Texas%2C%20and%20Arizona&dates=20260618T213000Z/20260618T223000Z&details=Examining%20ballot%20access%20laws...%0AJoin%20Google%20Meet%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fmeet.google.com%2Favz-bdxm-xam&ref=ivn.us) - **Event Page:** [https://home.forwardparty.com/ballot\_access\_town\_hall](https://home.forwardparty.com/ballot%5Faccess%5Ftown%5Fhall?ref=ivn.us) - **Video Call:** [https://meet.google.com/avz-bdxm-xam](https://meet.google.com/avz-bdxm-xam?ref=ivn.us) - **Dial-In:** +1 413-489-2831 — PIN: 422 297 274# - **Additional dial-in numbers:** [https://tel.meet/avz-bdxm-xam?pin=5485578499816](https://tel.meet/avz-bdxm-xam?pin=5485578499816&ref=ivn.us) ### Mike Duggan’s Exit Exposes the Independent Movement’s Biggest Blind Spot URL: https://ivn.us/mike-duggans-exit-exposes-the-independent-movements-biggest-blind-spot/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:33:14.000Z The real lesson of Mike Duggan’s independent gubernatorial bid isn’t about Mike Duggan. It’s about the continued failure of the independent movement to understand power. After 533 days on the campaign trail, Mike Duggan brought his independent bid to be Michigan’s next governor to a close. While his supporters dreamed of what might have been, defenders of the two-party system treated the campaign's collapse as further proof that the status quo is both inevitable and immutable. The political press was quick to return to their horse race coverage pitting Republican-versus-Democrat, seemingly forgetting the months it had spent promoting the possibility of an independent breakthrough. Missing from the post-mortems was any serious examination of how political change actually occurs and why so many people continue to look for it in the wrong places. Almost every independent campaign for governor begins with the belief that voters are finally ready to break free from the two-party system. Yet since 1990, only six independent or third-party candidates have won governor's races nationwide, while the overwhelming majority have finished third or worse. The historical record is clear and consistent: independent gubernatorial campaigns almost always generate more excitement than success. This isn't to say that Duggan's message didn't resonate with Michiganders. His campaign gave voice to those in both parties who feel like Lansing no longer works for them. The truth of the matter is that Michigan is fertile ground for a legitimate third-party or independent-oriented movement. Large portions of the electorate are culturally moderate, economically anxious and exhausted by performative partisanship. Michigan has earned its reputation as a “purple battleground state” due in part to the fact that there is no shortage of people willing to vote for the person, not the party. Politics, like baseball, isn't always about hitting home runs. Sometimes it's about finding a way to get on base and keeping the inning alive. Not surprisingly, too many people frustrated by Lansing's dysfunction swung for the fences, hoping one candidate could fix what years of neglect had created. In so doing, they overlooked the simple reality that every rally begins with getting runners on base. If one were inclined to be uncharitable, one might wonder whether some of the money that flowed into the Duggan campaign was less about breaking the system than about keeping a familiar steward of it close to the levers of power. In Michigan, where one seat can alter control of the state Senate and three seats can change the balance of power in the state House, real leverage over the future of the state’s direction was there for those willing to invest in a movement rather than a moment. Instead, the entire independent bet in Michigan was on one man, in one race. When that race became unwinnable, the bet was over. This is the real missed opportunity for those truly committed to reforming the system. At a time when Michigan voters are plainly fed up with the two-party system, this was the cycle to build an independent legislative beachhead, not just bankroll a single gubernatorial bid. In any serious accounting, there are roughly 18 state legislative seats where an independent could at least have made the race honest, with maybe three or four in the Senate and roughly fourteen or fifteen in the House. Instead, nearly all the money, energy and attention went into Mike Duggan’s campaign. That may have felt like a bold bet on change, but it left voters without independent contenders in the places where leverage is actually created. That matters because the cost of missing this window is real. In 2028, only the state House will be back on the ballot while the state Senate will be set for another four years. So, the people warning us about the future damage a dysfunctional system will do to our state not only failed to make any impact this cycle, but their swing for the fences approach also ensured we were left with the status quo for the foreseeable future. As Duggan himself pointed out, of the $5 million his campaign raised, well over ninety percent of his contributions came from Michigan residents. Imagine for a moment that instead of placing all the eggs in one basket, there had been a coordinated effort to support candidates in each of the state House and Senate districts where a well-funded, well-organized independent candidate could credibly compete. Had just a couple of those candidates succeeded they could have changed the legislative math in a good way. They would have forced Republicans and Democrats to stop relying on party line votes and required conversations across party lines. Just as important, no single independent lawmaker would be able to hold the entire system hostage. If they became more interested in making a point than making progress, Republicans and Democrats would always have other ways to build majorities to move legislation forward. More importantly, this outcome would reflect what Michigan voters have been asking for all along and which went to the heart of Duggan’s initial appeal as an independent candidate. Poll after poll shows that voters are tired of partisan gridlock and want elected officials to work together to solve problems. A recent Detroit Regional Chamber survey found overwhelming support for the belief that Republicans and Democrats should find common ground and govern through compromise. As we heard all throughout Duggan’s run, Michigan has no shortage of problems requiring that kind of cooperation. Whether it’s the shambolic state of our education system, an unemployment rate that ranks in the bottom ten, or a per person income rate that, over the past 25 years, has fallen faster and further than any other state, voters want the Legislature to engage in less partisan warfare and more problem-solving. In the end, voters aren't frustrated with American politics because we haven't found the right individual. They're frustrated because the existing system continues to produce bad outcomes. Mike Duggan was gracious in his exit, saying that he hoped his campaign would have "a real long-term impact." But the truth of the matter is that Michigan is likely to get more of the same. Not because voters prefer the status quo but because the people who claimed to want something different never built a real alternative where it counted the most. ### Maine’s Ranked-Choice Count Starts, and the Panic Machine Is Already Losing URL: https://ivn.us/maines-ranked-choice-count-starts-and-the-panic-machine-is-already-losing/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:48:36.000Z **AUGUSTA, Maine** – Maine voters turned out in exceptional numbers for the June 9 primary, with some communities running out of ballots and the secretary of state's office delivering extras to Portland, Westbrook, and Kennebunkport. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-06-16-at-11.06.01---AM-1.png) Election officials are now tabulating ranked-choice results in five races, the ninth time the state has used the system in a statewide contest, with results expected before the Juneteenth holiday on Friday. LIVESTREAM OF THE RCV TABULATION IN MAINE The three highest-profile races headed to ranked-choice tabulation are the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial primaries and the Democratic primary for Maine's 2nd Congressional District, all of which ended Election Night without any candidate clearing the 50 percent threshold. The secretary of state confirmed Tuesday that two legislative Republican primaries will also be included: House District 58, covering communities in Kennebec County, and Senate District 4, encompassing all of Piscataquis County and parts of Penobscot County. The logistics of the count are as follows: Law enforcement transported paper ballots and encrypted memory sticks under strict chain-of-custody protocols from all 487 municipalities in Maine to the Department of Public Safety headquarters in Augusta, where the process is being conducted on computers not connected to the internet. Towns with precinct scanners sent encrypted flash drives; roughly 155 smaller towns, most with 500 or fewer residents, sent paper ballots that are being run through tabulator machines on site. Any ballot a machine cannot read, whether crumpled, stained, or otherwise damaged, is hand-counted by staff. **Once all ballot data is uploaded and cross-checked, running the actual ranked-choice count takes just minutes.** The process is being overseen by [Chief Deputy Secretary of State Kate McBrien](https://www.maine.gov/sos/news/katherine-kate-mcbrien-promoted-maine-state-archivist-chief-deputy-and-chief-staff-department?ref=ivn.us), who is standing in because Secretary of State [Shenna Bellows](https://www.bellowsformaine.com/?ref=ivn.us) is a candidate in the Democratic gubernatorial primary and has fully recused herself from all tabulation activity. McBrien is joined by [Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn](https://spectrumlocalnews.com/me/maine/politics/2022/09/29/as-voting-processes-face-scrutiny--maine-s-election-organizer-stays-above-the-fray-?ref=ivn.us), the longest-serving elections official in the country, and Maine Director of Elections Heidi Peckham. The tabulation is open to the public and is [being livestreamed on the secretary of state's YouTube page](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCn9rGuhcEU&ref=ivn.us). Campaign representatives from several campaigns are observing in person. The secretary of state's office makes the formal determination to proceed with ranked-choice tabulation when no candidate achieves a majority based on initial, unofficial municipal results. Tabulation proceeds in rounds: the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated, that candidate's votes are redistributed to voters' next ranked choices, and the process repeats until one candidate holds more than 50 percent. Under state law, only a candidate who received one of the top three rankings at the end of the second-to-last round may request a recount, a process in which representatives of each candidate and secretary of state staff manually review every paper ballot. Results will be announced this Friday, and by law the official results will be posted within 20 days of the election. Maine voters approved ranked choice voting in 2016, watched the legislature try to repeal it, and came back in 2018 to reaffirm it by a wider margin in a People's Veto campaign. None of the eight statewide elections conducted under ranked choice voting before this one produced the chaos opponents predicted. What it has produced, at least in this cycle, is [something notable](https://ivn.us/maines-best-political-story-has-nothing-to-do-with-graham-platners-sexting/) even by Maine's standards. Three of the five Democratic gubernatorial candidates, former House Speaker [Hannah Pingree](https://hannahforgovernor.com/?ref=ivn.us), former Senate President [Troy Jackson](https://jacksonformaine.com/?ref=ivn.us), and Secretary of State Bellows, ran coordinated campaigns encouraging their supporters to rank the others second and third rather than competing for every available vote. On the Republican side, candidate David Jones, a longtime opponent of ranked choice voting, stood at the State House with an oversized cardboard ballot before the primary and walked voters through how to fill it out fully. "The Maine Democrats gave us Ranked Choice Voting," Jones said. "Today, we are going to beat them at their own game." [The numbers heading into the count](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/us/elections/results-maine-governor-primary.html?ref=ivn.us) reflect how open the Democratic gubernatorial race is. Former Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah leads with nearly 27 percent of first-choice votes, followed by Pingree at 23 percent, Jackson at 21 percent, and Bellows at just under 21 percent. Businessman Angus King III, at around 8 percent, will be eliminated first, with his voters' second choices redistributed among the remaining field. Only about 13,000 votes separate the top four candidates in a primary that drew more than 210,000 voters. [On the Republican side](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/us/elections/results-maine-governor-primary.html?ref=ivn.us), Bobby Charles holds a lead of more than 20,000 votes, making him the clear frontrunner, though the ranked-choice process will have the final word. Charles has attempted to preemptively discredit the proceedings, posting fundraising calls on social media urging supporters to help "stop the Shenna steal," a reference to Bellows, who has recused herself from the tabulation entirely. [The 2nd District Democratic race is the tightest](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/us/elections/results-maine-us-house-2-primary.html?ref=ivn.us) of the three major contests, with [Joe Baldacci](https://baldacciforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us), [Matt Dunlap](https://www.mattdunlapforuscongress.com/?ref=ivn.us), and [Jordan Wood](https://electjordan.com/?ref=ivn.us) separated by about 2,000 votes after the first round. [Paige Loud](https://www.loudforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us) placed fourth and will be eliminated first. Under a traditional plurality system, one of those three would already have been declared the winner. Under ranked choice voting, the outcome will turn on which candidate has built the broadest coalition. ### Colorado Voters Want Every Flavor. The Primary System Says Red or Blue. URL: https://ivn.us/colorado-voters-want-every-flavor-the-primary-system-says-red-or-blue/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T13:25:01.000Z **DENVER, Colo.** – A cross-partisan group called Courageous Colorado released a new ad that takes aim at how the state conducts primary elections. Specifically, it calls out the system for only giving voters two options and forcing them to pick a side. It is part of the group’s effort to pursue a nonpartisan all-voter and all-candidate open primary in Colorado, similar to the election models in place in Alaska, California, and Washington: Every voter, every candidate, one ballot—voters can choose whomever they want, regardless of party. The goal is to put an initiative on the ballot in 2028. Courageous Colorado launched in Summer 2025 after it conducted a 20-site listening tour across the state in collaboration with [CiviCO](https://livecivico.org/?ref=ivn.us),[ Veterans for All Voters](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?gad%5Fsource=1&gad%5Fcampaignid=20796975112&gbraid=0AAAAAqVPEpOacEZWn5DjP7ycf9AeS7nrh&gclid=CjwKCAjwq9rFBhAIEiwAGVAZPzaOlWjTd-zLDlKLwEDuYp6heqTIqeuA-pcxUOx1Nqu5IWMuPE4DCBoC5lEQAvD%5FBwE&ref=ivn.us),[ The League of Women Voters](https://www.lwvcolorado.org/?ref=ivn.us), and other organizations. It was an opportunity to listen to the challenges different communities face when engaging with politics. It also offered insight into the disconnect between voters and the people elected to represent them, as well as the need for greater authenticity in political leadership. The group plans to continue its work with community outreach and bring together leaders from across sectors to engage with each other. But one of its initiatives to facilitate a political environment that encourages courageous leadership is nonpartisan open primaries. The primary system Colorado uses now could be best described as a semi-open partisan primary. Registered party members vote in their respective party’s primary. Independent voters can choose a Republican or Democratic ballot, but are stuck with the candidates of that party. This is the system voters approved back in 2016 under [Proposition 108](https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado%5FUnaffiliated%5FElector,%5FProposition%5F108%5F%282016%29?ref=ivn.us). However, a court [ruled in April](https://www.denver7.com/news/politics/in-win-for-colorado-gop-judge-rules-that-state-makes-it-too-hard-to-close-primaries-to-unaffiliated-voters?ref=ivn.us) that the measure placed too high a burden on parties to be able to decide whether independent voters can participate in their taxpayer-funded primaries—meaning it is possible to lock independents out. The court did not dictate any specific standards, but that does change things. The decision is considered a win for the Colorado GOP, which has tried to block independent voters from participating on the party’s ballot multiple times. Yet even with a more favorable ruling, the courts have yet to allow it. Dr. Landon Mascareñaz, the head of Courageous Colorado, called his group’s new ad a humorous and lighthearted way to poke fun at the current system. In the ad, a customer steps up to the counter of an ice cream shop with the intent of ordering her preferred flavor, only to be shushed by the person taking her order and told her only options are “red or blue.” This analogy is an effective way to get people to understand why primary reformers push for nonpartisan models. It is easily digestible—pun intended—for people who do not wake up thinking about the nuances of reform every day. “Pick a flavor or don’t get ice cream.” Pick a side or sit out. Even in states with open partisan primaries, this is the choice voters have at a time when people may desire different types of candidates for different offices and dissatisfaction with the Republican and Democratic Parties has never been higher. And now, more than 2 million Coloradans—a majority—are registered independent of any political party. They don’t just make up a plurality. Their numbers are larger than both major parties combined. The current system confines choice to a single party. The Courageous Colorado ad puts the promise of nonpartisan open primaries in simple terms: Voters pick the flavor they prefer. They can mix it up. Even go off menu for a change. The choice is theirs in a fully open, voter-nominated process. Polls show this is what [70% of California voters like about the top two system](https://ivn.us/the-forces-trying-to-kill-top-two-cant-read-their-own-polling/). Even if they want more choice in the general election, [which a coalition of reformers is now working toward](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us), they like a system that gives them the freedom to choose any candidate they want in every race. “Every voter gets the same ballot during the primary season, and they can build the ballot the way they want,” Mascareñaz said. Or as the ad put it: “A scoop of this. A scoop of that. How about a few of these?” It has not been announced if Courageous Colorado will pursue a Top Two system like in California or a Top Four or Five system like in Alaska. A ballot measure for a system modeled after Alaska failed in 2024\. It combined a nonpartisan Top Four primary with ranked choice voting in the general election. However, it faced opposition from both major parties and didn't get enough votes. This new effort is noticeably different on its approach. This time, reform advocates started with community outreach, have two years to build these community networks, and have focused their message on something polls show voter want. *Choice.* Whether it is a more successful approach remains to be seen. ### DC Says Democracy Costs Too Much. Its Budget Says Otherwise. URL: https://ivn.us/dc-says-democracy-costs-too-much-its-budget-says-otherwise/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:48:25.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** – Voters in the nation’s capital made their decision in 2024: They approved Initiative 83 which proposed semi-open primaries and ranked choice voting for city elections. It wasn’t even close, as more than 212,000 voters backed the measure—giving it 73% support. And yet, only one of these reforms was in place for the June 16 primaries. The DC Council provided the funding for ranked choice voting. But the open primary portion—the part that would let independent voters cast a ballot in taxpayer-funded elections—has yet to be implemented. Thus, independents were forced to sit out again in the 2026 primaries. [DC Dems to Independent Voters: You Don’t MatterThe DC City Council had one final opportunity to fund a provision approved by 73% of city voters in November that would open primary elections to 83,000+ independent voters – and the Democratic-controlled body elected instead not to honor the will of voters.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-29774f27-804b-418d-84ae-89585ab163fa.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/andy-feliciotti-isg8AL7-6uk-unsplash-1380ee14-4e8b-4ba6-b0e2-5bb84a3f0225.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dc-dems-independent-voters-you-dont-matter-2025-07-29/) One of the reasons given is the cost. However, the problem with that argument is the price tag for open primaries is tiny compared to what the city spends on other priorities. Originally, the [fiscal impact statement for Initiative 83](https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/laws/25-295?ref=ivn.us) estimated that the semi-open primary portion would cost around $930,000\. This included $759,000 in upfront costs, mostly for voter education, voter registration system updates, and ballot-related changes. To clarify, under semi-open primary rules, registered party members have to vote in their party's primary. Independent voters can pick any party's ballot, but have to stick with the candidates of that ballot. Initiative 83 proposer Lisa D.T. Rice [recently testified before members of the DC Council](https://ivn.us/we-cant-afford-it-is-never-an-acceptable-excuse-to-deny-independents-a-vote-2026-05-11/) and said the cost would be “just over $1 million,” adding that most of the money would go toward paper: educational mailers, ballots, and voter registration cards. In a city budget measured in the tens of billions, either estimate does not even come close to one percent of what the city approves each fiscal year. And it raises a question that independent voters—the second largest voting bloc in the city—are entitled to ask: *If DC can find money for stadiums, marketing campaigns, tax abatements, business attraction funds, special grants, smart trash cans, and sports branding, why can’t it find the money to implement the election reform voters overwhelmingly said they wanted?* ## **The Price Tag Is Not the Real Problem** Initiative 83 has faced several hurdles to implementation, despite widespread support from the DC electorate. Most of these hurdles have been erected by the Democratic Party and its leaders in city government. The party sued to block the measure. Outgoing Councilmember Anita Bonds said implementation should be debated, even though voters already approved it. And, Mayor Muriel Bowser kept it off her initial FY2026 budget proposal last year. In July 2025, the DC Council ultimately [voted 8-4](https://ivn.us/dc-democrats-drag-their-feet-give-voters-reforms-they-voted-2025-07-15/) to fund ranked choice voting, meaning city residents would use the reform for the first time in the 2026 primaries. Not only do voters get to rank candidates in order of preference, but elections have to be decided by a majority vote. “I am so excited that ranked choice voting is finally happening in DC. A supermajority of voters asked for this. And they are ready to have a stronger voice,” Rice told IVN. > *“I've been pleased with the city’s implementation of ranked choice voting. You can always do more. I’m grateful for everything the Board of Elections and our partners have done to get people the resources they need to rank their choices with confidence.”* However, independent voters were still denied a chance to participate, because the DC Council left open primaries off the budget. Last year, council members approved an [almost $22 billion FY2026 budget](https://wtop.com/dc/2025/07/dc-council-approves-2026-budget/?ref=ivn.us). This year, the mayor’s [FY2027 budget proposal](https://mayor.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/mayormb/page%5Fcontent/attachments/FY27%5FGrow%5FDC%5FBudget%5FPresentation.pdf?ref=ivn.us) includes a $12.7 billion general funds operating budget and an $11.2 billion six-year capital plan. Against those numbers, the cost of open primaries is microscopic—.004% of the budget. Another point of contention among DC Council members that opposed or wanted to delay Initiative 83 was pending litigation brought by the Democratic Party against the measure, even though they eventually approved $421,000 for ranked choice voting. The party claimed Initiative 83 was unlawful and should never have been allowed on the ballot, but reformers scored a victory when this argument [was recently rejected by the courts](https://campaignlegal.org/update/victory-dc-voters-citizen-led-ballot-initiative-adopting-ranked-choice-voting-upheld?ref=ivn.us). All that is left is the cost to update systems, print the right ballots, and let tens of thousands of independent voters participate in elections their tax dollars already fund. Rice told IVN that it is time to get this done. “Independent voters should have a say in critical primary elections that decide their futures. The Council should finish the job and fund semi-open primaries at their final budget vote on June 23,” she said. > *“If we believe in democracy, we don’t ignore voters—we implement what they passed. No more excuses. Get it done!”* ## **8 Spending Items Voters May Question While Open Primaries Sit Unfunded** Budget fights are always about priorities. DC faces real fiscal pressure. Federal workforce reductions, rising Medicaid costs, overtime, SNAP administration, pensions, utilities, and slower revenue growth all create challenges. But that does not explain why open primaries haven't been funded, especially when voters take a closer look at some of the things in the city’s budget. Here are 8 [budget items](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bbd09f3d74562c7f0e4bb10/t/6886a4397f4c872da4e583d4/1753654330090/2nd+rdg+CIP+chart%5Fall+changes+since+Mayor%27s+proposed.pdf?ref=ivn.us) that may not be inherently wasteful or unpopular. Many have supporters. Many have defensible public purposes. But they are the kinds of expenditures voters may look at and ask: This is affordable, but voting rights are not? ### **1\. $500 Million for RFK Campus Infrastructure** DC’s budget added $500 million for the RFK Campus Infrastructure Fund, which is spread across four years. The purpose is economic development and infrastructure tied to the Washington Commanders’ return to the city. But independent voters may reasonably ask why the city can move half a billion dollars for stadium-related infrastructure while arguing that roughly $1 million for primary election access is too much. ### **2\. $385 Million for Nationals Park Preservation and Improvement** The FY2026-FY2031 capital plan includes $385 million for a Ballpark Preservation and Improvement Fund for Nationals Park. In other words, this is money to maintain where the MLB team plays its home games. That is 385 times the cost of implementing semi-open primaries. ### **3\. Hundreds of Millions for Arena and Sports Infrastructure** The city’s sports spending does not stop with RFK and Nationals Park. DC also committed hundreds of millions toward Capital One Arena renovations and other sports-related projects. These budget items are investments in jobs, tourism, and revitalization. But many of the residents who attend these games are told the city does not have money to put into the democratic infrastructure that would ensure them equal voting rights. ### **4\. $6 Million for Destination DC Support** The budget included $6 million for Destination DC support. Tourism and convention promotion are important to the city’s economy, but it is hard to tell voters that democracy cannot be funded when millions are available for marketing the city to visitors. Independent voters are not tourists. They live there. They pay taxes there. They deserve a vote there. ### **5\. $7 Million to Attract Businesses and Diversify the Economy** The FY2027 budget presentation includes $7 million to attract businesses and diversify the economy through the Vitality Fund and Tech Ecosystem Fund. Economic development matters. But so does honoring the will of voters. A city that wants to attract new residents and businesses should also be able to tell them truthfully that their vote will actually mean something in local elections. ### **6\. $121 Million for a New Home for the DC Archives** The FY2027 budget presentation also lists $121 million to build a new home for the DC Archives. It is about preserving history. But DC is willing to spend nine figures preserving the record of the past while slow-walking a reform voters approved to modernize the city’s democracy. ### **7\. Grants for Theaters and Cultural Institutions** The FY2026 budget included money for multiple theater and cultural projects, including funds for the Howard Theatre, Lincoln Theatre, National Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, and GALA Hispanic Theatre. ### **8\. Smart Bins, Dupont Underground, and Other Small-Bore Enhancements** The budget also included smaller line items that voters may view differently depending on their priorities: $100,000 for the purchase of 20 new Smart Bins, $144,000 for their maintenance, $310,000 total for Dupont Underground support, and $500,000 for Capital Riverfront BID parks. Some residents may like these projects. Others may not. But the point is not that every trash can, park grant, or local project is bad. The point is that DC routinely finds money for discretionary enhancements while claiming that a voter-approved reform is too expensive. ## **The Council Should Stop Hiding Behind the Price Tag** The cost of open primaries is not the obstacle. Political resistance is. DC’s Democratic establishment opposed Initiative 83 before voters approved it. But they didn’t need to try to repeal it outright. They knew they could simply refuse to fund it. That is a quieter way to nullify the will of voters. Except, no one is letting them be quiet about it. The Washington Post, for example, has penned multiple editorials calling on the DC Council to honor the Initiative 83 vote. But this is also a dangerous precedent. If lawmakers can split a voter-approved reform in half and fund only the portion they find least threatening, then ballot measures become suggestions, not mandates. DC voters did not vote for ranked choice voting alone. They voted for ranked choice voting ***and*** open primaries. They voted to make candidates earn broader support and to let independent voters participate in the elections that often decide who holds power in DC. The price tag is not too high. The political will is too low. ### Fraud May Very Well Be Happening in California. But You Can't Prove It. Here's Why. URL: https://ivn.us/fraud-may-very-well-be-happening-in-california-but-you-cant-prove-it-heres-why/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:47:39.000Z Any voting system worth defending should meet two standards at once. There should be no unreasonable barrier to the ballot, nor any vulnerability to the perception that the ballot can be manipulated; *these are two sides of the same coin*. California has pursued the first with [genuine commitment](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-bill-rights?ref=ivn.us) and real success. Whether it has the political will to pursue the second is a different question entirely. The Golden State has built what many admirers call [the most voter-friendly election system](https://ivn.us/how-california-built-the-most-voter-friendly-state-in-america-2026-05-14/) in America. Every active registered voter receives a ballot in the mail 28 days before Election Day. They can return it by mail, drop box, or in person at a vote center. Mailed ballots only need to be postmarked by Election Day and received within a week. When polls close on election night, there are still valid ballots in transit. Nobody knows how many. Next is signature verification. If a signature is flagged by an election administrator, the person is contacted and the voter has until more than three weeks *after* the election to cure it. Provisional ballots must be all individually reviewed. Same goes for same-day registration ballots. County-by-county reporting schedules don't move in unison. By law, California gives county elections officials 30 days to work through [all of the above](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/vote-counting-process?ref=ivn.us) before any results are certified. IVN Editor Shawn Griffiths recently argued, correctly, that [a slow count is not a corrupt count](https://ivn.us/why-does-it-take-california-so-long-to-count-ballots/). *Late-arriving ballots that shift a result were always there. They just hadn't been counted yet.* All of this is true. Here is what is also true: California has built a system so structurally vulnerable to fraud that even if massive fraud were occurring, you couldn't prove it. And those are very different problems, which is why it matters that we do not confuse them. ## **The Secret Ballot Problem Nobody Talks About** The reason the system resists auditing is a genuine, unresolved tension built into its foundation. The right to a secret ballot is fundamentally in conflict with the chain-of-custody rules you would normally require *for* *a voting process conducted almost entirely by mail*. After you mail your ballot, the signed envelope is separated from the ballot itself. That separation is the workaround that protects your secret vote. It is also the reason that *if the signature verification on that envelope is later found to be defective*, it is impossible to connect the defect back to the ballot. According to the Secretary of State: "When your vote-by-mail ballot is received by your [county elections official](http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/county-elections-offices/?ref=ivn.us), your signature on the return envelope will be compared to the signature(s) in your voter registration record. [To preserve the secrecy of your ballot, the ballot will then be separated from the return envelope, and then it will be tallied](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration/vote-mail?ref=ivn.us)." The chain of custody has been broken to protect secrecy, and not by accident, and there is no obvious way to fix it. This was totally manageable when mail voting was marginal. When one, five, or ten percent of ballots were cast by mail, fraud connected to casting votes, if any existed, was a very small percentage of a small percentage of the total. Today, as most ballots are cast by mail, that math scales and the vulnerabilities that were once too small to matter could now operate at a scale where they can determine outcomes, and the same architecture that made them clunky even at small scale makes them equally unprovable at large scale. Secretary of State Shirley Weber, asked before the June primary whether Californians would know the results of the governor's race on election night, said simply: "Probably not." Her defense of the system is that accuracy matters more than speed, and she is not wrong. But consider what the 30-day window that it takes to count all the ballots actually reveals. In the year 2026, a robust, auditable system should be able to produce results on election night, or within hours, with 99 percent certainty. The fact that California cannot do this is not a sign of thoroughness. It is evidence of structural exposure to corruption. The 30 days exist because the system requires them, and the system requires them because there is no reliable way to know, on election night, whether the count is complete or even approximately complete. **The current system cannot guarantee that no ballot is cast after 8 p.m. on Election Day.** It was intended to be that way, but there is no mechanism that actually enforces it. You cannot prove a ballot was **cast** late. Ballots could theoretically be withheld until the direction of a race becomes clear, or introduced after the fact, and the system's architecture makes either scenario impossible to rule out, let alone prosecute. Did officials wait to see whether a given race needed more votes to go one way or another before reporting results? The system offers no answer because it was not built to provide one. ## **Ballot Harvesting: A Feature With No Chain of Custody** California's ballot harvesting law, [AB 1921](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F201520160ab1921?ref=ivn.us), [legalized the collection of completed ballots by third-party individuals](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZh4oGhRg7Z/?ref=ivn.us). It included a provision prohibiting payment per ballot, which reads as a good-government safeguard. In practice, it functioned as something more specific: it removed the most natural mechanism by which Republicans might have built a comparable operation, since the most practical way to hire independent people to do that kind of work is on a per-ballot basis. Democrats, with union infrastructure and a paid organizing apparatus, have [a ready-made harvesting army](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/) that didn't need to be compensated per ballot because it was already being paid to organize. > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZh4oGhRg7Z/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) The combination of same-day registration and ballot harvesting complicates the issue. A harvester can register a voter and collect that voter's ballot in the same visit. *If the voter cannot sign their name,* [*California law allows an X*](https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/regulations/current-regulations/elections/petition-processing-signature-verification-ballot-processing-and-ballot-counting?ref=ivn.us)*.* There is no requirement that anyone other than the harvester be present to document what happens next. Once a harvested ballot enters the US mail, it is a black hole. There is no photograph of the handoff, no trained officer at the receiving end, no tracking that establishes what actually happened to it, [only a postmark somewhere before a deadline](https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/padilla-merkley-lead-senate-colleagues-in-pushing-trump-administration-to-reverse-usps-postmark-policy-undermining-vote-by-mail/?ref=ivn.us). If Federal Express can track a package from origin to doorstep, it is worth asking why California has no comparable standard for a ballot that determines who holds public office. The accumulated logic of reforms that each made individual sense has left California with a system in which fraud is not just hard to catch but structurally impossible to prove. The good news is that the system is not unfixable. Should every transfer of a ballot require documentation, a photograph, and a named and accountable individual? Should harvesters returning ballots in large numbers be identified and registered with election officials? Should harvested ballots be required to bypass the US mail entirely and go directly to designated election officers trained to receive them by Election Day? Should the window of 28 days beforehand for receiving mailed ballots move closer to Election Day? Should voter ID be designed to function as a floor of verification rather than a barrier to participation? Should Election Day be a national or state paid holiday, so that in-person voting is a genuine option for all of California’s citizens? Any one of these ideas would make the system harder to abuse and easier to defend. Together, they would answer the question California's current system cannot: not whether fraud is happening, but whether it would be possible to know. Democrats control the legislature and every statewide office. Only 25 percent of Californians indicate their party preference for Republicans. The Democrats have no reason to fear making changes to ensure that the system is accountable, auditable, and above all suspicion. Any system that takes days or even weeks to count is not sustainable. ### NYC Independents Turn Up the Heat on a System Built to Ignore Them URL: https://ivn.us/nyc-independents-turn-up-the-heat-on-a-system-built-to-ignore-them/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:47:25.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* Independent voters in New York City [are continuing to show up in numbers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNbf%5FGFHEi8&ref=ivn.us) that the political establishment can’t easily dismiss. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/new-york-city-independent-voters.png) At the first hearing this week of the latest New York City Charter Revision Commission, [more than a dozen independent voters packed the room](https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2026/06/talk-open-primaries-dominates-first-coge-hearing/414079/?ref=ivn.us) to demand open primaries, setting the tone for what has become a consistent theme across multiple commissions. And they didn’t stop coming for additional hearings this week with the same demand: Let Us Vote! The scale of that exclusion is now impossible to ignore. 1.2 million independent voters in New York City are shut out of primary elections, and in a very blue city like NYC, the primaries are the ONLY elections that matter. As Open Primaries supporter Jeff Aron testified: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Jeff-Aron-Quote.png) This surge is not new- it’s an escalation. After Open Primaries organized hundreds of independents to testify at last year’s Charter Revision Commission, they launched a historic review of the city’s elections. Their [final report](https://www.nyc.gov/assets/charter/downloads/pdf/2025/7-21-2025-charter-revision-commission-adopted-final-report-digital.pdf?ref=ivn.us) included extensive sections on the need to move to a system of open primaries. It’s not clear yet whether the current commission will respond but independents in NYC are putting their foot on the gas and pressure is building. Will we break through this year? Stay tuned…and get involved! Email OP National Organizing Director Cathy Stewart - [cstewart@openprimaries.org](mailto:cstewart@openprimaries.org). ## **What We're Talking About** ## Maine’s Primary Just Showed What Happens When Independents Are Finally Unleashed This week’s primary in Maine revealed what American politics looks like when independents are finally treated like full participants instead of afterthoughts. For a decade, Open Primaries and allies pushed the Maine Legislature to confront a simple reality: independents now make up roughly 36% of the electorate, yet for years they’ve been shut out of the election that effectively decides who governs the state. That mismatch has always been the quiet fault line in Maine politics. But this year, the pressure finally met the moment. In 2024, the state’s first open primary, independent participation hovered around 15%. This cycle, early indications suggest it nearly doubled - a surge that didn’t just change turnout numbers, it changed the electricity of the election itself. Independents didn’t sit on the sidelines; they moved into the center of the closest and most consequential races, [becoming the difference-makers in multiple tight contests where margins mattered most.](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=jyz4Yak3akbSNJHbOW1cHSOFQgbnbvwylWrKJqEmaZRM6NX2V2CJmOvD1Kb-jn5i2yZWK2GhQ7iSB3NCFh8UF0PfAuhYTZW%5FKLXWamPGzH2bW%5FemNx1D5VH5R5r0WMOTybyEde6ZMwQMgEtAmsMZcn7h6un8OLB5m5%5F4EERudxo&e=f3c596d8a79dc173b9acafbc1e4db5f3&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F114&n=5) And the impact started long before voters even showed up. The mere presence of a fully engaged independent electorate reshaped the entire field. Candidates had to broaden their coalitions. More diverse slates became competitive. Outsiders and reform-minded contenders suddenly had a real path. The parties, for the first time in years, had to compete for voters they could no longer take for granted. We’ll be bringing you more takeaways from Maine’s primary this year. In the meantime, I broke down the impact on ABC news. Then read our report: [***What It Took To Bring Open Primaries To Maine.***](https://openprimaries.nationbuilder.com/r?u=hWsVgWqh%5FB1E0HNTi3XKpuaccLSOcyBbvECVSInnDyDQ38v4acpwy7sbxgFGqYqIxoK53JGNZsg10cx%5FQktpyCbXSNf0zpSqaG1dFkQOrs70ih6pgaz8hisJ6ylkJJu2n9tSObv79DU69ZO8jewAAyDfL8Mq6dErh19WoUXyToyX3%5FbHjFjld7eNWZtWgE63&e=f3c596d8a79dc173b9acafbc1e4db5f3&utm%5Fsource=openprimaries&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=primarybuzz%5F114&n=7) ## **A Call to Action – Independent Conversations EVERYWHERE** ## A message from Cathy Stewart, National Organizing Director Earlier this week, more than 2 dozen NYC independents gathered on ZOOM for a conversation about the state of play in the NYC open primaries movement. I had the pleasure of hosting the call and interviewing Open Primaries Senior VP, Jeremy Gruber. We talked about the challenges 1.2 million NYC independents face, and the growing pressure for reform. We explored the pathways that are being pursued and evaluated from the Charter Revision Commission process, to legislation, and possible litigation. But the **MOST important direction** to emerge in the call – and the seemingly simplest – came from Jeremy Gruber when he said: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/jeremy-gruber-quote.png) This was one of those **aha moments** – and a reminder about where change happens! It happens from the bottom up, from the American people. There is nothing more important right now than all of us — in every state — talking and sharing what it feels like to be treated like a second class citizen. That is how we win reform. By asking for help from our friends, neighbors, family, and strangers. Every poll shows widespread support among the American people for open primaries, but it is not an issue people *care* about. But if they hear from us about the lived experience of being denied a fundamental right to vote, suddenly the issue is not abstract, it’s real and impacting people they know! I want to invite everyone reading this to join me in a challenge. Talk to some folks this week that you have never spoken with before about the experience of being an independent! Folks you see in your day to day life. Shoot me an email and let me know how it goes at [cstewart@openprimaries.org](mailto:cstewart@openprimaries.org). **FYI-Check out this great new video of what NJ independents have to say about closed primaries:** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/power-hour-monday.png)](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/La55Ts5cRN-7yIOVOJySwA?ref=ivn.us#/registration) ## **What We're Reading** ## If the Colorado GOP Closes Its Primary, Taxpayers Should Close Their Wallets Colorado’s primary system is now sitting on a political fault line: [a majority of the electorate is independent](https://www.denverpost.com/2026/06/08/primary-ballots-mailed-out-unaffiliated-voters-majority/?ref=ivn.us) and the old assumptions about who primaries are “for” are collapsing in real time. In 2016, Colorado voters adopted an open primary. Since then, independent voter registration has skyrocketed and reshaped the state’s political landscape. Now the Colorado GOP has gone to court to try and force the primaries closed again. [In a new editorial](https://thefulcrum.us/elections/colorado-gop-closed-primary-taxpayer-funding?ref=ivn.us), I place the debate squarely at the intersection of constitutional law and democratic legitimacy. Courts have long held that parties have a First Amendment right to define their own membership and nomination rules. But, he argues, that right does not extend to a guarantee of public subsidy. I write: > “\[T\]hose decisions establish a narrower principle: the state may not interfere with a party’s internal choices. They do not hold-and no court has held-that political parties have a constitutional entitlement to taxpayer-funded administration of their nomination processes.” The question Colorado is forcing into the open is no longer whether independents matter. It’s whether publicly financed democracy can still be squared with privately controlled gatekeeping at its center. ## **In Case You Missed It** ## Congress Has a Primary Election Problem As competitive congressional districts disappear, primary elections are increasingly deciding who serves in Congress. And in much of the country, those elections are controlled by partisan voters, party insiders, and ideological activists. **A** [**major new NPR report**](https://www.npr.org/2026/05/30/nx-s1-5839201/party-primaries-polarized-congress?ref=ivn.us) spotlights what Open Primaries and reform advocates have warned for years: closed primaries and partisan gerrymandering are creating a system that punishes independent thinking and rewards ideological conformity. Current and former elected officials from across the political spectrum are sounding the alarm. From Pennsylvania Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick to Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski and Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, lawmakers are increasingly acknowledging that closed primary systems make it harder to compromise, govern, and represent all constituents. **As Open Primaries President John Opdycke told NPR**, the parties have spent years gerrymandering districts into non-competitive territory. Now, many are turning their attention to closing primaries and further restricting voter participation. The result? More polarization, fewer competitive elections, and millions of independent voters shut out of publicly funded elections. The good news is that the debate is finally moving into the mainstream. What was once considered a fringe reform issue is now being discussed as a central challenge facing American democracy-and a growing number of leaders are recognizing that opening our primaries is essential to fixing it. ## **Upcoming Events** ### **Virtual Town Hall: Ballot Access in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona** Ballot access laws shape who can run for office and how voters are represented—but the rules vary dramatically from state to state. On **Thursday, June 18 from 5:30–6:30 PM ET** the Forward Party will host a virtual town hall exploring ballot access in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. OP SVP Jeremy Gruber and Oliver Hall (Center for Competitive Democracy) will lead a discussion on the barriers facing independent and non-major party candidates, opportunities for reform, and ways citizens can get involved. This is a great opportunity to learn how ballot access impacts our democracy and what we can do to strengthen participation and representation. **Join the Conversation!** **Featured Guests** Jeremy Gruber, Open Primaries Oliver Hall, Center for Competitive Democracy **Moderator** Sarah Lenti **Video Call:** [https://meet.google.com/avz-bdxm-xam ](https://meet.google.com/avz-bdxm-xam%C2%A0?ref=ivn.us) **Dial-In:** +1 413-489-2831 **PIN:** 422 297 274# ### Trump Says Fraud. Here's What ACTUALLY Happened in California URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/trump-says-fraud-heres-what-actually-happened-in-california/ Last updated: 2026-06-11T19:59:58.000Z This week, Chad, Shawn, and Cara break down the five-day vote count that knocked Spencer Pratt out of the LA mayoral runoff - and why "fraud" is the wrong story. Cara walks through her viral article on Tom Steyer's $216 million spend, the DSA/progressive turnout machine, and how legal ballot harvesting in high-density neighborhoods delivered the late surge for Nithya Raman. [It Wasn’t Fraud. It’s Steyer $$$$.The conspiracy theory is that California cheated. The reality is that Top Two forced Democrats to fight each other in public.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-a1ca827b-cda1-4dd4-bb4a-c9c3d6cdc232.jpg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/tom-steyer-california-primary-turnout-42b94566-a142-4d9f-a6af-7796d52260a0.jpg)](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/) Then the crew zooms out to the California governor's race, the bad-faith attacks on top-two primaries, and the record independent (NPP) turnout nobody's covering. Plus: [Maine's remarkably civil ranked-choice governor's primary](https://ivn.us/maines-best-political-story-has-nothing-to-do-with-graham-platners-sexting/), a fight over slow vote counts that even the New York Times is picking, and [a court challenge that could revive open primaries in Oklahoma](https://ivn.us/oklahoma-rejected-nearly-58-000-signatures-for-open-primaries-now-voters-want-answers/). **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ## Episode Highlights In this episode of **Independent Voter Podcast**, Chad, Shawn, and Cara break down the **2026 Los Angeles mayoral race** and the explosive controversy surrounding **ballot harvesting** in California. Progressive-aligned organizations — including the **Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)**, **Our Revolution**, and **SEIU** — supercharged by **billionaire Tom Steyer's $216 million campaign spend**, deployed massive **get-out-the-vote ground operations** in high-density LA neighborhoods that ultimately helped **Nithya Raman overtake Spencer Pratt** to advance to the general election. The hosts clarify that while **Trump's election fraud claims** and **election integrity** concerns are driving the national conversation, the real story isn't fraud — it's a perfectly legal, **dark money-adjacent nonprofit turnout machine** that Republicans simply can't compete with in deep-blue urban areas. The discussion pivots to the **California nonpartisan top-two primary** system and its impact on **voter participation** and **independent voter rights**. The crew defends the **top-two primary model** against critics who mischaracterize its purpose, stressing that the system exists to give all voters — including California's **No Party Preference (NPP) voters**, now approaching **25% turnout** — an equal voice regardless of party affiliation. The episode also spotlights two emerging **election reform** battlegrounds: **Maine's ranked-choice voting (RCV)** governor's race and **Oklahoma's fight for open primaries**. In Maine, RCV produced a rare positive-campaigning, nearly four-way split among Democratic gubernatorial candidates, showcasing how **ranked-choice voting** changes candidate behavior and voter empowerment. Meanwhile in Oklahoma, reformers are battling in the **state Supreme Court** over 58,000 disqualified signatures for **State Question 836**, a **nonpartisan primary ballot initiative** that would open primaries to **independent voters** currently locked out of the system. Chad, Cara, and Shawn also weigh in on California's **mail-in ballot receipt deadlines** and the ongoing national debate over **election night results**, **ballot curing**, and **election certification timelines** in the context of growing **voter distrust**. ### Maine Let Independents In — Then Made Candidates Earn a Majority URL: https://ivn.us/maine-let-independents-in-then-made-candidates-earn-a-majority/ Last updated: 2026-06-11T20:57:07.000Z When Maine voters went to the polls Tuesday, they did more than select nominees for the Republican and Democratic Parties. They participated in one of the most important election reform tests in the country. The media focused on the Graham Platner scandals, the November matchups, and what it all means for the balance of power in Washington. What got less attention was what happened when two voter-centered reforms operate at the same time: Semi-open primaries and ranked choice voting. One reform opens the gate. The other gives voters more power to express their candidate preferences. For Maine, ranked choice voting is the older of the two election changes. Voters approved its use in 2016 and then again in 2018 after the legislature set it up for repeal. Since implementation, the state has experienced few issues. It is also popular with voters. A SurveyUSA poll [released by FairVote](https://fairvote.org/press/maine-primary-poll-2026/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) ahead of June 9 found that 75% of likely Maine primary voters rank at least two candidates in crowded gubernatorial fields. Additionally, 84% said ranking candidates was easy and 70% supported the ability to rank. The Maine Legislature enacted a semi-open partisan primary system in 2022 under LD 231\. It was first used in the 2024 presidential election cycle. Under this election model, independent voters (called “unenrolled” in Maine) can participate in a taxpayer-funded party primary without joining that party. They may choose one party’s ballot and remain independent of party registration. Registered party members have to vote in their respective party’s primary. This sets the system apart from an open partisan system like in Texas, where voters do not register by party and can pick either party’s ballot. Approximately 334,000 voters are registered independents, representing about 35% of the registered electorate. While their choices are limited to a single party's ballot, they still have an opportunity they didn't have under closed primaries. ## **Maine Saw an Explosion in Turnout In the 2026 Primaries** Primary elections are a critical stage of the taxpayer-funded elections process. In most cases, it ultimately determines who will win the election since most contests since they are safe for one of the two major parties. These races have a tremendous impact on representation, and in 2026 can even shift the balance of power in Washington. This is why there has been so much attention on the Senate race and Democratic nominee Graham Platner’s scandals. But a bigger story is that [222,600 votes were cast in the Democratic US Senate primary alone](https://nypost.com/2026/06/10/us-news/graham-platner-drew-astonishing-turnout-in-primary-despite-scandals/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). That is almost a quarter of the total electorate in a single party’s primary and 37% higher than 2020—a presidential election year. Incumbent US Sen. Susan Collins was the de facto winner on the GOP side since she ran uncontested. > Yesterday, Maine voters went to the polls for ranked choice primaries for Gov & Congress. > > Candidates embraced ranked choice voting like never before, & overall voter turnout rose at least 39% vs. 2018. > > With no candidate winning a majority of votes in many primaries, RCV is key. [pic.twitter.com/GF7f54mEl8](https://t.co/GF7f54mEl8?ref=ivn.us) > > — FairVote (@fairvote) [June 10, 2026](https://x.com/fairvote/status/2064820927162876165?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) There are multiple variables that factor into turnout, including the attention given to a race (Platner was all over the news), voters’ incentive to participate (a high-profile contest with national implications), and if voters feel like their vote will actually matter. While it is not yet clear how many of these voters were independent, there are some early indicators where most independents cast their ballots. The Portland Press Herald reported that independent voters chose the Democratic ballot [by roughly a 3-to-1 margin](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/06/10/maine-democrats-buoyed-by-voter-turnout-a-troubling-sign-for-republicans/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). Regardless of which party ballot they chose, the independent voters who participated were able to do so without party permission or having to change their voter registration just to have a meaningful say in an election. ## **Ranked Choice Voting Changed the Incentives** Open primaries widen participation. Ranked choice voting changes how candidates compete for that broader electorate. In a traditional plurality primary, a candidate can win a crowded race with a small slice of the vote. This rewards factional politics and campaigns built around turning out the most intense bloc of supporters. Ranked choice voting asks a different question: Who can build a broader coalition of support, especially in a crowded candidate field? Under ranked choice voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, etc.). If no candidate gets a majority of first-choice selections, the last place candidate is eliminated, and their voters’ next choices are factored into the tabulation. It is a way to conduct instant runoffs (hence why this RCV system is also called instant runoff voting) without the added cost of another election and subsequent runoff rounds are held until a single candidate has a majority. This makes backup choices politically meaningful. And in 2026, these backup choices will matter in several major races, including both gubernatorial primaries and the Democratic primary in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. Because all of these races will be determined by how voters ranked the candidates. The 2026 primary provided evidence to what ranked choice advocates have argued about the reform for years: It fundamentally shifts campaign incentivizes. Instead of appealing to small bloc of voters, campaigns reach out to voters to be their second or third choice as well. Candidates are also incentivized to build coalitions with other campaigns and create a more civil campaign environment. As IVN author Cara Brown McCormick [pointed out](https://ivn.us/maines-best-political-story-has-nothing-to-do-with-graham-platners-sexting/), this kind of coalition was formed in the Democratic gubernatorial primary between Hannah Pingree, Shenna Bellows, and Troy Jackson. Their message to supporters: Be sure to rank me first, but if I am your preferred choice, rank these other candidates as well. Ranked choice advocates assert that candidates cannot simply run to one faction and hope the field splinters around them. They have a reason to appeal to voters who may not rank them first but might rank them second or third. In a polarized political system, that is a major shift. ## **The Reform Combo Party Bosses Fear Most** The combination of semi-open primaries and ranked choice voting attack different parts of the same problem. Closed primaries restrict who gets to participate. Plurality elections restrict how much voters can say. The old rules helped party insiders dominate the nomination process. They narrowed the electorate and limited voters’ ability to express themselves at the ballot. The new rules steer Maine in the opposite direction. However, it is important to note that the system is not fully open. Voters registered with a party are still tied to their party’s primary unless they change their registration ahead of time. Independents can choose one party ballot, but they are limited to the candidates of that party. There is a difference between a party-nominated process and a voter-nominated process in which all voters and candidates participate on the same primary ballot, and every voter has the opportunity to choose any candidate they want to advance to the general election. This type of primary system exists in 3 states: Alaska, California, and Washington. But only Alaska—as of now—combines the accessibility and inclusiveness of nonpartisan open primaries with ranked choice voting in the general election. Alaska’s Top Four nonpartisan system does not restrict voter choice based on how a voter registers. Every voter gets the same primary ballot, and they can pick any candidate they want. The top four vote-getters move on to the general election where ranked choice ballots are used to determine which candidate is preferred by a majority. In Maine, the parties still retain significant control because ultimately it remains a party-nominated system. But under a nonpartisan, more choice voting method, it is voters who have the most control. It is why it is called a voter-nominated system. And the more voters take control of elections away from parties and put it into their own hands, the more party bosses hate it. It is why Republican-aligned interest groups will not give up their efforts to repeal Top Four in Alaska. It is why Democratic leaders in Washington, DC, will fund ranked choice voting, but not open primaries—even though both reforms were approved by 73% of voters. [DC Political Machine Refuses to Implement Landmark Voting Rights InitiativeThe DC City Council has refused to fully fund and implement Initiative 83, the semi-open primary and ranked choice voting measure that was approved by 73% of voters in 2024.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-0dd1f822-ee19-4d0b-b131-149acbc84dce.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/dc-independent-voters-locked-out-2026-primaries-672e961a-49e3-4285-8be5-9bb03dc1fee1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/we-cant-afford-it-is-never-an-acceptable-excuse-to-deny-independents-a-vote-2026-05-11/) It is why party insiders on both sides are going after Top Two in California, when a [coalition of reformers has proposed expanding the nonpartisan primary model](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) to advance four or five candidates, just like in Alaska. The further elections stray from party control, the more party bosses hate it. Maine may not have a nonpartisan election model, but it cracked open the door to independent voters and more choice in a way that matters. The path to better elections is a process that sometimes requires taking one step at a time. There is no single fix for America’s broken primary system. Open primaries address access. Ranked choice voting addresses choice. Each reform solves a different problem. But together, they create a more voter-centered nomination process. That does not mean every voter will participate. It does not mean every race will produce the outcome reformers prefer. And it does not mean parties will suddenly stop trying to protect their own power. It does mean more voters have a voice and more of that voice can be heard. And that is the entire point of more choice voting reform. ### Presidential Primaries Are Built to Waste Votes. Ranked Choice Voting Could Change That. URL: https://ivn.us/presidential-primaries-are-built-to-waste-votes-ranked-choice-voting-could-change-that/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:47:12.000Z *Editor's Note: The following op-ed* [*originally published*](https://expanddem.substack.com/p/the-expand-democracy-3-cumulative?ref=ivn.us) *on the Expand Democracy Substack and was republished as a stand-alone piece by request and with permission from the author.* Every four years, Americans experience a massive lesson in the power of electoral rules: the presidential nomination process. The schedule of contests means early primary states may get literally 100 times more attention from candidates than states voting later. A timely early win can create unstoppable momentum when it’s soon before “Super Tuesday.” as February primary winners like Joe Biden in 2020 and Donald Trump in 2016 have shown. Republicans allowing a mix of primaries where delegates are allocated proportionally and by winner-take-all often leads candidates to chase “all or nothing” outcomes in the winner-take-all states. Yet such rules can be changed relatively easily by states and the parties themselves. I’ll zero in on a change that I believe is an inevitable norm: a ranked choice voting ballot (as opposed to “ranked choice voting” in itself) to handle increasingly crowded fields by allowing a voter’s second or lower choice to count if their first choice isn't viable - as persuasively called for by [Congressman Jamie Raskin just last week in The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/28/ranked-choice-voting-jamie-raskin?ref=ivn.us). Both parties have those who resist change, to be sure, but here’s why it makes so much sense for both Democrats and Republicans. - For both parties, using an RCV ballot has “centripetal” impacts on rewarding candidates able to build consensus support across their party, as both parties traditionally shaped at in-person conventions and as Democrats carried over to caucuses where voters “realign” to viable second choices after indicating their initial preference. - Both parties have primary calendars where a string of contests happen soon after early primaries result in many candidates dropping out. Nearly all states also now have generous early voting rules – ones that increase turnout by expanding voting access, but that undercut voting rights when combined with candidate withdrawals – leading to some [three million Democrats in 2020](https://fairvote.org/the-wasted-votes-wheel/?ref=ivn.us) voting for candidates who had withdrawn by the time those votes were counted. - Democrats have a strict requirement for proportional representation across all states, with statewide delegates allocated to any candidate earning at least 15%. That makes winner-take-all forms of RCV a non-starter with Democrats. But 15% is a high number, and[ millions of votes](https://fairvote.org/the-wasted-votes-wheel/?ref=ivn.us) are “ineffective” because they are below the threshold. Embracing a caucus-like ”realignment” rule with ranked ballots would allow those voters to get a chance to have their vote count. That is, you would count all first choices, then, in the realignment round, move all ballots cast for nonviable candidates below the 15% threshold to their next-ranked viable choice. In 2020, about [90% of such voters ](https://fairvote.org/report/ranked%5Fchoice%5Fvoting%5Fin%5F2020%5Fpresidential%5Fprimary%5Felections/?ref=ivn.us)in the four states providing data about how voters used their ranked ballots had their ballots count toward viable candidates. Translated across all states, that would be a huge win for voting rights and likely result in more votes making a difference than any other reform. - Republicans drive toward faster selection of nominees by allowing states to hold winner-take–all contests after their early contests are decided based on proportional representation. But when those winner-take-all contests have more than two candidates, you get winners with far less than half the vote - a dynamic that was clearly unrepresentative of voter opinion in 2016, as[ FairVote demonstrated conclusively.](https://fairvote.org/simulating%5Finstant%5Frunoff%5Fflips%5Fmost%5Fdonald%5Ftrump%5Fprimary%5Fvictories/?ref=ivn.us) Republicans wanting a more reliably representative outcome would benefit from RCV. ## **How RCV might become the norm in presidential primaries** Widespread use of ranked choice voting for these reasons will depend above all on faster, cheaper, and better election administration of RCV. Most cities have met that goal with transparency, audits, election-night tallies, and voters embracing RCV ballots. Moving those practices statewide can take more investment, but that journey is well underway. Once RCV is as quick and easy to use as non-RCV elections, it will become a relatively non-controversial choice for states and parties. As to viability, a lot of Republicans are pouting about RCV because Democrats won hotly contested congressional elections with RCV in Alaska in 2022 and Maine in 2018\. But blanket opposition is irrational, and Republicans’ experience with RCV in nomination contests has been uniformly positive, as in the[ Republican Party of Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial nomination](https://fairvote.org/va%5Fgop%5Fresults/?ref=ivn.us). Over time, I expect Republicans will embrace the practical strength of RCV, including in presidential primaries. For Democrats, this is a key cycle for their commitment to voting rights. FairVote’s polling shows a remarkably[ broad and high level of support for RCV among Democratic voters](https://fairvote.org/press/kamala-harris-gavin-newsom-ranked-choice-poll/?ref=ivn.us), including a margin of greater than 10 to one for its voters under 50\. Democrats also have a[ great lesson from 2020 showing that RCV ballots work](https://fairvote.org/report/ranked%5Fchoice%5Fvoting%5Fin%5F2020%5Fpresidential%5Fprimary%5Felections/?ref=ivn.us), which is why many of their state party leaders want to use RCV ballots in 2028\. With numerous state parties that run their own contests wanting to do vote-by-mail with RCV, national Democrats would do well to get out of their way and simply spell out clearly the acceptable rules for using RCV ballots to make more votes count. I've drawn on my coauthored 2021 academic article[ Lessons from the Use of Ranked Choice Voting in American Presidential Primaries](https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/3960/3960?ref=ivn.us) in Politics and Governance for Cogitatio Press that you might want to read in full. Here’s the abstract: *Grounded in experience in 2020, both major political parties have reasons to expand use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in their 2024 presidential primaries. RCV may offer a ‘win-win’ solution benefiting both the parties and their voters. RCV would build on both the pre-1968 American tradition of parties determining a coalitional presidential nominee through multiple ballots at party conventions and the modern practice of allowing voters to effectively choose their nominees in primaries. Increasingly used by parties around the world in picking their leaders, RCV may allow voters to crowd-source a coalitional nominee.* *Most published research about RCV focuses on state and local elections. In contrast, this article analyzes the impact on voters, candidates, and parties from five state Democratic parties using RCV in party-run presidential nomination contests in 2020\. First, it uses polls and results to examine how more widespread use of RCV might have affected the trajectory of contests for the 2016 Republican nomination. Second, it contrasts how more than three million voters in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries backed withdrawn candidates with the low rate of such wasted votes for withdrawn candidates in the states with RCV ballots. Finally, it concludes with an examination of how RCV might best interact with the parties’ current rules and potential changes to those rules.* ### Buffalo City Hall Tried to Kill Pro-Voter Reform Before Voters Could Weigh In URL: https://ivn.us/buffalo-city-hall-tried-to-kill-pro-voter-reform-before-voters-could-weigh-in/ Last updated: 2026-06-12T18:35:04.000Z **BUFFALO, N.Y.** \- The deputy mayor of Buffalo went into a Charter Revision Commission meeting on Monday, June 8, with every intent to kill proposed reforms that would advance open primaries, ranked choice voting, and expanded ballot access. However, he got pushback from commissioners. According to Unite NY, Deputy Mayor Maria Whyte attempted to prevent resolutions tied to the reforms from moving forward. Commission members resisted the effort and voted to advance all three proposals for charter language drafting. This does not mean Buffalo will adopt the reforms. It is even possible they may still not appear on the November ballot. However, this is a critical step toward the ballot so that voters can decide for themselves. “This should not be a decision made by a small number of City Hall insiders,” said Anthony Thomas, executive director of Unite NY. > *“Buffalo residents have asked for the opportunity to consider these reforms. The mayor's office should let the Charter Revision Commission advance these proposals and give Buffalo voters the chance to decide.”* The decision to keep the reform proposals alive—for now—comes not long after legal analysis from attorneys at Holtzman Vogel submitted their analysis of what ranked choice voting implementation would mean to the charter revision commission. Their findings addressed two main questions: Does a ranked choice voting proposal trigger New York Voting Rights Act preclearance requirements? And, can Erie County feasibly make the transition to ranked choice elections? The analysis came to two main conclusions: - Erie County is capable of implementing ranked choice voting, just like New York City implemented it back in 2021. - Preclearance would not be required for the charter revision commission to move forward with the proposal. "This analysis demonstrates that these reforms are practical, workable, and worthy of public consideration," said Thomas. "The Charter Revision Commission should put them on the ballot and allow Buffalo voters to have their say." There are 3 proposals that could go before voters. First, open primaries, which would allow independent voters to participate in taxpayer-funded primary elections, rather than barring them because they are not a member of a private political party. In heavily one-party cities, like Buffalo, primaries are often where the real contest happens. When large numbers of voters are locked out, they are excluded from the most consequential election. Second is expanded ballot access, which would lower the barriers candidates face just to get on the ballot. And third is ranked choice voting, which would allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference and guarantee a majority winner in large candidate fields. Supporters argue that it gives voters more expressive power, reduces the spoiler effect, and rewards candidates who can build broader support. Together, the reforms represent a challenge to the status quo of local elections — not by guaranteeing any particular outcome or advantage, but by giving voters more room to participate and more options on the ballot. The Charter Revision Commission has not made its final decision. The proposals still have to be drafted, reviewed, debated, and ultimately selected for the ballot before voters can decide their fate in November. But Monday’s vote showed that the reform discussion is not over. City Hall may want to slow it down. The commission, at least for now, is keeping it moving. ### No, It's Not Fraud. It is Steyer $$$$... URL: https://ivn.us/newsletter-6-10-2026/ Last updated: 2026-06-10T18:49:14.000Z The President spent the day after the election on Truth Social calling California a "third-world nation" because Los Angeles takes more than one night to count its ballots. Slow counting isn't fraud. And the actual story has nothing to do with rigged machines. [It's Tom Steyer's $$$$](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/). Steyer dropped more than $200 million of his own money into the California governor's race that was reportable. He also spent unknown amounts funding the turnout operations of organizations his progressive positioning spoke to, including the Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution, the Working Families Party, and labor groups that endorsed his "outsider" candidacy. All perfectly legal. That's why Karen Bass woke up the morning after election day expecting Spencer Pratt in November and got Nithya Raman instead. CNN's Harry Enten said it plainly: "She wanted to face Pratt. She wanted nothing to do with Raman." The rules may be worth a debate. But there was no wholesale cheating. [There was a billionaire](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/). Elsewhere, IVN exposed several other stories the national narrative has missed, including: - [In Oklahoma, election officials rejected nearly 58,000 signatures](https://ivn.us/oklahoma-rejected-nearly-58-000-signatures-for-open-primaries-now-voters-want-answers/) from an open primaries petition. Voters are demanding answers. - [In Maine, the story everyone's ignoring isn't a candidate's sexting scandal](https://ivn.us/maines-best-political-story-has-nothing-to-do-with-graham-platners-sexting/). It's a quiet shift that could reshape how the state votes. - [In New Mexico, the tired myth that independent voters are too apathetic to show up just died](https://ivn.us/the-myth-of-independent-voter-apathy-dies-in-new-mexico/) a very public death. Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below. ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## It Wasn't Fraud. It's Steyer $$$$. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/tom-steyer-california-primary-turnout.webp)](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/) The conspiracy theory is that California cheated. The reality is that Top Two forced Democrats to fight each other in public. The President called it fraud. CNN's Harry Enten called that "the dumbest conspiracy theory I have ever heard." The truth is far simpler - and far more revealing. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was supposed to coast into a second term against a Republican in a city where Democrats outnumber the GOP three to one. Instead, she's facing fellow Democrat Nithya Raman in November, and **the reason isn't a rigged count**. It's Tom Steyer's money and a primary system that forced Democrats to fight each other in public. California's Top Two primary doesn't protect incumbents or guarantee partisan outcomes - it makes every candidate earn it. That's exactly why party insiders hate it, and **exactly why it works**. [**Read the full breakdown on IVN →**](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/) [READ NOW](https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [Maine's Best Political Story Has Nothing to Do with Graham Platner's Sexting ](https://ivn.us/maines-best-political-story-has-nothing-to-do-with-graham-platners-sexting/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Maine ranked choice voting candidates](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/hannah-pingree-Shenna-Bellows-Troy-Jackson.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/maines-best-political-story-has-nothing-to-do-with-graham-platners-sexting/) [The Last Trusted Americans: Veterans Lead the Way in Independent Campaigns ](https://ivn.us/the-last-trusted-americans-veterans-lead-the-way-in-independent-campaigns/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Veterans lead the way in independent campaigns](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/independent-veterans-lead-the-way-candidates-reform.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-last-trusted-americans-veterans-lead-the-way-in-independent-campaigns/) [Oklahoma Rejected Nearly 58,000 Signatures for Open Primaries. Now Voters Want Answers. ](https://ivn.us/oklahoma-rejected-nearly-58-000-signatures-for-open-primaries-now-voters-want-answers/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Oklahoma open primaries](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/oklahoma-open-primaries-3.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/oklahoma-rejected-nearly-58-000-signatures-for-open-primaries-now-voters-want-answers/) [Mississippi Independent Ty Pinkins Wants to Break Big Money's Grip on the Senate ](https://ivn.us/ty-pinkins-makes-the-case-for-sending-an-independent-caucus-to-the-senate/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Ty Pinkins](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/ty-pinkins.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/ty-pinkins-makes-the-case-for-sending-an-independent-caucus-to-the-senate/) [New Mexico's First Semi-Open Primary Exposed the Cost of Locking Voters Out ](https://ivn.us/new-mexicos-first-semi-open-primary-exposed-the-cost-of-locking-voters-out/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![New Mexico first open primary](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/new-mexico-holds-first-open-primary.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/new-mexicos-first-semi-open-primary-exposed-the-cost-of-locking-voters-out/) [The Myth of Independent Voter Apathy Dies in New Mexico ](https://ivn.us/the-myth-of-independent-voter-apathy-dies-in-new-mexico/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![New Mexico independent voters](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/new-mexico-independent-voters.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-myth-of-independent-voter-apathy-dies-in-new-mexico/) [The Top Two Panic Wasn't Analysis. It Was Political Manipulation. ](https://ivn.us/the-top-two-panic-wasnt-analysis-it-was-political-manipulation/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/UELDiNlS_400x400.jpg) Open Primaries [ ![California voters June 2 primary](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/06/California-voters-June-2-primary.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-top-two-panic-wasnt-analysis-it-was-political-manipulation/) ### *POLL RESULTS ▶▶▶* ## We Were Right: Becerra Rides Latino Support to Win Primary [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/IVP-_-Independent-Voter-Survey-_-Latino-Primary-_-May-2026_CA-Gubernatorial-Race_Bar-chart.png)](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) The [Independent Voter Project poll](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) got it right. While other pollsters spun narratives that didn't hold up, we showed Xavier Becerra surging into a commanding lead well before the results confirmed it - making us **the first poll to call his rise** and the strength he'd carry with Latino voters, the fastest-growing bloc in the state. As Becerra heads toward a traditional R-vs-D general against Steve Hilton, the "two Republicans will advance" panic looks exactly like the manufactured fear we said it was. And on the question of open primaries themselves? Those same Latino voters made their position clear: **only 22%** want to go back to closed partisan primaries. [SEE POLL RESULTS](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) ### *NEW EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Fresh off the California gubernatorial primary, Chad, Cara, and Ethan break down why the "Top Two will produce two Republicans" narrative was a manufactured fear - and why it collapsed the moment voters actually voted, with Steve Hilton and Xavier Becerra heading toward a traditional R-vs-D general. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwwAJiFSQMk&ref=ivn.us) ### *GOING VIRAL ▶▶▶* ## Flashback: CA Independents Locked Out of Primaries Pre-Top-Two [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/PreTopTwo_Flashback_IG.png)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYNyK62iUll/?ref=ivn.us) Remember when California independents were "second class citizens"? Before 2010, political parties got to decide - election by election - whether to even let independents vote in their primaries. In heavily one-sided districts, that meant millions of NPP voters had no real say in who represented them. Our video showing news coverage of the effort to pass the Top-Two primary has racked up over a **million views** on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYNyK62iUll/?ref=ivn.us). [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYNyK62iUll/?ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/jungle-320x50.gif)](https://yourprimary.com/?ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### It Wasn't Fraud. It's Steyer $$$$. URL: https://ivn.us/it-wasnt-fraud-its-steyer/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:46:59.000Z **LOS ANGELES, Calif** *\-* [*Los Angeles* Mayor Karen Bass](https://mayor.lacity.gov/about-mayor-karen-bass?ref=ivn.us) had a dream. She would spend the fall of 2026 tying [Spencer Pratt](https://mayorpratt.com/?ref=ivn.us) to Donald Trump, winning a second term, and calling it a day. It would be less a campaign strategy than a victory lap because in a city where Republicans account for just [14.7% of registered voters](https://content.lavote.gov/docs/rrcc/documents/los-angeles8e8aadec-da43-47be-9c1f-0e199670807c.pdf?ref=ivn.us) and Democrats outnumber them by more than three to one, running against a Republican in Los Angeles does not really require a strategy, even up against a photogenic former reality television star [looking for his Hollywood ending](https://ktla.com/news/local-news/los-angeles-mayoral-race-latest-results-raman-pratt/?ref=ivn.us). > I still stand with Spencer. [pic.twitter.com/PUimRLIBOL](https://t.co/PUimRLIBOL?ref=ivn.us) > > — KalaniTheGreat (@KalaniTheGreat) [June 9, 2026](https://x.com/KalaniTheGreat/status/2064488705411477559?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Instead, Mayor Bass is heading into November against Nithya Raman, which was not the plan, and Tom Steyer is responsible, which was also not the plan. The president of the United States spent yesterday on Truth Social declaring California a third-world nation because Los Angeles takes more than one night to count its ballots, which was not anyone's plan but has become a recurring feature of American political life. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/data-src-image-87b3e036-2356-4a6d-813b-ac0973eac69f.png) California does count its ballots with the urgency of a relaxed DMV, but slowness is not fraud, a distinction the president has chosen not to observe. [Why Does It Take California So Long to Count Ballots?California has developed a reputation for taking as long as a month to fully count its ballots. The question many have is, why? Here is what voters need to know.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-ac830a79-c4ca-4fd2-9c50-49a042cf39e1.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-vote-count-june-2-primary-b5245b3d-d951-4bf8-8dd2-6552b3696526.jpg)](https://ivn.us/why-does-it-take-california-so-long-to-count-ballots/) CNN's chief data analyst, Harry Enten, was insulted by the president’s analysis. "This is the dumbest conspiracy theory I have ever heard," he said, "because the Democratic establishment and Karen Bass wanted Spencer Pratt in the runoff. They don't want any part of Nithya Raman." Enten had the polling to prove his point: Mayor Bass would have crushed Pratt by 18 points. Against Councilwoman Raman, she trails by four. ***"She wanted to face Pratt. She wanted nothing to do with Raman. That's why these conspiracy theories simply put make no sense, people,” Enten said.*** > NEW: CNN's Harry Enten fumes that people are accusing Democrats of fraud after Nithya Raman surged to 2nd place in the LA mayoral race, ahead of Spencer Pratt. > > Raman has surged with late ballots, while Karen Bass has bizarrely remained relatively flat. > > "This is the dumbest… [pic.twitter.com/su6daLg5VQ](https://t.co/su6daLg5VQ?ref=ivn.us) > > — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) [June 8, 2026](https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/2063999602056118333?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [Nobody cheated](https://calvoter.org/content/heres-what-you-need-know-about-ballot-harvesting-california-yes-its-legal?ref=ivn.us). We will come back to this several times, because it apparently bears repeating. To understand what actually happened, you first need to understand the beautiful simplicity of the California mainstream Democrat's preferred political reality. Natural demographics and Republican Party missteps have conspired for decades to hand Democrats an actual monopoly over California politics. Only 25% of California voters identify as Republican, well behind Democrats at 45% and actually trailing the 30% who have decided both parties are disasters and opted for neither. So it should come as no surprise that under Top Two, the Democrat-on-Democrat contests can be more competitive in November than Republican-on-Democrat contests in some races. Handicapped by a national party that, beyond policy mismatches, also denies non-partisan voters the right to participate in their presidential primary, Republican candidates running statewide in California start every general election with a mountain to climb that would give a Sherpa pause. Democrats have a very specific prayer they say before every nonpartisan primary. [Xavier Becerra](https://www.xavierbecerra2026.com/?ref=ivn.us) said it in the governor's race: *Please let me face* [*Steven Glenn Charles Hilton*](https://stevehiltonforgovernor.com/?ref=ivn.us)*, the Trump-endorsed Brit and former Fox News host who* [*held a rally*](https://www.local3news.com/regional-national/raw-ca-primary-election-steve-hilton-at-rally/video%5F63964ac8-a6a2-5206-ac1d-a3e9998a6790.html?ref=ivn.us) *in Huntington Beach where the crowd chanted "USA" as if California were a foreign country they were trying to liberate.* Becerra, a left-of-center, mainstream Democrat with 35 years in public service and the effect of a man who has sat through a great many difficult meetings, would be the first elected Hispanic governor of California, a state with more than 15 million Hispanic residents and the largest Hispanic population in the country. His prayers were answered. Becerra will probably beat Hilton this November by a margin so large it will not be worth staying up on election night. > Republican Steve Hilton breaks with Trump’s baseless claims of a “rigged” election in California: “We’ve been very vigilant… we’ve seen nothing that would give us cause to intervene.” [pic.twitter.com/oOWsH2UWCP](https://t.co/oOWsH2UWCP?ref=ivn.us) > > — Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) [June 9, 2026](https://x.com/OutFrontCNN/status/2064143540620570764?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The only potential speed bump was Steyer, who looked at the California governor's race and made a decision only a billionaire could make: he would [spend more than $200 million](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/billionaire-tom-steyers-ad-spending-breaks-records-in-california-governors-race?ref=ivn.us) of his own money on ads alone just to win it. Steyer seems to have really understood all the math; he probably just needed a little more time. Steyer’s strategy was to go in a completely different direction from the normal Democrats, and to plant his flag so far to the left that he occupied an entirely different zip code from the center of the party politically. Steyer tapped into that socialist lane by funding the far-left progressive infrastructure, sharing lists, financing liberal nonprofits, and supercharging get-out-the-vote operations with resources the socialists had never seen before. All of this while describing himself as "the one candidate who is pushing for real change on behalf of working people, against the corporate special interests that run this state." But here is the thing about the [DSA](https://www.dsausa.org/?ref=ivn.us) and [Working Families Party](https://workingfamilies.org/?ref=ivn.us) that the MAGA election fraud crowd does not understand, or maybe does not want to understand: the progressives do not need to cheat because they have something better than cheating. They have doors. And the more money they have, the more people they have, and the more doors they can visit. In the dense urban neighborhoods of Los Angeles, DSA and WFP canvassers engage in ballot harvesting, which is, again, [perfectly legal in California](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F201520160ab1921?ref=ivn.us) and involves organizing people to knock on doors, help voters complete their mail ballots, and collect them for delivery to the government for counting. The crucial detail, the one that explains everything about how Los Angeles Councilwoman Raman went from thousands of votes behind Pratt on election night to comfortably ahead of him five days later, is this: the canvassers only knock on doors they have pre-identified as friendly. ***No Republican ballots are being harvested in Los Angeles.*** Nobody working for the progressive infrastructure is knocking on those doors, which is why those votes came in at the normal pace. The progressive votes came in like waves, precinct by precinct, day after day, until Raman had washed Pratt completely out of the way, and even the President of the United States could do nothing about it except complain. > This is a DSA handbook on electoral harassment of voters. Frankly, everyone in LA should be concerned. [https://t.co/XEmLtbD9JL](https://t.co/XEmLtbD9JL?ref=ivn.us) > > — TraciParkforLA (@TraciParkforLA) [June 9, 2026](https://x.com/TraciParkforLA/status/2064200830589575423?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) These groups have always used slates to steer voter choices. So, a guy at the top of the ballot with incredibly high name recognition was also valuable to the slate, and is perhaps partly responsible for the rise of [Jane Kim](https://www.janekim.org/?ref=ivn.us), the leader of the California Working Families Party and Bernie Sanders's former California political director, who is advancing to the general election for state Insurance Commissioner, against a fellow Democrat. > Having [@berniesanders](https://x.com/BernieSanders?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) support from day one has been incredible. And we’re just getting started. [pic.twitter.com/J92J0zlkwa](https://t.co/J92J0zlkwa?ref=ivn.us) > > — Jane Kim 金貞妍 (@JaneKim) [June 8, 2026](https://x.com/JaneKim/status/2064116888905359381?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Four years ago, [Rick Caruso](https://caruso.com/about/rick-caruso/?ref=ivn.us) led Karen Bass by five points on election night and lost by five. That ten-point swing was all DSA and WFP turnout programs. Bass was the beneficiary that cycle, lifted by the same machine that is now working against her with great enthusiasm and no apparent guilt. Councilwoman Raman climbed from eight points down on election night to second place, not on the strength of her vision but on the strength of a billionaire's checkbook that was pointed at her neighborhoods for reasons that had nothing to do with her. A self-declared socialist is the accidental beneficiary of an uber capitalist's self-interest, the lucky winner who caught what fell, the political equivalent of standing in the right place when someone else's very expensive plan went sideways. > Folks, we're dealing with a fraction of a percentage point difference, there's still hundreds of thousands of votes outstanding, and LA officials have given us the next 3 weeks to count! Let's git-r-dun! > > — Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) [June 8, 2026](https://x.com/spencerpratt/status/2064033671753982019?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The progressive infrastructure that spends considerable energy loudly opposing billionaire influence in politics has, it turns out, a menu and a price list. [Our Revolution](https://ourrevolution.com/?ref=ivn.us), the Bernie Sanders-aligned PAC, endorsed Steyer in April. Its executive director conceded that endorsing a billionaire would have seemed "highly unlikely" a year ago before concluding that "the most energizing and ideologically aligned candidate just happens to be a billionaire." Just happens to be. Various other progressive groups endorsed Steyer with varying degrees of visible discomfort, warned darkly about the influence of the wealthy, and cashed the checks. Don’t worry, everyone found a way to believe they shared the same values. It is the [most expensive exercise](https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/03/politics/video/inside-politics-california-gov-primary-steyer-spending?ref=ivn.us) in motivated reasoning in recent California history, which is saying something because California has a great deal of both money and motivated reasoning. [All of this is legal](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F201520160ab1921?ref=ivn.us). The question of whether California's rules, including no ballot ID requirement and unrestricted third-party ballot collection, create conditions worth examining is a legitimate and separate conversation that California would very much prefer not to have. California's rules give a structural advantage to groups organized at the community level, and the DSA has spent years building exactly that kind of organization. > I posted this in March, warning LA that Raman is a sleeper candidate. > > I know her so well because her City Council District is neighbors with mine. She is very unpopular and I sit in Neighborhood Council meetings where she is regularly thrashed by residents. > > When she ran for… [pic.twitter.com/ON8KFzYzmI](https://t.co/ON8KFzYzmI?ref=ivn.us) > > — Elizabeth Barcohana (@E\_Barcohana) [June 8, 2026](https://x.com/E%5FBarcohana/status/2064013427027415461?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [How It Really Works: Voter ID Laws (California vs Federal Bill)Ask most Americans whether people should have to show ID before voting, and about 83% say yes, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-42112f5c-c947-4390-a2d8-50dc4dbfc22e.jpg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/HIRW-Voter-ID-Laws-2e966b01-face-4ddd-b59b-5b865fb0e132.png)](https://ivn.us/how-it-really-works-voter-id-laws-california-vs-federal-bill-2026-05-04/) This is also, not coincidentally, possibly why the head of the California Democratic Party, Rusty “[If you can’t win, get out of the race](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/03/california-democratic-party-chair-makes-unusual-plea-to-governor-hopefuls-if-you-cant-win-get-out-00808860?ref=ivn.us)” Hicks is quietly working to get rid of the top two primary system altogether. The establishment would much rather keep its internal arguments about socialism behind closed doors, settle it in closed primaries, and emerge united to defeat a Republican it can beat in its sleep. A top two system forces those differences about the economy into the open from June to November in front of everyone, which is sort of terrible for party unity but rather good for voters who would like to know what the people running for office actually believe. The establishment's position, essentially, is that democracy is fine, but perhaps there could be a little less of it. [California Voters Just Proved Why Party Bosses Hate Top TwoLeading up to the primary, party operatives used the scare tactic of a “Democrat lockout,” but not only did California voters prove this wrong, but they also revealed why nonpartisan open primaries work—voters make the decisions.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-a43be830-a7c5-4cc3-91d4-5528d81af973.jpg)Independent Voter NewsSusan von Seggern![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/xavier-becerra-california-governor-race-a0f9047e-b43e-4b8e-b988-38ac51e92cd1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-voters-just-proved-why-party-bosses-hate-top-two/) It’s possible that the DSA and Working Families Party are trying to run the same play inside the Democratic Party that Donald Trump ran inside the Republican Party, except that instead of [MAGA rallies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssG5dFk3uAE&ref=ivn.us), they use canvassers, and instead of [Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/?ref=ivn.us), they use clipboards. > When are Democrats going to learn that the DSA is attempting a hostile takeover of our party? Mayor Bass used up a lot of political capital getting Nithya reelected in 2024\. And how does Nithya repay the favor? By stabbing the mayor in the back. Wake up Dems! The DSA is a cancer. [pic.twitter.com/Q4JeZbVx6V](https://t.co/Q4JeZbVx6V?ref=ivn.us) > > — Justin Gordon (@Justin\_G0rd0n) [June 9, 2026](https://x.com/Justin%5FG0rd0n/status/2064195010158039308?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Trump used tactics to divide the Republicans and conquer what was left. The DSA might just be doing the same thing to the Democrats, cycle by cycle, precinct by precinct. Last year, [DSA darling Zohran Mamdani](https://socialists.nyc/zohran-mayor-nyc-dsa/?ref=ivn.us) broke new ground by defeating former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo by 12 points in the New York City Democratic primary before going on to become [the first democratic socialist mayor](https://www.facebook.com/uscprice/posts/new-york-city-just-elected-its-first-democratic-socialist-mayor-zohran-mamdani-m/1311193251023404/) of the largest city in the country. The traditional liberal Democrats probably watched it happen and called it a New York thing, which is what you say when the alternative is admitting it could happen anywhere. *(Disclosure: Among those organizations supporting turnout efforts not connected to any candidate or party is the Independent Voter Project, which is also a significant funder of IVN.)* ### Mississippi Independent Ty Pinkins Wants to Break Big Money’s Grip on the Senate URL: https://ivn.us/ty-pinkins-makes-the-case-for-sending-an-independent-caucus-to-the-senate/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:45:36.000Z Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain mostly unrepresented in federal office. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, almost always leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home. A handful of high-profile independent candidates for the US Senate are trying to change that. 2026 is seeing one of the largest surges of interest in independent candidates in recent memory. However, these candidates are often covered as fringe candidates, and stories about them focus more on how they'll impact the outcome of the election between a Republican and Democrat than they do on the substance of the candidate's campaign. This series exists because the independent electorate deserves better than that. Over the coming months, IVN is conducting in-depth interviews with independent Senate candidates across the country — not just horse-race conversations about polling and fundraising, but substantive discussions about the issues independent voters actually care about. In Mississippi, that candidate is Ty Pinkins. --- ## I. The Candidate Ty Pinkins grew up in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, the son of a tractor driver. His family moved from plantation to plantation depending on where his father found work, and, at 13, Pinkins started working to help his family make ends meet. He was the first in his family to graduate high school and go to college. He attended Tougaloo College before enlisting in the US Army, serving on active duty for 21 years. After retiring, he earned an LLM in national security law and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center. He moved back to Mississippi with his degree to “help underserved communities…navigate the justice system.” His reform credentials are not rhetorical. He has worked to draw fairer maps at the county level, and he co-filed a federal Voting Rights Act lawsuit alongside the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center successfully challenging Mississippi's gerrymandered state Supreme Court districts. Pinkins has run as a Democrat on several occasions (see more on his decision to leave the party and run as an independent below). He was the Democratic candidate for Mississippi secretary of state in the 2023 election after replacing a candidate who dropped out for health reasons, ultimately losing to the Republican candidate 59.5-40.5\. He was then the Democratic candidate for US Senate in 2024, gaining the nomination after running unopposed in the primary. He ultimately lost to Republican Roger Wicker, 62.8-37.2. On July 1, 2025, he left the party and announced he would run for Senate again as an independent. --- ## II. The Race Incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) is seeking her second full term. First appointed in 2018 to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Thad Cochran, she has won two general elections against Democrat Mike Espy, both by about 10 points. She slightly underperformed Pres. Trump in the 2020 election, who received almost 58% of the vote share. She won her primary in March with 81% of the vote with Trump’s endorsement. The Democratic nominee is Scott Colom, district attorney for four northeast Mississippi counties, who won his primary with 73% of the vote. Mississippi Senate elections have been dominated by Republicans for much of recent memory—Democrats haven't won a Senate race in Mississippi since 1982\. All major firms that rate the lean of the electorate in elections say that the Mississippi Senate election is safe/solid Republican. And the[ fundraising totals](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/MS/2026/?ref=ivn.us) highlight the difficulty that any challenger will have in unseating the incumbent. Sen. Hyde-Smith has raised over $5M, with around $2.5M cash on hand (as of 3/31). Democrat Scott Colom has raised $1.6M, with $560k cash on hand; Pinkins has spent down his $90k raised to $632 cash on hand. However, [voter registration numbers paint a different picture](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ms?ref=ivn.us). While Republicans do outnumber Democrats (29-23), independents make up a near majority of registered voters in the state (48%). The [most recent poll on the race](https://www.splcactionfund.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/2026-04-IMPACT-Baseline-MS-Statewide-Senate-GE-Bench-Apr-2026.pdf?ref=ivn.us) (conducted by Impact Research for SPLC Action Fund) sees the incumbent’s popularity sagging, with a 10% decline since June of ‘25\. Fifty-three percent (53%) said they planned to vote for someone besides the incumbent, as opposed to 33% stating that they would vote for reelection. It’s important to note, however, that when asked about voting between Colom, Hyde-Smith, and Pinkins, respondents were still 42% in favor of Hyde-Smith, compared to 39% for Colom and 6% for Pinkins. The path, then, for the independent needs to go through picking up the 14% undecided voters and then convincing the independent voters that they should vote for him over one of the party options. --- ## III. Why Independent, and Why Now Pinkins was a lifelong Democrat before his decision to leave the party. What changed was the experience of actually running. "I really got an inside look at how much both parties have their hands stuck in the big money cookie jar," he said. "Both parties are tainted by that money and they can't get their hands out." His [July 2025 open letter](https://www.typinkins.com/post/why-i-m-leaving-the-democratic-party-and-running-as-an-independent?ref=ivn.us) drew significant attention. In it, he alleged that when he first entered the 2026 race, Democratic officials didn't ask him about health care, jobs, education or veterans. "\[T\]he first question, over and over and over again, was, ‘How much money do you have? How much have you raised?’ Not values. Not vision. Just dollars." His critique isn't a conversion of his own values or policy positions. He still agrees with most Democratic policy positions, such as universal health care, universal child care, reproductive rights. His argument is that the money flowing from the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries into both parties makes it structurally impossible to act on those positions. He has a data point he emphasizes: since 1977, both parties have had total unified control of the federal government on six separate occasions, and across all of that time healthcare costs have risen every year, as have the costs of groceries, education, and housing. "The problem isn't that the solutions aren't there. The solutions are there. The problem is the people that failed to pass the legislation to bring those solutions to everyday Americans," he said. --- ## IV. Running Against Corruption Running against corruption is a throughline connecting most, if not all, of the independent Senate candidates running this cycle. Pinkins backs this position with action: he claims to be the only candidate in the race who does not own stock—an intentional choice he’s made to send a clear message. "If a candidate is serious about trying to rebuild trust with voters, something has to be sacrificed." He asks voters who care about this issue: "Who is more likely to put forth legislation to ban the buying and selling and trading of stock—the guy who doesn't own stock, or the people who do?" Pinkins' anti-corruption argument runs deeper than the stock trading pledge, highlighting the corrupting influence he believes money has had on politics (a sentiment that 72% of Americans across political identifications share). His framing is transactional and deliberate: millionaires, billionaires, super PACs, and lobbyists aren't donating to candidates out of civic spirit. "They’re not donating that money to those candidates out of the kindness of their heart. That's an investment," he said. > "And when \[the candidates receiving these donations\] win, those millionaires, billionaires, super PACs, lobbyists, they expect a return on their investment that does not coincide with what voters want." The result is a trust gap between elected officials and the people they represent that he argues is entirely the fault of elected leaders, not voters. Overturning Citizens United is the structural fix he returns to most often, paired with what he describes as "real strong guardrails that protect our democracy against the infiltration of big money." What gives the argument teeth, beyond the policy positions, is the consistency between what he says and how he runs. He says he doesn't take money from millionaires, billionaires, super PACs, or lobbyists, and he explicitly notes his non-affiliation with major lobbying organizations on both sides of high-profile foreign policy debates (J Street and AIPAC being the two main ones named). In a race where [Hyde-Smith held a six-figure fundraising event at Mar-a-Lago](https://www.supertalk.fm/u-s-senate-race-colom-tops-q4-fundraising-hyde-smith-still-ahead-overall/?ref=ivn.us) and the DSCC is investing in Colom, Pinkins is running on small-dollar, grassroots support—which costs him in resources but reinforces the central argument of his campaign. He frames the choice deliberately: you cannot credibly legislate against the funding model that put you in office. > "Both parties have had an opportunity to do it. A lot of these issues that we're facing, they've had an opportunity to fix. And every election cycle they come back and tell the American people about the same issues that they failed to fix." --- ## V. Reform: Where He Has Done the Work Pinkins speaks from a position of expertise and experience on reform issues. He speaks with nuance on the differences between closed, open, and semi-open primaries, and the benefits and downsides he sees in each. His experience is grounded in actual litigation. The redistricting lawsuit he co-filed in 2022 is one of if not the most concrete reform credential of any candidate in this series. His preferred model for primaries is a top-four open primary feeding into a ranked-choice general election: one ballot, every candidate regardless of party, top four advance, and everyone ranks those four on their general election ballot. He points to Mississippi's participation numbers as evidence of the current system's failure—1.9 million registered voters, roughly 90,000 participated in this year's Democratic primary. (Ed. Note: Final counts have the total at 150,641 voters in the Democratic Senate primary.) His framing of why the Senate specifically matters to this effort is sharp: you cannot gerrymander a Senate seat. Both senators run statewide. "The United States Senate is the last guardrail standing." Independent redistricting commissions and open primaries, he argues, have to be forced through the Senate and then the House. --- ## VI. The Fulcrum Caucus Pinkins will not caucus with the Democrats. "If I were going to caucus with the Democrats, I might as well run as a Democrat." He extends that to both parties. His reference point for how he’d engage in the Senate isn't independent Senators Sanders or King, both of whom caucus with the Democrats—it's the group text he shares with other independents running for Senate. The collective goal is to deny either party a working majority, then set terms before helping anyone organize the chamber. Pinkins offered a specific account of what those terms would look like. On January 3, 2027, Congress writes the rules it will operate under for two years—and that rule-writing process, before any legislation or committee assignments, is where Pinkins argues the leverage lies. To reform the chamber and get work done for his constituents, he rattles off a list of non-negotiables to get his and the other independents’ support for forming a majority: a single-issue bill banning congressional stock trading; a single-issue bill addressing campaign spending / Citizens United; independent redistricting commissions; universal health care; universal child care; an independent Senate leader with the same floor access and resources as the party leaders; rules protecting independent bills from partisan poison pill amendments; and ethics enforcement with actual teeth for both the Supreme Court and the Senate. "The Democrats and Republicans now have to negotiate even before they start. They have to come and find enough independents to give them a majority. And that is not free," he said. --- ## VII. Assessment As with all independent campaigns, the obstacles are real. His fundraising pales in comparison to both the Republican and the Democrat; the race is rated Safe Republican across the board; and he will continue to face questions about his previous affiliation with the Democratic Party, even as that party tries to paint him as a spoiler in the election. However, what distinguishes him from other candidates and even the other independent Senate hopefuls is the combination of genuine reform credentials and Fulcrum Caucus specificity. He sued Mississippi over gerrymandering and won. He has a concrete list of procedural demands for Day One of a new Congress, many of which are popular with voters and unlikely to be agreed to by the party candidates. And he is part of a coordinated network of independent candidates running the same play in six states simultaneously. Whether that network produces enough wins to matter is the variable none of them can control individually—but the specificity and passion with which Pinkins makes the case for what independent leverage in the Senate would actually look like in practice could certainly galvanize the independent near-majority in the Magnolia State. --- *This interview was conducted May 29, 2026.* ### June Primaries Show the Promise and Pain of Running Outside the Parties URL: https://ivn.us/june-primaries-show-the-promise-and-pain-of-running-outside-the-parties/ Last updated: 2026-06-08T19:59:02.000Z Last Tuesday, June 2, voters in New Jersey, Iowa, South Dakota, Montana, New Mexico, and California showed up to the polls to vote in primaries. Well, voters who were allowed to do so, with several of those states closing independents out of the process. [While results are still trickling in in California](https://ivn.us/why-does-it-take-california-so-long-to-count-ballots/), [early results in the state](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-primary-elections/california-house-results?ref=ivn.us), as well as the outcome of the Montana Senate primary, impact prominent independent candidates. --- ## **CA-6: Kiley Leads, But Watch the Second Spot** With[ 65.8% of votes counted](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-primary-elections/california-house-results?ref=ivn.us), US Rep. Kevin Kiley leads the CA-6 field at 25.4%, a comfortable margin over Democrat Richard Pan at 22.8% and Republican Michael Stansfield at 21.2%. Stansfield was in the second slot during early returns, but later-counted votes tend to favor Democrats, moving Pan into the second slot. Kiley's lead has decreased as more votes come in, but he looks poised to make it through the Top Two primary into the November general—as a No Party Preference candidate. Kiley was, until recently, a Republican, who ran in the old CA-3 in 2024, winning with 55.5% of the vote in a district that leaned Republican (R+7). After his seat was redistricted, he left the Republican Party, citing hyper-partisanship and gridlock. He filed to run in the newly drawn CA-2, which Harris would have carried by [more than six percentage points in the 2024 presidential race](https://www.racetothewh.com/house/?ref=ivn.us). Kiley leading the pack is certainly not an outcome that Democrats expected when redrawing these district lines. As more and more gerrymandered seats come up for elections, we’re likely to see more situations where [outcomes predicted by partisans fail to materialize due to the growing influence of independent voters](https://ivn.us/the-gerrymandering-wars-have-a-wild-card-independent-voters/). --- ## **CA-23: The Partisan Wall Holds Against Matthews** The race that reformers had circled as the clearest test of independent infrastructure in California delivered a sobering verdict (since Kiley is an incumbent who won his first election with institutional party backing). With[ 77.6% of votes counted](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-primary-elections/california-house-results?ref=ivn.us), incumbent Republican Jay Obernolte leads with 57.8%, while independent Karen Matthews ([a retired Navy physician who had outraised every Democrat in the field](https://ivn.us/a-roadmap-for-independent-success-karen-matthews-outraised-democrats-in-ca-23/)) sits in fourth place at 4.5%, behind Democrats Tessa Lynn Hodge (20.4%; advancing to the general) and Pat Wallis (13.5%). She received a larger share of the vote than Democrat Karsten Nicholson (3.2%). Even with the Democratic vote split three ways, a promising independent campaign failed to garner enough support from NPP voters to vie for a top two slot. With results more than three-quarters counted and no expectation of major swings in the remaining ballots, the November race will be Republican Obernolte vs. Democrat Hodge. --- ## **CA-2: Hahn Niman Trails in a Dominant Incumbent's Race** With[ 51.7% of votes counted](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-primary-elections/california-house-results?ref=ivn.us), incumbent Jared Huffman has run away with CA-2, receiving not-quite-a-majority (46.3%). Independent Nicolette Hahn Niman was ahead of several Republican candidates the day after the election, but later returns have favored the two parties, and she now sits in seventh with 5.2% of the vote. Republican Robin Littau is likely to advance against the incumbent with 16.1%. If these results hold, the November general will be a standard R vs. D race. --- ## **Montana: The Three-Way Race Is Set** Republican Kurt Alme and Democrat Alani Bankhead scored decisive primary wins Tuesday to advance to Montana's US Senate race in November. Alme and Bankhead will share the November ballot with independent Seth Bodnar, [who recently submitted more than double the required signatures to qualify](https://ivn.us/californias-big-independent-test-arrives-on-primary-day/). Alme captured around 76% of the Republican primary vote; Bankhead won against a field of 5 with 43.8% of the vote (over her closest competitor at 33.2%). The structure of the race sets up the most consequential three-way Senate contest of the cycle. Be sure to watch how this race develops compared to the Senate race in Nebraska, which will be functionally a two-way race between Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts and independent Dan Osborn (even if the Democrat remains on the ballot after dropping out, the party has already stated it’s consolidating support behind Osborn). ### Maine's Best Political Story Has Nothing to Do with Graham Platner's Sexting URL: https://ivn.us/maines-best-political-story-has-nothing-to-do-with-graham-platners-sexting/ Last updated: 2026-06-11T19:16:09.000Z **AUGUSTA, Maine** — Maine is getting a great deal of national attention, but not the kind it deserves. The state's presumptive Democratic US Senate nominee, Graham Platner, is facing scrutiny over revelations that he physically abused a former girlfriend and sexted a dozen women while newly married in 2025\. These are stories that have consumed the political elites and have given cable news producers something to feed on for days. Democrats across the country are either standing by Platner or expressing alarm. So, naturally, the national conversation about Maine and control of the United States Senate has become almost entirely about one man and his cell phone, because American politics is nothing if not a machine designed to take a state with genuinely fascinating democratic developments and ask: yes, but were there screenshots? This is a shame, because when Maine holds its primary Tuesday, something far more hopeful is happening in the race for governor. Candidates are forming alliances with their rivals. They are urging voters to rank them second and third. They are treating the election not as a demolition derby, but as a group project in which, incredibly, at least four of the participants appear to have read the instructions. Last Monday, a Republican candidate walked to a podium at the State House in Augusta, set up an oversized cardboard ballot, and filled in, bubble by bubble, a ranked-choice voting ballot, all in front of the cameras. This was David Jones, one of seven Republicans running for governor. Jones has long opposed ranked-choice voting. But there he was, gamely instructing Republican voters how to use it. "The Maine Democrats gave us Ranked Choice Voting," the Republican Jones said. "Today, we are going to beat them at their own game, right here, in front of all of you." It was a wonderful sentence, not least because it contained the entire arc of the reform in twelve words: we hate this thing, we tried to stop this thing, this thing is now the thing, please gather around while I demonstrate optimal thing usage. With the oversized ballot beside him, Jones ranked himself first, followed by Ben Midgley, Owen McCarthy, Jonathan Bush, Garrett Mason, and Robert Wessels. He left the circle for frontrunner Bobby Charles blank and was unapologetic about it. He urged voters to rank their ballots fully, arguing that failing to do so essentially disenfranchises them. There are few images in politics more satisfying than a former opponent of an election reform standing in public explaining the reform's tactical advantages. Maine voters approved ranked-choice voting in November 2016 by a four-point margin. What followed was a masterclass in how a two-party duopoly responds when voters threaten its interests. Republican Governor Paul LePage called ranked-choice voting "the most horrific thing in the world," a phrase that suggested either grave constitutional concern or a man who had not recently opened the internet. The Democratic opposition was quieter but, as the global democracy scholar Larry Diamond wrote in *The American Interest* at the time, no less determined. Together, in an act with no democratic justification whatsoever, the leadership of both parties [voted to repeal the referendum](https://ivn.us/voters-betrayed-maine-lawmakers-set-ranked-choice-voting-repeal/) during a late-night special session in October 2017, simply because they could. What they did not count on was Maine voters taking that personally. Supporters organized 1,800 volunteers, launched a second signature drive in 88 days [during a bomb cyclone](https://ivn.us/volunteers-brave-bone-chilling-cold-to-defend-voters-rights-in-maine/), fought successful legal challenges in the Maine Supreme Judicial Court and the U.S. District Court, and placed a People's Veto on the June 2018 ballot. Voters approved it by an eight-point margin, wider than the original referendum. More than 270,000 people voted for the People's Veto that day. Only 210,000 voted in the closed primary itself. [Tens of thousands of independent voters](https://ivn.us/independents-made-difference-maines-ranked-choice-voting/) who could not participate in the primary showed up solely to cast a ballot on Question 1. [Why Can’t Maine Use Ranked Choice Voting in Certain Elections? Its Supreme Court Just Answered – AgainIn Maine, ranked choice voting is used in primary elections, US House and Senate general elections – even in presidential elections. However, the state Supreme Court issued an opinion this week that it can’t be used to decide races for governor and the state legislature.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-e7517c12-640f-4487-834c-a76294ab1f31.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/maine-ranked-choice-voting-supreme-court-decision-4924512e-5049-45d3-81d4-395d98bc4e99.png)](https://ivn.us/why-cant-maine-use-ranked-choice-voting-in-certain-elections-its-supreme-court-just-answered-again-2026-04-09/) This is one of those facts that sounds made up by a civics teacher. The two major parties tried to take away a voting reform; the independents, who were not even allowed into the closed primary, showed up in the middle of June anyway to say, essentially, "absolutely not." As Professor Diamond wrote, rarely in recent American history had a political struggle so clearly exposed the gulf between a party duopoly that does not want more electoral choice and a public that craves it. The secretary of state at the time was Matt Dunlap, a Democrat whose legal obligation was to implement ranked-choice voting after voters passed it, and who responded to that obligation the way a cat responds to a bath. For more than fifteen months, Dunlap publicly and within his own government lobbied against ranked-choice voting, arguing that implementation was impossible, that the costs were prohibitive, and that the consequences of proceeding would be catastrophic. Dunlap warned that the system would produce "cars burning in the streets," comparing it to "leaving a loaded revolver on a swing set." He overestimated the implementation cost by more than a million dollars. He said the experience made him feel like he was “shooting the Death Star out of the sky.” One has to admire the theatrical range. Most election administrators, when concerned about logistics, reach for phrases like "operational complexity" or "budgetary constraints." Dunlap went straight to flaming automobiles and Star Wars, which is certainly one way to discuss ballot design. Reformers ultimately had to sue Dunlap to compel him to honor the oath he had taken as Maine's appointed secretary of state. A Superior Court judge ordered implementation. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld that order. Dunlap was forced in court to recant his claims, disclose the true costs of ranked-choice voting, and proceed. Every alarm Dunlap raised turned out to be false. The cars did not burn. Maine voters ranked candidates on ballots, election officials counted them, and the republic somehow staggered forward. Today, Dunlap is one of four Democrats running in the primary to succeed retiring Rep. Jared Golden in Maine's 2nd Congressional District, alongside state Sen. Joe Baldacci, former congressional staffer Jordan Wood, and social worker Paige Loud. A recent poll found Senator Baldacci leading with 39%, more than twenty points ahead of Dunlap at 17%. Senator Baldacci supported both Question 5 in 2016 and Question 1 in 2018. But the best example of ranked-choice voting in action this year is not in the 2nd District. It is in the governor's race, where the system appears to have escaped the realm of reform theory and entered its charming practical phase. On the Democratic side, three candidates who supported ranked-choice voting before it could benefit them personally are now campaigning together under it. Hannah Pingree, a former Speaker of the Maine House, publicly supported both the 2016 referendum and the 2018 People's Veto. Shenna Bellows also backed both campaigns and later, as a state senator, voted to expand ranked-choice voting to presidential elections. As secretary of state, Bellows has continued to advocate for the system, testifying that "the deepest value of ranked-choice voting is that it allows voters to vote their heart, rather than their fears." Democrat Troy Jackson went the furthest in support of RCV. As Senate President, Jackson authored the legislation expanding ranked-choice voting to presidential elections, making Maine the first state in the nation to use it in both a presidential primary and a presidential general election. Senator Jackson revived the RCV for President bill in a special session and pushed it through over resistance from the most powerful Democrat in Augusta, Janet Mills. Governor Mills declined to sign Jackson’s bill, and it became law without her signature. Now Jackson, Pingree, and Bellows are running to replace Mills and asking their voters to rank them first, second, and third. They are not attacking each other. They are not sharpening contrasts or deploying opposition research against rivals they have publicly called friends. They are asking voters to treat the ballot not as a weapon against everyone else in the field, but as a way to build a majority. ***In American politics, this is practically an exotic behavior.*** Campaigns are generally organized around the proposition that every other candidate is a dangerous fraud. Here, three candidates are saying: vote for me first, but if not, please consider these other competent people with whom I share values. It is unsettling, in the way a polite airport experience would be unsettling. One is grateful, but suspicious. Jackson put it plainly: > *"I'm running to win this race for working-class people and end the status quo, but I ask that if you plan to vote for me, you rank them right after. And if I'm not your first-place vote, I'd love to have your second."* Nirav Shah, another Democrat, is testing a different theory. The former director of the Maine CDC is tied for first with Jackson in the polls. Rather than responding to the Jackson-Pingree-Bellows alliance in kind, Shah has been running attacks questioning Jackson's record on reproductive rights. The attack is a curious choice, both on the merits and on the politics. Senate President Jackson received a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood for at least seven consecutive years, from 2018 through 2024, voting in support of reproductive care on every single bill that came before the legislature. Along with state Sen. Rachel Talbot Ross, Jackson was a principal sponsor of LD 1619, which made Maine the first state in the country to expand access to abortion following the Dobbs decision. Planned Parenthood praised him for it. Shah, a political newcomer who moved to Maine in 2019 and has never cast a legislative vote on anything, is attacking one of the strongest reproductive-rights records in Maine politics. He is doing so in a ranked-choice election, where the second- and third-choice votes of Bellows and Pingree supporters may well determine the outcome, and where those same supporters have just watched two female candidates publicly declare their admiration for Jackson. It is an interesting wager. The Jackson-Pingree-Bellows alliance is betting that voters will reward candidates who build trust beyond their own base. Shah is betting that conventional attack politics still work, even in a system that gently taps candidates on the shoulder and whispers: you may need that person's supporters in a minute. The Republican primary for governor offers a different story, but no less interesting. The Maine GOP’s hostility to ranked-choice voting intensified after the first time the system determined a November general election result. In 2016, believe it or not, the Maine GOP stayed neutral on Question 5\. But in 2018, Democrat Jared Golden defeated incumbent Bruce Poliquin in Maine's 2nd Congressional District through the second round of ranked-choice tabulation. Then-Governor LePage, required by law to certify the result, signed the certification but wrote "stolen election" beside his signature. President Donald Trump has taken equally dim views of the system. And yet here was candidate David Jones in 2026, standing at the State House last Monday and asking Republican voters to fill in their ballots all the way down. Not because he has become a ranked-choice evangelist. Not because his party has stopped opposing the system. But because ranked-choice voting is now the terrain on which Maine politics is conducted. You do not have to enjoy winter to buy a shovel. Tuesday will be Maine's ninth statewide election under ranked-choice voting. Not one of the previous eight produced the chaos opponents like Dunlap predicted. State election officials say it is unlikely that election night will produce a declared winner in either gubernatorial primary, with ballots transported to Augusta for a ranked-choice count several days after June 9\. That is not a breakdown. That is the process voters approved. It may be less instantly gratifying than a cable-news chyron, but so are most healthy things. Maine deserves so much better than the story the national press is telling this week. One story is about a politician's sexting and a Nazi tattoo. The other is about a state where citizens fought their political establishment, won twice, forced the government to implement the system they voted for, and are now watching candidates in both parties learn to campaign on the field those citizens built. Only one of those stories tells us anything useful about the future of American democracy. The other tells us, once again, that politicians should consider throwing their phones into the sea. ### Oklahoma Rejected Nearly 58,000 Signatures for Open Primaries. Now Voters Want Answers. URL: https://ivn.us/oklahoma-rejected-nearly-58-000-signatures-for-open-primaries-now-voters-want-answers/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:46:50.000Z **OKLAHOMA CITY** \- The fight for open primaries in Oklahoma is not over. While Secretary of State Benjamin Lepak rejected State Question 836 back in January, a group of Oklahoma voters has filed a challenge with the state Supreme Court disputing Lepak’s signature count. SQ 836 proposes an all-voter and all-candidate nonpartisan open primary. The initiative’s campaign submitted over 209,000 signatures, which surpassed the 172,993 needed to qualify for the ballot. The question facing reformers: Was the gap between signatures collected and signatures needed large enough to survive inevitable signature disqualifications? The secretary of state announced that only 142,567 were valid—meaning nearly 58,000 signatures were disqualified. According to the aggregate report from Lepak's office, a majority of rejections were because the signatures did not match 4 out of 5 data points in the voter file. [Did New Petition Rules Kill Oklahoma’s Open Primaries Initiative?Last week, the Oklahoma campaign to put a nonpartisan all-voter and all-candidate nonpartisan primary initiative on the ballot was informed that it did not collect enough signatures to be certified. This means state voters won’t get a say on the matter in 2026.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-9c12913b-1a37-4034-9707-becdf1518b56.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/oklahoma-open-primaries-ballot-initiative-signature-rejections-petition-rules-election-reform-0bcf396f-be89-43d4-bb2a-b6fe58cb0028.png)](https://ivn.us/did-new-petition-rules-kill-oklahomas-open-primaries-initiative-2026-03-10/) However, [the challenge filed in court on behalf of 4 Oklahoma voters](https://www.oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123849&ref=ivn.us) asserts that the secretary of state refuses to identify the signatures or provide specific details as to why they were tossed. “It is not plausible that 57,841 persons \[...\] would sign the Official Initiative Petition Form and represent that they are Legal Voters, when they are not in fact Legal Voters,” the challenge states. It adds in bold, **“57,841 citizens did not lie.”** The new primary system proposed under SQ 836 would open primary elections to all voters and candidates, regardless of party. Any voter can choose any candidate they want, and the top two vote-getters move on to the general election. Similar nonpartisan election models are in place in California and Washington. Alaska has a nonpartisan primary that advances 4 people, something reformers are now looking at in California. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-2662d6dc-9332-45a3-870a-553f6897e24e.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal-170890c0-f6dc-40fc-b05f-11636b2ce9b6.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) SQ 836 would replace a closed partisan system that gives parties the authority to decide if independent voters have the right to vote in taxpayer-funded elections. On June 16, the primaries are completely closed to party members only. “We all want more faith in our government, but trust is not built by summarily rejecting more than 57,000 signatures without providing a sufficient explanation as to their exclusion,” said SQ 836 volunteer Ken Setter [in a statement](https://www.voteyes836.com/post/objection-to-signature-count-filed?ref=ivn.us). It [wasn’t an easy road for the initiative to even get to the signature gathering stage](https://ivn.us/oklahoma-independents-drive-massive-push-open-primaries-state-question-836-2026-01-27/). The campaign had to fend off legal challenges, establishment resistance, and organized opposition from the parties that benefit from a closed system. On top of that, Oklahoma was hit with severe winter weather that made the final days off signature gathering tough, including getting completed signatures to Oklahoma City. The secretary of state disqualified many signatures because of amended statutes in Oklahoma law that require initiative petitions to include 5 voter-identifying data points from the voter file for each signer. To be verified, 4 of the 5 must match. The required fields include: - Legal first name - Legal last name - ZIP code - House number - Numerical month and day of birth Plus, when signing the petition, each voter must: - Sign their name - Print their name - Provide birth date, address, and county associated with their voter registration record during the circulator verification process. It is a noticeable difference compared to what was required before the new requirements, which were approved by the legislature in 2024: - Signature - Printed name - Address - City/county Proponents of the change claimed that it would improve fraud detection and verification accuracy—and that it would reduce the number of disputes over signatures. Critics argue the law does the exact opposite (in terms of disputes), and proponents of SQ 835 assert that it was used to disqualify tens of thousands of legitimate signatures from legal Oklahoma voters. The burden of proof in this case is placed on the objectors challenging the secretary of state’s count. However, the plaintiffs argue that the aggregate reporting from the state lacks transparency and does not provide an explanation for why individual signatures were tossed. “The Secretary has refused to identify those signatures which were rejected. Nor does the Secretary disclose, for the rejected signatures, which of the data points… he found to be mis-matched,” the complaint states. It also says: > *“Without the individual Signature Data, the burden upon the Objecting Signatories to meaningfully object to the Secretary’s count is extraordinary and prohibitive.”* Lepak insists that his office’s count is accurate. He said elections administrators “conducted their review in accordance with applicable law, following the same standard protocols and procedures they always do for initiative petitions.” The plaintiffs are asking the court to either rule that the signatures submitted for SQ 836 are sufficient or to order the secretary of state to account for why individual signatures were disqualified and if no data is provided then the signatures should count. Oral arguments in this case are set for July 7. ## **In Other Reform News…** ## DC Democratic Leaders Fail to Kill Pro-Voter Reforms in Court While reform advocates turn to the courts to defend the rights of petitioners in Oklahoma, a DC court has rejected a challenge brought by Democratic Party leaders against Initiative 83, [which was approved by 73% of voters in 2024](https://ivn.us/dc-voters-open-primaries-over-73000-independents-pass-ranked-choice-voting-2024-11-05/). Initiative 83 requires the city to use semi-open primaries (meaning independents can pick a party ballot while party members vote in their party’s primary) and ranked choice voting in all city elections. The DC City Council has funded ranked choice voting, but has refused to fund open primaries. Part of the excuse city officials have used is that there is pending litigation over the initiative. That excuse doesn’t appear to hold up anymore. [DC Independent Voters Are Pissed City Officials Have Denied Them Open PrimariesPrimary elections in Washington, DC, are coming up in June. However, while three-quarters of the city’s electorate voted for them to be open to independent voters, they won’t be – because city officials refuse to make the switch from a closed partisan system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-cdcad8f1-badc-476b-bc4b-77f3c826b383.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/washington-dc-primary-open-primaries-ranked-choice-voting-240b1e48-8afa-4ebd-8289-568bf1700192.jpg)](https://ivn.us/dc-independent-voters-are-pissed-city-officials-have-denied-them-open-primaries-2026-04-29/) Campaign Legal Center, which helped defend the initiative, [said the ruling confirmed that the reform does not violate District or federal law](https://campaignlegal.org/update/victory-dc-voters-citizen-led-ballot-initiative-adopting-ranked-choice-voting-upheld?ref=ivn.us). The immediate impact is DC will use ranked choice voting for the first time in the June 16 primary. This will allow registered party members to rank candidates on the ballot in order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, etc.) If no candidate gets over 50% of first-choice selections, the last place candidate will be eliminated in an instant runoff and their voters’ next preference will be applied to the tabulation. The process continues as needed until a single candidate has a majority of the vote. But the open primary portion of Initiative 83 remains unresolved. The measure’s proposer, Lisa D.T. Rice, [spoke at a DC Council Budget Oversight Hearing in May](https://ivn.us/we-cant-afford-it-is-never-an-acceptable-excuse-to-deny-independents-a-vote-2026-05-11/), where she called on council members to honor the will of voters and fully fund Initiative 83\. She challenged them to stand by their word that they would defend DC voters. “Which is it? Are the outcomes of our local elections sacred and worthy of respect from elected officials – or not?” ## Ranked Choice Voting Takes Center Stage in June Primaries Speaking of ranked choice voting, the reform is slated to be used not only in the June 16 primaries in DC, but also the June 9 primaries in Maine. Maine voters will use RCV for governor, Congress, and state legislative races—and research shows that voters use it and like it. A SurveyUSA poll [released by FairVote](https://fairvote.org/press/maine-primary-poll-2026/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) found that 75% of likely Maine primary voters rank at least two candidates in crowded gubernatorial fields. Additionally, 84% said ranking candidates was easy and 70% supported the ability to rank. The same poll found Bobby Charles leading the GOP gubernatorial primary, Joe Baldacci leading the Democratic primary in the 2nd Congressional District, and Hannah Pingree narrowly leading the Dem gubernatorial primary. “Ranked choice voting is delivering on its promise of more choice and more voice for Maine voters, and can foster a more positive form of politics with cross-endorsements,” said Meredith Sumpter, president and CEO of FairVote. > “Maine voters take advantage of ranked choice voting, find it easy to use, and like it. As other states’ primaries are won with just 20 or 30% of the vote, Maine’s use of RCV also ensures majority winners in crowded fields.” ## In The Mid-Cycle Gerrymandering Fight, New York Enters the Chat In the current political environment, another week means further escalation in the mid-cycle gerrymandering fight between the two major parties. At the same time Axios [reported](https://www.axios.com/2026/06/07/redistricting-gerrymander-house-republicans-democrats?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) that Republican-led redistricting efforts have raised the bar for Democrats to win back the US House, New York lawmakers [have approved](https://www.timesunion.com/capitol/article/new-york-hochul-bills-22288141.php?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) the first passage of a constitutional amendment that would overhaul the state’s congressional redistricting process. It is a move that would make it easier for lawmakers to redraw maps more aggressively and outside the standard redistricting window (i.e. following each decade’s census). New York may not try to redraw its maps for the 2026 midterms, but more states are expected to escalate things between now and 2028. ## New Mexico Independents Finally Got a Primary Vote New Mexico held its first semi-open primary on June 2, giving independent and declined-to-state voters the ability to participate in a major-party primary without changing their registration. More than 37,600 independent voters cast a ballot under the new system. [New Mexico’s First Semi-Open Primary Exposed the Cost of Locking Voters OutIn 2026, more than 37,000 independent voters in New Mexico made history—a number that is more significant than one might think.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-a93ae4ef-7ebe-4ed6-81ad-3fb85d9c94d5.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/new-mexico-holds-first-open-primary-dc4f9eac-ad3d-46b3-9b3e-a02ee4b88a28.jpg)](https://ivn.us/new-mexicos-first-semi-open-primary-exposed-the-cost-of-locking-voters-out/) Some may argue that independent participation was only a fraction of eligible unaffiliated voters. But the reform still added tens of thousands of voters who would previously have been blocked from participating unless they joined a party. The state’s overall unofficial turnout was 24.62%, with 346,705 ballots cast out of 1,408,181 eligible voters. [The Myth of Independent Voter Apathy Dies in New MexicoIndependent voter turnout occurred despite virtually no government public education campaign to inform independents of their new voting rights![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-95f84d5c-9ea4-463e-a86f-b834808875df.jpg)Independent Voter NewsJeremy Gruber![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/new-mexico-independent-voters-850d7a31-92a5-4322-acfa-8c2642f84a25.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-myth-of-independent-voter-apathy-dies-in-new-mexico/) ## US Rep. Barrett Says Voters Are Tired of Seeing Billions Pumped into Elections—Introduces Constitutional Amendment Campaign finance is getting a lot of attention in the 2026 midterms. And while it is featured on the national stage, US Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) [announced a campaign finance reform package](https://barrett.house.gov/media/press-releases/barrett-launches-fifth-pillar-blueprint-better-america-reform-campaign-finance?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) that includes a proposed constitutional amendment to give Congress and state governments authority to set stricter rules on election spending. “Americans are tired of watching billions of dollars flood into our elections while their own voices feel increasingly ignored,” Barrett said. > *“Free speech and competitive campaigns are essential to our democracy, but our elections should not be determined by elite megadonors who have never been to Michigan. The Constitutional Campaign Finance Reform Amendment guarantees Congress and the states the authority to give the power in elections back to the people, restore confidence in our elections, and ensure that candidates spend more time serving their constituents than catering to special interests.”* If this sounds familiar, it is because IVN has covered the ongoing efforts by the cross-partisan organization American Promise to pass such an amendment. In fact, it is the sole purpose and has worked with state legislatures to call on Congress to act. In April, Idaho [became the 25th state](https://ivn.us/half-of-us-states-are-now-in-revolt-over-money-in-politics-2026-04-08/) to pass a resolution in favor of such a constitutional amendment—meaning half of US states are on board. An amendment needs ratification from three-fourths of the states to become law. [81% of Americans Say Money Controls Politics – Can a Constitutional Amendment Fix It?Polls consistently show that nearly all Americans across the political spectrum agree that there is too much money in politics – whether from foreign sources, corporations, or so-called “dark money” groups.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-d4f26798-1415-4aed-9e2e-7cc2d72582f8.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/money-in-politics-campaign-finance-reform-constitutional-amendment-citizens-united-95151a44-ee15-49b7-a495-cb41c00c05f6.png)](https://ivn.us/81-of-americans-say-money-controls-politics-can-a-constitutional-amendment-fix-it-2026-02-23/) “What’s striking about this moment is the overwhelmingly cross-partisan agreement that something must be done,” said Jeff Clements, co-founder and CEO of American Promise. > *“Twenty-five state legislatures — representing red, blue and purple states alike — have called on Congress to support this amendment, often with unanimous support. We thank Representative Barrett for heeding the growing call of Americans and our states to move the constitutional amendment process forward."* ### California Voters Just Proved Why Party Bosses Hate Top Two URL: https://ivn.us/california-voters-just-proved-why-party-bosses-hate-top-two/ Last updated: 2026-06-06T15:21:35.000Z In California, the results of Tuesday’s June 2 primary have not been finalized. However, they reveal something critical: At the state level, voters looked for stability, but more locally, particularly in LA, many sought a "firebrand." Two different elections. Two different stories. Yet, both were possible under nonpartisan election models that allow voters to freely express themselves in primary elections, especially when they seek one kind of candidate in one race but a different kind of candidate in another. Chad Pleace, legal advisor for the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) and President of IVC Media, was brought on Jim Herlihy’s podcast,[ The San Francisco Experience](https://www.thesanfranciscoexperiencepodcast.com/what-did-the-voters-say-in-the-california-primary-talking-with-chad-peace/?ref=ivn.us), to talk about the primary results and the attacks from party operatives on “Top Two.” Peace noted that Xavier Becerra—who has secured the top spot in the race—was a “safe” option at the statewide level. But in the Los Angeles mayor’s race, Spencer Pratt ran a different kind of campaign. He became a “vessel” for voter frustrations. Not just with Republicans, but disgruntled Democrats and independents as well. And now, there will be a runoff in that election and Peace believes Pratt will hold onto his second-place spot after all the votes are counted. “Most importantly, and what even the pundits nationally don’t fundamentally understand, is how much the nonpartisan primary changes the dynamics of elections, which---at the end of the day---put the power in the hands of the voters to decide," he said. Leading up to the primary, party operatives used the scare tactic of a “Democrat lockout” to build the “Undo the Top Two," lead by its sponsor, Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio. Maviglio was soon joined by former California GOP Chair Ron Nehring and Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio. Yet, despite their continued claims that the system has failed, their own polling shows 70% of Californians like the freedom of choice they have with nonpartisan primaries and want an open system. [The Forces Trying to Kill ‘Top Two’ Can’t Read Their Own PollingA partisan pollster finds 70% support for open primaries and calls it erosion![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-87f9b5a2-a8c2-4f41-8eba-98db6ebb861a.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/California-Top-Two-Primary-1844e1e0-244c-4064-8eb3-cf052c17c1bf.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-forces-trying-to-kill-top-two-cant-read-their-own-polling/) “Why would these unusual bedfellows that hate each other about everything unify in undoing the TopTwo?” Peace remarked. > “They know when they put the power in the hands of partisan stakeholders and special interests, it is much easier to get their candidates through a closed primary. When they have to compete in a nonpartisan primary, they can’t pick the winner.” Peace explains all of this with Jim Herlihy and more, including IVP’s role in sponsoring the Top Two initiative in 2010, the legal fight for independent voter rights that has reached the steps of the Supreme Court, and a path forward for people who want more choice in California that doesn’t take the state back to a system of party control and voter disenfranchisement. Listen above. ### The Myth of Independent Voter Apathy Dies in New Mexico URL: https://ivn.us/the-myth-of-independent-voter-apathy-dies-in-new-mexico/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:46:39.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/New-Mexico-Independents-Stand-Up.png) [New Mexico's first-ever open primary was a success.](https://www.abqjournal.com/news/more-than-38000-independents-voted-in-new-mexicos-first-semi-open-primary/3055731?ref=ivn.us) **Topline:** Early turnout figures show approximately 11% of independent voters participated in the primary this week, a meaningful step forward for voters who have been locked out of participation in taxpayer-funded primaries for generations. Even more impressive, this turnout occurred despite virtually no government public education campaign to inform independents of their new voting rights and despite inaccurate information remaining on some county clerk websites through Election Day. Independent voter turnout drove overall voter turnout in the primary to its second highest level in state history. There’s still much work to do: - Independent voter turnout was 50% less than partisan voter turnout. That’s likely to change with more election cycles. But most Americans (D/R/I) have been educated that voting in November is what’s important; primaries are for the diehards. We have to change this mindset in New Mexico and nationally. - We need to pressure the New Mexico election authorities to do their jobs and educate the public - particularly independents - that they have the right to vote in primaries. The message from this first primary, though, was strong: **New Mexico independents were never apathetic. They were excluded.** This breakthrough is also a testament to the advocates and volunteers who stepped in where government officials fell short. Both Open Primaries and NM Voters First worked to fill in the gaps left by the SOS. **OP’s first in the nation independent-to-independent GOTV campaign’s** **results speak for themselves:** - Our voter outreach campaign generated more than **4.7 million impressions** and reached **840,000 New Mexicans**—more than one-third of the state's population. More than **10,700 voters** clicked through to the New Mexico Let Us Vote website. - More than **1 million people** watched one of our videos from start to finish across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and streaming television platforms. - Traffic to the New Mexico Let Us Vote website increased by nearly **9,000%** during the campaign. - More than three dozen volunteers participated in phone banks to personally contact independent voters across the state. - Thirty-three independent voters served as poll monitors during early voting and on Primary Day. - Sixty-six Independent Ambassadors shared information through their social networks and directly engaged friends, family, and community members. Open Primaries also [partnered with Source NM to expose](https://sourcenm.com/2026/05/01/most-nm-county-clerk-websites-dont-mention-semi-open-primaries-days-before-voting-starts/?ref=ivn.us) a major implementation failure: nearly two-thirds of county clerk websites failed to inform independents of their new voting rights. The story became front-page news across the state and helped drive public awareness at a critical moment. **Check out Open Primaries’ National Organizing Director Cathy Stewart** as she breaks it all down in the NM press on [NPR](https://www.krwg.org/krwg-news/2026-06-03/group-urges-states-including-new-mexico-to-open-primaries?ref=ivn.us) and [KSFR](https://www.ksfr.org/2026-06-01/expert-says-state-should-have-done-more-to-inform-independent-voters-about-new-primary-rules?ref=ivn.us). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Cathy-Stewart-Quote.png) ## **What We're Talking About** ## The Top Two Panic Wasn’t Analysis. It Was Political Manipulation. For nearly a year, California's political establishment has been gripped by a collective panic attack. Consultants warned of catastrophe. Pundits predicted disaster. Party insiders declared that the state's Top Two primary system was about to produce an electoral apocalypse. The theory was simple: California's open primary would hand the governor's race to Republicans and expose the fatal flaws of letting all voters participate. Then the voters showed up. [Critics PROVED WRONG About the “Top-Two” Primary in California (It WORKS)Political outsiders and independent voters shaped the outcome, debunking the disinformation campaign pushed by establishment party insiders who manufactured a fear narrative about two Republicans potentially advancing.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-8310c6e1-93d2-4580-8a2d-c7a5ac071077.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Podcast![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/6-4-Thumbnail-V3-cd8e9993-12a9-4ffc-ab58-8e450666421a.png)](https://ivn.us/podcasts/critics-proved-wrong-about-the-top-two-primary-in-california-it-works-2/) And in a single election, they shattered one of the political class's favorite myths. What unfolded on Tuesday was more than a primary election—it was a rejection of the endless fearmongering surrounding open primaries. California voters demonstrated that they are far more sophisticated than the “experts” who spend their careers trying to predict them. They rejected simplistic partisan narratives, expressed frustration with the status quo, and produced an outcome that reflected the complexity of the state's electorate. The lesson is unmistakable: the biggest failure on display this year wasn't California's Top Two system. It was the political industry that spent months confidently predicting its collapse. [Read Open Primaries’ full statement on the California primary here.](https://ivn.us/the-top-two-panic-wasnt-analysis-it-was-political-manipulation/) ## A Note from Cathy Stewart ### Operation Independent 2026 — Reporting from New Jersey June 2nd Primary Day in New Jersey exposed a stark reality: in one of only 12 fully closed primary states, 2.4 million independent voters-36% of the electorate-were shut out of publicly funded elections. While other states move toward broader participation, New Jersey remains frozen. Yet independents are growing fastest. From May to June alone, independent registration rose by 24,000-far outpacing both major parties (Democrats +4,000; Republicans flat). Across the state, *Independents4NJ* is documenting what exclusion looks like in real time. Founder Sue Davies and independent leader Andrea Lekberg-who ran for mayor in 2025 and is [out with a great new oped](https://morristowngreen.com/2026/06/01/commentary-open-new-jerseys-primaries-to-all-voters/?ref=ivn.us)\-highlight a simple truth: democracy weakens when a growing share of voters is locked out of the process they help fund. On Primary Day, activists across eight counties—from Jersey City to Burlington—stood outside polling places, speaking with voters surprised to learn they could not cast a ballot. Ten activists produced video testimonials capturing that experience of exclusion across communities. From Neptune, [Juanda Hall describes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcfxVM75za4&feature=youtu.be&ref=ivn.us) what disenfranchisement feels like as an African American independent voter. From Plainfield, [Will Batzle calls closed primaries “nonsense.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZvNuppDKhU&ref=ivn.us) Others across the state, including [Sue Davies and Chris White](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDWeq5RFCqA&ref=ivn.us), echo the same message: if elections are public, participation should be too. Be sure to check out what Emilie Knoerzer, Tara Murphy, Chris White, and Javier Luque have to say at [Independents4NJ](https://www.youtube.com/@Independents4NJ?ref=ivn.us). Please like videos, share them and spread the word – **Let Us Vote!** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/operation-independent.png) ## **What We're Reading** ## Congress Has a Primary Election Problem As competitive congressional districts disappear, primary elections are increasingly deciding who serves in Congress. And in much of the country, those elections are controlled by partisan voters, party insiders, and ideological activists. **A** [**major new NPR report** ](https://www.npr.org/2026/05/30/nx-s1-5839201/party-primaries-polarized-congress?ref=ivn.us)spotlights what Open Primaries and reform advocates have warned for years: closed primaries and partisan gerrymandering are creating a system that punishes independent thinking and rewards ideological conformity. Current and former elected officials from across the political spectrum are sounding the alarm. From Pennsylvania Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick to Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski and Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, lawmakers are increasingly acknowledging that closed primary systems make it harder to compromise, govern, and represent all constituents. **As Open Primaries President John Opdycke told NPR**, the parties have spent years gerrymandering districts into non-competitive territory. Now, many are turning their attention to closing primaries and further restricting voter participation. The result? More polarization, fewer competitive elections, and millions of independent voters shut out of publicly funded elections. The good news is that the debate is finally moving into the mainstream. What was once considered a fringe reform issue is now being discussed as a central challenge facing American democracy-and a growing number of leaders are recognizing that opening our primaries is essential to fixing it. ## **Campaign Updates** ## Big Win for D.C. Voters-Now Fund the Primaries Congratulations to Lisa Rice, Grow Democracy DC, Campaign Legal Center, and the thousands of District voters who fought to pass Initiative 83. In a major victory for voter rights, a D.C. court has rejected partisan legal attacks on Initiative 83, affirming the legality of the voter-approved measure that established ranked-choice voting and open primaries in the District. The ruling protects the will of the more than 72% of D.C. voters who supported the reform at the ballot box. But the fight isn't over. While ranked-choice voting is already being implemented and will be used in this month's primary elections, the District's semi-open primary provisions remain stalled because the D.C. Council has refused to fund them. As a result, approximately 85,000 independent voters continue to be excluded from the District's taxpayer-funded partisan primaries. The courts have spoken. The voters have spoken. It's time for the D.C. Council to do its job and fully implement Initiative 83 so every voter—not just party members—can participate in the elections that decide the District's future. ## Oklahoma’s Fight Isn’t Over ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/oklahoma-open-primaries.jpg) Just when it looked like Oklahoma's historic effort to bring nonpartisan primaries to the state had fallen short, the battle has taken an unexpected turn. [A new challenge before the Oklahoma Supreme Court](https://oklahomavoice.com/2026/06/03/advocates-challenge-the-rejection-of-oklahoma-open-primaries-initiative-petition/?ref=ivn.us) argues that more than 57,000 petition signatures supporting State Question 836 may have been improperly rejected by an automated verification system. The lawsuit doesn't challenge the initiative—it challenges the state's counting process itself. The odds of SQ836 making the 2026 ballot remain slim. But the stakes are much bigger than a single election. At issue is whether bureaucratic rules and machine algorithms can override the signatures of tens of thousands of real voters. The question before the Court is simple: when more than 209,000 Oklahomans sign a petition, who should decide whether their voices count—the people or the machine? ## The Oregonian Calls for Open Primaries to Let All Voters Vote ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Oregon-Open-Primaries.jpg) [Oregon’s largest paper is calling for open primaries](https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2026/05/editorial-peak-what-true-voter-access-looks-like.html?ref=ivn.us), pointing out a basic democratic imbalance—more than 1.1 million independent Oregonians now make up the state’s largest voting bloc, yet they are shut out of taxpayer-funded primary elections. A recent ballot measure effort was effectively stalled after state officials issued a misleading title that obscured its central purpose: allowing independents to vote. The editorial is blunt in its conclusion: Oregon should finally bring forward legislation in 2027 to open its primaries and restore real competition and voter participation-and “end the hypocrisy.” Voter Fairness is escalating its efforts to ensure every Oregon voter can participate in primaries ahead of 2027 and 2028\. Please sign up at [voterfairness.com](https://voterfairness.com/?ref=ivn.us) for updates moving forward. ## **ICYMI** ## CNN’s Smerconish Says the Quiet Part Out Loud Last week, Michael Smerconish used his CNN opening monologue to take direct aim at closed partisan primaries and the exclusion of independent voters. Pointing to the defeats and political vulnerability of figures like Bill Cassidy, Thomas Massie, and even the future risks facing John Fetterman, Smerconish argued that America’s primary system is rewarding ideological loyalty over broad public support. But he went even further, questioning why taxpayers are funding a system of elections that excludes millions. It was a powerful moment for the open primaries movement. Check it out: Following the segment, **Smerconish sat down with Open Primaries Senior Vice President Jeremy Gruber** for a wide-ranging conversation on voter exclusion, political polarization, and why the fight to open America’s elections is rapidly becoming one of the defining democracy issues in the country. Check it out: ### The Last Trusted Americans: Veterans Lead the Way in Independent Campaigns URL: https://ivn.us/the-last-trusted-americans-veterans-lead-the-way-in-independent-campaigns/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T15:46:30.000Z If you take a look at the most prominent independent candidates running for office in 2026, a pattern quickly emerges: almost all are veterans. In Montana, [Seth Bodnar](https://www.sethformontana.com/About?ref=ivn.us) is a former Army Green Beret and West Point graduate. In Nebraska, [Dan Osborn](https://www.osbornforsenate.com/meet-dan?ref=ivn.us) is a former Navy machinist. The list goes on. [Karen Matthews](https://www.matthewsforcongress.com/meet-karen?ref=ivn.us) in California. [Todd Achilles](https://ivn.us/new-mexicos-first-semi-open-primary-exposed-the-cost-of-locking-voters-out/) in Idaho. [Ty Pinkins](https://www.typinkins.com/meet-ty-pinkins?ref=ivn.us) in Mississippi. [Bob Chew](https://bobchew2026.com/about-bob/?ref=ivn.us) in Colorado. Americans have long placed more trust in military figures than virtually any other class of public servant. According to Gallup, the [U.S. military ranks second](https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx?ref=ivn.us) among all American institutions in public confidence (behind small business and ahead of science). A separate [Gallup survey conducted with the With Honor Institute](https://news.gallup.com/poll/695648/military-experience-tops-candidate-credentials.aspx?ref=ivn.us) found that 55% of Americans say prior military service would make them more likely to support a candidate for office, a higher share than those who said the same about government or business experience. That same study showed that 78% of Americans agreed that veterans are able to put the country's interests ahead of their own personal or partisan interests—a quality voters say they're looking for and can't find in the two parties. That credibility intersects with something else: veterans themselves are increasingly rejecting party labels. A [survey of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America members](https://iava.org/media/iava-surveyed-members-in-run-up-to-the-general-election-here-are-the-results?ref=ivn.us) saw 55% of respondents saying they don't affiliate with any party, exceeding the broader electorate’s rate of 45%. Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of Independent Veterans of America (IVA), sees all of this as infrastructure waiting to be activated. "Veterans are the last group of Americans that people trust," he said. "That's a political asset." IVA is an organization built on the premise that the veteran community's social standing, earned through service and untethered from either party, is exactly what an independent political movement needs to break through. But Rieckhoff isn't just observing that veterans lean independent. He's actively recruiting them to run for office outside of the two-party system, while also organizing the broader veteran community as a political force. That combination of candidate recruitment, community building, and brand management is the engine of IVA's theory of change. "We are a celebrity, a billionaire, or a big win away from the breakthrough moment," Rieckhoff said. "Someone has to be brave enough to go first." Rieckhoff's theory of change starts with a simple observation: the fuel for a third-force political movement is already there. Voters aren't looking for a moderate who splits the difference between the parties; they're looking for a vessel for their anger at the direction in which America is heading, a way to vote against the entire system. "People don't want Coke versus Pepsi anymore," he said. "They want more options. And all the trendlines are against the parties, especially among young people, who aren't joining anything." [In LA, Spencer Pratt Proves Anger with Democratic Party Leadership is RealSpencer Pratt’s campaign took off in LA, not because of his political leanings. It took off because he channeled voters’ broad frustrations with City Hall and the partisan leadership that controls it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-d1ccfcba-bed9-47d8-8ba2-4df0a122df89.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/spencer-pratt-LA-mayor-race-1f522048-c7bd-4fb2-9411-e9e5b3bc0eeb.jpg)](https://ivn.us/paul-rieckhoff-spencer-pratt-is-a-vessel-for-voter-anger-at-las-democratic-machine/) That outrage, in Rieckhoff's view, is precisely where veterans fit. Americans have long turned to military figures in moments of political frustration, from George Washington to Theodore Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy to George H.W. Bush. Veterans carry a credibility that no party label can manufacture, and at a moment when nearly every institution has shed public trust, it is the one identity that still commands broad, cross-partisan respect. IVA was built to organize and deploy that asset systematically, both through candidates and community leaders. Rieckhoff is explicit that he's looking to build over decades, not election cycles. But that still starts with work for 2026\. IVA’s goal is 100 independent veteran candidates across federal and statewide offices, a number he says the organization is on track to hit, constrained more by internal bandwidth than by candidate supply. Six have received formal endorsements; at least three dozen more are in various stages of their internal vetting process. The candidates range widely in profile and competitiveness. Some, like Nebraska's Dan Osborn and Montana's Seth Bodnar, have raised enough money and attention to be taken seriously in competitive races. Osborn’s campaign has shown enough legitimacy to lead the Democrats to bow out of the race and throw their support behind him. Others are running in races where the goal is more infrastructural: to build a presence, establish a community, and prove the model works at smaller scales. Rieckhoff views each of these approaches as key to a broader movement he views as bigger than any single candidate or cycle. The structural barriers all these candidates will face are real and well-documented. Without party infrastructure, independent candidates must gather petition signatures to appear on the ballot, raise money without the benefit of donor networks the parties have spent decades building, and build voter databases with information that the parties already have ready to go for their candidates. And they have to do this while fighting a media environment that defaults to framing these campaigns in terms of a two-party system the candidates are trying to reject. Bodnar's campaign illustrates this reality. To get his name on the ballot, his campaign needed to gather over 13,000 signatures from Montanans. While this process helped introduce him to many voters, such a monumental effort is costly (using paid signature gathering efforts, estimates can run from $7 all the way to $45 per signature). Expected legal challenges that will see many signatures rejected means campaigns typically collect significantly more than strictly necessary (Bodnar’s campaign said that they submitted nearly 30,000). Party-built infrastructure is also, at times, significantly more advanced than independent tools, leading some candidates to rely on these systems to fuel their independent campaigns. Bodnar, for instance, uses the Democrat-affiliated ActBlue, which has allowed Republicans to point to something specific in trying to paint him as a Democrat in disguise. While candidates and campaigns are a focus of IVA’s work, Rieckhoff is also watching issues that he believes independents are uniquely positioned to own. He points to Iran as an example of outrage that cuts across every demographic and partisan line. "The outrage around Iran is higher than most political experts appreciate," he said. "It's one of the most important stories in the world." Veterans, he argues, carry particular credibility on those questions precisely because they've lived the consequences of political decisions others only debate, even as the Democratic Party fields their own candidate in the Montana Senate race. The longer-term scenario Rieckhoff describes is more ambitious still. He believes that enough money, the right candidate, or a single high-profile defection from the major parties could trigger a cascade. Incumbent members of Congress—he names figures like Jared Golden, Don Bacon, and Thomas Massie as examples—haven't left their parties, he argues, because the parties still protect them. But the protection is contingent. "Somebody is going to break that seal," he said. "Someone has to be brave and be first." Each of these individuals either lost their primary or decided not to run for reelection in 2026, potentially freeing them up to make such a move. Rep. Kevin Kiley recently left the Republican Party to run for reelection as an independent, but he has focused his independence on promoting bills that aren't popular with Republican leadership rather than identifying himself with a broader independent movement. But until one of these groundswell moments happen, IVA's strategy is to build the community and find the candidates. By organizing veterans as leaders in the independent space and leveraging the high esteem Americans have in them, Rieckhoff is looking to make the independent path viable in most people’s minds. By recruiting veterans to run as independents, he hopes infrastructure will be built that can make it easier for that breakthrough candidate to decide to run and win earlier. That will, according to Rieckhoff, change the public conversation around non-party candidates, paving the way for a wave of independent candidates to break through in future cycles. "We're not just looking for one win," Rieckhoff said. "We're looking for a movement." ### Cumulative Voting: The Little-Known Reform That Could Crack Open America’s Two-Party Lock URL: https://ivn.us/cumulative-voting-the-little-known-reform-that-could-crack-open-americas-two-party-lock/ Last updated: 2026-06-05T18:07:42.000Z *Editor's Note: The following op-ed* [*originally published*](https://expanddem.substack.com/p/the-expand-democracy-3-cumulative) *on the Expand Democracy Substack and was republished as a stand-alone piece by request and with permission from the author.* I’ve been a leading advocate of proportional representation (PR) since getting involved in a campaign to adopt PR in Thurston County (WA) in 1990 - an effort that led me to cofound [FairVote](https://fairvote.org/?utm%5Fsource=substack&utm%5Fmedium=email) (then “Citizens for Proportional Representation”) in 1992 and become its director for the next 31 years. Over the years, I’ve generally advocated for [fully proportional systems](https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/proportional-representation/?utm%5Fsource=substack&utm%5Fmedium=email) \- such as the party-based system used in most nations that have PR and the proportional form of ranked choice voting (RCV, also known as the single transferable vote). But cumulative voting is another alternative to winner-take-all elections that has far more American uses today and is the one such alternative with a history in state legislative elections. With [growing debate occurring](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-lee-drutman.html?utm%5Fsource=substack&utm%5Fmedium=email) about whether the United States is ready for a full-blown multi-party system tied to party-based forms of PR, cumulative voting and other systems based on voting for candidates deserve more attention. Even if not “fully” proportional, cumulative voting would mean voters have more competitive choices and a greater likelihood of electing preferred candidates and be much more likely to create space for independents and new factions within the major parties. My wife Cynthia Richie Terrell of [RepresentWomen](https://www.representwomen.org/?utm%5Fsource=substack&utm%5Fmedium=email) and I are using the term “voter representation systems” to describe such candidate-based alternatives to winner-take-all elections, as measures of their fairness are tied to voters more than parties. Through that lens, cumulative voting deserves attention because of how widely it is used and its important history in Illinois for state legislative elections. ## ***What is Cumulative Voting?*** As its name suggests, voters have an opportunity to “cumulate” their votes on one candidate in a multimember district electing more than one candidate. If electing three people, say, as is the case for me in my legislative elections in Maryland, voters wouldn’t be limited to casting one vote for up to three candidates. Instead, if they really liked one candidate, they could give that candidate all three of their votes. They could give two votes to one candidate and one vote to another. [Peoria (IL) offers a tabulation twist](https://fairvote.org/cumulative-voting-wins-in-peoria/?utm%5Fsource=substack&utm%5Fmedium=email) in its five-seat city council elections. The “equal and even” rule in Peoria for more than three decades means that you vote for one, two, three, four, or five candidates. If you vote for five candidates, they each get one vote. If you vote for one, that candidate gets five. If you vote for a number of candidates in between, your votes are evenly allocated to those candidates – for example, voting for two candidates would mean they each get 2.5 votes. The Peoria ballot is eminently easy to administer, is simple for voters, and facilitates candidates running as a team. ## ***Cumulative voting in practice*** No organization closely tracks cumulative voting elections today, but the [total number of uses of it is around 100](https://substack.com/redirect/f32f3fc1-0623-4d12-9a7c-6345c140383e?j=eyJ1IjoiMXJiYmE2In0.Z-oLLUvDaIPze3o-B%5FkaEAj9y0ek9bHbyVWlBYx1XSQ&ref=ivn.us), including school board elections in Amarillo (TX), city council elections in Port Chester (NY), and county commission elections in Chilton County (AL). These modern uses of cumulative voting all stem from voting rights cases, and studies show it has been an[ effective remedy for minority vote dilution](https://substack.com/redirect/f1db21eb-0bca-475e-92f6-3c06d4c4500e?j=eyJ1IjoiMXJiYmE2In0.Z-oLLUvDaIPze3o-B%5FkaEAj9y0ek9bHbyVWlBYx1XSQ&ref=ivn.us) without single-member districts. It is also used widely in elections for[ corporate boards](https://substack.com/redirect/54fc4536-6b96-49cb-a56f-f746729373ff?j=eyJ1IjoiMXJiYmE2In0.Z-oLLUvDaIPze3o-B%5FkaEAj9y0ek9bHbyVWlBYx1XSQ&ref=ivn.us) and [homeowner associations.](https://substack.com/redirect/114e9786-a39b-48af-ab48-d8b0bddb6ef3?j=eyJ1IjoiMXJiYmE2In0.Z-oLLUvDaIPze3o-B%5FkaEAj9y0ek9bHbyVWlBYx1XSQ&ref=ivn.us) The most intriguing use of cumulative voting from history is for elections of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1870 to 1980 in three-seat districts, where voters had cumulative voting rights in both the primaries (resulting in more diverse nominees) and general elections, with voters having the option to cast either a “Peoria”-style ballot or traditional cumulative voting ballot. Adopted in the wake of the Civil War to avoid geographically polarized outcomes of confederate-leaning candidates in the southern part of Illinois and union allies in the north, cumulative voting was seen as working well to bridge divides from the start. Both parties nearly always were elected in all 60 legislative districts, and elected representatives had more freedom to legislate according to their conscience than in the winner-take-all state senate. In 1980, a populist effort to shrink the legislature by a third and go to single-member districts won on the ballot in what was nicknamed the “Cutback amendment.” Cumulative voting was eliminated with that vote, and most Illinois leaders came to deeply regret it. In 2015, I wrote[ a paper on cumulative voting in Illinois](https://substack.com/redirect/5270fa0a-500a-4709-be6b-f388d1271957?j=eyJ1IjoiMXJiYmE2In0.Z-oLLUvDaIPze3o-B%5FkaEAj9y0ek9bHbyVWlBYx1XSQ&ref=ivn.us), bringing together findings from a commission recommending the restoration of cumulative voting and anecdotal interviews with state leaders about the negative impact of losing the system. The paper is worth a skim, and I’ll highlight the qualities highlighted by a commission co-chaired by former federal judge and Democratic Congressman Abner Mikva and former Republican governor Jim Edgar that called for its return. *• Offers greater choice for voters in primary and general elections.* *• Provides prospective candidates easier access to the electoral system.* *• Provides greater representation for the minority political party in districts dominated by the other party.* *• Provides individual legislators greater independence from legislative leaders.* *• Generates richer deliberations and statewide consensus among all legislators since both parties would be represented in all parts of the state.* The commission’s recommendation led then-state senator[ Barack Obama in 2002](https://substack.com/redirect/78305af3-754d-4d28-9308-36f1ca1378a4?j=eyJ1IjoiMXJiYmE2In0.Z-oLLUvDaIPze3o-B%5FkaEAj9y0ek9bHbyVWlBYx1XSQ&ref=ivn.us) to introduce a bill allowing voters to restore cumulative voting. But powerful Democrats with a stranglehold on the House blocked it. Because cumulative voting can “split votes,” it is not reliably proportional or “fair.” What made it work in Illinois was parties limiting their nominations to two in their three-seat house districts, and cumulative voting is less effective as a voting rights remedy when racial minority voters either split their vote among two candidates or have the voting power to elect more than one candidate. That’s why most students of “voter representation” systems[ prefer proportional RCV](https://substack.com/redirect/a828dfd0-afd3-489a-a65a-6f531b2e089e?j=eyJ1IjoiMXJiYmE2In0.Z-oLLUvDaIPze3o-B%5FkaEAj9y0ek9bHbyVWlBYx1XSQ&ref=ivn.us). However, where PRCV can’t be done for administrative or legal reasons, cumulative voting should get serious consideration. ### New Mexico’s First Semi-Open Primary Exposed the Cost of Locking Voters Out URL: https://ivn.us/new-mexicos-first-semi-open-primary-exposed-the-cost-of-locking-voters-out/ Last updated: 2026-06-04T19:55:05.000Z **SANTA FE, N.M**. - Adding 37,000 people to a primary turnout may not seem like a lot of voters, especially for people who live in large states. However, in New Mexico, independent turnout changed the electoral math. It wasn’t a stampede to the polls. However, the state’s first semi-open primary produced something more important: proof that voters will participate when the law finally lets them and they have an incentive to vote. According to [unofficial results](https://electionresults.sos.nm.gov/resultsSW.aspx?map=CTY&type=SW&utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) from New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, 345,482 voters cast ballots in the June 2 primary out of 1,408,185 eligible voters. That’s a turnout of 24.53%. More than 37,000 of those voters were independent/decline-to-state (or about 11% of the total). These voters represented about 10% of the registered independent voter population and a sizable chunk of voters who would have been denied access prior to the 2026 midterms. In a statement Tuesday evening, Toulouse Oliver declared the state’s first semi-open primary a success: > *“We had a successful first Semi-open Primary Election thanks to the members of my team, county clerks, and the poll workers who have worked tirelessly to ensure a smooth voting process for all those who participated.”* Though, there are questions over how much was actually done by state and county officials to reach independent voters—more on that in a bit. Before 2026, New Mexico used a closed primary system. Voters registered with a major party could vote only in that party’s primary, while independent voters were denied access to these taxpayer-funded elections. Senate Bill 16 in 2025 [changed all of that](https://ivn.us/its-official-new-mexico-has-opened-its-primaries-independent-voters-2025-04-08/). The law allows independent and decline-to-state (DTS) voters to choose a major-party primary ballot without changing their registration. It also requires registered party members to vote in their party’s primary. This is why it is called a semi-open system. Voters still register by party and how they register determines what rights they have in primary elections. But independent voters can participate. The change mattered immediately. If the roughly 37,000 independent/DTS voters are subtracted from the 2026 primary total, New Mexico’s ballot count drops from 345,482 to about 308,482\. Measured against the full eligible electorate, turnout would fall to roughly 21.9%. That can make the difference in a lot of primary contests. Data is limited at this point as to what impact these voters had on individual contests, but what is known is that more than 7-in-10 independents picked a Democratic ballot. As [previously explained](https://ivn.us/new-mexico-independents-finally-get-a-primary-vote-and-theyre-using-it-where-it-counts/) on IVN, this does not necessarily indicate party leanings. These voters picked the primary in which their vote would have the most consequential impact in a state where Democrats have a super-majority in the legislature, control the executive branch, and all seats in Congress. New Mexico is also a state in which more than half of legislative seats went uncontested by one major party or the other in 2026\. So, the only election that mattered to the outcome was *literally* the primary for the party with candidates. A 10% turnout among registered independent voters is also important in the context that most county election offices did not prominently mention semi-open primaries or that independent voters now have the right to vote. Cathy Stewart of Open Primaries and Let Us Vote said her organization did an investigation into the matter [in an interview with KRWG](https://www.krwg.org/krwg-news/2026-06-03/group-urges-states-including-new-mexico-to-open-primaries?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com): > “As we headed into early voting, we were checking all of the county websites, and most of them did not have a notice prominently displayed or anywhere on the site that let decline to state voters know that they had this brand new voting right." Stewart added that a mailer was sent out, but voters needed a magnifying glass to read the text. “\[O\]ne mailer is not going to do it. And that's actually why we stepped in to run a very vibrant independent to independent education campaign with ads on Hulu and CTV and YouTube, all in the voices of New Mexico independent voters," she said. Source New Mexico [also reported](https://sourcenm.com/2026/05/01/most-nm-county-clerk-websites-dont-mention-semi-open-primaries-days-before-voting-starts/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) on May 1 that 20 of the state’s 33 county clerk websites made no mention of semi-open primaries just days before early voting began. Notably, some of the biggest counties did. Santa Fe County, for example, has a [dedicated semi-open primary education page](https://www.santafecountynm.gov/clerk/elections/open-primaries-education?ref=ivn.us) saying independent and DTS voters can participate without changing registration. McKinley County also has a [“NEW! SEMI-OPEN PRIMARIES” page](https://www.co.mckinley.nm.us/486/NEW-SEMI-OPEN-PRIMARIES?ref=ivn.us) that directly tells unaffiliated, DTS, and independent voters they can choose which party’s ballot to receive. The [secretary of state’s website](https://www.sos.nm.gov/voting-and-elections/voting-faqs/semi-open-primaries/?ref=ivn.us) says New Mexico’s semi-open primary system allows voters not registered with a qualified political party, including DTS and independent voters, to choose a major-party ballot without changing registration. Still, with limited outreach to voters, an information vacuum existed that Let Us Vote New Mexico sought to fill with its Get Out The Vote campaign. "We wanted to reach out to independents across the state to make sure they know they have a new primary voting right," Stewart said in a recent comment to IVN. The numbers suggest the group’s efforts had a positive impact. For years, nearly a quarter of New Mexico’s electorate paid for primary elections that often decided political power but had no meaningful way to participate without joining a private political party. In 2026, more than 37,000 of those voters made history. It may only be 10% of registered independents in the state, but they are voters that couldn't participate under the old system. ### Critics PROVED WRONG About the “Top-Two” Primary in California (It WORKS) URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/critics-proved-wrong-about-the-top-two-primary-in-california-it-works-2/ Last updated: 2026-06-11T20:00:47.000Z Fresh off the California gubernatorial primary, Chad, Cara, and Ethan break down why the "Top Two will produce two Republicans" narrative was a manufactured fear - and why it collapsed the moment voters actually voted, with Steve Hilton and Xavier Becerra heading toward a traditional R-vs-D general. They dig into who was pushing that panic and why (fundraising, juicing turnout, and a quiet war on Top Two itself), including the uncomfortable detail that a party chair reportedly asked a leading minority candidate to drop out. Stick around for the bigger question the reform movement keeps dodging - and a pitch for what could come *after* Top Two. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ## Episode Highlights In this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, Ethan, Chad, and Cara break down the **California primary election results** in real time, with only 57% of expected votes counted. Early results show Steve Hilton leading at 27.8%, followed by Xavier Becerra at 25.4%, and Tom Steyer at 19.5%. They highlight how **political outsiders** and **independent voters** shaped the outcome, debunking the **disinformation campaign** pushed by **establishment party insiders** who manufactured a fear narrative about two Republicans potentially advancing. It was deliberate **election misinformation** designed to suppress competition, drive **fundraising**, and boost partisan **voter turnout**. [The Top Two Panic Wasn’t Analysis. It Was Political Manipulation.California voters did exactly what voters tend to do: they evaluated the candidates, coalesced around viable contenders, and produced a result broadly reflective of the state’s electorate.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-01631a39-f7af-420f-83fc-373fd052d521.jpg)Independent Voter NewsOpen Primaries![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/California-voters-June-2-primary-f580aaf4-26fc-41be-8d36-fdeee1f8efcf.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-top-two-panic-wasnt-analysis-it-was-political-manipulation/) The conversation digs deep into **election reform**, **voter rights**, and **democracy vs. partisanship**, centering on California's **Top Two nonpartisan primary system**. **Political elites** from both the **Democratic Party** and **Republican Party** are attempting to dismantle Top Two— not because it's broken, but precisely because it **empowers voters over party bosses**. Data from the California State Library shows that since Top Two was approved by voters in 2010, women's representation in the legislature grew by 79%, the state senate became **majority women**, and **Latino and Hispanic representation** surged from 37% to 55% of seats. It is a striking indicator of how **election system reform** drives **diversity in government** and **political representation**. The episode also explores next-generation **electoral reforms**, proposing a potential **Top Four or Top Five primary** combined with **ranked choice voting (RCV)** in the general election —a system that is being dubbed More Choice Voting. [How California’s Top Two Nonpartisan Primary Transformed the LegislatureThe system Republican and Democratic party insiders want to “undo” produced a legislature where women hold 49 percent of seats, people of color hold 55 percent, and Latinos have reached a third of the body for the first time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-42182226-748a-4f4b-8703-3cff60c58aec.jpg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/undo-the-top-two-party-insiders-c79eac88-78ea-43b0-87e4-9844b69fa723.png)](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/) It would eliminate **first-past-the-post voting** and ensure winners reflect a true **voter majority**. It’s worth noting that **Latino voters** — the **fastest-growing independent voter demographic** — overwhelmingly support open primaries, with 80% favoring the current system over a return to closed partisan primaries. [Poll: Only 22% of Latino Voters Support Return to Partisan Primaries. Becerra Big Lead for Governor.A majority of California Latino voters say they want to keep the nonpartisan Top Two primary or modify it to advance more than two candidates to the general election. They don’t want the state to go back to closed primaries.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-05d93d7b-2249-41bd-b5b3-c688cb36814f.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/poll-california-voters-want-open-primaries-3db3c4a1-8456-4e9a-afde-ff85032338d3.jpg)](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) As **election integrity**, **voting rights**, and **political polarization** dominate national headlines, this episode offers a timely, **nonpartisan perspective** on reshaping American democracy from the ground up. ### The Top Two Panic Wasn’t Analysis. It Was Political Manipulation. URL: https://ivn.us/the-top-two-panic-wasnt-analysis-it-was-political-manipulation/ Last updated: 2026-06-03T18:40:39.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an organizational statement submitted to IVN from the better elections reform group Open Primaries.* For months, political commentators and party insiders warned that California's Top Two primary system was terrible for Californians. Why? Because the open system would result in two Republicans facing off against each other in November's Gubernatorial final. This prediction was repeated so often that it became accepted wisdom within the political echo chamber. But nobody bothered to speak to the voters. They like the open system that lets all voters vote, and they used it to make a sophisticated statement on Tuesday about their dissatisfaction with both major parties. [As California Dems Push a Two-Republican Panic, Their Own Poll Contradicts Their MessageNeither of the two Republican candidates in the governor’s race, Hilton or Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, have gained ground as more undecided voters make their pick in the race or settle on a candidate.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-e584e986-952f-4928-b841-994891755bcb.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-governor-candidates-polling-4706dd67-9e89-4eae-b601-aef3acb807e9.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-dems-push-a-two-republican-panic-their-own-poll-contradicts-their-message-2026-05-06/) The "Republicans will win in a blue state" hysteria dominated headlines, political panels, and insider conversations for months, and it was pure game theory, completely divorced from real people and real politics. California voters did exactly what voters tend to do: they evaluated the candidates, coalesced around viable contenders, and produced a result broadly reflective of the state's electorate. They did not flock to MAGA, but they found ways to express concern with the Democratic Party's ignoring of key issues like homelessness and affordability. [In LA, Spencer Pratt Proves Anger with Democratic Party Leadership is RealSpencer Pratt’s campaign took off in LA, not because of his political leanings. It took off because he channeled voters’ broad frustrations with City Hall and the partisan leadership that controls it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-f9f191bf-14ee-417d-84ed-37263325998e.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/spencer-pratt-LA-mayor-race-ba1291a0-e653-4cab-a339-91041b503de8.jpg)](https://ivn.us/paul-rieckhoff-spencer-pratt-is-a-vessel-for-voter-anger-at-las-democratic-machine/) The prediction failed because many analysts focused on theoretical vote-splitting models instead of actual voter behavior. They treated Californians as static pieces on a chessboard rather than citizens capable of responding to campaigns, polling, media coverage, endorsements, and the evolving dynamics of a competitive election. They assumed that Democrats would remain permanently fragmented while Republicans would unite behind a single candidate. Neither assumption proved true. More fundamentally, many critics approached the election with the predetermined belief that nonpartisan primaries are fundamentally flawed and interpreted every development through that lens. The possibility of two Republicans advancing became less an evidence-based prediction than a political talking point deployed to argue against an open primary system. What actually happened tells a very different story. California voters used the Top Two system to engage in a vigorous debate about the state's future. Candidates were forced to compete for support beyond narrow partisan constituencies. Independent voters were able to participate fully. Concerns about affordability, governance, public safety, housing, and the elitism of the ruling Democratic Party were aired in a public election open to all voters. This is exactly how our democracy should work. That conversation would have looked very different in a closed primary system. It probably would not have even happened in a closed system! Millions of independent voters would have been excluded, and candidates would have been jumping over one another to pander to narrow groups of partisan die-hards. Instead, California held a genuinely public election that gave voters the opportunity to register dissatisfaction with the status quo while still producing a broadly representative outcome. The Top Two system allowed Californians to express themselves. The doomsday scenario the chattering consultant class predicted wasn't just wrong. It was pure manipulation disguised as analysis. And if they move ahead with a 2028 ballot measure to ban 6 million independents from participating in publicly financed primary elections, they better be ready for a real fight. ### In LA, Spencer Pratt Proves Anger with Democratic Party Leadership is Real URL: https://ivn.us/paul-rieckhoff-spencer-pratt-is-a-vessel-for-voter-anger-at-las-democratic-machine/ Last updated: 2026-06-08T20:06:41.000Z *Editor's Note: At the time this article published, ballots were still being counted in Los Angeles. With 47% of precincts reporting, Spencer Pratt had 29.8% of the vote, which would be enough to force a general election against incumbent Karen Bass if Pratt manages to keep his second-place status.* *Update (6/8/26): Nithya Raman surpassed Spencer Pratt in the vote count to take second place with 83% of precincts reporting. As of the most recent count, Pratt is at 26.7%, which is a large enough segment of the electorate to shape a two-Democrat general election.* Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Independent Veterans of America, was invited onto CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett to talk about several things, including what Spencer Pratt's mayoral campaign actually means in Los Angeles. While critics point to Pratt's inexperience, or that he is a reality TV star, or he has MAGA support, Rieckhoff says his support comes from people who feel forgotten, ignored, and/or unrepresented in local government. “People don’t care,” he said bluntly. “They are angry, and if you’re not angry then you’re not paying attention.” > *“They want vessels for their anger. They want someone to run against all of it, and the people who are going to be the most effective are the ones who run against Trump and the Democrats, and the system, and the city government, and all of it.”* In other words, the candidate who challenges the partisan leadership at the top that is not governing directly to their needs. At a national level, that is President Donald Trump for many voters. But on a local level, particularly in LA, it is the Democratic leadership in City Hall. “And that’s where Spencer Pratt sits,” Rieckhoff added. There have been several attempts to link Pratt to Trump. The president even praised Pratt and said, “I’d like to see him do well. He’s a character. I heard he’s a big MAGA person. He’s doing well.” Pratt said this is a nonpartisan election and he is not running a partisan campaign. “I do not represent a party. I don’t have a campaign manager, I don’t have campaign consults. There’s no political party backing me.” Contrary to Trump's remarks, Pratt said he is not a MAGA Republican. And he is primarily running against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and City Hall. Bass is seeking re-election after a first term defined by overlapping crises: homelessness, affordability, public safety concerns, frustration over city services, and lingering anger over the city’s response to the January 2025 Palisades Fire. Pratt, who lost his home in that fire, has built his campaign around the argument that City Hall failed residents—and that the political establishment is more interested in protecting itself than fixing what Angelenos see every day. The evidence going into the June 2 primary, as Rieckhoff observed, showed that this message was gaining traction. A late [UC Berkeley-Los Angeles Times poll](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/los-angeles-mayor-bass-pratt-raman-election/3898332/?ref=ivn.us) showed Bass at 26%, Councilmember Nithya Raman at 25%, and Pratt at 22% among likely voters ahead of the June 2 primary. That put the race win play for all three candidates. Pratt also jumped to 22% from 14% in March—8 points going into the final stretch of the campaign. Bass, by contrast, only moved from 25% to 26% over the same period. An Independent Voter Project (IVP) poll [in May](https://ivn.us/new-poll-pratt-and-becerra-lead-among-los-angeles-general-election-voters-2026-05-12/) also showed that there is an appetite to see Pratt be successful among likely general election voters. If the general election was held then, he would have actually led with 27%, according to the poll. [NEW POLL: Pratt and Becerra Lead Among Los Angeles General Election VotersIf the November general election were held today with the same electorate that turned out in 2022, Spencer Pratt would lead at 27%, followed by Karen Bass at 24% and Nithya Raman at 23%.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-e8eeb59d-21cf-4a21-b847-401135eb481f.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/spencer-pratt-la-mayor-poll-1-04358adb-9a4f-4662-8043-d2706e2c0ed1.png)](https://ivn.us/new-poll-pratt-and-becerra-lead-among-los-angeles-general-election-voters-2026-05-12/) But the question is: How many of those voters participated in the primary? The general electorate looks noticeably different than the standard primary electorate. Either way, the fact that Pratt is within striking distance of Bass is a warning sign for an incumbent mayor backed by the Democratic establishment. Bass has lined up support from high-profile Democrats, including: - Kamala Harris, - Gavin Newsom, - Nancy Pelosi, and - Powerful labor unions. Yet the race was still highly competitive. Pratt’s rise did not happen in a vacuum. The Associated Press [described](https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-mayor-election-bass-pratt-ca624a57c9e717ecdf0f86756b0d370b?ref=ivn.us) his candidacy as a national barometer of dissatisfaction with liberal urban governance. He has focused on homelessness, wildfire response, and a broader sense that LA is becoming harder to afford and harder to trust politically. This is why Rieckhoff’s point matters. Pratt does not need voters to see him as a conventional candidate. He needs them to see him as a protest vote with a name they already know. And in Los Angeles, Pratt can tap into the frustrations and anger of a broad electorate. The city conducts nonpartisan primary elections, meaning all voters can cast a ballot for any candidate, regardless of party or political affiliation. In fact, the candidate's party does not even appear on the ballot. There is a catch. Under LA’s rules, a candidate who gets over 50% of the vote wins outright without a general election. This is not likely to happen in the 2026 mayoral race, but it is still a possibility for future elections. It is a contrast to a city like San Diego, where IVP sponsored a ballot measure to ensure elections stopped working this way. [Measure K](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/authored-initiatives/san-diego-measure-k?ref=ivn.us) in 2016 kept the nonpartisan nature of San Diego’s primary elections but changed the rules so that no matter how much a front-runner gets, they will face the second-place candidate in the general election. It is essentially how the statewide nonpartisan Top Two primary works. All voters get the same ballot. They can choose any candidate. And, there is a guaranteed general election. But in LA, if Bass manages to get to a majority, she wins outright, and the larger general electorate would miss out on a chance to settle which candidate truly has the broadest support in the city—and is the voters’ choice. The odds would not favor Pratt in a general election contest against the incumbent. Registered Democrats make up a majority of the city's electorate. However, forcing one raises some big questions. Specifically, what does his support say about Los Angeles politics? And what does it say about a system that gives voters the freedom to express their frustrations by selecting any candidate they want? Rieckhoff noted on CNN that California gives independent voters options that other states don't. Nearly 7 million independents can vote in the primary, not have to pick a party, vote for any candidate, and don’t need anyone’s permission to do it. Contrast that with New Jersey, which also held June 2 primaries and uses a closed partisan primary. Millions of independent voters are locked out—something IVP [challenged in court](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/in-the-courtroom/balsam?ref=ivn.us) and petitioned the case all the way to the Supreme Court. [The Forces Trying to Kill ‘Top Two’ Can’t Read Their Own PollingA partisan pollster finds 70% support for open primaries and calls it erosion![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-8207d9f8-0c45-4b18-8457-ced3405fc016.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/California-Top-Two-Primary-98e0f156-d49c-4d66-88ed-540c365cb35b.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-forces-trying-to-kill-top-two-cant-read-their-own-polling/) “Seventy percent of people in California want open primaries,” he said, referring to recent polling from the same party insiders who want to repeal Top Two entirely. > *"This is what democracy looks like. It might be messy. You might not get everything you want. But this is a voter-driven primary. It is not a party-driven primary. It is one of only 3 states that are like that.”* He added, “I think this is what the future looks like.” Rieckhoff is an Iraq War veteran, author, advocate, and longtime independent voice in American politics. He founded [Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America](https://iava.org/?ref=ivn.us) after returning from combat and later launched [Independent Veterans of America](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us), which focuses on mobilizing veterans to run for office as independent candidates. ### Your Vote Isn’t the Problem. The System Is. URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/your-vote-isnt-the-problem-the-system-is/ Last updated: 2026-06-03T01:16:50.000Z *Editor's Note: The podcast originally appeared on* [*The Friday Reporter*](https://substack.com/@thefridayreporter?ref=ivn.us) *substack. It was republished on IVN with permission from the host.* There’s a conversation I come back to every so often in this work — the kind where you walk away thinking differently about something you assumed you understood. This week’s episode was one of those. I sat down with Chad Peace, the voter advocate and attorney behind the More Choice initiative and the Independent Voter Project. If you’ve heard of California’s Top Two primary — the system where the two highest vote-getters in a primary advance to the general, regardless of party — Chad was one of the architects. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-b5510c2a-6592-4f27-8e73-4830ccbc651d.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal-f3970f0e-686d-4cb8-8178-43f44f47d7b1.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) He’s spent years in courtrooms and state legislatures arguing for something that sounds deceptively simple: that the right to vote should belong to you, the individual, not to the party you join. The conversation that stuck with me was about incentives. Right now, our election system rewards division. You don’t have to win by being good — you can win by making your opponent look terrible. That’s not a bug in the system. It’s the design. And it’s why we keep electing people who are better at tearing things down than building consensus. More Choice — Chad’s proposed next step beyond the Top Two — would advance four or more candidates to November and give voters the ability to rank their preferences. The idea is simple: if second- and third-place votes matter, you can’t win just by going negative. You have to actually persuade people who don’t already agree with you. That changes the calculus completely. I also appreciated how clear-eyed Chad is about the opposition. Both parties — left and right — want to get rid of the Top Two. They call it a “jungle primary” (a term he correctly identifies as deliberately pejorative). Their solution? Go back to closed primaries, where party members pick the candidates and everyone else chooses from whatever’s left in November. [The Forces Trying to Kill ‘Top Two’ Can’t Read Their Own PollingA partisan pollster finds 70% support for open primaries and calls it erosion![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-6d63dbfb-5814-4d2b-8ca2-14b7444f19af.jpg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/California-Top-Two-Primary-84455902-8558-432e-b900-ee655f9e1ff6.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-forces-trying-to-kill-top-two-cant-read-their-own-polling/) His response: that’s not reform. That’s consolidating power. Chad grew up between a Republican family on his mom’s side and a Kentucky Democrat on his father’s. They never fought at the dinner table. They respected each other. He believes most voters are actually like that — closer to the middle than our political system reflects. The system just isn’t built to show it. This one is worth your time, whether you follow election reform closely or you just found yourself standing in a voting booth last November thinking: really? These are my only options? ### California Wanted a Governor’s Race. It Got a Political Cage Match. URL: https://ivn.us/california-wanted-a-governors-race-it-got-a-political-cage-match/ Last updated: 2026-06-17T21:34:04.000Z **SACRAMENTO, Calif.** – Katie Porter said it out loud so nobody else had to. "This is worse than my teenagers at dinner," the former Orange County congresswoman told a Pomona College debate audience in April, gesturing at the seven rivals sharing the stage with her. She wasn't wrong. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/california-governor-candidates-positivity-rating.png) An analysis of direct quotes from all 8 major candidates, drawn from the televised debates, dozens of campaign interviews, and paid advertising, found that five of the eight ended California's governor's primary with more negative statements on record than positive ones. Not a single candidate grew more positive as the race progressed. Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff and Republican candidate, made negative statements 72% of the time, the highest share in the field. Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa came in at 53% negative, followed by Tom Steyer at 55%, Xavier Becerra at 52%, and Katie Porter at 46%. Only two candidates, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and state Superintendent Tony Thurmond, ended the race with substantially more positive statements than negative ones. "Our businesses are leaving. Our workers are leaving. Our kids can't afford to live here. There's nothing good coming from the current Democrat Party," Bianco said, in remarks typical of his overall posture throughout the campaign. He called Democratic policies "lies" at multiple debates and falsely claimed at the April 28 debate that COVID vaccines distributed under President Biden had "poisoned" millions of Americans, drawing audible groans from the audience. Steve Hilton, the Republican frontrunner and former Fox News host, began the campaign with a sunny brand built around the word "Califordable." By the final weeks, the optimism had curdled. "Sixteen years of Democrat progressive governance have been an unmitigated disaster, and a very expensive one," [he told Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/gops-steve-hiltons-chances-in-california-governor-race-ahead-of-primary-12010288?ref=ivn.us). At the final debate on May 14, Hilton turned directly to Democratic frontrunner Xavier Becerra: "I like you personally, Xavier, but you shouldn't be on this stage. You shouldn't be in this race. You should be preparing your criminal defense." Becerra gave as good as he got. "Donald Trump's his daddy, and he will protect him all the way through," he said of Hilton at the CNN debate. He dismissed Porter's criticism as "very rich to hear from someone who's never had to actually run a government." When all six rivals attacked him at the final debate, Becerra shrugged: "This is what happens when you take the lead in the polls. They all come at you." Porter's record was evenly split between sharp policy arguments and sharper personal attacks. She pressed Becerra at the Pomona debate: "You have all these lovely plans, but there are never any numbers, any revenue plan, any details." She went after Steyer's fossil fuel past with a pointed question, "How about profiteers pay?" She then suggested at the final debate that Becerra could still be implicated in the corruption case against his aides, despite the prosecutor's statement to the contrary. A leaked video in which she told a staffer ["Get out of my f--king shot"](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/08/katie-porter-tears-into-staffer-new-video-00598942?ref=ivn.us) circulated widely throughout the campaign. Villaraigosa carved out a specific lane as the candidate willing to blame his own party. "We can't put everything on Donald Trump. We have the highest homelessness, the highest gas prices. Those happened under Democratic policies," he told MSNBC in May. He accused Becerra and Kamala Harris of being "intentionally complicit" in a cover-up of President Biden's cognitive decline. In the televised debates, Steyer was among the more positive voices on stage. But he also ran the most expensive negative advertising campaign in the race. On May 31, two days before the primary, he released a television ad claiming Becerra "could be indicted next" and "knew and did nothing." Becerra's lawyers called it "textbook defamation" and threatened to sue. Steyer's lawyers said they would welcome a lawsuit. The ad ran through primary day. Outside the candidates, a PAC called California Is Not for Sale attacked Steyer’s past investments in fossil fuels and private prisons. The most positive candidate overall, Thurmond, polled at 1 percent. All the negativity in the primary campaign raises a question that the Independent Voter Project is now putting directly to Californians: would any of this have been different if more candidates advanced in a nonpartisan system? The organization, which helped design and pass California's Top Two primary in 2010, is now working to [reform the reform](https://ivn.us/author-californias-top-two-primary-says-its-time-reform-reform/). They call it "More Choice Voting" – a proposal to advance four or five candidates to the general election instead of just two. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-9e5b1d90-0596-4f7c-824f-fecec39313fb.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal-f1db33bc-2d13-4c1e-8ba8-726ab456e813.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) They are asking voters whether that structural change would alter the incentives that drove this race into the ground. In a Top Two system, with two spots available, every candidate faced a zero-sum calculation: perhaps the fastest way to move up was to drag someone else down. Steyer spent millions trying to disqualify his fellow Democrat, Becerra. Villaraigosa attacked his own party's most prominent figures. Porter questioned whether the frontrunner might be criminally indicted. Becerra called Hilton Trump's proxy. Everyone came for everyone. Would four or five candidates advancing to November change that? Would candidates feel less compelled to attack each other if survival did not require someone else's elimination? Would more room at the top create more space for ideas? Would More Choice Voting make elections less negative? After watching eight candidates spend six months tearing each other apart, it is not a hard case to make that the current system could be improved to bring out more of the best. ### **TONY THURMOND (58% positive / 25% negative)** Called out Bianco's unprecedented seizure of 650,000 ballots from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters, citing it as evidence of election interference by a sitting sheriff. (CBS Debate, 4/28/26) "This act doesn't reflect the Democratic Party of 2026\. The establishment is essentially telling every candidate of color to drop out." (Statement) "Aren't we supposed to be the party who embraces democracy? A party of, by and for the people." (Statement) ### **MATT MAHAN (56% positive / 29% negative)** "What we saw on Skid Row is a multi-decade public policy failure." (ABC7) "The state deserves better." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "They're all wrong." (CBS Debate, 4/28/26) "Xavier's plan won't work." On Becerra's proposal to freeze home insurance rates. (CBS Debate, 4/28/26) "Becerra is the embodiment of the status quo in Sacramento." (CBS Debate, 5/14/26) "We don't need career politicians who've never met a crisis that they couldn't ignore." (CBS Debate, 5/14/26) On Steyer: "His structural change sounds to me more like socialism. His plans literally would double the size of the state government." (CBS Debate, 5/14/26) "We do not need the leadership that MAGA candidates on this stage are offering, that's divisive. We don't need the leadership of a billionaire who's now against everything he made his money in, or a career politician who has failed again and again to deliver results. He's trying to remember his lines. Right?" (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) To Hilton: "It's totally unrealistic that you're going to have $3 gas in a year. You're lying." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Tom Steyer is making a lot of false promises up here, things that the legislature already rejected because we don't know how to pay for them." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Where I differ with my Democratic colleagues is they're all talking about how to raise revenue, make government bigger. Secretary Becerra always brags about how big the trillion-dollar budgets were that he managed. I'm interested in making government better. The answer isn't always bigger." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Not MAGA and not more of the same." (CBS Debate, 5/14/26) On Governor Newsom: "Instead of spending so much energy attacking his opponents, the governor and his team should be addressing the high cost of energy, helping hard-pressed families make ends meet and keeping them and their employers from fleeing our state." (SF Standard) ### **STEVE HILTON (44% positive / 46% negative)** "I think it's just obvious that these 16 years of Democrat progressive governance have been an unmitigated disaster, and a very expensive one, because we pay the highest taxes for these terrible results." (Newsweek, 5/29/26) "Democrat one-party rule gave California the highest unemployment in America." (Campaign website) "The complete disaster of homelessness across the state." (Newsweek, 5/29/26) "Chad Bianco has got more baggage than LAX." (Fox Debate, 2/3/26) "I like you personally, Xavier, but you shouldn't be on this stage. You shouldn't be in this race. You should be preparing your criminal defense." (CBS Debate, 5/14/26) "If we don't get together as a party, we could have Tom Steyer and Xavier Becerra in the general election, and that is a disaster for California. It means no change." (NBC4, 5/30/26) "Two Democrats advancing to the general would be a disaster for the state from the point of view of democracy." (Newsweek, 5/29/26) "Matt Mahan talked about housing. His city was just rated the least affordable for housing in the world." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Mr. Mahan, as you noted, he didn't challenge the fact that homelessness has gone up on his watch." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Some of these Democrats on the stage, they talk as if we're in some parallel universe where Democrats haven't been running this state for the last 16 years. You look at Javier, 36 years, he's been a career politician. For Democrats, it's just got to change." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Lawsuits are adding sometimes up to $15,000 a year onto insurance premiums. And these Democrats won't change it because they are funded by the trial lawyers." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "All they can say is Trump. That's all they have got." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Under Tom Steyer, the taxes will be higher, gas prices will be higher, everything will be higher with Steyer." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) To Porter: "She said something very revealing, which is the only way, really, that California's economy has been growing in the last few years is through illegal immigration." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) ### **KATIE PORTER (44% positive / 46% negative)** "Mr. Becerra, you have all these lovely plans, but there are never any numbers, any revenue plan, any details. What is Mr. Becerra's revenue plan?" (CBS Debate, 4/28/26) Said Becerra's response on single-payer healthcare was not clear, calling it "disqualifying." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) Went so far as to say Becerra could still be implicated in the Williamson corruption case, despite a federal prosecutor's statement that no candidate had been named in any charging document. (CBS Debate, 5/14/26) "How about profiteers pay?" On Steyer's past investments in fossil fuels and private prisons. (CBS Debate, 4/28/26) "This is worse than my teenagers at dinner." (CBS Debate, 4/28/26) "If these boys bullying and bickering hasn't been enough to raise questions about their temperament, I would really challenge that." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "I can't believe that on a stage with 30 minutes of interrupting and bickering and name-calling and shouting and disrespect, that anyone wants to talk about my temperament." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) When CBS reporter Julie Watts asked Porter what she would say to the 40% of California voters who voted for Trump, Porter responded: "How would I need them in order to win, ma'am?" then laughed and threatened to walk out of the interview. (CBS News California) "Get out of my f--king shot." (Leaked video) "It's convenient to close it after you have profited from it." On Steyer backing a corporate real estate tax loophole he had previously benefited from. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "This billionaire's tax is simply not good tax policy. It's a one-time tax. But we don't have one-time revenue needs." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "There's a lot of evidence that State Farm has lied, cheated, or stolen here." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Boys, boys, enough with the bickering." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Oh, cowboy." To Bianco after he interrupted her. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Sir, I don't need any lectures from you about being a mother." To Bianco. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Given that you're an immigrant and you added to our population, and we're all having to live with the consequences of that decision." To Hilton. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) ### **XAVIER BECERRA (37% positive / 52% negative)** "The first thing we have to do is stop Steve Hilton's daddy." (CBS Debate, 4/28/26) "Donald Trump's his daddy, and he will protect him all the way through." To Hilton. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "That's very rich to hear from someone who's never had to actually run a government." To Porter. (CBS Debate, 5/14/26) "This is what happens when you take the lead in the polls. They all come at you." (CBS Debate, 5/14/26) Dismissed criticism of his handling of unaccompanied migrant children as "a MAGA talking point." (CBS Debate, 4/28/26) "This race will come down to those who've earned it versus those who are trying to buy it." A shot at Steyer's self-funding. (Nexstar Debate, 4/22/26) "Someone should tell Tom that voters have a word for what he's doing: it's lying. And it's not a quality Californians are looking for in their next governor." (Campaign statement, 5/31/26) "We haven't dropped any options on the table. A lie is a lie." On whether he would sue Steyer. (ABC10) "The price of gas has gone up $1 to $2 because of Donald Trump and his war in Iran. The price of goods, groceries have gone up in California because of Donald Trump's illegal tariffs." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) TV ad using scenes of Joshua trees, ocean waves, and redwoods with the voiceover: "You can stop the endless Tom Steyer ads." (Becerra TV ad) ### **TOM STEYER (38% positive / 55% negative)** "You really can't reform an organization which is absolutely wrong and criminal from top to bottom." On ICE. (Fox Debate, 2/3/26) "Billionaires all over this race are spending tens of millions of dollars to stop me." (CSMonitor, 5/27/26) "Big Oil didn't spend millions on Becerra by accident. They're buying flexibility on drilling, and Californians will pay for it at the pump and in the air we breathe." (Steyer campaign spokesperson) "When it comes to single-payer, you went to the largest lobbying group against single payer health care in the state of California. The next day, the head of that group said you very clearly indicated you were against single payer. Then they endorsed you and they gave you the maximum amount of money. Are they lying?" To Becerra. (CBS Debate, 5/14/26) Called Mahan "a tool of Big Tech" when the San Jose mayor entered the race. Campaign spokesperson: "California needs a governor who will stand up to powerful interests, not carry their water." (Statement, early 2026) "I do think it's rich to hear someone talk about $3 gas who is owned by Donald Trump." To Hilton. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "We should be taxing the oil companies because they are getting a windfall profit as a result of the war that the president that they put into office started for no apparent reason." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) Attack ad on Eric Swalwell's congressional attendance record, the worst of any active member of Congress. Voiceover: "Call me old school, but you typically have to do your job before you earn a promotion." (Steyer campaign ad, early 2026) Ran a sustained series of ads questioning Becerra's credentials and government record throughout the final weeks of the campaign. (Steyer campaign ads, April through June 2026) "Risky" TV ad: "Becerra could be indicted next. He knew and did nothing." Referenced guilty pleas of Becerra's former chief of staff and campaign manager. Federal prosecutors said Becerra was a victim in the case. Becerra's attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter. Steyer's lawyers refused to pull the ad. (Steyer TV ad, 5/31/26) ### **ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA (35% positive / 53% negative)** "We can't put everything on Donald Trump. We have the highest homelessness, the highest gas prices, the highest cost of living. Those happened under Democratic policies." (MSNBC) "I'm the stink bomb in the elevator, if you will, in challenging some of this." (MSNBC) "You know, you're an oath keeper. We all know that." To Bianco. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "I've been in enough forums with you where I've heard you say you're for single-payer, and I've heard you say you're against." To Becerra. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "People like you are the reason why we keep on spending more than we got." To Becerra. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) Called Medicare for All "pie in the sky." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "At the highest levels of our government, those in power were intentionally complicit or told outright lies in a systematic cover-up to keep Joe Biden's mental decline from the public." (Statement, 5/26) "What did Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra know, when did they know it, and most importantly, why didn't either of them speak out?" (Statement, 5/26) "I've been challenging my party for years, because it's been Democrats that brought us here." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "I'll tell you what I think is illegal, a sheriff of Riverside County sequestering thousands of votes in the way that you did. The Supreme Court said that you shouldn't have done it in the first place." To Bianco. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Steve Hilton, I know you're recently arrived to California, but if you've read the Bay Area Institute study, immigrants, if we took them all out including the undocumented, it would be a $274 billion hit to the California economy." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) Ran an attack ad targeting Porter over the staffer video incident, citing it as evidence of temperament problems. (Villaraigosa campaign ad) ## **CHAD BIANCO (20% positive / 72% negative)** "Sanctuary state, created by Democrats, created the environment on purpose that we see today." (NBC LA) "Our businesses are leaving. Our workers are leaving. Our kids can't afford to live here. There's nothing good coming from the current Democrat Party." (KQED) Falsely claimed COVID vaccines distributed under the Biden administration had "poisoned" millions of Americans. The claim drew audible groans from the debate audience. (CBS Debate, 4/28/26) "I couldn't think of a single thing the state legislature has done right during my seven years as sheriff." (Sacramento forum) "We are going to get nothing but the same from them. They brought us here. Every single one of these career politicians brought us to the point where we are here today. They do not deserve another chance." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "The insurance companies are not going to come back if another Democrat is elected. The reasons why they left is because of failed Democrat policies that force them to leave." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Sanctuary state is forcing us to be less safe." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "Steve and I sat here smiling at each other because we're just watching you all prove to everyone why they can't vote for a Democrat." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "I want Mr. Villaraigosa to tell the mother of the 14-year-old in my county that is dead because of an illegal immigrant that had been deported three times because of DUIs that sanctuary state policy keeps us safe." (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) "It's too late, don't you think? How about the three DUIs before that?" To Villaraigosa. (CNN Debate, 5/5/26) ### **PAC ADS AGAINST STEYER** The "California Is Not for Sale" PAC ran ads attacking Steyer's former hedge fund investments in private prison companies, citing a 2019 Los Angeles Times article. They also ran ads attacking Steyer's fossil fuel investments and describing his policy proposals as likely to make life more expensive for Californians. PAC spokesperson Amelia Matier: "The only big money interest in this race is Tom Steyer." (SF Standard) PAC spokesperson Amelia Matier: "Californians deserve a candidate whose support is built on trust not a checkbook." (Statement) PAC spokesperson Amelia Matier: "Tom Steyer is a climate champion is a fallacy. The man claims to not take any donations from oil and gas, but he just spent $217 million of Farallon capital, which is energy money, on his own vanity project. The largest chunk of corporate money in this race comes from Tom Steyer's own bank account." (SF Standard, 5/31/26) METHODOLOGY Scores reflect a qualitative analysis of direct quotes from debates (Fox 2/3/26, Nexstar 4/22/26, CBS 4/28/26, CNN 5/5/26, CBS 5/14/26), candidate interviews, and paid advertising through June 2, 2026\. Independent PAC advertising was not included in candidate scores. ### They Can't Read Their Own Polls... URL: https://ivn.us/they-cant-read-their-own-polls-3/ Last updated: 2026-06-02T19:03:20.000Z Partisans manufacture polls and narratives to fit their agenda. Nonpartisan primaries don't fit that agenda. Party operatives [can't control Top Two](https://ivn.us/the-fight-over-open-primaries-is-now-a-fight-over-who-owns-democracy/), so they spin the headlines. Last week, a Democratic Party pollster [declared "massive erosion"](https://ivn.us/the-forces-trying-to-kill-top-two-cant-read-their-own-polling/) in support for California's open primary, even though his own data showed 70% of voters want to keep or expand it. IVN has been exposing these manufactured narratives from the beginning, including with [our own polling](https://ivn.us/tag/ivp-poll/). We poll what voters actually think, not what either party wants to hear. It is one reason we were the [first poll to show to show Xavier Becerra](https://ivn.us/breaking-xavier-becerra-bolts-into-first-place-in-ivn-california-governor-poll-2026-04-20/) leading in the California governor's race and the only [poll that shows just 22% of Latino voters oppose](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) nonpartisan primaries and are going big for Beccera. Check out more news outside the two-party narrative, below: ### *FEATURED ▶▶▶* ## They Can't Read Their Own Polls ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/UndoTheTopTwo_Logo_2026.png) A Democratic Party pollster just released a survey claiming "massive erosion" in support for California's Top Two primary, but **his own numbers show 70% of voters want to keep or expand open primaries**, with just 29% wanting a return to closed partisan contests. It's no surprise the parties are nervous. Since Top Two took effect, the nonpartisan primary has quietly transformed California's legislature - forcing candidates to compete for every voter, not just their party's base. [Read the article now](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/) to see why the people trying to dismantle the system can't seem to understand their own polling. [READ NOW](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/) ### *POPULAR ON IVN ▶▶▶* [The Forces Trying to Kill 'Top Two' Can't Read Their Own Polling ](https://ivn.us/the-forces-trying-to-kill-top-two-cant-read-their-own-polling/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/03/ivp_logo-02.png) IVN Editorial Board [ ![California Top Two Primary](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/California-Top-Two-Primary.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-forces-trying-to-kill-top-two-cant-read-their-own-polling/) [Poll: Only 22% of Latino Voters Support Return to Partisan Primaries. Becerra Big Lead for Governor. ](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/03/ivp_logo-02.png) IVN Editorial Board [ ![Poll: California voters want open primaries](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/poll-california-voters-want-open-primaries.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) [A Top-Two Democrat Race for Governor? In California, That May Be What a Healthy Democracy Actually Looks Like ](https://ivn.us/a-top-two-democrat-race-for-governor-in-california-that-may-be-what-a-healthy-democracy-actually-looks-like/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Steve-Peace.jpg) Steve Peace and Dan Howle [ ![California governor race two Democrats](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/california-governor-race-two-democrats.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/a-top-two-democrat-race-for-governor-in-california-that-may-be-what-a-healthy-democracy-actually-looks-like/) [California Voters Don't Like Either Party. Good Thing the Primary Doesn't Belong to The Parties. ](https://ivn.us/california-voters-dont-like-either-party-good-thing-the-primary-doesnt-belong-to-the-parties/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![California voters aren't happy with either party](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/California-voters-arent-happy-with-either-party.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/california-voters-dont-like-either-party-good-thing-the-primary-doesnt-belong-to-the-parties/) [Maine Voters Don't Need a Party Label to Have More Choice on June 9 ](https://ivn.us/maine-voters-dont-need-a-party-label-to-have-more-choice-on-june-9/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![Maine ranked choice voting June 9 primary](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/maine-ranked-choice-voting-june-9-primary.png) ](https://ivn.us/maine-voters-dont-need-a-party-label-to-have-more-choice-on-june-9/) [The DNC Wrote a 2024 Autopsy — and Ignored the Cause of Death ](https://ivn.us/the-dnc-wrote-a-2024-autopsy-and-ignored-the-cause-of-death/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![DNC 2024 Autopsy](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/dnc-autopsy.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/the-dnc-wrote-a-2024-autopsy-and-ignored-the-cause-of-death/) [The Fight Over Open Primaries Is Now a Fight Over Who Owns Democracy ](https://ivn.us/the-fight-over-open-primaries-is-now-a-fight-over-who-owns-democracy/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/06/1517747530842.jpg) Jeremy Gruber [ ![Open Primaries Nationwide](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/open-primaries-nationwide.png) ](https://ivn.us/the-fight-over-open-primaries-is-now-a-fight-over-who-owns-democracy/) [How California's Top Two Nonpartisan Primary Transformed the Legislature ](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![How CA Top Two Transformed the Legislature](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/undo-the-top-two-party-insiders.png) ](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/) ### *NEW POLL RESULTS ▶▶▶* ## Latinos Go Big for Beccera... and Open Primaries [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/IVP-Latino-Poll-Top-Two.jpg)](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) A [new Independent Voter Project poll](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) finds that California Latino voters overwhelmingly want to keep their voice in the primary - **only 22% support returning to closed partisan primaries**, while a majority would rather keep or expand the nonpartisan Top Two system. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/IVP-_-Independent-Voter-Survey-_-Latino-Primary-_-May-2026_CA-Gubernatorial-Race_Bar-chart.png)](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) And in the governor's race, Xavier Becerra holds a commanding lead among Latino voters, cementing his strength with the fastest-growing bloc in the state. The takeaway is clear: the voters the parties claim to represent don't want the parties controlling their ballot. [SEE POLL RESULTS](https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/) ### *GOING VIRAL ▶▶▶* ## You Are The Lion: Embrace the Jungle Primary [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/06/Untitled-design--9-.png)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYnK5pJDIDA/?ref=ivn.us) "The Jungle" is a part of IVP and FIVE's public service announcement to inform California's independent "NPP" voters of their voting rights at [YourPrimary.com](http://yourprimary.com/?ref=ivn.us). If a nonpartisan primary is really a "jungle," then **independent voters are the lion** that partisan special interests want to put in a cage. This video has racked up over **6 million views** on Instagram alone in both [English](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYnK5pJDIDA/?ref=ivn.us) and [Spanish](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DY2pB33j1NA/?ref=ivn.us). [WATCH NOW ON INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYnK5pJDIDA/?ref=ivn.us) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/jungle-320x50.gif)](https://yourprimary.com/?ref=ivn.us) ### *NEW EPISODE ▶▶▶* ## Independent Voter Podcast Chad Peace and Cara McCormick sit down with Political No Brainer host Jeff Rabinowitz to unpack how Florida's two-party system buries voting reform - and the closed-primary lawsuit now knocking on the Supreme Court's door. [WATCH NOW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CDn4srr1WA&ref=ivn.us) ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### Todd Achilles Says the Two Parties Broke Congress. Now He Wants Idaho to Help Break Their Grip. URL: https://ivn.us/todd-achilles-says-the-two-parties-broke-congress-now-he-wants-idaho-to-help-break-their-grip/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:44:48.000Z Independent voters now represent [the largest share of the American electorate](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?ref=ivn.us), and yet they remain mostly unrepresented in federal office. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, almost always leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don’t fully support or staying home. A handful of high-profile independent candidates for the US Senate are trying to change that. 2026 is seeing one of the largest surges of interest in independent candidates in recent memory. However, these candidates are often covered as fringe candidates, and stories about them focus more on how they’ll impact the outcome of the election between a Republican and Democrat than the substance of the candidate’s campaign. This series exists because the independent electorate deserves better than that. Over the coming months, IVN is conducting in-depth interviews with independent Senate candidates across the country—not just horse-race conversations about polling and fundraising, but substantive discussions about the issues independent voters actually care about. These are candidates who have made a deliberate choice to run outside the two-party system. We're asking them hard questions about how they plan to win, what they'd do in office, and whether the independence they're campaigning on would survive contact with a Senate still organized entirely around party loyalty. In Idaho, that candidate is Todd Achilles. ## I. The Candidate Todd Achilles grew up on a family farm in Oregon. He holds a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College; a Master's and MBA from the University of Washington; and a Master's in Public Policy from UC Berkeley. He served in the U.S. Army as a tank commander and armor officer—military service is a common thread amongst the most prominent independents running for Senate. After his military service, Achilles moved into the corporate world, holding senior roles at Hewlett-Packard and T-Mobile, among others, before teaching public policy at UC Berkeley and Boise State University. He highlights his varied political identity on the campaign trail, having been registered in both parties but being registered as a Republican longer than he was registered as a Democrat. Before running for US Senate, he served in the Idaho House of Representatives as a Democrat starting in February 2024 after being appointed by Governor Brad Little to fill a vacancy. He won the seat outright in November 2024 before resigning in July 2025 to launch his Senate bid. --- ## II. The Race The race features incumbent Jim Risch, the three-term Republican who first won his seat in 2008\. Since then, he has won each reelection effort with at least 60% of the vote. He chairs the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On May 19, he held off three primary challengers, receiving 64% of the vote and the nomination. He has President Trump’s endorsement and the institutional weight of a state GOP that has dominated Idaho politics for a generation. [His campaign had raised $3.9 million through the end of April, compared to roughly $449,000 for Achilles](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/ID/2026/?ref=ivn.us) (though as this piece was being written, a release from the Achilles campaign highlighted that they had just broken $500k raised). Idaho's voter registration landscape tilts heavily Republican: [62% Republican, 12% Democrat, 27% unaffiliated](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/id?ref=ivn.us), though Achilles has an asterisk to put on those numbers that we’ll cover below. Joining Risch and Achilles on the November 3 ballot are Democrat David Roth, independent Natalie Fleming, and Libertarian Matt Loesby. Roth, a 44-year-old Idaho Falls consultant, won the Democratic primary with nearly 62% of the vote (Roth is a perennial candidate who has run both for state and federal office in Idaho, always as a Democrat, never breaking 35% of the vote). His presence on the ballot is one of the central structural questions of Achilles' campaign: whether Idaho Democrats will consolidate behind the independent as the path to defeating Risch, as Nebraska Democrats ultimately have for Dan Osborn; or whether Roth stays in and the anti-Risch vote is split. [Roth and the state Democratic Party have given no indication they plan to do so](https://www.facebook.com/idahodems/posts/idaho-democrats-have-spoken-david-roth-is-our-nominee-for-us-senatelets-make-his/1497890685034508/). A head-to-head matchup from a [Public Policy Polling survey of likely general election voters](https://data.ddhq.io/polls/2026/03/21/Public-Policy-Polling-Idaho?ref=ivn.us) ([seemingly commissioned by Achilles’ campaign](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/idaho-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us)) showed Achilles trailing Risch 48-34\. However, in a follow-up question after hearing biographical information about Achilles and negative messaging against Risch, those numbers shifted in the independent’s favor, with Achilles leading Risch 41-38\. That number needs to be treated with appropriate caution—one poll, five months out, in a state that doesn't poll frequently, and done in a way to frame Achilles in the best possible light—but it was enough to draw national attention, and it suggests there is a viable path to victory for the candidate. --- ## III. The Independent Decision When asked why he decided to run as an independent, the short answer Achilles gives is institutional, not personal. "The two parties are the problem," he stated in our May interview. "\[They’re w\]hy Congress isn't functioning right now, and it's putting the future of the nation at risk. And the best way to break the grip of the two parties is as an independent." But the longer answer is more revealing. Achilles frames the dysfunction not as a failure of individual politicians but as a structural incentive problem: that both parties have concluded that partisan self-preservation is more important than governing, and that this calculus is now so deeply embedded that no amount of internal reform can fix it. He made the point with a sharp example looking at the national debt. "My opponent first entered the Senate in 2009, when the national debt was $10 trillion, and he was jumping up and down, just saying how outrageous that was," Achilles said. "We're now racing to $40 trillion, and where is this guy? Right? I mean, if I'd had that kind of performance at Hewlett-Packard, Meg (ed. Whitman, President/CEO of HP at the time) would have kicked me out in my second quarter." His critique of the Democratic Party is equally sharp. The Biden administration's domestic investment programs had a lot of "good stuff" in them, he acknowledged, but they should have come with corresponding revenues. "They contributed to the debt. Both Trump administrations, I mean, we’re blowing the debt out right now." This isn't a candidate who left one party for the other. It's a candidate who spent time in both, looked around, and decided that the incentives that govern both are the fundamental problem. --- ## IV. The Coalition Achilles' math is specific, highlighting a level of seriousness that can sometimes be lacking in independent campaigns. "Our win number is about 350,000," he said. "We need about 100,000 Republicans, 150,000 independents, and 100,000 Democrats." For context, based on [party registration in the state](https://voteidaho.gov/data-and-dashboards/voter-registration-totals/?ref=ivn.us), he would need about 1 in 6 Republicans; 1 in 3 unaffiliated or minor party voters; and 5 out of 6 Democrats. In the most recent US Senate election in Idaho, incumbent Sen. Mike Crapo won reelection with 358k votes. The Democratic candidate David Roth (who is running against this cycle) received 110k votes, and independent Scott Cleveland received 50k votes. That Republican number is where the campaign's theory of the race lives. "Our polling shows we’re getting 35 to 40% of Republicans \[who\] are really excited about our campaign," Achilles said. > "There's a huge population of disaffected Republicans in Idaho—at least two, depending on how you count, potentially four wings of the Republican Party, and they're not happy with where the party's going." He describes them as "old school center-right Republicans, kind of that western Republican" who are “not happy with the extremists that have taken over the GOP.” He added, "They'll never vote for a Democrat." The issues uniting the coalition across party lines are remarkably consistent with what he's hearing across all 44 counties. After 130-plus campaign events, Achilles said two themes dominate every room, regardless of who's in it: > "Everybody sees the same two problems. They see corruption in Congress—just not working like the institution should—and they see a rigged economy that's just too damn hard to get by, particularly if you're a Millennial or Gen Z." On the independent side specifically, he said the difference is less about distinct issues and more about momentum: "For the first time in a long, long time, they've got a viable candidate with polling that shows we can beat the incumbent. Independents are getting fired up about that." The Idaho GOP, for its part, has tried to neutralize Achilles by defining him as a “Democrat in Disguise” in several press releases also attacking his positions. [State party chair Dorothy Moon pointed to his support for ranked choice voting (which Idaho voters rejected 70-30 in a 2024 referendum) and his tenure as a House Democrat. ](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/aug/12/would-idahoans-send-an-independent-to-the-senate-t/?ref=ivn.us) --- ## V. Independent Turnout and Enthusiasm Achilles acknowledged the challenge directly: a lot of independents in an off-year election simply won't show up, especially in a state where participating in Republican primaries has historically been the only meaningful way to influence outcomes. His first move on this is reframing Idaho's electorate. "When we closed the primaries in 2012, 70% of Idahoans were unaffiliated—by far the highest of any state in the country," he said; a number backed up by [the secretary of state's historical registration archive](https://voteidaho.gov/data-and-dashboards/voter-registration-totals/?ref=ivn.us). > "Boise State University does an annual public policy survey, and in the last one, roughly 60% of Idahoans self-identified as independent or 'I'm a Republican, but I lean independent.’" The [last](https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/idaho.policy.institute/viz/2026IdahoStatewideSurveyResultsDashboard/Introduction?ref=ivn.us) [two](https://www.boisestate.edu/sps/2025-idaho-public-policy-survey/?ref=ivn.us) BSU Public Policy results do capture somewhere around only 40% Strong Republican or Not Very Strong Republican, though the 60% number seems to include all other categories, including Democrats of all types and those who are Unsure or Other. That does reflect the coalition of voters being targeted by the candidate. His second move is harder to quantify: generating enough excitement and proving viability to convince the habitual non-voter that this time is different. The poll cited above is as much a turnout tool as it is a data point, under this argument. Voters who believe an independent can win are more likely to show up for one. --- ## VI. If He Wins: Operating as an Independent in the Senate Achilles was unambiguous on this point: he will not caucus with the Democrats. "Period. End of sentence. I will not caucus with Senator Schumer, because I think he is the problem." When pressed on whether a change in Democratic leadership would affect that calculus, he repeated himself: "I'm not caucusing with Democrats." Instead, he is orienting around what he calls the "Fulcrum Caucus"—a coordinated effort by the current wave of independent Senate candidates to win enough seats to deny either party a working majority. He rattled off the names: Seth Bodnar in Montana, Dan Osborn in Nebraska, Brian Bengs in South Dakota, Ty Pinkins in Mississippi, Bob Chew in Colorado, and himself in Idaho. "We've got a text chat going among the six of us, and we’re very focused on creating that fulcrum caucus of independents" he said. He’s also confident that, should some of this group win, they can “pull over a couple more Republicans and a couple of Dems that sit on the edge of the caucuses.” What does he think he could do as an independent that a partisan senator couldn't? > "You're released from the chains of having to perpetuate the party. You can focus entirely on, for me, it’s Idaho, it’s on the duties of a senator, and it’s on supporting and defending the Constitution. That’s it. I have no party allegiance. I don't need to waste my time fundraising for the party." He spoke passionately about using the structural leverage of that position to push for reforms he describes as constitutional-amendment-level changes: term limits (two terms for senators, three for House members, 18 years for Supreme Court justices); overturning Citizens United and capping dark money groups; replacing gerrymandering with proportional representation; open primaries. He placed himself in the tradition of previous constitutional reform waves and argued the country is overdue. "The 27th Amendment aside, this is the second-longest period in American history without a constitutional amendment," he said. "We're overdue by my math." On the role of senators in presidential appointments and the advise-and-consent function specifically, he cited the Hegseth confirmation and Risch’s vote to confirm as exhibit A for why party-aligned cheerleading has replaced the necessary oversight. "Risch voted on seven other secretaries of defense. All of them got more than 90 votes, except Chuck Hagel, so Risch knows what a good Secretary of Defense looks like, and he still voted for Hegseth." His answer reflects a desire to re-equalize the Legislative branch of government against the Executive. --- ## VII. If He Wins: Key Goals In supporting term limits, Achilles has also pledged to abide by them even short of a law requiring it, meaning he won’t serve more than two terms in the Senate. What does he hope to accomplish in that time? He highlights the “two pillars” that he hears from Idahoans. “Renew Congress, get it functioning again; and fix this rigged economy.” What does that look like? He argues that you can’t get to the second without the first, so his initial focus would be pushing for the reforms noted above (term and age limits; limiting money in politics; proportional representation). When discussing economic hardships, he focused on discussing the power that some big corporations can exercise on key industries in Idaho. > “17% of our economy comes from ag\[riculture\]...so the dairy industry and the beef industry is hugely important, but you know, four meat packers control 85% of the beef industry, and they've been constantly been busted for playing games, and that impacts a huge part of Idaho's economy.” He had similar examples with seed companies and their ownership of key intellectual property, as well as highlighting the battle over the “right to repair” your own equipment, which some manufacturers prevent in their purchase agreements. He concluded by stating that, “We've got a ton of work to return competition to the US economy.” In short, his priorities are fixing the way Congress and government works, and addressing economic issues by evening the playing field between “those with power and the people,” as his campaign website says up front. These are two issues that have been at the top of mind for independent voters [in recent surveys](https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2026-04/Reuters%20Ipsos%20Core%20Political%20April%202026%20Topline.pdf?ref=ivn.us) (with the former framed as “corruption” in that survey). --- ## VIII. Resources and Strategy The fundraising gap is significant: Risch had roughly $3.9 million raised through April; Achilles had cleared just under $450,000 in the same time period. The campaign has prioritized geographic breadth over targeted intensity, visiting all 44 counties and holding more than 130 events. This strategy reflects both the coalition math (the Republican rural vote is essential to get to that 100,000 target) and the name-recognition deficit. Achilles doesn't have the luxury of shoring up a base; he has to introduce himself to a broad electorate simultaneously. He's also waging a media-forward campaign. The debate challenge to Risch, the "Shake Up the System" listening tour, the county-by-county presence—these are as much earned-media strategies as they are organizational ones. For a candidate outgunned on paid media, visibility through events and news coverage is a key path to closing the gap. At the end of the day, it’s people who vote, not money, so grassroots enthusiasm can make up for spending, if organized effectively. --- ## IX. Assessment The obstacles to Achilles winning are real and should not be minimized. Idaho hasn't elected a non-Republican to the Senate in nearly half a century. Achilles is being outraised by roughly 8-to-1 by his Republican opponent, and Sen. Risch has significant outside infrastructure as well as an incumbency advantage. The race has a Democrat with campaign experience, as well as a Libertarian and another independent candidate, thus creating a split in the field running against Risch. And Achilles' own electoral math requires at least 1 out of 6 Republicans to vote for a candidate who recently served as an elected official for a different party. But the structural conditions for something unexpected are present in a way they haven't been before. The Fulcrum Caucus framing gives Achilles a theory of change that goes beyond "elect me because you’re unhappy with the two major parties." It invites voters to participate in a Senate-level realignment, which is a more compelling ask than just backing an independent candidate. The early polling, all caveats aside, has attracted attention and resources that were not previously in the game. And candidate age, once a taboo thing to raise, has been at the forefront of politics over the past several years. Risch would be 89 at the end of a fourth term. What to watch: See if polling establishes Achilles as the main opponent against the incumbent now that the Democratic primary is over. See if the Democratic Party makes any moves now that they’re past their primary to clear the field. Check campaign finance reports to see if Achilles can raise enough money to continue to field a credible campaign. Watch for a debate between Achilles and Risch (and other candidates)—in late May, Achilles challenged Risch to three public debates, though indications are that the incumbent is unlikely to agree to that proposal. --- *This interview was conducted May 26, 2026.* --- ### Why Does It Take California So Long to Count Ballots? URL: https://ivn.us/why-does-it-take-california-so-long-to-count-ballots/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:44:39.000Z **SAN DIEGO, Calif.** \- California voters may not know the final results of the June 2 primary on election night. Secretary of State Shirley Weber was even asked ahead of Election Day if they would know the results of the governor’s race Tuesday. Weber responded, “Probably not.” The question many then have is, why? Well, for one, it is a hotly contested race. But there is more to it. California has developed a reputation for taking as long as a month to fully count its ballots. It is a central piece to Republican Don Wagner’s campaign as he seeks to unseat Weber and take over as secretary of state. “While other large states can finish vote counts and announce results on Election Night, California takes 30 excruciating days,” [he said in his official voter guide statement](https://ivn.us/californias-election-referee-is-on-the-ballot-and-almost-no-one-is-watching-2026-05-11/). > *“We are usually the last state in the country to stop counting and report final results. That’s embarrassing and unacceptable.”* In response to this kind of criticism, [Weber said](https://inewsource.org/2026/05/01/california-secretary-of-state-shirley-weber-counting-ballots/?ref=ivn.us), “I know the value of being fast for some folks. For me, accuracy is far more important.” By law, California gives county elections officials 30 days to count every valid ballot, verify signatures, “cure” ballots, process provisional ballots, conduct audits, and [complete the official canvass](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/vote-counting-process?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). All of that goes into the process. In any state in the US, the vote tally people see on their television, computer, or phone on election night are not the official numbers. The tallies are useful, especially when contest results can be projected. However, they are not complete. The reason in California starts with vote-by-mail—and every registered voter gets a mail-in ballot. Voters can return ballots in several ways: by mail, at a secure drop box, at a vote center or polling place, or at a county elections office. Ballots returned in person must be delivered by 8 pm on June 2\. Mailed ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by county elections officials no later than June 9, 2026\. So, when polls close, there may still be valid ballots in the mail. That, by itself, is a major factor into why the vote count takes so long. Now, add signature verification, ballot curing, provisional ballots, same-day registration ballots, and county-by-county reporting schedules. Some argue that election officials should not accept mail-in ballots up to a week after the election, regardless of when they are postmarked. This is a conversation voters should have and consider. However, a month-long vote counting process is not necessarily evidence of a fraudulent or broken election. It is evidence that there are many variables to consider when talking about how votes are counted. This is especially important in close races. California’s nonpartisan Top Two primary determines which two candidates advance to the November general election in statewide, legislative, and congressional races. In a crowded field, a second-place finish can be decided by a narrow margin. Like, for example, the 2026 governor's race This means the “who advances?” question may not be settled on election night, especially if late-counted ballots shift the order. This does not mean a candidate “came from behind.” Those votes were always there. They just hadn’t been counted yet. Election night results can reflect the ballots counted first, not the electorate as a whole. In some counties, early results may include ballots received before Election Day. Later updates may include ballots dropped off on Election Day, mailed ballots received after Election Day, provisional ballots, and ballots from voters who used same-day registration. Again, this does not mean the vote is changing. It means more votes are being counted. This distinction matters because the information vacuum after Election Day is often filled by partisan spin. Candidates who are ahead may declare victory too early. Candidates who are behind may claim the process is suspicious. Outside groups may point to normal updates as proof of something improper. Social media may turn routine counting into a scandal before election officials have finished their work. Many independent and No Party Preference voters already distrust a political system dominated by the two major parties. But voters should exercise caution when partisan campaigns try to weaponize that distrust against the vote count itself. California’s process includes built-in steps that take time. Vote-by-mail envelopes must be checked. Signatures must be verified. Voters whose signatures are missing or challenged must be given an opportunity to fix the issue. Then, there are provisional ballots that must be reviewed. Counties must reconcile records and conduct required post-election checks before results are certified. All of these steps matter to the integrity and legitimacy of an election. Does it mean there aren’t more efficient ways? No. But it also by itself is not evidence of something nefarious. In fact, California does not even have the longest window to certify election results (meaning it isn't always the slowest). For example, according to the [National Conference of State Legislatures](https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/election-certification-deadlines?ref=ivn.us), Nebraska’s due date for precinct reports to be turned into the secretary of state is eight weeks after the election. Certificates of election must be prepared and delivered within 40 days. In Ohio, local boards complete the canvass by the 21st day after the election, but state law says the canvass is deemed final 81 days after Election Day. This means the vote count and results can be updated up to that point unless an earlier date is set. California is certainly *one* of the slowest states to finalize election results. But it is not *always* the slowest. Some states give themselves longer, some have office-specific timelines that extend beyond California’s, and a few do not set a firm statewide completion deadline at all. This is because each state has their own process to ensure a legitimate and complete vote count. For California voters curious about the status of their own ballot, anyone who returns a vote-by-mail ballot can use California’s [“Where’s My Ballot?”](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration/vote-mail?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) tracking system to receive updates by text, email, or phone when their ballot is mailed, received, and counted. They can also find out if there is a problem that needs to be fixed—which California gives them time to do. If a ballot is challenged because of a signature issue, the voter may still have a chance to correct it. The San Francisco Chronicle [reported](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/mail-ballot-election-california-22277675.php?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) that voters with signature problems in the June 2 primary have until June 24 to cure their ballots. That is another reason the count does not end the moment polls close. Voters will get updates after election night. Some races will be so close they will remain unresolved. Candidates and campaigns will no doubt frame the numbers in a way that benefits them. It is important for Californians to look beyond the narratives they hear from campaigns and remember that a slow count—on its own—is not a scandal. Election night is the beginning of the results process. It is not the end. ### 6 States Vote June 2. Independent Voters Don’t Have the Same Rights in Any of Them. URL: https://ivn.us/6-states-vote-june-2-independent-voters-dont-have-the-same-rights-in-any-of-them/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T22:24:50.000Z Six states are holding statewide primary elections on Tuesday, June 2: **California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico,** and **South Dakota**. But for independent voters, the rules are not even close to uniform. In one state, every voter gets the same candidate choices, regardless of party preference or political affiliation. In others, independents must pick a party ballot, affiliate with a party, or are blocked from key contests entirely. That means the biggest question for many voters on June 2 is not just who is on the ballot. It is whether they have equal voting rights without joining a party. ## **California: Top Two Nonpartisan Open Primary** California is the only state on this list that uses a nonpartisan primary system in which all candidates and voters participate on the same primary ballot, regardless of party. The top two vote-getters then move on to the general election. This primary system is used for US Senate, US House, statewide executive offices, and state legislative races. And because California has a universal vote-by-mail system, every registered voter is sent the same ballot, and they can choose from any candidate they want. This primary system was adopted by California voters in 2010 under Proposition 14, which was sponsored by the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us). [No, You Don’t Need to Register with a Party to Vote in California’s PrimaryWhen Independent Voter posted a series of videos about primary turnout on its Facebook page, the comments revealed a startling reality: Many voters think California’s semi-closed presidential primary rules apply to the 2026 midterm elections.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/vote-in-california-primaries.jpg)](https://ivn.us/no-you-dont-need-to-register-with-a-party-to-vote-in-californias-primary/) It is of the most straightforward and inclusive systems for independent voters, many of whom are registered No Party Preference. But even if an independent is registered with a party, it doesn’t change anything because all voters are treated the same. They do not need to request a party ballot, switch registration, or affiliate with a party to participate in these elections. California’s system is not a party-nominated system like what is used in most states. It is a voter-nominated system. The distinction alone should inform voters on who has the most influence over primary outcomes. It’s not the parties. It’s voters. The primary is the first round of the election, not a party gatekeeping contest. [California Voters Don’t Like Either Party. Good Thing the Primary Doesn’t Belong to The Parties.With ballots already in voters’ hands, the June 2 primary is testing whether California’s independent-minded electorate understands how much power it has.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/California-voters-arent-happy-with-either-party.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-voters-dont-like-either-party-good-thing-the-primary-doesnt-belong-to-the-parties/) ## **Iowa: Partially Open, But Independents Must Declare a Party** Iowa holds Democratic and Republican partisan primaries. NCSL categorizes Iowa as a [partially open primary](https://elections.scottcountyiowa.gov/faq/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) state because voters can publicly change party affiliation for the purpose of voting in a primary. However, party declaration is still a condition to vote in these taxpayer-funded elections. For this reason, it is more accurate to say Iowa primaries are closed. For independent voters, participation is possible, but not as independents. Iowa voters must be registered with a political party to vote in a party primary. Voters are allowed to re-register with a political party on Election Day. Iowa’s June 2 ballot includes major contests for governor, US Senate, and US House. With the [retirements of Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sen. Joni Ernst](https://apnews.com/article/iowa-primary-senate-ernst-governor-reynolds-house-d9109735c2b39561fbf441768eb66ae1?ref=ivn.us), elections for both officers are open-seat contests. **Bottom line for independent voters:** Their participation is conditioned on joining a party. They can still participate, but they have to change their voter registration, adding an additional requirement to vote in taxpayer-funded elections. They are also restricted to a Republican or Democratic ballot. ## **Montana: Open Primary, Pick One Party Ballot** Montana has an open partisan primary system. The state does not require voters to register by party, and voters can select the primary ballot of their choice when they go to vote. While independent voters can participate, it is not a voter-nominated process like in California. It is a party-nominated system. Voters pick a party ballot and can only vote for the candidates on that party’s ballot. That gives independent voters access but still forces a party choice for the primary. Montana’s June 2 primary includes US Senate, US House, and state legislative races, with high-stakes contests following the [exits of Republican incumbents Steve Daines and Ryan Zinke from their current offices](https://apnews.com/article/montana-primary-senate-daines-house-zinke-legislature-d5898dd60ba0c868b956101c32e79f44?ref=ivn.us). **Bottom line for independent voters:** They can vote without joining a party, but they have to pick a party’s ballot and stick to that party’s candidates. ## **New Jersey: Closed Primary—Join A Party or Don’t Vote.** New Jersey is a closed primary state. Voters have to be a registered party member in order to vote in these taxpayer-funded elections. If independents are willing to declare a party, they can vote—even on Election Day. But it is still a condition to their right to vote. It’s worth noting that the Independent Voter Project [filed a lawsuit](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/in-the-courtroom/balsam?ref=ivn.us) on behalf of 7 New Jersey plaintiffs in 2014, challenging the state’s use of closed primary elections. At the time, nearly half the state was registered independent of either major party. This equaled 2.6 million independent voters who the state told in its court filings had to “join a party or don’t vote.” Plaintiffs argued that closed primaries violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. In 2026, New Jersey’s June 2 primary applies mainly to congressional races, which are drawn to be safe mostly for Democrats. State legislative and executive elections are held in odd-numbered years. **Bottom line for independent voters:** The state does not recognize their right to vote in taxpayer-funded primary elections. They have to join a party to have meaningful participation in elections. ## **New Mexico: Independents Can Vote in The First Semi-Open Primary** New Mexico adopted a semi-open partisan primary system in 2025 and is using it for the first time in 2026\. This system allows independent voters to pick a qualified political party’s ballot while registered party members have to vote in their party’s primary. This is a major shift for independent voters. Previously, New Mexico had closed primaries that barred their participation and they did not have a meaningful say in who represented them in most contests. Now, independents can participate in a major-party primary while keeping their registration status. The new rules are the result of a decade of reform activism and multiple attempts to give independent voters access to the ballot. [New Mexico Independents Finally Get a Primary Vote — And They’re Using It Where It CountsThe media reports that nearly 80% of independent voters who participated in early voting picked a Democratic ballot. What the story missed, however, was why.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/new-mexico-primary-independent-voters-f17d2855ac59aa77f322fe5980cd21f9ecdf0ae392de2f87b569fc757d1a2a72.jpg)](https://ivn.us/new-mexico-independents-finally-get-a-primary-vote-and-theyre-using-it-where-it-counts/) New Mexico’s June 2 ballot includes races for governor, US Senate, US House, and other offices. **Bottom line for independent voters:** They can vote in a major-party primary without changing their registration. But they must choose one party ballot, and that ballot choice is public (though actual votes remain private). ## **South Dakota: Partially Closed, GOP Primary Closed to Independents** South Dakota uses a semi-closed partisan primary system. State law allows political parties to decide whether independent voters can participate in their primaries. In 2026, the Democratic Party’s primary is open to registered party members and independent/no party affiliation voters. The Libertarian Party’s primary is also open to independent voters. But if voters want to select a Republican candidate in a heavily Republican state, they are out of luck. The GOP keeps their primary closed to registered party members only. That matters because the state’s most consequential races are often inside the GOP primary. AP [reports](https://apnews.com/article/south-dakota-primary-945fbd3a0c1610da1a93bf4827f0909c?ref=ivn.us) that South Dakota’s June 2 ballot includes competitive Republican primaries for governor and US House, along with a US Senate race. **Bottom line for independent voters:** They can participate in the Democratic or Libertarian primary, but not the Republican primary unless they are registered Republican. ### California’s Big Independent Test Arrives on Primary Day URL: https://ivn.us/californias-big-independent-test-arrives-on-primary-day/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T22:03:16.000Z Can an independent candidate with money and organized backing win in a nonpartisan primary? That is a prevalent question going into California's June 2 primary. Under a partisan primary system, independent candidates would have to wait until November to be on the ballot, where they would be labeled a "spoiler." But California's primaries are different. All candidates appear on the same ballot, and if an independent advances, no one can accuse them of that. It is a true test to see if—under a different system—independents are at a point where they can break through the barriers erected by both major parties. In Idaho, Maine, Montana, and Nebraska, independent candidates are testing these barriers under more traditional electoral systems, as well. Some have qualified for the ballot, while others have encountered their own challenges. Get the full updates below. *Author's Note: This is a weekly update tracking independent candidates, voters, and reforms across the US, covering key races including polling, fundraising, and major news stories. If you know of a candidate running on an independent line or a reform effort that's being ignored elsewhere, please reach out to matt@ivn.us.* ## **California: Tuesday Is Primary Day** California holds its nonpartisan Top Two primary Tuesday, June 2, and it features two serious, well-funded independents up for seats in the US House of Representatives. ### **CA-23: Karen Matthews and the Infrastructure Question** Karen Matthews is a retired Navy radiologist, small business owner, and Loma Linda native running as an independent in California's 23rd Congressional District against three-term Republican incumbent Jay Obernolte. [A Roadmap for Independent Success? Karen Matthews Outraised Democrats in CA-23.If she advances past the Top Two primary, it would be more than a local upset. It would be evidence that something structural has shifted in American politics. It’ll also say something important about California’s nonpartisan primary system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsMatt Shinners![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Karen-Matthews-California-23-Congressional-District-1-0bf07cbe9aa1a1b376d8f65814ecf994df5b0ffabd1e6451bbcf64b2999d5861.png)](https://ivn.us/a-roadmap-for-independent-success-karen-matthews-outraised-democrats-in-ca-23/) On paper, that's a long shot. Cook Political rates CA-23 at R+9\. Republicans hold a registration edge of about 165,000 to 138,000 over Democrats, with another 92,000 No Party Preference voters rounding out the district. Obernolte has outraised her by over $1 million. But as[ I covered this week on IVN](https://ivn.us/a-roadmap-for-independent-success-karen-matthews-outraised-democrats-in-ca-23/), Matthews has done something few independent candidates ever manage in a California congressional race: she arrived with real infrastructure. She outraised every Democrat in the field individually. She landed endorsements from Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman's Forward Party, Independent Candidates Action, and Independent Veterans of America. She has a coherent theory of the race, and a platform that speaks to the issues affecting residents of her district. With four Democrats on the ballot who have raised enough money to field a competitive campaign, the Democratic vote might potentially split. This could pave the way for 92,000 NPP voters in the district (plus any Democrats who decide a well-funded independent represents a better path to removing Obernolte, and any Republicans who are unhappy with Obernolte’s representation) to consolidate around Matthews to put her in the top two. As I noted in that piece: > If Karen Matthews advances on June 2, it won't be because the voting system finally cooperated. It will be because, for perhaps the first time in a California congressional primary, an independent candidate arrived with the same basic toolkit that party candidates take for granted." **CA-2: Nicolette Hahn Niman Tests Independent Infrastructure in a Deep-Blue District** *\[Author's Note: This section was added after publication.\]* As Karen Matthews tests the independent waters in solidly red CA-23, Nicolette Hahn Niman is doing the same in solidly blue CA-2, where she’s running against incumbent Jared Huffman (D), who is seeking a seventh term. According to [FEC data](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/house/CA/02/2026/?ref=ivn.us), Hahn has outraised all Republicans in the race at $118,609 to $15,580 (the highest total among Republicans, Timothy Geist), as well as all Democratic challengers to the incumbent (and all None/No Party Affiliation candidates, as well). Rose Penelope Yee, a Democratic challenger to the incumbent, has raised $66,537 and is running to the incumbent’s left. Niman has been traveling to smaller communities and the district’s farming regions, confident she is the candidate best positioned to understand the needs of a district that now stretches from Marin County to the Oregon border. Her platform focuses on affordability, housing, healthcare, and a strong local economy, with a particular focus on representing the farming community. She has a number of endorsements from local government officials, as well as organizations such as the Sonoma County and Mendocino County Farm Bureaus. The district’s [party registration numbers](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/ror/15day-primary-2026/politicalsub.pdf?ref=ivn.us) have the Democrats with a strong advantage (218.8k to 136.9k for the Republicans and 93.2k for No Party Preference). Her path to the top two, then, starts with consolidating NPP voters behind her instead of behind NPP candidate Gregory Burgess. She also needs to appeal to a number of Republican voters who believe that an independent is a better option to unseat the incumbent Democrat than a poorly resourced member of their own party. She also needs Huffman to receive enough of the Democratic support that Yee doesn’t receive the second highest total. ### **CA-6: Kiley's Bet on the Nonpartisan System** US Rep. Kevin Kiley faces his Top Two reckoning Tuesday in the newly redrawn 6th District ([D+6-10 in 2024](https://www.racetothewh.com/house/?ref=ivn.us)). He left the Republican Party in March to become an Independent, citing hyper-partisanship and gridlock in Congress. This move followed his decision to run for reelection in a newly redrawn, Democratic-leaning district. Since leaving the Republican Party, Kiley has used his independent status to move legislation that he likely wouldn’t have had he kept the (R) next to his name. For example, he introduced H.R. 4889 to ban mid-cycle redistricting. He also provided [the 218th and decisive signature on the discharge petition](https://kiley.house.gov/posts/rep-kiley-signs-discharge-petition-to-force-house-vote-on-providing-support-to-ukraine?ref=ivn.us) to force a House vote on the Ukraine Support Act, siding with Democrats and going against Republican leadership. Heading into the primary, a [May 8 EMC Research poll](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/california-us-house-6-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) shows Kiley leading the field at 36%, with a fragmented Democratic field fighting for second place. He held roughly $2.0 million cash on hand heading into the final stretch of the primary starting May 13 (the closest Democrat had $147k). ## **Nebraska: A New Wrinkle** Dan Osborn's path to a one-on-one race with Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts hit a roadblock this week.[ ](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/05/26/u-s-senate-nominee-cindy-burbank-might-have-to-sue-to-get-her-name-off-the-general-election-ballot/?ref=ivn.us) [Nebraska's attorney general confirmed](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/05/26/u-s-senate-nominee-cindy-burbank-might-have-to-sue-to-get-her-name-off-the-general-election-ballot/?ref=ivn.us) that the secretary of state's office has sought legal guidance on whether it can keep Democratic primary winner Cindy Burbank on the November ballot, even if she withdraws from the race as she pledged to do during the primary. A lawsuit appears likely, with courts potentially deciding whether a candidate who ran to drop out can be forced onto the general election ballot by state officials. Osborn is gathering the 4,000 signatures required for his own ballot access, with his campaign expecting to submit them in June. Cook Political recently moved the race from Solid to[ Likely Republican](https://www.cookpolitical.com/senate/race/488631?ref=ivn.us). ## **Montana: Bodnar Clears the Hurdle Decisively** Seth Bodnar's campaign submitted nearly 30,000 signatures to the Montana secretary of state ahead of the May 26 deadline—more than twice the 13,327 required, gathered across 52 of Montana's 56 counties. He will appear on the November general election ballot as an independent.[ FEC data](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/MT/2026/?ref=ivn.us) shows Bodnar leading all Senate candidates in the state at $2.1 million raised, with Republican frontrunner Kurt Alme at $1.2 million (the primary will be held Tuesday). A [Montana Free Press–Eagleton poll](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/05/19/montana-us-senate-candidates-largely-unknown-to-voters/?ref=ivn.us) has Bodnar leading all candidates in favorability, though most voters are still in the "Don't Know" or “No Opinion” column for all candidates in the race. ## **Other Races: Brief Updates** **Idaho:** The general election field is set: Republican incumbent Jim Risch, Democratic nominee David Roth, and independent Todd Achilles, along with Libertarian Matt Loesby and independent Natalie Fleming. [Idaho's registration skews about 62% Republican and 27% independent, with the remaining 11.5% Democratic](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/id?ref=ivn.us). Achilles will need to consolidate independents and Democrats behind his campaign while peeling off a significant number of Republicans to win the race. **Maine Governor:** Rick Bennett had 4,517 signatures verified by the Secretary of State, clearing the 4,000 required to make the ballot. He will face the winners of the June 9 Democratic and Republican primaries this November. ## **Independent Voters: Primaries Are Hunting Independent Members to Extinction** A [major NPR piece](https://www.npr.org/2026/05/30/nx-s1-5839201/party-primaries-polarized-congress?ref=ivn.us) this week put a stark frame around something independent-minded voters have been watching for years: party primaries are systematically eliminating independent-minded members from Congress. "There has been a ratcheting up, a ramping up of both the willingness and the ability of both the Democrats and the Republicans to shape outcomes before the voters get a chance to have a say," John Opdycke, president of Open Primaries, told NPR. "And that's really devastating." The evidence is fresh: in primaries this cycle, GOP voters in Indiana, Kentucky, and Louisiana forced out incumbents who were willing to cross party lines on efforts such as redistricting. More than 90% of US House seats are now considered safe for one party or the other, meaning primaries—which often exclude independent voters and see a fraction of general election turnout—effectively determine nearly the entire Congress. Nick Troiano of Unite America added the sharper edge: > "If you're an elected official, the only threat to your reelection is someone running to your ideological extreme in your primary. And that has had the impact over many years, including this year, of meaning: if you're an independent-minded member of Congress, you're being basically hunted to extinction by the ideological flanks within both political parties." ## **Texas and Georgia: The Runoff Bill Keeps Coming Due** The Texas Republican Senate runoff between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton wrapped on May 26, three months after the initial primary failed to produce a majority winner. These runoff elections are costly, with [some estimates of previous runoffs reaching $7.4 million](https://www.irvfortexas.org/cost%5Fof%5Frunoff%5Felections?ref=ivn.us), and, per FairVote, seeing[ turnout drop by roughly half](https://fairvote.org/texas-senate-and-house-races-head-to-costly-may-runoff-elections/?ref=ivn.us) versus the primary. Georgia holds its runoffs for both the Senate seat and the governor's race on June 16, extending a primary season that has[ already seen $125 million in advertising spending on the Republican governor's race alone](https://time.com/article/2026/05/20/georgia-governor-senate-primary-election-results-bottoms-ossoff-republican-runoff/?ref=ivn.us). Ranked choice voting would have resolved all of it on primary night, at minimal additional costs, with no turnout cliff, and without weeks more of attack ads. Contrast this with Maine and Alaska, where close elections have been decided shortly after votes were cast and without costly runoff elections; or California, where the Top Two primary system includes independents and has an outcome shortly after the final votes are cast. ### New Mexico Independents Finally Get a Primary Vote — And They’re Using It Where It Counts URL: https://ivn.us/new-mexico-independents-finally-get-a-primary-vote-and-theyre-using-it-where-it-counts/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T17:46:22.000Z A headline out of New Mexico reads, “Nearly 80% of independent voters selected democratic party ballot for New Mexico primary.” But what the story missed was “why,” and it may have nothing to do with party leanings. It may be because in a majority of races, the Democratic primary is the only contest that matters —especially in elections where there is no one else on the ballot. During early voting for the June 2 primary, only about 3% of registered independent voters cast a ballot. The number is low, but it also represents several voters who could not participate under the previous closed primary system. The New Mexico Legislature[ passed a law in 2025](https://ivn.us/its-official-new-mexico-has-opened-its-primaries-independent-voters-2025-04-08/) that implemented a semi-open primary. Under the new rules, registered party members have to vote in their party’s primary. Independent voters can choose any party ballot they want. The new system replaced a closed partisan primary process that barred independents entirely. “For the first time in New Mexico, unaffiliated voters can participate in the primaries,” said Brian Sanderoff, a political expert for KAOT 7 News. “And so, it is going to take a while for these registered independents or unaffiliated voters to get accustomed to voting in primaries.” KOTA reports that 77% of independents who have voted selected a Democratic ballot versus 23% who selected a Republican ballot. But there is a reason for this that seldom gets discussed in traditional media outlets. Specifically, many of these citizens are choosing the primary that will allow them to have the most consequential vote. No doubt there are many independent voters who lean toward one party or the other, but this decision runs deeper. In New Mexico, Democrats hold 44 of the 70 seats in the state House (62%), and all of these seats are up this year. Democrats also hold 26 seats in the state Senate to the 16 Republicans hold, all 3 congressional seats, and both US Senate seats. So, is it really a surprise most independent voters would choose a Democratic ballot? Especially since so many races go uncontested. In 2026, 37 New Mexico House districts will have candidates from only one major party. That is 37 out of 70 (52%). Twenty-two (22) are districts where only Democrats are running. These seats are not only safe for the Democratic nominee, but they are outright decided on June 2. The districts are: 5, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 24, 34, 35, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 52, 65, 69, 70\. The districts in which only Republicans are running are: 1, 2, 3, 49, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66. Now, imagine being an independent voter in one of these districts. Prior to 2026, they had absolutely no say in their representation. Many of these voters are used to that so it will take some time for adjustment. [Let Us Vote New Mexico](https://newmexico.letusvote.org/?ref=ivn.us) has run an ongoing campaign designed to mobilize decline-to-state and independent voters before the primary. It is built around videos and direct outreach from unaffiliated New Mexicans speaking to other unaffiliated voters. The videos are running on CTV, YouTube, and Hulu. "We wanted to reach out to independents across the state to make sure they know they have a new primary voting right," said Cathy Stewart, national organizing director for Open Primaries. > "There has been a lack of clear public communication. As early voting began last month, it was still the case that many county clerk websites had not been updated to reflect the new primary voting rules." Let Us Vote New Mexico is a campaign of [Open Primaries](https://openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us), which aided the 2025 legislative push along with other national organizations like Unite America. The group also backed litigation in 2018 challenging the state’s closed primary system. Calls to open New Mexico’s primary elections went back decades, but it wasn’t until 2015 that an organized effort to make it happen took off with New Mexico Open Elections, and reform leaders like Bob Perls, who started NMOE. “This didn’t happen overnight,” said Stewart. “It took a decade of organizing, advocacy, and legal action driven by independent voters who refused to accept being shut out.” And because of these efforts, June 2 marks the first time independent voters do not need to sacrifice their preferred affiliation, nor do they need party permission to cast a ballot in the taxpayer-funded elections that matter most. They get a voice, and they are using that voice where they know it will count. ### A Roadmap for Independent Success? Karen Matthews Outraised Democrats in CA-23. URL: https://ivn.us/a-roadmap-for-independent-success-karen-matthews-outraised-democrats-in-ca-23/ Last updated: 2026-06-03T12:12:10.000Z This Tuesday, on June 2, California voters in the 23rd Congressional District will do something unremarkable: pick two candidates from a crowded primary field to advance to November. But one name on that ballot makes the race worth watching. Karen Matthews is a Navy radiologist, small business owner, and Loma Linda native—an impressive but standard profile for a candidate for US House. But what is different about her is that she’s running as an independent. Not as a protest. Not as a spoiler. As a candidate with high-profile endorsements, organizational backing, and a genuine theory of the race. She’s doubled the fundraising of all of the Democrats in the election individually. If she advances past the Top Two primary, it would be more than a local upset. It would be evidence that something structural has shifted in American politics, and that independent voters are finally in a place to concentrate their political power between candidates that run outside of the two-party system. It’ll also say something important about California’s Top Two Nonpartisan Primary system as it faces an onslaught of criticism and attacks. ## The System Built for This Moment California [adopted its Top Two primary in 2010](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F14,%5FTop-Two%5FPrimaries%5FAmendment%5F%28June%5F2010%29?ref=ivn.us) after years of complaints that closed partisan primaries handed nominations to ideological activists and left the state's [growing bloc of unaffiliated voters](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ca?ref=ivn.us) (now up to about 27%) on the sidelines. Under the nonpartisan rules, all candidates share a single ballot regardless of party, and the top two finishers advance to November. Yes, this system can and has resulted in two candidates from the same party facing off in the general election. Supporters said it would moderate candidates and amplify the voices of independent voters. Critics called it a "jungle primary" and predicted chaos. Both were partially right. The system did make general elections less predictable…for the parties. But it gave independents in the state the right to vote for candidates before the general election in November. And it prevented party membership rolls from being inflated by those who stayed members just to be able to vote in the primaries. Critics say the system has failed independent and third-party candidates. They may appear on the ballot, but almost never make the Top Two in statewide, legislative, and congressional elections. But is that a structural issue, or does it reflect the will of the voters and an electoral system in the US that was built around two parties? Top Two is structurally neutral, putting every candidate on the same ballot and letting voters sort it out. What it doesn't do is conjure the donor networks, voter databases, field operations, and institutional endorsements that major-party candidates receive automatically when running on the party line. Independents appeared in the jungle without preparation. Naturally, they didn’t survive. And while critics are correct that minor parties and independents haven’t won a federal race under Top Two, they’re wrong about the cause. The mechanism of this shutout wasn't the ballot rules. It was the resource gap. ## A District Built for a Third Option CA-23, freshly redrawn following California voters' passage of Proposition 50 last fall, is represented by Jay Obernolte, who is running to keep his seat. He currently leads in fundraising, [outpacing Matthews, in second, by over $1 million](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/house/CA/23/2026/?ref=ivn.us). The district itself skews Republican, with a [Cook Political Rating of R+9](https://www.cookpolitical.com/house/race/481931?ref=ivn.us), and a [registration advantage for the GOP](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/ror/15day-primary-2026/politicalsub.pdf?ref=ivn.us) (165k, vs 138k for the Democrats). However, it also features a large No Party Preference contingent, making up about 92k residents. With Matthews on the ballot and leading the Democrats in fundraising, it’ll be interesting to see how the Democratic voters decide to cast their ballot on Tuesday. Even if only a percentage decide to see if an independent can unseat the incumbent, with four Democrats raising at least $10k, the vote could be split enough to allow for those 92,000 NPP voters to see a candidate representing their existence outside of the two major parties on the November ballot. ## Who Matthews Is, And Why It Matters Matthews has spent much of her life in Loma Linda, which sits in the district she hopes to represent. She grew up in the area and graduated from Loma Linda University School of Medicine before serving more than 20 years in the United States Navy as a radiologist, leading medical teams across deployments. After her service, she built a small business helping veterans navigate the benefits system, seeing firsthand the ways that federal bureaucracy could fail to serve those who had sacrificed most for this country. She didn't plan to run for Congress. She decided to, her campaign says, because she was done watching Washington fail to listen to Americans. Her platform focuses on kitchen table issues, reflecting experience with the issues facing most Americans these days. Lowering costs for working families. Expanding healthcare access. Strengthening veterans services. Demanding government accountability. Her endorsers include former Republican California State Senator William Emmerson, Andrew Yang and Gov. Christine Todd Whitman’s Forward Party\*, and Independent Candidates Action. Those last two endorsements matter more than it might appear. Unlike most independents who have, over the past few cycles, been “on an island” and have needed to build infrastructure from scratch, there’s a growing set of organizations that are establishing this infrastructure in a persistent manner. ## The Infrastructure Gap, and How It’s Closing Outside of those who left their party (and usually, soon after, their seat), it has been more than 35 years since an independent candidate was elected to the US House (Bernie Sanders in ‘90) despite record numbers of Americans identifying as independent. The gap between voter sentiment and electoral outcomes isn't a mystery. Independent candidates have historically lacked what parties build over decades: voter databases, field operations, donor pipelines, and the institutional credibility that comes from being taken seriously by other institutions. An independent candidate showing up to a primary has, historically, been like a pickup team walking into an NBA arena. That is changing—slowly—and through several distinct channels that are beginning to converge. The most direct investment is coming from organizations built specifically for this moment. The [Independent Center](https://www.independentcenter.org/?ref=ivn.us) is using AI to identify congressional districts where independent candidates could succeed, with the goal of electing enough independents to disrupt two-party dominance on Capitol Hill. [Independent Candidates Action](https://www.independentaction.org/?ref=ivn.us), which has endorsed Matthews, supports a portfolio of candidates across multiple states, analyzing top-two primary environments as favorable terrain for consolidating crossover votes. Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman’s [Forward Party](https://www.forwardparty.com/?ref=ivn.us), which has also endorsed Matthews, has spent several years building donor networks and candidate pipelines at the state and local level. [United Independents](https://www.uipac.us/?ref=ivn.us)' "Our House '26" campaign is building the infrastructure, coalitions, and digital tools to elect a bloc of independent candidates to Congress, identifying dozens of districts deemed winnable based on data rather than wishful thinking. Running alongside those endorsing and strategy organizations is a newer class of campaign tools built from the ground up for candidates without party backing. [GoodParty.org](http://goodparty.org/?ref=ivn.us) provides voter data, AI-powered canvassing scripts, text-banking, door-knocking maps, and automated campaign planning based on a candidate's specific district and timeline. The platform requires candidates to pledge to maintain their independence and not plug into the two-party system. The platform claims more than 13,000 independent candidates have won elections using its tools. The 2024 presidential race added another layer. RFK Jr.'s independent campaign spent $10 to $15 million solely navigating state-by-state ballot access fights—generating legal templates, signature-gathering playbooks, and tactical knowledge that now exists as institutional memory within the independent movement, and within a new class of political consultants who can lend that expertise to new campaigns. Perhaps the most structurally significant development is what happened to the ballot lines No Labels left behind. In Arizona, reformers repurposed the infrastructure: the practical difference was stark, with independent statewide candidates facing a signature threshold of over 42,000 to qualify for the ballot while No Labels party candidates needed just 1,288\. The result is a live independent gubernatorial race in 2026, with healthcare executive Hugh Lytle on the ballot against Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs and, likely, Rep. Andy Biggs (the Republican primary is on July 21). In California, ballot access isn't the same structural bottleneck. But each of these efforts highlights the growing interest, resources, and infrastructure available to those who decide to run outside of the two-party system. Matthews, plugged into several of these converging networks at once, is the test case for whether that gap has finally closed enough to matter. ## What the 'Jungle' Was Always Waiting For The critique of California's Top Two primary is, at this point, bipartisan, with both sides attacking the system in a new repeal effort tied to fearmongering around the 2026 gubernatorial race. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) What almost nobody asks is whether the system itself was ever really the constraint, or whether the constraint was the candidates themselves, arriving without the infrastructure or experience to compete. The evidence suggests the latter. No Party Preference voters have been growing for years (doubling in number since the passage of Top Two). The appetite for something outside the two-party binary has been measurable for a generation. What was missing was the organizational scaffolding to channel that appetite into votes. If Karen Matthews advances on June 2, it won't be because the voting system finally cooperated. It will be because, for perhaps the first time in a California congressional primary, an independent candidate arrived with the same basic toolkit that party candidates take for granted: endorsements, institutional support, a coherent coalition, campaign tools and expertise, and a district that was already waiting for someone to show up and ask for its vote. The Top Two primary didn't fail independents. Independents didn't have the infrastructure the jungle required. In CA-23, in 2026, that might finally be changing. *\*The author of this piece served in a leadership role at Forward Party, though he was involved in no conversations about the endorsement of Karen Matthews’ campaign.* ### An Open Letter to My Fellow Secretary of State Candidates: Where Is Our Debate About Democracy? URL: https://ivn.us/an-open-letter-to-my-fellow-secretary-of-state-candidates-where-is-our-debate-about-democracy/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T14:57:47.000Z *Editor's Note: This op-ed was written by Michael Feinstein, a Green Party candidate for California secretary of state. IVN is an open platform that welcomes all perspectives from anyone who wants to submit an article, op-ed, or letter to the editor, including candidates. As long as it adheres to* [*our etiquette*](https://ivn.us/etiquette/)*,* [*we will publish it*](https://ivn.us/publish/)*.* With our country’s democracy in severe crisis, incredibly, there are no secretary of state candidate forums nor debates scheduled between us—even though the race to elect California’s chief elections official would be an ideal place to discuss the electoral systems we use to choose our public representatives. What we do have between us, are our [candidate statements in the statewide Official Voter Information Guide](https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/candidates/sos-candidate-statements.htm?ref=ivn.us) that go to over 25 million votes, and our individual campaign websites. What we each say and don’t say in those places speaks volumes about our visions for democracy in our state. This is my critique of your statements and platforms. (My [statement](https://feinstein4sos.org/voter-guide-candidate-statement-2026/?ref=ivn.us) and [platform](http://www.feinstein4sos.org/issues?ref=ivn.us) are in these links.) ## **Don Wagner, Republican** Wagner says he wants to protect what he calls ‘a fundamental right’ of every eligible voter to participate in our democracy. But in his [candidate statement](https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/candidates/sos-candidate-statements.htm?ref=ivn.us), he offers nothing that might suggest protecting or enhancing the ability of eligible voters to participate. Instead, Wagner focuses on restricting mail-in voting and requiring voter ID at the polls—*steps known to decrease participation and disenfranchise voters* (I explain why in the appendix below), while also sewing unsubstantiated doubt about the validity of election results. Wagner is a member of a political party, the Republicans, that in California has become mostly impotent under the state’s jungle primary/top two election system. Rather than their veiled attempt to use voter suppression tactics to depress their opponents’ vote, Wagner and state Republicans would do well to embrace multi-seat proportional representation elections for the state legislature (and ranked-choice voting for statewide office.) Proportional representation elections would give Republicans a clear seat at the table of our democracy, reflecting the actual support for their ideas among voters across the state. By contrast, under California’s current winner-take-all system, Republicans at best hope to win a small number of state legislative seats in a few parts of the state, subject to how single-seat district lines are drawn. And now, amidst a bitter national redistricting fight going on between states and parties, even the current limited number of Republican opportunity seats in California is uncertain. [Congress Finally Notices the Gerrymandering War Politicians StartedA bipartisan group of House members says it wants to stop politicians from choosing their voters — but the real test is whether Congress can act before the map-rigging arms escalates again.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Problem-Solvers-Caucus-Gerrymandering-Working-Group-84ad66a68ace45397da8401f6ee7251ab517d977dfdf6adcd8c383307ba1f334.jpg)](https://ivn.us/congress-finally-notices-the-gerrymandering-war-politicians-started/) Proposition 50—passed by California voters in November 2025—suspended the congressional districts drawn by the state’s independent Citizens Redistricting Commission until 2032, in order to give Democrats an additional five seat advantage at Republicans’ expense. After 2032, no one knows what will happen, with no end in sight to our nation’s internecine redistricting battles. If the California Republicans were to commit to proportional representation, they could join with large numbers of non-affiliated voters, minor party members, and many Democrats to form a meaningful coalition for electoral system change. And, help bring about a viable multi-party democracy for our state that would be far more inclusive and representative than what we have under single-seat, winner-take-all elections—whether the nomination-by-party system we had before or the jungle primary version we have today. That is what makes Wagner’s voter suppression-based campaign so disappointing. With no proposals to improve political representation for Californians in his candidate statement (nor on his [campaign website](https://wagnerforcalifornia.com/?ref=ivn.us)) it will likely leave the limited two-candidate Fall campaign between Wagner and incumbent Shirley Weber void of meaningful debate about fuller representation in our democracy. ## **Shirley Weber, Democrat** Weber's candidate statement focuses on her well-known, long-time support for voting rights. The historical struggle for the right to vote for all citizens—which should be a given in this country—has been long, cruel and difficult. Today, important gains of the past are increasingly under threat. In this environment, to have a strong voting rights advocate as secretary of state is a major asset for California. [California’s Election Referee Is on the Ballot – And Almost No One Is WatchingMail-in ballots are out, and voting has begun in California’s June 2 primary. This election, though, is not just about who wins power. It is also a fight over who voters trust to run the system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-secretary-of-state-election-administration-ballots-f22919d916e2a365e82291611fcb78e633aff31bd9853d0c43c59df06eb6e3be.png)](https://ivn.us/californias-election-referee-is-on-the-ballot-and-almost-no-one-is-watching-2026-05-11/) But ‘voting rights’ must mean more than just being able to vote. It must also mean the right to vote for and elect candidates who represent your views—and to win representation in proportion that your views are held in society. That’s why a discussion of electoral systems should be front and center in the secretary of state campaign. But Weber does not address representation in her [candidate statement](https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/candidates/sos-candidate-statements.htm?ref=ivn.us) nor in her campaign website [priorities](https://drshirleyweber.com/priorities/?ref=ivn.us). In her candidate statement, Weber concludes by saying that we all should be able to register and vote, regardless of our political differences. But she doesn’t address whether those political differences—and the political constituencies that hold them—each merit representation themselves, even when they don’t make up a political majority within a district. As our state’s incumbent chief elections official, Weber should be challenged whether she questions or accepts the limited and incomplete representation that inherently comes from our state’s exclusive reliance upon single-seat district, winner-take-all elections. Even though she is a member of a political party that disproportionately benefits from its duopoly status, ideally Weber would put aside partisan interests and support moving to a system where all points of views and constituencies gain representation in proportion to their support within the electorate. ## **Gary Blenner, Green** My third opponent, Gary Blenner, is a fellow Green Party member and a respected colleague. Between us, we share a strong commitment to basic Green electoral reforms like proportional representation, ranked-choice voting and public financing of elections. We are supportive of each others’ campaigns and have even coordinated on messaging against the Republicans' voter suppression voter ID ballot measure. A benefit of there being two Greens running in the secretary of state race is the need for electoral reform in our state is so pressing—and the size and the population of our state is so large—that having two Greens running will enable us to reach more voters. Additionally, by state law, the votes for both of us will be combined towards reaching the 2% in a statewide race needed to automatically extend the Green Party’s statewide ballot status for the next four years. So rather than vote-splitting, our campaigns are complementary. However, because of the high $25 per-word cost for the candidate statements in the Voter Information Guide, and his desire to spend some of his limited funds on TV and social media ads, Blenner was only able to devote 36 words to policy in his statement, compared to the full 250-word statements Weber, Wagner and I were able to afford. Rather than this being a demerit against Blenner, this should be seen as [a voters rights issue](https://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2018/01/voters-right-know-undermined-high-candidate-statement-fees-sos-conflict-interest?ref=ivn.us), where candidate statements in the Voter Guide should be free or have a *de minimis* cost, because all voters should be entitled to a basic floor of information about all the candidates before them. ## **The Debate We Should Be Having** The 2026 governor’s race has laid bare one of the several fault lines within California’s jungle primary top two system: it is [not designed well for—and breaks down](https://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2018/05/top-two-malfunctions-democracy-suffers/?ref=ivn.us)—when there are multiple strong candidates. It is absurd that under top two, the two gubernatorial candidates that will advance to the November general election may each receive 25% or less of the primary election vote (and even those totals will be driven in part by lesser-evilism.) That absurdity should be more than dispositive that it’s time for change. The question is ‘change to what?’ Some want to return California to the previous system, where all ballot qualified parties nominated a candidate to appear on the general election ballot. Secretary Weber is one of them. In 2022, she told CalMatters that top two [had been a failure](https://calmatters.org/politics/2022/10/shirley-weber-secretary-of-state-election/?ref=ivn.us), and that a return to multiple party-nominated candidates and independents on the general election ballot would be preferable. To her credit, among the [many problems in practice ](https://calmatters.org/politics/2022/06/california-primary-top-two/?ref=ivn.us)that have arisen from top two, Weber has said that one of the primary reasons [she is opposed](https://ballot-access.org/2021/04/14/dr-shirley-weber-californias-secretary-of-state-says-top-two-is-unfair-to-minor-parties/?ref=ivn.us) to top-two is because it keeps minor party candidates out of the general election campaign. She is right about that (which makes her silence about proportional representation particularly vexing, because if she cares about minor party voices, why not about minor party representation?) The [jungle primary has been devastating for California’s ballot qualified minor parties](https://greenpagesnews.org/michael-kerr-becomes-fifth-california-green-to-make-it-onto-the-november-general-election-state-federal-ballot-since-restrictive-top-two-elections-were-put-in-place/?ref=ivn.us)*—and* the voters that support them. Not only has top two virtually eliminated minor party candidates from the general election ballot. But even the threshold to qualify for the primary election ballot has been raised so high for minor party candidates (compared to under the previous system) that few even make it that far—[in effect, disappearing minor parties](https://losangeles.cagreens.org/issues/public-hearings-electoral-reform?ref=ivn.us) from California’s political landscape. For Greens, [party suppression is voter suppression](https://truthout.org/articles/third-parties-may-disappear-from-ballot-under-freedom-to-vote-act-provision/?ref=ivn.us). Yet top two came about in part because many voters were especially frustrated with the major party options that came out of the previous system, often feeling there was no one to vote for in the general elections that represented their views. This sentiment has manifested in many ways, including in the drop in the percentage of voters who register in the state’s two major parties, from [84%](https://vigarchive.sos.ca.gov/1996/primary/stat/report.htm?ref=ivn.us) in 1996 to [70%](about:blank) today. Part of that frustration came from the fact that in order to protect incumbents (and thus limit voters ability to choose new representatives), [the legislature was drawing the legislative districts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ditching-the-politics-in-california/id1336743759?i=1000400095924&ref=ivn.us) under which they would run, until in 2008 and 2010, voters passed independent redistricting plans for the state legislature and California’s congressional delegation. But top two also promised to separately address that frustration by eliminating party primaries, and combining together all candidates from all parties (and all independents) into a jungle primary, then limiting general election choices to only two. But in many cases—often because of the limited and often unrepresentative options that come out of jungle primaries—this has simply shifted which voters have no one to vote for that they identify in the general election. To address this, some top two supporters would like to keep the jungle primary, but then [expand the number of general election choices](https://ivn.us/dont-kill-top-two-upgrade-it-a-smarter-way-to-elect-californias-governor-2026-03-03/) arising out of it to a ‘top four’ or ‘top five’ — and use ranked-choice voting (RCV) both in the general election to eliminate vote-splitting and ensure a majority winner and in the primary to arrive at the top ‘x’ candidates who would advance. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) This would be a significant improvement over the current two top system, in terms of having more options in the general election, while simultaneously empowering voters to express their preferences over multiple candidates and still arrive at a majority winner via RCV. Use of RCV would also greatly improve the nomination-by-party system by eliminating the ‘spoiler’ and the ‘lesser-of-evils’ dynamic in the general election, while ensuring a majority winner—even when several parties place nominees on the general election ballot. But neither of these address what we Greens—and many others—think is the root problem underlying California’s substantial democratic deficit: the state’s singular reliance upon single-seat, winne'r-take-all districts to elect its state and federal legislative representatives. If we’ve learned anything from our current national fight over redistricting, it’s that however we draw single-district lines, it’s going to favor some voters over others, depending upon which voters are grouped together with which others; and because its winner-take-all, large pluralities of voters will still receive no representation. It must be questioned why we accept this in such a multi-layered and diverse state as California, when [systems of proportional representation could give all of that diversity its own seat at the table](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypwvCAygBwk&ref=ivn.us). But debate over proportional representation will be mostly absent going forward in this year’s secretary of state contest because top two will likely eliminate the two Greens in this race from a place on the general election ballot, when more voters will be paying attention. There is little likelihood that even many lesser changes to top two will be meaningfully debated, as Weber’s victory over Wagner November is generally seen as a given, and therefore the race will likely receive minimal media coverage and feature no formal candidate debates. Who loses in this process? The public. ## **Next Steps for California’s Democracy** Instead of a vigorous public dialogue (via this year’s secretary of state campaign) about options to improve our democracy, what is likely to occur going forward is that competing groups that want to either return to the nomination-by-party system or modify top-two will each seek to raise money to qualify their own ballot measure for 2028\. Then we will have to debate up-or-down on their terms, instead out of reform flowing out of a broadly inclusive public process that considers all options first. That lack of an inclusive process is what happened the last time major electoral system reform was considered, after the 2008-2009 effort (which I was deeply involved in) to hold a Constitutional Convention to consider electoral reform stalled. Instead California’s top-two elections system was placed on the June 2010 ballot by the state legislature, as part of a February 3, 2009 2 a.m. [state budget deal](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-feb-22-me-maldonado22-story.html?ref=ivn.us)—but without any formal and inclusive public hearings leading up to it during that legislative session that could have better identified all of the problems with top two that have become apparent over the years, and improved what the legislature eventually put on the ballot — maybe even including some of the improvements jungle primary supporters today are advocating. [The Real History: California’s Top-Two Nonpartisan Primary Electoral ReformIt is periodically reported that California’s Prop 14 (Non-partisan Top Two Primary) was drafted in the middle of the night in the back rooms of the California Legislature. Nothing could be further from the truth.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Project![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/hero-migrated-60f8b07446143924e3b78b96_0.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-real-history-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-electoral-reform/) Instead — in significant part based upon a [highly contested](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-mar-10-la-me-cap11-2010mar11-story.html?ref=ivn.us) and [significantly incomplete](https://greenpagesnews.org/why-has-top-two-passed-in-two-states-and-failed-in-two-others/?ref=ivn.us) (if not misleading) ballot title and summary, top two in its flawed form was passed in June 2010 by the voters with 53.7%—hardly a broad mandate for systemic change. If top two is repealed and replaced, what process will lead to its replacement? Before these new ballot measure qualification efforts gain steam, since the State Legislature did not exercise proper legislative hearing due diligence when it put top two on the June 2010 ballot, why not respond to the [Green Party’s request made in June 2021](https://losangeles.cagreens.org/issues/public-hearings-electoral-reform?ref=ivn.us): > “that the California State Assembly Committee on Elections and the State Senate Standing Committee on Elections and Constitutional Amendments convene a public inquiry process, to include public hearings around the state, to review California’s top two experiment and alternatives to it — including proportional representation for the state legislature and ranked choice voting for single-seat, statewide office…and review to see how top two has functioned in practice, and whether claims made for it in the official ballot statement and in the ballot arguments have borne out.” *Wouldn’t that be a refreshing way to consider next steps for our democracy?* ## **Appendix: The Voter Suppression Voter ID measure** I unconditionally oppose the ‘California Voter Identification and Voter List Maintenance Requirements Initiative.’ Worse than being a solution in search of a problem, the measure is a thinly veiled attempt to disenfranchise voters, and to sew doubt about our election results by implying people are voting who should not be—when the empirical record says they are not. *(1) Republican secretary of state candidate Don Wagner is a champion of this initiative and advocates new voter ID requirements at the polls.* But California elections are already incredibly secure, and [necessary identification is already required](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/regulations/hava%5Fid%5Fregs%5Ffrom%5Fbarclays%5F3%5F3%5F06.pdf?ref=ivn.us) when a person first registers to vote. There is no evidence of widespread noncitizen voting that would justify additional ID requirements at the polls—nor the time and expense required from already underfunded county election offices to gather and process this information. (2) *Wagner also seeks to restrict mail-in voting and suggests the time it takes California to count all ballots is an embarrassment.* The reason that it takes the time to count the ballots that it does in California is a result of California making it easier to vote—including by the widespread use of mail-in ballots—and to ensure the integrity of each voter’s ballot. *This is a good thing!* To make it easier to vote, beginning in 2020, California started mailing ballots to all registered voters that can be returned by mail, left at a ballot box or delivered in person at the polls.Mail ballots require [additional verification steps](https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-voting-voter-registration-government-and-politics-609866267baef89dd1513e7c9e2f7509?ref=ivn.us), so they can take longer to tabulate than ballots cast in person that are fed into a scanner at the precinct polling place or voter center. *This extra time is a public policy choice in favor of enabling greater voter participation.* California also allows mail ballots to either be turned in by election day at polling place or drop box; or if postmarked by election day, [as long as](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration/vote-mail?ref=ivn.us) it arrives no later than seven days afterward—all in the spirit of making it easier to vote by Election Day. Legally cast, but later arriving ballots also mean later processing. *But is this such a bad thing, if it means thousands more voters were able to vote that might not have otherwise?* Counties also have varying levels of staffing or resources that can impact how quickly the work is done. My campaign’s stance is that we should ensure a more standard level of support for county registrar of voters offices, to have a more level playing field for our democracy, regardless of where you live in the state. But when counties are understaffed because they're underfunded, we can’t complain if counting of all ballots takes longer. Finally, we give voters several days to address any problems that may have arise with their ballot. This also can add time to the vote count—but if it means ensuring these voters' voices are heard, it is worth it. (3) *Restricting vote-by-mail and imposing new barriers to voting as Wagner suggests risks disenfranchising thousands of eligible voters—*seniors, working families, communities of color, people with disabilities, people who have experienced a name change and/or move around a lot - and more. It could also wrongfully flag naturalized citizens, and create new ways to challenge election results. At best, this excessive voter ID strategy is a solution in search of a problem that distracts us from the need to achieve broader and deeper representation in our democracy. At worst, it a thinly veiled attempt to disenfranchise voters, and to sew doubt about our election results—all to affect who gains power, compared to who would be elected if all voices are heard and counted. ### The Fight Over Open Primaries Is Now a Fight Over Who Owns Democracy URL: https://ivn.us/the-fight-over-open-primaries-is-now-a-fight-over-who-owns-democracy/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:41:26.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is an exclusive series on IVN from the better elections group* [*Open Primaries*](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us)*. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz." Open Primaries announced this week that they are merging "Primary Buzz" with the* [*Let Us Vote*](https://letusvote.org/?ref=ivn.us) *campaign newsletter into a single, unified platform.* Something big is happening in the debate over open primaries - and the political narrative this primary election season is changing fast. What was once dismissed as a niche reform issue is suddenly becoming part of a much larger national argument about political power, voter exclusion, and whether the parties have gained too much control over American democracy itself. This week alone, major outlets moved the conversation dramatically. The [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) editorial board delivered a blistering rebuke to the leadership of both parties on their attempts to shut out voters, while [*The Atlantic*](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/redistricting-map-gerrymandering-bill/687244/?ref=ivn.us) tied partisan gerrymandering and safe districts directly to the growing power of closed primaries. Across the country, the same pattern keeps emerging: independent voters shut out of taxpayer-funded elections, low-turnout primaries dominated by ideological activists, and growing frustration with a system many voters increasingly see as rigged by (and for) the parties themselves. In [Nevada](https://www.kolotv.com/2026/05/28/closed-primaries-nonpartisan-voter/?ref=ivn.us), the exclusion of nonpartisan voters is becoming a bigger political flashpoint. [In Texas](https://ivn.us/texas-gop-looks-at-7-turnout-and-says-lets-make-the-primary-smaller/), collapsing runoff turnout reinforced concerns that tiny electorates are effectively choosing leaders for millions of people. And in California, the 2026 governor’s race is once again turning the state’s Top Two system into a national test case for how elections can be made more competitive and representative. [A Top-Two Democrat Race for Governor? In California, That May Be What a Healthy Democracy Actually Looks LikeThe state’s nonpartisan Top-Two primary was never designed to produce a Democrat vs. Republican Race or to prevent two Democrats or two Republicans from being in the final contest.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsSteve Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/california-governor-race-two-democrats.jpg)](https://ivn.us/a-top-two-democrat-race-for-governor-in-california-that-may-be-what-a-healthy-democracy-actually-looks-like/) The biggest shift is this: Open primaries are no longer being framed simply as an election reform. Increasingly, they are being framed as a direct challenge to partisan control over American politics. **Check out Open Primaries President John Opdycke** [as he breaks it all down in a breaking piece for the Fulcrum](https://thefulcrum.us/elections/bipartisan-war-independent-voters-closed-primaries?ref=ivn.us). ## **What We're Talking About** ## CNN’s Smerconish Says the Quiet Part Out Loud This past Saturday, Michael Smerconish used his CNN opening monologue to take direct aim at closed partisan primaries and the exclusion of independent voters. Pointing to the defeats and political vulnerability of figures like Bill Cassidy, Thomas Massie, and even the future risks facing John Fetterman, Smerconish argued that America’s primary system is rewarding ideological loyalty over broad public support. But he went even further, questioning why taxpayers are funding a system of elections that excludes millions. It was a powerful moment for the open primaries movement. Following the segment, Smerconish sat down with me for a wide-ranging conversation on voter exclusion, political polarization, and why the fight to open America’s elections is rapidly becoming one of the defining democracy issues in the country. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Maryland-independent-voters-step-up.png) This week two dozen independent Marylanders joined Delegate Lily Qi and Jeremy Gruber, Senior Vice President at Open Primaries to take stock on the fight in the Maryland legislature to open the primaries to over one million independent voters. They discussed the ongoing litigation challenging the state’s closed primary system. Jeremy asked Delegate Qi how she saw the impact: > *“The* [*lawsuit*](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) *at least put some faces to this case. It’s no longer an abstract issue. There are real people willing to step forward to say this affects me as a tax payer…It sharpens the focus.”* Dona Sauerburger, a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, thanked Del. Qi for her advocacy on the issue and discussed the common issue raised by opponents that opening the primaries will cost more money because candidates would have to appeal to more constituents! Del Qi commented *– “that’s the whole point!”* She went on to report that in the course of several conversations with her colleagues: “We’re already changing some minds.” There was also a discussion about [Gov. Moore’s comments on the Bill Maher show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzOeP1ieU7s&ref=ivn.us) in support of open primaries, which his staff quickly walked back. Dennis Philapavage gave the gathering an update on a recent interaction he had with Gov. Moore at an event in Havre De Grace. Dennis, a veteran and activist with Let Us Vote and [Veterans for All Voters](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?ref=ivn.us), talked to the Governor, veteran to veteran, pressing him on the need to give independents full voting rights. The Governor agreed that ***“the issue cannot be ignored.”*** Here is the take away – when independents become visible, step out like the plaintiffs did in the MD lawsuit, or show up to testify – new things can happen, including developing a new partnership with an elected leader who is passionately advocating for independent voting rights! If you’re a Marylander, Independent Voters of Maryland invites you to join Operation Independent on Primary Day on June 23rd. They are holding an informational picket in Laurel – independents will be gathering with signs — “I CAN’T VOTE TODAY! ASK ME WHY”. Or as Elaina Goldstein suggested on the call, “I’M ONE IN A MILLION – WHO CAN’T VOTE TODAY!” If you want to join, please reach out to Melanie Combs-Dyer at melanie@independentvotersmd.org. ## Open Primaries Campaign to Rally New Mexico Independents Ahead of State’s First Open Primary Ramps Up As we recently reported, [Let Us Vote NM](https://newmexico.letusvote.org/?ref=ivn.us), a project of Open Primaries, [launched a statewide education / Get Out The Vote campaign to mobilize independent voters](https://ivn.us/new-mexico-independents-mobilize-ahead-of-their-first-open-primary-2026-04-28/) to participate in the primary. With early voting well underway and primary day next week, that campaign is ramping up. ## Oregon’s 1.3 Million Voters Shut Out Again ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/let-voters-vote.jpg) Once again, Oregon’s largest group of voters (1.3M+ citizens) were shut out of the May 19 taxpayer-funded primary election that chose candidates for Governor, U.S. Congress, Legislators,and a number of important representatives. Voter Fairness is organizing to change that and refocusing their efforts on the 2027 Legislative Session and 2028 election. To the many volunteers and supporters who are already calling attention to the need to open the primaries to let all Oregon voters vote-thank you! To join them and build a fairer, more representative Oregon, please sign up at [voterfairness.com](https://voterfairness.com/?ref=ivn.us). ## **In Case You Missed It** ## The Walls Around Pennsylvania’s Primaries Are Starting to Crack ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Pennsylvania-independents-protest-closed-primaries-1.png) The fight to end Pennsylvania’s closed primary system is breaking into the mainstream. Open Primaries President John Opdycke and National Organizing Director Cathy Stewart were featured in media outlets across the state, from the [Pennsylvania Capital Star](https://penncapital-star.com/election-2026/advocates-push-for-pennsylvania-to-leave-its-closed-primary-system-behind/?ref=ivn.us) to a headline piece in [USA Today](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/05/20/open-primary-election-vote-independent/90158448007/?ref=ivn.us), calling out a system that disenfranchises millions of voters by design. Meanwhile, independent voters in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh showed up at polling places across Pennsylvania last week with a simple message: stop locking 1.5 million voters out of taxpayer-funded elections. For more than a decade, Open Primaries has been on the front lines in Pennsylvania — building legislative coalitions, organizing independent voters, and [filing groundbreaking litigation](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) alongside our partners at Ballot PA Action to challenge the state’s closed primary system head-on. **The pressure is growing, and it’s having an impact:** [**Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has announced his support for primary reform!**](https://www.thecentersquare.com/pennsylvania/article%5Fb341a1e0-d17c-4171-8cee-ba02d7e82075.html?ref=ivn.us) ## **Upcoming Events** ### Rule of Law: The Operating System of Capitalism. A Conversation with Danielle Allen. **Friday, June 12th 2-3pm ET | 11am-12pm PT** The event is hosted by YPO Democracy Group. Be sure to register [here](https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/6317788710796/WN%5FrjvcFm32QBOaAURS%5FLT41Q?ref=ivn.us#/) Every business is built on systems it does not control, the rulebook of the public market-- courts, regulations, public institutions. - At its core is the Rule of Law, the foundation of economic trust, market stability and sustained growth. - But, Rule of Law depends on a political system capable of making legitimate decisions that endure beyond the next election cycle, news cycle or partisan fight. - When businesses can no longer trust the stability of the rules, growth slows, investment retreats and the cost of uncertainty rises for everyone. **Does our democratic system have the capacity to function at a level that supports a modern economy?** Join YPOer Seth David Radwell as he interviews Professor Danielle Allen and asks: **What is the government’s role in creating robust systems that people trust?** ### Poll: Only 22% of Latino Voters Support Return to Partisan Primaries. Becerra Big Lead for Governor. URL: https://ivn.us/poll-only-22-of-latino-voters-support-return-to-partisan-primaries-bacerra-big-lead-for-governor/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:41:18.000Z **SAN DIEGO, Calif.** \- A new Independent Voter Project poll conducted in the final week of May found that despite an effort by Democratic and Republican operatives to repeal the Top Two open primary, a majority of Latino voters are not sour on the nonpartisan system. In fact, a majority 53% either want to keep the system as is (33.56%) or want to modify it to advance more than two candidates to the general election (19.25%). Only 22% said they want California to eliminate nonpartisan primaries and go back to a closed primary system. About a quarter of respondents said they were “Unsure.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/IVP-Latino-Poll-Top-Two.jpeg) Prior to the passage of Proposition 14 in 2010 by a majority of Californians, the state used a primary system that allowed the parties to choose who could participate in these taxpayer-funded elections. They decided whose vote mattered. Today, all voters can participate in the primary and choose any candidate they want because of the Top Two system. [The Real History: California’s Top-Two Nonpartisan Primary Electoral ReformIt is periodically reported that California’s Prop 14 (Non-partisan Top Two Primary) was drafted in the middle of the night in the back rooms of the California Legislature. Nothing could be further from the truth.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Project![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/hero-migrated-60f8b07446143924e3b78b96_0-58d0c846dd3232274539ab3ffbf5af6221f0d9f39da8cad04d959237b75c4d99.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-real-history-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-electoral-reform/) IVP polled 1,189 verified registered Latino and Hispanic voters whose voter files indicate that they are likely general election voters. It has a margin of error of ±2.9 percentage points at a 95% confidence level The results show that the percentage of Latinos who want to eliminate ‘Top Two’ is not far off from the general voting population, but still noticeably less. A [Capitol Weekly poll](https://ivn.us/the-forces-trying-to-kill-top-two-cant-read-their-own-polling/) found that 29% of California voters said they wanted to eliminate 'Top Two.' More Californians at-large wanted to modify (49%) and fewer wanted to keep the system as is (21%) compared to Latinos surveyed. When asked what they like about Top Two, 66% said its best feature is that "nonpartisan voters can vote in the primary for candidates from any party," according to Capital Weekly. In the end, both polls point to the same conclusion: Most voters, whether looking at the electorate as a whole or Latino voters specifically, do not want to return to a system that restricts voter choice and locks out 7 million independent voters. Research into Latino voters reveals why. A third of this group is registered No Party Preference or independent of the two major parties. But even among those who pick a party, many do not follow a strict ideology or partisan line. [Latinos Will Be the Most Powerful Voting Bloc, Once They Start Voting in PrimariesCalifornia’s nonpartisan primary system is built around a simple promise: Every voter gets a say. But, not every voter takes advantage of this. There is a noticeable turnout gap with Latino voters, in particular, who could completely reshape the electoral landscape if they participate.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/latino-voters-california-primary-elections.jpg)](https://ivn.us/latinos-will-be-the-most-powerful-voting-bloc-once-they-start-voting-in-primaries/) The nonpartisan primary system has also [helped shape the California Legislature](https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/) in a way that has increased Latino representation. Latinos make up about 40% of the population and under Top Two their representation has increased to a third of the legislature. Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio [filed paperwork on May 8](https://ballot-access.org/2026/05/11/steve-maviglio-files-paperwork-to-begin-circulating-a-california-initiative-to-repeal-top-two/?ref=ivn.us) with the California secretary of state to repeal Proposition 14\. He was quickly joined by Republican operatives and politicians like Ron Nehring, former GOP chair, and MAGA-aligned Assemblymember Carl DeMaio. DeMaio's group, Reform California, even offered to [contribute funds and help with the signature gathering operation](https://www.reformcalifornia.org/news/reform-california-backs-initiative-to-repeal-cas-failed-top-two-primary-system?ref=ivn.us) for the initiative. More Choice California [launched to lead the opposition against Top Two repeal](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/). This cross-partisan group of reformers is also proposing an update to the nonpartisan system by expanding the number of general election candidates to 4 and using ranked choice ballots. The goal is not to go backward, but protect independent voter rights and give voters more options in November elections. ## **On The Governor’s Race: Latino Voters Want Becerra – And It Is Not Even Close** IVP also surveyed Latino voters on who they preferred in the 2026 California governor’s race days before the June 2 primary. They were asked to provide their preferred candidate as well as their second choice. The results: Xavier Becerra had a commanding lead over every other candidate in the race—36% named the former US Health and Human Services secretary as their first choice. What’s more, voters were more likely not to have a second favorite. The next highest polling candidate was Tom Steyer at 18.71%. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/IVP-Latino-Poll-California-Governor.jpeg) It is important to note that the IVP poll was modeled to reflect likely general election voters. There are people who took the survey who may regularly vote in November, but may not cast a ballot in June. In the last gubernatorial contest in 2022, a third of the registered electorate participated in the primary, and among Latino voters—there was a significant turnout gap. However, [as IVN Editor Shawn Griffiths noted](https://ivn.us/latinos-will-be-the-most-powerful-voting-bloc-once-they-start-voting-in-primaries/), if Latino voters participate in the primary, they will be the most powerful voting bloc. They represent not only 40% of the population, but more than 90% of growth in eligible voters statewide. The IVP poll also highlights where the incentive is for Latino voters to participate in the primary. More than a third said they would vote for Becerra, but of those voters — nearly 30% selected “None/Other” as their second choice. Here are the second-choice selections among Becerra voters: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/IVP-Latino-Poll-Xavier-Becerra-Second-Choices.jpeg) This doesn’t mean they wouldn’t vote for another candidate if Becerra doesn’t advance to the general election. However, if they want their voice to matter most, especially if they only prefer one candidate, they need to vote in the primary. The same applies to every voter, regardless of which candidate they prefer most. In California, every voter gets the same primary ballot. They can vote for whomever they want in each race. They don’t need anyone’s permission to do it, nor do they have to wait for private political parties to choose for them. ## **Methodology and Reliability** The IVP 2026 California Latino Primary Survey was conducted May 26–28, 2026, among 1,189 screened and verified California registered voters of Hispanic background. The sample was drawn directly from L2's California voter file. All respondents were verified registered voters matched back to that file. Eligibility was restricted to Hispanic California voters who participated in at least two of the last four general elections. This documented participation threshold served as the turnout model for the survey, anchored in verified voting history rather than self-reported voting intent. Eligibility was restricted to Hispanic California voters who participated in at least two of the last four general elections. This documented participation threshold served as the turnout model for the survey, anchored in verified voting history rather than self-reported voting intent. Respondents were reached via MMS outreach using verified cell phone records matched to the voter file. The survey was fielded in both English and Spanish, with the message and survey form delivered in the language matching the household's primary language as recorded by L2\. All responses were validated against the source file. Duplicate submissions and unmatched records were excluded prior to analysis. After applying the high-propensity screen, the dataset was weighted by age, gender, household language, and party registration to approximate the demographic composition of California's Hispanic 2-of-4 voter universe. The modeled electorate consists of **57.1% Democrats, 24.4% Republicans, and 18.6% independent voters**, and is **50.2% English-language / 49.8% Spanish-language** by household. The unweighted sample composition is Democrats n=724, Republicans n=284, and independent registrants n=197. For purposes of this survey, IVP defines independent voters to include all voters not registered as Democrats or Republicans, including No Party Preference registrants, American Independent Party voters, and all other minor party registrants. American Independent Party registrants are treated as independent for all analytical purposes, consistent with California's nonpartisan primary structure. In practical terms, this turnout model represents the general-election electorate of California's Hispanic 2-of-4 voters, not the primary electorate. Primary turnout among California Latino voters is meaningfully smaller, older, and more partisan than the general electorate this poll is modeled on. A material change in turnout composition between the primary and the general, particularly among independent and younger Latino voters, would alter projected ballot dynamics. The overall margin of error is **±2.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level**, adjusted for the design effect introduced by weighting using Kish's effective sample size of 1,159 (a design effect of 1.03, reflecting an unusually well-pre-balanced sample). Subgroup margins of error are wider: **±3.7 points for Democrats, ±5.9 points for Republicans, and ±7.1 points for independent voters**. As with all voter-file-based online samples, the margin of error reflects sampling precision within the modeled electorate and should be interpreted as an estimate rather than a guarantee of representativeness. The survey instrument covered the California Governor's race (first and second choice), party trust, intent to vote in the 2026 primary, and a question on the Top-Two nonpartisan primary system versus a return to closed partisan primaries. All results reported reflect weighted percentages unless otherwise noted. This poll should be understood as a structural model of California's Hispanic general-election electorate. It is not a forecast of primary outcomes, and material changes in the composition of the turnout would alter the topline results. Full [technical methodology is available here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X9Hw61xLe44tshBQSFK%5FXBU-i1WPrI0fF1RCefy3Ozw/edit?tab=t.0&ref=ivn.us). ### How Party Insiders KILLED Florida's Open Primary (57% of Voters Said YES) URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/how-party-insiders-killed-floridas-open-primary-57-of-voters-said-yes/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T18:22:26.000Z 57% of Floridians voted to open their primaries. They still lost. Chad Peace and Cara McCormick sit down with Political No Brainer host Jeff Rabinowitz to unpack how Florida's two-party system buries voting reform - and the closed-primary lawsuit now knocking on the Supreme Court's door. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ## Episode Highlights In this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, Chad and Cara sit down with Jeff Rabinowitz of the *Political No Brainer* podcast to dive deep into **nonpartisan primary reform**, **independent voter rights**, and **electoral system change** in America. The conversation unpacks Florida's **closed primary system** and the state's **60% constitutional amendment threshold** — a structural barrier that blocked a nonpartisan open primary initiative despite 57% of voters supporting it — sparking debate around **voting rights**, **election integrity**, and **political reform**. The trio also explores a landmark **Supreme Court case** on whether forcing voters to join a party to participate in primary elections constitutes a **First Amendment violation**, touching on key themes of **civic engagement**, **voter suppression**, and **grassroots democracy**. The discussion then shifts to the broader **independent political movement**, with Rabinowitz noting that **Gen Z voters**, young people, and swing-state residents across Florida, Minnesota, Idaho, and Mississippi are fueling a growing demand for **third-party candidates** and **anti-establishment politics**. Chad, Cara, and Jeff also touch on **gun policy**, **Montessori education reform**, and the value of **bipartisan dialogue** — with Rabinowitz offering his take as a **political coach**: listen more, stop bashing, and prioritize **political education** over tribalism. For voters seeking **nonpartisan news**, **independent political commentary**, and a break from **mainstream media bias**, this episode is essential listening. ### Congress Finally Notices the Gerrymandering War Politicians Started URL: https://ivn.us/congress-finally-notices-the-gerrymandering-war-politicians-started/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:41:09.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** \- The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, co-chaired by Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), announced this week the formation of a new Gerrymandering Working Group that is focused on settling the most combustible fight in American politics right now: Gerrymandering. This comes after 17 states have either redrawn or formally tried to redraw congressional districts in the last two years, while 8 have actually implemented new maps: California, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah (court ordered). Two developments happened in the mid-cycle gerrymandering fight in this week alone and while the primary election season is already underway. Alabama [asked the US Supreme Court](https://www.reuters.com/world/alabama-asks-us-supreme-court-allow-pro-republican-congressional-map-2026-05-27/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) to allow a new Republican-drawn congressional map after a federal panel blocked it, finding the map likely involved racial discrimination. At the same time, South Carolina Republicans rejected a late redistricting push after pressure to redraw lines before the midterms, with lawmakers [citing concerns about a rushed and opaque process](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/26/south-carolina-republicans-redistricting?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). The Problem Solvers Caucus says its new working group will be focused on reforming the redistricting process that has allowed politicians in both parties to turn congressional maps into partisan weapons before voters even cast a ballot. Traditionally, states redraw congressional districts once every 10 years after the census. But the National Conference of State Legislatures notes that, within the last year, states have undertaken mid-decade redistricting “[at rates not seen since the 1800s.](https://www.ncsl.org/redistricting-and-census/changing-the-maps-tracking-mid-decade-redistricting?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com)” The working group will be evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, with 5 members from each party. It includes Reps: - Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.) - Ed Case (D-Ill.) - Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) - Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) - Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) - Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.) - Darren Soto (D-Fla.) - Ryan Mackenzie (R-Penn.) - Donald Norcross (D-N.J.) - Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) The group’s stated goal is to identify reforms that restore public trust, encourage fairer representation, and reduce the partisan incentives that continue to make the competition and accountability crisis in the US worse. “Gerrymandering turns the system upside down,” Fitzpatrick said. “It lets politicians choose their voters, divides communities for political advantage, and makes too many elections less competitive before a single ballot is cast.” > *“We are bringing both parties together to end the race to the bottom, restore accountability, and put power back where it belongs—with the voters.”* Suozzi tied the issue directly to polarization, arguing that gerrymandering creates safe seats that push politicians to cater to low-turnout primary electorates instead of broader general-election voters. “Gerrymandering rigs general elections, dilutes the will of the voters, carves up communities with shared interests, and incentivizes polarization instead of collaboration,” he said. This point is especially relevant for independent voters. Gerrymandering is often discussed as a fight between Democrats and Republicans. However, the people most boxed out by manipulated maps are voters who do not fit neatly into either party’s base. When districts are engineered to protect one party, the real election moves to party primaries, where turnout is lower, party activists have more power, and independent voters are frequently excluded (or sidelined). In other words, the combination of partisan primaries and gerrymandering does not just rig outcomes—It rigs incentives. Lawmakers in safe seats have less reason to appeal to the political middle, less reason to compromise, and less reason to be accountable to voters outside their party’s most reliable base. "For too long, partisan gerrymandering has allowed political parties to draw district lines that serve their own interests rather than the American people's," said US Rep. Salud Carbajal, representing California’s 24th Congressional District. > *"This kind of political brinkmanship is unsustainable and damaging to our democracy. That is why I am helping launch the Problem Solvers Caucus Gerrymandering Working Group to reform the redistricting process and restore trust in our elections."* The hard part is whether Congress can do anything about it since the Constitution extends authority over the “time, place, and manner” of elections to the states. This is why each state has its own redistricting process. US Rep. Mike Lawler (N.Y), one of the Republican members of the new working group, introduced the [FAIR MAP Act](https://lawler.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=5372&utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) earlier this year to create national standards for congressional redistricting, including guardrails against mid-decade map manipulation. However, the Problem Solvers Caucus has not committed the working group to any specific bill. Instead, it frames the issue as one that requires bipartisan action rather than another round of partisan retaliation. Both parties increasingly justify gerrymandering by pointing to the other side’s actions. The whole thing has turned into a blame game of “they started it.” Republicans say Democrats rig maps where they control the process. Democrats say they cannot unilaterally disarm while Republicans draw aggressive maps in red states. The result is a political arms race in which voters are told the “other side” has to be stopped. The Problem Solvers working group does not mean Congress has suddenly found religion on fair maps. However, it further raises awareness about how the current electoral system—and how it is structured—shifts incentives away from representation. The incentives are now so broken that even some members that operate within the system and have even benefited from it are acknowledging the damage. The question is whether that acknowledgment turns into reform — or is just talk. ### How California's Top Two Nonpartisan Primary Transformed the Legislature URL: https://ivn.us/how-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-transformed-the-legislature/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:41:01.000Z There is a particular kind of political irony at work when the leaders of both major parties agree that a reform should be undone. It usually means the reform is working, *just not for them*. In California, that reform is the nonpartisan open primary, known as Top Two. Voters approved it in June 2010 as Proposition 14, over the objections of insiders from both the Democratic and Republican parties. It replaced the state's closed partisan primaries with a single ballot open to every candidate and every voter. The top two finishers advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation. [CADEM Chair Supports Repealing Top Two. Here’s What He’s Not Telling Voters.This week, the Democratic Party chair chose to abandon more than 5 million independent voters in California to embrace a regressive proposal to roll back voter rights.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsSteve Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/California-Democratic-Party-Chair-Rusty-Hicks.jpg)](https://ivn.us/cadem-chair-supports-repealing-top-two-heres-what-hes-not-telling-voters/) The measure passed with 54% of the vote, and what has happened to the California Legislature in the years since amounts to the most dramatic demographic transformation of any state legislature in modern American history. A review of demographic data from the California State Library shows that in the 2009-10 session, the last elected entirely under the old closed-primary system, the legislature was 73%male. Women held 33 of 120 seats. In statehouses across the country, men dominated by similar margins. **Sixteen years later, women hold 59 seats out of 120 seats in the California Legislature, a 79% increase.** The body is just shy of gender parity for the first time in state history. The state Senate is already split evenly between men and women: women hold a 21-to-19 majority. Across the country, women hold roughly a third of state legislative seats. California is now one legislator away from half. The shift under Top Two in who governs Sacramento extends well beyond gender. In 2009, the legislature was 62% white, in a state where people of color already constituted a majority of the population. Today, that disparity has reversed. The number of white legislators has declined from 74 to 53. **People of color have gone from holding 37% of seats to 55%.** Hispanic legislators account for much of that growth, rising from 27 seats to 40, or from 22% of the body to a full third. Asian Pacific Islander legislators increased from 8% to 12% of legislators. African American women went from 2 seats to 7\. The single most striking number in the Top Two before-and-after data, though, belongs to Latina women. In 2009, they held 8 seats. Today they hold 25\. **One in five California legislators is now a Latina woman.** White men, who held 56 seats before Top Two, now hold just 33, a 41% decline. For decades, they were the default governing class in Sacramento. No longer. It is important to note that Top Two was part of a broader set of reforms, including independent redistricting, adopted around the same time, that took the drawing of district lines out of the hands of incumbent politicians. Together, these two changes fundamentally altered who could run for office and who could win. The old closed primary system concentrated power in the hands of a small number of highly ideological voters who turned out for low-profile partisan primaries. Those electorates tended to reward incumbency, party loyalty, and insider connections. They were not inclined to take chances on newcomers, and the candidates they produced reflected that conservatism. Top Two opened the process to all voters, including the nearly 7 million Californians now registered with no party preference or minor parties, who make up 30 percent of the state's electorate. That broader, more representative pool of voters has, year after year, made different choices. It is against this backdrop that the current push to repeal Top Two should be understood. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) Democratic political operative Steve Maviglio filed a repeal initiative on May 8, motivated by the manufactured and false premise that two Republicans would advance in the 2026 governor's race. He is not alone. Former state Republican Party chair Ron Nehring has endorsed the repeal. So has MAGA-backed Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, who has pledged his organization's resources to the effort. Maviglio, along with the CADEM and the California Republican Party, have all opposed Top Two since its inception. Maybe that is because Top Two was never designed to serve the parties. It was never meant to serve up one Republican and one Democrat. It wasn’t created to pump out more so-called “moderates" or to give favor to anyone with a particular ideology. Top Two was designed to serve voters. It is a voter nominated system and NOT a party nominated system. And the parties and operatives that fought the measure in 2010 and have resented it ever since are not bad people, they are just insiders trying to reclaim control of the nominating process. But Democratic insiders, in particular, should consider what they would be reclaiming. [The Forces Trying to Kill ‘Top Two’ Can’t Read Their Own PollingA partisan pollster finds 70% support for open primaries and calls it erosion![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/California-Top-Two-Primary.jpg)](https://ivn.us/the-forces-trying-to-kill-top-two-cant-read-their-own-polling/) The system they want to restore produced a legislature that was nearly three-quarters male, nearly two-thirds white, and where people of color held barely more than a third of the seats despite being a majority of the state's population. ***The system they want to repeal produced a legislature where women hold 49% of seats, people of color hold 55%, and Latinos have reached a third of the body for the first time.*** A return to closed primaries would shut out the millions of independent voters whose participation helped make these results possible. It would hand the nominating power back to the narrow partisan interests that, for decades, produced a legislature that looked nothing like the state. California's legislature today looks more like California than at any point in the state's 175-year history. That did not happen under the old rules. It happened under Top Two and independent redistricting. And the fact that both parties want to go back is not an argument for doing so. It is the strongest argument against it. ### Texas GOP Looks at 7% Turnout and Says: Let’s Make the Primary Smaller URL: https://ivn.us/texas-gop-looks-at-7-turnout-and-says-lets-make-the-primary-smaller/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:40:52.000Z Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is now the state’s Republican nominee for US Senate, and the number that should matter most to voters is not his margin over John Cornyn. It is the turnout. According to [unofficial results from the Texas secretary of state](https://electionresults.sos.state.tx.us/results.html?ref=ivn.us), Paxton defeated Cornyn in the May 26 Republican primary runoff with 885,949 votes to Cornyn’s 501,725\. That is 1,387,674 total votes in the race. Compared to the March 3 primary, it is also a 36% drop in turnout. Here’s the thing: Texas has roughly 18.7 million registered voters. That means about 7.4% of the electorate participated and Paxton won the nomination with less than 5% (4.7% to be more precise). This is the reality of partisan primaries and runoffs: ***A tiny slice of the electorate decides who everyone gets to choose from in November.*** Paxton’s victory is already being framed as a triumph of MAGA over the establishment. But the deeper story is that the MAGA “base” was a fraction of a fraction of the electorate. Less than 1-in-13 registered Texas voters cast a ballot in the GOP Senate runoff. Fewer than 1-in-20 cast a vote for the winning candidate. At the same time, the Texas GOP is fighting to shut millions of voters out of the primary process entirely—which would guarantee these types of low-turnout wins in future election cycles. [Veterans Group to Court: Don’t Let Party Bosses Shut Independents Out of Texas PrimariesA veteran-led election reform group is asking a federal court to reject an effort by the Republican Party of Texas to close the state’s primary elections. It’s a move that would lock out millions of independent voters in one of the most politically consequential states in the US.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/texas-gop-lawsuit-close-primaries-7ee36e9d6a96508f0e649ccf6129294aab62bae92452cf8aaf634981a8d3bdfb.jpg)](https://ivn.us/veterans-group-to-court-dont-let-party-bosses-shut-independents-out-of-texas-primaries/) The party [has sued the state in federal court](https://texasgop.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/1757cf0e-456d-40a4-8ae3-cc9091203205.pdf?ref=ivn.us), arguing that Texas’ open primary law violates its First Amendment rights because the system allows independents and Democrats to vote in Republican primaries—which can result in “party sabotage.” State law does not require voter registration by party. When voters show up to vote in the primaries, they can freely choose between a Republican or Democratic ballot. They have to stick with that party for the remainder of the primary process (including runoffs). The GOP’s lawsuit says it has adopted a rule requiring that “only registered Republicans” be allowed to vote in Republican primaries. However, unless the courts side with party leaders, their rules do not override state law. The terms “crossover voting” and “party sabotage” are common when parties seek to shut primary doors. Hawaii Democrats [made the same claim](https://ivn.us/will-texas-republican-party-be-successful-where-hawaiian-democratic-party-failed-2025-09-05/) in 2012\. In that case, the Ninth Circuit found that the party had "not developed any evidence” to meet the claimed burden to its rights. The courts upheld the open primary rules. Similarly, in 2024, the [Colorado GOP failed](https://ivn.us/colorado-judge-rejects-state-gops-attempt-deny-independents-access-primaries/) to convince a court that its constitutional rights were burdened by open primaries. The Republican Party of Texas sees independent voter access in these critical taxpayer-funded and publicly administered elections as a potential threat. It claims that “strategic interference” distorts the party’s nomination process. Notably, Paxton—the state’s attorney general—joined the GOP’s lawsuit. This left Secretary of State Jane Nelson to hire private attorneys to defend Texas law. Her office argued that such a change should be made by the Legislature, not imposed by a judge. [Why is the TX Secretary of State Jane Nelson Doing Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Job?In the midst of a Republican Party lawsuit against the State of Texas to close its publicly administered primary elections to party members only, Attorney General Ken Paxton has decided not to defend Texas law.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/02/E8ZGDSPXMAA6Tbm.jpg)](https://ivn.us/why-tx-secretary-state-jane-nelson-doing-attorney-general-ken-paxtons-job-2025-10-14/) She also warned that a court-imposed rule change could confuse voters and burden election administrators. Cornyn actually led Paxton in the March primary, 42% to 41%, but neither candidate reached a majority, sending the race to a runoff. Runoffs are notorious for shrinking the electorate considerably more. (The general rule is to cut primary turnout in half.) In this case, the high-profile runoff with national media attention and a Paxton endorsement from President Donald Trump drew about 64% of the vote total from March. Still, it was a considerably smaller electorate—and that proved decisive. Paxton not only beat Cornyn; he crushed him. The lesson here is not about Paxton alone. It is about a system that gives party insiders and the most loyal primary voters outsized power over elections that affect everyone. Texas taxpayers fund these elections. Texas election officials administer them. Texas voters live with the consequences in November. Yet the parties decide the rules, the ballot access barriers, and increasingly, who is allowed to participate. Moving to closed primaries means: - Forcing more than 18 million existing Texas voters to register a party affiliation with the state - Forcing them to affiliate with a party to vote - Shutting out millions of voters from elections they fund - Increasing public costs because the state has to redesign the voter registration system - Party leaders have more control over election outcomes and who votes That is the direction the Texas GOP is saying in public and in court that it wants to go. For independent voters, this fight is bigger than Texas. It is the same question playing out across the country: Are primaries public elections that should serve voters, or private party contests that taxpayers are forced to fund? Do all voters have the right to a meaningful vote in all taxpayer-funded elections? Or is that right contingent on joining a party? In Texas, the answer from the GOP is clear. The party does not just want low-turnout primaries. It wants to decide who is allowed through the door. ### The Forces Trying to Kill 'Top Two' Can't Read Their Own Polling URL: https://ivn.us/the-forces-trying-to-kill-top-two-cant-read-their-own-polling/ Last updated: 2026-05-27T15:37:42.000Z In a new Capitol Weekly poll of 1,549 likely June primary voters in California, Democratic Party pollster and data analyst Paul Mitchell set out to measure public opinion on the state's Top Two nonpartisan primary system. His headline: "[California voters souring on Top Two](https://capitolweekly.net/ca120-california-voters-souring-on-top-two/?ref=ivn.us)." His analysis: "[massive erosion in voter support for the Top Two Primary](https://capitolweekly.net/ca120-california-voters-souring-on-top-two/?ref=ivn.us)." His conclusion: "[Republicans and Democrats both want to get rid of the Top Two system](https://capitolweekly.net/ca120-california-voters-souring-on-top-two/?ref=ivn.us)." ## **We Asked The AI** Just for fun we fed Mitchell's poll and analysis to several leading AI models and asked them to evaluate whether the data supported his analysis. Claude (Anthropic) said that Mitchell's poll contradicts his headline: > *“The poll claims a "massive erosion in voter support for the Top Two Primary" and that voters are "souring on Top Two," but 70 percent of respondents chose to keep open primaries. The data doesn't show voters rejecting open primaries. It shows voters who love open primaries and want them fixed.”* Gemini (Google) said of Mitchell’s poll: > *“He is trying to manufacture a narrative that the Top Two system is dying, but his own polling numbers show that Californians are still deeply attached to the freedom of an open primary. Voters aren't souring on the core mechanics of the open primary at all. They overwhelmingly support the freedom and access it gives them.”* ## **The Numbers Tell the Opposite Story** Mitchell gave voters three options: keep the Top Two system as is, modify it to preserve open primaries but guarantee each party a nominee in November, or eliminate it entirely and return to traditional closed primaries. The results: 49% chose "modify." 21% chose "keep." Just 29% chose "eliminate." **That means 70% of voters chose an option that preserves nonpartisan open primaries. That is not “massive erosion.” That is a supermajority.** Among Democrats, 74% chose to either modify or keep open primaries. Among Republicans, 58%. And among California independent voters who choose not to affiliate with Democrats or Republicans, 86% want to modify or keep the open nonpartisan primary. In every single voter category, a majority wants to preserve the open primary system. Despite these numbers, Mitchell writes that "Republicans and Democrats both want to get rid of the Top Two system." ## **What Voters Actually Love about Top Two** Mitchell's poll asked voters what they valued about the Top Two system and the answers voters gave him are unambiguous. Sixty-six percent (66%) said the best feature of the Top Two system is that "nonpartisan voters can vote in the primary for candidates from any party." Fifty-nine percent (59%) chose the ability of Democratic and Republican voters to "cross over and vote for candidates of the other parties, not just their own." Among nonpartisan voters, support for open participation hit 78%! These are the defining features of a nonpartisan primary, and they command overwhelming, cross-partisan support. ## **Other Polls Show 16 Years of Steadily Increasing Support for Top Two** Mitchell claims "massive erosion" in support for the Top Two system. But he provides no baseline, no prior survey to compare against. He is asserting a trend from a single data point. The Public Policy Institute of California actually has that baseline, and it also tells the opposite story. PPIC shows a 12-year trend of steadily increasing support. According to PPIC: > "After the 2012 election cycle,[ 59 percent of likely voters](https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-the-future-december-2012/?ref=ivn.us) said that Proposition 14 turned out to be 'mostly a good thing' for California, with similar responses in 2017[ (60](https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-their-government-december-2017/?ref=ivn.us) percent), 2022 ([62](https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-their-government-may-2022/?ref=ivn.us) percent), and 2024 ([68](https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-education-april-2024/?ref=ivn.us) percent). In our most recent polling, majorities across political groups and along the political spectrum agreed." ## **Why Would Voters Want to Give Control Back to The Parties?** The [PPIC analysis](https://www.ppic.org/blog/california-voters-and-the-top-two-primary/?ref=ivn.us) also found that majorities of likely voters have unfavorable views of both major parties: 61% unfavorable toward the Democratic Party and 70% unfavorable toward the Republican Party. Only a quarter of respondents said the two major parties do an adequate job representing the American people, while roughly 3 out of 4 voters said the parties do such a poor job that a third major party is needed. ***So, if voters are this unhappy with both parties, why on earth would they want to hand primary elections back to those same parties?*** The entire premise of eliminating nonpartisan primaries rests on the idea that somehow closed, party-controlled nominations serve voters better. Is the proposed solution to give those parties more control over who appears on the ballot? [California Voters Don’t Like Either Party. Good Thing the Primary Doesn’t Belong to The Parties.With ballots already in voters’ hands, the June 2 primary is testing whether California’s independent-minded electorate understands how much power it has.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/California-voters-arent-happy-with-either-party-97cf68e02e81187d1240fabe619dada9e66683a1665a9b3d8276cbbd455166d0.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-voters-dont-like-either-party-good-thing-the-primary-doesnt-belong-to-the-parties/) As IVN Editor Shawn Griffiths wrote: > "What voters want is representation that is beholden to them, not party leadership. They want candidates who prioritize the needs of the electorate, not the clamoring of shrinking party bases and monied interests aligned with the parties." Mitchell's own poll confirms this. Two-thirds of his respondents said the best thing about the system is that it lets independents vote and lets voters cross party lines. Voters are not asking for less freedom. They are asking for more. ## **Opponents of Top Two Are Pushing a Reform They Fought in Court to Kill** Mitchell’s preferred reform, the "modify" option chosen by 49% of respondents, would create a system where all voters can vote for any candidate but the top finisher from each party advances to the general election. Mitchell presents this as a common-sense fix. But this system already has a name and a history. It is called a blanket primary. And it has already been ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. In [*California Democratic Party v. Jones (2000)*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/567/?ref=ivn.us), the Supreme Court struck down California's blanket primary, established by Proposition 198 in 1996, on the grounds that it violated the political parties' First Amendment right of freedom of association. The ruling was 7-2\. The lead plaintiff in the case was the California Democratic Party, joined by the Republican Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Peace and Freedom Party. They argued, successfully, that allowing non-members to participate in selecting a party's nominee was an unconstitutional intrusion on their associational rights. The Top Two nonpartisan primary, established by Proposition 14 in 2010, survived legal challenges precisely because it is not a blanket primary. It does not select party nominees. It advances the top two candidates regardless of party. That is the legal distinction that makes the system constitutional. Mitchell's "modify" option would undo that. It would return California to a system where the primary determines each party's nominee for the general election, with all voters participating. That is the very same system the California Democratic Party took all the way to the Supreme Court to successfully destroy. And now this poll conducted for Capitol Weekly is presenting it as the popular alternative to the nonpartisan system that replaced it. The 6.9 million independent voters in California can currently vote in the nonpartisan primary for any candidate they choose. Mitchell's recommended reform would put their participation rights back in the hands of the same parties that fought to exclude them, under a system the Supreme Court has already said violates the Constitution. ## **This is What Partisan Operatives Are Paid to Do** Mitchell can technically defend the claim that "only 21% want to keep the system as is." But the implication of the headline, the narrative Mitchell builds around it, the conclusion that voters are "souring" and that both parties "want to get rid of" the system: none of that is supported by the full picture his own data provides. The 21% figure is cherry-picked. The narrative he built on top of it is misleading. And the headline is designed to create an impression that the data beneath it does not support. This is how party insiders have always operated against nonpartisan reforms: commission a poll, find the most unfavorable framing, write the headline, and hope nobody reads the crosstabs. ### No Ballot in the Mail? California Voters Still Have Options Before June 2 URL: https://ivn.us/no-ballot-in-the-mail-california-voters-still-have-options-before-june-2/ Last updated: 2026-05-26T20:19:37.000Z California is just days away from the June 2 primary. However, some voters may still be asking a troubling question: Where is my ballot? Every active registered voter in California is supposed to receive a ballot in the mail. County elections officials began mailing them on May 4, secure drop boxes opened May 5, and the first vote centers opened May 23. (Note: All other in-person voting locations open on May 30.) [When Do Vote Centers Open in California?What California voters need to know about vote center dates, hours, and locations for the June 2 primary![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-vote-centers-455dcb8dc66bbf60651c666ac0e05dcb17768b1da98112cc2b1763f46f16afc4.jpg)](https://ivn.us/when-do-vote-centers-open-in-california/) But ballots can get misplaced. Voters move. Mail gets delayed. Envelopes are damaged. People accidentally mark the wrong candidate or spill coffee on the ballot sitting on the kitchen table. If this happens, don't panic. A missing or damaged ballot does not mean missing out on voting. The secretary of state’s office says voters can check the status of their mail-in ballot through the state’s [**“Where’s My Ballot?”**](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-status/wheres-my-ballot?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) tracking tool, which provides updates when a ballot is mailed, received, and counted. Voters can receive notifications by text, email, or phone, including alerts if there is a problem that needs to be fixed. It is a useful first-step tool for anyone who has been waiting for their ballot but hasn't received it. If something happens to the ballot. If it doesn't arrive or is lost, destroyed, or filled out incorrectly, it is not the end of the world. The first option available to California voters is to request a replacement ballot by contacting their county elections office. However, the window is closing as it can take time to process the application and send out the replacement ballot. The state lists [May 26 as the recommended date for replacement mail-in ballot applications](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/voting-california/election-dates-and-resources?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). San Diego County specifically says [**May 26 at 5 pm**](https://www.sdvote.com/content/rov/en/how-to-vote-by-mail/info-for-replacement-ballot.html?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) is the deadline. California also offers in-person voting options, and voters can go to their county elections office, vote center, or polling place to cast a ballot. The secretary of state says June 2 is the final day to vote in person or return a ballot by 8 pm. Polls will be open on Election Day from 7 am to 8 pm. ## **Miss the Voter Registration Deadline? No Problem.** California technically has a voter registration deadline: May 18\. But voters still have options if they missed this deadline. The state allows same-day voter registration up to and on Election Day. Eligible Californians can complete the process at their county elections office or any in-person voting location within their county. That means a voter who recently moved, forgot to register, or is unsure about their registration status should not sit out the primary. They should check their status, contact their county elections office, or go to an in-person voting location. ## Everyone Gets the Same Ballot—So Vote The final days before an election are often when confusion leads to turnout suppression. A voter who thinks their ballot is missing may assume it is too late. A voter who made a mistake may think the ballot is ruined. A voter who missed the registration deadline may think they no longer have a voice. [California’s Most Powerful Voting Bloc Is the One Staying HomeIndependent and Latino voters can decide the June 2 primary. Most won’t show up. A statewide nonpartisan campaign is racing to change that before ballots are due.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Project![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/VOTE_TheLion_IVPTurnout2026.png)](https://ivn.us/californias-most-powerful-voting-bloc-is-the-one-staying-home/) In California, that is not necessarily true. If a ballot never showed up, track it. Call the county elections office. Request a replacement if they still allow it. Or vote in person before the polls close at 8 pm on June 2. Everyone gets the same ballot. Everyone gets to choose any candidate they want, regardless of party. The options are there not only to freely participate, but ensure every eligible Californian can vote. ### Deadlines Loom as Independent Candidates Hit the Two-Party Wall URL: https://ivn.us/deadlines-loom-as-independent-candidates-hit-the-two-party-wall/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:40:42.000Z Independent candidates are making waves across the US, but they are also starting to hit the toughest barriers erected by the two-party machinery. This week, we had a shocking exit, signature deadlines, and a sitting congressman who is fighting for his political career. And yet, this week offers a master class in key advantages ranked choice voting and other reforms have in improving the system, according to reformers. *Author's Note: This is the second installment of my weekly update tracking independent candidates, voters, and reforms across the US. If you know of a candidate running on an independent line that you think should be included or a reform effort that is being ignored elsewhere, please reach out to matt@ivn.us.* --- ## **Candidate Updates** ### **Michigan Governor: Mike Duggan Drops Out** The biggest independent story of the week wasn't a campaign launch. It was a campaign ending. [Former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan ended his independent bid for Michigan governor on Thursday, May 21.](https://ivn.us/independent-mike-duggan-didnt-lose-to-michigan-voters-he-lost-to-the-two-party-machine/) He cited recent polling showing his support slipping (though still in double digits) *and* a fundraising network that failed to appear. "If we were even in the polls and behind in fundraising, we have a path to winning," [Duggan wrote in an open letter to supporters](https://mikeduggan.com/?ref=ivn.us). "If we were behind in the polls and even in fundraising, we have a path. But we're behind in both." Duggan didn't just blame polling headwinds. He pointed at the structural problem facing every well-funded independent: the national fundraising infrastructure for third-path candidates doesn't yet exist at the scale that party machines have built over decades. With the Iran war and spiking gas prices dramatically boosting Democratic enthusiasm and pushing independents to support that party as a check on the current Republican trifecta at the national level, the voters most likely to have crossed over to him were consolidating behind the Democratic candidate. The race now defaults to what most observers expected before Duggan entered: Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson vs. Republican Rep. John James in a conventional partisan fight for one of the most competitive governorships in the country (the candidates will be established on August 4 primaries, but these two currently have significant leads in polls). Duggan's exit is a cautionary tale while also suggesting a clear next step for independents who want to elect more candidates outside of the two-party system. His final letter named the exact obstacle: the independent fundraising ecosystem is still "too much in its infancy." That's a fixable problem. It just wasn't fixed in time for 2026 in Michigan. ### **Montana: Bodnar's Moment of Truth** Independent Seth Bodnar, the former University of Montana president and Army Green Beret, has a [hard deadline of **May 26** to submit just over 13,000 verified signatures to the Montana Secretary of State's office](https://sosmt.gov/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?juwpfisadmin=false&action=wpfd&task=file.download&wpfd%5Fcategory%5Fid=23&wpfd%5Ffile%5Fid=57521&token=&preview=1&ref=ivn.us). If he clears the threshold, he will appear on November's general election ballot; if he doesn't, Montana's open Senate seat becomes a straight two-party race. *Update 5/28/26: In a press release, the Bodnar claims to have cleared the hurdle decisively, with his campaign submitting nearly 30,000 signatures, more than twice the 13,327 required. These signatures were gathered across 52 of Montana's 56 counties, according to the campaign.* *"Tens of thousands of Montanans from every corner of our state have spoken: they are sick of the broken politics of Washington and are ready for an Independent on the ballot in November," Bodnar said.* *The release also highlights his fundraising, claiming to lead all candidates in first-quarter 2026 fundraising.* [*FEC reporting data backs this claim up*](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/MT/2026/?ref=ivn.us)*, with total receipts for Bodnar at $2.1 million, with Republican Kurt Alme at $1.2 million. The two have essentially the same amount in the bank, with \~$950k each cash on hand. The recent pre-primary filing, submitted by both campaigns on 5/21 and covering through 5/12, sees Bodnar raising $754k to Alme's $259k. During that time period, Bodnar spent $935k, dipping into his cash on hand, while Alme spent only $246k, allowing him to save for later in the campaign.* *It also references a recent poll that puts his favorability above every other candidate in the field. This note appears to refer to the Montana Free Press - Eagleton poll, which they write about* [*here*](https://montanafreepress.org/2026/05/19/montana-us-senate-candidates-largely-unknown-to-voters/?ref=ivn.us)*.* *Bodnar leads all candidates in favorability in that poll, though all candidates were above 50% on No Opinion / Don't Know, suggesting that there's a lot of room for movement between now and election day as voters get to know more about the candidates.* His campaign had been confident heading into the deadline week, and he leads all Montana Senate candidates in fundraising with [over $2.1 million raised](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/MT/2026/?ref=ivn.us) (a significant lead over Kurt Alme’s $1.2 million, the second highest fundraising total and the most likely Republican nominee). Bodnar faces [a race rated "likely Republican" by Sabato's Crystal Ball](https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2026-senate/?ref=ivn.us), where he'll almost certainly face Republican primary winner Kurt Alme in November (the GOP primary is June 2). His challenge, like all the independents below, is the vote-splitting concern: Montana Democrats have four candidates competing in their own June primary. ### **Nebraska: A New Wrinkle** [As we noted before, the Nebraska Senate race has been messy](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-a-mess-and-we-have-our-voting-system-to-thank/). After Cindy Burbank won the Democratic primary, promising to drop out and clear the way for Dan Osborn's path to a one-on-one race with Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts, it appeared that it might get less so. The party machinery in the state has other plans. The Office of Attorney General, Republican Mike Hilgers, [confirmed to the Nebraska Examiner](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/05/26/u-s-senate-nominee-cindy-burbank-might-have-to-sue-to-get-her-name-off-the-general-election-ballot/?ref=ivn.us) that the Secretary of State’s Office has asked for guidance about whether they can keep Burbank on the ballot. Should the state election officials decide to keep her name on the ballot, a lawsuit would almost certainly follow, with the court’s ultimately deciding if her name—and thus a Democratic candidate—would appear in the race. Osborn's campaign is gathering signatures for general election ballot access (he needs 4,000, and has said he'll submit well above that in June). However, his campaign has signaled that this won’t be an issue, and his fundraising has kept pace with Ricketts. The [Cook Political Report still lists the race as Likely Republican](https://www.cookpolitical.com/senate/race/488631?ref=ivn.us), but that’s a downshift from the Solid Republican rating before April 13. The AP's[ major story on the Democratic Party's pivot toward supporting independent candidates in red states they don’t believe they can win](https://apnews.com/article/independents-democrats-election-strategy-senate-nebraska-osborn-307c163f3ee4a3cb295ee4b592901dc2?ref=ivn.us) put Osborn front and center. ### **Maine Governor: Rick Bennett Hits the Ballot** Independent Rick Bennett, a Maine state senator and former Maine Republican Party chairman running for governor, had 4,517 signatures verified by the Secretary of State, above the 4,000 required to have his name appear on the ballot and ahead of the June 1 deadline. Bennett left the Republican Party in June 2025 and has positioned himself as a problem-solver in a state tired of partisan gridlock. The Democratic and Republican primaries are scheduled for June 9, and Bennett will then face the nominees of both parties in November. ### **Idaho: Achilles vs. Risch Set for November** Republican incumbent Sen. Jim Risch won his party's primary on May 19 with 64% of the vote, setting up a general election field that now includes independent Todd Achilles, a former Army tank commander and former Democratic state representative. David Roth won the Democratic nomination with 64% of the vote, setting up a three-way race in November. [Idaho party registration](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/id?ref=ivn.us) skews strongly towards Republicans, with \~62% of registered voters being members of that party. Independents make up the second largest voting bloc at \~27%, with Democrats at 11.5%. These registration numbers are reflected in the party primary turnout numbers, with Risch receiving a number of votes (\~78k) more than double the total turnout in the Democratic primary (\~32k). Idaho allows parties to decide who can vote in their primaries; the Democratic Party allows independents to participate. ### **California's 6th: Kiley's Primary Next Week** Rep. Kevin Kiley, the only sitting independent member of the House of Representatives, faces his first electoral test since leaving the Republican Party in the nonpartisan Top Two primary on June 2 (though ballot drop-off locations have been open since May 5). In California’s system, all candidates from across parties run in a single primary, with the top two vote getters moving on to the general election. [Kiley holds a significant cash-on-hand advantage](https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/house/CA/06/2026/?ref=ivn.us) ($2.1 million vs. under $200K for his nearest rival) but is running in a district drawn to be solidly Democratic under Proposition 50's mid-cycle redistricting. He currently represents California’s 3rd Congressional District. Yes, mid-cycle redistricting makes covering races with incumbents a bit of a Monty Python sketch. --- ## **Independent Voters: The DNC's Blind Spot** The DNC's controversial 2024 election post-mortem dropped this week,[ and it largely ignored the Independent voters who swung the election.](https://ivn.us/the-dnc-wrote-a-2024-autopsy-and-ignored-the-cause-of-death/) Independents made up 34% of the 2024 electorate, according to [Edison Research exit polling](https://s.abcnews.com/assets/dtci/elections/NEPExitPollMethodologyStatement.pdf?ref=ivn.us%27), essentially tying Republicans and outpacing Democrats (who came in at just 31%). The party wrote nearly 200 pages on why it lost, but it didn't address the significant swing, particularly in swing states, of Independent voters away from their candidate and to the Republican one. --- ## **What Georgia and Texas Are Teaching Us About Runoffs** This week offers a master class in key advantages ranked choice voting supporters claim their reform offers to Americans. **Georgia** is now heading into a June 16 Republican runoff for *both* the US Senate seat and the governor's race after [neither race produced a majority winner on May 19](https://results.sos.ga.gov/results/public/Georgia/elections/GeneralPrimary51926?ref=ivn.us). How much might this cost Georgia taxpayers? [Kennesaw State University estimated that the 2020 Senatorial election runoff cost taxpayers \~$75 million](https://www.kennesaw.edu/news/stories/2022/kennesaw-state-researchers-say-new-election-system-may-better-serve-georgians.php?ref=ivn.us). Such runoffs could be avoided if the state used some form of instant-runoff voting. **Texas** is holding its Republican Senate primary runoff *today*, May 26, nearly three months after the March 3 primary failed to produce a majority winner between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Ranked choice voting would eliminate both runoffs entirely. Voters would rank their choices once; if no candidate reaches a majority in the first round, lower-ranked candidates are eliminated and their votes redistributed instantly at no added cost, with no drop in turnout, and no months-long delay. --- *Have a tip on an independent candidate or reform effort? Reach out to matt@ivn.us.* ### California Voters Don’t Like Either Party. Good Thing the Primary Doesn’t Belong to The Parties. URL: https://ivn.us/california-voters-dont-like-either-party-good-thing-the-primary-doesnt-belong-to-the-parties/ Last updated: 2026-05-26T23:35:39.000Z **SAN DIEGO, Calif.** \- California voters have already received ballots for the June 2 primary, and the message they have going into these elections may not be what the political class wants to hear: *They are not thrilled with either major party.* A [recent analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California](https://www.ppic.org/blog/california-voters-and-the-top-two-primary/?ref=ivn.us) (PPIC) found that majorities of likely voters have unfavorable views of both parties—61% unfavorable toward the Democratic Party and 70% unfavorable toward the Republican Party. There were only a quarter of respondents who said the two major parties do an adequate job representing the American people, while roughly 3-in-4 said the parties do such a poor job that a third major party is needed. Notably, this doesn’t just mean *any* third party. Third party registration in California only reaches about 5% of the electorate. This is counting the American Independent Party, which has many voters registered who did not mean to declare a party preference. What voters want is representation that is beholden to them, not party leadership. They want candidates who prioritize the needs of the electorate, not the clamoring of shrinking party bases and monied interests aligned with the parties. That should matter in any election. In California’s June 2 primary, it matters even more. Unlike traditional party primaries, California’s nonpartisan primary system does not belong to the Democratic or Republican Party. For statewide offices, legislative races, and congressional contests, all candidates appear on the same ballot, and all voters can choose any candidate, regardless of party. The two candidates who receive the most votes move on to November. In other words, California voters who are frustrated with both parties are not locked out of the process. They *own* the process. This is especially true of independent voters (many of whom are registered No Party Preference in California). The campaigns like to treat them like spectators, and while there is a noticeable turnout gap, if they participated, they would become the most powerful voting bloc. [California’s Most Powerful Voting Bloc Is the One Staying HomeIndependent and Latino voters can decide the June 2 primary. Most won’t show up. A statewide nonpartisan campaign is racing to change that before ballots are due.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Project![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/VOTE_TheLion_IVPTurnout2026-98c5d91dec8f015f4f05b2fad8247f24ac37b8c30800122e186b783c22981dd5.png)](https://ivn.us/californias-most-powerful-voting-bloc-is-the-one-staying-home/) The problem is whether enough voters know that. The word “primary” carries baggage. In many states, it means party members choosing party nominees. In California, it's not about picking party nominees but picking the top candidates, regardless of party. The difference is party control versus voter control. And it is why California's nonpartisan primary is called a voter-nominated system. California adopted the Top Two primary under Proposition 14 in 2010\. Supporters argued that all voters should be able to choose any candidate, regardless of party, and that independent voters should have a meaningful say in the process. At the time, 54% of voters approved the reform, which went into effect for the 2012 election cycle. More than a decade later, the system is once again at the center of political debate. Early polling in the 2026 governor’s race raised the possibility of two Republicans advancing in California because of a crowded Democratic field. As noted on IVN, this was when a quarter of the electorate was still undecided. Party insiders have since used anxieties around this to push for Top Two repeal. [CADEM Chair Supports Repealing Top Two. Here’s What He’s Not Telling Voters.This week, the Democratic Party chair chose to abandon more than 5 million independent voters in California to embrace a regressive proposal to roll back voter rights.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsSteve Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/California-Democratic-Party-Chair-Rusty-Hicks.jpg)](https://ivn.us/cadem-chair-supports-repealing-top-two-heres-what-hes-not-telling-voters/) They don’t want to upgrade the system, [as the More Choice Coalition has offered](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) to advance more candidates to November and use ranked choice ballots. They want to return to a system of party control and independent voter suppression. As we near primary election day, polls show the odds of a two-Republican general election have all but evaporated (as we said it would). California’s nonpartisan primary can produce outcomes party leaders don’t like. It can advance candidates who do not have the blessing of party leadership. It can also advance two candidates of the same party in a state that already leans heavily Democrat. The question the parties don’t want voters to ask is: What is the worst that happens if two Democrats advance to November? Democratic registration is at 45% of the electorate and PPIC has found that 40% of independents lean Democrat. So again, what happens if two Democrats advance to the general election in the governor’s race? The distinctions between the candidates suddenly matter more and they need to compete for broader support. Especially since the voters who choose the winner will be outside the party. What happens if a Democrat goes up against a MAGA-aligned Republican? The Democrat wins in a landslide. The [original sponsors of California’s nonpartisan primary system](https://ivn.us/a-top-two-democrat-race-for-governor-in-california-that-may-be-what-a-healthy-democracy-actually-looks-like/) assert that the point of Top Two was never that any party was entitled to a spot in November. The point was that they have to *earn* that spot by getting voter support. Further, party candidates have to *earn* a win. That is what it means to have a voter-nominated system. This is not a flaw to voters who are tired of partisan gatekeeping. That is the feature. And if voters look at the data, Californians have been mostly satisfied with the results. According to PPIC: > *“After the 2012 election cycle,* [*59% of likely voters*](https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-the-future-december-2012/?ref=ivn.us) *said that Proposition 14 turned out to be ‘mostly a good thing’ for California, with similar responses in 2017* [*(60%*](https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-their-government-december-2017/?ref=ivn.us)*), 2022 (*[*62%*](https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-their-government-may-2022/?ref=ivn.us)*), and 2024 (*[*68%*](https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-education-april-2024/?ref=ivn.us)*). In our most recent polling, majorities across political groups and along the political spectrum agreed.”* Party leaders really want these numbers to change. Voting is already underway in California. Vote centers [opened in Voter’s Choice Act counties on May 23](https://ivn.us/when-do-vote-centers-open-in-california/), and in-person early voting locations throughout California will be open by May 30\. June 2 is the final day to vote in person. [No, You Don’t Need to Register with a Party to Vote in California’s PrimaryWhen Independent Voter posted a series of videos about primary turnout on its Facebook page, the comments revealed a startling reality: Many voters think California’s semi-closed presidential primary rules apply to the 2026 midterm elections.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/vote-in-california-primaries.jpg)](https://ivn.us/no-you-dont-need-to-register-with-a-party-to-vote-in-californias-primary/) Millions of independent voters stayed home in the last gubernatorial primary. They are told they have no power and their only role is to spectate until November. However, they do not have to wait for the parties to give them permission to matter. They already have a ballot. They already have choices. They already have the ability to shape the November election before most of the political world starts paying attention. And in a state where voters are increasingly unhappy with both major parties, the June 2 primary may be the clearest reminder that California’s election system is not a private contest between party organizations. It belongs to voters. ### Guide to California’s Political Parties and Their Official Platforms URL: https://ivn.us/guide-to-californias-political-parties-and-their-official-platforms/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T00:34:24.000Z California's registered political parties are laying out their cases to voters ahead of the next election. From calls for socialist transformation to promises of individual liberty, each party offers a distinct vision for the Golden State. Here are the official Statements of Purpose from all six qualified parties. *Editor's Update (5/27/26): Following the publication of this article, the California Secretary of State updated the statement of purpose filed for the American Independent, Democratic, Peace and Freedom, Libertarian, and Republican Parties.* ## **American Independent Party** [The American Independent Party](https://www.aipca.vote/?ref=ivn.us) is calling on Californians to reject the two-party system and vote their conscience. In their statement, the party writes: *"The American Independent Party is the fastest growing movement in California.* *"Voters are increasingly embracing our fresh approach to foster a more productive conversation. Our principles in promoting a healthy democracy require independent thinking and rejecting partisan polarization.* ***Informed Citizenship*** *Freedom of independent thought* *Civic participation and respectful conversation* *Positive engagement using a constructive voice* *"The antiquated two-party system has failed.* *"Californians are rejecting politics-as-usual and are leaving the State. Real candidates discuss important issues with the People. They have honesty and integrity, and work hard to unite us. Our votes should never be taken for granted.* *We deserve better.* ***Stronger Accountability*** *Transparent stewardship of public resources* *Inspirational public service and volunteerism* *Elect leaders that implement effective solutions* *"Join the fastest growing movement in California and register to vote AI.* *"For more information, please visit:* [*www.aipca.vote*](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/political-parties/www.aipca.vote?ref=ivn.us)*."* *— Victor Marani, State Chairman* ## **California Democratic Party** [The California Democratic Party](https://cadem.org/?ref=ivn.us) is centering its message on equity, affordability, responding to ICE, and fighting for vulnerable communities. *"California Democrats invite you to join us in defending the fundamental rights of every Californian to live with dignity and respect. California Democrats are working to protect democracy and expand opportunity by:* - *Tackling the affordability crisis by delivering historic minimum wage increases, expanding overtime protections, strengthening labor standards and expanding CalFresh and child care support.* - *Putting patients before profits by expanding access to Medi-Cal, lowering prescription costs and protecting and expanding reproductive and gender-affirming health care.* - *Fighting for working families by supporting union jobs, protecting Social Security and Medicare, expanding veteran services, and strengthening public education.* - *Protecting Californians from militarized ICE raids and demanding accountability and a federal law enforcement that respects due process and prioritizes safety in our communities.* - *Keeping communities safe by curbing the devastating impacts of climate change and supporting the strongest gun safety laws in the nation.* - *Protecting the vote and safeguarding our state against the national assault on Democracy and voting rights.* *"California Democrats embrace unity, dignity, and inclusion and reject division and hate in all its forms.* *"We invite you to join us so that together we can advance economic opportunity and the California Dream for all who seek it."* *— Rusty Hicks, Chair, California Democratic Party* ## **Green Party of California** [The Green Party of California](https://www.cagreens.org/?ref=ivn.us) is urging bold action, calling for an EcoSocialist transformation of society and the economy. *"It's time to act! California and the world are in crisis.* *"Join the Green Party in building a socially and racially just, ecologically sustainable, democratic, peaceful EcoSocialist society that exists in harmony with nature.* *"Greens are the ONLY progressive national grassroots political party rejecting corporate funding. Over 350 California Greens have served in office.* *"Registering Green and voting Green means:* *"*Economic Fairness:* Living wages, unions, workers' rights. Universal healthcare, free higher education, affordable housing, food security. Tax the super-rich, close corporate loopholes.* *"*Bold Climate Action:* A Just Transition to a clean energy economy. Phase out fossil fuels. Accelerate local, publicly-owned, renewable energy, electric-powered public transportation. Protect forests and watersheds. Regenerative agriculture.* *"*Human Rights:* End all oppression based on race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, income. Protect immigrants, sanctuary and citizenship pathways. Indigenous rights and Black-Lives-Matter. Full abortion rights. Police accountability. End prison industries, over-incarceration, death penalty. Gun control/safety.* *"*Electoral Reform:* Proportional representation, ranked choice voting. Publicly-financed elections, eliminate corporate bribes.* *"Greens' vision won cannabis legalization, closed nuclear power plants, enabled public banking.* *"It's time for change: register, vote, volunteer, and run Green!"* *— Green Party of California* ## **The Libertarian Party of California** [The Libertarian Party of California](https://ca.lp.org/?ref=ivn.us) is making the case for individual liberty and reduced government power as the path to a better society. *"The Libertarian Party holds that the person best qualified to live your life is you. You have the right to exercise sole dominion over your own life and to live in whatever manner you choose, so long as you do not forcibly interfere with the equal rights of other individuals to do the same. Imagine a world where that was respected. We do.* *"Your body is your body. Your property is your property. Your speech and beliefs are your speech and beliefs. You own them, absolutely and undeniably. So long as you aren’t intruding on others’ rights, nobody gets to force you to do anything or take anything away from you. We deny the “right” of any government to control or dispose of your life or the fruits of your labor.* *"We champion voluntary and contractual relations among individuals, not forced government compliance. Respect for individual rights is an essential precondition for a free and prosperous world. Force and fraud must be banished from human relationships. Only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.* *"The Libertarian Party stands against authoritarians of all stripes. Help us restore American freedom! Vote Libertarian, the Party of Principle!"* *— Loren B. Dean, State Chairman, The Libertarian Party of California* ## **Peace and Freedom Party** [The Peace and Freedom Party](https://www.peaceandfreedom.us/?ref=ivn.us) delivers the most explicitly anti-capitalist message in the voter guide, advocating for working-class power and democratic socialism. *"The Peace and Freedom Party is a working-class party in a country run by and for the wealthy and their corporations. We should not have to sacrifice our health, livelihoods, and planet for billionaires’ profits. Tax the rich, whose wealth is created by workers, to fund people’s needs.* *Our Goals:* *"Human Rights: Free heath care for all, including abortion and gender affirming care. Free education for everyone, preschool through university. Full immigrant rights; no deportations. End homelessness, housing for all. Living wage jobs or guaranteed income; labor rights for all. End all discrimination, racism, LGBTQ and women’s oppression. Comprehensive services for disabled people."* *"Environment: Reverse climate change. Restore and protect the environment* *"Justice: Abolish the death penalty. Stop police abuse and prison torture.* *"Peace: No U.S. wars, sanctions, or coups. Close foreign bases.* *"Democracy: Repeal California’s “top two” election law. Implement proportional representation.* *"While capitalism puts the wealthy first, we continue to suffer war, police brutality, low wages, unsafe workplaces, and pollution. We advocate socialism: the ownership and democratic control of the economy by the people. By taking control of our industries and natural resources, we can make progress for the common good."* *— Peace and Freedom Party* ## **California Republican Party** [The California Republican Party](https://cagop.org/?ref=ivn.us) is focusing on affordability, safety, and economic opportunity, arguing that one-party rule in Sacramento has failed the state. *"The California Republican Party is working for a California where we can afford a home, gas, groceries, electricity, and where our paychecks go further.* *"If you vote Republican, we will end policies that artificially increase prices and make housing unattainable.* *"If you vote Republican, we will put public safety first. We will back law enforcement and first responders, keep repeat violent criminals off the street, and take on fentanyl with strong enforcement, prevention, and treatment.* *"If you vote Republican, we will ensure schools focus on the fundamentals, expand career and technical instruction, encourage parental involvement in their child's education, and ensure students are prepared for college or a fulfilling career.* *"If you vote Republican, we will fix what Sacramento has ignored: more water storage, reliable electricity, better roads and freeways, and effective wildfire prevention. We will set deadlines, track results, stop waste, and end fraud.* *"If you vote Republican, we will address homelessness with compassion and results, with more mental health care and drug treatment with clear oversight of every dollar.* *"Republicans stand with workers and small businesses. We believe in freedom, fair rules, and a state government that lives within its means.* *"If you want real solutions, vote Republican."* *— California Republican Party* --- *Contact information for each party can be found* [*here*](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/political-parties/party-statements?ref=ivn.us)*. Independent Voter News presents these statements for informational purposes to help voters make informed decisions.* ### El voto latino puede decidir la primaria de California el 2 de junio. La mayoría no va a votar. URL: https://ivn.us/el-voto-latino-puede-decidir-la-primaria-de-california-el-2-de-junio-la-mayoria-no-va-a-votar/ Last updated: 2026-05-23T01:25:21.000Z La primaria de California del 2 de junio está abierta a todos los votantes registrados. Demócrata, Republicano o Sin Preferencia de Partido (NPP, No Party Preference): todos reciben la misma boleta para gobernador, Congreso y cargos estatales. Todos los candidatos aparecen juntos. Los dos primeros pasan a noviembre, sin importar el partido. Es el sistema de primaria más incluyente del país. Y los votantes con más por ganar son los que menos lo usan. Los latinos representan cerca del 40 por ciento de la población de California y aportaron más del 90 por ciento del crecimiento del electorado elegible en la última década. Pero solo son el 29 por ciento de los votantes habituales del estado. En la primaria presidencial de 2024, la participación latina quedó 26 puntos por debajo del resto del electorado registrado. Entre quienes interactúan con el sistema electoral en español, la participación fue de aproximadamente 20 por ciento. En inglés fue de 36 por ciento. La brecha no es de interés. Es de información, de contacto y de acceso al idioma. Los latinos son también el grupo demográfico con mayor probabilidad de registrarse como Sin Preferencia de Partido. Según el NALEO Educational Fund, el 30 por ciento de los votantes latinos registrados en California no están afiliados a ningún partido principal. Eso significa que el voto latino es, en gran medida, voto independiente. Y en California, el voto independiente tiene poder completo en la primaria del 2 de junio: la misma boleta, los mismos candidatos, el mismo peso que el voto de cualquier miembro de un partido. La campaña Tu Primaria del Independent Voter Project es el único esfuerzo estatal diseñado específicamente para cerrar esta brecha antes del 2 de junio. La campaña es bilingüe, está dirigida a votantes de baja propensión y explica con claridad qué hay en la boleta, por qué el voto cuenta más en junio que en noviembre, y cómo emitirlo. El dato central: aproximadamente el 30 por ciento de los votantes latinos registrados en California no están afiliados a ningún partido. Tienen acceso pleno a la primaria del 2 de junio. En 2024, su participación fue 26 puntos menor que la del resto del electorado estatal. Si la brecha se mantiene, los votantes partidistas decidirán por todos quién aparece en la boleta de noviembre. Fuentes: NALEO Educational Fund, 2024 California Latino Voter Profile; Public Policy Institute of California; Secretario de Estado de California. Hay voceros disponibles para entrevistas en español e inglés en San Diego. Todos pueden participar en ambos idiomas. Todas las solicitudes de entrevista se canalizan a través de Juan Hernández, juan@ivc.media. ## Lo que están diciendo > Perfect. The two dominant political parties who are controlled by extreme elements want to undo the Top Two political reform that handcuffs their power. . . In the name of good government. Good Grief! [@joegarofoli](https://twitter.com/joegarofoli?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [@JeremyBWhite](https://twitter.com/JeremyBWhite?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [@LATSeema](https://twitter.com/LATSeema?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [https://t.co/sCuc2bVejt](https://t.co/sCuc2bVejt?ref=ivn.us) > > — Steve Glazer (@Steve\_Glazer) [May 17, 2026](https://twitter.com/Steve%5FGlazer/status/2056159549082771677?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) > **“Los dos partidos políticos dominantes, controlados por elementos extremos, quieren deshacer la reforma de Top Two que limita su poder.”** > \- Ex senador estatal Steve Glazer. @Steve\_Glazer, X, 17 de mayo de 2026. > **“Proteger las primarias es proteger a los votantes. Las primarias cerradas excluyen a la gente y silencian las voces independientes. Deberíamos ampliar la participación, no restringirla.”** > \- Asambleísta Anamarie Avila Farias. IVN, 18 de mayo de 2026. > **“Si volviéramos al sistema partidista, no sería tan malo como lo que tenemos ahora. Punto.”** > \- CA Secretaria de Estado Shirley Weber. CalMatters, 2022. Sitio web de la campaña: [tuprimaria.com](https://tuprimaria.com/?ref=ivn.us) Anuncios en video pagados Los anuncios también se distribuyen por [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/DYfpxsNE0KI/?ref=ivn.us) y [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@Independent-Voter?ref=ivn.us). ## Los números que importan Participación electoral en California, primaria gubernamental de junio de 2022, por registro partidista. Fuente: Secretario de Estado de California, Statement of Vote; archivo de votantes L2. | Partido | Registrados | Votaron | No votaron | | ------------------- | ----------- | ------- | ---------- | | Republicano | 5,822,074 | 35% | 65% | | Demócrata | 10,390,438 | 33% | 67% | | Independiente (NPP) | 6,267,947 | 19% | 81% | Se quedaron en casa más independientes que todos los republicanos que sí votaron. 5.1 millones de votantes independientes no devolvieron su boleta en la primaria gubernamental de California de 2022\. Votaron 2.0 millones de republicanos. Esa es la diferencia que los partidos principales usan hoy para decidir quién pasa a noviembre. Los latinos son la pieza más grande de esa brecha. ## Ángulos narrativos Los siguientes ángulos están disponibles para cobertura impresa, digital y de transmisión. Cada uno puede usarse por separado o combinarse. Todos están anclados en datos de votantes de California. Hay voceros, datos y materiales en video disponibles. **LATINO / PRINCIPAL** **Los latinos tienen el poder de decidir la primaria de California — pero solo si votan.** Los latinos son el 40 por ciento de la población de California y aportaron más del 90 por ciento del crecimiento del electorado elegible en la última década. Pero su participación en la primaria de 2024 quedó 26 puntos por debajo del resto del estado. La participación entre votantes que prefieren materiales en español fue de apenas 20 por ciento, contra 36 por ciento en inglés. Tu Primaria es la única campaña estatal diseñada para cerrar esta brecha antes del 2 de junio. **ACCESO AL IDIOMA** **Una boleta para todos. No todos la reciben en su idioma.** El informe 2024 del Voter’s Choice Act del Secretario de Estado de California documenta que la participación de votantes en español fue de aproximadamente 20 por ciento en la primaria de 2024, frente a 36 por ciento entre votantes en inglés. El informe recomienda contacto más enfocado a votantes no anglohablantes de 18 a 29 años, alianzas más fuertes con organizaciones comunitarias y materiales traducidos más accesibles. La infraestructura existe. La distribución no llega. **BOLETAS RECHAZADAS** **Los latinos en California votan por correo. Sus boletas son rechazadas con más frecuencia.** El Centro para la Democracia Inclusiva de USC encontró que en la elección general de 2024, el 1.2 por ciento de las boletas por correo de votantes latinos en California fueron rechazadas, frente al 0.7 por ciento de votantes blancos no latinos. De las boletas latinas rechazadas, el 65.6 por ciento fueron por firmas que no coincidían. El sistema funciona en el papel. Los resultados son desiguales por grupo demográfico. Esa historia rara vez se cubre. **INDEPENDIENTES / DEMOGRAFÍA** **El voto latino es voto independiente. Y los independientes tienen poder en California.** Según el NALEO Educational Fund, el 30 por ciento de los votantes latinos registrados en California no están afiliados a ningún partido principal. Es el porcentaje más alto de cualquier grupo demográfico del estado. En California, los votantes independientes tienen acceso pleno a la primaria. No tienen que pedir permiso a un partido para votar por gobernador, Congreso o procurador. Pero las campañas siguen gastando su dinero en listas partidistas. Los independientes no son contactados al mismo ritmo, y por eso votan menos. **POLÍTICA / NOTICIA** **Los dos partidos coinciden en algo: quieren cerrar la primaria para los votantes que no pueden controlar.** El presidente del Partido Demócrata de California y operativos republicanos están usando la misma palabra, ‘jungle primary’, y persiguiendo el mismo objetivo: derogar el sistema de Top Two no partidista del estado. Esa coincidencia es rara, y está dirigida específicamente contra los más de 6 millones de californianos registrados como Sin Preferencia de Partido. El IVP es la única organización en California que está respondiendo de forma organizada. **TRANSMISIÓN / EN LA CALLE** **Votantes reales. Reacciones reales. La mayoría no sabe cómo funciona su primaria.** El IVP está produciendo una serie de videos en la calle que captura las reacciones de votantes de California a los hechos sobre la primaria del 2 de junio. Hay material disponible como B-roll para uso en transmisión. La conclusión consistente: la mayoría se sorprende al enterarse de que cualquier votante registrado puede votar por cualquier candidato, y que ambos partidos están trabajando para acabar con eso. Material disponible en español e inglés. ## Datos clave Todas las cifras son específicas de California, están verificadas y están disponibles para uso en cobertura. El IVP puede proporcionar documentación de fuentes a solicitud. | 40% | de la población de California es latina. Los latinos aportaron más del 90 por ciento del crecimiento del electorado elegible en la última década. (NALEO Educational Fund, 2024 California Latino Voter Profile.) | | ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 29% | de los votantes habituales de California son latinos. Los californianos blancos son el 36 por ciento de los adultos pero el 50 por ciento de los votantes habituales. La brecha entre la fuerza poblacional latina y el poder electoral latino es la mayor fuerza electoral no realizada del estado. (Public Policy Institute of California.) | | 26 pts | Brecha de participación latina por debajo del resto de los votantes registrados de California en la primaria de 2024\. (Análisis del PPIC del archivo de votantes de California.) | | 20% vs 36% | Participación de votantes en español versus votantes en inglés en la primaria de California de 2024\. (Secretario de Estado de California, Informe 2024 del Voter’s Choice Act.) | | 30% | de los votantes latinos registrados en California no están afiliados a ningún partido principal. Es el porcentaje más alto de cualquier grupo demográfico del estado. (NALEO Educational Fund, 2024.) | | 1.2% vs 0.7% | Tasa de rechazo de boletas por correo de votantes latinos versus votantes blancos no latinos en la elección general de California de 2024\. El 65.6 por ciento de las boletas latinas rechazadas fueron por firmas que no coincidían. (USC Center for Inclusive Democracy.) | | 6.9M | Californianos registrados como Sin Preferencia de Partido (NPP), según el informe de 60 días del Secretario de Estado de California (abril de 2026). Los votantes NPP ahora superan en número a los republicanos registrados en todo el estado. | | 81% | de los independientes de California no votaron en la primaria gubernamental de 2022\. La peor participación de cualquier grupo en el padrón. (Secretario de Estado de California, Statement of Vote.) | | 5.1M / 2.0M | Boletas independientes no emitidas en 2022 versus boletas republicanas contadas. Se quedaron en casa más independientes que todos los republicanos que votaron. | | 2 de junio | Fecha de la primaria de California. Los dos primeros lugares de cada contienda pasan a noviembre, sin importar el partido. Esta es la elección que determina quién aparece en la boleta de noviembre. | ## Por qué los votantes latinos no votan en la primaria California removió las barreras legales en 2010\. La brecha de participación que queda es de comportamiento, información, idioma e infraestructura. Cinco factores explican la mayor parte. **1\. Las campañas gastan su dinero en listas partidistas.** California adoptó la primaria de Top Two en 2010, pero los presupuestos de campaña siguen fluyendo por los mismos modelos partidistas de movilización que existían antes de la Proposición 14\. El contacto al votante, el correo, el targeting digital y el puerta a puerta se construyen sobre archivos partidistas. Los latinos, especialmente los registrados como NPP, no son contactados al mismo ritmo. No se les presenta como decisivos. No se les da una razón para participar. La investigación del PPIC encuentra que los votantes independientes habituales son más moderados que los partidistas: el 51 por ciento se identifica como moderado, frente al 31 por ciento de demócratas habituales y el 22 por ciento de republicanos habituales. Son persuadibles. Las campañas no invierten en consecuencia. **2\. Los medios encuadran la primaria como Demócratas contra Republicanos.** Si la elección por gobernador se cubre principalmente como una preocupación demócrata sobre qué dos candidatos avanzarán, los votantes latinos e independientes razonablemente concluyen que la contienda no es para ellos. El diseño estructural de la primaria de California es lo contrario: los votantes independientes tienen la misma posición legal en cada contienda. La cobertura no se ha puesto al día con la ley. **3\. Los latinos usan el sistema de forma distinta, y el sistema no se ha adaptado.** El Centro para la Democracia Inclusiva de USC encontró que en la elección general de 2024, casi una cuarta parte de los votantes latinos en California emitió su voto en persona, una proporción mayor que el resto del electorado. Las tasas de rechazo de boletas por correo entre latinos también son más altas: 1.2 por ciento contra 0.7 por ciento entre votantes blancos no latinos. El 65.6 por ciento de las boletas rechazadas fueron por firmas que no coincidían. La infraestructura funciona en el papel, pero produce resultados desiguales por grupo demográfico. **4\. El acceso al idioma se queda corto.** El Informe 2024 del Voter’s Choice Act del Secretario de Estado de California encontró que los votantes en español tuvieron una participación de aproximadamente 20 por ciento en la primaria de 2024, contra 36 por ciento entre votantes en inglés. Esa brecha no captura a todos los votantes latinos (muchos prefieren materiales en inglés), pero aísla un problema específico de participación entre los votantes que interactúan con las elecciones en español. El informe recomienda contacto enfocado a votantes no anglohablantes de 18 a 29 años, alianzas con organizaciones comunitarias y materiales traducidos más fáciles de encontrar. **5\. Los votantes no saben cómo funciona el sistema.** La primaria de Top Two de California es una de las más incluyentes del país, pero la mayoría de los votantes no puede describir cómo funciona. No saben que una sola boleta lista a todos los candidatos. No saben que los dos primeros avanzan sin importar el partido. No saben que quedarse en casa en junio significa que los votantes partidistas eligen las opciones de noviembre por todos los demás. Esa es la brecha que Tu Primaria fue diseñada para cerrar. ## La campaña Tu Primaria Tu Primaria es un esfuerzo estatal no partidista de contacto al votante del Independent Voter Project. La campaña está dirigida a los votantes de menor propensión de California, con enfoque principal en votantes latinos, hispanohablantes e independientes (NPP) en todo el estado. **Mensaje central** Una boleta. Todos los candidatos. Los dos primeros pasan a noviembre. Si te quedas en casa, los votantes partidistas eligen por ti. Lema: Es una jungla. Vota en ella. **Canales** Publicidad digital bilingüe (español e inglés) en video, display y redes sociales. Sitio web bilingüe (tuprimaria.com y yourprimary.com) con herramientas para saber cómo votar, dónde votar y rastrear la boleta, todas conectadas a los sistemas oficiales del Secretario de Estado de California. Cobertura y periodismo explicativo a través de Independent Voter News (IVN.us), con artículos disponibles en español e inglés. Contenido en video en la calle que documenta reacciones de votantes de California a los hechos de la primaria del 2 de junio. Mensajería directa al votante sobre la amenaza estructural a la primaria de Top Two impulsada por líderes de ambos partidos principales. **Cómo se mide el éxito** Tres resultados medibles para el 2 de junio: Aumentar la tasa de devolución de boletas entre votantes independientes (NPP) por encima del referente de 2022 de 19 por ciento. Cerrar la brecha de participación latina en la primaria respecto al resto del electorado de California. Construir una audiencia documentada y persistente de votantes latinos y NPP en California, disponible para la elección general de noviembre y más allá. ## Voceros disponibles para entrevista Voceros disponibles para entrevistas en televisión, radio, prensa y digital. Todos pueden participar en español e inglés. Para coordinar una entrevista, contactar a Juan Hernández en juan@ivc.media. **San Diego** **Juan Hernández** Director Creativo, Campaña IVP 2026; Español e Inglés Juan lidera la estrategia creativa y de contenido bilingüe de Tu Primaria. Puede hablar sobre el esfuerzo de contacto dirigido a votantes latinos e hispanohablantes en California, el encuadre cultural de la campaña, y la brecha documentada entre el registro y la participación latina en las primarias del estado. Puede hablar sobre: La campaña bilingüe Tu Primaria y su alcance en comunidades latinas La brecha entre el registro latino y la participación latina en las primarias de California Por qué los latinos en California se registran como independientes a tasas más altas que otros grupos El caso cultural y cívico por la participación latina en la primaria de California **Maria Chousal** Directora de Comunicaciones, IVP; Relaciones con Medios en Español; Español e Inglés Maria lidera las comunicaciones y relaciones con medios en español para la campaña Tu Primaria. Puede orientar a los reporteros sobre la estrategia de alcance, los datos detrás del esfuerzo de divulgación a votantes latinos y coordinar el acceso a recursos, voceros y materiales de campaña. Puede hablar sobre: Visión general de la campaña y estrategia de alcance a votantes latinos La campaña Tu Primaria y sus objetivos en medios en español Por qué los votantes latinos de baja participación son el público objetivo Cómo el IVP está llegando a los votantes independientes y sin preferencia de partido ## Citas de voceros Las siguientes citas están redactadas y disponibles para atribución con la aprobación de cada vocero. Contactar a Juan Hernández para confirmar cualquier cita antes de publicar. “Los votantes latinos son el grupo independiente de mayor crecimiento en California, pero solo alrededor de 1 de cada 10 participa en las primarias. Esta campaña busca cerrar esa brecha. Tu primaria es tu voz. 2 de junio.” Juan Hernández, Director Creativo, Campaña IVP 2026\. Disponible para atribución. “Los datos de participación latina en California son contundentes. Millones de votantes se están quedando fuera de la elección que de verdad decide quién termina en la boleta de noviembre. El sistema de Top Two les da una razón para participar. Cerrarlo se las quita.” Cara McCormick, Independent Voter Project. Disponible para atribución. “La comunidad latina es el grupo de mayor crecimiento en el electorado californiano, y el que tiene más que perder si se cierran las primarias. Esta campaña se trata de asegurarnos de que la comunidad sepa lo que está en la linea antes del 2 de junio.” Maria Chousal, Directora de Comunicaciones, IVP; Relaciones con Medios en Español. Disponible para atribución. ## Materiales disponibles para medios Todos los materiales están disponibles a petición. Contactar a Juan Hernández para acceder. - **Video en español** ([Tu Primaria](https://www.facebook.com/reel/1512759967073113)): Spot en español de la campaña, disponible para referencia, inserción y republicación en medios televisivos y digitales. - **Video en inglés** ([Your Primary](https://www.facebook.com/reel/1847254902631907)): Spot principal de la campaña en inglés. - **Sitio web bilingüe de la campaña:** Incluye datos de registro y participación en California, guías paso a paso, y herramientas oficiales para localizar la boleta. - [tuprimaria.com](https://tuprimaria.com/?ref=ivn.us) (español) - [yourprimary.com](https://yourprimary.com/?ref=ivn.us) (inglés). - **Datos de votantes de California:** Registro completo, participación y datos demográficos de California. [independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ca](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ca?ref=ivn.us) - **Periodismo IVN:** Artículos, análisis y explicadores enfocados en California, disponibles en español e inglés. [ivn.us](https://ivn.us/) - Redes sociales: Video y gráficos en las plataformas del IVP. - [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/independentvoter/?ref=ivn.us) - [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/IVN) - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/ivn?ref=ivn.us) - **Fotos de voceros:** Fotografías en alta resolución disponibles para todos los voceros listados. Contactar a Juan Hernández. ## Sobre Independent Voter Project El Independent Voter Project (IVP) es una organización cívica no partidista basada en California. El IVP jugó un papel central en la aprobación de la Proposición 14, la primaria no partidista de Top Two de California, en 2010\. El IVP realiza educación al votante, investigación electoral y abogacía de política pública enfocadas en ampliar el acceso al voto en California y reducir las ventajas estructurales de los dos partidos principales. IVP no respalda candidatos ni favorece a ningún partido político. Su trabajo se enfoca en el diseño del sistema: construir estructuras electorales que den a cada votante de California una voz igual, sin importar su afiliación partidista. La plataforma de medios del IVP, Independent Voter News (IVN.us), está clasificada como Centro por AllSides y de Alta Credibilidad por Media Bias/Fact Check. independentvoterproject.org | ivn.us | Campaña: tuprimaria.com ## Contacto de prensa Todas las solicitudes de entrevista, acceso a materiales y confirmación de citas se canalizan a través de Juan Hernández. Los voceros temáticos listados en la sección anterior están disponibles a través de este único punto de contacto. **Juan Hernández** Director Creativo, Campaña IVP 2026; San Diego | juan@ivc.media Punto único de contacto para solicitudes de entrevista, materiales de transmisión y citas para atribución. Disponible en español e inglés. ### California's Most Powerful Voting Bloc Is the One Staying Home URL: https://ivn.us/californias-most-powerful-voting-bloc-is-the-one-staying-home/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:35:33.000Z California's June 2 primary is open to every registered voter. Democrat, Republican, or No Party Preference, every voter gets the same ballot for governor, Congress, and statewide office. All candidates appear together. The top two advance to November, regardless of party. It is the most voter-inclusive primary system in the country. And the voters with the most to gain are the ones least likely to use it. In California's 2022 gubernatorial primary, 81 percent of independents stayed home. That is the worst turnout of any group on the rolls. More independent voters skipped the primary than every Republican who voted that year combined. 5.1 million NPP ballots went uncast. 2 million Republican ballots got counted. The math is decisive: when independents stay home, the partisan electorate picks both November candidates for everyone. Latino voters are the largest piece of that gap. Latinos make up roughly 40 percent of California's population and accounted for more than 90 percent of eligible-electorate growth over the last decade. They are also the demographic group most likely to register No Party Preference, with 30 percent of Latino registered voters declining to affiliate with either major party. In the 2024 primary, Latino turnout ran 26 points behind the rest of the state's electorate. Spanish-language voters turned out at roughly 20 percent, compared to 36 percent for English-language voters. The Independent Voter Project's Your Primary / Tu Primaria campaign is the only statewide effort built specifically to close that gap before June 2\. The campaign tells low-propensity voters what is on the ballot, why their vote counts more in June than in November, and how to cast it in any language. > **The core fact: 6.9 million Californians registered as No Party Preference can vote for any candidate, in any race, in the June 2 primary. In 2022, 81 percent of them did not. If the gap holds, partisan voters will pick the November ballot for everyone else.** > Source: California Secretary of State June 2022 Statement of Vote; CA SOS 60-day report (April 2026); L2 voter file. Interviews are available in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento. Spokespeople include nonpartisan election reform experts, California political analysts, Latino voter research specialists, and civic leaders on both sides of the partisan aisle. All interview requests routed through Dan Schnur, dan.schnur@mindspring.com. ## What They're Saying > Perfect. The two dominant political parties who are controlled by extreme elements want to undo the Top Two political reform that handcuffs their power. . . In the name of good government. Good Grief! [@joegarofoli](https://twitter.com/joegarofoli?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [@JeremyBWhite](https://twitter.com/JeremyBWhite?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [@LATSeema](https://twitter.com/LATSeema?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [https://t.co/sCuc2bVejt](https://t.co/sCuc2bVejt?ref=ivn.us) > > — Steve Glazer (@Steve\_Glazer) [May 17, 2026](https://twitter.com/Steve%5FGlazer/status/2056159549082771677?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) > **"Protecting primaries means protecting voters. Closed primaries shut people out and silence independent voices. We should be expanding participation, not restricting it."** > \- Assemblymember Anamarie Avila Farias. IVN, May 18, 2026. > **"If we went back to the partisan system, it would not be as bad as where we are. Period."** > *\-CA*Secretary of State Shirley Weber. CalMatters, 2022. Campaign website: [yourprimary.com](https://yourprimary.com/?ref=ivn.us) ## Paid Video Ads Ads also distributed via [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/independentvoter/?ref=ivn.us) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/ivn?ref=ivn.us). ## The Numbers That Matter California voter turnout, June 2022 gubernatorial primary, by party registration. Source: California Secretary of State, Statement of Vote; L2 voter file. | Party | Registered | Cast Ballots | Stayed Home | | ----------------- | ---------- | ------------ | ----------- | | Republican | 5,822,074 | 35% | 65% | | Democrat | 10,390,438 | 33% | 67% | | Independent (NPP) | 6,267,947 | 19% | 81% | **More independents stayed home than every Republican who voted.** 5.1 million independent voters did not return a ballot in the 2022 California gubernatorial primary. 2 million Republicans did. That is the entire margin the major parties currently rely on to control the candidates who advance to November. ## Story Angles The following angles are available for print, digital, and broadcast coverage. Each can stand alone or be combined. All angles are anchored in California voter data. Spokespeople, data, and video assets are available to support each. **DATA / LEAD STORY** **California's Biggest Voting Bloc Has the Lowest Turnout. A New Campaign Is Trying to Change That.** Independent (No Party Preference) voters now outnumber registered Republicans in California. They have full legal access to every candidate on the June 2 primary ballot. In 2022, 81 percent of them did not cast a ballot. The Your Primary / Tu Primaria campaign is the only statewide effort built to reach those voters before June 2 with a clear message: one ballot, every candidate, top two go to November. **LATINO COMMUNITY / SPANISH-LANGUAGE** **Latinos Are 40% of California. They're 29% of Likely Voters. They Could Decide June 2.** California Latinos are the fastest-growing piece of the state electorate and the demographic group most likely to register No Party Preference. Yet Latino primary turnout ran 26 points behind the rest of the state's electorate in 2024\. Spanish-language voters turned out at roughly 20 percent versus 36 percent for English-language voters. The Tu Primaria campaign is bilingual by design. Spanish-language spokespeople are available. **STRUCTURAL / EXPLAINER** **Independent Voters Have Access. Campaigns Are Not Speaking to Them.** California removed the legal barrier in 2010\. Proposition 14 opened the state primary to every voter, regardless of party. But campaigns still spend their money on partisan lists. Media still frames primaries as Democrat versus Republican. Independent voters are treated like spectators, and they vote like spectators. The structural fix worked. The behavioral fix has not arrived. That is the story Your Primary is built around. **POLITICAL / NEWS** **Both Parties Now Agree on One Thing: Locking Out the Voters They Don't Control.** The California Democratic Party chair and Republican operatives are using the same word, 'jungle primary,' and pushing the same goal: repealing the state's nonpartisan top-two system. That bipartisan alignment is rare, and it is aimed squarely at the more than 6 million Californians who registered No Party Preference. IVP is the only organized California effort pushing back. **CIVIC / DEMOCRACY** **California Voters Built This System Over 115 Years. Party Bosses Want It Back.** California's nonpartisan primary tradition dates to 1911, when Progressive Era reformers broke the Southern Pacific Railroad's stranglehold on state politics. Proposition 14, which created the current top-two system, passed in 2010 over the objections of both major parties. The same forces that lost that fight are trying to reverse it. Most California voters have no idea. **BROADCAST / MAN-ON-STREET** **Real California Voters. Real Reactions. Most Have No Idea How Their Primary Works.** IVP is producing a man-on-the-street video series capturing California voters' reactions to the facts about the June 2 primary. Footage is available as B-roll for broadcast use. The consistent finding: most voters are surprised to learn that any registered voter can vote for any candidate in California's primary, and that both parties are working to end that. ## Key Facts All figures California-specific, verified, and available for use in coverage. IVP can provide source documentation on request. | 6.9M | Californians registered as No Party Preference (NPP) as of the California Secretary of State's April 2026 60-day report. NPP voters now outnumber registered Republicans statewide and are the fastest-growing voter segment in the state. | | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | 81% | of California independents did not cast a ballot in the 2022 gubernatorial primary. The worst turnout of any group on the rolls. (CA Secretary of State, Statement of Vote.) | | 5.1M / 2.0M | Independent ballots left uncast in 2022 versus Republican ballots that were counted. More independents stayed home than every Republican who voted. | | \~40% | of California's population is Latino. Latinos accounted for more than 90 percent of the state's eligible-electorate growth over the last decade. (NALEO Educational Fund, 2024 California Latino Voter Profile.) | | 29% | of California's likely voters are Latino. White Californians are 36 percent of adults but 50 percent of likely voters. The gap between Latino population strength and Latino voting power is the largest unrealized electoral force in the state. (Public Policy Institute of California.) | | 26 pts | Latino turnout gap behind the rest of California's registered voters in the 2024 primary election. (PPIC analysis of California voter file data.) | | 20% vs 36% | Spanish-language voter turnout versus English-language voter turnout in California's 2024 primary. (California Secretary of State, 2024 Voter's Choice Act Report.) | | 30% | of Latino registered voters in California are not affiliated with either major party. (NALEO Educational Fund, 2024.) | | 3 states | California is one of only three states (with Washington and Alaska) where any registered voter can vote for any candidate in the primary, regardless of party affiliation. | | June 2 | California primary election date. The top two finishers in each race advance to November, regardless of party. This is the election that determines who appears on the November ballot. | ## Why Independent and Latino Voters Skip the Primary California removed the legal barriers in 2010\. The participation gap that remains is behavioral, informational, and infrastructural. Five drivers explain most of it. ### 1\. Campaigns spend their money on partisan lists. California adopted the top-two primary in 2010, but campaign budgets still flow through the same partisan turnout models that existed before Proposition 14\. Voter contact, mail, digital targeting, and door-knocks are built off party voter files. Independents are not contacted at the same rate, not framed as decisive, and not given a reason to participate. The data backs this up: PPIC research finds independent likely voters are far more moderate than party voters (51 percent identify as moderate, versus 31 percent of Democratic and 22 percent of Republican likely voters). They are also persuadable. Campaigns are not investing accordingly. ### 2\. Media frames primaries as Democrat versus Republican. If the governor's race is covered mainly as a Democratic concern over which two candidates will advance, independent voters reasonably conclude the contest is not for them. The structural design of California's primary is the opposite. Independent voters have equal standing in every contest. Coverage has not caught up with the law. ### 3\. Latino voters use the system differently, and the system has not adapted. USC's Center for Inclusive Democracy found that in the 2024 general election, nearly a quarter of Latino voters in California cast ballots in person, a higher share than the overall electorate. Latino vote-by-mail rejection rates also run higher: 1.2 percent for Latino voters versus 0.7 percent for white non-Latino voters. Of those rejected ballots, 65.6 percent were rejected for non-matching signatures. The infrastructure works on paper but produces uneven outcomes by demographic group. ### 4\. Language access falls short. The California Secretary of State's 2024 Voter's Choice Act report found Spanish-language voters turned out at roughly 20 percent in the 2024 primary, against 36 percent for English-language voters. That gap does not capture every Latino voter (many prefer English-language materials), but it isolates a specific participation problem among voters who interact with elections in Spanish. The report recommended targeted outreach to non-English voters ages 18 to 29, partnerships with community organizations, and easier-to-find translated materials. ### 5\. Voters do not know how the system works. California's top-two primary is one of the most voter-inclusive in the country, yet most voters cannot describe how it works. They do not know that one ballot lists every candidate. They do not know the top two advance regardless of party. They do not know that staying home in June means partisan voters select the November choices for everyone. That is the gap the Your Primary / Tu Primaria campaign was built to close. ## The Your Primary / Tu Primaria Campaign Your Primary / Tu Primaria is a statewide nonpartisan voter outreach effort from the Independent Voter Project. The campaign is targeted at California's lowest-propensity voters, with a primary focus on independent (NPP) and Latino voters across the state. ### Core message One ballot. Every candidate. Top two go to November. Sit out and partisan voters pick your choices for you. Tagline: It's a Jungle. Vote in It. ### Channels - Bilingual digital advertising (English and Spanish) across video, display, and social. - A statewide voter-facing website (yourprimary.com / yourprimary.com/es) with how-to-vote, where-to-vote, and ballot-tracking tools, all routed through the California Secretary of State's official systems. - Earned media and explanatory journalism via Independent Voter News (IVN.us). - Man-on-the-street video content documenting California voter reactions to the facts of the June 2 primary. - Direct-to-voter messaging on the structural threat to the top-two primary now being advanced by leaders of both major parties. ### **What success looks like** Three measurable outcomes by June 2: - Lift independent (NPP) ballot return rates above the 2022 baseline of 19 percent. - Narrow the Latino primary turnout gap relative to the rest of the California electorate. - Build a documented, persistent California audience of NPP and Latino voters reachable for the November general election and beyond. ## Available for Interview Spokespeople available for print, broadcast, and podcast interviews. All are California-based. All available by phone, video, or in-person within their listed market. To arrange an interview, contact Dan Schnur at dan.schnur@mindspring.com. ### Los Angeles **Dan Schnur** *California Political Analyst; former Director, Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics, USC | dan.schnur@mindspring.com* One of California's most quoted nonpartisan political analysts. Schnur has followed California election reform for decades and can speak with authority on the political dynamics driving the current California-based effort to repeal the top-two primary, and what it would mean for California voters. **Can speak to:** - The bipartisan effort in California to repeal the top-two primary - How the nonpartisan primary has changed California politics since 2010 - What California independent voters stand to lose if the system is repealed - Why participation, not partisanship, is the deciding factor on June 2 ### San Diego **Chad Peace** *Attorney; President, IVC Media; helped pass California's Proposition 14 (2010)* Chad is the architect of much of IVP's legal and political strategy on nonpartisan election reform. He played a direct role in passing California's top-two primary and has tracked every legal and legislative challenge to it since. He is a primary source on the 115-year history of California's nonpartisan reform tradition. **Can speak to:** - The legal history of California's top-two primary and its constitutional basis - Why both California parties oppose the system and what they gain from closing it - The 115-year arc of California election reform - What repeal would mean in practical terms for California NPP and independent voters **Juan Hernandez** *Creative Lead, IVP 2026 Campaign; Spanish-Language Media Available* Juan leads the creative and bilingual content strategy for Your Primary / Tu Primaria. He can speak to the outreach effort targeting California Latino and Spanish-speaking voters, the cultural framing of the campaign, and the documented gap between Latino voter registration and primary participation in the state. **Can speak to:** - The Tu Primaria bilingual voter outreach campaign in California - The gap between California Latino voter registration and primary participation - Why Latino voters in California register independent at higher rates than other groups - The cultural and civic case for California Latino primary participation ## **Sacramento** **Mike Madrid** *Republican Political Consultant; Latino Voter Research Expert* Mike is one of California's most recognized voices on Latino voting behavior and Republican political strategy. He brings a data-driven perspective on why California Latino voter participation in primaries has remained low despite growing registration, and what the stakes are for the 2026 California election and beyond. **Can speak to:** - California Latino primary turnout data and what drives the participation gap - How California's top-two primary affects Latino political representation - The Republican case for keeping California's nonpartisan system - Why both California parties have an interest in low independent voter turnout **Kristen Olsen** *Former California Assembly Republican Leader; Centrist Election Reform Advocate* Kristen served as the California Assembly Republican Leader and has since become a leading voice for nonpartisan election reform in California. She brings rare credibility as a Republican who supports the top-two system and can speak to why the effort to repeal it is bad for California voters across the political spectrum. **Can speak to:** - Why a Republican supports defending California's nonpartisan top-two primary - What the California repeal effort reveals about both parties' relationship with voters - The case for centrist, reform-minded California candidates under the current system - What California loses if the primary is closed back to party members ## Spokesperson Quotes The following quotes are drafted and available for attribution with each spokesperson's approval. Contact Dan Schnur to confirm any quote before publication. > ***"California built the most voter-inclusive primary in the country. The structural fix is done. The behavioral fix is not. Six million independent voters have full access, and four out of five sat out the last gubernatorial primary. That is not apathy. That is a campaign and media ecosystem that still treats independents like they don't matter. We are telling them they do."*** > Dan Schnur, California Political Analyst. Available for attribution. > **"*California voters built this system over more than a century to break the stranglehold of party machines on the ballot. Six million Californians didn't register independent to be told their vote doesn't count in June. Right now, party bosses are trying to take it back. The way to stop them is to vote in the primary.*"** > Chad Peace, Attorney; President, IVC Media. Available for attribution. > ***"Latino voters are 40 percent of California's population, 30 percent of Latino voters are registered with no party at all, and Latino primary turnout ran 26 points behind the rest of the state in 2024\. This is the largest unrealized voting bloc in the country. Tu primaria es tu voz. June 2."*** > Juan Hernandez, Creative Lead, IVP 2026 Campaign. Available for attribution. > ***"The data on Latino primary participation in California is stark. Millions of voters are sitting out the election that actually determines who ends up on the November ballot. Closing the top-two primary would make that worse, not better. Showing up in June is the most effective answer."*** > Mike Madrid, Republican Political Consultant; Latino Voter Research Expert. Available for attribution. > ***"I served as Assembly Republican Leader, and I'll say it clearly: California's top-two primary has been good for voters and bad for party gatekeepers. That's why both parties oppose it. When party leaders unite, they are almost never uniting in voters' interests."*** > Kristen Olsen, Former California Assembly Republican Leader. Available for attribution. > **"*This campaign exists because most California voters have no idea what's at stake. We are weeks out from a primary that any registered California voter can participate in, and there is a coordinated effort to make that permanently impossible. That's the story."*** > Cara McCormick, Independent Voter Project. Available for attribution. ## Assets Available for Broadcast All assets available on request. Contact Dan Schnur to arrange access. - **Paid campaign video ad:** IVP's flagship spot for Your Primary / Tu Primaria: - [Ad 1 "You Are The Lion"](https://facebook.com/IVN/videos/1847254902631907) - [Ad 2 "Your Jungle"](https://www.facebook.com/IVN/videos/962094573295759/) - **Campaign website:** Voter-facing hub for the campaign. Includes California voter registration data, turnout statistics by party, how-to-vote resources, and bilingual versions. - English: [YourPrimary.com](https://yourprimary.com/?ref=ivn.us) - Spanish: [TuPrimaria.com](https://tuprimaria.com/?ref=ivn.us) - **California voter data and research:** Comprehensive California voter registration, turnout, and demographic data. [independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ca](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ca?ref=ivn.us) - **IVN journalism and images:** California-focused articles, analysis, and explainers. [ivn.us](https://ivn.us/) - **Social media content:** Video and graphics across IVP platforms. - [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/independentvoter/?ref=ivn.us) - [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/IVN) - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/ivn?ref=ivn.us) - **Spokesperson headshots:** High-resolution photos available for all listed California spokespeople. Contact Dan Schnur. ## About the Independent Voter Project The Independent Voter Project (IVP) is a California-based nonpartisan civic organization. IVP played a central role in passing Proposition 14, California's Nonpartisan Top-Two Primary, in 2010\. IVP conducts voter education, election research, and public policy advocacy focused on expanding California voter access and reducing the structural advantages held by the two major political parties. IVP does not endorse candidates or favor any political party. Its work is focused on system design: building election structures that give every California voter an equal voice, regardless of party affiliation. IVP's media platform, Independent Voter News (IVN.us), is rated Center by AllSides and High Credibility by Media Bias/Fact Check. [independentvoterproject.org](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) | [ivn.us](https://ivn.us/) | Campaign: [yourprimary.com](https://yourprimary.com/?ref=ivn.us) ## Press Contact All interview requests, asset access, and quote confirmations routed through Dan Schnur. Topic-specific spokespeople (listed in section above) are available through this single point of contact. **Dan Schnur** *California Political Analyst; former Director, Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics, USC | dan.schnur@mindspring.com* Single point of contact for interview requests, broadcast assets, and on-the-record quotes. ### When Do Vote Centers Open in California? URL: https://ivn.us/when-do-vote-centers-open-in-california/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T22:34:06.000Z California mails a ballot to all registered voters. However, this does not mean voters have to vote by mail. They can vote or drop off their ballot in person. And, they don’t have to wait until Election Day to do it. Many counties offer vote centers that make it easy for voters to participate in elections. These centers are offered under the Voter’s Choice Act (VCA), and for the June 2 primary, [**the first ones open starting on Saturday, May 23**](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). Times may vary from county to county, but these vote centers must be open at least 8 hours per day and on Election Day, they have to be open from 7 am to 8 pm. This gives voters who live in VCA counties **10 days** to vote in person, return a mail ballot, register or update their registration through the same day voter registration process, and get help if they need a replacement ballot. Yes, all of these things are offered at VCA vote centers. All other in-person voting locations throughout California open on **Saturday, May 30** — 3 days before the election. [How California Built the Most Voter-Friendly State in AmericaCalifornia has created one of the most voter-friendly election systems in the nation. Three distinct policies work together to make that possible: a codified set of voter protections, a modernized election model that increases access, and a primary system that opens every race to every voter.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-voter-choice-top-two-primary-election-reform-0817e5ccc1fd14ba41bbe73cdaf84301817399d97992912936f2e088ce8ba957.jpg)](https://ivn.us/how-california-built-the-most-voter-friendly-state-in-america-2026-05-14/) **To Recap: For eligible voters who live in a vote center county, early in-person voting begins as early as May 23\. If not, in-person early voting locations will be open by May 30.** ## **What Is a Vote Center?** A vote center is not the same as a traditional neighborhood polling place. In counties that opt-in to the Voter’s Choice Act, voters can go to **any vote center in their county** instead of being assigned to one specific polling place. The VCA model also includes mailing every active registered voter a ballot, expanding early in-person voting, and providing secure ballot drop-off locations. For voters, the practical difference is simple: They can vote near their home, work, school, or wherever is most convenient—as long as the vote center is in their county. Notably, the Voter’s Choice Act is *not* mandatory for counties. They have choose to opt-in. [No, You Don’t Need to Register with a Party to Vote in California’s PrimaryWhen Independent Voter posted a series of videos about primary turnout on its Facebook page, the comments revealed a startling reality: Many voters think California’s semi-closed presidential primary rules apply to the 2026 midterm elections.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/vote-in-california-primaries.jpg)](https://ivn.us/no-you-dont-need-to-register-with-a-party-to-vote-in-californias-primary/) ## **How Many California Counties Use Vote Centers?** The secretary of state [currently lists](https://www.sos.ca.gov/voters-choice-act/vca-participating-counties?ref=ivn.us) **30 Voter’s Choice Act counties**: Alameda, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Fresno, Humboldt, Imperial, Kings, Los Angeles, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Merced, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Benito, San Diego, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Ventura, and Yolo. The system has grown quickly. Only 5 counties used the VCA model in 2018, 15 used it in 2020, 27 used it in 2022, and 30 are now listed as participating counties. ## **How Many Vote Centers Does a California County Have?** The answer depends on the number of registered voters. Under the VCA, counties must provide at least: - **One vote center for every 50,000 registered voters starting 10 days before Election Day**, or at least two vote centers total; and - **One vote center for every 10,000 registered voters starting 3 days before Election Day**, or at least two vote centers total. In practice, this means large counties can have dozens of locations, while smaller counties may have only a handful. Los Angeles County [says in-person voting for the June 2 primary begins May 23](https://www.lavote.gov/home/voting-elections/current-elections/find-my-election-information?ref=ivn.us), with vote centers open from **10 am to 7 pm through June 1** and **7 am to 8 pm on Election Day**. The county also lists more than 400 ballot drop box locations. San Diego County [says select vote centers open May 23](https://www.sdvote.com/content/rov/en/elections/vote-center-locations.html?ref=ivn.us), all locations open May 30, and all vote centers meet usable accessibility standards. Its vote centers are open **8 am to 5 pm from May 23 through June 1** and **7 am to 8 pm on Election Day**. ## **How Many California Voters Use Vote Centers?** California has heavily emphasized vote-by-mail. But these vote centers still matter, especially in larger counties, because they give voters more options to turn in their ballot or vote in person. A [secretary of state summary report](https://admin.cdn.sos.ca.gov/vca/vcausage-summary-may-2025.pdf?ref=ivn.us) found that in the 2024 general election, **Los Angeles County recorded more than 1 million in-person ballots cast at vote centers**, equal to about **27.8%** of the county’s total votes. [Latinos Will Be the Most Powerful Voting Bloc, Once They Start Voting in PrimariesCalifornia’s nonpartisan primary system is built around a simple promise: Every voter gets a say. But, not every voter takes advantage of this. There is a noticeable turnout gap with Latino voters, in particular, who could completely reshape the electoral landscape if they participate.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/latino-voters-california-primary-elections-d2751d3850ed7781236c04b0aa08db4af2af8ab2dc5af56680d5f2f3529a3857.jpg)](https://ivn.us/latinos-will-be-the-most-powerful-voting-bloc-once-they-start-voting-in-primaries/) In the 2024 primary, Los Angeles recorded **321,824** in-person vote center ballots, or about **19.6%** of total votes. Other large counties also saw substantial in-person use in 2024\. San Diego County recorded **227,236** in-person vote center ballots in the 2024 general election, Alameda County recorded **86,786**, and Ventura County recorded **62,412**. So, while many Californians return ballots by mail or drop box, vote centers are the safety valve for voters who want help, need to register late, need a replacement ballot, prefer accessible voting equipment, or simply want to vote in person. ### Report: California Has Tried Ranked Choice Voting for 20 Years. The Scare Tactics Don’t Hold Up. URL: https://ivn.us/report-california-has-tried-ranked-choice-voting-for-20-years-the-scare-tactics-dont-hold-up/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T21:04:59.000Z **SACRAMENTO, Calif.** \- After two decades of ranked choice voting in California, a new report from FairVote shows that the reform has delivered on several of its core promises. Specifically: higher participation in decisive elections, winners with broader support, and lower costs to taxpayers. Ranked choice voting (RCV) was first used in California in 2004 in San Francisco. Since then, it has expanded to Albany, Berkeley, Eureka, Oakland, Redondo Beach, and San Leandro. Although, its use has been delayed in Eureka. [FairVote’s report](https://fairvote.org/report/two-decades-of-rcv-in-california/?section=executive-summary&ref=ivn.us) comes at a time when debate over election reform is heating up in California amidst attacks on the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary. The governor’s race, in particular, has raised vote-splitting concerns in a crowded field. A cross-partisan group of reformers, called the More Choice Coalition, launched to lead the opposition against Top Two repeal, and is pushing for expanding the number of general election candidates to 4 with ranked choice ballots. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) The report’s findings are direct: candidates of color have won 64% of RCV races in California cities, compared with 36% in the same cities before RCV. Women have won 44% of RCV races, up from 34% before adoption. In other words, the reform has increased representation for historically under-represented groups. It has also had an impact on turnout. Before adopting ranked choice voting, many California cities used either delayed runoffs or two-round elections. Both were designed to produce majority winners, but both had a turnout problem. For example, in San Francisco’s last Board of Supervisors election before RCV, runoff turnout dropped 42% from the November election. In Oakland, decisive elections were often held in lower-turnout primaries. FairVote notes that from 2002 to 2008, before Oakland implemented RCV, 89% of elections were decided in the primary alone. General election turnout was, on average, 61% higher than primary turnout during that period. This means the election that actually picked the winner often had fewer voters. Oakland moved to a single-election system that uses ranked choice voting. These elections not only produce higher turnouts, but save taxpayers money. FairVote estimates that Oakland saves $140,000 a year under a ranked choice system. San Francisco saves even more at $3.7 million per election. Berkeley saves roughly $760,000 and San Leandro saves $75,000\. In total, across California cities using RCV, the report estimates total savings at $5 million per election cycle. Then, there is the voter-choice argument. FairVote found that winners in California RCV elections have broad support from voters. In single-winner races with at least three candidates, winning candidates were ranked in the top three by an average of 73% of voters. The report calls this “consensus support,” a measure of how many voters affirmatively supported the winner even if that candidate was not their first choice. On average, winning candidates received 19% of their final vote total from backup rankings. That means voters were able to support their favorite candidate first without losing their ability to help decide the final winner. FairVote asserts that this is something RCV critics often ignore. Backup choices are not throwaway votes. They are the mechanism that keeps voters from being punished for refusing to vote strategically. The report highlights San Francisco’s 2024 Board of Supervisors District 5 race as one example. Bilal Mahmood defeated incumbent Dean Preston after receiving strong lower-choice support from voters who backed other challengers. According to FairVote, when all other candidates were eliminated, 73% of transferred ballots went to Mahmood, allowing voters seeking change to consolidate behind one candidate rather than split their votes. The report looks into several other data points as it relates to RCV, but the one that advocates will likely point to as more California cities consider new reforms is that voters who use RCV tend to like it. In Redondo Beach, where voters used it for the first time in 2024, 61% supported the reform afterward. In a 2024 poll across San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro, 70% of voters said they wanted to keep using RCV. Additionally, 42% in that same poll said they wanted to expand it to other elections, including statewide and federal contests. FairVote notes that there are active discussions around RCV in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, and Santa Clara County, while the More Choice Coalition looks to incorporate it into future statewide reform. The broader takeaway is simple: California has already run a 20-year test of ranked choice voting in real elections, with real candidates and real voters. The results do not show chaos. They show voters adapting, cities saving money, winners building broader coalitions, and historically underrepresented candidates winning more often. The question is no longer whether RCV is too new or too untested—because in California, it is neither. ### Independent Mike Duggan Didn’t Lose to Michigan Voters. He Lost to the Two-Party Machine. URL: https://ivn.us/independent-mike-duggan-didnt-lose-to-michigan-voters-he-lost-to-the-two-party-machine/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T20:40:24.000Z **LANSING, Mich.** \- [Mike Duggan is out](https://mikeduggan.com/?ref=ivn.us). The former Democratic mayor of Detroit announced Thursday that he is ending his independent bid for Michigan governor, withdrawing from the 2026 race less than six months before Election Day. The decision, [delivered in an open letter posted to his campaign website](https://mikeduggan.com/?ref=ivn.us), brings a dramatic close to one of the higher profile independent campaigns this cycle. With Duggan gone, the race takes a familiar shape. Democratic frontrunner Jocelyn Benson, the current secretary of state, now stands as the [odds-on favorite](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/michigan-governor-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) heading into the general election, likely to face Republican US Rep. John James. What had been a genuine three-way contest ([Duggan led in some earlier polls](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/michigan-governor-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us)) is now, once again, a conventional partisan showdown. Duggan's concession note doesn’t mince words. "I am so disappointed to have to write you this letter," he begins, before laying out the twin pressures that made his continued candidacy untenable: polling decline and a fundraising ceiling he simply could not break through. He claims that the mood of the country "shifted suddenly and dramatically" in April as anger over the war in Iran and rising gas prices above $5 a gallon consolidated Democratic-leaning voters firmly back into their partisan home. "Democrats (and many Independents) were unified in anger," he wrote, and that unity spelled problems for his campaign. He tried to adjust, but internal polling matched [a recent Chamber poll](https://www.detroitchamber.com/new-poll-finds-big-shift-in-michigan-governors-race/?ref=ivn.us), confirming that his support was slipping. Duggan pointed to the 23% support he was still holding (1.6 million individuals) as representing the hunger voters have for something beyond party warfare ([this number is higher than the estimated number of independent voters in the state](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/mi?ref=ivn.us), showing a broader coalition). "I got into this race to try to change our politics, not to be a spoiler," he wrote. Duggan was one of the most credible independent candidates in recent memory. He served three full four-year terms as Detroit's mayor, spending that time presiding over the city's long, complicated, and ultimately successful revival. He won re-election in 2021 with over 75% of the vote. He was, for most of his career, a Democrat. But, in December 2024, Duggan walked away from the party and launched an independent bid. His pitch was simple: Michigan's politics were broken, and the partisan machinery that grinds Lansing to a halt was the same machine that had once nearly destroyed Detroit. "I'm not running to be the Democrats' governor or the Republicans' governor," he said at his announcement. "I'm running to be your governor." The reality of that party machinery, however, extends outside of the governing process and to the infrastructure that the major parties have built up around campaigns. Those parties don't just offer candidates a ballot line; they offer a fully operational campaign apparatus that takes decades and billions of dollars to construct. In particular, they have donor networks that are primed to activate the moment a candidate enters a race; data operations with voter files refined across election cycle after election cycle worth millions of dollars; volunteer recruitment pipelines; earned media relationships; and coordinated spending from state and national committees that can flood a race with resources in a matter of weeks. A candidate running under a party banner inherits all of that on day one. An independent starts from zero. Duggan understood this going in and spent much of his campaign trying to build a parallel version from scratch. [He even kept pace for a time, raising over $5m](https://ballotpedia.org/Michigan%5Fgubernatorial%5Fand%5Flieutenant%5Fgubernatorial%5Felection,%5F2026?ref=ivn.us). But in a country where even local elections become national events, lacking the established infrastructure could take him only so far. He notes in his concession letter that he traveled the country meeting with national independent-minded donor groups, hoping to assemble the kind of outside funding network that could substitute for party money. He got interest, but not results—the infrastructure for funding independent candidates at the gubernatorial level simply doesn't exist yet in any mature form, according to the candidate. What he found instead was a ceiling: a loyal and generous Michigan donor base that took him only so far, and a wall of national party money on both sides that he had no mechanism to match. Duggan’s story is not a new one. Independent candidates across the country have run into the same wall, with many never even making it to Election Day. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 2024 independent presidential campaign is the most instructive recent example. Kennedy had genuine name recognition, a passionate donor base, and[ polling that at points put him in double-digits nationally](https://www.npr.org/2023/11/18/1212875445/rfk-jr-s-poll-numbers-remain-high-what-explains-this-and-can-it-last?ref=ivn.us). But the campaign was consumed by the grinding, state-by-state fight for ballot access, draining money and momentum that could have gone toward persuading voters. [He was excluded from the presidential debates](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/20/robert-f-kennedy-cnn-debate-atlanta-june-27-00164275?ref=ivn.us). And as partisan fear of a second Trump term intensified, his numbers collapsed—the same consolidation dynamic that would later swallow Duggan in Michigan. No Labels spent years and tens of millions of dollars trying to solve the infrastructure problem, securing ballot access in 21 states and building a donor network, but ultimately couldn't find a candidate to step in. Joe Manchin, their top prospect, was blunt in [a later exit interview](https://www.semafor.com/article/12/12/2024/joe-manchin-senate-retiring-interview-biden-trump?ref=ivn.us) about why many would pass on such a bid: "If we had a pathway forward to get on 50 ballots, oh, I'd have been a go." The lesson was clarifying: the infrastructure the two parties have built carries a price tag that even tens of millions of dollars can't match. [A majority of Americans are at least somewhat interested in a new political party](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/01/15/nearly-4-in-10-americans-wish-they-had-options-beyond-the-republican-and-democratic-parties/?ref=ivn.us). Independents are now the largest voting bloc by registration, and they made up a larger vote share than Democrats in the ‘24 election. But independent candidates have failed to see electoral success, largely driven by the structural advantages held by partisans. [2026 is seeing many independent candidates for higher office](https://ivn.us/independent-power-watch-candidates-rise-as-voters-sour-on-both-parties/), and some of them are gaining traction. But the specter of these failed independent bids always hangs over these campaigns, and the belief in the spoiler effect in our first-past-the-post voting system looms large, especially when [the electorate’s sentiment about the country is so precarious](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/state-of-the-union/direction-of-country?ref=ivn.us). Duggan saw the problem clearly enough. He just couldn't solve it in 2026\. Many groups out there are attempting to build this infrastructure, but none have succeeded in making enough headway, even with millions of dollars invested. With shifts in the electorate, it seems inevitable that an independent candidate will break through, proving viability and reframing the conversation around independents as spoilers. The biggest question, then, seems to be *when* this shift will happen. *Disclaimer: The author of this article worked as a senior member of the national Forward Party’s team and was part of conversations with the Duggan campaign.* ### The DNC Wrote a 2024 Autopsy — and Ignored the Cause of Death URL: https://ivn.us/the-dnc-wrote-a-2024-autopsy-and-ignored-the-cause-of-death/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T16:43:55.000Z After months of stonewalling, the [Democratic National Committee finally released its post-mortem on the 2024 election](https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/May-20-2026.pdf?ref=ivn.us). The autopsy was written by Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, who worked on it as a part-time volunteer. DNC Chair Ken Martin shelved it after receiving it, claiming that releasing it would only serve as a distraction. It took pressure from senior figures and the Democratic base to finally make the report public, which happened just this week. The reception has not been kind. The DNC itself released the report with a disclaimer splashed on every page in red text stating it "was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented." [Martin apologized in a Substack post](https://blueprint.democrats.org/p/a-message-from-dnc-chair-ken-martin?ref=ivn.us) accompanying the release, writing that when he received the report "it wasn't ready for primetime. Not even close." Instead of getting it ready for primetime, the report was shelved, which played into a [Streisand Effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand%5Feffect?ref=ivn.us) and rampant speculation as to what was so embarrassing in it that it couldn’t be released. Outside of the drama around its creation and release, critics have been quick to point out a variety of things they believe the report gets wrong. But the most glaring failure isn't what the report got wrong—it's in what it doesn't address at all: independent voters. Despite referencing independent *expenditures* over a hundred times (i.e., super PAC spending), the report fails to mention this voting bloc as a key element in former Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat last November. It seems the DNC has forgotten that people, not dollars, vote. This is not a footnote omission. It is a catastrophic blind spot. [According to Edison Research exit polling](https://s.abcnews.com/assets/dtci/elections/NEPExitPollMethodologyStatement.pdf?ref=ivn.us), independents made up 34% of the 2024 electorate, essentially tying Republicans and actually outpacing Democrats, who came in at just 31%. Independents are now, by the numbers, a larger voting bloc than the Democratic Party itself. And in 2024, Trump won a majority of swing states by winning over independents, breaking from the national trend that saw independents leaning towards Harris. In 2020, independents supported Biden by 13 percentage points and gave him the presidency; by 2024, Harris saw that advantage go down to just 3 points. That’s a collapse of 10 points in a single cycle. A party that loses independents by that margin, especially in swing states, doesn't just lose an election; it loses its coalition. Any autopsy that fails to grapple seriously with how Democrats can appeal to this growing, decisive bloc isn't a diagnosis. It's denial with a cover page. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/data-src-image-8645477a-a551-4bc9-81d2-943b7d400d7d.png) *I guess it didn’t even get a real cover page…* ### Locked Out at the Polls: Pennsylvania’s 1.5 Million Independents Demand a Voice URL: https://ivn.us/locked-out-at-the-polls-pennsylvanias-1-5-million-independents-demand-a-voice/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:40:21.000Z *Editor's Note: The following is the beginning of an exclusive new series on IVN from the better elections group Open Primaries. The content originated from the group's weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz."* Independent voters in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh showed up at polling places across Pennsylvania on Tuesday with a simple message: stop locking 1.5 million voters out of taxpayer-funded elections. Joined by leaders from [Let Us Vote](https://letusvote.org/?ref=ivn.us) and [Ballot PA Action](https://www.bpaction.org/?ref=ivn.us), independents spoke out against one of the most exclusionary primary systems in the country. While independent voters are the fastest-growing voting bloc in Pennsylvania — and across America — they remain completely shut out of the elections that often decide who ultimately holds power. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Pennsylvania-independents-protest-closed-primaries.png) At the same time, the fight to end Pennsylvania’s closed primary system is breaking into the mainstream. Open Primaries President John Opdycke and National Organizing Director Cathy Stewart were featured in media outlets across the state, from the [Pennsylvania Capital Star](https://penncapital-star.com/election-2026/advocates-push-for-pennsylvania-to-leave-its-closed-primary-system-behind/?ref=ivn.us) to a headline piece in [USA Today](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/05/20/open-primary-election-vote-independent/90158448007/?ref=ivn.us), calling out a system that disenfranchises millions of voters by design. As Opdycke put it: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/John-Opdycke-Quote.png) For more than a decade, Open Primaries has been on the front lines in Pennsylvania — building legislative coalitions, organizing independent voters, and [filing groundbreaking litigation](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) alongside our partners at Ballot PA Action to challenge the state’s closed primary system head-on. **The pressure is growing, and it’s having an impact:** [**This week Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced his support for primary reform!**](https://www.thecentersquare.com/pennsylvania/article%5Fb341a1e0-d17c-4171-8cee-ba02d7e82075.html?ref=ivn.us)**!!** ## **What We’re Talking About…** ## **Partisan Hacks Exposed in California** For months, California’s political class has been in full panic mode, breathlessly warning that the state’s Top Two primary system could (hypothetically, theoretically, maybe someday) produce the “catastrophe” of two Republicans advancing to the general election. The hysteria has been relentless. The logic has been laughable. And until now, the people pushing it have largely escaped scrutiny. That’s over. This manufactured outrage campaign is beginning to collapse under the weight of its own partisan dishonesty. Major outlets from the The [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/05/17/bill-cassidy-defeat-highlights-decline-open-primary-elections/?ref=ivn.us) to [Politico](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook-pm/2026/05/18/california-top-two-primary-00926536?ref=ivn.us) are finally exposing what many Californians already suspected: the loudest critics of Top Two are not neutral observers or defenders of democracy. They are entrenched partisan operatives and institutional hacks who have been trying to sabotage the reform since voters overwhelmingly enacted it 15 years ago. [CADEM Chair Supports Repealing Top Two. Here’s What He’s Not Telling Voters.This week, the Democratic Party chair chose to abandon more than 5 million independent voters in California to embrace a regressive proposal to roll back voter rights.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsSteve Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/California-Democratic-Party-Chair-Rusty-Hicks.jpg)](https://ivn.us/cadem-chair-supports-repealing-top-two-heres-what-hes-not-telling-voters/) Their real fear was never “voter confusion,” “fairness,” or “representation.” Their fear is competition. Their fear is losing control. And their fear is a political system where voters - rather than party insiders, consultants, and ideological gatekeepers - actually decide elections. [In a blistering new must-read piece for IVN](https://ivn.us/a-top-two-democrat-race-for-governor-in-california-that-may-be-what-a-healthy-democracy-actually-looks-like/), former California legislator and Top Two architect Steve Peace joins Independent Voter Project Chairman Dan Howle to dismantle the latest wave of bad-faith attacks and expose the cynical political machinery behind them. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Steve-Peace-Dan-Howle-Quote.jpg) ## **Leadership In Action** - The [Forward Party](https://www.forwardparty.com/?ref=ivn.us) invited me to address their national candidate training forum for a hard-hitting conversation on the growing crisis of partisan gerrymandering and how candidates can speak honestly about it with voters. - Open Primaries (OP) President John Opdycke addressed candidates at a gathering hosted by Paul Rieckhoff and [Independent Veterans of America](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us), where he spoke about the emergence of a more serious, solutions-oriented brand of independent candidacy. - OP National Organizing Director Cathy Stewart joined the Rensselaer League of Women Voters for a screening of [Majority Rules](https://majorityrulesfilm.com/?ref=ivn.us) and led a heated debate on the fight for primary reform. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/John-Opdycke-Independent-veterans-America.jpg) ## **The Washington Post Exposes the Bipartisan War on Democracy** As we mentioned earlier, the Washington Post editorial board delivered a blistering rebuke to California political insiders for their hypocrisy and openly anti-democratic attacks on the state’s Top Two primary system. But what makes the Post’s intervention so striking is that it didn’t stop with one party or one state. [DC Political Machine Refuses to Implement Landmark Voting Rights InitiativeThe DC City Council has refused to fully fund and implement Initiative 83, the semi-open primary and ranked choice voting measure that was approved by 73% of voters in 2024.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/dc-independent-voters-locked-out-2026-primaries.jpg)](https://ivn.us/we-cant-afford-it-is-never-an-acceptable-excuse-to-deny-independents-a-vote-2026-05-11/) From Democrats on the D.C. City Council working to block independent voters from participating in public elections, to Republicans in the Tennessee legislature pushing partisan loyalty oaths at the ballot box, the Post is exposing a pattern that transcends ideology or geography: a bipartisan instinct to crush competition, shut out independents, and rig the rules to protect political power. That is what makes this moment unusual. One of the country’s most influential editorial boards is calling out both parties — not for policy disagreements, but for engaging in the same anti-democratic behavior whenever their control is threatened. Check out Open Primaries President John Opdycke as he breaks it all down - first in a [hard-hitting WAPO Letter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/05/20/us-primary-system-fails-political-independents/?ref=ivn.us) published this week and then even further [in this video](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JP8SHaVl674?ref=ivn.us). ## **Kentucky Tells 400,000 Independent Voters: You Don’t Count** As more than 380,000 independent voters in Kentucky were locked out of most primary elections this week, Open Primaries SVP Jeremy Gruber delivered a blunt indictment of one of the most exclusionary voting systems in America. Gruber pointed out that Kentucky is not just behind the curve — it is an outlier. While 34 states allow independent voters to participate in primaries, Kentucky remains one of the last closed-primary strongholds in the country and the only Southern state still systematically shutting independents out of taxpayer-funded elections. The contrast in the debate could not have been clearer: reformers arguing that every taxpayer deserves a voice in democracy, while party insiders openly defend a system that tells hundreds of thousands of voters to stay home unless they pledge allegiance to a political party. ## **Open Primaries Campaign to Rally New Mexico Independents Ahead of State’s First Open Primary Ramps Up** As we recently reported, [Let Us Vote NM](https://newmexico.letusvote.org/?ref=ivn.us), a project of Open Primaries, [launched a statewide education / Get Out The Vote campaign to mobilize independent voters](https://ivn.us/new-mexico-independents-mobilize-ahead-of-their-first-open-primary-2026-04-28/) to participate in the primary. With early voting well underway and primary day next week, that campaign is ramping up. ## **Upcoming Events** ### **Rule of Law: The Operating System of Capitalism. A Conversation with Danielle Allen.** **Friday, June 12th 2-3pm ET | 11am-12pm PT** The event is hosted by YPO Democracy Group. Be sure to register [here](https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/6317788710796/WN%5FrjvcFm32QBOaAURS%5FLT41Q?ref=ivn.us#/) Every business is built on systems it does not control, the rulebook of the public market-- courts, regulations, public institutions. - At its core is the Rule of Law, the foundation of economic trust, market stability and sustained growth. - But, Rule of Law depends on a political system capable of making legitimate decisions that endure beyond the next election cycle, news cycle or partisan fight. - When businesses can no longer trust the stability of the rules, growth slows, investment retreats and the cost of uncertainty rises for everyone. **Does our democratic system have the capacity to function at a level that supports a modern economy?** Join YPOer Seth David Radwell as he interviews Professor Danielle Allen and asks: **What is the government’s role in creating robust systems that people trust?** ### Veterans Group to Court: Don’t Let Party Bosses Shut Independents Out of Texas Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/veterans-group-to-court-dont-let-party-bosses-shut-independents-out-of-texas-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:35:43.000Z **AUSTIN, Texas** \- A veteran-led election reform group is asking a federal court to reject an effort by the Republican Party of Texas to close the state’s primary elections. It's a move that would lock out millions of independent voters in one of the most politically consequential states in the US. Veterans for All Voters (VAV) filed its request on May 21 with the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas to submit an amicus brief in *Republican Party of Texas, et al. v. State of Texas, et al.* The group sides with Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson’s defense of state law. Since Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton chose to join the Republican Party's lawsuit, Nelson was forced to hire private counsel against her own party. [Why is the TX Secretary of State Jane Nelson Doing Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Job?In the midst of a Republican Party lawsuit against the State of Texas to close its publicly administered primary elections to party members only, Attorney General Ken Paxton has decided not to defend Texas law.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/E8ZGDSPXMAA6Tbm-2a7cca1e2f53c247b65ff8829e691ab3d0416fcaae6f557a8002d8f53a387d1d.jpg)](https://ivn.us/why-tx-secretary-state-jane-nelson-doing-attorney-general-ken-paxtons-job-2025-10-14/) Texas’s primary system allows all voters to choose between a Republican or Democratic primary ballot. They do not register by party, but their voter file is marked with the party they choose for the remainder of the election cycle. This means, under the law, no registered voter is denied the right to vote in primary elections. The lawsuit brought by the Texas GOP poses a fundamental question: Can a private political party use a publicly funded, state-administered election process while excluding voters who help pay for it? While the GOP says yes, Veterans for All Voters says the answer should be no. “The people of Texas should decide which candidates are viable—not party bosses, national power brokers, or the loudest voices in the room,” said the group’s CEO, Alberto Ramos. > *“Closing publicly funded primaries would be a step in the wrong direction. Texas should keep faith with veterans and everyday Texans who have participated under these rules for decades.”* The Republican Party [filed its lawsuit in September 2025](https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/04/texas-gop-republican-party-closed-primary-elections/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), arguing that the state’s open primary system violates its First Amendment associational rights by allowing non-Republicans to participate in Republican nomination contests. The party said in its complaint that it wanted primaries limited to voters registered with the party, even though Texas does not currently have party registration. In fact, changing the state’s primary system would require either a new voter registration structure or a system in which parties decide for themselves who is “Republican enough” or “Democratic enough” to participate. The case took an unusual turn when Paxton elected not to defend state law. Instead, [he sided with the GOP](https://ivn.us/paxton-concedes-he-has-conflict-interest-texas-primary-lawsuit-2025-10-13/) and asked the court to strike down parts of the Texas Election Code that prevent the party from closing its primaries. To clarify, the job of a state attorney general is to defend the state and its laws in court. However, Paxton has established a reputation of picking and choosing which laws he will defend. This left Nelson defending the state’s current primary system. She [opposed the GOP’s requested consent judgment](https://www.votebeat.org/texas/2025/10/31/secretary-of-state-jane-nelson-opposes-gop-plan-closed-primaries-voter-registration/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), warning that a court-ordered change to the primary rules could create confusion and disrupt election administration. In its request to the court, Veterans for All Voters argues that switching to a system that forces voters to register or affiliate with a party to vote would not only weaken voter rights, but choice and public accountability as well. The group also frames the issue through the lens of Texas veterans. The state has the largest veteran population in the country – totaling 1.5 million. VAV says more than 700,000 of these veterans are independent voters. This group will be harmed if the Texas closes its primaries. “I served with people from every political background, and none of us had to check a party card before defending our nation,” said Scott Shepherd, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran from Austin. > *“If I pay for an election with my tax dollars, I should not be locked out of the public elections that matter most because I don’t belong to a private political party, regardless of which party dominates.”* That message lands in a state where primary elections are more decisive than general elections. In heavily Republican or heavily Democratic districts, the winner of the dominant party’s primary is all but guaranteed to be elected. In other words, a closed primary locks independents out of the only contest that truly matters. The same concern extends beyond congressional and statewide elections. Primaries shape courthouse races, county offices, school boards, city councils, and other local contests that directly affect the individual voter. “Texas leaders should be asking a simple question: do we want candidates competing for voters, or competing for permission from political insiders?” said Ramos. For independent voters, the question is not whether political parties have rights. They do. The question is whether those rights allow parties to take over a taxpayer-funded election process and exclude voters who do not want to join a party. Veterans for All Voters says the court should reject that idea and preserve a system that keeps primary elections open to the voters who fund them, live under their consequences, and have participated under Texas law for decades. Read VAV's full request to the court: ### Democrats and MAGA Are Working Together on THIS (Not What You Expect) URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/democrats-and-maga-are-working-together-on-this-not-what-you-expect-2/ Last updated: 2026-05-21T18:57:02.000Z You'd think Democrats and MAGA Republicans agree on nothing, but they just quietly teamed up to do one specific thing: shut 7 million California independent voters out of the primary. We're naming names. Chad, Cara, and Shawn break down the bipartisan effort to undo California's top-two nonpartisan primary - with Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio and former CA GOP director Ron Nehring leading the charge, joined improbably by Lorena Gonzalez on the left and Carl DeMaio on the right. Politico just covered the [More Choice California Coalition](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us) fighting back, and the crew gets into why "voter confusion" is a manufactured talking point. Chad lays out the 115-year reform fight, Cara walks through which constitutional candidates actually responded to IVP's survey (and which Secretary of State conveniently didn't), and Shawn covers DC's city council quietly defunding Initiative 83 after 73% of voters passed it. **This episode is sponsored by the** [**Independent Voter Project**](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **and produced by** [**Olas Media**](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**. Listen on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **or** [**Apple Podcasts**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ## **Episode Highlights** In this episode of the ***Independent Voter Podcast***, Chad, Cara, Shawn, and Ethan dive into one of the hottest topics in **2024 election reform**: the battle over California's **Top Two nonpartisan primary** system. The **More Choice California Coalition** – [recently featured in **Politico**](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook-pm/2026/05/18/california-top-two-primary-00926536?ref=ivn.us) – is fighting back against a bipartisan effort by Democratic and Republican Party leaders to repeal Top Two and return to **closed primaries**. With over **7 million independent voters** at stake, the hosts argue this is a critical **voter rights** issue that goes far beyond party politics. Political operatives from both sides of the aisle are uniting to suppress **independent voter participation** and regain control of the taxpayer-funded primary process, while More Choice wants to upgrade the system. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) The conversation tackles **election reform** trends gaining momentum across the country, including **ranked choice voting (RCV)**, **open primaries**, and **Top Four and Top Five primary** proposals as solutions to a system that incentivizes zero accountability and hyper-polarization. The hosts discuss how partisan obstruction to voter-backed reform extends beyond California. **Washington D.C.** and **Maine** voters passed landmark **open primary and RCV ballot initiatives** – with DC's Initiative 83 winning **73% of the vote** – only to face roadblocks from entrenched party establishments. [DC Political Machine Refuses to Implement Landmark Voting Rights InitiativeThe DC City Council has refused to fully fund and implement Initiative 83, the semi-open primary and ranked choice voting measure that was approved by 73% of voters in 2024.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/dc-independent-voters-locked-out-2026-primaries-d6bfe76f97344e49855b8c8aa098fd5d31d87c05cb4ea4f315ece140aaafb81e.jpg)](https://ivn.us/we-cant-afford-it-is-never-an-acceptable-excuse-to-deny-independents-a-vote-2026-05-11/) The episode also unpacks results from an [**IVP candidate survey**](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-california-candidates-weigh-in-and-the-responses-might-surprise-you/) of California's statewide contenders, revealing who supports **independent voter rights** and expanded primary access—and who doesn't, including a notable non-response from California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. With the **June primary** fast approaching, the hosts stress the **importance of voter turnout** among **No Party Preference (NPP) voters**, noting their power under a nonpartisan system could reshape outcomes all the way to the **November general election**. Listeners are encouraged to visit **IVN.us**, [**IndependentVoterProject.org**](http://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us), and follow the [**More Choice California**](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us) on **social media** for the latest in **grassroots political reform**, **nonpartisan voting rights**, and **civic engagement** initiatives. ### CA Gov Campaign Without the Smears … or the Commentary URL: https://ivn.us/ca-gov-campaign-without-the-smears-or-the-commentary/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T22:26:28.000Z Our politics have become so negative that, more often than not, it’s difficult to know what any of the candidates are actually like. At IVN, we wondered, “What would the choices look like if each candidate simply made their best case for themselves? No attacks on opponents and no commentary from the peanut gallery.” So, we combed the internet to present, in one place, each California gubernatorial candidate’s “best case,” absent all the attacks and without any editorial comment from us. ## **Matt Mahan** *"I'm the results candidate. I'm the only Democrat in this race who has a track record of challenging the establishment within my own party to deliver meaningful change. We've led the state in reducing crime and made San Jose the safest big city in the country. We've reduced gun violence by 71%. We've reduced homelessness by one-third. We've sped up permitting, reduced fees, and we have thousands of homes under construction. I don't care if you're a Democrat, Republican, independent, Green Party — whatever your political affiliation is — you know that California can do better. We need better policies. We need more accountability from our government. And I'm the only Democrat in this race, the only candidate who shares California's values but understands that the best resistance is delivering results. And that starts with accountability in Sacramento, using our money more effectively. We have doubled in the polls in just the last two weeks. Our polling is very clear — when people hear our message, when they get to know my background, what I've done in San Jose and what I'll do as governor, we shoot up into the top two."* ## Tom Steyer *"I'm running for governor because Californians can't afford to live in California anymore. 15 years ago, I walked away from my business and dedicated my life to fighting for working Californians. In that time, I've taken on corporate interests over and over, and I've never lost. And that's exactly what I expect to do as governor. I'm going to take on these special interests and lower costs for working Californians. I'll build a million homes Californians can afford. I will get single-payer health care because it's not right that families have to choose between food on the table and seeing a doctor, and I'll break up the electric monopolies and reduce electricity costs by 25%. This is the richest state in the richest country in the history of the world. It is unacceptable that so many Californians are struggling to make ends meet. And let me say the powers, the corporate powers that be are spending tens of millions of dollars against me because they know I'm the only one who's threatening their profits. If you want real change in California, I'd be honored to have your vote."* *"I'm a billionaire who's fighting for working people every single day. I'm the billionaire who's willing to tax the other billionaires and himself, who's willing to take on the corporate special interests, who's dedicating himself to driving down costs for working people across this state. I don't think there's any question — I would say follow the money. They are spending tens of millions of dollars against me to try and stop me because they know that I'm the threat to their prosperity, and they're not spending a penny against anyone else on this stage. The truth is they're backing everyone else on this stage. I'm running to bring change, and I'm running to make people's lives better. Healthcare is a right. Free, great public schools. Homes you can afford to buy. That's what I stand for, but I can't do it alone. We have to do it together. I'm asking for your vote because I need you on June 2 and every day after that."* ## **Tony Thurmond** *“The state has done a lot for me as someone who is the son of immigrants who lost both my parents by the time I was 6 years old, raised by a stranger and growing up in a household where I depended on free lunches, food stamps, and government cheese, and all kinds of public assistance. I've always wanted to just give back to the state, and that's what my 18 years as an elected official has meant, and I can't think of a more crucial moment to be providing leadership to the state, and I hope that the voters of this state see it that way as well."* *“California is doing more than any other state to help our kids bounce back from the pandemic. We give more tutoring, longer school days, we've secured $6 billion for broadband. It is heartbreaking to know that in the first days of the pandemic, I discovered that a million kids without access to a computer or the internet — how could they be connected? And so we've secured $6 billion for broadband. We're moving the state in the right direction. We're beginning to see improvements. We've added things that kids will need for their future, like personal finance, so they can learn how to avoid debt. We offer a free preschool for every single 4 year old, $4 billion for mental health, a billion dollars every year for arts. We're putting the tools in place."* ## **Steve Hilton** *"Well, the things that I'm putting forward in the campaign, they're really not ideological. They're almost not partisan. They're just common sense things. $3 gas. Cut your electric bills in half, your first hundred grand tax-free, a home you can afford to buy. I call it making our state affordable. That's the centerpiece of my campaign. I know that Democrats want that, too. We may disagree about some of the ways to get there, but I think that when I'm elected in November, take office in January — you know, we haven't had a Republican governor for 20 years. It's going to be a bit of a shock to the system. And I think, honestly, they will understand that the people voted for change. And so I will expect the legislature to work with me to enact at least some of that. But the real point is that the governor has executive power to do a lot of things through all the bureaucracy and the agencies, things like lowering gas prices you can do by opening up California oil production. So we're not shipping it in from halfway around the world. And that you can do without the legislature. So you can't do everything through executive orders, but a lot you can."* *"We obviously need change in California. The system is not working. I'm the only one here who has never run for office before. I'm not part of this system. These Democrats can't get it done. My plan to make our state affordable is real and serious, and we can get it done if we just vote differently this year."* *“The message to Democrats is this — and independents — 16 years now, we've had one party rule. Democrats running everything, all the statewide offices, the state legislature with a two thirds majority, all the big cities and the counties. It's not healthy to have one party rule for so long. It's good to have a bit of balance in the system.”* *"To be endorsed by the president of the United States is a big deal. And so personally, I do feel proud. For Californians, what that means is that when I'm governor, I'll have a direct line to the White House to be able to get things done that help people on a daily basis in California.”* ## **Katie Porter** *"Affordability is not a political talking point for me. It's been my life's work. I've spent years studying families pushed into bankruptcy by medical debt. I helped write legislation long before I ever thought of running for political office to crack down on credit card fees. I spent years running the statewide foreclosure and eviction prevention program following the subprime mortgage crisis and of course went to Congress and held big pharmaceutical companies and big oil and others who are price gouging Californians to account. I'm a single mom of three kids. I push the shopping cart. I pay for the bills. I want to make sure that these kids can afford to live and stay in California. Anybody who's serious about affordability needs to tackle the biggest expenses families face. That means housing. That is taking the biggest bite out of most people's paycheck. I have a housing background and a proposal to help California build faster, which can take 20% off families' rents and mortgages. I'm also the only candidate who has rolled out a proposal to make child care free. If you've got kids in California, child care might be even bigger than your rent bill. And that's a really big expense. It's key to helping young people stay here in California and making sure people who want to start a family don't feel like they have to leave our state to do that. Child care today in California costs even more than our state tuition. But I have a plan for that, too — to provide for a tuition-free college degree. That's right, no tuition at our UCs, our CSUs, our Cal Polys. California used to have this and it was a major reason that people came to our state and a major reason that we saw mobility for families — that tuition-free degree. It's not enough to just work to reduce student debt or to give people more scholarships. We just need to invest in the people of California. And last but not least, I'm the only Democrat in this race who's talking about bringing down taxes for working families, eliminating California state income taxes for those earning less than $100,000\. This would be a huge help to our seniors on fixed incomes, a big help to younger workers who are getting their first jobs, who are struggling to save, for example, for a down payment, and for all the working-class Californians — people who go to work, sometimes one and two jobs, to wind up making 50 or 60 or $70,000 in a lot of parts of California, really struggling to take care of their family on that. So, we have to be able and willing to have a governor who will actually reduce costs, not just talk about it, but has plans for the government to take action to reduce what families are paying to live here."* *"California needs to make some changes. We have big problems coming at us from Donald Trump, but that does not mean that we don't have our own homegrown challenges. I'm worried about whether or not my kids and Californians generally are going to be able to continue to afford to live in this state. The status quo year after year in California has not made it affordable to live here. We need somebody who will push back on that status quo. I am the only candidate in this race that has not taken corporate contributions, who has a track record of standing up to the very special interests from big oil to insurance to pharmaceutical companies that have made life in California unaffordable. So, every other candidate in this race is running the same kind of race, counting contributions from corporations and going to Sacramento to think as much or more about them as they are about California families. I'm different. I am running a corporate-free campaign and that is because I want every Californian to understand who I will work for, which is the people of California."* ## **Xavier Becerra** *"My parents came to California with $12 in their pocket. They worked really hard. They never had a chance to go to college, but they gave my three sisters and I that very opportunity. And as a result, we got to live the California dream. But too many families today don't believe that California exists today for them. That's why I've been fighting all my public life to make sure that people get to experience what a construction worker and a clerical worker without a college degree had a chance to do. That's why I fought to protect the Affordable Care Act when Donald Trump tried to eliminate it the first time he was president, and I took him all the way to the Supreme Court and we beat him. That's why I had to go at him toe to toe over and over, more than 120 times when I was attorney general, and we beat him. Whether it was saving the DACA program or whether it was making sure that we protected our families against ICE, we fought and we won. We're going to do the same thing again because today it's housing. It's healthcare. People want a fighter. People want someone with experience. I hope to gain your vote."* ## **Antonio Villaraigosa** *"I could tell you I'm an adult in the room. I've said for some time — and 20 years ago, I said, 'Dream with me. We'd make LA the cleanest, greenest big city in the country.' Number one American city in reducing carbon emissions. Number five in the world. I said, 'Dream with me. We'd build a subway to the sea.' That subway, as you all read, just got opened up — the first leg. We had been working on it for 40 years. I said, 'Dream with me. We'd improve our schools.' One out of three schools were failing when I was mayor. By the time I left, a 60% increase in the graduation rate. I said, 'Dream with me. We'd make LA a safer big city.' It was the most violent big city in America when I started. By the time I left, it was the safest big city in America along with New York. We need a doer, a problem solver, someone who's willing to take on the other side, work with them, but also take on our side when they're wrong. I'd be honored to have your support."* ## **Chad Bianco** *"I'm the sheriff of Riverside County, Southern California. I'm the fourth largest sheriff's office in the entire country. 4,500 employees, five jails, contract cities. I have 17 of them. I'm the chief of police of 17 cities, 17 city councils, mayors, all of those things. So, I run a $1.3 billion budget per year in the black because I believe that government should not be spending more money than what it has. I am the only person on this stage that has 33 years of proven public service based on integrity, honesty, character, transparency, and most importantly, proven leadership. California does not deserve — nor should we have — another career politician promising you pie in the sky ideas. What we need is a proven problem solver, a leader who will combat the policies that have ruined most of your lives and make California the dream that we all had."* ### The Gerrymandering Wars Have a Wild Card: Independent Voters URL: https://ivn.us/the-gerrymandering-wars-have-a-wild-card-independent-voters/ Last updated: 2026-05-25T14:51:26.000Z In November 2024, Don Davis did something vanishingly rare in modern American politics: he won a congressional district that voted against his party at the top of the ticket. [NC-1 was one of only 13 congressional districts in the country that voted for Donald Trump in 2024 while simultaneously electing a Democrat to the House](https://www.270towin.com/2026-house-election-find/crossover-districts-2024-election?ref=ivn.us). To Republicans, it was not supposed to go that way. Davis, a moderate Democratic congressman representing the state's 1st District, had been the explicit target of a Republican supermajority’s gerrymandering attempt in the state legislature. The goal was to take what had been a safe Democratic seat since 1883 and make it [a certified toss-up](https://www.cookpolitical.com/house/race/309706?ref=ivn.us) that any Republican should have been able to win in an election that saw President Trump get re-elected. Davis won anyway, by about [one and a half points, in a district that simultaneously voted for Donald Trump by three points](https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/results/north-carolina/us-house-district-1?ref=ivn.us). It was a ticket-splitting electorate that refused to behave the way the mapmakers had modeled. The Republican response was immediate and instructive: [they redrew the map again](https://ncnewsline.com/briefs/north-carolina-republicans-release-proposed-congressional-map-aimed-at-flipping-democratic-seat/?ref=ivn.us). In October 2025, the legislature passed new lines designed to push the 1st District in an even more Republican-friendly direction—a reaction to the ticket-splitting voters that had broken their model. This is the central tension in American redistricting right now. The maps are becoming more precise, more surgical, and more nakedly partisan. And yet, the more precisely a map is drawn to guarantee outcomes, the thinner the margins it must manufacture elsewhere, and the more exposure it creates to the one variable that no mapmaker can reliably model: the independent voter who simply refuses to be sorted and refuses to vote along party lines. ## The Legal Landscape: Map Maker, Map Maker, Make Me A Map The turbo-charged redistricting battles we’re seeing aren’t happening now solely because of political factors. The Supreme Court has, in two critical decisions, handed state legislatures something close to unlimited license to draw maps for partisan advantage. The first decision was [*Rucho v. Common Cause* in 2019](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422%5F9ol1.pdf?ref=ivn.us). Writing for a 5-4 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts held that federal courts have no role in policing partisan gerrymandering. The practice, Roberts acknowledged, is "unjust" and "incompatible with democratic principles." But without a manageable judicial standard to apply, he concluded, it is a political question beyond the reach of Article III courts. The practical effect was a green light: state legislatures could draw maps as aggressively as they chose as long as it was for partisan reasons. It would be “distasteful,” but legal. Another consideration–racial discrimination—became the topic of the second major case, [*Callais v. Landry*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109%5F21o3.pdf?ref=ivn.us), a challenge to the application of the Voting Rights Act in drawing congressional districts. The implications of this ruling are currently playing out across the country, particularly in the South. Louisiana, ordered by courts to create a second majority-Black congressional district after [*Allen v. Milligan*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086%5F1co6.pdf?ref=ivn.us), drew a seat so aggressively shaped that it prompted a new round of litigation over whether the remedy itself was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The Supreme Court's ruling in *Callais* found that the district crossed the line, and that absent clear evidence that redistricting was being driven by an intentional attempt to undermine the power of minority voters, the new lines would be allowed under *Rucho*’s decision allowing partisan gerrymanders.. Together, *Rucho* and *Callais* put us in a new world: there’s nothing the courts can do about partisan gerrymandering—and almost any gerrymander could be framed as driven by partisan aims. The result? Any check on gerrymandering won’t be judicial. ## Episode III: The Redistricting Wars Strike... Back? Running concurrently with the judicial decisions has been a political race between the Republican and Democratic parties to engage in unusual mid-decade redistricting. Generally, such changes to the electoral map happen after the census, but President Trump triggered a round of mid-decade redistricting in 2025 when he urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterm elections. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts cascaded across states. [Gerrymandering Wars Escalate Beyond Texas and California: A National Race to the Bottom?Republicans currently hold a narrow 219 to 212 edge over Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, with four vacancies: three from Democratic members who have died and one from a Republican who has resigned. This is the smallest House majority held by either party in nearly a century. The razo![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ChatGPT-Image-Aug-27--2025--06_10_53-PM_0-80d1e4039d675437072b79fa1b232d64eb8237d7983c4a0d4db8bf3a33c966bf.png)](https://ivn.us/gerrymandering-wars-escalate-beyond-texas-and-california-national-race-bottom-2025-08-27/) Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida all passed new maps, resulting in up to 12 more potential GOP seats in Congress. Ohio conducted its own legally required redraw, adding a few more potential GOP seats. On the Democratic side, California's Proposition 50 established new maps for 2026, and a court-ordered remap in Utah added a Democratic-leaning seat. Virginia attempted to go further, passing a ballot initiative to shift four Republican-held seats toward Democrats. Voters approved it 52% to 48% in April 2026, but the Virginia Supreme Court struck it down, finding that the legislature had made procedural errors in how it placed the question on the ballot. As of May 2026, Republicans will have drawn as many as 15 to 17 new winnable districts for themselves, while Democrats will have drawn five in California plus the court-ordered seat in Utah. [Cook Political Report's Amy Walter estimates the actual net benefit to Republicans is much lower, especially with a political environment favoring Democrats](https://www.independent.com/2026/05/18/partisan-courts-sparked-an-outbreak-of-gerrymandering-in-the-confederacy-democrats-should-still-be-optimistic-about-the-midterms/?ref=ivn.us). But that calculation could shift further, as state legislatures, prompted by the *Callais* ruling, are already considering or have enacted modifications to their maps that eliminate majority-minority districts. ## The Numbers: Independent Voters, Compressed Margins, and The Ticket-Splitting Problem The first thing to understand about the redistricting wars is what they produce mathematically. When a party draws maps to maximize its seat count, it does so by spreading its voters across more districts, creating more majorities that they believe provide enough “padding” to ensure victory. But they only have so many voters to go around, and so bumping up their margins in one district lowers them in others. Safe seats that once generated 20- or 30-point victories get carved into two or three new districts, each engineered to win by 8 or 10\. The map produces more wins, but thinner ones. In North Carolina, the effect is visible across the delegation. Drawn by the Republicans in the state, the 14 Republican-leaning districts hold PVIs ranging from R+1 to R+10, while the three Democrat-leaning districts are at +17, +23, and +24\. Districts from D+3 to R+3 are generally competitive and the ones most likely to flip. The Republican seats mostly sit in the R+7 to R+10 range, but small swings in the electorate, especially in a so-called “wave” year, can put seats in that range into play. This is where the independent voter can create problems for partisan mapmakers. First, political independents constitute the largest political bloc in the United States. In 2023, 43% of American voters claimed that label, and in June 2024, 51% of U.S. adults said they were independents, more than the two major parties combined. Despite independents historically showing up to the polls at lower rates than partisans, 2024 saw a shift in this metric, with 34% of all ballots cast being cast by independents (higher than Democrats at 31%; just lower than Republicans at 35%). In 2020, independents cast just 26% of the ballots nationwide. The surge of 11 million more independent voters to the polls in 2024 compared to 2020 marked a structural shift in who is actually deciding elections. In the four states at the center of the redistricting wars, independent voter shares are substantial and growing. As of September 2024, 38% of North Carolina's 7.6 million registered voters were registered unaffiliated. By early 2026, [that figure had climbed further to 39.64%](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/nc?ref=ivn.us). [Ohio’s number is in the same range, with 37.7% of voters identifying as independent](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/oh?ref=ivn.us). [Georgia sits slightly lower at 30.08%](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ga?ref=ivn.us), and [Texas is at about half that rate at 15.81%](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/tx?ref=ivn.us). The second problem is that independents don't behave in a predictably partisan manner. Unlike most traditional views that these voters lean one way or are secretly partisan, the 2024 cycle produced particularly sharp evidence of that isn’t the case, [according to Edison Research exit polling from a national survey of 22,900 respondents](https://theconversation.com/in-2024-independent-voters-grew-their-share-of-the-vote-split-their-tickets-and-expanded-their-influence-245125?ref=ivn.us). The results? Those independent voters do not sort neatly. Self-identified independent voters were nearly twice as likely to split their ticket as partisans, with 9.7% doing so nationwide. The same voters who handed Trump a popular vote victory in 2024 simultaneously kept Democrats alive in Senate races across swing states. Independents favored Barack Obama in 2008 by 8 percentage points, Trump in 2016 by 4 points, Biden in 2020 by 13 points, and Harris in 2024 by just 3 points—a 10-point swing toward Republicans in a single cycle. From D+8 to R+4 to D+13 to D+3 (with swing-state independents in 2024 breaking for President Trump, bucking the overall trend)—that’s the type of behavior that software cannot model. Party registration data and past vote history capture partisans. They do not capture the independent voter. ## The Check That Wasn't in The Constitution When the 2026 results come in, the coverage will focus on the obvious question: which party controls the House, and by how much? Republicans enter the cycle attempting to defend a narrow majority through an aggressive national redistricting push. Democrats enter it with a historical tailwind (the tendency of the president's party to lose House seats in midterms) and the need to pick up only a handful of seats to regain control of the House. But the more revealing number to watch may not be the topline. It is the margin in individual districts. And, specifically, the degree to which independent voters in redrawn seats deviate from the partisan outcome their new lines were designed to produce. As partisans get spread more evenly between seats to politically gerrymander more wins, and the vote share of independents increases, these new maps may increase the volatility of the outcomes. Independents don’t behave like partisans, and they’re more likely to split their vote between parties or switch from supporting one to the other between elections. In most districts, the independent vote share exceeds the PVI created by the gerrymander, creating a situation where swings in the independent electorate could create major swings in the makeup of the House. This group elected [Trump in ‘24 by breaking for him in the key states of AZ, PA, NC, and GA](https://theconversation.com/in-2024-independent-voters-grew-their-share-of-the-vote-split-their-tickets-and-expanded-their-influence-245125?ref=ivn.us), two of which are on the list of states engaged in the most aggressive gerrymanders. [According to a recent Ipsos poll covered at IVN](https://ivn.us/independent-power-watch-candidates-rise-as-voters-sour-on-both-parties/), 30% of independents say that they plan to sit out the 2026 election. As Democrats and Republicans vie for control of the House (and it’s increasingly looking like the Senate could be in play, as well), and as state legislatures redraw their maps, minimizing the independent vote share is a key way they can increase the predictability of outcomes that they desire. But Independents showing up in record numbers—as they did in the 2024 presidential election—would allow the bloc to potentially shift a number of seats against the gerrymander. And a party looking to either safeguard their districts or put some additional ones into play might find that appealing to independents is a good way to make that happen. The mapmakers drawing out gerrymandered districts are hoping that the electorate is predictably partisan. Independent voters are not. It might be that the best protection against gerrymandering sits not in the courtroom or in the halls of Congress, but with an electorate that isn’t beholden to the parties. ### Embrace the Jungle Primary. We're Back. URL: https://ivn.us/embrace-the-jungle-primary-were-back/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T18:47:06.000Z Maybe you've seen our polls in the New York Times. Maybe you took one. Maybe you've been reading IVN for years. Maybe you've seen some of our viral posts on social media. No matter how you found us, we're entering a new era of Independent Voter News, challenging the two-sided lens of partisan politics from a unique perspective: the voter's. **We've officially launched the new** [**IVN.us**](https://ivn.us/). As of today, you can sign in, discuss articles, follow the writers and topics you care about, and even contribute articles yourself. So, while **entrenched special interests are quietly trying to take voting rights away from independent voters,** we working to give them the voice we all deserve to shape our future, together. **Let's rock,** **Shawn Griffiths** **IVN Editor** --- ## *POPULAR ON IVN* ▶▶▶ [CADEM Chair Supports Repealing Top Two. Here's What He's Not Telling Voters. ](https://ivn.us/cadem-chair-supports-repealing-top-two-heres-what-hes-not-telling-voters/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Steve-Peace.jpg) Steve Peace [ ![California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/California-Democratic-Party-Chair-Rusty-Hicks.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/cadem-chair-supports-repealing-top-two-heres-what-hes-not-telling-voters/) [Undo the Top-Two? California Candidates Weigh In, and the Responses Might Surprise You ](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-california-candidates-weigh-in-and-the-responses-might-surprise-you/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/03/ivp_logo-02.png) IVN Editorial Board [ ![California Primary 2026 Candidate Answers](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/California-Primary-2026_Candidate-Answers.png) ](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-california-candidates-weigh-in-and-the-responses-might-surprise-you/) [Latinos Will Be the Most Powerful Voting Bloc, Once They Start Voting in Primaries ](https://ivn.us/latinos-will-be-the-most-powerful-voting-bloc-once-they-start-voting-in-primaries/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Latino voters California primary elections](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/latino-voters-california-primary-elections.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/latinos-will-be-the-most-powerful-voting-bloc-once-they-start-voting-in-primaries/) [How California Built the Most Voter-Friendly State in America ](https://ivn.us/how-california-built-the-most-voter-friendly-state-in-america-2026-05-14/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/Cara-McCormick-IVN.png) Cara Brown McCormick [ ![California voter choice top two primary](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/california-voter-choice-top-two-primary-election-reform.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/how-california-built-the-most-voter-friendly-state-in-america-2026-05-14/) [Independent Power Watch: Candidates Rise as Voters Sour on Both Parties ](https://ivn.us/independent-power-watch-candidates-rise-as-voters-sour-on-both-parties/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/05/matt-shinners.png) Matt Shinners [ ![Independent Power Watch](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/2026-midterms-independent-candidates-independent-voters.jpg) ](https://ivn.us/independent-power-watch-candidates-rise-as-voters-sour-on-both-parties/) [The 10 Worst Gerrymandered States in the Country ](https://ivn.us/10-worst-gerrymandered-states-country-2025-08-18/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/dJY12ln-_400x400.jpg) Shawn Griffiths [ ![Gerrymandered States Map](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/02/ChatGPT-Image-Aug-18--2025--02_38_38-PM.png) ](https://ivn.us/10-worst-gerrymandered-states-country-2025-08-18/) [Embrace the Jungle: Why California's "Jungle Primary" Is Actually 115 Years of Reform Against Party Machines ](https://ivn.us/embrace-the-jungle-why-californias-jungle-primary-is-actually-115-years-of-reform-against-party-machines-2026-05-01/) By ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w30/2026/02/IMG_5249.png) Chad Peace [ ![California Jungle Primary](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w320/2026/05/california-jungle-primary-top-two-nonpartisan-election.png) ](https://ivn.us/embrace-the-jungle-why-californias-jungle-primary-is-actually-115-years-of-reform-against-party-machines-2026-05-01/) ## *GOING VIRAL* ▶▶▶ You Are The Lion: Embrace the Jungle Primary [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Untitled-design--8-.png)](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYU1n5ejX4l/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fweb%5Fcopy%5Flink&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) "You are the Lion" is a part of IVP and FIVE's public service announcement to inform California's independent "NPP" voters of their voting rights at [YourPrimary.com](http://yourprimary.com/?ref=ivn.us). If a nonpartisan primary is really a "jungle," then **independent voters are the lion** that partisan special interests want to put in a cage. This video has racked up over **5 million views** on Instagram alone. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/jungle-320x50.gif)](https://yourprimary.com/?ref=ivn.us) ## *NEW EPISODE* ▶▶▶ Independent Voter Podcast ## NEW: Join the Conversation Now, when you [sign-up for an account on IVN](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup), you can help frame, change, and inform the discussion. In fact, you can [submit your own news stories](https://ivn.us/publish/), as long as you follow the simple [IVN Etiquette](https://ivn.us/etiquette/). [SIGN UP NOW](https://ivn.us/#/portal/signup) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/omp-320x50-1.gif)](https://openmyprimary.org/?ref=ivn.us) ### RCV Poll: Harris vs Newsom Is the Wrong Question. Voters Want Backup Choices in 2028 URL: https://ivn.us/rcv-poll-harris-vs-newsom-is-the-wrong-question-voters-want-backup-choices-in-2028/ Last updated: 2026-05-20T21:24:28.000Z The 2028 Democratic presidential primary is still years away, but the early polling is already revealing a familiar problem: A crowded field can make voter preferences look flatter, narrower, and more divided than they actually are. A new national poll [from Lake Research Partners](https://fairvote.app.box.com/s/ix9zqpsgmz3q33nnmuvrdzz7epqo70ws?ref=ivn.us), released by [FairVote](https://fairvote.org/?ref=ivn.us) on May 20, tested a hypothetical 2028 Democratic presidential primary using ranked choice voting. While no one has officially entered the race yet, the survey included 13 candidates who are on everyone’s radar. Lake Research Partners surveyed 800 likely Democratic primary voters. The topline results look like the kind of horse-race numbers the media loves: Kamala Harris leads Gavin Newsom 52% to 48% in the final ranked choice simulation, which falls in the poll’s margin of error. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/fairvote-2028-democratic-candidates-poll.png) Image courtesy of FairVote But the more important finding may be what happened before the final round. Only 26% of respondents ranked Harris first. Newsom was the first choice of 17%. Combined, just 43% of Democratic primary voters ranked either of the top two finishers first. Yet [80% ranked Harris and/or Newsom somewhere in their top five.](https://fairvote.org/press/kamala-harris-gavin-newsom-ranked-choice-poll/?ref=ivn.us) This means their preferences still helped shape the final outcome. In a traditional single-choice poll, support for lower-polling candidates is often treated like wasted or symbolic support. Voters are pressured to guess who is viable, abandon their favorite early, or vote strategically to block someone else. Advocates of ranked choice voting assert that the reform changes that dynamic by letting voters support their first choice while still having a say if that candidate falls short. This can shape whether a nominee emerges with broad support or simply survives a fractured vote. ## **Simple, Fair, and Easy: Voters Used Their Rankings** The poll found that Democratic primary voters did not skip their opportunity to rank the candidates. FairVote reports that 89% of respondents ranked at least two candidates, and 69% used all five rankings available to them. Further, support for ranked choice voting in presidential primaries started at 63%, then rose to 70% after voters had the chance to rank candidates. Just 16% opposed using RCV, while 21% were unsure. “The poll shows that ranked choice voting is popular among Democratic voters, and a perfect tool for a crowded 2028 primary," said Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners. > "It can bring unity in a divided field. It fosters competition and choice. It’s a more inclusive system, giving more voters a voice in who the party nominates. Most importantly, voters like ranked choice voting and find it easy." The poll also found that 84% of respondents said ranking candidates was easy. It’s an important figure to consider because one of the most common arguments against ranked choice voting is that it is too complex for voters. Yet, in poll after poll when voters can use it ([from NYC to Alaska](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14329?ref=ivn.us)), none ever show mass confusion. Portland’s 2024 city council elections found that RCV produced “simple and transparent dynamics” in practice and that ballot exhaustion changed outcomes in only 3 of 110 elections studied. To clarify, an “exhausted ballot” happens when a voter’s ranked candidates have all been eliminated, leaving no next choice to count in the remaining rounds. In this poll, Democratic primary voters were presented with a long list of potential presidential candidates, asked to rank them, and overwhelmingly reported that the process was not difficult. ## **The Backup Choices Matter Under RCV** FairVote’s poll also shows why ranked choice polling can reveal more than a standard first-choice survey. Harris and Newsom were not just first-choice leaders. They were also widely acceptable backup choices. FairVote reported that 57% of respondents ranked Harris somewhere on their ballot, while 56% ranked Newsom. The overlap between their voters was substantial but uneven: 54% of Newsom supporters also ranked Harris, while 44% of Harris supporters also ranked Newsom. There were also distinct lanes of backup support. Voters who ranked AOC first, for example, were more likely to rank Harris as a backup choice. Voters who ranked Pete Buttigieg, Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro, and Corey Booker were more likely to rank Newsom as a backup. Newsom and Buttigieg, in particular, shared a clear overlapping voter base. Each served as the most common second or third choice among voters who supported the other. Harris supporters, by contrast, were more divided – splitting among Newsom, Buttigieg, and AOC. Imagine what this kind of information would mean for a presidential nomination process that uses ranked choice voting. Campaigns would be incentivized to compete for more than first-choice votes. They’d have to compete to be the most broadly preferred candidate. ## **Poll Highlights How Ranked Choice Voting Changes the Incentives** There are many names being thrown out for the 2028 presidential election cycle in both major parties. It will be the first open contest in 12 years. Most candidates won’t even announce their exploratory committees until after November. This isn’t about Harris or Newsom having an edge. Plenty can change over the next two years, and the results of the poll were within the margin of error. FairVote asserts that the bigger implication is that ranked choice voting changes what voters, candidates, and parties are incentivized to do. Under a single-choice system, candidates often benefit by defining opponents as unacceptable and pressuring voters to consolidate early. Under ranked choice voting, candidates have an incentive to seek second- and third-choice support from voters who may prefer someone else. That does not eliminate hard campaigning. It does not remove ideological differences. It does not guarantee unity. But it does reward candidates who can build broader coalitions in a fragmented field. For independent voters and reform-minded observers, that is the part worth watching. Presidential primaries are publicly administered elections, but they are still shaped by party rules, media narratives, donor pressure, and strategic voting fears. The more crowded the field, the more those pressures can distort voter choice. The 2028 Democratic primary is nowhere near settled. It is not even formed. But this poll shows why the way voters are asked to choose is just as important as which candidates eventually run. ### Maine Voters Don’t Need a Party Label to Have More Choice on June 9 URL: https://ivn.us/maine-voters-dont-need-a-party-label-to-have-more-choice-on-june-9/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:35:18.000Z On June 9, 2026, Maine voters will select their preferred candidates using ranked choice voting, which was adopted by voters on November 8, 2016, under Question 5. **If you are a citizen of the United States and a resident of Maine when you are in the United States, you have a right to vote in Maine on June 9\.** Even those *not* enrolled in a political *party,* have the right to vote in the primary election on June 9\. This is because Maine adopted semi-open primaries in 2021 and first used them in 2024. Under this primary system, voters registered with a party have to vote in their party's primary. However, independent voters can pick a single party's primary ballot without joining that party. In-person voter registration is available up to and including Election Day. ## **How Does Ranking Work?** Here is the explanation from the May 19 League of Women Voters of Maine newsletter: *Voters rank candidates in the order of their preference: first choice, second choice, third choice, and so on.* *When all the ballots are counted, if one candidate gets more than 50% of the first-choice votes, they win.* *If no candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is considered defeated.* *Voters who ranked the defeated candidate as their first choice have their votes counted for their second choice.* *This is repeated until a candidate has received more than 50% of the vote.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-20-at-7.43.17---AM-1.png) ## **Why Should You Rank Your Vote?** If your first choice is defeated, your ballot will still count for your next highest choice. You can’t hurt your favorite candidate by also ranking the other candidates. Those choices only count if your first choice is defeated. You can’t help your favorite candidate by ranking only one candidate. Your first choice will always count if your favorite candidate has not been defeated. ### CADEM Chair Supports Repealing Top Two. Here's What He's Not Telling Voters. URL: https://ivn.us/cadem-chair-supports-repealing-top-two-heres-what-hes-not-telling-voters/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T21:38:27.000Z I am a lifelong Democrat. I served 22 years in the California Legislature as a Democrat and as California's Director of Finance in a Democratic administration. So let me offer some perspective that the current party chair appears to have forgotten. When Democrats and Republicans teamed up in 2010 to oppose Proposition 14, voters rejected them both. Since then, Democrats have generally prospered over Republicans in California for one straightforward reason: Democrats exercised their right to include No Party Preference (NPP) voters in their Presidential Primaries. Republicans excluded them. The National Republican Party has effectively hamstrung California Republicans on this question by threatening to cut their delegate allocation in half if California adopted a policy allowing NPP voters to participate in their Presidential Primaries. Both parties have lost followers over the years, but Democrats' openness to voters who prefer not to disclose a party affiliation has given them a structural advantage that should not be taken for granted. This week, the Democratic Party chair chose to abandon more than 5 million of those voters to embrace a regressive proposal to roll back voter rights. > I asked [@rustyhicks](https://twitter.com/rustyhicks?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us), chair of CADEM if he would support [@stevenmaviglio](https://twitter.com/stevenmaviglio?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us)'s ballot measure effort to repeal CA's top two primary system > > Hicks said he has been very vocal about concerns and opposition to top two primary system and that it warrants and merits a close scrutiny and… [https://t.co/oOAKdtaJte](https://t.co/oOAKdtaJte?ref=ivn.us) > > — Jenny Jiin Huh 🇰🇷🇺🇸 (@jenny\_huh) [May 19, 2026](https://twitter.com/jenny%5Fhuh/status/2056822791421493383?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) ## **What "Voter Nominated" Actually Means** California's current system is called a "Voter Nominated" primary. That is not branding. It is the precise legal term in the statute, and it is the foundation upon which the United States Supreme Court upheld the law. What Maviglio's initiative would replace it with is a "Party Nominated" system, one in which private political organizations decide which candidates advance. Not voters. Parties. Here is the part neither Hicks nor Maviglio has explained: California does not have voter registration by party. When someone marks a party preference on their registration form, that disclosure is voluntary. It is not an affiliation. It is not membership. The statute calls it a "preference" deliberately. The only provision protecting a party's private right of association allows, but does not require, parties to restrict participation in their own internal contests, like Central Committee races and presidential convention delegates. Not the top-two primary for any public office. [Embrace the Jungle: Why California’s “Jungle Primary” Is Actually 115 Years of Reform Against Party MachinesThe 115-year-old election system that Fox News and Sacramento operatives from both major parties are calling chaotic was specifically designed to stop the kind of party control they’re now trying to claw back![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-jungle-primary-top-two-nonpartisan-election-422a29271f94dcb358f8f04d786957c46d72aad70b8bfaec07e49a0070b07358.png)](https://ivn.us/embrace-the-jungle-why-californias-jungle-primary-is-actually-115-years-of-reform-against-party-machines-2026-05-01/) ## **What Repeal Would Actually Do** Under the current system, private political organizations get publicly funded election infrastructure. The state prints their ballots, runs their polling operations, and administers the entire process. In exchange, nominations stay open to all voters. [Undo the Top-Two? California Candidates Weigh In, and the Responses Might Surprise YouDemocrats, Republicans and Greens for Constitutional Office publicly defend the right of every voter to participate. The Democratic secretary of state is on the record saying she would prefer a return to closed partisan primaries. Most statewide candidates won’t say where they stand.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/California-Primary-2026_Candidate-Answers.png)](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-california-candidates-weigh-in-and-the-responses-might-surprise-you/) Repeal flips that. Parties decide who gets on the ballot before a single public vote is cast, and taxpayers still foot the bill. According to the secretary of state's [April 2026 report](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/ror/60day-primary-2026/complete-ror.pdf?ref=ivn.us), more than 5 million Californians are registered with No Party Preference. That is the largest and fastest-growing segment of the electorate. Under a closed primary, they are out unless a party decides to let them in. This “voter nominated” legal architecture has withstood dozens of court challenges since 2010\. It is not vulnerable. The courts have looked at it repeatedly and affirmed it. Before signing any petition to undo it, voters deserve a straight answer to a simple question: under the old closed primary system, who decides who makes it onto the general election ballot? The answer is not you. ### No, You Don’t Need to Register with a Party to Vote in California’s Primary URL: https://ivn.us/no-you-dont-need-to-register-with-a-party-to-vote-in-californias-primary/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T22:10:30.000Z **SAN DIEGO, Calif.** \- In recent election cycles, a third of registered California voters have participated in the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primaries. This is higher than most states, but there are still noticeable participation gaps, especially among independent voters. Several variables factor into this gap, including the continued reliance candidates have on partisan networks to campaign. They only speak to party members and pretend that independent voters have no direct power in June. They do – a lot of power, if they vote. Another reason is that party operatives are confusing voters registered as “No Party Preference.” There are independent voters in California who believe or are told that they have to join a party in order to vote. This is not true for nearly all elections in California. It is, however, true for presidential primaries because the state maintains a semi-closed primary system for these taxpayer-funded preference elections. **To be clear: California voters can participate in every state primary election in 2026, regardless of their party affiliation (or lack thereof).** This is because elections for state executive, legislative, US House, and US Senate use the nonpartisan Top Two system adopted by voters under Proposition 14 in 2010. Every voter gets the same ballot and can choose any candidate they want. No one is locked out. When Independent Voter posted a series of videos about primary turnout on its Facebook page, the comments revealed a startling reality: Many voters think California’s semi-closed presidential primary rules apply to the 2026 midterm elections. They don’t. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/data-src-image-3e628618-1ce4-4382-ab09-7bd79b5d254a.jpeg) Facebook user Crystal Dawn Plant said, “they wanted me to register with a party.” Voters do not have to register with a party to receive a nonpartisan Top Two ballot. They can be registered however they want and they will still receive the same ballot. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/data-src-image-94894b0c-fba4-4d84-93da-4bf6c4ab7c2e.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/data-src-image-cbeb1960-49d1-4cd4-b88d-7cc96815d8e3.jpeg) The Independent Voter Project (IVP), a co-publisher of IVN, has warned for over a decade now that the way California conducts its presidential primaries is confusing for voters. There are multiple reports and documented proof that it does. The comments left on Independent Voter’s Facebook page just add further evidence. [Yes, the California Presidential Primaries Were Confusing... And ExpensiveSeveral California voter registrars confirmed last week what the Independent Voter Project warned Secretary of State Alex Padilla about well ahead of the 2016 primary elections. As a result of insufficient voter education programs and ballot design problems there was mass voter confusion during the primary, resulting in -- among![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsKaia Los Huertos![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ivn-default-7524051ee25011a9ec1eadd425b4519c37fa252d317d2a06ad02fbd5d8e3439f.png)](https://ivn.us/california-presidential-primaries-were-confusing-expensive/) ## **Here’s How It Works In Presidential Primaries** Under the state’s presidential primary rules, the parties decide whether to allow voters registered as No Party Preference to participate in their nomination process. The Democratic, Libertarian, and American Independent Parties allow it. The Republican, Green, and Peace and Freedom Parties do not. But even Democratic operatives and canvassers tell voters they should go join the party so that they are not given a provisional ballot. On top of navigating a system that says independents can vote here, but not vote there, and if they try to vote in this primary they will be turned away, this adds more confusion. IVP challenged the state’s continued use of semi-closed primaries for presidential contests, going so far as [petitioning the US Supreme Court](https://ivn.us/independent-voter-project-petitions-us-supreme-court-over-californias-alleged-voter/). It even [offered a legislative solution](https://ivn.us/california-legislators-introduce-revolutionary-new-presidential-primary-reform/): a "public ballot" option for voters who didn't want to join a party. This solution was offered with the understanding that the Republican and Democratic Parties reserve the right to decide what votes count in the presidential nomination processes. They can even ignore their own party’s primaries and caucuses (and have in recent elections). [Just A Reminder, The Presidential Nomination Process Has Never Been About DemocracyVice President Kamala Harris is slated to make her speech at the DNC Thursday, in which she will formally accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States. It is a historic moment that has not come without scrutiny.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/53915838050_fe4b16b0e8_k-0cbc3b196a912d9fcc9e0b50936affacd0f9461fb6010392dc21ecc9ca293760.jpg)](https://ivn.us/just-reminder-presidential-nomination-process-has-never-been-about-democracy-2024-08-21/) **Read more about IVP’s efforts** [**here**](https://independentvoterproject.org/legal-work/in-the-courtroom/boydston?ref=ivn.us)**.** Yet, neither the secretary of state nor the legislature acted. As a result, millions of voters are left confused each presidential election cycle. As IVN discovered, this confusion extends into midterm elections because some voters are not receiving the right information. ## **There Are No Strings in 2026 – Only Freedom of Choice** In the 2026 midterms, there are no party primaries. Republicans appear on the same ballot as Democrats, and the major party candidates appear alongside minor party and No Party Preference candidates. When voters review the ballot they receive in the mail (which all registered California voters get), they can choose any candidate, regardless of the voter’s affiliation or that of the candidate. This is the freedom the nonpartisan open primary system offers. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) Republican and Democratic operatives are aligning their interests to repeal the Top Two primary system and go back to a closed system that will lock out millions of California voters. They argue, in part, that Top Two is confusing for voters. But what is confusing about nonpartisan primaries? Voters do not have to navigate party registration requirements or wonder if a party will allow their participation. There are no strings or conditions attached to their eligibility. The only confusion comes when voters are convinced they have to join a party because they voted in the last presidential primary and they were forced to traverse the maze of party restrictions and rules that bar them from meaningful choice. Or because they are being told they have to by campaigns or canvassers. Don’t be led astray. California voters do not have to register with a party to cast a meaningful vote in 2026\. They have the freedom to choose whomever they want in the elections that matter most. ### A Top-Two Democrat Race for Governor? In California, That May Be What a Healthy Democracy Actually Looks Like URL: https://ivn.us/a-top-two-democrat-race-for-governor-in-california-that-may-be-what-a-healthy-democracy-actually-looks-like/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T14:10:49.000Z The state’s nonpartisan Top-Two primary was never designed to guarantee a Democrat-versus-Republican general election. Nor was it designed to prevent two Democrats or two Republicans from advancing to the final round. It was designed to let all voters decide who advances. And when you look at California’s newly released voter registration numbers, the possibility of a Democrat-versus-Democrat general election in 2026 looks less like a flaw in the system than a fairly predictable outcome. According to the California Secretary of State’s latest registration report, Democrats account for 10.4 million registered voters, or 45 percent of the electorate. Republicans account for 5.8 million voters, or 25 percent. Meanwhile, voters registered with No Party Preference or a minor party number account for almost 7 million, or more than 30 percent of the electorate. Independents and minor-party voters now outnumber Republicans in California. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-18-at-10.25.56---AM.png) [60-DAY REPORT OF REGISTRATION](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/ror/60day-primary-2026/complete-ror.pdf?ref=ivn.us) April 3, 2026, for the June 2, 2026, Statewide Direct Primary Election Those numbers really matter because they expose how artificial much of the recent panic over California’s Top-Two system has become. Over the past several months, Democratic political operatives and consultants managed to spin up [an entire media narrative](https://ivn.us/california-dems-push-a-two-republican-panic-their-own-poll-contradicts-their-message-2026-05-06/) that California could somehow end up with a Republican-versus-Republican general election for governor. Political reporters eagerly chased the story after a handful of early polls showed Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco near the top of the field. But the same polls also showed enormous numbers of undecided Democratic voters. [As California Dems Push a Two-Republican Panic, Their Own Poll Contradicts Their MessageNeither of the two Republican candidates in the governor’s race, Hilton or Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, have gained ground as more undecided voters make their pick in the race or settle on a candidate.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-governor-candidates-polling-1ed9f0712cb430b6c9ba3f145a24a57fe2065fc36a47de36ef21a793cdbf0f91.jpg)](https://ivn.us/california-dems-push-a-two-republican-panic-their-own-poll-contradicts-their-message-2026-05-06/) In a state where Republicans represent just 25 percent of registered voters and nearly 75 percent of voters are not Republicans, the idea that two Republicans were actually going to lock Democrats out of the general election was always politically implausible. Nevertheless, the Republican operatives went right along with the false narrative being created by the Democrats, knowing full well that the only way a Republican will wind up in the Governor’s office is if voters only have two Republicans to choose from. The hysteria was useful to all of the insiders for another reason, though. It created a pretext for longtime opponents of the Top-Two primary to revive efforts to dismantle it altogether. One of the loudest voices pushing the Republican-versus-Republican narrative was Democratic consultant Steven Maviglio, who has opposed Top-Two for years and used the polling frenzy to promote a ballot initiative to undo the system entirely. Party insiders in both parties have always been uncomfortable with Top-Two. The system takes power away from political organizations and gives it directly to voters. Under the old partisan primary structure, nearly 7 million voters were locked out. This gave party leaders far more control over who reached the general election. Candidates only needed to survive low-turnout partisan primaries dominated by highly ideological voters, consultants, activist groups, and party machinery. Top-Two disrupted that arrangement by placing every voter in the same election, regardless of party registration. That loss of control still drives political insiders like Maviglio crazy. Of course, they prefer systems where party institutions act as gatekeepers. Top-Two weakens that gatekeeping power by allowing independents and crossover voters to shape who advances to the November ballot. And in California, those voters matter enormously. If more than 45 percent of Californians are Democrats, it should not be surprising that many Democratic voters may want two Democrats to choose from in November. If Republicans represent just one-quarter of the electorate, they are not automatically entitled to one of the two spots in the final election simply because they are one of the two major parties. And California’s nearly 7 million independent and minor-party voters may decide they prefer a Democrat-versus-Republican race or a Democrat-versus-Democrat race. That decision belongs to voters, not party officials. Critics often argue that a Democrat-versus-Democrat general election denies voters a “real choice.” But California Democrats frequently disagree sharply on housing, taxes, labor regulation, public safety, education policy, energy development, and the role of government itself. Those differences carry real consequences for voters. More importantly, a nonpartisan primary does not exist to preserve partisan symmetry. It also does not exist to produce so-called “moderates.” It exists to reflect voter preferences. So if a party representing 25 percent of voters cannot elect one of its candidates as one of the top two finishers in an election open to all voters, that is not evidence that the system failed. It is evidence the electorate made a choice. California adopted the Top-Two primary to expand participation and ensure that the candidates advancing to the general election are those with the broadest support across the electorate, not simply the strongest within partisan silos. A Democrat-versus-Democrat general election is not evidence that democracy is breaking down. It may be evidence that California’s democracy is working exactly as voters intended. Elections should be decided when the most people vote. That’s what nonpartisan primaries favor. It’s not about political parties, or candidates, or favoring one philosophy over another. It’s about empowering voters. By now, we should not be surprised when we see the same polarizing players agreeing on only one thing — they simply oppose voters making their own choices. Nothing is perfect. But Top Two has empowered every voter in California. Can we make it better? Perhaps. But not by suppressing voter rights and returning to a system that is controlled by political party bosses. *Dan Howle is Chairman of Independent Voter Project. Steve Peace is the author of California's Nonpartisan Top-Two Primary.* ### California’s Top Two Primary Needs an Upgrade, Not a Repeal URL: https://ivn.us/californias-top-two-primary-needs-an-upgrade-not-a-repeal/ Last updated: 2026-05-20T14:22:30.000Z *Editor's Note: This op-ed written by* [*FairVote*](https://fairvote.org/?ref=ivn.us) *CEO Meredith Sumpter and* [*Cal RCV*](https://www.calrcv.org/?ref=ivn.us) *Executive Director* Marcela Miranda-Prieto[*originally published*](https://therenovator.substack.com/p/californias-top-two-primary-isnt) *on The Renovator substack. It has been republished on IVN with permission from the authors.* Democrats in California are understandably frustrated and afraid that they could be locked out of November’s general election due to the state’s “top two” all-candidate primary. Change may be coming – but it’s important to get it right. Last week, a Democratic strategist launched a [ballot initiative](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/us/california-primary-rules-change-democrats.html?ref=ivn.us) campaign to repeal the top-two primary and revert to traditional party primaries. Though any California ballot measure faces a long and expensive road to passage, supporters are hoping to get the initiative on the ballot in 2028\. This is not the way to go. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) Major-party consultants and donors may jump to support such a measure. But passage would be a big loss for California voters. The state’s top-two primary has been good for California and its democracy. It has introduced [more competition](https://www.uniteamericainstitute.org/research/californias-top-two-primary-the-effects-on-electoral-politics-and-governance?ref=ivn.us), fostered greater choice, and given every voter a voice in both rounds of state and congressional elections. Instead of turning back the clock, California should continue its history of pro-voter reform and build on the top-two system – by adding ranked-choice voting to its elections. Ranked-choice voting would address a very real – if rare – issue. California’s top-two primary has a lockout problem, and it’s affected [Democrats](https://ballotpedia.org/California%27s%5F31st%5FCongressional%5FDistrict%5Felections,%5F2012?ref=ivn.us) and Republicans alike. Both parties havebeen locked out of elections in the 15 years that the reform has been used. This year’s governor’s race has been the clearest and most high-profile example. For months, [polls](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/california-governor-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) showed Republicans – conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco – leading the way. It’s not that Republicans have had a sudden resurgence in the Golden State. President Donald Trump’s approval rating sits at [37 percent](https://intel.morningconsult.com/mc-content/trackers/donald-trump-approval-rating-by-state?ref=ivn.us). Instead, it’s a math problem: Two Republicans shared the small GOP vote, while eight serious Democratic candidates divided a larger electorate into smaller slices. Party leaders have been unable to nudge candidates at the bottom of the polls out of the race – which is understandable, since elections are supposed to be decided at the ballot box, not in back rooms. As the race has gone on, the possibility of a Democratic “lockout” has grown less likely – but longtime critics of the open primary are cynically seizing the opportunity nonetheless. It’s rare to get chairs of the state’s [Democratic](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/01/california-democrats-republicans-governor?ref=ivn.us) and [Republican](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/us/california-primary-rules-change-democrats.html?ref=ivn.us) parties on the same page about anything: But both agree that the voter-first reform should go. But that’s no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater and ignore the clear benefits of the top-two primary. RCV solves the problem and makes the system even stronger. Ranked-choice voting is an important tool in any race. It lets people vote for who they believe in – not just who they think can win. That’s because voters can rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third, and so on. It works like an instant runoff: The lowest-performing candidates are eliminated one by one – by voters. If your top choice remains, your vote stays with them. If not, your second choice comes into play. No one has to drop out, or be shoved aside when there are multiple candidates in the field. Adopting RCV would eliminate the central fear driving this ballot measure and Democratic panic this cycle – that too many similar candidates cancel one another out. With ranked choice, voters can hear from all the candidates, then support their favorite without worrying that they’ll accidentally help elect someone from the other party. California could use RCV in the primary to narrow the field to the two most popular candidates. Even better, the state could advance the top four finishers – instead of just two – to a November election that uses ranked choice to elect a majority winner. [Undo the Top-Two? California Candidates Weigh In, and the Responses Might Surprise YouDemocrats, Republicans and Greens for Constitutional Office publicly defend the right of every voter to participate. The Democratic secretary of state is on the record saying she would prefer a return to closed partisan primaries. Most statewide candidates won’t say where they stand.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/size/w1200/2026/05/California-Primary-2026_Candidate-Answers.png)](https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-california-candidates-weigh-in-and-the-responses-might-surprise-you/) This top-four policy was [developed](https://fairvote.app.box.com/v/top-two-in-wa-state?ref=ivn.us) [by FairVote](https://fairvote.org/report/fixing-top-two-in-california/?ref=ivn.us) in the early 2010s and adopted in Alaska in 2020\. The system gives voters more choices in the general election, and makes it far less likely that one party will get locked out. In [Alaska’s 2022 gubernatorial race](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5Fgubernatorial%5Fand%5Flieutenant%5Fgubernatorial%5Felection,%5F2022?ref=ivn.us), for example, the general election ballot featured two Republicans, one Democrat, and one independent. [Voters say](https://www.sightline.org/2026/04/07/five-ways-election-reform-has-revamped-alaska-politics/?ref=ivn.us) they like the system and find it easy; since implementation, Alaska legislators have been more likely to work across the aisle and have even formed bipartisan governing caucuses in both the state Senate and House. In California, a similar system would probably make space for both Democrats and Republicans in the general election for governor. Either way, Californians would get the benefits of an inclusive primary while fixing the loophole that allows narrowly favored plurality winners to move forward. And with ranked choice, the entire campaign could be different. Candidates could discuss immigration, housing costs, and education – instead of which candidates should drop out and how soon. A crowded field would no longer be seen as a threat to manage but as a normal feature of a competitive election. Voters – not insiders or wealthy donors – would decide which candidates rise to the top. California has spent decades working to make its elections more inclusive and representative. Ranked-choice voting would build on that tradition, by allowing the state to keep a wide-open primary while ensuring that the candidates who advance and win have demonstrated real majority support. Our democracy has lots of problems – but too much choice should never be among them. ### Undo the Top-Two? California Candidates Weigh In, and the Responses Might Surprise You URL: https://ivn.us/undo-the-top-two-california-candidates-weigh-in-and-the-responses-might-surprise-you/ Last updated: 2026-05-25T15:56:00.000Z On May 8, Democratic political operative Steve Maviglio filed paperwork to repeal Proposition 14, the 2010 voter-approved measure that opened California’s primary elections to every voter regardless of party. Within four days, former California Republican Party chair Ron Nehring and Reform California chair Carl DeMaio, a vocal supporter of the Trump administration, publicly endorsed the repeal. DeMaio committed funding and 18,000 signature-gathering volunteers. An unusual bedfellow, Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, told the [*New York Times*](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/us/california-primary-rules-change-democrats.html?ref=ivn.us) that organized labor would “likely support” the effort to close primaries as well. This is nothing new. California’s two major political parties have lined up against nonpartisan primaries for the entire history of the system. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) In 2010, both the California Democratic Party and the California Republican Party officially opposed Proposition 14\. Then-CDP chair John Burton [said](https://eastcountymagazine.org/tag/proposition14/?ref=ivn.us) the measure would “increase the costs of political campaigns in California.” Then-CRP chair Ron Nehring [said](https://eastcountymagazine.org/tag/proposition14/?ref=ivn.us) it would “limit voter choice.” Every ballot-qualified party in the state opposed the measure. Voters approved it anyway with 54% of the vote. In 2019, Governor [Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 212](https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/SB-212-Veto-Message.pdf?ref=ivn.us), a bill that would have allowed general law cities, counties, and school districts to use ranked choice voting. The bill had passed the Assembly 56-18 and the Senate 28-8\. Newsom blocked it anyway. In March 2026, current California Democratic Party chair Rusty Hicks [went on the record](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/01/california-democrats-republicans-governor?ref=ivn.us) saying the Top Two primary “needs to be revised or repealed” and that it “could be done as early as 2026.” Less than two months later, a Democratic operative filed the repeal initiative Hicks had publicly called for. *“It was extremely scary to envision the November ballot for governor with Republicans on it,” Maviglio said.* Hicks went so far as to issue an [open letter](https://cadem.org/open-letter-to-the-democratic-candidates-for-governor/?ref=ivn.us) urging lower-polling Democrats to exit the California governor’s race. Some took offense. "It's really hard to sit here and be told you should get out of the race when, OK, we're Democrats, I thought we believed in having choice," former Assemblyman Ian Calderon[ told a Sacramento television station](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/california-democrats-clash-party-chair-letter-gov-race/?ref=ivn.us) before dropping out himself. Calderon was the first millennial elected to the California Legislature and the youngest Majority Leader in state history. ## **The Voting Rights of 6.9 Million Registered Voters in California** According to the California Secretary of State’s April 2026 registration report, voters registered with No Party Preference or a minor party total [6,946,099](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/ror/60day-primary-2026/complete-ror.pdf?ref=ivn.us), or 30.06% of all registered voters. This is a larger bloc than the entire registered Republican Party in the state, which sits at 25%. If Proposition 14 is repealed, those 6.9 million voters lose access to the primary ballot unless each political party chooses to invite them. If they are registered with a minor party, they can only vote in that party's primary – if it has one. Under the closed partisan primary system that existed before 2010, parties decided whether independent voters could participate. The state did not. Anyone running for statewide office in California should be willing to say where they stand on that question. It affects the voting rights of more Californians than are registered with the Republican Party. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/data-src-image-9bf55ff9-026e-4559-a98e-e9b178cadf0e.png) [60-DAY REPORT OF REGISTRATION](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/ror/60day-primary-2026/complete-ror.pdf?ref=ivn.us) April 3, 2026, for the June 2, 2026, Statewide Direct Primary Election ## **The Independent Voter Survey on Voting Rights** The Independent Voter Project sent a four-question survey to every candidate for California attorney general, governor, lieutenant governor, and secretary of state. Two of those questions go to the heart of the current fight: ***Do you support the right of every voter, regardless of party preference, to participate in every publicly funded election, including primary elections?*** ***Would you support expanding California voter choice by advancing the top four candidates to the general election and allowing voters to rank them in order of preference?*** IVP’s position has been consistent for more than 15 years. If candidates or voters want more than two choices in November, the answer is to move forward with a Top Four primary with ranked choice voting – not to move backward to a closed system. IVP made multiple efforts to contact all California candidates. However, given the importance of this issue to the voting rights of every Californian, IVN will update this article if any candidate publicly takes a position. What follows is where each candidate stands, based on the survey response and the public record. ## **Candidates for Governor of California on The Right to Vote** Sixty-one candidates appear on the June 2 primary ballot. ### **On record in support of the nonpartisan primary and more voter choice** **Matt Mahan**, the San Jose Mayor, responded to the IVP survey and answered yes to both questions. He has built his campaign on a record of delivering results in San Jose and a willingness to challenge his own party when it does not. He is the only candidate in the race to publicly commit to defending every voter’s right to participate in the primary. ### **On record supporting ranked choice voting** **Tom Steyer**, Democratic donor and former presidential candidate [came out in strong support for California's statewide adoption of ranked choice voting](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYkWNEdMuEv/?ref=ivn.us) on May 21\. "Let me say this, I don't think I can stay married unless I support ranked choice voting. Let me say this too. What you just said, look, in California, Catherine always says to me, Tom, you keep being shocked by the same things, when are you going to start realizing the way the world works? I've been shocked at how much the Democrat establishment and the Republican Establishment are absolutely, are absolutely in it for themselves. I've been shocked. I've been shocked, but it's true." And so I want to make sure, look there's a million things we need to change, a million things, not just ranked choice voting, to make this a fairer state in terms of how we elect people. But it's going to be absolutely critical for somebody to break this log jam. For somebody...I think it's amazing. People call me a populist, and I'm like does that mean I'm working for the people? You say that like it's a bad thing. And I really mean it. This system needs to change. This system needs to change. The people need to get their voice heard." ### **On record opposing the nonpartisan primary** **Steve Hilton**, the former Fox News host and Republican gubernatorial candidate, has publicly framed California’s Top Two primary as the problem. In a February 2024 episode of his show titled [“The Problem with California’s Jungle Primary,”](https://stevehiltonshow.com/the-problem-with-californias-jungle-primary/?ref=ivn.us) the show’s description on Hilton’s own website states the episode discusses “how California’s jungle primary has created a one-party system.” Hilton did not respond to the IVP survey. ### **No public position on the record** **Xavier Becerra**, former US Secretary of Health and Human Services and former California Attorney General; **Chad Bianco**, Riverside County Sheriff; **Katie Porter**, former US Representative; **Tony Thurmond**, State Superintendent of Public Instruction; and **Antonio Villaraigosa**, former Mayor of Los Angeles, all declined to respond to the IVP survey. None has publicly stated whether they would defend or repeal California’s nonpartisan primary system. ## **Candidates for Lieutenant Governor of California on The Right to Vote** Sixteen candidates appear on the ballot. ### **On record in support** **Fiona Ma**, the current State Treasurer, served in the State Assembly from 2006 to 2012, including as Speaker pro Tempore. She responded to the IVP survey and answered yes to both questions. Her support for putting independent voters’ rights into the state constitution is the position of someone who has spent her career inside California’s statewide elected leadership. **Michael Tubbs**, the former Mayor of Stockton, responded "Yes" to every voter's right to participate in publicly funded elections, including the primary. He said he was "Unsure" about a Top Four system. He has built his political identity around expanding democratic participation, and his survey response is consistent with that record. **Jeyson Lopez** responded yes to both questions. He added a comment to the questionnaire, saying, "Any legislation that exposes the American voter to participate in their constitutional right should be embraced!" **Gloria Romero,** former state senator and majority leader, did not respond to the survey but was an early supporter of Proposition 14\. She is a Republican who previously served in the state legislature as a Democrat. ### **On record opposing** None of the five leading candidates is publicly on record opposing the nonpartisan primary system. ### **No public position on the record** **Ebie Lynch** responded to the IVP survey but said she was "Unsure" in response to both questions; **Josh Fryday**, who currently serves as California’s Chief Service Officer in Governor Newsom’s cabinet; **Janelle Kellman**, former Mayor of Sausalito; and **Oliver Ma** did not respond to the IVP survey. None has publicly stated a position on whether every Californian should have a right to participate in California’s primary elections. ## **Candidates for Attorney General of California on the Right to Vote** Three candidates appear on the ballot, and only one has responded to the IVP survey. Only one candidate has stated a position on the right of every voter to participate in California’s primary elections. ### **On record in support** None of the three candidates is publicly on record supporting the nonpartisan primary system. ### **On record opposing** **Michael Gates**, Republican Deputy United States Attorney and former Huntington Beach City Attorney, said he does not support the right of every voter, regardless of party, to participate in all publicly-funded elections. He did not say "No" outright to a Top Four system, but said he was "Unsure." ### **No public position on the record** **Rob Bonta**, the Democratic incumbent appointed by Governor Newsom in 2021, and **Marjorie Mikels**, Green Party candidate. The attorney general is the state’s chief law enforcement officer and the official most likely to be involved in any legal challenge to either the repeal or to a future Top Four reform. Voters only have the public position of one of the candidates in this race on whether every Californian has the right to participate in a primary election – and it is a "No." ## **Candidates for Secretary of State of the Right to Vote** Four candidates appear on the ballot. ### **On record in support** **Don Wagner**, the Republican candidate, is an Orange County Supervisor and former State Assemblymember. He responded "Yes" to every voter's right to participate in publicly funded elections, including the primary. He said he was "Unsure" about a Top Four system. His public support for the right of every voter to participate cuts directly across the lines that party operatives on both sides are trying to draw in the current repeal fight, given that the California Republican Party officially opposed Proposition 14 in 2010. **Michael Feinstein**, the Green Party candidate and former Mayor of Santa Monica, also responded "Yes" to both questions. The California Green Party officially opposed Proposition 14 in 2010\. Feinstein is the co-founder of the California Green Party and has publicly supported a Top Four primary with ranked choice voting for years. > I'm on the ballot for Secretary of State, promoting a representative multi-party democracy for California, w/proportional representation, ranked-choice voting, clean money/public financing of elections, election integrity w/results we can trust/verify, and voting rights for all. [pic.twitter.com/Lj0nIdqDij](https://t.co/Lj0nIdqDij?ref=ivn.us) > > — Feinstein4SoS (@Feinstein4SoS) [April 18, 2026](https://twitter.com/Feinstein4SoS/status/2045598070067585499?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) ### **On record opposing** **Shirley Weber**, the Democratic incumbent and California’s current chief elections officer, has publicly stated she would prefer a return to closed partisan primaries. In an October 2022 interview with [*CalMatters*](https://calmatters.org/politics/2022/10/shirley-weber-secretary-of-state-election/?ref=ivn.us), in a section titled “Returning to partisan primaries,” Weber said the Top Two experiment “has failed.” She told *CalMatters*: “What it has done is that if you’re not a Democrat or Republican, you can see that you’re not going to make it to the fall.” She continued: “If we went back to the partisan system, it would not be as bad as where we are. Period.” That is the official who currently administers California’s nonpartisan primary, on the record, favoring a return to the system that would have excluded 6.9 million California voters today if Proposition 14 had not passed in 2010\. Weber did not respond to the IVP survey. ### **No public position on the record** **Gary Blenner**, the second Green Party candidate, did not respond to the survey and has not publicly stated a position. The two candidates for secretary of state willing to publicly defend the right of every voter to participate in the primary for the office that runs California’s elections are a Republican and a Green, both breaking with their own parties’ institutional history. The Democratic incumbent currently holding that office told the Los Angeles Times just last week, “I did not like the open primary,” and supports the Maviglio effort to return to a closed system that locks out independent voters. ## **Incumbent Democrats Breaking with the Party Chair to Defend Independent Voting Rights** Not every Democrat in California has aligned with their party chair’s position. Former State Senator **Steve Glazer**, a Democrat who served in the State Senate from 2015 to 2024 and who built his career on independence from party leadership, [publicly defended](https://x.com/steve%5Fglazer/status/2056159549082771677?ref=ivn.us) California’s Top Two primary system on X. Glazer’s public position cuts against the position taken by CDP Chair Rusty Hicks. > Perfect. The two dominant political parties who are controlled by extreme elements want to undo the Top Two political reform that handcuffs their power. . . In the name of good government. Good Grief! [@joegarofoli](https://twitter.com/joegarofoli?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [@JeremyBWhite](https://twitter.com/JeremyBWhite?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [@LATSeema](https://twitter.com/LATSeema?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [https://t.co/sCuc2bVejt](https://t.co/sCuc2bVejt?ref=ivn.us) > > — Steve Glazer (@Steve\_Glazer) [May 17, 2026](https://twitter.com/Steve%5FGlazer/status/2056159549082771677?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The IVP survey was sent to candidates running for California constitutional offices. It was not sent to sitting members of the State Assembly. Three of them reached out anyway. Assemblymembers [**David Alvarez**](https://alvarez.asmdc.org/?ref=ivn.us) (D-San Diego), [**Mike Gibson**](https://gipson.asmdc.org/?ref=ivn.us) (D-Carson), and [**Anamarie Avila Farias**](https://avilafarias.asmdc.org/biography?ref=ivn.us) (D-Martinez) reached out to the Independent Voter Project to make clear their support for California’s nonpartisan primary system. > ***“Protecting primaries means protecting voters,” said Avila-Farias. “Closed primaries shut people out and silence independent voices. We should be expanding participation, not restricting it. Protect voter choice. Protect democracy.”*** Three sitting Democratic leaders and a former Democratic state senator publicly siding with cross-partisan reform while their state party chair has openly called for repeal of the nonpartisan primary is courageous. It is a reminder that the Maviglio repeal effort does not speak for every Democrat in California. ## **A New “More Choice” Coalition Emerges to Defend and Advance the Right to Vote** On May 12, [More Choice California launched](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) as a cross-partisan coalition to defend the existing nonpartisan primary and advance a top-four primary with ranked-choice voting in the general election. The More Choice coalition includes former Republican legislators, former Democratic administration officials, nonpartisan reformers, Latino political analysts, ranked-choice voting organizers, veterans’ advocates, grassroots leaders, and third-party voices. The Independent Voter Project leads it. The coalition’s position is the same one IVP has held since drafting Proposition 14 more than fifteen years ago. If candidates and voters want more options in November, the path forward is to a top-four with ranked-choice voting. Not backward to a closed system that locks out the 6.9 million Californians who are not registered with either major party. The candidates who went on the record in this survey have placed themselves on the side of every voter’s right to participate. The candidates who said nothing have left voters guessing on a question that affects the right to vote of more Californians than are registered Republicans. Readers who want to support the right of every voter to participate in California’s primary elections can visit [More Choice California](https://getmorechoice.org/join?ref=ivn.us). ### Independent Power Watch: Candidates Rise as Voters Sour on Both Parties URL: https://ivn.us/independent-power-watch-candidates-rise-as-voters-sour-on-both-parties/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T15:38:47.000Z This is the first installment to a weekly update that tracks major independent candidates, campaigns, voters, and reforms, covering updates in races across the US, including polling, fundraising, and major news stories. *Author's Note: If you know of a candidate running on an independent line that you think should be included, please reach out to matt@ivn.us.* ### **Nebraska** [After a weird Democratic primary that saw a candidate who promised to drop out should she win taking the victory](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-a-mess-and-we-have-our-voting-system-to-thank/), Nebraska appears headed for an independent vs. Republican Party rematch. Dan Osborn, after hitting nearly 47% of the vote in his race against Sen. Deb Fischer last cycle, is set to be the main opponent of incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts. Osborn’s 2024 campaign was the most successful independent Senate run in Nebraska history, and [polling by left-leaning firm Tavern](https://www.tavernresearch.com/research-and-writings/nebraska-senate-poll?ref=ivn.us) has Osborn up 5% over the incumbent (with 12% undecided). Independents in that poll supported Osborn by a 40-point margin (62-20). Unlike most independents, because of his recent and prior campaign, his name recognition starts relatively high in the state. This campaign will likely be the most-watched independent campaign this cycle. [Nebraska’s Senate Race Is a Mess – And We Have Our Voting System To ThankHow first-past-the-post voting turned a primary election into accusations of planted candidates, strategic surrenders, and a Democrat who ran to withdraw.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsMatt Shinners![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/dan-osborn-nebraska-us-senate-race-fe8859fa5b3ab314a7de5d728237feb59ca1fd4014c8efd75febb4dbdc38ec70.jpg)](https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-a-mess-and-we-have-our-voting-system-to-thank/) ### **Montana** Independent and former University of Montana president Seth Bodnar is running for the Senate seat currently held by Sen. Steve Daines. Based on campaign filings, Bodnar has already raised well over $1 million, the most raised by an independent in Montana’s history. Incumbent Daines decided not to run for re-election at the last minute, endorsing Kurt Alme as his successor. Primaries will be held June 2 to determine Bodnar’s major-party opponents in November. Bodnar needs to collect 13,327 signatures to get his name on the ballot; his campaign believes they’ll reach that threshold by the end of May. ### **South Dakota** Brian Bengs has officially qualified for the November ballot in the South Dakota Senate race. The candidate describes himself as “Lt Col (Ret) USAF, USN Vet, Former Wind Cave National Park Ranger, Husband & Father now running for U.S. Senate to stand up for people who work for a living.” The [Secretary of State announced his qualification at the end of April](https://sdsos.gov/about-the-office/assets/Press%20Releases/BengsValidationPressRelease.pdf?ref=sdnewswatch.org). ### **Idaho** Todd Achilles was a registered Republican and represented a Boise district as a Democrat in the Idaho House. Now, hitting the trifecta, he’s running for Senate as an Independent. Party primaries will happen Tuesday, May 19\. He is likely to face Republican incumbent Jim Risch and Democratic candidate David Roth. ### **Mississippi** Mississippi will see a three-way race for its Senate seat this year. Ty Pinkins was the Democratic candidate for Senate in 2024\. He lost to incumbent Roger Wicker by a 25-point margin. He has since left the Democratic Party and is running for Mississippi’s other Senate seat in 2026. Mississippi’s party primaries were held in early March. He will face off against Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic candidate Scott Colom. ### **California** Rep. Kevin Kiley left the Republican Party earlier this year and announced he was running for re-election in the new California 6th District as an independent. The district is rated Solid Democratic by Cook and Likely Democratic by Sabato’s Crystal Ball. [California Nonpartisan Primary is Throwing a Wrench in the Democratic Party’s Prop 50 Gerrymandering EffortThe national story is about which party gains seats. However, this obscures the local impact. Even if temporary, many voters in California will not have the same voting power they had in previous election cycles.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-redistricting-prop-50-primary-election-4945d4d8e35b1f1deac1a12d74ca9813ac15edfeef5b98304c9440dba52b31ee.png)](https://ivn.us/california-redrew-its-congressional-map-but-are-voters-being-told-what-changed-under-their-feet-2026-05-12/) California’s nonpartisan primary system sees Kiley running against 6 other candidates; 5 Democrats and 1 Republican. He has a significant cash-on-hand advantage ($2.1 million vs. just under $200k for the next highest candidate, as of the filing at the end of March). Kiley has recently made the news through his votes on two pieces of legislation. First, he was the final sign-off on a discharge petition to force a vote on additional aid to Ukraine. Second, he recently introduced a bill that would ban mid-cycle redistricting. The primary for this seat will be held on June 2. ### **Michigan** Former Democratic mayor of Detroit Mike Duggan announced in 2024 he would run for governor as an independent. This race will be a three-way race, with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson expected to win the Democratic primary, and former Attorney General Mike Cox expected to win the Republican primary (both will be held on August 4). [Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan Drops Party Affiliation to Launch Independent Bid for Michigan GovernorDetroit Mayor Mike Duggan has long been registered as a Democrat. But in 2026, he will run for governor in Michigan as an independent.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/10750270744_50635ca654_k-5638053afe91c0cab5126a69baf968ade1be26572b66c8de46093a70e1e791bc.jpg)](https://ivn.us/detroit-mayor-mike-duggan-drops-party-affiliation-launch-independent-bid-michigan-governor/) In [recent polling](https://mirs-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/2563-MIRS-MITCHELL%20MI%20Poll%20Press%20Release%205-13-2026%20425PM%5FA.pdf?ref=ivn.us), Duggan is seeing double-digit support, hovering just under 15% depending on the candidates who come out of the major party primaries. His fundraising has also kept pace with the major party candidates ($4-$5m range for the expected winners). ## Polling Shows Nearly a Third of Independent Voters Plan to Sit Out 2026 Elections *A* [recent Ipsos poll](https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2026-04/Reuters%20Ipsos%20Core%20Political%20April%202026%20Topline.pdf?ref=ivn.us) from April 24-27 highlighted some trends among the independent electorate: - The top issue for polled independents (25%) is the economy, which is no surprise. Interestingly, corruption came in second (13%). - 72% of independents polled believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. This is 18% lower than Democrats and 39% higher than Republicans. - This statistic aligns with independent approval rating for President Trump, which was 74-24 disapproval/approval among independents in the poll - This feeling isn’t necessarily translating into a desire to vote, with 30% of polled independents saying they plan to sit out the ‘26 election - Immigration was a major issue among independents in the ‘24 presidential exit polls. 61% of Independents polled disapprove of the President’s handling of the issue, though Republicans have a +4% edge over Democrats among this cohort on trust in handling the issue. - On the economic front, 23% of polled Independents prefer Democrats on cost-of-living issues, while 17% prefer Republicans. ## A Quick Reform Roundup ### **California** More Choice California is leading the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system. They’re promoting two initiatives: one ensuring a right to participate in all stages of an election for all voters; and one to expand the Top Two voting system to a Top Four voting system. Read more about it [here](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/). [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-1a6986a282f38644c65621ed7b270d5e33655a08992102476161f14826adee63.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal-06eeec11bf642e3c56434c44948c79483861dc75cc6fb50846f82bca544a2e17.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) *Editor's Note: IVN is co-published by Independent Voter Project, a leading participant in the More Choice California coalition.* ### **Maryland** Gov. Wes Moore signed [SB848/HB1448](https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/sb0848?ref=ivn.us) on May 12, encoding ranked choice voting into Maryland law for the first time. Along with imposing new election administration procedures, the bill sets requirements for municipalities that want to use the voting system. Check out [this breakdown from FairVote](https://fairvote.org/maryland-passes-first-state-law-including-ranked-choice-voting/?ref=ivn.us) of the bill and what it means for ranked choice voting in the state. ### **Hawaii and Montana** Hawaii and Montana are at the forefront of a fight against the *Citizens United* ruling that paved the way for near-unlimited spending in elections by outside groups and corporations. The innovative legislation would not run against *Citizens United*, but would instead limit corporate charters within the state to limit their powers to spend in elections. Hawaii legislators passed [SB2471](https://legiscan.com/HI/bill/SB2471/2026?ref=ivn.us) on May 8; the bill is now with the governor. Advocates in Montana are currently collecting signatures to get the issue on the ballot. ### **States Continue to Attempt to Raise the Bar on Initiatives and Amendments** After the success of several ballot measures in recent years, some of which adopted legislation or constitutional amendments against the preferences of state legislatures, a number of states are attempting to change the process, adding additional requirements or increasing success thresholds. North Dakota Constitutional Measure 2 would require constitutional amendments to receive a 60% supermajority to pass, up from a simple majority. South Dakota’s Constitutional Amendment K would establish the same threshold. A similar measure in Utah would raise the requirement for any citizen-initiated ballot measure that creates new taxes, increases existing taxes, or creates a property tax. ### **Term Limits Are on the Ballot in North Dakota** Constitutional Measure 1 in North Dakota would establish term limits for the state legislature (four complete 4-year terms, regardless of chamber). The measure authorizes the legislature to amend term limitations. (Ballot initiatives across the country are tracked in many places, including [ballotpedia](https://ballotpedia.org/2026%5Fballot%5Fmeasures?ref=ivn.us).) ### 'Brazen and Unlawful': California GOP Tells Republican Carl DeMaio to Stop Deceiving Primary Voters URL: https://ivn.us/brazen-and-unlawful-california-gop-tells-republican-carl-demaio-to-stop-deceiving-primary-voters/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T15:28:35.000Z **SAN DIEGO, Calif.** \- While California voters are making their decisions ahead of the June 2 primary election, the state Republican Party has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, one of its own, over mailers the party says is a “calculated deception." [California GOP general counsel Ashlee Titus sent the letter on May 14](https://sdrepublicans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/260514-DeMaio-Cease-and-Desist-Letter-1.pdf?ref=ivn.us) and called out one mailer in particular in California Senate District 40\. The irony? The mailer warns that Democrats are sending out fake Republican voter guides. This is exactly what the GOP is accusing him and his organization, Reform California, of doing. > 👀The CA GOP has sent a cease and desist letter to Republican Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, whose Reform California organization has been sending out mailers purporting to be 'official' Republican voter guides.[https://t.co/AcK2hCx27K](https://t.co/AcK2hCx27K?ref=ivn.us) [https://t.co/S2KxBmiS8P](https://t.co/S2KxBmiS8P?ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/5LG87wTcHR](https://t.co/5LG87wTcHR?ref=ivn.us) > > — Rob Pyers (@rpyers) [May 15, 2026](https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/2055403398066004275?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The letter states: > *“This letter constitutes a demand that you, your slate mailer organization Reform California Voter Guide \[...\] and your website RepublicanVoterGuideCA.com immediately cease and desist from a coordinated, brazen, and unlawful campaign to deceive California voters into believing your privately controlled slate mailer is an official publication of the Republican Party. It is not.”* Titus pointed out several issues the party had with the campaign mail, including that it claims to be a “Republican Official Voter Guide.” It also says voters can go to RepublicanVoterGuideCA.com (a real website) “for all official endorsements” and the “Republican Central Committee Slate.” “Reform California Voter Guide is not a Republican Party committee. It is not chartered by, affiliated with, or authorized by the California Republican Party, the Republican Party of San Diego County, or any other official Republican Party body,” Titus wrote. Reform California defended its campaign materials on First Amendment grounds. > *“Reform California not only has a constitutional right — but a duty — to distribute its voter guide to Republican voters so they know which candidates are the SELLOUTS and which candidates are the FIGHTERS in each race on the ballot,” the group's communications director, Dylan Martin,* [*wrote in an email*](https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2026/05/15/ca-gop-republican-assemblyman-carl-demaio/?ref=ivn.us)*.* DeMaio has pushed the Reform California Voter Guide heavily. He has even [sent out emails](https://ivn.us/both-parties-are-fundraising-off-a-california-primary-crisis-that-polls-show-doesnt-exist-2026-05-07/) to supporters saying Republicans could be locked out of several general elections, which is why they need to chip in to send out his guide. “Your conduct is not a mistake,” Titus wrote. “It is a calculated deception of California’s Republican voters, and it will not be tolerated.” Along with spearheading the ballot-certified California Voter ID Initiative, DeMaio has also come out in support of a new effort to repeal California’s nonpartisan Top Two primary and wants to return to using closed primaries. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-22.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal-2.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) He claims the “Top Two system was imposed on California voters through deception. When it was put on the ballot, we were promised the system would give voters more choices and a bigger voice.” The nonpartisan primary system is open to all voters. Every voter can choose from any candidate running, regardless of party. That was the promise: Everyone gets a voice, voters can select any candidate they want, and independent voters won’t be locked out. This is exactly what the Top Two system does. DeMaio wants to return to a system that would disenfranchise millions of California voters and lock out independents. It would also ensure that party insiders and aligned special interest groups have the most control over election outcomes. Once again, the irony is not lost on anyone. On the same week DeMaio accused nonpartisan reformers in California of "deception," his own party brought the receipts against him. ### Latinos Will Be the Most Powerful Voting Bloc, Once They Start Voting in Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/latinos-will-be-the-most-powerful-voting-bloc-once-they-start-voting-in-primaries/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T18:51:55.000Z California’s nonpartisan primary system is built around a simple promise: Every voter gets a say. No matter their party affiliation or lack thereof, any voter can choose any candidate running for each state office under this system. Democrats, Republicans, independents, and voters registered with minor parties all receive the same ballot for voter-nominated offices. Candidates for governor, Congress, the legislature, and statewide constitutional offices appear together on a single primary ballot. The state – along with Washington and Alaska – has the most voter-inclusive primary system in the country. On top of primaries being open, California also sends a ballot to every voter, offers early voting, provides drop boxes, and has voting centers in several counties. But access does not always translate to participation. There are noticeable turnout gaps in California that voters don’t hear enough about. Take, for example, the state’s Latino population. Latinos make up an enormous segment of the California population. NALEO’s [2024 California Latino electorate profile](https://naleo.org/COMMS/PRA/2024/NEF%5FPRA%5FCalifornia%5FProfile%5FPrimary%5FFINAL.pdf?ref=ivn.us) found that Latinos made up about 40% of the state’s population and accounted for over 90% of the eligible-electorate growth over the last decade. The state’s population is increasingly Latino, but that population strength does not fully translate into likely-voter strength. PPIC’s [California voter profile](https://www.ppic.org/publication/california-voter-and-party-profiles/?ref=ivn.us) found that Latinos only make up 29% of likely voters. White Californians, by contrast, are 36% of adults, but 50% of likely voters. This is not an issue of apathy. NALEO’s longer-term turnout data shows the Latino vote nearly tripled from 1.6 million in 2000 to 4.5 million in 2020\. The bigger issue is what happens after voters register: whether they receive useful information, whether campaigns contact them, whether ballots are easy to complete, whether voters feel represented by the candidates, and whether they believe voting will change anything. ## **California Has More Registered Voters Than Ever – But Some Groups Remain Underrepresented** The secretary of state’s latest report for the June 2 primary shows California had more than 23.1 million registered voters as of April 3\. That is up from about 22 million at the same point before the 2022 gubernatorial primary. The percentage of eligible Californians registered to vote also increased from 81.65% to 84.83%. That is the good news The same report shows that Democrats make up about 45% of the registered voter population, while Republicans make up 25% and No Party Preference voters make up just under 23%. This does not count the nearly 1 million voters registered as “American Independent.” No matter how voters are registered, they have the same access to elections that fall under California’s nonpartisan primary system. In the last gubernatorial election, in 2022, PPIC found that roughly one-third of registered voters cast ballots in that primary. The 7.28 million votes cast set a record high for a California gubernatorial primary. In fact, under Top Two, California tends to have higher primary turnout than most other states. But even a third of the electorate in 2022 meant most registered voters did not participate. ## **Independent Voters Have Access, But Campaigns Aren’t Speaking to Them** Independent voters in California do not have to ask permission from a party to vote for governor, Congress, the legislature, secretary of state, attorney general, insurance commissioner, or other voter-nominated offices. Nonpartisan primaries give them complete access. However, Republican and Democratic candidates tend to treat primary elections as if California still has the closed primary system it used prior to Proposition 14’s passage in 2010 – which created the Top Two system. Campaigns still lean heavily on party networks. The media still frames primary contests through Democratic and Republican strategy. Fundraising appeals target partisan fears. And independent voters are not treated like they have direct power in the June primary. Even though they do – a lot of power, if they vote. They could completely shift the electoral landscape by voting in June AND November. PPIC found that independent likely voters are [far more moderate](https://www.ppic.org/publication/california-voter-and-party-profiles/?ref=ivn.us) than party voters: 51% of independent likely voters identify as moderate, compared with 31% of Democratic likely voters and 22% of Republican likely voters. Independents are also split in their partisan leanings: 39% lean Democratic, 26% lean Republican, and 34% do not lean toward either party. This makes them potentially decisive, especially in races where candidates from the same party fight over the same base. The debate over turnout is often reduced to election mechanics: mail ballots, drop boxes, vote centers, ballot deadlines, and how long it takes to count votes. These issues matter, but the deeper question is whether voters are being given a reason to participate. This is where campaigns and media coverage matter. For example, if the governor’s race is covered [mainly as a Democratic panic over whether two Republicans could advance](https://ivn.us/posts/california-dems-push-a-two-republican-panic-their-own-poll-contradicts-their-message-2026-05-06), many voters outside the party structure may tune out. If down-ballot races are ignored, voters may not understand why the primary matters. If congressional redistricting changed district lines but voters are not told how their districts changed, they may not grasp what is at stake. If independent voters are treated as spectators, many will act like spectators. [California Nonpartisan Primary is Throwing a Wrench in the Democratic Party’s Prop 50 Gerrymandering EffortThe national story is about which party gains seats. However, this obscures the local impact. Even if temporary, many voters in California will not have the same voting power they had in previous election cycles.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-19.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-redistricting-prop-50-primary-election-1.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/california-redrew-its-congressional-map-but-are-voters-being-told-what-changed-under-their-feet-2026-05-12) ## **Why All This Matters to the Latino Vote** There is no question that California has made elections accessible. All voters are included in the primaries. Every voter gets a mail-in ballot. And, the state has created several avenues for voters to cast their ballots. [How California Built the Most Voter-Friendly State in AmericaCalifornia has created one of the most voter-friendly election systems in the nation. Three distinct policies work together to make that possible: a codified set of voter protections, a modernized election model that increases access, and a primary system that opens every race to every voter.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-20.jpg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-voter-choice-top-two-primary-election-reform.jpg)](https://ivn.us/how-california-built-the-most-voter-friendly-state-in-america-2026-05-14/) But how much attention are election administrators, campaigns, and the media giving to Latino voters? This is important because the state can make voting easy on paper, but if voters aren’t being reached or feel included, then they won’t participate. ### **Latinos Use Mail Voting, But Less Than the Statewide Electorate and With Higher Rejection Rates** California now sends every active registered voter a ballot in the mail. For the 2026 primary, county officials began mailing ballots on May 4, and voters can return them by mail, drop box, county office, or in person. But Latino voters do not use vote-by-mail in exactly the same way as the overall electorate. [USC’s Center for Inclusive Democracy](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57b8c7ce15d5dbf599fb46ab/t/688dbdfd4a08101ae3691d8f/1754119684629/USC%5FCID%5FVotingMethods%5FReport%5FFinal.pdf?ref=ivn.us) found that in the 2024 general election, about 82% of California voters cast vote-by-mail ballots. The most common method statewide was returning a mail ballot by drop box at 33%, followed by USPS mail at 32.6%. In-person voting was at 18.2%, which illustrates how much emphasis California has put on mail-in ballots. However, Latino voters were different. USC found that nearly a quarter of this group cast ballots in person in 2024\. Not only was this higher than the overall statewide electorate, but only 25.9% of Latino voters returned ballots through the mail. The most common voting method by this group was returning a vote-by-mail ballot to a drop box, at 31%. Sending every voter a ballot does not mean every group uses that ballot the same way. Latino voters appear more likely than the overall electorate to want or need an in-person voting option, a staffed location, or a drop box. But there’s more to this story, because it is not just about who receives a ballot. It is also about whose ballot gets counted. USC found that 0.9% of all California vote-by-mail ballots were rejected in the 2024 general election. Latino voters had a higher rejection rate: 1.2%, compared with 0.7% for white non-Latino voters, 0.9% for black voters, and 1.0% for Asian American voters. For Latinos, rejected ballots were especially likely to involve signature mismatch. USC found that 65.6% of rejected Latino vote-by-mail ballots were rejected for non-matching signatures, compared with 59% of rejected ballots overall. In other words, these voters may need more targeted information on signature requirements, ballot tracking, ballot curing, drop-off options, and deadlines. ### **Spanish-Language Turnout Reveals Another Large Gap** The secretary of state’s [2024 primary Voter’s Choice Act report](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/vca/2024/2024-primary-election-votecal-vca-report.pdf?ref=ivn.us) found turnout varied sharply by language preference. English-language voters had a statewide turnout rate of around 36% in the 2024 primary, while Spanish-language voters had a turnout rate of roughly 20%. That does not capture all Latino voters – many Latinos prefer English-language materials – but it is still important. It points to a specific participation problem among voters who interact with the election system in Spanish. Notably, the Voter’s Choice Act (VCA) is a county opt-in program, meaning it is up to individual counties to decide to adopt it, giving voters more options, more locations, and more days to vote. This year, the total opt-in number is at 30 counties. The same VCA report on language access found that non-English-speaking voters in VCA counties were slightly more likely than English-speaking voters to vote by mail in 2022, but turnout still varied by language. The report recommended more focused outreach to non-English voters ages 18 to 29, stronger partnerships with community groups, and easier-to-find translated materials. After all, vote-by-mail ballots and drop boxes only help if voters receive election materials in a language they understand. ### **Both Parties Get So Much Wrong When It Comes to Latino Voters** Republican and Democratic leaders often make assumptions about the Latino community. Specifically, that this is a guaranteed Democratic turnout bloc. The reality is, Latino voters are not a monolith and are far more independent than either party’s narrative treats them. NALEO’s 2024 report found that 55% of Latino registered voters were Democrats, 16% were Republicans, and 30% were not affiliated with either major party. But it also should be noted that even party registration doesn’t mean absolute party loyalty. [On-the-ground research](https://ivn.us/posts/why-every-assumption-the-two-parties-have-about-latino-voters-is-wrong) finds that Latino voters have broad political views and do not always fall along strict partisan or ideological lines. But given how many are not registered with a party, this means many are ignored on the primary campaign trail entirely. And when campaigns reach out to Latino voters – it does not connect on a personal level. Campaigns know how important Latino voters are in 2026\. LAist [reported on Spanish-language campaigning in the governor’s race](https://laist.com/news/politics/california-governor-2026-election-spanish-xavier-becerra-antonio-villaraigosa-betty-yee?ref=ivn.us), including Xavier Becerra using Spanish publicly and saying some voters better understand his platform in Spanish. AP also reported that Becerra launched a Spanish-only TikTok campaign aimed at Hispanic and Latino voters. Tom Steyer has also been reported courting Latinos directly, including in Santa Ana, though that kind of outreach can raise the question of whether candidates are building sustained relationships or only showing up visibly once ballots are out. Outreach often appears candidate-specific, late-cycle, language-focused (rather than a bilingual approach), or symbolic (meaning it doesn’t tend to be a direct or personal approach). CalMatters provides the evidence to back this up. A [report on Prop 50](https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/05/california-latino-voters-prop50-analysis/?ref=ivn.us) found that many Latino voters who cast a ballot for President Donald Trump used the 2025 special election to express their anger or dissatisfaction with him. “These Latinos, even the ones who voted for Trump in 2024, were pissed off at him,” said Ben Tulchin, a San Francisco-based Democratic pollster. “They feel deceived by Trump and his promises.” Democratic leaders *assume* this means a guaranteed shift to vote their way in 2026\. But as CalMatters notes, “while a strong showing for Prop. 50 might confirm dissatisfaction with the GOP and the Trump administration, it doesn’t necessarily mean those voters will support Democrats.” Or… vote at all. The article revealed increasing skepticism with both parties. One voter told CalMatters she does not always understand who is running or how to fill out her ballot, and another said he did not vote on Prop. 50 and probably would not vote in the midterms. “Was Prop. 50 an indicator of anything ideological or a return home? Nope, not even one little bit,” said conservative political consultant Mike Madrid. “They’re rejecting the party of power that is not prioritizing their economic concerns.” On a national level, that means the GOP. But on a state level, that could mean the Democratic Party. How voters cast their ballot on Prop 50 largely had to do with national issues. But the 2026 elections are all about what is happening in California. All this evidence shows that Latino voters are often politically disconnected, under-contacted, or unconvinced that either party is prioritizing their economic concerns. ## **The Races Where the Turnout Gap Could Matter Most** If Latinos and other electoral demographics that have a noticeable turnout gap (like NPP and independents) vote, they could shape several types of races in 2026. In the governor’s race, a crowded field means small differences in turnout will determine who makes it to November. In statewide down-ballot races, lower-information contests like insurance commissioner, controller, treasurer, and secretary of state could be shaped by voters who are most likely to return ballots early and consistently. In congressional races redrawn under Prop. 50, voters may be casting ballots in districts with new boundaries, new partisan dynamics, and new national attention. And, their vote could matter in ways it didn’t prior to this election cycle. It all comes down to who turns out. Party insiders want voters that are not guaranteed votes for them to stay home. Operatives in the Republican and Democratic Parties are now even working together to disenfranchise anyone who is not a party member by repealing the nonpartisan primary. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-21.jpg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal-1.png)](https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/) They don’t think independent voters matter, which means they don’t think many Latino voters matter. But if Latinos showed up in this cycle, they could send a powerful message to Sacramento. ### Nebraska's Senate Race Is a Mess – And We Have Our Voting System To Thank URL: https://ivn.us/nebraskas-senate-race-is-a-mess-and-we-have-our-voting-system-to-thank/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T23:35:33.000Z **OMAHA, Neb.** \- On May 12, Nebraska Democrats went to the polls for a Senate primary that was anything but normal. The woman who took 89% of the vote had already announced she planned to drop out if she were to win. Her opponent in the Democratic primary was a Trump-voting, anti-abortion pastor who couldn't name a single Democrat he'd voted for when pressed by CNN. And the preferred candidate of the Democratic leadership, independent Dan Osborn, wasn’t even on the ballot. Elections like this one are a sign of a dysfunctional democracy. While [rising polarization and partisan animosity](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/09/republicans-and-democrats-increasingly-critical-of-people-in-the-opposing-party/?ref=ivn.us) are certainly a factor, the "weirdest race in America," as Politico called it, didn't happen just because Americans are as divided as they have been since the Civil War. It happened because America's winner-take-all voting system, known as first-past-the-post, creates incentives for treating elections as a competition between teams rather than a means of citizens expressing their preferences in representation. The general election showdown between incumbent Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts and independent challenger Dan Osborn has the potential to be a genuinely competitive and interesting contest. But how that matchup came to be shows some of the flaws in the incentives created by our current system of elections. ## **The Contenders: Pete Ricketts vs. Dan Osborn\*** To understand the weirdness, let’s start with the end point: This November, Nebraskans will have the choice between Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts and independent challenger Dan Osborn. Sen. Ricketts served two terms as Nebraska's governor (2015 to 2023). When he left office, his successor, Jim Pillen, promptly appointed him to the US Senate to fill the seat vacated by Ben Sasse, who departed to serve as the president of the University of Florida. This appointment has served as an attack line from Dan Osborn, who has posted on X that Sen. Ricketts didn’t earn his seat but rather gained it through less than democratic means: > 🚨 BIG NEWS 🚨 > > Dan Osborn leads Pete Ricketts 47-42 in a new poll! Pete Ricketts didn't earn his Senate seat. His daddy bought it. > > Nebraskans are ready for someone who actually has their back. [https://t.co/PQvOkxwT8e](https://t.co/PQvOkxwT8e?ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/QqS5Jjjkz7](https://t.co/QqS5Jjjkz7?ref=ivn.us) > > — Dan Osborn (@osbornforne) [May 11, 2026](https://twitter.com/osbornforne/status/2053945667400208563?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The system of replacing senators who leave office differs from state to state, but it often involves appointment by a singular individual in the given state, often the governor. It’s not the most democratic means of selecting a successor, especially given the [well documented incumbent advantage](https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/incumbent-advantage?ref=ivn.us). However, in 2024, Ricketts won a special election for the remaining two years of Sasse's term, defeating Democratic candidate Preston Love, Jr., by 25 points – a margin that exceeded even Trump's 20-point win. Dan Osborn is a Navy and Nebraska Army National Guard veteran who spent 20 years working as an industrial mechanic and steamfitter in Omaha. He made his name in 2021 by leading an 11-week strike of Kellogg's workers after the company pushed for concessions in a new union contract while posting record profits during the COVID-19 pandemic. He'd been registered as a nonpartisan voter since he first registered in 2004. When Osborn announced his 2026 run against Ricketts last July, he framed it on X in explicitly populist terms: > 🚨MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT🚨 > > Ok. You've all convinced me. I'm in. > > I'm running for Senate against billionaire Pete Ricketts In Nebraska. > > This race represents the foundational battle taking place in America right now: > > The Billionaire Class vs. The Working Class > > Who's with me? [pic.twitter.com/QQmcq4H3bl](https://t.co/QQmcq4H3bl?ref=ivn.us) > > — Dan Osborn (@osbornforne) [July 8, 2025](https://twitter.com/osbornforne/status/1942557787013407203?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) But this cycle is the second one in a row where Dan Osborn has run for a Senate seat in Nebraska, and the ‘24 election has a lot to do with the weirdness in the current one. ## **Nebraska Senate 2024: Osborn and the Democrats** In 2024, with no Democratic candidate running against incumbent Sen. Deb Fischer, Osborn entered the race as an independent. He ran on a populist, working-class platform (support for labor rights, gun ownership, tougher border security, and opposition to national abortion bans). He spent his campaign traveling across the state and talking to as many Nebraskans as he could. This strategy almost worked in winning him the seat. He received 47% of the vote in a state Donald Trump won by more than 20 points; it was the strongest performance by an independent candidate in a Nebraska US Senate race in history. In a three-way race between a Democrat, Republican, and independent, it would be nearly impossible for the loser of the race to hit 47% of the vote total. But the ‘24 Nebraska Senate race wasn’t a three-way race – the Democrats didn’t run a candidate. The relationship between Osborn and the Democratic Party in 2024 was complicated from the start. The Nebraska Democratic Party, believing it had no viable candidate of its own, cleared the field for Osborn, according to Party Chair Jane Kleeb, to "keep our ballot line open so we could form a coalition." After Osborn refused to accept the endorsement of any political party, Kleeb and the Nebraska Democrats [condemned Osborn for breaking what she said was a promise, and the party briefly explored running a write-in candidate](https://nebraskademocrats.org/blog/nebraska-democratic-party-statement-on-dan-osborn/?ref=ivn.us) before ultimately deciding against it. Despite the friction, national Democrats spent money in support of Osborn through outside groups. [The Senate Majority PAC – the main super PAC of Senate Democrats – spent $3.85 million supporting Osborn's 2024 campaign](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/national-dems-bankroll-campaign-fake-independent-senate-candidate-midwestern-state?ref=ivn.us), while Osborn also received individual donations from the leadership PACs of Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, and Sheldon Whitehouse, as well as a $2,000 contribution from Elizabeth Warren's Senate campaign. Osborn also received a maxed-out $57,800 contribution directly from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. All of that made Osborn's "independent" label a persistent target for Republicans throughout the campaign, and it set the stage for the Democratic primary in 2026. ## **The Democratic Primary: A Race Nobody Was Supposed to Have** When Osborn decided to run again against Sen. Ricketts in the ‘26 election, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb made the party's position clear: > We are supporting Dan Osborn. We believe a coalition of Dems, Indys and Republicans can beat Ricketts and break up the one-party rule. We like the odds of a mechanic vs a billionaire. > > — Jane Fleming Kleeb🇺🇸We The People (@janekleeb) [July 30, 2025](https://twitter.com/janekleeb/status/1950659323861848550?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) But since elections, including primaries, are generally state-run affairs, a major party can’t just decide to cancel the contest or select a winner ahead of time. With the party leadership’s preferences being to sit out the election and support an independent, but an election still moving forward, things got weird. William Forbes, a 79-year-old Lutheran pastor from Paxton, Nebraska, filed for the Democratic primary on the last day before the deadline in March 2026\. He has voted for Donald Trump multiple times. He is anti-abortion. He attended a leadership summit sponsored by the Nebraska Republican Party in January 2026\. And when CNN pressed him to name a single Democrat he'd voted for in his life, he couldn't do it. Normally, a candidate such as William Forbes would be unlikely to win when his history and policy preferences are so misaligned with the party in whose primary he’s running. However, since the Democrats had made the decision to support Osborn as an Independent, they hadn’t recruited a candidate to run. With Forbes on the ballot, they needed someone to run to prevent him from appearing on the November ballot as a Democrat and making it a three-way race, so they recruited Cindy Burbank. Burbank’s campaign message was clear: She was running to prevent a three-way race. She believed Forbes was a plant by the Rickett campaign, a sentiment shared by the Democrats. She promised to drop out of the race if she won it. (From her donation page) [Pete Ricketts, who is running for reelection, is putting in a candidate loyal to him in the DEMOCRATIC primary – to split the vote against him, so he wins easily. He’s running an anti-abortion activist named Bill Forbes, who has posted in support of Pete Ricketts.](https://secure.actblue.com/donate/du4burbank26?ref=ivn.us) Despite legal challenges by the state Republican party, Cindy Burbank remained on the ballot and ended up winning the Democratic primary with nearly 90% of the vote. She’s expected to drop out of the race and throw her support behind Osborn. ## **It’s The System That’s The Problem** Step back and look at what the most powerful democracy in the world produced in Nebraska on May 12: A Democratic primary between a person whose history and views don’t align with the party and a person who promised to drop out if she won. A Republican primary with an incumbent who has a massive name recognition and cash-on-hand despite being [underwater on favorability in some polls](https://www.tavernresearch.com/research-and-writings/nebraska-senate-poll?ref=ivn.us) (*Tavern has a noted Democratic bent*). And an independent who is functionally also the Democratic candidate but never appeared on a ballot. This situation is the outcome of America’s voting system and partisan politics. First-past-the-post is the voting system used in most American elections. It's simple: whoever gets the most votes wins, regardless of whether they get a majority. You don't need 50 percent plus one; you just need more than anybody else. This creates a brutal dynamic when there are more than two candidates. If two candidates share a similar ideological coalition, they split each other's votes, potentially handing the election to a candidate neither group would have preferred. This is frequently called the "spoiler" problem. This system creates terrible incentives. For a political party, the goal is to ensure there is only a single candidate on the ballot that is appealing to voters who might vote for you, while trying to get multiple candidates who are ideologically close together to “split” the vote of those who won’t. The rational move in such a system is to try to support candidates you don’t want to win in an attempt to sink the coalition that supports your opposition. In short, the parties and candidates in Nebraska are acting *rationally* in a system that is set up *irrationally*. It’s a clear sign that something is wrong with the incentive structure. In a functioning democracy, parties compete. They offer their best arguments and let voters choose. They adopt popular views because they want people to vote for them. What first-past-the-post creates instead is a calculus where the losing party's best move is sometimes to not play, and both parties have an incentive to create chaos in each other’s primaries. Systems like ranked choice voting, where voters can rank candidates in order of preference, eliminate the spoiler problem. If your first-choice candidate is eliminated, your vote flows to your second choice. You can vote for the candidate you actually want without "wasting" your vote or inadvertently helping the candidate you like least. Maine and Alaska use ranked choice voting for federal elections, and those races consistently look very different, involving more genuine competition, cooperation, and outreach. ## **This Won’t Be the Last Election We See Like This** The Nebraska Democratic Senate primary will not seem like an anomaly for long. Republicans and Democrats have long been accused of supporting Green or Libertarian candidates to syphon support away from the other major party, but efforts such as these are growing more overt. Over the past decade, it's common to read stories about parties or candidates supporting individuals in the opposing party’s primaries they believe will be easier to defeat. These actions are, given the incentives in the system, rational. Nebraskans are likely going to get a competitive Senate election in 2024, but it’s not necessarily the one that they would have chosen with a more functional electoral system that aligned the candidates’ incentives with the voting public’s. Democrats didn’t have a true option in the primary, and they won’t have someone running on their line in November. Campaigning turned ugly, and the courts needed to intervene on multiple occasions. November might return interesting results in the Cornhusker State, but it's worth sitting with what the system required to get us here… and asking whether a voting system that makes a race this twisted is really the best we can do. --- *The Nebraska general election is November 3, 2026.* *\*The writer of this article served in a leadership role at an organization that considered endorsing and making a contribution to Osborn’s 2024 campaign.* ### Los latinos serán el bloque de votantes más poderoso, en cuanto empiecen a votar en las primarias URL: https://ivn.us/los-latinos-seran-el-bloque-de-votantes-mas-poderoso-en-cuanto-empiecen-a-votar-en-las-primarias/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T22:06:25.000Z El sistema de primarias no partidistas de California está construido sobre una promesa muy sencilla: cada votante tiene voz. Sin importar su afiliación partidista o la falta de ella, cualquier votante puede elegir a cualquier candidato que compita por un cargo estatal bajo este sistema. Demócratas, republicanos, independientes y votantes registrados con partidos minoritarios reciben la misma boleta para los cargos que se eligen por voto popular. Los candidatos a gobernador, al Congreso, a la legislatura y a los cargos constitucionales estatales aparecen juntos en una sola boleta primaria. El estado —junto con Washington y Alaska— tiene el sistema de primarias más incluyente del país. Además de tener primarias abiertas, California también le manda una boleta a cada votante, ofrece votación anticipada, pone buzones de entrega disponibles y tiene centros de votación en varios condados. Pero el acceso no siempre se traduce en participación. Hay brechas notables de participación en California de las que no se habla lo suficiente. Tomemos, por ejemplo, a la población latina del estado. Los latinos representan un segmento enorme de la población de California. El [perfil del electorado latino de California 2024 de NALEO](https://naleo.org/COMMS/PRA/2024/NEF%5FPRA%5FCalifornia%5FProfile%5FPrimary%5FFINAL.pdf?ref=ivn.us) encontró que los latinos eran alrededor del 40% de la población del estado y aportaron más del 90% del crecimiento del electorado elegible en la última década. La población del estado es cada vez más latina, pero esa fuerza poblacional no se traduce por completo en peso dentro de los votantes probables. [El perfil del votante de California de PPIC](https://www.ppic.org/publication/california-voter-and-party-profiles/?ref=ivn.us) encontró que los latinos solo representan el 29% de los votantes probables. En cambio, los californianos blancos son el 36% de los adultos, pero el 50% de los votantes probables. Esto no es un tema de apatía. Los datos de participación a más largo plazo de NALEO muestran que el voto latino casi se triplicó, de 1.6 millones en el año 2000 a 4.5 millones en 2020. El problema más grande es lo que pasa después de que los votantes se registran: si reciben información útil, si las campañas los contactan, si las boletas son fáciles de llenar, si los votantes se sienten representados por los candidatos y si creen que votar va a cambiar algo. ## **California tiene más votantes registrados que nunca, pero algunos grupos siguen sin estar representados** El reporte más reciente del secretario de estado para la primaria del 2 de junio muestra que California tenía más de 23.1 millones de votantes registrados al 3 de abril. Esto es un aumento desde alrededor de 22 millones en el mismo punto antes de la primaria para gobernador de 2022. El porcentaje de californianos elegibles registrados para votar también subió del 81.65% al 84.83%. Esa es la buena noticia. El mismo reporte muestra que los demócratas representan alrededor del 45% del padrón de votantes registrados, mientras que los republicanos son el 25% y los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido (No Party Preference) son poco menos del 23%. Esto sin contar a los casi 1 millón de votantes registrados como "American Independent". Sin importar cómo estén registrados los votantes, tienen el mismo acceso a las elecciones que caen bajo el sistema de primarias no partidistas de California. En la última elección para gobernador, en 2022, PPIC encontró que aproximadamente un tercio de los votantes registrados emitió su voto en esa primaria. Los 7.28 millones de votos marcaron un récord histórico para una primaria para gobernador en California. De hecho, bajo Top Two, California suele tener una participación más alta en primarias que la mayoría de los demás estados. Pero incluso un tercio del electorado en 2022 significaba que la mayoría de los votantes registrados no participó. ## **Los votantes independientes tienen acceso, pero las campañas no les están hablando** Los votantes independientes en California no tienen que pedirle permiso a un partido para votar por gobernador, Congreso, legislatura, secretario de estado, fiscal general, comisionado de seguros u otros cargos que se eligen por voto popular. Las primarias no partidistas les dan acceso completo. Sin embargo, los candidatos republicanos y demócratas suelen tratar las elecciones primarias como si California todavía tuviera el sistema de primarias cerradas que usaba antes de que se aprobara la Proposición 14 en 2010, la cual creó el sistema Top Two. Las campañas siguen apoyándose mucho en las redes partidistas. Los medios siguen enmarcando las contiendas primarias a través de la estrategia demócrata y republicana. Las solicitudes de recaudación de fondos juegan con miedos partidistas. Y a los votantes independientes no se les trata como si tuvieran poder directo en la primaria de junio. Aunque sí lo tienen, y mucho, si votan. Podrían cambiar por completo el rumbo de las elecciones si votan en junio Y en noviembre. PPIC encontró que los votantes probables independientes son mucho más moderados que los votantes de partido: el 51% de los votantes probables independientes se identifica como moderado, comparado con el 31% de los votantes probables demócratas y el 22% de los votantes probables republicanos. Los independientes también están divididos en sus inclinaciones partidistas: el 39% se inclina por los demócratas, el 26% se inclina por los republicanos y el 34% no se inclina hacia ninguno de los dos. Esto los hace potencialmente decisivos, sobre todo en contiendas donde candidatos del mismo partido pelean por la misma base. El debate sobre la participación muchas veces se reduce a la mecánica electoral: boletas por correo, buzones de entrega, centros de votación, fechas límite de las boletas y cuánto tarda en contarse el voto. Estos temas importan, pero la pregunta de fondo es si a los votantes se les está dando una razón para participar. Aquí es donde importan las campañas y la cobertura de los medios. Por ejemplo, si la contienda por la gubernatura se cubre principalmente como un pánico demócrata sobre si dos republicanos podrían avanzar, muchos votantes fuera de la estructura partidista pueden desconectarse. Si se ignoran las contiendas en boletas más abajo, los votantes pueden no entender por qué importa la primaria. Si la redistribución de distritos del Congreso cambió las líneas distritales pero a los votantes no se les explica cómo cambiaron sus distritos, puede que no entiendan lo que está en juego. Si a los votantes independientes se les trata como espectadores, muchos van a actuar como espectadores. ## **Por qué todo esto le importa al voto latino** No hay duda de que California ha hecho las elecciones accesibles. Todos los votantes están incluidos en las primarias. Cada votante recibe una boleta por correo. Y el estado ha creado varias vías para que los votantes emitan su voto. Pero ¿cuánta atención les están dando los administradores electorales, las campañas y los medios a los votantes latinos? Esto importa porque el estado puede hacer que votar sea fácil en papel, pero si a los votantes no se les está contactando o no se sienten incluidos, no van a participar. ### **Los latinos usan el voto por correo, pero menos que el electorado estatal y con tasas de rechazo más altas** California ahora le manda una boleta por correo a cada votante registrado activo. Para la primaria de 2026, los funcionarios del condado empezaron a enviar las boletas el 4 de mayo, y los votantes pueden regresarlas por correo, buzón de entrega, oficina del condado o en persona. Pero los votantes latinos no usan el voto por correo exactamente igual que el electorado en general. El Center for Inclusive Democracy de USC encontró que en la elección general de 2024, alrededor del 82% de los votantes de California emitió boletas por correo. El método más común a nivel estatal fue regresar una boleta por correo a través de un buzón de entrega, con el 33%, seguido del correo USPS con el 32.6%. La votación en persona fue del 18.2%, lo cual muestra cuánto énfasis ha puesto California en las boletas por correo. Sin embargo, los votantes latinos fueron diferentes. USC encontró que casi una cuarta parte de este grupo emitió su voto en persona en 2024\. Esto no solo fue más alto que el electorado estatal en general, sino que solo el 25.9% de los votantes latinos regresó sus boletas por correo. El método de votación más común de este grupo fue regresar una boleta por correo a un buzón de entrega, con el 31%. Mandarle una boleta a cada votante no significa que cada grupo use esa boleta de la misma manera. Los votantes latinos parecen ser más propensos que el electorado en general a querer o necesitar una opción de votación en persona, una ubicación con personal o un buzón de entrega. Pero hay más en esta historia, porque no se trata solo de quién recibe una boleta. También se trata de qué boleta se cuenta. USC encontró que el 0.9% de todas las boletas por correo de California fueron rechazadas en la elección general de 2024\. Los votantes latinos tuvieron una tasa de rechazo más alta: 1.2%, comparado con el 0.7% para los votantes blancos no latinos, 0.9% para los votantes negros y 1.0% para los votantes asiático-americanos. Para los latinos, era especialmente probable que las boletas rechazadas fueran por discrepancia en la firma. USC encontró que el 65.6% de las boletas por correo rechazadas de latinos fueron rechazadas por firmas que no coincidían, comparado con el 59% de las boletas rechazadas en general. En otras palabras, estos votantes pueden necesitar información más enfocada sobre requisitos de firma, rastreo de boletas, corrección de boletas, opciones de entrega y fechas límite. ### **La participación en español revela otra brecha grande** El reporte de la primaria de 2024 del secretario de estado bajo la Voter's Choice Act encontró que la participación variaba mucho según la preferencia de idioma. Los votantes que usan el idioma inglés tuvieron una tasa de participación estatal de alrededor del 36% en la primaria de 2024, mientras que los votantes que usan el idioma español tuvieron una tasa de participación de aproximadamente 20%. Eso no abarca a todos los votantes latinos —muchos latinos prefieren materiales en inglés—, pero aun así es importante. Apunta a un problema específico de participación entre los votantes que interactúan con el sistema electoral en español. Cabe mencionar que la Voter's Choice Act (VCA) es un programa de inscripción voluntaria a nivel de condado, lo que significa que depende de cada condado decidir adoptarla, dándoles a los votantes más opciones, más ubicaciones y más días para votar. Este año, el número total de condados inscritos llegó a 30. El mismo reporte de la VCA sobre acceso a idiomas encontró que los votantes que no hablan inglés en los condados VCA fueron un poco más propensos que los votantes anglohablantes a votar por correo en 2022, pero la participación seguía variando según el idioma. El reporte recomendó un alcance más enfocado hacia votantes no anglohablantes de entre 18 y 29 años, alianzas más fuertes con grupos comunitarios y materiales traducidos más fáciles de encontrar. Al final, las boletas por correo y los buzones de entrega solo ayudan si los votantes reciben los materiales electorales en un idioma que entienden. ### **Ambos partidos se equivocan en muchas cosas cuando se trata de los votantes latinos** Los líderes republicanos y demócratas seguido hacen suposiciones sobre la comunidad latina. En específico, que este es un bloque garantizado de participación demócrata. La realidad es que los votantes latinos no son un monolito y son mucho más independientes de lo que la narrativa de cualquiera de los dos partidos refleja. El reporte de NALEO de 2024 encontró que el 55% de los votantes latinos registrados eran demócratas, el 16% eran republicanos y el 30% no estaba afiliado con ninguno de los dos partidos mayoritarios. Pero también hay que mencionar que ni siquiera el registro partidista significa lealtad absoluta al partido. La investigación de campo encuentra que los votantes latinos tienen visiones políticas amplias y no siempre se alinean estrictamente con líneas partidistas o ideológicas. Pero dado cuántos no están registrados con un partido, esto significa que a muchos se les ignora por completo en la ruta de campaña de la primaria. Y cuando las campañas se acercan a los votantes latinos, no conectan a un nivel personal. Las campañas saben qué tan importantes son los votantes latinos en 2026\. LAist reportó sobre la campaña en español en la contienda por la gubernatura, incluyendo a Xavier Becerra usando español públicamente y diciendo que algunos votantes entienden mejor su plataforma en español. AP también reportó que Becerra lanzó una campaña en TikTok solo en español dirigida a votantes hispanos y latinos. También se ha reportado que Tom Steyer está cortejando a los latinos directamente, incluso en Santa Ana, aunque ese tipo de alcance puede levantar la pregunta de si los candidatos están construyendo relaciones sostenidas o solo apareciéndose de manera visible cuando ya salieron las boletas. El alcance muchas veces se ve enfocado en candidatos específicos, tardío en el ciclo, enfocado en un solo idioma (en vez de un enfoque bilingüe) o simbólico (es decir, no suele ser un acercamiento directo o personal). CalMatters da la evidencia para respaldar esto. Un reporte sobre la Prop 50 encontró que muchos votantes latinos que emitieron una boleta por el presidente Donald Trump usaron la elección especial de 2025 para expresar su enojo o insatisfacción con él. "Estos latinos, incluso los que votaron por Trump en 2024, estaban encabronados con él", dijo Ben Tulchin, un encuestador demócrata con sede en San Francisco. "Se sienten engañados por Trump y sus promesas". Los líderes demócratas asumen que esto significa un cambio garantizado para que voten a su favor en 2026\. Pero como nota CalMatters, "aunque un resultado fuerte para la Prop. 50 podría confirmar la insatisfacción con el GOP y la administración Trump, no necesariamente significa que esos votantes vayan a apoyar a los demócratas". O... que voten siquiera. El artículo reveló un escepticismo creciente con los dos partidos. Una votante le dijo a CalMatters que no siempre entiende quién está compitiendo o cómo llenar su boleta, y otro dijo que no votó en la Prop. 50 y que probablemente no votaría en las elecciones intermedias. "¿Fue la Prop. 50 un indicador de algo ideológico o de un regreso a casa? No, ni tantito", dijo el consultor político conservador Mike Madrid. "Están rechazando al partido en el poder que no está priorizando sus preocupaciones económicas". A nivel nacional, eso significa el GOP. Pero a nivel estatal, eso podría significar el Partido Demócrata. La forma en que los votantes emitieron su boleta para la Prop 50 tuvo mucho que ver con temas nacionales. Pero las elecciones de 2026 son sobre lo que está pasando en California. Toda esta evidencia muestra que los votantes latinos seguido están políticamente desconectados, sub-contactados o no convencidos de que cualquiera de los dos partidos esté priorizando sus preocupaciones económicas. ## **Dónde más pesaría la baja participación** Si los latinos y otros grupos del electorado con una brecha de participación notable (como los NPP y los independientes) salen a votar, podrían definir varios tipos de elecciones en 2026. En la contienda por la gubernatura, un campo lleno significa que pequeñas diferencias en participación van a determinar quién llega a noviembre. En las contiendas estatales más abajo en la boleta, las elecciones de menor visibilidad como comisionado de seguros, controlador, tesorero y secretario de estado podrían definirse por los votantes que son más propensos a regresar boletas temprano y de manera consistente. En las contiendas del Congreso redibujadas bajo la Prop. 50, los votantes pueden estar emitiendo boletas en distritos con nuevas fronteras, nuevas dinámicas partidistas y nueva atención nacional. Y su voto podría importar de formas que no importaba antes de este ciclo electoral. Todo se reduce a quién participa. Los insiders de los partidos quieren que los votantes que no son votos garantizados para ellos se queden en casa. Los operativos de los partidos Republicano y Demócrata ahora hasta están trabajando juntos para quitarle el derecho al voto a cualquiera que no sea miembro de un partido, derogando la primaria no partidista. No creen que los votantes independientes importen, lo que significa que no creen que muchos votantes latinos importen. Pero si los latinos se presentan en este ciclo, podrían mandar un mensaje poderoso a Sacramento. ### How California Built the Most Voter-Friendly State in America URL: https://ivn.us/how-california-built-the-most-voter-friendly-state-in-america-2026-05-14/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T19:15:52.000Z California has created one of the most voter-friendly election systems in the nation. Three distinct policies work together to make that possible: a codified set of voter protections, a modernized election model that gives voters more ways to participate, and a primary system that opens every race to every voter. None of them favors one party over another. All of them shift power toward the individual voter. ## **The California Voter Bill of Rights** The California Voter Bill of Rights is rooted in the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965\. AB177, introduced by Assembly Member Jenny Oropeza, was enacted as Chapter 425, Statutes of 2003\. This landmark legislation consolidated existing voter protections into a single framework. The current plain-language version most people are familiar with has a more recent origin: [SB505](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F201520160sb505?ref=ivn.us) was signed by Governor Jerry Brown on September 1, 2015\. California spells out exactly what every registered voter is entitled to, and the protections extend beyond what most people realize. To be eligible, you must be a U.S. citizen living in California, at least 18 years old, registered at your current address, not currently serving a state or federal prison sentence for a felony conviction, and not found by a court to be mentally incompetent to vote. On election day, showing up to find your name missing from the rolls is not the end of the road. You can cast a provisional ballot, which will be counted if officials confirm your eligibility. If you are still in line when the polls close, you have the right to vote. Your ballot is private; no one can tell you how to mark it, and if you make an error before submitting, you can ask for a new one. You are also entitled to bring someone along to help, as long as it is not your employer or union representative. Beyond the polls, a completed vote-by-mail ballot can be dropped off at any polling location in the state. Where enough residents of a precinct speak a language other than English, election materials must be made available in that language. You have the right to ask elections officials how the process works, to watch it unfold, and to report anything suspicious directly to an elections official or the secretary of state's office. ## **The California Voter's Choice Act** Signed into law in 2016 under[ SB 450](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=201520160SB450&ref=ivn.us), the Voter's Choice Act turns ten this year. It is a county opt-in program, meaning counties choose whether to adopt its election model, but those that do commit to a significantly expanded approach to running elections, one centered on giving voters more days, more locations, and more ways to participate. The League of Women Voters has noted that the VCA is aimed not just at increasing overall turnout but specifically at narrowing the participation gap for historically underrepresented voters. Adoption has grown steadily since the law took effect. In 2018, Madera, Napa, Nevada, Sacramento, and San Mateo counties became the first cohort to implement the model. In 2020, they were joined by Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Fresno, Los Angeles, Mariposa, Orange, Santa Clara, and Tuolumne. In 2022, Alameda, Kings, Marin, Merced, Riverside, San Benito, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Ventura, and Yolo counties made the transition, followed by Humboldt and Placer in 2023\. Imperial County is implementing the VCA in 2026 ahead of the June primary election, bringing the total to thirty counties. The model rests on three pillars. Every active registered voter in a participating county receives a ballot in the mail 28 days before Election Day and can return it by mail, at a drop box, or at a vote center. Vote centers replace the traditional single assigned polling place: any voter in the county can walk into any vote center, cast a ballot in person, drop off a completed ballot, pick up a replacement, use an accessible voting machine, get materials in another language, or update their voter registration on the spot. Vote centers are located near public transportation and are typically open for up to 10 days before Election Day. Drop boxes must be secure, accessible to voters with disabilities, and located near transit, with at least one available for every 15,000 registered voters in the county. Counties adopting the VCA are also required to develop an Election Administration Plan through a public process that includes hearings and community workshops. The plan must detail how the county will run its elections and reach voters, and must be translated into every language designated for that county by the secretary of state. The secretary of state is required by law to review each plan and approve, reject, or conditionally approve its education and outreach provisions, and to make all plans publicly available. A [2024 Primary Election Report on the Voter’s Choice Act](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/vca/2024/2024-primary-election-votecal-vca-report.pdf?ref=ivn.us) published by the California secretary of state stated that nearly 90 percent of voters in VCA counties used mail-in or drop-off voting, with 43 percent returning ballots by mail and 46 percent using drop boxes. In-person voting at vote centers accounted for 26 percent of turnout in VCA counties. ## **The Nonpartisan Top Two Primary** Before 2012, California's primary elections were effectively controlled by the two major political parties. Each party held its own primary, and only registered members could vote, which meant the candidates who advanced to November were largely chosen by the most partisan voters in each party. Candidates had little incentive to appeal to voters outside their partisan base. California voters changed that in 2010 by approving the nonpartisan Top Two primary system under Proposition 14, [authored by the Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/our-reforms/open-primaries?ref=ivn.us). The [Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/political-parties/no-party-preference?ref=ivn.us#top-two-candidates) took effect January 1, 2011, and created "voter-nominated" offices. [The Real History: California’s Top-Two Nonpartisan Primary Electoral ReformIt is periodically reported that California’s Prop 14 (Non-partisan Top Two Primary) was drafted in the middle of the night in the back rooms of the California Legislature. Nothing could be further from the truth.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-30.ico)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Project![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/hero-migrated-60f8b07446143924e3b78b96_0-3.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/the-real-history-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-electoral-reform) Under this model, every candidate for a given office appears on a single ballot, and every voter casts a ballot in the same election regardless of party affiliation. The two candidates with the most votes advance to the general election, full stop. The result is a system where no voter is locked out of any race at any stage, and where winning candidates must build support beyond a narrow partisan base. California is one of just three states that allows its voters to participate at every stage of the election process. However, Republican and Democratic operative are now trying to repeal this system and return to a process that locks out independent voters. [More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal ItA broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers launched More Choice California on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-31.ico)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/more-choice-coalition-fights-nonpartisan-primary-repeal.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13) ### The Bipartisan Plot to Lock 6.2 Million California Voters Out of Elections URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/the-bipartisan-plot-to-lock-6-2-million-california-voters-out-of-elections/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T23:42:58.000Z Chad, Cara, and Shawn break down the brewing bipartisan campaign to repeal California's Top Two primary - exactly the move IVP has been predicting for months. They unpack the manufactured "two Republicans in the top two" panic, why Shirley Weber and party leadership keep siding against independent voters, and why the academic research (yes, including Cambridge) backs Top Two. Then, Ethan drops fresh IVP polling out of LA - Spencer Pratt, Karen Bass, and a governor's race where Steve Hilton is suddenly playing for Trump's endorsement instead of reform. The conversation closes with gerrymandering, Prop 50 fallout, and why packing districts may have accidentally handed independents more power than ever. ## Episode Highlights In this episode of the Independent Voter Podcast, Chad, Cara, Ethan, and Shawn break down a major bipartisan power grab threatening **California's nonpartisan primary system**. Establishment operatives from both the Democratic and Republican parties, including longtime political consultants and MAGA-aligned figures, are pushing to repeal the voter-approved open primary in favor of a **closed primary system** that shuts out the state's **6.2 million independent voters**. The hosts argue this is a direct attack on **voting rights**, **election integrity**, and **electoral reform** – driven not by policy but by the parties' desire to control who wins before most voters even cast a ballot. The conversation digs into **gerrymandering**, **redistricting**, and how California's nonpartisan primary acts as the most powerful antidote to partisan map-drawing. The hosts also address **voter suppression**, **democratic backsliding**, and the **Voting Rights Act (VRA)**, noting that southern states are already racing to redraw maps and eliminate minority representation following recent Supreme Court rulings. Meanwhile, the podcast highlights a new **independent voter poll** covering the **Los Angeles mayoral race** and the **California governor's race**, showing that candidates like Karen Bass, Spencer Pratt, Xavier Becerra, and Steve Hilton are in competitive positions, and that **independent voter turnout** could be the deciding factor in shaping the final ballot. The episode closes out with a conversation on the More Choice Coalition that launched this week to oppose the Top Two repeal effort. This group includes the **Independent Voter Project**, the League of Women Voters, Fair Vote, and other reformers from across the political spectrum. They push back against **political polarization**, **two-party duopoly**, and **big money in politics**, arguing that the path to a **healthy democracy** runs through expanding voter choice, not restricting it. For anyone passionate about **civic engagement**, **grassroots organizing**, **2028 presidential politics**, or simply breaking free from **partisan gridlock**, this episode is essential listening. ### More Choice California Launches to Defend Nonpartisan Primary as Democratic and Republican Operatives Join Forces to Repeal It URL: https://ivn.us/more-choice-california-launches-to-defend-nonpartisan-primary-as-democratic-and-republican-operatives-quietly-join-forces-to-repeal-it-2026-05-13/ Last updated: 2026-05-20T15:03:09.000Z A broad cross-partisan coalition of California reformers[ **launched More Choice California**](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us) on Monday to lead the opposition against a proposed repeal of the state's nonpartisan Top Two primary system. The repeal effort, filed last week by a Democratic political operative, has already attracted support from some of the state's most prominent Republican operatives. The More Choice California coalition is a rare thing in California politics: a unified alliance willing to take on both major parties on behalf of all voters. Its[ **honorary co-chairs and California advisors**](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us) include former Republican legislators, former Democratic administration officials, nonpartisan good-government reformers, Latino political analysts, open-primary supporters, ranked-choice voting organizers, grassroots leaders, veterans' advocates, and third-party voices. These are not people who typically find themselves in the same coalition. In California… they have. That breadth is the point. “This is about a fundamental question: do voters have the right to choose their representatives, or do political parties have the right to control who voters can choose?” said Amy Tobia, More Choice California’s grassroots advisor and Chapter Leader of RepresentUs San Diego, in [the coalition’s launch announcement](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us). > *“At a moment when democratic institutions and voting rights are under pressure nationwide, eliminating the Top Two primary in favor of closed partisan primaries would be a major step backward for California.”* The coalition’s launch was timed to a specific threat. On May 8, Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio, founder of Forza Communications and a former senior adviser to past Assembly Speakers and Governor Gray Davis, [filed paperwork](https://ballot-access.org/2026/05/11/steve-maviglio-files-paperwork-to-begin-circulating-a-california-initiative-to-repeal-top-two/?ref=ivn.us) with the California Secretary of State to repeal Proposition 14 and return California to closed party primaries. Maviglio has said his initiative is driven by the possibility that [two Republicans could advance](https://fox5sandiego.com/news/no-more-jungle-primary-a-new-initiative-would-end-californias-top-two-system/amp/?ref=ivn.us) in the 2026 governor’s race, a scenario he called “horrifying.” Within four days, the effort picked up exactly the kind of allies that complicate the partisan narrative. Ron Nehring, the former chair of the California Republican Party, publicly [endorsed](https://fox5sandiego.com/news/no-more-jungle-primary-a-new-initiative-would-end-californias-top-two-system/amp/?ref=ivn.us) the Maviglio measure. On Tuesday, Reform California chairman Carl DeMaio, a Republican Assemblymember and candidate, [announced](https://www.reformcalifornia.org/news/reform-california-backs-initiative-to-repeal-cas-failed-top-two-primary-system?ref=ivn.us) that his organization would commit funding and, he claimed, 18,000 signature-gathering volunteers to the repeal effort. “I’m pleased to see prominent Democrats join me in supporting the repeal of the failed Top Two system,” DeMaio said, “and I look forward to bipartisan collaboration to get this done.” [Both Parties Are Fundraising Off a California Primary Crisis that Polls Show Doesn’t ExistThe message from party leaders on both sides is predicated on a hypothetical – a “doomsday scenario” that will scare their voters into thinking the worst possible outcome will happen if they don’t “chip in.”![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-23.ico)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Xavier-becerra-california-governor-race-jungle-primary.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/both-parties-are-fundraising-off-a-california-primary-crisis-that-polls-show-doesnt-exist-2026-05-07) DeMaio, the Trump-aligned Republican running the signature operation, and Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions and one of the state's most influential Democratic labor leaders, are now publicly aligned on the goal of repealing the nonpartisan system and shutting independent voters out. Gonzalez [told the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/us/california-primary-rules-change-democrats.html?ref=ivn.us) that labor unions in California will "likely support" the Maviglio measure because "voters understood that a Democrat could get eliminated from even being in the top two." The repeal effort is being framed publicly as a Democratic-led initiative. It’s actually led by the most partisan factions of both major parties. The funding, the consultants, and the volunteer infrastructure are coming from a familiar collection of party insiders on both sides who share something in common: each of them does better when fewer voters get to participate in the primaries that decide most California elections. [California Nonpartisan Primary is Throwing a Wrench in the Democratic Party’s Prop 50 Gerrymandering EffortThe national story is about which party gains seats. However, this obscures the local impact. Even if temporary, many voters in California will not have the same voting power they had in previous election cycles.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-24.ico)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-redistricting-prop-50-primary-election.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/california-redrew-its-congressional-map-but-are-voters-being-told-what-changed-under-their-feet-2026-05-12) ## **A California-Built Coalition with National Reach** More Choice California is led by the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us), which is also the committee’s largest donor according to its [public disclosures](https://getmorechoice.org/?ref=ivn.us). That is not a coincidence of timing. IVP co-founded the original nonpartisan Top Two primary in 2010\. The [legal team, the drafting, and the strategy](https://ivn.us/posts/the-real-history-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-electoral-reform) behind passing Proposition 14 ran through IVP for years before then-Senator Abel Maldonado leveraged his budget vote in Sacramento to put the measure on the ballot. [The Real History: California’s Top-Two Nonpartisan Primary Electoral ReformIt is periodically reported that California’s Prop 14 (Non-partisan Top Two Primary) was drafted in the middle of the night in the back rooms of the California Legislature. Nothing could be further from the truth.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-25.ico)Independent Voter NewsIndependent Voter Project![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/hero-migrated-60f8b07446143924e3b78b96_0-1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/the-real-history-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-electoral-reform) The coalition’s honorary co-chairs make the cross-partisan range explicit: **Lenny Mendonca** is the former chief economic and business advisor to Governor Gavin Newsom, a founding board member of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers, a former vice-chair of Common Cause, and co-chair emeritus of California Forward. **Kristin Olsen-Cate** is the former California Assembly Minority Leader and vice-chair of the California Republican Party, who built a reputation in Sacramento as a bipartisan consensus builder. **John Palmer** is a longtime California reform leader who sits on the board of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers, CalRCV, and Rank the Vote. **Anne Marie Schubert** is the former Sacramento County District Attorney, best known for cracking the Golden State Killer cold case; she left the Republican Party in 2018 to register No Party Preference and ran for California Attorney General in 2022 as a nonpartisan candidate. The California advisor team brings the operational expertise. **Cara McCormick**, the campaign advisor, is the architect of the Maine ballot measure campaigns that produced and protected the country’s first statewide ranked choice voting law. She is also the leader of the winning citizens' initiative to end superPACs. **Shaudi Fulp,** the state advisor, has built a powerful career in government affairs advising companies around the globe while mentoring the next generation of leaders. She serves on the Berkeley Social Sciences Dean's Advisory Council and is Chair of the External Advisory Committee for the Jack Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research at UC Berkeley. **Mike Madrid**, the senior advisor, is a veteran political strategist, a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, the former political director of the California Republican Party, a nationally recognized expert on Latino voting trends, and the author of *The Latino Century*. **Dan Schnur**, the academic advisor, is the former chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, a former Republican strategist who registered No Party Preference, and a political science professor at USC, Berkeley, and Pepperdine. **Marcela Miranda-Caballero**, the ranked choice advisor, is the executive director of the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition, which has organized successful local RCV efforts in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Redondo Beach, and Santa Clara County. **Rey Lopez-Calderon**, the development advisor, is the former executive director of California Common Cause, where he led the state’s redistricting reform advocacy. **Chad Peace**, the legal advisor, is IVP’s senior strategist on election law and has authored amicus briefs and litigation defending nonpartisan elections in federal and state courts. **Amy Tobia**, the grassroots advisor, leads the San Diego chapter of RepresentUs. **Joe Fitzgerald**, the veterans advisor, represents the California chapter of Veterans for All Voters, a national group of veterans supporting reforms to reduce the partisanship in government. **Connor Owens**, the third-party advisor, represents the Forward Party of California and brings a minor-party and unaffiliated-voter perspective that closed primaries are designed to marginalize. Republican Party leaders, Democratic administration alumni, Latino political analysts, former prosecutors, Common Cause veterans, Maine RCV campaign architects, ranked-choice coalition leaders, military veterans, and minor-party reformers do not typically sign on to the same coalition. That is the point of this one. ## **What More Choice California is Actually Proposing** More Choice California is not just defending the existing system. The coalition is also suggesting a next step for those concerned about “only two” candidates advancing to November. The case for that next step is not new, and it did not come from outside California. In June 2018, Dan Howle, then executive director of the Independent Voter Project and a chief architect of Proposition 14, and Rob Richie, the founder and longtime CEO of FairVote, [co-authored an op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2018/06/08/the-needs-of-california-voters-not-the-parties-must-be-heeded/?ref=ivn.us) laying out a joint position. The two organizations, often treated as competing camps in the reform space, [agreed](https://ivn.us/2018/06/13/ivp-fairvote-call-for-top-four-primaries-ranked-choice-voting) that the logical next step for California would be to increase the number of candidates that advance from the nonpartisan primary from 2 to 4 or 5, allow write-in candidates in November, and use ranked choice voting in the general election to avoid vote-splitting and guarantee majority rule. Howle and Richie did something else in that op-ed. They predicted, almost word for word, what is happening this week. “Don’t be surprised if some party insiders use this year’s elections as a pretext to seek a return California to its old incumbent-friendly system,” they wrote. “That isn’t going to fly.” Eight years later, that prediction is being tested. The structural argument has held up. Former California state senator and IVP co-founder [Steve Peace](https://ivn.us/posts/author-californias-top-two-primary-says-its-time-reform-reform), one of the original authors of the nonpartisan primary, has continued to make the case, even as the political class has found new ways to game a two-candidate runoff. [Author of California’s Top-Two Primary Says It’s Time to Reform the ReformIn 2010, California voters took the first step in empowering every California voter by abolishing party-controlled closed partisan primaries in favor of open nonpartisan primaries that advance the top two vote-getters to the November election.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-26.ico)Independent Voter NewsSteve Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/42473863820_c86e1d7b24_k-1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/author-californias-top-two-primary-says-its-time-reform-reform) Peace pointed in 2024 to Adam Schiff’s U.S. Senate campaign, which used paid media in the primary to elevate a weaker Republican opponent, and to Carl DeMaio’s Assembly race, which ran the same play in reverse to elevate a weaker Democrat. Top Four with ranked choice voting would stop that kind of maneuvering by giving voters more finalists to choose from and a way to express the full order of their preferences in November. That is the system More Choice California is now organizing California’s reform community to advance. ## **The National Picture, and An Honest Assessment of How Hard This Is** More Choice California is the lead California opposition to the Maviglio repeal, but it is not operating in isolation. The Independent Voter Project is a founding member of the [National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers](https://www.nonpartisanreformers.org/?ref=ivn.us) (NANR), the Denver-based umbrella organization launched in January 2018 to connect state-level reform groups nationwide. Other NANR members include [Unite America](https://uniteamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us), [FairVote](https://fairvote.org/?ref=ivn.us), [Open Primaries](https://www.openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us), [Rank the Vote](https://rankthevote.us/?ref=ivn.us), [American Promise](https://americanpromise.net/?ref=ivn.us), [Better Choices for Democracy](https://www.betterchoices.vote/?ref=ivn.us), and [Veterans for All Voters](https://veteransforallvoters.org/?ref=ivn.us). Unite America is a national reform group that has focused on primary election reform across several states. It [issued its own statement](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/unite-america-statement-on-open-primary-repeal-effort-in-california?ref=ivn.us) opposing the California repeal effort on May 11, calling the Maviglio initiative part of “a familiar pattern” in which dominant-party operatives push to restore closed primaries whenever an open system threatens their lock on the general election ballot. > 📣 NEW: [@NickTroiano](https://twitter.com/NickTroiano?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) on a new effort to repeal open primaries in California 📣 > > Citing the small possibility that two Republicans could advance to the general election in the California governor’s race, a Democratic consultant filed a repeal initiative Friday with state elections… > > — Unite America (@uniteamerica) [May 11, 2026](https://twitter.com/uniteamerica/status/2053916704439140755?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) That national context matters. It also requires some honesty. True nonpartisan reform is hard. In 2024, Unite America [spent roughly $18.9 million](https://ballotpedia.org/Support%5Fand%5Fopposition%5Fto%5F2024%5Franked-choice%5Fvoting%5Fballot%5Fmeasures?ref=ivn.us) on Top Four or Top Five primary and ranked choice voting initiatives in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada. The Alaska defense succeeded by about 743 votes after a recount. All three new state measures [failed](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2024/12/10/five-states-reject-ranked-choice-voting-measures-alaska-retains-system-after-recount/?ref=ivn.us). Oregon’s RCV measure also failed. Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West, reviewing the cycle, [concluded](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-future-of-the-instant-runoff-election-reform/?ref=ivn.us) that nonpartisan reform efforts were hurt by complicated ballot language, by the perception that the funding came from out-of-state donors, and by party organizations on both sides treating the reform as a threat. Those losses are not a reason to retreat. They are a reason to take California’s situation seriously. California already has the underlying structure that reform groups in other states have struggled to build from scratch. The nonpartisan primary, passed by millions of voters, has now been in place for sixteen years. Roughly 6.2 million California voters are unaffiliated with either major party. That total includes more than 4 million voters registered as No Party Preference, plus nearly a million voters registered with the American Independent Party who, [according to a 2016 Los Angeles Times investigation](https://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474725586/many-american-independent-party-voters-in-california-are-mis-registered?ref=ivn.us), believed they were registering as independents when they checked the AIP box. The reform community in California, anchored by IVP and the original drafters of Proposition 14, knows the legal terrain, knows the political traps, and knows the difference between a “partisan” Top Two and a “nonpartisan” Top Two as a matter of constitutional law. Other states are still trying to learn that distinction. [How Do Primary Elections Work? An Overview and Legal AnalysisThe following is a breakdown of the general types of primary elections with an explanation of the Constitutional principles that apply to each system’s components.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-27.ico)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/hero-migrated-5d1d1842c8d10818908412e1-1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/how-do-primary-elections-work-an-overview-and-legal-analysis) What the repeal effort would do is hand that hard-earned structural ground back to the political parties. ## **Beyond the Signature Path** The Maviglio initiative will not appear on a ballot unless its proponents gather hundreds of thousands of valid signatures. That is a real operational lift, even with Reform California’s volunteer and funding commitments. It is also not the only path. California’s constitution can also be amended by legislative referral. A two-thirds vote in each chamber of the legislature places a constitutional amendment directly on the ballot, with no signature requirement and no qualification window. That mechanism has been used many times in California’s modern political history, and it can move quickly when the leadership of both major-party caucuses sees a shared incentive to act. It would not be a total surprise to see a legislative push this session to refer some version of the Maviglio repeal directly to the 2026 or 2028 ballot, bypassing the signature process altogether. The two major parties will then control the framing. Each side has the infrastructure to brand the repeal with messages that cater to its own base as a reform that restores fairness, expands choice, or fixes an “experiment” that did not work. That framing would be inaccurate. What is actually on the table is the elimination of California’s nonpartisan primary, one of only three statewide primary systems in the country that treat every voter and every candidate the same, regardless of whether they joined a political party. Repealing it is not a reform. It is the rollback of one of the most significant voter-rights expansions in modern history. ## **What Is At Stake** Under California’s current system, every voter participates in the same primary, and the two highest vote-getters advance to the general election. Under the Maviglio repeal, each qualified party would nominate its own candidate, and parties would decide whether to allow independent voters to participate in their primaries at all. That is a step backward to the system the California Supreme Court considered partisan in [*California Democratic Party v. Jones*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/567/case.html?ref=ivn.us), and it is the system Proposition 14 was specifically designed to replace. “Millions of Californians voted overwhelmingly in a free and fair election for a nonpartisan system. Party bosses are now trying to take back control,” said Cara McCormick in the coalition’s launch announcement. “These elections belong to all voters, and we will fight to protect the right of every voter to participate equally and meaningfully.” More Choice California’s task is to make sure California voters understand who is actually behind the repeal, what it would do to their right to participate, and what a real next step toward expanded voter choice would look like. ### NEW POLL: Pratt and Becerra Lead Among Los Angeles General Election Voters URL: https://ivn.us/new-poll-pratt-and-becerra-lead-among-los-angeles-general-election-voters-2026-05-12/ Last updated: 2026-05-20T14:23:07.000Z **LOS ANGELES, Calif.** \- A new Independent Voter Project poll finds that the LA mayoral race is a three-way contest among general-election voters. The only catch is that those voters may not be the ones who decide who's on the November ballot. That decision belongs to whoever shows up to vote in the primary. [Independents and Republicans May Hold the Power in Los Angeles – If They Actually VoteA coordinated Democratic Socialist coalition is mobilizing across six races in LA. The largest bloc of eligible voters in several key districts isn’t hearing from anyone.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-20.ico)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/los-angeles-city-council-primary-june-election.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/independents-and-republicans-may-hold-the-power-in-los-angeles-if-they-actually-vote-2026-04-20) If the November general election were held today with the same electorate that turned out in 2022, Spencer Pratt would lead at 27%, followed by Karen Bass at 24% and Nithya Raman at 23%. Adam Miller trails at 6%, with 19% picking "None / Other." But the primary electorate looks nothing like the general electorate. It's smaller, older, and more partisan. Those voters decide which two candidates the rest of LA gets to choose between in November. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/IVP-_-Independent-Voter-Survey-_-LA-City-_-May-2026_LA-Mayoral-Race_Bar-chart.png) This poll is weighted to match LA's general election turnout: younger, more diverse, and significantly more independent than the primary. If you want to understand what LA's broader electorate actually prefers, these are the numbers. If you want to know who wins the primary, this isn't that poll. ## **The Race Breaks Down by Coalition, Not by Citywide Preference** Spencer Pratt leads the overall race, but his support is concentrated in a bloc that historically underperforms in primaries. Among Republicans, he is the only candidate with meaningful support: 75% back Pratt, with no other candidate clearing 5%. Among independents (No Party Preference and American Independent), Pratt leads with 39%, well ahead of Raman at 19% and Bass at 6%. > They not like us [pic.twitter.com/78hducHDUE](https://t.co/78hducHDUE?ref=ivn.us) > > — Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) [April 29, 2026](https://twitter.com/spencerpratt/status/2049497051793412557?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) That's a dominant position in a large voting bloc. Republicans and independents make up 35% of LA's general election electorate in this model. The question is whether they show up in the primary at anything close to that rate. Karen Bass leads among Democrats in this poll, with 34% support. Raman trails by four points at 30%. Bass's coalition is older and more Black than Raman's. The remaining Democratic vote splits between None/Other (18%) and Pratt (12%). > I clashed with Trump's ICE agents and Angeleno's locked arms to protect our neighbors. > > I achieved the first two-year drop in homelessness ever. > > I battled red tape and insurers to help families rebuild from fires. > > Now, I haven't always got it right. There's more work to do.… [pic.twitter.com/NUArlCsFF9](https://t.co/NUArlCsFF9?ref=ivn.us) > > — Karen Bass (@KarenBassLA) [April 24, 2026](https://twitter.com/KarenBassLA/status/2047707712029675791?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Nithya Raman runs competitively overall on the strength of younger voters. She leads decisively among voters under 40: 46% among 18–29-year-olds and 42% among 30–39-year-olds. She runs second to Bass among Democrats but struggles among older voters and outside the party. > LA mayor candidate [@nithyavraman](https://twitter.com/nithyavraman?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us): “I don't think the choice right now needs to be between our broken status quo that is motivated by these really political decisions around some of the most important issues facing Los Angeles, and between a Maga Republican.” [pic.twitter.com/hIp23RH1g9](https://t.co/hIp23RH1g9?ref=ivn.us) > > — BTC Clips (@BTC\_clips) [May 11, 2026](https://twitter.com/BTC%5Fclips/status/2053632530859843951?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Adam Miller has not yet broken through with any subgroup. The structure is clear. Pratt owns Republicans and independents. Bass owns older Democrats. Raman owns younger Democrats. Whoever turns out in the primary decides which two of those coalitions advance to November. ## **Governor: Becerra Leads in LA, But This Is a City Poll, Not a Statewide Forecast** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/IVP-_-Independent-Voter-Survey-_-LA-City-_-May-2026_CA-Gubernatorial-Race_Bar-chart.png) Among LA City voters, Xavier Becerra leads with 22%, followed by a statistical tie between Tom Steyer (19%) and Steve Hilton (19%). Katie Porter and Matt Mahan follow at 10% each, with Bianco at 8%, Villaraigosa at 4%, and Thurmond at 1%. About 7% selected None/Other. This is not a statewide projection. California's gubernatorial race will be decided by voters across the entire state. These numbers describe only LA City voters. [Xavier Becerra Bolts Into First Place in IVN California Governor PollSurvey of 3,404 verified California voters shows Democrat in front. Second-choice data reveals where Yee’s supporters are headed.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-19.ico)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/IVN-2026-California-Governor-Race-Survey-April-1.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/breaking-xavier-becerra-bolts-into-first-place-in-ivn-california-governor-poll-2026-04-20) LA Democrats split fairly evenly between Becerra (31%) and Steyer (24%), with the rest dividing among Porter, Mahan, and others. Republicans in LA overwhelmingly back Hilton (58%), with Bianco a distant second (33%). Independents are more split: Hilton leads at 31%, Steyer at 16%, Becerra at 12%. [California Governor Debate Takeaways: What Independent Voters Need to KnowTopic-by-topic takeaways from the final debates in the California governor’s race.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-18.ico)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-governor-race--jungle-primary-independent-voters-2.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/california-governor-debate-takeaways-what-independent-voters-need-to-know-2026-05-07) ## **Voters Think LA Is on the Wrong Track. California Gets a Softer Read.** Fifty-four percent (54%) of LA City voters say LA is headed in the wrong direction. Only 17% say the right direction. Twenty-nine percent (29%) are in the middle. Forty-seven percent (47%) say California is headed in the wrong direction, while 26% say it is headed in the right direction and 27% in the middle. That's a meaningfully less negative assessment of the state than of the city. The partisan gap is dramatic. Republicans are overwhelmingly negative: 95% say LA is on the wrong track, 94% say the same of California. Democrats distinguish between the two: they lean negative on LA (40% wrong direction vs 25% right direction) but lean positive on California (36% right direction vs 30% wrong direction). Independents lean negative on both (67% wrong track on LA, 62% on California) but less intensely than Republicans. The Democrat–Republican split on California's direction is one of the widest gaps in the entire poll. ### **Billionaire Tax: Support Collapses When Voters Learn the Fine Print** A proposed November ballot measure would impose a one-time tax on California billionaires. When asked about the measure without additional context, 50% of LA voters support it, 35% oppose it, and 15% are unsure. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/california-wealth-tax-results.png) The measure includes a provision that allows the California Legislature, by a two-thirds vote, to make the tax permanent and extend it beyond billionaires, including potentially to people who own a home worth more than $1 million. Once voters learn about that provision, the picture inverts. Support drops to 27%, opposition climbs to 54%, and unsure grows to 19%. A 15-point support advantage becomes a 27-point opposition advantage. That's a 42-point swing. [Billionaires, Voter ID, Uber, and More: The 2026 California Ballot Is Already a Money WarIn California, almost $325 million has already been raised in support and opposition to a handful of direct democracy initiatives hoping to appear on the ballot on November 3, 2026.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-22.ico)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-ballot-initiatives-campaign-finance-2026-1.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/billionaires-voter-id-uber-and-more-the-2026-california-ballot-is-already-a-money-war-2026-04-13) Republicans oppose it throughout: 75% without context, 82% with it. Independents start split (43% oppose, 41% support) and shift to clear opposition once informed (63% oppose, 25% support). Democrats support the measure on its face (63% support, 23% oppose) but flip to opposition once the scope is explained: 44% oppose, 32% support. The Democratic flip is the most striking result in the poll. A clear majority of Democrats support taxing billionaires in principle. When they learn that the same provision could be extended to homeowning Californians, more oppose than support it. ## **What this means** Three things stand out. **One:** The race for mayor is genuinely competitive among the voters who turn out in November. Three candidates sit within a 4-point window. Anyone telling you they know who wins is guessing. **Two:** The voters who decide which of those candidates make the November ballot are not the voters in this poll. Primary turnout is a fraction of the general turnout. The electorate that shows up in the primary will have an outsized influence over what LA's choices look like in November. If that electorate skews older, more partisan, or more Democratic than the general electorate this poll models, the outcome could look very different from the numbers in this poll. **Three:** Voter preferences move when they have more information. The 42-point swing on the billionaire tax is a reminder that polling captures preferences under whatever information voters have at the moment they answer. As campaigns and ballot pamphlets fill in details, those preferences can shift substantially. The primary is the next decision point. Show up. ## **Methodology and Reliability** The IVP 2026 LA City Poll was conducted May 7–11, 2026, among 806 screened and verified registered Los Angeles city voters. The sample was drawn directly from L2's California voter file. All respondents were verified registered voters matched back to that file. Eligibility was restricted to LA city voters who participated in at least two of the last four general elections. This documented participation threshold served as the turnout model for the survey, anchored in verified voting history rather than self-reported voting intent. Respondents were reached via MMS outreach using verified cell phone records matched to the voter file. All responses were validated against the source file. Duplicate submissions and unmatched records were excluded prior to analysis. After applying the high-propensity screen, the dataset was weighted by age, gender, race, and party registration to approximate the demographic composition of LA city voters who turned out in the 2022 general election. The modeled electorate consists of 64.7% Democrats, 16.1% Republicans, and 19.2% independent voters. The unweighted sample composition is Democrats n=545, Republicans n=162, and independent registrants n=99. For purposes of this survey, IVP defines independent voters to include all voters not registered as Democrats or Republicans, including No Party Preference registrants, American Independent Party voters, and all other minor party registrants. American Independent Party registrants are treated as independent for all analytical purposes, consistent with California's nonpartisan primary structure. In practical terms, this turnout model represents LA city's general-election electorate, not its primary electorate. Primary turnout in Los Angeles is meaningfully smaller, older, and more partisan than the general electorate this poll is modeled on. A material change in turnout composition between the primary and the general, particularly among independent and younger voters, would alter projected ballot dynamics. The overall margin of error is ±3.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, adjusted for the design effect introduced by weighting using Kish's effective sample size of 623\. Subgroup margins of error are wider: ±4.7 points for Democrats, ±8.8 points for Republicans, and ±10.8 points for independent voters. As with all voter-file-based online samples, the margin of error reflects sampling precision within the modeled electorate and should be interpreted as an estimate rather than a guarantee of representativeness. The survey instrument covered the LA Mayor's race (first and second choice), the California Governor's race (first and second choice), party trust, LA City direction, California direction, the proposed billionaire-tax ballot measure (with and without context on its scope), and intent to vote in the 2026 primary. All results reported reflect weighted percentages unless otherwise noted. This poll should be understood as a structural model of LA city's *general-election electorate*. It is not a forecast of primary outcomes, and material changes in the composition of the turnout would alter the topline results. Full [technical methodology is available here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PjTrYviHaTy72wjTKpLF4dof9OniMk6yxYl6Vsb7Apo/edit?tab=t.0&ref=ivn.us). ### California Nonpartisan Primary is Throwing a Wrench in the Democratic Party’s Prop 50 Gerrymandering Effort URL: https://ivn.us/california-redrew-its-congressional-map-but-are-voters-being-told-what-changed-under-their-feet-2026-05-12/ Last updated: 2026-05-20T14:22:04.000Z When California voters cast their votes in 2026, they will be doing so under congressional lines that did not exist in the last election cycle. This raises a few questions, including: Do voters know what changed? And, do they know how their voting power was affected? The state adopted a new map under Prop 50 in 2025\. It was the Democratic majority’s response to a Texas gerrymander at the behest of President Donald Trump to take 5 seats away from Democrats going into the midterms. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s warning to Texas was: If you take seats away from Democrats, we will take seats away from Republicans. The consequence of all of this is the mid-cycle gerrymandering war that continues to this day. Prop 50 was approved by nearly two-thirds of voters who participated in the November special election. It suspended a congressional map drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission and replaced it with a map drawn by the California Legislature. To do this required amending the constitution to allow a temporary map that will be in place until after the 2030 census. The amendment also suspended a provision in the constitution that prohibits partisan gerrymandering. And so, it had to be put before voters. Unlike the commission map, Prop. 50 was not required to follow the same state-level rules that prohibit consideration of political parties, incumbents, or candidates. Under the new congressional lines, Democrats could end up with 92% of the state’s House delegation. Voters were sold on a message of “fighting fire with fire” and “balancing the scales.” Democrats argued that if Republicans were going to cheat in order to hold on to their majority in the US House then California had to respond. The national story is about which party gains seats. However, this obscures the local impact. Even if temporary, many voters in California will not have the same voting power they had in previous election cycles. The incumbent listed on their ballot may not even be the same. Some districts saw massive shifts, like Congressional District 1\. The district used to cover the northeast corner of the state and [had a partisan score of R+25%](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F50,%5FUse%5Fof%5FLegislative%5FCongressional%5FRedistricting%5FMap%5FAmendment%5F%282025%29?ref=ivn.us). Based on the results of the 2024 presidential election, it is now D+12%. It went from solid Republican to solid Democrat, [according to the Cook Political Report](https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings?ref=ivn.us). After the death of Doug LaMalfa (R) earlier this year, CA-1 is an open seat – open, but safe for the Democrat who wins it. Californians living near the Oregon border are now in Congressional District 2, which was redrawn to be the most egregious example of what a partisan gerrymander looks like in the state. [The Most Gerrymandered District in California Could Actually Be Decided by Independent VotersCould California’s most gerrymandered district be ready for a surprise?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-17.ico)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/CA-2nd-congressional-district-1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/the-most-gerrymandered-district-in-california-could-actually-be-decided-by-independent-voters-2026-04-29) US Rep. Kevin Kiley still represents California’s 3rd Congressional District. However, after Prop 50, he will run for re-election in CA-6\. He was moved out of a competitive district that leaned Republican to a safe Democratic district. Kiley switched his party affiliation to No Party Preference, but he will likely lose his seat. Kiley and US Rep. Ami Bera essentially switched districts because Bera represented CA-6 until the passage of Prop 50\. Now, he is running for re-election in the 3rd district, which was redrawn to have a partisan score of D+10%. Four incumbents in total are running in a different district in 2026: Kiley, Bera, Republican US Rep. Ken Calvert (from CA-41 to CA-40), and Democratic US Rep. Linda Sánchez (from CA-38 to CA-41). There are two other districts of note that show how much changed under Prop 50: California’s 22nd in the Central Valley and the 48th in San Diego and Riverside counties. However, these districts reflect the unintended consequence of the partisan redistricting effort: By making them lean more Democrat, lawmakers actually gave independent voters more power in the primary. ### **CA-22: A More Democratic District, But Not a Simple Race** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/california-congressional-district-22.png) California’s 22nd Congressional District is represented by Republican Rep. David Valadao, who has long been one of the GOP’s most difficult incumbents for Democrats to defeat due to his popularity in the district. Under Prop. 50, CA-22 still includes parts of Kings, Tulare, Fresno, and Kern counties, but it now includes a small portion of Fresno and the eastern side of Bakersfield. The district’s voter registration is 42% Democrat, 26% Republican, and 24% No Party Preference. In the central valley, a Democratic advantage in voter registration doesn’t always mean a win. In fact, Cook still rates this seat a toss-up. So, while Democrats shaped the district to be more friendly to them, it will still be a nationally watched test to see if they can actually flip it. It also changed the candidate field. Democrats are not merely lining up behind one challenger. Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a physician and moderate Democrat, is running with support from major labor groups and was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” program. Randy Villegas, a Visalia school board member and college professor, is running as a progressive alternative backed by groups like the Working Families Party and National Nurses United. Valadao, meanwhile, is the only Republican running and has the California Republican Party’s endorsement. These are the only 3 candidates in the race. So, at least in 2026, this gives independent voters more leverage over the outcome. Specifically, the question for voters is: What *kind* of Democrat do they want to see face Valadao in November? The primary is not just about partisan control of Congress; it is also about whether the district’s November choice becomes Valadao versus a moderate Democrat or Valadao versus a progressive Democrat. ### **CA-48: A Republican Stronghold Becomes a Democratic Target** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/CA-48--1-.png) California’s 48th Congressional District may be the clearest example of redistricting changing the political reality before voters even cast a ballot. The seat is currently held by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, but Issa announced he would not seek re-election after the district was redrawn under Prop. 50\. The district went from being a safe Republican R+13% to a Democrat-leaning D+3%. Issa decided not to run again in this new electoral landscape. CA-48 now covers most of East and North County San Diego and parts of Riverside County, including Palm Springs. Voter registration is at 37% Democratic, 33% Republican, and 22% No Party Preference. It is another race where independent voters will have a meaningful impact. The candidate field changed almost overnight. Jim Desmond, a Republican San Diego County supervisor, moved into the race and became the leading Republican contender. On the other side, the democratic field is crowded, with San Diego Councilmember Marni von Wilpert and former Obama official Ammar Campa-Najjar among the main candidates seeking to advance. National party organizations quickly treated CA-48 as a battleground. The NRCC [added Desmond to its “MAGA Majority” program in late April](https://www.nrcc.org/2026/04/27/nrcc-adds-jim-desmond-to-maga-majority-program/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). The DCCC responded by [attacking Desmond’s inclusion in that program](https://dccc.org/%F0%9F%9A%A8-breaking-jim-desmond-joins-nrccs-unpopular-maga-majority-in-ca-48-%F0%9F%9A%A8/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). ### **Redistricting Changed More Than the Map** Prop. 50 has been covered largely as a national chess move: California Democrats countering Republican redistricting efforts in states like Texas. That framing is not wrong, but voters do not experience redistricting as a national strategy memo. They experience it as a new ballot, a new set of candidates, new campaign ads, new outside attention, and sometimes a new sense that their vote suddenly matters less, more, or – not at all. This raises a broader accountability question for California: Are voters being told enough about what changed in their own district? Not just that the lines changed. Not just that one party may benefit. But whether their district became more competitive, more partisan, more nationally targeted, and how their personal vote is actually impacted. California voters approved Prop. 50\. Now they are voting under it. ### The Real Losers in Virginia, SCOTUS Redistricting Decisions are “Progressives” and Trump URL: https://ivn.us/the-real-losers-in-virginia-scotus-decisions-on-redistricting-are-progressives-and-trump-2026-05-11/ Last updated: 2026-05-12T02:05:13.000Z In all the drama on redistricting, people are overlooking what the courts have actually done: They made life miserable for extremists. In terms of the [Voting Rights Act](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act?ref=ivn.us), the point of it as envisioned by Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Lyndon B. Johnson was to enforce the 15th Amendment and to allow African Americans and others the freedom to register to vote and vote without intimidation or oppression. As President Johnson stated, once African Americans had the right to vote and had their votes counted, every politician would be kissing their behind. Dr. King [made a similar statement in 1957](https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/give-us-ballot-address-delivered-prayer-pilgrimage-freedom?ref=ivn.us). One of the underreported aspects of the Voting Rights Act is that it got far more votes in Congress than the [1964 Civil Rights Act](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/civil-rights-act?ref=ivn.us). The reason was that no one wanted to piss off voters. The VRA was designed to maximize voting participation, not guarantee a particular result. For example, in Tennessee, where African Americans could vote freely, their vote combined with Mountain Republicans made the state very competitive in state and federal elections. While the VRA did not have an immediate impact in terms of elections, as African American voting grew starting around 1970 (and as noted by the Supreme Court, African American turnout often exceeded that of Whites), it did change politics in the South. In 1970, 4 “New South Governors” were elected because of African American voters: Dale Bumpers \[Arkansas\], Reuben Askew \[Florida\], Jimmy Carter \[Georgia\], and John C. West \[South Carolina\]. West, along with the late Abraham Nowick, were the original patrons of Jim Clyburn. The immediate impact of the 1970 election was that Strom Thurmond did a 180 on representing African Americans. The VRA led to bi-racial coalitions in the South resulting in the so-called "90-10 strategy" of splitting the White vote and a Democrat getting 90% of the African American vote to win. To counter that, Republicans had to appeal to black voters to make it more like 80-20\. This strategy was used by Lamar Alexander in Tennessee, Linwood Holton in Virginia, and even Trent Lott in Mississippi. It is no accident that there are now 5 African American US senators, 4 of whom are from former slave states. This includes Tim Scott, who is an African American Republican from South Carolina. African Americans have been elected to statewide office from former slave states. The likely next governor of Florida will be Byron Donalds, who is an African American Republican. The Voting Rights Act, as enacted in 1965, did not mandate majority-minority districts. So, where did this idea originate? The answer is that it largely stems from the 1982 amendments to the VRA, which were designed to prevent the dilution of minority voting strength. Section 2 of the VRA, as amended, mandates that no voting practice can result in a denial of rights, forcing states to draw districts where minority groups can elect candidates of their choice, particularly in areas with racially polarized voting. This was pushed for by Bob Dole over the objections of Chief Justice John Roberts, who was then a Junior lawyer in the Reagan Administration. In [*Thornburg v. Gingles*, 478 U.S. 30 (1986)](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/478/30/?ref=ivn.us), a unanimous Court found that: > "\[T\]he legacy of official discrimination ... acted in concert with the multimember districting scheme to impair the ability of cohesive groups of black voters to participate equally in the political process and to elect candidates of their choice." The ruling resulted in the invalidation of districts in the North Carolina General Assembly and led to more single-member districts in state legislatures. However, Gingles did not require majority-minority districts. After the 1988 election, as perhaps penance, the late Lee Atwater made it his mission to get more African Americans to vote Republican. As a “favor” to them, he called on the Justice Department to push for “majority-minority” districts. As a result, in the 1992 redistricting, the number of majority-minority districts in Congress went up but the number of African American districts went way-way down. That redistricting, along with other factors, led to the 1994 rout of Democrats in the South. The “packing” also went against what Dr. King and LBJ were trying to do. It so happened that because you cannot racially gerrymander a state and because African American voter participation increased due to economic conditions nationwide, influence has grown. Maryland, which is 28% African American, has an African American governor and an African American senator. They both ran as politicians who happened to be Black, but not Black Politicians. What the Supreme Court did in [*Louisiana v. Callais*](https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/louisiana-v-callais-2/?ref=ivn.us) was to declare racial gerrymandering a form of discrimination prohibited by the 15th Amendment. The effect of this was to go back to what Dr. King and LBJ envisioned in 1965\. One of the reasons Governor Brian Kemp does not want to redistrict in Georgia is precisely because of the massive growth in African American voting. It so happens that one of the state’s senators is African American. An unpacking would cost the Republicans 2-3 US House seats. What this all means is that instead of a district being, say, 50% African American it becomes 35% African American. What it also will likely lead to is more electoral competition and less race-based candidates. In California terms, it means more Rod Wrights and Willard Murrays and less Maxine Waters or Corey Jacksons. This phenomenon was alluded to by two sources: ESPN Sports Commentator Stephen A. Smith and Fox New Commentator and former Atwater protégé Karl Rove. Smith has argued that African Americans [should vote Republican](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DX6vNAXR3Hw/?ref=ivn.us) in one cycle just to show that they cannot be taken for granted or ostracized. In terms of Rove, he argued that the Supreme Court’s decision empowers Black voters. Rove began the segment by explaining how bizarrely drawn congressional districts in Louisiana and Alabama had been created to comply with the VRA. He stated: > *“Well, first of all, most states have already set the elections, they’ve had their primaries, they’ve set the filing deadlines. Alabama has already said, ‘Look, we recognize that we’ve got to redo this, but we cannot do it this year. We’re going to do it in the future. We’re gonna do it before the next election.’ Louisiana’s thinking about trying to do this. We’ll see if they’re able to pull it off,” replied Rove. “The second thing I’d say is, is it increases the influence of Black voters. Because no longer are they grouped together under the notion of the only way that you can elect somebody who can represent Blacks is to have a majority of Blacks in that district. Now you’re going to have Blacks that are in a, you know, in a district that has community of interest and is more compact, in which both parties are gonna say we need to get inroads in that community, or dominate that community in order to elect one of our own to the U.S. Congress.”* In terms of Virginia, the question at the heart of the 4-3 decision handed down by the state Supreme Court invalidating a constitutional amendment that would have redrawn the state’s congressional map in Democrats’ favor is: Was the amendment properly proposed to Virginia voters? In Virginia, as in many states, there are heightened thresholds to amend the State Constitution. In the Commonwealth, this means that a general election has to intervene between first and second passage of the measure by the legislature. The only reason that this issue even arose is that former Gov. Glenn Youngkin [called a special session on an unrelated matter in October 2025](https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/virginia-democrats-special-session-oct-27-2025?ref=ivn.us). During the session, the nominal leader of state Senate Democrats (who hold a bare majority), Sen. L. Louise Lucas (who is under investigation for cannabis related activities), decided to do a redistricting ploy. Never mind that in a wave election, Democrats could net 2-3 seats because of demographic changes. In fact, most Republicans blamed this problem on Youngkin. He is now toxic with Republicans in general. The key dispute here is over the meaning of the phrase “general election.” This isn’t a case of vaguely written text, per se, but rather text that probably was pretty straightforward when it was drafted (in 1971) but now is a bit vaguer since election practices have changed a lot in the last five decades. The question became, what was “the election”? After voting started for the 2025 general election and more than 40% of Virginians voted, the redistricting amendment was first proposed and passed the State Legislature. Then, after Gov. Abigail Spanberger – who was initially no fan of the process – was elected, the amendment was repassed again. It was then narrowly approved in a special election where $64 million was spent to pass it. [Who Funded the $100M Virginia Gerrymandering Referendum? Voters May Never KnowOn Tuesday, Virginians will go to the polls and vote on a referendum that if passed will implement a temporary new congressional map that gives Democrats as much as a 10-1 advantage in House elections.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/04/dark-money-campaign-finance-virginia-special-election.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/who-funded-the-100m-virginia-gerrymandering-referendum-voters-may-never-know-2026-04-20) However, in looking at the election results, it only passed because of a huge 'Yes' vote in Northern Virginia, which was going to elect Democrats anyway. There was no guarantee of seat pickups, and the new lines made the life of incumbents miserable. In the areas where Democrats looked to pick up seats it lost, this will likely infect the process for November. Members of the House of Delegates who pushed for this – starting with Dan Helmer – have nowhere to run. Because of this stunt and because of her actions on certain firearms bills (one of which violates a court order and the Virginia State Police will not follow because of that court order), Spanberger finds her approval ratings in the toilet. Democrats – who made major gains in the House of Delegates under lines approved by the state's redistricting commission – now find themselves at risk of major loses in the 2027 elections. Spanberger (who cannot run for reelection in any event) is likely political toast unless she can do a reset to be relevant. What may save her and allow her to do a reset is Lucas going to federal prison. ### California’s Election Referee Is on the Ballot – And Almost No One Is Watching URL: https://ivn.us/californias-election-referee-is-on-the-ballot-and-almost-no-one-is-watching-2026-05-11/ Last updated: 2026-05-11T16:17:56.000Z Mail-in ballots are out, and voting has begun in California’s June 2 primary. This election, though, is not just about who wins power. It is also a fight over who voters trust to run the system. This is where the secretary of state comes in – the chief elections officer of the state. It is one of the most consequential statewide offices in California, even if it is not getting the same level of attention as the governor’s race. Part of the reason few are talking about it is because it seems like an easy victory for incumbent Shirley Weber. Still, it is an important race for independent voters to watch, because the secretary of state oversees the administration of federal and state elections, certifies candidates and statewide ballot measures, monitors campaign finance and lobbying disclosures, and more. In other words, the office sits at the center of many of the issues that dominate modern political debate: election security, voter access, ballot counting, campaign transparency, and public trust. This year’s election also coincides with a ballot initiative to implement new voter ID requirements for future elections. The initiative has already been certified for the ballot and will be a major statewide issue going into November. [California Voter ID Initiative Just Made the BallotCalifornia voters are set to decide whether to add voter ID to the state constitution, after election officials announced the California Voter ID Initiative cleared the signature threshold needed for the 2026 ballot.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-voter-id-initiative-ballot-certified.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/california-voter-id-initiative-just-made-the-ballot-2026-04-27) ## **The Candidates** Four candidates are listed on the statewide primary ballot for secretary of state: incumbent Democrat Shirley Weber, Republican Donald Wagner, Green Party candidate Michael Feinstein, and Green Party candidate Gary Blenner. Weber’s ballot designation is “California Secretary of State,” Wagner’s is “Orange County Supervisor,” Feinstein’s is “Electoral Reform Consultant,” and Blenner’s is “Teacher.” It is worth noting that there were no debates or candidate forums held for this race, despite the responsibilities of the secretary of state. So, voters did not get to hear the positions of any of these candidates prior to ballots being sent out. Under California’s Top Two nonpartisan open primary, all voters can choose from the same list of candidates, regardless of party affiliation. The two candidates who receive the most votes advance to November. ## **Secretary of State Shirley Weber: The Incumbent Defending How California Runs Its Elections** Shirley Weber is seeking another term after first being appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020 and then winning election in 2022\. Before becoming secretary of state, Weber served in the state Assembly and had a long career as a professor at San Diego State University. During her tenure as secretary of state, California has permanently implemented universal mail-in voting. She also has administered high-profile statewide elections and engaged in legal fights with local governments over election laws. CalMatters [notes](https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/secretary-of-state/?ref=ivn.us) that Weber has pledged to expand voting access, improve transparency in election filings, and enhance cybersecurity protections if elected to another term. Her pitch is largely a defense of California’s current approach. She says voting is and should remain accessible to everyone and argues that the state already makes elections secure. In a statement published in the [official voter guide](https://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2026/primary/pdf/candidate-statements.pdf?ref=ivn.us), she said: > *“\[T\]here are people that want to roll back … progress. They want shorter polling hours, fewer days to vote and the removal of vote-by-mail ballots. Some of them have even threatened the lives of election officials when their preferred candidate loses. This behavior will not be tolerated in California.”* It is a message that is particularly relevant this year because of the California voter ID initiative that her office certified for the November ballot. Weber is opposed to the initiative, [calling it](https://igs.berkeley.edu/news/kswb-fox-5-morning-news-covers-california-secretary-state-dr-shirley-webers-remarks-voter-id?ref=ivn.us) “a waste of money and a waste of time.” She was also quoted in the Los Angeles Times saying, “When you really get to it, Voter ID is a smoke screen for trying to create the idea that this is a corrupt system.” Independent Voter News sent out a questionnaire to all statewide candidates, including the candidates for secretary of state, asking them specifically about the California voter ID initiative, the federal SAVE Act, and two additional questions: - Do you support the right of every voter, regardless of party preference, to participate in every publicly funded election, including primary elections? - Would you support expanding California voter choice by advancing the top four candidates to the general election and allowing voters to rank them in order of preference? Weber’s office has not sent back a response, but we know from previous statements that she does not support the voter ID initiative or the SAVE Act. ## **Don Wagner: The Republican Challenger Campaigning on Election Integrity** Don Wagner is an Orange County supervisor, former Irvine mayor, and former state assemblymember. He responded to IVN’s questionnaire and said he supports the California voter ID initiative, but does not support the SAVE Act. **IVN author Cara Brown McCormick published** [**a comprehensive breakdown**](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10) **highlighting the differences between the state initiative and the federal bill.** Wagner also said ‘Yes” to the question: “Do you support the right of every voter, regardless of party preference, to participate in every publicly funded election, including primary elections?” But he is “Not Sure” about a Top Four system. He is running on a platform centered on election integrity, oversight, and transparency. Not only does he support requiring voter ID at the polls, but he has also criticized California for its slow ballot-counting process. As a county supervisor, Wagner [also pushed for the release of sensitive voter information](https://laist.com/news/politics/voter-guides/2026-election-california-primary-secretary-of-state?ref=ivn.us) to President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice over claims of voting irregularities. “California’s election system is broken. Thirty-six states and most democratic nations require voters to establish their identities at the polls. California does not,” he said in his statement for the state voter guide. > *“While other large states can finish vote counts and announce results on Election Night, California takes 30 excruciating days. We are usually the last state in the country to stop counting and report final results. That’s embarrassing and unacceptable.”* He added that as secretary of state he will require voter ID, require mail-in ballots to be returned by Election Day (rather than postmarked by then), and prohibit “ballot harvesting” by paid canvassers, which is the practice of collecting ballots from voters and returning them. In California, it is legal for political and partisan operatives to engage in ballot harvesting (something both major parties do). ## **Michael Feinstein: Green Party Candidate Running on Broad Structural Reforms** Michael Feinstein is a former mayor and city council member of Santa Monica and previously ran for secretary of state in 2018\. He also responded to IVN’s questionnaire, but unlike Wagner does not support the California voter ID initiative or the federal SAVE Act. He did, however, indicate that he supports the right of every voter to participate in every taxpayer-funded election and said “Yes” to expanding Top Two (which he has criticized) to a Top Four system that uses ranked choice voting in the general election. In his candidate statement, Feinstein said a vote for him “is a vote for a Democracy Bill of Rights.” His platform includes: - Ranked choice voting - Multi-party democracy (via proportional representation) - More campaign finance disclosures - Reduce the cost of running for office - A public campaign finance system, including matching small donor contributions - Democracy vouchers - Universal voter registration More specifics can be found [in the official state voter guide](https://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2026/primary/pdf/candidate-statements.pdf?ref=ivn.us), but simply put, his campaign prioritizes structural election reform. “We’re best when all are heard and represented. Everyone deserves a seat at the table of our democracy,” he said. ## **Gary Blenner: Green Party Candidate and Teacher** Neither Gary Blenner nor Michael Feinstein are receiving the same level of attention as Weber or Wagner, and the Los Angeles Times reported that the two Green Party candidates in the race have not been actively fundraising, putting them at a major disadvantage. Still, his candidacy gives voters another option outside the Democratic-Republican frame. He also has the endorsements of the Green Party of California and the Peace and Freedom Party. He did not write as much in his candidate statement as the other candidates but he said the answer for anyone “tired of government that only listens to wealthy interests rather than working people” is “to fix our election system and expand democracy.” Like Feinstein, he supports proportional representation, ranked choice voting, public financing of campaigns, and “an end to corporate personhood.” He has not returned IVN’s questionnaire. ## **The Central Issue: Trust vs. Access** The secretary of state race is likely to turn on a familiar debate: election integrity versus voting access. But that framing is too simplistic. Most voters want both. They want elections that are secure, transparent, and resistant to fraud. They also want elections that are accessible, easy to understand, and free from unnecessary barriers. The real question is not whether California should have secure elections or accessible elections. It is which candidate has the better plan to deliver both. Weber represents continuity with California’s current structure: automatic access to mail ballots, broad voting options, and an emphasis on protecting participation. Wagner represents a challenge to that model, arguing that the state needs stronger identification rules, more oversight, and faster counting to restore confidence. The Green Party candidates offer voters another way to register dissatisfaction with the two-party framing, though they face the structural challenge of limited money and attention. ## **Why Independent Voters Should Care** When it comes to the “rules of the game,” the secretary of state is the referee. They administer and oversee elections, determine how voters receive information, how candidates and measures qualify for the ballot, and how campaign money is disclosed. They also determine how the state communicates trust in the process. In a year when California voters will also debate voter ID, citizenship verification, ballot access, and election confidence, the race for secretary of state deserves more scrutiny than it is getting because this is the office that makes decisions on all of these issues – and more. ### DC Political Machine Refuses to Implement Landmark Voting Rights Initiative URL: https://ivn.us/we-cant-afford-it-is-never-an-acceptable-excuse-to-deny-independents-a-vote-2026-05-11/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:40:32.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C. -** Lisa D.T. Rice spoke before the DC City Council during a Budget Oversight Hearing on May 1 to talk about Initiative 83, the semi-open primary and ranked choice voting measure she proposed that was approved by 73% of voters in 2024. Two years later, as DC residents prepare to vote in the 2026 primaries, 85,000 independent voters are still locked out of these taxpayer-funded elections because the city council decided the will of the people didn’t matter. A semi-open primary would allow registered independents the opportunity to pick a Republican or Democratic ballot while registered party members would have to vote in their respective party’s primary. Instead, the Democratic majority [voted only to fund ranked choice voting](https://ivn.us/posts/dc-democrats-drag-their-feet-give-voters-reforms-they-voted-2025-07-15). DC voters took note of this slight against their vote, as did major news publications like The Washington Post, which continues to criticize council members. Just [check out the opinion piece](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/04/17/dc-open-primaries-remain-unfunded-what-are-democrats-afraid/?ref=ivn.us) where the Post’s editorial board asks, “Why are DC Dems afraid of independent voters?” [DC Independent Voters Are Pissed City Officials Have Denied Them Open PrimariesPrimary elections in Washington, DC, are coming up in June. However, while three-quarters of the city’s electorate voted for them to be open to independent voters, they won’t be – because city officials refuse to make the switch from a closed partisan system.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/04/washington-dc-primary-open-primaries-ranked-choice-voting.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/dc-independent-voters-are-pissed-city-officials-have-denied-them-open-primaries-2026-04-29) “When I became an independent, I didn’t realize I would be disenfranchised,” said Rice. Our friends at Open Primaries posted her testimony on YouTube (see above). > *“Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that to exercise the sacred right to vote, you must belong to a political party. The Republican and Democratic Parties didn’t even exist at the founding of our nation, and yet they have made a fundamental American right contingent on joining one of these private clubs.”* One of the main excuses the council has made for not funding open primaries is the cost. Rice explained that it would cost $1 million to implement a semi-open primary, most of which would go toward paper (i.e. mailers, ballots, and voter registration cards). For context, $1 million represents not even a percent of the city’s multi-billion-dollar budget. “We would not tell people with disabilities that it is too expensive for them to vote,” Rice remarked. “We would not accept it if someone told us they could not afford enough ballots for black voters, and we should not accept that excuse for Initiative 83.” She added that the irony is not lost on her that while Democratic leaders across the country decry the Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, DC Democrats are “fighting tooth and nail” to keep her from voting. Rice closed out her testimony challenging members of the Council to stand by their words when they say they will defend DC voters and their right to vote. “Which is it? Are the outcomes of our local elections sacred and worthy of respect from elected officials – or not?” Check out her full testimony above. ### NYC Shuts Out Half Its Voters. The Forward Party Supports a New Bill to Change That. URL: https://ivn.us/nyc-shuts-out-half-its-voters-the-forward-party-supports-a-new-bill-to-change-that-2026-05-08/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T22:04:14.000Z **NEW YORK CITY, N.Y.* –* I have lived in New York City for more than a decade, and I have never voted in an election that actually mattered. Not by choice, but because being an independent in this city means I am locked out of the elections that decide everything. By the time November arrives, the winner has already been chosen, by a small fraction of registered Democrats in a low-turnout primary I was never allowed to enter. In a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than six to one, and where districts have been drawn to guarantee that margin holds, the general election is just a formality. And I’m not alone. A record 45% of Americans now identify as political independents, according to a January 2026 [Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?ref=ivn.us) survey – the highest level since Gallup began tracking party identification in 1988 – while both major parties have fallen to just 27% each. In New York City specifically, more than 1-in-5 registered voters, over one million people, are unaffiliated with any party, according to New York City’s [Campaign Finance Board](https://www.nyccfb.info/media/press-releases/1-in-5-registered-nyc-voters-are-unaffiliated-new-report-from-campaign-finance-board-shows/?ref=ivn.us). Every one of us is shut out of the elections that matter most, denied any real say by a system built for parties, not people. [Over 1 Million Unaffiliated Voters Left Out of NYC Primaries, CFB Report FindsNew York City has a massive voter suppression problem. A new report from the NYC Campaign Finance Board (CFB) found that 1-in-5 voters (21.1%) in the city are registered unaffiliated and are excluded from taxpayer-funded primary elections.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/todd-quackenbush-GMTx7uC6lNc-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/over-1-million-unaffiliated-voters-left-out-nyc-primaries-cfb-report-finds-2025-04-30) But this is not just about who gets to vote. A system built around closed partisan primaries actively rewards extremism, polarization, and disenfranchisement. When candidates only need to win over a small, highly partisan base, there is no incentive to govern for the broader public and every incentive to perform for the base, resist compromise, and treat every policy question as a loyalty test. The polarization we see in our politics is not a mystery. It is the predictable output of a system designed to produce it. Nothing meaningful can change until we fix the structure that keeps producing these outcomes. Consider what we are actually voting on at the local level. Potholes do not care about party registration. Neither do school budgets, public transit, or safe streets. When we sort municipal elections by party, we import national culture wars into races that have nothing to do with them, bypassing the real needs of the city and each neighborhood. This is why I joined Forward Party New York and why, on behalf of Forward, am proud to announce Forward Party New York’s endorsement of a landmark new bipartisan bill introduced by Council Member Frank Morano (R) that would require nonpartisan ranked choice elections for all New York City municipal offices. ## **What the Bill Does** This bill ([Int. No. 0314-2026](https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7862354&GUID=6EC0FCDE-D928-4E31-9981-D9C15E318B26&Options=&Search=&ref=ivn.us)) would remove party labels from all New York City municipal elections, including races for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president, and City Council, replacing the current partisan primary and general election structure with a single nonpartisan general election using ranked choice voting. Candidates would qualify through the independent nominating petition process rather than party primaries, meaning no voter is excluded from the start and no party gatekeeper controls who gets to run. The bill already has bipartisan co-sponsorship from Council Members Farah N. Louis (D) and Vickie Paladino (R), and it would take effect only after approval by a majority of New York City voters through a ballot question at a general election. The people, not the party politicians, would have the final say. ## **A Model That Already Works Here** This is not a radical experiment being imported from somewhere else. New York City already uses nonpartisan ranked choice elections when city office vacancies occur mid-term, filling seats through a process with no party primary, no party labels, and open participation for every registered voter regardless of affiliation. The process is clean, competitive, and fair, with no party labels and no backroom deals. Research from the [Bipartisan Policy Center](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/the-effect-of-open-primaries-on-turnout-and-representation/?ref=ivn.us) and [Unite America](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/nonpartisan-primaries-increase-primary-turnout?ref=ivn.us) finds that nonpartisan elections consistently draw broader participation, more candidates, and a more representative electorate than closed partisan systems. The evidence that it works is already built into the city's own election history. The Morano bill simply asks why a process good enough to fill a City Council vacancy is not good enough for every city election. ## **An Outlier Among Major Cities** What makes New York City's situation particularly striking is how far out of step it is compared to other major American cities. Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas, for example, all conduct municipal elections on a nonpartisan basis. Candidates appear without party labels, no partisan primary narrows the field before the public has a say, and elected officials must build coalitions broad enough to win over the whole electorate rather than just their party base. New York City remains one of the only cities of its scale still running fully partisan municipal elections, clinging to a model that its peers long ago recognized as a barrier to good governance rather than a guarantor of it. ## **Why Forward Party New York Supports This Bill** When the incentive in every election is to appeal to a narrow partisan base rather than the community at large, leaders who try to govern differently do so at their own political peril. Politicians choose their voters rather than voters choosing their politicians. That system has to change first. This bill is not a partisan measure. It does not favor Democrats or Republicans; it favors voters. I am grateful for Council Member Morano's leadership in pushing it forward, because it takes genuine political will to challenge the structures that protect incumbent power in a city as entrenched as New York. New Yorkers who believe in fair elections, regardless of party or lack thereof, should contact their council members and make their voices heard. Ranked choice voting helps ensure that winners reflect broad support rather than narrow plurality. Nonpartisan elections ensure that every voter has a meaningful say in every race. Together, these reforms would make New York City's elections worthy of the city they are supposed to serve. ### About The Author **Susan DiVito* is a member of the state leadership team at Forward Party New York, a chapter of the national Forward Party, putting power back in the hands of voters through real alternatives to the two-party system and election reform. For more information, visit* [*forwardparty.com*](http://forwardparty.com/?ref=ivn.us) *and join the movement at* [*forwardparty.com/new\_york*](http://forwardparty.com/new%5Fyork?ref=ivn.us)*.* ### Both Parties Are Fundraising Off a California Primary Crisis that Polls Show Doesn’t Exist URL: https://ivn.us/both-parties-are-fundraising-off-a-california-primary-crisis-that-polls-show-doesnt-exist-2026-05-07/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:35:01.000Z On Wednesday, May 6, the Republican-aligned group Reform California sent an email to supporters claiming new polls show Republicans will be shut out of the governor’s race and other contests across the state, so people need to send money. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot_7-5-2026_101022_mail.google.com.jpeg) It is unclear what polls the email is talking about. Even recent ones sponsored by the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates like Matt Mahan show Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton in the top two spots – a Democrat and a Republican. In fact, the Mahan poll – [conducted by Impact Research between April 20 and May 3](https://www.mahanforcalifornia.com/impactresearch5-4memo.pdf?ref=ivn.us) – shows Hilton and Becerra with commanding leads (tied at 23%). The next candidate is Democrat Tom Steyer, who is 9 points behind, followed by Republican Chad Bianco. The polls fluctuate slightly depending on who commissions them and how the polling group samples the California electorate. However, not a single recent poll shows either party getting locked out of the general election. And if Republican fears sound familiar, it is because Democrats have relied on a similar tactic for months: asserting that they will be locked out of the governor’s race because the large Democratic field was splitting the party’s base. [As California Dems Push a Two-Republican Panic, Their Own Poll Contradicts Their MessageNeither of the two Republican candidates in the governor’s race, Hilton or Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, have gained ground as more undecided voters make their pick in the race or settle on a candidate.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/california-governor-candidates-polling.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/california-dems-push-a-two-republican-panic-their-own-poll-contradicts-their-message-2026-05-06) The message from party leaders on both sides is predicated on a hypothetical – a “doomsday scenario” that will scare their voters into thinking the worst possible outcome will happen if they don’t “chip in.” And party leaders argue that if such a scenario happens, and one side is locked out, it will be the fault of a nonpartisan Top Two primary system that gives all voters and candidates, regardless of party, a level playing field. They assert that this is a “flawed system” and “it does not work” – something California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks [explicitly said](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/01/california-democrats-republicans-governor?ref=ivn.us), while adding that Top Two needs to be “revised or repealed.” > The Guardian: The chair of the California Democratic party says he wants to get rid of the state’s idiosyncratic “jungle primary”, calling it a failure that risks pitting a crowded field of Democratic candidates against each other to the point where a Republican can be elected… > > — Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) [May 1, 2026](https://twitter.com/PollTracker2024/status/2050210670029713737?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The Guardian article in which Hicks was quoted mentioned that “California Democrats enjoy a two-to-one registration advantage over Republicans, hold supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature, and have not lost an election for statewide office since 2006.” Notably, the nonpartisan Top Two open primary system was adopted by voters in 2010 under Proposition 14, which was sponsored by the Independent Voter Project (IVP). Under this system, all voters and candidates participate on a single primary ballot. No one is locked out. No one is denied a vote. And the top two vote-getters advance to November. According to [findings by the Public Policy Institute of California](https://www.ppic.org/publication/california-voter-and-party-profiles/?ref=ivn.us), the 23% of voters registered “No Party Preference” (independent voters) in the state are more likely to support a statewide Democratic candidate than a Republican. The data shows nearly 40% of independents “lean Democrat,” while 34% lean toward neither party. So given that Democrats have a super majority in the legislature and given that Democrats haven’t lost an executive seat in 20 years, the question to Hicks is: How exactly is the nonpartisan primary system not working in California? How are voters in the state not getting the outcome they want? The question readers may have is, why have media pundits and party leaders been so adamant that California could get a two-Republican general election? (Or, that one party could be locked out of the election entirely?) The answer is simple: They ran with early polling figures that showed Hilton and Bianco ahead of a crowded Democratic field when a quarter of survey respondents said they were undecided. It made for good fundraising fodder (as we now see from Republicans). Republican candidates even used it to claim frontrunner status. When IVP [first conducted a statewide poll on this race in February](https://ivn.us/posts/new-ivp-2026-california-governor-poll-what-the-toplines-dont-tell-you-2026-02-23), it looked deeper into voter preferences. The data not only showed which candidates would gain if any Democrat dropped out of the race, but it showed that Hilton and Bianco were approaching their support ceiling. Again, a quarter of the electorate remained undecided, many of whom were independent voters, and voter data shows independents in California are more likely to pick or settle on a Democrat than a Republican. This is why, even back then, IVN reported that the odds of a two-Republican general election were incredibly slim. Once Eric Swalwell dropped out, the governor’s race saw a seismic shift. Xavier Becerra jumped to the frontrunner spot and both Republicans have not been in the top two together since mid-April. IVP [was the first to show this shift following Swalwell’s exit](https://ivn.us/posts/breaking-xavier-becerra-bolts-into-first-place-in-ivn-california-governor-poll-2026-04-20). Now, polls are reflecting what research and datapoints say about California voters when they make their choices. And this election will be decided by voters – all voters, not just party insiders or aligned special interest groups. Hicks said the Top Two system needs to be revised or repealed. IVP has come out in support of changing the system, but instead of moving backward, the group now advocates advancing 4 candidates to the general election, instead of two. Under this more choice voting system, Californians would use a ranked choice ballot in November to determine a majority winner. This type of system is already in place in Alaska. Is it possible that the governor's race could come down to two Democrats? It is much more likely than two Republicans, but Hilton continues to poll high enough to fill one of the two spots. So here are 3 possible scenarios for November (assuming recent surveys are not far off): - Hilton faces Becerra in November - Hilton faces Steyer in November - Steyer faces Becerra in November (this one is the least likely outcome) Only one of these scenarios will not result in the election being called immediately after polls close and that is if Steyer and Becerra advance – because they will need to compete for a much broader segment of the electorate in order to win. ### California Governor Debate Takeaways: What Independent Voters Need to Know URL: https://ivn.us/california-governor-debate-takeaways-what-independent-voters-need-to-know-2026-05-07/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:34:52.000Z In two debates over 48 hours, the seven leading candidates for California governor took the stage to make their final pitch to voters before the June 2 primary. Whoever wins this race will lead a state with 39 million people and the fourth largest economy in the world. Under California's Top Two nonpartisan open primary, all voters, regardless of their political party, can cast a vote for any candidate. The two highest finishers, regardless of party, advance to the November general election. California is only one of three states that treat every voter and every candidate exactly the same. The seven candidates who participated in the debates are former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra (D), Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R), former Fox News host Steve Hilton (R), San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan (D), former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D), billionaire Tom Steyer (D), and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D). Here is what each candidate said, on every issue, in their own words. ## **Affordability and the Cost of Living** **STEYER (D):** "The biggest problem in California is that Californians can't afford to live here anymore. And it starts with housing, but it definitely includes health care. It includes electric costs, which are twice as high as in the rest of the country, and it includes soaring gasoline prices." **BECERRA (D):** "If we fight to make California affordable, people will stay, and they will come to this great state." **MAHAN (D):** "I want to make government work for people. We need pragmatic, results-oriented leadership. I grew up in a working-class family. We were paycheck to paycheck growing up." **PORTER (D):** "My whole career has been about affordability." **HILTON (R):** "We have a concrete plan to make our state Califordable, $3 gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first hundred grand tax-free, a home you can afford to buy." **BIANCO (R):** "The taxes here, the regulations here are what are causing people to leave. Yes, we want to live here. We just can't. We want to own a business here. We just can't." ## **Why Democrats Deserve Another 4 Years (Or Don't)** **BECERRA (D):** "Democrats are the ones that aspire to include everyone and not leave anyone behind, like my parents, who came with $12 in their pocket to California, and they lived the California dream. More than 120 times, I had to sue Donald Trump to keep him from destroying our state of California." **HILTON (R):** "The Democrats who are here who've been responsible for 16 years of one-party rule, for everything that we see in California, won't take responsibility, and all they can talk about is Trump." **BIANCO (R):** "We are going to get nothing but the same from them. They brought us here. Every single one of these career politicians brought us to the point where we are here today. They do not deserve another chance." **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** "I've been challenging my party for years, because it's been Democrats that brought us here." ## **Housing** **HILTON (R):** "We've stopped building the kind of starter homes and single-family homes we used to build so well in California that made the California dream a reality. The big change we need to make, which the Democrats on this stage aren't prepared to make, is to end this ideology, which says the only acceptable form of housing is to shove apartment buildings into suburban neighborhoods." **STEYER (D):** "I'm going to close a corporate real estate tax loophole for $22 billion a year. That's going to go to the cities and counties. And that's going to make them willing to permit housing and to make it happen." **BIANCO (R):** "We will become, for the first time in many decades, a building empire in our country. We will build more homes than we have ever built before because we will allow builders to build them. We will remove the restrictions and the regulations that prevent it right now. And those restrictions come from CEQA. They come from the Coastal Commission." **BECERRA (D):** "How about we help you get that last cog in the process of buying a house, the down payment. Then, when you pay a monthly payment, it's not for rent. It's to own the home. How about we make sure Wall Street isn't the person you're bidding against when you're trying to buy that house?" **PORTER (D):** "When I'm governor, Californians will have a 5% down payment on their houses, not 20." **MAHAN (D):** "If cities don't do their job, the state absolutely has to intervene and hold them accountable. In San Jose, we cut permitting times, cut red tape, reduced one-time fees, and got thousands of homes under construction." **MAHAN (D):** "We deserve better. I'm the only Democrat in this race who has challenged the establishment within my own party to demand better results. I have made San Jose the safest big city in the country, unblocked thousands of homes that are now under construction, and led our city to reduce homelessness faster than any other city. We don't need MAGA values, but we also don't need more of the same." **Mahan also took aim at Steyer and Becerra in the housing section:** "We do not need the leadership that MAGA candidates on this stage are offering, that's divisive. We don't need the leadership of a billionaire who's now against everything he made his money in, or a career politician who has failed again and again to deliver results. He's trying to remember his lines. Right?" **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** "When I was mayor, we went from 20,000 units of housing downtown to 60,000\. We transformed downtown, built more housing, market rate, workforce, affordable and homeless housing in eight years, four years of recession, than the 12 years before that." **Hilton attacked Mahan's San Jose record:** "Matt Mahan talked about housing. His city was just rated the least affordable for housing in the world." **Mahan responded:** "Steve's right that San Jose is expensive. It has been since before I was born. But as a leader in an elected office, I took ownership for that and challenged City Hall to do better." ## **Gas Prices** Hilton has promised to bring gas to $3 per gallon in his first year. Asked whether that is realistic: **MAHAN (D):** "No, it obviously isn't. I grew up in a farming town. I know what it means when the cost of gas goes up a dollar. People start actually having to make really tough trade-offs. I'm the only candidate in this race who has called for a suspension of the gas tax because it disproportionately harms working families." **HILTON (R):** "Before the Iran war, there were 40 states in America with $3 gas or lower, most of which don't have the abundant oil reserves that we have in California. Because of the policies supported by Matt and all these Democrats, we are now shipping oil halfway around the world, 7,500 miles from places like Iraq, instead of opening up California oil and gas production." **Mahan responded to Hilton:** "It's totally unrealistic that you're going to have $3 gas in a year. You're lying." **BECERRA (D):** "The price of gas has gone up $1 to $2 because of Donald Trump and his war in Iran. The price of goods, groceries have gone up in California because of Donald Trump's illegal tariffs." **Hilton fired back:** "All they can say is Trump. That's all they have got." **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** "We have had the highest gas prices, on average, over $2 the rest of the nation for a very long time. Trump has made it worse, for sure. But it's not." **STEYER (D):** "This war in Iran has driven up the gas by at least $1.50\. The truth is we should be taxing the oil companies because they are getting a windfall profit as a result of the war that the president that they put into office started for no apparent reason." **Porter cut in on the bickering:** "Boys, boys, enough with the bickering." When asked whether they would sign a bill to increase oil production in Kern County: **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** Yes. "We also should stop pushing all of our refining capacity out of state and importing dirtier oil from thousands of miles away." **PORTER (D):** No. **BIANCO (R):** Yes. **HILTON (R):** "We don't need a bill. I'll get it done directly as governor." **STEYER (D):** No. **BECERRA (D):** Yes. ## **Taxes and the Billionaire Tax** The candidates were asked about a one-time 5% tax on billionaire assets, which recently cleared a hurdle to make California's November ballot. **STEYER (D):** "I will vote for it if it's on the ballot in November. The tax I'm proposing to close a corporate real estate tax loophole is more money." **PORTER (D):** "This billionaire's tax is simply not good tax policy. It's a one-time tax. But we don't have one-time revenue needs. It taxes billionaires as if half-billionaires don't have two nickels to rub together and couldn't chip in a little bit more. Yes, to a progressive tax code. Yes, to the wealthy paying more. But this tax is about cheap political points." When Porter pressed Steyer directly on whether he supports the tax: **PORTER:** "I'm confused. Do you support the billionaire's tax that is going to be on the ballot in November, yes or no?" **STEYER:** "Katie, I just said I will vote for it if it's on the ballot in November." **PORTER:** "But you just said it wasn't a good idea." **Porter also accused Steyer of self-interest:** "It's convenient to close it after you have profited from it." **BIANCO (R):** "These Democrat policies of tax everybody to death and make them leave is how we started this program off to begin with. This is not a billionaire tax bill. The 140,000 people that are paying 50 percent of the taxes are going to leave, and then the wording of that bill makes the middle class and the lower middle class make up all those taxes." **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** "I'm the only candidate on this stage that's actually balanced two state budgets with a surplus and a tax cut. We over rely on the upper income tax. That's why you have feast and famine virtually every year." **MAHAN (D):** "Where I differ with my Democratic colleagues is they're all talking about how to raise revenue, make government bigger. You know, Secretary Becerra always brags about how big the trillion-dollar budgets were that he managed. I'm interested in making government better. The answer isn't always bigger." **HILTON (R):** "Taxes are too high, and we need taxes to be lower. If you think that it can't get worse in California, I've got two words for you, Tom Steyer. Under Tom Steyer, the taxes will be higher, gas prices will be higher, everything will be higher with Steyer." **Steyer fired back at Hilton:** "I do think it's rich to hear someone talk about $3 gas who is owned by Donald Trump." **STEYER (D):** "I'm willing to take on the corporate special interests. I'm willing to push for single-payer. I'm willing to take on the electric monopolies. I'm the change agent, and I'm the progressive." **MAHAN (D):** Tom Steyer is making a lot of false promises up here, things that the legislature already rejected because we don't know how to pay for them." When asked whether they would sign the wealth tax measure if it passes in November: **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** No. **PORTER (D):** No. **BIANCO (R):** "Absolutely not." **HILTON (R):** No. **STEYER (D):** "If it's on the ballot, I sign it." **BECERRA (D):** No. **MAHAN (D):** "No. We should charge billionaires in other ways." ## **Insurance After The Wildfires** **BECERRA (D):** "I have called for a freeze of insurance rates. My mom last year lost insurance coverage for a home she has that she had paid for for over 30 years. I will make sure that we base insurance on the rates based on risk and risk based on mitigation." **PORTER (D):** "We can't afford to freeze rates because what will happen is every insurer remaining in this state will leave. The solution is more insurers competing for rates. There's a lot of evidence that State Farm has lied, cheated, or stolen here. These folks are victims, and they need someone who isn't taking corporate contributions from the very insurers that they claim they will hold responsible." **MAHAN (D):** "We effectively told them they couldn't use climate data to actually model the amount of risk. We effectively told them they had to lose money by writing new policies. The state of California broke the insurance market. We need to bring them back, have them compete." **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** "We're the only state that didn't do catastrophic modeling. The only state that didn't do reinsurance. And the only state that took longer than three months to pass a rate hike. So the entire industry left the biggest market. The fair plan is not fair. If I lost my house today, the fair plan wouldn't compensate for me. Maybe three bedrooms, and that's about it." **HILTON (R):** "Lawsuits are adding sometimes up to $15,000 a year onto insurance premiums. And these Democrats won't change it because they are funded by the trial lawyers." **STEYER (D):** "The governor's job is to stand up and fight and make sure those people pay the claims, pay the FEMA, and pay the cost of having caused a fire in the first place." **BIANCO (R):** "The insurance companies are not going to come back if another Democrat is elected. The reasons why they left is because of failed Democrat policies that force them to leave. We absolutely will get rid of CEQA and the Coastal Commission." ## **Homelessness** **STEYER (D):** "About 1 in 7 of the people who become homeless have serious mental health or addiction problems. But it's so stressful and dangerous that virtually everybody succumbs to that stress. Rental assistance is much cheaper and more humane than letting someone go on the street." **BIANCO (R):** "This is not and has never been about homes. This is about drug and alcohol addiction. This is about mental illness and a combination of both. Until we start calling it what it is and treating it for what it is, we are never going to get out of it." **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** "We spent $24 billion from the state and billions more in cities and counties. And during that period, homelessness went up. We have to invest in what works and stop spending on what doesn't. The average unit is $850,000 a unit. Your kids can't afford that. So in San Jose and Los Angeles, we're building small homes for $100,000." **BECERRA (D):** "My job as governor is to make sure we prevent more Californians from becoming homeless, because it costs far more to take you off the streets than it does to help you get past that medical emergency or that lost job." **PORTER (D):** "The cause of homelessness is the cost of housing. We have higher homelessness in California because our housing costs more than virtually anywhere else. It costs about $6,000 to prevent someone from becoming homeless. I drive a minivan. My license plate is OVRSITE." **MAHAN (D):** "I was the first Democrat leading a major city to support Prop 36, because if you're repeatedly committing crime out on our streets due to addiction, we need to get you into treatment to save your life and to benefit the broader community." **HILTON (R):** "We need to enforce the law when it comes to homelessness. It's illegal to live and camp on the streets, and that's the starting point." **Hilton then attacked the Democrats collectively:** "Some of these Democrats on the stage here, they talk as if we're in some parallel universe where Democrats haven't been running this state for the last 16 years of one-party rule. You look at Javier, 36 years, he's been a career politician. For Democrats, it's just got to change." **Hilton also pressed Mahan on whether homelessness has actually gone down in San Jose:** "Mr. Mahan, as you noted, he didn't challenge the fact that homelessness has gone up on his watch." **Mahan responded:** "I was the first Democrat leading a major city to support Prop 36\. It's about flat. What's important, though, is we've moved thousands of people indoors, 30% of whom have graduated to permanent housing. The number of people dying on our streets has gone down." ## **Immigration and Sanctuary State Law** **HILTON (R):** "I'm the only immigrant on stage. I'm a legal immigrant. As governor, I would make sure that we work with the federal government to enforce our laws." **BIANCO (R):** "I would eliminate sanctuary state. Sanctuary state is what is creating the issue that we have in California. It is the responsibility of the federal government to enforce immigration laws. Prior to 2017, they would come into our jails and they would come into our prisons, and they would remove those criminals who are victimizing us." **Bianco attacked Porter directly on the sanctuary issue:** "Are you doing that by having a sanctuary state policy? Absolutely not. Sanctuary state is forcing us to be less safe." **Porter responded with the "cowboy" exchange:** "I can't believe that on a stage with 30 minutes of interrupting and bickering and name-calling and shouting and disrespect for everyone up here who's stepping into public service, that anyone wants to talk about my temperament." **Bianco fired back:** "You are actually interrupting them, too. I don't know why you want to act like you weren't." **Porter:** "Oh, cowboy." **Bianco:** "Steve and I sat here smiling at each other because we're just watching you all prove to everyone why they can't vote for a Democrat." **PORTER (D):** "It's the job of the California governor to protect every single Californian, period. There are no qualifications on that. The sanctuary state policy is designed to make sure that our state resources, the taxpayer dollars, the public servants that we have are focusing on doing their jobs, which is not cooperating with the federal immigration authorities." **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** "Since 2019, the state has turned over 12,000 violent criminals to the federal government. Sanctuary law does not protect violent criminals." **Villaraigosa attacked Bianco on the Riverside ballot dispute:** "I'll tell you what I think is illegal, is a sheriff of Riverside County sequestering thousands of votes in the way that you did. The Supreme Court said that you shouldn't have done it in the first place." **BECERRA (D):** "I'm the only one who actually has experience taking on Trump and the way he's handling undocumented immigrants. We took him on straight on in court, we stopped him from trying to force local law enforcement to do the bidding of ICE. We were able to make sure we protected the DACA program for our Dreamers all the way to the Supreme Court, and we beat Donald Trump." **Becerra attacked Hilton on Trump:** "You can't stop him if you've got a governor like Steve Hilton, who is his dad. Donald Trump is his daddy, and he will protect him all the way through." **STEYER (D):** "ICE to me is a criminal organization. They're coming into our state. They're terrorizing people. They're racially profiling people. I've said all along we should abolish ICE." **MAHAN (D):** "We can all agree that we should have a secure border. If you're committing serious and violent crime, deportation is the consequence. But Donald Trump's cruel and indiscriminate enforcement, based on the color of people's skins, the language they're speaking, has terrorized a community." **Bianco challenged Villaraigosa on undocumented crime:** "I want Mr. Villaraigosa to tell the mother of the 14-year-old in my county that is dead because of an illegal immigrant that had been deported three times because of DUIs that sanctuary state policy keeps us safe." **Villaraigosa responded:** "If an undocumented worker killed somebody, he should go to jail. He should be prosecuted." **Bianco:** "It's too late, don't you think? How about the three DUIs before that?" **Porter on sanctuary enforcement (NBC/Telemundo):** "We ought to enforce the existing sanctuary laws everywhere so we don't have crazy cowboys taking the law into their own hands." **Bianco:** "Tell that to a mother who lost her child." **Porter:** "Sir, I don't need any lectures from you about being a mother." ## **Deporting Undocumented Farm Workers** About half of California farm workers are undocumented. Asked whether he would push to deport them as governor: **HILTON (R):** "It is the federal government's responsibility to determine and implement immigration policy. The policy on deportation is the exact same policy that we saw with President Obama. The numbers of deportations right now in our country and in California are slightly lower." **Villaraigosa repeatedly pressed Hilton:** "Will you deport them? That was the question." Hilton declined to answer directly. **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** "Steve Hilton, let me be clear. You know, I know you're recently arrived to California, but if you've read the Bay Area Institute, the UC Merced study, immigrants, if we took them all out, including the undocumented, it would be a $274 billion hit to California economy." **Hilton on Porter's growth comment:** "She said something very revealing, which is the only way, really, that California's economy has been growing in the last few years is through illegal immigration." **Porter responded:** "Given that you're an immigrant and you added to our population, and we're all having to live with the consequences of that decision." **Hilton:** "Katie, there's a difference I think you'll accept between legal and illegal immigration." ## **Prosecuting ICE Leadership** Steyer has called for California's attorney general to hold ICE agents and their leadership criminally liable. **STEYER (D):** "The governor of California should hold people accountable who break the laws of California, specifically including ICE agents and the people who send them to racially profile, which is illegal, and use violence against Californians, which is illegal. It should go up the chain to the supervisors, right up to Stephen Miller." When asked whether that should include former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem: **STEYER:** "If she has given the orders to break the law in California, yes." **BECERRA (D):** "I think we should police Donald Trump's masked mercenary force that they call ICE. I think we should prosecute any of the forces that violate the law. And I think we should jail anyone who has violated the law. That goes all the way to the top." **BIANCO (R):** "No one has broken the law in California. ICE agents are enforcing the law. Sanctuary state policy, Democrats forced ICE into our cities and streets and neighborhoods to find these criminals." **PORTER (D):** "Donald Trump sucks. And I don't think that anyone who doesn't see that he is targeting and hurting Californians and won't stand up for everybody who is counting on them to be their leader and keep them safe has any business being governor." ## **Healthcare and Single Payer** In California, new Obamacare enrollments are down 32% after Congress allowed federal subsidies to expire. **BECERRA (D):** "I've been consistent for over 30 years. When I was in Congress, I talked about how Medicare-for-all is probably the most efficient way that we can do health care." When pressed on whether he supports California's own state-run single-payer system, CalCare: **BECERRA:** "The most important thing about having a Medicare-for-all plan is that it includes all, everyone, for all. So I am absolutely for Medicare-for-all. We will get there. We'll build towards it because that's the way you get folks covered." **PORTER (D):** "Covering everyone with something is not single-payer. It's not even federal Medicare-for-all. Tom ran against single-payer in his presidency before he changed his mind and has decided to run for single-payer. I want Xavier to answer the question. Do you support California having its own single-payer system, yes or no? Californians don't care what you call it, so long as they have affordable health care." **STEYER (D):** "I am for single-payer, absolutely, because it's the only way we can deliver health care as a right at a cost that California can afford. The California Medical Association is the strongest group against single-payer in the state. And they just spent the maximum amount of money, they maxed out to your campaign after that meeting." **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** "I believe that health care is a right, not a privilege, that it should be universal, affordable, and high quality. I've heard you say that you're against it." (to Becerra) "It's a $500 billion price tag." **Becerra denied saying he was against it:** "I've never said I'm against it. Just point to the forum that I said it in, because I've never said it." **MAHAN (D):** "Health care costs have gone up relentlessly. Health outcomes have gotten worse." Mahan also attacked Becerra's HHS record directly: "What have those 30 years of experience gotten us? Higher and less affordable health care that's squeezing families today. Worse health outcomes. And as fraudulent and wasteful spending in health care grew, Xavier Becerra did nothing as A.G. and as HHS secretary." **BECERRA fired back:** "That sounds like a MAGA talking point. Under my watch, more Americans gained health coverage than ever in the history of the country, more than 300 million. Under my watch, we were able to give folks access to the Obamacare insurance policies on the marketplace for, in some cases, $10 or less a month in premiums. Today, those are skyrocketing and people are losing those premiums and insurance covers because Donald Trump abandoned those health care subsidies. Learn the facts, Matt, before you start talking." **Hilton also weighed in on Becerra's record:** "What does a Fox News talking head know about running government? You've never balanced a budget the size of California, Steve. You've never had to worry about declaring a state of emergency the way I had to." **Becerra to Hilton:** "I'm proud of my service and my public service. You may. Private profit. I was doing public service." When asked whether undocumented adults should be able to enroll in Medi-Cal: **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** Yes. **PORTER (D):** Yes. **BIANCO (R):** No. **HILTON (R):** No. **STEYER (D):** Yes. **BECERRA (D):** Yes. **MAHAN (D):** Yes. ## **The Fight Over Undocumented Migrant Children** Hilton, Villaraigosa, and Mahan accused Becerra of failing to track unaccompanied migrant children placed with sponsors during his tenure as HHS Secretary. **MAHAN (D):** "Are you proud that you pushed out 85,000 migrant children? They were, according to the New York Times, they were maimed, they were exploited. Some were even killed." **Mahan attacked Becerra and Steyer:** "There's a lot of talk on this stage, but we should be honest. The experience we hear from Secretary Becerra didn't lead to better outcomes. It led to 85,000 migrant children who were lost, and more fraud in our health care system. **BECERRA (D):** "It's a MAGA hoax. Trump lied about that whole situation with the migrant kids in the New York Times. Donald Trump campaigned against our Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, in 2024 using these lies. They were lies when Trump said them two years ago. They're lies today. We protected kids. We did not let them be abused. Those were the employers." **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** "There were congressional hearings. 26 Democratic Congress members condemned them. They said it was outrageous that he pushed kids out." **Becerra:** "What was outrageous was the abuse by the employers, not the care." **Villaraigosa:** "You invented the assembly line. Put him on an assembly line. Get him out of here. Illegal." **HILTON (R):** "I'll tell you what I haven't done. We could go on about homelessness for an hour here. I'll tell you what I haven't done is break state and federal law by taking PAC account and funneling it to a senior aide, breaking those laws and then denying it. I'll tell you what I haven't done, which we reveal today, which is to take a taxpayer-funded organization from your money. Your taxes are paying illegal immigrants to campaign for Xavier Becerra through an organization called CHIRLA. And he's accepted their endorsement. It is completely outrageous." **Becerra defended CHIRLA:** "CHIRLA is one of the biggest defenders of immigrant rights in this nation. They deserve respect." ## **Working With President Trump** **PORTER (D):** "When Donald Trump hurts California, as he has again and again, then I will absolutely stand up to him, 100 percent. He has denied wildfire funding to help disaster victims here in California. If he's going to attack California, yeah, eff him." **HILTON (R):** "The next governor of California will have to work with the administration and with the president that the American people elected to get good results for Californians. We have a president who has endorsed me for governor, and we've discussed how I can work with his team to lower gas prices in California by opening up energy production, to reduce wildfire risk by proper forest management, to get the fraud and the waste out of our state budget so we can cut taxes." **BECERRA (D):** "I had to go toe-to-toe with him in court over 120 times. And most of those cases we were able to win. Whether it was on women's health care, whether it was protecting immigrants' rights, whether it was defending our environmental laws, we took him on. Because Donald Trump doesn't understand the laws very well, we were able to beat him over and over, including taking the Affordable Care Act all the way to the Supreme Court." **MAHAN (D):** "As mayor of San Jose, I've sued the Trump administration multiple times, increased funding for our immigrant neighbors who are under attack. We've prohibited ICE from using city property as a staging area. The best resistance is delivering results, showing that California's progressive values work in practice." **BIANCO (R):** "I promise every single person out there that you're not going to hear one word from me about President Trump, President Biden, or anything else, because I'm going to be the only one on this stage that's actually going to be the governor of California for Californians." **STEYER (D):** "I started an organization in 2017 to impeach Donald Trump because I've been in enough boardrooms to know a crook when I see one. The only thing he respects is strength. He's a bully. And the only thing you can do is stand up to him." **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** Pressed Hilton repeatedly on whether Trump won the 2020 election: "How can you say that Democrats have it wrong when you can't admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election? All you do is point at Democrats, scream at Democrats." **Hilton refused to answer directly:** "Donald Trump is the president in all the other states of America where the cost of living is way lower than in California. Obviously, it is way past time for change in California." ## **High-Speed Rail** Asked whether to spend an additional $30 billion to finish California high-speed rail from Merced to Bakersfield: **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** Yes. **PORTER (D):** "Yes, if you can build it faster and cheaper than it's been projected." **BIANCO (R):** "No. I would rather arrest the people that stole our money." **Villaraigosa fired back at Bianco:** "That would be on brand for you doing things that are illegal." **HILTON (R):** "Stop spending taxpayers' money on pointless things and improve our roads, which are the worst in the country because of Democrat policies." **STEYER (D):** "Yes, we need a high speed delivery of high speed rail." **BECERRA (D):** Yes. **MAHAN (D):** "I would send it back to the legislature and say, fix CEQA, reduce litigation risk. Let's fix the regulatory environment and then I'll sign the bill." ## **Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant** Diablo Canyon, the state's only remaining nuclear power plant, supplies 9% of California's electricity and is scheduled to close in 2030\. Asked whether to extend it: **MAHAN (D):** Yes. **BECERRA (D):** Yes, with safety first. **STEYER (D):** Extend it. **HILTON (R):** "Yes. Extend it and build new ones." **BIANCO (R):** "Completely nuclear." **PORTER (D):** Extend. **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** Yes. ## **Film and Television Tax Credits** On a scale of 1 to 10, how much of a priority is keeping film and TV production in California? **MAHAN (D):** Yes. **VILLARAIGOSA (D):** Yes. **PORTER (D):** Yes. **BIANCO (R):** Yes. **HILTON (R):** "I would exceed other countries. We've got to be the best in the world." **BECERRA (D):** "Yes. And it's 11 on a scale of 1 to 10." **STEYER (D):** "Yes. I was the first candidate to put out a plan doing just that." ## **Transgender Athletes In School Sports** Asked whether they would change California's K-12 law allowing students to participate in athletics based on gender identity, to match the International Olympic Committee's birth-gender standard: **MAHAN (D):** "At higher levels, I would let the leagues decide." **BECERRA (D):** "Enforce the law." **STEYER (D):** Supports trans athletes participating. **HILTON (R):** "I have a wristband that says save girls sports." ## **About the 2026 California Nonpartisan Top Two Primary** Under California's nonpartisan top-two primary system, all voters and candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party. All registered voters can vote in the nonpartisan primary. The top two vote-getters advance to the November general election. All active registered voters in California will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. County election offices began mailing ballots on May 4\. Ballot drop-off locations opened starting May 5\. Vote centers open for early in-person voting in Voter's Choice Act counties beginning on May 23\. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by June 9. *Sources: CNN California Governor Primary Debate, May 5, 2026 (*[*https://www.cnn.com*](https://www.cnn.com/?ref=ivn.us)*); NBC4 Los Angeles and Telemundo 52 California Governor Debate, May 6, 2026 (*[*https://www.nbcbayarea.com*](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/?ref=ivn.us)*).* ### The TRUTH About California's "Jungle" Primary Governor Election (Both Parties are WRONG) URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/the-truth-about-californias-jungle-primary-governor-election-both-parties-are-wrong-2026-05-07/ Last updated: 2026-06-09T16:00:45.000Z Cara McCormick and Shawn Griffiths break down the manufactured "jungle primary" panic out of California (there's roughly an 8% chance of a two-Republican general), then get into Alaska's Top Four success story, Wes Moore's surprise open-primary moment on Bill Maher and the awkward walk back that followed, and a Supreme Court bombshell out of Louisiana that just got an entire election canceled. Chad Peace jumps in to explain why the courts police racial gerrymandering but won't touch partisan gerrymandering - and what that means for independent voters. ## Episode Highlights In this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast**, Cara and Shawn break down the high-stakes **2026 California governor's race**, dissecting the latest **nonpartisan primary debate** and what it means for **election reform** heading into the **2026 midterm elections**. With **mail-in ballots** out, the conversation zeroes in on the **Top Two primary system** – and whether the Democratic Party's “two-Republican panic” is a legitimate concern or pure **voter turnout strategy**. Spoiler: the math says it's almost certainly the latter. [As California Dems Push a Two-Republican Panic, Their Own Poll Contradicts Their MessageNeither of the two Republican candidates in the governor’s race, Hilton or Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, have gained ground as more undecided voters make their pick in the race or settle on a candidate.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-governor-candidates-polling.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/california-dems-push-a-two-republican-panic-their-own-poll-contradicts-their-message-2026-05-06) [Polling from the **Independent Voter Project**](https://ivn.us/posts/breaking-xavier-becerra-bolts-into-first-place-in-ivn-california-governor-poll-2026-04-20) shows Democrat Xavier Becerra surging into the **frontrunner** spot after the field thinned, while Republican Steve Hilton is benefiting slightly with a Trump endorsement to keep him in the top two. The hosts dig deep into the nationwide push for **open primaries** and **election reform**, spotlighting Maryland Governor Wes Moore's appearance on *Real Time with Bill Maher*, where he criticized **closed primaries** for locking out the roughly **45% of Americans who self-identify as independent voters**. Moore's comments electrified the **election reform community** and **open primaries advocates**, only for his office to walk them back the next day. [Governor Moore: Real Nonpartisan Reform is Making Changes When It’s Not Convenient for Your PartyOn Bill Maher’s HBO show last week, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore took aim at closed primary systems, saying the process “has run its course” and noted that the fastest growing segment of the US electorate are independent voters.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/wes-moore-open-primary-remarks.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/governor-moore-real-nonpartisan-reform-is-making-changes-when-its-not-convenient-for-your-party-2026-05-04) Cara and Shawn argue that reform can't survive on half-measures. Politicians who privately support **independent voter rights** and **voting rights reform** but bow to **party leadership** are a major obstacle to structural change. Chad Peace then joins in to close out the episode with a timely discussion on **gerrymandering**, **racial and partisan redistricting**, and **voting rights** after the Supreme Court's ruling on Louisiana's congressional map and the governor's stunning decision to **cancel a scheduled election** in response. Peace explains how **partisan gerrymandering** – left largely unchecked by the courts – continues to make **92% of US House races non-competitive**, effectively disenfranchising millions and fueling **political polarization**. The deeper constitutional question – whether citizenship alone should guarantee the **right to vote** in **taxpayer-funded primary elections**, regardless of party affiliation – is the defining **democracy issue** of the 2026 cycle and beyond. With tens of millions of views on their recent social content, the **Independent Voter Project** is clearly tapping into a massive, underserved appetite for this conversation. ### As California Dems Push a Two-Republican Panic, Their Own Poll Contradicts Their Message URL: https://ivn.us/california-dems-push-a-two-republican-panic-their-own-poll-contradicts-their-message-2026-05-06/ Last updated: 2026-05-06T19:16:45.000Z With under a month left until California’s June 2 primary elections, people continue to hear the same claim about the governor’s race: Deep blue California could see two Republicans on the November ballot. It’s part of the national narrative about the election. California Democrats have used it for fundraising and “Get Out The Vote” messaging. Party leaders have also used it to foster skepticism in the state’s nonpartisan open primary model. > The Guardian: The chair of the California Democratic party says he wants to get rid of the state’s idiosyncratic “jungle primary”, calling it a failure that risks pitting a crowded field of Democratic candidates against each other to the point where a Republican can be elected… > > — Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) [May 1, 2026](https://twitter.com/PollTracker2024/status/2050210670029713737?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Yet, a recent poll commissioned by the California Democratic Party shows that the odds of this happening are extremely low even as its leaders continue to run with it. The poll, [released on May 4](https://cadem.org/california-democratic-party-releases-new-california-voter-index-tracking-survey/?ref=ivn.us), shows Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton tied in the front-runner spot. Hilton hasn’t moved much in the polls, while Becerra jumped to the top spot following Eric Swalwell’s exit. Becerra’s rise was first shown [in the Independent Voter Project’s (IVP) statewide poll](https://ivn.us/posts/breaking-xavier-becerra-bolts-into-first-place-in-ivn-california-governor-poll-2026-04-20) released on April 20. Neither of the two Republican candidates in the governor’s race, Hilton or Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, have gained ground as more undecided voters make their pick in the race or settle on a candidate. On IVN, we have explained that the problem with the “two-Republican panic” was that it relied on early polling in which a quarter of the electorate was undecided. Media pundits pushing this scenario didn’t look deeper into voter sentiments. [Embrace the Jungle: Why California’s “Jungle Primary” Is Actually 115 Years of Reform Against Party MachinesThe 115-year-old election system that Fox News and Sacramento operatives from both major parties are calling chaotic was specifically designed to stop the kind of party control they’re now trying to claw back![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/california-jungle-primary-top-two-nonpartisan-election.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/embrace-the-jungle-why-californias-jungle-primary-is-actually-115-years-of-reform-against-party-machines-2026-05-01) However, IVP did – and what the data showed was that Hilton and Bianco already hit their support ceilings. Now, this is being reflected in other polls. SurveyUSA recently found Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer in the top two spots. Rodriguez Gudelunas Strategies found Becerra in the top spot, just like IVP, and Hilton in second. No poll, [according to those featured in the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/california-governor-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us), has shown both Republicans in the top spots since Swalwell dropped out. President Donald Trump’s endorsement may help keep Hilton in the top two, but Bianco likely won’t be able to overcome any of the top Democrats. Ballots for the June 2 primary have already been sent out. It is now in the hands of voters to decide, and thanks to the nonpartisan primary system, this means *all* voters. In the end, it will be independents who determine the two candidates that advance to November. If California moved back to partisan primaries, this election would be decided in a low-turnout Democratic primary by party insiders and closed-primary gatekeepers. The Independent Voter Project, which authored Top Two in California, supports expanding the number of candidates that advance to November to four. Under a more choice voting system, voters would then use ranked choice ballots to determine a majority winner. A similar system is already in place in Alaska. The organization says what the state shouldn’t do is move backward. ### On “What Do We Do Next?” Independent Voter Project Says Start with the Primary Elections Process URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/on-what-do-we-do-next-independent-voter-project-says-start-with-closed-primaries-2026-05-05/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T14:52:25.000Z Chad Peace of the Independent Voter Project sat down this week with Molly Ruland on her podcast, [*What Do We Do Next?*](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-do-we-do-next/id1813992945?ref=ivn.us), a show that asks the question most people in politics are quietly avoiding: if the system isn't working, what do ordinary Americans actually do about it? Molly's audience isn't looking for party spin. They want honest answers about why things feel so broken and what, if anything, can be done. With nearly half of all Americans now identifying as independent voters, she wanted to understand why the country keeps getting more partisan, not less. As the legal advisor behind the Independent Voter Project, Chad has spent years making the case – all the way to the Supreme Court – that the current primary system is the root cause of the polarization most Americans are fed up with. The conversation covered the structural reasons closed primaries produce extreme candidates, why political parties are private organizations that nonetheless control publicly funded elections, and the legal question Chad has put to the Supreme Court three times: **if primaries are an integral stage of the election process, can the state legally exclude voters who choose not to join a private party?** Chad also made the case that voter disengagement doesn't weaken the system – it strengthens it. When participation shrinks, a smaller and more ideologically motivated slice of the electorate gains outsized power. The answer, he argued, isn't just getting money out of politics, but making every dollar less effective by forcing candidates to compete for a broader, less predictable electorate. The episode also previewed what's next for the Independent Voter Project: a Top Four nonpartisan primary initiative for California, modeled on Alaska's system, that would advance four candidates to the general election regardless of party affiliation. The episode is available on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/4Q6XLWgS51ZsO2FQd4yHNA?ref=ivn.us), [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/closed-primaries-open-rebellion-and-the-supreme/id1813992945?i=1000764199766&ref=ivn.us) and [whatdowedonext.substack.com](https://whatdowedonext.substack.com/p/closed-primaries-open-rebellion-and). Listen below. ### Independent Voters Hold the Power in Several California Races – If They Vote URL: https://ivn.us/independent-voters-hold-the-power-in-several-california-race-if-they-vote-2026-05-05/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T15:28:17.000Z California's nonpartisan primary gives independent voters real decision-making power. All voters, regardless of their political party, can cast a vote for any candidate. California is only one of three states that treat every voter and every candidate exactly the same. That is one big reason why independent-minded voters, rather than party brokers, hold the power in the June 2 primary to determine which candidates will advance to the November election. That power threatens party control, which is why leaders from both major parties [are now making the case to eliminate California's nonpartisan primary system and return to party-controlled primaries.](https://ivn.us/posts/embrace-the-jungle-why-californias-jungle-primary-is-actually-115-years-of-reform-against-party-machines-2026-05-01) California's nonpartisan primary system only delivers on its promise when independent voters show up. When they don't, the primary defaults to the most partisan voters on each side, the ones who never miss an election. ## **Senate District 10: Open Silicon Valley Seat** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/california-senate-district-10.jpeg) Six candidates qualified for the June 2 primary: five Democrats and one Republican. There are nearly twice as many NPP voters in this district as there are Republicans, and independent voters are well-positioned to determine which two candidates advance to November. ### [**Scott Sakakihara**](https://www.electscott.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Councilmember/Navy Officer** *Sakakihara will appeal to progressive voters focused on expanding government programs and immigration protection. His*[ *platform*](https://electscott.com/issues?ref=ivn.us) *explicitly calls for "Universal...Everything" including universal pre-school, universal healthcare, and universal housing. He wants "ICE agents out of our communities" and left Palantir specifically over the company's cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.* Sakakihara leads the field in fundraising with $399,003 raised, $299,000 from his personal coffers, and $188,169 cash on hand as of April 18, the most of any candidate. A fourth-generation Japanese American and Harvard Law graduate, he worked at [Palantir Technologies](https://www.palantir.com/?ref=ivn.us) as finance chief of staff before leaving in 2025 to run for office, citing concerns about AI-powered cybersecurity threats and the company's cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.[ ](https://x.com/cmarinucci/status/2013286121279472027?ref=ivn.us) He served on Union City's planning commission beginning in 2017, first as an alternate and later as a full member, before winning election to the City Council in 2022, representing District 4\. Sakakihara has served in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer since 2017, including an eight-month deployment supporting special operations in the Middle East in 2021\. "I was made in Union City," Sakakihara has said. "Everything I've achieved came from the opportunities this community gave me." ### [**Anne Kepner**](https://anneforsenate.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | College Trustee/Mother** *Kepner will appeal to progressive voters prioritizing education and social services. A community college trustee and consumer attorney, she focuses on public education, housing, and social services. She was previously a candidate for the 25th Assembly District in 2020\. Her campaign is at*[ *anneforsenate.com*](https://anneforsenate.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* She is a [ West Valley-Mission Community College District](https://www.wvm.edu/trustees/Pages/trustee3.aspx?ref=ivn.us) trustee, and partner at[ Needham Kepner & Fish](https://www.nkf-law.com/attorney-profiles/anne-j-kepner/?ref=ivn.us). She raised $251,905, including $80,000 in candidate loans, with $86,877 remaining. Kepner finished a close third in the 2020 AD25 primary after outraising the field. "As State Senator, I'll hold Big Corporations accountable when they harm seniors and children, and continue to expand skilled trades jobs, protect our public schools, and address housing affordability and homelessness," she says on her website. The South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council has spent $1,540 supporting her, while JOBSPAC, sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce, has spent $104,557 opposing her. ### [**Carmen Montano**](https://www.carmen.vote/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Mayor** *Montano will appeal to moderate and conservative-leaning voters frustrated with Sacramento mandates. She champions Initiative #25-0035 to completely exempt homeowners aged 60+ from property taxes, wants to establish "strict, un-waivable mandatory minimum sentences" for retail thieves, opposes AB 130/SB 9 upzoning laws that "destroy single-family zoning," and explicitly campaigns against "Politicians in LA and San Francisco." Her platform is available at*[ *carmen.vote*](https://carmen.vote/?ref=ivn.us)*.* She is the first woman elected mayor in Milpitas and has held elected office for more than two decades, starting on the school board in 2000\. She spent 26 years as a public school teacher. In interviews, Montano has emphasized her belief that moderate voices are needed to bridge divides in Sacramento. “I’m not really about the party, I’m about the people and the community,” she told the Oakland Tribune. “I feel that I could make a difference in people’s lives.” She also said, “People forget that they’re representing the people and not just representing the party.” "Right now, our two-party system is broken," Montano has said. "Both parties are often too extreme or out of touch with everyday needs." ### [**David Cohen**](https://www.electdavidcohen.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D)** **| City Councilmember** *Cohen may appeal to center-left voters seeking practical local governance over ideological positioning. As a San Jose councilmember, he focuses on homelessness funding coordination, protecting immigrant families, climate action, and affordable housing. He is endorsed by both moderate Liccardo and progressive Khanna, suggesting crossover appeal. More information at*[ *electdavidcohen.com*](https://electdavidcohen.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Cohen has served on the [San Jose City Council](https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/city-council?ref=ivn.us) since 2020 and spent 14 years on the Berryessa Union School District board before that. He holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, spent 21 years at semiconductor manufacturer Lam Research, and is an inventor on more than 10 patents. Cohen has been endorsed by U.S. Representatives Zoe Lofgren, Ro Khanna, and Sam Liccardo, and State Senators Josh Becker and Josh Newman. He raised $124,005 with $90,182 on hand. "Local government teaches you something important: policy isn't abstract," Cohen has said. "It affects the street you live on, the school your kids attend, the commute you take to work, and whether your neighborhood feels safe and supported." ### [**Raymond Liu**](https://www.electraymondliu.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Fremont City Councilman** Liu became the youngest person ever elected to the Fremont City Council when he took office in 2024\. He entered the 2022 SD10 primary, raised no money, and placed fifth with 4.9%. In this cycle, he raised $25,020 with $3,770 remaining. ### [**Linda Price**](https://www.lindapriceforsenate.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(R) | Businesswoman** Price is a management trainer and CEO of Professional Dynamics from Sunnyvale. She ran for the Fremont Union High School District board in[ 2022](https://chsprospector.com/8717/news/breaking-down-the-fuhsd-board-rep-elections/?ref=ivn.us),[ placing fourth](https://ballotpedia.org/Linda%5FPrice?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) out of five in a top-three field. “California’s too expensive because of bad policy. I’ll protect Prop 13, cut taxes and regulations, and make it affordable to live here again,” she said. The district spans portions of Alameda and Santa Clara counties, including Fremont, Hayward, Milpitas, Newark, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Union City, and parts of San Jose. It sits at the heart of Silicon Valley's technology economy. The Apple factory where the first Mac computer was manufactured was in Fremont. Tesla's plant operates within the district and employs tens of thousands of workers. The main campus of California State University, East Bay, is in Hayward, where 62.5% of undergraduates are first-generation college students. The district is among the most affluent and highly educated in the state. The median household income is $161,447\. More than 55% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Housing costs rank among the highest in the nation, with a median home value of $1,173,400 and a median monthly rent of $2,903. As of October 2025, the district had 528,830 registered voters. Democrats hold 50.36%. No Party Preference voters make up 29.28%, nearly three in 10 registrants, numbering 154,831\. Republicans represent 15.64%. For more, please see IVN’s full coverage here: [Independent Voters Will Soon Decide Open Silicon Valley Senate SeatBallots started going out Monday in the race for Senate District 10, covering parts of both Alameda and Santa Clara Counties.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/independent-voters-california-senate-district-10.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/independent-voters-will-soon-decide-open-silicon-valley-senate-seat-2026-05-04) ## **Senate District 14: Central Valley Open Seat** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-senate-district-14.jpeg) This district swung 17 points toward Republicans at the presidential level in 2024, dropping from Biden +21% to Harris +4%. Republican Steve Garvey took 47.8% of the vote here in the 2024 U.S. Senate race. In 2022, Republican Controller candidate Lanhee Chen won 50.4% of the vote in the district, the only Republican to carry a districtwide race since the current lines were drawn. Three candidates have qualified for the June 2 Top Two primary ballot. ### [**Esmeralda Soria**](https://soriaforcalifornia.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | State Assemblymember** *Soria may appeal to moderate Democrats focused on rural working families. Daughter of farmworkers with a rural legal assistance background, she focuses on affordable housing, healthcare access, and working family issues. She challenged Jim Costa in the 2020 primary from the left. More at*[ *soriaforcalifornia.com*](https://soriaforcalifornia.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Soria currently represents the 27th Assembly District and dominates this race financially. She raised $441,441 in the last reporting period and $1.37 million for the cycle, ending April with $1.02 million cash on hand. The daughter of Mexican immigrant farmworkers, she was born and raised in Tulare County. She earned her bachelor's in political science from UC Berkeley in 2005 and her JD from UC Davis in 2011\. Before entering the Legislature, she worked in the California Attorney General's office, as a legislative aide in the state Senate, as a legislative advocate for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, as a district director for state Senator Michael Rubio and as a field representative for Assemblymember Henry T. Perea. She served on the Fresno City Council from 2014 to 2022 and is an adjunct professor at Fresno City College. She ran unsuccessfully for Congress against CD16 incumbent Democrat Jim Costa in 2020, placing third with 21% of the vote. She has secured both the Democratic Party pre-endorsement conference and primary endorsements. "I have fought to bring resources home to the Central Valley—keeping hospitals open, investing in public safety, supporting farmers, and helping working families get ahead," Soria has said. ### [**Esmeralda Hurtado**](https://esmeraldahurtado.com/es?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Councilmember/Emergency Responder** *Hurtado will appeal to voters seeking public health expertise and grassroots Valley leadership. The Sanger City Councilmember and sister of Senator Melissa Hurtado brings public health experience responding to drought emergencies and ensuring communities have safe drinking water. She helped deliver the multimillion dollar expansion of Sanger's fire station and led modernization of the wastewater treatment plant. She focuses on preventing rural communities from being "priced out" and "left behind" as the Valley faces rising costs, water instability, and agricultural job losses. Her campaign is at*[ *esmeraldahurtado.com*](https://esmeraldahurtado.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* She was appointed to the Sanger City Council to fill a vacancy after her sister was elected to the state Senate in 2018\. She won a full term in the 2020 general election and was unopposed for re-election in 2024\. Hurtado’s pre-primary report showed a starting cash balance of $12,560 and an ending balance of $11,773 after raising $3,952 during the period. "Hospitals in rural communities don't close because the need disappears," Hurtado has said. "They close when private equity and corporate interests decide families aren't profitable enough to serve. When profit outweighs people, valley families suffer. This is true in our agriculture community as well." ### [**Darin S. DuPont**](https://dupontforsenate.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(R) | Councilman/Water Attorney** *DuPont will appeal to voters prioritizing water security and affordability. A 28-year-old Merced attorney who studied water and environmental law at McGeorge, he focuses on water security, affordability, and "common sense." He is endorsed by Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones. His campaign is at*[ *dupontforsenate.com*](https://dupontforsenate.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* DuPont is the lone Republican on the ballot. Born in January 1996, he is a first-term Merced city councilmember, elected in 2024\. An Atwater native, he graduated from Buhach Colony High School, earned his bachelor's in public administration from George Mason University in 2008, and his JD from the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law in 2021\. He is a partner at Robbins, Browning, Godwin & Marchini, LLP. He and his wife, Bianca, reside in Merced with their young daughter. “I was raised in the Central Valley, and I know how hard our families work just to get by. Sacramento has lost balance and forgotten communities like ours. I am running to restore accountability, secure our water future, and make California affordable again.” DuPont raised $37,305 in the last period and $46,005 for the cycle, with $17,290 cash on hand. "We need a new generation to be the voice of the Valley," DuPont has said. The district covers portions of Fresno, Madera, Merced, and Tulare counties. It includes the cities of Atwater, Chowchilla, Coalinga, Dos Palos, Firebaugh, Fowler, Gustine, Huron, Kerman, Los Banos, Madera, Mendota, Merced, Orange Cove, Parlier, Reedley, Sanger, San Joaquin, and Selma, along with portions of Fresno and Livingston, communities running alongside Interstate 5 and Highway 99\. These are largely Latino and immigrant communities that face infrastructure challenges and concerns related to healthcare access. The district has a population of just over 1 million. It is 66.4% Latino, 17.9% White, 8.3% Asian, and 4.2% Black. The median household income is $60,393\. About 23% of residents live below the poverty line, 9% lack health insurance, and 25% of households receive food stamps. Only 14% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. The median home value is $320,200, and the median rent is $1,204. As of April 3, 2026, the district had 456,819 registered voters, and No Party Preference voters make up 24% - more than 100,000 voters. The Democratic registration advantage is 15 points. ## **Senate District 16: The Central Valley's Most Competitive Seat** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/california-senate-district16.jpeg) Democrat Melissa Hurtado is the only Democratic state senator representing a district that Donald Trump carried in 2024\. She won her last race by 13 votes. That is not a typo. SD16 saw the largest rightward swing of any of California's 40 Senate districts between 2020 and 2024, a 17.4-point shift at the presidential level, flipping from Biden +9% to Trump +9% in a single cycle. Three candidates qualified for the June 2 primary. ### [**Melissa Hurtado**](https://sd16.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | State Senator** *Senator Hurtado will appeal to voters seeking continued Central Valley investment and experience. The two-term incumbent has secured "nearly $1 billion in investments across Central Valley" and brings Sanger City Council background and community organizing experience for public employees. Her campaign website is*[ *melissahurtado.com*](https://www.melissahurtado.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Hurtado was first elected to the state Senate in 2018, defeating incumbent Republican Andy Vidak. At the time, she was serving her first term on the Sanger City Council, having won election in 2016 with 68% of the vote. Born March 6, 1988, Hurtado is an IRS-registered tax preparer who also worked as a community organizer for public employees. After the 2021 redistricting placed her Sanger residence in a district contested by another Democratic incumbent, she relocated to Bakersfield, ran in the new district, and won re-election by 13 votes over Republican David Shepard. She has raised $962,367 so far this cycle, including more than $250,000 from the California Democratic Party, and had $239,728 cash on hand as of April 18\. Senator Hurtado has secured both the Democratic Party pre-endorsement conference and primary endorsements. "Like most of the kids I knew growing up in the Central Valley, I didn't have much," Hurtado has said. "My parents were immigrants, working hard every day on farms. What I had was a belief in the future: that tomorrow could be better than today if I worked hard." ### [**Manpreet Kaur**](https://www.kaurforcalifornia.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Vice Mayor/Professor** *Kaur will appeal to voters frustrated with cost-of-living pressures and seeking fresh representation. As Bakersfield Vice Mayor and the first Sikh-Punjabi woman elected to the Bakersfield City Council in 2022, she focuses on affordability (describing families "picking between tank of gas and gallon of milk") and Central Valley investment. Her campaign is at*[ *kaurforcalifornia.com*](https://www.kaurforcalifornia.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Born and raised in Bakersfield, she graduated from Kern County public schools, earned her bachelor's in political science from UC San Diego in 2015, and completed dual master's degrees in urban planning and public affairs from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2022\. Kaur is a political science lecturer at Cal State Bakersfield, director of political development at the national Sikh Coalition, and founder of the Kern County chapter of the Jakara Movement, a Sikh Punjabi youth leadership organization that, under her direction, has expanded to 70 high school clubs and 25 collegiate chapters across 15 California counties. She raised $158,228 for the cycle, including $2,500 from the California Teachers Association, and had $99,877 on hand. "Our tax dollars should stay in our communities," Kaur has said. "Out-of-touch politicians respond to their donors, not their voters. Meanwhile, the price of everything stays high, and our Valley gets left behind. We can change that. And it starts by changing who our voice is in Sacramento." ### [**Guillermo Asuncion Gonzalez**](https://www.gonzalezforsenate.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(R) | Small Business Owner** *Gonzalez will appeal to business-minded voters and those prioritizing water issues. A small business owner and field representative for Representative Valadao, he focuses on restoring "the promise of Valley," water issues, and business and homeownership access. His campaign is at*[ *gonzalezforsenate.com*](https://www.gonzalezforsenate.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Born in August 1997 in Bakersfield and raised in Mexico City, he was influenced by his father, a Republican who received legal status under President Reagan's 1986 immigration amnesty, who oriented the family toward the GOP. Gonzalez himself switched from No Party Preference to Republican in 2021 at age 24\. He graduated from Bakersfield High School in 2015, worked as an RNC engagement coordinator in Bakersfield during 2022-2023, and moved to Valadao's field staff in February 2023\. His family operates a restaurant in Delano. He raised $73,400 for the cycle, roughly half from GOP legislators, and had $25,692 on hand. The Republican Party did not endorse in this primary. "Sacramento's one-size-fits-all mandates don't work for the Central Valley," Gonzalez has said. "Kern, Tulare, Kings, and Fresno should set their own priorities on water, land use, and public safety, guided by the people who live here, work here, and depend on these resources." No independent expenditures have been reported in this race. Senate District 16 is a Voting Rights Act district that covers Kings County and portions of Fresno, Kern, and Tulare counties. It includes the cities of Arvin, Avenal, Corcoran, Delano, Dinuba, Farmersville, Hanford, Kingsburg, Lemoore, Lindsay, McFarland, Porterville, Wasco, and Woodlake, along with portions of Bakersfield, Shafter, Tulare, and Visalia. It is largely an immigrant Latino working-class region with shared interests in water and agriculture. Healthcare access and infrastructure are persistent concerns. The district has a population of 969,728\. It is 73% Latino, 18% White, 4% Black, and 4% Asian. About 25% of residents are foreign-born, and 16% are non-citizens. The median household income is $59,782\. About 21% of residents live below the poverty line, 9% lack health insurance, and 24% of households receive food stamps. Only 11% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. The median home value is $272,900, and the median rent is $1,156. As of April 3, 2026, the district had 401,440 registered voters. Democrats hold 39%. Republicans represent 30%. **No Party Preference voters make up 23%, numbering 92,928\.** The Democratic registration advantage is just 9 points and shrinking. In a district that swung 17 points toward Republicans in a single presidential cycle, where the incumbent won her last race by 13 votes, and where nearly one in four voters is registered with No Party Preference, independent voters will determine whether SD16 stays Democratic or flips. ## **Assembly District 7: Josh Hoover's Test** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-Assembly-District-7-1.png) Republican Josh Hoover flipped this seat in 2022, unseating incumbent Democrat Ken Cooley by just 1,400 votes. He won re-election in 2024 by 7 points, even as Kamala Harris carried the district by 5% and Adam Schiff won it by less than a point. The district's rightward shift from 2020 to 2024 was the smallest of any California legislative seat, and Politico has listed it as one of two seats Democrats are targeting for a flip in 2026. Three candidates qualified for the June 2 primary. ### [**Josh Hoover**](https://hooverforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(R) | Member of the State Assembly, 7th District** *Hoover may appeal to moderate voters focused on education and pragmatic problem-solving over partisan combat. As a Problem Solvers Caucus member, he authored Ryla's Law to close loopholes for child abusers, led school reopening first in Sacramento County during the pandemic, and focuses on student mental health. He is endorsed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association but wins in a district Kamala Harris carried. His positions are outlined at*[ *hooverforassembly.com/issues*](https://hooverforassembly.com/issues?ref=ivn.us)*.* Hoover is seeking a third term. Born April 11, 1988, he served as chief of staff to then-Assemblymember Kevin Kiley and as an elected member of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District Board before winning his seat in 2022\. He earned an associate degree from American River College, a bachelor's in political science from UCLA in 2011, and a master's in public administration from USC in 2015\. He lives in Folsom with his wife, Nicole, and their three children. As a parent of a child on the autism spectrum, he has served on the Folsom Cordova Special Education Community Advisory Committee and in local PTA leadership. In 2024, Hoover's race drew $1.55 million in outside spending, including $1.4 million benefiting Hoover. He has raised $933,684 for the 2026 cycle and had $614,104 cash on hand as of April 18\. He has secured the Republican Party primary endorsement. "During my time in the Legislature, I have supported law enforcement, advocated for more school police officers, and introduced Ryla's Law to close loopholes that let child abusers out of jail early," Hoover has said. ### [**Amy L. Slavensky**](https://www.amyslavensky.com/about?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Public School Educator** *Slavensky will appeal to voters prioritizing education funding and social services with personal experience of hardship. A former Amador County USD superintendent with over 40 years in education who left home at 17 and put herself through college, she focuses on expanding housing, healthcare, accessible social services, women's rights, reproductive freedom, well-resourced public schools, and compassionate homelessness support. She lost her brother to homelessness and believes in treating people experiencing mental illness with humanity. Her platform emphasizes dignity, fairness, and opportunity guided by integrity, compassion, and justice. Her campaign is at*[ *amyslavensky.com*](https://www.amyslavensky.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* She is an educational coach and consultant born and raised in the Fair Oaks and Carmichael communities. She earned a bachelor's from Point Loma Nazarene University, a master's from Azusa Pacific University, and a Ph.D. in educational leadership from Claremont Graduate University. She also worked in the San Juan, Upland, and Sacramento City school districts. Slavensky has been endorsed by SEIU, the California Women's List, and Porsche Middleton, the 2024 Democratic candidate for this seat. Slavensky has also secured both the Democratic Party pre-endorsement conference and primary endorsements. She raised $154,132 for the cycle and had $90,900 on hand. "Leaving home at 17, putting myself through college, and spending 40 years serving children and families in public education taught me the power of resilience, empathy, and community," Slavensky has said. "I am, at my core, a mom, a wife, an educator, and a neighbor who believes in showing up for people with compassion and integrity." ### [**Sanaz Motamedi**](https://www.sanazfordistrict7.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(AIP) | Real Estate Agent** Motamedi is from Rancho Cordova. She is a first-generation American who graduated from Cal State Northridge with a bachelor's in environmental and occupational health. Motamedi filed as an American Independent Party candidate after previously registering with that party. She had not reported any fundraising activity. "We deserve a fresh perspective, and together we can create a future driven by true change," Motamedi has said. Assembly District 7 lies entirely within Sacramento County, stretching along the American River through Folsom, Rancho Cordova, Citrus Heights, and the unincorporated communities of McClellan Park, North Highlands, Foothill Farms, Fair Oaks, Orangevale, Gold River, Rosemont, Mather, and most of Carmichael. About 497,000 people live here. The population is 58% White, 19% Latino, 10% Asian, and 6% Black. About 19% of residents are foreign-born, and 7% are veterans. The median household income is $90,390, and the median home value approaches $500,000\. Renters make up nearly 40% of households and pay an average of $1,760 per month. This is one of California's most evenly divided districts. It has swung between parties for more than a decade. Barack Obama carried the area by less than a point in 2008, Mitt Romney by 2 points in 2012, Hillary Clinton by 3 points in 2016, and Joe Biden by 6 points in 2020. As of October 2025, the district had 299,234 registered voters. Democrats hold 37%. Republicans represent 33%. No Party Preference voters make up 21%, numbering roughly 63,400\. The Democratic registration advantage is less than 4 points and shrinking. In a district this closely divided, where the last three elections have all drawn statewide attention and significant outside spending, independent voters are once again positioned to decide the outcome. For more, please see IVN’s full coverage here: [Josh Hoover’s Test as a Moderate Republican: Can He Win Independent Voters Again?The American River connects the cities of Folsom, Rancho Cordova, and Citrus Heights, forming the core of California’s 7th Assembly District, which also includes the unincorporated communities of McClellan Park, North Highlands, Foothill Farms, Fair Oaks, Orangevale, Gold River, Rosemont, Mather, an![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/leo_visions-blgzqdHk-HY-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/assembly-district-7-american-river-folsom-lake-independent-voters-poised-decide-hoovers-fight) ## **Assembly District 27: Central Valley Open Seat** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-AD27.png) This race became one of the most exciting in California when moderate incumbent Democrat Esmeralda Soria announced she would leave the Assembly and run for the open SD14 Senate seat instead. Although Democrats hold an 11-point registration advantage, the district has shifted dramatically to the right. Gavin Newsom carried it by 6 points in 2018\. Joe Biden won it by 14 points in 2020\. But the Republican Brian Dahle carried the district by 5 points in the 2022 governor's race, and Donald Trump won it by nearly 3 points in 2024\. In the 2024 U.S. Senate race, Republican Steve Garvey carried the district by 2 points over Adam Schiff. Voters here strongly backed Proposition 36, which increased sentencing for certain drug and theft crimes, by a 74% to 26% margin. Three candidates are on the ballot for the June 2 primary. ### [**Brian Pacheco**](https://www.pachecoforca.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | County Supervisor/Farmer** *Pacheco will appeal to moderate voters focused on local governance and agricultural experience. A fourth-generation farmer and a Fresno County supervisor, he focuses on lowering costs and stopping tax increases on the middle class. He has expanded in-home health care, brought home clean energy jobs, and served 12 years on the Kerman Unified School District Board. He is endorsed by Speaker Robert Rivas and Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria. His campaign is at*[ *pachecoforca.com*](https://www.pachecoforca.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Born April 18, 1968, he is a Kerman native who graduated from Kerman High School and earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural and managerial economics from UC Davis in 1991\. The dairy his great-grandfather founded runs more than 1,300 Holstein cows and has been recognized as a top-producing herd in Fresno County every year since 1998\. The family also grows grapes, almonds, alfalfa, corn silage, and winter forage. He was first elected to the Fresno County Board of Supervisors in 2014 and has been re-elected twice. Pacheco is Vice Chair of the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency. He’s raised $902,223 for this campaign and had $662,588 cash on hand as of April 18\. Pacheco has secured both the Democratic Party pre-endorsement conference and primary endorsements. "I'm a fourth-generation Valley farmer," Pacheco has said. "I see every day how rising costs hurt our families. Politicians in LA and San Francisco keep making it worse. I'll fight for the Central Valley to lower prices and stop tax increases on the middle class." ### [**Michael Walker Murphy**](https://www.mikemurphy4assembly.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(R) | Small Business Owner** *Murphy will appeal to business-minded voters and Republicans seeking Valley experience. A former Merced mayor and business attorney, he is committed to keeping communities safe, reducing the cost of living, protecting water supply, and creating economic opportunities. His campaign is at*[ *mikemurphy4assembly.com*](https://www.mikemurphy4assembly.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Born August 19, 1979, he is a Merced native who earned his bachelor's in international politics from Brigham Young University in 2004 and his law degree from Georgetown University in 2007\. He is currently Of Counsel at [Gunderson Dettmer](https://www.gunder.com/en?ref=ivn.us) Law Firm. Murphy won election to the Merced City Council in 2011, served five years, and was elected mayor in 2016, holding that office through 2020\. As mayor, he pointed to a 55% reduction in city business fees, a small business retention program, and a partnership with UC Merced to open a downtown business accelerator. The Republican Party did not endorse in this primary. Murphy raised $555,864 for the cycle and had $343,523 on hand. "I am committed to keeping our communities safe, reducing the cost of living for families, protecting our water supply, creating economic opportunities for all, and being held to account as a leader," Murphy has said. ### [**Japjeet Uppal**](https://japjeet4ca.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Livingston City Councilmember** *Uppal will appeal to younger progressive voters skeptical of establishment politics and corporate money. At age 23, he serves on the Livingston City Council and is the youngest elected official in California. The son of Punjabi immigrants, he positions himself as an outsider fighting to "get money out of politics," ban corporate donations, publicly finance elections, guarantee quality healthcare as a right, ban institutional investors from buying housing, invest in water infrastructure, create universal childcare, and fix crumbling infrastructure. He is not seeking traditional endorsements. His campaign is at*[ *japjeet4ca.com*](https://japjeet4ca.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Uppal raised $18,892 for the cycle and had $8,208 on hand. "Time and time again, we've seen politicians sell out to billionaires and private corporations," Uppal has said. "We must ban corporations from donating to political campaigns and publicly finance our elections to protect our democracy from being bought." Assembly District 27 spans portions of Merced, Fresno, and Madera counties. It includes the cities of Coalinga, Kerman, San Joaquin, Merced, Mendota, Dos Palos, Madera, Los Banos, Firebaugh, Huron, Atwater, Chowchilla, and Livingston, as well as portions of Fresno. Interstate 5 and Highway 99 are the district's main arteries, connecting farming communities, packing sheds, and small downtowns across a vast stretch of valley floor. Merced, the district's largest city, is known as the Gateway to Yosemite and is home to UC Merced, the youngest campus in the UC system, which earned R1 Carnegie research institution status in 2025 and is the only R1 university in the Central Valley. The district is drawn to protect the political voice of its majority-Latino population under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. AD 27 has a total population of 526,986\. It is 67% Latino, 20% White, 6% Asian, and 4% Black. About 26% of residents are foreign-born. The median household income is $65,569\. About 21% of residents live below the poverty line, 9% lack health insurance, and 23% of households receive food assistance. The median home value is $345,700, and the median rent is $1,257. As of December 2025, the district had 236,843 registered voters. Democrats hold 40%. Republicans represent 29%. No Party Preference voters make up 24%, numbering 55,600\. NPP registration has quadrupled in raw numbers since 2008\. In a district where the margin between the major parties has repeatedly come down to a few thousand votes, the NPP bloc is now larger than the margin of victory in the most recent contests. For more, please see IVN’s full coverage here: [Race to Watch: With Moderate Esmeralda Soria Out, Who Will Appeal to Independents in the Central Valley?This 2026 race snapped into focus in May 2025 when Soria announced she would seek the SD14 State Senate seat being vacated by Anna Caballero due to term limits. The announcement transformed an already competitive district into one of the top Republican targets in California.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/central-valley-assembly-race-independent-voters.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/race-to-watch-with-moderate-esmeralda-soria-out-who-will-appeal-to-independents-in-the-central-valley-2026-03-12) ## **Assembly District 30: Dawn Addis and the Central Coast** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-AD-30.png) This is a seat worth watching for what it reveals about independent voters on California's Central Coast. Incumbent Democrat Dawn Addis is seeking a third term. She won her 2024 re-election by a commanding 62% to 38% margin and enters 2026 as one of the better-funded Assembly incumbents in the state. Kamala Harris carried the district by 27 points in 2024\. Adam Schiff won it by 23 points. Three candidates qualified for the June 2 primary. ### [**Dawn Addis**](https://dawnaddis.org/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | State Assemblymember/Teacher** *Addis will appeal to voters prioritizing healthcare access and environmental protection. The incumbent teacher and Chair of the Budget Subcommittee on Health is the first Democrat from SLO County in the State Assembly since 1922\. She focuses on healthcare access, opposition to offshore drilling, and climate action. More at*[ *dawnaddis.org*](https://dawnaddis.org/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Addis was first elected in 2022 after losing by double digits in a 2020 run against Republican incumbent Jordan Cunningham. Born July 12, 1972, she is a former special education teacher and Morro Bay city councilmember who spent years teaching in the San Luis Coastal Unified School District. She co-founded the San Luis Obispo Women's March, which drew 10,000 people in 2017\. Budget Subcommittee No. 1 on Health, which she chairs, oversees eight state departments and a $175 billion budget. In 2026, she is carrying AB 1159, a student data privacy bill that would restrict how AI companies use student data, and AB 2034, which would require food and chemical companies to demonstrate the safety of food additives. She has raised $622,312 for the cycle and had $430,141 cash on hand as of April 18\. She has secured both the Democratic Party pre-endorsement conference and primary endorsements. "As your State Assemblymember, I'm listening and solving problems in order to make our home an even better place to live," Addis has said. "There is nothing our communities can't achieve if we work together and prioritize helping people over politics." ### [**Shannon Kessler**](https://www.kesslerforca.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(R) | Children's Advocate/Businesswoman** *Kessler will appeal to parents' rights activists and those prioritizing local control over Sacramento mandates. A mother, business owner, and children's advocate married 38 years, she founded Save Girls' Sports Central Coast and Culture Impact to strengthen civic engagement. She co-owns a local construction company and real estate business, served as Arroyo Grande Parks and Recreation Commissioner, and focuses on public safety, affordability, accountability, putting parents back in charge of schools, empowering businesses, and fighting overregulation. Her campaign is at*[ *kesslerforca.com*](https://www.kesslerforca.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Born Sept. 21, 1968, she is a sixth-generation Californian and principal broker at Shannon Kessler Real Estate. Her husband, Jim, owns Kessler Construction. She is the founder of Culture Impact, an organization that encourages citizen engagement, and Save Girls' Sports Central Coast, a group that advocates for female-only athletic competition. Kessler has received the California Republican Party endorsement. She raised $254,354 for the cycle and had $85,321 on hand. "I'm running because public safety, affordability, and accountability are no longer being treated as priorities," Kessler has said. "Families are struggling to stay in the communities they love, parents are losing their voice, and critical decisions are being made without local input. Our district deserves representation that listens, protects, and delivers results." ### [**Susannah Brown**](https://www.brownfor30.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Data Scientist** *Brown offers a data strategy background but minimal campaign activity. She reported almost no fundraising activity as of the end of 2025\. Her website is*[ *brownfor30.com*](https://brownfor30.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* She is the founder of Renaissance Strategy Dynamics, a data and strategy consultancy focused on housing, infrastructure, and economic development, which she has led since 2014\. Born Dec. 22, 1988, she earned her bachelor's in business administration from Columbia College in 2018 and a master's in analytics from Notre Dame of Maryland University in 2020\. Brown worked for Rite Aid for a decade, starting in her teens and rising to manager. She chairs the South County Chambers of Commerce, serves on an elementary school site council, and has organized Lumina Days, a domestic violence awareness event, for more than 10 years. Her husband works at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. Brown reported raising $13,500\. "I'm running for State Assembly to focus on implementation," Brown has said. "That means aligning housing, energy, water, and school systems so decisions made in Sacramento work in the real world and deliver reliable results people can count on." Assembly District 30 stretches along the Central Coast, covering portions of San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and Santa Cruz counties. It includes San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, Atascadero, Paso Robles, Arroyo Grande, Pismo Beach, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Seaside, Marina, and Capitola. The economy runs on tourism, agriculture, and education. The district has a population of 475,439\. It is 63% White and 24% Latino. The median household income is $97,987\. The median home value is $872,900, and the median rent is $2,076. As of December 2025, the district had 307,638 registered voters. Democrats hold 45%. Republicans represent 28%. No Party Preference voters make up 19%, numbering roughly 59,200\. San Luis Obispo County, which accounts for more than half the district's voters, holds a Democratic registration edge of just 4 points, making it the competitive center of the district. While AD30 is not a toss-up, the presence of nearly 59,200 independent voters and a second Democrat on the ballot makes the primary dynamics worth watching, particularly in San Luis Obispo County, where NPP voters carry outsized weight. For more, please see IVN’s full coverage here: [Will Independent Voters Deliver Dawn Addis a Third Assembly Term in California’s Central Coast?Dawn Addis, born July 12, 1972, is a former teacher and Morro Bay city councilmember who was first elected to the Assembly in 2022 and re-elected in 2024![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Dawn-Addis.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/will-independent-voters-deliver-dawn-addis-a-third-assembly-term-in-californias-central-coast-2026-03-19) ## **Assembly District 35: Bakersfield's Open Seat** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-AD-35.png) No district in California swung further to the right in 2024 than AD35\. Joe Biden carried it by 21 points in 2020\. Kamala Harris barely held it by less than a point. Adam Schiff won it by just 2 points. Incumbent moderate Democrat Jasmeet Bains is not seeking re-election. Three candidates qualified for the June 2 primary: two Democrats and one Republican. ### [**Andrae Gonzales**](https://www.andraegonzales.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Councilmember/Nonprofit Director** *Gonzales will appeal to voters focused on practical local problem-solving and community investment. A Bakersfield City Council Ward 2 member since 2016 and nonprofit executive director, he helped create a low-barrier homeless shelter, a community land trust for homeownership, and the B3K Initiative for small business. He focuses on improving schools, expanding early education, stopping rising costs of gas and groceries, expanding healthcare (supporting efforts to bring a medical school to Kern County), prioritizing public safety, ensuring clean water, helping working parents with childcare costs, fixing roads, building new housing, and helping businesses create good-paying jobs. His campaign is at*[ *andraegonzales.com*](https://www.andraegonzales.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Born April 6, 1982, he was born and raised in Bakersfield, graduated from East Bakersfield High School, and earned his bachelor's in political science from UC Berkeley. He serves as CEO of Stewards, Inc., a nonprofit that helps adults with mental disabilities manage their finances, serving more than 1,000 clients in Kern County. He is also a co-founder of several local nonprofits, including Faith in Action, Children First, Kern Alliance of Nonprofits, and Hub of Bakersfield. Before joining the city council, he served on the Bakersfield City School District Board of Education from 2010 to 2016\. Gonzales was reelected to the Bakersfield City Council in 2022\. He was recently awarded the 2025 Dennis Wallace Community Leadership Award at SJVHC's 14th Annual Affordable Housing Conference. He has raised $541,259 for the cycle and had $191,301 cash on hand as of April 18\. He has secured both the Democratic Party pre-endorsement conference and primary endorsements. His endorsements include Treasurer Fiona Ma, Assemblymembers Esmeralda Soria and Dawn Addis, State Senator Jesse Arreguin, and Kern County Supervisor Leticia Perez. Gonzales is also drawing massive independent expenditure support, with $1.39 million in outside spending on his behalf from California Leads ($516,418), Coalition to Restore California's Middle Class ($399,920), Nurses and Educators for Healthy CA Communities ($299,480), Keep California Golden ($75,490), and California Credit Union League ($75,000). "I'm the only candidate endorsed by the Democratic Party because I have a record of fighting for positive change in our communities," Gonzales has said. "I'm also endorsed by groups representing local teachers, firefighters, construction workers, childcare providers, and small business owners." ### [**Ana Palacio**](https://www.voteanapalacio.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Emergency Room Nurse** *Palacio will appeal to healthcare-focused voters and those seeking someone with frontline emergency experience. An ER nurse at Kern Medical with no political background, she describes herself as someone who "runs towards crises" and focuses on quality affordable healthcare, economic opportunities, affordable housing solutions, education and career pathways, and public safety and homelessness prevention. She is endorsed by SEIU. Over half of her $140,000 raised came from SEIU. Her campaign is at*[ *voteanapalacio.com*](https://www.voteanapalacio.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Palacio is the SEIU 521 chapter president from Bakersfield. Born Aug. 25, 1984, she has been endorsed by SEIU California, the California Women's List, and California Environmental Voters. Palacio raised $161,653 for the cycle and had $123,929 on hand. She is also drawing independent expenditure support, with $346,889 spent on her behalf from FIX KERN PAC ($171,975), Nurses and Educators for Healthy CA Communities ($156,362) and SEIU Local 521 ($18,552). "ER nurses don't wait for problems to escalate," Palacio has said. "We step in when lives are on the line. We need leaders who will run towards the crises Central Valley families are facing. That's what I'll do for Kern County in the State Assembly." ### [**Saul Ayon**](http://www.ayonforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(R) | Mayor/Teacher** Ayon was elected mayor of McFarland in 2022 after winning a city council seat in 2020\. Born Nov. 8, 1975, he served 23 years with the Kern County Sheriff's Department before retiring to run for office. He teaches criminal justice at McFarland Early College High School and previously served as president of the McFarland Chamber of Commerce. An amateur boxer and father of two sons, he resides in McFarland. He has received the California Republican Party endorsement and endorsements from Assemblymembers Stan Ellis and Alexandra Macedo. He raised $228,121 for the cycle and had $141,153 on hand. "I've always felt called to help people," Ayon has said. "From serving 25 years in the Kern County Sheriff's Department to mentoring kids as a high school Criminal Justice Instructor, I've dedicated my life to protecting, guiding, and standing up for the community. I'm ready to take that same dedication to Sacramento and fight for families, farmers, and small businesses." Total independent expenditure spending in AD35 stands at $1,739,224, making it one of the most heavily funded legislative primaries in California. Nearly all of it is supporting Democrats: roughly $1.39 million backing Gonzales and $347,000 backing Palacio. No IE spending has been reported for or against Mayor Ayon. Assembly District 35 covers portions of Kern County, including the cities of McFarland, Shafter, Arvin, Delano and Wasco, along with portions of Bakersfield. It is a Voting Rights Act district with a majority-Latino citizen voting age population of 61%. The district features large farmworker communities that commute throughout the area for work and school. Its communities share an agriculture-based economy and common concerns related to land use and water access. The district has a population of 494,836\. It is 75% Latino, 13% White, 5% Black and 4% Asian. About 26% of residents are foreign-born and 17% are non-citizens. The median household income is $55,794\. About 23% of residents live below the poverty line, 10% lack health insurance and 24% of households receive food stamps. Only 10% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. The median home value is $261,500 and the median rent is $1,153. As of April 3, 2026, the district had 209,398 registered voters. Democrats hold 44%. Republicans represent 24%. No Party Preference voters make up 24%, numbering 49,224\. The Democratic registration advantage is 20 points, but the top-of-ticket results tell a very different story. In a district that swung 20 points toward Republicans in a single presidential cycle and where nearly one in four voters belongs to no party, independent voters will play a decisive role in determining who represents Bakersfield in Sacramento. ## **Assembly District 36: Trump Won This Latino District. Now Independents Will Decide Who Holds It.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-AD36-1.jpg) Republican Jeff Gonzalez flipped this seat in 2024, defeating Democrat Joey Acuña by 4 points in a district where Democrats still held a double-digit registration advantage. Donald Trump carried the district by 1 point that year, and Steve Garvey won it by 2. Gonzalez is now defending newly won ground. Three Democrats qualified to challenge him in the June 2 primary. The California Democratic Party failed to coalesce behind a single challenger, issuing no endorsement after Oscar Ortiz fell short at both the pre-endorsement conference and the primary endorsement vote. Four candidates are on the ballot. ### [**Jeff Gonzalez**](https://www.gonzalez4assembly.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(R) | Assemblymember/Father** *Gonzalez will appeal to voters prioritizing agriculture, public safety, and traditional values. The Republican incumbent is a 21-year Marine Corps veteran with four combat deployments including Iraq and Afghanistan, a former pastor, and small business owner. His campaign emphasizes "Sacramento prioritizes CRIMINALS over VICTIMS" and focuses on supporting farmers and farmworkers and improving education. More at*[ *gonzalez4assembly.com*](https://gonzalez4assembly.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Gonzalez is a first-generation American. Born Aug. 5, 1974, he enlisted in the Marines at 19 and served in counterintelligence and as an operations manager during deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, earning the rank of chief warrant officer. He holds a bachelor's in domestic security management from National University and a master's in theology from Gateway University. He spent a decade in ministry at Saddleback Church and Southwest Church before launching a Spherion Staffing and Recruiting franchise. He first ran for this seat in 2018 against Democrat Eduardo Garcia, advancing from the primary but losing the general by a wide margin. He ran again in 2024 and won. In the Assembly, he serves on committees including Water, Parks, and Wildlife (vice chair), Agriculture, and Military and Veterans Affairs. His early legislative priorities include a bill to suspend the state's 61-cent gas tax for one year and the Rural Farmworker Women's Health Act, which would distribute free menstrual products to women in remote agricultural regions. He also authored a bill to expedite environmental review for the Coachella Valley Rail project, a proposed $1.5 billion passenger line between the valley and Los Angeles. Gonzalez has raised $837,379 for the cycle and had $474,306 cash on hand as of April 18\. He has the California Republican Party endorsement. "In rural and desert communities, a car is not a luxury. It's a lifeline," Gonzalez has said. "This is about affordability, this is about fairness, and this is about putting people before politics." ### [**Oscar Ortiz**](https://www.oscarforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Councilmember/Education Director** *Ortiz will appeal to progressive voters emphasizing healthcare reform and environmental sustainability. An Indio City Council member since 2018 with a Stanford chemistry degree and pharmaceutical industry background, he now serves as Deputy Director of an environmental nonprofit. He emphasizes healthcare access (wanting to "make sure healthcare dollars go to healthcare workers, not insurance companies"), building a green economy with union partnerships, and environmental sustainability. He is endorsed by the California Donor Table, Inland Empire United, SEIU, and numerous port and labor unions. His platform is at*[ *oscarforassembly.com*](https://oscarforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Ortiz is director of education at Friends of the Desert Mountains, a local environmental nonprofit. Born Jan. 20, 1990, in Mexicali, he immigrated with his family when he was 3\. He grew up in Indio. Ortiz graduated from Indio High School in 2008 and earned a bachelor's in chemistry from Stanford in 2012\. Ortiz challenged Democrat Raul Ruiz for CD25 from the left in 2024, finishing fourth with 10%. His endorsements include the California Federation of Labor Unions, the Inland Empire Labor Council, United Domestic Workers of America, the California Teachers Association, SEIU California, and California Environmental Voters. Ortiz has raised $239,462 for the race and had $106,864 cash on hand as of mid-April. "I'm running for State Assembly to raise the concerns of workers in our state," Ortiz has said. "Our families are struggling to keep up with the rising costs of rent and the ever-increasing costs of health care and insurance rates." ### [**Ida S. Obeso-Martinez**](https://www.idaforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Mayor/Nurse** *Obeso-Martinez will appeal to healthcare-focused voters and those seeking practical medical expertise. The Imperial Mayor (formerly Mayor Pro Tem) is a cardiovascular nurse practitioner with a doctorate in nursing practice and over 20 years in emergency room and ICU nursing at local Imperial Valley hospitals. She is endorsed by Speaker Robert Rivas, the California Legislative Women's Caucus, the California Nurses Association, and Representative Raul Ruiz. She focuses on affordable healthcare, local job creation through career technical education and workforce training, and hospital funding improvements. Her campaign is at*[ *idaforassembly.com*](https://idaforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Born May 6, 1979, she grew up in Imperial County, graduated from Imperial High School, and earned her associate's in nursing from Imperial Valley College, a bachelor's from the University of Phoenix, and a doctorate in nursing practice from the University of Arizona. She was elected to the Imperial City Council in 2022 and has served as mayor pro tem and mayor. In March 2025, Representative Ruiz brought her to Washington as his guest for President Trump's Joint Address to Congress, where she advocated against Medicaid cuts. Her endorsements include Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Representative Ruiz. She raised $143,274 for the cycle and had $71,308 cash on hand. "As a lifelong advocate for expanding health care access in the Imperial Valley, I am here to stand against Medicaid cuts that would limit the care our health facilities can provide to patients," Obeso-Martinez has said. ### [**Tomas Oliva**](https://voteoliva.com/about-me/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Community College Professor** *Oliva will appeal to voters prioritizing Imperial County representation and healthcare infrastructure. A former El Centro mayor and city councilmember who now serves as senior field representative for Representative Raul Ruiz, he holds a public administration master's from San Diego State. He fought to save the El Centro hospital and focuses on healthcare system improvements (specifically higher Medi-Cal and Medicare reimbursement rates), education funding, Salton Sea mitigation, and Colorado River water issues. He resigned from the city council amid controversy over withholding financial information. More at*[ *voteoliva.com*](https://voteoliva.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Born Sept. 11, 1984, he earned his bachelor's in political science from UC San Diego. He served on the El Centro City Council from 2018 until March 2025, when he resigned ahead of a likely censure vote. He has taught as an adjunct professor at Imperial Valley College since 2016, including classes for incarcerated students at Centinela State Prison and Calipatria State Prison. He ran in the 2024 AD36 primary, placing sixth with 8%. He is a former chair of the Imperial County Democratic Central Committee. He raised $137,876 for the cycle and had $40,062 on hand. "I'm not another out-of-touch politician," Oliva has said. "I'm a kid from El Centro who grew up on food stamps and government assistance. I know firsthand policy is personal." He has also called for a statewide moratorium on data center development: "The safety of our people and our neighbors cannot be an afterthought. This is unacceptable." The district covers all of Imperial County and a large portion of Riverside County, with a small slice of San Bernardino County. It is one of only a few California districts that can claim three borders, running along Mexico to the south, Arizona to the east and touching Nevada to the northeast. It includes the cities of Indio, Coachella, Blythe and Needles in Riverside County, and the Imperial Valley cities of Calexico, Brawley, El Centro, Imperial, Calipatria, Holtville and Westmorland. It is home to the Empire Polo Club, host of the Coachella festival, and the Salton Sea, California's largest lake, which sits atop one of the world's largest known lithium deposits. The district was drawn to protect the political voice of its majority-Latino population under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The district has a population of 486,764\. It is 70% Latino, 20% White, 4% Black and 3% Asian. About 27% of residents are foreign-born. The median household income is $66,802\. About 15% of residents live below the poverty line, 8% lack health insurance and 21% of households receive food assistance. The median home value is $347,100 and the median rent is $1,168. As of December 2025, the district had 258,071 registered voters. Democrats hold 41%. Republicans represent 29%. No Party Preference voters make up 23%, numbering roughly 59,000\. NPP registration has nearly doubled since 2008, while the Democratic registration advantage has contracted from 17 points in 2022 to 12 points today. In a district that flipped Republican in 2024, where a GOP incumbent is defending newly won ground, and three Democrats are splitting the opposition vote, independent voters could determine both who advances from the primary and who ends up winning in November. For more, please see IVN’s full coverage here: [Trump Won This Latino California District; Now Independents Will Decide Who Holds ItDonald Trump carried the district by 1.3% in 2024, winning 49.5% to Kamala Harris’s 48.2%, a striking outcome in a district where Democrats still held a registration advantage exceeding 13 points.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/California-ad36-coachella-empire-polo-club.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-won-this-latino-california-district-now-independents-will-decide-who-holds-it-2026-04-07) ## **Assembly District 47: Neither Party Owns This Seat** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-AD47--2-.png) Republican Greg Wallis won this seat by 85 votes in 2022, the only Republican to win a legislative district that Gavin Newsom carried that same year. He won again by 2 points in 2024, even as Kamala Harris carried the district by 4 points and Adam Schiff carried it by 1 point. The California Democratic Party failed to unite behind a challenger to Wallis, issuing no endorsement after Leila Namvar received 46% at the pre-endorsement conference, short of the required threshold. Three candidates are on the June 2 ballot. ### [**Gregory Wallis**](https://ad47.asmrc.org/?ref=ivn.us) **(R) | Member of the State Assembly** *Wallis demonstrates the largest gap between voting record and campaign messaging. He earned 73% from Equality California, 75% from NARAL, and 100% from Planned Parenthood, voted for Governor Newsom's wildfire funding, and urged President Trump to consider work permits for undocumented farmworkers. However, his*[ *campaign website*](https://gregwallis.org/issues?ref=ivn.us) *emphasizes conservative positions: eliminating the gas tax, preventing government-run healthcare, school choice, and tough-on-crime policies.* Wallis was first elected in 2022 and is seeking a third term. Born May 15, 1990, he is a third-generation Californian who resides in Bermuda Dunes. Before entering the Legislature, he served as district director for Assemblymember Chad Mayes beginning in 2014\. Wallis is a member of the Assembly Problem Solvers Caucus. He is a strong supporter of same-sex marriage and is pro-choice. Wallis earned 100% from the California Chamber of Commerce in 2023 and was the only Republican Assemblymember to vote for Governor Newsom's $180 million wildfire prevention funding package in early 2025\. Assemblyman Wallis also joined lawmakers urging President Trump to consider expedited work permits for undocumented essential workers, including farmworkers. He has raised $1,058,783 for the cycle and had $526,790 cash on hand as of April 18\. "My district is a mix of Republicans, Democrats, and independent voters who value results over party," Wallis has said. "I'll work with anyone, regardless of their party, to get things done." ### [**Leila Namvar**](https://www.leilanamvar.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Civil Servant/Mom** *Namvar will appeal to labor-focused voters and those seeking working-class representation. A former local labor leader and urban planner who has worked with the City of Indio since 2005, she focuses on corporate greed, affordable housing, good-paying jobs, and expanding access to education and healthcare. She won a District Delegate seat in AD47 in 2024\. Her campaign is at*[ *leilanamvar.com*](https://leilanamvar.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Namvar works as a public arts program analyst for the City of Indio. Born Aug. 4, 1972, in Iran, she first applied for permission to immigrate to the United States in 1983 and waited nearly two decades before legally arriving in Southern California in 2002\. She became a U.S. citizen by naturalization in 2008\. She previously worked as a cashier, a Red Cross lab assistant, and a city planning technician before earning a master's degree in public administration. She also previously served as president of SEIU Local 721, representing Indio city employees, and led contract negotiations three times. Namvar has raised $156,807 for this cycle and had $56,120 on hand as of mid-April. "When I came here, I really believed in the American dream," Namvar has said. "But I think it's slipping away from too many." ### [**Jason Byors**](https://jasonbyors.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Small Business Owner** *Byors will appeal to LGBTQ voters and those opposing Trump policies. The 54-year-old software engineer from Cathedral City worked for Sony Pictures, Toyota, and the City of LA. He originally ran for Congress but switched to AD47, frames his campaign as resistance to the Trump administration, and supports Prop 50 redistricting. He is endorsed by the Riverside County Democratic Party chair. More at*[ *jasonbyors.com*](https://jasonbyors.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* He is a Cathedral City resident and owns and operates a computer consultancy. Born Jan. 24, 1971, he grew up in a working-class household led by a single mother. He graduated summa cum laude from Babson College and built a career in software engineering. He initially filed to run for Congress before switching to the Assembly race after Democratic leaders encouraged him to do so. He raised $198,353 for the cycle and had $97,628 cash on hand. "The reason that I got into this race was to be a voice to speak out against what's going on in Washington," Byors has said. "I feel like we are losing our democracy. Anything I can do to stand up and defend our democracy, I'm going to do." No independent expenditures have been reported in this race, a notable departure from 2024, when outside spending exceeded $2.5 million. The district stretches across Riverside and San Bernardino counties, encompassing Banning, Beaumont, Calimesa, Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Yucaipa, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Yucca Valley, and portions of Redlands, Highland, and San Jacinto. It balances conservative areas around Redlands, Yucaipa, and Calimesa with the deep blue cities of Palm Springs and Cathedral City. A significant portion lies within the Coachella Valley, where tourism, housing affordability, and seasonal population swings shape local politics. Joshua Tree National Park anchors the district's environmental and cultural identity. The district has a population of 523,318\. It is 49% White, 39% Latino, 4% Asian, and 4% Black. About 17% of residents are foreign-born. The median household income is $78,451\. About 13% of residents live below the poverty line, and 7% lack health insurance. The median home value is $450,800, and the median rent is $1,542\. The district is home to nearly 29,500 veterans, representing 7% of the population. As of October 2025, the district had 334,356 registered voters. Democrats hold 39%. Republicans represent 34%. No Party Preference voters make up 19%, numbering roughly 64,000\. The Democratic registration advantage is roughly 5 points. The district has swung between parties at the statewide level for more than a decade, and Wallis has twice won the seat even as Democrats carried it at the top of the ticket. For more, please see IVN’s full coverage here: [Neither Party Owns This Seat: Independent Voters Control California’s Desert BattlegroundCalifornia’s Assembly District 47 stretches across Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, encompassing the cities of Banning, Beaumont, Calimesa, Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Yucaipa, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, and the town of Yucca Valley, along with p![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-assembly-district-47-independent-voters-desert-swing-seat-2026.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/neither-party-owns-this-seat-independent-voters-control-california-desert-battleground-2026-01-28) ## **Assembly District 65: South LA's Wide-Open Race** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Assembly-District-65.png) Incumbent Democrat [Mike Gipson](https://gipson.asmdc.org/?ref=ivn.us) is termed out and running for the Board of Equalization, leaving a deep-blue open seat that has drawn a crowded field and $1.7 million in independent expenditure spending. Five Democrats and one Republican qualified for the June 2 ballot. ### [**Ayanna Davis**](https://www.ayannadavis.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Educator/School Boardmember** *Davis will appeal to education-focused voters and those seeking institutional leadership experience. A Compton Unified School District Board Vice President, LAUSD principal, and longtime educator and union member (UTLA, Teamsters Local 2010 VP), she was born and raised in Compton and is a single mother. She is endorsed by the CA Legislative Black Caucus, CA Democratic Legislative Women's Caucus, outgoing Assemblymember Mike Gipson, and a broad labor coalition including port workers unions. She focuses on education, port and logistics job pipelines, affordability, and public safety. She received 80% at the Democratic pre-endorsing conference. Her campaign is at*[ *ayannadavis.com*](https://ayannadavis.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Davis was elected to the Compton Unified School District Board of Trustees in 2022 and was appointed as a Democratic delegate by Assemblymember Gipson. Born April 15, 1971, she holds a bachelor's in political science from USC, two master's degrees in education from CSU Dominguez Hills and CSU Northridge, and a doctorate in organizational change and leadership from USC. She has served as president of the Southern California chapter of the California Association of Early Young Children. She has been endorsed by Gipson, Treasurer Fiona Ma, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, Teamsters Joint Council 42, and ILWU Local 13\. She has secured both the Democratic Party pre-endorsement conference and primary endorsements. She raised $343,635 for the cycle. Davis is drawing massive independent expenditure support: California Leads has spent $461,117, Grow California $438,389, Advance California (sponsored by the California Apartment Association) $275,000, and Keep California Golden $109,915, all in her favor. Total IE spending supporting Davis stands at $1,284,421\. "As a public school educator and School Board member, I hear from students and parents every day: they want quality schools and safe streets where children can play without fear," Davis has said. "In the Assembly, I will work closely with local first responders to improve emergency response times and create safer schools, parks, and neighborhoods." ### [**Fatima Iqbal-Zubair**](https://www.fatimaforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Advocacy Nonprofit Manager** *Iqbal-Zubair will appeal to progressive voters skeptical of corporate influence and prioritizing environmental justice. A science teacher who taught in Watts for three years, she started the first robotics program at her school (featured in the Disney+ documentary More Than Robots). She is Chair of the California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus, an active Democratic Socialists of America-LA member, and mother of a son with special needs. Her progressive platform emphasizes single-payer healthcare, opposition to corporate money in politics, the Green New Deal, divesting from police and prisons, environmental justice, and affordable housing. She has run twice before (2020, 2022) and lost both times. She is endorsed by Democratic Socialists of America-LA, SEIU California, Working Families Party, and Courage California. Her platform is at*[ *fatimaforassembly.com*](https://fatimaforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Iqbal-Zubair is a third-time candidate for this seat. Born Oct. 2, 1982, she previously ran against Gipson in 2020, spending over $500,000 and losing 60% to 40%, and again in 2022, spending close to $800,000 and losing 62% to 38%. She earned her bachelor's in biology and psychology from Ramapo College of New Jersey and a teaching credential from CSU Dominguez Hills. She has worked as a chemistry teacher at Animo College Preparatory Academy, a charter school serving the Watts area. Her endorsements include Rep. Lateefah Simon, Assemblymembers Pilar Schiavo and Sade Elhawary, LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, and LA Councilmember Nithya Raman. She leads the field in total fundraising with $363,092 raised and $254,012 cash on hand at the start of the year. Iqbal-Zubair is the target of $417,451 in opposition IE spending by Californians for Accountability. ### [**Vinson Eugene Allen**](https://electdrallen2026.com/meet-dr-allen-2/?ref=ivn.us) **(D) | Medical Doctor/Businessman** *Allen will appeal to voters seeking healthcare expertise and community service background. A physician with over 20 years of experience and small business owner, he was raised in the Mississippi Delta by his grandmother (the granddaughter of enslaved Americans) and trained in emergency medicine at Martin Luther King Jr. hospital. He runs the Saint Vinson Eugene Allen Foundation (providing scholarships, support for families with disabilities, and monthly aid to unhoused residents) and mobilized volunteers during COVID-19 to feed thousands and provide free testing. He focuses on job creation, affordable healthcare, housing, and safer neighborhoods. More at*[ *electdrallen2026.com*](https://electdrallen2026.com/?ref=ivn.us)*.* Dr. Allen is an emergency medicine physician who operates Dusk Till Dawn Urgent Care. Born Jan. 17, 1966, he earned his DO from West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in 1994 and completed his residency in emergency medicine at Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in 1997\. He ran for Insurance Commissioner in 2022, spending half a million dollars and placing fifth with 4%. He loaned his current campaign $50,000 upon filing. He raised $155,563 for the cycle and had $76,240 on hand. Total independent expenditure spending in AD65 stands at $1.7 million so far. Of that, $1.3 million was spent in support of Davis, and $417,451 was spent opposing Iqbal-Zubair. The district covers portions of Los Angeles County, including all of Compton and portions of Long Beach, Carson, and the City of Los Angeles. It includes the communities of Watts, Willowbrook, Rancho Dominguez, Harbor Gateway, and West Carson. The district has a population of 489,275\. It is 63% Latino, 19% Black, 8% Asian, and 7% White. About 31% of residents are foreign-born, and 17% are non-citizens. The median household income is $71,342\. About 17% of residents live below the poverty line, 12% lack health insurance, and 20% of households receive food stamps. Just 18% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. The median home value is $602,900, and the median rent is $1,573. As of April 3, 2026, the district had 276,039 registered voters. Democrats hold 56%. No Party Preference voters make up 23% of the vote, totaling 63,851\. Republicans represent just 13%. There are nearly twice as many NPP voters as Republicans here. With five Democrats on the ballot, $1.7 million in outside spending already deployed, and nearly one in four voters unaffiliated, independent voters will shape which two candidates advance to November. ## **About the 2026 California Nonpartisan Top Two Primary** Under California's nonpartisan top-two primary system, all voters and candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party. All registered voters can vote in the nonpartisan primary. The top two vote-getters advance to the November general election. All active registered voters in California will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. County election offices began mailing ballots on May 4\. Ballot drop-off locations open May 5\. Vote centers open for early in-person voting in Voter's Choice Act counties beginning May 23\. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by June 9. *Source Notes: This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, CalMatters, the California Target Book, Ballotpedia, California FPPC campaign finance filings, newsletters, fundraising emails, individual candidate websites and social media accounts, and reporting from local and regional newspapers and television stations across the state.* ### Los Votantes Independientes Tienen El Poder en Varias Carreras de California – Si Salen a Votar URL: https://ivn.us/los-votantes-independientes-tienen-el-poder-en-varias-carreras-de-california-si-salen-a-votar/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T16:12:31.000Z La primaria no partidista de California le da a los votantes independientes un poder real de decisión. Todos los votantes, sin importar su partido político, pueden emitir un voto por cualquier candidato. California es uno de solo tres estados que trata a cada votante y a cada candidato exactamente igual. Esa es una gran razón por la que los votantes con mentalidad independiente, y no los operadores de los partidos, son los que tienen el poder en la primaria del 2 de junio para definir qué candidatos avanzarán a la elección de noviembre. Ese poder amenaza el control de los partidos, y por eso los líderes de los dos partidos principales hoy están construyendo el argumento para eliminar el sistema de primaria no partidista de California y volver a primarias controladas por los partidos. El sistema de primaria no partidista de California solo cumple su promesa cuando los votantes independientes se aparecen a votar. Cuando no lo hacen, la primaria se queda en manos de los votantes más partidistas de cada lado, los que nunca se pierden una elección. ## **Senate District 10: Asiento abierto en Silicon Valley** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/california-senate-district-10-1.jpeg) Seis candidatos calificaron para la primaria del 2 de junio: cinco demócratas y un republicano. Hay casi el doble de votantes NPP en este distrito que republicanos, y los votantes independientes están bien posicionados para definir cuáles dos candidatos avanzan a noviembre. **Scott Sakakihara (D) | Concejal/Oficial de la Marina** Sakakihara va a conectar con votantes progresistas enfocados en expandir programas de gobierno y en la protección a inmigrantes. Su plataforma pide explícitamente "Universal...Everything", incluyendo preescolar universal, atención médica universal y vivienda universal. Quiere "ICE agents out of our communities" y dejó Palantir específicamente por la cooperación de la compañía con las acciones federales de cumplimiento migratorio. Sakakihara va al frente del grupo en recaudación con $399,003 levantados, $299,000 de sus propios recursos, y $188,169 en efectivo disponible al 18 de abril, el más alto de cualquier candidato. Japonés-americano de cuarta generación y graduado de Harvard Law, trabajó en Palantir Technologies como jefe de gabinete de finanzas antes de salir en 2025 para postularse, citando preocupaciones sobre amenazas de ciberseguridad con IA y la cooperación de la compañía con las acciones federales de cumplimiento migratorio. Sirvió en la comisión de planeación de Union City a partir de 2017, primero como suplente y después como miembro pleno, antes de ganar la elección al Concejo Municipal en 2022, representando al Distrito 4. Sakakihara ha servido en la Reserva de la Marina de Estados Unidos como oficial de inteligencia desde 2017, incluyendo un despliegue de ocho meses en apoyo de operaciones especiales en Medio Oriente en 2021. "I was made in Union City," ha dicho Sakakihara. "Everything I've achieved came from the opportunities this community gave me." **Anne Kepner (D) | Fideicomisaria universitaria/Madre** Kepner va a conectar con votantes progresistas que priorizan la educación y los servicios sociales. Fideicomisaria de un community college y abogada de protección al consumidor, se enfoca en la educación pública, la vivienda y los servicios sociales. Anteriormente fue candidata al 25th Assembly District en 2020\. Su campaña está en anneforsenate.com. Es fideicomisaria del West Valley-Mission Community College District y socia en Needham Kepner & Fish. Recaudó $251,905, incluyendo $80,000 en préstamos personales de la candidata, con $86,877 restantes. Kepner terminó en un cerrado tercer lugar en la primaria de AD25 en 2020 después de haber recaudado más que el resto del grupo. "As State Senator, I'll hold Big Corporations accountable when they harm seniors and children, and continue to expand skilled trades jobs, protect our public schools, and address housing affordability and homelessness," dice en su sitio web. El South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council ha gastado $1,540 apoyándola, mientras que JOBSPAC, patrocinado por la California Chamber of Commerce, ha gastado $104,557 en su contra. **Carmen Montano (D) | Alcaldesa** Montano va a conectar con votantes moderados y de inclinación conservadora frustrados con los mandatos de Sacramento. Impulsa la Iniciativa #25-0035 para eximir totalmente del impuesto predial a los propietarios de 60 años o más, quiere establecer "strict, un-waivable mandatory minimum sentences" para los ladrones en tiendas, se opone a las leyes de redensificación AB 130/SB 9 que "destroy single-family zoning", y abiertamente hace campaña contra "Politicians in LA and San Francisco." Su plataforma está disponible en carmen.vote. Es la primera mujer electa como alcaldesa en Milpitas y ha ocupado cargos de elección por más de dos décadas, empezando en la junta escolar en 2000\. Pasó 26 años como maestra de escuela pública. En entrevistas, Montano ha enfatizado su convicción de que las voces moderadas son necesarias para tender puentes en Sacramento. "I'm not really about the party, I'm about the people and the community," le dijo al Oakland Tribune. "I feel that I could make a difference in people's lives." También dijo: "People forget that they're representing the people and not just representing the party." "Right now, our two-party system is broken," ha dicho Montano. "Both parties are often too extreme or out of touch with everyday needs." **David Cohen (D) | Concejal** Cohen puede conectar con votantes de centro-izquierda que buscan gobernanza local práctica por encima del posicionamiento ideológico. Como concejal de San Jose, se enfoca en coordinar el financiamiento contra la falta de vivienda, proteger a las familias inmigrantes, acción climática, y vivienda accesible. Está respaldado tanto por el moderado Liccardo como por el progresista Khanna, lo que sugiere atractivo cruzado entre alas. Más información en electdavidcohen.com. Cohen ha servido en el Concejo Municipal de San Jose desde 2020 y antes pasó 14 años en la junta del Berryessa Union School District. Tiene un Ph.D. de UC Berkeley, pasó 21 años en el fabricante de semiconductores Lam Research, y es inventor en más de 10 patentes. Cohen está respaldado por los representantes federales Zoe Lofgren, Ro Khanna y Sam Liccardo, y por los senadores estatales Josh Becker y Josh Newman. Recaudó $124,005 con $90,182 disponibles. "Local government teaches you something important: policy isn't abstract," ha dicho Cohen. "It affects the street you live on, the school your kids attend, the commute you take to work, and whether your neighborhood feels safe and supported." **Raymond Liu (D) | Concejal de Fremont** Liu se convirtió en la persona más joven jamás electa al Concejo Municipal de Fremont cuando asumió el cargo en 2024\. Entró a la primaria de SD10 en 2022, no recaudó nada, y quedó en quinto lugar con 4.9%. En este ciclo, recaudó $25,020 con $3,770 restantes. **Linda Price (R) | Empresaria** Price es entrenadora de gestión y CEO de Professional Dynamics, de Sunnyvale. Se postuló para la junta del Fremont Union High School District en 2022, quedando en cuarto lugar de cinco en una contienda donde avanzaban los tres primeros. "California's too expensive because of bad policy. I'll protect Prop 13, cut taxes and regulations, and make it affordable to live here again," dijo. El distrito abarca partes de los condados de Alameda y Santa Clara, incluyendo Fremont, Hayward, Milpitas, Newark, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Union City y partes de San Jose. Está justo en el corazón de la economía tecnológica de Silicon Valley. La fábrica de Apple donde se construyó la primera computadora Mac estaba en Fremont. La planta de Tesla opera dentro del distrito y emplea a decenas de miles de trabajadores. El campus principal de California State University, East Bay, está en Hayward, donde el 62.5% de los estudiantes de licenciatura son primera generación universitaria. El distrito está entre los más prósperos y de mayor escolaridad del estado. El ingreso medio del hogar es de $161,447\. Más del 55% de los adultos tiene licenciatura o más. Los costos de vivienda están entre los más altos del país, con un valor medio de la vivienda de $1,173,400 y una renta mensual media de $2,903. A octubre de 2025, el distrito tenía 528,830 votantes registrados. Los demócratas tienen el 50.36%. Los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido representan el 29.28%, casi tres de cada 10 registros, con 154,831 personas. Los republicanos representan el 15.64%. Para más información, por favor consulta la cobertura completa de IVN aquí: *Independent Voters Will Soon Decide Open Silicon Valley Senate Seat* ## **Senate District 14: Asiento abierto en el Central Valley** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-senate-district-14-1.jpeg) Este distrito se movió 17 puntos hacia los republicanos a nivel presidencial en 2024, cayendo de Biden +21% a Harris +4%. El republicano Steve Garvey se llevó el 47.8% del voto aquí en la contienda al Senado federal de 2024\. En 2022, el candidato republicano a Controlador Lanhee Chen ganó el 50.4% del voto en el distrito, el único republicano en llevarse una contienda a nivel distrital desde que se trazaron las líneas actuales. Tres candidatos calificaron para la boleta de la primaria Top Two del 2 de junio. **Esmeralda Soria (D) | Asambleísta estatal** Soria puede conectar con demócratas moderados enfocados en las familias trabajadoras rurales. Hija de jornaleros agrícolas y con experiencia en asistencia legal rural, se enfoca en vivienda accesible, acceso a la salud y temas de familias trabajadoras. Le compitió a Jim Costa en la primaria de 2020 desde la izquierda. Más en soriaforcalifornia.com. Soria representa actualmente al 27th Assembly District y domina esta contienda en lo financiero. Recaudó $441,441 en el último periodo de reporte y $1.37 millones para el ciclo, cerrando abril con $1.02 millones en efectivo disponible. Hija de jornaleros agrícolas inmigrantes mexicanos, nació y creció en Tulare County. Obtuvo su licenciatura en ciencia política de UC Berkeley en 2005 y su JD de UC Davis en 2011\. Antes de entrar a la Legislatura, trabajó en la oficina del Procurador General de California, como asesora legislativa en el Senado estatal, como cabildera legislativa para la California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, como directora de distrito para el senador estatal Michael Rubio y como representante de campo para el asambleísta Henry T. Perea. Sirvió en el Concejo Municipal de Fresno de 2014 a 2022 y es profesora adjunta en Fresno City College. Se postuló sin éxito al Congreso contra el demócrata Jim Costa, titular del CD16, en 2020, quedando en tercer lugar con el 21% del voto. Tiene aseguradas tanto las pre-endorsements como las endorsements primarias del Partido Demócrata. "I have fought to bring resources home to the Central Valley—keeping hospitals open, investing in public safety, supporting farmers, and helping working families get ahead," ha dicho Soria. **Esmeralda Hurtado (D) | Concejal/Personal de emergencias** Hurtado va a conectar con votantes que buscan experiencia en salud pública y liderazgo de base en el Valley. La concejal de Sanger y hermana de la senadora Melissa Hurtado aporta experiencia en salud pública respondiendo a emergencias por sequía y asegurando que las comunidades tengan agua potable. Ayudó a impulsar la ampliación multimillonaria de la estación de bomberos de Sanger y lideró la modernización de la planta de tratamiento de aguas residuales. Se enfoca en evitar que las comunidades rurales queden "priced out" y "left behind" conforme el Valley enfrenta costos crecientes, inestabilidad en el agua y pérdida de empleos agrícolas. Su campaña está en esmeraldahurtado.com. Fue designada al Concejo Municipal de Sanger para llenar una vacante después de que su hermana fue electa al Senado estatal en 2018\. Ganó un mandato completo en la elección general de 2020 y se presentó sin oposición para la reelección en 2024. El reporte previo a la primaria de Hurtado mostró un saldo inicial en efectivo de $12,560 y un saldo final de $11,773 después de recaudar $3,952 durante el periodo. "Hospitals in rural communities don't close because the need disappears," ha dicho Hurtado. "They close when private equity and corporate interests decide families aren't profitable enough to serve. When profit outweighs people, valley families suffer. This is true in our agriculture community as well." **Darin S. DuPont (R) | Concejal/Abogado de derecho del agua** DuPont va a conectar con votantes que priorizan la seguridad hídrica y la accesibilidad. Es un abogado de Merced de 28 años que estudió derecho del agua y ambiental en McGeorge, y se enfoca en seguridad hídrica, accesibilidad y "common sense." Está respaldado por el líder republicano del Senado Brian Jones. Su campaña está en dupontforsenate.com. DuPont es el único republicano en la boleta. Nacido en enero de 1996, es concejal de primer mandato en Merced, electo en 2024\. Originario de Atwater, se graduó de Buhach Colony High School, obtuvo su licenciatura en administración pública de George Mason University en 2008, y su JD de la University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law en 2021\. Es socio en Robbins, Browning, Godwin & Marchini, LLP. Él y su esposa, Bianca, residen en Merced con su hija pequeña. "I was raised in the Central Valley, and I know how hard our families work just to get by. Sacramento has lost balance and forgotten communities like ours. I am running to restore accountability, secure our water future, and make California affordable again." DuPont recaudó $37,305 en el último periodo y $46,005 para el ciclo, con $17,290 en efectivo disponible. "We need a new generation to be the voice of the Valley," ha dicho DuPont. El distrito cubre partes de los condados de Fresno, Madera, Merced y Tulare. Incluye las ciudades de Atwater, Chowchilla, Coalinga, Dos Palos, Firebaugh, Fowler, Gustine, Huron, Kerman, Los Banos, Madera, Mendota, Merced, Orange Cove, Parlier, Reedley, Sanger, San Joaquin y Selma, junto con partes de Fresno y Livingston, comunidades que están a lo largo de la Interstate 5 y la Highway 99\. Son en gran parte comunidades latinas e inmigrantes que enfrentan retos de infraestructura y preocupaciones por el acceso a la salud. El distrito tiene una población de poco más de 1 millón. Es 66.4% latino, 17.9% blanco, 8.3% asiático y 4.2% negro. El ingreso medio del hogar es de $60,393. Alrededor del 23% de los residentes vive por debajo de la línea de pobreza, el 9% no tiene seguro médico, y el 25% de los hogares recibe estampillas de alimentos. Solo el 14% de los adultos tiene licenciatura o más. El valor medio de la vivienda es de $320,200, y la renta media es de $1,204. Al 3 de abril de 2026, el distrito tenía 456,819 votantes registrados, y los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido representan el 24%, más de 100,000 votantes. La ventaja de registro demócrata es de 15 puntos. ## **Senate District 16: El asiento más competido en el Central Valley** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/california-senate-district16-1.jpeg) La demócrata Melissa Hurtado es la única senadora estatal demócrata que representa un distrito que Donald Trump ganó en 2024\. Ganó su última contienda por 13 votos. No es un error. SD16 tuvo el mayor giro hacia la derecha de cualquiera de los 40 distritos del Senado de California entre 2020 y 2024, un cambio de 17.4 puntos a nivel presidencial, pasando de Biden +9% a Trump +9% en un solo ciclo. Tres candidatos calificaron para la primaria del 2 de junio. **Melissa Hurtado (D) | Senadora estatal** La senadora Hurtado va a conectar con votantes que buscan continuidad en la inversión y la experiencia en el Central Valley. La titular de dos mandatos ha asegurado "nearly $1 billion in investments across Central Valley" y trae trayectoria en el Concejo Municipal de Sanger y experiencia organizando a la comunidad para empleados públicos. Su sitio de campaña es melissahurtado.com. Hurtado fue electa por primera vez al Senado estatal en 2018, derrotando al republicano titular Andy Vidak. En ese momento, estaba cumpliendo su primer mandato en el Concejo Municipal de Sanger, donde ganó la elección en 2016 con el 68% del voto. Nacida el 6 de marzo de 1988, Hurtado es preparadora de impuestos registrada ante el IRS y también trabajó como organizadora comunitaria para empleados públicos. Después de que la redistritación de 2021 colocó su residencia de Sanger en un distrito disputado por otro demócrata titular, se mudó a Bakersfield, se postuló en el nuevo distrito y ganó la reelección por 13 votos sobre el republicano David Shepard. Ha recaudado $962,367 hasta ahora en este ciclo, incluyendo más de $250,000 del Partido Demócrata de California, y tenía $239,728 en efectivo disponible al 18 de abril. La senadora Hurtado tiene aseguradas tanto las pre-endorsements como las endorsements primarias del Partido Demócrata. "Like most of the kids I knew growing up in the Central Valley, I didn't have much," ha dicho Hurtado. "My parents were immigrants, working hard every day on farms. What I had was a belief in the future: that tomorrow could be better than today if I worked hard." **Manpreet Kaur (D) | Vicealcaldesa/Profesora** Kaur va a conectar con votantes frustrados por la presión del costo de vida y que buscan una representación fresca. Como Vicealcaldesa de Bakersfield y la primera mujer Sij-Punjabi electa al Concejo Municipal de Bakersfield en 2022, se enfoca en la accesibilidad (describiendo a familias "picking between tank of gas and gallon of milk") y la inversión en el Central Valley. Su campaña está en kaurforcalifornia.com. Nacida y criada en Bakersfield, se graduó de las escuelas públicas de Kern County, obtuvo su licenciatura en ciencia política de UC San Diego en 2015, y completó maestrías duales en planeación urbana y asuntos públicos de la University of Wisconsin-Madison en 2022\. Kaur es lecturer de ciencia política en Cal State Bakersfield, directora de desarrollo político en la Sikh Coalition nacional, y fundadora del capítulo de Kern County del Jakara Movement, una organización Sij Punjabi de liderazgo juvenil que, bajo su dirección, se ha expandido a 70 clubs en preparatorias y 25 capítulos universitarios en 15 condados de California. Recaudó $158,228 para el ciclo, incluyendo $2,500 de la California Teachers Association, y tenía $99,877 disponibles. "Our tax dollars should stay in our communities," ha dicho Kaur. "Out-of-touch politicians respond to their donors, not their voters. Meanwhile, the price of everything stays high, and our Valley gets left behind. We can change that. And it starts by changing who our voice is in Sacramento." **Guillermo Asuncion Gonzalez (R) | Dueño de pequeño negocio** Gonzalez va a conectar con votantes con mentalidad de negocios y con quienes priorizan los temas del agua. Dueño de un pequeño negocio y representante de campo del congresista Valadao, se enfoca en restaurar "the promise of Valley," los temas del agua, y el acceso a los negocios y a la propiedad de vivienda. Su campaña está en gonzalezforsenate.com. Nacido en agosto de 1997 en Bakersfield y criado en la Ciudad de México, fue influenciado por su padre, un republicano que recibió estatus legal bajo la amnistía migratoria del Presidente Reagan en 1986, quien orientó a la familia hacia el GOP. El propio Gonzalez se cambió de Sin Preferencia de Partido a republicano en 2021 a los 24 años. Se graduó de Bakersfield High School en 2015, trabajó como coordinador de engagement del RNC en Bakersfield durante 2022-2023, y se movió al equipo de campo de Valadao en febrero de 2023\. Su familia opera un restaurante en Delano. Recaudó $73,400 para el ciclo, aproximadamente la mitad de legisladores del GOP, y tenía $25,692 disponibles. El Partido Republicano no respaldó a nadie en esta primaria. "Sacramento's one-size-fits-all mandates don't work for the Central Valley," ha dicho Gonzalez. "Kern, Tulare, Kings, and Fresno should set their own priorities on water, land use, and public safety, guided by the people who live here, work here, and depend on these resources." No se han reportado gastos independientes en esta contienda. Senate District 16 es un distrito Voting Rights Act que cubre Kings County y partes de los condados de Fresno, Kern y Tulare. Incluye las ciudades de Arvin, Avenal, Corcoran, Delano, Dinuba, Farmersville, Hanford, Kingsburg, Lemoore, Lindsay, McFarland, Porterville, Wasco y Woodlake, junto con partes de Bakersfield, Shafter, Tulare y Visalia. Es en gran parte una región latina inmigrante trabajadora con intereses compartidos en agua y agricultura. El acceso a la salud y la infraestructura son preocupaciones persistentes. El distrito tiene una población de 969,728\. Es 73% latino, 18% blanco, 4% negro y 4% asiático. Cerca del 25% de los residentes nació en el extranjero, y el 16% no es ciudadano. El ingreso medio del hogar es de $59,782\. Cerca del 21% de los residentes vive por debajo de la línea de pobreza, el 9% no tiene seguro médico, y el 24% de los hogares recibe estampillas de alimentos. Solo el 11% de los adultos tiene licenciatura o más. El valor medio de la vivienda es de $272,900, y la renta media es de $1,156. Al 3 de abril de 2026, el distrito tenía 401,440 votantes registrados. Los demócratas tienen el 39%. Los republicanos representan el 30%. Los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido representan el 23%, con 92,928 personas. La ventaja de registro demócrata es de apenas 9 puntos y está disminuyendo. En un distrito que se movió 17 puntos hacia los republicanos en un solo ciclo presidencial, donde la titular ganó su última contienda por 13 votos, y donde casi uno de cada cuatro votantes está registrado como Sin Preferencia de Partido, los votantes independientes definirán si SD16 sigue siendo demócrata o si cambia de manos. ## **Assembly District 7: La prueba de Josh Hoover** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-Assembly-District-7-2.png) El republicano Josh Hoover cambió este escaño en 2022, derrotando al demócrata titular Ken Cooley por apenas 1,400 votos. Ganó la reelección en 2024 por 7 puntos, aun cuando Kamala Harris ganó el distrito por 5% y Adam Schiff lo ganó por menos de un punto. El giro a la derecha del distrito de 2020 a 2024 fue el más pequeño de cualquier escaño legislativo de California, y Politico lo ha incluido como uno de los dos escaños que los demócratas tienen en la mira para cambiar de manos en 2026. Tres candidatos calificaron para la primaria del 2 de junio. **Josh Hoover (R) | Asambleísta, 7th District** Hoover puede conectar con votantes moderados enfocados en la educación y la resolución pragmática de problemas, por encima del combate partidista. Como miembro del Problem Solvers Caucus, redactó Ryla's Law para cerrar lagunas que beneficiaban a abusadores infantiles, lideró la reapertura escolar primero en Sacramento County durante la pandemia, y se enfoca en la salud mental de los estudiantes. Está respaldado por la Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association pero gana en un distrito que Kamala Harris ganó. Sus posturas están en hooverforassembly.com/issues. Hoover busca un tercer mandato. Nacido el 11 de abril de 1988, sirvió como jefe de gabinete del entonces asambleísta Kevin Kiley y como miembro electo de la junta del Folsom Cordova Unified School District antes de ganar su escaño en 2022\. Obtuvo un grado asociado en American River College, una licenciatura en ciencia política de UCLA en 2011, y una maestría en administración pública de USC en 2015\. Vive en Folsom con su esposa, Nicole, y sus tres hijos. Como padre de un hijo con autismo, ha servido en el Folsom Cordova Special Education Community Advisory Committee y en el liderazgo del PTA local. En 2024, la contienda de Hoover atrajo $1.55 millones en gasto externo, incluyendo $1.4 millones a su favor. Ha recaudado $933,684 para el ciclo de 2026 y tenía $614,104 en efectivo disponible al 18 de abril. Tiene asegurada la endorsement primaria del Partido Republicano. "During my time in the Legislature, I have supported law enforcement, advocated for more school police officers, and introduced Ryla's Law to close loopholes that let child abusers out of jail early," ha dicho Hoover. **Amy L. Slavensky (D) | Educadora de escuela pública** Slavensky va a conectar con votantes que priorizan el financiamiento de la educación y los servicios sociales, con experiencia personal de dificultades. Ex superintendente del Amador County USD con más de 40 años en educación, que se fue de su casa a los 17 y se pagó la universidad ella misma, se enfoca en ampliar la vivienda, la salud, los servicios sociales accesibles, los derechos de las mujeres, la libertad reproductiva, las escuelas públicas bien financiadas y el apoyo con compasión a quienes viven en situación de calle. Perdió a su hermano por situación de calle y cree en tratar a las personas con enfermedad mental con humanidad. Su plataforma enfatiza la dignidad, la justicia y la oportunidad guiadas por la integridad, la compasión y la justicia. Su campaña está en amyslavensky.com. Es coach educativa y consultora, nacida y criada en las comunidades de Fair Oaks y Carmichael. Obtuvo una licenciatura de Point Loma Nazarene University, una maestría de Azusa Pacific University, y un Ph.D. en liderazgo educativo de Claremont Graduate University. También trabajó en los distritos escolares de San Juan, Upland y Sacramento City. Slavensky está respaldada por SEIU, la California Women's List, y Porsche Middleton, la candidata demócrata de 2024 a este escaño. Slavensky también tiene aseguradas tanto las pre-endorsements como las endorsements primarias del Partido Demócrata. Recaudó $154,132 para el ciclo y tenía $90,900 disponibles. "Leaving home at 17, putting myself through college, and spending 40 years serving children and families in public education taught me the power of resilience, empathy, and community," ha dicho Slavensky. "I am, at my core, a mom, a wife, an educator, and a neighbor who believes in showing up for people with compassion and integrity." **Sanaz Motamedi (AIP) | Agente de bienes raíces** Motamedi es de Rancho Cordova. Es americana de primera generación que se graduó de Cal State Northridge con una licenciatura en salud ambiental y ocupacional. Motamedi se registró como candidata del American Independent Party después de haberse registrado previamente con ese partido. No había reportado ninguna actividad de recaudación. "We deserve a fresh perspective, and together we can create a future driven by true change," ha dicho Motamedi. Assembly District 7 se ubica completamente dentro del Sacramento County, extendiéndose a lo largo del American River por Folsom, Rancho Cordova, Citrus Heights, y las comunidades no incorporadas de McClellan Park, North Highlands, Foothill Farms, Fair Oaks, Orangevale, Gold River, Rosemont, Mather, y la mayor parte de Carmichael. Aquí viven cerca de 497,000 personas. La población es 58% blanca, 19% latina, 10% asiática y 6% negra. Cerca del 19% de los residentes nació en el extranjero, y el 7% son veteranos. El ingreso medio del hogar es de $90,390, y el valor medio de la vivienda se acerca a $500,000\. Los inquilinos representan casi el 40% de los hogares y pagan un promedio de $1,760 al mes. Este es uno de los distritos más equilibrados de California. Se ha movido entre partidos por más de una década. Barack Obama ganó la zona por menos de un punto en 2008, Mitt Romney por 2 puntos en 2012, Hillary Clinton por 3 puntos en 2016, y Joe Biden por 6 puntos en 2020. A octubre de 2025, el distrito tenía 299,234 votantes registrados. Los demócratas tienen el 37%. Los republicanos representan el 33%. Los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido representan el 21%, alrededor de 63,400\. La ventaja de registro demócrata es de menos de 4 puntos y está disminuyendo. En un distrito tan dividido, donde las últimas tres elecciones han atraído atención estatal y gasto externo importante, los votantes independientes están otra vez posicionados para decidir el resultado. Para más información, por favor consulta la cobertura completa de IVN aquí: *Josh Hoover's Test as a Moderate Republican: Can He Win Independent Voters Again?* ## **Assembly District 27: Asiento abierto en el Central Valley** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-AD27-1.png) Esta contienda se volvió una de las más emocionantes de California cuando la demócrata moderada titular Esmeralda Soria anunció que dejaría la Asamblea y se postularía mejor por el escaño abierto del Senado SD14. Aunque los demócratas tienen una ventaja de registro de 11 puntos, el distrito se ha movido fuertemente hacia la derecha. Gavin Newsom lo ganó por 6 puntos en 2018\. Joe Biden lo ganó por 14 puntos en 2020\. Pero el republicano Brian Dahle ganó el distrito por 5 puntos en la contienda por la gubernatura de 2022, y Donald Trump lo ganó por casi 3 puntos en 2024\. En la contienda al Senado federal de 2024, el republicano Steve Garvey ganó el distrito por 2 puntos sobre Adam Schiff. Los votantes aquí respaldaron fuertemente la Proposición 36, que aumentó las penas para ciertos delitos de drogas y robo, con un margen de 74% a 26%. Tres candidatos están en la boleta para la primaria del 2 de junio. **Brian Pacheco (D) | Supervisor del condado/Agricultor** Pacheco va a conectar con votantes moderados enfocados en la gobernanza local y la experiencia agrícola. Agricultor de cuarta generación y supervisor de Fresno County, se enfoca en bajar costos y detener los aumentos de impuestos a la clase media. Ha ampliado la atención médica a domicilio, ha traído empleos de energía limpia a casa, y ha servido 12 años en la junta del Kerman Unified School District. Está respaldado por el Speaker Robert Rivas y la asambleísta Esmeralda Soria. Su campaña está en pachecoforca.com. Nacido el 18 de abril de 1968, es originario de Kerman, se graduó de Kerman High School y obtuvo una licenciatura en economía agrícola y administrativa de UC Davis en 1991\. La lechería que fundó su bisabuelo tiene más de 1,300 vacas Holstein y ha sido reconocida como uno de los hatos de mayor producción en Fresno County cada año desde 1998\. La familia también cultiva uva, almendras, alfalfa, ensilaje de maíz y forraje de invierno. Fue electo por primera vez al Fresno County Board of Supervisors en 2014 y ha sido reelecto dos veces. Pacheco es Vicepresidente de la North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency. Ha recaudado $902,223 para esta campaña y tenía $662,588 en efectivo disponible al 18 de abril. Pacheco tiene aseguradas tanto las pre-endorsements como las endorsements primarias del Partido Demócrata. "I'm a fourth-generation Valley farmer," ha dicho Pacheco. "I see every day how rising costs hurt our families. Politicians in LA and San Francisco keep making it worse. I'll fight for the Central Valley to lower prices and stop tax increases on the middle class." **Michael Walker Murphy (R) | Dueño de pequeño negocio** Murphy va a conectar con votantes con mentalidad de negocios y republicanos que buscan experiencia en el Valley. Ex alcalde de Merced y abogado de negocios, está comprometido a mantener seguras a las comunidades, reducir el costo de vida, proteger el suministro de agua y crear oportunidades económicas. Su campaña está en mikemurphy4assembly.com. Nacido el 19 de agosto de 1979, es originario de Merced, obtuvo su licenciatura en política internacional de Brigham Young University en 2004 y su título de abogado de Georgetown University en 2007\. Actualmente es Of Counsel en Gunderson Dettmer Law Firm. Murphy ganó la elección al Concejo Municipal de Merced en 2011, sirvió cinco años, y fue electo alcalde en 2016, ocupando ese cargo hasta 2020\. Como alcalde, destacó una reducción del 55% en las cuotas a negocios de la ciudad, un programa de retención de pequeños negocios, y una alianza con UC Merced para abrir un acelerador de negocios en el centro. El Partido Republicano no respaldó a nadie en esta primaria. Murphy recaudó $555,864 para el ciclo y tenía $343,523 disponibles. "I am committed to keeping our communities safe, reducing the cost of living for families, protecting our water supply, creating economic opportunities for all, and being held to account as a leader," ha dicho Murphy. **Japjeet Uppal (D) | Concejal de Livingston** Uppal va a conectar con votantes progresistas jóvenes escépticos de la política tradicional y del dinero corporativo. A los 23 años, sirve en el Concejo Municipal de Livingston y es el funcionario electo más joven de California. Hijo de inmigrantes punjabis, se posiciona como un outsider luchando por "get money out of politics", prohibir las donaciones corporativas, financiar las elecciones con fondos públicos, garantizar atención médica de calidad como un derecho, prohibir que los inversionistas institucionales compren vivienda, invertir en infraestructura del agua, crear cuidado infantil universal y arreglar la infraestructura deteriorada. No está buscando endorsements tradicionales. Su campaña está en japjeet4ca.com. Uppal recaudó $18,892 para el ciclo y tenía $8,208 disponibles. "Time and time again, we've seen politicians sell out to billionaires and private corporations," ha dicho Uppal. "We must ban corporations from donating to political campaigns and publicly finance our elections to protect our democracy from being bought." Assembly District 27 abarca partes de los condados de Merced, Fresno y Madera. Incluye las ciudades de Coalinga, Kerman, San Joaquin, Merced, Mendota, Dos Palos, Madera, Los Banos, Firebaugh, Huron, Atwater, Chowchilla y Livingston, así como partes de Fresno. La Interstate 5 y la Highway 99 son las arterias principales del distrito, conectando comunidades agrícolas, packing sheds y pequeños centros urbanos a lo largo de un vasto tramo de piso del valle. Merced, la ciudad más grande del distrito, se conoce como la Puerta a Yosemite y es sede de UC Merced, el campus más joven del sistema UC, que obtuvo el estatus R1 de Carnegie como institución de investigación en 2025 y es la única universidad R1 en el Central Valley. El distrito está trazado para proteger la voz política de su población mayoritariamente latina bajo la Sección 2 del Voting Rights Act. AD 27 tiene una población total de 526,986\. Es 67% latino, 20% blanco, 6% asiático y 4% negro. Cerca del 26% de los residentes nació en el extranjero. El ingreso medio del hogar es de $65,569\. Cerca del 21% de los residentes vive por debajo de la línea de pobreza, el 9% no tiene seguro médico, y el 23% de los hogares recibe ayuda alimentaria. El valor medio de la vivienda es de $345,700, y la renta media es de $1,257. A diciembre de 2025, el distrito tenía 236,843 votantes registrados. Los demócratas tienen el 40%. Los republicanos representan el 29%. Los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido representan el 24%, con 55,600 personas. El registro NPP se ha cuadruplicado en números absolutos desde 2008\. En un distrito donde el margen entre los partidos principales ha quedado una y otra vez en unos pocos miles de votos, el bloque NPP ahora es mayor que el margen de victoria de las contiendas más recientes. Para más información, por favor consulta la cobertura completa de IVN aquí: *Race to Watch: With Moderate Esmeralda Soria Out, Who Will Appeal to Independents in the Central Valley?* ## **Assembly District 30: Dawn Addis y la Central Coast** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-AD-30-1.png) Este es un escaño que vale la pena observar por lo que revela sobre los votantes independientes en la Central Coast de California. La demócrata titular Dawn Addis busca un tercer mandato. Ganó su reelección de 2024 con un contundente margen de 62% a 38% y entra a 2026 como una de las titulares de Asamblea mejor financiadas del estado. Kamala Harris ganó el distrito por 27 puntos en 2024\. Adam Schiff lo ganó por 23 puntos. Tres candidatos calificaron para la primaria del 2 de junio. **Dawn Addis (D) | Asambleísta estatal/Maestra** Addis va a conectar con votantes que priorizan el acceso a la salud y la protección ambiental. La titular maestra y Presidenta del Budget Subcommittee on Health es la primera demócrata de SLO County en la Asamblea Estatal desde 1922\. Se enfoca en el acceso a la salud, la oposición a la perforación costa afuera y la acción climática. Más en dawnaddis.org. Addis fue electa por primera vez en 2022 después de perder por dos dígitos en una contienda de 2020 contra el republicano titular Jordan Cunningham. Nacida el 12 de julio de 1972, es ex maestra de educación especial y ex concejal de Morro Bay, que pasó años enseñando en el San Luis Coastal Unified School District. Cofundó la San Luis Obispo Women's March, que reunió a 10,000 personas en 2017\. El Budget Subcommittee No. 1 on Health, que ella preside, supervisa ocho departamentos estatales y un presupuesto de $175 mil millones. En 2026, está impulsando la AB 1159, una iniciativa de privacidad de datos estudiantiles que restringiría cómo las empresas de IA usan los datos de los estudiantes, y la AB 2034, que requeriría que las empresas de alimentos y productos químicos demuestren la seguridad de los aditivos alimentarios. Ha recaudado $622,312 para el ciclo y tenía $430,141 en efectivo disponible al 18 de abril. Tiene aseguradas tanto las pre-endorsements como las endorsements primarias del Partido Demócrata. "As your State Assemblymember, I'm listening and solving problems in order to make our home an even better place to live," ha dicho Addis. "There is nothing our communities can't achieve if we work together and prioritize helping people over politics." **Shannon Kessler (R) | Defensora de la infancia/Empresaria** Kessler va a conectar con activistas de los derechos de los padres y con quienes priorizan el control local sobre los mandatos de Sacramento. Madre, dueña de negocio y defensora de la infancia con 38 años de casada, fundó Save Girls' Sports Central Coast y Culture Impact para fortalecer la participación cívica. Es copropietaria de una empresa local de construcción y de un negocio de bienes raíces, fue Comisionada de Parques y Recreación de Arroyo Grande, y se enfoca en seguridad pública, accesibilidad, rendición de cuentas, devolver a los padres el control de las escuelas, empoderar a los negocios y combatir la sobrerregulación. Su campaña está en kesslerforca.com. Nacida el 21 de septiembre de 1968, es californiana de sexta generación y broker principal en Shannon Kessler Real Estate. Su esposo, Jim, es dueño de Kessler Construction. Es la fundadora de Culture Impact, una organización que fomenta la participación ciudadana, y de Save Girls' Sports Central Coast, un grupo que aboga por la competencia atlética solo para mujeres. Kessler ha recibido la endorsement del Partido Republicano de California. Recaudó $254,354 para el ciclo y tenía $85,321 disponibles. "I'm running because public safety, affordability, and accountability are no longer being treated as priorities," ha dicho Kessler. "Families are struggling to stay in the communities they love, parents are losing their voice, and critical decisions are being made without local input. Our district deserves representation that listens, protects, and delivers results." **Susannah Brown (D) | Científica de datos** Brown ofrece una trayectoria en estrategia de datos pero con actividad mínima de campaña. Reportó casi nada de actividad de recaudación al cierre de 2025\. Su sitio web es brownfor30.com. Es fundadora de Renaissance Strategy Dynamics, una consultoría de datos y estrategia enfocada en vivienda, infraestructura y desarrollo económico, que ha liderado desde 2014\. Nacida el 22 de diciembre de 1988, obtuvo su licenciatura en administración de negocios de Columbia College en 2018 y una maestría en analytics de Notre Dame of Maryland University en 2020\. Brown trabajó para Rite Aid durante una década, empezando desde adolescente y llegando a gerente. Preside la South County Chambers of Commerce, sirve en un consejo de un sitio de escuela primaria, y ha organizado Lumina Days, un evento de concientización sobre violencia doméstica, por más de 10 años. Su esposo trabaja en la planta nuclear de Diablo Canyon. Brown reportó haber recaudado $13,500\. "I'm running for State Assembly to focus on implementation," ha dicho Brown. "That means aligning housing, energy, water, and school systems so decisions made in Sacramento work in the real world and deliver reliable results people can count on." Assembly District 30 se extiende a lo largo de la Central Coast, cubriendo partes de los condados de San Luis Obispo, Monterey y Santa Cruz. Incluye San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, Atascadero, Paso Robles, Arroyo Grande, Pismo Beach, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Seaside, Marina y Capitola. La economía depende del turismo, la agricultura y la educación. El distrito tiene una población de 475,439\. Es 63% blanco y 24% latino. El ingreso medio del hogar es de $97,987\. El valor medio de la vivienda es de $872,900, y la renta media es de $2,076. A diciembre de 2025, el distrito tenía 307,638 votantes registrados. Los demócratas tienen el 45%. Los republicanos representan el 28%. Los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido representan el 19%, alrededor de 59,200\. San Luis Obispo County, que concentra más de la mitad de los votantes del distrito, tiene una ventaja de registro demócrata de apenas 4 puntos, lo que lo convierte en el centro competido del distrito. Aunque AD30 no es un escaño de pronóstico cerrado, la presencia de casi 59,200 votantes independientes y una segunda demócrata en la boleta hace que la dinámica de la primaria valga la pena observar, particularmente en San Luis Obispo County, donde los votantes NPP tienen un peso desproporcionado. Para más información, por favor consulta la cobertura completa de IVN aquí: *Will Independent Voters Deliver Dawn Addis a Third Assembly Term in California's Central Coast?* ## **Assembly District 35: Asiento abierto de Bakersfield** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-AD-35-1.png) Ningún distrito de California se movió más a la derecha en 2024 que AD35\. Joe Biden lo ganó por 21 puntos en 2020\. Kamala Harris apenas lo retuvo por menos de un punto. Adam Schiff lo ganó por apenas 2 puntos. La demócrata moderada titular Jasmeet Bains no busca la reelección. Tres candidatos calificaron para la primaria del 2 de junio: dos demócratas y un republicano. **Andrae Gonzales (D) | Concejal/Director de organización sin fines de lucro** Gonzales va a conectar con votantes enfocados en la resolución práctica de problemas locales y la inversión comunitaria. Concejal del Ward 2 de Bakersfield desde 2016 y director ejecutivo de una organización sin fines de lucro, ayudó a crear un refugio de bajo umbral para personas en situación de calle, un fideicomiso comunitario de tierras para la propiedad de vivienda, y la B3K Initiative para pequeños negocios. Se enfoca en mejorar las escuelas, expandir la educación temprana, detener los costos crecientes de la gasolina y la despensa, expandir la salud (apoyando los esfuerzos para traer una facultad de medicina a Kern County), priorizar la seguridad pública, asegurar agua limpia, ayudar a los padres trabajadores con los costos de cuidado infantil, arreglar las calles, construir nuevas viviendas, y ayudar a los negocios a crear empleos bien pagados. Su campaña está en andraegonzales.com. Nacido el 6 de abril de 1982, fue criado en Bakersfield, se graduó de East Bakersfield High School, y obtuvo su licenciatura en ciencia política de UC Berkeley. Es CEO de Stewards, Inc., una organización sin fines de lucro que ayuda a adultos con discapacidades mentales a manejar sus finanzas, atendiendo a más de 1,000 clientes en Kern County. También es cofundador de varias organizaciones sin fines de lucro locales, incluyendo Faith in Action, Children First, Kern Alliance of Nonprofits y Hub of Bakersfield. Antes de unirse al concejo municipal, sirvió en la junta del Bakersfield City School District de 2010 a 2016. Gonzales fue reelecto al Concejo Municipal de Bakersfield en 2022\. Recientemente recibió el 2025 Dennis Wallace Community Leadership Award en la 14th Annual Affordable Housing Conference de SJVHC. Ha recaudado $541,259 para el ciclo y tenía $191,301 en efectivo disponible al 18 de abril. Tiene aseguradas tanto las pre-endorsements como las endorsements primarias del Partido Demócrata. Sus endorsements incluyen a la Tesorera Fiona Ma, las asambleístas Esmeralda Soria y Dawn Addis, el senador estatal Jesse Arreguin, y la supervisora de Kern County Leticia Perez. Gonzales también está recibiendo un apoyo enorme de gasto independiente, con $1.39 millones en gasto externo a su favor de California Leads ($516,418), Coalition to Restore California's Middle Class ($399,920), Nurses and Educators for Healthy CA Communities ($299,480), Keep California Golden ($75,490), y California Credit Union League ($75,000). "I'm the only candidate endorsed by the Democratic Party because I have a record of fighting for positive change in our communities," ha dicho Gonzales. "I'm also endorsed by groups representing local teachers, firefighters, construction workers, childcare providers, and small business owners." **Ana Palacio (D) | Enfermera de urgencias** Palacio va a conectar con votantes enfocados en la salud y con quienes buscan a alguien con experiencia de primera línea en emergencias. Enfermera de urgencias en Kern Medical sin trayectoria política, se describe como alguien que "runs towards crises" y se enfoca en salud accesible y de calidad, oportunidades económicas, soluciones de vivienda accesible, educación y caminos profesionales, y seguridad pública y prevención de la falta de vivienda. Está respaldada por SEIU. Más de la mitad de los $140,000 que recaudó vinieron de SEIU. Su campaña está en voteanapalacio.com. Palacio es la presidenta del capítulo SEIU 521 de Bakersfield. Nacida el 25 de agosto de 1984, está respaldada por SEIU California, la California Women's List y California Environmental Voters. Palacio recaudó $161,653 para el ciclo y tenía $123,929 disponibles. También está recibiendo apoyo de gasto independiente, con $346,889 gastados a su favor de FIX KERN PAC ($171,975), Nurses and Educators for Healthy CA Communities ($156,362) y SEIU Local 521 ($18,552). "ER nurses don't wait for problems to escalate," ha dicho Palacio. "We step in when lives are on the line. We need leaders who will run towards the crises Central Valley families are facing. That's what I'll do for Kern County in the State Assembly." **Saul Ayon (R) | Alcalde/Maestro** Ayon fue electo alcalde de McFarland en 2022 después de ganar un escaño del concejo municipal en 2020\. Nacido el 8 de noviembre de 1975, sirvió 23 años con el Kern County Sheriff's Department antes de retirarse para postularse. Enseña justicia penal en McFarland Early College High School y previamente sirvió como presidente de la McFarland Chamber of Commerce. Boxeador amateur y padre de dos hijos, vive en McFarland. Ha recibido la endorsement del Partido Republicano de California y las endorsements de los asambleístas Stan Ellis y Alexandra Macedo. Recaudó $228,121 para el ciclo y tenía $141,153 disponibles. "I've always felt called to help people," ha dicho Ayon. "From serving 25 years in the Kern County Sheriff's Department to mentoring kids as a high school Criminal Justice Instructor, I've dedicated my life to protecting, guiding, and standing up for the community. I'm ready to take that same dedication to Sacramento and fight for families, farmers, and small businesses." El gasto total de gasto independiente en AD35 está en $1,739,224, lo que lo convierte en una de las primarias legislativas con más financiamiento en California. Casi todo está apoyando a los demócratas: aproximadamente $1.39 millones respaldando a Gonzales y $347,000 respaldando a Palacio. No se ha reportado gasto IE a favor o en contra del alcalde Ayon. Assembly District 35 cubre partes de Kern County, incluyendo las ciudades de McFarland, Shafter, Arvin, Delano y Wasco, junto con partes de Bakersfield. Es un distrito Voting Rights Act con una población latina en edad de votar mayoritaria del 61%. El distrito tiene grandes comunidades de jornaleros agrícolas que viajan por toda la zona para trabajar y estudiar. Sus comunidades comparten una economía basada en la agricultura y preocupaciones comunes relacionadas con el uso de suelo y el acceso al agua. El distrito tiene una población de 494,836\. Es 75% latino, 13% blanco, 5% negro y 4% asiático. Cerca del 26% de los residentes nació en el extranjero y el 17% no es ciudadano. El ingreso medio del hogar es de $55,794\. Cerca del 23% de los residentes vive por debajo de la línea de pobreza, el 10% no tiene seguro médico y el 24% de los hogares recibe estampillas de alimentos. Solo el 10% de los adultos tiene licenciatura o más. El valor medio de la vivienda es de $261,500 y la renta media es de $1,153. Al 3 de abril de 2026, el distrito tenía 209,398 votantes registrados. Los demócratas tienen el 44%. Los republicanos representan el 24%. Los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido representan el 24%, con 49,224 personas. La ventaja de registro demócrata es de 20 puntos, pero los resultados de cabecera de boleta cuentan una historia muy distinta. En un distrito que se movió 20 puntos hacia los republicanos en un solo ciclo presidencial y donde casi uno de cada cuatro votantes no pertenece a ningún partido, los votantes independientes jugarán un papel decisivo para definir quién representa a Bakersfield en Sacramento. ## **Assembly District 36: Trump ganó este distrito latino. Ahora los independientes deciden quién se queda con él.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-AD36-2.jpg) El republicano Jeff Gonzalez cambió este escaño en 2024, derrotando al demócrata Joey Acuña por 4 puntos en un distrito donde los demócratas todavía tenían una ventaja de registro de dos dígitos. Donald Trump ganó el distrito por 1 punto ese año, y Steve Garvey lo ganó por 2. Gonzalez ahora está defendiendo un terreno recién ganado. Tres demócratas calificaron para retarlo en la primaria del 2 de junio. El Partido Demócrata de California no logró aglutinarse detrás de un solo retador, sin emitir endorsement después de que Oscar Ortiz no alcanzó el umbral ni en la pre-endorsement conference ni en la votación de endorsement primaria. Hay cuatro candidatos en la boleta. **Jeff Gonzalez (R) | Asambleísta/Padre** Gonzalez va a conectar con votantes que priorizan la agricultura, la seguridad pública y los valores tradicionales. El titular republicano es veterano del Cuerpo de Marines por 21 años con cuatro despliegues en combate, incluyendo Irak y Afganistán, ex pastor y dueño de pequeño negocio. Su campaña enfatiza "Sacramento prioritizes CRIMINALS over VICTIMS" y se enfoca en apoyar a los agricultores y jornaleros agrícolas y mejorar la educación. Más en gonzalez4assembly.com. Gonzalez es americano de primera generación. Nacido el 5 de agosto de 1974, se enlistó a los Marines a los 19 y sirvió en contrainteligencia y como gerente de operaciones durante despliegues en Irak y Afganistán, alcanzando el rango de chief warrant officer. Tiene una licenciatura en gestión de seguridad nacional de National University y una maestría en teología de Gateway University. Pasó una década en el ministerio en Saddleback Church y Southwest Church antes de lanzar una franquicia de Spherion Staffing and Recruiting. Se postuló por primera vez a este escaño en 2018 contra el demócrata Eduardo Garcia, avanzando de la primaria pero perdiendo la general por un amplio margen. Se postuló de nuevo en 2024 y ganó. En la Asamblea, sirve en comisiones que incluyen Water, Parks, and Wildlife (vicepresidente), Agriculture, y Military and Veterans Affairs. Sus prioridades legislativas iniciales incluyen una iniciativa para suspender el impuesto estatal a la gasolina de 61 centavos durante un año y la Rural Farmworker Women's Health Act, que distribuiría productos menstruales gratuitos a las mujeres en regiones agrícolas remotas. También redactó una iniciativa para acelerar la revisión ambiental del proyecto Coachella Valley Rail, una línea de pasajeros propuesta de $1.5 mil millones entre el valle y Los Ángeles. Gonzalez ha recaudado $837,379 para el ciclo y tenía $474,306 en efectivo disponible al 18 de abril. Tiene la endorsement del Partido Republicano de California. "In rural and desert communities, a car is not a luxury. It's a lifeline," ha dicho Gonzalez. "This is about affordability, this is about fairness, and this is about putting people before politics." **Oscar Ortiz (D) | Concejal/Director de educación** Ortiz va a conectar con votantes progresistas que enfatizan la reforma de la salud y la sostenibilidad ambiental. Concejal de Indio desde 2018 con un título en química de Stanford y trayectoria en la industria farmacéutica, ahora sirve como Subdirector de una organización ambiental sin fines de lucro. Enfatiza el acceso a la salud (queriendo "make sure healthcare dollars go to healthcare workers, not insurance companies"), construir una economía verde con alianzas sindicales, y la sostenibilidad ambiental. Está respaldado por la California Donor Table, Inland Empire United, SEIU y numerosos sindicatos portuarios y laborales. Su plataforma está en oscarforassembly.com. Ortiz es director de educación en Friends of the Desert Mountains, una organización ambiental sin fines de lucro local. Nacido el 20 de enero de 1990, en Mexicali, emigró con su familia cuando tenía 3 años. Creció en Indio. Ortiz se graduó de Indio High School en 2008 y obtuvo una licenciatura en química de Stanford en 2012. Ortiz retó al demócrata Raul Ruiz por CD25 desde la izquierda en 2024, terminando en cuarto lugar con el 10%. Sus endorsements incluyen a la California Federation of Labor Unions, el Inland Empire Labor Council, United Domestic Workers of America, la California Teachers Association, SEIU California y California Environmental Voters. Ortiz ha recaudado $239,462 para la contienda y tenía $106,864 en efectivo disponible a mediados de abril. "I'm running for State Assembly to raise the concerns of workers in our state," ha dicho Ortiz. "Our families are struggling to keep up with the rising costs of rent and the ever-increasing costs of health care and insurance rates." **Ida S. Obeso-Martinez (D) | Alcaldesa/Enfermera** Obeso-Martinez va a conectar con votantes enfocados en la salud y con quienes buscan experiencia médica práctica. La alcaldesa de Imperial (anteriormente Mayor Pro Tem) es enfermera practicante cardiovascular con un doctorado en práctica de enfermería y más de 20 años en enfermería de urgencias y UCI en hospitales locales del Imperial Valley. Está respaldada por el Speaker Robert Rivas, el California Legislative Women's Caucus, la California Nurses Association y el representante Raul Ruiz. Se enfoca en salud accesible, creación de empleo local a través de educación técnica profesional y entrenamiento laboral, y mejoras en el financiamiento hospitalario. Su campaña está en idaforassembly.com. Nacida el 6 de mayo de 1979, creció en Imperial County, se graduó de Imperial High School, y obtuvo su grado asociado en enfermería de Imperial Valley College, una licenciatura de la University of Phoenix, y un doctorado en práctica de enfermería de la University of Arizona. Fue electa al Concejo Municipal de Imperial en 2022 y ha servido como mayor pro tem y alcaldesa. En marzo de 2025, el representante Ruiz la llevó a Washington como su invitada para el Joint Address to Congress del Presidente Trump, donde abogó contra los recortes a Medicaid. Sus endorsements incluyen al Speaker de la Asamblea Robert Rivas y al representante Ruiz. Recaudó $143,274 para el ciclo y tenía $71,308 en efectivo disponible. "As a lifelong advocate for expanding health care access in the Imperial Valley, I am here to stand against Medicaid cuts that would limit the care our health facilities can provide to patients," ha dicho Obeso-Martinez. **Tomas Oliva (D) | Profesor de community college** Oliva va a conectar con votantes que priorizan la representación de Imperial County y la infraestructura de salud. Ex alcalde y concejal de El Centro que ahora sirve como representante de campo senior para el representante Raul Ruiz, tiene una maestría en administración pública de San Diego State. Luchó por salvar el hospital de El Centro y se enfoca en mejoras al sistema de salud (específicamente tarifas más altas de reembolso de Medi-Cal y Medicare), financiamiento educativo, mitigación del Salton Sea, y temas del río Colorado. Renunció al concejo municipal en medio de la controversia por retener información financiera. Más en voteoliva.com. Nacido el 11 de septiembre de 1984, obtuvo su licenciatura en ciencia política de UC San Diego. Sirvió en el Concejo Municipal de El Centro de 2018 hasta marzo de 2025, cuando renunció antes de una probable votación de censura. Ha enseñado como profesor adjunto en Imperial Valley College desde 2016, incluyendo clases para estudiantes encarcelados en Centinela State Prison y Calipatria State Prison. Se postuló en la primaria de AD36 en 2024, quedando en sexto lugar con el 8%. Es ex presidente del Imperial County Democratic Central Committee. Recaudó $137,876 para el ciclo y tenía $40,062 disponibles. "I'm not another out-of-touch politician," ha dicho Oliva. "I'm a kid from El Centro who grew up on food stamps and government assistance. I know firsthand policy is personal." También ha pedido una moratoria estatal al desarrollo de centros de datos: "The safety of our people and our neighbors cannot be an afterthought. This is unacceptable." El distrito cubre todo Imperial County y una gran parte de Riverside County, con una pequeña porción de San Bernardino County. Es uno de los pocos distritos de California que puede presumir tres fronteras, corriendo a lo largo de México al sur, Arizona al este y tocando Nevada al noreste. Incluye las ciudades de Indio, Coachella, Blythe y Needles en Riverside County, y las ciudades del Imperial Valley de Calexico, Brawley, El Centro, Imperial, Calipatria, Holtville y Westmorland. Es sede del Empire Polo Club, donde se realiza el festival de Coachella, y del Salton Sea, el lago más grande de California, que está sobre uno de los depósitos de litio conocidos más grandes del mundo. El distrito fue trazado para proteger la voz política de su población mayoritariamente latina bajo la Sección 2 del Voting Rights Act. El distrito tiene una población de 486,764\. Es 70% latino, 20% blanco, 4% negro y 3% asiático. Cerca del 27% de los residentes nació en el extranjero. El ingreso medio del hogar es de $66,802\. Cerca del 15% de los residentes vive por debajo de la línea de pobreza, el 8% no tiene seguro médico y el 21% de los hogares recibe ayuda alimentaria. El valor medio de la vivienda es de $347,100 y la renta media es de $1,168. A diciembre de 2025, el distrito tenía 258,071 votantes registrados. Los demócratas tienen el 41%. Los republicanos representan el 29%. Los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido representan el 23%, alrededor de 59,000\. El registro NPP casi se ha duplicado desde 2008, mientras que la ventaja de registro demócrata se ha reducido de 17 puntos en 2022 a 12 puntos hoy. En un distrito que se volvió republicano en 2024, donde un titular republicano defiende terreno recién ganado, y tres demócratas se están dividiendo el voto opositor, los votantes independientes podrían definir tanto quién avanza de la primaria como quién termina ganando en noviembre. Para más información, por favor consulta la cobertura completa de IVN aquí: *Trump Won This Latino California District; Now Independents Will Decide Who Holds It* ## **Assembly District 47: ningún partido es dueño de este escaño** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/California-AD47--2--1.png) El republicano Greg Wallis ganó este escaño por 85 votos en 2022, el único republicano en ganar un distrito legislativo que Gavin Newsom ganó ese mismo año. Ganó otra vez por 2 puntos en 2024, aun cuando Kamala Harris ganó el distrito por 4 puntos y Adam Schiff lo ganó por 1 punto. El Partido Demócrata de California no logró unirse detrás de un retador a Wallis, sin emitir endorsement después de que Leila Namvar recibió el 46% en la pre-endorsement conference, por debajo del umbral requerido. Tres candidatos están en la boleta del 2 de junio. **Gregory Wallis (R) | Asambleísta estatal** Wallis muestra la brecha más grande entre el voto que ha emitido y el mensaje de campaña. Obtuvo 73% de Equality California, 75% de NARAL, y 100% de Planned Parenthood, votó por el financiamiento del Gobernador Newsom para incendios forestales, y le pidió al Presidente Trump que considere permisos de trabajo para jornaleros agrícolas indocumentados. Sin embargo, su sitio de campaña enfatiza posturas conservadoras: eliminar el impuesto a la gasolina, prevenir un sistema de salud manejado por el gobierno, school choice, y políticas duras contra el crimen. Wallis fue electo por primera vez en 2022 y busca un tercer mandato. Nacido el 15 de mayo de 1990, es californiano de tercera generación que vive en Bermuda Dunes. Antes de entrar a la Legislatura, sirvió como director de distrito para el asambleísta Chad Mayes a partir de 2014\. Wallis es miembro del Assembly Problem Solvers Caucus. Es un fuerte defensor del matrimonio igualitario y es pro-derecho a decidir. Wallis obtuvo 100% de la California Chamber of Commerce en 2023 y fue el único asambleísta republicano en votar por el paquete de $180 millones del Gobernador Newsom para la prevención de incendios forestales a principios de 2025\. El asambleísta Wallis también se unió a legisladores que pidieron al Presidente Trump considerar permisos de trabajo expeditos para trabajadores esenciales indocumentados, incluyendo jornaleros agrícolas. Ha recaudado $1,058,783 para el ciclo y tenía $526,790 en efectivo disponible al 18 de abril. "My district is a mix of Republicans, Democrats, and independent voters who value results over party," ha dicho Wallis. "I'll work with anyone, regardless of their party, to get things done." **Leila Namvar (D) | Servidora pública/Mamá** Namvar va a conectar con votantes enfocados en el sector laboral y con quienes buscan representación de la clase trabajadora. Ex líder sindical local y planeadora urbana que ha trabajado con la City of Indio desde 2005, se enfoca en la avaricia corporativa, vivienda accesible, empleos bien pagados y ampliar el acceso a la educación y la salud. Ganó un escaño de District Delegate en AD47 en 2024\. Su campaña está en leilanamvar.com. Namvar trabaja como analista del programa de artes públicas para la City of Indio. Nacida el 4 de agosto de 1972, en Irán, aplicó por primera vez para emigrar a Estados Unidos en 1983 y esperó casi dos décadas antes de llegar legalmente al sur de California en 2002\. Se hizo ciudadana estadounidense por naturalización en 2008\. Previamente trabajó como cajera, asistente de laboratorio de la Cruz Roja, y técnica de planeación municipal antes de obtener una maestría en administración pública. También sirvió previamente como presidenta de SEIU Local 721, representando a los empleados de la ciudad de Indio, y lideró negociaciones de contrato en tres ocasiones. Namvar ha recaudado $156,807 para este ciclo y tenía $56,120 disponibles a mediados de abril. "When I came here, I really believed in the American dream," ha dicho Namvar. "But I think it's slipping away from too many." **Jason Byors (D) | Dueño de pequeño negocio** Byors va a conectar con votantes LGBTQ y con quienes se oponen a las políticas de Trump. El ingeniero de software de 54 años de Cathedral City trabajó para Sony Pictures, Toyota y la City of LA. Originalmente se postuló para el Congreso pero se cambió a AD47, plantea su campaña como resistencia contra la administración Trump, y apoya la redistritación de la Prop 50\. Está respaldado por el presidente del Partido Demócrata de Riverside County. Más en jasonbyors.com. Es residente de Cathedral City y es dueño y operador de una consultoría de cómputo. Nacido el 24 de enero de 1971, creció en un hogar de clase trabajadora liderado por una madre soltera. Se graduó summa cum laude de Babson College y construyó una carrera en ingeniería de software. Inicialmente se registró para postularse al Congreso antes de cambiarse a la contienda de la Asamblea después de que líderes demócratas lo animaron a hacerlo. Recaudó $198,353 para el ciclo y tenía $97,628 en efectivo disponible. "The reason that I got into this race was to be a voice to speak out against what's going on in Washington," ha dicho Byors. "I feel like we are losing our democracy. Anything I can do to stand up and defend our democracy, I'm going to do." No se han reportado gastos independientes en esta contienda, un cambio notable frente a 2024, cuando el gasto externo superó los $2.5 millones. El distrito se extiende por los condados de Riverside y San Bernardino, abarcando Banning, Beaumont, Calimesa, Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Yucaipa, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Yucca Valley, y partes de Redlands, Highland y San Jacinto. Equilibra zonas conservadoras alrededor de Redlands, Yucaipa y Calimesa con las ciudades profundamente azules de Palm Springs y Cathedral City. Una porción importante está dentro del Coachella Valley, donde el turismo, la accesibilidad a la vivienda y los cambios estacionales de población dan forma a la política local. Joshua Tree National Park ancla la identidad ambiental y cultural del distrito. El distrito tiene una población de 523,318\. Es 49% blanco, 39% latino, 4% asiático y 4% negro. Cerca del 17% de los residentes nació en el extranjero. El ingreso medio del hogar es de $78,451\. Cerca del 13% de los residentes vive por debajo de la línea de pobreza, y el 7% no tiene seguro médico. El valor medio de la vivienda es de $450,800, y la renta media es de $1,542\. El distrito es hogar de casi 29,500 veteranos, que representan el 7% de la población. A octubre de 2025, el distrito tenía 334,356 votantes registrados. Los demócratas tienen el 39%. Los republicanos representan el 34%. Los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido representan el 19%, alrededor de 64,000\. La ventaja de registro demócrata es de aproximadamente 5 puntos. El distrito se ha movido entre partidos a nivel estatal por más de una década, y Wallis ha ganado el escaño dos veces incluso cuando los demócratas ganaron en lo alto de la boleta. Para más información, por favor consulta la cobertura completa de IVN aquí: *Neither Party Owns This Seat: Independent Voters Control California's Desert Battleground* ## **Assembly District 65: la carrera abierta en el sur de LA** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Assembly-District-65-1.png) El demócrata titular Mike Gipson está cumpliendo su límite de mandatos y se postula para el Board of Equalization, dejando un escaño abierto profundamente azul que ha atraído un campo lleno y $1.7 millones en gasto de gasto independiente. Cinco demócratas y un republicano calificaron para la boleta del 2 de junio. **Ayanna Davis (D) | Educadora/Miembro de junta escolar** Davis va a conectar con votantes enfocados en la educación y con quienes buscan experiencia institucional de liderazgo. Vicepresidenta del Compton Unified School District Board, directora de LAUSD, y educadora y miembro sindical de mucha trayectoria (UTLA, Vicepresidenta de Teamsters Local 2010), nació y se crió en Compton y es madre soltera. Está respaldada por la CA Legislative Black Caucus, el CA Democratic Legislative Women's Caucus, el saliente asambleísta Mike Gipson, y una amplia coalición laboral que incluye sindicatos portuarios. Se enfoca en educación, los pipelines de empleo portuario y de logística, accesibilidad y seguridad pública. Recibió el 80% en la Democratic pre-endorsing conference. Su campaña está en ayannadavis.com. Davis fue electa al Compton Unified School District Board of Trustees en 2022 y fue nombrada delegada demócrata por el asambleísta Gipson. Nacida el 15 de abril de 1971, tiene una licenciatura en ciencia política de USC, dos maestrías en educación de CSU Dominguez Hills y CSU Northridge, y un doctorado en cambio organizacional y liderazgo de USC. Ha servido como presidenta del capítulo del sur de California de la California Association of Early Young Children. Ha sido respaldada por Gipson, la Tesorera Fiona Ma, el Superintendente de Instrucción Pública Tony Thurmond, la supervisora de Los Angeles County Janice Hahn, Teamsters Joint Council 42, e ILWU Local 13\. Tiene aseguradas tanto las pre-endorsements como las endorsements primarias del Partido Demócrata. Recaudó $343,635 para el ciclo. Davis está recibiendo apoyo enorme de gasto independiente: California Leads ha gastado $461,117, Grow California $438,389, Advance California (patrocinado por la California Apartment Association) $275,000, y Keep California Golden $109,915, todo a su favor. El gasto total de IE apoyando a Davis está en $1,284,421\. "As a public school educator and School Board member, I hear from students and parents every day: they want quality schools and safe streets where children can play without fear," ha dicho Davis. "In the Assembly, I will work closely with local first responders to improve emergency response times and create safer schools, parks, and neighborhoods." **Fatima Iqbal-Zubair (D) | Gerente de organización de incidencia** Iqbal-Zubair va a conectar con votantes progresistas escépticos de la influencia corporativa y que priorizan la justicia ambiental. Maestra de ciencias que dio clases en Watts durante tres años, inició el primer programa de robótica en su escuela (que aparece en el documental de Disney+ More Than Robots). Es presidenta del California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus, miembro activa de Democratic Socialists of America-LA, y madre de un hijo con necesidades especiales. Su plataforma progresista enfatiza el sistema de salud de pagador único, oposición al dinero corporativo en la política, el Green New Deal, desinversión de la policía y las cárceles, justicia ambiental y vivienda accesible. Se ha postulado dos veces antes (2020, 2022) y perdió ambas. Está respaldada por Democratic Socialists of America-LA, SEIU California, Working Families Party y Courage California. Su plataforma está en fatimaforassembly.com. Iqbal-Zubair se postula por tercera vez para este escaño. Nacida el 2 de octubre de 1982, se postuló previamente contra Gipson en 2020, gastando más de $500,000 y perdiendo 60% a 40%, y otra vez en 2022, gastando cerca de $800,000 y perdiendo 62% a 38%. Obtuvo su licenciatura en biología y psicología de Ramapo College of New Jersey y una credencial de enseñanza de CSU Dominguez Hills. Ha trabajado como maestra de química en Animo College Preparatory Academy, una escuela charter que atiende a la zona de Watts. Sus endorsements incluyen a la representante Lateefah Simon, los asambleístas Pilar Schiavo y Sade Elhawary, la supervisora de LA County Lindsey Horvath, y la concejal de LA Nithya Raman. Va al frente del grupo en recaudación total con $363,092 recaudados y $254,012 en efectivo disponible al inicio del año. Iqbal-Zubair es blanco de $417,451 en gasto IE de oposición por Californians for Accountability. **Vinson Eugene Allen (D) | Doctor en medicina/Empresario** Allen va a conectar con votantes que buscan experiencia en salud y trayectoria en servicio comunitario. Médico con más de 20 años de experiencia y dueño de pequeño negocio, fue criado en el Mississippi Delta por su abuela (la nieta de americanos esclavizados) y se formó en medicina de urgencias en el hospital Martin Luther King Jr. Dirige la Saint Vinson Eugene Allen Foundation (que ofrece becas, apoyo a familias con discapacidades, y ayuda mensual a residentes en situación de calle) y movilizó voluntarios durante el COVID-19 para alimentar a miles y ofrecer pruebas gratuitas. Se enfoca en creación de empleo, salud accesible, vivienda y barrios más seguros. Más en electdrallen2026.com. El Dr. Allen es médico de medicina de urgencias que opera Dusk Till Dawn Urgent Care. Nacido el 17 de enero de 1966, obtuvo su DO de West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine en 1994 y completó su residencia en medicina de urgencias en Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science en 1997\. Se postuló para Insurance Commissioner en 2022, gastando medio millón de dólares y quedando en quinto lugar con el 4%. Le prestó a su campaña actual $50,000 al registrarse. Recaudó $155,563 para el ciclo y tenía $76,240 disponibles. El gasto total de gasto independiente en AD65 está en $1.7 millones hasta ahora. De eso, $1.3 millones se gastaron apoyando a Davis, y $417,451 se gastaron oponiéndose a Iqbal-Zubair. El distrito cubre partes de Los Angeles County, incluyendo todo Compton y partes de Long Beach, Carson y la ciudad de Los Ángeles. Incluye las comunidades de Watts, Willowbrook, Rancho Dominguez, Harbor Gateway y West Carson. El distrito tiene una población de 489,275\. Es 63% latino, 19% negro, 8% asiático y 7% blanco. Cerca del 31% de los residentes nació en el extranjero, y el 17% no es ciudadano. El ingreso medio del hogar es de $71,342\. Cerca del 17% de los residentes vive por debajo de la línea de pobreza, el 12% no tiene seguro médico, y el 20% de los hogares recibe estampillas de alimentos. Solo el 18% de los adultos tiene licenciatura o más. El valor medio de la vivienda es de $602,900, y la renta media es de $1,573. Al 3 de abril de 2026, el distrito tenía 276,039 votantes registrados. Los demócratas tienen el 56%. Los votantes Sin Preferencia de Partido representan el 23% del voto, con un total de 63,851\. Los republicanos representan apenas el 13%. Hay casi el doble de votantes NPP que de republicanos aquí. Con cinco demócratas en la boleta, $1.7 millones en gasto externo ya desplegados, y casi uno de cada cuatro votantes no afiliado, los votantes independientes definirán cuáles dos candidatos avanzan a noviembre. ## **Cómo funciona la primaria no partidista de los dos más votados en California 2026** Bajo el sistema de primaria no partidista de los dos más votados de California, todos los votantes y candidatos aparecen en la misma boleta sin importar su partido. Todos los votantes registrados pueden votar en la primaria no partidista. Los dos candidatos con más votos avanzan a la elección general de noviembre. Todos los votantes activos registrados en California recibirán una boleta para votar por correo. Las oficinas electorales del condado empezaron a enviar boletas el 4 de mayo. Los puntos de entrega de boletas abren el 5 de mayo. Los centros de votación abren para votación anticipada en persona en los condados que aplican el Voter's Choice Act a partir del 23 de mayo. Las boletas por correo deben tener matasellos a más tardar el día de la elección y ser recibidas a más tardar el 9 de junio. *Notas sobre fuentes: Este artículo se basa en información disponible públicamente del California Secretary of State, CalMatters, el California Target Book, Ballotpedia, los reportes de financiamiento de campaña de la California FPPC, boletines, correos de recaudación, sitios web y cuentas de redes sociales de cada candidato individual, y reportajes de periódicos y estaciones de televisión locales y regionales de todo el estado.* ### How It Really Works: Voter ID Laws (California vs Federal Bill) URL: https://ivn.us/how-it-really-works-voter-id-laws-california-vs-federal-bill-2026-05-04/ Last updated: 2026-05-04T20:31:03.000Z ## **The Political Reality** Ask most Americans whether people should have to show ID before voting, and about 83% say yes, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/Pew-Research-Election-Voter-ID-Survey.jpg) Image: Pew Research [According to Pew Research](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/08/22/majority-of-americans-continue-to-back-expanded-early-voting-voting-by-mail-voter-id/?ref=ivn.us), more than nine-in-ten Republicans (95%) and about seven-in-ten Democrats (71%) favor requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote. So why is voter ID one of the most fought-over issues in American politics? Because the fight was never really about voter ID. It is about two things both parties want: turnout among their own voters, and a political issue that motivates their base. Republicans use voter ID to signal they are protecting elections from fraud. Democrats use opposition to voter ID to signal they are protecting minority voters from suppression. Both sides have been doing this for years, and neither side is giving you the complete picture. ## **If 83% Support Voter ID, Why Is It So Hard to Pass?** This is the question most voters never hear answered honestly. On the surface, voter ID looks like one of the easiest issues in American politics. Huge majorities support it, including most Democrats. A clean, standalone photo ID requirement with a free ID guarantee, like the one proposed in California, would likely win comfortably in most states. But voter ID legislation almost never stays clean. And that is by design. An Independent Voter Project poll of likely California voters, [cited by The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/california-governor-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us), illustrates what happens when you move beyond the simple “do you support voter ID” question and start asking voters about the real-world versions of these laws. [Full cross-tabulations are published on IVN.](https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/bf003736-b0d3-426c-ab12-8fc8e71de791/page/p%5Fh6qz1ic10d?ref=ivn.us) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/05/iVP-poll-voter-ID.jpeg) Among all respondents, a plurality (45.8%) said voters should be required to provide identification when voting. Just under 20% said no identification should be required. The remaining voters split into two categories that reveal the real fault lines: nearly 18% said they were uncertain but would be more likely to support a plan backed by nonpartisan or independent groups, and approximately 12% said they support voter ID in concept but do not trust Republicans to do it properly. That last number is the one both parties want you to ignore. ### **When you break the results down by party, the picture gets sharper.** Among Republican respondents, 92% said identification should be required. There is almost no internal disagreement. Republican voters are unified on this, and their elected officials know it. Their party trust numbers reflect the same lockstep: 86% of Republican voters trust the Republican Party. Among Democratic respondents, the picture is completely different, and much more complicated than either party admits. The largest group, about 32%, said no identification should be required to vote. But that means more than two-thirds of Democrats did not land in the flat-opposition camp. Another 27% said they were uncertain but would support a nonpartisan plan. 17% said identification should be required. And nearly 16% said they support voter ID in concept but do not trust Republicans to implement it. Read that again: among Democrats, about 60% either support voter ID outright, are open to it with nonpartisan backing, or support it in principle but have trust concerns about who implements it. The flat opposition is 32%. Yet the Democratic Party’s public posture treats voter ID as if its entire base is against it. The party trust data helps explain why. Among Democrats, 80% trust the Democratic Party. That tight bond between these voters and their party means Democratic elected officials have enormous influence over how their base interprets the issue. When party leaders frame voter ID as a Republican attack on voting rights, the 27% who are uncertain and the ones who have trust concerns are easy to move into the opposition column, even though their starting position was open to the policy. Among No Party Preference voters, about 44% said identification should be required. Another 18% support voter ID in concept but do not trust Republicans to implement it. Only 18% said no ID should be required. The party trust data among these independent voters is telling: **About 40% don't trust either party**, 28% lean toward the Democratic Party, and nearly 26% lean toward the Republican Party. ## **Why Popular Does Not Mean Passable** Three forces prevent voter ID from becoming law through normal bipartisan channels. **First: the trust gap.** The IVP poll makes it clear that a meaningful share of voters, across party lines, support voter ID in principle but do not trust Republicans to implement it. That is not an abstract concern. The recent history of voter ID legislation shows why. Laws in North Carolina, Texas, and Georgia were designed with provisions that courts found targeted specific groups of voters. Prior to the state's existing voter ID law, legislation from 2013 [was struck down by a federal appeals court](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/16-1468/16-1468-2016-07-29.html?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) that found the legislature had specifically requested data on which voting methods Black voters used most, then restricted those methods. When Democrats or independent voters see a new voter ID proposal, they are not just evaluating the policy. They are evaluating who wrote it, what else is attached to it, and whether it will be implemented in good faith. **Second: the Christmas tree problem.** Voter ID bills rarely stay limited to voter ID. The federal SAVE Act is the clearest example. What could have been a straightforward photo ID requirement was loaded with proof-of-citizenship mandates, criminal penalties for election officials, restrictions on mail voting, and no federal funding for implementation. Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat who publicly supports photo ID to vote, [voted against the SAVE Act and explained his reasoning in a statement](https://www.fetterman.senate.gov/fetterman-statement-on-voting-against-debate-on-the-save-america-act/?ref=ivn.us): > *“83% of Americans agree on voter ID. 71% of Democrats agree on voter ID. Keep it basic: PHOTO ID to vote. Stop turning this into a Christmas list and attacking vote-by-mail. If the GOP wants real reform over a show vote, put out a clean, standalone bill and I’m AYE.”* Fetterman’s position is probably closer to the median American voter than either party’s official stance. But it does not have a political home because the incentive structure rewards fights, not solutions. **Third: the base problem.** About 32% of Democratic voters flatly oppose any voter ID requirement. That is not a majority of Democrats, but it does not have to be. That 32% is concentrated among the most active, most vocal segment of the Democratic base. These are the voters who show up in primaries, fund campaigns, and punish elected officials who step out of line. Even though roughly 60% of Democrats are open to some version of voter ID, Democratic elected officials know that embracing it risks a primary challenge from the left. It is similar to the dynamic around immigration enforcement, where Democratic voters broadly support border security but a vocal segment of the base treats any enforcement measure as disqualifying. In both cases, the internal political math pushes Democratic leaders away from positions their own voters actually hold. This creates a perverse cycle. Republican leaders introduce voter ID bills loaded with provisions designed to fail in order to keep the issue alive as a campaign weapon. Democratic leaders oppose all voter ID proposals, even reasonable ones, because their base punishes them for engaging. And the 83% of voters who support voter ID in some form never get a clean vote on the question. ## **What The Two Major Parties Both Get Wrong** **What the right gets wrong:** Voter fraud is not rampant. It exists, but it is rare. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative organization that strongly supports voter ID, maintains the most comprehensive database of proven election fraud cases in the country. As of its most recent update, it contains [over 1,500 proven cases of all types of election fraud](https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud?ref=ivn.us) over a span of decades, which Heritage itself describes as “a sampling,” not a complete count. Researchers at the [Brookings Institution](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-widespread-is-election-fraud-in-the-united-states-not-very/?ref=ivn.us) reviewed the same Heritage database. They found that, in Pennsylvania, Heritage had to go back 30 years, across more than 100 million votes cast, to find 39 fraud cases. In Arizona over 25 years, the fraudulent vote rate was 0.0000845%, and no election outcome was changed. In Florida in 2025, the state’s Office of Election Crimes and Security found 198 likely noncitizens who had illegally registered to vote or voted, out of more than 13 million registered voters. That is a rate of 0.0015%. Most documented fraud, nationally, involves absentee ballots, not in-person voting, which is what a photo ID requirement at the polls would actually address. **What the left gets wrong:** Fraud is not zero. The Heritage cases are real. And most voters, including most Democratic voters, think showing ID to vote is a reasonable thing to ask. Calling every voter ID proposal “voter suppression” has not been persuasive to the 83% of Americans who support some form of ID requirement, and it has allowed Republicans to own the issue for years. Research out of [Harvard Business School](https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/voter-id-laws-don-t-work-but-they-don-t-hurt-anything-either?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) and the [National Bureau of Economic Research](https://www.nber.org/papers/w25522?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) have found voter ID has little to no impact on elections, one way or the other. It doesn't make elections more secure, but it also doesn't affect turnout. ## **What “Voter ID” Actually Means** Here is something neither side tells you: “voter ID” is not one law. There are hundreds of laws, varying by state, and they work very differently from one another depending on which political party is in power. The Voting Rights Lab [tracks election law across all 50 states](https://tracker.votingrightslab.org/issues/id-requirements?ref=ivn.us) and the District of Columbia in near-real time. Here is how the current landscape breaks down. ### **Step 1: Does your state even ask for ID at the polls on Election Day?** Thirteen states, and DC, do not require voters to show any ID at the polls. You walk in, give your name and address, they check it against the registration record, and you vote. States that do not require ID at the polls: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, plus Washington, DC. First-time voters in most of these states may be required to show ID, and voters who registered by mail without providing identifying information may also face ID requirements under the federal Help America Vote Act. The other 37 states ask for some form of ID. But asking and requiring are different things. ### **Step 2: What kind of ID?** Of the 37 states that ask for ID, 23 accept only photo ID: a driver’s license, passport, state ID card, and similar documents. Eleven states also accept non-photo documents, such as a utility bill, bank statement, or government mail showing your name and address. Three states allow non-photo ID only in limited circumstances. Even within photo ID states, what qualifies varies a lot. Some states accept a concealed carry permit but not a student ID. Some accept tribal IDs; others do not. Some accept a digital ID on your phone. ### **Step 3: What if you don’t have the right ID?** In 10 states, if you show up without qualifying ID, you can sign a sworn statement confirming your identity and cast a regular ballot that counts, with no follow-up required. In 9 states, you can cast what is called a provisional ballot without ID, but whether it counts depends on what you do afterward. In 12 states, you can cast a provisional ballot without ID, but you have to come back after Election Day with qualifying ID for it to count. If you do not make that second trip, your vote does not count. In 6 states, alternatives exist only in limited situations. [New Hampshire goes the furthest](https://tracker.votingrightslab.org/issues/id-requirements?ref=ivn.us#NH). A law enacted in September 2024 eliminated the sworn statement and provisional ballot options entirely. If you show up without a qualifying photo ID, you cannot vote. Period. ### **N.H. Rev. Stat. § 659:13** In New Hampshire, voters must present a valid photo ID with an expiration date that has not passed by more than 5 years. The expiration-date requirement does not apply to voters over 65 unless they use a student ID. The following forms of identification bearing a photograph of the voter satisfy the ID requirement: - Driver’s license issued by any state or the federal government - Identification card issued by New Hampshire or a non-driver’s identification card issued by the motor vehicles division, department, agency, or office of any other state - U.S. armed services identification card - U.S. passport or passport card - Student ID card issued by: a college, university, or career school in New Hampshire that is approved to operate or licensed to operate in New Hampshire; a public high school in New Hampshire; a nonpublic high school in New Hampshire, accredited by a private school accrediting agency that is recognized by the Department of Education; Dartmouth College; or a college or university operated by the university system of New Hampshire or the community college system of New Hampshire Voters unable to present ID may be able to vote a regular ballot if their identity can otherwise be confirmed by the supervisor of the checklist. ### **All Voter ID Laws Are Not The Same** When a politician says they support “voter ID,” that could mean anything from “we’d like you to show a utility bill, but you can still vote if you don’t have one” to “no photo ID, no ballot, no exceptions.” When a politician says they oppose “voter ID,” they are often really opposing the strictest version of the law. The talking points of both political parties deliberately blur all of this together and use the information to scare voters and turn out their respective bases. ## **What Does the Supreme Court Say About Voter ID?** The Supreme Court has weighed in, and the short version is this: voter ID can be legal, but it depends on how the law is designed and who it affects. In [*Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008)*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/553/181/?ref=ivn.us), the Court upheld Indiana’s strict photo ID law. The justices said Indiana’s interest in preventing fraud and protecting confidence in elections was enough to justify requiring ID. But the Court also left the door open to challenges if a specific law could be shown to put an unconstitutional burden on a particular group of voters. In [*Shelby County v. Holder (2013)*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/529/?ref=ivn.us), the Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act that required certain states with a history of racial discrimination to get federal approval before changing their election laws. Once that guardrail was removed, several states moved quickly to pass stricter voter ID laws. In [*League of Women Voters of North Carolina v. North Carolina (4th Cir. 2016)*](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/court-cases/north-carolina-naacp-v-mccrory?ref=ivn.us), a federal appeals court struck down North Carolina’s voter ID law in full. The court found that before passing the law, the legislature had requested racial data on which voting methods Black voters used most, and then restricted exactly those methods. The court said the law targeted Black voters “with almost surgical precision.” It also noted the state could not identify a single person who had ever been charged with in-person voter fraud in North Carolina. The Supreme Court declined to take the case, leaving that ruling in place. The legal lesson is this: **voter ID is not automatically unconstitutional.** But laws designed to restrict specific groups of voters, or that are so burdensome that they effectively prevent eligible citizens from voting, have been struck down. ## **Do That Many People Really Not Have Valid IDs?** A 2023 national survey, the first of its kind in nearly 20 years, [was conducted by VoteRiders](https://www.voteriders.org/voter-id-research/?ref=ivn.us), the University of Maryland, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Public Wise. It found that as of 2020, approximately 29 million eligible voters lacked a current driver’s license, and over 7 million lacked any current government-issued photo ID. A [fall 2023 University of Maryland survey](https://www.statista.com/chart/32805/voter-identification-laws-in-the-us-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) estimated that around 50 million American adult citizens (about 20% of the total) did not have a valid driver’s license with their current name and address on it. That group included 23 million Democrats, 15.7 million Republicans, and 10.5 million independents. When it comes to documentary proof of citizenship specifically, things like birth certificates, passports, and naturalization certificates, a [June 2024 Brennan Center estimate](https://www.brennancenter.org/?ref=ivn.us) found that 21.3 million eligible citizens do not have easy access to those documents, and 3.8 million have no such documents at all. The people most likely to lack ID are lower-income voters, elderly voters, voters of color, younger voters, people in rural areas, naturalized citizens, and women who have changed their name after marriage. These gaps are the reality regardless of how you feel about voter ID as a policy. Supporters of voter ID laws [note that in Florida](https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/04/01/desantis-signs-bill-requiring-proof-of-citizenship-to-register-to-vote-voting-rights-group-sue/?ref=ivn.us), for example, more than 90% of voters already hold REAL ID-compliant driver’s licenses, so most people would not be affected by a standard photo ID requirement. ## **Does Voter ID Actually Suppress Turnout?** Research on this can produce mixed results depending on how the study was conducted. For example, there are studies from [Harvard Business School](https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/voter-id-laws-don-t-work-but-they-don-t-hurt-anything-either?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) and the [National Bureau of Economic Research](https://www.nber.org/papers/w25522?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) that show little to no impact on voter turnout. A December 2025 peer-reviewed study analyzed state turnout data from 1984 to 2020 and found [no significant effect of strict voter ID laws on overall turnout](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680251401762?ref=ivn.us). But it also found that states that passed strict laws after 2008 saw a 2.7-percentage-point drop in presidential election turnout. States that had passed voter ID laws earlier saw no significant effect. - A March 2025 study of Wisconsin found that voter ID[ was associated with slightly higher turnout on average](https://will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/VoterIDstudy71.pdf?ref=ivn.us) and no statistically significant effect on non-white voter turnout. - A[ 2017 study in the Journal of Politics](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/688343?ref=ivn.us) found that Latino voter turnout was 10.3 points lower in states with photo ID requirements, and multi-racial voter turnout was 12.8 points lower. - A later peer-reviewed replication of that study found that when data errors were corrected,[ the results were statistically unstable](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/696618?ref=ivn.us). The effect could appear positive, negative, or zero depending on the methodology used. - A[ 2014 Government Accountability Office review](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-14-634?ref=ivn.us) found that of five peer-reviewed studies, three showed voter ID reduced minority turnout, and two found no significant effect. - A[ randomized field experiment in Tennessee and Virginia](https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/effects-voter-id-notification-voter-turnout-united-states?ref=ivn.us) found that simply notifying voters about ID requirements and helping them understand what they needed did not reduce turnout. Certain kinds of outreach actually increased turnout among infrequent voters by up to 1.5 points. The latter experiment is particularly interesting because it shows that framing voter ID as a flashpoint benefits both major political parties, not just Republicans, as many would assume. ## **What’s The Latest Fight About?** ### **A new category of requirement: proof of citizenship** Most of the current wave of legislation goes way beyond photo ID at the polls. It requires voters to prove they are U.S. citizens when they register, using documents like a birth certificate or a passport, not just a driver’s license. This is a bigger ask than it sounds. Under long-standing Supreme Court precedent, voters can register to vote in federal elections by simply swearing under penalty of perjury that they are citizens. They do not have to prove it with a document. States that want to require this new documentary proof of citizenship, therefore, have to offer two separate registration tracks: one for people who have provided documentation, and one for people who have not, with the second group limited to federal races only. Currently, [Arizona is the only state that actually operates this kind of two-track system](https://tracker.votingrightslab.org/issues/id-requirements?ref=ivn.us) in practice, and it has been in nearly continuous litigation since 2004. ### **New Hampshire and Wyoming: already in effect** New Hampshire [enacted its proof-of-citizenship registration requirement](https://tracker.votingrightslab.org/issues/id-requirements?ref=ivn.us) in September 2024\. It also eliminated all alternatives to photo ID at the polls. Wyoming enacted its proof-of-citizenship requirement in March 2025\. To register, voters must show one of a specific list of documents: a Wyoming driver’s license or state ID not indicating non-citizenship, a REAL ID from another state, a U.S. passport, a birth certificate with an official seal, a consular report of birth abroad, a federally recognized tribal ID, a certificate of citizenship or naturalization, or a military draft record or selective service card. Wyoming also added a new rule: you must have lived in Wyoming for 30 days before you can vote. The 2026 primaries will be the first major elections to run under both of these laws. That will produce real data, for the first time, on what these requirements actually do to voter registration and participation. ### **South Dakota and Utah: signed in March 2026** [South Dakota’s law](https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2026/03/26/south-dakota-governor-signs-law-requiring-proof-of-citizenship-for-new-voter-registrations/?ref=ivn.us) applies only to new registrants, not current voters. [Utah’s law](https://ballotpedia.org/Proof%5Fof%5Fcitizenship%5Frequirements%5Ffor%5Fvoter%5Fregistration%5Fby%5Fstate?ref=ivn.us) also applies primarily to new registrants and requires a citizenship review of existing registered voters. Both create the federal-only voter track described above. ### **Florida’s SAVE Act: signed April 1, 2026** Florida’s law, [HB 991](https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2026/991?ref=ivn.us), is broader than the South Dakota and Utah versions. It applies to both new registrants and currently registered voters, meaning people already on the rolls could be removed if they cannot produce citizenship documentation when contacted by the state. It takes effect January 1, 2027, after the midterms. The Florida law would make it more difficult for married women who have changed their names to vote. The law states that if a voter registration applicant’s legal name is different from the name that appears on their citizenship document, official legal documentation proving the name change is also required. Multiple federal lawsuits were filed minutes after Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law. A similar proof-of-citizenship law in [Kansas](https://www.local10.com/news/politics/2026/04/01/desantis-signs-florida-voter-id-bill-lawsuit-filed-minutes-later/?ref=ivn.us) was blocked by a federal court in 2018 after it prevented more than 35,000 people from registering to vote. ### **The federal SAVE Act: stalled in Congress** [H.R. 7296](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7296?ref=ivn.us), introduced January 30, 2026, would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in all federal elections nationwide. It would take effect immediately upon signing, with no federal funding provided to states to implement it, no phase-in period, and criminal penalties for election officials, including for honest mistakes. The bill cannot pass the Senate without 60 votes, and it does not currently have them. Even Senate Republican leaders have signaled the bill is designed to fail. Fetterman’s statement, and the broader reception in the Senate, illustrate how loading voter ID legislation with unrelated provisions turns a consensus issue into a partisan weapon. A clean, standalone photo ID bill could attract bipartisan support. The SAVE Act, by design, cannot. ### **Two executive orders: mostly blocked or unworkable** President Trump signed his first executive order on elections in March 2025, which attempted to require proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form. Federal courts blocked its major provisions. One court permanently ruled that the president [lacks the constitutional authority to change election procedures unilaterally](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-strikes-down-key-part-of-trumps-unlawful-voting-executive-order-permanently-blocking-show-your-papers-requirement?ref=ivn.us), because that power belongs to Congress and the states. President Trump signed a second executive order on March 31, 2026, directing the creation of a federal voter citizenship list and new tracking requirements for mail ballots. Election law experts said it [could not realistically be implemented before the November 2026 elections](https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/03/31/donald-trump-2026-midterm-election-executive-order-absentee-mail-ballots-postal-service-citizenship-list/?ref=ivn.us), regardless of legal challenges, and that courts would block it if the administration tried to implement it. Legal challenges were pledged immediately by multiple state attorneys general and advocacy organizations. ## **California: What a Clean Voter ID Law Looks Like** A proposed California ballot initiative offers a useful contrast to the SAVE Act approach. It would move California, which currently requires no ID at all, to requiring a government-issued ID for in-person voting and the last four digits of an ID number for mail ballots. California currently verifies mail ballots only by comparing signatures. (Cal. Elec. Code §§ 3011, 3019, 4100) The initiative would guarantee a free voter ID card to any eligible voter who asks for one. It would not require proof of citizenship to register. It would not penalize election officials. It would require annual public audits of compliance. [California’s Voter ID Initiative is Way More Chill Than Trump’s SAVE ActA proposed California ballot initiative would amend the state constitution to add an initiative that aims to “deter and detect voter fraud by maintaining accurate voter registration records and confirming eligibility to vote...”![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/03/california-voter-id-initiative-vs-save-act-election-law-comparison-2026-1.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10) This is voter ID that matches what 83% of Americans actually say they want: a simple, verifiable way to confirm a voter’s identity, with a guarantee that no eligible voter is turned away because they cannot afford an ID. The campaign against it, however, is unlikely to engage on the merits. As the IVP poll shows, the opposition strategy does not need to argue that voter ID is bad policy. It just needs to brand it as a Republican project. The easiest path for opponents is not to debate the California initiative’s actual provisions but to lump it together with the SAVE Act, Florida’s HB 991, and Trump’s executive orders and tell voters it is all the same thing. This is exactly what happened when California Proposition 50 went before voters. The initiative had nothing in common with the federal SAVE Act in substance. But opponents ran a campaign that treated them as interchangeable, and that framing was enough. ## **Both Parties Like to Fight About Voter ID** Here is what is actually happening beneath the surface of all this legislation. The federal SAVE Act cannot pass Congress. Courts may block Trump’s executive orders. So, the Republican Party’s strategy has shifted to pushing conservative states to pass their own versions of these requirements, creating facts on the ground, generating legal fights that could eventually reach the Supreme Court, and keeping the issue alive as a political motivator heading into 2026. Since early 2025, the [Voting Rights Lab](https://tracker.votingrightslab.org/issues/id-requirements?ref=ivn.us) has tracked 10 enacted bills restricting voter ID or election administration across 9 states: Florida, Utah (2 bills), West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Montana, Tennessee, Indiana, and Kentucky. Eight of those states narrowed the forms of ID accepted at the polls. As of April 2026, [12 states have enacted some form of proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/04/01/florida-south-dakota-utah-enact-proof-of-citizenship-laws-for-voter-registration/?ref=ivn.us). Most of these laws are designed to solve a problem whose scale, based on the evidence from states’ own election security offices, is very small. - Florida found 198 likely noncitizens on its rolls out of 13 million voters. - Utah found one. - South Dakota’s 273 cases were caused by a government data entry error, not by people trying to cheat. That does not mean the laws are illegitimate. Reasonable people disagree about whether even a small number of ineligible votes justifies new requirements. But the political energy behind these laws is not proportional to the documented problem they are addressing, on either side. Democrats, meanwhile, have their own version of the problem. By opposing all voter ID proposals, including the simplest and least restrictive ones, they concede the issue entirely to Republicans. The IVP poll data shows this creates an opening: among independent voters, a plurality already supports voter ID, and several more would support it with nonpartisan backing. Democratic opposition to voter ID does not reflect independent voters’ views. It reflects the party’s fear of its own base. ## **What Will Be Your Experience?** Your experience as a voter depends on which state you live in. If you live in one of the 14 states and DC that do not require ID, including California, you do not currently need any ID to vote in person. If you live in a state that asks for ID but lets you sign a sworn statement instead, you can vote without a qualifying ID document. If you live in a state where a provisional ballot without ID requires a follow-up trip, not having ID means your vote may not count unless you come back. If you live in New Hampshire, you need a qualifying photo ID. There is no alternative. If you live in one of the twelve states with a proof-of-citizenship requirement for registration, you will now need specific documents to register or even stay registered, as in Florida. As with so much else, what comes next depends largely on the courts. The Florida law and the SAVE Act are both already the subjects of litigation. The 2026 primaries in New Hampshire and Wyoming will generate the first real evidence of how proof-of-citizenship requirements affect actual voters in practice. Voter ID is less a policy debate than a political signal, and both major political parties seem to have decided the signal is worth more to them than the solution. Until the political value of fighting about voter ID drops below the political cost of actually solving it, expect more laws, more lawsuits, and more noise, and less clarity for the voters caught in the middle of the partisan war. ### **Related IVN coverage:** - [California’s Voter ID Initiative is Way More Chill Than Trump’s SAVE Act](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10) - [Trump EO Pushes Citizenship Verification and Mail Ballot Tracking Further Than SAVE Act Debate](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-eo-pushes-citizenship-verification-and-mail-ballot-tracking-further-than-save-act-debate-2026-03-31) - [Trump is Building a FEDERAL Voter List: Should YOU Be Scared?](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-is-building-a-federal-voter-list-should-you-be-scared-2026-04-02) - [The Federal Voter ID Bill Is Designed to Fail. Here’s Why](https://ivn.us/posts/the-federal-voter-id-bill-is-designed-to-fail-heres-why-2026-03-12) - [John Fetterman Blasts Hypocrisy on Both Sides of the SAVE Act Fight](https://ivn.us/posts/john-fetterman-blasts-hypocrisy-on-both-sides-of-the-save-act-fight-2026-03-16) ### Independent Voters Will Soon Decide Open Silicon Valley Senate Seat URL: https://ivn.us/independent-voters-will-soon-decide-open-silicon-valley-senate-seat-2026-05-04/ Last updated: 2026-05-04T16:10:37.000Z Ballots started going out Monday in the race for Senate District 10, covering parts of both Alameda and Santa Clara Counties. This is one of California's economic powerhouses. It includes the cities of Fremont, Hayward, Milpitas, Newark, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and Union City, as well as portions of San Jose. The district’s economy is anchored by Silicon Valley’s technology sector, which attracts a global workforce. The Apple factory where the first Mac computer was manufactured was located in Fremont. The Tesla factory is located in the district and employs tens of thousands of workers. SD10 is home to large immigrant Asian-American communities that have helped define the civic and cultural fabric of the South Bay in beautiful Northern California. The main campus of [California State University, East Bay](https://www.csueastbay.edu/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), is in Hayward, and 62.5% of undergraduates are first-generation Americans. ### **Nearly Half of the Residents Are Foreign Born** According to the 2023 American Community Survey, the district has a population of just over 1 million residents. More than 48% of residents are foreign-born, and 23.6% are non-citizens. The population is 52% Asian, 20.5% Latino, 18.4% White, and 3.6% Black. ### **Asian Voters Comprise 44 percent of the Electorate** When it comes to registered voters, Senate District 10 has a plurality Asian electorate. Asians make up 44.5% of the voting population, up from 40.3% in 2019\. White voters comprise 28.6%, Latinos 18.8%, and Black voters 5.6%. ### **Highly Educated and Affluent Communities** The community is highly educated and affluent. The median household income is $161,447, and the mean household income is $203,883\. Approximately 6.7% of residents live below the poverty line. About 3.5% of residents lack health insurance. An astonishing 55% of adults in the district hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 26.6% have a graduate degree. The district has 21,867 civilian veterans, or 2.7% of its population. ### **Housing Costs Are The Highest in the State and Nation** Housing costs are among the highest in the state and nation. The median home value in Senate District 10 is $1,173,400, and the median rent is $2,903\. About 54% of homes are owner-occupied, while 46% are rented. ### **Almost One in Three Voters is Registered With No Party Preference** As of October 20, 2025, the district had 528,830 registered voters. Democrats account for 266,312 or 50.36%, while **No Party Preference voters make up 154,831 or 29.28%**. Republicans represent 15.64%, and the remaining voters are affiliated with smaller parties, including American Independent (2.69%), Libertarian (0.68%), Peace and Freedom (0.53%), and Green (0.48%). The partisan advantage is Democratic +34.72%. The district’s registration is split between Alameda County (53.38%) and Santa Clara County (46.62%). Alameda voters favor Democrats by 40.70, while Santa Clara voters favor Democrats by 32.60. ### **Past Election Results** The previous version of Senate District 10 voted decisively for Democrats in recent national contests. In the 2020 presidential election, the district voted 73.26% for Joe Biden and 24.80% for Donald Trump, a Biden margin of 48.46%. In the 2024 general election, Kamala Harris received 234,182 votes (66.47%) to Donald Trump’s 102,961 (29.22%). Third-party candidates combined for just over 4% of the total, including Jill Stein (2.20%), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (1.22%), Claudia de la Cruz (0.47%), and Chase Oliver (0.42%). In the 2024 United States Senate race, Adam Schiff (Democrat) carried the district with 231,558 votes (68.79%), while Steve Garvey (Republican) received 105,061 votes (31.21%). ## **An Open Senate Seat** This seat opened up when incumbent Aisha Wahab, the first Muslim Afghan American elected to the California State Legislature, announced she would not seek re-election. Wahab is instead running for Congress. Six candidates qualified for the June 2 primary ballot: five Democrats and one Republican. ## **The Candidates** ### **Scott Sakakihara | Councilmember/Navy Officer** Democrat Scott Sakakihara is a Union City councilmember, U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer, Harvard-trained attorney and former Palantir Technologies finance executive. A fourth-generation Japanese American, all four of his grandparents were held in internment camps during World War II. One grandfather enlisted in the U.S. military as a path out of the camps. "Hard work and service are in my DNA," Sakakihara has said. "I come from a family of farm and produce workers. All my grandparents were in Japanese American internment camps in World War II. One grandpa was given the option to join the US military, and he did, to give our family a better future after the camps." Sakakihara grew up in Union City. He attended Pioneer Elementary, Itliong-Vera Cruz Middle School (formerly Alvarado Middle School) and James Logan High School, graduating in 2003\. He spent his childhood in the city's public parks, took swim lessons at Logan High and participated in community programs at Holly Center and Kennedy Center. He completed his bachelor's degree in political science at UC San Diego in two years, graduating in 2005, and earned his JD from Harvard Law School in 2008\. After Harvard, he interned in the offices of Congressmembers Pete Stark and Mazie Hirono. In 2009, he was awarded the Japanese American Citizens League Mike M. Masaoka Fellowship, placing him in Congresswoman Hirono's Washington office. He served in the Obama White House during the push to pass the Affordable Care Act. After completing his fellowship, he returned to California, passed the State Bar and began practicing law in Silicon Valley. Sakakihara worked as a press assistant on Barbara Boxer's 2010 Senate campaign and as deputy communications director for Joanna Rees for Mayor in 2011\. That same year he joined Palantir Technologies as a business development analyst. Over nearly 14 years at the company, he rose to finance chief of staff, working on Palantir's AI platforms, before leaving in 2025 to run for office. He departed citing concerns about AI-powered cybersecurity threats and his objections to the company's cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. > More [@EastBayCitizen](https://twitter.com/eastbaycitizen?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us): Union City councilman Scott Sakakihara is early frontrunner in 10th State Senate Dist primary. Possible issue: his past job w Palantir, a firm criticized by left. "He said he recently left Palantir b/c of its cooperation w [@ICEgov](https://twitter.com/ICEgov?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us)." [https://t.co/kKsuihNJgP](https://t.co/kKsuihNJgP?ref=ivn.us) > > — Carla ‘Bluechecked’ Marinucci (@cmarinucci) [January 19, 2026](https://twitter.com/cmarinucci/status/2013286121279472027?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Sakakihara's Palantir tenure drew pointed questions at a recent Alameda County Democratic Party event, where delegates raised concerns about the company's federal contracts and business ties to Israel. The local party had previously adopted a resolution describing Israel's military campaign in Gaza as genocide. Sakakihara addressed the issue directly, telling attendees he left because of Palantir's cooperation with federal immigration authorities and devoted much of his speaking time to explaining that decision. Sakakihara served on Union City's planning commission beginning in 2017, first as an alternate and later as a full member, before winning election to the City Council in 2022, representing District 4\. He is a member of the Union City Lions Club and Saint Paul United Methodist Church. He has served in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer since 2017\. "I've served in an intelligence role in the US Navy Reserve, which included leading an intelligence team supporting special operations for eight months in the Middle East in 2021," he has said. Sakakihara met his wife, Melinda, at Pioneer Elementary School in Union City when both were 6 years old. She teaches at Searles Elementary. They live on Regents Boulevard in Union City with their three young children. "Our two oldest attend the same public elementary school where Melinda and I first met as kids," he has said. "Even though my grandparents had to start back at the bottom after the war," he has said, "they created a better future for their families because of our diversity, opportunity, and resilience." Sakakihara leads the field in fundraising. Pre-primary reports show he raised $399,003 in total, with $299,000 from his personal coffers, and had $188,169 cash on hand as of April 18. "I have dedicated my life to service, as a US Navy Reserve officer, Union City Councilmember, and former Vice Mayor," he said. "I love the Bay Area, where I was born and raised. And as we raise our three kids here, I feel a strong sense of duty to my family, community, and state. We can't sit back when there are people living without shelter, neighbors who can't pay for groceries, can't afford to buy a home. When there are people who can't sleep because they don't know if they can give their kids a better life than they had. California can do better." "I was made in Union City," he said. "Everything I've achieved came from the opportunities this community gave me." ### **David Cohen | City Councilmember** Democrat [David Cohen](https://www.electdavidcohen.com/?ref=ivn.us) has [served](https://www.sanjosedistrict4.com/?ref=ivn.us) on the [San Jose City Council](https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/city-council?ref=ivn.us) since 2020\. Before that, he spent 14 years as an elected member of the [Berryessa Union School District](https://www.berryessa.k12.ca.us/?ref=ivn.us) board, serving from 2006 to 2020\. He is stressing his governing experience in this campaign. “Local government teaches you something important: policy isn’t abstract. It affects the street you live on, the school your kids attend, the commute you take to work, and whether your neighborhood feels safe and supported. That experience gives me a practical perspective that I’m ready to bring to Sacramento.” Cohen was born in La Jolla, California. He holds a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Cornell, earned in 1990, and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, completed in 1996\. He started his career as a process development engineer at Clorox before spending 21 years at Lam Research, a semiconductor equipment manufacturer. He rose to senior manager of the company's computational modeling group, where he oversaw computational fluid dynamics and plasma modeling teams. Cohen is an inventor on more than 10 patents. He filed his statement of intention on Jan. 30 and completed his nomination papers on March 6 in Santa Clara County. He resides in San Jose. Cohen raised $124,005 and had $90,182 on hand heading into the primary. He’s been endorsed by [an impressive number](https://www.electdavidcohen.com/supporters?ref=ivn.us) of current and former elected officials, including US Representatives Zoe Lofgren, Ro Khanna, Sam Liccardo, and California State Senators Josh Becker and Josh Newman. He has a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood. ### **Anne Kepner | College Trustee/Mother** Democrat [Anne Kepner](https://anneforsenate.com/?ref=ivn.us) (b. January 1969) is an attorney and elected member of the[ West Valley-Mission Community College District Board](https://www.wvm.edu/trustees/Pages/trustee3.aspx?ref=ivn.us), where she has served for more than a decade. Kepner earned her associate's degree from De Anza College, her bachelor's from San Jose State University, and her JD from UC Hastings College of the Law in 1995\. She was admitted to the California Bar that same year. She began practicing as local counsel for two Bay Area insurance companies, handling personal injury defense. She has been a partner at the law firm[ Needham Kepner & Fish](https://www.nkf-law.com/attorney-profiles/anne-j-kepner/?ref=ivn.us) since 2009. > *“I represent plaintiffs in serious personal injury and wrongful death cases, including bicycle, motorcycle, car and work-related accidents. I was raised in San Jose, and in my 25-year legal career, I have tried many cases to verdict, and have resolved hundreds of cases through arbitration and mediation.”* Earlier in her career, she worked as a field representative for Assemblymember Dominic Cortese. She has run for state office before. In the 2020 open-seat primary for the 25th Assembly District, Kepner outraised the rest of the field and drew independent expenditure support from labor and trial attorneys. She finished a close third in a nine-candidate primary, in which Alex Lee advanced with 15% of the vote. She and her husband, Tom, live in Santa Clara. They have three children. Kepner submitted her nomination papers on March 6 in Alameda County. She has raised $251,905, including $80,000 in candidate loans, with $86,877 remaining heading into the primary. She is third in terms of cash on hand, behind Sakakihara and Cohen. “As State Senator I’ll hold Big Corporations accountable when they harm seniors and children, and continue to expand skilled trades jobs, protect our public schools, and address housing affordability and homelessness,” she says on her website. > I’m Anne Kepner, and I’m running for State Senate because I’ll always put our families first—not big tech and corporations. [#AnneForSenate](https://twitter.com/hashtag/AnneForSenate?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) > > Join me at [https://t.co/cc6RjmKoxf](https://t.co/cc6RjmKoxf?ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/4CW7JmMg5X](https://t.co/4CW7JmMg5X?ref=ivn.us) > > — AnneForSenate (@anneforsenate) [April 30, 2026](https://twitter.com/anneforsenate/status/2049883403559043557?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council has spent $1,540 in support of her candidacy. JOBSPAC, a bipartisan employer coalition sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce, has spent $104,557 opposing her. ### **Carmen Montano | Mayor** Democrat Carmen Montano, the [mayor of Milpitas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W%5FYjdeZUlcQ&ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), filed a statement of intention with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC ID 1402795) on July 3, 2025, becoming the first candidate to enter the Senate race. In her announcement, Montano said, *“Our families deserve common-sense representation in Sacramento. Too much partisan politics are strangling progress in our state. We need strong leaders who can work with all legislators to find common ground and deliver solutions that truly serve our communities.”* In interviews, Montano has emphasized her belief that moderate voices are needed to bridge divides in Sacramento. *“I’m not really about the party, I’m about the people and the community,”* she told the *Oakland Tribune.* *“I feel that I could make a difference in people’s lives.”* She also said, *“People forget that they’re representing the people and not just representing the party.”* Montano brings more than 20 years of experience as an elected official to the race, having served as a Milpitas Unified School District Trustee, City Councilmember, Vice Mayor, and now Mayor. She was first elected to the Milpitas School Board in 2000, serving eight years, then to the Milpitas City Council for two nonconsecutive terms, before being elected Mayor in 2022. Montano is the [first woman to be elected mayor in Milpitas](https://milpitasbeat.com/carmen-montano-makes-history-by-becoming-first-woman-elected-as-mayor-of-milpitas/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io). She won re-election in 2024 in a competitive race with a crowded field of four candidates and is now [serving her second term](https://milpitasbeat.com/continuity-and-community-mayor-carmen-montano-shares-her-second-term-plans-for-milpitas/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), which expires at the end of 2026\. Her 2024 re-election goals focused on ensuring police and fire departments are fully equipped, beautifying Milpitas, alleviating traffic congestion, attracting high-tech businesses, and revitalizing Main Street. Born February 21, 1955, Montano has lived in Milpitas since 1964\. She is a third-generation Californian whose grandparents settled in the state in the early 1920s. Her parents were farm workers who later moved from the Central Valley to the Bay Area in search of better opportunities. Her father worked at General Motors in Fremont and became a proud UAW union member. Montano’s family eventually settled in Sunnyhills, one of the first planned integrated neighborhoods in the country, an experience she says shaped her lifelong commitment to diversity and inclusion. She attended Abel and Curtner Elementary Schools, Russell Middle School, Samuel Ayer High School, and Milpitas High School. Earlier, she attended Snow Elementary in Newark, where she was named Citizen of the Year, and was an active member of St. Edward’s Parish, where she made her First Holy Communion. A semi-retired teacher with 26 years of experience, Montano continues to contract with several school districts in Santa Clara County, including Milpitas Unified School District. She holds a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from San Jose State University and a California teaching credential, which she maintains as a substitute teacher. She taught elementary and middle school students in the Franklin-McKinley School District in San Jose for more than two decades. Montano often describes her philosophy of public service through the Rotary motto “Service Above Self.” She has served on multiple city commissions, including the Parks and Recreation Commission, Library Commission, and Planning Commission, and was elected to the Milpitas School Board before transitioning to city government. She is touting her accomplishments, which include attracting a [Rivian Electric-Vehicle distribution center to Milpitas](https://www.milpitas.gov/Archive.aspx?ADID=1391&ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) and voting to approve two 100-percent affordable housing projects. Montano also supported efforts that cut the city’s five-year deficit by 43 percent. In October 2022, *The Mercury News* reported that the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) opened an investigation into a 2019 trip to China taken by then-Vice Mayor Montano. The probe centered on a $3,600 gift Montano reported receiving for an “educational and cultural exchange” and whether it complied with the state’s $520 gift cap for local officials. The complaint, filed by a Milpitas resident, alleged that the trip may have involved activities related to a trade fair rather than education. Montano said she traveled to observe new teaching strategies for her education business, Community Classrooms, and that she toured a middle school in Henan Province. In 2023, former Milpitas City Manager [Steve McHarris filed a wrongful termination lawsuit](https://milpitasbeat.com/former-city-manager-steve-mcharris-versus-the-city-of-milpitas-legal-battle-continues-as-costs-escalate/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) against the city, alleging intimidation and unethical conduct by several city officials, including Mayor Montano, Vice Mayor Evelyn Chua, and former Mayor Rich Tran. The City of Milpitas has denied any wrongdoing and has spent thousands of dollars on its own internal investigation and related legal costs. In September 2025, Montano joined the Milpitas City Council in voting to approve a pay raise for the mayor and councilmembers. The increase, the first in more than a decade, will more than double council salaries but cannot take effect until after the November 2026 election under state rules. The ordinance raises council pay from about $10,800 to more than $24,000 annually, with the mayor’s salary increasing from $13,500 to about $29,000\. *“It’s long overdue,”* Montano said in an interview with the [Mercury News](https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/18/milpitas-city-council-double-pay-raise/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io). *“We work hard and we address their emails and we’re out there in the community. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a labor of love.”* As a [State Senate candidate](https://www.carmenforsenate.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), she has pledged to emphasize public safety, affordable housing, K-12 education, job creation, and insurance reform, including proposals to allow home insurance premiums to qualify as tax deductions. She has also made modernizing mental health treatment facilities, supporting small businesses, and upholding law and order central to her campaign platform. She said she would prioritize accountability for those who commit crimes, including increased funding for Proposition 36 to expand access to substance abuse treatment, and cited smash-and-grab thefts as an ongoing public safety concern. She also emphasized balanced housing policies, improving literacy and academic outcomes, and making home insurance more affordable. > *“Right now, our two-party system is broken,”* Montano said. *“Both parties are often too extreme or out of touch with everyday needs. The middle class is struggling more than ever. We need leaders willing to work in the middle to find solutions that benefit everyone.”* *“I will work every day,”* she added, *“to bring results that benefit society as a whole.”* [Montano’s](https://www.facebook.com/CarmenMontanoMilpitas/) passion for public service traces back to the early 1990s when she noticed that the Sunnyhills neighborhood, where she grew up, was not being properly maintained. She co-founded the Sunnyhills Improvement Association (now the [Sunnyhills Neighborhood Association](https://sunnyhillsneighborhood.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)) with community activist Bob Pecot to beautify and improve the area. Her success with that effort led to her continued involvement in city affairs and her eventual transition into teaching, which she says reflects her belief in “improving the lives of children and families.” Montano reported $32,400 in contributions. ### **Raymond Liu | Fremont City Councilman** Democrat Raymond Liu (b. Oct. 16, 1997) became the youngest person ever elected to the Fremont City Council when he took office in 2024\. He worked as a software engineer for Sam's Club before entering the race. He earned an associate's degree from Ohlone College in 2017 and a bachelor's degree in computer science from UC Davis in 2019\. He resides in Fremont. This is not Liu's first run at SD10\. He entered the 2022 primary, raised no money and placed fifth in a six-candidate field with 4.9% of the vote. In this cycle, he raised $25,020 and had $3,770 remaining heading into the primary. ### **Linda Price | Businesswoman** On the Republican side, Linda Price, a management trainer and small business executive, filed with the FPPC (ID 1463017) on October 20, 2025. Price was born on April 13, 1946, and lives in Sunnyvale. She holds an associate’s degree from Foothill-De Anza Community College (1974), a bachelor’s in business from the University of San Francisco (1976), and a master’s in business and management from Grambling State University (1981). She also earned a teaching credential in secondary education from UCSC-Berkeley. Price serves as vocational service director for [Rotary International District 5170](https://www.rotarydistrict5170.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), has taught at eight different colleges, and is the CEO of Professional Dynamics, a management training firm. She previously ran unsuccessfully for the Fremont Union High School District Board in 2022, [placing fourth](https://ballotpedia.org/Linda%5FPrice?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) in a five-candidate race. ## **Pre-Primary Fundraising** | Candidate | Total Raised | Self-Funded | Cash on Hand (4/18) | | ---------------- | ---------------------------- | --------------- | ------------------- | | Scott Sakakihara | $399,003 | $299,000 | $188,169 | | Anne Kepner | $251,905 | $80,000 (loans) | $86,877 | | David Cohen | $124,005 | — | $90,182 | | Carmen Montano | $32,400 (late contributions) | — | Not reported | | Raymond Liu | $25,020 | — | $3,770 | ## **Independent Expenditures** Total independent expenditures in the SD10 primary: **$106,097**. All IE activity in the race is focused on a single candidate, Anne Kepner. | Committee | Amount | Purpose | | ----------------------------------------------------- | -------- | ----------------- | | JOBSPAC (sponsored by California Chamber of Commerce) | $104,557 | Opposing Kepner | | South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council | $1,540 | Supporting Kepner | ## **About the 2026 California Nonpartisan Top Two Primary** Under California's nonpartisan Top Two primary system, all voters and candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party. The top two vote-getters advance to the November general election. With five Democrats and one Republican on the ballot, and nearly three in 10 registered voters belonging to No Party Preference, independent voters are positioned to play a decisive role in determining which two candidates advance. All active registered voters in California will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. County election offices will begin mailing ballots by today, May 4\. Ballot drop-off locations open May 5\. Vote centers open for early in-person voting in Voter's Choice Act counties beginning May 23\. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by June 9. ### Governor Moore: Real Nonpartisan Reform is Making Changes When It's Not Convenient for Your Party URL: https://ivn.us/governor-moore-real-nonpartisan-reform-is-making-changes-when-its-not-convenient-for-your-party-2026-05-04/ Last updated: 2026-05-04T14:31:42.000Z On Bill Maher’s HBO show last week, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore took aim at closed primary systems, saying the process “has run its course” and noted that the fastest growing segment of the US electorate are independent voters. “Here’s the problem. Independents cannot vote until November,” he said. He added that because of the mid-cycle gerrymandering happening across the country, 92% of elections are not competitive in 2026\. This means independents are barred from participating in the most meaningful taxpayer-funded contests. Moore’s remarks were praised by primary reform advocates. “Governor Moore said the right thing. Now Maryland has an opportunity to do the right thing,” said former Maryland Lt. Governor Boyd K. Rutherford in a statement. > *“Nearly one million Marylanders are shut out from voting despite the express language of the Maryland Constitution and the Declaration of Rights. That is not a partisan issue. It is an issue of voting rights.”* Rutherford works as legal counsel at Davis, Agnor, Rapaport & Skalny, LLC, (DARS) which [filed a lawsuit in Maryland](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) in conjunction with the Open Primaries Education Fund (OPEF) challenging Maryland’s use of closed primaries. DARS filed the lawsuit on behalf of 5 unaffiliated voters. Their complaint alleges that Maryland’s closed primary system violates Article 1, Section 1 of the Maryland Constitution by denying them and other independent voters their fundamental right to vote in elections they fund. Now, DARS and OPEF are calling on Moore to help them resolve this dispute. They have suggested some immediate remedies like an executive order that prohibits the use of state funds for primary elections that deny independent voters their right to participate. “Governor Moore’s comments show that he understands the problem,” said Jeremy Gruber, senior vice president of Open Primaries. “The next step is to stop defending that problem in court and work with us to find a resolution that allows all Maryland voters to vote.” Taking the governor's words at face value, it is not unreasonable to assume it is an endorsement of open primary reform. After all, he called closed primaries a “system where more and more people are disenfranchised” and said the idea of closed primaries “has to be re-evaluated.” “Because if you believe in democracy then let people's voices be heard,” he remarked. Except, according to Moore’s office, he does not advocate for changing his state’s primary rules. “The governor supports the state's current closed primary system and believes in working within it to expand participation,” [a spokesperson for his office said](https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/governor-wes-moore-closed-primary-maryland-open-system-election-voters?ref=ivn.us). The only way to expand participation in a closed primary system is to adopt open primary rules, even if it is a semi-open system that allows independent voters to pick a party ballot. Prior to his appearance on Maher’s show, Moore had not been widely identified as an open primary supporter. Neither he nor his office have made statements calling for Maryland to change its primary rules. If sincere, his comments would mark a notable rhetorical shift – or at least an expression of sympathy for millions of disenfranchised independent voters. But since his office quickly walked back his words, voters are left with a mixed message. “I think it was more for show than for actual sincerity,” remarked political analyst [John Dedie](https://statepolitics.substack.com/). > *“I think the reason he floated it out there is...you're trying to reach moderate middle voters and a lot of voters who are looking at candidates might see an idea like that and say 'that's a good idea'...Moore's appealing now.”* Moore caught the attention of reformers. He has gained national prominence over the last few years. Odds are high that he will run for president in 2028\. But more importantly, he is the governor of a closed primary state. Surely, this means he will help change the rules in Maryland. Unless it isn’t politically convenient for him to do so. Closed primaries are a problem – just in other states. The same with gerrymandering. Condemn it when it is the “other side.” Encourage it when it is his. Notably, Moore called on Maryland to redraw its congressional districts after Prop 50 passed in California. And yet, he clearly sees the problem. The combination of closed primaries and partisan gerrymandering has disenfranchised millions. It has left independent voters without a voice, without representation, and wanting change. It has created incentives for candidates to appeal only to the most partisan and ideological extremes because they know they only need to win a low-turnout partisan primary. This process is convenient for Democrats in Maryland, just as it is convenient for Republicans in a state like Florida. And while Moore’s office was quick to clarify that the governor did not support open primaries in Maryland, [Democrats in Florida have floated the idea](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGqTw6o%5FWOI&ref=ivn.us). Imagine that. Open primaries in states in the South have become inconvenient for Republicans which is why GOP leaders now seek to close them. The same can be said of Democratic leaders in California. Both spin a narrative of the other side manipulating election outcomes to scare and enrage voters. [Embrace the Jungle: Why California’s “Jungle Primary” Is Actually 115 Years of Reform Against Party MachinesThe 115-year-old election system that Fox News and Sacramento operatives from both major parties are calling chaotic was specifically designed to stop the kind of party control they’re now trying to claw back![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-jungle-primary-top-two-nonpartisan-election.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/embrace-the-jungle-why-californias-jungle-primary-is-actually-115-years-of-reform-against-party-machines-2026-05-01) And while some will say, “Don’t ‘both sides’ the election issue,” it is a bipartisan problem. Was Wes Moore being sincere on Bill Maher’s show or was he pandering? It is clear he understands the systemic problems at root in US elections. But will he back up his words or is he merely using the disenfranchisement of independent voters to boost his own ambitions? ### Embrace the Jungle: Why California's "Jungle Primary" Is Actually 115 Years of Reform Against Party Machines URL: https://ivn.us/embrace-the-jungle-why-californias-jungle-primary-is-actually-115-years-of-reform-against-party-machines-2026-05-01/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T15:49:09.000Z In California, every candidate for governor, the Senate, the Assembly, and most local offices runs on the same primary ballot, regardless of party. Voters can pick anyone. The top two finishers advance to November. Critics call this a "[jungle primary](https://www.dailynews.com/2026/04/28/california-jungle-primary-how-it-works/?ref=ivn.us).” We call it democracy. Right now, the naysayers referring to "Top Two" as a “jungle primary” are pushing that pejorative term even more loudly than usual. [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/01/california-democrats-republicans-governor?ref=ivn.us) reports that the chair of the California Democratic Party says he wants to get rid of the Top Two primary altogether, calling it a failure. *“The current system we have does not work,” Rusty Hicks said in an interview. “It needs to be revised or repealed.”* > The Guardian: The chair of the California Democratic party says he wants to get rid of the state’s idiosyncratic “jungle primary”, calling it a failure that risks pitting a crowded field of Democratic candidates against each other to the point where a Republican can be elected… > > — Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) [May 1, 2026](https://twitter.com/PollTracker2024/status/2050210670029713737?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/another-democrat-exits-californias-crowded-gubernatorial-race-weeks-june-2-primary-election?ref=ivn.us) has also been using the pejorative term to describe the primary. Operatives from the two major parties that disagree on almost everything else seem to have aligned on the same piece of vocabulary, and their goal is exactly the same. They want to manipulate voters into believing California's nonpartisan election system is broken, so they can dismantle it and close the primaries to everyone but partisans. The honest answer is to acknowledge that yes, it is a jungle out there. But a jungle is the only place where every animal is welcome, and where there is a competition for survival. The alternative to a jungle primary is a zoo, where partisan powerbrokers and political operatives try to put voters in cages. In closed primary elections, these powerbrokers lock the door on independent voters. We call that a taxpayer-funded zoo, with private zookeepers. California has been at the leading edge of individual voter rights for 115 years, for a reason. You could say it’s in our political DNA. In 1911, under [Governor Hiram Johnson](https://governors.library.ca.gov/23-hjohnson.html?ref=ivn.us), voters adopted a sweeping package of[ Progressive Era reforms](https://nerd.wwnorton.com/ebooks/epub/govcali9/EPUB/content/2.2-chapter02.xhtml?ref=ivn.us) designed to break the Southern Pacific Railroad and the kind of partisan monopolies that had stifled political competition and taken over New York under [Tammany Hall](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tammany-Hall?ref=ivn.us), Chicago under the [Cook County organization](http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/774.html?ref=ivn.us), and Jersey City under the [Hague machine](https://www.americanheritage.com/political-machine-ii-case-history-i-am-law?ref=ivn.us). That same year, California forged a different path, establishing direct primaries and nonpartisan structures for local, judicial, and school elections, putting power back into the hands of its voters. Then, in 1989, the Supreme Court in[ *Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/489/214/?ref=ivn.us) struck down California's prohibition on party endorsements in partisan primary elections. That ruling let organized party influence creep back into the local elections that the 1911 reformers had cleaned up. *Editor's Note: This piece was updated on 5/11 to correct an error about Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee. A special thanks to Richard Winger of Ballot Access News for sending the correction.* In 1996, California voters tried again. They passed Proposition 198, which created a "blanket primary" letting any voter participate in any party's primary regardless of registration. This time, BOTH major parties teamed up to sue, joined by the Libertarian and Peace and Freedom parties. In[ *California Democratic Party v. Jones*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/567/?ref=ivn.us), the Supreme Court struck down the law in 2000 in a 7-2 decision because it forced parties to allow non-members to pick their nominees. But Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, did more than reject Prop 198\. He laid out a viable constitutional alternative in the same opinion: namely a "nonpartisan blanket primary" in which voters do not select any party's nominee but simply choose the top two finishers, regardless of political party. Ten years later, California voters took Justice Scalia at his word and passed Proposition 14 (Nonpartisan Top-Two Primaries). The nonpartisan primary was approved by California voters in 2010, despite opposition from both major political parties. It was the next step in restoring the nonpartisan structure statewide. Nevertheless, the same forces that lost in 1911 and 2010 are now using the term "jungle primary" to try and set up a return to the Tammany Hall era. The current [fear narrative](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/04/california-governor-campaign-swalwell/686844/?ref=ivn.us) is that [California's fragmented Democratic field will let two Republicans advance](https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/05/politics/california-governor-election-democrats-analysis?ref=ivn.us) to November in the governor's race. The polling driving that story came from a[ survey commissioned by the California Democratic Party](https://cadem.org/cadem-chair-rusty-hicks-releases-new-california-voter-index-poll-results/?ref=ivn.us) itself and released by the party chair. CalMatters[ reported](https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/04/california-democrats-governor-leadership/?ref=ivn.us) that Chair Hicks has relied on party-commissioned polls to pressure candidates out of the race. The math in no way justifies the fear. The most recent nonpartisan[ Independent Voter Project poll](https://ivn.us/posts/breaking-xavier-becerra-bolts-into-first-place-in-ivn-california-governor-poll-2026-04-20), screened against verified past voting behavior rather than self-reported intent, shows Xavier Becerra leading at 23%, Steve Hilton at 19.7%, and Chad Bianco at 16.7%. Republican voters have, for the most part, already made up their minds. Democratic and independent voters, who make up the overwhelming share of the undecided pool, are still choosing among the Democrats. As IVN[ reported](https://ivn.us/posts/ivp-california-governor-poll-sparks-reddit-debate-on-ranked-choice-voting-2026-04-23), Bianco and Hilton have likely hit their support ceilings. And when Democratic candidates drop out, like Eric Swalwell and Betty Yee just did, our polling shows that their voters move to other Democrats, not to Bianco or Hilton. ***Yes, a two-Republican runoff is mathematically possible, but the probability of it actually happening is close to nil.*** But fear drives attention and fundraising, which is why you continue to hear the partisan Democrats like Hicks say that two Republicans could block any Democratic candidate from making it to the Top 2. The reason both parties keep coming back to this fight is not [chaos](https://www.kqed.org/news/12081726/candidates-look-to-distinguish-themselves-at-chaotic-governors-debate?ref=ivn.us). It is control. Independent and No Party Preference voters now make up more than a fourth of California's electorate, and that share is growing by the day. They are the largest bloc neither party can direct. In a closed primary, like the one now being championed by Hicks, they would be completely locked out. In a nonpartisan Top Two, they are the deciders. A jungle is where every animal is welcome. A zoo is where the dominant species holds the keys. We say embrace the jungle. Let every voter run free. ### California Governor Debate BRUTAL Reaction: "Playing Their Cartoon Selves" URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/california-governor-debate-brutal-reaction-playing-their-cartoon-selves-2026-04-30/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:33:53.000Z Cara McCormick sits down with former California state senator Steve Peace - author of the Top Two primary law - to react to the California governor's race debate. They unpack the most memorable moments (Becerra's "Steve Hilton's daddy" line, Hilton waving the insurance statute at Becerra on stage, Katie Porter catching Tom Steyer on his own contradiction), why the moderators' yes-or-no format is killing real debate, and why Peace says, "there's no longer a constituency for governance." From there, the conversation traces a pattern Peace has watched play out for 30 years - the same playbook that wrecked California's insurance market and energy market is now hitting housing - and ends on why Prop 50, the "jungle primary" smear campaign, and the death of citizen government all connect back to one thing: partisan primaries. ***This episode is sponsored by the*** [***Independent Voter Project***](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) ***and produced by*** [***Olas Media***](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)***. Listen on*** [***Spotify***](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) ***or*** [***Apple Podcasts***](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)***.*** ## Episode Highlights In this must-listen episode of the Independent Voter Podcast, Cara Brown McCormick has a one-on-one conversation with former California State Senator and Independent Voter Project Co-Founder Steve Peace to break down what happened in the California governor’s debate. They also dive into political polarization and what’s really driving voter disengagement in 2026. With 1-in-4 California voters still undecided heading into the election cycle, the conversation zeroes in on why hyper-partisan rhetoric and toxic political discourse are fueling a systemic breakdown in American democracy. Peace argues that neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party is focused on persuasion or governance. Instead, both sides are laser-focused on base mobilization and fear-driven narratives amplified by social media algorithms and a 24/7 news cycle. The duo digs deep into California's affordability crisis, housing costs, skyrocketing homeowners' insurance rates, and the state's regulatory environment, They connect these kitchen-table economic issues to decades of broken policy decisions driven by both political parties, special interests, and a ballot initiative process increasingly hijacked by big money. Peace calls out the dangers of unregulated capitalism on one extreme and unchecked government overreach on the other. He warns that without structural electoral reform – including the abolition of closed partisan primaries in favor of open Top Four or Top Five "more choice" voting systems — voters will continue to be offered only the most extreme candidates chosen by a sliver of the electorate. The discussion also touches on wealth inequality, the gambling industry's explosive growth, the gig economy, and the urgent need for a conversation about a four-day workweek. At its core, this episode is a rallying cry for independent voters, electoral reform advocates, and anyone frustrated with the two-party duopoly. Peace and McCormick explore how gerrymandering, voter suppression through rigged filing periods, and the professionalization of political campaigns have shut everyday citizens out of the democratic process. They champion the Independent Voter Project's mission: empowering voters – not party machines – to evaluate candidates on merit, cut through partisan noise, and rebuild civic trust from the ground up. If you're searching for a political podcast that goes beyond left vs. right and tackles real systemic reform, citizen empowerment, and the future of democracy in a transparent internet age, this episode is essential listening. ### San Quentin’s New Bet on Rehabilitation: Podcasts, Journalism, and Second Chances URL: https://ivn.us/san-quentins-new-bet-on-rehabilitation-podcasts-journalism-and-second-chances-2026-04-30/ Last updated: 2026-04-30T20:08:19.000Z [California's San Quentin Rehabilitation Center](https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/sqrc/?ref=ivn.us) officially opened a new [Media Center](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueB2axN48KY&ref=ivn.us) this month, placing microphones, cameras, and printing equipment into the hands of incarcerated residents and training them to use them. The Media Center, housed inside the just-completed [Learning Center](https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/news/2026/02/20/cdcr-announces-the-completion-of-san-quentin-learning-center/?ref=ivn.us), is anchored by two programs: a podcast called *Uncuffed* and the long-running *San Quentin News* newspaper. > *“This state prison has allowed incarcerated people to seize control of their own narratives and tell our own stories, and it's been one of the most life-changing, positive, impactful things I've ever seen in my life,” explained* [*Rahsaan “New York” Thomas*](https://www.rahsaannewyorkthomas.com/?ref=ivn.us)*. “Every prison should have a media center.”* ## **A Podcast Born Behind Bars** *Uncuffed* is the first radio podcast in California produced entirely by people serving prison sentences. It has won many accolades, including the [Society of Professional Journalists](https://www.spj.org/?ref=ivn.us) Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Radio Journalism in 2023 and Best Interview Podcast of 2024 in the Public Media Journalism Awards. Working journalists teach the classes, which meet weekly and cover everything from audio storytelling to video production. Participants can earn a certificate. All of the recording equipment, software, and computers they use are donated. The podcast has been a model for similar podcasts at Solano and the California Institution for Women. ## **A Newsroom on the Third Floor** On the third floor of the new Media Center, [*San Quentin News*](https://sanquentinnews.com/?ref=ivn.us) continues a tradition of incarcerated journalism. The newspaper is produced by a staff of residents working alongside the [Pollen Initiative](https://polleninitiative.org/?ref=ivn.us), a nonprofit that trains people in prisons to become journalists and media professionals. “Most of us want to do something positive for the community. What people don’t realize is that journalism is really, really good for rehabilitation; it helps bring you out of your shell of being antisocial. It helps rebuild your credibility as a person. It helps you develop empathy as a person,” said Steve Brooks of San Quentin News. “They think they’re just learning how to write a news story, but it’s really a lot more that goes into it than that. You’re starting to become part of society again. You’re starting to learn how to be reintegrated back into society.” Jesse Vasquez, Pollen Initiative's executive director and a formerly incarcerated person himself, spoke at the opening of the Media Center about the newspaper's influence on his own experience behind bars: > *"While I was incarcerated, I couldn't grasp the bigger picture of corrections and rehabilitation until I read San Quentin News. It brought clarity about the programs, policy changes, and opportunities available to help me make better decisions. That is why this historic moment and its potential are impactful. It's a tangible investment.”* ## **California’s Counting on Rehabilitation** The Media Center is part of a larger initiative, branded by Governor Gavin Newsom's administration as the "[California Model](https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/the-california-model/?ref=ivn.us)," which draws on international best practices emphasizing rehabilitative programming, staff wellness, and what corrections officials call "dynamic security." State officials point to federal research showing that participants in correctional education programs are [43 percent less likely to return to prison](https://www.rand.org/education-employment-infrastructure/projects/correctional-education/policy-impact.html?ref=ivn.us), and that every dollar spent on rehabilitation yields roughly $4 in savings from reduced reincarceration. > *“Rehabilitation and public safety go hand in hand — and that hope is a powerful tool for safer communities,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at the opening of the Learning Center in February.* The Media Center will also house a television studio for producing self-help and educational programming, including content on gang awareness, suicide prevention, substance abuse, and youth diversion. Crime rates are declining across California's largest cities. Violent crime fell 12 percent in 2025 compared to the prior year, with homicides and robberies each dropping by double digits. Whether the Media Center's offering of journalism and podcast training can scale to meaningfully reduce recidivism statewide remains to be seen. But for the residents who are now learning to cut audio, frame a shot, or report a news story, it represents something corrections systems have not always offered: a marketable skill and an outlet for self-expression. ### Independent Voter Project Talks Nevada, Nonpartisan Primaries, and Voter Choice on ‘775 Alive’ URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/independent-voter-project-talks-nevada-nonpartisan-primaries-and-voter-choice-on-775-alive-2026-04-29/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:35:25.000Z Chad Peace of the Independent Voter Project sat down this week with Crystal Newton and Scott Gavorsky on their podcast, [775 Alive](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/775-alive/id1806003934?ref=ivn.us), a Nevada-based show that takes the kind of local civic questions most political media glosses over and really digs into them. Crystal and Scott aren't looking for talking points. They're looking for answers, and with nonpartisan voter registration on the rise across Nevada, they wanted to understand what a shift to a nonpartisan primary system would mean for the state and its voters. That's where Chad came in. The conversation covered the motivations behind nonpartisan primary reform, how the rights of political parties stack up against the rights of individual voters, examples of open primary and ranked choice systems from around the country, and what Nevada might learn from California's experience. [Independent Voter Project Brings Election Reform Conversation to “Beyond the Campaign”The Independent Voter Project sat down this week with Michelle Glogovac on her podcast Beyond the Campaign, a show that has built a following by doing something most political media doesn’t: skipping the talking points and focusing on the people and ideas behind public life.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsSusan von Seggern![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/independent-voter-project-california-nonpartisan-primary-ranked-choice-voting-podcast.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/independent-voter-project-brings-election-reform-conversation-to-beyond-the-campaign-2026-04-23) Chad developed the voter outreach strategy for Proposition 14 in 2010, the initiative that created California's current nonpartisan Top Two primary system, so he wasn't speaking in abstractions. 775 Alive's audience is Nevada-first. They're asking because they live with the consequences of how their elections are run — not because they're loyal to a party or a cause. [A Host of Media and Podcasters Call on Independent Voter ProjectIVP has been at the center of a recent wave of coverage that spans mainstream regional papers, national podcasts, and more to answer a vital question: If nearly half of all Americans reject the two-party label, why does the entire political system still operate as if they don’t exist?![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsSusan von Seggern![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/media-podcasters-turn-to-independent-voter-project.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/a-host-of-media-and-podcasters-call-on-independent-voter-project-2026-04-21) The episode is available on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep044-nonpartisan-primaries-for-nevada-guest-chad-peace/id1806003934?i=1000763803123&ref=ivn.us), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2dZmfBpUSLmAKTcvDw8kdp?ref=ivn.us), [iHeart](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1333-775-alive-271637341/?ref=ivn.us), and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EEbK3OYRUk&ref=ivn.us). Listen below. ### DC Independent Voters Are Pissed City Officials Have Denied Them Open Primaries URL: https://ivn.us/dc-independent-voters-are-pissed-city-officials-have-denied-them-open-primaries-2026-04-29/ Last updated: 2026-04-29T17:53:51.000Z Primary elections in Washington, DC, are coming up in June. However, while three-quarters of the city’s electorate voted for them to be open to independent voters, they won’t be – because city officials refuse to make the switch from a closed partisan system. And independent voters in DC are understandably upset. Tanya Hutchins, who has worked in all areas of multimedia, posted a video on her social media accounts expressing frustration with the DC City Council. “I’m a DC voter who is pissed off that Council will not fully fund Initiative 83,” she says in the video. > *“The issue passed last year with nearly 75%. It approved ranked choice voting, but it also approved allowing independents like me to vote in primaries.”* [DC Dems to Independent Voters: You Don’t MatterThe DC City Council had one final opportunity to fund a provision approved by 73% of city voters in November that would open primary elections to 83,000+ independent voters – and the Democratic-controlled body elected instead not to honor the will of voters.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/andy-feliciotti-isg8AL7-6uk-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/dc-dems-independent-voters-you-dont-matter-2025-07-29) As Hutchins noted, Initiative 83 was approved by voters in 2024 with 73% of the vote. The citizen-driven measure called for open primaries that allow independent voters to participate in critical taxpayer-funded elections and the use of ranked choice voting in all city elections. Throughout the course of the election and after, Initiative 83 was the subject of controversy: - The Democratic Party sued to block it. - Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser kept it off her initial FY2026 proposed budget. - DC city council members said its implementation should be debated after voters made their desires clear. In July 2025, the city council [voted 8-4 to fund the ranked choice voting portion of Initiative 83](https://ivn.us/posts/dc-democrats-drag-their-feet-give-voters-reforms-they-voted-2025-07-15), but did not include open primaries. Independent voters remain locked out of elections that decide most contests in a heavily Democratic city. “Council says they have to print more ballots and educational materials,” says Hutchins, referring to claims of added costs to elections. In reality, the implementation of open primaries would account for 0.007% of the city’s multi‑billion-dollar budget. The actions by the DC City Council have even gotten the Washington Post to pen an editorial asking, "[Why are DC Democrats so afraid of independent voters?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/04/17/dc-open-primaries-remain-unfunded-what-are-democrats-afraid/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)" There is a DC City Council meeting scheduled for May 1\. Hutchins encourages independent voters to go to the hearing and demand their right to vote. “I sent in my written testimony, basically saying, ‘Let independents vote!’" ### The Most Gerrymandered District in California Could Actually Be Decided by Independent Voters URL: https://ivn.us/the-most-gerrymandered-district-in-california-could-actually-be-decided-by-independent-voters-2026-04-29/ Last updated: 2026-04-29T16:32:55.000Z *After Proposition 50’s passage,* California's 2nd Congressional District may be the most gerrymandered district in America. It stretches from the Oregon border to the Nevada border and spans nine (count them, nine!) counties, snaking up the Pacific coast from Marin County to Del Norte County, then cutting east along the Oregon line all the way to Modoc County in the high desert. Here is what the map looks like (source: Ballotpedia): ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/04/CA-2nd-congressional-district.jpg) “It kind of looks like an elephant head with a trunk running down the coast,” says Rose Penelope Yee, a progressive Democrat running for the newly drawn seat. The new California CD2 includes all of Marin (35% of registered voters), Shasta (24%), Humboldt (17%), Siskiyou (6%), Mendocino (4%), Del Norte (3%), Trinity (2%), and Modoc (1%), along with parts of Sonoma (9%). Major population centers include Redding (12% of voters), San Rafael and Novato (7% each), Petaluma (3%), and Eureka (3%). California uses a nonpartisan Top Two open primary, in which all candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party. The election is on June 2\. The top two vote-getters advance to the November general election, no matter their affiliation. Proposition 50 gave California Democrats the authority to redraw congressional lines. The new map was designed to give Democrats 5 additional seats in Congress (or 92% of the state's congressional delegation). But the redrawing also reshuffled the electorate within individual districts, making some previously safe Democratic seats slightly less predictable. Nearly 100,000 No Party Preference voters are now in the redrawn 2nd District; it remains to be seen whether an NPP candidate could break into the top two for the first time. ## **The District After Prop 50** The new boundaries absorbed Shasta and Modoc counties from the neighboring 1st District, fundamentally altering the district's political character. Under the old lines, 69.53% of the district's voters came from the old 2nd District, which carried a D+40.33 advantage. The remaining 30.42% came from the old 1st District, which carried an R+29.86 advantage. That merger collapsed the overall Democratic advantage from D+35.3 to D+16.8 under the new lines, a shift of nearly 19 points. Under the old boundaries, the Democratic registration advantage had grown steadily for more than a decade, from D+27.4 in 2012 to a peak of D+36.6 in 2022, while Republican registration fell from 22% to 18.2%. No Party Preference registration reached a high of 24.8% in 2018 before gradually declining to 18.7% by the 2024 general election cycle. Under the new post-Proposition 50 lines, the district has 491,244 registered voters. Democrats account for 44.6%, Republicans 27.9% and No Party Preference voters 19.1%, representing 93,585 registered voters with no party affiliation. Despite the shift, the district remains safely Democratic in most election scenarios. No Party Preference voters are present in significant numbers across every county, from 32,684 in Marin to 20,620 in Shasta to 16,737 in Humboldt, totaling 93,585 district-wide. ## **The 2024 Result, Under the Old Lines** In 2024, Democrat Rep. Jared Huffman won reelection with 73.78% of the vote against Republican Chris Coulombe, receiving 197,597 votes to Coulombe's 70,232\. That same year, Kamala Harris carried the district over Donald Trump, 60.76% to 36.10%, and Adam Schiff won the U.S. Senate race, 60.71% to 39.29%, over Steve Garvey. ## **The 2026 Field** Huffman is seeking a seventh term. His most notable challenger is Nicolette Hahn Niman, a No Party Preference candidate, attorney, and rancher whose candidacy is at least partially rooted in a direct dispute with Huffman over the fate of ranching families within Point Reyes National Seashore. Huffman faces five other challengers: one additional NPP candidate and four Republicans. Through March 31, 2026, Huffman reported $1,045,602 cash on hand, having raised $698,455 and spent $637,495 for the cycle. Hahn Niman is the best-funded challenger ## **The Candidates** [**JARED HUFFMAN**](https://www.jaredhuffman.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(DEMOCRAT)** (b. 2/18/64) has represented the North Coast area since 2012, when he won the seat after three terms in the state Assembly. Huffman is a Vice-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and serves as co-Chair of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, co-founded with Rep. Jamie Raskin in 2018 “to protect separation of church and state, defend religious freedom, and promote public policies based on reason, science, and moral values.” Elected to the Assembly in 2006, Huffman chaired the Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee. Before his time in the Legislature, he served on the Marin Municipal Water District board, his first elected office, and worked as a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Huffman holds a bachelor's degree from UCSB and a law degree from Boston College of Law. He and his wife, a schoolteacher, live in San Rafael with their children. In his candidate statement, Huffman frames the race around national themes, citing rising costs of living, threatened cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, and what he describes as the "lawless brutality of ICE." He emphasizes his role as ranking member of the [House Natural Resources Committee](https://naturalresources.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us), where he says he is working to block offshore drilling and strengthen wildfire resilience. Huffman points to local results he has delivered to the district, including funding for health clinics, affordable housing, and water infrastructure. He also touts bipartisan work on special education funding and congressional stock trading reform, although the latter has not passed Congress despite broad public support. Huffman’s campaign stresses that he’s been a “fierce defender of democracy and the rule of law.” > *“He was one of the first and most active members advocating for Donald Trump’s impeachment in both 2019 and 2021\. In 2024, he led congressional efforts to sound the alarm about Trump’s Project 2025 as a grave threat to democracy and fundamental rights, founding the congressional Stop Project 2025 Task Force.”* The California Democratic Party has endorsed Huffman. [**NICOLETTE HAHN NIMAN**](https://nicoletteforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(NO PARTY PREFERENCE)** is an author, attorney, and rancher based in Bolinas, where she and her husband, Bill Niman, who built one of the country's best-known humane ranching businesses, graze cattle on a 575-acre ranch within the [Point Reyes National Seashore](https://www.nps.gov/pore/?ref=ivn.us). She spent years as a senior attorney for the [Waterkeeper Alliance](https://waterkeeper.org/?ref=ivn.us), litigating against industrial livestock operations that pollute rivers and streams, before transitioning to writing and advocacy focused on sustainable, pasture-based farming. Hahn Niman has served on the [Bolinas-Stinson Union School District](https://www.bolinas-stinson.org/?ref=ivn.us) board for the past five years. Earlier in her career, she served two terms on the Kalamazoo City Commission in Michigan, where she was raised by two college professors. In her candidate statement, Hahn Niman argues the district needs an independent voice willing to measure every vote by a single standard: "Does this help the people of my district?" “I’m running as an independent because I’ve been an independent my entire life,” she says in a recent ad. In an interview on KWMR, Niman describes 23 years of ranching in Marin, environmental legal work, community coaching, church leadership, and school board service as the foundation of a candidacy rooted in local engagement rather than partisan positioning. In her statement of candidacy, she said Californians should be able to "afford to live, work, attend school, and get medical care in their local communities" and that the district's farmers, fisherfolk, and ranchers should be central to a healthy regional food system. Hahn Niman told KWMR, a community radio station in Pt. Reyes Station, she’s never joined a political party. > *"I never joined a political party in part because I've always had a lot of reservations about the political parties and sort of having some large group of people telling me what I think about something or how I'm supposed to vote or feel about something. It's not how I work."* As an independent, she says she wants to "try very hard to represent everyone in this district of every political stripe and demographic." She intends to "work in Washington as someone who's a bridge between the different political camps," pointing to her work with farmers and ranchers as preparation. "We work with farmers and ranchers all over the place," she said. "Many are very conservative and very liberal and everything in between. I have a very deep respect for people regardless of their political party." Regarding healthcare, Hahn Niman describes the current system as broken, a view shaped by conversations with her two sisters, both physicians. As ranchers, she and her husband pay for their family’s health insurance out of pocket and have seen their premiums rise roughly 40% in recent years. She argues that "affordability cuts across every community" in the district, citing rising costs in healthcare, groceries, gas, and housing as significant challenges for working families. While she acknowledges that Congress cannot solve affordability overnight, she argues that there are concrete actions Congress can take. She also connects healthcare directly to agriculture: > *"I think a lot of the problems in our health care system actually relate to our agricultural system and how we're producing food that isn't healthy and how we're not making healthy food affordable and accessible to all people."* In the radio interview, Hahn Niman urged listeners to "lower the political temperature" by trying "to treat every person in our country as a human being," recognizing and respecting their humanity. Then she offered a concrete suggestion: "Don't spend too many hours a day listening to your radio or watching your TV. You know, work in your own garden and in your own neighborhood and in your own school and your neighbors, and you'll find so much more satisfaction and joy in that." She described the United States as an "amazing, wonderful place," citing its diversity, landscapes, and people, and said the country could remain a "beautiful country" if citizens move away from divisive partisan bickering. Hahn Niman added that civic renewal "begins with each of us trying to be good neighbors and good, accepting members of our society that values all voices and isn't engaging in that shrill kind of partisan bickering that we see all the time on social media and on the TV." Hahn Niman said she wants Americans to "feel good about living in this country again," and described that work as beginning with people trying to be "good neighbors" who value "all voices" and refuse to engage in "that shrill kind of partisan bickering." Asked about her legacy, she said she would like to be "someone who helped restore that sense of pride that we feel in this country." Hahn Niman’s decision to run for Congress was directly influenced by the redistricting process itself. She explained that it was the addition of three primarily rural and agricultural counties to the district after Prop 50 passed that convinced her it needed a representative who could understand and address the specific concerns of both the urban population in Marin County and the people living in more rural areas like Shasta, Siskiyou, Modoc, and Humboldt counties. Her candidacy was also catalyzed in part by a legal settlement that resulted in the closure of most ranches within Point Reyes National Seashore. The Nimans, who did not participate in the litigation that produced the settlement, were not part of the mediation and the $30 million buyout that accompanied it. Hahn Niman has been critical of the incumbent Huffman's involvement in brokering the agreement. [**ROSE PENELOPE YEE**](https://roseforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(DEMOCRAT)** (b. 5/24/60) is the CEO of Green Retirement Inc. and a Redding resident who was born in the Philippines. She lives in Redding, Shasta County. She earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of San Agustin and an MBA from the Asian Institute of Management. Yee was the Chair of the Democratic Central Committee of Shasta County. She voted for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020. Yee said in a recent interview that she was opposing Huffman “in terms of moral and policy differences.” “I attended a meeting last year by the progressive caucus of the California Democratic Party, and somebody said Huffman should be primaried, and that made me question why. And so I looked under the hood. I have a civil engineering degree, a master’s in business, and an engineering mindset. What is going on, what is below the surface? I did research, and I was really disturbed. He voted for the $26 billion Israel supplemental appropriations bill, and it boggled my mind that a Democrat, who I thought was a responsible person…has never condemned what Netanyahu was doing.” Yee has run for Congress twice before, first in 2022 in the neighboring 1st District as a No Party Preference candidate, where she placed last in the primary with 3.4% of the vote, and again in 2024 as a Democrat in the 1st District, when she advanced out of the primary, but eventually lost to incumbent Republican Doug LaMalfa 69.50% to 30.50%. In her candidate statement, Yee emphasizes healthcare and housing as human rights, supports Medicare for All, and calls for an end to what she characterizes as excessive military spending and corporate influence in government. She is on the board of an organization that has been organizing for single-payer healthcare. She calls for abolishing ICE. She says she refuses corporate PAC money, including from AIPAC, and draws on her upbringing under authoritarian rule in the Philippines as a personal motivation for her candidacy. “Growing up, Rose watched her parents take real risks for democracy and human rights. Her father, a lawyer who organized fellow attorneys to defend jailed student protesters, was himself detained for it. Her mother, a local journalist, modeled courage and integrity in the face of censorship. As a student, Rose joined massive street demonstrations against dictatorship and later helped her father campaign for public office—early lessons in people-powered change that continue to guide her today.” [**GREGORY WARREN BURGESS**](https://crow-lobster-efea.squarespace.com/about?ref=ivn.us) **(NO PARTY PREFERENCE)** is a third-generation Marin County native currently working as an elder caregiver. His professional background spans public health, education, clinical engineering, and behavioral health, including stints as a CDC quarantine officer, special education teacher, clinical engineer at Stryker Corp., postal carrier, Teamster (and union grievance representative), and behavioral health counselor. He holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Minnesota, with a focus on environmental health, food security, and climate change. Burgess is running on a platform he calls "Environmental Realism," which he describes as "regenerative stewardship honoring working landscapes, sustaining rural livelihoods, and rejecting policies that sacrifice human communities for ideology." “I didn’t want to end up like the two old Muppets in the balcony — heckling Kermit’s show while doing nothing to help put it on. If the satirists were tapping out, someone had to actually do the work,” Burgess said, in deciding to run for Congress. Burgess says he has drafted [38 federal bills available for voters to read at his website](https://www.gregoryburgessforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us), including three targeted specifically at the district: the CA-2 CAFE Community Health Act addressing housing and education, the [From Seashore to Stockyard Act](https://www.gregoryburgessforcongress.com/seashore-to-stockyard?ref=ivn.us) focused on protections for ranchers, fishermen, and farmers, and the [North Coast Healthcare Act](https://www.gregoryburgessforcongress.com/north-coast-healthcare-act?ref=ivn.us) addressing the rural hospital and workforce crisis. He accepts no PAC money. [**PAUL SAULSBURY**](https://paulsaulsbury.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(REPUBLICAN)** has worked as a passenger assistance agent for SkyWest Airlines since 2013 and currently works as a mobile crisis clinician. He previously held administrative, residential counseling, and customer service positions and earned an associate degree from Shasta College in 2013\. He resides in Anderson. [**TIM GEIST**](https://electtimgeist.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(REPUBLICAN)** is a former researcher in the department of psychological and brain sciences at UC Santa Barbara. He studied philosophy at Sierra College and concentrated in biochemistry and molecular biology at UC Santa Barbara. He resides in Nevada City. [**ROBIN LITTAU**](https://www.littauforcongress.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(REPUBLICAN)** is a member of the Enterprise Elementary School District board in Shasta County. [**ANGELITA VALLES**](https://angelitavalles4congress.com/?ref=ivn.us) **(REPUBLICAN)** is a business owner based in Shasta County. ## **About the 2026 California Top Two Primary** The 2nd Congressional District primary takes place June 2, 2026. The last day to register to vote for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election is May 18, 2026\. All active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. Ballots will begin mailing on May 4, and drop-off locations will open on May 5\. Early in-person voting begins May 23 in Voter's Choice Act counties. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by June 9. *Sources: California Secretary of State, Report of Registration, Dec. 30, 2025; California Secretary of State, Certified List of Candidates, March 26, 2026; Federal Election Commission, coverage ending March 31, 2026; Ballotpedia, California's 2nd Congressional District election, 2026, California Target Book.* ### New Mexico Independents Mobilize Ahead of Their First Open Primary URL: https://ivn.us/new-mexico-independents-mobilize-ahead-of-their-first-open-primary-2026-04-28/ Last updated: 2026-04-28T18:49:49.000Z **SANTA FE, N.M. —** Independent voters in New Mexico will be able to participate in the state’s primary elections in 2026 without first joining a major political party — and one reform group is launching a statewide campaign to make sure they know it. [Let Us Vote New Mexico](https://newmexico.letusvote.org/?ref=ivn.us) announced what it calls an “independent-to-independent” voter education and Get Out The Vote campaign aimed at mobilizing decline-to-state and independent voters ahead of the June 2 primary. The campaign will be built around videos and direct outreach from unaffiliated New Mexicans speaking to other unaffiliated voters. “New Mexico independents are organizing and ready to chart a new political path for our state, one that serves the people not the politicians,” said Krista Pietsch, a Let Us Vote New Mexico state leader from Albuquerque. The 2026 election cycle marks the first time New Mexico will use its new semi-open primary system. The change took effect July 1, 2025, after the legislature [passed a bill](https://ivn.us/posts/its-official-new-mexico-has-opened-its-primaries-independent-voters-2025-04-08) that reform advocates had pushed for years. Under the new rules, voters who are not registered with a qualified political party (i.e. independent and decline-to-state voters) may select a major party primary ballot without changing their voter registration. Voters registered with a major party must still vote in their respective party’s primary. ### **A Decade-Long Fight Comes to the Ballot Box** Calls to open New Mexico’s primary elections went back decades, but it wasn’t until 2015 that an organized effort to make it happen took off with New Mexico Open Elections (NMOE), and reform activists like Bob Perls, who started NMOE. The organization did not have much funding, and its board was composed entirely of volunteers. Still, it sponsored multiple attempts to give a quarter of the electorate registered independent equal access to taxpayer-funded elections. [Opening the Door: How New Mexico Reformed Its Primary Elections and What Others Can LearnMore than 330,000 independent voters will have access to state-administered primary elections in future New Mexico elections after the legislature passed SB 16 in March to end the state’s use of closed primaries.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/New-Mexico-Open-Elections-Vol-2.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/opening-door-how-new-mexico-reformed-its-primary-elections-and-what-others-can-learn-2025-05) Each attempt saw new progress and finally, 10 years later, a semi-open primary bill broke through and was signed into law. In its efforts, NMOE focused its messaging on 2 things: 1. If elections are publicly funded, all voters should be allowed to participate. 2. Excluding independent voters undermines the legitimacy of elections and fuels political disengagement. Let Us Vote New Mexico is a campaign of [Open Primaries](https://openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us). The group says it helped organize independent voters during the 2025 legislative push that led to the new law. Open Primaries also backed litigation in 2018 challenging the state’s closed primary system. “This didn’t happen overnight,” said Cathy Stewart, national organizing director for Open Primaries. “It took a decade of organizing, advocacy, and legal action driven by independent voters who refused to accept being shut out.” Now, independent voters do not have to join a party to vote. The reform does not create a fully open primary. Registered Democrats and Republicans cannot vote in another party’s primary, and independent voters can only choose from candidates of a single party (on whichever party’s ballot they select). However, for primary reform advocates, the change ensures every voter has a right to participate in elections that ultimately decide most contests in the state. “This is our election – we pay for it,” said Tania Triolo, a Let Us Vote New Mexico state leader from Los Ranchos de Albuquerque. “The parties have been acting like it’s their private property, but now it’s clear the primaries belong to all voters.” Jonathan Saunders, a Let Us Vote New Mexico state leader from Dilia, said the campaign is designed for voters who deliberately chose not to affiliate with a party: > *“I walked away from the parties because they don’t listen to regular people anymore. “I’m not going back just to play by their rules.”* ### **Independents Are a Growing Force in New Mexico** The most noticeable shift among voters both nationally and in New Mexico is toward independence, which makes the new semi-open primary law and Let Us Vote New Mexico’s campaign critical. According to voter registration data from the New Mexico secretary of state, 371,380 voters were registered “No Party/Declined to Select” as of March 31, representing 26.2% of the electorate. Democrats made up 40.5%, Republicans 31.3%, and other voters 2%. A [Source NM analysis](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/s-new-mexicos-growing-independent-voter-base?ref=ivn.us) found that decline-to-state registration has steadily increased since December 2024, while Democratic and Republican registration shares have slightly declined. And, since the new law, 80% of new voters have registered as independents. Jeremy Gruber, senior vice president of Open Primaries, said those numbers point to a broader political shift. “This isn’t a trend – it’s a rejection,” he said. “Voters are walking away from a broken two-party system that doesn’t represent them.” ### **Campaign Message: You Don’t Have to Pick a Party** Let Us Vote New Mexico says its campaign will focus on clear voter education, digital outreach, and grassroots organizing. Its core message is that independent voters do not have to join a party to have a say in a public primary election. The group is also trying to reach voters who may not know the rules have changed. Under the new system, unaffiliated voters can select a major party ballot in person or through the absentee process, and the party ballot they choose is public information. Their actual votes remain private. “For too long, independents were told to sit out or sign up,” Gruber said. “Now when independents show up, they won’t just participate – they’ll reshape the conversation. That’s exactly what this campaign is about.” ### California Voter ID Initiative Just Made the Ballot URL: https://ivn.us/california-voter-id-initiative-just-made-the-ballot-2026-04-27/ Last updated: 2026-04-27T14:19:45.000Z **SACRAMENTO, Calif**. - California voters are set to decide whether to add voter ID to the state constitution, after election officials announced the California Voter ID Initiative cleared the signature threshold needed for the 2026 ballot. The proposed constitutional amendment needed 874,641 valid petition signatures to qualify for the statewide ballot, which is equal to 8% of the votes cast for governor in 2022\. There is another way the state can determine if an initiative will make it to November. It needs 962,106 projected valid signatures to qualify through random sampling. Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office [announced on April 24 that the California Voter ID initiative exceeded this mark](https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and-advisories/2026-news-releases-and-advisories/california-secretary-state-shirley-n-weber-phd-announces-new-measure-eligible-november-2026-general-election-ballot-establishes?ref=ivn.us). The measure is scheduled to be formally certified June 25 unless withdrawn by its proponents, Reform California. "The California Voter ID Initiative is a common-sense and bipartisan way to restore the trust and confidence all voters should have in our election system,” said Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, who is also the chair of Reform California. > *“Our measure simply holds government officials accountable to maintain accurate voter lists and verify the identity of individuals casting ballots in our elections.”* He added that proponents collected 1.35 million signatures and argued that support for the measure crosses party lines. The California Voter ID Initiative would amend the state constitution to require voters to present a government-issued ID when voting in person or provide the last four digits of their ID number when voting by mail. It would also require the state to provide voter identification cards upon request and require election officials to annually report the percentage of voters in each county whose citizenship has been verified. Supporters say this is about election integrity and assert that the proposal is designed to increase public confidence, tighten voter-roll maintenance, and bring California closer to states that require some form of voter identification. Opponents argue the initiative could make voting harder for eligible voters who lack documents or have difficulty navigating new requirements. This includes poor voters, elderly voters, students, people with disabilities, and voters of color. **Check out** [**a comprehensive breakdown**](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10) **from IVN author Cara Brown McCormick on the differences between the California Voter ID initiative and what is being proposed at the federal level.** Research shows that the most hyperbolic claims from both sides don’t hold up. A paper [published by the National Bureau of Economic Research](https://www.nber.org/papers/w25522?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) found that voter ID does not have a noticeable effect on voter turnout. Participation in elections doesn’t decline, but it also doesn’t increase as DeMaio claims. “Other states that have implemented Voter ID programs have seen an increase in participation in their elections, including an increase in minority voting,” he said, though he did not provide evidence to support his statement. [Research out of Harvard](https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/voter-id-laws-don-t-work-but-they-don-t-hurt-anything-either?ref=ivn.us) also disputes claims that voter ID has any impact on election security because the types of fraud supporters claim the reform solves statistically don’t exist. And, in the few cases they’ve occurred, it had no impact on the election. So, it doesn’t suppress the vote and it doesn’t save elections. At the end of the day, this issue comes down to public confidence and perception. DeMaio is right that voter ID is a 70-30 issue, even an 80-20 issue depending on what public opinion polls people examine. The argument that tends to reach voters is that people need a government-issued ID for so many things in their daily lives. Requiring one to vote doesn’t seem like a big deal. Republicans, Democrats, and independents largely agree on this. The matter will now be decided by California voters, and the outcome will come down to how supporters and opponents focus their messaging. The California Voter ID initiative is part of a crowded and expensive 2026 California ballot environment, and the measure will likely bring in a ton of money – both in support and opposition – now that it has qualified for the ballot. [Billionaires, Voter ID, Uber, and More: The 2026 California Ballot Is Already a Money WarIn California, almost $325 million has already been raised in support and opposition to a handful of direct democracy initiatives hoping to appear on the ballot on November 3, 2026.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-ballot-initiatives-campaign-finance-2026.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/billionaires-voter-id-uber-and-more-the-2026-california-ballot-is-already-a-money-war-2026-04-13) ## **In Other Reform News…** ### **Maine’s Super PAC Cap Passed With 74% Support ; Now Dark Money Wants It Gone** When Maine voters approved a cap on contributions to super PACs, supporters knew the law was likely headed to court. What emerged isn’t just a constitutional fight over money in politics – it also highlights how dark money networks shape the rules that govern campaign finance. In 2024, [End SuperPACs](https://www.endsuperpacs.org/?ref=ivn.us) put a measure on the November ballot in Maine under Question 1 that was [approved by 74% of voters](https://ivn.us/posts/maine-voters-reject-big-money-politics-amidst-most-expensive-election-ever-2024-11-12). What the measure did was cap contributions to super PACs at $5,000, effectively banning these cash behemoths in the state. The measure targeted independent political committees that can raise and spend unlimited sums to support or oppose candidates, while remaining legally separate from the campaigns themselves. In December 2024, two conservative political committees, Dinner Table Action and For Our Future, along with Alex Titcomb, leader of both groups, sued to block the law. They argued that limiting contributions to independent expenditure committees violates the First Amendment. If this sounds familiar, it is because they used [the legal framework established by *Citizens United v. FEC*](https://ivn.us/posts/maine-voters-reject-big-money-politics-amidst-most-expensive-election-ever-2024-11-12) and the lower-court decision in *SpeechNow.org v. FEC*. A federal judge sided with the plaintiffs in 2025 and blocked the law. Appeals were later filed in the First US Circuit Court of Appeals, keeping alive a case that could have national consequences for campaign finance law. Now, new reporting from OpenSecrets adds another layer to the story: the financial trail behind the lawsuit runs in part through a dark-money network connected to Leonard Leo. Leo is a conservative legal activist and co-chairman of the Federalist Society. He has been [central to the rightward shift of the federal judiciary, including the US Supreme Court](https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-podcast?emci=feb1774b-733e-f111-8ef2-000d3a14b640&emdi=f88bfa1e-253f-f111-8ef2-000d3a14b640&ceid=8244650&ref=ivn.us). He has long been associated with a network of nonprofits and advocacy groups that influence judicial nominations, legal strategy, and election-related policy fights. In this case, OpenSecrets [found a financial pipeline connecting the plaintiffs challenging Maine’s law to the Concord Fund](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2026/04/how-a-dark-money-network-linked-to-leonard-leo-factors-into-maines-super-pac-lawsuit/?emci=feb1774b-733e-f111-8ef2-000d3a14b640&emdi=f88bfa1e-253f-f111-8ef2-000d3a14b640&ceid=8244650&ref=ivn.us), formerly known as the Judicial Crisis Network. Here's why it matters. Dinner Table Action has reported just over $1 million in contributions since registering with the Maine Ethics Commission in 2021\. Most of its contributions were small-dollar donations (80% up until December 2025 were under $200). But its two largest contributions came from For Our Future: $50,000 in August 2024 and another $50,000 in October 2024\. For Our Future also provided $58,300 in support between July 2023 and March 2025, mostly described as personnel time (this is called an in-kind contribution). These two groups are linked. They list the same phone number. Both identify Titcomb as principal officer and Mary Alioto as treasurer. The email address For Our Future used to register with the Maine Ethics Commission is hosted on Dinner Table Action’s domain. For Our Future, in turn, raised more than $410,000\. Its largest funder by far was the Concord Fund, which contributed $375,000 across three payments: $50,000 in May 2023, $100,000 in August 2023, and $225,000 in February 2024. That is where the lawsuit’s money trail intersects with Leo’s broader political network. Maine Public [reported in 2023](https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2023-08-04/why-a-donation-by-a-deep-pocketed-conservative-group-could-intensify-dark-money-battle-in-maine?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) that the Concord Fund donated $50,000 to a Maine PAC associated with a network of nonprofits connected to Leo. The article noted that the donation appeared to be the group's first publicly disclosed contribution. OpenSecrets also reported overlapping personnel and addresses among Leo-linked entities. For example, the Concord Fund has been associated with the Judicial Education Project, now known as The 85 Fund. Carrie Severino, a Leo associate, has been listed as president of the Judicial Crisis Network and as director and secretary of The 85 Fund. Gary Marx, president of the Concord Fund, has also been listed as a director and treasurer of The 85 Fund. This organization shares a Fort Worth, Texas, mailing address with the Lexington Fund, which donated $1 million in June 2025 to a super PAC supporting US Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), according to OpenSecrets. A Maine campaign finance report filed in April 2024 listed the Concord Fund at the same address, but in a different suite. Yes, it is a lot of dots to connect. The Concord Fund is colloquially referred to as a “dark money” entity. It does not have to disclose its donors in IRS filings because it is designated as a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization. That structure allows politically active nonprofits to spend money in elections and policy fights without revealing who is ultimately funding them. Another recent example was the huge flow of cash into the Virginia redistricting referendum, most of which cannot be tracked. This is because [95% of the money was funneled through 501(c)(4) groups](https://ivn.us/posts/who-funded-the-100m-virginia-gerrymandering-referendum-voters-may-never-know-2026-04-20). The Maine lawsuit raises a question that has hovered over American elections since 2010: If super PACs can spend unlimited amounts independently, can states still limit the size of contributions to those committees? Supporters of Question 1 say Yes. They argue that contribution limits are different from spending bans. Put simply, the state has an interest in preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption, especially when affected groups operate close to political power centers. The rules say independent expenditure committees cannot directly coordinate with candidates, candidate committees, or political parties in elections, but they can still get close to them. The dispute between supporters and opponents, who make a free speech case, is why Question 1 was designed not only as a reform, but also a legal test. Supporters hoped the case would force higher courts to revisit the legal framework that created the era of super PACs. But there is also another issue here: This wasn’t a law passed through the state legislature. It was a citizen-driven and backed initiative that got support from three-quarters of the Maine electorate. Voters approved a law meant to limit the influence of big money in elections. But the groups challenging that law are now linked, through campaign finance records, to the very kind of opaque funding network the measure was designed to confront. The court will decide whether Maine’s cap survives. But the money trail already illustrates the central problem voters were trying to address: In modern US politics, the public can see the lawsuit, the PACs, and the legal arguments. What they often cannot see is who is ultimately paying for the fight. ### **NYC Bill Would Ask Voters to Replace Party Primaries With Nonpartisan Ranked Choice Elections** A newly introduced New York City Council bill could eliminate partisan municipal elections and move the city to a single all-candidate and all-voter election that uses ranked choice voting. [The bill](https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7862354&GUID=6EC0FCDE-D928-4E31-9981-D9C15E318B26&ref=ivn.us), introduced back in January by Republican Councilmember Frank Morano, would amend the New York City Charter to require nonpartisan ranked choice elections for every elective municipal office. This includes: - Mayor - Public advocate - Comptroller - Borough president, and - City Council The bill has three sponsors: Morano, Council Member Farah Louis, and Council Member Vickie Paladino, giving it bipartisan sponsorship. It is currently in the Council’s Committee on Governmental Operations, State & Federal Legislation. While not much news has come out about the bill, the New York Forward Party reached out to IVN about it and its endorsement. “Forward Party New York is proud to formally support this bill. Electoral and voting reform is central to our mission,” said Susan DiVito, who spoke on behalf of the group. > *“We believe the system itself needs to change before we can expect better outcomes from it. Nonpartisan elections mean every voter has a voice in every race regardless of party registration, including the record 45% of Americans who now identify as independents.”* She added that “ranked choice voting ensures winners have broad support, not just plurality support from a narrow primary electorate.” New York City currently uses ranked choice voting, but only in closed partisan primaries that shut out 1-in-5 voters registered unaffiliated with a political party. The proposal would eliminate partisan elections completely and move to a single nonpartisan general election. [NYC Independents Line Up to Demand Open PrimariesThe New York City Charter Revision Commission, which is tasked with proposing policy changes to city government, held its first public meeting this week since it released a preliminary report that considers a potential end to the city’s closed primaries.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/getty-images-P3o7FOv3xjA-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/nyc-independents-line-demand-open-primaries-2025-05-23) It would be open to all voters, all candidates, and it would move ranked choice voting to a time when the most voters participate. Candidates would qualify through the independent nominating petition process already used for special elections. The bill would not take effect automatically. Because it changes the city charter, voters would have the final say through a citywide referendum. The city’s charter revision commission considered open primary reform in 2025\. However, when the commission pursued a nonpartisan Top Two model, [it was opposed by the city’s most powerful political groups](https://ivn.us/posts/5-influential-forces-nyc-threaten-success-open-primaries-2025-07-14). Morano was among the opponents to Top Two reform, but he emphasized that he supported ranked choice voting and was not opposed to more inclusive elections. The question is, will the city council allow his proposal to go before voters? ### **Independent Voters Call Viral Video with George Bush and Michelle Obama a “Breath of Fresh Air”** When people think of the names Bush and Obama, they may think about two families that come to represent what the partisan establishment looks like in US politics. However, the civility and friendship between them is tapping into people’s nostalgia. This is because many voters remember a time when political opponents were just that – opponents, not hated enemies. And even though people can disagree on issues, they can still be friends. A video interview of President George W. Bush in which he talked about a moment between him and Michelle Obama at John McCain's funeral has gone viral. In it, he and Michelle joked together, and he handed her an Altoids mint while seated. When IVN shared the video on its Facebook, it quickly reached 700,000 views. “It turns out the country is starved to see a white, center-right Republican and an African-American, center-left Democrat having fun and being able to converse, not as political figures but as citizens,” said Bush. Nearly 22,000 people liked the video and it has over 1,400 comments. “Hell yes!! We are starved for just regular discussions,” said IVN Reader Michael J. Pritchett. > *“Not hateful gotcha moments, just agree to disagree or perhaps learn something that may change your opinion. Not this out to destroy the enemy mentality just because the other person has a different opinion.”* “This was when the nation was normalizing ...but then, it went into relapse ...hopefully, next time it starts normalizing, there will be no more relapses,” said Gama Rivera. Harvey Sprayberry said: > *“Reminds me of John McCain responding to a woman who said Obama was an Arab to which McCain answered ‘No ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about.’ At that point I felt that even if Obama lost we were still going to be governed by a decent man.”* George Bush and Michelle Obama may not be identified as independent-minded figures in the US. But they remind voters of a time when political division did not equal partisan warfare. To see that again is refreshing for millions of Americans. ## **Quick Hits** - A bill to close Tennessee primaries [died in the legislature](https://www.newschannel5.com/news/tennessee-lawmakers-consider-legislation-to-close-primary-elections-and-mandate-party-registration?ref=ivn.us) thanks in large part to the work of open primaries activists. - The Virginia Legislature [approved a bill](https://ivn.us/posts/virginia-expands-ranked-choice-voting-after-local-success-stories-2026-04-23) that expands the local option for ranked choice voting, including making it permanent. - The Cook Political Report [shows the least competitive House races in modern US history](https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings?ref=ivn.us) are expected in this year’s midterms. - IVN guest contributor and founder/CEO of Independent Veterans of America, Paul Rieckhoff, commented on CNN that the gerrymandering back and forth between the two major parties is what “[a rigged political system looks like](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KahTOw7XLZQ&ref=ivn.us).” ### Independent Voter Project Brings Election Reform Conversation to "Beyond the Campaign" URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/independent-voter-project-brings-election-reform-conversation-to-beyond-the-campaign-2026-04-23/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:31:15.000Z The Independent Voter Project sat down this week with Michelle Glogovac on her podcast [Beyond the Campaign](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-the-campaign/id1829516578?ref=ivn.us), a show that has built a following by doing something most political media doesn't: skipping the talking points and focusing on the people and ideas behind public life. Glogovac goes past stump speeches and issue checklists to focus on accountability, accessibility, and the kind of depth most interview shows sand off. The show is part of [The MLG Collective](https://themlgcollective.com/podcast/?ref=ivn.us), and Michelle brings the same standard to every guest. She does the research, she asks the hard questions, and she treats her audience as people who want more than soundbites. That's a good fit for what IVP is trying to do. The conversation included a discussion of how California's nonpartisan primary works, the structural differences between open and closed primary systems, the SAVE Act and voter ID debate, and ranked choice voting as a potential path forward, outside the narrow perspectives of the partisan media. Glogovac's audience is broader and less partisan. They're paying attention because they want to understand how the system actually works, not because they already have a team. The episode is available on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@thepodcastmatchmaker?ref=ivn.us), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/7BPoKgK2eupyTgdHiYoOOL?ref=ivn.us), [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-project-with-chad-peace/id1829516578?i=1000763245317&ref=ivn.us), and all other major listening platforms, and will also go out through [Glogovac's Substack](https://michelleglogovac.substack.com/). Listen below. ### IVP California Governor Poll Sparks Reddit Debate on Ranked Choice Voting URL: https://ivn.us/ivp-california-governor-poll-sparks-reddit-debate-on-ranked-choice-voting-2026-04-23/ Last updated: 2026-04-24T14:29:21.000Z The Independent Voter Project (IVP) released a new poll this week that shows a seismic shift in the California governor’s race. But on Reddit, it also hit a nerve for many voters calling for ranked-choice elections. [BREAKING: Xavier Becerra Bolts Into First Place in IVN California Governor PollSurvey of 3,404 verified California voters shows Democrat in front. Second-choice data reveals where Yee’s supporters are headed.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/04/IVN-2026-California-Governor-Race-Survey-April.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/breaking-xavier-becerra-bolts-into-first-place-in-ivn-california-governor-poll-2026-04-20) Following the release of the poll, which now shows Xavier Becerra in the lead, Becerra started to get more media attention. While his bump to the front-runner spot surprised many, [IVP already knew it was coming](https://ivn.us/posts/who-will-eric-swalwell-voters-choose-now-we-know-2026-04-13). This is because its polling goes further than most when examining voter preferences and found in February that Becerra was the second choice for many Eric Swalwell voters. Now, Swalwell is out. The results [were posted on the California subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/California/comments/1sr9dfh/breaking%5Fxavier%5Fbecerra%5Fbolts%5Finto%5Ffirst%5Fplace%5Fin/?ref=ivn.us), which has since received thousands of upvotes and more than 800 comments. Of course, many people want to talk about the candidate standings, but the IVP poll also sparked a much deeper conversation. It got people talking about voting reform. Specifically, a desire for ranked choice voting. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/04/ivp-poll-california-reddit.jpeg) “I think this election has shown California needs ranked choice voting. I hope we see a ballot initiative for it soon,” wrote a user with the Reddit name MerlinMonroe. This comment has over 900 upvotes. User MediumComputer replied, “We should all be pushing for it. It's been far too long. We’ve seen it work in Alaska.” This conversation wasn’t prompted by the original post nor anything on IVN. It came up organically, showing how increasingly frustrated voters are with election systems that can result in vote-splitting and winners that don’t have majority support. Reform is no longer a niche topic. People are looking into alternative ways to conduct elections and educating themselves on popular reforms like ranked choice voting (RCV) and nonpartisan open primaries. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/04/ivp-poll-california-reddit-ranked-choice-voting-comments.jpeg) Another commenter even added, “\[RCV\] was passed by the legislature before getting vetoed by Newsom.” This references a 2019 bill, [SB 212](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=201920200SB212&utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), which would have allowed general law cities, counties, and school districts to use ranked choice voting for local elections. However, Gov. Gavin Newsom [vetoed the bill](https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/SB-212-Veto-Message.pdf?ref=ivn.us). Cities and counties in California cannot simply switch to ranked-choice elections. First, they have to be a charter city or charter county. Then, they need to amend their charter by getting approval from voters. And then, they have to adopt new voting systems approved by the secretary of state. This is one reason why Eureka recently announced that its voter-approved ranked-choice reform [would be delayed](https://humboldtgov.org/m/newsflash/home/detail/6191?ref=ivn.us). The city has yet to implement a new voting system capable of using RCV and still needs state certification. There are different ways to conduct ranked-choice elections. The way [Alaska does it](https://ivn.us/posts/why-trump-really-hates-alaskas-ranked-choice-voting-2026-04-13), for example, is different from the way [New York City](https://ivn.us/posts/nyc-exit-survey-96-voters-understood-their-ranked-choice-ballots-2025-07-01) does it, which is different from how [Portland, Oregon](https://ivn.us/posts/exit-poll-portlanders-understood-how-fill-out-their-ranked-choice-ballot-2024), and [Charlottesville, Virginia](https://ivn.us/posts/after-first-rcv-election-charlottesville-voters-back-reform-they-get-it-they-it-they-want-do), use it. Some versions use an instant runoff model that eliminates the last place candidate if no one has a majority of the vote and applies their voters’ next choices to the tabulation. Subsequent rounds of runoff are conducted like this until a single candidate has a majority of the vote. There is a version of ranked choice voting called the condorcet method (also called the majority-rule method) that pits all candidates against each other in a head-to-head contest and determines which candidate defeats all other candidates. Under both methods, voters use ballots that allow voters to rank the candidates. [Beyond Ranked Choice Voting: How We Count The Votes MattersRanked choice voting keeps winning headlines. New York City uses it in primaries, Maine uses it statewide, Alaska uses it with a nonpartisan primary, and advocates from Better Choices are pushing for more consensus.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ChatGPT-Image-Jul-24--2025--09_50_00-AM.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/beyond-ranked-choice-voting-how-we-count-votes-matters-2025-07-24) In Alaska, the state uses a nonpartisan Top Four system that advances four candidates to the general election instead of two. Then, ranked choice voting is used to determine a majority winner among the top vote-getters. Research shows this election model [has led to more cross-partisan coalitions](https://www.uniteamericainstitute.org/research/alaskas-election-model-how-the-top-four-nonpartisan-primary-system-improves-participation-competition-and-representation?ref=ivn.us) and higher voter engagement from underrepresented communities that were locked out of the state’s closed primary elections prior to 2020. In NYC, ranked choice voting is used only in closed partisan primaries that [deny access to 1-in-5 voters](https://ivn.us/posts/over-1-million-unaffiliated-voters-left-out-nyc-primaries-cfb-report-finds-2025-04-30) because they're unaffiliated. Primary winners then go on to compete in choose-one general elections that don’t require a majority winner. In most cases, the winner was already decided in the Democratic primary – an outcome that would occur if California moved back to a closed primary system like it [continues to use in presidential preference elections](https://independentvoterproject.org/work/california-presidential-primary-lawsuit?ref=ivn.us). There is [a bill](https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7862354&GUID=6EC0FCDE-D928-4E31-9981-D9C15E318B26&ref=ivn.us) in the New York City Council that proposes eliminating primary elections and conducting one all-voter and all-candidate election that incorporates RCV. This would also be a different way to conduct ranked-choice elections. A similar proposal is also being offered by Better Ballot Sacramento. Where ranked choice voting is proposed, it tends to do well with voters. NYC voters approved the reform with more than 70% of the vote. The same can be said for Washington, DC, which approved RCV and open primaries in 2024. This is because across the country, regardless of political preferences, voters want more choice in elections. They want election systems that incentivize candidates to appeal to a broader segment of the electorate and win by majority. They also want voters to be treated equally at all stages of the elections process. Reddit user Positronic\_Matrix brought up a common narrative being pushed about the 2026 governor’s race: “First past the post voting is dangerous in California because of its open primaries, as it can allow two deeply unpopular Republicans to win the primary.” First, while this is the most popular talking point that has spread nationwide about the election, it was not likely to happen even before Swalwell dropped out. Now, it is extremely unlikely since Swalwell was the highest polling Democrat. There are still many voters who remain undecided and polling data suggests the two Republicans, Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, have hit (or are very close to hitting) their support ceilings. Second, though the outcome is possible, it isn’t the fault of nonpartisan primaries that open taxpayer-funded elections to all candidates and voters, and have been found to increase competition and engagement in elections. The main point of contention is the number of candidates that advance from the primary and election models that can lead to a political minority deciding election outcomes. The Independent Voter Project, which authored and sponsored the Top Two measure approved by voters in 2010, now advocates for a Top Four with RCV model similar to Alaska. [Author of California’s Top-Two Primary Says It’s Time to Reform the ReformIn 2010, California voters took the first step in empowering every California voter by abolishing party-controlled closed partisan primaries in favor of open nonpartisan primaries that advance the top two vote-getters to the November election.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsSteve Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/42473863820_c86e1d7b24_k.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/author-californias-top-two-primary-says-its-time-reform-reform) The group has conducted polling in [San Diego](https://ivn.us/posts/san-diego-candidates-come-out-support-more-choice-voting-reform-2024-09-13), [Chula Vista](https://ivn.us/posts/chula-vista-voters-want-more-choice-will-city-council-listen-2025-05-14), [Los Angeles County, and statewide](https://ivn.us/posts/california-candidates-courting-independent-voters-these-3-reforms-could-win-lot-votes-2026-01) that shows a majority of respondents support adopting this type of system and want to keep elections that ensure equal voting rights for independent voters. ### Virginia Expands Ranked Choice Voting After Local Success Stories URL: https://ivn.us/virginia-expands-ranked-choice-voting-after-local-success-stories-2026-04-23/ Last updated: 2026-04-23T13:24:45.000Z [Virginia](https://www.elections.virginia.gov/casting-a-ballot/ranked-choice-voting/?ref=ivn.us) enacted legislation [expanding](https://ivn.us/posts/virginia-house-of-delegates-passes-ranked-choice-voting-expansion-2026-02-17) ranked choice voting for local elections, after both chambers of the General Assembly voted April 22 to accept Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s technical amendments to [SB 176](https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/SB176?ref=ivn.us) and [HB 630](https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB630?emci=0d3131b9-2e0c-f111-832e-0022482a9733&emdi=8350a8b4-2f0c-f111-832e-0022482a9733&ceid=3580391&ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), completing the bills’ path into law. The new law makes Virginia’s local ranked choice voting program permanent and broadens it beyond city councils and county boards of supervisors to cover any local governing body, including towns. The bills also direct the State Board of Elections to set standards for vote-tabulation software and other administrative rules tied to implementation. "The bill's key provision is making RCV a permanent option for local elections in Virginia. (The bill I carried back in 2020 was a decade-long pilot program.)," said Sally Hudson, executive director of [Ranked Choice Virginia](https://www.rankedchoiceva.org/?ref=ivn.us). > "Arlington and Charlottesville have shown that Virginia is ready for ranked choice. The initial ranked choice elections in both communities have gone smoothly, with no technical challenges, and [polling](https://www.rankedchoiceva.org/news/charlottesville-voters-embrace-ranked-choice-2025?ref=ivn.us) shows their voters want to keep better elections for the long haul. With the permanent option now in place, more communities across Virginia can follow their lead and give voters more options at the ballot box." Charlottesville [used ranked choice voting for the first time in 2025](https://ivn.us/posts/after-first-rcv-election-charlottesville-voters-back-reform-they-get-it-they-it-they-want-do?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), and an exit survey showed 80% of respondents expressed strong support for its continued use. It is popular across age, race, gender, education level, and homeownership status. “When voters finally get to use ranked choice voting, they get it, they like it, and they want to do it again,” said Hudson. Arlington County, the first jurisdiction in Virginia to use ranked choice voting, [also continues to support its use](https://ivn.us/posts/arlington-county-board-votes-4-0-extend-ranked-choice-voting-theres-more-2025-02-24?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), and other areas – like Newport News and Loudoun County – have signaled they are looking into the reform as well. The change is set to take effect on July 1, 2026, giving local governments a standing option to adopt ranked choice voting in future elections. ### We Can Tax Billionaires and Be Smart About It URL: https://ivn.us/we-can-tax-billionaires-and-be-smart-about-it-2026-04-22/ Last updated: 2026-04-22T23:37:18.000Z If you want to tax billionaires, California already knows how. The state taxes capital gains as ordinary income. That means when a billionaire sells her stock, the gain gets taxed at the same rate as a paycheck. It is straightforward, it is constitutional, and it works. The federal government should do the same thing. That is not what the California Billionaire Tax Act proposes. This initiative, backed by SEIU-UHW and currently in the signature-gathering phase, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of anyone with more than $1 billion as of January 1, 2026\. It taxes wealth that has not been sold, income that has not been received, and gains that may not even hold their value by the time the bill comes due. IVN covered this in depth in March. My earlier explainer, [“How It Really Works: The California Billionaire Wealth Tax,”](https://ivn.us/posts/how-it-really-works-the-california-billionaire-wealth-tax-2026-03-03) lays out the mechanics, the history, and the risks. The short version: France tried a version of this. Norway tried it. Most European countries that adopted wealth taxes eventually repealed them. The revenue projections looked good, but then not so much. The capital flight was real. But now two experts who understand California's budget from the inside (and happen to be Democrats) have made the case even more directly. [How It Really Works: The California Billionaire Wealth TaxCalifornia’s proposed billionaire wealth tax has become one of the most consequential policy debates in the nation.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/HIRW_TheWealthTax.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/how-it-really-works-the-california-billionaire-wealth-tax-2026-03-03) Writing in Bloomberg Tax, [Keely Martin Bosler](https://dof.ca.gov/about-us/history/finance-directors/keely-martin-bosler/?ref=ivn.us) and [Lenny Mendonca](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lenny-mendonca-7b98b22a?ref=ivn.us) argue that California simply cannot afford this gamble. Bosler was the director of California’s Department of Finance under Governor Newsom. Mendonca was Newsom’s chief economic and business adviser from 2019 to 2020\. These are not anti-tax ideologues. They are the people who managed California’s budget and economic strategy under the current governor, and they are saying this proposal will not work. Their piece is worth reading in full: [“California Can’t Afford the Reckless Gamble of a Billionaire Tax.”](https://news.bloombergtax.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/california-cant-afford-the-reckless-gamble-of-a-billionaire-tax?ref=ivn.us) The core of their argument is this: The federal preferential rate on long-term capital gains, 20%, compared to a top ordinary income rate of 37%, is a massive subsidy for the wealthy. It is why Warren Buffett pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. And as Bosler and Mendonca point out, the federal government has an advantage California does not: You can’t just move to Nevada to escape it. The wealth tax debate has been framed as a question of political will. Do you have the courage to tax the rich or not? But that framing misses the actual problem. It is not that billionaires go untaxed. It is that their income, when it comes in the form of capital gains, gets taxed at a much lower rate than wages. The fix is not to tax what they own before they sell it. **The fix is to treat what they earn when they do sell it the same way we treat everyone else’s income.** California already does this at the state level. There is a reason California’s top earners pay more in state taxes relative to their federal liability. The state does not offer a preferential capital gains rate. Congress does. There is also something that rarely gets mentioned in this debate. We consistently underestimate how much revenue a wave of IPOs and stock buybacks generates for the state. When those transactions happen, California collects. Major market events that are already in motion, and more that are coming, may produce more revenue than a one-time wealth seizure would ever reliably deliver. That revenue is recurring, constitutionally stable, and does not require California to value a private art collection. The wealth tax is being sold as a solution to a budget problem. But it is a one-time measure chasing assets that are already moving. The capital gains tax is a structural fix that collects every time wealth is converted to income, year after year, at the time of the transaction, rather than based on speculation about what something might be worth today. Democrats who genuinely want to reduce inequality and fund public services should be arguing for treating capital gains as ordinary income at the federal level. Republicans who believe in broad-based growth and fiscal sustainability should also be interested in a system that does not reward holding over working. **It’s not partisan. It’s structural.** A federal capital gains tax may not make for a great motivator to get out the vote. But it does produce stable, durable, constitutionally sound revenue that cannot be avoided by changing your zip code. We will soon find out whether the billionaire wealth tax in California even makes it to the ballot. Even if it does, it faces serious legal exposure, massive enforcement challenges, and a well-funded opposition. Even if it passes, it will raise money only once, while the underlying structural advantage that allows capital gains to grow at a preferential rate for the wealthiest among us will remain intact everywhere else in the country. If the goal is to actually tax billionaires, the answer is not a one-time state levy on their paper wealth. The answer is a federal capital gains rate that treats income as income, regardless of where it came from. California has been showing the country how to do this for years. The rest of the country should catch up. ### Top 15 Contributors to California 2026 Citizen Initiative Campaigns (So Far) URL: https://ivn.us/top-15-contributors-to-california-2026-citizen-initiative-campaigns-so-far-2026-04-22/ Last updated: 2026-04-22T17:57:06.000Z 1. **Sergey Brin – $45,000,000\.** Google co-founder and Alphabet board member, Brin, is known for helping build one of the top 3 most valuable companies in the world. 2. **Uber Technologies, Inc. – $32,512,759\.** Uber is a San Francisco-based publicly traded transportation and delivery platform company best known for ride-hailing, food delivery, and logistics services. Dara Khosrowshahi is CEO. 3. **SEIU-UHW – $15,915,666\.** SEIU-UHW is a California healthcare workers union representing more than 120,000 workers and advocating on labor and healthcare policy issues. 4. **California Teachers Association – $15,000,000\.** The CTA is the state’s largest teachers union. 5. **AFSCME Local 3299 – $13,100,000**. AFSCME Local 3299 is the University of California system’s largest employee union. 6. **Chris Larsen and Ripple Labs – $12,000,000\.** Larsen is the co-founder and executive chairman of Ripple Labs, a San Francisco-based fintech company that uses blockchain technology and the XRP digital asset. 7. **California Hospitals Committee – $10,000,000\.** The California Hospitals Committee on Issues is a political committee sponsored by the California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems that advances hospital-industry positions in state ballot campaigns. 8. **OpenAI – $10,000,000\.** OpenAI is a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research and deployment company whose stated mission is to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity. Sam Altman is CEO. 9. **John Doerr III – $9,500,000\.** Doerr is a longtime Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist known for early investments in major tech companies, including Google and Amazon. 10. **Patrick Collison – $7,000,000\.** Collison is the co-founder and CEO of Stripe, the fintech company best known for online payments infrastructure. 11. **Michael Moritz – $7,000,000\.** Moritz is a veteran venture capitalist best known for his long career at Sequoia Capital and early investments in companies such as Google and PayPal. 12. **Gary K. Michelson – $6,000,000\.** Michelson is an orthopedic spinal surgeon, prolific medical inventor, and philanthropist known for hundreds of patents in spinal surgery technology. 13. **Meyer Luskin – $5,000,000\.** Luskin is a Los Angeles businessman, philanthropist, and CEO of Scope Industries, known especially for his contributions to UCLA. 14. **Altamed Health Services Corporation – $4,717,867\.** AltaMed is a large Southern California nonprofit community health system. 15. **Richard Uihlein – $4,000,000\.** Uihlein is the CEO and co-founder of Uline, a Wisconsin shipping and industrial supplies company, and a prominent conservative political donor. *Source: California Fair Political Practices Commission, data is current as of April 11, 2026.* ### After Virginia Special Election, The Gerrymandering War Escalates Again URL: https://ivn.us/after-virginia-special-election-the-gerrymandering-war-escalates-again-2026-04-22/ Last updated: 2026-04-22T18:45:39.000Z Virginia held a special election Tuesday on a referendum aimed at giving Democrats more seats in the US House. It was a close race, with “Yes” in favor of a legislative-drawn congressional map passing by a narrow 51.5% to 48.5%. As a result, the Commonwealth will suspend a congressional map drawn by the voter-approved Virginia Redistricting Commission and use a new map that could give Democrats as much as [a 10-1 advantage in House elections](https://ballotpedia.org/Virginia%5FUse%5Fof%5FLegislative%5FCongressional%5FRedistricting%5FMap%5FAmendment%5F%28April%5F2026%29?ref=ivn.us). Supporters of the referendum celebrated, calling out Republicans for starting the ongoing redistricting arms race. Virginia President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas [said](https://x.com/SenLouiseLucas/status/2046772999785734391?ref=ivn.us), “Y’all started it and we f\*\*\*ing finished it.” Those who favored the referendum also argued that the change is temporary and unlike the “other side,” they allowed this to go before voters. Many Republicans asserted that the referendum was a “power grab.” Trump called it “terrible” and said, “nobody’s ever seen anything like it.” He also added that “it’s unfair,” and held a telerally call Monday to encourage attendees to vote against the referendum. To recap: One side says this is about “fighting fire with fire” and “leveling the playing field.” The other says their opponents are trying to “rig elections” Both sides point the finger at the other and yell, “They started it!” When the IVN audience was asked about Tuesday’s vote, their responses were mixed. For example, Christopher Hack wrote, “An attack on democracy is an attack on democracy, whether conducted in the legislature or the ballot box.” > *“Virginia has followed the terrible example of both Texas and California, choosing partisan political gamesmanship over democracy. Shame on all of them!”* But other readers argued that at least this was put to a vote. “This is a temporary, *voter approved* measure to counteract the extreme gerrymandering done by the GOP,” said Leanne Harrington. > *“GOP was done without any voter approval or temporary timeline; just foisted on citizens by state legislatures. GOP has consistently fought independent commission redistricting at every step: see Utah as \[a\] recent example.”* She added, “Don't ‘both sides’ this; they're not the same.” ## **Here Are The Facts** Supporters of the Virginia referendum are correct. The current gerrymandering fight between the Republican and Democratic Parties started when President Trump called on Republicans in Texas, Missouri, and other states to redraw their congressional maps. [Did the Republicans or Democrats Start the Gerrymandering Fight?The 2026 midterm election cycle is quickly approaching. However, there is a lingering question mark over what congressional maps will look like when voters start to cast their ballots, especially as Republicans and Democrats fight to obtain any electoral advantage possible.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/andy-feliciotti-8cvjI48SFtY-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/did-republicans-democrats-start-gerrymandering-fight-2025-11-11) Texas complied, California quickly countered, and then Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio followed. There were efforts in states like Indiana and Maryland, but they were defeated in the legislature. Now, Virginia has been added to the list and Florida [will hold a special session](https://www.axios.com/local/miami/2026/04/20/florida-special-legislative-session-expands-beyond-redistricting-debate?ref=ivn.us) next week. Colorado Democrats are [also trying to put a measure on the ballot](https://ivn.us/posts/michigan-gop-kicks-out-rcv-advocates-calls-them-communists-over-reform-republicans-use-2026-04-06) that would circumvent the independent redistricting commission there. Both parties have a long history of benefiting from gerrymandering. Democratic-controlled states like Illinois and New Mexico fail the partisan redistricting test as much as Texas and Florida. [The 10 Worst Gerrymandered States in the CountryMonday marked another escalation in the mid-cycle redistricting fight between Republicans in Texas and Democrats in California – with one in another special session to add 5 more GOP seats, and the other maneuvering to counter this with 5 new Democratic seats.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/ChatGPT-Image-Aug-18--2025--02_38_38-PM.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/10-worst-gerrymandered-states-country-2025-08-18) It is true that the Virginia referendum was put before voters while redistricting in Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina were done in the legislature without voter consent. However, there is more to this story. The narrative that Virginia Democrats have pushed makes it sound like they deliberately *chose* to make the new map temporary and *chose* to put it on the ballot in the spirit of democracy. In reality, they had no other choice if they wanted to change the state’s congressional map. Much like Prop 50 in California, the Virginia Constitution does not allow the legislature to redraw congressional and state legislative districts. This is because these maps are drawn by a redistricting commission that is enshrined into law. The only way for the legislature to get around that is to hold an election. It is also the reason why the new map is temporary. It has to be or else it would violate the Virginia Constitution. Under Article II, Section 6-A of the state constitution, the Virginia Redistricting Commission convenes every 10 years to redraw the Commonwealth’s congressional and state legislative districts. It consists of 16 members – 8 legislators and 8 citizens. Proposed maps are sent to the General Assembly for a straight up-or-down vote. No amendments are allowed. The commission was added to the constitution after voters approved Question 1 in 2020 with 66% of the vote. Voters did have the final say in Virginia, and the results show a divided electorate on the matter. They were inundated with TV ads, mailers, and campaign messaging from both sides paid for with money that will never have to be disclosed. Nearly $100 million went into the race, [and it was mostly from “dark money.”](https://ivn.us/posts/who-funded-the-100m-virginia-gerrymandering-referendum-voters-may-never-know-2026-04-20) Voters did not get a complete picture of who was trying to influence this race or from where since congressional redistricting has now become a national fight as opposed to a state-by-state process. How Republican-controlled states redraw their maps now affects how Democrat-controlled states redraw theirs and vice versa. And then party leaders will turn around and say they have to stop the “other side” from rigging the process. Even when one side says, "this is temporary," voters are justified in asking: What happens when escalation continues? What happens when more states join in or decide they need to go further? At the end of the day, what voters hear from Republicans and Democrats who support these redistricting efforts is not about representation. It is not about being fair to voters. It is about who controls of Congress. ### A Host of Media and Podcasters Call on Independent Voter Project URL: https://ivn.us/a-host-of-media-and-podcasters-call-on-independent-voter-project-2026-04-21/ Last updated: 2026-04-22T17:20:17.000Z For years, independent voters have been treated as a rounding error by political operatives, a demographic to be decoded every four years and then promptly forgotten. That is getting harder to do. [BREAKING: Xavier Becerra Bolts Into First Place in IVN California Governor PollSurvey of 3,404 verified California voters shows Democrat in front. Second-choice data reveals where Yee’s supporters are headed.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/IVN-2026-California-Governor-Race-Survey-April.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/breaking-xavier-becerra-bolts-into-first-place-in-ivn-california-governor-poll-2026-04-20) A Gallup survey released in January 2026 found that a record 45% of Americans now identify as political independents, the highest level since Gallup began tracking party identification in 1988\. Democrats and Republicans each sit at 27%. For the first time, independents are not just a plurality. They are the story. And a growing number of journalists, podcasters, and commentators are starting to tell it. ## **Media Turns to Independent Voter Project for Its Expertise on Independent Voters** The Independent Voter Project and its media arm, IVN, have been at the center of a recent wave of coverage that spans mainstream regional papers, national podcasts, and emerging political commentary shows, all grappling with the same underlying question: **If nearly half of all Americans reject the two-party label, why does the entire political system still operate as if they don't exist?** The SoCal News Group, whose papers include the [San Diego Union-Tribune](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/04/10/could-riverside-county-sheriff-chad-biancos-election-probe-be-a-blueprint/?ref=ivn.us), [LA Daily News](https://www.dailynews.com/2026/04/10/could-riverside-county-sheriff-chad-biancos-election-probe-be-a-blueprint/?ref=ivn.us), [OC Register](https://www.ocregister.com/2026/04/10/could-riverside-county-sheriff-chad-biancos-election-probe-be-a-blueprint/?ref=ivn.us), [Press-Enterprise](https://www.pressenterprise.com/2026/04/10/could-riverside-county-sheriff-chad-biancos-election-probe-be-a-blueprint/?ref=ivn.us), and eight other regional outlets, ran a story exploring whether Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco's election probe could serve as a national blueprint for independent oversight of the electoral process. The fact that a piece about election accountability ran simultaneously across a dozen Southern California papers reflects just how much urgency there is around these issues right now. Lifehacker, a publication not typically in the business of electoral analysis, weighed in with a piece asking [whether the midterm elections could be canceled](https://lifehacker.com/entertainment/will-the-midterm-elections-be-canceled?ref=ivn.us), a question that would have seemed absurd a few years ago and now lands in the middle of a mainstream readership. That's a measure of how far outside the traditional political press the conversation has spread. The podcast circuit has been equally active. The Independent Voter Project's own Chad Peace has been making the rounds with a clear and consistent message: the binary party system is not a neutral fact of American life. It is a design choice, and it is one that rewards polarization. On the [All About Nothing podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/election-reform-ranked-choice-voting-chad-peace/id1257408920?i=1000753969769&ref=ivn.us), Peace laid out the mechanics of how ranked-choice voting and open primaries interact, and why one without the other often fails to deliver on its promise. On [Make It Make Sense](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-1-election-how-primaries-are-rigged-against/id1756553746?i=1000759110640&ref=ivn.us), he broke down how primary systems are structurally rigged against the growing majority of voters who don't belong to either major party. The [PredictIt podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/both-parties-are-terrified-of-independent-voters/id1852059693?i=1000759873612&ref=ivn.us) cut to the chase with a title that said it directly: "Both Parties Are Terrified of Independent Voters." [Why We Call Ourselves Independent Voter NewsFor 15 years, we have published more than 14,000 articles written by people from different walks of life, different parts of the country, and different political backgrounds.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsIVN Editorial Board![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Independent-Voter-News-Who-We-Are.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/why-we-call-ourselves-independent-voter-news-2026-04-01) Appearances on [Fusion Party](https://youtu.be/BDX9uNBF%5FVo?ref=ivn.us), [Patriot Party](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIRi4LAxbm0&ref=ivn.us), [State of Gold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCVpTIBC7os&ref=ivn.us), [Local Matters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70ypkaPGsgc&ref=ivn.us), [San Francisco Experience](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5fej2zB43cGLlQSkOKbnM1?si=gra5-nJRRpKBZvFD9m6%5FiA&ref=ivn.us), and [WCPT 820](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBJc6G%5FRV2Y&ref=ivn.us) round out a media blitz that cuts across ideological audiences: conservative, progressive, libertarian, and everything in between. That's the point. Independent voters are not a monolith. They may or may not be moderates, and they are not apathetic. They are people who have looked at what the two-party system offers and decided it isn't working for them. ## **What the Numbers Actually Mean** The 45% figure is striking, but the generational data behind it is what should be keeping party strategists up at night. Gallup found that 56% of Gen Z adults and 54% of millennials now identify as independents. Unlike previous generations, these younger voters are not "aging into" party affiliation. They are holding onto their independence as they get older, and they are entering adulthood as independents at rates that are historically unprecedented. This is not a protest. It is a structural shift. Each new generation entering adulthood is more likely to reject party labels than the one before it. If that pattern holds, and there is no strong evidence it won't, independents will not plateau at 45%. They will keep climbing. What do they want? The answer, consistently and across geography, is straightforward: solutions to the cost of living, housing, healthcare, and economic security. Not messaging. Not tribal victories. Actual results. Independent voters are not ideologically confused. They are institutionally dissatisfied. They have watched both parties prioritize their own survival over the problems voters actually face, and they have drawn the obvious conclusion. ## **The System Rewards Polarization on Purpose** Understanding why candidates ignore independent voters requires understanding how the system is built. In 16 states with closed primaries, more than 16.5 million independent voters are barred entirely from participating in taxpayer-funded primary elections. In heavily gerrymandered districts across the country, a tiny slice of the most partisan primary voters effectively decides the outcome before most voters ever get a say. [How Do Primary Elections Work? An Overview and Legal AnalysisThe following is a breakdown of the general types of primary elections with an explanation of the Constitutional principles that apply to each system’s components.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsChad Peace![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/hero-migrated-5d1d1842c8d10818908412e1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/how-do-primary-elections-work-an-overview-and-legal-analysis) This is not an accident. The two-party system is structured to reward candidates who turn out their base and punish those who try to govern from a broader coalition. The incentives run in exactly the wrong direction for voters who want compromise and results. A politician who works across the aisle risks a primary challenge. A politician who performs outrage for their base gets rewarded with funding and loyalty. That is what Peace means when he says the system rewards polarization. It is not a bug. It is how the machine is calibrated. The reforms IVP has championed, like nonpartisan primary election models that include open primaries and ranked choice ballots in the general election, are attempts to recalibrate those incentives. California's Top Two primary, which [IVP sponsored in 2010](https://independentvoterproject.org/work/cas-nonpartisan-primary?ref=ivn.us), ensures that all voters, regardless of party registration, participate on a single ballot, and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election. San Diego's [Measure K](https://independentvoterproject.org/work/san-diego-measures?ref=ivn.us), also authored by IVP, went further, requiring all city elections to go to a November runoff so the broadest electorate gets the final say. The results where these reforms have been implemented are instructive. Alaska's Top Four primary with ranked choice voting has produced broader coalitions, higher engagement from underrepresented communities, and more pragmatic governance. The opposite is also instructive: in places where primaries remain closed and maps remain gerrymandered, the cycle of polarization and disengagement continues. [Who Funded the $100M Virginia Gerrymandering Referendum? Voters May Never KnowOn Tuesday, Virginians will go to the polls and vote on a referendum that if passed will implement a temporary new congressional map that gives Democrats as much as a 10-1 advantage in House elections.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/dark-money-campaign-finance-virginia-special-election.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/who-funded-the-100m-virginia-gerrymandering-referendum-voters-may-never-know-2026-04-20) ## **Why This Moment Is Different** Previous surges in independent identification, like the 43% recorded in 2014, came and went without fundamentally changing how either party operates. So why should this moment be any different? A few things have changed. The generational composition of independents is now structurally different, with the largest cohorts of young voters in history arriving already independent rather than converting later. The media landscape is more fragmented, which means niche shows and regional papers are covering these issues in ways that aggregate into genuine national attention. And the stakes of the 2026 midterms, with both parties aware that the House could swing, are forcing campaigns to pay closer attention to voters they have historically taken for granted. There is also a growing public understanding of how primary systems work, and why they produce the candidates they do. That is not an accident either. It is the result of years of education work by organizations like IVP, and it is showing up in coverage that goes beyond horse-race politics to explain the structural roots of voter frustration. --- For more on IVP's work on election reform and independent voter rights, visit [independentvoterproject.org](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us). ### **About The Author** [Susan von Seggern](https://www.susanvonseggern.com/?ref=ivn.us) is one of the most well-known and well-liked publicists in Los Angeles for her work as a major label publicist, CEO of a boutique PR agency, time spent in political PR, and her globe-trotting exploits in corporate PR. Her return to consulting for events, corporate, cause, and cultural clients have exposed countless journalists and influencers to Susan’s honest, positive and tenacious PR style. Susan knows that she can take her interesting, newsworthy and active clients to new highs of media coverage, creating strategies that employ the latest PR tactics such as podcast pitching and hyper-local coverage with tried-and-true methods including events, press releasing and sustained media outreach. ### Xavier Becerra Bolts Into First Place in IVN California Governor Poll URL: https://ivn.us/breaking-xavier-becerra-bolts-into-first-place-in-ivn-california-governor-poll-2026-04-20/ Last updated: 2026-05-18T15:38:44.000Z **SACRAMENTO, Ca.** \- A new Independent Voter Project survey of 3,404 California likely primary voters shows Xavier Becerra leading the race for governor at **23 percent**. Republican Steve Hilton follows at **19.7 percent**, with fellow Republican Chad Bianco at 16.68 percent, Democrat Tom Steyer at 13.9 percent, and Katie Porter at 11.39 percent. The survey was conducted April 14-20 among verified registered voters drawn directly from the California voter file. Every respondent was required to have a documented history of participation in at least three of the last four major statewide elections. Full results are available at the link below. Unique to Independent Voter News (IVN), you can view more questions, crosstabs, and do your own analysis [by visiting the IVN.us data studio.](https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/2dc8dcad-8201-4944-bc51-e9a57c53c7df/page/p%5Fd0jkxwct2d?ref=ivn.us) ### **First-Choice Results** | Candidate | Share | Party | | ------------------------------------------------------ | ------ | ----- | | Xavier Becerra, Voting Rights Attorney | 23.03% | D | | Steve Hilton, Small Business Owner | 19.7% | R | | Chad Bianco, Riverside County Sheriff | 16.68% | R | | Tom Steyer, Climate Advocate | 13.9% | D | | Katie Porter, Consumer Protection Advocate | 11.39% | D | | None / Other | 8.07% | | | Matt Mahan, Mayor of San Jose | 4.25% | D | | Betty Yee, Family Care Navigator | 1.12% | D | | Antonio Villaraigosa, Housing Affordability Advocate | 0.99% | D | | Tony Thurmond, CA Superintendent of Public Instruction | 0.87% | D | ### Second-Choice Results The survey asked all respondents for a second choice. None / Other leads at 19.92 percent, followed by Chad Bianco at 16.4 percent, Steve Hilton at 14.01 percent, and Katie Porter at 13.41 percent. Becerra draws 11.8 percent as a second choice. | Candidate | Share | Party | | ------------------------------------------------------ | ------ | ----- | | None / Other | 19.92% | | | Chad Bianco, Riverside County Sheriff | 16.4% | R | | Steve Hilton, Small Business Owner | 14.01% | R | | Katie Porter, Consumer Protection Advocate | 13.41% | D | | Xavier Becerra, Voting Rights Attorney | 11.8% | D | | Tom Steyer, Climate Advocate | 10.9% | D | | Matt Mahan, Mayor of San Jose | 4.84% | D | | Antonio Villaraigosa, Housing Affordability Advocate | 3.87% | D | | Betty Yee, Family Care Navigator | 2.57% | D | | Tony Thurmond, CA Superintendent of Public Instruction | 2.27% | D | ## **Betty Yee Drops Out** Betty Yee announced her exit from the race today. She received 1.12 percent of first-choice votes in this survey. Because the IVP poll captured second-choice preferences from all respondents, the data shows directly where her supporters are likely to go. Among voters who selected Yee as their first choice, Becerra leads as second choice at **25.52 percent**, followed by None / Other at 21.37 percent, Katie Porter at 21.18 percent, and Tom Steyer at 20.43 percent. Republican candidates draw almost nothing from her base: Chad Bianco receives 1.86 percent. Yee's voters are 67.9 percent registered Democrat and 32.1 percent No Party Preference. Her coalition skews older, with 42.2 percent aged 65 or above, and is racially diverse: 27.4 percent identify as Black, 41.1 percent as White, and 10.9 percent as Asian. ### Second-Choice Votes Among Betty Yee First-Choice Voters | Candidate | Share | Party | | ------------------------------------------------------ | ------ | ----- | | Xavier Becerra, Voting Rights Attorney | 25.52% | D | | None / Other | 21.37% | | | Katie Porter, Consumer Protection Advocate | 21.18% | D | | Tom Steyer, Climate Advocate | 20.43% | D | | Matt Mahan, Mayor of San Jose | 5.95% | D | | Antonio Villaraigosa, Housing Affordability Advocate | 2.69% | D | | Chad Bianco, Riverside County Sheriff | 1.86% | R | | Tony Thurmond, CA Superintendent of Public Instruction | 0.99% | D | ## **About This Poll** Most public polling uses a self-reported likely voter screen: respondents are asked whether they plan to vote, and those who say yes are included. The IVP survey takes a different approach. Every respondent was drawn directly from the L2 California voter file and required to have actually voted in at least three of the last four major statewide elections, including at least one primary and one general. No one is included based on stated intent alone. That distinction matters most in a primary, where turnout is lower and more habitual than in a general election. Self-reported screens tend to oversample people who think they will vote but historically do not, which can skew results. The IVP model is anchored entirely in verified past behavior. The survey also asked voters for a second choice alongside their first, which most polls do not do. That design decision made it possible to report meaningfully on where Betty Yee's voters are headed the same day she exited the race. IVP is a nonprofit with no candidate or party clients. Most polling that circulates during a primary is commissioned by campaigns, independent expenditure committees, or media organizations with a commercial stake in the race. That does not make those polls invalid, but the funding source is relevant context when evaluating what any survey is designed to measure. ### **Survey Methodology** The IVP 2026 April Reform Survey was conducted April 14-20, 2026, among 3,404 screened and verified registered California voters drawn from the L2 California voter file. Eligibility required participation in at least three of the last four major statewide elections — the June 2022 primary, November 2022 general, March 2024 primary, and November 2024 general — including at least one primary and one general. Newly registered voters were eligible with participation in at least one of the four elections. Respondents were reached through MMS outreach to verified cell phone records and Meta placements targeted exclusively to voter file-matched audiences. Duplicate submissions, timestamp anomalies, and unmatched records were excluded before analysis. The weighted electorate composition is 47.7 percent Democratic, 30.2 percent Republican, and 22.1 percent independent. Unweighted party subgroups: Democrats n=1,232; Republicans n=1,148; independent registrants n=1,024\. The overall margin of error is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level, adjusted for the design effect of weighting using Kish's effective sample size of 2,038\. Subgroup margins of error are plus or minus 3.4 points for Democrats, plus or minus 3.5 points for Republicans, and plus or minus 4.4 points for independent voters. This survey is designed to represent California's consistent primary electorate. It does not assume a surge among lower-propensity or newly registered voters. A material change in turnout composition, particularly among independent voters, would alter projected ballot dynamics. ### Who Funded the $100M Virginia Gerrymandering Referendum? Voters May Never Know URL: https://ivn.us/who-funded-the-100m-virginia-gerrymandering-referendum-voters-may-never-know-2026-04-20/ Last updated: 2026-04-20T19:45:26.000Z **RICHMOND, Va.** \- On Tuesday, Virginians will go to the polls and vote on a referendum that if passed will implement a temporary new congressional map that gives Democrats as much as a 10-1 advantage in House elections. The race has become both heated and expensive. Yet, most of the money that has poured into it is shrouded in secrecy. This is because it has been funneled through multiple nonprofit entities commonly referred to as “dark money” groups. Supporters of the referendum say this was all triggered by the actions of Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina to gerrymander their maps. They also say this is temporary and that the state’s voter-approved bipartisan redistricting commission will resume its business in 2030. [Did the Republicans or Democrats Start the Gerrymandering Fight?The 2026 midterm election cycle is quickly approaching. However, there is a lingering question mark over what congressional maps will look like when voters start to cast their ballots, especially as Republicans and Democrats fight to obtain any electoral advantage possible.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/andy-feliciotti-8cvjI48SFtY-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/did-republicans-democrats-start-gerrymandering-fight-2025-11-11) Former President Barack Obama recently voiced his support for it, much like he did with Prop 50 in California. "Over the past year, several Republican-controlled states have taken the unprecedented step of redrawing their congressional maps in the middle of the decade,” he said. “And they’ve done it for a simple reason: to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms this fall.” Of course, when supporters talk about the actions of Republican-controlled states, they leave out California and failed attempts in Washington and Maryland (a state with only one Republican representative in the US House). After Prop 50, California Democrats may end up with as much as 92% of their state’s congressional seats. They also negate to mention that Colorado Democrats [are attempting to do the same thing](https://ivn.us/posts/michigan-gop-kicks-out-rcv-advocates-calls-them-communists-over-reform-republicans-use-2026-04-06). It is a common theme in this ongoing gerrymandering fight: One side points their finger at the other side and says, “they started it,” but won’t take accountability for how their party has contributed to escalation. Republican US Rep. Jennifer Kiggans asserted that the referendum is “[a blatant power grab by the Democratic majority](https://virginiaindependentnews.com/politics/virginia-legislators-referendum-congressional-redistricting/?ref=ivn.us)." She added that it will “permanently diminish conservative representation in Virginia’s congressional delegation.” Then there are reform-focused groups, like the Forward Party, who call all of these efforts – whether it is Texas, California, Missouri, or Virginia – a “race to the bottom.” “When politicians control the drawing of districts, it moves us further away from a system where voters choose their leaders and closer to one where leaders choose their voters,” the Forward Party wrote in a statement of opposition. > *“Respecting stable and fair processes strengthens public trust and encourages the kind of competitive elections that bring more voters, including independent voters, into the democratic process.”* Like Prop 50, the Virginia redistricting effort will be left up to voters to decide. And just like the California measure, the special election has seen a tremendous influx of cash. [Nearly $100 million went into the race](https://ballotpedia.org/Virginia%5FUse%5Fof%5FLegislative%5FCongressional%5FRedistricting%5FMap%5FAmendment%5F%28April%5F2026%29?ref=ivn.us) (combining both support and opposition contributions). But here’s the thing: No one knows the source of most of it because 95% came from “dark money.” Simply put, a “dark money” group has 501(c)(4) nonprofit tax-exempt status. Not all organizations in this category are “dark money” entities. The label is reserved specifically for nonprofits that regularly engage in and contribute to political activity, but because of their status they don’t have to disclose their donors. Super PACs are a common example of 501(c)(4) groups in political spending. In total, more than $66 million was raised to support Virginians for Fair Elections, the committee that is spearheading the “Yes” campaign. About $38 million came from House Majority Forward (a 501(c)(4) group). Nearly $12 million came from The Fairness Project (which is funded by another layer of nonprofits), $5 million was provided by George Soros’ Fund for Policy Reform, and nearly $3.7 million is attributed to American Opportunity Action. All of these are 501(c)(4) lobbying groups. None of them are required by law to disclose their donors. The funding could have come from mega donors and people out of state who will not be represented by members of the Virginia delegation – it’s largely unknown. The dark money space used to be dominated by Republican and conservative entities. But over the last few years, Democrats have also [embraced funding routes that make their ultrawealthy donors harder to identify](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/us/politics/dark-money-nonprofits-explainer.html?ref=ivn.us) outside already known names like Soros. The opposition committee, Virginians for Fair Maps, has also taken in millions from unknown sources. It has just taken in less. Out of the $23 million contributed to the “No” campaign, nearly $20 million came from an entity with the same name, Virginians for Fair Maps. An additional $2.5 million came from Per Aspera Policy Incorporated, a PAC directly tied to billionaire Peter Thiel. It is unclear how much of this money came from Thiel. In the case of Fund For Policy Reform, it is known that most – if not all – the money likely came from Soros, just like it did when his group got involved in Prop 50. There are many similarities between the April 21 referendum in Virginia and California Prop 50\. However, while more money went into the California election, the amount of undisclosed dollars in Virginia is far greater. In California, nonprofit money was dwarfed by individual mega donors, labor unions, and political committees. But in Virginia, it is the exact opposite. Tuesday’s election may also not be as one-sided as Prop 50, which got a “Yes” vote from nearly two-thirds of participating California voters. The most recent polling from [State Navigate](https://statenavigate.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/VA-Redistricting-Topline.pdf?ref=ivn.us) shows support at 50%, despite the “Yes” campaign outspending their opponents by significant margins. Another poll from The Washington Post and George Mason University [shows support at 53%](https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/0eee4c34-9746-492b-babe-116e433209d1.pdf?ref=ivn.us). ## **In Other Reform News…** ### **Independent Registration Surges in New Mexico Ahead of State’s First Semi-Open Primaries** Independent voter registration was already on the rise in New Mexico. However, there has been a recent explosion in independent registration following two things: - The legislature passed a semi-open primary bill in 2025 - The state has a new automatic voter registration system According to [the latest reports](https://www.abqjournal.com/news/independents-ranks-swell-after-implementation-of-new-voter-registration-system/3024413?ref=ivn.us), more than 80% of new registrants from June to now have registered unaffiliated with a political party. In whole numbers, the number of independent voters has risen by about 57,000. While automatic voter registration is being credited for the surge, independent voters were already one the rise. Independents now make up 28% of the registered voting population in New Mexico. This is up 3 points from 2025. From 2010 to 2025, independent registration increased from 19% to 25%. So, the trend toward independence already existed. Here’s the most important takeaway: It would have been irresponsible to have automatic voter registration without open primaries. If the state still had closed primaries, all of these new registrants would be denied the right to vote in June’s taxpayer-funded elections. Under the state’s automatic voter registration (AVR) system, New Mexico citizens are registered to vote when they do business with the Department of Motor Vehicles (i.e. when they renew their driver’s license or get a state ID). In some cases, there may be a voter who has a party preference, but if they don’t state it then they are registered unaffiliated. Under the old closed primary rules, they would be turned away at the polls if they tried to vote in the Republican or Democratic primary. But after [the passage of SB 16](https://ivn.us/posts/its-official-new-mexico-has-opened-its-primaries-independent-voters-2025-04-08), this is no longer an issue. Whether a voter meant to register independent or not – they won’t be denied their right to vote. [Opening the Door: How New Mexico Reformed Its Primary Elections and What Others Can LearnMore than 330,000 independent voters will have access to state-administered primary elections in future New Mexico elections after the legislature passed SB 16 in March to end the state’s use of closed primaries.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/New-Mexico-Open-Elections-Vol-2.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/opening-door-how-new-mexico-reformed-its-primary-elections-and-what-others-can-learn-2025-05) Under a semi-open primary system, voters registered with a political party have to vote in their respective party’s primary. Independent voters can choose which party’s ballot they want. While their options are limited to the candidates of that party, they now have access to the most important elections in New Mexico. In any given election cycle, half of the state’s legislative races go uncontested, which means the district is so safe for one party or the other that other parties don’t bother to field a candidate. This means the only true election is the primary. Prior to 2025, independent voters had no say in who represents them. Now, they do. ## **Judge Tells Challengers to California’s Top Two Primary: You Can’t Re-Litigate a Lost Case** Last week, I reported on a federal judge’s decision to dismiss a new lawsuit against California’s Top Two nonpartisan primary system. The judge told plaintiffs that they tried this already and lost. As such, they can’t repackage the same arguments and sue again. [Judge Slams Door on New Attack Against California’s Top Two PrimaryA group of minor parties in California challenged the state’s nonpartisan Top Two primary in court and a federal judge handed them another loss, ruling in part that they can’t keep suing over arguments already rejected by other courts.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/challenge-to-california-top-two-primary-dismissed.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/judge-slams-door-on-new-attack-against-californias-top-two-primary-2026-04-15) The plaintiffs in the case included the Peace and Freedom Party, Libertarian Party of California, Green Party of California, the American Solidarity Party of California, and several individual candidates affiliated with those parties. The only new plaintiff was the American Solidarity Party of California. However, simply adding another party to the lawsuit wasn’t enough to re-litigate challenges that have been rejected by courts in California and Washington (which also uses Top Two). Plaintiffs claimed Top Two violated their right to equal protection since only major party candidates tend to advance. The judge re-affirmed existing court precedent, which states that Top Two creates a level playing field by applying the same rules to everyone. All voters and candidates participate on a single primary ballot. Ballot-access rules are the same for every candidate, regardless of party. It is not the fault of the system if a candidate and their party are not popular or have broad support. It does not make the nonpartisan open primary unconstitutional. Plaintiffs also challenged California’s ban on write-in candidates in the general election. The judge said there is nothing unconstitutional about the state’s interest to advance two candidates to the general, and overturning the ban would negate the point of Top Two. The [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) – which sponsored the Top Two measure approved by voters in 2010 – now advocates for expanding the number of candidates that advance to the general election to four. But the organization’s position is that California should not go backwards. In other words, it should not return to a closed partisan system that shuts out independent voters and creates an unequal playing field for voters and candidates alike. ## **Quick Hits** - A new documentary film titled [*People vs. Politics*](https://www.peoplevspolitics.com/?ref=ivn.us) premiered at the 2026 Washington, DC International Film Festival over the weekend. It profiles ongoing and expanding grassroots movements to bring systemic reform to partisan US elections, including the 2024 campaign to get [Initiative 83 (open primaries + ranked choice voting) passed in DC](https://ivn.us/posts/dc-voters-open-primaries-over-73000-independents-pass-ranked-choice-voting-2024-11-05). The documentary includes campaign leaders and reform activists who have worked in this space for years. - Speaking of DC, city voters are preparing to vote in their first primary election using ranked choice voting. However, more than 80,000 independent voters will be denied access to these taxpayer-funded elections despite overwhelming voter approval of Initiative 83\. This is because the DC City Council has refused to implement it. This has led the Washington Post editorial board to ask, "[Why are DC Democrats so afraid of independent voters?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/04/17/dc-open-primaries-remain-unfunded-what-are-democrats-afraid/?ref=ivn.us)" - The same question could be asked of Republicans in Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Colorado and other states in the South that have tried to close their primary elections. A closed primary bill in Alabama [recently died without a vote](https://www.alreporter.com/2026/04/10/bill-to-close-primaries-dies-without-vote/?ref=ivn.us) while Tennessee lawmakers continue to consider closed primary legislation. - ICYMI - Better Ballot Sacramento [began collecting signatures](https://www.kcra.com/article/ranked-choice-voting-push-sacramento/62807406?ref=ivn.us) for a proposal that if approved by voters would eliminate primary elections in the city, which would instead conduct one election each cycle using ranked choice voting. - President Donald Trump has [once again attacked ranked choice voting](https://ivn.us/posts/why-trump-really-hates-alaskas-ranked-choice-voting-2026-04-13). Specifically, the Top Four election model used in Alaska that includes ranked choice voting in the general election. He has called on state voters to repeal a system he calls “very fraudulent” and “restore free, fair, and honest elections” without providing evidence to support his claims. He also supports a repeal measure that would eliminate laws that enforce greater transparency in who is spending money to influence state elections. ### Independientes y Republicanos Podrían Tener El Poder en Los Angeles – Si De Verdad Salen A Votar URL: https://ivn.us/independientes-y-republicanos-podrian-tener-el-poder-en-los-angeles-si-de-verdad-salen-a-votar/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T15:48:43.000Z Los votantes de Los Angeles se acercan a una primaria el 2 de junio que puede definir mucho más que quiénes pasan a noviembre. [Según la Carta Constitutiva de la Ciudad de Los Ángeles](https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/los%5Fangeles/latest/overview?ref=ivn.us), cualquier candidato que rebase el 50% del voto en la primaria gana de forma directa. Sin segunda vuelta. Sin elección en noviembre. Esa regla convierte la primaria de junio en la única elección de varias de las contiendas más observadas de la ciudad. Vale la pena mencionar que esta regla no es universal. En 2016, los votantes de San Diego aprobaron la Medida K, una iniciativa redactada por el [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us), que eliminó la regla idéntica del 50% en San Diego y obligó a que todas las elecciones de la ciudad pasaran a una segunda vuelta en noviembre con los dos candidatos más votados. Los votantes la aprobaron con casi el 59% del voto. Los Ángeles nunca hizo ese cambio. El resultado es un sistema donde una primaria de junio con baja participación puede terminar por completo una contienda, sin oportunidad de que el electorado más amplio de noviembre pueda opinar. Al mismo tiempo, [DSA-Los Angeles](https://dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us) (Democratic Socialists of America) está llevando la campaña progresista municipal más coordinada que ha visto la ciudad en años: una boleta de seis contiendas bajo el nombre "[Shake Up LA](https://shakeup-la.com/?ref=ivn.us)", con programas activos de trabajo puerta por puerta, campañas de postales y redes de recaudación de pequeños donadores ya en operación. Democratic Socialists of America es la organización socialista más grande de Estados Unidos, con más de 100,000 miembros. Su mensaje central es claro: "LA is under attack by ICE, billionaire bosses, racism, oppression, and Trumpism; and the status quo is failing to meet the moment." El mensaje gira por completo alrededor de la movilización de su base, no de convencer a otros. Una estrategia diseñada específicamente para las primarias de junio en LA, donde un bloque motivado de 4,000 a 6,000 votantes bien organizados puede ser decisivo en una contienda que atrae entre 25,000 y 45,000 votos en total. Lo que DSA-LA está apostando (y lo que los datos de registro confirman) es que el otro lado del electorado no está organizado para nada. ## **El universo de votantes que nadie está buscando** A lo largo de los cuatro distritos del concejo donde DSA respaldó candidatos, los datos de registro muestran más de 200,000 votantes registrados como Sin Preferencia de Partido (NPP), American Independent (AIP) y republicanos. Estos votantes son totalmente elegibles para participar en elecciones locales no partidistas el 2 de junio, sin importar su registro de partido. Este grupo, históricamente, no recibe ninguna iniciativa dirigida a ellos en las primarias municipales de junio. Su nivel de participación en las primarias está muy por debajo de lo que producen en las elecciones generales de noviembre. En el CD11, ese bloque suma 67,620 votantes, casi el 40% del total del registro del distrito. En el CD15 son 61,798, el 44.2% del electorado, la mayor proporción combinada de votantes no demócratas de cualquier distrito objetivo. En el CD13 son casi 54,000\. En el CD1, más de 42,000. En primarias de baja participación, esos votantes son la elección. Si se aparecen. ## **Council District 1: la concejal de DSA y los retadores** Eunisses Hernandez busca la reelección en un distrito que va desde Glassell Park y Highland Park hasta Chinatown y Pico Union. Es la primera concejal del distrito respaldada por DSA, y su trayectoria refleja esa alineación directamente. Hernandez cofundó La Defensx, una organización enfocada en redirigir recursos del condado del encarcelamiento hacia servicios comunitarios. En el cargo, redactó la Ordenanza de Ciudad Santuario de la ciudad, lideró la implementación de la Medida ULA y aprobó lo que DSA describe como las protecciones para inquilinos más fuertes en 40 años. Fue la única concejal en votar en contra del presupuesto de la ciudad en su primer año, citando una distribución inequitativa de recursos. Hernandez ganó su primaria de 2022 de forma directa con 53.9%, un margen de 2,408 votos de 29,888 votos emitidos. Se han certificado cuatro retadores: Maria Lou Calanche, ex Comisionada de la Policía de Los Ángeles y fundadora de la organización sin fines de lucro Legacy LA; Nelson Grande, consultor ejecutivo y ex presidente de Avenida Entertainment Group; Raul Claros, fundador de la CD1 Coalition, que organiza jornadas de limpieza comunitaria; y Sylvia Robledo, dueña de un pequeño negocio y ex asesora del concejo. El universo de votantes no demócratas en el CD1 suma 42,396 votantes, el 37.4% del total del registro. Un aumento de 5 puntos en la participación de ese grupo daría aproximadamente 2,120 votos adicionales. En una contienda con varios candidatos, eso es suficiente para definir si Hernandez gana directo en junio o si enfrenta una segunda vuelta en noviembre, y quién queda en segundo lugar. ## **Council District 9: el escaño abierto y la guerra de organización** Este es el distrito de menor ingreso de LA, e incluye comunidades del sur de Los Ángeles que han sufrido décadas de falta de inversión. Con Curren Price cumpliendo su límite de mandatos, el escaño queda abierto, y la inversión de DSA aquí es significativa. Estuardo Mazariegos es el candidato de Shake Up LA. Es Codirector de la Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), un organizador laboral con mucha trayectoria que ayudó a liderar el Fight for $15 y se organizó con SEIU. Su plataforma propone vivienda social en terrenos baldíos propiedad de la ciudad, cerrar plantas eléctricas de gas, ampliar el transporte público y protecciones a inquilinos, incluyendo defensa universal contra desalojos. Su oponente en la primaria es Jose Ugarte, asesor de muchos años del saliente Price y el candidato favorecido por gran parte de la red política del actual concejal. Shake Up LA enmarca a Ugarte como el candidato de la "Status Quo Coalition": alguien que usa lenguaje progresista mientras en realidad sirve a desarrolladores inmobiliarios por encima de las familias trabajadoras. Es un contraste fuerte que hace del CD9 tanto una batalla interna de la izquierda como una de izquierda contra centro. Otros candidatos en la contienda de seis personas incluyen a Elmer Roldan, Jorge Hernandez Rosas, Jorge Nuño y Martha Sanchez. El universo de votantes no demócratas en el CD9 es de 37,196, el más pequeño de los cuatro distritos objetivo y el más demócrata. Con un campo lleno de candidatos que probablemente lleve a una segunda vuelta en noviembre, los votos de independientes y republicanos aun así podrían definir cuáles dos candidatos avanzan. ## **Council District 11: la contienda que termina el 2 de junio** Esta es la contienda de mayor peso en Los Ángeles, y los retos son simples: un candidato gana el 2 de junio, y ahí termina todo. La boleta certificada tiene dos nombres: la actual concejal Traci Park y la retadora respaldada por DSA, Faizah Malik. Un tercer candidato, Jeremy Wineberg, no calificó. Bajo la regla del 50%, el ganador de una contienda con dos candidatos rebasa el umbral automáticamente. No hay segunda vuelta en noviembre, no hay una segunda oportunidad para votar. Park es abogada de derecho municipal y la única moderada que ganó un escaño del concejo en el ciclo del 2022\. Su campaña de 2026 está marcada fuertemente por el incendio de Palisades, que devastó Pacific Palisades y otras comunidades de su distrito. Park ha estado muy identificada con los esfuerzos de recuperación, incluyendo alivio fiscal para víctimas del incendio y medidas de reconstrucción. Sus apoyos abarcan a las instituciones tradicionales de Los Ángeles: el senador federal Adam Schiff, el congresista Ted Lieu, el congresista Brad Sherman, la Tesorera Estatal Fiona Ma, el Presidente Pro Tem del Senado Mike McGuire y el sindicato de trabajadores del transporte TCU/IAM Local 1315, junto con organizaciones laborales del LAFD y el LAPD. Malik es residente de Venice y abogada de derechos civiles y vivienda, nacida en el sur de California de padres inmigrantes musulmanes del sur de Asia. Su plataforma se centra en protecciones para inquilinos, vivienda accesible y políticas equitativas de uso de suelo. Ha trabajado con DSA-LA, LA Forward y la Keep LA Housed (KLAH) Coalition. También es una defensora abierta de los derechos humanos de los palestinos, una postura central para la base activista que la respalda. El universo de votantes no demócratas en el CD11 es de 67,620, el 39.8% del total de la población registrada para votar, incluyendo un 14% de republicanos (casi el doble de la proporción de republicanos en cualquier otro distrito objetivo de DSA). El distrito cubre Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Venice, Mar Vista, Playa Vista y Westchester. Es de mayoría con ascendencia europea (50.6%), de alta escolaridad y con mucha presencia de propietarios de vivienda. Casi una cuarta parte de los residentes tiene más de 65 años. Los datos de registro de votantes analizados antes de la primaria muestran que un aumento de 5 puntos en la participación entre votantes NPP, AIP y republicanos en el CD11 produciría aproximadamente 3,381 votos adicionales. Un aumento de 10 puntos sumaría alrededor de 6,762. En una primaria donde el total de votos emitidos puede estar entre 30,000 y 50,000, esos números son estructuralmente decisivos. La evidencia de que este tipo de trabajo funciona aquí está documentada. En 2022, un programa de educación a votantes se enfocó en aproximadamente 35,000 votantes NPP y 10,000 votantes republicanos en el CD11 durante la elección general de noviembre. El distrito produjo la tasa de participación más alta de NPP de cualquier distrito comparable donde se enfrentaron demócrata contra demócrata en toda la ciudad. La participación republicana superó la proporción de registro republicana, el único resultado de ese tipo en cualquier contienda comparable de ese ciclo. Mientras que en todas las demás contiendas comparables de demócrata contra demócrata las ventajas de candidatos moderados cayeron entre 9 y 10 puntos al contar las boletas tardías por correo, el margen de Park se movió solo 1 punto. Ganó por 4,048 votos. Ese año, el programa corrió en noviembre. Sin embargo, en 2026 no habrá elección en noviembre para el CD11. ## **Council District 13: el concejal de DSA bajo presión** Hugo Soto-Martinez representa Echo Park, Hollywood y Atwater Village, y es uno de los funcionarios electos más destacados de DSA en Los Ángeles. Antes de asumir el cargo, se organizó con UNITE HERE Local 11 durante 16 años. En el cargo, redactó la ley de Ciudad Santuario, bajó los aumentos de renta para unidades con renta estabilizada por primera vez en 40 años y lideró protecciones contra el hostigamiento y contra desalojos sin causa. El planteamiento de Shake Up LA es directo sobre lo que está en juego: "big business interests are pouring resources into multiple 'law-and-order' candidates, hoping that a divided field will weaken the progressive movement and flip a seat." Tres retadores están en la contienda: Colter Carlisle, Rich Sarian y Dylan Kendall. La presencia de varios oponentes es en sí una jugada estratégica: dividir el voto anti-titular lo suficiente para forzar una segunda vuelta, y luego consolidar en noviembre. El universo de votantes no demócratas en el CD13 es de 53,976, el 35.8% del registro. En un campo de varios candidatos que probablemente lleve a una segunda vuelta en noviembre, los votantes independientes y republicanos podrían definir quién queda en segundo lugar y avanza. ## **Council District 15: la contienda de dos candidatos del distrito del puerto** El CD15 tiene la mayor proporción de registro republicano de cualquier distrito del concejo de la ciudad: 17%. El universo combinado de votantes no demócratas es de 61,798, el 44.2% del total del registro. El actual concejal Tim McOsker es miembro de toda la vida de la comunidad de San Pedro, con tres décadas en el gobierno de la ciudad. Sirvió como jefe de gabinete y subprocurador en jefe de la ciudad bajo el Alcalde James Hahn, y más recientemente como Director Ejecutivo de AltaSea, una organización sin fines de lucro enfocada en la sostenibilidad oceánica y la creación de empleos en la zona portuaria. Su plataforma se centra en la calidad de vida en la zona del puerto, empleos, aire y agua limpios, vivienda y seguridad pública. Su retador es Jordan Rivers, organizador comunitario que se postula en el puerto, San Pedro y las comunidades de Watts que conforman el distrito. [Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-03-09/la-city-council-candidate-stays-in-race-after-report-that-he-stabbed-boy-at-age-12?ref=ivn.us) reportó recientemente que cuando Rivers tenía 12 años, apuñaló a un vecino de 8 años mientras los dos jugaban videojuegos, según alegó una demanda. Rivers negó haber atacado al niño y dijo que fue un "accident." DSA-LA no respaldó a nadie en esta contienda. Las dinámicas estructurales son idénticas a las del CD11: dos candidatos certificados, uno de los cuales gana en junio. Con un universo de votantes no demócratas del 44.2%, mayor por proporción combinada que cualquier otro distrito objetivo, un aumento modesto en la participación produciría aproximadamente 3,090 votos adicionales con un aumento de 5 puntos, o 6,180 con 10 puntos. ## **Alcaldía: Bass, Raman, Pratt y la forma del otoño** La contienda por la alcaldía casi con seguridad producirá una segunda vuelta en noviembre. Catorce candidatos están en la boleta y es poco probable que alguien rebase el 50%. Pero junio define quiénes son los dos finalistas, y esa pregunta está menos resuelta de lo que sugiere la sabiduría convencional. *Una contienda llena por la alcaldía expone por qué Los Ángeles necesita el Voto por Orden de Preferencia* La Alcaldesa Karen Bass busca la reelección después de un primer mandato definido por su iniciativa Inside Safe contra la falta de vivienda y por el incendio de Palisades. Líderes empresariales del centro y la Cámara de Comercio de LA están respaldando su segundo mandato, así como el ex Presidente de la Asamblea Fabian Nunez y la Supervisora del Condado Hilda Solis. [NBC4 reportó](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/karen-bass-nithya-raman-la-mayor-race/3872738/?ref=ivn.us) que Bass citó una reducción en la falta de vivienda en las calles durante un evento reciente donde se anunció el respaldo del sector empresarial a su campaña. Nithya Raman, la concejal del CD4, entró a la contienda justo antes de la fecha límite de inscripción, después de haber respaldado a Bass previamente. [CalMatters](https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/02/la-mayor-bass-election-challenge/?ref=ivn.us) la describió como una progresista "in the mold of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani" que vio una oportunidad con una Bass debilitada por las críticas a la respuesta al incendio. Raman tiene el respaldo de UNITE HERE Local 11 y la red de Shake Up LA. Su plataforma se centra en la accesibilidad a la vivienda, los derechos de los trabajadores y respuestas alternativas a las crisis. Auto-descrita como socialista democrática, había respaldado previamente a Bass cuando parecía que Bass iba a enfrentar a un oponente más conservador. Y luego está Spencer Pratt. Conocido por su papel en The Hills de MTV, Pratt tiene un título en ciencia política de USC y creció en Pacific Palisades. Su casa y la de sus padres, cerca de ahí, quedaron destruidas en el incendio de Palisades de enero de 2025\. Lleva más de un año desplazado. El 7 de enero de 2026, exactamente un año después del inicio del incendio, anunció su candidatura en un rally en Pacific Palisades llamado "They Let Us Burn", organizado por la Palisades Fire Residents Coalition. "I never wanted to be mayor," dijo en el rally. "But once you uncover everything, these people in charge should have resigned." Su plataforma es la lista de un outsider: auditar los miles de millones gastados en organizaciones sin fines de lucro dedicadas a la falta de vivienda (lo que él llama el "homeless industrial complex"), financiar por completo al LAPD, restaurar la preparación ante emergencias y la capacidad de los embalses, exponer la corrupción en los contratos de la ciudad, e implementar un presupuesto municipal enfocado en lo básico. Su sitio de campaña plantea la misión como "disinfecting the city with light." Para principios de abril, las encuestas mostraban a Pratt subiendo al segundo lugar en el campo de 14 candidatos, solo detrás de Bass, con aproximadamente 40% de los votantes aún indecisos. Joe Rogan lo respaldó en su podcast del 15 de abril. The [Hollywood Reporter](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/joe-rogan-spencer-pratt-mayor-campaign-1236566113/?ref=ivn.us) cubrió el respaldo al día siguiente. El establishment político ha tratado a Pratt casi siempre como una novedad. Las encuestas dicen otra cosa. Pero la pregunta más interesante desde el análisis no es si Pratt gana, sino qué le hace su candidatura a la aritmética de quién avanza a noviembre. La contienda por la alcaldía opera bajo la misma regla del 50% que las contiendas del concejo, pero con 14 candidatos casi seguro produce una segunda vuelta. Lo que importa en junio es quién queda en primero y segundo. En un campo lleno, los márgenes entre candidatos pueden ser de unos cuantos miles de votos. La candidatura de Pratt es una demostración en vivo del argumento central de todo este artículo: en una primaria de junio con baja participación, un candidato que activa votantes que normalmente no salen a votar puede mover el resultado, sin importar lo que el establishment político piense de sus posibilidades. La base de Pratt (víctimas del incendio, propietarios frustrados, votantes que desconfían del Ayuntamiento en temas de falta de vivienda y seguridad pública) se solapa fuertemente con el universo de votantes NPP y republicanos que el resto de las campañas de este ciclo está ignorando. Si moviliza aunque sea una fracción de ese universo en un campo de 14 candidatos donde el segundo lugar se define por decenas de miles de votos, se vuelve un factor. No porque la fama se traduzca en capacidad para gobernar, sino porque a las matemáticas de la participación no les importa la sabiduría convencional. Para los votantes independientes y republicanos que comparten preocupaciones sobre el manejo de la falta de vivienda, la seguridad pública y la competencia del gobierno municipal, la primaria de junio es su oportunidad de definir quiénes son los dos finalistas de noviembre, y Pratt está haciendo un planteamiento inusualmente directo a exactamente esa audiencia. ## **Procurador de la Ciudad: una pelea de políticas vestida de tema legal** La actual titular Hydee Feldstein Soto enfrenta a tres retadores. La más organizada es Marissa Roy, la subprocuradora general respaldada por Shake Up LA, que ha construido su plataforma sobre el uso de la oficina del procurador de la ciudad como una herramienta para la protección de inquilinos, derechos de los trabajadores y litigios de derechos civiles. Roy ha litigado contra empresas que explotaron a trabajadores y ha desafiado en los tribunales tanto a la administración Trump como a grandes empresas tecnológicas. El procurador de la ciudad supervisa todos los litigios que involucran a la ciudad y asesora al alcalde y al concejo en temas legales. No es un puesto legislativo, pero su postura define cómo la ciudad responde a todo, desde disputas entre propietarios e inquilinos hasta acciones de cumplimiento federal. Otros retadores incluyen a la abogada de derechos humanos Aida Ashouri y a una subprocuradora del distrito. Esta contienda probablemente irá a noviembre, pero cuál candidata quede en segundo lugar en junio define lo que pase en el otoño. ## **Contralor de la Ciudad: la contienda del vigilante fiscal** El actual titular Kenneth Mejia se postula de nuevo. Ha hecho de la oficina una plataforma para la transparencia fiscal, señalando una y otra vez fondos públicos sin usar y gastos cuestionables de la ciudad, incluyendo aproximadamente 80.4 millones de dólares en fondos especiales inactivos. Esto tiende a conectar con votantes menos interesados en peleas ideológicas y más en si la ciudad maneja su dinero con responsabilidad. Esa es una parte significativa del universo de votantes independientes. ## **El problema estructural que nadie está atendiendo** El modelo de organización de DSA es disciplinado y ya probado. Trabajo puerta por puerta, programas de postales, recaudación coordinada de pequeños donativos, movilización digital: todo está activo y corriendo ahora. Los votantes a los que se está llegando son en gran parte demócratas ya registrados que se alinean ideológicamente con la boleta socialista. La meta es asegurarse de que regresen una boleta en junio en lugar de esperar a noviembre. Lo que hace inusual este ciclo no es solo la fuerza organizativa de DSA. Es la ausencia de cualquier infraestructura cívica comparable que esté llegando al otro lado del electorado. La candidatura de Spencer Pratt puede ser lo más cercano a una prueba de concepto accidental. Sus videos sobre la recuperación del incendio se volvieron virales no por su pasado en la TV de realidad, sino porque hablaron directamente de algo que cientos de miles de votantes de Los Ángeles sienten y que ningún candidato del establishment había estado dispuesto a decir con claridad. En una contienda de 14 candidatos con 40% de votantes indecisos, ese tipo de conexión orgánica con una audiencia descontenta vale la pena tomar en cuenta, no porque el factor fama sea el punto, sino porque ilustra exactamente lo que pasa cuando alguien le da a los votantes fuera de la base demócrata una razón para salir a votar. Hay decenas de miles de votantes elegibles, incluyendo independientes, registrados en terceros partidos y republicanos, que tienden a quedarse fuera de las primarias de junio simplemente porque nadie les está hablando. Y la mayoría de ellos no sabe que en varias de estas contiendas, junio es la única elección que importa. ### Independents and Republicans May Hold the Power in Los Angeles – If They Actually Vote URL: https://ivn.us/independents-and-republicans-may-hold-the-power-in-los-angeles-if-they-actually-vote-2026-04-20/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T15:20:23.000Z Los Angeles voters are heading into a June 2 primary that may settle far more than who advances to November. Under the [Los Angeles City Charter](https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/los%5Fangeles/latest/laac/0-0-0-107?ref=ivn.us), any candidate who clears 50% of the primary vote wins outright. No runoff. No November election. That rule turns the June primary into the only election in several of the city's most closely watched contests. It is worth noting that this rule is not universal. In 2016, San Diego voters passed Measure K, a ballot measure authored by the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us), which eliminated San Diego's identical 50% primary rule and required all city elections to proceed to a November top-two runoff. Voters approved it with nearly 59% of the vote. Los Angeles never made that change. The result is a system where a low-turnout June primary can end a race entirely, with no opportunity for the broader November electorate to weigh in. At the same time, [DSA-Los Angeles](https://dsa-la.org/?ref=ivn.us) (Democratic Socialists of America) is running the most coordinated progressive municipal campaign the city has seen in years a six-race slate under the [Shake Up LA](https://shakeup-la.com/?ref=ivn.us) banner, with active canvass programs, postcard campaigns, and small-donor fundraising networks already operational. The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with over 100,000 members. Their core message is explicit: "LA is under attack by ICE, billionaire bosses, racism, oppression, and Trumpism; and the status quo is failing to meet the moment." The message is all about base mobilization, and not persuasion – a strategy designed specifically for LA's low-turnout June primaries, where a motivated bloc of 4,000 to 6,000 well-organized voters can be decisive in a race that draws 25,000 to 45,000 total. What DSA-LA is counting on (and what the registration data confirms) is that the other side of the ledger isn't organized at all. ## The Voter Universe No One Is Targeting Across the four council districts where DSA has endorsed candidates, voter registration data shows more than 200,000 registered No Party Preference (NPP), American Independent (AIP), and Republican voters. These voters are fully eligible to participate in nonpartisan local elections on June 2 regardless of their party registration. This group historically does not receive any targeted outreach in June municipal primaries. Their turnout rates in primaries run well below what they produce in November generals. In CD11, that bloc totals 67,620, and is nearly 40 percent of total district registration. In CD15, it's 61,798 44.2 percent of the electorate, the highest combined non-Democratic share of any targeted district. In CD13, it's nearly 54,000\. In CD1, more than 42,000. In low-turnout primaries, those voters are the election. If they show up. ## Council District 1: The DSA Incumbent and The Challenger Field [Eunisses Hernandez](https://cd1.lacity.gov/councilmember-hernandez?ref=ivn.us) is seeking re-election in a district that stretches from Glassell Park and Highland Park to Chinatown and Pico Union. She is the district's first DSA-backed councilmember, and her record reflects that alignment directly. Hernandez co-founded [La Defensx](https://ladefensa.org/?ref=ivn.us), an organization focused on shifting county resources away from incarceration toward community-based services. In office, she authored the city's Sanctuary City Ordinance, led Measure ULA implementation, and passed what the DSA describes as the strongest tenant protections in 40 years. She was the only councilmember to vote against the city budget in her first year, citing inequitable resource allocation. Hernandez won her 2022 primary outright with 53.9% – a 2,408-vote margin out of 29,888 votes cast. Four challengers have been certified: [Maria Lou Calanche](https://louforcd1.com/about/?ref=ivn.us), a former Los Angeles Police Commissioner and founder of the nonprofit [Legacy LA](https://www.legacyla.org/?ref=ivn.us); [Nelson Grande](https://www.gograndeforcd1.com/who-i-am?ref=ivn.us), an executive consultant and former president of Avenida Entertainment Group; [Raul Claros](https://raulclaros.com/?ref=ivn.us), founder of the CD1 Coalition, which runs community cleanup days; and [Sylvia Robledo](https://ballotpedia.org/Sylvia%5FRobledo?ref=ivn.us), a small-business owner and former council aide. The non-Democratic voter universe in CD1 totals 42,396 voters, 37.4% of total registration. A 5-point turnout lift among that group would yield roughly 2,120 additional votes. In a multi-candidate field, that's enough to determine whether Hernandez wins outright in June or faces a November runoff, and who finishes second. ## Council District 9: The Open Seat and the Organizing War This is LA’s lowest-income district, covering communities in South Los Angeles that have faced decades of disinvestment. With [Curren Price](https://cd9.lacity.gov/about/councilmember-curren-d-price-jr?ref=ivn.us) terming out, the seat is open and DSA's investment here is significant. [Estuardo Mazariegos](https://www.estuardo4la.com/?ref=ivn.us) is the Shake Up LA candidate. He's Co-Director of the [Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE)](https://acceaction.org/?ref=ivn.us), a longtime labor organizer who helped lead the Fight for $15 and organized with SEIU. His platform calls for social housing on city-owned vacant lots, shutting down gas-fired power plants, expanding transit, and tenant protections including universal eviction defense. His primary opponent is [Jose Ugarte](https://ugarteforla.com/?ref=ivn.us), longtime aide to the departing Price and the candidate favored by much of the incumbent's political network. Shake Up LA frames Ugarte as the "Status Quo Coalition" candidate: someone who uses progressive language while ultimately serving real estate developers over working families. It's a sharp contrast that makes CD9 as much an intra-left battle as a left-versus-center one. Other candidates in the six-person field include Elmer Roldan, Jorge Hernandez Rosas, Jorge Nuño, and Martha Sanchez. The non-Democratic voter universe in CD9 is 37,196, the smallest of the four targeted districts and the most heavily Democratic. With a crowded field likely to produce a November runoff, independent and Republican votes could still shape which two candidates advance. ## Council District 11: The Race That Ends June 2 This is the highest-leverage race in Los Angeles, and the stakes are simple: one candidate wins on June 2 and that's it. The certified ballot has two names: incumbent [Traci Park](https://tracipark.com/?ref=ivn.us) and [DSA-endorsed](https://actionnetwork.org/groups/dsa-for-faizah-malik?ref=ivn.us) challenger [Faizah Malik](https://www.faizahforla.com/?ref=ivn.us). A third candidate, Jeremy Wineberg, did not qualify. Under the 50% rule, the winner of a two-candidate race clears the threshold automatically. There is no November runoff, no second window of opportunity to vote. Park is a municipal law attorney and the only moderate to win a council seat in the 2022 cycle. Her 2026 campaign is shaped heavily by the Palisades fire, which devastated Pacific Palisades and other communities in her district. Park has been closely identified with the recovery effort, including fire victim tax relief and rebuilding measures. Her endorsements span mainstream institutional Los Angeles: [US Senator Adam Schiff](https://www.schiff.senate.gov/?ref=ivn.us), [Congressman Ted Lieu](https://lieu.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us), [Congressman Brad Sherman](https://sherman.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us), State Treasurer [Fiona Ma](https://www.treasurer.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us), Senate President Pro Tem [Mike McGuire](https://sd02.senate.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us), and the TCU/IAM Local 1315 transit workers union, along with LAFD and LAPD labor organizations. Malik is a Venice resident and civil rights and housing attorney, born in Southern California to South Asian Muslim immigrant parents. Her platform centers on renter protections, affordable housing, and equitable land use policy. She has worked with DSA-LA, LA Forward, and the [Keep LA Housed (KLAH) Coalition](https://www.keeplahoused.org/?ref=ivn.us). She is also a vocal supporter of Palestinian human rights – a position central to the activist base mobilizing behind her. The non-Democratic voter universe in CD11 is 67,620 or 39.8% of the total registered voting population, including 14% Republican (nearly double the Republican share in any other DSA-targeted district). The district covers Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Venice, Mar Vista, Playa Vista, and Westchester. It is majority European ancestry (50.6%), highly educated, and heavily homeowner. Nearly a quarter of residents are over the age of 65. Voter registration data analyzed ahead of the primary shows that a 5-point turnout lift among NPP, AIP, and Republican voters in CD11 would produce approximately 3,381 additional votes. A 10-point lift would add roughly 6,762\. In a primary where total votes cast may be between 30,000 and 50,000, those numbers are structurally decisive. The evidence that this kind of outreach works here is documented. In 2022, a voter education program targeted approximately 35,000 NPP and 10,000 Republican voters in CD11 during the November general election. The district produced the highest NPP participation rate of any comparable Democrat-versus-Democrat district citywide. Republican turnout outperformed Republican registration share, the only such result in any comparable race that cycle. While every other comparable D-vs-D race saw moderate candidates' leads erode by 9 to 10 points in late mail ballot counting, Park's margin shifted by just 1 point. She won by 4,048 votes. That year, the program ran in November. However, in 2026, there will be no November election for CD11. ## Council District 13: The DSA Incumbent Under Pressure [Hugo Soto-Martinez](https://cd13.lacity.gov/about/meet-hugo?ref=ivn.us) represents Echo Park, Hollywood, and Atwater Village and is one of the [DSA's most prominent elected officials](https://international.dsausa.org/who-are-the-democratic-socialists-of-america/?ref=ivn.us) in Los Angeles. Before taking office, he organized with [UNITE HERE Local 11](https://www.unitehere11.org/?ref=ivn.us) for 16 years. In office, he authored the city's Sanctuary City law, lowered rent hikes for rent-stabilized units for the first time in 40 years, and led anti-harassment and no-fault eviction protections. [Shake Up LA's framing](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUi3XObD7oa/?ref=ivn.us) is direct about the stakes: "big business interests are pouring resources into multiple 'law-and-order' candidates, hoping that a divided field will weaken the progressive movement and flip a seat." Three challengers are in the race: [Colter Carlisle](https://www.colterforla.com/?ref=ivn.us), [Rich Sarian](https://www.instagram.com/sarianforcd13/?ref=ivn.us), and [Dylan Kendall](https://www.dylanfordistrict13.com/?ref=ivn.us). The presence of multiple opponents is itself a strategic play: divide the anti-incumbent vote enough to force a runoff, then consolidate in November. The non-Democratic voter universe in CD13 is 53,976 - 35.8% of registration. In a multi-candidate field likely to produce a November runoff, independent and Republican voters could determine who finishes second and advances. ## Council District 15: The Harbor District's High-Stakes, Two-Candidate Race CD15 has the highest Republican registration share of any city council district at 17%. The combined non-Democratic voter universe is 61,798 or 44.2% of total registration. Incumbent [Tim McOsker](https://www.timmcosker.com/?ref=ivn.us) is a lifelong San Pedro community member with three decades in city government. He served as chief of staff and chief deputy city attorney under Mayor James Hahn and most recently as CEO of [AltaSea](https://www.altasea.org/?ref=ivn.us), a nonprofit focused on ocean sustainability and port-area job creation. His platform centers on harbor-area quality of life, jobs, clean air and water, housing, and public safety. His challenger is Jordan Rivers, a [community organizer](https://ballotpedia.org/Jordan%5FRivers?ref=ivn.us) running in the harbor, San Pedro, and Watts communities that make up the district. The Los Angeles Times [reported recently](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-03-09/la-city-council-candidate-stays-in-race-after-report-that-he-stabbed-boy-at-age-12?ref=ivn.us) that when Rivers was 12, he stabbed an 8-year-old neighbor while the two were playing video games, a lawsuit alleged. Rivers denied attacking the boy and said it was an “accident.” DSA-LA did not endorse in this race. The structural dynamics are identical to CD11: two certified candidates, one of whom wins in June. With a 44.2% non-Democratic voter universe, larger by combined share than any other targeted district, a modest turnout lift would produce approximately 3,090 additional votes at a 5-point lift, or 6,180 at 10 points. ## Mayor: Bass, Raman, Pratt, and the Shape of the Fall The mayoral race will almost certainly produce a November runoff. Fourteen candidates are on the ballot and no one is likely to clear 50 percent. But June determines who the two finalists are and that question is less settled than conventional wisdom suggests. [Crowded Mayoral Race Exposes Why Los Angeles Needs Ranked Choice VotingThe city of Los Angeles will hold a primary election on June 2nd in which fourteen people are running for mayor, including a sitting councilmember, a sitting mayor, and a former reality television personality.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/03/los-angeles-ranked-choice-voting-la-mayor-race.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/crowded-mayoral-race-exposes-why-los-angeles-needs-ranked-choice-voting-2026-03-23) [Mayor Karen Bass](https://mayor.lacity.gov/?ref=ivn.us) is seeking re-election after a first term defined by her Inside Safe homelessness initiative and by the Palisades Fire. Downtown business leaders and the [LA Chamber of Commerce](https://www.lachamber.com/?ref=ivn.us) are backing her second term, as are former Assembly Speaker [Fabian Nunez](https://ballotpedia.org/Fabian%5FNunez?ref=ivn.us) and County Supervisor [Hilda Solis](https://hildalsolis.org/?ref=ivn.us). [NBC4 reported](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/karen-bass-nithya-raman-la-mayor-race/3872738/?ref=ivn.us) that Bass cited a reduction in street homelessness at a recent event announcing business support for her campaign. [Nithya Raman](https://www.nithyaforthecity.com/?ref=ivn.us), the CD4 councilmember, entered the race just before the filing deadline after previously endorsing Bass. [CalMatters described her](https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/02/la-mayor-bass-election-challenge/?ref=ivn.us) as a progressive "in the mold of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani" who saw an opening with Bass weakened by criticism over the fire response. Raman is backed by UNITE HERE Local 11 and the Shake Up LA network. Her platform centers on housing affordability, workers' rights, and alternative crisis response. A self-described democratic socialist, she had previously endorsed Bass when it appeared Bass would face a more conservative opponent. Then there is [Spencer Pratt](https://mayorpratt.com/?ref=ivn.us). Known for his role on MTV's *The Hills*, Pratt holds a political science degree from USC and grew up in Pacific Palisades. His home and his parents' home nearby were destroyed in the January 2025 Palisades fire. He has been displaced for over a year. On January 7, 2026, exactly one year after the fire started, he announced his candidacy at a rally in Pacific Palisades called, "They Let Us Burn," organized by the Palisades Fire Residents Coalition. "I never wanted to be mayor," he said at the rally. "But once you uncover everything, these people in charge should have resigned." His platform is an outsider's checklist: audit billions spent on homelessness nonprofits (which he calls the "homeless industrial complex"), fully fund the LAPD, restore emergency preparedness and reservoir capacity, expose corruption in city contracts, and implement a back-to-basics city budget. His campaign website frames the mission as "disinfecting the city with light." As of early April polling, Pratt has surged into second place in the 14-candidate field, trailing only Bass, with roughly 40% of voters still undecided. Joe Rogan endorsed him on his April 15 podcast. The [Hollywood Reporter](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/joe-rogan-spencer-pratt-mayor-campaign-1236566113/?ref=ivn.us) covered the endorsement the following day. The political establishment has mostly treated Pratt as a novelty. The polling says otherwise. But the more analytically interesting question isn't whether Pratt wins it's what his candidacy does to the arithmetic of who advances to November. The mayoral race operates under the same 50% rule as the council races, but with 14 candidates it almost certainly produces a runoff. What matters in June is who finishes first and second. In a crowded field, margins between candidates can be a few thousand votes. Pratt's candidacy is a live demonstration of the core argument of this entire article: in a low-turnout June primary, a candidate who activates voters who don't normally show up can move the outcome, regardless of what the political establishment thinks about his chances. Pratt's base – fire victims, frustrated homeowners, voters who distrust City Hall on homelessness and public safety – overlaps heavily with the NPP and Republican voter universe that every other campaign in this cycle is ignoring. If he mobilizes even a fraction of that universe in a 14-candidate field where second place is decided by tens of thousands of votes, he becomes a factor. Not because celebrity translates to governing competence, but because turnout math doesn't care about conventional wisdom. For independent and Republican voters who share concerns about homelessness management, public safety, and city competence, the June primary is their chance to shape who the two November finalists are, and Pratt is making an unusually direct pitch to exactly that audience. ## City Attorney: A Policy Fight in Legal Clothing Incumbent [Hydee Feldstein Soto](https://www.reelecthydee.com/?ref=ivn.us) faces three challengers. The most organized is [Marissa Roy](https://www.marissaroy.com/?ref=ivn.us), the Shake Up LA-endorsed deputy attorney general who has built her platform around using the city attorney's office as a tool for tenant protection, worker rights, and civil rights litigation. Roy has litigated against companies that exploited workers and has challenged both the Trump administration and major tech companies in court. The city attorney oversees all litigation involving the city and advises the mayor and council on legal matters. It is not a legislative seat, but its posture shapes how the city responds to everything from landlord-tenant disputes to federal enforcement actions. Other challengers include human rights attorney Aida Ashouri and a deputy district attorney. This race will likely go to November, but which candidate finishes second in June shapes the fall. ## City Controller: The Fiscal Watchdog Race Incumbent [Kenneth Mejia](https://www.mejiaforcontroller.com/about?ref=ivn.us) is running again. He has made the office a platform for fiscal transparency, repeatedly spotlighting unspent public funds and questionable city expenditures, including approximately $80.4 million in [idle special funds](https://lacontroller.org/?ref=ivn.us). This tends to resonate with voters less interested in ideological combat than in whether the city manages its money responsibly. That is a significant portion of the independent voter universe. ## The Structural Problem No One Is Addressing The DSA's organizing model is disciplined and proven. Door-to-door canvassing, postcard programs, coordinated small-dollar fundraising, digital mobilization it's all active and running now. The voters being reached are largely already registered Democrats who align ideologically with the slate of socialists. The goal is to make sure they return a ballot in June rather than waiting for November. What makes this cycle unusual isn't just the DSA's organizational strength. It's the absence of any comparable civic infrastructure reaching the other side of the electorate. Spencer Pratt's candidacy may be the closest thing to an accidental proof of concept. His fire-recovery videos went viral not because of his reality TV past but because they spoke directly to something hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles voters feel and no establishment candidate had been willing to say plainly. In a 14-candidate race with 40% of voters undecided, that kind of organic connection to a disaffected audience is worth paying attention to not because the celebrity factor is the point, but because it illustrates exactly what happens when someone gives voters outside the Democratic base a reason to show up. There are tens of thousands of eligible voters, including independents, third-party registrants, and Republicans who tend to sit out June primaries just because no one is talking to them. And most of them don't realize that in several of these races, June is the only election that matters. ### The Swalwell COVER-UP: How California's "Open Secret" Finally Exploded URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/the-swalwell-cover-up-how-californias-open-secret-finally-exploded-2026-04-16/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:36:01.000Z Eric Swalwell went from Democratic frontrunner in the California governor's race to political exile in a matter of days - and somehow nobody in Washington is surprised. Chad, Shawn, and Ethan break down why this "open secret" finally went public and who's really pulling the strings. Then, the conversation shifts to who benefits in a wide-open governor's race, why IVP's nonpartisan poll is the only one without a dog in the fight, and Trump's attack on Alaska's ranked choice voting system. This episode is sponsored by the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) and produced by [Olas Media](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io). Listen on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) or [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io). ## Episode Highlights On this episode of Independent Voter Project, Chad, Ethan, and Shawn, dive straight into the political shakeup surrounding **Eric Swalwell's resignation** from the **2026 California governor's race**, calling it a defining **inflection point** in the state's political landscape. They break down how what was long considered an **open secret in Washington** – involving serious **sexual misconduct allegations** and prior ties to a **Chinese spy** – finally became public just weeks before ballots drop. It raises questions about **political accountability**, **party corruption**, and whether **Democratic Party insiders** or rival candidates may have strategically **leaked opposition research** to gain a competitive edge. With Swalwell out, our hosts break down the polling data in the governor’s race, noting a surge for **Tom Steyer** and renewed momentum for **Xavier Becerra** and **Matt Mahan** among **No Party Preference voters**. The conversation then touches briefly on possible **bipartisan deal-making** between House Republicans and Democrats around **congressional expulsion votes**. This includes the simultaneous exit of Texas Republican **Tony Gonzalez**. The whole ordeal highlights a **broken two-party system** that prioritizes **institutional self-preservation** over **voter rights** and **government transparency**. The episode broadens into a discussion on **nonpartisan election reform**, **ranked choice voting**, and **open primaries** as antidotes to America's deepening **political polarization**. We critique [**Donald Trump's attack on Alaska's Top Four ranked-choice system**](https://ivn.us/posts/why-trump-really-hates-alaskas-ranked-choice-voting-2026-04-13) as intellectually dishonest, warn that both parties will unite to kill **electoral reform** the moment it threatens their grip on power, and highlight grassroots efforts by groups like [**Unite New York**](https://ivn.us/posts/can-buffalo-succeed-where-nyc-failed-on-election-reform-2026-04-14) advocating for **ballot access reform** and **independent voter rights**. The takeaway: systemic change requires building **popular support** beyond partisan divides – and staying focused on **long-term democratic reform** regardless of today's election headlines. ### Judge Slams Door on New Attack Against California’s Top Two Primary URL: https://ivn.us/judge-slams-door-on-new-attack-against-californias-top-two-primary-2026-04-15/ Last updated: 2026-05-11T18:50:06.000Z A group of minor parties in California challenged the state's nonpartisan Top Two primary in court and a federal judge handed them another loss, ruling in part that they can’t keep suing over arguments already rejected by other courts. In an order issued April 13, US District Judge Maxine M. Chesney said most of the plaintiffs’ claims against Top Two – approved by voters under Prop. 14 in 2010 – were already litigated years ago. As such, they can’t be re-litigated. **The full decision in *Peace and Freedom Party, et al v. Weber* can be found** [**here**](https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/55952271/Peace%5Fand%5FFreedom%5FParty%5Fet%5Fal%5Fv%5FWeber?ref=ivn.us)**.** The plaintiffs in the case include the Peace and Freedom Party, Libertarian Party of California, Green Party of California, the American Solidarity Party of California, and several individual candidates affiliated with those parties. They argue that California’s election laws create an “historically insurmountable barrier” for minor-party candidates trying to reach the November ballot. Further, they challenged the state’s ban on write-in candidates in the general election. And, they asserted that Top Two violates their right to equal protection under the law, arguing that it unfairly favors the Republican and Democratic Parties. All of these claims have already been rejected in court. Specifically, in *Rubin v. Bowen*, which plaintiffs lost all the way up through denied review by the California Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court. There is also [*Washington State Republican Party v. Washington State Grange*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/552/442/?ref=ivn.us), a case out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Chesney leaned heavily into this case in particular. On the challenge to the California election law banning write-in candidates, the courts have ruled that overturning such a ban would negate the point of the Top Two primary. “The Ninth Circuit has found any limited burden associated with a top-two primary is outweighed by the State’s interest in reserving general elections for the top two vote getters,” Chesney wrote. > "Prohibiting write-in candidates on the general election ballot essentially does no more than serve to effectuate that result.” On the equal protection claim, Chesney re-affirmed what other courts have found and that is Top Two treats all candidates and voters the same. Under the system, all voters and candidates, regardless of party, participate on a single ballot. It puts everyone on the same playing field. “\[C\]ourts have been made aware of and considered such asserted differences and have found, where state election laws like those at issue here apply equally to all political parties, such laws are constitutional,” Chesney stated. > “As the Supreme Court has explained in no uncertain terms, ‘States are not burdened with a constitutional imperative to…‘handicap’ an unpopular candidate to increase the likelihood that the candidate will gain access to the general election ballot.’” Chesney referenced the SCOTUS case *Munro v. Socialist Workers Party* (1986). She noted how “plainly unhappy” the minor parties were with the results of the nonpartisan open primary system. However, dissatisfaction was not enough for her to reopen constitutional claims that were already litigated and lost. On the merits, Chesney found that California’s Top Two structure survives constitutional scrutiny under existing precedent. The fact that minor parties rarely succeed under that framework does not make the system unconstitutional by itself. This is a critical point. She essentially said the Constitution does not require the state to make it easier for smaller or less popular parties to qualify for the general election ballot just because the existing rules favor candidates with broader voter support. Chesney did not dispute the practical reality that in nearly every case the top two candidates are going to be from the Republican and Democratic Parties. However, nonpartisan election models like Top Two or Top Four in Alaska apply the same ballot-access structure to all candidates. Thus, one cannot say they don’t treat parties and their candidates equally. Notably, the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) – which sponsored Prop. 14 in 2010 – has since advocated for [expanding the number of candidates that advance to the general election](https://ivn.us/posts/author-californias-top-two-primary-says-its-time-reform-reform) to four. But what the state shouldn’t do is go backwards. (i.e. California should not return to a closed partisan system that shuts out independent voters and creates an unequal playing field for voters and candidates alike.) ## **The Case Is Not Entirely Over Just Yet** The latest court ruling wasn’t a complete loss for the plaintiffs. At least, not at the moment. Chesney allowed them to try again on two narrower claims: 1. California’s decision to hold presidential-year primaries in March, which plaintiffs assert disadvantages minor parties. 2. The practice of labeling unqualified minor party candidates as “Party Preference: None.” This was specifically brought by the American Solidarity Party of California. Chesney ruled that the plaintiffs did not lay out their case on either point well enough. They will have an opportunity to amend both claims with a second complaint and have until May 8 to do it. They cannot add new claims without the court’s permission. ### Can Buffalo Succeed Where NYC Failed on Election Reform? URL: https://ivn.us/can-buffalo-succeed-where-nyc-failed-on-election-reform-2026-04-14/ Last updated: 2026-04-15T00:16:50.000Z The Buffalo Charter Revision Commission voted 7-2 Monday to pass a resolution that ensures it will explore open primaries, ranked choice voting (RCV), and expanded ballot access. It is not a guarantee on any reform, but it is a step closer to change. The resolution means the commission will give “substantial consideration” to all three reforms following public comment from residents, advocates, and anyone who might object. “Unite NY and the Western New York Ranked Choice Voting Coalition applaud the Commission’s vote to pass this resolution,” said [Unite NY](https://www.uniteny.org/?ref=ivn.us) Executive Director Anthony Thomas. “Buffalo voters deserve an electoral system that works for them, not career politicians.” Thomas previously presented the case for these reforms before the commission. Unite NY is a nonpartisan movement committed to building a stronger democratic process in New York. However, while many reform groups focus on one specific proposal, Unite NY’s agenda is built on five pillars: - Term Limits - Ranked Choice - Citizen Ballot Initiatives (New York does not have a citizen initiative process) - More Candidates - Open Primaries (New York has closed primaries) The group’s objective in Buffalo is to hit 3 of these pillars. Unite NY was named the chair of the Western New York Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (WNYRCV) in January, which is working on advancing RCV in Buffalo and Erie County. But Unite NY [has also linked](https://www.uniteny.org/no%5Fkings%5Fin%5Fbuffalo%5Fa%5Fsuccessor%5Fwithout%5Fan%5Felection?utm%5Fcampaign=media%5Fadv%5Fapril%5F13%5Fbuffalo%5Fcrc&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fsource=uniteny) its ballot access effort in Buffalo to a broader issue in New York where sitting lawmakers effectively pick their successors by exploiting candidate filing deadlines. For example, Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes announced she would not seek re-election after the candidate filing deadline. No one filed to challenge her, which allowed the Erie County Democratic Committee to fill the party vacancy on the ballot. [They chose Buffalo Common Council Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope.](https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/politics/buffalo-leah-halton-pope-running-for-nys-141st-assembly-district/71-286bd616-0a0f-4891-b274-9d1d269d8130?ref=ivn.us) Unite NY asserts that this is a routine practice in the state. Meanwhile, independent candidates are given excessively high barriers to gain ballot access. In an interview with IVN, Thomas said it is important to the mission of reform to identify specific community needs by listening to them. Especially since election systems at-large tend to leave some groups out in favor of others. “The perspectives that allow all of us to participate have to be inclusive,” he said. “If we believe all men are created equal, we don’t get to say some men are created more equal.” He said he got involved with Unite NY from a distance. At the time, he was working with a client on open primaries. He said he saw what Unite NY was doing and he realized there weren’t many organizations that approached reform work the same way. “I thought the board was diverse and thoughtful in origin and perspective, but also in argument, which I think is something you need for a reform movement to be successful,” Thomas remarked. Thomas has been an organizer in the campaign space for almost 20 years. This largely includes work with the labor movement, but he has worked in government spaces, for political parties, for unions, and more. “Because of the rooms I have occasionally been in or historically been in, I have a pretty healthy assessment of the proverbial system,” he said. He also added that he comes from a family that believes in a “leave it better than you found it” mantra. “I think about this work as part of that larger moral arc of the universe,” he elaborated. It is a reference to the famous Martin Luther King Jr quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." It is a quote that was frequently used by former President Barack Obama, who added to the idea by noting that the arc does not bend on its own. There must be people willing to pull it in the direction of justice. Thomas was appointed executive director in November 2025\. A critical role he plays is building cross-partisan coalitions in communities across the state to advance proposals that will bolster participation, competition, and accountability in elections. But this work isn’t about going in and telling a community what reforms they need. It is identifying communities who have a need and working with them to achieve their goals. “We should go to communities that are already chewing on something,” Thomas said. “If you go to place A and they are really up in arms around ranked choice voting, I am not going to sell them term limits.” > *“No, let’s talk about how ranked choice voting can be effectual in this community or communities.”* He said the same thing applies to a community that is talking about term limits. The goal should not be to turn them off of the reform they want and push something else. In fact, it is a good way to lose the trust of the community entirely. “It would be obtuse of us to try to get them to equally appreciate other pillars when their community doesn’t need that,” he remarked. He added that it is important to meet people where they are. [Democracy Reformers Admit Their Biggest Problem: They Keep Talking to ThemselvesAt the March 25 Democracy Network Exchange meeting, reform advocates confronting 2024 losses on ranked choice voting and other ballot measures pointed to a hard truth: insider language, weak grassroots investment, and abstract messaging are still undermining structural reform campaigns.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/democracy-reform-messaging-voter-frustration.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/democracy-reformers-admit-their-biggest-problem-they-keep-talking-to-themselves-2026-03-31) This is essential to the mission of Unite NY: Work with communities, bring resources and information, “provide connective tissue,” as Thomas puts it, and "convene conversations.” This is what is happening in Buffalo. Thomas said Unite NY is working in Buffalo because it identified groups that were already working on reform, including WNYRCV, and they are taking the baton handed to them to convene conversations. This means educating community members, as well as talking with commissioners and community stakeholders. Many people may not know, for example, that open primaries were the norm in Buffalo until the 1970s. The Buffalo Charter Revision Commission has the ability to put reforms on the November ballot for voters to decide for themselves. A vote to consider reform is a step in that direction, but it is not a guarantee it will happen. Unite NY and other reform advocates have enough experience with this out of New York City. The NYC Charter Revision Commission voted in 2025 to consider open primaries but ultimately decided not to advance any reform that opens taxpayer-funded primaries to independent voters. On that note, Thomas said to stay tuned. There are still opportunities to advance open primaries reform in the Big Apple. Unite NY has its sights on several communities, including Buffalo, NYC, and Albany. The group believes in a bottom-up approach to reform. The best way to catch the attention of state lawmakers is to effect change in the communities that elect them. ### Who Will Eric Swalwell Voters Choose Now? We Know URL: https://ivn.us/who-will-eric-swalwell-voters-choose-now-we-know-2026-04-13/ Last updated: 2026-04-14T17:59:21.000Z US Rep. Eric Swalwell has officially suspended his campaign for California governor in the midst of multiple sexual misconduct and assault allegations. He also announced Monday that he is resigning from Congress. Up to this point, he led every other Democrat in the governor’s race and was in prime position to take one of the top two spots in November. Now, the big question in California is: Which candidate will get his voters' support? While campaigns and polling agencies scramble to put out new data to answer this question, the [Independent Voter Project (IVP)](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) already knows. This is because IVP, a co-publisher of Independent Voter News, looked deeper into voter preferences in a February poll. When IVP [**conducted its first statewide poll on the governor’s race**](https://ivn.us/posts/new-ivp-2026-california-governor-poll-what-the-toplines-dont-tell-you-2026-02-23), it was quickly picked up [by the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/california-governor-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us). It is the only truly nonpartisan poll listed by NYT as others have been commissioned by campaigns, parties, or partisan interest groups. It is also unique in that it asked voters not just to indicate their most preferred candidate, but their second choice as well. At the time, Swalwell [**placed second in first-choice selections**](https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/bf003736-b0d3-426c-ab12-8fc8e71de791/page/XLwiF?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io#cd-8uito7i20d) after Republican Sheriff Chad Bianco, even though a crowded Democratic field split party voters. Swalwell was the preferred candidate for 17.89% of respondents. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/04/california-governor-race-first-choice-ivp-poll.jpeg) Much has changed in the race since then. [Bianco seized ballots in Riverside County](https://ivn.us/posts/chad-biancos-650-000-ballot-seizure-puts-california-governor-race-in-national-spotlight-2026-03-23), Steve Hilton received President Donald Trump’s endorsement, and of course, Swalwell dropped out over the weekend. [**According to IVP’s poll**](https://lookerstudio.google.com/s/l%5Fs4Um2u00I?ref=ivn.us), the candidate who will likely benefit most from Swalwell’s exit is former US Rep Katie Porter. She was the most preferred by his voters with 34% of their second-choice picks. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/04/Katie-Porter-Eric-Swalwell-Tweet--2--1-1.jpeg)](https://x.com/katieporterca/status/2042752972397122018?ref=ivn.us) Former US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is also likely to get a needed bump. He has struggled to break into the top 5 candidates in the field, but he was the second choice for 16.65% of Swalwell’s voters. Close behind Becerra was Tom Steyer at 15.19%, a candidate that has since risen in other polls. Steyer has been shown to be neck-and-neck with Porter in some cases and has consistently polled higher than Becerra. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/04/eric-swalwell-voters-second-choice-california-governor-race-1-1.jpeg) Porter, like Swalwell, benefits from high name recognition. Not only is she a former member of Congress, but she also ran for US Senate in 2024\. It was a controversial election as winner Adam Schiff put millions of dollars to prop up a Republican in the primary that he could easily beat. After the June election, Porter claimed that the race [was rigged against her](https://sjvsun.com/news/politics/katie-porter-claims-election-was-rigged/?ref=ivn.us), referring to the $11 million in spending by Schiff and his allies to keep the general election from being a same-party contest between the two Democrats. [Adam Schiff’s Multi-Million Dollar Gamble to Secure His US Senate Seat Paid OffPhoto Credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr The US Senate race to fill the late Dianne Feinstein’s seat will come down to a November contest between US Rep. Adam Schiff (CA-30) and former professional baseball player and Republican Steve Garvey -- an outcome Schiff paid millions of dollars to get. The nonpartisan primary for Senate was more a race for who would come in second as Schiff established a dominant lead in the polls throughout the primary campaign cycle. The top contenders for second place![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/48010612613_3768696220_k.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/us-senate-race-recap) Some news outlets like [CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/katie-porter-influencer-cheyenne-hunt-eric-swalwell-allegations/?ref=ivn.us) and [The Hill](https://thehill.com/opinion/robbys-radar/5829026-swalwell-porter-controversy-california/?ref=ivn.us) have published claims that there is a connection between Porter and Cheyenne L. Hunt, [an activist and influencer who was among the first to post about the allegations against Swalwell](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWjgJEAETWI/?ref=ivn.us). Porter denies any relationship with Hunt and other influencers who have circulated the allegations. On Friday, April 10, many of the women Hunt has alluded to in her posts came forward. What impact this has on the race remains to be seen as data shows Porter and Swalwell pulled from the same voter pool. Swalwell and Porter both polled well among voters with strong party loyalty, according to IVP’s poll. Trust in the Democratic Party among Swalwell voters who picked Porter as their second choice was 94.6%. However, it won’t be party loyalists who decide the winner of the Top Two nonpartisan primary. It will be the independent and undecided voters who make up a large segment of the California electorate. Notably, nearly 20% of Becerra (17.4%) and Steyer (19.2%) supporters were registered NPP, though party trust was lower among Becerra voters at 81%. There is one candidate who has bolstered his presence in the race considerably since the release of IVP's poll and that is San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. At the time of the poll, he was only in the race for a week. It's possible he could find himself in the double digits after Swalwell's exit. One thing is for certain: A seismic shift is already happening on the campaign trail. The top performing Democrat leaving has a far greater impact on this race than if "single-digit candidates" dropped out. It may even completely erase the already unlikely prospect of two Republicans advancing to November. We will know more after the Independent Voter Project conducts a new poll on the governor's race and other top priority issues for California voters. Stay tuned. ### Why Trump Really Hates Alaska's Ranked Choice Voting URL: https://ivn.us/why-trump-really-hates-alaskas-ranked-choice-voting-2026-04-13/ Last updated: 2026-04-13T22:51:40.000Z President Trump called Alaska's ranked choice voting system "disastrous" and "very fraudulent" on Friday. He gave his "complete and total support" to the repeal effort heading to Alaska's 2026 ballot. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/04/donald-trump-turh-social-alaska-ranked-choice-voting-repeal.jpeg) Strong words. No evidence. There is nothing fraudulent about Alaska's election system. Voters [approved it in 2020](https://ivn.us/posts/alaska-becomes-first-in-the-nation-to-approve-top-4-primary-with-ranked-choice-voting). It [survived a repeal attempt in 2024](https://ivn.us/posts/alaska-reject-repeal-top-4-ranked-choice-voting-repeal-2024-11-14) by fewer than 800 votes. Every result has been publicly verifiable. Every count has been transparent. Calling an election system "fraudulent" because you don't like the outcomes is not a legal argument. It is a political one. And it tells you everything you need to know about what this is really about. ## **What Alaska's System Actually Does** Alaska's system combines an open primary, where all candidates appear on one ballot and all voters can participate, with a ranked choice general election. Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no one wins a majority of first-choice votes, the lowest-performing candidate is eliminated, and those votes are redistributed until someone crosses 50%. The open primary replaced a system where political parties controlled who could vote in their primary and, by extension, who could compete in November. The ranked choice general replaced a system where a candidate could win with a plurality even if most voters preferred someone else. Alaska [gave voters more choices and more power](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-big-mad-indiana-republicans-wont-fight-his-gerrymandering-war-2025-12-12). That is what the president wants repealed. [New Research: Populism A Key Factor with Cross-Partisan Support for Alaska’s Top 4 ElectionsNew research shows that the nonpartisan Top 4 system used in Alaska not only has broad support among Republicans, Democrats, and independents, but in 2022 elected candidates in statewide elections that had appeal that went beyond their party.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/getty-images-rm864yT2Llo-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/new-research-populism-key-factor-cross-partisan-support-alaskas-top-4-elections-2024-08-11) ## **The Real Complaint Is Competition** Trump did not explain how the system is "fraudulent." He did not identify a single instance of fraud. He did not point to a legal deficiency, a procedural failure, or a miscount. What he did was endorse the reelection campaigns of Senator Dan Sullivan and Congressman Nick Begich. Both would benefit from a return to the old system, where party-controlled primaries filter out competition before most voters ever see a ballot. That is the quiet part. Alaska's system creates competition. It forces candidates to earn support from a broader electorate instead of performing for a narrow partisan base. For incumbents and party insiders, that is uncomfortable. For voters, it is the whole point. ## **The Dark Money Irony** The 2026 repeal initiative does not just target ranked choice voting and the open primary. It also guts Alaska's campaign finance transparency rules. [Trump Hates Mail-In Voting, Ranked Choice Voting So Much GOP Adds Bans to SAVE ActA new bill in the U.S. House called the Make Elections Great Again Act (MEGA) would enact new election rules right before the 2026 midterms. The legislation incorporates key provisions of the SAVE Act, but also targets ranked choice voting and mail-in ballots.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/trump-mega-act-ban-ranked-choice-voting-mail-in-ballots-capitol_0.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-hates-mail-voting-ranked-choice-voting-so-much-gop-adds-bans-save-act-2026-01-30) The original 2020 ballot measure included some of the strictest disclosure requirements in the country. Groups spending money to influence Alaska elections are required to disclose who is actually funding them. The 2026 repeal would eliminate those rules entirely. Read that again. The people calling for "free, fair, and honest" elections are simultaneously trying to eliminate the strongest disclosure requirements in the state. They want to repeal the rules that let voters see who is paying for the ads, the mailers, and the campaigns designed to influence their vote. If you are worried about the integrity of elections, the answer is more transparency, not less. The president did not mention that part. ## **This Is Not a Partisan Issue. It Is a Power Issue.** Here is the part that most coverage of this story misses. The opposition to systems like Alaska's is not ideological. It is structural. Whoever holds power opposes competition from outside the party. In Alaska, it is the Republican Party establishment leading the repeal effort, with the president now lending his voice. In California, it is the Democratic Party that has historically played the same role. When California voters [passed Proposition 198 in 1996](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F198,%5FOpen%5FBlanket%5FPrimary%5FElection%5FInitiative%5F%28March%5F1996%29?ref=ivn.us) to open up primaries, it was the California Democratic Party that led the legal challenge all the way to the US Supreme Court. The Republican Party joined as a co-plaintiff. The blanket primary was struck down in [*California Democratic Party v. Jones* (2000)](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/567/?ref=ivn.us). When [IVP authored and helped pass](https://independentvoterproject.org/work/cas-nonpartisan-primary?ref=ivn.us) the nonpartisan top-two primary (Proposition 14) in 2010, both major parties opposed it. So did every minor party. And when IVP and more than 30 voter rights organizations [backed legislation in 2019](https://independentvoterproject.org/work/california-presidential-primary-lawsuit?ref=ivn.us) to give California's millions of No Party Preference voters a fair ballot in the presidential primary, that legislation was derailed by pressure from the national Democratic Party, according to the bill's own author. The pattern is consistent. When a party is in control, it fights any reform that opens the process to competition. When a party is out of power, it occasionally sees the value of a more open system. Then it takes power and fights the same reforms. The principle never changes. The only thing that changes is which party is doing the blocking. ## **Let's Talk About "Fairness"** The president and his allies frame this as a question of "free, fair, and honest" elections. Fine. Let's talk about fairness. How is it fair that joining a political party gives a voter more rights than staying independent? In most states, if you choose not to register with a party, you are locked out of the primary election entirely. You are a full citizen. A full taxpayer. And a partial voter. How is it fair that two private organizations get to use publicly funded elections to filter out candidates before the rest of the electorate gets a say? How is it fair that a system designed to protect incumbents and party insiders from competition is described as "free" and "honest," while a system that lets every voter participate equally is called "fraudulent"? Alaska's system is not perfect. No election system is. But it was designed to do something simple: give every voter an equal voice regardless of party affiliation. The fact that the most powerful person in the country wants to take that away should tell voters everything they need to know about whose interests are really at stake. ## **The Road Ahead** Alaska voters will decide the fate of their system in November. If the repeal measure passes, it eliminates the open primary, ranked choice voting, and the stricter campaign finance disclosure rules that came with it. Voters in other states should pay attention... including California. The lesson from Alaska is not about ranked choice voting specifically. It is about whether voters will continue to let political parties dictate the terms of participation, or whether they will insist on a system where every voter has equal access to every stage of the process. The opposition will always come from whichever side holds power. That has been true in Alaska. It has been true in California. It will be true in every state where voters push for a system that puts competition ahead of party control. When everyone in power agrees on something, it is usually not the voters who benefit. ### Billionaires, Voter ID, Uber, and More: The 2026 California Ballot Is Already a Money War URL: https://ivn.us/billionaires-voter-id-uber-and-more-the-2026-california-ballot-is-already-a-money-war-2026-04-13/ Last updated: 2026-04-22T18:00:13.000Z In California, almost $325 million has already been raised in support and opposition to a handful of direct democracy initiatives hoping to appear on the ballot on November 3, 2026\. Across 17 active ballot measures, campaign committees have raised a combined $324,780,677 and spent $25,996,796 so far, not including any unpaid debts or loans, according to records provided to the public by the Fair Political Practices Commission. [Top 15 Contributors to California 2026 Citizen Initiative Campaigns (So Far)With more than six months still to go before voters cast their ballots in November, California’s top 15 ballot-initiative contributors have already poured nearly $200 million into the state’s initiative process.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/maarten-van-den-heuvel-gZXx8lKAb7Y-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/top-15-contributors-to-california-2026-citizen-initiative-campaigns-so-far-2026-04-22) Hundreds of California's personal injury attorneys have banded together to raise $65 million in a battle against Uber, which has raised $35 million. Labor unions, including the Service Employees International Union - United Healthcare Workers West, the California Teachers Association, and AFSCME Local 3299, have raised $44 million to support a wealth tax, a permanent extension of the high-earner income tax surcharge, a cap on hospital executive compensation and a UC housing loan program for staff. Hospital and health care organizations have raised a combined $38.7 million across three ballot initiative committees, backing a measure to restrict union political spending and opposing the hospital executive compensation cap. Six citizen initiatives targeting government efficiency, tax limitations, CEQA reform, school funding, and homeownership have collectively raised $81.1 million, with $77.75 million coming from Building A Better California, whose largest donor is Google co-founder Sergey Brin at $45 million. *Sources: California Target Book; California Fair Political Practices Commission* Here is all the money so far, ranked by total raised, as of April 11, 2026: ### **1\. Protecting Automobile Accident Victims from Attorney Self-Dealing Act / The People's Right to Contract with Counsel of Choice Act (Prop ID #250022 / Prop ID #250027)** **Total raised: $103,655,821** These two measures involve a legal battle between Uber and California's personal injury attorneys. Prop ID #250022 would limit the fees personal injury attorneys may receive so that victims retain at least 75% of their monetary recovery, increase victims' burden of proof for certain medical expenses, limit the amounts they may recover for certain medical expenses, and prohibit certain financial arrangements between attorneys and medical providers. Prop ID #250027 is a proposed constitutional amendment (Initiative 25-0027) that would amend the California Constitution to prohibit new state laws that deny or interfere with a person's ability to contract with an attorney of their choice. **"A More Affordable California" - $32 Million** On the support side of Prop ID #250022, "A More Affordable California, Sponsored By Uber," formed October 31, 2025, in Marin County, has raised $32,512,759\. Uber Technologies, Inc. of San Francisco is the sole funder, having made three separate contributions: $12,000,000 on October 29, 2025; $17,500,000 on February 3, 2026; and $3,000,000 on February 3, 2026\. Spending has gone primarily toward petition circulation, with PCI Campaigns, Inc. receiving $1,500,000\. **“Alliance Against Corporate Abuse” - $65 Million** In opposition to Prop ID #250022 and in support of Prop ID #250027, "Alliance Against Corporate Abuse, Sponsored By Consumer Attorneys Of California," formed November 21, 2025, in Sacramento County, has raised $65,774,782\. Alliance Against Corporate Abuse is funded by hundreds of California personal injury and plaintiff attorneys contributing amounts ranging from $1,000 to $1,250,000\. The largest individual contributions include Nicholas C. Rowley of Trial Lawyers For Justice ($1,250,000), Chang/Chang Klein LLP ($1,000,000), Panish, Shea, Ravipudi LLP ($700,000), Rafii & Associates PC ($600,000 across two contributions), Law Offices of Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger ($600,000), Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles ($507,000 across two contributions), Homampour Law Firm ($500,000), Sweet James Puerto Rico ($500,000), Aminpour & Associates APC ($500,000), Singleton Schreiber LLP ($500,000), Wilshire Law Firm ($500,000), Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Team LLP ($500,000), and Shernoff Bidart Echeverria LLP ($500,000). **“Providers For Patient Care” - $5.3 Million** Also, in opposition to Prop ID #250022, "Providers For Patient Care, Sponsored By Americans For Patient Access," formed October 13, 2025, in Sacramento County, has raised $5,368,280\. This committee is funded by numerous individual contributors, including physicians, chiropractors, physical therapists, pain management specialists, and medical service companies. The largest contributions include Trisha C. Patel, MD, Inc. ($154,444 across two contributions), Timothy Davis of Source Healthcare ($150,000 across two contributions), Global Receivables Servicing ($100,000), and Southern California Medical Group ($74,000). ### **2\. California Government Efficiency Improvement Act of 2026 (Prop ID #250040)** **Total raised: $28,750,000** This measure would require pre-election audits of programs that would receive funding from special taxes proposed by voter initiative, and recurring audits of programs funded by all special taxes enacted after January 1, 2026\. It would also prohibit any new state taxes that exclude their revenues from the existing voter-approved state spending limit. **“Californians For A More Transparent And Effective Government” - $28.7 Million** "Californians For A More Transparent And Effective Government, Sponsored By Building A Better California," formed February 27, 2026, in Marin County, has raised $28,750,000, all from Building A Better California (Committee ID 1486767, San Rafael, CA), in three separate late contributions: $2,750,000 on February 20, 2026; $16,000,000 on February 27, 2026; and $10,000,000 on March 13, 2026\. Building A Better California has raised and donated $77,750,000 into six separate ballot measures, primarily from Brin ($45,000,000), John Doerr III ($9,500,000), Patrick Collison ($7,000,000), Michael Moritz ($7,000,000), Eric Schmidt ($3,026,177), Tony Xu ($2,000,000), Stewart Resnick ($2,000,000), and Chris Larsen ($2,000,000). ### **3\. 2026 Billionaire Tax Act (Prop ID #250024)** **Total raised $28,515,499** This measure would impose a one-time tax of up to 5% on taxpayers and trusts with covered assets valued at over $1 billion, allocating 90% of the revenue to health care and 10% to food assistance or education-related programs. "**Save California Health Care And Public Education**” - **$17.8 Million** Supporting the measure, "Save California Health Care And Public Education, Sponsored By Service Employees International Union - United Healthcare Workers West," formed October 17, 2025, in Los Angeles County, has raised $17,895,499\. The committee is almost entirely funded by two related SEIU-UHW entities: the SEIU United Health Care Workers West Political Issues Committee (Committee ID 991800, Sacramento) and the Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers West (Committee ID 1373047, Los Angeles), which together have made dozens of contributions including multiple $1,000,000 contributions in rapid succession in March and April 2026\. Of the $931,276 spent as of December 31, 2025, $930,000 was a nonmonetary adjustment, with $68 in actual cash payments made. **"Golden State Promise" - $10 Million** Opposing the measure, "Golden State Promise," formed January 22, 2026, in Sacramento County, has raised $10,000,000 from Ripple Labs and its Executive Chairman, Chris Larsen. **"Stop The Squeeze" - $400,000** Opposing the measure, "Stop The Squeeze," formed November 12, 2025, in Sacramento County, has raised $400,000 Its three donors are Ronald Conway of SV Angel LLC ($100,000 on November 17, 2025), Daniel Tierney of Wicklow Capital, Inc. ($200,000 on February 17, 2026), and Intersect USA, LLC ($100,000 on March 6, 2026). **"Californians Against Higher Taxes” - $220,000** Opposing the measure, "Californians Against Higher Taxes, Sponsored By The California Business Roundtable," formed November 26, 2025, in Marin County, has raised $220,000\. The California Business Roundtable Issues PAC (San Rafael, CA) accounts for $215,000 of the total. ### **4\. Clinic Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (Prop ID #250008)** **Total raised: $28,383,619** This SEIU-UHW initiative would require nonprofit Federally Qualified Health Centers to spend at least 90% of their revenue on program services advancing their charitable purpose. **“Protect Patients” - $28.3 Million** Opposing the measure, "Protect Patients: Stop The Attack On Community Health Centers And Clinics, Sponsored By California Primary Care Association Advocates," formed October 6, 2025, in Sacramento County, has raised $28,383,619 entirely in opposition ($16,045,864 monetary, $28,955 nonmonetary, $11,308,800 in late contributions). Top donors include Altamed Health Services Corporation ($4,717,867), California Primary Care Association Advocates Issues Committee ($1,398,954), Innercare ($1,000,000), and Family Health Centers of San Diego ($1,000,000). ### **5\. Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act of 2026 (Prop ID #250041)** **Total raised: $27,750,000** This measure would prohibit any new state tax that either taxes the ownership or control of personal property, including retirement accounts, financial assets, investment accounts, business interests, and intellectual property, or applies retroactively based on the taxpayer's conduct or activities before the tax's effective date. **“Californians To Protect Retirement And Life Savings” - $27.7 Million** Supporting the measure, "Californians To Protect Retirement And Life Savings, Sponsored By Building A Better California," formed February 27, 2026, in Marin County, has raised $27,750,000, all from Building A Better California (Committee ID 1486767, San Rafael, CA) in three separate “late” contributions: $2,750,000 on February 20, 2026; $9,000,000 on February 27, 2026; and $16,000,000 on March 13, 2026\. ### **6\. California Children's Education and Health Care Protection Act of 2026 (Prop ID #250016)** **Total raised: $15,250,000** This measure would make permanent the existing 2012 voter-approved tax rates for high-income Californians, currently set to expire in 2031, allocating 89% of revenues to K-12 schools and 11% to community colleges. **“Californians For Protecting Public Education, Health Care And Budget Stability” - $15.2 Million** Supporting the measure, "Californians For Protecting Public Education, Health Care And Budget Stability, Sponsored By Education And Labor Organizations," formed August 29, 2025, in Sacramento County, has raised $15,250,000\. The California Teachers Association / Issues PAC is the dominant funder, having contributed a total of $15,000,000 across three separate contributions: $5,000,000 on October 27, 2025; $5,000,000 on February 23, 2026; and $5,000,000 on April 2, 2026\. The California Federation of Teachers COPE Prop/Ballot Committee contributed $250,000 on December 11, 2025\. Spending has gone almost entirely toward petition circulation. ### **7\. Building an Affordable California Act (Prop ID #250023)** **Total raised: $14,370,000** This measure would amend the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to expedite environmental review of specified project categories, including most housing, transportation, water, health, and clean energy projects. **"Committee To Build An Affordable California” - $14.3 Million** Supporting the measure, "Committee To Build An Affordable California, Sponsored By The California Chamber Of Commerce," formed on November 3, 2025, in Marin County, has raised $14,370,000\. Building A Better California is the largest donor at $10,000,000, having made two contributions of $5,000,000 each on January 13, 2026, and February 3, 2026\. Other donors include California Building Industry Association Issues Committee ($900,000 across three contributions), Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation ($250,000), Modern Infrastructure Alliance Action Fund, Sponsored By Prologis ($250,000), California Water Service Company ($250,000), CA Business PAC ($150,000), Agricultural Council of California Issues PAC ($100,000), Associated General Contractors Political Action Committee ($50,000), United Contractors ($50,000), Wireless Infrastructure Association ($25,000), California Assisted Living Association ($25,000), and California Business Properties Association Issues PAC ($20,000). ### **8\. University of California Support Staff Down Payment Loans (Prop ID #250018)** **Total raised: $13,100,059** This measure would require the University of California to provide no-interest, 20% down-payment loans to non-faculty, non-managerial staff who are first-time homeowners with 5 years of UC employment, with 75% of loans reserved for staff at or below the area median income. **“First-Time Home Buyers” - $13.1 Million** Supporting the measure, "First-Time Home Buyers, Sponsored By American Federation Of State, County And Municipal Employees Local 3299," formed May 27, 2025, in Alameda County, has raised $13,100,059\. AFSCME Local 3299 is the sole funder, having made eight separate contributions totaling $13,100,000: $1,500,000 (October 27, 2025), $2,000,000 (November 26, 2025), $2,000,000 (January 8, 2026), $3,000,000 (February 5, 2026), $300,000 (February 27, 2026), $2,500,000 (March 4, 2026), $500,000 from AFSCME Local 3299 Independent Expenditure Committee (March 26, 2026), and $1,300,000 (April 1, 2026). Spending has gone primarily toward petition circulation. ### **9\. Local Taxpayer Protection Act to Save Proposition 13 (Prop ID #250006)** **Total raised: $12,722,750** This measure would raise the vote approval threshold for voter-proposed local special taxes from a simple majority to two-thirds. In charter cities, it would prohibit voters from approving real estate transfer taxes beyond the existing 0.11% rate. It would also overturn all existing voter-approved property-related taxes that do not comply with these requirements two years after enactment. **"Californians To Restore Local Taxpayers' Right To Vote On Taxes” - $12.7 Million** Supporting the measure, "Californians To Restore Local Taxpayers' Right To Vote On Taxes, Sponsored By Homeowners, Businesses, And Taxpayers," has raised $12,722,750\. Nearly $5 million was directed as a nonmonetary contribution to "Protect Prop. 13, a project of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association" for petition circulation. ### **10\. California Immunology and Immunotherapy Collaborative Medical Research Initiative (Prop ID #250026)** **Total raised: $11,000,000** This measure would authorize $8.4 billion in state general obligation bonds for immunology and immunotherapy research, allocated equally between a UC-affiliated nonprofit medical research institute and a grant program for public or nonprofit universities. Half of the research money would go to cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's disease research. Funding recipients would be required to sell technology and drugs derived from research in California for 20% below the national average price. **"Californians For Immunology Research And Cures” - $11 Million** "Californians For Immunology Research And Cures, Sponsored By The Michelson Center For Public Policy," formed December 31, 2025, in Los Angeles County, has raised $11,000,000, all in late contributions, with $0 spent and $0 cash on hand. The committee was formed on the last day of 2025 and all funding arrived in January 2026\. Just two donors account for the entire raise: Gary K. Michelson and Affiliated Entity Michelson Center for Public Policy contributed $6,000,000 in two contributions ($4,000,000 on January 9, 2026 and $2,000,000 on January 12, 2026), and Meyer Luskin, CEO and Chairman of Scope Industries of Santa Monica, contributed $5,000,000 in two contributions ($1,000,000 on January 8, 2026 and $4,000,000 on January 9, 2026). ### **11\. California Voter ID Initiative (Prop ID #250007)** **Total raised: $10,652,100** This measure would amend the California Constitution to require voters to present government-issued identification at the polls or the last four digits of a government-issued identification number when voting by mail. It would also require the state to provide voter identification cards on request and require elections officials to annually report the percentage of each county's voters whose citizenship has been verified. **"Californians For Voter ID" - $10.4 Million** "Californians For Voter ID," formed March 7, 2025, in Merced County, has raised $10,392,522\. The committee's largest donor was Richard Uihlein, CEO of Uline, who contributed $4,000,000\. Reform California contributed $1,905,750 in nonmonetary contributions for petition signatures. A $1,000,000 loan from S.R. Bray LLC was fully repaid. **“Californians For Voting Rights” - $260,000** In opposition, "Californians For Voting Rights, Sponsored By California Donor Table," formed March 11, 2026, in Sacramento County, has raised $259,578, 100% of which came from a single donor, the ACLU of Northern California Issues Committee, with $0 spent. ### **12\. Health Care Transparency, Accountability, and Union Member Right to Vote Act (Prop ID #250021)** **Total raised: $10,000,000** This measure would prohibit certain large health care unions from political spending over specified amounts on state or local ballot measures without following member consent requirements, and would require those unions to provide members with an annual notice describing prior-year political spending. **“Californians For Health Care Workers' Right To Vote” - $10 Million** Supporting the measure, "Californians For Health Care Workers' Right To Vote, Sponsored By California Association Of Hospitals And Health Systems," formed December 2, 2025, in Sacramento County, has raised $10,000,000, the entire amount contributed on the day the committee was formed by a single donor, California Hospitals Committee on Issues (CHCI), sponsored by California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (Committee ID 880212, Sacramento, CA). Spending has gone primarily toward petition circulation. ### **13\. AI Companion Chatbot Safety Act (Prop ID #250036)** **Total raised: $10,000,000** This measure would require AI companion chatbot operators to disclose to minors that they are interacting with artificial intelligence, maintain protocols to prevent suicidal ideation and self-harm content, send notifications at least every three hours reminding minors to take a break and that the chatbot is not human, and prevent sexually explicit content directed at minors. Beginning July 1, 2027, operators would be required to annually report to the Office of Suicide Prevention on their protocols for detecting and responding to suicidal ideation. The California Kids AI Safety Act (Prop ID #250025), covers similar ground, but the committee reported no money spent or raised. The AI Companion Chatbot Safety Act explicitly states that if both measures were to appear on the same ballot, they shall be deemed in conflict, with only the one receiving more votes taking effect. **"Parents And Kids Safe AI Coalition" - $10 Million** "Parents And Kids Safe AI Coalition, Sponsored By OpenAI And Child Safety Advocacy Organizations," formed January 9, 2026, in Sacramento County, has raised $10,000,000\. The entire $10,000,000 came from a single contribution by OpenAI OpCo, LLC of San Francisco, CA on January 13, 2026, just four days after the committee was formed. ### **14\. California Middle-Class Homeownership and Family Home Construction Act of 2026 (Prop ID #250013)** **Total raised: $6,000,000** This measure would authorize up to $25 billion in bonds to offer eligible buyers fixed-rate mortgages for up to 17% of the purchase price of a qualified new home, defined as new construction or the first sale of converted nonresidential property priced below approximately $1 million to $1.5 million, depending on the county. Borrowers must be California residents for one year, plan to occupy the home, earn less than 200% of the area median income, and pay at least 3% down. **"CA Homes Committee" - $6 Million** Supporting the measure, "CA Homes Committee" (Committee ID 1481256) has received $6,000,000 from Building A Better California (Committee ID 1486767, San Rafael, CA). ### **15\. Protect Schools and Taxpayers Act of 2026 (Prop ID #250038)** **Total raised: $4,250,000** **"Protect California Schools” -$4.2 Million** Supporting the measure, "Protect California Schools, Sponsored By Building A Better California," formed February 27, 2026, in Marin County, has raised $4,250,000, all from a single donor, Building A Better California (Committee ID 1486767, San Rafael, CA), in two “late” contribution reports: $2,750,000 on February 20, 2026 and $1,500,000 on March 13, 2026\. ### **16\. Health Care Executive Compensation Act of 2026 (Prop ID #250009)** **Total raised: $380,829** This measure would prohibit certain hospitals and medical entities from paying executives, managers, and administrators more than $450,000 in total annual compensation, with the limit increasing up to 3.5% annually based on the Consumer Price Index. **“Californians Against The Health Care Endangerment Act” -$381,000** Opposing the measure, "Californians Against The Health Care Endangerment Act, Sponsored By California Association Of Hospitals And Health Systems," formed February 17, 2026, in Sacramento County, has raised $380,829 entirely in opposition, all from a single donor, California Hospitals Committee on Issues (CHCI), sponsored by California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (Committee ID 880212, Sacramento, CA), in three separate contributions: $250,000 cash on February 23, 2026; $68,607 in-kind for polling on March 11, 2026; and $62,222 in-kind for focus groups on March 11, 2026\. ### Congress Left Town; The Coast Guard Went to War Without a Paycheck URL: https://ivn.us/congress-left-town-the-coast-guard-went-to-war-without-a-paycheck-2026-04-12/ Last updated: 2026-04-13T06:09:29.000Z Many Americans may not realize that during peacetime, the [U.S. Coast Guard](https://www.mycg.uscg.mil/News/Article/4409206/government-funding-lapse/?ref=ivn.us) operates as part of the Department of Homeland Security and is funded by it, not the Department of Defense. Because Congress has not declared war, the United States is still technically in peacetime. That means Coast Guard crews now operating in the Gulf, deploying rescue swimmers into rough seas, and carrying out missions in the Strait of Hormuz are doing so while serving under a department that has been partially shut down. The shutdown began Feb. 14 after Congress failed to pass a DHS funding bill before the deadline. 95% of the Coast Guard’s 52,377 employees are classified as exempt or excepted, meaning they are [required to keep reporting to work](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2026/02/13/coast-guard-to-work-without-pay-during-dhs-shutdown/?ref=ivn.us) during a lapse in appropriations, whether or not they are paid. Civilian Coast Guard employees [have not received a paycheck since February 14](https://militaryfamilies.com/opinion/op-ed-humanizing-the-shutdowns-impact-on-coast-guard-community/?ref=ivn.us). The service's vice commandant, [Admiral Thomas Allan](https://www.stripes.com/branches/coast%5Fguard/2026-03-25/coast-guard-unpaid-bills-shutdown-21180408.html?ref=ivn.us#:~:text=Coast%20Guard%20operates%20with%20unpaid,Allan%2C%20told%20lawmakers%20on%20Wednesday), testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security on March 26, tying the DHS funding lapse directly to missions in the Middle East. *“The* [*gunner’s mate*](https://www.gocoastguard.com/careers/enlisted/gm?ref=ivn.us) *manning a weapon in the Strait of Hormuz should not have to worry if their family will be able to pay rent while being shadowed by Iranian vessels,” he said. “Our aviation survival technician deploying from a helicopter into treacherous seas should not have to worry if their family can buy groceries this week.”* Patrol Forces Southwest Asia, known as [PATFORSWA](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/967888/patforswa-overview-2025?ref=ivn.us), is part of the Coast Guard that has been based in Bahrain since 2003\. They operate [six 154-foot Fast Response Cutters](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/967888/patforswa-overview-2025?ref=ivn.us) and more than 150 support personnel, supporting U.S. Naval Central Command. Congress left on a two-week Easter [recess](https://www.history.com/articles/why-does-congress-take-so-many-recesses?ref=ivn.us) on March 27\. Members of Congress are still being paid. On April 3, after House Republicans blocked a Senate funding proposal that would have ended the shutdown, President Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to pay all DHS employees, including Coast Guard personnel. But like so many of President Trump’s executive orders, it remained unclear where the money would come from and whether the move would survive legal challenge, since Congress controls federal appropriations. “I have never been more disgusted by the failure of elected leadership in my life,” [AFGE](https://www.afge.org/?ref=ivn.us) President Everett Kelley said in a [statement](https://www.afge.org/publication/afge-president-slams-congress-for-going-on-vacation-while-dhs-workers-go-unpaid/?ref=ivn.us) after learning that the stalemate would continue with the Congress leaving town. Lawmakers are set to reconvene on April 13. Admiral Allan said the shutdown was the third of the fiscal year for the Coast Guard. > *“In total, for 85 of the last 176 days, for nearly half the year, our service (The US Coast Guard) has been without the funding necessary to operate and pay our people."* Adm. Allan said crews deployed on national security missions had been left carrying thousands of dollars in unreimbursed official expenses on government travel cards, calling that personal debt an “unacceptable burden.” He said the service was carrying more than $200 million in unpaid bills, including 5,000 unpaid utility bills. He said more than 16,000 merchant mariner credential applications were stalled, with the backlog growing by about 300 a day. Even the vendor responsible for feeding recruits at the Coast Guard’s training center in Cape May, New Jersey, was not being paid, and contractors were beginning to walk away from Coast Guard work. “What we worry about,” Allan told lawmakers, “is that it’s not only a near-term impact, but as we bid for these contracts with these companies in the future, they’re not going to come to the Coast Guard. They’ll go to the Navy, they’ll go to the Marines, they’ll go to the others.” Allan said the shutdown was also beginning to hurt recruitment. “Now we are dealing with ‘If you go to other services, hey, you will get paid.’ At DHS, it continues to be a question,” he said. The DHS funding standoff is tied to a broader dispute over immigration enforcement. Ironically, ICE and Customs and Border Protection are not affected in the same way because they received more than $150 billion in funding through a reconciliation bill passed last summer, including $75 billion for ICE and $64 billion for CBP. When TSA workers went without pay and airport lines backed up across the country, there was enough public pressure that [the administration found a way to redirect funds and pay them](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dhs-keeps-paying-coast-guard-personnel-despite-partial-government-shutdown/?ref=ivn.us). Coast Guard civilians are [still waiting](https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/coast-guard-employees-cape-may-without-pay-government-shutdown/4377065/?ref=ivn.us). [One Coast Guard worker told NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coast-guard-dhs-workers-still-not-paid-ask-us-rcna266090?ref=ivn.us), "Don't get me wrong, we're very happy for the TSA workers. But what we were feeling, more than anything, was forgotten." Christine O'Shields, a Coast Guard spouse whose husband has served more than 20 years, [told CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dhs-keeps-paying-coast-guard-personnel-despite-partial-government-shutdown/?ref=ivn.us) that recent paychecks arrived without warning after families initially expected to go unpaid. She described the arrival of last week's paycheck as a "surprise." > *"It is this roller coaster of, are we going to get paid, and are we not going to get paid?" she said. "We don't know, literally, till it hits our account if it's going to come or not."* “The Coast Guard will continue to serve because that is [what our people have sworn to do](https://www.uscg.mil/status/?ref=ivn.us),” Admiral Allan told lawmakers. “But a crew should never question whether the nation they protect will stand behind them and their families. Stable funding for DHS is not simply a budgetary matter. It’s a matter of trust, readiness, and national security.” ### Why California's Governor Race Is a Trap for Both Parties (Trump Endorses Hilton) URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/why-californias-governor-race-is-a-trap-for-both-parties-trump-endorses-hilton-2026-04-09/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:36:30.000Z Breaking down Steve Hilton's Trump endorsement, why two Republicans advancing is never going to happen, and how Democrats may be using that fake threat to dismantle nonpartisan primaries altogether. Plus: the Swalwell rumors making waves before June 2nd, a Green Party candidate kicked off the ballot over tax returns, and where the massive undecided independent voter bloc actually lands. ## Episode Highlights On this episode of the *Independent Voter Podcast*, Chad Peace, Cara Brown McCormick, Ethan Handelman, and Shawn Griffiths break down the **California governor's race**, looking at the latest election polling and Donald Trump’s endorsement of **Steve Hilton**. A new poll from David Binder Research shows **Hilton** leading with 22%, while Democrat **Eric Swalwell** faces mounting controversy over viral rumors spreading across **social media**. We challenge the mainstream narrative and doomsday spin by Democratic leaders that the June nonpartisan **Top Two primary** could advance two Republicans to November. While the candidate numbers fluctuate, a quarter of the electorate remains undecided. And the odds that Hilton or Chad Bianco will get these voters are slim. [New IVP 2026 California Governor Poll: What the Toplines Don’t Tell YouUsing verified California voter file data, IVP surveyed high-propensity voters from February 13 through 20\. The poll tested first-choice ballot preferences alongside issue intensity on affordability and the cost of living, immigration enforcement, more choice reform, and more.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsEthan Handelman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/IVP_California_Governor_Poll_Toplines.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/new-ivp-2026-california-governor-poll-what-the-toplines-dont-tell-you-2026-02-23) On **national politics**, we react to explosive **Trump tariffs** news and wild **stock market volatility**, driven in real time by **Truth Social** posts – a phenomenon that saw markets swing over 1,500 points in a single session. The conversation then shifts to **US-Iran tensions**, **Middle East peace talks**, and Trump's controversial rhetoric about Iran, which sparked widespread calls for **25th Amendment** action. Meanwhile, a **FEMA official** named Greg Phillips – head of the Office of Response and Recovery with a $300 million budget – made headlines with a bizarre claim about being **teleported 50 miles** to a Georgia Waffle House. Adding to the chaos, agencies under the Department of Homeland Security (like FEMA and the **US Coast Guard**) have gone unpaid for over 50 days due to a stalled **DHS funding** deal. The question is, why isn’t the mainstream media talking more about this ongoing shutdown? The episode wraps with an examination of how it really works with **voter ID laws**, exploring why an issue with **80% public support** remains so politically divisive. We also cover Idaho becoming the 25th state to urge Congress to propose a **constitutional amendment** on **money in politics**. [Half of US States Are Now in Revolt Over Money in PoliticsIdaho became the 25th state Wednesday to formally urge Congress to propose a constitutional amendment that allows federal and state legislative bodies to have greater authority over the flow of money in US politics.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/campaign-finance-amendment-money-in-politics.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/half-of-us-states-are-now-in-revolt-over-money-in-politics-2026-04-08) This is the product of tireless work by the cross-partisan group **American Promise**, and brings it closer to the 38-state threshold needed to guarantee ratification should the **For Our Freedom Amendment** be approved by Congress. ### Why Can't Maine Use Ranked Choice Voting in Certain Elections? Its Supreme Court Just Answered – Again URL: https://ivn.us/why-cant-maine-use-ranked-choice-voting-in-certain-elections-its-supreme-court-just-answered-again-2026-04-09/ Last updated: 2026-04-09T19:17:27.000Z In Maine, ranked choice voting is used in primary elections, US House and Senate general elections – even in presidential elections. However, the state Supreme Court issued an opinion this week that it can’t be used to decide races for governor and the state legislature. Why? Because a state constitutional provision requires those general elections to be decided by plurality, which means a candidate needs the most votes to win (even if it isn’t a majority). Ranked choice voting requires a majority winner. It is not the first time the Maine Supreme Court issued this opinion. The justices came to the same conclusion after state voters approved ranked choice voting in 2016\. It is the reason why election mechanics in Maine aren’t consistent today. Ten years ago, Maine became [the first state in the US to adopt a statewide ranked choice initiative](https://ivn.us/posts/ranked-choice-voting-advocates-celebrate-historic-victory-in-maine) under Question 5\. However, the path to implementation was rocky, to say the least. State lawmakers turned to the Maine Supreme Court to issue an advisory opinion on the matter. The justices [declared](https://ivn.us/posts/breaking-maine-supreme-court-says-ranked-choice-voting-unconstitutional) that since ranked choice voting could require a candidate with a plurality to go through additional rounds of runoff to win, it could be found unconstitutional. This was not an official ruling. The court essentially said that *if* the ranked choice voting law was challenged, it *could* be found unconstitutional as it pertains to specific state offices that are governed by the Maine Constitution (i.e. governor and state legislature). Some lawmakers used the opinion to justify straight repeal of Question 5, while others proposed a constitutional amendment to bring ranked choice voting in line with the state constitution. The latter failed. Ranked choice supporters [made thousands of calls](https://ivn.us/2017/06/15/maine-lawmakers-decide-fate-ranked-choice-voting/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), packed committee hearings, and [made office visits](https://ivn.us/2017/06/02/mainers-come-droves-support-ranked-choice-voting/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) to state lawmakers to persuade them not to kill the reform that still could apply to all primary elections and US House and Senate general elections. The entire legislative rollercoaster ride that occurred over this issue was covered on IVN. So much happened in the public eye and behind the scenes that it could fill a book. Ultimately, in 2017, lawmakers [settled on a bill](https://ivn.us/posts/voters-betrayed-maine-lawmakers-set-ranked-choice-voting-repeal) that delayed ranked choice voting and stipulated that if the legislature could not bring Question 5 in full alignment with the state constitution by December 2021, it would be repealed. Given that 10 years later the legislature still hasn’t passed a constitutional amendment, it is safe to say lawmakers weren’t delaying ranked choice voting – they were actually delaying repeal. The Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, which spearheaded Question 5 in 2016, launched a People’s Veto campaign to repeal the bill. Volunteers [trekked through one of the worst winters Maine had seen in a while](https://ivn.us/posts/volunteers-brave-bone-chilling-cold-to-defend-voters-rights-in-maine) to collect over 61,000 signatures. Then, in June 2018, a majority of Maine voters once again voted in favor of ranked choice voting. In fact, the reform won [by a larger margin of victory](https://ivn.us/posts/independents-made-difference-maines-ranked-choice-voting) than in 2016\. More people voted in the People Veto’s election that year than for governor. The goal of the People’s Veto was not just to repeal the legislature’s actions, but also focus ranked choice voting implementation on the elections that were permissible under the Maine Supreme Court’s 2017 advisory opinion. Fast forward to the present. Ranked choice voting is used in all of those races, including US House and Senate general elections. Lawmakers even expanded it to presidential elections. But they haven’t moved forward with a constitutional amendment to fully satisfy the will of voters. General elections for governor and the state legislature still use a choose-one, plurality voting system. This means when voters get their general election ballots each election cycle the voting method is not consistent across the board. The Maine Legislature approved [LD 1666](https://legislature.maine.gov/backend/App/services/getDocument.aspx?documentId=115505&ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) in February to implement ranked choice voting in these races. Lawmakers tried to be clever with the language they used in order to comply with the plurality clause of the Maine Constitution. But it wasn’t enough. The Maine Supreme Court [issued the same opinion in 2026](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/04/08/maine-supreme-court-says-bill-expanding-ranked-choice-voting-is-unconstitutional/?ref=ivn.us) that it did in 2017. Defenders of LD 1666 asserted that the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the use of ranked choice voting in its state despite a plurality clause in its constitution. However, the justices in Maine said there was a clear difference in language: > *“Unlike the Alaska Constitution, which delegates broad authority to Alaska’s Legislature to oversee elections and does not specify the way in which votes are cast, sorted, counted, and declared … the Maine Constitution provides significant detail about what it means to cast a vote that we simply cannot ignore.”* One thing is abundantly clear: The only thing that is going to allow ranked choice voting to be used how reformers fully intended back in 2016 is to adopt a constitutional amendment that allows majority outcomes in state elections. Maine officials – including Gov. Janet Mills – have promised it, but have yet to deliver. ### Half of US States Are Now in Revolt Over Money in Politics URL: https://ivn.us/half-of-us-states-are-now-in-revolt-over-money-in-politics-2026-04-08/ Last updated: 2026-04-08T13:23:08.000Z **BOISE** \- Idaho became the 25th state Wednesday to formally urge Congress to propose a constitutional amendment that allows federal and state legislative bodies to have greater authority over the flow of money in US politics. This comes after [Senate Joint Memorial 109 (SJM 109)](https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2026/legislation/SJM109/?ref=ivn.us) was approved with bipartisan support in both chambers of the Idaho Legislature. For years, critics of the current campaign finance system have argued that a long line of federal court decisions has steadily stripped Congress and the states of the flexibility to respond to new forms of political spending. SJM 109 backs a constitutional amendment aimed at restoring that authority. “Campaigning for a seat in the Legislature or statewide executive office is more challenging than it’s ever been, and at the root of it is a financial arms race powered by dark money and big checks written by out-of-state interests,” said Rep. Brandon Mitchell, the House co-sponsor. According to the resolution’s supporters, [more than $17 million was spent on campaign and independent expenditures in Idaho legislative races in 2024](https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/idaho-legislators-address-monetization-of-politics-in-new-campaign-finance-bills/article%5F83d9943e-f3a9-11ef-a0ad-dfc3ed324ae8.html?ref=ivn.us). Of that, more than $9.3 million came from outside groups. One Virginia-based PAC alone reportedly spent more than $700,000 trying to influence specific races. Sen. Carl Bjerke, a Republican from Coeur d’Alene who sponsored SJM 109 in the Senate, said reform must begin with Idaho reclaiming control over its own campaign finance laws and reasserting the principle that election policy should be decided by the people of the state. “It’s time to do something to reverse a trend that is fueling distrust, cynicism, and inequity in our electoral process,” he remarked. SJM 109 was approved not long after Oklahoma became the 24th state to adopt a similar measure earlier this year. The cross-partisan organization [American Promise](https://americanpromise.net/?ref=ivn.us) reports that more than a dozen additional states are considering comparable resolutions. They are in line with the group’s For Our Freedom Amendment, which now has support that stretches from Massachusetts to Montana, Alaska to Nevada, and West Virginia to California. “Americans are calling for change, and with half the states now backing the constitutional solution to the money in politics crisis, momentum is growing,” said American Promise CEO Jeff Clements. > *“As our country approaches our 250th anniversary, Americans across party lines are coming together to restore the constitutional freedom and balance our founders envisioned.”* Amending the US Constitution isn't an easy feat. Under Article V, an amendment needs two-thirds approval from Congress and ratification from three-fourths of the states (38). This is a high bar to clear – especially in today's political environment. However, American Promise has taken a different approach to accomplish its goal. Instead of going directly to Congress with the proposal, it is laying the groundwork by first getting support from the states. The group believes reaching 25 states is more than symbolic. It means half the country is now on record in favor of changing the Constitution to give states and Congress more power to regulate election spending after decades of court decisions that narrowed those options. ### 10 States Where Independent Voters Will Decide the 2026 Elections URL: https://ivn.us/10-states-where-independent-voters-will-decide-the-2026-elections-2026-04-07/ Last updated: 2026-04-09T14:55:34.000Z The 2026 midterm elections are already underway as states conduct their primary elections – and independent voters are expected to have a major impact on results from California to Maine and in several places in-between. Independent voters are not often a part of the discussion in primaries because partisan campaigns tend to ignore them. However, as independent ID hits 45% of the electorate, their influence over the US political landscape cannot be ignored. Here are the top 10 states independent voters will decide elections in 2026 – including some surprises. ## **1\. Alaska** Roughly 60% of the state’s electorate is already registered unaffiliated with any political party. Independent voters are not just the majority; they are practically a super-majority. Yet, for many years the largest voting bloc in the state was denied access to critical, taxpayer-funded primary elections. This changed after voters approved Ballot Measure 2 in 2020, which implemented a nonpartisan Top Four primary (open to all voters and candidates) with ranked choice voting in the general election. In only a few years, research has shown that Alaska already has more competitive elections and voters previously underrepresented by the old closed primary system have taken advantage of the opportunity to have their voices heard. The US Senate race that features former Democratic US Rep. Mary Peltola, in particular, has gotten [a lot of attention](https://apnews.com/article/alaska-senate-peltola-sullivan-3fd17afc556641652e83e9c11d700306?ref=ivn.us). Independent voters will not only decide which 4 candidates advance to the general election, but they will also decide who the preferred winner is under ranked choice voting. ## **2\. California** California is another state with a nonpartisan open primary system, authored by the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) and approved by voters in 2010\. Cambridge University recently [published research](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/state-politics-and-policy-quarterly/article/participation-and-competition-in-toptwo-elections-tradeoffs-in-election-reform/C853759B1B596B91619DBE301B78D3DF?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) that shows Top Two has generated more competitive elections in the state. Recent actions by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature to gerrymander the state's congressional map under Prop 50 reduced the number of competitive congressional contests this year. However, independent voters will end up having the greatest impact on elections statewide. This includes the race for governor, where a large candidate field of Republicans and (mostly) Democrats is going to split the vote considerably. The most important takeaway from [all the polls](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/california-governor-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) on this race is the number of undecided voters. While Democrats raise doomsday alarms about two Republicans winning, about a quarter of the electorate remains undecided. And lo and behold, independent voters make up more than a quarter of the electorate. [NEW POLL: California Governor’s Race Sees “None of the Above” Beat the Entire Democratic FieldA new statewide poll conducted by the Independent Voter Project finds California’s independent voters overwhelmingly support the state’s nonpartisan primary system and express broad dissatisfaction with the direction of state politics.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/IVP-California-Governor-Poll-2020-.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12) These voters will ultimately decide which two candidates advance to November, and if the Prop 50 results from 2025 are any indicator, Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco may have hit their ceiling of potential support. Importantly, Cambridge found that even in contests that result in two candidates from the same party advancing, voters outside the party have a greater say in who represents them. It is no longer an easy victory for a single candidate of the controlling party because to win they have to broaden their appeal beyond their party's base. ## **3\. Maine** Maine now uses a semi-open primary system that lets independent voters participate in a party primary without joining that party. While the system was implemented for the first time in 2024, this year will feature the first governor’s race to use it. Local media outlets have already dubbed independent voters as the “deciders” in this high-profile contest since it is an open seat. Current Gov. Janet Mills is running for US Senate, a race that will also be decided by independent voters Mills is running in the Democratic primary to determine who will face incumbent Republican US Sen. Susan Collins. An additional factor in US Senate and House elections (both primary and general) in Maine is that they use ranked choice voting. Voters will be able to rank candidates in order of preference. Notably, Maine voters were the first in the US to approve statewide use of ranked choice voting for all elections. However, a 2017 advisory opinion by the Maine Supreme Court was used to keep it out of gubernatorial and legislative general elections. A bill was approved by the Maine Legislature this year that would allow the reform’s use in these elections. It remains in the legislature until the state Supreme Court issues an opinion on its constitutionality. A hearing was held on April 1\. Five days later, the Maine Supreme Court issued [its opinion that the bill](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/04/08/maine-supreme-court-says-bill-expanding-ranked-choice-voting-is-unconstitutional/?ref=ivn.us) violated a provision in the state constitution that requires plurality winners in gubernatorial and legislative general elections. Ranked choice voting is used in primaries, US House and Senate general elections – even in presidential elections. ## **4\. Georgia** Georgia is the type of open primary state that does not register voters by party. Registered Georgians choose a party ballot in the primary, which gives independent-minded voters real leverage before November. While it is not uncommon even under these primary types for partisan campaigns to ignore independents – thus giving these voters little incentive to participate – reports out of Georgia say campaigns are actively courting them this year. [L2 Data modeling](https://www.l2-data.com/states/georgia/?ref=ivn.us) shows that Georgia has nearly 2 million voters who identify as independent, which explains its consistent battleground status each election cycle, including in the 2026 midterms with a hotly contested US Senate election. So, independents are expected to be “deciders” in both the primary AND general elections. ## **5\. Texas** Texas has long been considered a Republican stronghold, but the 2026 primary elections showed this may be more of a product of independent preference in recent history than Republicans dominating voter registration. In fact, data modeling shows Republicans may not have the majority many people think. [Are There More Democrats In Texas Than Republicans?Texas is an open partisan primary state, which means it does not have to register voters by party affiliation. When voters go to the polls in the primary, they can freely choose between a Republican and a Democratic ballot.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/pete-alexopoulos-JFfDRKlI3hY-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/are-there-more-democrats-texas-republicans-2025-08-08) Like Georgia, Texas does not register voters by party. People select a party ballot when they vote in primaries, which means they can pick a different party ballot each cycle. However, if there are runoffs, any voter who participated in the primary cannot switch parties. This year’s primary elections stood out because for the first time since the 1990s, turnout in the Democratic primary was higher than the Republican primary in a non-presidential contest (Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the 2020 presidential primary). [Texas Primary Shock: Democratic Voter Turnout Surpasses RepublicansThe 2026 primary elections in Texas had their fair share of excitement and controversy Tuesday night. But one thing that stood out more than anything else was the turnout. Specifically, in the Democratic primaries, which soared above the Republicans.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/03/texas-primary-2026-democratic-turnout-surpasses-republicans-voter-turnout-texas-election.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/texas-primary-shock-democratic-voter-turnout-surpasses-republicans-2026-03-04) Not only were voters drawn in by the high-profile Senate race, but Democratic US Senate nominee James Talarico didn’t leave out independent voters in his campaign messaging and targeting – leading to higher independent participation. Independent voters made the difference for his campaign, which could extend to the general election depending on who wins the May 26 Republican runoff. And if these voters still feel incentivized to vote for either party’s nominee. ## **6\. Arizona** Independents are likely to be especially influential in Arizona because voters registered as “independent” or “party not designated” are allowed to choose any major party's primary ballot. These voters represent more than a third of the registered electorate. [Can a Party Call Itself ‘Independent’? Judge Accuses No Labels Party of ‘Bait-and-Switch’The No Labels Party in Arizona cannot change its name to the Arizona Independent Party. This is the decision from Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gregory Como, who called it a “political bait-and-switch.”![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/arizona-independent-party-voter-registration-confusion.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/can-a-party-call-itself-independent-judge-accuses-no-labels-of-bait-and-switch-2026-03-30) Like Maine, Arizona uses a semi-open primary system. Registered party members have to vote in their respective party’s primary. It is also considered one of the nation’s hottest battlegrounds, giving independent voters substantial leverage. ## **7\. North Carolina** North Carolina has a notable mix of independent-voter opportunity and battleground status. Independent voters can choose a party ballot in the primaries, which gives them the opportunity to leverage their influence at all stages of the elections process. And these voters do not have allegiance to a single party. Trump won the state in 2024 with 51% of the vote, and Republicans have a slight majority in the legislature. At the same time, state voters elected a Democratic governor, Josh Stein, and other state Democratic officials. Reuters lists the open US Senate race as [one of the most competitive in the country](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/eight-us-senate-races-watch-2026-midterm-elections-2026-03-02/?ref=ivn.us). ## **8\. Wisconsin** Wisconsin isn’t just a battleground state, but is also considered one of the nation’s purest swing states with a sizable independent voter population. Data modeling shows about [a third of registered voters identify as independent](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/wi?ref=ivn.us). Ballotpedia identified the 2026 governor’s race [as a Toss-Up](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/02/18/a-look-at-this-years-gubernatorial-battlegrounds/?ref=ivn.us), and [AP noted](https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-supreme-court-chris-taylor-maria-lazar-fcbe748aced2ea7cdee8e7e75855a21f?ref=ivn.us) that Democrats are also trying to flip the legislature while the state Supreme Court remains central to election law, redistricting, and abortion politics. Due to how razor thin the margins in elections tend to be, independent voters make the difference in every election cycle. ## **9\. Michigan** Michigan is in a unique position on this list because not only does it have open primaries for a high-profile governor’s race and an open US Senate seat, but it has an independent candidate who could break through the two-party duopoly. That is former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. Duggan was a popular mayor and oversaw a transformation of the city from bankruptcy to vibrancy. He could pull voters who are dissatisfied with both major parties – which has Republicans and Democrats calling him a spoiler. Still, the 2026 midterms have created multiple paths for independents to matter in Michigan. Not only are they the “deciders” in the state’s biggest elections, but they could actually give Michigan a governor that isn’t a Republican or Democrat. ## **10\. Nevada** Nevada is the only closed primary state on this list. While independent voters are locked out of a critical stage of the elections process, they account for more than 2.1 million active registered voters and are the largest voting bloc in the state. Notably, in the last legislative session, the legislature managed to pass a semi-open primary bill that was vetoed by the governor. The better elections group [Vote Nevada](https://vote-nevada.org/?ref=ivn.us) is collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that would enshrine the right to vote in all taxpayer-funded elections to independents. This could offer a major incentive for these voters to turn out in greater numbers if the initiative makes the ballot. Even though Nevada’s partisan primary is closed to independents, that bloc is large enough to decide close statewide general elections in a battleground state. ## **Honorable Mention** **Colorado** – while the state is not considered the battleground state it once was, independent voters make up a majority of registered voters, and they can participate in the state’s semi-open primary system. Given their numbers, independent voters are the most impactful voting bloc in the state in statewide contests. It will also be curious to see how these voters turn out as [Colorado Republicans try to close primary elections and Colorado Democrats fight independent redistricting](https://ivn.us/posts/michigan-gop-kicks-out-rcv-advocates-calls-them-communists-over-reform-republicans-use-2026-04-06). ### Trump Won This Latino California District; Now Independents Will Decide Who Holds It URL: https://ivn.us/trump-won-this-latino-california-district-now-independents-will-decide-who-holds-it-2026-04-07/ Last updated: 2026-04-07T16:09:26.000Z Assembly District 36 covers some of California's most remote and geographically extraordinary terrain, stretching across all of Imperial County and a large portion of Riverside County, with a small slice of San Bernardino County. The district includes the cities of Indio, Coachella, Blythe, and Needles in Riverside County; portions of the City of Hemet; and the Imperial Valley cities of Calexico, Brawley, El Centro, Imperial, Calipatria, Holtville, and Westmorland. Few districts can claim three borders. AD36 runs along the Mexico border to the south, the Arizona border to the east, and touches Nevada to the northeast. Near Blythe, the ancient [Blythe Intaglios](https://www.ancientartarchive.org/blythe-intaglios-geoglyphs/?ref=ivn.us), enormous figures etched into the desert floor by Indigenous peoples, are the best known of hundreds of geoglyphs found across the American West. The district encompasses tribal lands belonging to the Quechan Tribe near Winterhaven, the Chemehuevi near Needles, and the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians. El Centro, one of the few American cities located below sea level, is recognized as the birthplace and early home of the iconic singer, actress, and "Goddess of Pop,” Cher. In a twist that only California rock and roll could produce, the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge sits entirely within AD36. It’s also the home of the [Empire Polo Club](https://empirepoloclubevents.com/?ref=ivn.us), host of the famous [Coachella](https://www.coachella.com/?ref=ivn.us) festival. This year, the festival’s being held April 10-12 & 17-19, 2026, and will feature [Sabrina Carpenter](https://www.sabrinacarpenter.com/?ref=ivn.us) and [Justin Bieber](https://www.justinbiebermusic.com/?ref=ivn.us). At last year's festival, US Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrapped up their [*Fighting Oligarchy Tour* ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtf23QQiDlY&ab%5Fchannel=FacetheNation&ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)on April 16, after a five-day, seven-stop sweep through the West that drew nearly **150,000 people**—capping it off with an unexpected appearance at the **Coachella music festival**. [Sanders and AOC Wrap ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ Tour and Bernie Takes the Mic at CoachellaUS Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrapped up their Fighting Oligarchy Tour on April 16, after a five-day, seven-stop sweep through the West that drew nearly 150,000 people—capping it off with an unexpected appearance by Sanders at the Coachella music festival.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/48607895203_d63bf2b747_k.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/sanders-and-aoc-wrap-fighting-oligarchy-tour-and-bernie-takes-mic-coachella-2025-04-18) The climate in AD36 is definitely not for the faint of heart. Temperatures routinely exceed 110 degrees in summer, yet the district’s mild winters are exactly what make the Imperial Valley one of the most productive winter vegetable growing regions in the United States. When the rest of the country is eating lettuce, broccoli, and carrots in January, there is a good chance it came from AD36\. The farming operations here hold some of the most senior water rights in the United States, and because the district encompasses both the Colorado River basin communities of Blythe and Needles and the intensively irrigated Imperial Valley, the representative for AD36 is a key player in Western water politics, in constant negotiation with the federal government and neighboring states. The 2024 Imperial County Agricultural Crop and Livestock Report confirms cattle as [a top commodity](https://calexicochronicle.com/2024/10/23/imperial-county-gross-ag-values-at-2-6b-livestock-tops-again/?ref=ivn.us) in the district, with a gross value of $546 million. The Salton Sea, California's largest lake by surface area, lies entirely within AD36 and sits atop one of [the world's largest known lithium deposits](https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/geothermal/lithium?ref=ivn.us), found in [geothermal brine](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4x8868mf?ref=ivn.us) beneath the valley floor. There has been an [enormous push](https://calmatters.org/environment/2025/01/salton-sea-lithium-mining/?ref=ivn.us) to turn the Imperial Valley into a global hub for electric-vehicle battery production, making this region one of the most closely watched economic stories in California. The district was drawn to protect the political voice of its majority-Latino population under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and its communities share deep concerns about water, the border, and the region's economic future. ## **Demographics, Housing, and Cost of Living** According to the 2023 American Community Survey, Assembly District 36 has a total population of 486,764\. The district is 69.7% Latino, making it one of the most heavily Latino districts in California. White residents comprise 20.4%, Black residents 3.5%, and Asian residents 3%. The citizen voting age population stands at 61.3%, with 26.8% of residents foreign-born and 13.3% classified as non-citizens. Economic conditions in the district reflect significant hardship. The median household income is $66,802, with a mean household income of $88,932 and a per capita income of $28,343\. Approximately 14.9% of residents live below the poverty line, 7.8% lack health insurance, and 20.9% of households receive food assistance. Educational attainment is relatively low, with 17.7% of residents holding a bachelor's degree and 5.8% a graduate degree. Housing is predominantly owner-occupied at 66.4%, with 33.6% of homes renter-occupied. The median home value is $347,100, and the median monthly rent is $1,168\. The district's 19,652 civilian veterans represent 5.5% of the population, a significant share that reflects both the region's proximity to military installations and its strong tradition of military service. ## **23%of Voters Do Not Belong to A Major Party** As of December 30, 2025, Assembly District 36 had 258,071 registered voters. Democrats hold 40.9% of registrations, Republicans 29.1%, and No Party Preference voters 22.9%, with American Independent comprising roughly 4%. Democrats maintain a registration advantage of approximately 11.8 points, but that figure understates how dramatically the partisan landscape has shifted. The Democratic advantage peaked at 17.3 points in 2022 and has contracted sharply since, falling to 13.6 points by the 2024 general election and further to 11.8 points by the close of 2025\. Republican registration has climbed from 26.9% in 2022 to 29.1% today, while the Democratic share has slipped from 44.2% to 40.9% over the same period. The growth of No Party Preference voters is significant. NPP registrations have nearly doubled in raw numbers since 2008, rising from roughly 22,000 to nearly 59,000, and their share of the electorate has grown from 15.2% to 22.9%. Nearly one in four voters in AD36 now belongs to no party. In a district where the Democratic registration advantage has been shrinking and top-of-ticket results have already flipped Republican, independent voters are not a secondary factor at all in this race. They are central to the outcome. The district's partisan profile also varies considerably by county. Riverside County accounts for 62.4% of registered voters and leans Democratic by just 8.1 points. Imperial County, representing 36.4% of the electorate, carries a wider 19.1-point Democratic advantage. The small San Bernardino County portion, just 1.2% of registrations, actually leans Republican. ## **Trump and Harris Were Neck and Neck in 2024** The rightward movement in AD36 has been among the most pronounced of any majority-Latino district in California. Donald Trump carried the district by 1.3% in 2024, winning 49.5% to Kamala Harris's 48.2%, a striking outcome in a district where Democrats still held a registration advantage exceeding 13 points. In the 2024 U.S. Senate race, Republican Steve Garvey edged Democrat Adam Schiff by 1.9%, 51% to 49%. Republican Jeff Gonzalez defeated Democrat Joey Acuña by 3.6%. ## **The 2026 Race for Assembly** Gonzalez enters the 2026 cycle as the incumbent in a district his party captured just two years ago. Three Democrats have qualified to challenge him in the top-two primary. Oscar Ortiz, an Indio City Councilmember who challenged Representative Raul Ruiz from the left in the 2024 congressional primary and finished fourth with 10% of the vote, came closest to winning the Democratic Party's formal backing. He received 60% at the party's pre-endorsement conference, falling short of the required threshold, and then 45% at the primary endorsement vote, also short of the mark. The California Democratic Party ultimately issued no endorsement in the race. Tomas Oliva, a former El Centro City Councilmember who placed sixth in the 2024 Assembly primary and serves as a senior field representative for Representative Ruiz, and Ida Obeso-Martinez, an Imperial City Councilmember and cardiovascular nurse practitioner, have also filed. Gonzalez closed 2025 with a commanding financial advantage, having raised $751,378 for the cycle and reporting $402,837 on hand. Among the Democrats, Ortiz led in total fundraising at $147,874 raised with $61,017 on hand, followed by Oliva at $89,587 raised and $63,569 on hand, and Obeso-Martinez at $73,059 raised and $24,659 on hand. ## **More About The Candidates** ### **Jeff Gonzalez (Republican, Incumbent)** [Jeff Gonzalez](https://www.gonzalez4assembly.com/?ref=ivn.us), born August 5, 1974, is a Marine veteran, former pastor, small business owner, and self-described first-generation American who became the first Republican to win this district in years when he prevailed in 2024\. Born in New Jersey and raised in Southern California, he enlisted in the Marines at 19 and served in counterintelligence and as an operations manager during deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, earning the rank of chief warrant officer. He holds a bachelor's degree in domestic security management from National University and a master's in theology from Gateway University. His path to elected office ran through a decade in ministry. Starting in 2007 as a volunteer campus coordinator at [Saddleback Church](https://saddleback.com/watch/?ref=ivn.us), he moved to Southwest Church in Indian Wells six years later as outreach pastor and public relations director, then returned to Saddleback, serving congregations in San Diego and later Indian Wells. Along the way, he chaired the Marine Corps Counterintelligence Association and served on the board of Habitat for Humanity. He now owns a [Spherion Staffing and Recruiting](https://www.spherion.com/?ref=ivn.us) franchise. Gonzalez first sought the Assembly in 2018, running against Democrat Eduardo Garcia in what was then the 56th district. He advanced out of the primary but lost the general election by a wide margin in a difficult year for Republicans statewide. When Garcia retired in 2024, Gonzalez ran again and won in a race that reflected the district's dramatic rightward shift. In the Assembly, he serves on the Aging and Long-Term Care, Agriculture, Arts and Entertainment, Higher Education, and Military and Veterans Affairs Committees, and is vice chair of the Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee. His early legislative priorities reflect the economic realities of this sprawling rural district. [A bill to suspend the state's 61-cent-per-gallon gas tax for one year](https://krcrtv.com/news/local/assemblyman-jeff-gonzalez-announces-bill-to-suspend-61-cent-gas-tax-for-one-year?ref=ivn.us) drew on imagery he has used on the campaign trail, contrasting gas prices in Needles with those just across the Arizona border. "In rural and desert communities, a car is not a luxury. It's a lifeline," he said. "This is about affordability, this is about fairness, and this is about putting people before politics." He recently authored the [Rural Farmworker Women's Health Act](https://abc7.com/post/ca-bill-aims-provide-dignity-free-menstrual-hygiene-products-female-farmworkers/18767233/?ref=ivn.us), which would require the state health department to partner with local nonprofits to distribute free menstrual products to women in remote agricultural regions. "More than 100,000 women work in California agriculture," he said. "Many are in rural areas with no easy access to stores or health services. They should not have to go through a full workday without basic hygiene products." [CA bill aims to provide ‘dignity’ and free menstrual hygiene products to female farmworkersA new state bill looks to fill a crucial healthcare need for female farmworkers in rural agricultural areas across California.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)ABC7 San Francisco![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/18767679_032426-kfsn-11p-ca-bill-free-menstural-products.jpg)](https://abc7news.com/post/ca-bill-aims-provide-dignity-free-menstrual-hygiene-products-female-farmworkers/18767233/?ref=ivn.us) He also authored a bill to expedite environmental review for the [Coachella Valley Rail](https://www.rctc.org/projects/coachella-valley-rail-project/?ref=ivn.us) project, a proposed $1.5 billion passenger line between the valley and Los Angeles, potentially cutting its planning timeline by roughly two years if the measure passes. "AB 1855 removes unnecessary roadblocks to expanding passenger rail on an already existing rail line, especially in communities that depend on driving," Gonzalez said. The bill attracted bipartisan support, with Democratic Assemblymember Corey Jackson and Republican Assemblymember Greg Wallis among the co-authors. On public safety, Gonzalez has been outspoken about the lasting harm of violent crime, at times speaking from personal experience. Joining Republican colleagues at a March 2026 press conference urging the [parole board to deny release to a convicted child molester](https://www.foxnews.com/us/disturbing-admissions-serial-child-molester-approved-release-spur-california-lawmakers-act?ref=ivn.us), he said, "This issue is not abstract for me. I understand firsthand the lifelong impact the abuse leaves behind. It doesn't end when the crime ends. It follows you." When opponents argued that the rising cost of housing aging inmates should factor into the decision, he dismissed the framing: "I don't give a damn about the rising costs. I give a damn about these victims." In February 2025, Gonzalez joined the newly formed [California Hispanic Legislative Caucus](https://cahispaniccaucus.org/?ref=ivn.us), which Republican lawmakers created after the Democratic [Latino Legislative Caucus](https://latinocaucus.legislature.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) declined to admit them over policy differences on immigration. "Californians want their legislators exchanging ideas across the aisle," Gonzalez wrote at the time. "No more partisan exclusion!" His platform also calls for eliminating taxes on groceries, passing what he describes as a major middle-class tax cut, hiring more teachers, and strengthening school safety. He resides in Indio with his wife, Christine, and their four children. ### **Oscar Ortiz (Democrat)** [Oscar Ortiz](https://www.oscarforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us), born January 20, 1990, is an Indio City Councilmember, former mayor, and deputy director of Friends of the Desert Mountains, a nonprofit devoted to land conservation and environmental education in the region. Born in Mexicali and raised in Indio after his family immigrated when he was 3, he became a U.S. citizen at 17\. He graduated at the top of his class from Indio High School and went on to earn a chemistry degree from Stanford University in 2012, where his coursework included research on bioterrorism defense. He subsequently built a career in the pharmaceutical industry before moving into environmental nonprofit work. First elected to the Indio City Council in 2018 at 28, Ortiz became the youngest person ever to hold that office, unseating an incumbent in the process. His tenure included serving as mayor in 2023 and steering the city through the COVID-19 pandemic and the damage caused by Tropical Storm Hilary, while advancing affordable housing, bilingual community outreach, and support for small businesses. He was appointed to a second council term in 2022 without opposition and currently chairs the Coachella Valley Association of Governments Energy and Sustainability Commission. In the 2024 congressional primary, he challenged Representative Raul Ruiz from the left, finishing fourth with 10% of the vote. "I'm running for State Assembly to raise the concerns of workers in our state," he said when announcing his candidacy. "Our families are struggling to keep up with the rising costs of rent and the ever-increasing costs of health care and insurance rates." He has also called for new approaches to persistent regional challenges. "We need representatives who are willing to bring bold, innovative solutions to solve the increasingly complex challenges facing our region," he said. His platform centers on housing affordability, expanded healthcare access in a district with too few specialists and mental health providers, and building regional economic strength through clean energy and union labor. He has also emphasized the contributions of domestic and care workers. Upon receiving the [endorsement of United Domestic Workers of America](https://www.thedesertreview.com/elections/labor-union-backs-oscar-ortiz-s-assembly-district-36-campaign/article%5F1378d6ed-f899-40d5-8a41-4ba4aa0a9a6e.html?ref=ivn.us), he said: > *"Home and child care workers are the backbone of our communities. They show up every single day to care for our children, our seniors, and our neighbors with disabilities, often without the recognition or compensation they deserve. As your Assemblymember, I will fight to ensure these essential workers have the wages, benefits, and respect they have earned."* His endorsers include the California Federation of Labor Unions, the Inland Empire Labor Council, United Domestic Workers of America, the California Teachers Association, the California Federation of Teachers, SEIU California, the California Legislative Progressive Caucus, IBEW locals 440 and 569, Painters and Allied Trades District Council 36, and California Environmental Voters. Ortiz is the leading Democratic fundraiser in the field, having raised $147,874 with $61,017 on hand at year-end 2025\. He resides in Indio. ### **Tomas Oliva (Democrat)** [Tomas Oliva](https://voteoliva.com/about-me/?ref=ivn.us), born September 11, 1984, is a former El Centro City Councilmember, adjunct professor at [Imperial Valley College](https://www.imperial.edu/index.html?ref=ivn.us), and senior field representative for Representative Raul Ruiz. His family moved to El Centro when he was young to be near relatives in Mexicali, after his father became too ill to work. His mother transitioned from homemaker to breadwinner, earning a graduate degree and spending more than two decades as an elementary school educator in the Imperial Valley. Growing up on food stamps and public assistance, Oliva has drawn directly on that experience in his campaign. > *"I'm not another out-of-touch politician," he has said. "I'm a kid from El Centro who grew up on food stamps and government assistance. I know firsthand policy is personal."* Oliva earned a bachelor's degree in political science from [UC San Diego](https://ucsd.edu/?ref=ivn.us) and a master's in public administration from [San Diego State University](https://www.sdsu.edu/?ref=ivn.us). His public service career began as a Polanco Fellow placed in the California Attorney General's Office and the State Assembly. He subsequently managed Assemblymember Manuel Perez's 2008 campaign, worked for the Superior Court of California in Imperial County, and served as a regional affairs officer for the Southern California Association of Governments from 2011 to 2015\. He has since worked as a field representative in the offices of Representatives Juan Vargas and Raul Ruiz, taught adjunct courses at Imperial Valley College since 2016, including classes for incarcerated students at [Centinela State Prison](https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/cen/?ref=ivn.us) and [Calipatria State Prison](https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/cal/?ref=ivn.us), and serves as a board trustee at [El Centro Regional Medical Center](https://www.ecrmc.org/?ref=ivn.us). He chaired the [Imperial County Democratic Central Committee](https://www.facebook.com/ImperialCountyDemocratCentralCommittee/) in 2021. Oliva served on the [El Centro City Council](https://www.cityofelcentro.org/176/City-Council?ref=ivn.us) from 2018 through March 2025, including a term as mayor. He considers his most consequential act in office to be overseeing the merger of the El Centro Regional Medical Center into the Imperial Valley Healthcare District, preserving hospital services for tens of thousands of residents. His resignation in March 2025 came after he concluded that other council members were taking steps that jeopardized that merger's future. "My resignation is the loudest alarm I could ring to make residents aware of the concerning direction this new council is taking, particularly when it comes to the future of our healthcare system," he said. His departure also came ahead of a likely censure vote. Oliva placed sixth in the 2024 AD36 primary with 7.5% of the vote. His priorities include protecting rural hospitals through better Medi-Cal reimbursement rates and expanded physician residency programs, sustaining the Salton Sea mitigation plan, creating an equitable economic framework for the Lithium Valley that channels revenues back to affected communities, and building out transit infrastructure connecting the Coachella Valley and Imperial Valley. Oliva opposes data centers. > "As an Assemblymember I will call for a statewide moratorium of data center developments across the state...The safety of our people and our neighbors cannot be an afterthought this is unacceptable." He has also pushed back against what he considers distorted narratives about border communities and President Trump’s effort to end automatic birthright citizenship. "Our hospitals are not being inundated by Mexican nationals," he said in May 2025\. "If you're pregnant, you're probably not going to get a visa. It's a false narrative." Oliva had raised $89,587 with $63,569 cash on hand as of December 31, 2025\. He resides in El Centro. ### **Ida Obeso-Martinez (Democrat)** [Ida Obeso-Martinez](https://www.idaforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us), born May 6, 1979, is an Imperial City Councilmember, former Mayor Pro-Tem, and cardiovascular nurse practitioner at [Imperial Cardiac Center](https://www.imperialcardiaccenter.com/?ref=ivn.us). A lifelong resident of Imperial County, she completed her nursing education at Imperial Valley College, the University of Phoenix, and ultimately the University of Arizona, where she earned a doctorate in nursing practice. She spent more than two decades in emergency and intensive care nursing in Imperial Valley hospitals before specializing in cardiovascular care, has contributed to peer-reviewed medical journals, and sees more than 35 patients on a typical day, the majority of whom rely on Medicaid. Elected to the Imperial City Council in 2022, she has also served as Mayor Pro-Tem and mayor. In September 2024, she was chosen as board director and division representative for the [League of California Cities](https://www.calcities.org/?ref=ivn.us), Imperial County Division. Her council record reflects a consistent focus on public health and community quality of life. In December 2023, she helped shepherd a smoke-free ordinance through the council that bans tobacco use at city-owned outdoor venues, including parks, playgrounds, and public events. In February 2026, she announced $1.5 million in federal funding for a new regional park, secured with the assistance of Representative Ruiz and Senator Schiff. "Their dedication to improving quality of life for our residents will leave a lasting legacy," she said. She has also led the city's legal battle against Imperial County's approval of a data center without environmental review under CEQA, arguing that residents deserve full transparency and enforceable protections. "The City of Imperial remains committed to the pursuit of a concise and public process," she said. "Residents of this region deserve nothing less." In March 2025, [Representative Ruiz](http://ruiz.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us) brought Obeso-Martinez to Washington, D.C. as his guest for President Trump's Joint Address to Congress, where she advocated against Medicaid cuts. > *"As a lifelong advocate for expanding health care access in the Imperial Valley, I am here to stand against Medicaid cuts that would limit the care our health facilities can provide to patients," she said.* Her endorsements include Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Representative Ruiz, and Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva. Obeso-Martinez had $73,059 raised and $24,659 on hand at year-end 2025 and resides in Imperial with her husband, Omar. ## **Independent Voters and an Unsettled Primary** No Party Preference registrations in AD36 have grown from 15.2% of the electorate in 2008 to 22.9% today, a gain of more than 36,000 voters in raw numbers. These 59,000 unaffiliated voters will play a pivotal role in shaping the outcome of both the June primary and the November general election. In 2024, NPP voters in the district were part of a broader rightward wave that carried President Trump to a narrow victory here and helped Gonzalez flip the seat from blue to red. The question hanging over 2026 is whether that alignment will hold. Trump's immigration enforcement policies have had direct and visible consequences in a district that runs along the United States-Mexico border, where many residents have family ties on both sides and where immigrant labor is the backbone of the agricultural economy. Whether the independent voters who supported Gonzalez in 2024 were casting a vote for him specifically, for Trump's agenda broadly, or simply against the status quo is a question that 2026 may answer. For Gonzalez, who has tried to cultivate a bipartisan identity and distanced himself from purely partisan messaging, the challenge will be holding NPP voters who may be uneasy with the administration's direction. For the three Democrats in the field, the opportunity lies in making the case that those same voters have reason to reconsider. With no party endorsement unifying the Democratic side and a crowded primary ballot, how NPP voters distribute their support across the field will be among the defining questions of the race. ## **About the 2026 California Top Two Primary** The last day to register to vote for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election is May 18, 2026\. All active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. Ballots will begin mailing on May 4, and drop-off locations will open on May 5\. Early in-person voting begins May 23 in Voter's Choice Act counties. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by June 9. *This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, the California Target Book, California FPPC campaign finance filings, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Ballotpedia, the Imperial Valley Press, The Desert Sun, CalMatters, and other local and regional reporting.* ### Are California's Cannabis Raids Starting to Work? URL: https://ivn.us/are-californias-cannabis-raids-starting-to-work-2026-04-06/ Last updated: 2026-04-06T22:24:41.000Z California has seized more than [$1.2 billion in illegal cannabis](https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/01/27/california-tops-1-2-billion-in-illegal-cannabis-seizures-up-18x-since-2022/?ref=ivn.us) since 2022\. But whether those numbers are moving the needle on the state's entrenched illicit market is another matter. The [Unified Cannabis Enforcement Task Force](https://www.cannabis.ca.gov/about-us/unified-cannabis-enforcement-taskforce-ucetf/?ref=ivn.us), which Gov. Gavin Newsom created in 2022 to coordinate state, local, and federal agencies, has destroyed more than 757,000 pounds of illegal cannabis across 36 counties. Seizures grew dramatically through the program's early years, with 2025 totals reaching [$609 million](https://www.recorderonline.com/news/tulare-county-fifth-in-state-in-cannabis-seizures/article%5F8477c4f1-4776-4a73-abdc-70547dd408b9.html?ref=ivn.us), an 18-fold increase over the task force's first year, according to the governor's office. Between July and September 2025, UCETF ran 17 joint operations across 15 counties, eradicating more than 234,000 plants and seizing over [$222 million in illegal ](https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/10/21/californias-cannabis-task-force-seizes-and-eradicates-over-222-million-in-illegal-cannabis-in-q3-2025/?ref=ivn.us)products. A single operation in Monterey County accounted for more than $125 million of that total, making it [one of the largest illegal cannabis enforcement actions in state history](https://www.montereycountynow.com/news/local%5Fnews/a-single-cannabis-bust-accounts-for-monterey-county-s-high-ranking-for-illegal-activity/article%5F7facd6f6-8d43-45bf-98c2-c501b83888a5.html?ref=ivn.us#:~:text=Monterey%20County%20holds%20the%20top,destroyed%20valued%20at%20$26.9%20million.). Separate operations in Oakland and Hayward added nearly $20 million more. The task force, co-chaired by the [Department of Cannabis Control](https://www.cannabis.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) and the [California Department of Fish and Wildlife](https://wildlife.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us), has drawn on more than 60 partner agencies. Investigators routinely uncover violations well beyond cannabis itself, including the use of banned pesticides, wage theft, labor trafficking and damage to waterways and wildlife habitat. "They do not just break the law, they put our neighborhoods, environment, and licensed cannabis businesses at risk," DCC Director Nicole Elliott said following the third-quarter results. ## **Federal Agents Hit Dispensaries From L.A. to San Diego** There has been a focus on illegal retail sales and products reaching minors in California. In mid-March, DEA agents from the agency's Los Angeles Field Division Special Response Team served search warrants at a business on Tennessee Avenue in West Los Angeles, near the 405 Freeway. According to a statement from DEA Public Affairs Specialist Rosa Valle-Lopez, the operation was conducted in partnership with the Torrance Police Department as part of an ongoing investigation. Neighbors described an [unusually large law enforcement presence](https://hoodline.com/2026/03/dea-swarms-west-la-block-near-405-in-mystery-raid/?ref=ivn.us), with vehicles blocking the surrounding streets and a helicopter overhead as LAPD officers, who were dispatched around 8:15 a.m., assisted federal agents on scene. The operation yielded roughly $300,000 in cash, and [state cannabis regulators placed an embargo on all marijuana and vape products at the location](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/dea-seizes-300k-during-search-warrant-at-west-la-business/3861484/?ref=ivn.us), immediately halting their sale pending the outcome of the investigation. Days earlier, Bakersfield became the focus of a [joint operation](https://bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/3-arrested-in-dea-led-bakersfield-operation-over-thc-vape-sales-tied-to-juveniles-bpd-bakersfield-police-california-highway-patrol-niles-street-golden-state-avenue-thc-marijuana-cannabis?ref=ivn.us) targeting dispensaries suspected of selling THC products to minors. The DEA dubbed it the "Vape Surge Operation," and it came after local residents filed a wave of complaints about teenagers obtaining illegal THC vape pens. Working alongside [Bakersfield police](https://www.facebook.com/BakersfieldPolice/) narcotics detectives and [California Highway Patrol](https://www.chp.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us) officers on DEA assignment, agents served warrants at three locations on Niles Street, Golden State Avenue and East California Avenue, each situated near schools, parks or daycare facilities. *The seizures included more than 35 pounds of processed marijuana, nearly 200 THC vape pens, hundreds of THC edibles, THC wax, psilocybin-infused edibles and just over $1,100 in cash.* A day later in [Oceanside, a sweep of four smoke shops](https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/raid-oceanside-smoke-shops-uncovers-100-pounds-suspected-illicit-drugs/3994410/?ref=ivn.us) by a multi-agency coalition that included local police, the San Diego County Sheriff's Office, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the DEA turned up [more than 100 pounds of merchandise](https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2026/03/12/multi-agency-compliance-operation-results-seizure-illegal-products?ref=ivn.us) suspected of containing controlled substances. ***Investigators found products believed to contain kratom, psilocybin, and THC being sold outside any regulatory framework.*** Four suspects were identified by Oceanside police spokesperson Gina Avalos and face state fines and other penalties. The DEA's top agent in the region drew a direct line between the operations and the risk to young people. "Oftentimes, youth don't know what is hiding in these devices,” Special Agent in Charge James Nunnallee said. Importantly, the recent federal drug enforcement activity appears to be targeting operators accused of criminal activity beyond participation in California’s legal cannabis industry alone. Unlike what recent coverage from [CalMatters](https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/07/marijuana-immigration-raid/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) to[ the AP have suggested](https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-farm-ice-raid-california-trump-immigration-b47161266719a9e22ce44a5bd6ff29c1?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), federal authorities do not appear to be targeting otherwise legal cannabis operators. Operators who have been targeted by the federal government are accused of underlying criminal allegations, including [child-labor violations](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-14/pot-farm-raided-by-immigrant-agents-has-open-child-labor-complaint-state-says?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), [gray and black interstate commerce activity](https://www.ksbw.com/article/detained-royal-oaks-illegal-cannabiss-raid-ice/65430912?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io), and political corruption. ## **'The Black Market is Very Pervasive'** The enforcement push reflects growing alarm over what one California regulator described as a market in which unregulated products have become "simply another incarnation of the illicit market," one that needs to be stopped before more people are harmed. “The black market is very pervasive, and it is definitely larger than the legal market,” said Bill Jones, head of enforcement for [California’s Department of Cannabis Control](https://www.cannabis.ca.gov/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io). [Young people are consuming products](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7428296/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) with [no testing requirements and no dosage limits](https://ivn.us/posts/how-it-really-works-unfair-fight-between-legal-cannabis-and-unregulated-gas-station-hemp-2025). State and local governments are forfeiting tax revenue that legal operators pay and illegal ones do not. And licensed cannabis businesses in California, which operate under some of the most stringent regulations in the country, face competition from [sellers who bear none of those costs](https://ivn.us/posts/california-disposable-vape-ban-could-devastate-legal-cannabis-industry-even-further-2026-01). California's legal cannabis market has struggled under that pressure for years, weighed down by high tax rates, complex licensing requirements, and an illicit sector that has proven difficult to uproot. Whether sustained enforcement can ultimately shift the balance toward a well-functioning legal market remains to be seen. According to the [California Cannabis Market Outlook 2024 Report](https://img.cannabisbusinesstimes.com/files/base/transpire/all/document/2025/03/ERA%5FEconomics%5F2024%5FMarket%5FReport.67c6f829844e8.pdf?ref=ivn.us), prepared by ERA Economics, LLC for the Department of Cannabis Control, January 2025: > *“The most effective ways to eliminate the illicit market include: (i) decreasing costs for licensed businesses, (ii) increasing costs for illicit cannabis (e.g., more enforcement makes it riskier/most costly to provide illicit cannabis), and growing consumer demand for licensed cannabis.”* “Increasing efforts by both the \[Department of Cannabis Control\] as well as other state agencies, federal and local authorities, help put pressure on eliminating the illicit market production,” ERA Economics Principal Economist Duncan MacEwan told the Cannabis Business Times. “[Anything that increases the cost of producing in the illicit market is good](https://www.cannabisbusinesstimes.com/us-states/california/news/15738922/60-of-cannabis-consumed-in-california-comes-from-unregulated-market-as-licensed-production-grows?ref=ivn.us#:~:text=The%20report%20also%20includes%20policy%20recommendations%20for,or%20banning%20intoxicating%20cannabinoids%20derived%20from%20hemp) in that it pushes folks towards the licensed market.” ### Michigan GOP Kicks Out RCV Advocates, Calls Them ‘Communists’ over Reform Republicans Use URL: https://ivn.us/michigan-gop-kicks-out-rcv-advocates-calls-them-communists-over-reform-republicans-use-2026-04-06/ Last updated: 2026-04-06T22:35:27.000Z On March 28, the ranked choice voting advocacy group, Rank MI Vote was kicked out of the Michigan Republican Party Convention. Reports say one Republican state lawmaker called volunteers “communists” and even threatened physical violence. "We were having a productive day meeting like-minded, politically engaged convention attendees until Rep. \[Matt\] Maddock chose to bully our volunteers and anyone who stopped to speak with us," [said Jennifer Umphress of Rank Mi Vote](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2026/03/31/ranked-choice-voting-group-booted-heckled-michigan-gop-republican-convention-maddock-communists/89410225007/?ref=ivn.us). Umphress is the group’s conservative working group director. She has twice been a delegate at the state GOP convention. [Rank MI Vote](https://rankmivote.org/?ref=ivn.us) said there weren’t any problems until Maddock showed up, who then proceeded to heckle the group and block attendees from talking with volunteers. He called them communists and leftists, which the volunteers disputed. The group’s account is that Maddock told one volunteer if they were in the parking lot he would “kick your ass.” Maddock did not deny he made the threat. He said he threatened to expose Rank MI Vote and he did. Not only was Rank MI Vote kicked out of the convention but State Sen. Jim Runestad, the party’s chair, said it was “a regrettable decision to permit them to have a table.” He claimed to have no knowledge of Maddock’s heckling and threats. The assertion by Maddock and other Republican leaders in Michigan is ranked choice voting is a system designed to benefit Democrats or “the left.” However, it is worth noting that the method has been used recently by other Republican Parties. For example, a few days after the Michigan GOP convention the Lynchburg Republican City Committee (LRCC) in Virginia elected [to move forward with a firehouse primary and use ranked choice voting](https://wset.com/news/local/lynchburg-republican-city-committee-goes-with-firehouse-primary-using-ranked-choice-voting-veronica-bratton-jeff-ryer-republican-party-of-virginia-former-u-s-attorney-john-fishwick-your-voice-your-vote-31-march-2026?ref=ivn.us) to determine party nominees. A “firehouse primary” is a type of closed party caucus run by the party instead of the government. These types of primaries were banned in Virginia under a 2021 law, but the LRCC can conduct one if it can ensure remote voting for out-of-state voters. While there is a question of *if* the party will be allowed to use a firehouse primary, the LRCC still chose to use ranked choice voting. And it isn’t the first time in Virginia. The state’s Republican Party [has used ranked choice voting in its conventions](https://fairvote.org/va%5Fgop%5Fresults/?ref=ivn.us) to select party nominees. It is how [former Gov. Glenn Youngkin advanced to the general election in 2021](https://ivn.us/posts/irony-gov-glenn-youngkin-vetoing-ranked-choice-voting-bill). The center-right think tank, R Street Institute (headquartered in DC), supported the passage of [HB 630](https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB630?ref=ivn.us) in the Virginia Legislature this year, which expands the local option on ranked choice voting. The bill was approved by state lawmakers and is on the governor’s desk. “While some people worry that implementing a new system will confuse voters, the R Street Institute’s research suggests that voters can navigate ranked-choice voting without difficulty,” wrote R Street Institute’s Robert Melvin [in a letter to Gov. Spanberger](https://www.rstreet.org/outreach/r-street-letter-to-va-governor-abigail-spanberger-in-support-of-va-hb-630-and-va-sb-176-expanding-ranked-choice-voting/?ref=ivn.us). > *“Our findings suggest that, rather than avoiding it, voters will actively use the ability to rank candidates–particularly during primary contests.”* Melvin is the organization’s Northeast Region State Government Affairs Director. In 2024, the Republican Party in the U.S. Virgin Islands used ranked choice voting [in its presidential caucus](https://apnews.com/article/trump-republican-primary-virgin-islands-7a479e761258113689793b32158de351?ref=ivn.us) that President Donald Trump won. In doing so, it became the first Republican Party to use RCV in a presidential caucus or primary. These are just a few examples. The incident in Michigan illustrates how voting reforms are often shoved into the same “red versus blue” narrative that envelops every political issue in the US. But ranked choice voting advocates assert that it is not a Democrat reform or a Republican reform. Republican Parties have used it. Democratic Parties have used it. Republicans have been elected under it, as have Democrats. Leaders of both parties have also opposed its usage. For example, Democratic officials in Maine, Washington DC, and New York City were resistant to or actively tried to block implementation of ranked choice voting systems approved by voters. A bill to allow ranked choice voting in gubernatorial and state legislative general elections in Maine was brought before the state Supreme Court on April 1 and the state’s Democratic attorney general wants the court to declare it unconstitutional. Democratic leaders in Colorado and Nevada opposed measures on the 2024 ballot to adopt more choice elections that included both nonpartisan all-candidate and all-voter primary elections and ranked choice voting in general elections. In both cases, they focused their objections on ranked choice voting, relying on some of the same arguments Republican leaders in Michigan use against the reform. The most common argument they used is that it is too confusing for voters. For example, in 2024, Democrat-aligned groups in Nevada who opposed [Question 3](https://ivn.us/posts/question-3-will-nevada-once-again-vote-more-choice-elections-2024-09-28) (a top 5 nonpartisan primary and ranked choice voting) pointed to a [University of Pennsylvania study](https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/study-1-in-20-voters-make-ballot-mistakes-with-ranked-choice-voting-3002810/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) that they say shows 1-in-20 ballots under ranked choice systems in the US are rejected. But this isn’t true. The study stated that about 5% of ranked choice ballots in elections researchers looked at had some kind of error on them. But most of these errors could either be corrected or were so innocuous that they did not affect the counting of the ballot. The study found that rejection rates under ranked choice voting rose to about half of 1% at most – which is not uncommon even under choose-one voting and is a smaller rejection rate than mail-in ballots in Nevada. Multiple research groups, including the R Street Institute, have found that most voters understand ranked choice voting where it is used. A 2025 [exit survey](https://ivn.us/posts/nyc-exit-survey-96-voters-understood-their-ranked-choice-ballots-2025-07-01) of New York City primary voters showed 96% of respondents found ranked choice voting to be simple and 97% found it at least somewhat easy to understand. But there is a reason why ranked choice voting is only used in closed primary elections in New York City, and that is because the Democratic Party and aligned interest groups won't allow its implementation for the general election. As long as the most critical elections in the city remain closed, the party with the most power is okay with systemic reforms that are reserved only for their members. Note how the GOP examples were closed party contests or conventions. Is it any wonder why most implementations of ranked choice voting in the US come from voter-approved ballot measures? Rank MI Vote pushed for a 2026 statewide ranked choice voting initiative. However, in December the group sent an email out to volunteers announcing that it was “pausing signature gathering efforts, but we aren’t pausing the campaign to bring ranked choice voting to Michigan.” The group says it is now aiming to re-launch a campaign in April 2027 for a 2028 initiative. ## **In Other Reform News…** ### **American Promise Says Record AI Spending In Elections Exposes Failure of ‘Money = Speech’ Theory** American Promise reports that nearly $200 million has already been spent by tech, AI, and other outside interests in the 2026 midterms, which the group says raises new questions about the Supreme Court precedent that “money = speech.” “At least $185 million in AI-related spending is entering the 2026 midterm elections, including the industry’s recent spending in primary elections in Illinois and Texas, in which they spent tens of millions of dollars,” said American Promise CEO Jeff Clements. > *“This is not just a test of corporate political power. It is also a test of a 50-year-old constitutional theory.”* In Illinois, Think Big (an affiliate group tied to Silicon Valley figures like Marc Andreessen and OpenAI President Greg Brockman) [spent $2.5 million](https://www.wbez.org/government-politics/elections/2026/03/18/illinois-primary-super-pac-spending-aipac-cryptocurrency-ai-sports-betting?ref=ivn.us#:~:text=An%20unprecedented%20influx%20of%20special,and%20lost%20one%20%28Jackson%29.) in an effort to get two candidates, Jesse Jackson Jr in IL-2 and Melissa Bean in IL-8, a victory in their Democratic primaries. Jackson lost, but Bean won. Jobs and Democracy PAC, funded by Anthropic, also spent about $1 million on negative ads in the same races while Making Our Tomorrow, backed by Meta, spent $750,000 on a handful of state legislative races. AI spending paled in comparison to the money spent by crypto groups and AIPAC (along with aligned donors). Still, one thing all of these groups had in common was none of them focused their messaging on their core interests. “Super PACs formed to influence how AI is regulated have already run millions of dollars in midterm primary ads – including attack ads on hot-button issues like immigration, health care, the economy, and crime – without a single mention of AI,” Clements said. > *“The strategy is clear: flood the airwaves with ads that make elections about everything except AI, and cut off an urgently needed policy debate about this technology by ensuring the defeat of foes and the election of friends.”* Clements believes this shows how the prediction the Supreme Court made in *Buckley v. Valeo* (1976) that “more spending would mean more – and better – political discourse” failed. Instead, money is being used to suppress discourse and inflame division. “To be clear, the tech and AI industry behind this spending isn’t doing anything new,” he said. > *“This is what political spending looks like under the system the Supreme Court has built; not an expansion of the marketplace of ideas, but a strategic deployment of money to shape electoral outcomes and the public policy that follows, with the real agenda often hidden from the voters being targeted.”* American Promise is a group committed to a single goal: Pass the For Our Freedom Amendment, which does not push a specific campaign finance agenda, but ensures Congress and the states have the authority to regulate money in politics as they deem necessary. Dr. Richard Barton, a senior research fellow at Unite America, [also noted](https://uniteamerica.org/articles/illinois-democratic-primaries-the-new-playbook-for-buying-influence?ref=ivn.us) that Illinois’ primaries exemplified how monied interest groups exploit low turnout primaries because they know it is “the most efficient lever of political influence in American democracy.” “Unite America Institute’s [analysis](https://www.uniteamericainstitute.org/research/the-influence-of-special-interests-in-primary-elections?ref=ivn.us) of three decades of congressional primary data shows why primaries are the target,” he writes. - "There are far fewer voters to persuade in primaries." - "Primary voters are actually persuadable. In the absence of partisanship as the main signal, name recognition makes all the difference – and money is an effective way to do that." Most elections in Illinois and the rest of the country are so safe for one party or the other that the best way to manipulate outcomes is to influence who wins (or loses) partisan primary elections. Take Illinois’ 7th Congressional District as an example. The influence of outgoing US. Rep. Danny Davis ultimately beat the money that poured into the district to defeat Democratic primary winner La Shawn Ford. However, Ford was able to win with only 24% of the vote in a seat that is guaranteed to go to the Democratic nominee. And the monied interest groups against him didn’t lose by much. [My Next Congressman Won His Primary with 24% of the VoteIllinois conducted its 2026 primary elections Tuesday, and in some cases the winner advanced to November with around or less than 30% of the vote. In my congressional district, IL-7, State Representative La Shawn Ford won his primary with roughly 24% of the vote.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/illinois-7th-district-primary-24-percent-winner-low-turnout-election-reform.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/my-next-congressman-won-his-primary-with-24-of-the-vote-2026-03-18) Ultimately, due to how low primary turnout is in Illinois, Ford effectively won his seat with around 4% of his district’s total electorate. With this mind, it is easy to see why super PACs and big money donors have found a vehicle for success in primary elections. “Over the last few decades, ideological PACs and Super PACs have learned just how much they can ‘wag the dog’ through primary elections,” writes Dr. Barton. According to his research, ideological super PACS have increased their involvement in primary elections considerably over the last 3 decades. Further, the candidates backed by these groups beat out establishment-backed candidates “roughly four times more often than in the past.” > “The result is a primary system increasingly controlled by a small number of ultra-wealthy donors pursuing narrow national agendas, producing nominees less representative of the broader public and less accountable to the constituents they are elected to serve,” he states. ## **Quick Takeaways** ### **California Voter ID Initiative Exceeds Projected Qualification Threshold, Campaign Says** Reform California, the organization spearheading the 2026 California voter ID initiative, [reported last week](https://www.reformcalifornia.org/news/ca-voter-id-and-save-prop-13-petitions-achieve-sky-high-validity-rates?ref=ivn.us) that early results from county signature verification efforts show a clear path to the November ballot. The group says it confirmed that 18 counties have completed verification for the initiative with an 82.4% validity rate. Nearly 1.4 million signatures were submitted for the campaign, which puts the projected number of valid signatures at over 1.1 million. This is more than enough for the initiative to appear on the ballot. “These numbers confirm what we’ve said all along – Californians are ready for common-sense reforms to restore trust in elections and protect taxpayers,” said Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, chair of Reform California. > *“Even with limited resources, a grassroots army of volunteers has delivered results that Sacramento politicians said were impossible.”* Voter ID has broad public support, even among a majority of California Democrats. The initiative’s success hinges on the campaign messaging both supporters and opponents use in what is likely to turn into an expensive race. ### **CO Judge’s Ruling Makes It Easier for Political Parties to Shut Out Independent Voters** A federal judge in Colorado [struck down a provision in the state's open primaries law](https://openprimaries.org/denver-post-co/?ref=ivn.us) that established a threshold for political parties to hit if they want to close their primaries. Prop 108 (approved by voters in 2016) states that if parties want to close their primaries, they need a three-fourths vote from their state’s central committee. U.S. District Court Judge Philip A. Brimmer wrote that this is unconstitutionally high. He did not dictate what the threshold should be or direct parties on how to proceed. However, as a result of the ruling, it will be easier for parties to shut independent voters out of this critical stage of the elections process. This includes the Republican Party of Colorado, which brought the lawsuit in the first place. The Colorado GOP has attempted to close its primaries 3 times. Brimmer denied the party's 2024 request to close the state's primaries altogether. Approximately 231,000 independent voters participated in Republican primaries back in 2022\. Statewide, this accounted for more than a third of the vote in these contests. In some counties, independent voters matched the number of Republicans voting in 2022 and 2024. In the last 10 years, unaffiliated registration has climbed exponentially in Colorado. Not only do independent voters outnumber Republicans and Democrats, but they also make up a majority of the registered electorate. Making it easier for the parties to close primary elections would give the partisan minority an outsized influence over election outcomes while treating the state’s majority like they are second-class voters. Comedian and national political commentator Bill Maher recently discussed the growth of independents, noting that “there’s a lot of people who don’t like the extremes.” ### **Colorado Has a Choice: Ban Mid-Cycle Gerrymandering, Allow It, Or Stay Out of It** Also in Colorado, the state’s title board [gave final approval](https://www.coloradopolitics.com/2026/04/02/redistricting-fight-escalates-as-colorado-title-board-clears-competing-ballot-proposals/?ref=ivn.us) to a ballot initiative that would ban mid-cycle redistricting unless 3 criteria are met: 1. 3 public hearings are held on the new map. 2. The map preserves whole communities of interest. 3. The map cannot intentionally favor one party. A new map would also need to be approved by the state's independent redistricting commission and adopted by the state Supreme Court. The initiative is being pushed by [Advance Colorado](https://www.advancecolorado.org/about/?ref=ivn.us). Since it amends the Colorado Constitution, it will need 55% approval from voters. This initiative was challenged by the state’s Democratic Party, which stands to benefit from a proposal spearheaded by Coloradans for a Level Playing Field that redraws some of Colorado’s congressional districts to benefit Democrats. But Coloradans for a Level Playing Field will have to select 1 of 3 proposals to put before voters: - [Initiative 240](https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/results/2025-2026/240Results.html?ref=ivn.us), which suspends an independent congressional map and replaces it with a map drawn by the initiative's proponents for 2028 and 2030\. This is similar to Prop 50 in California. The measure will require 55% voter approval. - [Initiative 241](https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/results/2025-2026/241Results.html?ref=ivn.us), which would move Colorado's independent redistricting commission from the state constitution to state statute. This would make it easier for the Democratic majority in the legislature to alter, suspend, or outright eliminate the commission. - Initiative 242, which is paired with 241\. It asks voters to approve a new congressional map for 2028 and 2030\. It will need 55% approval, and if it passes then the independent redistricting commission will be moved from the state constitution to state statute. So, while the Colorado Republican Party is trying to close state primaries, the Democratic Party is fighting independent redistricting. ## **But Wait, There’s More…** - A new campaign has emerged to [implement ranked choice voting in Sacramento](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/push-for-ranked-choice-voting-sacramento/?ref=ivn.us), California, while Eureka [announced it is delaying implementation of voter-approved ranked choice voting](https://humboldtgov.org/m/newsflash/home/detail/6191?ref=ivn.us) because it needs voting system updates and state certification. - 23 states [have sued the Trump administration](https://campaignlegal.org/update/campaign-legal-center-sues-trump-administration-over-another-unconstitutional-voting?ref=ivn.us) over the president’s executive order that establishes a national voter eligibility list and instructs the USPS to only send election material to voters on this list. - A judge in Wisconsin [dismissed a lawsuit](https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/a-three-judge-panel-dismisses-lawsuit-from-democratic-voters-seeking-to-redraw-wisconisins-congressional-maps/?ref=ivn.us) filed by Democratic voters to redraw the state’s Republican-friendly congressional map. The case can be appealed to the state Supreme Court, but it likely wouldn't be resolved before the state's 2026 elections. ### Trump is Building a FEDERAL Voter List: Should YOU Be Scared? URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/trump-is-building-a-federal-voter-list-should-you-be-scared-2026-04-02/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:36:56.000Z Trump just signed an executive order directing DHS to build a federal voter list and instructing the USPS to only deliver ballots to "verified" voters. Legal experts say it's unconstitutional. Steve Peace - the man who wrote California's nonpartisan primary - joins the Independent Voter Podcast to break down what the order actually does, why the USPS argument is cleverer than you think, and how California already has a solution sitting on the table that neither party wants to talk about. ## Episode Highlights In this episode of Independent Voter Podcast, we have a packed house featuring regular hosts Cara McCormick, Chad Peace, Ethan Handelman and Shawn Griffiths. Plus, we sat down with former California state senator and Independent Voter Project co-founder Steve Peace. Peace brings his decades of experience in California politics to discuss the California governor’s race. But before we get into that, we open the episode with a discussion about [**Trump's executive order on mail-in ballot voting**](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-eo-pushes-citizenship-verification-and-mail-ballot-tracking-further-than-save-act-debate-2026-03-31), and the growing debate over what role the federal government should play in **voter verification**. We dig into the constitutional tension between federal authority and states' rights on **election law**. Steve Peace, in particular, argues that California Democrats have a golden opportunity to champion **ballot transparency** through an upcoming [November voter ID initiative](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10) – rather than ceding the issue to Republican overreach. The second half of the episode shifts to the **2026 California governor's race**. Steve Peace offers in-depth analysis of the crowded Democratic and Republican field. He breaks down the key contenders including **Antonio Villaraigosa**, **Katie Porter**, **Eric Swalwell**, **Betty Yee**, **Chad Bianco**, and **Steve Hilton**. ### Why We Call Ourselves Independent Voter News URL: https://ivn.us/why-we-call-ourselves-independent-voter-news-2026-04-01/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T20:34:41.000Z We’ve been called liberals, conservatives, progressives, libertarians, closet Republicans, undercover Democrats – even anarchists. In a political environment obsessed with sorting voters into boxes and states into red and blue, we believe news, policy, and government are more complicated than the labels suggest. The truth is, people have said all of those things about us, depending on what they read and the perspective they brought to it. For 15 years, we have published more than 14,000 articles written by people from different walks of life, different parts of the country, and different political backgrounds. Our contributors have included journalists, candidates, experts, academics, legislators, lobbyists, activists, community leaders, business executives, and everyday citizens who simply want to be heard. We call ourselves Independent Voter News because we are an open platform built by and for independent-minded voters. Some people tell us we should be more “neutral” or more “unbiased.” No one is unbiased. Every person brings a different experience, perspective, disposition, and set of assumptions to the way they see the world. There is no such thing as a perfectly objective viewpoint. There are only people who are honest about their point of view and people who pretend they do not have one. Being independent is not about lacking opinions. It is not about suspending judgment or rejecting philosophy. Being independent is a mindset, not an ideology. It means recognizing that complexity is real. It means understanding that people can come to different conclusions without being stupid, brainwashed, or evil. It means being open to new facts, better arguments, and the possibility that you may be wrong. At Independent Voter News, authors and commenters are encouraged to express their views and be open to challenge. We call ourselves Independent Voter News because we publish news and information from voters with all kinds of perspectives and opinions, including yours. The only requirement is that people engage in civil dialogue and follow four basic rules: 1. No personal attacks 2. No partisan attacks 3. Substantiate claims 4. No self-promotion Have something to say? [Say it](https://ivc.typeform.com/to/TzXQ2d?typeform-source=ivn.us&ref=ivn.us). Disagree with something published here? [Submit a response](https://ivc.typeform.com/to/TzXQ2d?typeform-source=ivn.us&ref=ivn.us). If it follows our etiquette, we will publish it. Because independence is not the absence of perspective. It is the willingness to engage with perspectives beyond your own. ### Trump EO Pushes Citizenship Verification and Mail Ballot Tracking Further Than SAVE Act Debate URL: https://ivn.us/trump-eo-pushes-citizenship-verification-and-mail-ballot-tracking-further-than-save-act-debate-2026-03-31/ Last updated: 2026-03-31T22:44:52.000Z President Donald Trump signed an executive order on March 31 directing federal agencies to build a new citizenship-verification system for federal elections and requiring the U.S. Postal Service to begin rulemaking on new standards for mailed ballots. According to the White House’s[ executive order on citizenship verification and election integrity](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections/?ref=ivn.us), the directive calls on DHS and SSA to compile and send states a list of confirmed U.S. citizens of voting age, directs the Justice Department to prioritize investigations tied to ballots sent to ineligible voters, and tells USPS to propose a system built around official election mail markings, barcode tracking, and state-specific participation lists for mail ballots. The move goes beyond messaging and into election administration. Under the[ order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections/?ref=ivn.us), DHS is told to stand up the infrastructure for the new “State Citizenship List” within 90 days, while USPS must begin proposed rulemaking within 60 days and issue any final rule within 120 days. The order also says individuals must be able to review and correct their records, and it notes that appearing on the federal citizenship list would not itself register anyone to vote. What makes this notable is how closely it tracks the same Voter ID issues IVN was already covering earlier this month in[ “California’s Voter ID Initiative is Way More Chill Than Trump’s SAVE Act”](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10). That piece drew a distinction between California’s proposed voter ID measure, which relies on existing systems and does not require documentary proof of citizenship to register, and the federal SAVE Act, which IVN described as a sweeping mandate that would require documentary proof of citizenship and impose major new burdens on election administration. This new executive order does not simply replay the SAVE Act fight. It takes a different route. Instead of directly rewriting voter registration law through Congress, it leans on executive authority, federal databases, Justice Department enforcement, and USPS rulemaking to tighten citizenship verification and control how mail ballots move through the system. In practical terms, that means the administration is trying to build parts of a federal election-integrity framework through agency action, even while the legislative debate over voter ID and proof of citizenship continues. The contrast with the California proposal is still important. As IVN noted in[ its March 10 article](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10), California’s initiative was framed as incremental and did not require documentary proof of citizenship, did not impose criminal penalties on election officials, and did not create unfunded mandates. Trump’s[ executive order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections/?ref=ivn.us), by contrast, explicitly directs federal investigation and possible prosecution of officials or entities involved in sending ballots to people deemed ineligible to vote in federal elections, while also setting in motion a national mail-ballot tracking and participation-list regime through USPS. This order is also likely to open up a broader legal debate. Beyond the immediate politics, it raises potential [privacy issues](https://www.justice.gov/opcl/privacy-act-1974?ref=ivn.us) around federal voter-related data, federalism and state-rights questions about the balance between Washington and the states in election administration, and executive branch questions about how far a president can go in trying to reshape election procedures through agency action alone. ### Democracy Reformers Admit Their Biggest Problem: They Keep Talking to Themselves URL: https://ivn.us/democracy-reformers-admit-their-biggest-problem-they-keep-talking-to-themselves-2026-03-31/ Last updated: 2026-04-02T17:37:48.000Z At the March 25 Democracy Network Exchange meeting, reform advocates confronting 2024 losses on ranked choice voting and other ballot measures pointed to a hard truth: insider language, weak grassroots investment, and abstract messaging are still undermining structural reform campaigns. For years, democracy reform advocates have argued that the public is hungry for changes like open primaries, ranked choice voting, independent redistricting, and a more responsive government. But at the Democracy Network Exchange’s meeting, one theme cut through everything else: **Opposition from entrenched political interests aren’t the movement’s only problem.** There is also way too much “insider baseball” happening within the movement itself. This is a diagnosis presenters and participants repeatedly returned to as they looked back at the 2024 election cycle and statewide ranked choice voting and primary reform initiatives that failed in a number of states. Democracy reform organizations too often rely on insider jargon, abstract appeals, and communication strategies that make sense to those deep in the weeds of reform, but do not connect with ordinary voters. In other words, the people trying to “save democracy” may still be struggling to speak the language of the public. The first presentation, delivered by communications strategist Brittany Stalsburg, put that problem front and center. She argued that “audience intimacy” – a research-based understanding of how target audiences think, speak, and decide – is not an optional approach to campaigning. It needs to be foundational. Without it, **reformers risk building messages around what they *wish* voters cared about instead of what *actually* moves them.** People deeply involved in the reform movement wake up thinking about election reform. They have spent years, even decades, studying the nuances of the systemic issues they are trying to fix and the technical aspects of the reforms they promote. But when trying to persuade voters, the messaging doesn’t reflect a critical reality: **Most voters do not wake up thinking about election reform.** Voters think about cost of living, public safety, schools, housing, and whether government works for people like them. When reform campaigns fail to bridge that gap, opponents do it for them. This all led to a conversation among participants about the effectiveness of plain, visceral messaging. Rob Richie and Stalsburg, in particular, talked about popular messaging from anti-gerrymandering campaigns, including the phrase “fox in charge of the hen house” to describe legislators drawing their own district lines. It works because it translates a structural problem into something immediate and intuitive. Voters do not need a graduate seminar in democratic theory to understand self-dealing. Some Democracy Exchange Network participants expressed concerns about oversimplification. However, the larger concern is that reformers are so worried about precision in their messaging that they end up communicating in ways that are hollow, academic, and politically inert. The second presentation, from FairVote’s Suvarna Hulawale and Jeremy Rose, reinforced that conclusion with evidence from 2024’s ballot measure campaigns. Ranked choice voting and nonpartisan primaries hit a wall in multiple statewide contests, including Oregon, Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada. Nonpartisan all-voter and all-candidate primaries without RCV also failed in Arizona, Montana, and South Dakota. The notable exceptions were Alaska, which retained its Top Four primary system, and Washington, DC, where open primaries and ranked choice voting were approved by an overwhelming majority of voters. FairVote’s recommendations were not centered on finding a better white paper or producing smarter elite validators. Instead, they emphasized old-fashioned political fundamentals: early grassroots organizing, meaningful field investment, trusted local leadership, and clear connections between reform proposals and local concerns. They also stressed the importance of working with election administrators early, rather than treating them as adversaries, so opponents have less room to exploit fears about implementation. That is a major takeaway for anyone covering or investing in democracy reform. The lesson from 2024 was not that voters “weren’t ready.” It was that reform campaigns cannot coast on the assumption that process changes sell themselves. Look at DC. The campaign for open primaries and ranked choice voting conducted on-the-ground activity across the city, neighborhood validators, and voter engagement that reached every precinct. That is not the profile of a campaign that wins because a reform has elite consensus. It is the profile of a campaign that wins because it did the harder work of making reform feel local, personal, and relevant. People don’t need more polls showing dissatisfaction with the political system. There are plenty of them. There is also no shortage of frustration with partisan gamesmanship, uncompetitive elections, and rules written by insiders for insiders. But dissatisfaction alone does not translate into support for reform. **Voters need a concrete reason to care, a trusted messenger, and a clear sense of how a proposed change affects their own community.** The third presentation in the March 25 meeting, from National Civic League’s Rebecca Trout, shifted from messaging to infrastructure, highlighting the group’s Healthy Democracy Ecosystem Map. It is a national tool cataloging organizations across all 50 states working on democracy issues. On its face, that may seem like a more technical topic. But it fits the same larger story. If the democracy space is crowded, fragmented, and often opaque even to insiders, then it is hardly surprising that voters and local communities struggle to understand where they fit into it. The map is intended to help practitioners find partners, funders identify strategic opportunities, and local leaders gain visibility. It offers ways to connect organizations to each other, and just as importantly, better ways to connect its goals to the people outside the network. Survey feedback from Democracy Exchange Network participants found that the most politically relevant takeaway from the March meeting is a consensus emerging across the attendees: reformers need to meet people where they are. This is, in effect, an acknowledgment that too much democracy reform work still begins from the priorities and assumptions of advocates rather than voters. In a political climate defined by distrust, polarization, and institutional fatigue, this creates an existential problem. If democracy reform groups want to stop losing winnable fights, they may need to start with a humbler premise: voters do not owe reformers their attention just because the issue is important. Reformers have to earn it. And until they do, many of the ideas they champion will remain stuck in the same trap they claim to oppose: a politics driven by insiders, for insiders, while everyone else tunes out. ### Can a Party Call Itself ‘Independent’? Judge Accuses No Labels Party of ‘Bait-and-Switch’ URL: https://ivn.us/can-a-party-call-itself-independent-judge-accuses-no-labels-of-bait-and-switch-2026-03-30/ Last updated: 2026-03-31T16:55:23.000Z The No Labels Party in Arizona cannot change its name to the Arizona Independent Party. This is the decision from Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gregory Como, who called it a “political bait-and-switch.” [The order was filed Wednesday](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/27909399-nolabelsdecision/?ref=ivn.us). **To quickly catch people up.** The No Labels Party of Arizona gathered enough signatures to gain party recognition in 2023, which would give it the option to field a presidential candidate in the 2024 election. Ultimately, it did not move forward with a nominee – but it maintained its recognized party status. In October 2025, the party petitioned Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to change its name to the Arizona Independent Party. Fontes determined that since state law does not prohibit his authority to do it, he can. He approved the request in December and ordered county election officials to switch voters registered with the No Labels Party to the Arizona Independent Party. This is where the judge had a problem. Como ruled that Fontes only has authority that is explicitly designated to his office by the constitution and Arizona statute: "If the Secretary is to have such power, it must be prescribed by the Arizona Constitution or state statutes. It is not." “By approving a party’s requested name change, without it obtaining the necessary signatures for party recognition, the Secretary permits a political bait and switch,” he asserted. Como also noted that allowing the name change assumes all voters who petitioned for the No Labels Party are okay with it. “When a person signs a petition on behalf of an aspiring party, it is reasonable to infer that they are largely motivated by how the party describes itself, i.e., the party’s name,” he wrote. > *“Would the same 41,000 people who signed petitions to recognize the No Labels Party have signed to support the ‘Arizona Nazi Party’ or the ‘Arizona Anarchists’?”* The Republican and Democratic Parties in Arizona challenged the name change in court, along with the Citizens Clean Election Commission. They argued that it would cause confusion for state voters who are or seek to register as unaffiliated. In January, [34% of voters were registered unaffiliated with a political party](https://azsos.gov/elections/election-information/voter-registration-statistics?ref=ivn.us). There were 41,484 people registered as “Arizona Independent” (nearly 1% of the electorate). Whether the parties actually care about voter confusion is subject to dispute. Both have a history of trying to snuff out third party competition. The Democratic Party of Arizona sued Fontes in 2023 when he first recognized the No Labels Party. But there is nuance to this issue. Regardless of the parties’ sincerity, they are relying on an argument with historical evidence to back it up. In 2014, Independent Voter News [was the first to report](https://ivn.us/posts/campaign-warns-independents-fooled-american-independent-party) that most voters registered with the American Independent Party (AIP) in California had done so by mistake. They thought they were registered independent of a party (which is No Party Preference in the state). This was confirmed two years later when the LA Times published its own investigation, [finding that at least 75% of AIP voters](https://static.latimes.com/american-independent-party-california-voters/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) did not intend to register with a party. Today, [nearly a million California voters are registered with AIP](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/ror/154day-primary-2026/county.pdf?ref=ivn.us), which was initially established as a far-right party. To its credit, AIP has shifted its mission and priorities to have a broader appeal with voters but many of its members still don't realize they are registered with a party. This can affect their voting rights in presidential primary elections. In most state contests in California, party registration doesn’t matter because the state uses a nonpartisan Top Two primary system. However, the state continues to use semi-closed primaries in presidential contests. This means recognized political parties in California can decide whether or not to allow No Party Preference voters to participate in their presidential preference vote. Some parties allow it. Others don’t. But these primary rules also require registered party members to vote in their respective party’s presidential primary. So, registered AIP voters have to vote in the AIP presidential primary. This has a [documented history of causing voter confusion in California](https://ivn.us/posts/the-impending-disaster-of-californias-confusing-presidential-primary). The [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) petitioned the Supreme Court to hear [its challenge to California’s use of semi-closed presidential primaries](https://independentvoterproject.org/work/california-presidential-primary-lawsuit?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) when the state constitution calls for open primaries. The high court chose not to hear the case. Arizona uses a semi-open primary system, which allows independent voters to select a party ballot in primary elections. However, registered party members are limited to their own party’s primary. In other words, voters registered with the Arizona Independent Party could run into the same problem. Part of the reason No Labels is changing its name is to encourage independent candidates to run for office. The path to the ballot is much simpler for candidates filed with a party than those trying to run unaffiliated. But if voters who want to register independent of a party accidentally register Arizona Independent, they unknowingly limit their primary choices to a single party that may not have candidates they prefer. This is a real conundrum with any party that attempts to call itself 'Independent' with a capital "I." On the other hand, there are organizations and emerging parties trying to mobilize independent voters in elections. This can be difficult because independents are not a monolith. They exist across the political spectrum. There are things that connect most independent voters, including dissatisfaction with the two-party system and a desire for change. It would pose a threat to the two parties if a group successfully courted independents, considering they make up a plurality of voters (nationally). [Gallup: Independent Voters Hit 45% – So Why Does the Political Establishment Keep Pretending They Don’t Matter?Gallup released its latest identification numbers, and independent voters are now 45%. Nobody disputes the data. But there are competing opinions as to what the data means.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-14.ico)Independent Voter NewsJohn Opdycke![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/independent-voter-movement-rejecting-two-party-system-1.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/gallup-independent-voters-hit-45-so-why-does-political-establishment-keep-pretending-they) There is [a bill in the Arizona Legislature](https://legiscan.com/AZ/bill/SB1609/2026?ref=ivn.us) that would make it illegal for parties to use “independent” in their name. This is a rare action for a state to take. Louisiana is the only state that currently forbids any party from calling itself the “independent party.” ## In Other Reform News… ### Ranked Choice Voting, Open Primaries May Be Coming to Another Major City in New York [Unite NY](https://www.uniteny.org/?ref=ivn.us) presented its proposals for ranked choice voting (RCV), open primaries, and ballot access reform before the Buffalo Charter Review Commission last week – giving the city an opportunity to lead on more choice election reform in New York. “Buffalo voters deserve a system that rewards competition, broad participation, and enfranchises all voters,” said the organization’s executive director, Anthony Thomas. > *“Ranked choice voting, open primaries, and fairer ballot access are practical, commonsense reforms. The Commission should give these proposals full, timely consideration.”* If the commission moves forward on these proposals, Buffalo could become the second city in the state to adopt RCV by voter consent. New York City approved it in November 2019 after it was put on the ballot by the NYC Charter Revision Commission. [NYC Exit Survey: 96% of Voters Understood Their Ranked Choice BallotsAn exit poll conducted by SurveyUSA on behalf of the nonprofit better elections group FairVote finds that ranked choice voting (RCV) continues to be supported by a vast majority of voters who find it simple, fair, and easy to use. The findings come in the wake of the city’s third use of RCV in its J![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-15.ico)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/kvnga-Cj7Ko9xWUcc-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/nyc-exit-survey-96-voters-understood-their-ranked-choice-ballots-2025-07-01) RCV gives voters the opportunity to rank candidates in order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, etc.) If no candidate gets a majority of first choice selections, the last place candidate is eliminated, and their voters’ next choices are applied to the tabulation. This is how RCV works in most US jurisdictions that have adopted it. There are other methods that can be adopted using ranked ballots. Advocates of the reform argue that this allows for greater voter expression at the polls, as opposed to the strategic thinking often required under a choose-one, plurality voting method. They also assert that it leads to greater competition and civility in elections. Candidates in large fields will need the second or even third choice support of voters who prefer another candidate, so they are incentivized to establish coalitions and ease up on attacks. RCV was used for the first time in NYC in 2021. Here's the thing: RCV was implemented for primary elections only and NYC uses closed partisan primaries. This means voters have to be a registered party member to participate at the most critical stage of the taxpayer-funded elections process. This locks out approximately 21% of the city’s electorate that is registered unaffiliated. Thus, meaningful choice in the nation’s largest city – even under ranked choice voting – is restricted. Unite NY was part of an effort to get open primaries put on the 2025 ballot, but the NYC Charter Revision Commission [chose not to advance any type of reform that would allow independent voters to participate in primary elections](https://ivn.us/posts/dont-blame-mamdani-closed-primaries-new-york-city-2025-07-21). Now, the organization is asking the Buffalo CRC to go a step further and consider RCV, open primaries, and ballot access reforms that give voters better competition, choice, and accountability in elections. This development comes not long after the charter commission in Los Angeles, California, recommended RCV for city elections after a 10-1 vote. If advanced to the November ballot and approved by voters, RCV will be used starting in 2032. Unlike NYC and Buffalo, Los Angeles uses nonpartisan all-voter and all-candidate primaries, so all voters (including independent voters), would have access to more choice reform. [Crowded Mayoral Race Exposes Why Los Angeles Needs Ranked Choice VotingThe city of Los Angeles will hold a primary election on June 2nd in which fourteen people are running for mayor, including a sitting councilmember, a sitting mayor, and a former reality television personality.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-16.ico)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/los-angeles-ranked-choice-voting-la-mayor-race-1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/crowded-mayoral-race-exposes-why-los-angeles-needs-ranked-choice-voting-2026-03-23) ### Legislative Efforts to Close Primaries in Alabama and Tennessee are Losing Steam Open Primaries activist Shannon Rasmussen, reporting from the Tennessee state capitol reports that multiple bills aimed at officially closing the state’s primary elections are not going the way supporters hoped. One bill died in committee last week in an 11-11 vote. One Senate bill was scheduled for a committee hearing, but wasn’t brought up. One couldn’t get a committee hearing because of a full docket. And it won’t be long before the legislative session ends. In [a recent op-ed](https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2026/03/19/tennessee-closed-primary-bill-veterans-independent-voters/89106583007/?ref=ivn.us), Rasmussen described the most egregious attempts to close Tennessee primaries being [SB 777](https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default?BillNumber=SB0777&ga=114&ref=ivn.us) and its House version, [HB 0886](https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default?BillNumber=SB0777&ga=114&ref=ivn.us). These bills require party registration 90 days in advance of a primary election to vote. “This creates a bureaucratic 'lockout' that forces voters to pledge partisan loyalty months before an election just to have a seat at the table,” she writes. Rasmussen, an Army veteran, focused her piece on the impact this has on the veteran community. More than half of veterans identify and/or are registered independent of the two major parties. In total, this is roughly 220,000 veterans just in Tennessee. Her position is similar to Paul Rieckhoff, who founded Independent Veterans of America. Both argue that veterans put country above party and people above politics when they served their country. Why would we have an election system that forces them to pick a side while they serve or when they get out? And shuts them out if they don’t? In Alabama, it looked like a [closed primary bill ](https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/files/pdf/SearchableInstruments/2026RS/HB541-int.pdf?ref=ivn.us)might sail through the legislature. However, while it passed the state House with ease, its future remains uncertain in the Senate – where it faces more scrutiny. HB 541 requires voters to register with a political party in order to vote in the primary. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, has tried to argue that primary elections will remain open “in practice” because voters can switch party affiliation each election cycle. They just have to do it at least 60 days in advance of a primary if they want to participate, which is the definition of a closed primary no matter how Yarbrough tries to spin it. Primary elections would continue to be funded by taxpayers under HB 541, which means independents would foot the bill and then be denied access. The estimated cost of a state election is about $10 million, which is a steep price to pay to be disenfranchised. “The idea that private organizations should have their elections paid for and administered by the state, and yet be able to control who can vote in them, is the very basis of anti-conservative big government,” [said Open Primaries Senior Vice President Jeremy Gruber](https://www.al.com/news/2026/03/alabama-poised-to-make-dramatic-change-to-primary-voting-the-question-is-who-foots-the-bill.html?ref=ivn.us). > *“And yet, it’s the basis for the argument of closed primaries. The Republican Party of Alabama wants it both ways. They want control over who votes in the primary, but they want the taxpayers to fund it and the government to run it. There is nothing less than conservative than that.”* While HB 541 had no problem in the Alabama State House, the debate over locking out the fastest growing voting bloc in the country and expecting taxpayers to foot the bill for the exclusion has created a rockier path in the state Senate. ## Quick Takeaways - A GOP-backed effort to repeal an anti-gerrymandering law, known as Proposition 4, [failed to make the ballot](https://www.abc4.com/news/politics/inside-utah-politics/gop-effort-repeal-prop4/?fbclid=IwZnRzaAQynC9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeyTZgh9xUpdHBbiOv-rO%5FMgewvO8I4xIssgpVBeGdvFU1zqIwmBEPWLKMscs%5Faem%5FojejMO7JWArY65D6ua5cAA&ref=ivn.us). This is in part due to a campaign by Better Boundaries to get voters to remove their name from signature petitions. Prop 4 was at the heart of a redistricting dispute over the last few years that resulted in a court ordering a congressional map that essentially turns Salt Lake City into its own district. - The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) [sent a letter](https://campaignlegal.org/document/clc-letter-oregon-governor-tina-kotek-urging-veto-hb-4018?ref=ivn.us) to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek that urges her to veto HB 4018\. CLC argues the bill weakens anti-corruption laws put in place in 2024 under HB 4024, which passed the legislature in lieu of a ballot initiative that would have gone before voters. It writes that among other things, HB 4024 “established contribution limits to candidates for elected office in the state and required transparency for the original sources of big money spent on state elections.” CLC asserts that HB 4018 denies voters all the reforms they support to better regulate money in politics. - An Obama-appointed federal judge in North Carolina [upheld the state’s 2018 voter ID law](https://www.wvtf.org/news/2026-03-26/north-carolinas-photo-voter-id-mandate-can-continue-as-a-judge-upholds-the-law?%5Famp=true&ref=ivn.us), aligning with recent legal precedent on the issue. State and local chapters of the NAACP argued that Republican lawmakers passed the law to discourage voters historically aligned with the Democratic Party. However, state lawmakers asserted that if they wanted to entrench their power they would not have approved one of the most permissive voter ID laws in the country. The 2018 law not only allows a wide range of identification types, but it also permits a free voter ID option. The judge said her decision was based on recent legal precedent. ### Paige Against the Machine: Scranton Mayor Runs Against Congressional Corruption and Old Party Rules URL: https://ivn.us/paige-against-the-machine-scranton-mayor-runs-against-congressional-corruption-and-old-party-rules-2026-03-30/ Last updated: 2026-03-30T15:05:18.000Z In the fall of 2019, Scranton, Pennsylvania, was in crisis. Its mayor, [Bill Courtright](https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/lackawanna-county/former-scranton-mayor-bill-courtright-released-from-federal-prison-city-hall-criminal-conspiracy-bribery-lackawanna-county/523-738a6c38-f8ef-4578-8c40-fb8b84617bef?ref=ivn.us), had resigned and pleaded guilty to [federal charges of bribery, extortion, and conspiracy](https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdpa/pr/former-scranton-mayor-sentenced-seven-years-imprisonment-public-corruption-charges?ref=ivn.us). The local Democratic Party moved to select his replacement through a closed caucus. [Paige Cognetti](https://paigeforpa.com/?ref=ivn.us), then an adviser to the state auditor general who had previously served in the Obama administration's Treasury Department, decided she wanted no part of a closed process. Cognetti refused to seek the Democratic Party's nomination, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer she didn't trust the party. "The same old boys club is trying to pick our next mayor," [she said](https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania-elections-2019-progressive-candidates-lisa-middleman-stephen-zappala-20191103.html?ref=ivn.us) in a television ad at the time. Instead, she ran as an independent, adopting an informal slogan that was equal parts irreverent and pointed: "Paige Against The Machine," a riff on the rock band Rage Against the Machine. The local Democratic Party sued to keep her and other independent candidates off the ballot entirely. It didn’t work. Cognetti won the seven-candidate special election, becoming the first woman ever elected mayor of Scranton. She was [eight months pregnant](https://x.com/CNN/status/1192209529024524288?ref=ivn.us) at the time. "Nothing really makes you more committed to your city and the environment... than realizing you're going to have a baby. So I couldn't be more committed,” she told CNN in an interview after winning the election. Now, nearly seven years later, she is running for Congress. On September 2, 2025, Cognetti announced her candidacy for Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District, which covers all of Lackawanna, Wayne, and Pike counties and parts of Luzerne and Monroe counties. She is challenging first-term Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan Jr., a Trump-endorsed incumbent who narrowly defeated six-term Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright by roughly 1.5 points in 2024\. The Democratic primary is scheduled for May 19, 2026, and the general election for November 3, 2026. Scranton Democrat Francis McHale, who had announced plans in August 2025 to enter the Democratic primary, later withdrew, leaving Cognetti uncontested for her party's nomination. In her campaign launch video, Cognetti criticized Bresnahan for continuing to trade stocks while in office and said that "people here deserve a lot better than a rich kid disrespecting our hard work and proud legacy.” She enters the race with significant institutional support. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has endorsed her, as have Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, former Rep. Matt Cartwright, and Rep. Chris Deluzio. Symone Sanders Townsend, co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend, flagged her candidacy as one to watch, noting that "a lot of [New Deal Leaders](https://newdealleaders.org/?ref=ivn.us) are on the ballot this year looking to rise up into federal office, like the current mayor of Scranton, Paige Cognetti. She seems to be on her way to Congress, child. They think she's gonna give a good scrappy fight.” After winning the 2019 special election, Cognetti ran for a full term in 2021 as a Democrat and won with over 71 percent of the vote. In May 2025, [she defeated a longtime local Democratic party boss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuCmAnj3EmU&ref=ivn.us) in the primary with 76 percent of the vote, then won reelection as mayor two months before formally announcing her congressional bid. As New York Times opinion writer Michelle Cottle wrote in a [March 2026 column](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/17/opinion/scranton-biden-2026-midterms.html?ref=ivn.us), Cognetti "cruised to re-election…on essentially the same reform platform -- the one she is now counting on to take her to Congress." Cognetti herself has described her career as a continuous effort to fight institutional corruption wherever she encountered it. "I really started to battle the Democratic machine from then, because the school district is the first stop on the way to City Council and other places," she told Cottle, referring to her time on the troubled Scranton School Board beginning in 2017\. She later became a special assistant to the state auditor general. "I was happily doing that when the mayor of Scranton got indicted," she recalled. "We've been running this same campaign from 2019 to date," she said in a recent interview. "Make government work for the people. Public service is to serve others, not yourself.” For voters who have grown frustrated with the two-party system, the most significant aspects of Cognetti's reform agenda may be the ones that receive the least attention in mainstream coverage: her support for opening up primary elections to all voters and her call to remove dark money from politics. These are not abstract positions for Cognetti. She lived the consequences of a closed party system firsthand, and now, having experienced what closed primaries do to candidates who fall outside party structures, she has made opening those primaries to all voters -- regardless of party registration -- a stated legislative priority. This position places her at odds with the institutional interests of both major parties, which have a shared stake in keeping primary elections restricted to their own registered voters. Cognetti’s support for changing that structure directly challenges one of the foundational mechanisms of two-party control. She has also called for removing dark money from politics, arguing that unlimited and undisclosed political spending has tilted Congress away from ordinary constituents and toward wealthy donors. Cognetti has made congressional corruption the defining issue of her campaign, and she has been deliberate about framing it as a problem that belongs to both parties. "There are very high-profile examples of this behavior on both sides of the aisle," she told Cottle. "I mean, the president mentioned it in his State of the Union.” She is taking direct aim at Bresnahan's stock trading record. When running for Congress in 2024, Bresnahan wrote in a letter to a local newspaper that "the idea that we can buy and sell stocks while voting on legislation that will have a direct impact on these companies is wrong and needs to come to an end immediately." Once in office, [he became one of the most prolific traders in Congress](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/12/bresnahan-stock-trade-data-centers-00721852?ref=ivn.us), making more than 600 stock trades in 2025 before suspending the activity late in the year amid growing scrutiny. In March 2026, Politico reporter [Daniel Lippman surfaced a 2025 radio interview](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/10/unearthed-audio-appears-to-contradict-rep-rob-bresnahans-stock-trading-claims-00819366?ref=ivn.us) in which Bresnahan, after repeatedly insisting he had no involvement in his trades, appeared to describe meeting with his financial adviser to discuss "what different positions are coming up.” Bresnahan's campaign spokesman, Chris Pack, said the comment referred to "30,000 foot investment strategy and not about stock trades," according to Lippman’s article. Cognetti seized on the audio at a March 11 news conference in Plains Township. Learning that Bresnahan "is actually on the record stating that he speaks with his financial adviser about his stock positions while a sitting member of Congress" was not surprising but was "extraordinarily disappointing," she said. > *"This is the exact type of public corruption that led me to get on the Scranton School Board in 2017, that led me to run for mayor in 2019 in the face of a huge scandal in Scranton. My time in public office has always been pushing back on corruption."* Cognetti is also tying Bresnahan's trading directly to his votes on health care. Among the trades that drew the most attention were the sale of Pennsylvania health care-related bonds worth between $100,001 and $250,000 and stock in four Medicaid providers worth up to $130,000, made before Bresnahan voted on significant Medicaid cuts. "We can connect his Medicaid cuts to him trading Medicaid-provider stock, hospital bonds. We can see where he's purchasing defense stocks when the president is making military decisions that the public doesn't know about," Cognetti told the Times-Tribune. In a separate [statement](https://keystonenewsroom.com/2026/02/25/bresnahan-stou-guest-medicaid-cuts/?ref=ivn.us), she said that "health care costs have skyrocketed under his failed leadership, all while he plays the stock market and makes a quick buck off our pain" and accused him of "gutting Medicaid, slashing funding for Pennsylvania hospitals, and jacking up health care premiums.” Cognetti does not own any individual stocks, according to the Politico article. On [banning congressional stock trading](https://ivn.us/posts/top-10-reasons-why-the-constock-trading-ban-will-never-pass-2026-02-20), she has been direct. > *"It is not at all about begrudging anyone's wealth," she explained to Cottle. "It's just, do it as a private citizen.” Reforms like a trading ban, she argued, allow members of Congress to signal "that they are about service and not themselves.”* As mayor, she has refused a government car and a gas card, and she pays out of pocket for work-related travel and for personal correspondence, such as sympathy cards. Cognetti eliminated cash payments for city business, professionalized the code-enforcement department, established a whistle-blower hotline, and worked to root out nepotism in hiring. Cognetti acknowledged to Cottle that some of these gestures might appear small. "It matters because the previous folks had enriched themselves," she said. With her predecessor having been found with stacks of cash in his home and ultimately sentenced to seven years in prison, Cognetti said she felt she needed to "draw a contrast." > *"You have to build trust back. And part of that is doing some things that sometimes is an overcorrection.”* Cognetti enters the Congressional race with some real advantages but also real challenges. She is the mayor of the district's largest city, has cleared the Democratic primary field, and carries the support of the state's top elected officials. But the district has voted for Trump in the last three presidential elections, and the Cook Political Report currently rates the race as leaning Republican. From October through December 2025, Bresnahan's campaign raised $675,000, compared with Cognetti's $645,000, and he entered 2026 with $1.43 million in cash on hand, compared with her $805,000\. Bresnahan has also made inroads with organized labor, flipping the support of three local unions that had previously backed Democrats, including the Pennsylvania Laborers District Council, which had supported Cognetti during her 2019 mayoral campaign. Cognetti is also facing scrutiny of her own. Politico reported in February 2026 that Republicans intend to make an issue of her administration's purchase of the [Fidelity Bank building adjacent to Scranton City Hall](https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2026/03/11/scranton-council-allows-fidelity-bank-to-raze-dilapidated-building-downtown/?ref=ivn.us) for use as a municipal annex, noting that her uncle-in-law sits on the bank's board and that she received $14,600 in campaign contributions from Fidelity board members in the months before the purchase. Cognetti denied any impropriety. "Every decision that I have made is for the well-being and the betterment of the citizens and the city of Scranton," she said in an interview with the Times-Tribune. Political analyst Christopher Borick, quoted by the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, noted that simply being competitive against an incumbent with favorable conditions can be enough. "Sometimes, just being in the ballpark against incumbents and having some winds at your back is all you need.” ### Sheriff Seizes 650,000 Ballots – While Running for California Governor!? URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/sheriff-seizes-650-000-ballots-while-running-for-california-governor-2026-03-26/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:37:19.000Z This week on the Independent Voter Podcast, California sheriff Chad Bianco seizes 650,000 ballots while running for governor, the Supreme Court takes on mail-in ballot deadlines that could invalidate millions of votes, and TSA agents walk off the job unpaid while Washington refuses a deal that's already on the table. Plus, one congressman just made a move that almost nobody in U.S. history has made - and it could reshape the 2026 California primary in ways nobody is talking about yet. ## Episode Highlights Chad Peace, Cara McCormick, and Shawn Griffiths kick off this episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast** with a controversial story that put the California governor’s race in the national spotlight. Primary frontrunner and Riverside County Sheriff **Chad Bianco** made headlines after seizing **650,000 ballots** from the **Proposition 50 special election**, citing claims by a local group that allegedly found **45,000 excess votes** in the county. The controversy quickly became a flashpoint in the broader national debate over **election fraud** and **voter suppression**, with the FBI simultaneously seizing ballots in **Fulton County, Georgia,** and the DOJ demanding **voter rolls** from multiple states. [Chad Bianco’s 650,000-Ballot Seizure Puts California Governor Race in National SpotlightRiverside County sheriff and California gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco has bolstered his national name ID after he seized over 650,000 ballots cast in the 2025 special election for Proposition 50.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-12.ico)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/chad-bianco-ballot-seizure-voter-fraud-investigation.jpeg)](https://ivn.us/posts/chad-biancos-650-000-ballot-seizure-puts-california-governor-race-in-national-spotlight-2026-03-23) The Riverside County registrar of voters disputed the fraud claims, saying the discrepancy was closer to 100 votes. He attributed the group's inflated figure to misuse of raw data before ballots were processed. On a related topic, we also discussed a landmark **US Supreme Court case on mail-in ballot deadlines**, with oral arguments suggesting the court may rule that ballots must be *received* — not merely postmarked — by **Election Day**. This ruling could dramatically impact states like **Alaska**, where 80% of votes are cast by mail, and reshape **California's Top Two primary** ahead of the **June 2026 primary election**. We also debate **USPS mail delays**, **postmark reliability**, and what this could all mean for **voter disenfranchisement** in the 2026 elections. The conversation then shifts to something more positive. The **Los Angeles Charter Review Commission** recommended expanding the city council and implementing **ranked choice voting (RCV)**. What RCV system could the city adopt? Will it look like **RCV in New York City** or something different? [Crowded Mayoral Race Exposes Why Los Angeles Needs Ranked Choice VotingThe city of Los Angeles will hold a primary election on June 2nd in which fourteen people are running for mayor, including a sitting councilmember, a sitting mayor, and a former reality television personality.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-11.ico)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/los-angeles-ranked-choice-voting-la-mayor-race.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/crowded-mayoral-race-exposes-why-los-angeles-needs-ranked-choice-voting-2026-03-23) We wrap up the episode talking about US Rep. **Kevin Kiley**, who recently made waves by re-registering as an **independent**. Not only is he now the **sole independent member of the U.S. House of Representatives**, but this has narrowed the **Republican House majority**. The question we explore: is it a sincere move toward independence or a campaign maneuver in response to **California redistricting** under **Proposition 50**? Kiley’s new district, the **6th Congressional District**, leans Democrat but has over 100,000 **No Party Preference voters**. [Kevin Kiley Leaves GOP, Bets on Independent Voters in California’s 6th DistrictOn March 9, 2026, US Rep. Kevin Kiley held a press conference and announced he was breaking up with the GOP. With that, Kiley became the only capital “I” Independent in the House![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-13.ico)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Kevin-Kiley-1.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/kevin-kiley-leaves-gop-bets-on-independent-voters-in-californias-6th-district-2026-03-24) Meanwhile, the ongoing **TSA worker pay crisis** – with agents missing paychecks and **airport security lines** stretching 6–7 hours at major hubs – remained unresolved as Trump tied relief funding to passage of the **SAVE Act**. We also spotlight **Scranton Mayor Page Canetti**, a **2026 Pennsylvania congressional candidate** running on an anti-**congressional stock trading** platform against incumbent **Rob Bresnahan**, who became one of Congress's most prolific stock traders. ### 10 U.S. House Members Who Quit Their Party While in Office URL: https://ivn.us/10-u-s-house-members-who-quit-their-party-while-in-office-2026-03-26/ Last updated: 2026-03-26T16:02:54.000Z Impeachments. Wave elections. Gerrymandered maps. A stolen election that never was. Frustration with leadership. A health care bill that went too far. A president they loved. A president they could not defend. The reasons House members abandon their parties mid-term are as varied as the members themselves. Most land safely in the other major party. But a handful have done something far rarer, walking away from both of the two major political parties and declaring themselves independent in a system built to make it nearly impossible to survive. In the past quarter-century, only ten members have made any kind of switch. Here they are, starting with the most recent. ## **#1 — Kevin Kiley (California) | Republican to Independent, March 9, 2026** On March 9, 2026, Rep. Kevin Kiley of California announced he was leaving the Republican Party and registering as an independent, making him the sole independent currently serving in the U.S. House. His stated reason: California's mid-decade redistricting had redrawn his district to favor Democrats, and he argued that fighting partisan gerrymandering meant taking partisanship "out of the equation" himself. He says he will continue caucusing with Republicans through the end of the 119th Congress, but his long-term alignment is an open question. His switch shifted the House majority to 217 to 214, with three vacancies. He is already running in a different district, California's 6th, as an independent in 2026\. Whether he can win without a party apparatus behind him will be one of the defining independent-voter stories of the election cycle. [Kevin Kiley Leaves GOP, Bets on Independent Voters in California’s 6th DistrictOn March 9, 2026, US Rep. Kevin Kiley held a press conference and announced he was breaking up with the GOP. With that, Kiley became the only capital “I” Independent in the House![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-10.ico)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Kevin-Kiley.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/kevin-kiley-leaves-gop-bets-on-independent-voters-in-californias-6th-district-2026-03-24) ## **#2 — Paul Mitchell (Michigan) | Republican to Independent, December 14, 2020** Mitchell's story stands apart from many on this list because his switch was an act of principle rather than political ambition, and he knew it would cost him nothing since he had already announced his retirement. Disgusted by the Republican Party's support for efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, he formally left the GOP and served out his final weeks in Congress as an independent. He left office on January 3, 2021, less than three weeks after his switch. ## **#3 — Justin Amash (Michigan) | Republican to Independent, July 4, 2019; then Independent to Libertarian, April 29, 2020** A libertarian-leaning Republican, he was the only GOP House member to publicly call for Trump's impeachment in 2019, publishing a detailed argument on social media. On July 4, 2019, he left the Republican Party to become an independent. Then on April 29, 2020, he took another step no sitting House member had ever taken – he joined the Libertarian Party, becoming the first Libertarian (party member) ever to serve in Congress. He briefly considered a presidential run but did not seek re-election. ## **#4 — Jeff Van Drew (New Jersey) | Democrat to Republican, December 19, 2019** Van Drew was elected in the 2018 Democratic wave, but his opposition to Donald Trump's first impeachment put him at odds with his own caucus. On December 19, 2019, he walked into the Oval Office and told Trump he had his "undying support" and then announced he was a Republican. At least five of his staffers resigned in protest the same day. Unlike most party switchers, Van Drew's gamble paid off politically. He won re-election as a Republican in 2020, and again in 2022 and 2024\. His South Jersey district moved with him. ## **#5 — Parker Griffith (Alabama) | Democrat to Republican, December 22, 2009** Griffith's switch came at the height of the battle over the Affordable Care Act, just days before the Senate's Christmas Eve vote on the bill. He cited his opposition to the ACA and what he called a Democratic Party that had abandoned the values of his conservative Alabama district. His calculation failed badly. Republican primary voters did not trust him, and he lost his own primary to Mo Brooks in June 2010\. He later returned to the Democratic Party to run for governor in 2014, winning the nomination but losing the general election decisively. ## **#6 — Rodney Alexander (Louisiana) | Democrat to Republican, August 9, 2004** Alexander waited until the final hour of the Louisiana candidate filing deadline to switch parties, leaving Democrats no time to recruit a replacement. He won re-election easily and served as a Republican until 2013, when he resigned to become Louisiana's Secretary of Veterans Affairs. ## **#7 — Ralph Hall (Texas) | Democrat to Republican, January 5, 2004** Hall had served Texas as a Democrat since 1980, but his voting record was so aligned with Republicans that the switch was widely seen as a formality. His close friend and Texas ally, President George W. Bush, welcomed the move. Hall won re-election easily as a Republican and served until 2015, eventually becoming the oldest-serving member of Congress in American history. He was defeated in a 2014 primary runoff by John Ratcliffe at the age of 91. ## **#8 — Matthew G. Martinez (California) | Democrat to Republican, July 27, 2000** Martinez had served California as a Democrat since 1982, but after losing his Democratic primary in 2000 to Hilda Solis, he changed his registration to Republican on July 27 while still serving out his term. It was widely seen as a parting shot from a politician whose views had drifted rightward over the years. He chose not to run as a Republican and left office without returning to Congress. ## **#9 — Virgil Goode (Virginia) | Democrat to Independent, January 27, 2000; then Independent to Republican, August 1, 2002** Goode is the only person on this list to switch parties twice while serving. The Virginia Democrat walked away from his party in January 2000, becoming an independent who caucused with Republicans and was overwhelmingly re-elected that year. He then formally joined the Republican Party in August 2002\. His journey from Democrat to independent to Republican previewed the ideological sorting that would define the next two decades of American politics. He served until 2009, when he was defeated by Democrat Tom Perriello by just 727 votes. ## **#10 — Michael Forbes (New York) | Republican to Democrat, July 17, 1999** Forbes represented a Long Island district as a Republican from 1995, but by 1999, he had grown openly critical of the GOP's national leadership, accusing them of being "tone deaf" to the needs of average Americans. On July 17, 1999, he switched to the Democratic Party, becoming one of the rare House members to cross from Republican to Democrat. He was embraced nationally by President Bill Clinton and Democratic leaders, but his new party couldn't protect him at home. In the 2000 Democratic primary, Republicans secretly funneled $250,000 to his opponent, a 71-year-old librarian named Regina Seltzer, who defeated Forbes by just 35 votes. He left Congress without winning another term under either party label. ### Independent Voters Are Dominating the 2026 Primary Conversation URL: https://ivn.us/independent-voters-are-dominating-the-2026-primary-conversation-2026-03-25/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T18:21:09.000Z The media does not often cover the impact independent voters have in elections until after the primaries. However, in 2026, this growing segment of voters – who make up nearly half of the electorate – is harder to ignore in these critical early contests. We saw the impact independent voters had in the 2026 Texas primaries. Not only did the state see record-high turnout this year, but James Talarico won the Democratic nomination for US Senate after he courted the independent vote. [Texas Primary Shock: Democratic Voter Turnout Surpasses RepublicansThe 2026 primary elections in Texas had their fair share of excitement and controversy Tuesday night. But one thing that stood out more than anything else was the turnout. Specifically, in the Democratic primaries, which soared above the Republicans.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-9.ico)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/texas-primary-2026-democratic-turnout-surpasses-republicans-voter-turnout-texas-election-1.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/texas-primary-shock-democratic-voter-turnout-surpasses-republicans-2026-03-04) Now, in the hotly contested battleground state of Georgia, the media is talking about independents 8 weeks out from the state’s primaries and how candidates are broadening their appeal in order to win. “More and more the deciding voter is an independent voter,” one analyst noted during a segment on 11Alive (Channel 11 in Atlanta). In some states, independent voters aren’t part of the conversation because they are barred from participating under closed primary rules – [like in Illinois](https://ivn.us/posts/my-next-congressman-won-his-primary-with-24-of-the-vote-2026-03-18). But what Texas and Georgia have in common is that they both have open primary systems. Independent voters can choose between a Republican or Democratic primary ballot. They are limited to the candidates of a single party, but they have the right to make their voices heard in elections they fund. It was not uncommon for partisan candidates in past election cycles to ignore independents, even under open primary systems. However, Talarico proved that these voters will turn out if a candidate actually speaks to them. There is an incentive for candidates to broaden their appeal when taxpayer-funded elections are open to all voters – something more candidates are realizing as independent identification and registration break new records year after year. ### Kevin Kiley Leaves GOP, Bets on Independent Voters in California’s 6th District URL: https://ivn.us/kevin-kiley-leaves-gop-bets-on-independent-voters-in-californias-6th-district-2026-03-24/ Last updated: 2026-03-24T20:07:54.000Z **ROCKLIN, Calif.** — Kevin Kiley spent nine years in California politics as a Republican. He won an election to the State Assembly as a Republican. He ran in the Gavin Newsom recall as a Republican. He won a coveted congressional seat as a Republican and won it again two years later. But on March 9, 2026, he held a press conference and announced he was breaking up with the GOP. *"Today, I'm asking the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives to have that reflected in the official roster,"* [*Kiley told reporters*](https://www.notus.org/republicans/rep-kevin-kiley-leaving-the-gop-republican-congress-majority?ref=ivn.us)*. "I will be the sole independent member of the House of Representatives."* With that, Kiley became the only independent in the House, narrowed the Republican majority to 217 to 214, and launched the most unconventional re-election campaign in California this cycle. He is now running as a No Party Preference (NPP) candidate in the newly redrawn 6th congressional district, a seat that did not even exist in its current form until California voters approved Proposition 50 last November, and one that, by design of the Democratic Party, leans Democratic. The central question surrounding Kiley’s campaign is one that independent and NPP voters in the 6th district will have to answer for themselves: Is Kevin Kiley a genuine independent, or is he a Republican who rebranded when his options ran out in the national gerrymandering race to the bottom? ## **Kiley Opposed Proposition 50** Kiley's path to this moment runs directly through [Proposition 50](https://www.ppic.org/blog/key-takeaways-from-the-proposition-50-election/?ref=ivn.us). Approved by 64.4% of California voters on Nov. 4, 2025, Prop 50 was a constitutional amendment that temporarily suspended the authority of California's independent Citizens Redistricting Commission and handed mapmaking power to the Democratic-controlled state legislature. The Citizens Redistricting Commission, created by voters in 2010, had drawn California's congressional lines using a 14-member body balanced between Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Those were the lines under which Kiley had won a seat in Congress. Twice. The new lines, drawn by Democratic legislators at the urging of Gov. Gavin Newsom as a response to Republican redistricting in Texas, were [designed to flip up to five Republican-held seats](https://www.bhfs.com/insight/election-2025-californias-prop-50-passes/?ref=ivn.us). Kiley's old 3rd district, a vast territory stretching from the Sacramento suburbs across the Sierra Nevada mountains all the way to Death Valley, was one of the five targeted for gerrymandering. Under the commission's lines, Kiley won his 2022 open seat race by 7.3 points and his 2024 re-election by nearly 11 points in a district where Trump had carried the presidential vote. Under the Democratic legislature's new lines, the same numbered district was radically [reconfigured](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/california-proposition-50-kevin-kiley-district-3-potential-impacts/?ref=ivn.us), reaching deep into Democratic Sacramento County and flipping from a district Trump carried to [one where Harris would have won](https://www.kqed.org/news/12064834/how-prop-50-just-rewrote-californias-2026-congressional-map?ref=ivn.us) by double digits. [Kiley called it what it was](https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/southern-california/politics/2025/10/02/proposition-50-could-shift-california-s-3rd-congressional-district-and-the-balance-of-power-?ref=ivn.us). *"My district would be blown in six different directions," he said before the vote. "Both sides have been guilty of it. It's a plague on democracy, and it's uniquely bad in California, where voters put in place an independent commission to avoid exactly this."* The proposition passed anyway, and Kiley was left with no natural home. He considered running in the new 5th district, which would have set up a primary against fellow Republican incumbent Tom McClintock. He explored the new 3rd, where Democratic incumbent Ami Bera had already announced the moment Prop 50 was called on election night in 2025\. Kiley ultimately chose the new 6th, which includes his home city of Rocklin, along with Roseville, Citrus Heights, much of North and East Sacramento, and West Sacramento. Then, on the final day of filing, he posted what the California Target Book called "a bombshell announcement": he was leaving the Republican Party and running as no party preference candidate. "It is no secret I've been frustrated, at times disgusted, by the hyper-partisanship in Congress," [Kiley said](https://www.notus.org/republicans/rep-kevin-kiley-leaving-the-gop-republican-congress-majority?ref=ivn.us). "In the last year, it's led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, a massive increase in healthcare costs, and of course, a pointless redistricting war." In an interview with CBS, Kiley addressed [his choice to run in the new 6th](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/kevin-kiley-california-6th-congressional-district-run/?ref=ivn.us) over a safer Republican district directly. *"It's true that I was fully prepared to run in the new 5th, having tested the waters and with polls showing a favorable outlook in a 'safe' district. But doing what's easy and what's right are often not the same."* ## **The Sixth Congressional District Got Gerrymandered** Under the old commission-drawn lines, the 6th was a safely Democratic seat. Now, only half the district's former voters remain. Prop 50 stripped away deep blue Arden-Arcade and Rancho Cordova and replaced them with the reliably Republican Placer County communities of Roseville and Rocklin. A district that went for Harris by 13.9 points and Newsom by 8.8 points is now one where Harris's margin shrinks to 8.5 points and Newsom's to just 1.5 points. *Democratic registration still leads Republican by roughly 10 points districtwide, but the old double-digit advantage is gone.* The district's three counties each tell a different story. Sacramento County makes up 59% of total registration and leans Democratic by nearly 17 points. Yolo County, the smallest slice at 6.7%, leans Democratic by 25 points. Placer County, which accounts for 34% of the district and includes Rocklin, leans Republican by 5.9 points, the only county in the district where Republicans outnumber Democrats. The district's demographics have also shifted. White voters make up 54.9% of the citizen voting age population, down from 58.4% under the old lines. Latino voters account for 18.4% and Asian voters 10.6%. The share of Black voters in the citizen voting age population increases from 7% to 10.1%. The most recent comparable election result in this territory is a stark reminder of what Kiley faces. In November 2024, under the old district lines, Democratic incumbent Ami Bera defeated Republican Christine Bish by more than 15 points, 57.6% to 42.4%, carrying all of Sacramento County. The Prop 50 lines have changed the district's composition, but the underlying Democratic lean has not disappeared. ## **More Than 100,000 Unaffiliated Voters Will Decide** Kiley's path to November runs through the district's 95,705 NPP voters, concentrated in communities where neither major political party dominates and where voters have already shown they are willing to split their tickets. The new areas Prop 50 added to the district account for 225,526 voters. Roseville is the district's single largest community, with 104,384 voters, a Republican registration edge of 4.1 points, and a Trump margin of 2.8 points in 2024\. Rocklin, with 48,064 voters, leans Republican by 9.4 points and went for Trump by 6.8 points. Orangevale, with 24,070 voters, leans right by 13.6 points and backed Trump by 14 points. West Sacramento is the lone heavily Democratic addition, with 30,306 voters and a 25.1-point Democratic registration edge. Among the 224,658 voters carried over from the old district, Sacramento city contributes the most, 97,610 voters, with a Democratic registration edge of 36.5 points and a Harris margin of 36.3 points. Citrus Heights, with 51,193 voters, is the key toss-up community: Republican by 3.2 points on registration while backing Trump by 6.2 points in 2024\. Foothill Farms leans Democratic by 7.7 points, but went to Harris by less than a single point. Antelope is essentially even on registration but voted for Trump by 6 points. Those swing communities, Roseville, Citrus Heights, Antelope, and Foothill Farms, are where Kiley's independent brand either earns its value or proves hollow. The ticket-splitting is already there. The voters who back a Democrat for president and a Republican for Congress are precisely the voters an independent candidate needs. The question is whether voters will see Kiley’s message as genuinely refreshing or as something desperate. ## **Five Democrats and Two Republicans Compete in Nonpartisan Top-Two Primary** Seven candidates qualified for the June 2 top-two primary. Five are Democrats: Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho; former State Senator and physician Richard Pan; Lauren Babb-Tomlinson, chief of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte; Tyler Vandenberg, a former Jeopardy! Champion and Marine Corps veteran, and Martha Guerrero, a mayor and social worker from Yolo County. One Republican, Michael Enoch Stansfield, an applications engineer and author from Placer County, also qualified. Three other Republicans who filed under the old district lines did not make the ballot. *The California Democratic Party held a pre-endorsement conference but reached no consensus. Pan received 39% support, short of the threshold for an official endorsement, leaving the Democratic lane without a unified candidate heading into the primary.* Fundraising tells its own story. Among Democrats, Ho raised $377,199 and held $330,161 on hand as of Dec. 31, 2025\. Pan raised $317,976 with $128,697 remaining. Babb-Tomlinson raised $162,273 with $139,763 on hand. Vandenberg raised $38,419 with $11,880 cash and $19,434 in debt. Guerrero reported no activity. Stansfield reported nothing. Congressman Kiley is in a different financial universe entirely. He reported $2,087,842 in receipts, $417,684 in expenses, and $2,051,136 in cash on hand as of Dec. 31, 2025, with just $9,837 in debt. Kiley has more cash on hand than every other candidate in the race combined. Add to that the name recognition of a two-term incumbent whose current district overlaps substantially with the new 6th, and the picture is clearer: in a primary where five Democrats are splitting their party's vote, Kiley seems to have every advantage needed to consolidate the non-Democratic lane and advance to November. Under California's top-two system, the two highest vote-getters on June 2 advance regardless of party. If Kiley makes it through, he will almost certainly face one Democrat in November, in a district that still leans Democratic, with a voting record his opponent will spend heavily to deconstruct. ## **Is He Really Independent?** Here is where the politics get genuinely interesting, and where independent voters have the most reason to look carefully. Kiley's critics have a straightforward case. The [Maddow blog points out that he voted with Trump 98% of the time](https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/gop-member-becomes-an-independent-narrowing-the-house-republicans-edge-again?ref=ivn.us). He voted for the Republican domestic policy megabill, known as the [One Big Beautiful Bill Act](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/text?ref=ivn.us), last summer. Kiley says he is committed to caucusing with House Republicans through the end of his current term. And when asked whether he would continue caucusing with Republicans if re-elected, he declined to commit, saying only that he would do "[whatever serves my constituents](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/03/11/rep-kevin-kiley-becomes-the-10th-member-of-the-u-s-congress-to-change-party-affiliation-since-2000/?ref=ivn.us)." [Pan put it directly](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/rep-kevin-kiley-announces-run-in-californias-redrawn-6th-congressional-district/?ref=ivn.us): "Kevin Kiley can try to rebrand himself, but voters know his extreme record. He has stood with Donald Trump 98% of the time and was named a 'MAGA Champion'.” Kiley's defenders, and Kiley himself, will try and argue a counter-case. NBC reported that [Kiley voted with Democrats to terminate Trump's tariffs](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republican-kevin-kiley-seek-re-election-independent-california-seat-rcna262203?ref=ivn.us) on Canada. He introduced the PRESS Act, which passed with bipartisan support, to protect journalists from being compelled to reveal their sources. Most notably, Kiley was publicly critical of Speaker Johnson and introduced legislation to ban mid-decade redistricting nationwide, legislation Johnson never brought to the floor (["About,"](https://kiley.house.gov/about?ref=ivn.us) *Office of Congressman Kevin Kiley*). [Ballotpedia reported](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/03/11/rep-kevin-kiley-becomes-the-10th-member-of-the-u-s-congress-to-change-party-affiliation-since-2000/?ref=ivn.us) that he told reporters he did not notify Republican leadership before changing his registration from Republican to no party preference. Kiley’s frustration with the GOP, by some accounts, predates the gerrymandered map. In a country where independent registration is rising, both parties are broadly unpopular, and voters are increasingly skeptical of partisan loyalty as a virtue, the word "independent" carries genuine electoral value. Kiley is now betting his career on it. The unaffiliated voters of the new 6th district will decide whether it was a bet worth making. ## **Who Is Kevin Kiley?** Kevin Kiley was born on Jan. 30, 1985, and grew up in Granite Bay, where he was valedictorian of Granite Bay High School. His father was a physician, and his mother was a special education teacher. He earned a bachelor's degree in social studies from Harvard University in 2007, then taught high school English in South Los Angeles before attending law school. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2012 and a master's in secondary education from Loyola Marymount University. He later served as an adjunct professor at McGeorge School of Law. [Before entering politics](https://kiley.house.gov/about?ref=ivn.us), Kiley worked as an associate at the Irell and Manella law firm until 2015, when he joined the California Department of Justice as a deputy attorney general, helping prosecute the civil case against China's Huawei Technologies for intellectual property theft. First elected to the California State Assembly in 2016, Kiley served there until winning his congressional seat in 2022, defeating Democrat Kermit Jones by 7.3 points in an open-seat race. In between, he ran for governor in the 2021 Newsom recall election, finishing sixth among replacement candidates with just over 3% of the vote. He was re-elected to Congress in 2024, defeating Democrat Jessica Morse by nearly 11 points. Kiley and his wife, Chelsee, reside in Rocklin. The man asking independent voters for their support is, by any measure, an accomplished politician with a serious biography and a genuine record of public service. He is also a politician who spent nine years as a Republican, voted with his party the overwhelming majority of the time, and changed his registration on the last day of filing in a district drawn to defeat him. All of these things are true. What voters in California's new 6th congressional district decide to do with that information is the story of this race. ## **About California's Top Two Primary** The last day to register to vote for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election is May 18, 2026\. All active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. Ballots will begin mailing on May 4, and drop-off locations will open on May 5\. Early in-person voting begins May 23 in Voter's Choice Act counties. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by June 9.\* *This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, the California Target Book, California FPPC campaign finance filings, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Ballotpedia, and other local and regional reporting.* ## **Want to Know More?** ["About."](https://kiley.house.gov/about?ref=ivn.us) *Office of Congressman Kevin Kiley*. ["Ami Bera Announces Run for District 3 Seat Following Prop. 50's Passage."](https://fox40.com/news/local-news/rep-ami-bera-announces-run-for-district-3-seat-following-prop-50s-passage/?ref=ivn.us) *Fox40 News*, 5 Nov. 2025. Benen, Steve. ["GOP Member Becomes an Independent, Narrowing the House Republicans' Edge Again."](https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/gop-member-becomes-an-independent-narrowing-the-house-republicans-edge-again?ref=ivn.us) *MaddowBlog*, 9 Mar. 2026. Brownstein, et al. ["Election 2025: California's Prop 50 Passes."](https://www.bhfs.com/insight/election-2025-californias-prop-50-passes/?ref=ivn.us) *Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck*, 7 Nov. 2025. ["California's Special Election: Prop 50 and the Future of District 3."](https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/southern-california/politics/2025/10/02/proposition-50-could-shift-california-s-3rd-congressional-district-and-the-balance-of-power-?ref=ivn.us) *Spectrum News 1*, 2 Oct. 2025. Herrington, Torrie. ["Rep. Kevin Kiley Announces He's Leaving the GOP, Effective Immediately."](https://www.notus.org/republicans/rep-kevin-kiley-leaving-the-gop-republican-congress-majority?ref=ivn.us) *Notus*, 9 Mar. 2026. ["How Proposition 50 Just Rewrote California's 2026 Congressional Map."](https://www.kqed.org/news/12064834/how-prop-50-just-rewrote-californias-2026-congressional-map?ref=ivn.us) *KQED*, Nov. 2025. ["Key Takeaways from the Proposition 50 Election."](https://www.ppic.org/blog/key-takeaways-from-the-proposition-50-election?ref=ivn.us) *PPIC*, 12 Nov. 2025. ["Kevin Kiley's District 3 Among Those Targeted for Change Under California's Proposition 50."](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/california-proposition-50-kevin-kiley-district-3-potential-impacts/?ref=ivn.us) *CBS Sacramento*, Oct. 2025. Lee, MJ. ["Republican Kevin Kiley to Seek Re-Election as an Independent for California Seat."](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republican-kevin-kiley-seek-re-election-independent-california-seat-rcna262203?ref=ivn.us) *NBC News*, 2 Mar. 2026. Padilla, Cecilio. ["Rep. Kevin Kiley Announces Run in California's Redrawn 6th Congressional District."](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/rep-kevin-kiley-announces-run-in-californias-redrawn-6th-congressional-district/?ref=ivn.us) *CBS Sacramento*, 7 Mar. 2026. ["Prop 50 Congressional Maps Create 'Slider Puzzle' Effect Among Incumbents, Challengers."](https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/california/prop-50-congressional-maps-silder-puzzle-incumbents-challengers/103-877830ac-a481-460a-8e73-5b8d711ed066?ref=ivn.us) *ABC10*, Nov. 2025. ["Prop 50 Leaves Kevin Kiley Without a Clear District for 2026 Run."](https://www.capradio.org/articles/2025/11/05/prop-50-leaves-kevin-kiley-without-a-clear-district-for-2026-run/?ref=ivn.us) *CapRadio*, 5 Nov. 2025. ["Rep. Kevin Kiley."](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/kevin%5Fkiley/456881?ref=ivn.us) *GovTrack*. ["Rep. Kevin Kiley Becomes the 10th Member of the U.S. Congress to Change Party Affiliation Since 2000."](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/03/11/rep-kevin-kiley-becomes-the-10th-member-of-the-u-s-congress-to-change-party-affiliation-since-2000/?ref=ivn.us) *Ballotpedia News*, 11 Mar. 2026. ### Chad Bianco’s 650,000-Ballot Seizure Puts California Governor Race in National Spotlight URL: https://ivn.us/chad-biancos-650-000-ballot-seizure-puts-california-governor-race-in-national-spotlight-2026-03-23/ Last updated: 2026-04-06T22:50:20.000Z **RIVERSIDE, Calif** \- Riverside County sheriff and California gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco has bolstered his national name ID after he seized over 650,000 county ballots cast in the 2025 special election for Proposition 50. Proposition 50 was a statewide ballot measure approved by nearly 65% of California voters that suspended an independent congressional map and replaced it with a map drawn by the state legislature’s Democratic majority. Bianco’s actions in Riverside are part of an investigation he launched after a group of county residents that call themselves the Riverside Election Integrity Team claimed it found roughly 45,000 excess votes in the election. This figure has been disputed by Riverside Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco. Tinoco stated in a presentation before the county board of supervisors that [the discrepancy between ballots cast and ballots counted barely exceeded 100](https://riversiderecord.org/riverside-county-election-workshop-hopes-to-build-voter-confidence-ahead-of-midterms/?ref=ivn.us). Bianco says his department will hand count the seized ballots “to prove the election is accurate." He also noted during a press conference that he has been investigating election fraud claims since 2022. "We have found isolated instances of ballot fraud and voting for people who are dead or voting for people who don't live at the \[stated\] location. We have referred cases to the district attorney's office," he said. He added that his department has "not found any mass fraud in Riverside County." Democratic state Attorney General Rob Bonta says Bianco’s current investigation “appears not to be based on facts or evidence but on unfounded allegations that have already been refuted by the Riverside Registrar of Voters.” He has called on Bianco to pause the investigation. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, also a Democrat, questioned Bianco’s authority. She said investigations “into election processes must be conducted by those with the appropriate legal authority and subject matter expertise.” US Rep. Eric Swalwell, another gubernatorial candidate, clashed with Bianco on X. Swalwell asserted in a tweet that “[the only way MAGA knows how to win is by cheating](https://x.com/ericswalwell/status/2035476111862194596?ref=ivn.us).” Bianco [replied that Bonta was the one trying to block an investigation](https://x.com/ChadBianco/status/2035491838845731006?ref=ivn.us). Regardless of what happens next, this has made national headlines. [Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-sheriff-seizes-650000-ballots-defiance-state-officials-over-election-count-dispute?ref=ivn.us), [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/22/us/chad-bianco-riverside-california-ballots?ref=ivn.us), [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/us/politics/california-ballot-seizure-elections.html?ref=ivn.us), [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/california-gop-sheriff-running-governor-seizes-ballots-2025-election-rcna264710?ref=ivn.us), [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/23/california-sheriff-election-ballots-seized?ref=ivn.us), [The Daily Beast](https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumpy-sheriff-chad-bianco-gives-bonkers-reason-for-seizing-650k-ballots/?ref=ivn.us), and more have all posted stories about a Republican sheriff seizing ballots in California. And now, people are talking about Bianco at a time when election integrity is a hot-button issue. The FBI under the Trump administration recently [seized ballots in Fulton County, Georgia](https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/fulton-county-federal-government-election-records-mediation-fails-judge-ruling/?ref=ivn.us), pertaining to the 2020 presidential election. It has also [subpoenaed election records from Maricopa County, Arizona](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/fbi-subpoenas-election-records-arizona-expanding-2020-inquiry-rcna262504?ref=ivn.us). The US Department of Justice demanded at least 47 states hand over their voter rolls. Most states have refused, resulting in several lawsuits filed by the DOJ. Some of these cases [have been dismissed in California, Michigan, and Oregon](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/federal-courts-reject-trump-administrations-attempts-obtain-private-voter?ref=ivn.us). Meanwhile, President Trump [claims elections in California are rigged](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-trumps-claims-on-mail-in-voting-in-california?ref=ivn.us), and has called for national voter ID, proof of citizenship requirements, and the end to mail-in voting – among other things [that can be found in the federal SAVE America Act](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/live-blog/trump-congress-mullin-dhs-ice-supreme-court-mail-ballots-live-updates-rcna264632?ref=ivn.us). Bianco seizing more than half a million ballots in Riverside County adds more gasoline to the heated rhetoric between the two major parties over this issue, which boils down to Republicans and Democrats accusing each other of cheating. Democrats say Republicans are using unsubstantiated claims of fraud to justify policies that suppress the vote. Republicans say Democrats are trying to sweep voter fraud under the rug for their own gain. One side says investigations like Bianco’s are meant to sow distrust in the process, while the other side asks, what’s the harm in investigating these claims of fraud in elections? They assert that the investigation would put voters at ease and that the worst possible outcome is that the claims of fraud and/or mismanagement are true. "The outrage that an investigation was happening was extremely concerning to me, especially coming from someone who claims to be a law enforcement officer that is \[...\] an embarrassment to law enforcement," Bianco specifically said of Bonta. Critics have also raised concerns over the timing of Bianco’s investigation. They have pointed out that he is a candidate for statewide office (governor) who has now seized hundreds of thousands of ballots in a recent statewide election. Bianco pushed back on the idea that there is any connection between this investigation and his gubernatorial campaign. "I am the sheriff of Riverside County. I couldn't care less what I am doing in another election, and this has nothing to do with it," he said. "I have a duty to make sure we investigate crime in Riverside County or alleged crimes." Some polls, [like one recently conducted by the Independent Voter Project](https://ivn.us/posts/new-ivp-2026-california-governor-poll-what-the-toplines-dont-tell-you-2026-02-23), show Bianco as the frontrunner in the nonpartisan gubernatorial primary. Others show fellow Republican Steve Hilton in the top spot. While it may seem odd to think that two Republicans are leading a California primary, a crowded Democratic field is splitting their party's support base. It has made it difficult for a single Democrat to break out. A [recent Emerson College poll](https://emersoncollegepolling.com/california-2026-poll-swalwell-takes-lead-in-governor-primary-25-undecided-election-for-la-mayor-wide-open/?ref=ivn.us) shows Swalwell may be gaining momentum, but the lead isn't consistent across polling at the moment. Name ID will make a difference in this election, and while the debate over Bianco’s investigation will continue, one thing is certain: With only a few months remaining until the June 2 primary, there are a lot more people who now know his name. ### Crowded Mayoral Race Exposes Why Los Angeles Needs Ranked Choice Voting URL: https://ivn.us/crowded-mayoral-race-exposes-why-los-angeles-needs-ranked-choice-voting-2026-03-23/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T15:28:36.000Z The city of Los Angeles will hold a primary election on June 2 in which fourteen people are running for mayor, including a sitting councilmember, a sitting mayor, and a former reality television personality. A recent poll found that 51% of voters are still undecided. The frontrunner, [Mayor Karen Bass](https://mayor.lacity.gov/?ref=ivn.us), has the support of 20% of those who have made up their minds. This is the system working as designed. It is also, by almost any measure, a system straining under its own weight. That tension is precisely what the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission has spent the better part of a year trying to address. In February, the 13-member citizens panel voted 10-1 to recommend that the city adopt ranked choice voting for all municipal elections beginning in 2032\. It's a reform that would eliminate the current two-stage primary-and-runoff structure in favor of a single election in which voters rank candidates in order of preference. The commission's full package of recommendations goes to the City Council by April 2nd. The council has until the end of July to decide what, if anything, goes before voters in November. What happens next will say a great deal about whether Los Angeles elected officials are serious about democratic reform or content with just talking about it. ## **The Mechanics, and Why They Matter** Ranked choice voting is not a new idea, nor is it an untested one. It is already used statewide in Maine and Alaska and in elections in New York City and 35 other cities. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has used a version of it for decades to select the Best Picture winner at the Oscars, held in LA. Academy members rank nominees in order of preference. If no film reaches 50% on the first count, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated, and those ballots transfer to each voter's next choice. The process repeats until a winner emerges with majority support. The Academy adopted the system for a straightforward reason: in a competitive field, a simple plurality vote rewards intensity of support, not breadth of it. Without RCV, a film beloved by a small and passionate minority can beat a film that most academy members would have preferred. The same logic applies – with considerably different stakes – to elections. [Former Santa Monica Mayor Michael Feinstein](https://www.feinstein.org/?ref=ivn.us), currently a [candidate for California Secretary of State](https://x.com/Feinstein4SoS?ref=ivn.us), has been a proponent of ranked choice voting for more than two decades. Feinstein, the co-founder of California’s Green Party, is also a supporter of proportional representation. > LA Charter Reform Commission recommends expanding LA City Council, switching to ranked-choice voting (RCV) system - I'm quoted supporting RCV > [https://t.co/ictAf5x3wA](https://t.co/ictAf5x3wA?ref=ivn.us) [#rankechoicevoting](https://twitter.com/hashtag/rankechoicevoting?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [#caelections](https://twitter.com/hashtag/caelections?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [#LApolitics](https://twitter.com/hashtag/LApolitics?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [#LACityCouncil](https://twitter.com/hashtag/LACityCouncil?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [#LACharterReform](https://twitter.com/hashtag/LACharterReform?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [#electoralreform](https://twitter.com/hashtag/electoralreform?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [#votingrights](https://twitter.com/hashtag/votingrights?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) [https://t.co/VAxbRzWzV2](https://t.co/VAxbRzWzV2?ref=ivn.us) [pic.twitter.com/brWqVuumvS](https://t.co/brWqVuumvS?ref=ivn.us) > > — Feinstein4SoS (@Feinstein4SoS) [March 3, 2026](https://twitter.com/Feinstein4SoS/status/2028641778447028676?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) > *"Ranked choice voting allows voters to express their preferences over more than one candidate, it gets rid of the spoiler issue, and gives voters a much greater voice. It also saves money because the city is required to conduct one election instead of a primary and runoff election."* ## **The Spoiler Problem Has a Name, and It's on the Ballot** The 2026 mayoral race in LA illustrates the spoiler problem with unusual clarity. Bass, the incumbent, leads the field at 20% in recent polling. Councilmember [Nithya Raman](https://cd4.lacity.gov/?ref=ivn.us), who [entered the race](https://www.nithyaforthecity.com/?ref=ivn.us) just hours before the filing deadline in a surprise move that upended the political landscape, sits at slightly more than 9%. Spencer Pratt, the former reality television figure, is at just over 10%. In a multicandidate field with a frontrunner at 20%, voters face a choice that has less to do with their actual preferences than with their strategic calculations. Bass and Raman are likely to draw from overlapping constituencies. A voter who genuinely prefers Raman must weigh whether voting sincerely risks splitting the progressive vote and delivering the runoff to someone else entirely. This is not a hypothetical concern. It is the defining feature of plurality voting in crowded fields, and it has a long history of producing outcomes that satisfy almost no one. Under ranked choice voting, that same voter ranks Raman first and Bass second. The strategic dilemma disappears. The vote reflects what the voter actually wants. Raman co-authored the measure that Los Angeles voters approved in November 2024, establishing an Independent Redistricting Commission, which takes the drawing of council district lines out of the hands of the politicians who benefit from them. ## **A Commission Built for This Moment** The Charter Reform Commission was not convened to tinker at the margins. It was created in direct response to the city's 2022 audio leak scandal, in which elected officials were recorded making racist remarks, and to a broader pattern of corruption cases that had eroded public trust in the Los Angeles city government. Mayor Bass, City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, and former Council President Paul Krekorian appointed its 13 members; the commission has been meeting since last July. Its recommendations extend beyond ranked choice voting. In a 9-2 vote, the commission called for expanding the City Council from 15 to 25 members, a change that would be the first of its kind since 1925, when the city had fewer than 600,000 residents. Los Angeles today is the nation's 2nd-largest city, with nearly 4 million people, and each of its 15 council members currently represents an average of 265,000 constituents. At 25 seats, that number would fall to roughly 159,000\. Supporters argued that smaller districts would produce more equitable representation, particularly for Black residents and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities that have historically been underrepresented on the council. It is worth noting that the last time Los Angeles undertook a major charter overhaul, in 1999, voters created the neighborhood council system, expanded mayoral authority, and, on that same ballot, rejected any expansion of the council. A quarter century later, the commission is making the case again. One moment from the commission's February meeting captured the stakes of the conversation. When Commissioner Christina Sanchez raised concerns that non-English-speaking voters and those in underserved communities might struggle to navigate a new ranked-choice voting system, the audience responded immediately. "Are you calling us stupid?" two attendees said. The commission moved to recommend a formal ordinance requiring language accessibility provisions and voter education as part of any implementation. Marcela Miranda-Prieto is the Executive Director of CalRCV and has been leading the charge to make it a reality in LA. > *“Everywhere ranked choice voting is used, voters say they like and understand it,” she said. “RCV empowers voters with more choices and eliminates costly runoffs.”* ## **The Larger Question** Sean McMorris, program manager for transparency, ethics, and accountability at California Common Cause, has written that pairing ranked-choice voting with California's nonpartisan election system would create political dynamics with no real precedent in cities that hold partisan primaries. The incentive structure for candidates would shift: attacking a rival too aggressively risks alienating that candidate's supporters, whose second-choice votes you might need. Progressives in New York City demonstrated this in practice, forming explicit alliances to maximize ranked-ballot support. Whether that kind of coalition politics would take hold in Los Angeles is an open question, but the structural incentives would point in that direction. McMorris is clear-eyed about the political economy of reform. "Those who've won office through the current system are often the least eager to change it," he has noted. The City Council, which must decide by July whether to send these changes to voters, is composed entirely of people elected under the current rules. That is the challenge Los Angeles faces, and it is not a small one. The Charter Reform Commission has done its work. The question now belongs to the city council. ### Your 5-Hour Airport Wait is Congress’s Fault: THIS is How We Fix It URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/your-5-hour-airport-wait-is-congresss-fault-this-is-how-we-fix-it-2026-03-19/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:38:24.000Z What happens when only a small percentage of voters actually decide elections? **TSA delays** and **government shutdowns**. This is the end result of a political system driven by closed primaries, low turnout, and strategic campaigning. Chad Peace, Cara McCormick, and Shawn Griffiths break down how the **spoiler effect**, media influence, and **super PAC spending** shape outcomes long before voters have a real say, and what reforms could open the system to real competition and broader participation. ## **Episode Highlights** The latest episode of the Independent Voter Podcast breaks down the growing dysfunction in U.S. politics, using a **DHS shutdown** and **TSA staffing** crisis as a real-time example of partisan gridlock, budget battles, and failed governance. Congress’s inability to fund the Department of Homeland Security has left federal workers unpaid, underscoring broader concerns about political polarization, midterm election strategy, and dysfunction. This crisis is a symptom of a system designed to frame everything in a "Democrats vs Republicans" narrative, while voters face the real-world consequences of stalled legislation and partisan brinkmanship. As Illinois just conducted its primary elections, we shift the conversation to election reform, focusing heavily on closed primaries, low voter turnout, and plurality voting systems that allow candidates to win with less than 25% of the vote. A clear example of this is IVN editor Shawn Griffiths' home congressional district, IL-7, where Democratic nominee La Shawn Ford won his primary with 24% – and is now guaranteed to replace outgoing US Rep. Danny Davis. This system disenfranchises independent voters, amplifies the influence of political consultants, and rewards hyper-partisan campaign strategies over broad voter appeal. Finally, the podcast dives into the role of **money in politics**, **super PAC spending**, media influence, and candidate viability narratives. We discuss how under the current system political insiders, polling, and campaign funding shape election outcomes more than voters themselves. It all connects to larger structural issues, including ballot access, name recognition politics, and the marginalization of independent and third-party candidates. We conclude that meaningful reform – such as **Top Four primaries**, **ranked choice voting** in general elections, and expanded voter participation – is essential to reducing polarization and creating a more representative democracy, especially as independent voters continue to grow as the largest voting bloc in the US. ### Will Independent Voters Deliver Dawn Addis a Third Assembly Term in California’s Central Coast? URL: https://ivn.us/will-independent-voters-deliver-dawn-addis-a-third-assembly-term-in-californias-central-coast-2026-03-19/ Last updated: 2026-03-19T17:16:54.000Z Assembly District 30 stretches along one of California's most storied coastlines, covering portions of San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and Santa Cruz Counties. The district includes the cities of San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, Atascadero, Paso Robles, Arroyo Grande, Pismo Beach, and Grover Beach in the south, running north through Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Seaside, Marina, and Capitola, along with Sand City, Del Rey Oaks, and a zero-population split of Watsonville. The district is anchored in San Luis Obispo County, which accounts for more than half its registered voters, and stretches up the coast through Monterey County and into Santa Cruz County. Its communities share a tourism-driven economy, a strong environmental ethic, and deep ties to higher education, including California State University Monterey Bay and the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The Central Coast has long drawn visitors for its dramatic scenery, from the rocky shores of Carmel-by-the-Sea and the landmark Morro Rock in Morro Bay to the wine country of Paso Robles and the beach towns of the San Luis Obispo coast. It is a region where the economy runs on hospitality, agriculture, and education, and where concerns about housing affordability, water supply, and coastal preservation dominate local politics. ## **Demographics, Housing, and Cost of Living** According to the 2023 American Community Survey, Assembly District 30 has a total population of 475,439\. The district is 63.4% White and 23.9% Latino, with Asian residents comprising 4.9% and Black residents 1.6%. The citizen voting age population stands at 76.9%, with 12.5% of residents foreign-born and 6.0% classified as non-citizens. The district is relatively affluent by California standards. The median household income is $97,987, with a mean household income of $138,457 and a per capita income of $55,467\. Educational attainment is high, with 43.9% of residents holding a bachelor's degree and 18.3% holding a graduate degree. About 11.8% of residents live below the poverty line, 5.8% lack health insurance, and 6.7% of households receive food assistance. Housing costs reflect the desirability of the coastal location. Owner-occupied homes account for 58.1% of the housing stock, while 41.9% of residents rent. The median home value is $872,900, among the highest in the state, and the median monthly rent is $2,076\. The district is home to approximately 25,130 civilian veterans. ## **Registration Trends: A Comfortable and Growing Democratic Advantage** As of December 30, 2025, Assembly District 30 had 307,638 registered voters. Democrats hold 45.2% of registrations, Republicans 27.5%, and No Party Preference voters 19.2%, with the remainder distributed among minor parties, including American Independent at 4.7% and Libertarian at 1.3%. Democrats hold a registration advantage of 17.8 points. The trajectory of that advantage tells a story of steady Democratic consolidation. In 2008, the Democratic edge stood at just under 8 points. It widened gradually during the Obama years and expanded sharply during the Trump era, reaching a peak of 18.75 points in 2022 before settling at roughly 17.8 points. Republican registration has fallen from 33.8% in 2008 to 27.5% today, while the Democratic share has climbed from 41.7% to 45.2%. No Party Preference voters have grown as a share of the electorate as well, rising from 18.9% in 2008 to a high of 25% in 2018 before pulling back to 19.2% today. The NPP share is notably lower here than in many competitive California districts, reflecting a more settled partisan composition. That said, with nearly one in five voters holding no party affiliation, NPP voters remain a meaningful presence in any primary contest. The district's three counties carry very different partisan profiles. San Luis Obispo County accounts for 53.6% of registered voters and leans Democratic by just 3.5 points, making it the swing center of the district. Monterey County, at 29% of registrations, leans Democratic by 26.2 points. Santa Cruz County, the smallest slice at 17.4%, is the most heavily Democratic of the three, with a 42.5-point advantage. ## **Past Election Results: Consistent Democratic Strength** Assembly District 30 has delivered consistent and often lopsided Democratic margins at the top of the ticket. Barack Obama carried the district by 24.3% in 2008 and by 19.9% in 2012\. Hillary Clinton won it by 25.7% in 2016, Joe Biden by 30.1% in 2020, and Kamala Harris by 27.1% in 2024\. Gavin Newsom carried the district by 20.6% in both 2018 and 2022\. In the 2024 U.S. Senate race, Adam Schiff won by 23 points over Republican Steve Garvey. The 2024 ballot measure results offer some nuance. While the district backed most Democratic-leaning measures, voters rejected Proposition 32, which would have raised the minimum wage, by a narrow 3.2-point margin. They did support Proposition 36, which increased sentencing for certain drug and theft crimes, by a wide 23.7-point margin, reflecting a cross-partisan concern about public safety that cuts across the district's otherwise solidly blue lean. At the Assembly level, Addis won her 2024 re-election race by a commanding 62.4% to 37.6% margin over Republican Dalila Epperson, a broadcast journalist and former congressional primary candidate. Her strongest performance came in Santa Cruz County, where she won 76.3%, while San Luis Obispo County, as expected, was her most competitive county at 55.1%. ## **The 2026 Race** Assembly District 30 is not among California's most contested races in 2026\. Addis enters the cycle as a well-funded incumbent in a district that has trended steadily toward her party for nearly two decades. One Republican has filed to challenge her: Shannon Kessler, a realtor and parents' rights activist from Arroyo Grande. A second Democrat, Susannah Brown of San Luis Obispo County, has also filed, though she reported no fundraising activity as of the end of 2025. Addis closed 2025 with $528,912 on hand after raising $168,479 in the most recent period. Kessler has raised $144,294 to date and ended the year with $108,803 on hand. Addis has received both the California Democratic Party's pre-endorsement conference endorsement and the party's official primary endorsement. ## **The Candidates** ### **Dawn Addis (Democrat, Incumbent)** [Dawn Addis](https://dawnaddis.org/?ref=ivn.us), born July 12, 1972, is a former teacher and Morro Bay city councilmember who was first elected to the Assembly in 2022 and re-elected in 2024\. Her path to Sacramento was not direct. She ran for the same seat in 2020, losing by double digits to Republican incumbent Jordan Cunningham in what was then a more competitive district. She did not give up, winning a council seat in Morro Bay in 2018 and running again after redistricting shifted the district's lines in her favor. Raised in Mill Valley, Addis graduated from Tamalpais High School, studied at Humboldt State, and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in Spanish and art education from San Francisco State University in 2000, a teaching credential in 2001, and a master's in special education teaching in 2006\. After relocating to Morro Bay with her husband and children in 2001, she spent years teaching in the San Luis Coastal Unified School District at Morro Elementary, Pacific Beach, San Luis Obispo High School, Pacheco Elementary, and Laguna Middle School, working as a Teacher on Special Assignment as an English learner intervention specialist. She is an executive board member of the San Luis Coastal Teachers Association. Her civic engagement predates her electoral career. Following the 2016 election, she co-founded the San Luis Obispo Women's March, which drew a crowd of 10,000 people in 2017, and went on to support the student-led March for Our Lives in 2018 and a march against the Trump Administration's immigration detention policies that same year. She also served on the Morro Bay Citizens' Finance Advisory Committee in 2017. [In the Assembly](https://addis.asmdc.org/?ref=ivn.us), Addis serves on the Budget, Health, Business and Professions, and Insurance Committees, and chairs the Budget Subcommittee No. 1 on Health, which oversees eight state departments and a budget of $175 billion. She also chairs the Select Committee on Serving Students with Disabilities and serves as the Assembly's appointee to the Ocean Protection Council. She is the founding chair of the California Legislative Central Coast Caucus and president of the California Legislative Central Coast Caucus Foundation. [Addis](https://www.facebook.com/addis4centralcoast/) carries several historic distinctions. She is the first Democrat from San Luis Obispo County to serve in the State Assembly since 1922, the first Democratic woman ever to hold the seat, and the first Democrat to represent the majority of San Luis Obispo County in the Assembly since 1947. Her voting record reflects her district's lean. She has received perfect scores from the ACLU, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the California Labor Federation, the California League of Conservation Voters, Equality California, Planned Parenthood of California, the Sierra Club California, and UFCW. The California Chamber of Commerce gave her a 0% rating in 2023, and the National Rifle Association gave her a 0% rating in 2024. Also in 2026, Addis is carrying [Assembly Bill 1159](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F202520260ab1159?ref=ivn.us), a high-profile student data privacy bill that would close loopholes in California's 2014 education privacy law, restrict how AI companies use student data, and create new protections for college students, including a right to sue tech companies for certain privacy violations. The bill has drawn support from the California Labor Federation and opposition from the California Chamber of Commerce and TechNet, a trade association representing major technology companies. She has also introduced [Assembly Bill 2034](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB2034&ref=ivn.us), which would require food and chemical companies to submit evidence to the California Department of Public Health demonstrating the safety of food additives that have not undergone federal pre-market review, targeting a longstanding loophole that allows companies to self-certify ingredients as generally recognized as safe without informing the FDA. The bill would also require public disclosure of ingredients currently hidden behind vague labels such as "artificial flavor" or "natural flavor." "Californians deserve clear, honest information about what they're putting in their bodies," Addis said. "For far too long, companies have exploited vague labeling and federal loopholes to conceal dangerous chemicals in the foods that families trust." In early 2026, Addis also co-authored [Assembly Bill 1744](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billPdf.xhtml?bill%5Fid=202520260AB1744&version=20250AB174499INT&ref=ivn.us), which would prohibit sunscreen products from being labeled as "reef safe" or similar terms when they contain chemicals harmful to marine ecosystems. The bill advanced unanimously through the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee in March 2026\. "One of the major problems is that certain chemicals that are commonly found in sunscreen are of particular concern, because when you get in the water, they wash off your body and into the ocean," Addis said during the hearing. The legislation reflects both her environmental priorities and the economic stakes for her district, where coastal tourism generates roughly $51 billion annually for the state. In her role as chair of the Budget Subcommittee on Health, Addis has also focused on the Central Coast's doctor shortage, convening a hearing in 2026 on how federal budget cuts could worsen access to physicians in medically underserved areas. "I've heard from people almost daily that they would like to see a doctor. They have insurance," she said. "They go to make an appointment, and they simply can't get an appointment because there's just not enough doctors in the system." Addis and her husband, Marcus, reside in Morro Bay. They have two sons. ### **Shannon Kessler (Republican)** Shannon Kessler, born September 21, 1968, is a realtor, Harvest Church ministry director, parents' rights activist, and member of the San Luis Obispo County Republican Central Committee. A sixth-generation Californian, she began her career in real estate as a sales associate for Prudential California Realty in 2003, obtained her realtor's license in 2004, and worked as a Century 21 realtor from 2005 until 2023, when she became the principal broker at Shannon Kessler Real Estate. She and her husband Jim co-own a family construction company as well. Kessler's civic involvement includes serving as an Arroyo Grande Parks and Recreation Commissioner, PTA president, and coordinator of a local walking club. She is also the founder of Culture Impact, an organization that encourages citizen engagement and civic volunteerism, and of Save Girls' Sports Central Coast, a group advocating for the protection of female-only athletic competition. She is positioning herself as a practical outsider alternative to career politicians, running on themes of public safety, affordability, and parental involvement in schools. "I am not a career politician," she has said. "I am a mother, business owner, and community member ready to serve. This campaign isn't about party labels — it's about restoring common sense and protecting the future of our community." She has said she entered the race because "public safety, affordability, and accountability are no longer being treated as priorities" and that "families are struggling to stay in the communities they love." Her platform centers on reducing retail theft and holding repeat offenders accountable, reforming homelessness programs to focus on treatment and measurable outcomes, cutting regulatory burdens on small businesses, and lowering the cost of living for working families and seniors. On education, she has emphasized parental involvement and student safety. On energy and the environment, she has called for opposing offshore drilling while also pushing for more affordable and reliable power, arguing that rising utility costs are straining Central Coast families. Notably for a Republican, she has also staked out support for protecting the coastline and responsible land stewardship, themes that resonate across party lines in a district defined by its natural beauty. Kessler has received the endorsement of the California Republican Party. "Shannon's common-sense solutions and vision for California will be a refreshing addition to Sacramento," said California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin in February 2026\. She has also been endorsed by former San Luis Obispo County Supervisors Lynn Compton and Debbie Arnold. She has raised $144,294 to date and ended 2025 with $108,803 on hand, a notable fundraising start for a Republican challenging a well-funded incumbent in a heavily Democratic coastal district. Kessler and her husband, Jim, are the parents of adult children and reside in Arroyo Grande. The couple enjoys surfing and hiking with their family on the Central Coast. ### **Susannah Brown (Democrat)** Susannah Brown is a San Luis Obispo County Democrat who filed to run in the AD30 race in January 2026\. She reported no fundraising activity as of the end of 2025\. Additional biographical information is forthcoming. ## **The Role of Independent Voters in AD30** With nearly 59,200 voters registered with No Party Preference, roughly one in five voters in Assembly District 30 belongs to no party. While the NPP share here, at 19.2%, is lower than in many of California's more competitive districts, it has grown considerably over time, rising from 18.9% in 2008 to a peak of 25% in 2018 before settling back to its current level. In raw numbers, that represents tens of thousands of voters who have declined to align with either major party in a district that has otherwise trended steadily toward Democrats. The county-by-county breakdown adds nuance. San Luis Obispo County, the district's largest and most politically competitive slice, holds a Democratic registration edge of just 3.5 points. In that environment, NPP voters carry considerably more weight than the district-wide numbers suggest. A candidate able to make a compelling case to unaffiliated voters in San Luis Obispo County, whether in a contested primary or a general election, holds a meaningful advantage. The presence of a second Democrat on the ballot in 2026 also means the June primary will draw additional attention to how NPP voters distribute their support across candidates of the same party, a dynamic that can shape which candidates advance to November under California's top-two system. ## **About the 2026 California Top Two Primary** The last day to register to vote for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election is May 18, 2026\. All active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. Ballots will begin mailing on May 4, and drop-off locations will open on May 5\. Early in-person voting begins May 23 in Voter's Choice Act counties. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by June 9. *This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, the California Target Book, California FPPC campaign finance filings, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Ballotpedia, and other local and regional reporting.* ### My Next Congressman Won His Primary with 24% of the Vote URL: https://ivn.us/my-next-congressman-won-his-primary-with-24-of-the-vote-2026-03-18/ Last updated: 2026-03-24T20:26:45.000Z Illinois conducted its 2026 primary elections Tuesday, and in some cases the winner advanced to November with around or less than 30% of the vote. In my congressional district, IL-7, State Representative La Shawn Ford won the Democratic primary with roughly 24% of the vote. There are no runoffs in Illinois primaries. Ford is now the Democratic nominee for the district – and he is all but guaranteed to win in the general election. Illinois’ 7th Congressional District is oddly shaped and includes a sizable chunk of Chicago. It is currently represented by outgoing US Rep. Danny Davis, who won re-election in 2024 with nearly 84% of the vote. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/03/illinois-seventh-district.png) He garnered 80% of the vote in 2020 in a three-person race that included an independent who took 6%. In 2022, Republicans didn’t even bother to field a candidate. [The 10 Worst Gerrymandered States in the CountryMonday marked another escalation in the mid-cycle redistricting fight between Republicans in Texas and Democrats in California – with one in another special session to add 5 more GOP seats, and the other maneuvering to counter this with 5 new Democratic seats.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-18.jpg)Independent VoterShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/ChatGPT-Image-Aug-18--2025--02_38_38-PM.png)](https://ivn.us/10-worst-gerrymandered-states-country-2025-08-18/) Davis has held the seat for nearly 3 decades. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Ford will be his successor, and Ford did it with about 4% of the district’s total registered voter population. *To be transparent: Voter registration data is released by county in Illinois and there isn’t an official total in a single congressional district that falls in that county (about 7 or 8 overlap into Cook County in some way). However, rough estimates put the registered voter population in IL-7 at around half a million.* Given that this was an open seat in a deep blue district, many Democrats filed to run. Voters who participated in the Democratic primary had 13 names from which to choose – meaning a majority winner was already unlikely. With so many names in the field, it was an opportunity for monied interests to try to influence the outcome. Cryptocurrency groups spent $2.3 million on ads attacking Ford. AIPAC donors spent nearly $5 million to help his closest opponent Melissa Conyears-Ervin, who came in second with 20.5% of the vote. AIPAC stands for American Israel Public Affairs Committee (a pro-Israel PAC). Donors associated with it spent [$13.7 million in Chicago-area primaries](https://www.wbez.org/politics/2026/02/27/aipac-pro-israel-groups-chicago-area-democratic-congressional-primaries-miller-conyears-ervin-bean-fine?ref=ivn.us) – and even more statewide. [Some of their candidates won](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/elections/house-primaries-aipac-allies-illinois.html?ref=ivn.us) and some of them lost. While Ford didn’t have PAC support, he relied on political capital. [Specifically, he was Davis’ choice.](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-primary-elections/illinois-us-house-district-7-results?ref=ivn.us) Still, special interest groups saw an opening under a system that not only draws low voter turnout but can be decided with a marginal percentage of voters. Illinois conducts closed primary elections decided by plurality (meaning a majority isn’t needed). Voters have to be affiliated with a party to vote. However, a person states their affiliation at the polls and can change their party affiliation each election cycle. Voters do not register by party, but a voter’s eligibility to vote in a primary can be challenged. So, independent voters are discouraged from participating. It is important to note for anyone worried about the influence of money in politics that money has the greatest impact in systems that encourage small plurality winners and bars and/or discourages voter participation. **Consider this analogy.** Let’s say I put out a new brand of chocolate bar, and I give my marketing team a budget and tell them to convince 100 people to buy my product. The more I increase that goal, the harder it becomes for my team to hit it without having to spend more money. Money spent in an election has a greater impact when there are less voters to target. It becomes even more influential when a group knows they only need to get their candidate to about a third or less of the vote to win. This is why many election reformers tell people the most meaningful improvement to elections in the US is to target how candidates are elected. Special and monied interest groups have less influence in systems that prioritize fairness and accountability for voters. In what world can an election in which 76% of people voted for someone other than the winner in a deciding contest in which they were picked by 4% of the total electorate be considered democratic? Taxpayer-funded elections should be open to all voters, regardless of party. And elections should result in majority winners. Reforms like nonpartisan open primaries and ranked choice voting are growing in popularity because they promote equal voting rights, fairer and meaningful choice, and competition even in districts historically considered safe for one party or the other. Why do you think party insiders are attacking these reforms? Why do you think Republican leaders in 20 states have banned ranked choice voting? Or why Democratic leaders in Washington DC don’t want to implement voter-approved open primaries? Why do you think special interest groups are trying to repeal nonpartisan primaries and ranked choice voting in Alaska? And it is their second attempt after a majority of Alaska voters re-affirmed they want these reforms in 2024. It is because it is easier to influence and control election outcomes when elections don’t put voters first. It is easier to manipulate results when independent voters are barred, and a candidate can win with less than 30% of the vote. ### Ignored, Excluded, Rising: The Training Turning Independent Voters into a Political Force URL: https://ivn.us/ignored-excluded-rising-the-training-turning-independent-voters-into-a-political-force-2026-03-17/ Last updated: 2026-03-17T18:43:18.000Z [Forty-five percent of Americans now identify as independent](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?ref=ivn.us). That’s a plurality. Independents are the fastest-growing grouping of voters in many states. And yet, when it comes to the national conversation about politics, the independent voice is nearly invisible — drowned out by two parties who have every institutional incentive to keep it that way. That’s exactly what Open Primaries’ [Independents’ Spokesperson Training](https://openprimaries.org/independents-spokesperson-training/?ref=ivn.us) is designed to change. In a recent training, we asked participants to finish one sentence: “I’m an independent (or I’m independent-minded) because…” The responses were varied, personal, and powerful. Different states. Different life experiences. One common thread: they had all made a deliberate choice to be independent, and they had something to say about it. **Watch the video. Then keep reading.** ## About the Spokesperson Training Since its launch in 2021, Open Primaries’ Spokesperson Training has worked with 320 participants in 45 states, Washington, DC and the Virgin Islands. They include lifelong activists and first-time volunteers, elected officials and people who have never run for anything, seasoned public speakers and people who have never spoken publicly about their political identity. Veterans, educators, healthcare workers, and community organizers who see primary reform as directly connected to issues they care about. Former Democrats and former Republicans who left their parties and want to explain why. Lifelong independents who have never felt represented by either party and younger voters frustrated that the system was built as if they don’t exist. *What they share: a belief that the independent voice deserves to be heard—and a willingness to be part of making that happen.* Over the years, the training has also become a go-to resource across the broader political reform movement. National organizations including the Forward Party, Independent Veterans of America, Veterans for All Voters, and The Good Party — alongside local reform campaigns and civic organizations — regularly refer their volunteers and members to participate. The range of participants is not incidental—it is what makes Open Primaries’ Independent Spokesperson Training special. The Spokesperson Training, which I host, takes place on Zoom. It is a focused, practical session that is unique in combining education and performance training. Participants view a presentation on the independent political landscape, then engage in a Q&A with Jackie Salit—founder of IndependentVoting.org, national board member of the Forward Party, and co-director of the Center for Independent and Sustainable Democracy at ASU. They then receive performance coaching from top trainers—and independents—Cathy Salit, Maureen Kelly, and Madelyn Chapman. The work is grounded in a simple premise: Everyone has a story to tell about why they’re independent and those stories are critical if we’re going to change our political culture. Crucially, the training does not ask participants to adopt a single message or speak on behalf of a platform. It asks them to speak on behalf of themselves. That authenticity is what makes it work. Changing that system requires political will—and political will requires a story. Not talking points. Not party-approved language. A real story, told by real people, about why they chose independence and what it costs them not to have a voice. Some participants come in with media experience and want to sharpen their messaging. Others have never spoken publicly about their political identity and want to find language for something they’ve felt for years but never quite named. Both are welcome. What they share: a belief that the independent voice deserves to be heard—and a willingness to be part of making that happen. > *“This training helped me to formulate powerful messaging around allowing independents to access their rights to vote in every election. I highly recommend engaging in this workshop.”* **— Barbara Stallone, Executive Director, People4Utah** > *“The training can be different for each person. For me, it solidified my suspicions. Freedom isn’t free. Staying on the sidelines isn’t optional. Politics is a contact sport. Let’s organize, sharpen our message and get going. That’s what the training meant to me.”* **— Nasser Ghaleb, Veteran** > *"This training has given me the language to articulate my thoughts about being an independent voter and increased my confidence in being able to take action steps to bring independent voters out of the ‘dark’ and to highlight their essential role in our political system.”* **— Kira Herbert, Educator** ## Apply for the May 18 Training The next Spokesperson Training takes place on May 18\. Space is limited. You do not need to be a public speaker. You do not need prior experience. You need to be an independent voter who is ready to talk about it. **Apply** [**here**](https://openprimaries.org/independents-spokesperson-training/?ref=ivn.us)**.** ## About The Author *Gwen Mandell is Director of Leadership Development at Open Primaries and the organizer and host of the Independents' Spokesperson Training. She can be contacted at* [*gmandell@openprimaries.org*](mailto:gmandell@openprimaries.org) ### John Fetterman Blasts Hypocrisy on Both Sides of the SAVE Act Fight URL: https://ivn.us/john-fetterman-blasts-hypocrisy-on-both-sides-of-the-save-act-fight-2026-03-16/ Last updated: 2026-03-24T20:29:09.000Z US Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) is no stranger to criticism from his own party. He recently broke from the party line on [the war powers vote](https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/03/02/congress/fetterman-needles-democrats-over-iran-strikes-opposition-00807140?ref=ivn.us), calling it “empty sloganeering.” He is open to [Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s nomination as new DHS secretary](https://www.counton2.com/hill-politics/fetterman-on-supporting-mullin-for-dhs-secretary-why-cant-you-just-give-someone-a-chance/?ref=ivn.us). He has even expressed his support for voter ID while the SAVE Act (Now the SAVE America Act) is up for consideration, though he won’t vote for the bill “[in its current state](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-fetterman-calls-trump-criticism-of-mail-in-voting-ridiculous-save-america-act/?ref=ivn.us).” This [angered many Republicans and Trump supporters](https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-turns-on-republicans-favorite-independent-democrat-john-fetterman-over-save-act/?ref=ivn.us) who thought they had an ally on the other side of the aisle. After all, just a month ago Fetterman criticized leaders of his own party for calling the SAVE Act “Jim Crow 2.0.” This, however, was before more was added to the legislation – including a ban on mail-in voting (except in some cases) and provisions focused on transgenderism. Fetterman [called President Donald Trump’s criticism of mail-in voting, in particular, “ridiculous.”](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-fetterman-calls-trump-criticism-of-mail-in-voting-ridiculous-save-america-act/?ref=ivn.us) "It's safe. Some of the best examples in the country are from red states like Ohio and Florida," he said. Fetterman noted that the SAVE America Act is essentially dead in the Senate, which the chamber’s majority leader, John Thune, also indicated last week. It doesn’t have the support to break the filibuster, something Trump wants to end. However, this is not likely to happen. Republicans have long supported the filibuster, especially when they were in the minority. Now the party is divided on it. Fetterman said he and some other Democrats ran in 2022 to put an end to the filibuster, but now they defend it. "Now, we find ourselves as Democrats, we love the filibuster, we cling to that," Fetterman said. The hypocrisy doesn’t just end at the filibuster. Fetterman also pointed out that Republicans in Pennsylvania demanded Act 77 in 2019, which legalized mail-in voting in the state with bipartisan support. "The Republicans in Pennsylvania pushed for mail-in voting,” he said. But then, in 2021, a group of state Republican lawmakers sued to reverse the very law they supported after Trump declared his opposition to mail-in voting. In the [latest episode of the Independent Voter Podcast](https://ivn.us/posts/the-federal-voter-id-bill-is-designed-to-fail-heres-why-2026-03-12), the hosts discussed how the SAVE America Act is an example of how partisan lawmakers take an 80-20 issue and add unnecessary things to score points with their base but kill the bill. Fetterman has also pointed out that voter ID is one of these issues, citing [an August 2025 Pew Research survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/08/22/majority-of-americans-continue-to-back-expanded-early-voting-voting-by-mail-voter-id/?ref=ivn.us) that found 83% of American voters support or are okay with requiring photo ID to vote. So why not just have a voter ID bill? Republicans would still have the support of Fetterman and a few other moderate Democrats. It is a stark contrast to the California voter ID initiative that will likely appear on the November ballot this year. The sponsors of the initiative [submitted over 1.3 million signatures](https://www.reformcalifornia.org/news/county-by-county-signature-totals-show-statewide-support-for-ca-voter-id-initiative?ref=ivn.us) a month ahead of the deadline to show just how much support it has. And as Cara McCormick explains on IVN, the initiative is strictly a voter ID proposal. All it requires is a government-issued ID, like a driver’s license, to vote in person or the last 4 digits of an ID for mail-in voting. [California’s Voter ID Initiative is Way More Chill Than Trump’s SAVE ActA proposed California ballot initiative would amend the state constitution to add an initiative that aims to “deter and detect voter fraud by maintaining accurate voter registration records and confirming eligibility to vote...”![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-7.ico)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-voter-id-initiative-vs-save-act-election-law-comparison-2026-1-1.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10) That’s it. There is nothing about birth certificates. There is nothing about mail-in voting. There is nothing about transgenderism. Just a carefully written voter ID initiative on an issue that has broad public support, even among Democrats. The soundbites around the SAVE America Act may be good for fundraising, but the bill itself does nothing to move the needle forward – which is the case for so many issues in the United States. It exists to rally the base, not to actually pass. ## **In Other Reform News...** ## **Oklahoma Killed an Open Primary Initiative – Now Lawmakers Want to Lock Closed Primaries into the Constitution** A citizen-led initiative to implement a nonpartisan all-voter and all-candidate open primary failed to get certified for the Oklahoma ballot, and now some state lawmakers are pushing an initiative that asks voters to make closed primaries a permanent feature in elections. The Yes on SQ 836 campaign for a nonpartisan primary was informed by the secretary of state that too many of its nearly 210,000 petitions were invalid. The bulk of the signatures were tossed because the petitions failed to match [4 out of 5 data points in the voter registration file](https://ivn.us/posts/did-new-petition-rules-kill-oklahomas-open-primaries-initiative-2026-03-10). Many of these petitions could have been signed by eligible Oklahoma voters that simply made a mistake when filling out the required fields. But the rule that disqualified them (put in place in 2024), allowed the state to reject over 57,000 signatures on strict technicalities. If approved by voters, State Question 836 would have amended the state constitution to implement a nonpartisan open primary system in which all voters and all candidates, regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof, participate on a single ballot. The top two vote-getters would then move on to the general election. Similar systems are in place in California and Washington and recent polling from [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) found California voters are satisfied with it. [For California Candidates Courting Independent Voters, These Reforms Could Win A Lot of VotesCalifornia independent voters are not a monolith. They fall across the political spectrum and hold diverse opinions on a variety of social and political issues. But one thing that unites them is a shared belief that California needs more choice elections.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-6.ico)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-independent-voters-election-reform-poll-1.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/california-candidates-courting-independent-voters-these-3-reforms-could-win-lot-votes-2026-01) This is especially the case for independent voters, who would otherwise be denied a chance to cast a ballot for the candidate they prefer under the state’s old closed primary model – a model that is in place in Oklahoma. Oklahoma uses semi-closed primaries, which means it is up to the parties to decide whether or not they will allow independent voters to participate on their primary ballot. In 2026, no political party with a primary will allow independents to participate. This includes the Democratic Party, which is a departure from recent elections. Party leaders said they intended to keep their primaries open this cycle, but the state claimed they did not file the proper paperwork in time. Despite asserting that the party would pursue its legal options, it has yet to file suit or take any action to open its primaries to independents. Instead, the [Sooner State Party has filed suit](https://ktul.com/news/local/sooner-state-party-to-file-lawsuit-aimed-at-expanding-primary-access-for-independent-voter?ref=ivn.us) asserting that independent voters should not be shut out of elections funded by taxpayers. The ball is in the Oklahoma Legislature’s court to put its own initiative on the ballot should it decide to act. State Rep. Eric Roberts of Oklahoma City introduced a ballot question that would ask voters to make the state’s closed primary system permanent. The proposal has already passed out of committee. “We’re just making sure that any recognized party in the state of Oklahoma has the ability to have a candidate in the general election,” Roberts said during a committee hearing. Roberts twists the narrative to be about choice in a state in which most elections are decided in uncontested or noncompetitive primary elections. A Top Two nonpartisan primary would have likely resulted in a number of elections in deep red Oklahoma advancing two Republicans to the general election, which is what Roberts is focused on with his counter proposal. However, [new research published by Cambridge University](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/state-politics-and-policy-quarterly/article/participation-and-competition-in-toptwo-elections-tradeoffs-in-election-reform/C853759B1B596B91619DBE301B78D3DF?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) points out that despite Top Two advancing two Democrats or Two Republicans in some elections in California, it has made many districts more competitive. In the case of same-party general elections, the question becomes about *which* Republican or *which* Democrat wins in a district that would otherwise have been a landslide victory for the majority party. When put in this perspective, it changes the way people see choice and competition. It also changes the way candidates have to think about how they campaign because simply relying on their party’s base isn’t enough anymore. They have to make clear distinctions between themselves and other members of their party if they want to win. And voters registered outside their party have just as impactful a vote in the general election. But the Top Two nonpartisan primary is not going to be on the November ballot in Oklahoma, so what is the point of Roberts’ initiative now? Its only function would be to enshrine a belief in the state constitution that independent voters don’t matter. The Independent Voter Project, which authored Top Two in California, recognizes the importance of more choice in elections. This is why the organization now says it is time to “[reform the reform](https://ivn.us/posts/author-californias-top-two-primary-says-its-time-reform-reform)” with a Top 5 system using ranked choice voting in the general election. This way, parties in the political minority have a path to getting a candidate on the November ballot without sacrificing the voting rights of independent voters. This means not only being able to vote in taxpayer-funded elections but being able to choose the candidates they want. ### In Other Open Primaries News… - Paul Rieckhoff [appeared on The Late-Night Show with Stephen Colbert](https://ivn.us/posts/paul-rieckhoff-tells-stephen-colbert-voters-shouldnt-have-to-pick-a-party-to-matter-2026-03-11) and talked about how the Iran War is exacerbating cynicism among voters with both parties. He also made the case for an election model that doesn’t force voters or candidates to “pick a side.” Despite misconceptions about the political leanings of members of the military and veterans, like the rest of the country, about half of this group identify as independent. They always put country over party when they serve, he asserts, so why force them to “pick a side” when they’re out? - The better elections group, Open Primaries, [hosted a virtual discussion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iFiWEE2vJI&ref=ivn.us) with Maryland Delegate Lily Qi, who has sponsored [a bill](https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/hb0496?ys=2026RS&ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) to bring open primaries to her state. Qi’s bill would implement semi-open partisan primaries, which means registered party members have to vote in their respective party’s primary, but independent voters would be able to choose between a Republican and Democratic primary ballot. Her argument is that this a critical civil rights issue as many people in social demographic minorities are registered unaffiliated with a political party. And because they are, they have no say in taxpayer-funded primary elections. Qi’s bill had a committee hearing on February 11. - [A bill](https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=142403&ref=ivn.us) that would open primary elections to independent voters in Delaware advanced out of committee on March 11\. Voters registered unaffiliated with a political party make up 34% of the state’s registered voter population – a growth that shattered expectations of organizations that have followed registration trends over the last few years. They make up the second largest voting bloc in the state, and yet they cannot participate in primary elections unless they sacrifice their preference not to affiliate with a political party. - [A bill](https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session/measure%5Findiv.aspx?billtype=SB&billnumber=2480&year=2026&ref=ivn.us) in Hawaii to implement a nonpartisan Top Two primary is still making its way through the legislative process. ## Maine Attorney General Sides Against Voters, Legislature by Opposing Ranked Choice Voting Expansion On April 1, the Maine Supreme Court will once again hear arguments on whether ranked choice voting can be used in gubernatorial and state legislative general elections after the legislature passed a bill allowing it. However, Attorney General Aaron Frey is asking the court to block it. For context, ranked choice voting (which gives voters the option to rank candidates on the ballot in order of preference) is used in gubernatorial and legislative primary elections, all US House and Senate elections – even in presidential elections. It isn’t used in gubernatorial and legislative general elections because the Maine Supreme Court issued an advisory opinion in 2017 that it couldn’t be used in these elections because of a plurality clause in the constitution. This followed voter approval of ranked choice voting at the state level in 2016. Put simply, because the constitution says elections need to be decided by the person with the most votes (even if they don’t have a majority), that means a reform that requires a majority winner cannot be allowed. The Maine Legislature has taken action to resolve this constitutional dispute by passing [LD 1666](https://legislature.maine.gov/billtracker/?ref=ivn.us#Paper/1666?legislature=132), which attempts to give state voters the complete voting reform they said they wanted not once, but twice at the ballot box (in 2016 AND [2018](https://ivn.us/posts/independents-made-difference-maines-ranked-choice-voting)). The bill uses a series of terminology changes to ensure ranked choice voting aligns with constitutional law for these elections, but the Maine attorney general argues that it is not enough. "The three provisions of the Maine Constitution governing (legislative and gubernatorial elections) are not philosophical treatises; they set forth concrete procedures for how elections are to be administered and determined,” wrote Frey in a [34-page brief](https://www.courts.maine.gov/news/question/OJ-26-1%20Brief%20of%20Atty%20Gen%202026-03-06.pdf?ref=ivn.us). > *“Ranked-choice voting is either consistent with those procedures or it is not. Legislation like L.D. 1666, which changes the terminology used to describe the process without changing how the process works, cannot make the unconstitutional constitutional.”* If the argument is for procedural consistency, then the question must be asked: Is the current limited application of ranked choice voting procedurally consistent? Ranked choice voting’s use in state primary and all federal elections has been ruled or determined to be constitutional. Yet, it cannot be used for two types of state general elections because of an advisory opinion. This creates an inconsistency in the procedure and administration of elections, even though Maine citizens back the reform, have indicated their support twice at the polls, and now the legislature has approved a law (twice) to align ranked choice voting’s use with the constitution. It is worth noting that the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed its state’s use of ranked choice voting (approved by voters in 2020 as part of a nonpartisan Top Four system) despite the Alaska Constitution also having a plurality clause. Since the Alaska ruling happened after 2017, supporters of LD 1666 argue it makes a stronger case for ranked choice voting expansion. Opponents of the reform are jumping on Frey’s stance by saying, “[See, even this Democratic attorney general argues ranked choice voting is unconstitutional](https://mainepolicy.org/rcv-unconstitutional-agfrey/?ref=ivn.us).” But Democratic state officials have a history of opposing ranked choice voting too. Gov. Janet Mills was one of the main reasons LD 1666, which was initially approved in 2025, was kept in the legislature until it passed again in 2026\. Democratic congressional candidate and former secretary of state Matthew Dunlap not only opposed ranked choice voting, but [tried to prevent its use in 2018](https://wgme.com/news/local/maine-judge-puts-ranked-choice-voting-on-track-for-june-elections?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io). It is not uncommon for Democrats to oppose voting reform when they see a potential threat to their own power or path to victory. Ranked choice voting means candidates have to broaden their appeal in large fields. Thus, it requires more from candidates to be competitive. Republican leaders oppose ranked choice voting in Alaska. Democratic leaders oppose it in Colorado. There were members of the Democratic establishment in New York City and Washington, DC, who opposed voter-approved ranked choice voting in their cities. It isn’t a partisan reform. Both parties have used it. Members of both parties have supported it. But one thing reformers can attest to is that while voting reform is not a partisan issue, rejection of anything that seeks to improve the status quo is bipartisan. For the parties, it *is* about who benefits. Or, at least, who benefits in their calculus. It doesn’t matter what voters want. What matters is who is in control. And it wouldn’t be a big surprise if Frey has his sights on a future gubernatorial run – just like his predecessor, Janet Mills. ### In Other Ranked Choice Voting News… - A business advocacy group, Opportunity DC, [has launched a voter education campaign](https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2026/03/09/ranked-choice-voting-dc-election-mayor-ballot?ref=ivn.us) for ranked choice voting ahead of its first implementation in the city. Since its passage in 2024 by nearly three-quarters of voters, the DC City Council threatened to hold up reform, so there are many voters who don’t know RCV will be used this year. While the Council ultimately funded RCV elections, it refused to move forward with open primaries – which was part of the same reform package approved by voters. - While many states in the Midwest have banned the use of ranked choice voting, like Indiana and Ohio (the most recent states to do so), a couple of lawmakers have [introduced a bill in Wisconsin](https://ivn.us/posts/wisconsin-lawmakers-propose-ranked-choice-voting-for-all-elections-2026-03-10) to adopt the reform for federal, state, and local elections. “It is a system that encourages positive campaigns, ensures that winners have the support of a majority of voters, and allows more candidates to run without being seen as a waste of a vote or a spoiler,” said State Sen. Mark Spreitzer. - A bill in Connecticut, [SB 386](https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&which%5Fyear=2026&bill%5Fnum=SB00386&ref=ivn.us), would allow local governments in the state to adopt ranked choice voting for primaries, party caucuses, and some municipal elections. It has cleared the Senate Government Administration and Elections Committee and on the day it did, a group of municipal leaders [sent a letter to Gov. Ned Lamont and legislative leaders](https://ctnewsjunkie.com/2026/03/12/ranked-choice-voting-proposal-clears-committee/?ref=ivn.us) expressing their support. “This is a practical, incremental reform that respects local control,” the letter states. “It gives communities the freedom to strengthen democratic participation in ways that best reflect their residents’ needs.” ### The Federal Voter ID Bill Is Designed to Fail. Here's Why URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/the-federal-voter-id-bill-is-designed-to-fail-heres-why-2026-03-12/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:39:18.000Z Most Americans support voter ID, so why is this fight so explosive? It’s simple: the two-party system keeps turning a broadly popular reform into a partisan weapon. Instead of solving the issue, both sides use it to energize their base and deepen distrust. We unpack the SAVE America Act, the cost and paperwork of proving citizenship, and the independent case for balancing election security with equal access to the ballot. This episode is sponsored by the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) and produced by [Olas Media](http://olasmedia.com/?ref=ivn.us). Listen on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) or [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io). ## **Episode Highlights** The latest episode of the **Independent Voter Podcast** explores several major issues shaping the U.S. political landscape, including California’s proposed **wealth tax on billionaires**, the growing national debate over **voter ID laws**, and ongoing efforts to advance **election reform** such as open primaries and ranked choice voting. We discuss how a proposed California wealth tax could generate roughly **$100 billion in one-time revenue** but warn that similar policies in Europe triggered **capital flight**, as wealthy residents moved to lower-tax jurisdictions. This is something California is already seeing with billionaires like **Elon Musk**. The conversation highlights broader concerns about **economic policy, tax reform, wealth inequality, and state budgets**, especially as California grapples with rising spending and persistent issues like **housing affordability, homelessness, and cost of living**. [California’s Voter ID Initiative is Way More Chill Than Trump’s SAVE ActA proposed California ballot initiative would amend the state constitution to add an initiative that aims to “deter and detect voter fraud by maintaining accurate voter registration records and confirming eligibility to vote...”![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-5.ico)Independent Voter NewsCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-voter-id-initiative-vs-save-act-election-law-comparison-2026-1.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10) We then shift to the politically charged debate over **voter ID requirements**, comparing the federal **SAVE Act** with a proposed **California voter ID initiative**. While public opinion polls show this is an 80-20 issue with **voters supporting some form of voter identification**, the federal proposal requires strict **documentary proof of citizenship**, such as passports, birth certificates, or REAL ID documents. Some critics argue this could function as a **modern poll tax** or create barriers for many voters. By contrast, the California proposal would require only a **government-issued ID for in-person voting** and the **last four digits of a Social Security number for mail ballots**. This perfectly illustrates how different policy designs could dramatically affect **voter access, election security, and turnout in U.S. elections**. And it also raises the question: Why doesn't Congress pursue a stand-alone voter ID bill? In the second half of the episode, we talk about broader **democracy reform trends**, including the [failure of Oklahoma’s **State Question 836**](https://ivn.us/posts/did-new-petition-rules-kill-oklahomas-open-primaries-initiative-2026-03-10), a ballot initiative that sought to create an **all-candidate, all-voter nonpartisan open primary system**. Despite submitting over **209,000 signatures**, tens of thousands were disqualified under stricter verification rules requiring multiple data-point matches with voter records. It's noted in the episode that such procedural hurdles illustrate how **ballot access laws, signature verification rules, and legislative restrictions** can shape whether citizens can bring election reforms directly to voters. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of **independent candidates,** [**ranked choice voting expansion in states like Wisconsin**](https://ivn.us/posts/wisconsin-lawmakers-propose-ranked-choice-voting-for-all-elections-2026-03-10)**, and the growing movement for nonpartisan election systems** that could reshape the future of **American democracy, voter participation, and independent voters’ political influence**. ### Race to Watch: With Moderate Esmeralda Soria Out, Who Will Appeal to Independents in the Central Valley? URL: https://ivn.us/race-to-watch-with-moderate-esmeralda-soria-out-who-will-appeal-to-independents-in-the-central-valley-2026-03-12/ Last updated: 2026-03-12T18:03:24.000Z Assembly District 27 spans the agricultural core of California's Central Valley, encompassing portions of Merced, Fresno, and Madera Counties. The district takes in the cities of Coalinga, Kerman, San Joaquin, Merced, Mendota, Dos Palos, Madera, Los Banos, Firebaugh, Huron, Atwater, Chowchilla, and Livingston, along with portions of the City of Fresno. Interstate 5 and Highway 99 serve as the district's main arteries, connecting farming communities, packing sheds, and small downtowns across a vast stretch of valley floor. Merced, the district's largest city, is known as the Gateway to Yosemite, roughly two hours from Yosemite Valley and anchoring the district's northern end. Since 2005, it has also been home to the University of California, Merced, the youngest campus in the UC system, which earned R1 Carnegie research institution status in 2025 and is now the only R1 university in the Central Valley. The historic Merced County Courthouse, a 1875 Italianate landmark that now serves as a museum, stands as one of the last surviving examples of a courthouse style once common across the San Joaquin Valley. The land itself tells the story of the district's character. Generations of farming families growing almonds, grapes, dairy, and row crops have shaped the communities along these corridors. It is a district drawn to protect the political voice of its majority-Latino population under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, uniting communities with shared concerns about affordable housing, healthcare, water access, transportation, broadband connectivity, and access to well-paying jobs. ## **Demographics, Housing, and Cost of Living** According to the 2023 American Community Survey, Assembly District 27 has a total population of 526,986\. The district is majority Latino at 66.9%, with White residents comprising 19.9%, Asian residents 6.4%, and Black residents 3.5%. The citizen voting-age population stands at 55.2%, reflecting a large share of foreign-born residents (26.3%) and 16.3% classified as non-citizens. Economic conditions in the district reflect significant hardship. The median household income is $65,569, with a mean household income of $86,884 and a per capita income of $26,295\. Approximately 20.8% of residents live below the poverty line, 8.9% lack health insurance, and 22.5% of households receive food assistance, among the highest rates in the state. Housing is nearly evenly split, with 53.3% of homes owner-occupied and 46.7% renter-occupied. The median home value is $345,700, and the median monthly rent is $1,257\. The district is home to 13,567 civilian veterans, representing 3.7% of the population. ## **Registration Trends: Democrats Lead, But the Ground Is Shifting** As of December 30, 2025, Assembly District 27 had 236,843 registered voters. Democrats hold 39.7% of registrations, Republicans 29.1%, and No Party Preference voters 23.5%, with the remainder distributed among minor parties, including American Independent at 4.3%. On paper, Democrats maintain a registration edge of roughly 10.6 points. But the longer arc tells a more complicated story. In 2008, the Democratic advantage stood at just 7 points. It widened through the Obama years and peaked at 15.7 points in 2022, carried in part by a surge in Democratic registration during the first Trump term. Since then, it has eroded steadily, falling to 12 points by the 2024 general election and slipping further to 10.6 points by the end of 2025\. Republican registration has climbed from 27.3% in 2022 to 29.1% today, while the Democratic share has dropped from 43% to under 40%. The growth of No Party Preference voters has been equally striking and may be the most consequential trend in the district. NPP registrations have nearly quadrupled in raw numbers since 2008, growing from 21,439 to 55,600, and their share of the electorate has risen from 13.9% to 23.5% over that same period. Nearly one in four voters in AD27 now belongs to no party. In a district where the registration gap between the two major parties has been narrowing, NPP voters do not merely influence outcomes; they decide them. The district spans three counties with meaningfully different political profiles. Merced County accounts for 52.2% of registered voters and leans Democratic by 16.9 points. Fresno County represents 29.7% of the electorate and holds a 16-point Democratic advantage. Madera County, at 18.1% of registrations, is far more competitive, with Democrats holding just an 8.7-point edge, and Republican performance at the top of the ticket in recent cycles suggests even that margin may be soft. ## **Past Election Results Show a District in Motion** The registration numbers understate how far the district has moved. Gavin Newsom carried AD27 by 5.9% in 2018, and Joe Biden won it by 13.6% in 2020\. Then the floor gave way. Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Dahle carried the district by 5.2% in 2022, and Donald Trump flipped it by 2.7% in 2024, even as Democrats still held a registration advantage of more than 12 points. In the 2024 U.S. Senate race, Republican Steve Garvey carried the district over Democrat Adam Schiff by 2 points. The 2024 ballot measure results reinforce the district's rightward lean on public safety issues. Voters backed Proposition 36, which increased sentencing for certain drug and theft crimes, by a lopsided 73.7% to 26.3% margin. However, voters in the district also supported Proposition 35, providing permanent Medi-Cal funding, by a margin of 67% to 33%, a combination that reflects both fiscal conservatism and strong support for healthcare programs in a district with high poverty and uninsured rates. At the Assembly level, incumbent Democrat Esmeralda Soria demonstrated that a candidate with strong local ties and a moderate profile could still win. She defeated former Merced County Sheriff Mark Pazin by just 3.4% in 2022 and won more comfortably against Republican Joanna Garcia Rose by 7.8% in 2024, even as Trump carried the district over Kamala Harris at the presidential level. ## **An Open Seat Sets Up the Battle** This 2026 race snapped into focus in May 2025 when Soria announced she would seek the SD14 State Senate seat being vacated by Anna Caballero due to term limits. The announcement transformed an already competitive district into one of the top Republican targets in California. Republican Mike Murphy, a business attorney and former Merced mayor, had filed months earlier. The Democratic field went through rapid consolidation. Merced City School Board member Priya Lakireddy was the first Democrat in, followed in September by Madera County Supervisor Leticia Gonzalez, who quickly secured Soria's endorsement. Lakireddy wound down her campaign shortly after. In December, Fresno County Supervisor Brian Pacheco entered with endorsements from Soria, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, and a number of Fresno-area Republicans, prompting Gonzalez to stand down as well. In stepping aside, Gonzalez cited the personal cost of a competitive campaign. Writing in the Madera Tribune, she pointed to time away from her young daughter as central to her decision, while expressing confidence that her campaign had assembled a viable path to victory. She indicated she would remain focused on her role as Madera County Supervisor. Livingston City Councilmember Japjeet Singh Uppal has also filed as a Democrat. A No Party Preference candidate, Quintin Levesque, has also filed. Fundraising through year-end 2025 showed Pacheco with a commanding financial advantage, having transferred funds from his Supervisor campaign committee to log $513,000 in receipts and close the period with $512,000 on hand. Murphy reported raising $356,000 to date, including $100,000 in candidate loans, and ending the year with $296,000 on hand. ## **The Candidates** ### **Brian Pacheco (Democrat)** [Brian Pacheco](https://www.pachecoforca.com/?ref=ivn.us), born April 18, 1968, is a Fresno County Supervisor and fourth-generation family farmer and dairyman whose roots in the Central Valley run as deep as the irrigation canals that sustain it. A Kerman native, he graduated from Kerman High School and earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural and managerial economics, with a minor in rhetoric and communications, from UC Davis in 1991. The dairy his great-grandfather founded runs more than 1,300 Holstein cows alongside an elite group of purebred Brown Swiss cows and has been recognized as a top-producing herd in Fresno County every year since 1998\. The family operation also grows Thompson seedless grapes, almonds, alfalfa, corn silage, and winter forage. Pacheco is also a grower-member of Sun-Maid Raisin Growers. From 2010 to 2012, he served as president of the Fresno County Farm Bureau and as board chairman of California Dairies, Inc., the nation's second-largest dairy cooperative. He has also served on the Board of Directors of Community Regional Medical Center, the Fresno-Madera Area Agency on Aging, and the Human Resources Advisory Board. In 2012, UC Davis honored him with its Award of Distinction from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He has been a member of the Nisei Farmers League, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the Fresno, Biola, and Kerman chambers of commerce, and his family has a long history of involvement with 4-H and FFA. Before his time on the Board of Supervisors, Pacheco served 12 years as a trustee on the Kerman Unified School District Board, including a term as board president. He was first elected to the [Fresno County Board of Supervisors](https://www.fresnocountyca.gov/Departments/Board-of-Supervisors?ref=ivn.us) in 2014 and [has been re-elected twice](https://www.fresnocountyca.gov/Departments/Board-of-Supervisors/Supervisor-Brian-Pacheco?ref=ivn.us), in 2018 and 2022\. He serves as District 1 Supervisor, representing the west side of Fresno County. Pacheco partnered with fellow Supervisor Buddy Mendes to direct federal ARPA relief funds toward a rural mobile health program that provides no-cost medical services to farmworkers and agricultural communities with limited access to healthcare. In one of his final acts on the Board before transitioning to his Assembly campaign, Pacheco co-sponsored an ordinance, passed unanimously in January 2026, that tightened county rules on transitional housing for registered sex offenders, limiting such facilities to no more than 6 beds. "For me, it's about concentration and public safety," he said. Pacheco also notably abstained when the Board voted 3-1 in September 2025 to oppose Proposition 50, the redistricting measure. Pacheco is the [Vice Chair](https://northkingsgsa.org/people/brian-pacheco/?ref=ivn.us) of the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency, a local public agency responsible for managing groundwater in a portion of central Fresno County. It was created in response to a 2014 state law requiring regions that have overpumped their groundwater supplies to develop a plan for long-term sustainability by 2040\. In a part of California where agriculture depends heavily on groundwater and where water tables are dropping, the agency plays a central role in balancing the water needs of farmers, cities, and residents. He entered the AD27 race in December 2025 and quickly consolidated Democratic support. His endorsements include Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Assemblymember [Esmeralda Soria](https://www.instagram.com/p/DVOvvOFD7V%5F/?ref=ivn.us), Representatives Jim Costa and Adam Gray, and former Assemblymember Jim Patterson. He also received the California Democratic Party's pre-endorsement conference endorsement and the party's official primary endorsement. “Throughout my time as county supervisor, I’ve worked every day to make life easier and more affordable for the people I serve,” Pacheco said in a campaign announcement. “I’m ready to bring that on-the-ground experience to the State Assembly to deliver affordability, public safety, clean, reliable water, and health care access for families in Fresno, Madera, and Merced counties.” Pacheco and his wife, Alena, have three adult children. ### **Mike Murphy (Republican)** [Mike Murphy](https://www.mikemurphy4assembly.com/?ref=ivn.us), born August 19, 1979, is a business attorney and former mayor of Merced who has been campaigning for this seat since filing in early 2025\. A Merced native who attended local schools before leaving for higher education, Murphy earned his bachelor's degree in international politics from Brigham Young University in 2004 and his law degree from Georgetown University in 2007, the same year he was admitted to the California Bar. He also lived abroad as a missionary in Tahiti, where he became fluent in French and Tahitian. He was a senior fellow with the [American Leadership Forum](https://www.alfnational.org/?ref=ivn.us) and has been recognized among central California's top young business professionals by Business Street magazine. Murphy began his legal career as an associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe before joining Gunderson Dettmer in 2012\. He spent eight years as a partner at Murphy & Brawley, LLP from 2014 to 2022, then returned to [Gunderson Dettmer](https://www.gunder.com/en?ref=ivn.us), where he currently serves as Of Counsel. In local government, Murphy won election to the [Merced City Council](https://www.cityofmerced.gov/government/city-council?ref=ivn.us) in 2011 and served five years before being [elected mayor in 2016](https://www.murphyformerced.com/?ref=ivn.us), a position he held through 2020\. As mayor, he highlighted [a range of accomplishments](https://www.murphyformerced.com/accomplishments?ref=ivn.us), including a 55% reduction in city business fees, the launch of a small business retention program, and a partnership with UC Merced to open a downtown business accelerator. He also pointed to balanced budgets, new crime-fighting technology for the police department, and water conservation measures during a period of severe drought. [He briefly explored an independent run for Congress](https://sjvsun.com/highlight/merced-mayor-murphy-mulls-a-bid-to-challenge-costa-as-an-independent/?ref=ivn.us) against Representative Jim Costa in 2020 before deciding against it, a moment that reflects both his appetite for higher office and his willingness to consider paths outside the traditional party structure. Murphy reported $356,000 raised to date in the Assembly race, including $100,000 in candidate loans, with $296,000 on hand at year-end 2025. He lives in Merced with his wife, Heather, and their four children. ### **Japjeet Singh Uppal (Democrat)** [Japjeet Singh Uppal](https://japjeet4ca.com/?ref=ivn.us) is a Livingston City Councilmember who filed for the AD27 race in January 2026\. He reported $5,000 on hand at the time of filing. A Livingston native, Uppal was sworn onto the city council at age 22, making him one of the youngest elected officials in California. Uppal has positioned himself as an outsider candidate running explicitly against what he describes as a broken two-party system and the influence of corporate money in politics. He says growing up in Livingston gave him a direct view of how special interests shape government while working families are left behind. "The political machine is rigged against working people," he has said. "It's time to break it and build a government that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and well-connected." In keeping with his outsider message, Uppal has stated he is not seeking endorsements from political figures or institutions, instead highlighting support from community members. His platform calls for publicly financed elections, universal childcare, a ban on institutional investors purchasing residential housing, and aggressive antitrust action against large technology, pharmaceutical, and utility companies. On water, he has called for major state investment in water infrastructure to support the district's agricultural economy. He has also emphasized privacy protections, opposing data-sharing arrangements between government agencies and private technology firms. Uppal has also weighed in on foreign policy, including posting a statement on February 28 saying that “The United States is occupied by Israel. This is an illegal war on a country that did not attack us. Thousands of innocent lives may be lost to serve the interests of a power hungry, genocidal Israeli regime. Donald Trump needs to be impeached immediately.” ### **Quintin Levesque (No Party Preference)** [Quintin Levesque](https://ballotpedia.org/Quintin%5FLevesque?ref=ivn.us), born April 10, 1996, is a [lobbyist](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/people/165489?ref=ivn.us) and the chief executive of [The Peoples Advocacy Group](https://www.instagram.com/thepeoplesadvocacygroup/?ref=ivn.us). He has testified in Sacramento on behalf of California Health Coalition Advocacy. In June 2022, Levesque ran as a Republican in Assembly District 7, placing fifth. He studied at CSU Sacramento and resides in Citrus Heights. Levesque filed a statement of intention in January 2026. ## **An Open Seat, a Shifting Electorate, and the Power of Independent Voters** With no incumbent on the ballot, Assembly District 27 is poised to be one of the most contested legislative races in California in 2026\. The ingredients for a genuine toss-up are all present: a registration advantage that has been shrinking for three straight cycles, a presidential-level result that went Republican in 2024 despite a double-digit Democratic registration edge, and nearly one in four voters who belong to no party at all. That last factor cannot be overstated. No Party Preference registration in AD27 has grown from 13.9% of the electorate in 2008 to 23.5% today, a gain of nearly 34,000 voters in raw terms. In a district where the margin between the major parties has repeatedly come down to a few thousand votes, the NPP bloc is now larger than the entire margin of victory in most recent cycles. How those voters break, and whether either candidate can make a compelling case beyond base partisans, will likely determine the outcome in both June and November. Pacheco enters as the clear Democratic frontrunner with institutional support, a well-known agricultural identity that fits the district, and a commanding financial advantage. Murphy is the only Republican who has filed, brings deep roots in Merced, and is competing in an environment where the top-of-ticket trend has moved decisively in his party's direction. The race for AD27's independent voters, the same bloc that has quietly reshaped the district's politics over the past decade, will be the race to watch. ## **About the 2026 California Top Two Primary** The last day to register to vote for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election is May 18, 2026\. All active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. Ballots will begin mailing on May 4, and drop-off locations will open on May 5\. Early in-person voting begins May 23 in Voter's Choice Act counties. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by June 9. *This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, the California Target Book, California FPPC campaign finance filings, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Ballotpedia, the Fresno Bee, the Madera Tribune, the San Joaquin Valley Sun, the Associated Press, and other local and regional reporting.* ### Paul Rieckhoff Tells Stephen Colbert: Voters Shouldn't Have to Pick a Party to Matter URL: https://ivn.us/paul-rieckhoff-tells-stephen-colbert-voters-shouldnt-have-to-pick-a-party-to-matter-2026-03-11/ Last updated: 2026-03-11T18:07:13.000Z Paul Rieckhoff wears many hats. He is a veteran of the Iraq War, founded Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, is a national security analyst, author, producer, podcaster, and founder of Independent Veterans of America. He also wants independent voters to have access to critical taxpayer-funded primaries, supports election models that don't force voters or candidates to "pick a side," and encourages independent veterans to run for office. Rieckhoff made the case for all of this on the Late-Night Show with Stephen Colbert. "Forty-five percent of Americans are independent, only 27% are Democrats and Republicans," he noted. Colbert added that the military also spans the political spectrum and isn't the strictly conservative organization many people believe. "They're not a monolith, but they are a reflection of the best of America, and they want to continue to serve," Rieckhoff said. "But they don't want to pick a side." > *"You're in the military. You are putting country over party. People over politics. Then you get out and they \[say\] you got to choose a side. What if we could create a way for them to run without having to pick a side?"* He believes people are seeing an opportunity right now and says veteran candidates "are the hope that this country needs." Rieckhoff and Open Primaries President John Opdycke noted [in a recent op-ed on IVN](https://ivn.us/posts/gallup-independent-voters-hit-45-so-why-does-political-establishment-keep-pretending-they) that the growth of independent voters is changing the narrative about who these voters are. "A growing number of leaders who are engaged in organizing and researching independent voters look at the statistics and see potential," they write. "This new narrative allows for the possibility that the small act of distancing oneself from the parties is indicative of something brewing." They also observe that "when it comes to how we conduct primary elections \[...\] a majority of Americans across party lines now support the right of non-party voters to participate in publicly funded primary elections." There are nonpartisan election models in place in a few states that do not force voters or candidates to pick a side to have equal participation, whether it is the Top Two system in California or the Top Four model in Alaska. Independent voters can pick any candidate they want in these primary systems, regardless of party or lack thereof. They aren't divided between two private political corporations nor denied the ability to have their voice heard. ### Did New Petition Rules Kill Oklahoma’s Open Primaries Initiative? URL: https://ivn.us/did-new-petition-rules-kill-oklahomas-open-primaries-initiative-2026-03-10/ Last updated: 2026-03-12T21:41:56.000Z **OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.** \- Last week, the Oklahoma campaign to put a nonpartisan all-voter and all-candidate nonpartisan primary initiative on the ballot was informed that it did not collect enough signatures to be certified. This means state voters won’t get a say on the matter in 2026. SQ 836 would have opened Oklahoma’s taxpayer-funded primary process to all voters and candidates, regardless of party affiliation, including independent voters who currently are denied a voice under the state's closed partisan system. The primaries would advance the top two vote-getters to the general election, similar to the systems in place in California and Washington. Yes on 836 submitted 209,616 petitions to advance its initiative to November. They needed 172,993 to be verified. So, while the campaign gave themselves a little buffer, it was less than 20% of the required total. “This campaign started with everyday Oklahomans talking about ways we could make our government more accountable and more responsive to the people,” said Oklahoma United Founder and CEO Margaret Kobos, who helped lead the effort. > *“That conversation has now become a statewide movement for reform, and I could not be prouder of the volunteers, donors and staff who got us to this point.”* The numbers didn’t work in the campaign's favor this cycle. The standard rejection rate for a ballot initiative campaign of any kind in Oklahoma is between 20-40%. In the case of SQ 836, it was 32%. 67,042 petitions were rejected for a variety of reasons including no date, voters not being registered, and duplicate signatures. However, the bulk of rejections (more than 57,000) were because the petitions did not match 4 of 5 data points in the public voter registration file. Andy Moore, who supported SQ 836 and is the executive director of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers, posted a video about this on Facebook. “Signatures that would have been valid in 2023 weren’t considered valid for this,” Moore argues. “This is really the first state question to go through the system under the new rules.” Under [Title 34 §§2 and 6](https://www.oklegislature.gov/OK%5FStatutes/CompleteTitles/os34.pdf?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) of the Oklahoma Statutes (as amended by the legislature in 2024), the petition form for a proposed ballot measure must include 5 specific voter-identifying data points for each signer. The required fields include: - Legal first name - Legal last name - ZIP code - House number - Numerical month and day of birth Additionally, when signing the petition, the voter must also: - Sign their name - Print their name - Provide birth date, address, and county associated with their voter registration record during the circulator verification process. Prior to 2024, a typical signer line included: - Signature - Printed name - Address - City/county Those who argued for the new requirements asserted that they would improve fraud detection and verification accuracy – and that they would reduce the number of disputes over signatures. Critics argued that adding more fields would increase the technical rejection rate of otherwise valid signatures – which may have been the case with SQ 836 given that most disqualified signatures were rejected because of this change. “Tens of thousands of Oklahomans who willfully came out and signed a petition, sought out petition gatherers or found a way to make it happen were denied their constitutional right to petition their government,” said Moore. He added that the campaign for SQ 836 will do further research into the signatures that were disqualified and promised that the fight for open primaries will continue. For now, Oklahoma voters will not get to weigh on whether they want their state to open taxpayer-funded primary elections to independent voters and give all candidates a chance to participate in the process from the start. ## Oklahoma Lawmakers Recently Passed A Much Tougher Barrier for Ballot Initiative Campaigns This isn’t the first time in recent years that the Oklahoma Legislature has tightened the rules around the citizen initiative process or made them more restrictive. In fact, a bigger threat to campaigns passed in 2025. [‘One-Person, One-Vote’ at Risk? Petition Reform Bill Sparks Backlash in OklahomaLegislation that would significantly reshape Oklahoma’s initiative petition process is one step closer to becoming law after the state House passed a revised version of Senate Bill 1027 last week. If signed into law, the bill would place additional hurdles in front of Oklahoma citizens who want to r![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-4.ico)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/gerson-repreza-OSNZjXCF5VE-unsplash--1-.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/one-person-one-vote-risk-petition-reform-bill-sparks-backlash-oklahoma-2025-05-13) Notably, the legislature approved SB 1027 which made considerable changes to ballot measures, including: - Giving the secretary of state the power to remove the summary of a proposed ballot measure (called the gist) - Allowing voters to rescind their signatures and challenge a petition’s gist before signature gathering begins - Requiring petition gatherers to be registered Oklahoma voter - Requiring the disclosure of any payment to petition gatherers and its source - Prohibiting payment to petition gatherers from out-of-state sources. The law also places restrictions on how many signatures can be collected in each county: 11.5% of votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election for statutory changes, and 20.8% for constitutional amendments. While supporters of the law argue that it will give rural voters a stronger voice, Oklahoma already has the [lowest voter turnouts in the country](https://oklahomavoice.com/2024/11/06/oklahoma-voter-turnout-lowest-in-the-nation-drops-from-previous-presidential-elections/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io). This means regardless of county, most voters are shut out. The Oklahoma Policy Institute [reported in June 2025](https://okpolicy.org/sb-1027-would-exclude-millions-of-registered-voters-from-signing-initiative-petitions/?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) that there were more than 2.3 million registered voters in Oklahoma, of which 1.15 million voters participated in the last gubernatorial election. The institute concluded: > *“When applying SB 1027’s formula statewide, its requirement would exclude 2.2 million registered voters (or 94.4% of registered voters) from signing a petition for statutory amendments; it would exclude 2.1 million registered voters (or 89.8% of registered voters) from signing a petition for constitutional amendments.”* The campaign for SQ 836 [argued in court](https://ivn.us/posts/lawsuit-slams-oklahoma-law-unconstitutional-sabotage-open-primaries-2025-07-08) that the law should not retroactively apply to its initiative because the measure was filed before the law was passed. The Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed. However, the court did not strike down the law. Unless there is a successful legal challenge against SB 1027, any future citizen-led effort to reform elections in Oklahoma will be subject to these rules. Justices [heard arguments in the case back in November](https://oklahomavoice.com/2025/11/18/court-hears-challenge-to-new-oklahoma-initiative-petition-law/?ref=ivn.us). ### Wisconsin Lawmakers Propose Ranked Choice Voting for All Elections URL: https://ivn.us/wisconsin-lawmakers-propose-ranked-choice-voting-for-all-elections-2026-03-10/ Last updated: 2026-03-10T17:08:50.000Z **BELOIT, Wis.** — State Senator Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) and Representative Clinton Anderson (D-Beloit) introduced LRB-5709 on March 5, [legislation](https://www.wispolitics.com/2026/sen-spreitzer-rep-anderson-propose-ranked-choice-voting-in-wisconsin/?ref=ivn.us) that would implement ranked choice voting for state, federal, and local elections in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin legislation would also eliminate the need for February primaries in nonpartisan elections. Today, voters in Wisconsin almost never elect independent candidates, because the state’s elections are decided by first-past-the-post plurality voting (FPPV). In this system, a voter’s expression of preference is restricted to a single candidate. Each voter has just one choice, and if there are more than two candidates in the race, winning by plurality rather than majority is quite possible. Consequently, no matter how attractive an independent candidate may seem in the spring, summer, and early fall of an election year, he or she will be tarnished as a “spoiler” on Election Day and will almost certainly lose. This unfortunate situation reduces the supply of independent candidates willing to compete and perpetually forces Americans into one of two warring factions. In contrast, ranked-choice voting (RCV) allows voters to express their true preference for each candidate by ranking them in order of preference. If no candidate wins an outright majority, the candidate with the lowest number of first-place votes is eliminated, and the second-preference votes of his or her supporters are redistributed to the remaining candidates. This “instant runoff” process continues until a majority winner is determined. Not only does RCV give voters “more voice” in elections, but it also has the potential to stop our political system from tearing us apart into two camps. Senator Spreitzer called the bill an improvement over a system that forces strategic voting. "Under ranked choice voting, voters can vote for the candidate they like the most instead of having to strategically vote against the candidate they like the least," he said. > *"It is a system that encourages positive campaigns, ensures that winners have the support of a majority of voters, and allows more candidates to run without being seen as a waste of a vote or a spoiler."* Representative Anderson pointed to existing models as evidence that the system works. *"Ranked choice voting is not a new idea. It's already working in states like Maine and Alaska, and in cities like New York City," he said.* > *"Our current system rewards candidates for tearing each other down instead of building broad support. Ranked choice voting changes that. It encourages campaigns focused on issues and coalition-building, ensures nominees win with a true majority, and creates space for more voices beyond the two-party system."* For the best analysis of the pernicious effects of a lack of competition in our political system, please read [The Politics Industry](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781633699236?ref=ivn.us) by Wisconsinite Katherine M. Gehl and her co-author, Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter. ### California’s Voter ID Initiative is Way More Chill Than Trump’s SAVE Act URL: https://ivn.us/californias-voter-id-initiative-is-way-more-chill-than-trumps-save-act-2026-03-10/ Last updated: 2026-03-10T11:14:12.000Z *Sources: California Voter ID Initiative text (proposed); H.R. 7296, Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, 119th Congress, 2d Session (introduced January 30, 2026); Congressional Research Service Bill Summary; California Secretary of State; National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).* ## **Background: How California Currently Handles Voter Identification** Under current California law, U.S. citizenship is required to vote, but the state relies on voters to simply attest to their citizenship when registering. California does not generally require voters to show identification at the polls. The limited exceptions apply only to first-time federal election voters who registered by mail or online without providing a California ID or Social Security number, and even then, the state allows a broad range of documents, including utility bills, bank statements, paychecks, or official government mail. In 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation explicitly banning local jurisdictions from requiring voter ID, following Huntington Beach voters' approval of a local measure to do so. California currently has among the most permissive voter identification rules in the nation. ## **The California Initiative: A Targeted, Inclusive Reform** A proposed [California ballot initiative](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/688cf11a558aa9e4c3518d72/6893dad7757d86176dc195b4%5FVoter%20ID%20Initative%20Amendment%208-5-25.pdf?ref=ivn.us) would amend the state constitution to add a new Section 3.1 to Article II. The initiative states three purposes: to "promote public confidence and trust in the electoral process," to "deter and detect voter fraud by maintaining accurate voter registration records and confirming eligibility to vote," and to "minimize the risk of voter impersonation by requiring proof of identity to vote." The measure is notable for what it does and, just as importantly, for what it does not do. **For in-person voting,** the initiative requires that "each time a voter casts a ballot in person in any election in the State, the voter shall present government-issued identification." The initiative defines government-issued identification as "documentation that allows conclusive verification of the voter's identity." **For mail voting,** the requirement is far more limited. The voter needs only to provide "the last four digits of a unique identifying number from government-issued identification that matches the one designated solely by the voter for their voter registration." Importantly, the type of ID designated by each voter "must be indicated in their voter registration record, noted on the mail ballot envelope provided to them, and available to them on request by phone or electronically," so voters are never caught off guard. **On the question of cost,** the initiative is explicit: "Upon request by an eligible voter, the state shall provide, at no charge, a voter ID card for use in casting a ballot." This is perhaps the most important provision in the measure. One of the most common and legitimate criticisms of voter ID laws is that they can function as a de facto poll tax. This initiative addresses that concern directly by guaranteeing that the means of compliance are freely available to every eligible voter. **On citizenship verification,** the initiative directs the Secretary of State and county elections officials to "use best efforts to verify citizenship attestations using government data" and to "annually report what percentage of each county's voter rolls have been citizenship-verified." This is a transparency measure, not a documentation barrier. **On accountability,** the initiative requires that "during every odd-numbered year, the State Auditor shall audit the State's and each county's compliance with this section and report its findings and recommendations for improving the integrity of elections to the public." Citizens may also "seek judicial review and remedy of the State's or any county's compliance with this section." **What the initiative does not do** is equally important. It does not require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. It does not require voters to submit citizenship documents with mail ballots beyond the last four digits of an ID number. It does not impose criminal penalties on election officials. It does not create unfunded mandates. It does not establish a private right of action against election workers. In short, the California initiative is a narrowly drawn measure. It asks voters to confirm who they are while ensuring that the tools to do so are freely available to all. ## **The Federal SAVE Act (H.R. 7296): A Sweeping and Problematic Mandate** Introduced in the House on January 30, 2026, by Rep. Chip Roy and referred to the Committee on House Administration, the [Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7296?ref=ivn.us) amends the National Voter Registration Act of 1993\. Unlike the California initiative, which works within existing systems, the SAVE Act would fundamentally restructure how Americans register to vote and cast ballots in federal elections, with requirements that, in many cases, are practically impossible for millions of eligible citizens to meet. Here is what the bill actually requires, provision by provision, and why each raises serious concerns. ### **1\. Documentary Proof of Citizenship Required to Register** The bill is unambiguous on this point. It states that "a State may not register an individual to vote in elections for Federal office held in the State unless, at the time the individual applies to register to vote, the individual provides documentary proof of United States citizenship." The bill defines acceptable proof narrowly. It includes a REAL ID-compliant document "that indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States," a valid U.S. passport, or a military ID combined with "a United States military record of service showing that the applicant's place of birth was in the United States." For voters who cannot provide those documents, the bill allows a government photo ID paired with a certified birth certificate, but that birth certificate must meet an exacting list of requirements: it must include "the full name, date of birth, and place of birth of the applicant," must list "the full names of one or both of the parents of the applicant," must carry "the signature of an individual who is authorized to sign birth certificates," must include "the date that the certificate was filed with the office responsible for keeping vital records in the State," and must bear "the seal of the State, unit of local government, or Tribal government that issued the birth certificate." This is an extraordinarily demanding standard. Birth certificates are lost, damaged, or were never properly recorded, particularly for older Americans, rural residents, and low-income citizens. The bill does include a fallback process for applicants who cannot produce these documents. They may "sign an attestation under penalty of perjury that the applicant is a citizen of the United States" and "submit such other evidence to the appropriate State or local official demonstrating that the applicant is a citizen." The official then makes a personal judgment and must sign a sworn affidavit "swearing or affirming the applicant sufficiently established United States citizenship." This places an unusual and significant legal burden on individual election workers who are simply trying to help voters register. ### **2\. A Photo ID Requirement That Specifies Citizenship on the Face of the Document** The bill requires that every voter in a federal election present an "eligible photo identification document." The bill defines that document as one containing "a photograph of the individual identified on the document," "an indication on the front of the document that the individual identified on the document is a United States citizen," and either an ID number or "the last four digits of the social security number of the individual identified on the document." The citizenship indicator requirement is the critical problem. Currently, only a handful of states denote citizenship status directly on driver's licenses. Even REAL ID-compliant cards display the same gold star insignia for citizens and lawfully present non-citizens alike. The bill does include a limited workaround: a voter may present a non-compliant ID "together with another identification document that indicates the individual is a United States citizen." But requiring two documents at the polls is itself a significant additional burden, and it would disqualify the standard ID held by the vast majority of Americans unless paired with a second document. The bill also specifies that for in-person voting, the eligible photo identification document "shall be a tangible (not digital) document," closing off the possibility of using a digital ID on a smartphone, a technology that several states have begun adopting. ### **3\. Double Documentation Required for Absentee Voting** For voters casting absentee ballots, the bill requires that a copy of the eligible photo identification document be submitted both "with the request for an absentee ballot" and again "with the submission of the absentee ballot." This double documentation requirement, which most states do not currently impose at any stage, would add substantial friction to the process that millions of Americans, including elderly, disabled, and overseas military voters, rely upon as their primary means of voting. ### **4\. Immediate Effective Date, No Funding, No Phase-In** The bill states plainly that its provisions "shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this section." There is no phase-in period. There is no federal funding provided to help states implement new documentation systems, train election workers, update voter registration forms and databases, or communicate requirements to the public. The Election Assistance Commission is given just 10 days after enactment to "adopt and transmit to the chief State election official of each State guidance with respect to the implementation of the requirements." States are given 30 days to "establish a program" for identifying non-citizens on voter rolls. These are the conditions under which states would be expected to overhaul their entire voter registration and election administration infrastructure. ### **5\. The Risk of Bifurcated Elections** States that cannot comply with the law's requirements could be forced to maintain two separate voter rolls: one for voters who have provided documentary proof of citizenship and are eligible to vote in federal elections, and one for voters who have not. Arizona has operated under just such a bifurcated system since 2004, resulting in nearly two decades of continuous litigation. The SAVE Act would risk spreading that legal and administrative chaos to all 50 states simultaneously, with no funding and no preparation time. ### **6\. Mandatory Federal Database Cross-Checks and Data Sharing** The bill requires states to establish programs to identify non-citizens on voter rolls using information from the Department of Homeland Security's SAVE system, the Social Security Administration, and state driver's license agencies. Federal agencies must respond to state requests within 24 hours and are directed to "share information with each other with respect to an individual who is the subject of a request." The bill goes further: it directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to "conduct an investigation to determine whether to initiate removal proceedings" against any non-citizen found to be registered to vote. This means voter registration data would become a direct input into federal immigration enforcement. The scope of personal voter information flowing between state election systems and federal agencies raises significant privacy concerns that the bill does not address. ### **7\. Criminal Penalties for Election Officials** The bill amends the existing criminal penalties section of the National Voter Registration Act to make it a federal crime for an election official to register "an applicant to vote in an election for Federal office who fails to present documentary proof of United States citizenship." The bill also criminalizes "providing material assistance to a noncitizen in attempting to register to vote or vote in an election for Federal office" for executive branch officers and employees. Critically, the bill does not limit criminal liability to knowing or willful violations. An election official who makes an honest administrative mistake could face federal criminal prosecution. This provision could have a severe chilling effect on election administration, discouraging qualified people from serving as election officials and causing those who do serve to deny registration to borderline applicants out of fear of personal legal consequences. ### **8\. A Private Right of Action Against Election Officials** The bill expands private right of action provisions under the National Voter Registration Act to include "the act of an election official who registers an applicant to vote in an election for Federal office who fails to present documentary proof of United States citizenship." This means private individuals may sue election officials directly for compliance failures, compounding the chilling effect of the criminal penalties and creating a hostile legal environment around the routine work of election administration. ## **Side-by-Side Comparison** | Feature | California Initiative | Federal SAVE Act (HR7296) | | ----------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | | Photo ID for in-person voting | Yes | Yes | | Digital IDs accepted | Not specified | No, tangible only | | Mail ballot ID requirement | Last 4 digits only | Full photocopy required twice | | Proof of citizenship to register | No | Yes, documentary proof required | | Citizenship indicator required on ID | No | Yes, on the face of the document | | Free ID provided | Yes, guaranteed by the initiative | Not addressed | | Federal or state funding provided | State legislative implementation is required | No funding provided | | Phase-in period | Legislature required to act promptly | No phase-in, effective immediately | | Criminal penalties for officials | No | Yes, including for non-willful errors | | Private right of action against officials | No | Yes | | Risk of bifurcated elections | No | Yes | | Federal database surveillance of voters | No | Yes, extensive, including immigration referrals | | Annual audits and public reporting | Yes, required by the initiative | No | ## **The Bottom Line** Both proposals share a stated goal: ensuring that only eligible U.S. citizens cast ballots in American elections. But they represent fundamentally different visions of how to pursue that goal, and the differences matter enormously for millions of American voters. The California initiative works within existing systems. It asks voters to confirm who they are, provides free IDs to those who need them, and builds in transparency and accountability through annual audits and public reporting. Its requirements are clearly defined, its burdens are modest, and its protections for voters are explicit. The SAVE Act, as written in H.R. 7296, would impose requirements that tens of millions of eligible American citizens cannot currently meet, without providing a dollar in funding, a meaningful period of preparation, or protection for the election officials expected to carry it out. It takes effect the day it is signed. It gives states 30 days to overhaul their voter rolls. It exposes election workers to both criminal prosecution and private lawsuits for honest mistakes. It routes voter registration data into federal immigration enforcement. And it threatens to force all 50 states into the kind of bifurcated election chaos that Arizona has lived with for two decades. Reasonable people can disagree about whether voter ID requirements are necessary or wise as a matter of policy. But the contrast between these two proposals is instructive. One is a carefully drawn, incremental reform that takes eligible voters' concerns seriously. The other is a sweeping federal mandate that, as written, would make voting harder for millions of lawful American citizens while creating new legal and administrative burdens that states are given neither the time nor the resources to meet. ### The Most Unlikely College Campus in America URL: https://ivn.us/the-most-unlikely-college-campus-in-america-2026-03-06/ Last updated: 2026-03-06T22:25:34.000Z Cal State LA's [Prison Graduation Initiative](https://www.calstatela.edu/pgi?ref=ivn.us) (PGI) will begin offering courses toward a bachelor's degree at the newly rebranded [San Quentin Rehabilitation Center ](https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/sqrc/?ref=ivn.us)starting in fall 2026\. The program will enroll an inaugural cohort of 35 incarcerated students, with a projected graduation date of spring 2028. San Quentin was once home to California’s death chamber and, for many, a symbol of an outdated, cruel system. The announcement about its transformation came during a ribbon-cutting ceremony on February 20, where [Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled a new 81,000-square-foot Learning Center](https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/02/20/governor-newsom-transforms-san-quentin-opens-nation-leading-learning-center/?ref=ivn.us) at the facility. “Three years ago, I stood here and promised to turn this symbol of the old system into the crown jewel of a new one. Today, with the opening of this Learning Center, we are proving that rehabilitation and public safety go hand in hand — and that hope is a powerful tool for safer communities,” the governor said. According to a press release from the governor’s office, the 18-month progressive design-build project was completed on time and on budget at $239 million, funded through a lease revenue bond. It features modern classrooms, an expanded library, podcast and recording studios, a reentry center, and outdoor spaces near the San Francisco Bay. According to the governor’s office, “experts from around the world designed and built the Learning Center as the first in a series of updates to implement a new model of criminal justice focused on accountability, education, rehabilitation, and reentry.” The Learning Center is central to what Newsom calls the "California Model," a rehabilitation-focused approach to incarceration drawing on practices in Norway. The model prioritizes education and environments designed to ease the transition back into society. Students at San Quentin will pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Applied and Professional Humanities, a curriculum designed to connect academic work with career preparation and support a successful return to life outside prison. Cal State LA will deliver the program in partnership with [Cal State East Bay](https://www.csueastbay.edu/?ref=ivn.us) and [San Francisco State](https://www.sfsu.edu/?ref=ivn.us), with faculty from both Bay Area schools trained to teach the first cohort. PGI has operated inside California prisons since 2016, when it became both the first program in the state to award a bachelor's degree to incarcerated students and the only such program in California to receive a [Second Chance Pell ](https://vera-institute.files.svdcdn.com/production/downloads/publications/second-chance-pell-six-years-of-expanding-access-to-education-in-prison.pdf?dm=1686590214&ref=ivn.us)designation. It has since grown into one of the largest bachelor's degree programs for incarcerated students in the country. San Quentin will be PGI's fourth prison location, joining facilities in Lancaster and two in Chino. ### How James Talarico Won Over Independents Amid Texas Primary Chaos URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/how-james-talarico-won-over-independents-amid-texas-primary-chaos-2026-03-05/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:39:29.000Z James Talarico wins Texas’ Democratic Senate primary as campaigns point to unusually high independent participation in the state’s open primary system. Then Dallas County’s last-minute switch back to precinct-only voting sparks confusion, long lines, and a legal fight over ballots cast after 7 p.m. in Texas' open primary elections. Listen on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn.us) or [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn.us). ## Episode Highlights The latest episode of the Independent Voter Podcast dives into several major issues shaping the 2026 election cycle, including Texas primary election turnout, independent voters, open primaries, ranked choice voting, campaign finance oversight, and election reform. We examine confusion in Dallas County voting locations during the Texas primaries after a late shift from countywide vote centers to precinct-based voting, which left many voters unsure where to cast ballots. The controversy intensified when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sought to block extended voting hours ordered by a judge, sparking accusations of voter suppression, election administration conflicts, and partisan interference. The team highlights how open primary systems, like Texas’s model that allows voters to choose a party ballot without party registration, can attract independent voters and reshape competitive races such as the high-profile U.S. Senate contest involving James Talarico. [Texas Primary Shock: Democratic Voter Turnout Surpasses RepublicansThe 2026 primary elections in Texas had their fair share of excitement and controversy Tuesday night. But one thing that stood out more than anything else was the turnout. Specifically, in the Democratic primaries, which soared above the Republicans.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/favicon-3.ico)Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/texas-primary-2026-democratic-turnout-surpasses-republicans-voter-turnout-texas-election.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/texas-primary-shock-democratic-voter-turnout-surpasses-republicans-2026-03-04) The discussion also explores broader debates about **voting rights, voter ID laws, and primary election access**, emphasizing the growing influence of **independent voters**, now the **largest and fastest-growing bloc in the American electorate**. We argue that partisan primary systems often empower small ideological factions, pointing to historical examples where candidates gained power with only a tiny fraction of the electorate participating (like US Sen. Ted Cruz in 2012). We also contrast **federal voter ID proposals** with the more sensible voter ID reform that will appear on the ballot in California and highlight the need for **nuanced election policy debates** rather than simplistic partisan narratives. The episode also examines how figures like **Sen. John Fetterman and former Sen. Joe Manchin** reflect a rising demand for more **moderate and independent perspectives in Congress**, especially on issues such as **voter ID, election administration, and bipartisan governance**. We wrap things up with a look at several major **election reform developments**, including the possibility of **ranked choice voting in Los Angeles**, legal settlements using **proportional ranked choice voting to address Voting Rights Act disputes**, and the continued expansion – or banning – of ranked choice voting across US states. The team also offers a warning as the **Federal Election Commission (FEC)** has been inactive due to a lack of quorum, leaving billions of dollars in **campaign spending, super PAC money, and political fundraising** largely unregulated ahead of the **2026 midterms**. Throughout the episode, the team argue that reforms such as **open primaries, multi-candidate general elections, and independent voter participation** could help reduce partisan polarization and restore trust in the democratic process while giving voters **more choice, more competition, and more representative elections**. ### Trump to Noem: You're Fired URL: https://ivn.us/trump-to-noem-youre-fired-2026-03-05/ Last updated: 2026-03-05T21:39:19.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** \- When threat levels are at their highest due to the situation in Iran, President Trump ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at 1:40 p.m. March 5 in a Truth Social post and named Republican U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma as her replacement. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-05-at-4.15.33---PM.png) The announcement instantly set off political chain reactions in Washington and in Oklahoma, at a moment when DHS is shut down, and ICE does not have a permanent director. Sen. Mullin cannot take the job without Senate confirmation, and his hearing would be held by the Senate Homeland Security Committee. The committee is chaired by Sen. Rand Paul, whom Mullin recently labeled “[a freaking snake](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5746273-markwayne-mullin-rand-paul-gop-rift/?ref=ivn.us),” creating a combustible backdrop for testimony that will help determine whether Trump’s pick can take control of the sprawling agency. If Mullin leaves the Senate for DHS, Oklahoma will have an open U.S. Senate seat and will need an election to fill it. That contest would begin under the [state’s closed partisan primaries](https://oklahoma.gov/elections/newsroom/2025/december/oklahoma-s-recognized-political-parties-keep-primaries-closed.html?ref=ivn.us), where party registration determines who can vote. In Oklahoma’s 2026 primaries, no recognized political parties have authorized Independent voters to participate, narrowing the primary electorate that will shape the race’s early, decisive stage before the seat is contested in November 2026\. [As IVN has reported](https://ivn.us/posts/oklahoma-independents-drive-massive-push-open-primaries-state-question-836-2026-01-27), Vote Yes 836 staff and volunteers recently filed over 200,000 signatures with the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s office in support of State Question 836, marking a major milestone for the citizen-led campaign to [bring open primary elections to Oklahoma](https://ivn.us/posts/oklahoma-gop-fails-block-open-primaries-initiative-going-voters-2025-09-17). The effort requires 172,993 valid signatures to be successful. The scramble for Senate seats is already intensifying after Sen. Steven Daines of Montana said just yesterday that [he will not run for reelection](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/top-trump-ally-steve-daines-exits-montana-senate-race-plans-retire?ref=ivn.us), adding another seat to the November 2026 map. Trump’s move to fire Noem followed a punishing stretch for her and DHS. After two deadly shootings of U.S. citizens by immigration agents and a government shutdown of the department, calls grew for Noem’s firing and, in some corners, impeachment. House Speaker Mike Johnson added to the sense of impending upheaval when he told a leadership retreat last weekend that changes were coming at DHS. Noem’s critics accuse her of prioritizing personal visibility over departmental stewardship. They point to a headline-grabbing immigration crackdown and to a massive ad push featuring her, including imagery of her on horseback at Mount Rushmore. In a hearing this week, Sen. John Kennedy pressed Noem about the [$220 million ad campaign](https://www.propublica.org/article/kristi-noem-dhs-ad-campaign-strategy-group?ref=ivn.us), and she said the president approved it, but Kennedy appeared to catch her in a falsehood, suggesting that the president had not signed off on a multimillion-dollar public relations effort centered on her. "I never knew anything about it," Trump told [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-didnt-sign-off-200-million-border-security-ad-campaign-2026-03-05/?ref=ivn.us), shortly before firing Noem. Questions about image making extended to Noem's trip to a secret facility. Noem arrived by helicopter, toured the site, and had staff photograph the visit throughout, including aerial shots of the flight. The images later appeared on social media and were promoted in a DHS press release, a sequence described by the [Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/kristi-noem-classified-report-shoes-airport-bae3bae0?ref=ivn.us) as the sort of thing that could cost a typical federal employee their job without the rarely granted authorization. Other management controversies piled up. A reported $1.5 billion in public assistance and mitigation grants for Puerto Rico stalled in Noem’s approval process. DHS spent tens of millions on polygraph testing, including exams administered to employees she did not trust. She also fired and later rehired her pilot after he left her blanket on a different plane. Noem’s week on Capitol Hill made matters worse. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who is not running for reelection, lashed into her over enforcement results, saying, “Why am I disappointed with Secretary Noem? We just want numbers. We want 1,000 a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day. And what we've seen is a disaster under your leadership, Ms. Noem...with Stephen Miller aiding and abetting.” Tillis also invoked Noem’s memoir to attack her judgment: > “I read your book last week and honestly, some of the parts of it impressed me...but the passage when you talked about killing a dog that was 14 months old. You should know better. You don't take a puppy out there. You decided to kill that dog....You say it's a leadership lesson....Those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike Minneapolis....” Noem was also shown an enlarged photo of the [$72 million-leased jet](https://www.newsweek.com/dhs-scrutiny-70m-luxury-jet-kristi-noem-11617460?ref=ivn.us) she had been using and was pressed to respond. Lawmakers also confronted Noem about elections. She was evasive when asked to rule out DHS monitoring of polling places. When Sen. Chris Coons asked whether she would direct ICE agents not to be at election sites, Noem did not answer directly and instead asked, “Do you plan on illegal aliens voting in our elections?” It is already illegal for a noncitizen to vote in a federal election. Noem also defended labeling Minneapolis protesters’ actions as domestic terrorism, saying she relied on information from agents on the ground, even though the heads of two immigration agencies said last month it did not come from them. New reporting this week further intensified the spotlight. Three reporters viewed a classified finding and an inspector general letter concluding that Noem created security vulnerabilities at U.S. airports and that DHS had “systematically obstructed” the watchdog’s work, including 11 alleged instances of blocking information tied to an inquiry described as criminal. The conflict centered on Noem’s July decision to let passengers keep their shoes on at screening checkpoints even if they were not enrolled in TSA PreCheck. A classified November report found that some TSA full-body scanners cannot scan shoes and concluded the change introduced “significant” risk, with some White House officials made aware. After Noem’s office was briefed, officials elevated the classification level and blocked public release, according to people familiar with the matter. DHS disputed the inspector general’s claims, and a spokeswoman said, “The decision to end the shoes-off policy, the spokeswoman added, was made after 1,000 tests and risk assessments, including those conducted under the Biden administration.” The inspector general’s office said it conducted covert tests but could not discuss details because the findings were classified. Even as the controversies mounted, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump still backed Noem, adding, “Our homeland is undoubtedly safer today than it was when the president took office last year.” Trump’s 1:40 p.m. Truth Social post ended that line of defense and handed the next chapter to Mullin and a newly opened Senate seat in Oklahoma. ### Texas Primary Shock: Democratic Voter Turnout Surpasses Republicans URL: https://ivn.us/texas-primary-shock-democratic-voter-turnout-surpasses-republicans-2026-03-04/ Last updated: 2026-03-05T16:42:18.000Z The 2026 primary elections in Texas had their fair share of excitement and controversy Tuesday night. But one thing that stood out more than anything else was the turnout. Specifically, in the Democratic primaries, which soared above the Republicans. The race for US Senate received a lot of media attention – especially after Democratic candidate James Talarico was featured on Stephen Colbert’s late night show. So, naturally it attracted voters. With [98% of precincts reporting](https://www.dallasnews.com/projects/2026/dallas-texas-primary-election-results/?utm%5Fsource=substack&utm%5Fmedium=email), the turnout was over 2.31 million in the Democratic US Senate primary. To put this in perspective, the 2024 Senate primary (in which Colin Allreed became the Democratic nominee) drew in a total of 967,503 voters. Talerico and US Rep. Jasmine Crockett each exceeded that total in votes. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/03/Texas-US-Senate-turnout-1.jpeg) On the Republican side, over 2.12 million voters cast a ballot in the US Senate race, which came down to a contest between incumbent US Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Both will advance to a May 26 runoff election. Turnout in the runoff is expected to be half or less of the primary election turnout. The Democratic primary also had higher turnout for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. This has not happened in a non-presidential statewide primary in Texas since the 1990s. Democrats slightly beat out the GOP in the 2020 presidential primary, but Trump still won the state. So, what does this mean? - Is it an indication that there are more Democrats in Texas than the common narrative would have people believe? - Is it a preview of what may happen in November? - Did independent voters drive up the numbers for Democrats this time around? - Were there Republicans who crossed over to vote in the Democratic primaries? All of these are possibilities, though to call it a preview of what will happen in November would be premature. However, data suggests it may be a combination of the other options. Texas conducts open partisan primaries. It does not register voters by party. Instead, they can choose between a Republican ballot and Democratic ballot each primary election cycle. The Republican Party of Texas has sued Secretary of State Jane Nelson, a Republican, to close the state’s primary elections. Still, the current open system is the law of the land. [Why is the TX Secretary of State Jane Nelson Doing Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Job?In the midst of a Republican Party lawsuit against the State of Texas to close its publicly administered primary elections to party members only, Attorney General Ken Paxton has decided not to defend Texas law.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-17.jpg)Independent VoterShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/E8ZGDSPXMAA6Tbm.jpg)](https://ivn.us/why-tx-secretary-state-jane-nelson-doing-attorney-general-ken-paxtons-job-2025-10-14/) Although the state does not officially track party membership, L2 Data – the nation’s leading independent voter data and technology firm – has used tested methodology to create voter files for every state, including Texas. L2 draws from several datapoints to construct an analytical model of how voter registration breaks down, including races in major cities and urban areas that have a heavy concentration of eligible voters compared to rural areas. When the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) (co-publisher of IVN) updated its state-by-state primary map using data from L2, the organization received a lot of feedback when the numbers showed [more Democrats in Texas than Republicans](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/tx?ref=ivn.us). Some people couldn’t believe it. Especially in a state controlled at every level of government by the GOP. And so, [I wrote a piece explaining the source of the numbers](https://ivn.us/posts/are-there-more-democrats-texas-republicans-2025-08-08). The current voter file shows: **Total Registered Voters:** 16,630,174 **Democrats:** 7,901,734 (47.51%) **Republicans:** 6,217,550 (37.39%) **Unaffiliated:** 2,510,890 (15.10%) These numbers aren’t official. Again, Texas does not track party membership among registered voters. However, they are based on trusted data modeling. So, it may not be a surprise to see a shift in primary turnout going forward. L2’s data also raises an important question: What if Texas has actually been purple this entire time? Neither major party has a majority of registered voters. There are nearly 3 million independent voters in the state. And this is the most consequential voting bloc. Statewide election trends show increasingly tighter statewide contests between Republicans and Democrats. US Sen Ted Cruz won re-election in 2024 with just 53% of the vote. Cornyn won re-election with the same percentage in 2020. What if winners are not being determined by Republicans or Democrats – but independents? And what will happen when independents in Texas get excited about a candidate that doesn’t have an "R" next to their name? In the Senate race, Talarico didn’t just campaign for Democrats. He reached out to independent voters as well. And it paid off. The last public survey on the Democratic contest showed he had a clear advantage with independents over Crockett, [62% to 35%](https://unherd.com/newsroom/texas-primary-result-reveals-democrats-centrist-pivot/?edition=us&ref=ivn.us). Independent voters made the difference for his campaign, which could extend to the general election depending on who wins the Republican runoff between Cornyn and Paxton. And if these voters still feel incentivized to vote for either party’s nominee. ### How It Really Works: The California Billionaire Wealth Tax URL: https://ivn.us/how-it-really-works-the-california-billionaire-wealth-tax-2026-03-03/ Last updated: 2026-03-09T17:17:04.000Z California’s proposed billionaire wealth tax has become one of the most consequential policy debates in the nation. The labor unions say it is a response to income inequality, lack of affordable housing, federal health care cuts for the poor, food insecurity, and the social impact of automation. Opponents warn it could accelerate capital flight, erode the tax base, and reshape California’s economy and entrepreneurial culture long before any revenue is collected. More than one-third of California’s tax revenue comes from the top 1% of earners. ## **What a Wealth Tax Is** A wealth tax is a tax on what a person owns. It is based on a taxpayer’s net worth, meaning the total value of assets minus debts. Assets can include real estate, stocks, businesses, artwork, and other investments. This is different from an income tax, which applies to wages and other earnings, or a capital gains tax, which applies when assets are sold for a profit. It is also different from estate taxes, which apply when wealth is transferred at death. A wealth tax applies even if assets are not sold, and no cash is received by the taxpayer. That distinction is central to its controversy. ## **Wealth Taxes in the United States** The United States has never had a permanent federal wealth tax. The Constitution places limits on direct taxes, and American tax policy has instead focused on income taxes, capital gains taxes, and estate taxes. From time to time, lawmakers and academics have proposed wealth taxes at the federal level. These proposals have sparked debate but have not become law. Concerns have included constitutionality, enforcement, valuation, and the potential impact on investment and entrepreneurship. At the state level, wealth taxes have also been rare. Most state tax systems rely on income and sales taxes, with property taxes limited largely to real estate. ## **The California Ballot Initiative** California voters may soon face a proposal known as the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act. On December 26, 2025, the California Secretary of State approved a ballot initiative titled **“Imposes One-Time Tax on Certain Individuals and Trusts”** for circulation. The measure is both a statute and a constitutional amendment and is backed by the **Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU–UHW)**. To qualify for the November 2026 ballot, supporters must collect **874,641 valid signatures by June 24, 2026**. If approved, the initiative would impose a **one-time 5 percent tax** on the net worth of individuals and certain trusts valued above **$1 billion**. Liability would be based on **California residency during the 2026 tax year**, using **January 1, 2026,** as the valuation date. Assets would be taxed **whether or not they had been sold or converted to cash**, meaning unrealized gains would be included. **The tax would apply retroactively to anyone who was a California resident as of January 1, 2026.** What makes this proposal unusual is that it would apply to the wealth people already had, before the law was passed. This tax would reach back in time as a form of retroactive taxation. Retroactive taxes are legal in some circumstances but are relatively rare and often controversial. ## **Wealth Taxes Around the World** Wealth taxes are not new. Many European countries adopted them in the twentieth century, especially after major wars, when governments needed revenue to rebuild and reduce debt. These taxes were usually aimed at the wealthiest households. Over time, most countries abandoned annual wealth taxes. Nine European countries have repealed wealth taxes since the 1990s. Many governments found that the taxes raised less revenue than expected. They were expensive to administer and difficult to enforce. Valuing complex assets each year proved challenging, and wealthy individuals often moved assets or changed residency to reduce their tax exposure. France repealed their wealth taxes after concluding that the economic costs outweighed the benefits. In many cases, wealth taxes produced a small share of total government revenue. France lost **10,000 millionaires** worth about $41 billion dollars between 1982 and 2017\. Economist Eric Pichet estimated the tax raised $4.1 billion dollars annually, while capital flight cost roughly $8 billion dollars per year. Norway implemented a 1 percent wealth tax in 2022\. More than 30 billionaires and mega-millionaires left that year. The policy was expected to raise $146 million, but an estimated $54 billion in capital exited, producing a net fiscal loss of nearly $450 million. Commentary followed. The account Wall Street Mav wrote on X that Norway implemented a wealth tax, expecting higher revenue but instead saw wealthy residents move to cheaper jurisdictions. Tech entrepreneur Antonio García Martínez wrote that “every successful tech entrepreneur bailed to Switzerland,” adding that net revenue fell. Today, only a small number of countries still impose broad wealth taxes. Switzerland, Norway, and Spain maintain versions of them, though the rules and rates vary widely. In the U.S., the **Census Bureau** reports **7.5 million people moved between states in 2023**. Research on domestic migration consistently shows people tend to relocate toward lower-tax environments with stronger entrepreneurial ecosystems. ## **Who Would Be Affected** California’s **nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO)** estimates that **200 to 250 billionaires** could be affected if California’s billionaire tax passes. Under optimistic assumptions, the LAO projects the tax could raise **approximately $100 billion in one-time revenue**. But the LAO also warned that outcomes depend heavily on stock market performance and taxpayer behavior, stating: > ***“The reduction in state revenues from these kinds of responses could be hundreds of millions of dollars or more per year. This would mean less money for the state’s general budget that supports education, health care, prisons, and other services.”*** According to **Forbes data compiled by Americans for Tax Fairness and reported by Business Insider**, between **214 and 241 billionaires lived in California as of January 2026**, more than any other U.S. state, with combined wealth estimated at roughly **$2 trillion**. ## **Where the Money Would Go** According to [**Reason**](https://x.com/reason/status/2018701068570624219?ref=ivn.us), no revenue from the wealth tax would flow into California’s general fund. Instead: - **90 percent** would go into a **Billionaire Tax Health Account** to “protect or enhance Medi-Cal,” California’s Medicaid program. - **10 percent** would go into a **Billionaire Tax Education and Food Assistance Account**, funding K–12 education, two years of community college, and programs including **CalFresh, CalFAP, CalFood, and California’s Universal Meals Program**. Reason also noted that the Biden administration previously found Medi-Cal improperly claimed **nearly $53 million** in federal funding for ineligible noncitizens between **October 2018 and June 2019**. > A wealth tax doesn't just hit the ultrarich. It gives the government the power to value everything you own and to take a cut each year. Once that authority exists, no one is out of reach. [https://t.co/m0VSb0PYhI](https://t.co/m0VSb0PYhI?ref=ivn.us) > > — reason (@reason) [February 3, 2026](https://twitter.com/reason/status/2018701068570624219?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) ## **Who Are the Proponents?** Supporters of the Billionaire Tax argue the tax is necessary to address **widening income inequality**, **looming budget shortfalls**, and **anticipated reductions to healthcare for the poor due to Republican Medicaid funding cuts**. The political message will be that the wealthy should pay their “fair share” for health care and food. Labor unions cite research showing that the **effective tax rate paid by America’s richest 0.0002 percent fell after the 2017 GOP tax overhaul**, arguing that recent federal policy disproportionately benefited the ultra-wealthy. SEIU–UHW, representing roughly 120,000 workers, argues that California’s concentration of wealth makes the state, in its words, “uniquely positioned to address both the well-documented crisis of wealth inequality in the United States and the emerging and interrelated crises the state faces.” **Suzanne Jimenez**, the union’s chief of staff, told the **Marin Independent Journal**: > ***“We looked at how could we generate the revenue to fix this kind of hole and this group of folks just made sense.”*** Jimenez added that California billionaires are the “**most fortunate people in this state**.” Supporters argue that under the current system, massive fortunes can grow through unrealized gains while generating relatively modest taxable income, and that *a one-time wealth tax reaches gains that might otherwise never be taxed.* Progressive leaders, including **Sen. Bernie Sanders** and **Rep. Ro Khanna,** have endorsed the wealth tax. After investor **Peter Thiel** warned he would leave California over a wealth tax, Khanna wrote on X, as reported by **Kiplinger’s**: > *“Peter Thiel is leaving California if we pass a 1% tax on billionaires for five years to pay for healthcare for the working class facing steep Medicaid cuts. I echo what \[Franklin D. Roosevelt\] said with sarcasm of economic royalists when they threatened to leave, ‘I will miss them very much.’”* ## **Teamsters Enter the Fight** In January 2026, Teamsters California, one of the most powerful unions with approximately 250,000 members, formally endorsed California’s proposed billionaire wealth tax, according to Fox Business. They are framing the initiative as a defense of working-class Californians facing rising living costs, job displacement, and automation. In a joint statement, Teamsters California co-chairs Peter Finn and Victor Mineros said: > *“The fight to pass the California Billionaire Tax is a fight to protect workers’ ability to afford living in California; it’s a fight Teamsters California will continue to lead.”* They accused technology executives of exploiting the tax system, adding: > *“The same Big Tech billionaires shedding crocodile tears over the idea of paying their fair share of taxes while amassing sky-high piles of cash are exploiting a rigged system that makes delivery workers and bus drivers pay higher rates than the AI executives trying to wipe away our jobs.”* The union said the tax would hold billionaires “accountable for destroying our jobs and robbing families of our healthcare,” arguing that automation, artificial intelligence, and autonomous vehicles threaten union jobs, public safety, and family-supporting wages. Teamsters leaders said the proposal is part of a broader effort to ensure that California’s economic growth benefits workers rather than only corporate executives and shareholders, especially as federal health-care funding faces potential cuts. ## **Democrats Newsom, Mahan Oppose Wealth Tax** Opposition to the tax includes several prominent Democratic Party leaders: Gov. **Gavin Newsom** has said wealth tax proposals are “**going nowhere in California**” and that the state “**can’t isolate \[itself\] from 49 other states**.” Speaking at **The New York Times DealBook conference** in December 2025, Newsom said a wealth tax was **not pragmatic**. He later added: > *“I want to be a big tent party.”* The New York Times reported that Newsom is raising money for a committee opposing the measure, which received a $100,000 donation from venture capitalist Ron Conway in November 2025. A Newsom spokesperson told the **Marin Independent Journal** that he opposes “**state-level wealth taxes**” because they encourage relocation. "The evidence is in. The impacts are very real — not just substantive economic impacts in terms of the revenue, but start-ups, the indirect impacts of … people questioning long-term commitments, medium-term commitments," he said. "That’s not what we need right now, at a time of so much uncertainty. Quite the contrary." Newsom also said the measure is “badly drafted.” “It does not support our public educators,” the governor said. “Does not support our teachers and counselors, our librarians. It doesn’t support our first responders and firefighters. Doesn’t support the general fund and parks.” Newsom said the Legislative Analyst’s Office shows the proposed wealth tax would bring a "one-time" windfall, then "over the years, you would see a significant reduction in taxes because taxpayers will move. And that is what I fear at a state level." "There's impact as it relates to the flow of capital, the impacts on the market, which are not inconsequential," the governor said. > *"You've got to democratize our economy if you're gonna save democracy, absolutely. But this proposal by one local \[SEIU–United Healthcare Workers West\], I do not believe, is the answer."* **San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan**, a Democrat running for Governor, wrote on X: > *“Driving billionaires out of state might feel good in the short run but working people (as is almost always the case) will pick up the tab.”* **Mahan notes that roughly 40 to 50 percent of California’s income tax revenue comes from the top one percent of earners.** ## **Campaign Money and Organized Opposition** The **New York Times** reported on January 11, 2026, that **Peter Thiel** donated **$3 million** to a committee affiliated with the **California Business Roundtable** to oppose the tax. It was the **first publicly disclosed seven-figure donation** against the initiative. Opponents estimate **more than $75 million** could be spent to defeat the measure. The New York Times reported that Thiel made his fortune through early investments in Facebook and Palantir, supported the anti-tax group Club for Growth, and placed early tech investments inside a Roth IRA, allowing them to grow tax-free. Public records cited by the Times show he has established residence in Florida, registered to vote there, obtained New Zealand citizenship, and explored citizenship in Malta. **Rob Lapsley**, president of the Business Roundtable, told the Times: > *“I can tell you, unequivocally, we are casting a broad net to donors all over the state — he’s one of hundreds we have.”* The Times also reported that **Sergey Brin** has participated in strategy discussions to defeat the tax. [The Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/sergey-brin-backs-new-california-political-effort-as-threat-of-wealth-tax-looms-35ed7063?gaa%5Fat=eafs&gaa%5Fn=AWEtsqcC3F4vKUm%5FptDGfqY5qyKQAm-ubLRlsZZnxzpPOUf2ZTLj-cTeyGzJwXjj9Q%3D%3D&gaa%5Fts=6981122f&gaa%5Fsig=Pjiyx%5FZ4nyWSI-Nm6RwocSjiN8CAlj8D5dbx6mvD%5FU0eQf%5FOilUegqspBeIPFaAQHKcwp1RIiiFmgtbIiklAbQ%3D%3D&ref=ivn.us) reported that Brin has contributed $20 million to a group fighting the tax. Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has contributed $2 million and venture capitalist Michael Moritz also gave $2 million. ## **More Billionaires Will Leave California** Even before qualifying for the ballot, behavior has changed. [**The New York Times**](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/technology/google-founders-california-wealth-tax.html?ref=ivn.us) reported that **Larry Page** moved assets out of California ahead of January 1, 2026\. **The Telegraph** later reported that Page moved his family office and flying-car ventures. **Brin** also moved business entities. The **San Francisco Chronicle** reported that crypto firm **BitGo** moved its headquarters to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. CEO **Mike Belshe** wrote: > *“Who in their right mind would found a new business in California if California does this?”* > The CEO has bashed California's proposed wealth tax. [https://t.co/Gp2MCQnJ2j](https://t.co/Gp2MCQnJ2j?ref=ivn.us) > > — SFGATE (@SFGate) [January 15, 2026](https://twitter.com/SFGate/status/2011793009369555323?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) **Andy Fang**, cofounder of DoorDash, wrote: > *“I love California. Born and raised there. But stupid wealth tax proposals like this make it irresponsible for me not to plan \[on\] leaving the state.”* The **Marin Independent Journal** reported that tax adviser **David Lesperance** said: > *“Because of the potential ballot measure, almost all of my clients are taking steps as quickly as possible both to sever California residence and to move assets outside of the state.”* ## **“The Money Doesn’t Actually Exist”** The proposal taxes **unrealized gains**, a major departure from existing tax practice. Under current federal rules, capital gains are generally taxed only when assets are sold. Under the proposal, assets would be taxed regardless of liquidity. Many voters view **taxing paper gains** as **unfair or impractical**, **particularly when taxpayers lack cash to pay bills based on assets they have not sold.** The **California Chamber of Commerce** warned that including unrealized gains would be unprecedented and would hurt the state’s technology and innovation sectors. **Matt Fleming**, writing for Southern California News Group, said: > *“The fundamental flaw with a wealth tax is that *it goes after unrealized gains* based on stock valuations. Not only are these valuations highly volatile (stocks are up one day and down the next), but unrealized gains means *the money doesn’t actually exist*. In order to pay the tax bill, billionaires would likely have to sell assets, like stock. For entrepreneurs growing businesses, this would be a big problem.”* ## **Founder Risk and Corporate Control** **Garry Tan**, CEO of **Y Combinator**, warned that the proposal **conflates voting control with equity ownership.** > It’s an easy fix to get billionaires to pay their taxes on loans against their stock > > But the hard left doesn’t want a fix. They want mass asset seizure and an unrealized gains tax that kills tech in CA > > And due to capital flight the problem is now worse > [pic.twitter.com/c08xfyzwn4](https://t.co/c08xfyzwn4?ref=ivn.us) > > — Garry Tan (@garrytan) [January 12, 2026](https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/2010829449290207465?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) He said **Larry Page and Sergey Brin**, who control about **30 percent of Google’s voting power** but own roughly **3 percent of its equity**, could face **$60 billion tax bills**, forcing liquidation of about **half their shares**. **Palmer Luckey**, founder of **Anduril**, told **Newsweek** the tax would force founders to: > “sell huge chunks” > *“immediately pivot into profit \[obsession\] over mission or long-term sustainability.”* Luckey added that the proposal “***makes founder-led companies practically illegal***.” **Reid Hoffman**, LinkedIn cofounder, said the proposal’s treatment of illiquid assets could destabilize businesses. On X, he wrote: > *“While I am against the proposed tax, I’m always open to dialogue with our elected leaders.”* He added that it is: > *“\[B\]adly designed in so many ways that a simple social post cannot cover all of the massive flaws.”* And then he said: > “***Poorly designed taxes incentivize avoidance, capital flight and distortions that ultimately raise less revenue***.” ## **Why Isn’t Jensen Huang of Nvidia Going Anywhere?** Not all tech leaders oppose the tax. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whose estimated net worth of $155–$162 billion could trigger an $8 billion tax bill, told Bloomberg Television: > *“We chose to live in Silicon Valley, and whatever taxes they would like to apply, so be it. I’ve got to tell you, I have not even thought about it once.”* Huang emphasized that Nvidia’s success is inseparable from California’s dense network of universities, suppliers, startups, and engineers. ## **Capitalism vs. Socialism** At its core, the wealth tax debate is an ideological one. The wealth tax reflects a **democratic socialist worldview** that sees extreme wealth as incompatible with democracy. In New York City, voters recently elected **Zohran Mamdani**, backed by the **Democratic Socialists of America** and the **Working Families Party**. Mamdani has famously said: > *“Billionaires should not exist.”* On the other side of the ideological spectrum… Bill Ackman, the hedge-fund manager, said the California union’s proposal is “an expropriation of private property” in a post on X. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, billionaire investor and Trump administration technology adviser David Sacks said: > *“This is not a tax — this is asset seizure. It’s not a one time, it’s a first time.”* (Sacks moved from California to Texas.) ## **Crypto and Property Rights** Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken, wrote on X that he would rather hold wealth in Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum than allow California to confiscate his property: > *“We’ll decide what’s fair. We’ll decide what you get to keep.”* Sethi added that he would rather “invest money and hold it in Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum and borrow and lend on apps like Tydro without having to worry about California seizing my property.” ### **Does This Poll Well When Voters Pay Attention?** Polling on the billionaire wealth tax is still thin, but the early signal is clear. According to reporting by the New York Post, initial polling showed majority support when voters were asked a generic question about taxing billionaires to fund health care and education. Once voters heard arguments from both sides, including capital flight, retroactive taxation, and enforcement problems, support dropped to about 41 percent. That drop matters. Ballot initiatives built on soft, surface-level support often collapse once voters confront tradeoffs. This proposal is complex, and complexity rarely helps at the ballot box. ### **This Is Not Really About Revenue** The wealth tax debate is framed as a fight over fairness, but it is really about power and predictability. The central question is whether California can tax accumulated wealth without driving it out of the state, and whether taxation should be used to steer economic behavior rather than simply fund public services. Retroactive taxation cuts against one of the core expectations of a functioning tax system. People plan, invest, and take risks based on known rules. Changing those rules after the fact undermines trust well beyond the small group being targeted. ### **The Law Is Messy by Design** The proposal raises unresolved legal and administrative problems. Critics warn that targeting a narrow class of individuals invites constitutional challenges. Others question how the state would fairly and consistently value private companies, illiquid assets, and complex financial holdings on a single date. Even supporters concede that actual revenue would depend on market conditions, legal outcomes, and how quickly taxpayers adjust their behavior before any money is collected. ### **The Tax Is Already Working, Just Not as Advertised** The measure is not on the ballot yet, but its effects are already visible. Founders are relocating. Assets are moving. Advisors are helping clients exit California residency. These are not hypothetical responses. They are happening now, in anticipation of the tax. Supporters project tens of billions in revenue. Critics warn of long-term damage to California’s tax base, investment climate, and startup ecosystem. Both sides are making estimates. Only one side is already changing behavior. ### **The Choice Voters Will Face** This proposal forces a broader question. Does California want to remain a magnet for risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and long-term investment, or is it willing to trade predictability for a one-time redistribution of wealth? Rising inequality and budget pressure are real. So are the risks of poorly constructed tax policy. The billionaire wealth tax may never make it onto the ballot, but it has already exposed how far California is willing to go, and what it may be willing to lose in the process. ### Should Ballots Include Political Endorsements? URL: https://ivn.us/should-ballots-include-political-endorsements-2026-03-03/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T21:41:05.000Z On February 25, the Democracy Exchange Network (DEN) convened to discuss an issue that seldom gets attention even among reformers. Specifically, what voters should see on the ballot when they cast their votes. The topic may sound technical. But it isn’t. At its foundation, it addresses the question: Should political parties and civic organizations be allowed to place endorsements directly on the ballot in local and primary elections? This may initially seem like common sense. Voters walk into low-turnout municipal races and crowded primaries with almost no information. Beyond a party label, they are handed a list of names and told to decide. Reformers have spent decades talking about “voter education.” So, what if the ballot itself carried more information? ## **The Case for On-Ballot Endorsements** John Ketcham of the Manhattan Institute [opened the discussion](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dsdMyzcZqCv8RTanmXSZn23pL7TaKNHQ/view?ref=ivn.us) with a proposal to allow vetted political parties and civic institutions to display endorsements directly on municipal ballots. This would potentially extend to primaries as well. The argument is straightforward: *Local elections are information deserts. When voters lack meaningful cues, they default to name recognition, ballot position, or skip the race entirely. Endorsements, Ketcham argued, would help voters differentiate candidates in crowded fields.* He pointed to a 2025 Manhattan Institute poll of New York City voters to show the public's appetite for the proposal. The poll found 58% support for the idea, compared to 31% opposed. The proposal included guardrails: - Limits on the number of endorsements displayed - Signature requirements for endorsing entities - Candidate control over which endorsements appear - Clear deadlines to prevent chaos The promise? Clearer lines of accountability between candidates and the organizations backing them. Stronger local party institutions. Better-informed decisions at the ballot box. ## **The Administrative Reality Check** Amber McReynolds, drawing from her extensive experience administering elections in Denver, Colorado, offered a contrasting view. She pointed out the logistic hurdles that the proposal will immediately face before implementation. Election administrators already operate under tight timelines, constrained budgets, and increasingly complex ballots. Adding endorsements would mean verifying them, managing disputes, redesigning ballots (which will be longer), and potentially defending legal challenges. McReynolds also raised a sharper concern: if endorsements are placed on ballots, what prevents “pay-to-play” dynamics? What stops dark money entities from manufacturing influence through endorsement labels? What impact would adding official endorsement cues have on local nonpartisan elections – like school boards? Daniel Anderson of Ballotpedia offered his own perspective. Ballotpedia already aggregates endorsements, publishes sample ballots, and builds digital voter guides. He understands how important this information is for voters. However, like McReynolds, he raised an issue with ballot modification. Essentially, his position was: Why redesign ballots when digital voter guides and online voter portals can provide the same information more flexibly and at lower cost? This would also allow for greater transparency, since more information can be made available to the public. If voters are going to see endorsements, Anderson argued, they should also see who funds the endorsing entity. ## **The Bigger Question: Where Should Information Live?** The discussion moved beyond mechanics into equity and power. Would on-ballot endorsements help underrepresented candidates (e.g. women, candidates of color, political newcomers) by giving them credible signals of support? Or would they reinforce existing networks of power, privileging well-connected organizations and incumbents? There isn’t strong empirical evidence either way, which several attendees noted should give reformers pause. Participants also explored alternatives. For example, Alan Durning of Sightline highlighted Oregon’s “aggregated fusion” model, where candidates can list multiple party or organizational affiliations. He argued this is a structured way to surface meaningful endorsements without cluttering ballots beyond recognition. Others pointed to expanded official voter guides, hybrid digital-print systems, and clearer occupational or affiliation labels – something that California does on its ballots. [**Post-meeting survey data**](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jq3QUsD6J4k6iFbFt5DhxZNjYlmmMDCD1m9lb5y8-Fk/edit?tab=t.0&ref=ivn.us) **from 23 attendees shows how divided reformers are on the topic.** Rob Richie of [Expand Democracy](https://expanddemocracy.org/?ref=ivn.us) framed the meeting around DEN’s mission: examining the “rules of the game,” not the policy outcomes of any particular race. That’s exactly what this conversation was about. If voters are walking into low-information elections, reformers are faced with three options: 1. Accept it. 2. Improve the information ecosystem around elections. 3. Change the ballot itself. Reformers largely reject Option One. Meanwhile, Option Three is the most direct – and the most divisive. While the February 25 DEN meeting did not settle the debate, it exposed fault lines within the reform community. There is a growing appetite to reach voters where they make decisions, but structural and logistical hurdles cannot be ignored. Regardless of where reformers stand, improving voter information is a shared goal. Whether the ballot itself should become a billboard for endorsements remains an open – and deeply contested – question. ### Don’t Kill Top Two. Upgrade It: A Smarter Way to Elect California’s Governor URL: https://ivn.us/dont-kill-top-two-upgrade-it-a-smarter-way-to-elect-californias-governor-2026-03-03/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T19:38:25.000Z California’s gubernatorial race currently features well over a dozen candidates, including nine Democrats and no obvious frontrunners. In a state where Democrats dominate registration, that might seem like a success. Instead, it has triggered a familiar panic: what if Democratic vote-splitting allows two Republicans to advance to the November election? Cue the sky-is-falling rhetoric. Some Democratic officials are openly wringing their hands. Others are quietly doing math. And a few are using the moment opportunistically to attack California’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system. Their proposed solution? Go back to closed primaries, where only registered party members choose each party’s nominee. This would be a mistake. Yes, the flaws in the Top Two systems are real. It advances only two candidates to November, no matter how large the field is in June. Independents and third-party candidates virtually never advance. In crowded primaries, it incentivizes candidate suppression to mitigate vote splitting. Listen carefully over the next two weeks. Party leaders will likely pressure the weaker Democratic candidates to drop out before the upcoming filing deadline. Even after that deadline passes, withdrawals and endorsements will continue. The process is messy: voter choice narrows not because voters demand it, but because party insiders and big donors fear the math. Meanwhile, Republicans, having not won statewide office since 2006, ironically benefit from having fewer viable candidates. A unified GOP could slip two candidates into November if Democrats fragment badly enough. And yet, like Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown, that moment never quite materializes. Democratic elites eventually coordinate. Candidates suspend campaigns. Endorsements are aligned, and donor money reoriented. In the end, at least one Democrat advances. Often two do. And the feared two Republican general election evaporates. But this pattern comes at a cost. Strategic withdrawal replaces open competition, leaving ordinary voters wondering why their preferred candidate disappeared under pressure. Party leaders often argue that the answer is to scrap the Top Two system and return to closed partisan primaries. History tells us this means letting a highly partisan, low turnout primary electorate pick nominees. Consider what that would mean. The most ideological voters in each party would effectively decide the November ballot. Independents, roughly one-in-five California voters, would be sidelined from the only election that truly determines our state's governor. In a state where Democrats haven't lost a statewide election in nearly 20 years, the general election is often a foregone conclusion. Third party voices would again be dismissed as spoilers, and candidates would focus more on winning internal party battles than building statewide coalitions. This is not progress. It is a regression. There is a better way forward. Rather than retreating to closed primaries, California voters should improve upon the nonpartisan foundation we already have. Two key changes would improve the way we vote: 1. Use ranked choice voting in the primary, and 2. Advance five candidates, not two, to the November general election, where ranked choice voting would again be used to elect a majority winner. These improvements are tailored to single-seat offices like governor, where one person must ultimately win majority support statewide. Reforming how we elect state legislators or members of Congress is a different conversation. Improving representation in multi-seat legislative bodies may call for different tools, potentially even proportional representation. That debate is worth having. But today’s controversy is about a single-seat race, and that is where these particular reforms fit. Ranked choice voting in a Top Five primary would eliminate the panic over vote splitting. Voters could rank candidates in order of preference, allowing support for eliminated candidates to transfer naturally to similar contenders. In a crowded Democratic field, supporters of lower-performing candidates could safely rank another Democrat second, ensuring their voice still influences which candidates advance. Consolidation would occur through voter preferences, with ballots doing their job, rather than through backroom negotiations about who drops out. Advancing the five top candidates to November would obviously expand voter choice and produce a general election featuring multiple viable contenders – perhaps two Democrats, a Republican, an independent, and a third-party candidate. Such a ballot would reflect California’s political diversity far more accurately than a two-candidate contest shaped by insider maneuvering. Voters would see real options, not merely the survivors of a strategic partisan squeeze. Ranked choice voting in November would ensure that the winner of the California governor's race commands majority support. Voters could rank freely without fear of spoilers, and the eventual governor would emerge with broad backing. Perhaps most importantly, an incumbent seeking re-election knows that the first contest they face, the nonpartisan primary, includes the entire electorate, not just their party’s most ideological voters. That changes behavior. Instead of governing to appease a narrow base, they must remain accountable to independents and moderates as well. When the full electorate is in play from the start, governing to serve the extremes becomes a risk rather than a strategy. The answer to today’s crowded field is not retreat. It is modernization. Instead of empowering party gatekeepers, we can empower voters with more choice, less vote splitting, and majority-supported outcomes. Let’s move forward from the Top Two, not back. ### No Referee in the Midterms? Trump’s FEC Nominations Come After 10 Months of Zero Federal Oversight URL: https://ivn.us/no-referee-in-the-midterms-trumps-fec-nominations-come-after-10-months-of-zero-federal-oversight-2026-03-02/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T16:52:30.000Z As February wrapped up, it was reported that President Donald Trump had nominated two Republicans for the Federal Elections Commission after 10 months of the agency being unable to perform its basic functions. The FEC is tasked with rulemaking, enforcement, and investigation into potential violations of federal campaign finance and election law. Yet even with [the nominations](https://www.notus.org/money/federal-election-commission-nominees-shutdown-trump?ref=ivn.us) it could take weeks or months for new members to take their positions Meanwhile, the US enters a midterm election cycle in which [billions of dollars have already been spent](https://www.insideradio.com/free/midterm-political-ad-spending-tops-2-billion/article%5F75e09714-ba9c-45ef-bf56-efbd99f11e1e.html?ref=ivn.us). This means there is effectively zero federal oversight into the flow of cash going into and out of campaigns, political action committees, and the parties. Not that there was much of it when the agency had the quorum it needed to be active. As previously explained on IVN, the FEC has increasingly become paralyzed by the same hyper-partisanship that has consumed the nation’s politics. [Partisan Gridlock and the FEC: 50 Years of Increasing ParalysisMany voters may not be aware that on May 1 the Federal Election Commission (FEC) lost its ability to enforce federal campaign finance and election laws after Republican Allen Dickerson departed the agency, leaving it without the quorum it needs to perform its most important roles.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-15.jpg)Independent VoterShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/Broken-FEC.png)](https://ivn.us/partisan-gridlock-and-fec-50-years-increasing-paralysis-2025-05-19/) Still, for anyone concerned about political operatives or monied interests abusing the system, whether by exploiting loopholes or outright breaking the law – this story should be of particular interest. In May 2025, Republican Allen Dickerson left the FEC, resulting in the agency losing its quorum. A month prior, Sean Cooksey – also a Republican – resigned and President Donald Trump fired FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat. Both Cooksey and Weintraub now work for lobbying groups. The agency needs a minimum of 4 members to conduct its most critical functions, including voting on the outcome of investigations, conducting audits, and punishing campaign finance law violators. That is, if commissioners can agree a law was broken. With these 3 out, the FEC lost its ability to do any of these things. Then, in October, Republican Trey Trainor also resigned from the agency, leaving only 2 members. This explains why Trump nominated two Republicans – Ashley Stow and Andrew Woodson. Their confirmation will give the agency the quorum it needs to function, but there is no telling how long this will take. Trainor’s 2017 nomination by Trump took 976 days to confirm. Even if there is a speedier confirmation process, the commissioners will face a massive backlog. And, because there will only be 4 members, decisions on any of these enforcement cases will require all commissioners to be on the same page. The likelihood of this happening is slim. Prior to its shutdown, the FEC saw an increase in cases that resulted in deadlocked decisions split along party lines. Democrats accuse Republicans of not enforcing the law, while Republicans accuse Democrats of weaponizing the agency. The result – in an agency designed to be evenly split between Republicans and Democrats – is inaction. With Trump’s nominees, the makeup would be two Republicans and two Democrats. And if Trump tried to fire another Democrat, the FEC would once again lack quorum. So, for anyone wondering who is enforcing federal campaign finance laws in the 2026 midterms… the answer is no one. And that is not likely to change even if new commissioners are confirmed. ## **Indiana Becomes 19th State to Ban Ranked Choice Voting, Despite No City or County Using It** In the final week of February, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun [signed a bill](https://legislation.ballotpedia.org/elections/bill/21761?ref=ivn.us) into law that bans the use of ranked choice voting in city, county, and state elections. Ironically, while heavily supported by Republicans, the party used RCV during its 2020 state convention. Specifically, the law states elections “may not be determined by ranked choice voting” and a “candidate may not be nominated for or elected to an office by means of ranked choice voting.” Braun’s signature makes Indiana the [19th state to ban ranked choice voting](https://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice%5Fvoting%5F%28RCV%29?ref=ivn.us), including: - Alabama, - Arkansas, - Florida, - Idaho, - Iowa, - Kansas, - Kentucky, - Louisiana, - Mississippi, - Missouri, - Montana, - North Dakota, - Oklahoma, - South Dakota, - Tennessee, - Utah, - West Virginia, and - Wyoming Ranked choice voting gives voters the option to rank candidates in order of preference. And while opponents often like to say the reform is confusing to voters, it is the same as ranking food preferences. Most RCV jurisdictions in the US use the instant runoff method that eliminates the last place candidate if no one gets a majority of first-choice selections. Their voters’ next choices are then applied to the tabulation. Subsequent elimination rounds are conducted as needed until a single candidate has a majority of the vote. Supporters of the Indiana bill argued that ranked choice voting is too complex and increases election costs. They further argue that it violates the principle of “one person, one vote,” though each voter only gets a single vote that counts toward the results. Opposing lawmakers argued that the priorities of the legislature are misplaced, noting that the state already doesn’t use ranked choice voting. “We should be focusing on bills that get us out from the bottom in terms of voter participation,” said state Sen. J.D. Ford. Indiana’s ranked choice voting ban goes into effect on July 1. ## **Meanwhile, New York Town Adopts Ranked Choice Voting to Settle Voting Rights Lawsuit** While ranked choice voting is getting banned in the Midwest, the Town of Newburgh, New York, agreed to adopt a proportional form of ranked choice voting to settle a lawsuit that alleged black and hispanic voters were unable to elect candidates of their choice. Six plaintiffs [filed a lawsuit](https://thearp.org/litigation/clarke-v-newburgh/?ref=ivn.us) against Newburgh following the passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York (NYVRA) in 2022\. They asserted that the town’s at-large voting system violated voter rights and protections under the law. In response, the town argued that the NYVRA violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. On November 7, 2024, the state Supreme Court 9th Judicial District agreed and ordered that the law be struck down entirely. Following appeal from the plaintiffs, the Second Division (which is another component of New York’s Supreme Court, Appellate Division) reversed the decisions made by the previous court, sending it back for further proceedings. Ultimately, the town and plaintiffs entered into negotiations that resulted in the settlement to use proportional ranked choice voting, which on top of allowing voters the option to rank candidates allocates seats based on level of support. Advocates argue that it will more accurately reflect community preferences. “I am elated; justice was served today” said Plaintiff Ernest Tirado. “Now we can get representation in the Town of Newburgh.” As a result of the settlement, Newburg will become the first jurisdiction in New York to adopt proportional ranked choice voting. However, this is not the first town in the US to adopt its use following a voting rights lawsuit. Eastpointe, Michigan, became the first municipality in its state to use ranked choice voting after the DOJ sued it under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The suit alleged that the city's elections suppressed the voices of black voters. Independent documentary filmmaker Grace McNally [made a short film about it](https://vimeo.com/440150277?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io). In this case, the DOJ determined that ranked choice voting could be a remedy to violations of the VRA and other voting rights laws. ### **Los Angeles Commission Recommends City Use Ranked Choice Voting** On February 26, the Charter Reform Commission of Los Angeles made a list of recommendations for the city, one of which was that LA should implement ranked choice voting for its elections going forward. The adoption of ranked choice voting would require changing the LA City Charter, which means it needs to be approved by voters. The next step is for the city council to decide what recommendations to put on the June ballot. “The Charter Commission took a big step in empowering Los Angeles voters,” said Michael Feinstein, a former mayor of Santa Monica and a Green Party candidate for secretary of state. The Independent Voter Project polled LA County independent voters on their view of more choice elections, which includes using ranked choice ballots following a nonpartisan primary. Over 60% said they’d support such a system. [For California Candidates Courting Independent Voters, These Reforms Could Win A Lot of VotesCalifornia independent voters are not a monolith. They fall across the political spectrum and hold diverse opinions on a variety of social and political issues. But one thing that unites them is a shared belief that California needs more choice elections.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-16.jpg)Independent VoterShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/california-independent-voters-election-reform-poll.png)](https://ivn.us/california-candidates-courting-independent-voters-these-3-reforms-could-win-lot-votes-2026-01/) What this means for representation in the city remains to be seen. As previously mentioned, there are different ways to implement ranked choice voting – especially in a city as large as Los Angeles. Stay tuned for more on this story on IVN. ## **In Other Reform News** - [New research](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/state-politics-and-policy-quarterly/article/participation-and-competition-in-toptwo-elections-tradeoffs-in-election-reform/C853759B1B596B91619DBE301B78D3DF?ref=ivn.us) from Cambridge University shows that California’s nonpartisan Top Two primary system creates more meaningful competition in elections and contested races in districts that historically would be considered safe for one party or the other. While these districts can have general elections with two candidates from the same party, these elections are now “substantially” more competitive than they were under the closed primary system used before Top Two. This is because it is no longer an easy victory for a single candidate of the majority party. - Legacy media is [turning to IVN co-publisher and the author of California’s Top Two nonpartisan system, the Independent Voter Project](https://ivn.us/posts/abc-state-of-gold-and-new-york-times-turn-to-independent-voter-project-for-expertise-2026-02-26) for its expertise in the independent and reform spaces. The New York Times featured IVP’s [recent polling](https://ivn.us/posts/new-ivp-2026-california-governor-poll-what-the-toplines-dont-tell-you-2026-02-23) on the California governor’s race. ABC talked with IVP general counsel Chad Peace on the surge of independent voters, which was picked up by the CBC in Canada. Peace was also featured on several podcasts to talk about the impact Top Two has had on competition and representation, as well as the expansion to more choice elections. - The better elections group Open Primaries [released the Declaration of Independents](https://ivn.us/posts/america-at-250-independent-voters-declare-independence-from-the-two-party-system-2026-02-27), a sweeping public statement that frames the exclusion of independent voters from taxpayer-funded elections as the unfinished business of 1776\. This comes as the US celebrates its 250th birthday. Millions of independent voters will be shut out of critical taxpayer-funded primary elections this year that will decide [95% of congressional elections](https://www.opb.org/article/2026/02/22/how-americas-most-partisan-voters-hold-the-most-voting-power/?ref=ivn.us). The Declaration demands that elections be open to all voters and the equal treatment of independent voters in elections, polling, debates, and media coverage. Open Primaries will send the document – signed by independent voters – to the two major parties on July 4. - The campaign trying to repeal nonpartisan primaries and ranked choice voting in Alaska [have sued the state’s Division of Elections over the ballot language](https://alaskapublic.org/news/politics/2026-02-23/alaskans-trying-to-repeal-ranked-choice-voting-sue-over-ballot-wording?ref=ivn.us) used for its measure – which is the second attempt at repeal. The argument from those who want repeal is that the language suggests the measure will do things it won’t and that repeal will simply return Alaska elections to the system the state used before ranked choice voting (while omitting that it also would re-implement closed primaries). Those fighting the repeal effort have also sued over the measure’s language, arguing that it suggests it will restore campaign finance regulations when it would, in fact, eliminate them. ### America at 250: Independent Voters Declare Independence from the Two-Party System URL: https://ivn.us/america-at-250-independent-voters-declare-independence-from-the-two-party-system-2026-02-27/ Last updated: 2026-02-27T16:54:29.000Z In a few short months, fireworks will light up the sky to celebrate America’s 250th birthday on July 4\. But a different kind of spark is already catching fire in Washington. On February 27, the better elections group Open Primaries released a sweeping public statement titled [*Declaration of Independents*](https://openprimaries.org/declaration-of-independents/?ref=ivn.us), framing the exclusion of independent voters from taxpayer-funded elections as the unfinished business of 1776. The message is deliberately revolutionary in tone. Two and a half centuries after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, organizers argue that millions of Americans are still treated as “second-class citizens” in a political system dominated by party structures. If a voter refuses to join “team red or team blue,” Open Primaries notes, their participation in democracy is limited – particularly in taxpayer-funded primaries that often determine the ultimate winners of general elections. “As America nears 250 years since 1776, the promise of political equality remains unfulfilled,” the Declaration states. “Taxation without representation is no relic – it burns as fiercely now as at the founding.” Open Primaries’ Declaration outlines several reform priorities that align with broader election reform debates heading into the 2026 midterms: - Opening all publicly funded elections to every voter - Ending discriminatory ballot-access and election administration laws - Ensuring equal treatment of independent voters in debates, polling, and media coverage - Recognizing political independence as a right of citizenship The organization frames these demands not as partisan reforms, but as structural changes aimed at voter equality and political inclusion. The central premise: no citizen’s participation should depend on party membership. ### **Half the Country Identifies as Independent** There is an urgency behind the Declaration that is grounded in data. According to Gallup, 45% of Americans now identify as independents – vastly outnumbering Democrats and Republicans. This includes 56% of Gen Z voters and 54% of Millennials. [Gallup: Independent Voters Hit 45% – So Why Does the Political Establishment Keep Pretending They Don’t Matter?Gallup released its latest identification numbers, and independent voters are now 45%. Nobody disputes the data. But there are competing opinions as to what the data means.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-14.jpg)Independent VoterJohn Opdycke![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/independent-voter-movement-rejecting-two-party-system.png)](https://ivn.us/gallup-independent-voters-hit-45-so-why-does-political-establishment-keep-pretending-they/) And while historical trends used to show voters “picking a side” as they aged, neither generation has, which is driving up the independent voter count. Open Primaries says roughly 10,000 Americans leave the two major parties every week. Yet in many states with closed or semi-closed primary systems, independent voters are barred from participating in the very elections their tax dollars fund. This creates a structural imbalance in representation, limiting independent voters’ ability to shape candidate selection, debate access, polling visibility, and media coverage. Echoing warnings from George Washington about factionalism, the Declaration argues that today’s political machinery elevates party gatekeepers and special interests above voters themselves. ### **A Fourth of July Showdown?** Open Primaries describes the Declaration as the “opening salvo” in a broader national campaign. On July 4, the organization plans to deliver [the signed document](https://openprimaries.org/declaration-of-independents/?ref=ivn.us) to the chairs of both major political parties – a symbolic gesture it says marks the formal emergence of an electorate no longer willing to remain outside the gates of its own democracy. With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, the stakes are rising. Independent voters now represent the largest and fastest-growing segment of the electorate. Yet millions of them will be shut out from critical electoral decisions this year. Reform advocates warn that continued exclusion of this bloc from meaningful participation in primary elections and party-controlled systems could carry seismic political consequences. In a political environment defined by partisan gridlock, culture wars, and institutional distrust, the rise of independent voters is no longer a footnote. It is a central storyline in the evolving debate over open primaries, voting rights, ballot access, and the future of American democracy. ### ABC, State of Gold, and New York Times Turn to Independent Voter Project for Expertise URL: https://ivn.us/abc-state-of-gold-and-new-york-times-turn-to-independent-voter-project-for-expertise-2026-02-26/ Last updated: 2026-02-26T21:59:29.000Z The [Independent Voter Project (IVP)](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) released a new poll this week on the hotly contested California governor’s race and several other issues that impact voters, including affordability, immigration enforcement, corruption in government, and more choice election reform. [New IVP 2026 California Governor Poll: What the Toplines Don’t Tell YouUsing verified California voter file data, IVP surveyed high-propensity voters from February 13 through 20\. The poll tested first-choice ballot preferences alongside issue intensity on affordability and the cost of living, immigration enforcement, more choice reform, and more.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-13.jpg)Independent VoterEthan Handelman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/IVP_California_Governor_Poll_Toplines.png)](https://ivn.us/new-ivp-2026-california-governor-poll-what-the-toplines-dont-tell-you-2026-02-23/) It didn’t take long for our poll to get noticed not only in Sacramento, but all the way over on the East Coast where [the New York Times featured it alongside other reputable pollsters](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/california-governor-election-polls-2026.html?ref=ivn.us) like Emerson College and the Public Policy Institute of California. But it isn’t just the New York Times turning to us for our expertise in the independent voter space. We have also been featured on ABC News, the [CBC in Canada](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-us-politics-republicans-democrats-independent-voters-9.7045878?ref=ivn.us), and a host of podcasts like [State of Gold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCVpTIBC7os&ref=ivn.us), [Maximum Libertarian](http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/liberty-beyond-the-two-party-system-with-chad-peace/id1564661921?i=1000751294455&ref=ivn.us), and the [My First Party podcast in Australia](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=BDX9uNBF%5FVo&si=nQXeRL5qAIgpi-Xq&ref=ivn.us). ## **Overcrowded Candidate Field in California Proves We Need More Choice Reform in Elections** In an interesting twist, none of the polls featured by the New York Times – including ours – show a Democrat leading the crowded gubernatorial field in deep blue California. Instead, they show either Steve Hilton or Chad Bianco (two Republicans) in the front-runner spot. Most pollsters use a “likely voter model” to produce toplines on candidate positions and partisan alignment. But we looked deeper in the wide-open race that could have unintended consequences with so many Democrats splitting the vote. What if two Republicans advance out of the nonpartisan primary in a state where GOP membership makes up only a quarter of the registered electorate? Despite this prevalent narrative rearing its head in the media, it’s an unlikely outcome. However, as the parties and their candidates continue to approach the Top Two nonpartisan primary as if they are running under the closed primary system in place prior to 2012, it’s not an impossible outcome. The nonpartisan Top Two primary [we successfully passed under Proposition 14 in 2010](https://independentvoterproject.org/work/cas-nonpartisan-primary?ref=ivn.us) opens the taxpayer-funded elections process to all voters and candidates, regardless of party. It then narrows the public field of candidates to the top two vote-getters in the general election. This can produce outcomes in heavily partisan districts where two Democrats advance or two Republicans, but what it also does is give the political minority in those areas a greater say in *which* Democrat wins or *which* Republican wins. Thus, candidates need to be able to appeal beyond their party’s base support to win. IVP’s chief legal strategist Chad Peace was featured on the State of Gold with Jon Slavet to discuss Top Two and explain this impact, particularly in overcrowded candidate fields like in the governor's race where no one knows what will happen. “This is the largest example of how the unintended consequences can play out,” Peace said. “Then the question goes, how do you improve while maintaining an open primary?” To solve this, we have engaged with the reform community to develop a "more choice" system – and what we came up with was moving to a Top Five system. This will protect the voting rights of independent voters and deliver more candidate choices in the general election using ranked choice ballots. There is one thing we know for sure: Independent voters overwhelmingly want to keep nonpartisan open primaries. [Our polling proves it](https://ivn.us/posts/california-candidates-courting-independent-voters-these-3-reforms-could-win-lot-votes-2026-01). And few California voters oppose advancing more choice to the general election. The last thing independent voters in California want is to once again be among the millions of citizens across the country that are disenfranchised by closed primary systems. There are over 24 million independent voters in the US that are shut out of taxpayer-funded primary elections that effectively decide more than 90% of all elections. And this number will grow as voters increasingly distrust the hyper-partisan narratives from both major parties. The option they are given is: Join a party or don’t vote. This is why [we started the nationwide legal fight](https://www.c-span.org/clip/public-affairs-event/user-clip-independent-voter-project-at-national-conference-of-independents/4533776?ref=ivn.us) against closed primary systems by challenging New Jersey's closed primaries – which shut out half of the state's electorate – back in 2015\. We believe the right to vote should not be conditioned on joining a private political corporation… A sentiment most voters in California and across the US agree with. ### Voter ID + Proof of Citizenship: Trump Goes All-In in the SOTU - What Happens Next? URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/voter-id-proof-of-citizenship-trump-goes-all-in-in-the-sotu-what-happens-next-2026-02-26/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:40:16.000Z Tune in for our independent breakdown of Trump’s record-length 2026 State of the Union: voter ID + proof of citizenship, immigration rhetoric, affordability vs “winning” messaging, a rare bipartisan beat on banning stock trading, and the moment the chamber unified around a Coast Guard rescue. ## Episode Highlights In this episode of the Independent Voter Podcast, the team breaks down the political firestorm surrounding the latest **State of the Union address**, voter ID laws, and the growing national debate over **proof of citizenship requirements under the SAVE Act**. Drawing on [our new polling data](https://ivn.us/posts/new-ivp-2026-california-governor-poll-what-the-toplines-dont-tell-you-2026-02-23), we highlight a crucial nuance in today’s election reform conversation: while a majority of voters – including independents and many Democrats – support voter ID, there is deep mistrust over which party controls the narrative and implementation. The discussion connects this trust gap to broader concerns about **election integrity, voter suppression narratives, closed primaries, and partisan messaging**, underscoring how political rhetoric often undermines widely supported reforms. We then widen the discussion to talk about the structural drivers of polarization, including **gerrymandering, noncompetitive House races, and closed primary systems** that incentivize extreme candidates over consensus builders. With less than 5% of congressional races considered competitive, we argue that systemic reform — including **independent redistricting commissions, open primaries, and ranked-choice voting (RCV)** — is essential to reducing hyper-partisanship. We then spotlight [Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’ push to ban partisan gerrymandering](https://ivn.us/posts/tony-evers-final-mission-as-governor-end-partisan-gerrymandering-for-good-2026-02-24), legal challenges to primary exclusion in states like New Jersey and Florida, and ongoing reform battles in Maine, where ranked choice voting continues to face constitutional hurdles. Finally, the episode tackles the escalating influence of **money in politics, Super PAC spending, a defunct Federal Election Commission (FEC), and constitutional amendment efforts like the For Our Freedom Amendment backed by American Promise**. [81% of Americans Say Money Controls Politics – Can a Constitutional Amendment Fix It?Polls consistently show that nearly all Americans across the political spectrum agree that there is too much money in politics – whether from foreign sources, corporations, or so-called “dark money” groups.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-12.jpg)Independent VoterShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/money-in-politics-campaign-finance-reform-constitutional-amendment-citizens-united.png)](https://ivn.us/81-of-americans-say-money-controls-politics-can-a-constitutional-amendment-fix-it-2026-02-23/) With campaign finance reform polling as an “80/20 issue,” we warn that the 2026 election cycle could resemble the “Wild West” amid regulatory paralysis. Yet despite deep political division, we end on a hopeful note – pointing to bipartisan moments during the State of the Union, growing collaboration between election reform movements, and rising engagement from independent voters seeking to reshape America’s democratic system. ### Tony Evers’ Final Mission as Governor: End Partisan Gerrymandering for Good URL: https://ivn.us/tony-evers-final-mission-as-governor-end-partisan-gerrymandering-for-good-2026-02-24/ Last updated: 2026-02-24T23:55:16.000Z **MADISON, Wis.** \- In his final State of the State address, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced that he plans to call a special legislative session in the Spring to put an end to partisan gerrymandering “once and for all.” And he will keep calling lawmakers into session until happens. “There’s one thing that we should all be able to agree on, which is that politics should stay out of redistricting from start to finish,” he said. He noted that while political differences may get in the way of creating a nonpartisan redistricting commission, state lawmakers and officials can still work together to ban partisan gerrymandering. And so, he is going to call a special session so that the legislature can adopt a constitutional amendment to make the practice illegal. He also said he was willing to keep calling the legislature into session until they pass the amendment. “I won’t hesitate to bring the Legislature into special session later this year in August. Or September. Or October,” he remarked. “Heck, I’m old enough to remember when the legislature was willing to meet in December! Evers’ announcement fell under the radar nationally at a time when officials in other states are still trying to push new congressional maps on voters and candidates – like in Virginia and Maryland. Additionally, 5 states have implemented new maps passed by their legislature in 2025, including Texas, California ([which voters approved under Prop 50](https://ivn.us/posts/democrats-drive-out-anti-trump-base-propel-proposition-50-victory-2025-11-04)), Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. Utah will also use a new congressional map under court order. Evers said the current chaos created by this bipartisan gerrymandering fight started with President Donald Trump, which is true. But then he added, “Democratic Legislatures have been put in the unthinkable position of having to respond by trying to restore balance to our elections.” [Did the Republicans or Democrats Start the Gerrymandering Fight?The 2026 midterm election cycle is quickly approaching. However, there is a lingering question mark over what congressional maps will look like when voters start to cast their ballots, especially as Republicans and Democrats fight to obtain any electoral advantage possible.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-10.jpg)Independent VoterShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/andy-feliciotti-8cvjI48SFtY-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/did-republicans-democrats-start-gerrymandering-fight-2025-11-11/) This suggests that Democratic-controlled states like Illinois, New Mexico, and Maryland didn’t already have egregiously gerrymandered maps – and that what started with Trump was not also an opportunity for Democrats. In California, for example, Democrats tossed out an independent congressional map approved unanimously by the state’s redistricting commission for a map that gives their party an advantage in 92% of the state’s US House districts. On the same day California Prop 50 passed, Maryland Governor Wes Moore called for the creation of a redistricting committee to come up with a new map that would hand the Democratic Party all of the state’s congressional districts. Moore is getting pushback in the Maryland Legislature. [EXCLUSIVE: California Commissioner Says Lawmakers Gutted Their Funding BEFORE Prop 50The fate of California’s independently drawn congressional districts will be decided on November 4, when voters weigh in on a legislative gerrymander and the suspension of congressional maps from the state’s independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC) under Proposition 50.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-11.jpg)Independent VoterShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/broken-ca-map.png)](https://ivn.us/exclusive-california-commissioner-says-lawmakers-gutted-their-funding-prop-50-2025-10-08/) This is why independent reformers do not refer to the “you take our seats, we will take yours” mentality as “rebalancing.” They call it a race to the bottom, because when officials "fight fire with fire" everyone inevitably gets burned. While Evers may not be willing to hold his own party accountable for its role in escalation, he wants no part of the power grab. “Compared to all of the chaos, dysfunction, and recklessness in Washington, here in Wisconsin, we’ve worked to lead by example. And a big part of that is the fact that, today, lawmakers are elected under the fair maps I signed into law,” he said. > *“But here’s the problem, Wisconsin: new maps are redrawn every ten years. While we have fair maps today, we still don’t have a nonpartisan redistricting process in place. That means there’s no guarantee Wisconsinites will still have fair maps after the next US Census.”* In 2024, Evers signed into law new legislative maps that he initially submitted to the state Supreme Court for consideration. The Republican-controlled Legislature passed his maps with bipartisan support. The maps enacted for state [House](https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card/?planId=recIxCOrhDOodyAmh&ref=ivn.us) and [Senate](https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card/?planId=recDBtvHPqc5gq8RJ&ref=ivn.us) have been given A grades by the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. However, the state’s congressional map still has an F, failing in partisan fairness in particular. Evers previously pledged to push for an independent redistricting process that takes map drawing out of the hands of legislators. His remarks at the 2026 State of the State signal his skepticism that it will happen under the current political environment. So, for now, the proposed constitutional amendment will have to do – if the legislature gets on board. In order to amend the state constitution, a proposed amendment needs to clear the legislature in two consecutive legislative sessions. ### New IVP 2026 California Governor Poll: What the Toplines Don’t Tell You URL: https://ivn.us/new-ivp-2026-california-governor-poll-what-the-toplines-dont-tell-you-2026-02-23/ Last updated: 2026-04-27T18:41:02.000Z There is a familiar rhythm to early statewide campaigning in California. A new poll drops. A candidate is declared “on top.” Donors recalibrate. Consultants ponder consolidation scenarios. Political pundits and the chattering class try to narrow the field before most voters even know who the candidates are. That dynamic is unfolding now. A February [Emerson College Polling survey](https://emersoncollegepolling.com/california-2026-poll-hilton-swalwell-bianco-lead-nonpartisan-primary-for-governor/?ref=ivn.us) showing Republican Steve Hilton leading the nonpartisan primary field has helped shape the early narrative. That poll, conducted using a traditional likely voter model, captures early positioning and partisan alignment. But topline “horse race” numbers alone do not reveal the structure or potential pathways to victory. The IVP 2026 California Governor Benchmark Poll was designed to go deeper. Our IVP interactive data dashboard is embedded below. Using verified California voter file data, IVP surveyed high-propensity voters from February 13 through 20\. The poll tested first-choice ballot preferences alongside issue intensity on affordability and the cost of living, immigration enforcement and ICE cooperation, corruption perception, voter ID requirements, Top Four ranked choice voting (aka “More Choice”), the four-day work week, and party trust. It assumes a typical, off-year gubernatorial primary turnout. The party organizations and unions will likely run robust turnout operations to boost base partisan turnout. *To move beyond surface numbers, IVP conducted multivariate regression analysis using multiple independent modeling systems. Each model was run separately and cross-validated to identify consistent predictive variables while minimizing model-specific distortion.* The results of both the Emerson Poll and the IVP Poll were then reviewed by five experienced political consultants, none of whom were currently working for any candidate. We assessed where the surveys aligned, where turnout assumptions diverged, and what the structural math suggests about viable pathways for candidates to win in June. This is not a forecast. It is a structural assessment of the race at a specific point in time. By any criterion, the race remains wide open. ## Two Polls, Two Turnout Universes [The Emerson poll](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CPUs9J2RBsWNAd7iQQsbyvg1xozh4q-8/edit?gid=137819969&ref=ivn.us#gid=137819969) captures a broader likely voter universe and shows Hilton leading in a crowded field. The IVP Benchmark Poll models a high-propensity electorate anchored in documented recent turnout behavior. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/-FINAL--IVP-_-Surveys-_-2026-RID-General-Opinion-_-CA-Statewide-_-Looker-Studio----_CA-Governor-s-Race_Bar-chart--1-.png) [**Governor - First Choice, IVP February 2026 Poll*](https://lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/bf003736-b0d3-426c-ab12-8fc8e71de791/page/XLwiF?ref=ivn.us#cd-8uito7i20d) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/-FINAL--IVP-_-Surveys-_-2026-RID-General-Opinion-_-CA-Statewide-_-Looker-Studio----_CA-Governor-s-Race_Bar-chart--2-.png) [**Governor - Second Choice, IVP February 2026 Poll*](https://lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/bf003736-b0d3-426c-ab12-8fc8e71de791/page/XLwiF?ref=ivn.us#cd-549nwu900d) Under that model, Chad Bianco leads the field, followed by Eric Swalwell, Steve Hilton, and a cluster of Democratic candidates. Turnout modeling matters in a fragmented, nonpartisan Top Two primary. Small shifts in electorate composition materially change who occupies second place. ## Distrust On multiple issues, even where voters have a broad consensus, political outcomes remain uncertain. For example, on Voter ID, despite overwhelming support, a substantial number of Voter ID supporters distrust Republicans as messengers. The same could be said in reverse for other issues. The California electorate is really better described as voters who distrust Democrats, voters who distrust Republicans, and voters who distrust both. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/IVP_Survey_Corrpution_VoterID_Results-1.png)](https://lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/bf003736-b0d3-426c-ab12-8fc8e71de791/page/p%5Fh6qz1ic10d?ref=ivn.us#cd-mari1ic10d) Support for structural electoral reform is strongest among voters who also express distrust in both parties. These voters are not ideologically uniform, but they share institutional skepticism and frustration with binary partisan politics. When asked “if you had to choose which party you trust more,” nearly 40 percent of No Party Preference voters refused to select either party. In a Top Two nonpartisan primary, that bloc is decisive. ## Growing Republican Traction Amongst NPPs Among No Party Preference voters, Chad Bianco receives 26.8 percent — the single largest share in that bloc. Historically, California NPPs have leaned heavily democratic. In this poll, independents appear not to be simply waiting to consolidate behind a Democrat. A significant portion is currently aligning with a Republican candidate associated with enforcement and institutional dissatisfaction. The same First Choice by Party Registration table reveals another structural reality. Tom Steyer, Eric Swalwell, and Katie Porter *combined* draw only 2.6 percent of Republican voters in the IVP model. It suggests that, under current conditions, those candidates have virtually no measurable crossover penetration within the Republican electorate. Their path to June depends almost entirely on Democratic turnout and consolidation, plus incremental movement in a subset of No Party Preference voters. These candidates, along with other Democrats, are competing in the same voter pool. This inability to appeal beyond the Democratic base is what makes it possible for two Republicans to win in June. ## Pathways to June: What Each Candidate Must Do to Advance to the Top Two ### Chad Bianco Bianco currently leads under the IVP high-propensity turnout model. His support is anchored in strong enforcement views, distrust of Sacramento institutions, and reliable Republican primary participation, particularly in Riverside County, the Inland Empire, and parts of the Central Valley. His pathway to June is consolidation within the Republican lane. If he becomes the clear enforcement and anti-Sacramento candidate, he locks in a stable mid-20s base that is difficult to dislodge in a fragmented field. To strengthen his position, he must also broaden his affordability message to suburban voters who are economically frustrated but not deeply ideological. If Republican voters remain split between him and Hilton, his margin tightens. If they consolidate, he becomes one of the most structurally secure candidates in the field. Vulnerability: Controversial history as a Southern California sheriff. ### Steve Hilton Hilton’s coalition supports full cooperation with ICE, has serious concerns about corruption, and has high levels of trust in the Republican Party. He shows strength in Orange County and suburban coastal regions. His path requires overtaking Bianco as the dominant Republican alternative. Without that shift, vote splitting limits his ceiling. If he reframes himself as the most credible cost-of-living candidate rather than purely a partisan Republican alternative, his June pathway strengthens considerably. Vulnerability: Difficult to expand. His media presence gives him high name recognition with a very narrow ideological spectrum of voters. ### Eric Swalwell Swalwell’s base is highly engaged Democrats, particularly in the Bay Area and urban Los Angeles. His support correlates strongly with partisan loyalty and opposition to expanded ICE cooperation. His pathway depends on mobilization and Democratic consolidation. If Democratic voters narrow the field early and align behind him, he is well-positioned to secure a top-two slot. However, his numbers soften among No Party Preference voters in suburban regions where affordability dominates. To expand, he would need to pivot more aggressively toward state-level economic governance rather than national partisan framing. His ceiling rises as Democratic fragmentation declines. Vulnerability: He has a well-established national brand, but like Hilton, it is anchored to a very narrow ideological base. ### Katie Porter Porter’s coalition is most clearly aligned with skepticism of corporate influence. She performs competitively in suburban coastal districts, including Orange County, where housing costs and economic anxiety drive voter behavior. Her pathway to June runs through increasing turnout among women. If the race centers on the cost of living, she becomes the Democratic candidate most closely associated with tackling affordability, and she can also consolidate support among suburban Democrats and some independents. Vulnerability: Highly publicized claims about temperament and lack of political experience in California. ### Antonio Villaraigosa Villaraigosa is strongest amongst Latino voters. He performs best in Los Angeles County and with moderate Democrats focused on economic mobility. His pathway requires maximizing Southern California turnout while preventing vote erosion to other Democratic candidates. If he dominates Los Angeles and performs well among moderate voters concerned about affordability, he can remain viable even without a strong showing in Northern California. Vulnerability: Four Latino candidates remain in the race, including Republican Bianco, who currently leads among Latino voters. ### Xavier Becerra Becerra’s support is rooted in institutional familiarity and long-standing Democratic loyalty. He performs strongest among older Democrats and voters who prioritize experience and administrative continuity. His pathway only improves as the field narrows. If voters shift toward perceived electability and governance competence late in the cycle, his coalition strengthens. However, absent increased enthusiasm or sharper differentiation on affordability, his early positioning trails the leading Democrats. Vulnerability: There is a current U.S. Attorney investigation involving a former Becerra staffer, lending to uncertainty with donors who may otherwise have consolidated behind his candidacy. ### Betty Yee Yee performs well among fiscally focused Democrats, particularly in the Bay Area and Sacramento region. Her support correlates with voters who prioritize administrative competence and government oversight. She enjoys strong support among active Democrats, having just finished third at the California Democratic convention. Her pathway depends on increasing statewide visibility and tying her fiscal stewardship credentials directly to the affordability crisis. If she successfully frames the cost of living as a management failure requiring disciplined oversight, she could expand beyond policy-engaged voters. Vulnerability: Despite her position as a statewide officer, she has not demonstrated the ability to raise funds competitively with others in the race. ### Tom Steyer Steyer has reportedly spent more than $30 million on advertising so far. In most cycles, that level of spending would generate durable double-digit positioning not yet reflected in any polling. Despite high awareness, Steyer lacks a dominant issue alignment cluster in the regression analysis. He performs well among voters supportive of abolishing ICE and voters with a high level of trust in the Democratic Party. Vulnerability: Likely resurfaced claims made during his failed presidential campaign regarding his finances, conflicts of interest, and involvement in funding “failed” California policies. ### Matt Mahan Mahan’s support is structurally distinct. He overperforms among No Party Preference voters, voters who distrust both major parties, and those who believe corruption exists in state programs. He also benefits from above-average support among voters who favor More Choice voting and broader electoral reform. In the IVP Poll, 38.3 percent of Mahan’s supporters trust neither major party — the highest of any candidate in the field — suggesting his coalition is uniquely positioned to attract voters who would otherwise consider an outsider candidate regardless of party. Both polls show nearly 8 to 9 percent of Democratic voters casting first-choice ballots for a Republican candidate. Mahan and Yee appear to be the only Democratic candidates with the potential to meaningfully stem that leakage. Vulnerability: With no room for an additional Democrat splitting core Democratic voters, Mahan faces the more complicated challenge of cobbling together a coalition of Democrats, NPPs, and a sliver of Republicans. ## Methodology and Reliability The IVP 2026 California Governor Benchmark Poll was conducted February 13–20, 2026, among 868 screened and verified registered California voters. The sample was drawn directly from L2's California voter file. All respondents were verified registered voters matched back to that file. Eligibility was restricted to voters who participated in at least three of the last four major statewide elections: the June 2022 primary, November 2022 general, March 2024 primary, and November 2024 general, with a minimum of one primary and one general among those elections. This documented participation threshold served as the turnout model for the survey. Respondents were reached through two channels: SMS outreach to verified cell phone records matched to the voter file, and Meta placements targeted exclusively to voter file-matched audiences. All responses were validated against the source file by name, address, and email hash. Duplicate submissions, timestamp anomalies, and unmatched records were excluded prior to analysis. Unlike generic "likely voter" screens that rely primarily on self-reported voting intent, this model is anchored in verified voting history. It reflects a habitual primary electorate rather than the broader population of registered voters or occasional participants. After applying the high-propensity screen, the dataset was weighted by party registration, age, gender, and race to approximate expected statewide primary turnout demographics. The modeled electorate consists of 47.7 percent Democrats, 30.2 percent Republicans, and 22.1 percent independent voters. The unweighted sample composition is Democrats n=297, Republicans n=322, and independent registrants n=249. For purposes of this survey, IVP defines independent voters to include all voters not registered as Democrats or Republicans, including No Party Preference registrants, American Independent Party voters, and all other minor party registrants. American Independent Party registrants are treated as independent for all analytical purposes, consistent with California's nonpartisan primary structure. In practical terms, this turnout model represents California's consistent primary electorate and does not assume a surge among lower-propensity or newly registered voters. A material change in the composition of turnout, particularly among independent voters, would alter projected ballot dynamics. The overall margin of error is ±3.6 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level, adjusted for the design effect introduced by weighting using Kish's effective sample size of 739\. Subgroup margins of error are wider: ±6.0 points for Democrats, ±5.6 points for Republicans, and ±6.5 points for independent voters. As with all voter-file-based online samples, the margin of error reflects sampling precision within the modeled electorate and should be interpreted as an estimate rather than a guarantee of representativeness. The survey instrument covered the Governor's race (first and second choice), government corruption, immigration enforcement, voter identification requirements, ranked-choice voting, the four-day workweek, and party trust. All results reported reflect weighted percentages unless otherwise noted. This poll should be understood as a structural model of high-propensity June primary voters. It is not a forecast, and material changes in turnout composition would alter the topline results. ### 81% of Americans Say Money Controls Politics – Can a Constitutional Amendment Fix It? URL: https://ivn.us/81-of-americans-say-money-controls-politics-can-a-constitutional-amendment-fix-it-2026-02-23/ Last updated: 2026-04-27T18:41:20.000Z Polls consistently show that nearly all Americans across the political spectrum agree that there is too much money in politics – whether from foreign sources, corporations, or so-called “dark money” groups. However, regulating the flow of cash has been difficult due to Supreme Court rulings that link money spent in elections to protected speech. This includes cases like *Buckley v. Valeo (1976)*, *Citizens United (2010)*, and a host of others. Legal precedent has presented a challenge for states and voters to push any kind of reform. For example, [a Maine citizen initiative from 2024](https://ballotpedia.org/Maine%5FQuestion%5F1,%5FLimit%5FContributions%5Fto%5FSuper%5FPACs%5FInitiative%5F%282024%29?ref=ivn.us) that essentially bans super PACs in the state was approved by three-quarters of the electorate. Yet it has already been ruled unconstitutional by a federal court and is in the appeals process. In Oregon, state lawmakers may water down a [2024 legislative package](https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2024R1/Downloads/MeasureAnalysisDocument/82722?ref=ivn.us) that would enact a slew of campaign finance reforms and restrictions, including: - Limits on campaign contributions to state campaigns, - Stops entities from forming to evade these limits, - Implements new disclosure requirements and stricter civil penalties, and - Prohibits candidates from rolling campaign funds into another election cycle These are just the main headlines [from the bill](https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Pages/campaign-finance-legislation.aspx?ref=ivn.us). It is a hefty package of reforms that are popular with voters, but while lawmakers also worked with labor and business interests to find compromise, these monied interest groups have pressured legislators to undo the original deal. The law passed was already delayed until 2027, presumably to give the secretary of state time to update the state’s computer systems to track campaign contributions and to enact rules that specify how the new reforms will be enforced. Now, it is uncertain if voters will get the campaign finance reforms they want – reforms that came in lieu of a citizen initiative slated for the general election ballot. The point is, it is difficult under the country’s current legal and political frameworks to pass and implement new regulations. *Citizens United* alone wiped out several federal, state, and local campaign finance laws in a single day. Yet, on the 50th Anniversary of *Buckley*, American Promise [released a survey](https://ivn.us/posts/poll-americans-reject-money-speech-landslide-want-power-back-supreme-court-2026-02-03) that found 81% of Americans are concerned about the influence of money in politics, including 82% of independents. The results also found that 76% of survey takers agreed large donors make it harder for ordinary Americans to have their voices heard. ## For Our Freedom Amendment Gives Congress, States Authority to Control the Cash Spigot American Promise describes itself as a cross–partisan organization focused on a single goal: Pass the For Our Freedom Amendment. The group does not endorse candidates, does not try to influence elections, but it does lobby legislatures to support its plan. The [proposed amendment](https://americanpromise.net/for-our-freedom-amendment/?ref=ivn.us) to the U.S. Constitution does not put in place any specific campaign finance rules or regulations. Instead, it gives Congress and state legislatures the authority to enact reasonable limits on campaign and election spending. It doesn’t turn off the spigot completely, but it does put in place the mechanisms to control the cash flow. The current system says people and entities with more money are entitled to greater political speech. American Promise aims to level the playing field. “I think it is great that this is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, because that original founding moment was all about self-government and the sovereignty of the people,” said Brian Boyle, Chief Program Officer and General Counsel for American Promise. > *“It’s a quaint historical idea, but I think it matters now more than ever. What does self-government and the sovereignty of the people mean in the 21st Century? I think the American people would agree that it means the ability for the peoples’ voices to matter more than the monied interests and constituents mattering more than the donor class.”* He added that the For Our Freedom Amendment raises essential questions about what it means to be a self-governing people and this is one reason why so many voters support it and believe it is necessary. In a heated and polarized political environment, the prospect of a constitutional amendment may seem like a pipe dream. Under [Article V](https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html?ref=ivn.us) of the U.S. Constitution, an amendment needs two-thirds approval from Congress and ratification from three-fourths of the states (38). The 27th Amendment was the last to be ratified in 1992 – over 200 years after the first Congress sent it to the states (it was initially intended to be a part of the Bill of Rights). But the last amendment to actually be approved by Congress was the 26th Amendment in 1971. The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. Still, American Promise is optimistic about the For Our Freedom Amendment and is taking a different approach for success. Instead of bringing the matter directly to Congress, Boyle says American Promise is first laying the groundwork in the states. “We have added a step to the amendment process that isn’t part of the constitution,” he explained. “We’re getting states on the front end ready to ratify by seeing if they will pass legislative resolutions that call on Congress to propose an amendment.” Put simply, this gets the states on the record when the matter is brought before Congress and when ratification begins. The success and momentum American Promise has seen so far shows the nonpartisan nature of their effort. [Nearly half of all U.S. states](https://americanpromise.net/american-promise-latest-accomplishments/?ref=ivn.us) (23) have passed some form of resolution asking Congress to act, from Democratic-controlled Massachusetts to Republican-controlled Montana. Utah [became the twenty-third state](https://americanpromise.net/utah-becomes-the-23rd-state-to-call-on-congress/?ref=ivn.us) in March 2025, calling on Congress to pass the same kind of amendment proposed by American Promise with [S.J.R. 7](https://le.utah.gov/~2025/bills/static/SJR007.html?ref=ivn.us). Similar to the rest of the country, polling showed 8-in-10 Utah voters supported the resolution. Its passage also came at a time when [Pew Research](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/02/20/americans-continue-to-view-several-economic-issues-as-top-national-problems/?ref=ivn.us) found that the role of money in politics was the top concern for American voters. “This whole movement for an amendment started organically just from the American people reacting to court decisions,” he explained, noting that one of the first states to adopt a resolution was Montana in 2012\. He said it was a reaction to the Supreme Court striking down a state law that had been in place for roughly a century. Then several Democratic-leaning states took action in response to *Citizens United*, but what started out as a partisan reaction to that decision developed into cross-partisan agreement and it didn’t take long for more Republican-leaning states to get involved. “American Promise was built specifically to give people a home so that they could join across party lines to do this work rather than it be a one-partisan vehicle or one-partisan push,” Boyle said. He added that there is a focus on red and purple states right now because they offer more opportunity. In the first quarter of 2026, American Promise is working on and tracking legislation and resolutions in 14 states, many of which are often regarded as partisan strongholds like Texas, Missouri, and Idaho. But these efforts also include hotly contested states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. “We had a resolution introduced in Arizona. It was heard in the Arizona Senate’s Federalism Committee,” Boyle said. “It received unanimous support.” This means despite being incentivized to remain divided on issues, the 4 Republicans and 3 Democrats on the committee agreed on common ground. But that is only the beginning of 2026 successes so far. Boyle said a resolution passed the full Indiana Senate in the beginning of February. It is also being heard in Ohio, where a resolution has already had a couple of committee hearings. The next step after a state passes this resolution is to connect state legislators who supported it with members of their state’s congressional delegation. Boyle said Utah is a prime example of how effective this approach can be. In January, American Promise hosted a congressional briefing with the Sutherland Institute, a Utah-based think tank. The institute published a report endorsing the For Our Freedom Amendment and explaining how judicial decisions have constrained state lawmaking power. “We had a lawmaker from Wyoming and a lawmaker from Utah come to D.C. and talk about their experiences. They then went to meetings with their delegation and explained why this matters back home,” Boyle said. > *“It is a gradual shifting of the political will in Washington, D.C., based on the developments back in the states.”* American Promise does not endorse candidates in elections. However, it makes available to any candidate running for state legislature or Congress a pledge that says they are supportive of an amendment. It is a pledge anyone can sign [on the group’s website](https://americanpromise.net/?ref=ivn.us). “When you have a conversation on the ground, whether it is with a citizen or state lawmaker, people are feeling that the system is under considerable stress and some type of solution needs to happen,” Boyle said. He concluded by saying more people are starting to look at the amendment process as an avenue for needed reform. ## In Other Reform News… ### Virginia Judge May Have Just Killed a Democratic Gerrymander Plan A Virginia court on Thursday [blocked a Democratic-backed and legislative approved redistricting plan](https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5747297-virginia-redistricting-referendum-blocked-tazewell-judge/?ref=ivn.us) that is set to appear on an April 21 ballot. It's possible this means the death of the effort to give Democrats more seats in Congress as early voting is set to begin on March 6. Tazewell County Circuit Judge Jack Hurley Jr granted an emergency injunction filed by the Republican National Committee, which challenged the timing and language of the referendum. The injunction is in effect until March 18. This means that unless Hurley’s decision is overturned by a higher court (in this case the state Supreme Court), the referendum will not be allowed to be added to the ballot in time for early voting and thus would not appear at all. Just like Proposition 50 in California, the Democratic majority in the Virginia Legislature approved [a new congressional map](https://apnews.com/article/virginia-lawmakers-release-redistricting-maps-d8286c61ddae68b2bc10a0075d5760d5?ref=ivn.us) to go before voters which will bypass the state’s redistricting commission. The map is designed to give Democrats as many as 4 additional House seats. It’s another example of how down-to-the-wire the bipartisan gerrymander fight has become, with [a legislative fight in Maryland still ongoing](https://marylandmatters.org/2026/02/20/ferguson-window-of-opportunity-has-closed-on-redistricting-efforts/?ref=ivn.us) and Missouri still fighting a veto referendum against a mid-decade gerrymander. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the case against California Prop 50, while the Utah Supreme Court [has rejected an appeal](https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/utah-supreme-court-upholds-fairer-map-for-midterm-elections/?ref=ivn.us) from Republicans to block a judge-approved map that will give Democrats a chance at one congressional seat. [Missouri Candidates Still Don’t Know Their Districts as GOP Map Faces Lawsuits and Veto Referendum FightCandidate filings for Congress are set to begin soon in Missouri, yet the people looking to run still have no idea which districts they will be campaigning in as multiple lawsuits against Missouri’s new congressional map have yet to be settled.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-9.jpg)Independent VoterShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/missouri-congressional-map-lawsuit-hb1-gerrymander-filing-deadline-1.png)](https://ivn.us/missouri-candidates-still-dont-know-their-districts-as-gop-map-faces-lawsuits-and-veto-referendum-fight/) Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones vowed immediate appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court, which has already ruled against Hurley in a previous case involving this redistricting matter. However, March 6 is approaching quickly, and ballots will need to be printed out before then. Meanwhile in Missouri, candidate filing is set to begin, and the courts have still not resolved critical issues like what map will be used for the 2026 midterm elections and if a third of the signatures collected for a veto referendum will count. ### Poll: 60% Say New York’s Political System Is Broken — But 78% Believe Reform Is Possible Unite NY released [its latest Voter Empowerment Index (VEI) last week](https://www.uniteny.org/voter%5Findex?utm%5Fcampaign=embargo%5Flifted%5Fvei&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fsource=uniteny), which tracks voter sentiment on popular and upcoming reforms. What the latest poll shows is a majority of New Yorkers believe the state’s political system is unhealthy – but most also believe it can be fixed. According to the February 2026 VEI, 60% of respondents say New York’s political system is not healthy, compared to 36% who say it is. At the same time, 78% believe the system’s problems are at least somewhat fixable, while 22% say they are not. The poll, conducted January 5-8 among 1,411 registered voters statewide, has a margin of error of 2.8%. It found strong bipartisan support for several structural reforms, including: - Term limits for statewide elected officials (82% support) for members of the legislature (81% support) - Giving citizens the power to place issues directly on the ballot through citizen-led initiatives (74% support) - Open or nonpartisan primaries (59% support) - Ranked choice voting (44% support) “These findings show that New Yorkers are frustrated, but optimistic about the possibility of reform,” said Unite NY Executive Director Anthony Thomas. > *“When more than four in five voters support term limits and nearly eight in ten believe reform is possible, that is a clear signal that voters want a political system that is more representative and responsive to the people it serves.”* The VEI reflects Unite NY’s five pillars of reform: term limits, open primaries, ranked choice voting, citizen ballot initiatives, and expanded ballot access. The findings come as lawmakers in Albany debate election administration and voter participation during the 2026 legislative session. Since its launch in 2022, the VEI has served as a nonpartisan gauge of how voters across the Empire State view democracy and political reform. ## Other Highlights - The campaign to get a voter ID initiative on the 2026 California ballot announced it [collected 1.3 million signatures](https://www.reformcalifornia.org/news/meet-the-heroes-that-got-the-ca-voter-id-on-the-ballot?ref=ivn.us) before submitting them to the state a full month ahead of the petition deadline. California requires statewide ballot initiatives to gather 874,641valid signatures from registered voters. “Getting these signatures was only possible because of the amazing team effort that involved multiple organizations, elected leaders, contributors, and volunteers,” said state Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, one of the initiative’s lead proponents. - California Clean Money Action Fund, California Common Cause, and the League of Women Voters of California have launched a campaign to get what they call the California Fair Elections Act on the November 2026 ballot. The initiative aims to remove a statewide ban on the public financing of elections. “The California Fair Elections Act is a pro-voter reform that opens the door for teachers, nurses, small business owners, and community leaders to run competitive campaigns and win," said Common Cause California Executive Director Darius Kemp. - A bill ([SB2480](https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session/measure%5Findiv.aspx?billtype=SB&billnumber=2480&year=2026&ref=ivn.us)) in the Hawaii Legislature would implement a nonpartisan all-candidate and all-voter primary that advances the top two candidates, regardless of party. Similar systems exist in California and Washington. The bill has already cleared one committee vote. Just over a decade ago, the Hawaii Democratic Party [sued to close the state’s primaries](https://ivn.us/posts/democratic-party-of-hawaii-files-lawsuit-to-close-primaries). The party was unsuccessful in the attempt. - In Illinois, Evanston, Oak Park, and Skokie have all approved the use of ranked choice voting. However, implementation in these cities [has been stalled](https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2026-02-16/ranked-choice-voting-stalled-in-illinois-waiting-for-clarity-from-the-courts?ref=ivn.us) over confusion regarding state election law. The Cook County Clerk has specifically prevented Evanston from implementing the reform, saying current law only allows voters to select one candidate. The City of Evanston and Reform for Illinois sued and now all 3 cities are waiting for the court to rule and for the state legislature to respond. There is a bill, [SB2004](https://ilga.gov/Legislation/BillStatus?DocNum=2004&GAID=18&DocTypeID=SB&LegId=161409&SessionID=114&ref=ivn.us), that would make it explicitly clear that cities can adopt ranked choice voting. - Speaking of ranked choice voting and the local option to adopt it, HB630 in Virginia would give cities and counties the permanent option to adopt ranked choice voting. This means it could be adopted for any and/or all local elections – not just for city councils and county boards. The bill [passed the House of Delegates](https://ivn.us/posts/virginia-house-of-delegates-passes-ranked-choice-voting-expansion) and is now in the state Senate. ### 10 Reasons Why the Congressional Stock Trading Ban Will Never Pass URL: https://ivn.us/top-10-reasons-why-the-constock-trading-ban-will-never-pass-2026-02-20/ Last updated: 2026-04-13T16:56:28.000Z **1\. Direct Financial Self-Interest** Many members of Congress personally benefit from owning and trading stocks. Any meaningful ban would require them or their families to divest assets or limit investment strategies. Lawmakers are being asked to restrict their own wealth-building opportunities, which creates an inherent conflict between public duty and private financial interest. Republican Senator Ashley Moody of Florida serves on the Senate Health Committee and reported trades in multiple health care companies in 2025, including Eli Lilly stock valued between $100,000 and $250,000\. [Why Congress Can’t (Won’t) Ever Quit Trading StocksImagine a lawmaker on the House Armed Services Committee who owns stock in a major defense contractor voting on military spending or weapons systems tied to that company.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-4.jpg)Independent VoterCara Brown McCormick![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/congressional-stock-trading-ban-conflict-of-interest-capitol-hill-1.png)](https://ivn.us/why-congress-cant-wont-ever-quit-trading-stocks-2026-02-10/) While her office said the trades were part of an independently managed family investment partnership and that she has since withdrawn, the example illustrates how members can hold substantial financial stakes in industries they help oversee. **2\. Structural Conflicts Are Legal Under Current Law** The overlap between committee assignments and stock ownership is not automatically illegal. Because the current legal framework permits this proximity as long as disclosure rules are followed, lawmakers are not operating under a system that forces change. Reform would require them to tighten rules that currently protect them. A February 9 CNN News Central report by senior reporter Annie Grayer, who reviewed recent congressional financial disclosure filings. Grayer identified at least 10 senators from both parties who own stocks in companies operating in industries that directly overlap with their committee assignments. Those senators include Republicans Bill Hagerty, John Kennedy, Moody, Jerry Moran, Bernie Moreno, Markwayne Mullin, and Tommy Tuberville, along with Democrats John Hickenlooper, Gary Peters, and Sheldon Whitehouse. **3\. Disclosure Rules Provide Political Cover** The STOCK Act requires disclosures, which allows lawmakers to argue they are transparent even if they continue trading. Transparency without prohibition gives members a defense against criticism while preserving their financial flexibility. As long as disclosure is treated as sufficient accountability, pressure for stricter reform weakens. **4\. Performative Bipartisanship Without Alignment** Both parties introduce bills and speak in favor of reform. However, their proposals are politically incompatible. One side pushes comprehensive bans. The other advances partial restrictions that allow current holdings or future flexibility. Each party can claim reform credentials without agreeing on a version that could actually pass. **5\. Competing Bills Are Designed to Fail** Legislative proposals are structured in ways that prevent consensus. Comprehensive bans repel some members. Partial bans repel others. By designing bills that appeal only to their base or caucus, lawmakers ensure stalemate. The lack of compromise is not accidental but predictable. **6\. Party-Line Incentives Override Reform** When proposals advance strictly along party lines, as seen in the House Administration Committee vote, reform becomes a partisan messaging tool rather than a shared institutional priority. If stopping stock trading were treated as a core institutional reform rather than a partisan issue, cross-party agreement would be necessary. That incentive is missing. **7\. High Signature Thresholds Stall Action** Discharge petitions require 218 signatures in the House. Even when dozens or over a hundred members sign on, the threshold is rarely met. This procedural hurdle allows leadership to avoid bringing uncomfortable legislation to the floor. Structural rules protect inaction. **8\. Access to Information Is an Advantage Members Are Reluctant to Surrender** Lawmakers have access to classified briefings, industry meetings, and regulatory oversight. Even without insider trading, this proximity gives them informational advantages. The portfolios of dozens of members of Congress from both major parties outperformed the benchmark S&P 500 in 2024, according to the annual analysis of the politicians' stock portfolios by Unusual Whales, a financial startup run by an anonymous tracker. Restricting stock trading would remove the ability to personally benefit from knowledge gained in office. Few institutions voluntarily give up advantages tied to power. [A Historic First: Congressional Stock Trading Ban Makes It Out of CommitteeA bill that would completely ban members of Congress and their families from trading stocks while in office was approved by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/icon/53759554_1170739903086963_9038685436649668608_n-1-2.jpg)Independent VoterShawn Griffiths![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/thumbnail/getty-images-pqo44QZBKbo-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/historic-first-congressional-stock-trading-ban-makes-it-out-committee-2024-07-28/) **9\. Public Support Alone Is Not Sufficient Pressure** Polls consistently show that voters favor banning congressional stock trading. Yet the issue has not translated into decisive electoral consequences strong enough to force reform. Without sustained voter punishment or a single-party mandate centered on this issue, members can afford to let it stall. **10\. Symbolic Reform Is Politically Safer Than Real Reform** By introducing bills, holding hearings, and making public statements, lawmakers can signal responsiveness without delivering change. Symbolic action reduces immediate political risk while preserving financial freedom. The appearance of effort is enough to satisfy enough voters to avoid backlash, even if nothing substantive passes. Taken together, these reasons suggest that Congress is unlikely to stop itself from stock trading because doing so would require lawmakers to limit their own financial interests, overcome partisan incentives, accept meaningful compromise, and prioritize institutional integrity over personal benefit. The current system allows them to appear supportive of reform while ensuring it never becomes reality. ### Are Parties Using Election Rules to Control You? Voter ID, Texas Primaries and the FCC Power Grab URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/are-parties-using-election-rules-to-control-you-voter-id-texas-primaries-and-the-fcc-power-grab-2026-02-19/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:40:31.000Z Are election rules protecting voters or protecting parties? Cara, Chad, Ethan, and Shawn break down voter ID laws, Texas Republicans shutting out independents, the FCC's move against late night TV, and why Gallup stopped polling. Independent voters are nearly half the electorate, and the parties are scared. ## **Episode Highlights** In this episode of the *Independent Voter Podcast*, we tackle one of the most polarizing issues in American politics: **voter ID laws** and the federal **SAVE Act** proposal requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. The discussion contrasts California’s proposed voter ID initiative with congressional Republicans’ push for stricter national standards, including documentary proof such as birth certificates or passports. We debate election integrity, voter suppression concerns, automatic voter registration through DMVs, and whether federalizing election rules undermines states’ rights under Article I of the Constitution. There is also a lively discussion about **new FCC guidelines** that are causing networks like CBS to crack down on who is allowed on late night shows, referring to the recent incident with late night host **Stephen Colbert** and Texas Democratic Senate candidate **James Talarico**. Is it fair? Is it censorship? Is it designed to protect one man or party from criticism? And if so, will it work or will it backfire? The episode also explores **open primaries in Texas**, where Talarico is currently running, including legal challenges from the Republican Party to close them and broader debates over **independent voters**, party affiliation, and ballot access. And finally, we close the episode with a discussion on **ranked choice voting**, its use in Virginia local elections and even in NFL MVP voting. We also talk about Gallup’s decision to discontinue **presidential approval polling**, raising questions about polling methodology, political trust, media narratives, and the future of public opinion data. **Listen to this episode and more from Independent Voter Project on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io) **and** [**Apple Music**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn-news.ghost.io)**.** ### Report: Cannabis Industry Doesn’t Have a Youth Marketing Crisis - It Has a Definition Crisis URL: https://ivn.us/report-the-real-youth-marketing-problem-in-cannabis-isnt-legal-brands-its-the-illicit-market-2026-02-19/ Last updated: 2026-02-24T05:58:20.000Z California lawmakers convened a joint legislative oversight hearing on February 17 to examine concerns that unclear cannabis packaging rules are undermining youth protections. [The hearing](https://www.senate.ca.gov/media/joint-hearing-joint-legislative-audit-and-assembly-business-and-professions-committee-20260217?ref=ivn.us), held by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and the Assembly Business and Professions Committee, focused on findings from the audit of the Department of Cannabis Control under the title: *“Unclear Rules and Insufficient Enforcement Hamper Its Ability to Identify Packaging That Is Attractive to Children (*[*Report 2024-105*](https://legaudit.legislature.ca.gov/media/532?ref=ivn.us)*).”* “In general, we found that state law and DCC’s regulations about design elements that are attractive to children are unspecific, leading to subjective and sometimes inconsistent determinations of whether cannabis product packaging is compliant,” the audit report states. The State Auditor further recommended that “the Legislature consider clarifying design elements that are prohibited from cannabis packaging.” At the hearing, lawmakers discussed the State Auditor’s conclusion that existing rules lack precision. That debate over clarity versus enforcement comes as a [new white paper](https://82c52c1d-5714-4985-a563-676a79dcf952.usrfiles.com/ugd/82c52c%5Faf5728525dc14a099a9f2ffda3d1b0ef.pdf?ref=ivn.us) released on February 18 argues that California’s legal cannabis industry is not facing a youth marketing crisis, but a lack of clear definitions — and that the far more urgent problem lies in the illicit market, where packaging is openly and intentionally designed to attract children. In *The Packaging Problem: The High Cost of an Undefined Standard*, author Tiffany Devitt takes on one of the most debated phrases in state cannabis law: the prohibition on products “attractive to children.” The paper, prepared for the California Cannabis Operators Association, makes a straightforward claim: “California law prohibits cannabis packaging that is ‘attractive to children.’ Everyone agrees with the goal. The problem is that the laws don’t explain how to tell when packaging crosses that line.” Rather than offering rhetoric, the paper offers definitions, data, and detailed policy recommendations. ### **A Standard Without Clear Edges** Devitt begins by contrasting the packaging rule with other youth protection measures in California law. “Unlike other youth-protection rules in cannabis regulation — such as age-gated advertising, child-resistant packaging, or school setbacks — the ‘attractive to children’ standard lacks clear definitions, thresholds, or objective criteria.” In other areas, the rules are measurable, objective, and enforceable. Setbacks from schools or daycare centers, for example, are measured in feet. Prohibitions on depictions of minors in advertising are unambiguous. But when it comes to packaging, the report says regulators and businesses are left without a consistent test. “As a result, similar products can receive different treatment depending on who is reviewing them, when, and in what context.” The paper directly points to the confusion: regulations prohibit the imitation of cartoons and candy. But, it asks, “What, exactly, is the difference between a cartoon, which is prohibited, and a drawing, which is not?” “Two people can look at the same illustration and reasonably disagree,” it states. “There is nothing in regulation to resolve that disagreement.” The result, according to the report, is that the standard becomes “elastic — expanding or contracting depending on who is applying it.” That uncertainty, Devitt argues, is not theoretical. It plays out in routine packaging reviews, inspector conversations, and internal disputes between compliance and marketing teams. ### **The Compliance Gap** The Department of Cannabis Control has issued guidance on what may qualify as youth-appealing, citing mascots, anthropomorphized characters, and other design features. But the white paper explains why that has not solved the problem. “The guidance conveys risk but does not draw a line,” the report states. It relies on adjectives like bright or flashy, without defining what crosses the legal threshold. Because guidance is not legally binding, legally operating cannabis companies face a dilemma: “Do we treat guidance as if it were law… or do we follow the regulations as written and accept the risk that guidance may be applied retroactively through enforcement?” In a competitive market with declining sales, the paper notes, these decisions carry real financial consequences. ### **A Structured Review of 162 Brands** What sets the white paper apart is that it relies on no anecdotes. It conducts a structured review of 162 cannabis brands drawn from the top 150 selling brands in California and 50 Weedmaps award winners. The goal, the paper explains, was “to ground the debate in evidence rather than assumption.” Each brand was evaluated against six design features commonly cited in youth-appeal discussions: illustrated characters, anthropomorphic elements, bubble-style fonts, fantasy themes, candy imagery, and references to children’s entertainment. The results are central to the paper’s credibility. Out of 162 brands: - 68 percent were clearly compliant. - 22 percent fell into a gray area created by undefined terms. - 10 percent were clearly problematic, arguably prohibited under current regulations. “Among the most visible cannabis brands in California, youth-appealing packaging is not the norm,” the report concludes. It adds that “most licensed brands are already operating within the bounds of existing law.” The data also show that larger brands are more compliant. “None of the top 20 brands reviewed fell into the clearly prohibited category.” In contrast, among the smallest 20 brands, one in four raised serious concerns. “The takeaway is not widespread noncompliance,” the paper states. “It is a concentration of uncertainty in the middle tier.” ### **The Real Outliers: The Illicit Market** The strongest section of the white paper may be its focus on the illicit market. “If you want to see packaging that is genuinely designed to attract kids, look outside the legal market,” it states. “The worst offenders are not licensed dispensaries or top-selling brands. They are unlicensed dispensaries and delivery services, smoke shops, and online drug sellers operating entirely outside the regulatory system.” The report describes “direct knockoffs of Skittles, Nerds Rope, and Cheetos, along with cartoon mascots that would not look out of place on a Saturday-morning cereal box.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/data-src-image-60ed6dcc-89b0-43ba-b4f1-040b1120d1bc.png) “These are not close calls or matters of interpretation,” the paper says. “They are clear violations of California law, and they are putting young people at risk.” More importantly, the report argues that the packaging is only part of the problem. In illicit markets, broader protections such as testing, labeling, and age verification are often ignored. The implication is clear: enforcement resources may be better focused where risk is highest. ### **Precision, Not Prohibition** The paper does not call for sweeping new bans. Instead, it calls for clearer rules. “California does not lack youth-protection rules. It lacks precision.” Among its recommendations: - Codify existing guidance into formal regulation. - Define “mascot” based on expressive features and implied personality. - Define “anthropomorphized element” as any non-human item given human traits. - Define “bubble or volumetric font” as rounded lettering resembling toy or candy branding and include it as a high-risk design element. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/data-src-image-53843e8b-6521-40e7-80cc-73a713aa4fe2.png) - Draw a clear boundary between describing flavor and imitating candy. - Apply enforcement at the manufacturing level. - Offer an optional binding pre-market review process. - Prioritize enforcement toward unlicensed retail and delivery channels. The conclusion is confident but measured. “California’s cannabis market does not have a youth-protection problem. It has a definition problem.” “The solution is straightforward,” the report states. “Say what ‘cartoon’ means. Define which typographic treatments are prohibited. Draw a clear boundary between describing flavor and imitating candy.” “California does not need to rewrite its cannabis laws. It needs to finish drafting them.” In a policy debate often driven by headlines and assumptions, the white paper stands out for its reliance on data, its acknowledgment of real violations, and its proposals for clear, enforceable definitions and standards. Its central argument is simple: when rules are clear, compliance improves. According to the data, nearly 70 percent of the licensed market is already there. ### Virginia House of Delegates Passes Ranked Choice Voting Expansion URL: https://ivn.us/virginia-house-of-delegates-passes-ranked-choice-voting-expansion-2026-02-17/ Last updated: 2026-02-24T06:01:11.000Z **RICHMOND, Va.** \- A bill that expands ranked choice voting in Virginia has passed the state House of Delegates not long after it was referred out of committee. If signed into law, the bill will allow cities and counties to adopt the reform for all elections. Current law for ranked choice voting in Virginia allows local governments to implement ranked choice voting only for city council and county board elections. It is currently used in Charlottesville and Arlington County for these elections. Charlottesville [used ranked choice voting for the first time in 2025](https://ivn.us/posts/after-first-rcv-election-charlottesville-voters-back-reform-they-get-it-they-it-they-want-do), and an exit survey showed 80% of respondents expressed strong support for its continued use. Arlington County, the first jurisdiction in Virginia to use ranked choice voting, [continues to support its use](https://ivn.us/posts/arlington-county-board-votes-4-0-extend-ranked-choice-voting-theres-more-2025-02-24), and other areas – like Newport News and Loudoun County – have signaled they are looking into the reform as well. But all of these places are limited on adoption and use of it. Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones said [he supports ranked choice voting](https://ivn.us/posts/newport-news-mayor-advocates-ranked-choice-voting-expansion-virginia-2024-11-18), noting in a 2024 op-ed that "Richmond, Roanoke, Winchester, and Virginia Beach all elected mayors \[...\] in wide-field races with a winner who earned less than half the votes." This couldn't happen under ranked choice voting since the reform requires a majority winner. Most jurisdictions that use ranked choice voting in the U.S. use the instant runoff method. Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If a candidate gets a majority of first-choice selections, they win the election outright. If no one gets a majority, one or more runoff rounds kick in that eliminate the last place candidate and apply their voters’ next selection to the tabulation. Subsequent runoff rounds are held as needed until a single candidate has a majority of the vote. This isn’t the only way to conduct ranked choice voting elections, but regardless of what method is used, advocates say it allows greater voter expression, more choice, elevates competition, and incentivizes civility on the campaign trail. And this is where [HB630](https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB630?emci=0d3131b9-2e0c-f111-832e-0022482a9733&emdi=8350a8b4-2f0c-f111-832e-0022482a9733&ceid=3580391&ref=ivn.us) – which just passed the Virginia House of Delegates in a 62-34 vote – comes into play. The bill, introduced by Delegate Katrina Callsen, authorizes a permanent option for ranked choice voting expansion. This means cities and counties can implement the reform for any and/or all of their elections, including mayoral elections. So, what happens now? The House of Delegates and Senate send over completed bills during what is called “Crossover" on Wednesday. HB630 and its Senate twin, SB176, will go through the committee process in the opposite chamber. ### 83% Want Voter ID - So Why Is Congress Fighting It? SAVE Act Explained URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/83-want-voter-id-so-why-is-congress-fighting-it-save-act-explained-2026-02-16/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:41:12.000Z The House just passed the SAVE America Act - national voter ID + proof of citizenship to register. On the Independent Voter Podcast, we unpack what’s in the bill, why polls show broad support for voter ID, and the sticking points: which IDs count (student ID?), costs (should IDs be free?), and whether new rules could block eligible voters before 2026\. ## Episode Highlights In this episode of the Independent Voter Podcast, Cara, Chad, Ethan and Shawn break down developments in **election reform, redistricting lawsuits, ranked choice voting (RCV), and voter ID legislation** across multiple states. The conversation begins with the ongoing [**Missouri gerrymandering battle**](https://ivn.us/posts/missouri-candidates-still-dont-know-their-districts-as-gop-map-faces-lawsuits-and-veto-referendum-fight), where candidates may be forced to file for congressional races before courts determine whether the state's new congressional map will stand. Reformers argue this legal uncertainty undermines **election integrity, voter confidence, and ballot access**. It also raises concerns about how last-minute court decisions can impact primaries and general elections. The discussion highlights broader national debates over **fair maps, ballot initiatives, signature verification, and democratic process protections.** We then turn to **ranked choice voting in Maine and California’s nonpartisan primary system** and examine how election rules are sometimes changed mid-cycle and how political consultants often discourage candidates from embracing popular reforms. Despite [polling](https://ivn.us/posts/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12) that shows bipartisan support for **open primaries, top-four systems, and ranked choice voting expansion**, elected officials hesitate to champion structural reforms that could increase voter participation and reduce political polarization. Instead, they ignore or shun these reforms despite public opinion. Finally, the podcast tackles two nationally trending issues: the stalled [**congressional stock trading ban**](https://ivn.us/posts/why-congress-cant-wont-ever-quit-trading-stocks-2026-02-10) and renewed debate over the **SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) and federal voter ID requirements**. We talk about the bipartisan public support for banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks, while criticizing partisan gridlock that prevents reform from reaching a floor vote. Polling shows this is an 80-20 issue just like voter ID requirements – another issue muddled by partisan politics. There are ongoing disputes over **proof of citizenship requirements** in the SAVE Act, and [efforts to go further](https://ivn.us/posts/11-ways-mega-act-congress-tries-control-how-you-vote-2026-02-06) with bans on **universal mail-in ballots,** prohibitions on **ballot harvesting, stricter voter roll maintenance, and chain of custody protections** – issues that deserver greater nuance. Throughout the episode, the central theme remains clear: Americans broadly support common-sense reforms to strengthen election integrity and government accountability, but partisan strategy and fundraising incentives continue to stall meaningful change. ### Missouri Candidates Still Don’t Know Their Districts as GOP Map Faces Lawsuits and Veto Referendum Fight URL: https://ivn.us/missouri-candidates-still-dont-know-their-districts-as-gop-map-faces-lawsuits-and-veto-referendum-fight-2026-02-16/ Last updated: 2026-02-24T05:47:41.000Z Candidate filings for Congress are set to begin soon in Missouri, yet the people looking to run still have no idea which districts they will be campaigning in as multiple lawsuits against Missouri’s new congressional map have yet to be settled. One of those lawsuits will determine whether or not the new map can be used after the nonpartisan group, [People Not Politicians](https://peoplenotpoliticiansmo.org/?ref=ivn.us), submitted more than 300,000 signatures to put a veto referendum on the November 2026 ballot. Republican state officials say the map is already in place, but reformers and gerrymander opponents say legal and political precedent dictate that the new map be suspended until voters have a say. A hearing in the case [was held on February 10](https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/is-missouris-new-gerrymandered-map-in-effect-that-depends-on-a-court-and-the-clock/?ref=ivn.us), but time is running out. Candidate filings begin on February 24 at which point the state can go to the courts and say it is too late to suspend the new map. > The state agrees with People Not Politicians! [pic.twitter.com/qtbQufFPGU](https://t.co/qtbQufFPGU?ref=ivn.us) > > — PeopleNotPoliticiansMO (@PeopleNotPolsMO) [February 10, 2026](https://twitter.com/PeopleNotPolsMO/status/2021249303772094637?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Here is a quick recap of what has happened so far. Back in September, the Missouri Legislature approved a new redistricting package under HB 1 that carves up Kansas City in order to give Republicans an advantage in 7 out of the state’s 8 congressional districts. The party currently holds 6 seats. A court [ruled Friday](https://www.komu.com/news/state/special-session-to-redraw-missouris-congressional-districts-was-constitutional-judge-rules/article%5F0782f59f-c883-497d-9260-dbae0a12fae2.html?ref=ivn.us) that the special session called by Gov. Mike Kehoe to pass the mid-decade gerrymander – pushed by President Donald Trump – was constitutional. Missouri followed Texas and California in setting in motion a new gerrymander to give the party in power an even greater advantage – a partisan fight that has only escalated since. Not long after the Missouri Legislature approved the redistricting package, People Not Politicians started to collect signatures on a veto referendum. However, state officials have tried everything they can to prevent it from making it on the ballot. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins [said he would not count 100,000 signatures gathered between Sept. 15-Oct. 14](https://ivn.us/posts/missouri-map-mayhem-gop-officials-try-everything-block-citizen-veto-extreme-gerrymander-2025). The referendum campaign was reported to ICE. Petition gatherers claim they were offered bribes. Still, People Not Politicians submitted more than 300,000 signatures. About 110,000 signatures need to be verified in order for the referendum to be certified for the ballot. There is historical precedent that once signatures are submitted the law being challenged – or in this case the map – should be immediately suspended until voters have a say at the ballot box. But Hoskins and Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway say the map is already in place and won’t be suspended until the signatures are verified. The verification process can be dragged out to July. Right before Christmas, People Not Politicians filed a lawsuit – one of many that have been filed against state officials over the new map – and the group hopes for an expedited ruling. But this leaves a lingering question mark for candidates and voters. Which map will be used? Which voters will candidates need to reach out to during their campaigns? Who will voters ultimately consider when primary elections roll around in August? State officials hope they can run out the clock to protect their gerrymander – but such partisan games only exacerbate cynicism and uncertainty with elections at a time when voter confidence is at historic lows. More and more the courts are being asked to settle these election disputes in a short time period, something those in power ultimately hope will benefit them because the judicial process is deliberately designed not to be a speedy process. Hoskins also acknowledged that he wrote biased language for the veto referendum, making it sound like HB 1 eliminated a gerrymander instead of making one worse – yet despite this admission, [he still wants to keep some of the language](https://missouriindependent.com/2026/02/09/missouri-secretary-of-state-wants-to-keep-portions-of-ballot-language-for-redistricting-referendum/?ref=ivn.us). Right now, the ballot summary reads: > *“Do the people of the state of Missouri approve the act of the General Assembly entitled ‘House Bill No. 1 (2025 Second Extraordinary Session),’ which repeals Missouri’s existing gerrymandered congressional plan that protects incumbent politicians, and replaces it with new congressional boundaries that keep more cities and counties intact, are more compact, and better reflects statewide voting patterns?”* Hoskins wants to replace “that protects incumbent politicians,” but wants “keep more cities and counties intact, and more compact, and better reflects statewide voting patterns” in the language – even if it isn’t true. Cole County Circuit Judge Brian Stumpe ordered state officials and People Not Politicians to submit new summary proposals that were due on Friday, February 13. ## Maine Legislature Passes Bill to Give Voters the Ranked Choice Voting Law They Voted For The Maine Legislature voted in favor of a bill, LD [1666](https://legislature.maine.gov/backend/App/services/getDocument.aspx?documentId=115505&ref=ivn.us), on February 10 that would add ranked choice voting to general elections for governor, state Senate, and state House. However, the bill won’t go to the governor’s desk just yet. Instead, lawmakers have asked the state Supreme Court if the bill is legal under the state constitution. This is the second time the legislature has passed this bill, but they pulled it from the governor’s desk after its first passage. Maine press and media outlets call the bill a ranked choice voting expansion. But in reality, it gives voters the reform they [originally approved in 2016](https://ivn.us/posts/ranked-choice-voting-advocates-celebrate-historic-victory-in-maine) – it implements ranked choice voting as it was always intended to be used. After a majority of Mainers approved ranked choice voting, the state Supreme Court issued a non-binding opinion in 2017 that the measure violated a plurality clause in the state constitution. It was then determined that its implementation could not cover all taxpayer-funded elections. Put simply, the Maine constitution says that candidates in state elections only need a plurality to win, while ranked choice voting requires a majority. So now, the reform is used in state primary elections, U.S. House and Senate elections, and presidential elections. It is not used in general elections for state office. However, state officials and lawmakers used the non-binding opinion in an effort to repeal the will of voters entirely. They passed a law to do this in 2017, but state voters approved a [people’s veto in 2018](https://ivn.us/posts/independents-made-difference-maines-ranked-choice-voting) that reaffirmed their desire to use ranked choice voting. This simplifies the legislative and legal rollercoaster reform went through in Maine from 2016 to 2018 (which IVN covered extensively). The point is, state officials attempted to do with ranked choice voting what Missouri officials are doing to stop a gerrymander veto. And, the issue in both cases is being dragged into election years at a time when deadlines have already been set, candidate filings have or about to occur, and people are about to vote. With the passage of LD 1666, the legislature issued a joint order that asks justices of the Maine Supreme Court to issue another advisory opinion. The bill will remain in the state Senate until the court issues its opinion. ### Republican Lawmakers in Congress Push SAVE Act Again on Eve of 2026 Midterms Talk about a last-minute attempt to change election rules in a major way. The U.S. House passed another version of the SAVE Act, which requires photo identification when voting in federal elections and requires people to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Currently, the National Voter Registration Act requires voters to swear on penalty of perjury that they are citizens. Voter ID has long been considered a state-by-state issue that has broad support among voters. However, critics say the proof of citizenship requirement could disenfranchise millions of Americans who do not have easy access to a passport or birth certificate. Critics also say it could make it more difficult for people to register to vote who have changed their name. (e.g. through marriage). They focus on this requirement while supporters focus on the popular voter ID provisions. I broke down the debate on this [with the Make Elections Great Again Act](https://ivn.us/posts/11-ways-mega-act-congress-tries-control-how-you-vote-2026-02-06), which has also been introduced in the U.S. House and expounds on the SAVE Act by adding more election rules and restrictions, like banning ranked choice voting and universal mail-in voting. Notably, President Donald Trump [has suggested](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116065471857020644?ref=ivn.us) he will sign an executive order requiring voter ID – which [as explained on IVN](https://ivn.us/posts/no-trump-cant-cancel-elections-or-ban-ranked-choice-voting-2026-02-03) is something he does not have the authority to do. The Constitution grants states the authority to make their own election laws. ## Ranked Choice Voting Expansion Steps Closer to Passage in Virginia Legislature The Virginia Legislature may soon pass its own ranked choice voting expansion under [HB630](https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB630?emci=0e88961d-4708-f111-832e-0022482a9733&emdi=5e5eda4b-4b08-f111-832e-0022482a9733&ceid=3580391&ref=ivn.us), which was referred out of the state House Privileges and Elections Committee in a 15-6 vote on February 13. Unlike Maine, Virginia does not use ranked choice voting in any state or federal elections. However, state law allows local jurisdictions to implement the reform for council and county board elections Two jurisdictions have done this so far – Charlottesville and Arlington County. And there are more cities and counties looking into its implementation. HB630 authorizes a permanent option for ranked choice voting expansion, meaning cities and counties would be able to adopt it for any and/or all elections. After being referred out of committee, it now goes to the full House of Delegates. “Ranked choice voting empowers voters to convey a more complete set of preferences, resulting in representation that better reflects the electorate’s will,” said Robert Melvin, the Northeast region director at the [R Street Institute](https://www.rstreet.org/?ref=ivn.us). Melvin testified before the Privilege and Elections Committee on November 9\. He added: > *“The ability to express support for several candidates ensures voters’ choices still count, even when their first preference does not prevail. With a majority threshold in place, more voters can reasonably feel that their vote played a role in electing the winner.”* Virginia passed the current local ranked choice voting option in 2020, which municipalities could use for the first time in 2022\. The expansion of this option in 4 years may be an indication of how strong the demand is for the reform. “While some people worry that implementing a new system will confuse voters, the R Street Institute’s research suggests that voters can navigate ranked-choice voting without difficulty,” Melvin said. “Our findings suggest that, rather than avoiding it, voters will actively use the ability to rank candidates – particularly during primary contests.” The referenced research can be found [here](https://www.rstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Final-Short-106.pdf?ref=ivn.us). Ranked choice voting is currently used or will soon be used in 48 jurisdictions, representing 14 million voters. This is mostly cities, a handful of counties, but does include two states – Maine and Alaska. ## Maryland Independents Demand Right to Vote at State Capitol Committee Hearing A committee hearing was held in Maryland on February 11 for [HB0496](https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/hb0496?ys=2026RS&ref=ivn.us), a semi-open primary bill that would open the state’s taxpayer-funded primary elections to one million registered independent voters who are currently denied the right to participate. According to the better elections group, Open Primaries, two dozen independents came from across the state to demand an equal and meaningful say in elections, including veterans and students. > They waited 4 hours to testify on HB0496—and when they finally spoke, they left the committee speechless. > > Veterans, a teacher, a young Latina student, a former legislative page—two dozen independent voters with one simple request: > > Let us vote. > > 🎥 Video clips coming soon. [pic.twitter.com/CEXwJgFJNS](https://t.co/CEXwJgFJNS?ref=ivn.us) > > — Open Primaries (@OpenPrimaryUSA) [February 14, 2026](https://twitter.com/OpenPrimaryUSA/status/2022688598408003764?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The bill was introduced by Democratic Maryland Delegate Lily Qi, who said “voting rights are civil rights.” > *“Making our elections more democratic is fundamental to our rights as Americans, and should be the new frontier of our civil rights movement.”* Republican co-sponsor Delegate Stuart Schmidt noted that the number of voters who choose not to register with a political party in the state is growing and said, “it is neither fair nor practical to shut them out of the most consequential elections.” Open Primaries, which filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s closed primary elections in 2025, was present to give testimony. The group’s senior vice president, Jeremy Gruber, participated with representatives from Independent Voters of Maryland and Veterans for All Voters. Under a semi-open primary system, registered party members have to vote in their respective party’s primary. Registered independent voters are given a choice between a Republican and Democratic ballot, but must stick with that party’s candidates. A similar system [was approved by the New Mexico Legislature](https://ivn.us/posts/opening-door-how-new-mexico-reformed-its-primary-elections-and-what-others-can-learn-2025-05) in 2025. ### Why Congress Can't (Won't) Ever Quit Trading Stocks URL: https://ivn.us/why-congress-cant-wont-ever-quit-trading-stocks-2026-02-10/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:58:08.000Z Imagine a lawmaker on the House [Armed Services Committee](https://armedservices.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us) who owns stock in a major defense contractor voting on military spending or weapons systems tied to that company's bottom line. Or what about a senator advocating for renewable energy subsidies while holding shares in a specific solar manufacturer that stands to gain? It may sound like insider trading to many. Yet, current U.S. law doesn’t always treat it as such. There is little disagreement among Americans that members of Congress should not be trading individual stocks while writing laws and overseeing the agencies that regulate entire industries. Polls consistently show voter support for a ban on congressional stock trading. And while leaders in both parties routinely say they agree the practice should stop, it hasn’t, despite years of attention, multiple bills, and repeated public commitments. It is a case study in performative reform resulting in a familiar cycle of motion without resolution. Lawmakers from both parties continue to introduce “bipartisan” legislation, hold hearings, sign discharge petitions, and issue statements signaling support for restrictions, even as they advance proposals that remain politically incompatible and structurally impossible to pass. Members of Congress have access to information that is not available to the public through classified briefings, closed-door committee hearings, and private meetings with industry leaders. They oversee federal agencies that regulate companies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. This combination of access, authority, and personal financial stakes creates unavoidable questions about conflicts of interest, even if there is no illegal activity or insider trading. CNN senior reporter Annie Grayer said on [*CNN News Central*](https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/09/politics/senator-stock-trading-congress?ref=ivn.us) on February 9 that her review of recent Congressional financial disclosure filings found “at least 10 senators, a mix of Democrats and Republicans, who own stocks in companies that are in industries that directly overlap with their committee assignments.” While Grayer emphasized that overlap does not imply wrongdoing, she noted that it helps explain ongoing public frustration. These senators include Republicans Bill Hagerty, John Kennedy, Ashley Moody, Jerry Moran, Bernie Moreno, Markwayne Mullin, and Tommy Tuberville, as well as Democrats John Hickenlooper, Gary Peters, and Sheldon Whitehouse. CNN also reported that at least one Democrat and one Republican who support restricting congressional stock trading disclosed trades connected to their committee work. Republican Senator Ashley Moody of Florida serves on the Senate Health Committee and reported trades in multiple health care companies in 2025, including Eli Lilly stock valued between $100,000 and $250,000\. Her office said the trades were part of an independently managed family investment partnership, that she later withdrew from the partnership, and that she has not traded stocks since April 2025. Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, reported investing in a cybersecurity firm while serving on the committee. His office said his investments have been held in a blind trust since 2003, with decisions made without his knowledge or input. “We’re not suggesting insider trading or anything like that,” CNN’s Grayer said. “But it’s more just to show the proximity that these members have to these trades, and while they’re also doing their committee work.” That proximity has prompted a steady stream of legislative proposals that have gone nowhere. On December 2, 2025, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna filed [Discharge Petition #11](https://clerk.house.gov/DischargePetition/2025120211?ref=ivn.us) to force a vote on a stock trading ban. Eighty members have signed the petition, including both Democrats and Republicans, but far short of the 218 signatures needed. In the Senate, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, and Moody, a Republican, introduced the [Restore Trust in Congress Act ](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/3649/cosponsors?ref=ivn.us)on January 15\. [The bill](https://www.moody.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/WAL26006.pdf?ref=ivn.us) would require lawmakers and their immediate families to divest individual stocks or place them in qualified blind trusts. [It is a companion measure to H.R. 5106](https://www.moody.senate.gov/press-releases/news-release-senators-moody-gillibrand-lead-bipartisan-bill-to-ban-stock-trading-by-members-of-congress/?ref=ivn.us), introduced in September 2025\. Supporters say it strengthens gaps left by the 2012 STOCK Act. On January 21, in the House, [Democrats filed](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2296345594204859) [Discharge Petition #14](https://clerk.house.gov/DischargePetition/2026012114?Page=2&ref=ivn.us) to force a vote on a [different bill](https://democrats-cha.house.gov/media/press-releases/morelle-magaziner-and-jayapal-sign-discharge-petition-pass-congressional-stock?ref=ivn.us) that would ban members of Congress, the president, the vice president, and their immediate families from owning or trading individual stocks. [The petition initially attracted seven Democratic signatures](https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5699166-stock-trading-discharge-petition-democrats/?ref=ivn.us), including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The discharge petition has since gained another 170 signatures, all from Democrats. Not a single Republican has emerged to support the petition. The bill’s sponsor, Democrat Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island, has [argued for a comprehensive ban](https://magaziner.house.gov/media/press-releases/magaziner-roy-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-ban-members-congress-trading?ref=ivn.us) without exceptions. [A prior bipartisan version Magaziner introduced](https://magaziner.house.gov/media/press-releases/magaziner-roy-introduce-new-bipartisan-bill-ban-congressional-stock-trading?ref=ivn.us#:~:text=The%20Restore%20Trust%20in%20Congress%20Act%20was%20introduced%20with%2016,D%2DNY%2D19%29.) with Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas in January 2025 also failed to advance. [Legislation advanced](https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5689081-stock-trading-bill-house-panel/?ref=ivn.us) by the [Republican House Administration Committee](https://cha.house.gov/?ref=ivn.us) in January 2026 would allow lawmakers and their families to keep stocks they already own while prohibiting new purchases. The committee approved this bill along Republican party lines without a single Democratic vote. Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said he supported the bill. “This legislation is critical to restoring the public’s trust in their elected officials. If you want to trade stocks, go to Wall Street, not Capitol Hill,” Republican Rep. Bryan Steil previously said in a statement. Democrats have refused to support this legislation because they say it does not meaningfully resolve conflicts of interest. “The Stop Insider Trading Act allows Members of Congress to continue to trade a substantial number of individual stocks. Under this bill, the wealthiest Members of Congress can keep every single share of stock they currently own—and use their dividends to buy even more stock,” House Administration Committee ranking member Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “I wouldn’t even call this a half measure—it’s a misdirection play. Because of that – because I believe this bill is simply Speaker Johnson’s attempt to blunt momentum toward a full congressional stock trading ban – I plan on opposing this bill today,” he added. Taken together, these dueling Congressional proposals reveal a pattern familiar to voters. Both parties can point to legislation that allows them to claim support for banning stock trading. At the same time, the bills are structured in ways that fail to attract consensus and will never advance to final passage. The absence of compromise ensures that neither proposal succeeds. That dynamic has consequences beyond the policy itself. When lawmakers repeatedly signal support for a ban while allowing the issue to stall out, it reinforces the perception that reform is more symbolic than sincere. Over time, the failure to resolve a widely supported issue and stem corruption contributes to declining trust in Congress and skepticism about whether elected officials intend to limit privileges that benefit them personally. For now, congressional stock trading continues under existing disclosure rules. The public support for reform remains clear. What remains unresolved is whether the two major political parties in Congress have any incentive or political will to move beyond performance and enact meaningful change. ### Republican Rep Says Voter ID Should Be Mandatory – and Free URL: https://ivn.us/republican-rep-says-voter-id-should-be-mandatory-and-free-2026-02-09/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:19:30.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** \- Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil says the federal government should not only mandate voter ID in federal elections, but the government should also provide these IDs for free ahead of a House vote on the SAVE America Act ([H.R.7296](https://www.congress.gov/119/bills/hr7296/BILLS-119hr7296ih.pdf?ref=ivn.us)). This bill is another attempt by Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE Act ([H.R. 22](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22?ref=ivn.us)), which has languished in the U.S. Senate since April 2025, along with Steil’s Make Elections Great Again Act, which is a much larger package of election rule changes introduced in January. [11 Ways the MEGA Act in Congress Tries to Control How You VoteIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/make-elections-great-again-act-voting-law-changes-explainer.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/11-ways-mega-act-congress-tries-control-how-you-vote-2026-02-06) Republicans are demanding that the SAVE Act – which would require documented proof of citizenship when registering to vote and photo voter ID when casting as ballot – make it to President Donald Trump’s desk ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Democratic leaders – like U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer – call it "Jim Crow 2.0," focusing on the proof of citizenship requirement in the bill. They say it suppresses millions of eligible American citizens who do not have easy access to a passport or birth certificate. When pressed on the issue of voter ID on CNN, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries claimed Democrats support the issue being left up to states, while President Donald Trump is trying to "nationalize elections.” Voter ID critics contend that while nearly all voters support photo ID laws in theory – including majorities of Democrats – the practical effect of federal mandates could be different, especially if proof-of-citizenship requirements delay registration or voting. Republican leaders have mostly focused on voter ID, as they see it as a winning issue for them. Steil has previously referenced public opinion that shows a majority of U.S. voters across the political spectrum support a photo ID requirement to vote. “If we go and ask folks whether or not you should have photo identification to vote, it’s overwhelmingly popular because it makes sense,” he said on News Nation. “And it is regular in their actual personal life.” Republicans have long pointed out that voters need ID to cash a check, open a bank account, buy alcohol, board a plane, and other activities they do regularly. Steil now says that not only should voter ID be mandated at the federal level, but IDs should be subsidized by the government. This could be a way to call Democrats to the table who say accessibility to required ID is an issue. “If there’s an individual who doesn’t have an ID, there 100 percent needs to be a mechanism for that person to get an ID without a charge,” he says. > *We want to make sure that more people are voting, not less. And I think instilling this confidence will actually result in more people coming to the polls.”* Steil's home state, Wisconsin, offers this under its voter ID system. Wisconsin initially enacted its voter ID law in 2011\. It faced years of legal challenges before being enshrined in the state constitution by referendum in April 2025, requiring voters to present an acceptable photo ID at the polls. The state’s law allows for a variety of IDs, including: - driver’s licenses, - state-issued identification cards, - tribal IDs, - passports, - military IDs, - student IDs, and - temporary DMV ID receipts What sets Wisconsin apart from some other states that require photo ID to vote is that it offers a free ID that complies with the law. The Wisconsin DMV will issue a no-fee ID card for voting purposes when applicants indicate they want it “for free for voting.” For those missing required documentation, the DMV can use alternative ways to verify a person’s voter eligibility and issue a temporary ID receipt. [Why Neither Side Wants the Truth About Voter IDIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/voter-id-debate-election-integrity-vs-voter-suppression-header..png)](https://ivn.us/posts/why-neither-side-wants-truth-voter-ID-2026-02-06) Compared to the SAVE Act, Wisconsin has less stringent ID requirements -- including student IDs being a valid form of identification. So, the question is, will Steil offer an amendment when the SAVE Act comes up for a vote again later this week? If Democrats are concerned about ID accessibility, amending the SAVE Act to require a free ID option could serve as an olive branch. And if this is solely about election integrity, then why would Republicans object? ### Why Neither Side Wants the Truth About Voter ID URL: https://ivn.us/why-neither-side-wants-truth-voter-id-2026-02-06/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T18:16:10.000Z Voter ID is treated like a five-alarm fire in American politics. That reaction says more about our dysfunctional political system than it does about voter ID itself. Polls consistently show that about 80 percent of voters support some form of voter identification. That includes Democrats, Republicans, and independents. By any normal standard, that is a broad agreement. In a healthier system, issues with that level of support would not turn into endless political warfare. But voter ID has. Not because voters are divided, but because our politics are. Most people do not see voter ID as extreme. They show ID to fly, cash checks, pick up prescriptions, or enter government buildings. Verifying identity before voting strikes many voters as basic election administration. Where the debate truly breaks down is in the exaggeration on both sides. On the left, voter ID is treated as voter suppression by definition. Concerns about election integrity are dismissed outright. The impression many voters are left with is that nothing improper has ever happened, no election has ever been compromised, and the system is already flawless. On the right, the story flips entirely. Voter fraud is described as widespread. Elections are portrayed as rigged or stolen. Limited problems are stretched into proof that the entire system cannot be trusted. Both positions are probably overstated. And together, they make honest discussion almost impossible. We are living in a moment where polarization and outrage drown out moderation. When every issue is framed in absolutes, the best idea for most people rarely makes it to the surface. This atmosphere also punishes anyone who breaks ranks. A Democrat who supports voter ID risks being labeled a supporter of voter suppression or worse. A Democrat who opposes voter ID is accused of being indifferent to fraud or wanting noncitizens to vote. Good faith disagreement is treated as betrayal. California illustrates this stalemate clearly. Election officials say voter rolls are accurate. Democrats agree. Republicans insist the rolls include ineligible voters. That disagreement has persisted for years, not because it cannot be resolved, but because neither side trusts the other enough to let facts settle it. [No, Trump Can’t Cancel Elections or Ban Ranked Choice VotingIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/trump-cant-cancel-elections-ranked-choice-voting-constitution-save-act.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/no-trump-cant-cancel-elections-or-ban-ranked-choice-voting-2026-02-03) From there, the fight shifts to process. What counts as acceptable ID? How would mail ballots be verified? How would the system work at scale? These details matter, and they have also become a reliable way to stop the conversation altogether. That is why Assemblyman Carl DeMaio’s [latest initiative has drawn so much attention](https://www.reformcalifornia.org/cavoterid/home?ref=ivn.us). Not because the measure is reckless or sloppy, but because it is careful. It follows California’s single-subject rule. It directly addresses mail ballot verification. It allows a broad range of acceptable identification. On its face, it appears designed to meet constitutional standards that have derailed past efforts. A voter ID proposal that is popular and hard to dismiss on legal or technical grounds forces political actors to confront something they would rather avoid. Voters are not confused about what they want. If voter fraud is as widespread as some on the right claim, voter ID should expose it. If it is not, that will become clear as well. If voter ID leads to real voter suppression, the evidence will surface. If it does not, that claim should lose its power. Either way, reality replaces rhetoric. Democrats, in particular, could call the Republican bluff by agreeing to voter ID with clear safeguards. Free IDs. Broad eligibility. Automatic issuance. Strong protections for access. If voter ID turns out to be unnecessary, the policy itself will prove it. If it causes harm, that harm will be visible and correctable. Once a system is tested honestly, exaggerations on both sides collapse. Voters are not asking for perfection. They are asking for honesty. When a large majority agrees on something this basic, the system should be able to respond without panic. The question is not whether voter ID is inherently good or evil. The question is why a system built to serve voters is so afraid to find out what is actually true. ### 11 Ways the MEGA Act in Congress Tries to Control How You Vote URL: https://ivn.us/11-ways-mega-act-congress-tries-control-how-you-vote-2026-02-06/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:19:31.000Z In the [final reform roundup of January](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-hates-mail-voting-ranked-choice-voting-so-much-gop-adds-bans-save-act-2026-01-30), I briefly discussed a new bill in the U.S. House that attempts to overhaul elections every state called the Make Elections Great Again Act (or MEGA Act for short). This bill touches on everything from: - Voter ID - Proof of citizenship requirements - Mail-in voting - Voter roll maintenance - Post-election audits - Banning ranked choice voting. - And more The knee-jerk response from critics has been the assertion that Republicans are trying to “nationalize” the elections process. President Donald Trump has even used that phrase, raising alarms from his opponents. Meanwhile, supporters frame the MEGA Act as an “election integrity package.” The truth, however, is there are plenty of things in the [MEGA Act](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7300?ref=ivn.us) that Congress and Trump can’t do because the U.S. Constitution makes it explicitly clear that control of the “time, place, and manner” of elections resides with the states. And despite the narrative that Trump wants to cancel elections, there are systemic and legal barriers in place to prevent this from happening – even if it is good fearmongering for opponents to use in fundraising emails. Just like it is good fundraising fodder for Republicans to suggest undocumented immigrants and dead people are voting in vast numbers. [No, Trump Can’t Cancel Elections or Ban Ranked Choice VotingIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/trump-cant-cancel-elections-ranked-choice-voting-constitution-save-act.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/no-trump-cant-cancel-elections-or-ban-ranked-choice-voting-2026-02-03) Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which is known as the Elections Clause, states: > *The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of \[choosing\] Senators.”* As noted in the piece, “[No, Trump Can’t Cancel Elections or Ban Ranked Choice Voting](https://ivn.us/posts/no-trump-cant-cancel-elections-or-ban-ranked-choice-voting-2026-02-03),” the courts have long interpreted this clause to mean that congressional authority to “make or alter such regulations” is severely limited. For example, Congress can and has set uniform standards for voter eligibility, protections, and national election dates. But largely, the states control the manner in which elections are conducted, including what primary systems they use, the use and extent of early voting, rules on mail-in and absentee ballots, what voting methods are allowed or banned, etc. The MEGA Act touches on most of these things, and while its scope is extraordinary, it is important for people listening to the narratives coming from the Republican and Democratic Parties to take a deep breath and understand what is in the bill, Many of its components wouldn’t survive a legal challenge, like a ban on universal mail-in voting. While Trump has railed against it, every state has its own mail-in voting rules and some states, like Colorado and Washington, conduct their elections entirely by mail. To ban universal mail-in voting would require these states to completely change the way they conduct elections, going beyond the scope of what Congress is allowed to alter and regulate when it comes to elections. To understand what is in the MEGA Act, here is a complete breakdown of all of its proposals. ## **1\. National Photo ID Requirement for Federal Elections** The MEGA Act would create a new federal mandate requiring photo identification to vote in federal elections. ### **In-person voting** Voters would be required to present a valid physical photo ID. If they do not have one, they may cast a provisional ballot, but it would only be counted if the voter returns within 3 days to present ID or sign an affidavit claiming a religious objection to being photographed. ### **Mail and absentee voting** Mail ballots could only be counted if the voter includes either: - A copy of a valid photo ID, or - The last four digits of their Social Security number plus an affidavit stating they were unable to obtain a copy of ID after reasonable efforts. ### **IDs that qualify** Acceptable IDs would include: - State driver’s licenses - State ID cards - U.S. passports - Military IDs - Tribal government IDs Notably, the bill explicitly excludes student IDs. ### **Why It Matters** Voter ID is considered a nonpartisan reform. It has majority support among Republicans, independents, and Democrats, despite Democratic Party leaders often calling it a voter suppression tactic. On the other side, Republican leaders say it will keep elections secure. Yet research and analysis from institutions [like Harvard](https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/voter-id-laws-don-t-work-but-they-don-t-hurt-anything-either?ref=ivn.us) have found that both parties have blown the issue way out of proportion and have exaggerated the impact voter ID has one way or the other. Thirty-six states have laws that require or request voters to show some form of ID in order to cast a ballot in person. These laws vary in scope, from very strict to allowing non-photo ID. But despite using different standards, the issue has long been left up to the states. California voters will even [weigh in on a voter ID initiative in November](https://www.reformcalifornia.org/cavoterid/home?ref=ivn.us). ## **2\. Proof of Citizenship to Register to Vote** The bill creates new baseline rules for how states administer voter registration for federal elections, including: - States must ensure eligibility checks and not accept/process an application unless the applicant satisfies eligibility requirements, including documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. - Requires certain data-sharing agreements, including: agreements with the Attorney General for felony conviction/incarceration data, and agreements with the Secretary of Homeland Security for citizenship/naturalization/application records. - Clarifies that using the last 4 digits of SSN for certain purposes is not treated as an SSN under the cited Privacy Act provision. This essentially takes main provisions from the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), which requires documented proof of citizenship when registering to vote, which can include: - A valid U.S. passport (book or card) - A certified birth certificate showing U.S. birthplace - Naturalization certificate (for naturalized citizens) - Enhanced/Real-ID-style driver’s license or ID that explicitly indicates citizenship status (the MEGA Act emends the Real ID Act to require **Why It Matters** There are already baseline standards each state must comply with when registering voters for federal elections. Under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), applicants for federal voter registration typically swear under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. Voters are not required to provide physical documentation proving citizenship, but the MEGA Act amends the NVRA to invert that model, shifting the burden to the voter to bring proof for their application to be accepted. It’s possible this provision would survive a legal challenge considering uniform standards for voter registration already exist. However, critics are concerned this will impose a severe burden on millions of eligible citizens who lack easy access to passports or birth certificates. A court could determine the burden is too severe on the right to vote. Notably, a federal judge blocked Trump's attempt to require proof of citizenship through executive order, but it was struck down because the E.O. exceeded presidential authority. These provisions could have an impact on people who have changed their name (e.g., after marriage), rural or low-income individuals, and others. There are also concerns that this requirement may disrupt online and mail voter registration systems. ## **3\. Mandatory Ongoing Voter Roll Purges** States would be required to take “affirmative steps” at least **every 30 days** to identify and remove ineligible voters from registration lists. The bill encourages use of DHS’s SAVE database and requires: - Notices to voters flagged for removal. - Removal if notices are undeliverable or if the voter fails to respond. - Public retention of list-maintenance records for two years. ### **Why it matters** Federal law currently limits large-scale voter purges close to elections and emphasizes safeguards against erroneous removals. The MEGA Act would replace much of that framework and expand removal authority. ## **4\. Ban on Ranked Choice Voting in Federal General Elections** The MEGA Act is designed to prohibit ranked choice voting in federal general elections. However, its provisions target any voting system that: - Allows ranking of candidates. - Allows voting for more than one candidate for the same office. - Reallocates votes from one candidate to another. Yes, these provisions attempt to ban ranked choice voting. But they also apply to approval voting (which allows voters to select as many candidates as they want), score voting (which allows voters to score each candidate), and other methods. ### **Why it matters** Most states use a choose-one voting method for federal elections. However, ranked choice voting is used at the local level [in several places](https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting-information/?ref=ivn.us#where-is-ranked-choice-voting-used). Millions of people use the reform, which has been successfully defended in federal court as constitutionally allowed. In Maine and Alaska, it is used at the federal level. In both cases, the use of ranked choice voting in U.S. House and Senate elections was approved by voters. This means the MEGA Act would attempt to repeal state citizen initiatives that have already passed judicial review. This provision in the MEGA Act wouldn’t survive a legal challenge, just as an attempt by Congress to force ranked choice voting on states would likely be struck down. Notably, Maine also uses ranked choice voting in presidential elections, an expansion passed by the Maine Legislature. State lawmakers decided what voting system – or the method of elections – was right for citizens within their jurisdiction. While the MEGA Act may initially spook election reformers, there is no reason to believe a federal attempt to ban voting reform that doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution and has been upheld by the courts will hold up. The biggest threat to election reform right now comes from state legislatures that have or are attempting to ban new voting methods within their borders, whether it is the seventeen states that have prohibited the use of ranked choice voting or the states that are closing taxpayer-funded primary elections or keeping them closed to party members only. ## **5\. End of Universal Vote-by-Mail for Federal Elections** Under the MEGA Act, states would only be allowed to send a mail ballot **upon request** from a voter. Requests must: - Be submitted electronically or by mail. - Be received no later than 30 days before Election Day. Universal vote-by-mail systems – where all registered voters automatically receive ballots – would be prohibited for federal races. ### **Why it matters** States such as Colorado, Oregon, Washington, California, and Hawaii use universal vote-by-mail systems that have been in place for years. Trying to set different vote-by-mail rules for federal elections versus state elections would force major system overhauls to state-run elections. Such overhauls would go beyond Congress' limited authority to "alter and regulate" election rules. ## **6\. Election Day Receipt Deadline for Mail Ballots** Mail and absentee ballots would have to be received by poll closing time on Election Day to be counted (with limited exceptions for overseas and military voters). States that currently count ballots postmarked by Election Day but received later would be barred from doing so in federal elections. ### **Why it matters** Courts have yet to find that there is anything unconstitutional or illegal about counting ballots postmarked by Election Day in the days following an election. ## **7\. Limits on Ballot Collection** The MEGA Act makes it unlawful to possess more than **four mail ballots** at a time for a federal election, unless the ballots belong to: - The individual, - An immediate family member, or - Someone the individual is caregiving for. Authorization forms would be required and retained for two years. ### **Why it matters** Ballot collection – also referred to as “ballot harvesting” – is already illegal in many states. In some states, like California, the practice is allowed. Political and partisan operatives can collect ballots from voters and turn them in on the voter's behalf. For many, ballot harvesting raises concerns over the chain of custody of ballots. There has yet to be an extensive investigation that has found widespread fraud in California. However, there is no question that the *potential* for fraud increases. The MEGA Act would impose a uniform federal ceiling on how many ballots an individual is allowed to possess and who is allowed to turn in ballots on behalf of another voter. The question for the courts is: Is this type of uniform standard allowed under the Constitution? ## **8\. Paper Ballots Required Nationwide** The bill requires states to use voting systems that produce a paper ballot that voters can: - Mark by hand, or - Mark using a ballot-marking device. Every in-person voting location must offer the option to hand-mark a paper ballot. ## **9\. Expanded Election Record Retention** The MEGA Act expands the scope of records covered by federal election-record retention law to explicitly include: - Ballot cast images - Chain-of-custody records - Tabulation reports - Audit records - Vote-by-mail records ## **10\. New Restrictions on Federal Agencies and Voter Registration** Federal agencies would be barred from: - Registering people to vote (unless specifically authorized by law). - Partnering with outside organizations to conduct voter registration or mobilization activities on federal property or websites. ## **11\. Federal Enforcement and Private Lawsuits** The bill authorizes: - The U.S. Attorney General to sue states or local jurisdictions for noncompliance. - Private individuals to file lawsuits after giving notice to the state, with potential attorney-fee awards. ### **Why it matters** These provisions could lead to an increase in election law and administration litigation from both sides. The U.S. Attorney General and private citizens can sue for non-compliance with the law, but states can also sue over provisions that breach Congress’ limited constitutional authority to alter and regulate state election law. This would create a legal headache not only for states, but the U.S. government as well. ## **The Big Picture** Under the current political and media environments, every issue is turned into a crisis without a proper examination of what it really means for the country and for voters. The system incentivizes people to look at the MEGA Act and come to one of two conclusions: - The bill is either the death of democracy, or - A cure to prevent the “other side” from cheating In reality, it mostly serves the interests of those who can profit off such extreme rhetoric. A thorough examination shows that many of the bill’s provisions would struggle to survive judicial scrutiny, which compromises the entire thing. It is important to stop, take a breath, and look deeper than surface-level narratives. The U.S.’s constitutional framework protects every state’s right to decide the time, place, and manner of its elections – and that is not something a single person or party can erase. ## **In Other Reform News…** ### **Tennessee Lawmakers Ditch Effort to Force Party Registration on Voters** > [](https://x.com/OpenPrimaryUSA/status/2019427170901237860?ref=ivn.us) Republicans in Tennessee pulled [House Bill 1159](https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/default.aspx?BillNumber=HB1159&GA=114&ref=ivn.us) amidst intra-party conflict. The bill would have required Tennessee voters to register with a party in order to vote in primary elections. The state is technically an open primary state, though there is a law on the books that says it is a misdemeanor to vote in a party’s primary if the citizen is not a “bona fide” member of the party. The law does not make it clear what it means to be a bona fide party member. ### **U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Strike Down California Prop 50** The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the State of California on Proposition 50 – at least for now. It denied an emergency request from the California Republican Party to block Prop 50, approved by California voters in November. The measure allows the Democratic majority in California to move forward with a legislative-drawn gerrymander that ensures 92% of congressional seats lean in their party’s favor. ## **Other Quick Takeaways** - The election reform group FairVote [released a new report](https://fairvote.org/report/ranked-choice-voting-in-2025-a-year-in-review/?ref=ivn.us) this week on ranked choice voting’s use in 2025, including that it was used in 18 cities and counties, representing 11 million Americans. Three places – Charlottesville, VA; Fort Collins, CO; and Redondo Beach, CA – used RCV for the first time and voters in two cities approved its use in future elections. Check all the findings [here](https://fairvote.org/report/ranked-choice-voting-in-2025-a-year-in-review/?ref=ivn.us). - American Promise [released a new poll](https://ivn.us/posts/poll-americans-reject-money-speech-landslide-want-power-back-supreme-court-2026-02-03) that found that a supermajority of Americans across the political spectrum – including Republicans, Democrats, and independents – reject the notion that unlimited spending in elections equals free speech. Eight-in-ten voters are concerned about the influence of money in politics in the U.S. ### How the 'Politics Industry' Breaks Everything: ICE, CA Governor’s Race, and Reform URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/how-politics-industry-breaks-everything-ice-ca-governors-race-reform-2026-02-05/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:41:54.000Z Steve Peace -- co-founder of the Independent Voter Project and architect of California’s Top Two primary -- breaks down the wide-open California governor’s race and why campaigns still think in party buckets. The hosts dig into open primaries plus ranked-choice, ICE/immigration and civil liberties, voter ID and ballot security, and the controversy over seized Fulton County ballots, Plus, a quick update on Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and the USS Midway’s Freedom Park. ## Episode Highlights This episode centers on the emerging **California governor’s race**, the fragmentation of traditional party coalitions, and how **open primaries** and **nonpartisan election systems** are reshaping campaign strategy. Peace argues that no candidate has a clear lead and that billionaire self-funded campaigns, while highly visible, historically struggle in California. [NEW POLL: California Governor’s Race Sees “None of the Above” Beat the Entire Democratic FieldIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/IVP-California-Governor-Poll-2020-.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12) He highlights growing voter exhaustion with ideological extremes and notes a slow but real rise in demand for “no-drama,” problem-solving leadership. A critical point he makes is that most campaigns still operate as if California had a closed, partisan primary system, despite the reality of a **Top Two nonpartisan open primary**. It has left candidates ill-prepared to appeal to independent voters (registered No Party Preference in the state), who ultimately decide highly competitive elections. The conversation then pivots to structural reform, emphasizing the powerful combination of **open primaries** and **ranked choice voting (RCV)** as a way to reduce polarization, discourage manipulation by political consultants, and give voters meaningful choice. Peace explains that **closed primaries** incentivize extremism and suppress participation, while nonpartisan election models can shift incentives. Alaska’s **Top Four primary with RCV**, for example, has produced broader coalitions, higher engagement from underrepresented communities, and more pragmatic governance. Cara, Shawn, and Steve repeatedly frame this as a voter-centric movement -- focused not on promoting independent candidates, but on protecting every voter’s right to participate without joining a party. Finally, the episode addresses national flashpoints including **immigration enforcement**, **ICE raids**, **sanctuary city policies**, **voter ID**, **mail-in ballots**, and renewed disputes over **election integrity** following federal scrutiny of ballots in Georgia. Peace argues most Americans support “walk-and-chew-gum” solutions: removing violent criminals while creating rational legal pathways for long-term residents, and implementing carefully drafted voter ID safeguards without suppressing turnout. He criticizes both parties for exploiting fear to raise money and inflame narratives, contending that durable solutions require de-escalation, transparency, and systemic reform rather than partisan escalation. ### Why Presidential Primaries Keep Failing – and the Radical Reform That Could Save Them URL: https://ivn.us/why-presidential-primaries-keep-failing-and-radical-reform-could-save-them-2026-02-04/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:19:32.000Z According to a study conducted by [Unite America](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/the-presidential-primary-problem-explained?ref=ivn.us), many Americans are dissatisfied with the presidential primary process, citing issues like exclusion of independent voters, low turnout, candidates moving to extremes, wasted votes, and the power of party insiders. In a January 2024 [Ipsos poll](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/most-americans-are-dissatisfied-their-choices-president?ref=ivn.us), most Americans expressed their dissatisfaction with having Joe Biden or Donald Trump as their choices for president. Our system of selecting major party nominees is not working and is producing nominees who are not popular with a majority of Americans. [Trump Hates Mail-In Voting, Ranked Choice Voting So Much GOP Adds Bans to SAVE ActIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/trump-mega-act-ban-ranked-choice-voting-mail-in-ballots-capitol_0.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-hates-mail-voting-ranked-choice-voting-so-much-gop-adds-bans-save-act-2026-01-30) Efforts to reform the system through legislation and citizen ballot initiatives have been costly, time consuming, and have frequently failed. The best way to fix the process for selecting presidential nominees is convince one or both major political parties to implement party-run presidential primaries. The new party-run presidential nominating process would include a myriad of reforms to ensure better outcomes for the party and the American people. Most Americans love fair and open competition. We spend countless hours and billions of dollars each year participating in or watching contests that test skill, resilience, and strategy. From college and professional sports to reality shows like *American Idol*, the *Bachelor*, the *Amazing Race*, and *Survivor*, we are captivated by contests that use multiple elimination rounds that ultimately produce a “champion.” Yet, the most consequential competition – choosing our presidential nominees – relies on an exclusive, unrepresentative, and nonstandard process. It’s time for political parties to discontinue government-run primaries and adopt party-run regional primaries that use secure mobile voting technology. This new system will produce a party nominee who is more likely to win the presidential general election. This new party-run nominating process would take place between January and May of the presidential election year, with four weeks between each regional primary. One year before the presidential general election, the order of the primaries would be selected by lot, thereby preventing any state or region from enjoying entrenched early influence. The primaries would be open to all registered voters, using publicly available voter-registration data to ensure only citizens and registered voters are allowed to vote. Online voting using a secure mobile app would serve as the default voting method, but mail-in ballots and limited in-person voting would also be allowed. [Poll: Americans Reject 'Money = Speech' by Landslide; Want Power Back from Supreme CourtIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/americans-reject-money-is-speech-supreme-court-campaign-finance-reform-poll.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/poll-americans-reject-money-speech-landslide-want-power-back-supreme-court-2026-02-03) The entire process would be administered by the party rather than the government. Votes would be allocated proportionally, with no winner-take-all states. After the last regional primary, the candidate with the most votes would be declared the party nominee. Parties could also incorporate proportional ranked choice voting to ensure broad support for the nominee and reduce the spoiler effect. This new nominating process would end the outsized influence of four unrepresentative states – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada – so every voter, in every state, will feel that their vote mattered. Since the process will be seen as fairer and more open, more candidates will likely throw their hats into the ring. At the beginning of the process, even long-shot candidates will be seen as having a chance to win their party’s nomination. Because there will be no winner-take-all states and the votes will be allocated proportionally, several candidates will most likely remain viable into the last regional primary. Using the College Basketball March Madness analogy, the primary field could start with 32 candidates, dwindle to 16, then 8, and finally to 4 in the last regional primary. Money and name recognition will be important, but not as important as it is under the current nominating system. The influence of special interest groups will also be diminished because they will no longer be able to put all their money and influence on one candidate. Local media and local new media will play bigger roles in this new process. The party that decides to implement this new nominating process will have an advantage over the party that continues to use the current system. If the Democratic Party decides to implement this new nominating process, their candidates’ names, faces, and ideas will be all over the TV, the internet, and social media for months. Because independent voters would be allowed to participate in the process to select a major party nominee, they will be more motivated to vote for the party’s nominee in the general election. The new nominating process will be exciting, with multiple storylines, interesting public policy ideas, etc. By the end of the process the “champion” (aka the party nominee) will be fully "battle tested," and more ready to face the other party’s nominee in the general election. Hopefully, this new nominating process will produce a better nominee and restore the public's trust in the way we select our president. There are other benefits to implementing this new party-run nominating process. First, a political party could implement this new nominating process without passing citizen-led ballot initiatives or federal or state level legislation. Efforts to implement open primaries in closed primary states have been expensive, time consuming, and rarely effective. Second, unlike the current system of state and local governments running party primaries, this new nominating process would be completely controlled and implemented by the party across all 50 states. Implementing this new party-run nominating process would cost a political party millions of dollars, but because the technology and processes would be standardized across all 50 states, the costs would not be prohibitive. The party that implements the new nominating process could also communicate to taxpayers that their new process would save state and local governments tens of millions of dollars. Finally, although somewhat controversial, allowing all registered voters to participate in a party-run nominating process will be seen as being more democratic and inclusive, improve the party’s brand, increase voter participation in the nominating process ([Bipartisan Policy Center](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/the-effect-of-open-primaries-on-turnout-and-representation/?ref=ivn.us)), and increase the number of voters who will likely vote for the party’s nominee in the general election. According to the [Mobile Voting Project](https://www.mobilevoting.org/?ref=ivn.us), mobile voting has been used for nearly 20 years in half a dozen counties and over 21 mobile voting pilots have been conducted across seven states. In every pilot, the National Cybersecurity Center audited the election, and in every case, the election came back clean. Bradley Tusk, founder of the Mobile Voting Project, [told CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/voting-app-smartphone-ballots-future-elections/?ref=ivn.us) that voting online “would combat low voter turnout that has been blamed for putting candidates with fringe ideas into office.” Tusk said, "We're going to take the technology that you use right now for your banking, your health care, your love life, so you can vote securely on your phone." According to the [Unite America Institute](https://www.uniteamericainstitute.org/research/not-invited-to-the-party-primary-independent-voters-and-the-problem-with-closed-primaries?ref=ivn.us), in 2024, closed presidential primaries in 22 states excluded over 27 million voters not registered with a major party – disproportionately younger and more likely to be veterans – undermining the legitimacy of the nominating process and depressing voter engagement. Secure mobile voting technology is ready now. Implementing secure mobile voting technology in party-run primaries is the best way to ensure widespread adoption in future general elections. Pro-democracy advocates should work to influence political party leaders, including minor party leaders, to fully implement the above-mentioned reforms. Party-run regional primaries with secure mobile voting will make a party’s nominating process fairer, more competitive, and more representative. By implementing this new nominating process, a political party will more likely nominate a candidate who has a better chance of winning the 2028 general election for President. ### Poll: Americans Reject 'Money = Speech' by Landslide; Want Power Back from Supreme Court URL: https://ivn.us/poll-americans-reject-money-speech-landslide-want-power-back-supreme-court-2026-02-03/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:19:33.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** \- A new poll from the campaign finance reform group, American Promise, shows most Americans across the political spectrum agree: Money is not speech and unlimited political spending should not be protected as such under the First Amendment. The poll, [conducted by Ipsos on behalf of American Promise](https://americanpromise.net/january-2026-ipsos-survey/?ref=ivn.us), found that voters – by a roughly three-to-one margin – say campaign finance laws should be decided by voters and their elected representatives, not by the Supreme Court. Further, only 15% believed unlimited campaign spending should be considered protected speech. “As the 2026 midterm campaigns heat up, Americans can see what’s coming: more outside spending, more secret money, and more ads funded by interests with no accountability,” said Jeff Clements, founder and CEO of [American Promise](https://americanpromise.net/?ref=ivn.us). > *And here’s the thing – we never chose this corrupt system. It was created by bad Supreme Court decisions over the last 50 years. This is a constitutional problem that needs a constitutional solution.”* The findings were released on the 50th anniversary of *Buckley v. Valeo*, the decision that first established the doctrine that spending money in elections is a form of political speech. Today, across party lines, Americans think election spending has gotten out of control as a result. In fact, it is an 80-20 issue: - **81%** are concerned about the influence of money in politics, including 78% of Republicans, 90% of Democrats, and 82% of Independents - **77%** say money in politics poses a threat to elections Similarly, a recent Independent Voter Project survey found that [91% of independent voters in California supported an initiative that reins in foreign and corporate spending in elections](https://ivn.us/posts/california-candidates-courting-independent-voters-these-3-reforms-could-win-lot-votes-2026-01). These numbers reflect something deeper than partisan frustration. They show a broad recognition that the current system tilts power away from ordinary voters and toward wealthy donors and special interests. [NEW POLL: California Governor’s Race Sees “None of the Above” Beat the Entire Democratic FieldIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/IVP-California-Governor-Poll-2020-.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12) That perception is backed up by additional findings in the American Promise poll: - **68%** say wealthy donors have more influence than they did a decade ago - **76%** agree large donors make it harder for ordinary Americans to have their voices heard, including 76% of Republicans, 86% of Democrats, and 81% of Independents In short: Americans believe their voices are being drowned out. The survey also finds strong bipartisan support for restoring the authority of Congress and state legislatures to regulate campaign spending: **72%** agree Congress and the states should be able to reasonably regulate and limit money in campaigns and elections. This result cuts directly against the dominant legal framework created by *Buckley* and expanded by later rulings, including [*Citizens United v. FEC (2010)*](https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/citizens-united-v-fec/?ref=ivn.us), which struck down numerous federal, state, and local campaign finance laws. Under *Citizens United*, corporations cannot be restricted on how much they can give in independent expenditures. These expenditures advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate or issue without coordination with a candidate, candidate committee, or political party. It has given rise to the modern-day concept of the super PAC. Yet, despite Supreme Court precedent, voters are still trying to implement change – even when they know it will be challenged in court. For example, in 2022, Maine voters approved Question 1, which [limited contributions to groups that make independent expenditures](https://ballotpedia.org/Maine%5FQuestion%5F1,%5FLimit%5FContributions%5Fto%5FSuper%5FPACs%5FInitiative%5F%282024%29?ref=ivn.us). The limit ($5,000 from individuals and entities) essentially banned super PACs in Maine. In July 2025, a federal judge ruled that the ballot measure was unconstitutional. The decision is currently being appealed. “Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike are fed up – and we want change,” said Clements. “This is a constitutional problem that needs a constitutional solution.” That solution, American Promise argues, is a constitutional amendment. The group is leading a national campaign for the [For Our Freedom Amendment](https://americanpromise.net/for-our-freedom-amendment/?ref=ivn.us), which would restore the authority of Congress and the states to decide whether and how to address political spending. According to American Promise, momentum is already building: - 23 states have passed resolutions calling for such an amendment - These states include Massachusetts, Utah, Alaska, Nevada, West Virginia, and California The amendment would not mandate specific spending limits. Instead, it would return the power to set policy back to the people and their elected representatives. While the hyper-partisan narrative during the 2026 midterms will focus on what divides Americans, recent polling shows where most voters find common ground and that is the need for systemic change, [from open primaries to campaign finance reform](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-hates-mail-voting-ranked-choice-voting-so-much-gop-adds-bans-save-act-2026-01-30). ### No, Trump Can’t Cancel Elections or Ban Ranked Choice Voting URL: https://ivn.us/no-trump-cant-cancel-elections-or-ban-ranked-choice-voting-2026-02-03/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:19:33.000Z A recent *Independent Voter News* article addressed alarms that the SAVE Act could become a vehicle for banning ranked choice voting nationwide, driven by President Donald Trump’s hostility toward mail voting and RCV and by Republican efforts to attach anti-RCV language to federal legislation. That concern, outlined on IVN in[ *“Trump Hates Mail Voting & Ranked Choice Voting So Much GOP Adds Bans to SAVE Act”*](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-hates-mail-voting-ranked-choice-voting-so-much-gop-adds-bans-save-act-2026-01-30), reflects a broader fear that election reform itself is under threat. That fear has been amplified by more hyperbolic commentary suggesting Trump could simply cancel elections outright. A recent piece in *The Bulwark*,[ *“Trump Suggests Canceling 2026 Elections”*](https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-suggests-canceling-2026-elections?ref=ivn.us), treats inflammatory rhetoric as evidence of imminent authoritarian control, rather than political signaling constrained by constitutional law. ## **What the SAVE Act Actually Does** The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act,[ *H.R. 22*](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/text/eh?format=txt&ref=ivn.us), amends the National Voter Registration Act to require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register for federal elections. It regulates voter eligibility and registration mechanics. It does not regulate ballot design, vote-counting procedures, or electoral systems. There is no language addressing ranked choice voting or any other voting method. ## **Yes, There Is a Proposed Federal RCV Ban** It is also true that members of Congress have introduced separate legislation that would explicitly ban ranked choice voting in federal elections. As reported on IVN, main provisions of the SAVE Act were added to the [Make Elections Great Again Act](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7300?ref=ivn.us), along with bans on universal mail-in voting and alternative voting methods like ranked choice voting. Specifically, the bill bans any voting method that: - Allows voting for more than one candidate for the same office, - Allows ranking multiple candidates, - Reallocates votes from one candidate to another for the same office. This doesn’t just apply to ranked choice voting, but also includes Approval Voting (which allows people to vote for as many candidates as they want), STAR Voting, and more. [*Ballot Access News has also reported*](https://ballot-access.org/2026/02/01/congressional-bill-to-ban-ranked-choice-voting-in-federal-elections-2/?ref=ivn.us) that such proposals exist and could theoretically be attached to larger bills like the SAVE Act. That possibility warrants scrutiny, but it does not alter the constitutional limits on federal power. ## **Why Canceling Elections or Banning RCV Fails Constitutionally** Under the U.S. Constitution, the authority to administer elections is deliberately fragmented. [Article I, Section 4](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-4/?ref=ivn.us), known as the Elections Clause, provides that the “Times, Places and Manner” of congressional elections shall be prescribed by the states, with Congress retaining a limited power to “make or alter” such regulations. Courts have consistently interpreted this clause to allow Congress to set baseline procedural rules, such as voter eligibility standards or uniform election dates, while preserving state authority over ballot structure and vote-counting methods. Critically, the Constitution does not grant Congress or the president the power to cancel elections. Federal election dates are fixed by statute, and any attempt to suspend or delay them would require new legislation passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by the president or enacted over a veto. **Even then, such legislation would almost certainly violate constitutional provisions guaranteeing regular elections and representative government, including Article I’s requirement that members of the House be elected every two years and the Seventeenth Amendment’s requirement of popular election of Senators.** Similarly, [a federal ban on ranked choice voting would conflict](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10837?ref=ivn.us) with long-standing judicial precedent recognizing ballot design and vote tabulation as core components of the “manner” of elections reserved to the states. While Congress can regulate access to the ballot and enforce anti-discrimination standards, it has never successfully imposed a nationwide mandate prohibiting a specific vote-counting method. A categorical ban on RCV, most simply, would never survive legal scrutiny. Congress can regulate only the *procedures* needed to enforce electoral uniformity and integrity. But courts have always treated this power as regulatory, not making broad changes to how elections fundamentally work. In fact, it's this same framework that **prevents** the federal government from imposing any system, such as ranked choice voting. A federal law that bans ranked choice voting would clearly go beyond procedural regulation into substantive restructuring of how elections are decided, interfering with state control over their own electoral systems and conflicting with the constitutional balance of federal and state authority. Such a ban would face immediate legal challenges and is unlikely to survive judicial scrutiny precisely because the Constitution does not grant Congress authority to eliminate electoral choice in this way. The president’s role in this process is even more limited. The executive branch does not administer elections, does not control state election officials, and has no unilateral authority to suspend or alter election laws. Elections continued throughout the Civil War. They won’t be cancelled now. ## **A Reality Check on “Cancelled Elections”** In 2024, the Democratic Party eliminated or curtailed competitive presidential primaries in multiple states once President Joseph R. Biden became the presumptive nominee. Voters were left with no meaningful intra-party choice. When Biden later exited the race, party leadership compounded that decision. Rather than reopening the nominating process or holding a competitive election, Democrats selected Vice President Kamala Harris through internal party mechanisms that bypassed voters entirely. [Just A Reminder, The Presidential Nomination Process Has Never Been About DemocracyIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/53915838050_fe4b16b0e8_k.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/just-reminder-presidential-nomination-process-has-never-been-about-democracy-2024-08-21) These actions were technically permissible under party rules, but they drew widespread criticism as anti-democratic. [As *Democratic Erosion* notes](https://democratic-erosion.org/2024/09/13/absence-of-a-primary-in-the-u-s-2024-democratic-nomination-an-act-of-democratic-erosion/?ref=ivn.us), the absence of a genuine electoral process amounted to a form of oligarchy by insulating party leadership from voter accountability at a critical moment. The absence of a real primary contest amounted to a form of disenfranchisement by insulating party leadership from voter accountability. The episode is a reminder that limits on voter choice most often arise from party control, not from unilateral federal action or presidential decree. ## **Opposition to RCV Is Bipartisan and Strategic** This same institutional incentive explains bipartisan resistance to ranked choice voting. While it's no secret that Trump and the MAGA base hate ranked choice voting, the[ Democratic Party leadership](https://dcist.com/story/23/08/07/dc-democrats-sue-to-stop-ranked-choice-voting-initiative/?ref=ivn.us) has opposed RCV wherever it weakens control over nominations. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s veto of SB 212 illustrates this dynamic. In his[ *official veto message*](https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/SB-212-Veto-Message.pdf?ref=ivn.us), Newsom cited voter confusion and ballot length, arguments he later reiterated publicly, as reported by the[ *San Francisco Chronicle*](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-vetoes-bill-to-allow-ranked-choice-14535193.php?ref=ivn.us). ## **The Real Limits of Traditional IRV** Ranked choice voting in the United States has most often been implemented using the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) method. IRV has known limitations that become more pronounced as the number of candidates increases. In cities such as Oakland and San Francisco, crowded municipal races can sometimes produce outcomes where winners lack true majority support among all participating voters. Ballot exhaustion and non-representative outcomes are real concerns with single-round IRV elections. ## **Why Top-Four and Top-Five Systems with Open Primaries Matter** Dan Howle from [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us), and Katherine Gehl from the [Institute for Political Innovation](https://political-innovation.org/?ref=ivn.us) have long argued that ranked choice voting may work best when paired with nonpartisan primaries. A few years before Alaska adopted its Top 4 primary system with ranked choice voting in the general election, Rob Richie from [Expand Democracy](https://expanddemocracy.org/?ref=ivn.us) and Howle made the case for this reform in the[ *San Diego Union-Tribune*](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2018/06/08/the-needs-of-california-voters-not-the-parties-must-be-heeded/?ref=ivn.us). This, to the best of our knowledge, is the first time reformers publicly advocated for combining the two reforms. This is not a theoretical concern. Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter, a former business executive and a Harvard Business School professor respectively, have offered nonpartisan primaries combined with ranked choice voting as the greatest opportunity to disrupt political partisanship. In their widely cited report, [*“Why Competition in the Politics Industry Is Failing America”*](https://gehlporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/why-competition-in-the-politics-industry-is-failing-america.pdf?ref=ivn.us), Gehl and Porter analyze American politics through an economic and systems lens rather than a partisan one. Their central finding is that the two major parties operate as a political monopoly that is structurally insulated from competition, allowing them to prioritize internal incentives over voter outcomes. According to their research, closed primaries and plurality general elections are the primary mechanisms that protect this monopoly. These systems reward candidates who appeal to narrow, highly partisan electorates and punish those who seek broader consensus. Nonpartisan primaries disrupt this dynamic by forcing candidates to compete for all voters from the outset, not just party loyalists. Ranked choice voting in the general election then reinforces that competition by requiring candidates to earn majority support rather than simply finishing first in a fragmented field. ## **Different Ways to Count Ranked Ballots** Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is the traditional method of counting ranked choice ballots, but is not the only way to count ranked ballots. Condorcet-compatible methods, for example, aim to identify candidates who would win every head-to-head matchup and may better reflect consensus preferences. Organizations such as[ *Better Choices*](https://www.betterchoices.vote/?ref=ivn.us) advocate for these consensus-driven approaches. They too, however, introduce different complexities and their own unintended consequences. ## **Voters Actually Want More Choice** Independents now represent the largest and fastest-growing bloc of voters, yet many remain excluded from primary elections. That dynamic is explained in[ *this short video on independent voters*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqj%5FpER9PMw&ref=ivn.us). Polling consistently shows voters want more choices, open primaries, and majority winners, regardless of whether ballots are counted using IRV, Condorcet, or another method. This demand is reflected in[ *IVN’s reporting*](https://ivn.us/posts/california-candidates-courting-independent-voters-these-3-reforms-could-win-lot-votes-2026-01),[ *Unite America’s national polling*](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/voters-overwhelmingly-support-eliminating-partisan-primaries-requiring-majority-winners?ref=ivn.us), and multiple California-specific surveys. ### **Trump Cannot Cancel Elections or Stop Voter from Pursuing More Choice** The SAVE Act does not ban ranked choice voting. Other legislative efforts do exist, but they will not survive any serious constitutional scrutiny. This is the same reason Trump cannot simply “cancel” elections. Ranked choice voting, particularly when implemented through single-round IRV in crowded elections, can have shortcomings, but studies have shown more positive than negative effects. Voters, however, are not demanding a specific method of counting ranked choice ballots. They just want more choices and fair outcomes. Nonpartisan primaries, paired with majority-winner general elections, remain the most legally sound and democratically responsive way to deliver that result. ### Republicans Pack the Court in Utah to Prevent Decisions They Don’t Like URL: https://ivn.us/republicans-pack-court-utah-prevent-decisions-they-dont-2026-02-02/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:19:34.000Z **SALT LAKE CITY** \- Utah Gov. Spencer Cox will appoint two more justices to the state Supreme Court after he signed a bill into law that increases the size of the court from 5 members to 7\. Notably, the change comes as the legislature is trying to restore an all-GOP congressional map. Republican advocates say the expansion is needed to improve the court’s efficiency. Democrats say the timing is suspicious. “Seven sets of eyes reviewing the most complex and difficult issues our state has ever faced is better than having only five sets of eyes,” said House Majority Leader Casey Snider, a sponsor of the bill. At the start of the 2026 session, Chief Justice Matthew Durrant [reportedly told lawmakers](https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/utah-governor-signs-bill-adding-justices-state-supreme-129740897?ref=ivn.us) the court faced “essentially no backlog” and encouraged them to add lower district judges, which he believed deserved more attention from lawmakers. Former Associate Chief Justice John Pearce noted that adding more members to a court increases the comments that must be considered in each case – which inevitably makes the process slower, not speedier. The bill was approved by more than two-thirds of the Utah Legislature, which means there will not be any delay to the law’s implementation. Once the new seats are filled, Cox will have appointed 5 of the 7 justices currently serving on the bench. ## **Republicans Want the State Supreme Court to Restore Their Gerrymandered Map** The expansion of the Utah Supreme Court is the latest change the legislature has made to the court, including taking away the court’s ability to select its own chief justice. This authority now resides with the governor. It also follows a string of losses before the court on a variety of issues that range from redistricting to initiative repeal to abortion to transgendered athletes competing in sports. Right now, however, the focus is on a new congressional map. First, here’s a little background to better understand what is happening. [Utah Judge Delivers a Major Blow to GerrymanderingIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/dennis-zhang-qFzA9uNvM7I-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/utah-judge-delivers-major-blow-gerrymandering-2025-11-11) Back in November, Third District Judge Dianna Gibson rejected a new congressional map drawn by the legislature that would have preserved the Republican Party’s advantage in all 4 of the state’s districts. Gibson ruled that the proposed map did not comply with [Proposition 4](https://ballotpedia.org/Utah%5FProposition%5F4,%5FIndependent%5FAdvisory%5FCommission%5Fon%5FRedistricting%5FInitiative%5F%282018%29?ref=ivn.us), passed by voters in 2018\. The legislature previously tried to repeal Prop 4, but the Utah Supreme Court [ruled lawmakers cannot repeal citizen initiatives that reform government](https://ivn.us/posts/utah-judge-slaps-down-republican-attempt-gerrymander-state-2025-08-26) Prop 4 created a 7-member redistricting commission that can recommend new legislative and congressional maps to the legislature. Under the measure, lawmakers are required to review the recommendations and if they reject them, they have to provide specific reasoning. When the Prop 4 repeal was struck down, the case was sent back to Gibson, who was asked to determine if the state’s congressional map needed to be redrawn. On August 25, 2025, she ruled that it did. Both the legislature and the plaintiffs in the case were then given time to submit their proposals for a new congressional map. On Nov. 10, Gibson rejected the legislature’s proposals, but she accepted a map from the plaintiffs that essentially created a Salt Lake City district. Due to the city’s electoral makeup, the new map gives Democrats a chance to pick up one seat. Under Gibson's decision, Utah became the sixth state in 2025 to adopt a new congressional map, following Texas, California, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. [Did the Republicans or Democrats Start the Gerrymandering Fight?IVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/andy-feliciotti-8cvjI48SFtY-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/did-republicans-democrats-start-gerrymandering-fight-2025-11-11) The Republican majority in the Utah Legislature is now asking the state Supreme Court to restore their map. Notably, though, the court is composed of justices that have already sided with Gibson on this issue. Democrats and opponents of the court expansion argue it is a partisan scheme to get favorable rulings on redistricting and other issues. ## **For Republicans and Democrats, There’s Plenty of Hypocrisy on the Subject of “Court Packing”** For those who follow national political news, if what Utah Republicans are doing sounds familiar, it’s because some Democrats [proposed packing the U.S. Supreme Court](https://www.vox.com/21514454/supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett-packing-voting-rights?ref=ivn.us) after Republican-appointed justices increased to a 6-3 majority under President Donald Trump in 2020. These Democrats wanted then candidate Joe Biden to support the plan, but Biden said he’s “not a fan of court-packing.” As the name implies, “court packing” is an effort to sway the ideological and political leanings of what is supposed to be an independent branch of government in order to get more favorable treatment from the court. It is a plan that famously dates back to FDR, who wanted to add more justices to SCOTUS in order to remove the biggest barrier to implementing some of his New Deal policies. But Congress overwhelmingly said no. Since then, no president has tried. But just as Republicans have criticized calls from Democrats to pack the courts at the national level, they have embraced the plan in Arizona, Georgia, and now Utah in an effort to get more favorable court rulings. And while Democrats have considered it at the national level, they decry these efforts at the state level. One of the biggest arguments against “court packing” is the dangerous precedent it sets. If one side does it, then the other side will do it when they get in power. If more Republican states do it, what will stop Democrats from doing the same in states they control? As bad as the tit-for-tat mid-cycle gerrymandering fight has been, imagine what it will be like when states start to compromise the independence of the judiciary simply to retaliate against the “other side.” Public trust in the judicial branch [remains high](https://www.ncsc.org/news/nearly-two-thirds-americans-express-trust-state-courts-says-new-poll?ref=ivn.us) – particularly with state courts. While voters are wary of partisanship in legislative and executive institutions, the courts have long been looked at favorably. But will that soon change as a result of these partisan schemes? ### Trump’s Immigration Pivot Is Coming. Politically Smart, Legally Necessary URL: https://ivn.us/trumps-immigration-pivot-coming-politically-smart-legally-necessary-2026-01-30/ Last updated: 2026-01-30T20:03:20.000Z Immigration has always been a flashpoint in American politics. But in January 2026, it became a political liability for the White House, not just a policy debate. *Interior immigration enforcement*, *ICE operations*, and *Fourth Amendment rights* are now colliding in ways that are reshaping the national political landscape. President Trump is already in office. The country is focused on escalating unrest tied to federal immigration enforcement, most visibly in Minnesota, where a series of ICE operations [have triggered days of protests, national media scrutiny, and renewed constitutional challenges](https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/minnesota-ice-minneapolis-protests-01-30-26?ref=ivn.us). What Trump now faces is not whether to enforce immigration law, but how to do so without losing the political middle heading into the 2026 midterm elections. ## **Minnesota Changed the Equation** Over the past two weeks, Minnesota has become ground zero for the national immigration debate. Federal immigration operations in and around Minneapolis led to civilian deaths during confrontations involving ICE agents, sparking mass protests and spreading demonstrations nationwide. These events, widely reported as the [*2026 anti-ICE protests*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%5FAnti-ICE%5FProtests%5Fin%5Fthe%5FUnited%5FStates?ref=ivn.us), have reframed immigration enforcement as a civil liberties crisis rather than a border security issue. The scale of the unrest matters. What might once have been treated as a localized enforcement controversy has evolved into a national referendum on *interior immigration enforcement*. For independent voters, the question is no longer about the southern border. It is whether the federal government is respecting basic constitutional limits. ## **ICE and the Fourth Amendment** At the center of the controversy is ICE’s reliance on *administrative warrants* rather than *judicial warrants*. Administrative warrants are signed by immigration officials, not by judges. They are sufficient for civil immigration proceedings, but they do not carry the same constitutional weight as warrants issued by Article III courts. That distinction is not academic. The *Fourth Amendment’s* [*protection against unreasonable searches and seizures*](https://19thnews.org/2026/01/ice-immigration-legal-rights-fourth-amendment/?ref=ivn.us) applies to everyone in the United States, citizens and noncitizens alike. Courts have repeatedly held that entry into a private residence requires a warrant signed by a judge, absent narrow exigent circumstances, a principle reaffirmed in coverage examining ICE enforcement and constitutional rights. In late January, [*internal ICE guidance asserting authority to enter homes using administrative warrants*](https://www.nationofchange.org/2026/01/23/ice-memo-claims-power-to-force-entry-into-homes-without-judicial-warrants-triggering-fourth-amendment-alarm/?ref=ivn.us) became public, triggering alarm among constitutional scholars and civil rights attorneys who warned it directly conflicts with settled Supreme Court precedent. The constitutional implications of this approach are examined in detail in an Independent Voter News analysis on [*whether the Fourth Amendment applies to ICE warrants and immigration enforcement*](https://ivn.us/posts/does-4th-amendment-apply-everyone-ice-warrants-and-constitutional-rights-2026-01-29), which explains how administrative warrants differ from judicial warrants and why that distinction matters under long-standing constitutional law. ## **Public Opinion Is Moving Faster Than the Courts** While courts will ultimately decide the legality of these practices, public opinion is shifting faster. Recent [*national polling on ICE and immigration enforcement*](https://time.com/7357923/abolish-ice-polls-minneapolis-shootings-alex-pretti-renee-good-trump-immigration/?ref=ivn.us) shows a marked increase in opposition to aggressive interior enforcement tactics, including rising support for abolishing or restructuring ICE. Notably, that shift includes independents and a growing share of Republican voters. For a White House looking ahead to the midterms, that trend is politically dangerous. Swing districts are not decided by base voters. They are decided by people who dislike chaos, distrust unchecked power, and expect the government to follow constitutional rules. ## **Trump’s First-Term Lesson, Revisited** During Trump’s first term, immigration enforcement leaned heavily on executive action and public spectacle. Raids, travel bans, and sweeping orders dominated headlines, but the legal foundation underneath those actions often lagged behind. Administrative warrants were treated as functional equivalents of criminal warrants. They are not. That misalignment produced repeated court losses, resistance from state and local officials, and enforcement actions that collapsed under judicial review. At the same time, Trump’s team correctly understood that [*interior enforcement matters more than border theater*](https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/interaction-with-the-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement/?ref=ivn.us). Deportation outcomes rise and fall based on access to jails, records, and courts, not fencing. California provides a useful contrast. Despite its political reputation, California relies heavily on criminal process and judicial warrants. ICE routinely takes custody of individuals upon release from state prisons through established legal channels, a practice documented in California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation coordination with ICE. ## **A Quiet Contrast: Nevada’s Jail-Based Enforcement Model** While Minnesota has become the national symbol of immigration enforcement gone wrong, Nevada offers a quieter and politically instructive contrast. As reported by [*The Nevada Independent*](https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/nevada-has-avoided-a-large-scale-ice-deployment-so-far-why?ref=ivn.us) in its analysis of why Nevada has avoided a large-scale ICE deployment, immigration enforcement in the state has largely taken place through jails and prisons rather than visible community raids. Nearly three-quarters of ICE arrests in Nevada occur inside custodial settings, compared with roughly one-third in Minnesota. The difference is not leniency. It is a method. Nevada’s approach relies on cooperation between local law enforcement and federal authorities, including active 287(g) agreements and routine coordination around inmate release. That model minimizes Fourth Amendment conflicts, avoids the optics of armed street operations, and keeps enforcement anchored in criminal process rather than administrative confrontation. The result is not fewer arrests, but fewer protests, fewer lawsuits, and far less political fallout. For a White House heading into the 2026 midterms, the lesson is clear: enforcement routed through courts and custody systems is far more sustainable than enforcement carried out in public view. ## **The Pivot Trump Needs** Trump does not need to abandon immigration enforcement to win the midterms. But he does need to change how it is carried out. A politically viable pivot would include three elements. First, a public reaffirmation that ICE operations will comply with *Fourth Amendment requirements*, including the use of judicial warrants for home entries and searches. Second, a shift away from militarized interior operations toward enforcement grounded in due process and court supervision. When judges are involved early, constitutional challenges shrink and public backlash subsides. Third, renewed engagement with Congress to clarify statutory authority around immigration warrants and enforcement procedures, aligning immigration enforcement more closely with criminal law standards. This approach is not lenient. It is lawful. And legality is what independent voters are increasingly demanding. ## **Why This Matters for the 2026 Midterm Elections** Immigration is no longer just a policy issue. It has become a proxy for broader concerns about government power, civil liberties, and competence. If the administration continues down a path that appears to sidestep constitutional limits, the courts will eventually intervene. But the political cost will already have been paid at the ballot box. A pivot toward constitutionally grounded enforcement offers Trump something rare in modern politics. It neutralizes an issue without surrendering it. It reassures the middle without alienating the base. And it reframes immigration not as a culture war, but as a question of lawful governance. In January 2026, that may be the only sustainable path forward. ### Trump Hates Mail-In Voting, Ranked Choice Voting So Much GOP Adds Bans to SAVE Act URL: https://ivn.us/trump-hates-mail-voting-ranked-choice-voting-so-much-gop-adds-bans-save-act-2026-01-30/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:19:34.000Z A new bill in the U.S. House called the [Make Elections Great Again Act](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-republicans-push-election-overhaul-voter-id-mail-in-ballot-changes-ahead-midterms?ref=ivn.us) (MEGA) would enact new election rules right before the 2026 midterms. The legislation incorporates key provisions of the SAVE Act, but also targets ranked choice voting and mail-in ballots. The MEGA Act includes the same proof-of-citizen requirements when registering to vote as well as the voter ID requirements found in the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. The GOP is leaning on the broad support voter ID laws have among voters. They are not only supported by a majority of Republicans, but a majority of Democrats and independents as well. "Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity — including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification," U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis) said in a statement. Opponents of the SAVE Act say the bill’s proof-of-citizenship requirements would burden eligible citizens who don’t have easy access to required documents or even married women whose last names no longer match their birth certificates. Further, they argue that it would end up costing taxpayers more money as election administration budgets would need to rise to support new registration requirements. The MEGA Act also bans ranked choice voting in federal elections, which is only used for U.S. House and Senate races in Maine and Alaska, and universal mail-in ballots – which is notable because these are two things President Donald Trump has railed against. Trump has insisted that mail-in voting is corrupt and promised to lead a movement to ban it. “We’re going to end mail-in voting. It’s a fraud,” the president said in September. “Do you know what happens in California? It’s so corrupt. People get 5, 6 ballots mailed to them.” “Republicans have to lead the charge,” Trump added. There is no evidence to support the claim that any California voter has received up to 6 ballots in any given election. But California is 1 of 8 states (plus the District of Columbia) that automatically sends an absentee/mail-in ballot to registered voters. California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah (though not for long), Vermont, and Washington all have the type of universal mail-in voting that would be banned by the MEGA Act. Some states, like Colorado and Washington, conduct their elections entirely by mail. Yet, both Colorado and Washington demonstrate how secure their elections are each cycle by highlighting all [the mechanisms](https://moffatcounty.colorado.gov/sites/moffatcounty/files/SafeSecureElectGuide001%5F0.pdf?ref=ivn.us) they have in place to ensure ballots are delivered, secured, counted, and audited. Additionally, the MEGA Act bans ballot harvesting (something Trump has also mentioned), which occurs when a third party collects ballots on behalf of voters and delivers them. This includes political and partisan operatives. And guess what? Ballot harvesting ***is*** legal in California. While there is no evidence of widespread fraud connected to the practice in California, it does raise genuine concerns over the security of ballots collected – especially since the *potential* for fraud increases. This is evidenced by a case in North Carolina. Ironically, [a GOP operative was convicted of ballot tampering](https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-north-carolina-general-raleigh-1f8751124b441d55be5f9317a2124e55?ref=ivn.us) during the 2018 elections. The fraud was so egregious that it resulted in a do-over election. And while ballot harvesting is legal in California, it is a felony in North Carolina. This is why conversations over election integrity deserve greater nuance. The current narrative says voters either have to completely believe Trump’s claims of rampant fraud in vote-by-mail states or reject it entirely by pretending partisan ops would never do such a thing. Both approaches fail to find truth [The Conversation on Election Integrity Neither Party Wants You to HearIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/andrej-lisakov-rFawJlkTieY-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/the-conversation-on-election-integrity-neither-party-wants-you-to-hear-0) It is also interesting to note that Trump [encouraged the California GOP to defend their own ballot harvesting in court](https://theweek.com/speedreads/943625/trump-urges-california-gop-fight-hard-unsanctioned-possibly-illegal-ballot-drop-boxes?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) in 2020\. While Democratic officials initially objected to the party’s use of drop boxes in that election, they did not enforce their cease-and-desist orders. It is not the ballot collection state officials had a problem with – it is that the GOP claimed their drop boxes were official. When Republicans promised to change their collection tactics, Democrats backed off. Trump also encouraged his supporters to vote by mail in 2024. On the subject of ranked choice voting, Trump has accused the voting method of being fraudulent. He has also called it “one of the greatest threats to democracy.” But once again, this is an unsubstantiated claim. During a [July 2024 rally](https://alaskapublic.org/news/2022-07-14/trump-bashed-ranked-choice-voting-in-alaska-but-republicans-likely-need-those-2nd-votes-to-win?ref=ivn.us), Trump specifically took aim at Alaska’s use of ranked choice voting in the general election. “You never know who won in ranked choice. You could be in third place and they announce that you won the election,” he claimed. “It's a total rigged deal. Just like a lot of other things in this country.” Republican U.S. Rep Nick Begich won Alaska’s only House seat in 2024 under ranked choice voting, beating Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola. I doubt Begich would say his win was “fraudulent” or “rigged” even as he too opposes the new voting method. So now, because Trump hates these reforms the House GOP is trying to ban them. However, while the MEGA Act may clear the U.S. House, it likely will face the same fate as the SAVE Act in the Senate, where no action has been taken to pass it. ## **Voters Say Party Primaries Are Breaking America – And Overwhelmingly Back Open Primaries as the Fix** Ahead of the 2026 primary season, which is set to begin on March 3, a [new national survey](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/new-poll-as-midterms-loom-voters-back-open-primaries-to-make-congress-work-better?ref=ivn.us) finds Americans across the political spectrum agree: Party primaries are a major driver of political division, a reality long ignored in Washington. Further, most people agree that opening primaries to all voters, including the 45% of the U.S. electorate that identifies as independent, is a practical reform to fix a broken system. [Gallup: Independent Voters Hit 45% – So Why Does the Political Establishment Keep Pretending They Don’t Matter?IVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/independent-voter-movement-rejecting-two-party-system.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/gallup-independent-voters-hit-45-so-why-does-political-establishment-keep-pretending-they) The poll, conducted by RealClear Opinion Research in partnership with Emerson Polling and sponsored by the Unite America Institute, shows 59% of voters say party primaries contribute to political division, while 71% support requiring states to hold open primaries. Support for open primaries spans party lines: - **79% of Democrats** - **70% of independents** - **65% of Republicans** The RealClear Opinion Research survey was conducted between January 9-11, and included 1,500 active registered voters. Among a list of potential reforms, open primaries ranked as the top solution respondents believe would reduce polarization. “Party primaries weren’t written into the Constitution, but today they’re fueling the partisanship our founders warned about,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. > *Two hundred and fifty years into the American experiment, voters are sending a clear message: our democracy is neither representative nor responsive to the will of the people. Primaries are the biggest solvable problem fueling division and dysfunction today — and voters across the political spectrum back open primaries as a practical fix.”* Unite America is a philanthropic venture fund that invests in nonpartisan election reform, particularly efforts to implement all-candidate and all-voter nonpartisan primary systems. In 2024, it contributed to a number of reform campaigns across the U.S. The findings come as Americans prepare for a primary season defined by a striking lack of competition. Research from numerous sources, including the Cook Political Report, find that 9-in-10 U.S. House seats are safe for one party or the other. In fact, Cook’s latest report rates 399 of 435 (92%) House districts as safe for one of the two major parties – meaning the real contest happens in the primary, while the general election is considered more of a formality. When respondents were told that most elections are effectively decided in primaries, 81% said this reality is a problem. For millions of voters, that problem is compounded by closed primary rules that prevent them from participating at all. The survey finds: - **84% say it’s a problem that closed primaries in 16 states limit or bar 16.5 million independent voters** - **89% say low midterm primary turnout is a problem** - **52% say primaries are broken and need to change** Together, the data paints a picture of an electoral system that shuts out large portions of the electorate while empowering a narrow slice of highly partisan voters to choose most of the country’s leaders. These poll results come not long after the Independent Voter Project conducted the largest poll of independent voters in California, who are registered No Party Preference. In a state that uses a nonpartisan primary model, independents want to keep and expand on it. [NEW POLL: California Governor’s Race Sees “None of the Above” Beat the Entire Democratic FieldIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/IVP-California-Governor-Poll-2020-.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12) Of the more than 1,700 independent voters IVP surveyed, [74% said they want California to keep a nonpartisan primary system](https://ivn.us/posts/california-candidates-courting-independent-voters-these-3-reforms-could-win-lot-votes-2026-01) in which all voters and candidates, regardless of party affiliation participate on a single ballot. Only 14% said the state should return to a closed primary system. Additionally, 52.5% of statewide respondents said they support more choice elections that would advance 5 candidates to the general election and use ranked choice voting to determine the winner. This is proof that not only do voters want a taxpayer-funded elections process that treats all voters equally, but when they get to vote in such a system, they want to keep it. RealClear Opinion Research also found that public frustration with primaries mirrors broader dissatisfaction with government performance. Seven-in-ten respondents said Congress is not effectively addressing major problems such as cost of living, immigration, and healthcare. Rather than calling for ideological compromise, voters appear focused on changing incentives so elected officials are rewarded for solving problems instead of catering to party bases. - **73% agree open primaries would produce better candidates who appeal to a majority of voters** - **72% agree open primaries would help produce a Congress that better represents the people and can tackle big problems** “Voters aren’t asking for politicians who compromise on their principles — they’re asking for a Congress that can get things done,” Troiano said. “Open primaries are a practical way to change the incentives so candidates are rewarded for governing, not punished.” The latest polling data from organizations like IVP and Unite America show that election reform is no longer the niche issue it used to be. More and more voters are connecting the dots between incentives under an election model and legislative priorities. There is now a mainstream voter demand for fairer, more competitive elections and equal participation – regardless of party affiliation. There are a handful of primary reform initiatives trying to get on the November ballot in 2024, including proposals in Nevada, Oklahoma, and Oregon – the latter two including Top Two nonpartisan primary reform. In Alaska, reformers have to fend off another effort to repeal the state’s unique Top Four system with ranked choice voting in the general election. Opponents [failed to defeat it in 2020](https://ivn.us/posts/alaska-becomes-first-in-the-nation-to-approve-top-4-primary-with-ranked-choice-voting), [failed to repeal it in 2024](https://ivn.us/posts/alaska-reject-repeal-top-4-ranked-choice-voting-repeal-2024-11-14), and now they are trying again. Unite America told IVN that they will focus on Alaska this year as well as efforts through litigation and in legislatures to close primaries. The group says it supports the reform initiatives trying to make it on the ballot, but could not comment on the extent of that support. ## **New Lawsuit Claims ‘Biased’ and ‘Inaccurate’ Language Used for Alaska Ballot Measure to Repeal Popular Reforms** We have seen it in Missouri. We have seen it in Oregon. Now, a lawsuit has been filed challenging a ballot measure title (for proposal 24ESEG) written by Alaska election officials that is biased against more choice reform. [New Research: Populism A Key Factor with Cross-Partisan Support for Alaska's Top 4 ElectionsIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/getty-images-rm864yT2Llo-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/new-research-populism-key-factor-cross-partisan-support-alaskas-top-4-elections-2024-08-11) Attorney Scott Kendall, who authored the state’s 2020 reform package that included a Top Four primary, ranked choice voting in the general election, and requires dark money disclosure, says the Alaska Division of Elections is using “biased” and “Inaccurate” language. “I think (Alaskans) should know that the ballot language that has been offered by the Division of Directions is materially inaccurate, and in some cases, says the measure does the opposite of what it does, and it omits very significant changes the measure will make,” [he said](https://www.chilkatvalleynews.com/2026/01/24/new-lawsuit-claims-alaskas-description-of-a-proposed-elections-ballot-measure-is-biased/?ref=ivn.us). Kendall is representing AFL-CIO President Joelle Hall, state Sen. Cathy Giessel (R-Anchorage), and former Juneau City Councilmember Barbara Blak in a lawsuit organized by Alaskans for Better Elections – which spearheaded the 2020 reforms. The plaintiffs take issue with the state-approved ballot title for 24ESEG in 2026: “An Act Restoring Political Party Primaries, Single-Choice General Elections, and Campaign Finance Rules.” The problem? The measure doesn’t restore campaign finance rules. It eliminates them – specifically dark money disclosure requirements on donors and recipients for contributions over $2,000 and from groups that receive more than 50% of their funding from outside Alaska. The previous attempt to repeal Top Four and ranked choice voting excluded the new campaign finance rules. But in 2026, opponents are trying to get rid of the entire reform package. The lawsuit notes: > *The proposed measure (24ESEG) would not ‘restore,’ ‘bring back,’ or add even a single campaign finance rule to Alaska’s statutes. Rather, 24ESEG would fully repeal a litany of campaign finance disclosure requirements, and eliminate enhanced fines.”* It is worth noting that the reform package in 2020, which was designated Ballot Measure 2, was opposed by then-Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer and the Division of Elections, which challenged it on the state’s single-subject rule in court. They lost. Still, there are officials in positions of power who oppose these reforms approved by voters and want to return to a system that hands the voting rights of 60% of the electorate registered independent over to private political parties. In addition, campaign finance reform is one of the most popular systemic changes campaigns can pursue, as shown in the Independent Voter Project’s [latest survey](https://ivn.us/posts/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12). It is easy to see how ballot language that says campaign finance rules will be “restored” will have an effect. Even when the measure does the exact opposite. The lawsuit also asserts that the language state officials use for 24ESEG downplays the role private political parties would play in deciding who can vote and run in taxpayer-funded primaries if the state returns to a closed partisan system. “Granting major political parties in Alaska the power to disenfranchise voters for primary elections is neither mentioned, nor even implied, in the proposed ballot language,” the plaintiffs argue. The most important question is: why not? If repeal passes, independent voters will go from being able to freely vote in primary elections for any candidate they want, regardless of party, to being treated like second-class voters. And again, they are the majority in Alaska. ## **Oklahoma Open Primaries Initiative May Soon Be Certified for the 2026 Ballot** I reported earlier this week that the campaign for Oklahoma State Question 836 filed over 200,000 signatures to certify an all-candidate and all-voter nonpartisan primary for the November ballot. The measure needs 172,993 valid signatures to qualify for the general election. Yes on 836 wrapped up signature gathering amidst a severe winter storm, which forced event cancellations and complicated transportation of the petitions to Oklahoma City. The campaign is confident it has enough extra signatures. “This campaign started with everyday Oklahomans talking about ways we could make our government more accountable and more responsive to the people,” said Margaret Kobos, Founder and CEO of Oklahoma United, the non-profit that helped launch the initiative. > *That conversation has now become a statewide movement for reform, and I could not be prouder of the volunteers, donors and staff who got us to this point.”* The secretary of state’s office now has to verify the signatures. [Oklahoma Independents Drive Massive Push to Open Primaries With State Question 836IVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/oklahoma-open-primaries-state-question-836-independent-voters.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/oklahoma-independents-drive-massive-push-open-primaries-state-question-836-2026-01-27) ## **Quick Takeaways** - In Virginia, [**Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. ruled that a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the state’s Democratic majority to join the mid-cycle gerrymandering war was illegal**](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/virginia-democrats-redistricting-resolution-illegal-due-to-technicality-judge-finds?ref=ivn.us). Hurley wrote that the amendment technically violated a state law that requires such a proposal to be passed at least 3 months before a general election. It was initially proposed a week before statewide elections in October 2025\. The judge also called adding the amendment to a special session a "a blatant abuse of power." Redistricting supporters accused state Republicans of court-shopping for a favorable ruling and promised to appeal. - **Delegates Lily Qi (D) and Stuart M Schmidt (R) have [introduced a bill](https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/hb0496?ys=2026RS&ref=ivn.us) in the Maryland Legislature to open the state's primary elections to independent voters.** The bill proposes a semi-open primary system that requires party members to vote in their respective party's primary but allows independent voters to pick the party ballot of their choice. It is similar to the system adopted by the New Mexico legislature in 2025. - **Open Primaries President John Opdycke [penned an exclusive op-ed](https://ivn.us/posts/gallup-independent-voters-hit-45-so-why-does-political-establishment-keep-pretending-they) on IVN with Independent Veterans of America Founder and President Paul Rieckhoff about the Gallup report that shows 45% of Americans now self-identify as Americans.** Party insiders quickly came out to make their standard “independent voters aren’t real” argument, which has not only been proven to be incorrect but is an intentional effort to prevent another Ross Perot from rising. ### How the Republicans' FCC Rules Will Make Partisanship Even Worse URL: https://ivn.us/how-the-republicans-fcc-rules-will-make-partisanship-even-worse-2026-01-29/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T18:26:53.000Z Picture a partisan political federal referee standing just offstage of the iconic Saturday Night Live set, just before it's taping before a live audience at 8pm, stopwatch in hand, deciding who belongs in the political conversation and who does not. This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) [reopened a long-settled debate](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/fcc-late-night-daytime-talk-shows-equal-time-candidate-interviews-rcna255315?ref=ivn.us) about political speech on broadcast television, putting American late-night shows and daytime talk programs under federal regulatory scrutiny and inflaming what amounts to a red vs. blue partisan fight over which party controls the public airwaves. On January 21, FCC Chair Brendan Carr issued a [Public Notice](https://x.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/2014081766902940028?s=20&ref=ivn.us) reminding American broadcasters that when political candidates appear on air, stations have an “obligation to provide all candidates with equal opportunities.” > [](https://x.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/2014081766902940028?s=20&ref=ivn.us) The Public Notice immediately puts shows on broadcast television, such as Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and The View, in the spotlight, prompting a public backlash from Kimmel himself. While the FCC says the guidance applies to “all candidates,” the debate surrounding it is framed as a contest between Democrats and Republicans, with independent and unaffiliated voters, who make up roughly 45 percent of the electorate, once again left outside the discussion. ## **FCC Targets Programs “Motivated by Purely Partisan Political Purposes”** Chairman Carr said some programs may have been “ignoring or misreading the law in recent years” and insisted that “enforcing the statute passed by Congress is not weaponization.” On X, Carr posted that he will specifically ding programs “motivated by partisan purposes” and take away their status as “bona fide news.” *“For years, legacy TV networks assumed that their late-night & daytime talk shows qualify as ‘bona fide news’ programs —* ***even when motivated by purely partisan political purposes*** *,” Carr wrote in an X post Wednesday. “Today, the FCC reminded them of their obligation to provide all candidates with equal opportunities.”* ### **What the Equal Time Rule actually says** The controversy centers on the FCC’s Equal Time Rule, part of the Communications Act of 1934\. The rule requires broadcast stations to provide equal opportunities to all candidates running for the same office if one candidate is allowed to appear on air. Congress also created incredibly clear exemptions to the Equal Time Rule. Candidate appearances do not trigger equal time if they occur on bona fide newscasts, bona fide news interview programs, documentaries where the appearance is incidental, or coverage of news events. For decades, the FCC interpreted those exemptions broadly. The agency recognized the reality that Americans get news from many formats, not just traditional evening newscasts. As long as a program was regularly scheduled, controlled by producers rather than candidates, and booked guests based on newsworthiness rather than political promotion, it could qualify as a legitimate news interview program. Importantly, broadcasters were trusted to make that determination themselves. They did not need advance approval from the FCC. ### **What changed without changing the law** The FCC’s new Public Notice does not eliminate those exemptions. It changes how much confidence broadcasters can have in relying on them. Under the new guidance, broadcasters are warned that past FCC decisions cannot be assumed to apply unless the broadcaster or program received a specific ruling. Each case is now treated as fact-specific. ***Even programs that resemble previously approved shows may be questioned, and the FCC has emphasized that it will consider whether programming decisions are “motivated by partisan purposes.”*** ### **Burden shifts to broadcasters, who risk getting sued** In practical terms, the burden shifts from the FCC to broadcasters. Stations that once relied on precedent and good faith judgment now face the risk that the FCC could later disagree unless they seek a formal declaratory ruling. Critics say the shift places the FCC in an uncomfortable position of judging editorial intent, a role the agency has historically avoided and one constrained by federal law prohibiting censorship. ## **Carr, Trump, and Media Power** Carr is a Republican appointed by President Donald J. Trump, who described him as “a warrior for Free Speech” when announcing his nomination. Since becoming chair, Carr has taken an aggressive posture toward broadcast outlets that criticize or satirize the president and is frequently described by critics as Trump’s attack dog at the FCC. In a September 2025 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Carr argued that broadcast licenses carry “a unique obligation to operate in the public interest.” He said late-night shows have shifted from comedy to “enforcing a very narrow political ideology” and suggested that such content belongs on podcasts, which, like cable networks, are not regulated by the FCC. “But if you are going to have a license from the FCC, we expect you to broadly serve the public interest,” Carr said. President Trump has echoed those complaints. Speaking aboard Air Force One in September 2025, Trump accused broadcast networks of being “97% against me.” “They give me only bad press,” Trump said. “They’re getting a license. I think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr.” This week, President Trump amplified headlines warning that the FCC was going after The View and Jimmy Kimmel using the Equal Time Rule. Carr shared the post on his own X account. ## **Late Night Strikes Back** One day after Carr’s January 21 post, Jimmy Kimmel addressed the issue directly during his monologue. “The FCC is coming for us again,” Kimmel said. “It’s his latest attack on free speech and it’s a joke.” Kimmel accused the Trump administration’s FCC of “reinterpreting long agreed-upon rules to stifle us,” calling it “another example of this administration trying to squash anyone who doesn’t support them by following ‘the rules.’” Carr has previously advocated for a brief suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! and has been an outspoken critic of the show. ## **Red Versus Blue** Supporters of the FCC’s move argue that late-night television has leaned heavily Democratic. Conservative attorney Daniel Suhr said shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Late Show, and The View have consistently featured Democratic candidates while excluding Republicans. Democrats strongly disagree. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the agency’s lone Democratic member, called the guidance misleading and warned it marks “an escalation in this FCC’s ongoing campaign to censor and control speech.” The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board has also criticized the FCC’s approach. Yet the entire debate remains framed as Democrats versus Republicans. Either way, the two-party system remains firmly in control. Equal time, as currently framed, appears to most to mean reallocating airtime between Democrats and Republicans rather than expanding political representation beyond the two parties. This reflects a broader pattern in Washington. Federal agencies should be balanced and operate independently of the two major political parties. In practice, FCC appointees often reflect the priorities of whichever party controls the White House. Under Republican administrations, enforcement tends to align with Republican grievances. Under Democratic administrations, priorities often shift in the other direction. ## **What Comes Next** The FCC’s guidance does not ban political discussion. It applies only to legally qualified candidates, not surrogates or commentators. Podcasts and cable networks are unaffected. The uncertainty created by the guidance alone may change behavior, leading America’s broadcasters to decide that the safest option is to avoid candidate appearances altogether. If the discussion is about equal time, the question we really should be asking is why independent candidates never run for office and add fresh voices and ideas to the conversation. Unfortunately, independent candidates cannot win elections under the current first-past-the-post system most states use to choose our leaders. This flawed system leads to spoilers. It keeps us from voting for the person we like the most without being afraid of electing the person we like the least. It is avoided by nonpartisan top two elections like those in California and Washington, and especially in Maine and Alaska, where in the general election all voters can rank candidates in order of their preference and the candidate with a majority wins. Without open primaries and ranked choice voting, this dysfunctional partisan soap opera will keep airing season after season, the longest running series in American politics, chronicling characters trapped a two party doom loop that somehow never gets canceled. ### Does the 4th Amendment Apply to Everyone? ICE, Warrants, and Constitutional Rights URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/does-4th-amendment-apply-everyone-ice-warrants-and-constitutional-rights-2026-01-29/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:42:25.000Z Does the 4th Amendment protect only U.S. citizens - or everyone on U.S. soil? Chad and Cara dig into warrants, search-and-seizure limits, and how immigration enforcement tests constitutional boundaries. They also weigh the politics of voter ID - why it polls well, how ballot measures get framed, and what it means for trust and access in elections. ### Mayor Matt Mahan Could Turn the California Governor Race Upside Down URL: https://ivn.us/mayor-matt-mahan-could-turn-california-governor-race-upside-down-2026-01-28/ Last updated: 2026-01-29T18:07:02.000Z Rumors are circulating that San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan may enter the race for California governor. If the recently elected Democratic mayor makes the move, he could jolt a contest that, to date, has been remarkably sleepy. With the 2026 candidate filing deadline only weeks away, and despite the entry of more than a dozen contenders, no one has managed to separate from the pack. Even Tom Steyer’s massive television and social media rollout appears to have landed with a thud. Multiple polls show only marginal gains into the low double digits, almost all of it coming at the expense of two fellow Democrats, [Katie Porter](https://katieporter.com/?ref=ivn.us) and [Eric Swalwell](https://www.ericswalwell.com/?ref=ivn.us). At this stage, [polling](https://ivn.us/posts/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12) reflects little more than name recognition and a massive bloc of undecided voters. The more active speculation in Sacramento is not about momentum, but about whether California’s Top Two primary could again produce [two candidates from the same party](https://ivn.us/posts/author-californias-top-two-primary-says-its-time-reform-reform) in November. That question matters because our increasingly hostile and dysfunctional national politics are not accidental. They are the product of behind-the-scenes partisan interests colliding with the perverse incentives baked into modern communication algorithms. Outrage travels faster than solutions. California’s nonpartisan primary remains one of the most powerful tools voters have to push back against these dynamics. It weakens insider control and creates space, at least in theory, for candidates who can appeal beyond hardened ideological camps. California has deep roots in this kind of political culture. The Progressive Era of the early twentieth century, led by Republican Governor Hiram Johnson, and the era of expansive public investment in education and infrastructure under Democratic Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, helped build the most robust and diverse middle class in the world through the end of the twentieth century. Over time, those reforms eroded. Special interests reasserted themselves. Infrastructure decayed through neglect. The social safety net became overwhelmed by inefficiency, inequity, and corruption. Today, California leads the nation in the growth of poverty. We suffer from the highest unemployment rate in the country. The cost of living has crushed the middle class. The first step toward fixing this is acknowledging that California was not always this way. At its core, California is simply too expensive. The solution will not be simple or immediate, but it does require prioritization. Housing costs overwhelm working-class family budgets. Every young person must be able to see a realistic path to homeownership, because homeownership remains the backbone of economic stability. Energy costs are also too high. A rational climate policy does not require embracing a Silicon Valley mentality of moving fast and breaking things. We can transition responsibly from the past to the future while reducing dependence on costly, fire-prone transmission systems, without enriching speculators and impoverishing residents. Finally, we must confront the link between unemployment, underemployment, and a state budget in persistent deficit. The only sustainable way to increase public revenue is through private-sector job growth. The businesses of tomorrow must want to locate here, and workers must be able to afford to live here. This is a triage operation. We must stabilize the present urgently so we can address the larger questions we should already be debating. What should the work week look like as technology reshapes labor demand? How do we simplify health care delivery? How do we modernize education, job training, and childcare? Instead, we remain distracted by partisan efforts to divide us. It should not be controversial to say we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can protect every citizen’s right to vote while supporting reasonable voter identification requirements. We can enforce the border and deport criminal offenders while expanding guest worker programs, expediting DACA naturalizations, and offering a path to legal status for long-time, law-abiding residents. A functioning political environment allows room for disagreement, debate, and compromise. Ultimately, the strength of a successful gubernatorial candidate will not be defined by what they are for or against. It will rest on who they are and how well they listen. If Mayor Mahan enters the race, his natural lane is substance and thoughtfulness, not left, right, or center. There is no meaningful constituency in California for a mushy middle, and the lanes fueled by hysteria are already overcrowded. But there is real demand for a candidate who can fix things. Political consultants may cringe, but California has [a long history of governors once dismissed as boring](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-01-09/california-boring-governors-2026-election-schwarzenegger-reagan-newsom-hollywood-celebrity?ref=ivn.us), including George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson, and Gray Davis. Mayor Mahan has already positioned himself in this pragmatic lane during his campaign for mayor against a fellow Democrat. His short tenure has been viewed favorably by many locals. Still, he is largely unknown statewide and comes from the Silicon Valley business world that many blame for the very culture of disruption that now distorts political discourse. Tom Steyer’s muted reception should serve as a cautionary tale about mistaking money and momentum for authenticity. Most important of all, the tone of any statewide campaign must be an authentic reflection of who Matt Mahan actually is. If he declines to run and the field remains as it stands, the dark-horse candidates are not hard to identify. Two Republicans appear locked in. On the Democratic side, former [Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa](https://www.antonio2026.com/?ref=ivn.us), [State Controller Betty Yee](https://bettyyee.com/?ref=ivn.us), and former [Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon](https://www.ianforgovernor.com/?ref=ivn.us) each bring experience that could, in theory, be shaped into the kind of message that appeals to voters currently parked in the “[none of the above](https://ivn.us/posts/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12)” column. However this race unfolds, one conclusion is already clear. It's time for More Choice in California. Nonpartisan top-four (or five) primaries that allow voters to rank more candidates in the general election are the next great nonpartisan reform as we fight to empower every voter, regardless of their party affiliation. ### Neither Party Owns This Seat: Independent Voters Control California’s Desert Battleground URL: https://ivn.us/neither-party-owns-this-seat-independent-voters-control-california-desert-battleground-2026-01-28/ Last updated: 2026-10-13T20:47:17.000Z California’s Assembly District 47 stretches across Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, encompassing the cities of Banning, Beaumont, Calimesa, Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Yucaipa, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, and the town of Yucca Valley, along with portions of Redlands, Highland, and San Jacinto. A significant portion of the district lies within the Coachella Valley, where tourism, housing affordability, infrastructure strain, and seasonal population swings shape local politics. Palm Springs remains internationally associated with mid century modern architecture, including Twin Palms, also known as the Frank Sinatra House, designed by E. Stewart Williams in the Movie Colony East neighborhood. To the east, Joshua Tree National Park anchors the district’s environmental and cultural identity. First protected through the advocacy of Pasadena resident Minerva Hoyt, the area was designated a national monument in 1936 and elevated to national park status in 1994\. Today, the park spans more than 790,000 acres, protects hundreds of archaeological and historic sites, and supports a tourism economy critical to surrounding communities. ## **Demographics, Housing, and Cost of Living** According to the 2023 American Community Survey, Assembly District 47 has a population of 523,318\. The district is 48.5% White, 39.3% Latino, 3.8% Black, and 4.4% Asian. About 16.9% of residents are foreign-born, and 7.2% are non-citizens. The citizen voting age population is 72.6%. Economic indicators reflect both growth and strain. The median household income is $78,451, with a mean household income of $114,772 and a per capita income of $45,665\. Approximately 12.8% of residents live below the poverty line. About 6.5% lack health insurance, and 11.6% receive food assistance. Housing is predominantly owner-occupied at 70.7%, while 29.3% of homes are renter-occupied. The median home value is $450,800, and the median monthly rent is $1,542. The district is home to 29,537 civilian veterans, representing 7.1% of the population. ## **Registration Trends and the Power of Independents** As of October 2025, Assembly District 47 had 334,356 registered voters. Democrats accounted for 38.7%, Republicans for 33.8%, and No Party Preference voters for 19.2%, with the remainder affiliated with minor parties. While Democrats hold a modest registration advantage of roughly 5%, the steady growth of No Party Preference and other third-party registrants has repeatedly determined election outcomes. ## **Past Election Results Show Persistent Volatility** The district has swung between the two major political parties at the statewide level. Joe Biden carried the district by 6.56% in 2020, while Kamala Harris won it by 4% in 2024\. Adam Schiff carried the district by just 1% in the 2024 U.S. Senate race. Governor Gavin Newsom lost the district narrowly in 2018 but won it by 2% in 2022. At the Assembly level, Republican Greg Wallis narrowly defeated Democrat Christy Holstege by 85 votes in 2022 and again by 5,534 votes in 2024, despite Harris and Schiff both carrying the district in the latter election. Voter turnout in November 2024 reached an impressive 72%. ## **Incumbent Greg Wallis** [Republican Greg Wallis](https://www.gregwallis.org/?ref=ivn.us) was first elected to the State Assembly in 2022\. Born May 15, 1990 in Southern California, he resides in Bermuda Dunes. He is a third-generation Californian. Before entering the Legislature, Wallis served as district director for Assemblymember Chad Mayes beginning in 2014. Earlier in his career, he worked as campaign manager for Brian Nestande’s congressional bid and as executive director of the Inland Empire Taxpayers Association, according to public records and his LinkedIn profile. During the 2023 to 2024 legislative session, Wallis introduced 37 bills, five of which were signed into law. Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed one measure. Among the bills enacted was AB 2111, which prohibits altering a license plate to prevent identification. Wallis also authored bipartisan legislation extending California’s electric vehicle carpool lane decal program through January 1, 2027, contingent on federal authorization. In early 2025, Wallis was the only Republican Assemblymember to vote for Governor Newsom’s $180 million wildfire prevention funding package. He also joined Republican and Democratic lawmakers in signing a letter led by State Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, urging President Donald Trump to consider expedited work permits for undocumented essential workers, including farmworkers. According to CalMatters’ legislative tracker, Wallis is classified as “Moderate Right.” His website says he is a proud member of the Bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. Wallis is a strong supporter of same sex marriage and is pro-choice. He helped secure funding to rebuild a Palm Springs fertility clinic damaged in a May bombing. On social issues, Wallis received 73% from Equality California, 75% from NARAL Pro Choice California, and 100% from Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. Wallis earned a 100% rating from the California Chamber of Commerce in 2023, while receiving 36% from the ACLU and 29% from the Alliance for Retired Americans. Organized labor groups gave him low marks, including 28% from the California Labor Federation, both annually and lifetime, and 0% from UFCW. Environmental organizations were similarly critical, with 0% scores from the California Environmental Justice Alliance and Sierra Club California, and 12% ratings from the California League of Conservation Voters. Gun rights groups rated him favorably, with the National Rifle Association awarding a 67% score in 2024. In an interview with the San Bernardino Sun in December 2025, Wallis said his district is “a mix of Republicans, Democrats, and independent voters who value results over party.” “Given that Sacramento Democrats have spent millions against me each election, I’m sure they will do so again,” Wallis said. “The truth is that they and their special interest allies have basically unlimited funds. So, I assume they will keep trying to unseat me, and I will focus my time and effort on doing the right thing for local people. That’s how I get re-elected because I’ll work with anyone, regardless of their party, to get things done.” Wallis and his high school sweetheart, Desiree, have two dogs, Gunner and Harley. ## **Jason Byors** [Democrat Jason Byors](https://www.instagram.com/jasonbyors/?ref=ivn.us) is a Cathedral City resident and software engineer who owns and operates a computer consultancy. Born January 24, 1971, Byors lives with his partner, JR. According to his campaign website, he grew up in a working-class household led by a single mother who worked multiple jobs to support him and his younger brother. Byors graduated summa cum laude from Babson College and built a career in software engineering for companies including Sony Pictures, Toyota, Pioneer Electronics, Twentieth Century Fox, and municipal governments in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. He currently operates his own small business as an independent contractor. Byors initially filed to run for Congress in the 41st District before switching to the Assembly District 47 race. Reporting by The Desert Sun in September 2025 noted that Democratic leaders encouraged the move amid redistricting uncertainty. “The reason that I got into this race was to be a voice to speak out against what’s going on in Washington,” Byors told The Desert Sun. “I thought if I go and beat Greg Wallis, and I go to Sacramento, I could work on bills that would affect people’s lives here.” He added, “I feel like we are losing our democracy. Anything I can do to stand up and defend our democracy, I’m going to do.” Byors has emphasized healthcare access, human rights, and affordability. He publicly supported Kaiser Permanente workers represented by United Steelworkers Local 7600 in October 2025 and attended anti-ICE protests in January 2026. He has endorsed Proposition 50 and received national attention through USA Today. Assemblymember Corey A. Jackson endorsed Byors, telling The Desert Sun, “Jason isn’t in this for headlines; he is in this for working families. He knows the struggles people face. He is the right choice for this district.” ## **Lucas Pinon** [Democrat Lucas Pinon](https://www.lucaspinon.com/?ref=ivn.us), born May 18, 1990, is a Palm Desert resident and director of special projects for Congressman Raul Ruiz. Raised by a single mother in a farmworker family, he grew up in Palm Desert and graduated from Palm Desert High School. Pinon attended the College of the Desert Public Safety Academy before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force. He served overseas in Security Forces and deployed to Afghanistan, providing security for pilots and drone operators. After returning home, Pinon continued his education, earning a bachelor’s degree in history from UCLA. He worked as an organizer for United Teachers of Los Angeles before joining Rep. Ruiz’s office as a field representative and later director of special projects. “As a veteran myself, that’s how I got involved with the congressman’s office,” Pinon told the Needles Desert Star in 2024, describing his research on the [PACT Act](https://www.vfw.org/advocacy/pact-act-and-toxic-exposure-information?ref=ivn.us). “As a veteran and all the veterans per capita that we have in our district, it’s a huge impact.” “I learned the value of service before self in the Air Force, and that principle guides everything I do,” Pinon said in a prepared statement shared with The Desert Sun. “I’m running for State Assembly because our communities deserve a fighter in Sacramento who will put people ahead of politics and corporate special interests and deliver results for a change.” His campaign website says Pinon was heavily influenced by his maternal grandfather, Alfredo Figueroa, describing him as a legendary civil rights leader who organized for Cesar Chavez. [Pinon is endorsed](https://www.lucaspinon.com/endorsements?ref=ivn.us) by Representatives Raul Ruiz and Juan Vargas, as well as Desert Hot Springs Councilmember Gary Gardner, Palm Desert Councilmember Karina Quintanilla, and Palm Springs Councilmember Jeffrey Bernstein. “It is an honor to have support from leaders throughout this district,” Pinon said. “I’m looking forward to speaking to people and outlining my passion for service, my experience delivering results, and my vision for everyone to have the opportunity to get ahead.” He lives in Palm Desert with his wife, Gloria, and their two children. ## **Leila Namvar** [Democrat Leila Namvar](https://www.leilanamvar.com/?ref=ivn.us), born August 4, 1972, is a La Quinta resident and public arts program analyst for the City of Indio. Born and educated in Iran, Namvar previously worked in urban planning in Tehran. According to a 2006 Desert Sun profile, she first applied for permission to immigrate to the United States in 1983 and waited nearly two decades before legally arriving in Southern California in 2002. Namvar initially worked outside her field despite holding multiple degrees, including one in architecture. She worked as a cashier at a movie theater, as a lab assistant with the Red Cross, and as a planning technician with the City of Indio starting in late 2005, according to The Desert Sun. “There were times she worked three jobs just to get by, while attending college at night to learn English,” according to her campaign website. Namvar became a U.S. citizen by naturalization in 2008 and later earned a master’s degree in public administration. She has worked as an urban planner and now oversees Indio’s public arts programming. A September 2025 report by The Desert Sun noted her role in shaping Indio’s general plan and downtown housing density framework. Namvar previously served as president of SEIU Local 721 representing Indio city employees. Her campaign website says she led contract negotiations three times, “never backing down from having hard conversations and standing up to powerful interests when the stakes were high.” Announcing [her Assembly bid](https://www.facebook.com/voteleilanamvar/), she told The Desert Sun, “When I came here, I really believed in the American dream. But I think it’s slipping away from too many.” She has emphasized affordable housing, environmental justice, and access to healthcare and education as campaign priorities. ## **A Familiar Pattern Heading Into 2026** According to the California Target Book, Assembly District 47 is again expected to be one of the most competitive legislative races in the state. Independent expenditures exceeded $2.5 million in 2024, with party committees and outside groups heavily involved. With a closely divided electorate and nearly one in five voters registered with No Party Preference, Assembly District 47 once again appears poised to hinge on independent voters in 2026. ## **About the 2026 California Top Two Primary** The last day to register to vote for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election is May 18, 2026\. All active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. Ballots will begin mailing on May 4, and drop-off locations will open on May 5\. Early in-person voting begins May 23 in Voter’s Choice Act counties. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by June 9. ## **Source Notes** This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, CalMatters, the California Target Book, Ballotpedia, California FPPC campaign finance filings, The Desert Sun, the San Bernardino Sun, USA Today, the Needles Desert Star, individual candidate websites and social media accounts, and other local and regional reporting. ### Gallup: Independent Voters Hit 45% – So Why Does the Political Establishment Keep Pretending They Don’t Matter? URL: https://ivn.us/gallup-independent-voters-hit-45-so-why-does-political-establishment-keep-pretending-they/ Last updated: 2026-02-09T16:39:07.000Z Gallup released its latest [identification numbers](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?ref=ivn.us), and independent voters are now 45%. Nobody disputes the data. But there are competing opinions as to what the data means. The official narrative asserts that independent voters are….not really independent. Independents a) have no ideological cohesion and b) vote like partisans. To quote pollster [Kristen Soltis Anderson](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/opinion/party-affiliation-independents-midterms.html?ref=ivn.us) “most voters who identify as independents do go on, when pressed, to say they lean more toward one party than the other.” A beautiful trick. Just twist independent’s arms until they cry uncle and admit they are still part of team blue or team red. These same experts also assert that independents who run for office are “spoilers” who siphon votes away from legitimate candidates. This is not simply derogatory. The hidden message of the spoiler argument is that votes belong to the parties, not to the people. Leaners and spoilers. What a loving way to refer to the largest group of voters in the country! A different narrative is gaining traction. A growing number of leaders who are engaged in organizing and researching independent voters look at the statistics and see potential. This new narrative allows for the possibility that the small act of distancing oneself from the parties is indicative of something brewing. It doesn’t see the lack of a shared ideology as a problem, but rather as an opportunity to bring people together in new ways. And when it comes to how we conduct primary elections, the narrative has changed dramatically. A majority of Americans across party lines now support the right of non-party voters to participate in publicly funded primary elections. A look at the state of independent politics today reveals that independent voters have not congealed into a single party or organization – that’s not consistent with the brand (or anti-brand, whichever you prefer). While the legacy third parties (Green, Libertarian) are stagnating, there is a lot of experimentation going on, with dozens of groups, candidates, and alternative entities exploring how to tap into independents. We see especially strong interest among veterans-as voters and increasingly as candidates. There are already five independent veterans running for US Senate this fall. And we expect to see over 100 total this year for races across the country – from governor to school board. Indeed, Independent Veterans of America was founded to support candidates that are providing the kind of strong, authentic leadership America is looking for. Independents are already shaping outcomes at the national level, providing significant margins to Obama, then Trump, then Biden and back to Trump. But not so long ago, independents came together in a big way. But the official story still dominates. The question we have is: why? If independents are, in fact, best understood as partisans in disguise, if independents are too scattered ideologically to come together, if the rise of independent voters is inconsequential, if “true” independents represent less than 10% of the population…why spend so much energy insisting that they don’t matter? Lots of things don’t matter. They tend not to attract battalions of academics and powerful pundits to convince us so. Why such stridency? Two words. Ross Perot. In 1992, independent Ross Perot got 20% of the vote for president despite dropping out mid-campaign and running a mediocre campaign. He was put on the ballot by an explosion of independent volunteers condemning the major parties for ignoring their economic and political concerns. Perot crucified Clinton and Bush in the debates and his 20%, while not resulting in a single electoral vote, drove the Clinton/Gingrich policy process for a decade. He attracted millions of votes from liberals and conservatives alike. The Perot explosion - a multi-ideological independent movement - produced a balanced budget, the Contract with America, and Clintonian triangulation. The DC crowd, completely caught off guard by 20 million Americans going off script, has never forgotten. The number of independent voters has doubled since 1992\. But efforts to marginalize independents have doubled as well. Pundits insist that independents are “leaners and spoilers” in part to prevent another Perot explosion. But independents are not victims. We are challenging partisan institutions and customs and insisting that there has to be a better way than MAGA’s orgy of cruelty and the Democratic Party’s elitist ineptitude. Yes, independents are not that organized. No, we don’t have the resources that the two parties have. But that doesn’t mean we are leaners. Every week, 10,000 Americans switch their registration from D or R to I – and they do so for a reason. They want to be part of a new political conversation, not perpetrators of partisan demonization. Independents are ready to lead. ***John Opdycke is President of [Open Primaries](https://openprimaries.org/?ref=ivn.us), a national election reform organization. [Paul Rieckhoff](https://righteous.us/the-righteous-team/?ref=ivn.us) is a US Army infantry combat veteran, 9/11 First Responder, the host of the [Independent Americans](https://independentamericans.us/?ref=ivn.us), and President and Founder of [Independent Veterans of America (IVA)](https://independentveteransofamerica.org/?ref=ivn.us).*** ### Partisan Elections Are America’s Greatest Hypocrisy – Maine Can Lead the Way Out URL: https://ivn.us/partisan-elections-are-americas-greatest-hypocrisy-maine-can-lead-way-out-2026-01-27/ Last updated: 2026-01-27T18:12:45.000Z *Editor's Note: This article [originally published](https://www.pressherald.com/2025/12/17/mainers-should-lead-nation-in-election-reform-opinion/?ref=ivn.us) in the Portland Press Herald and has been modified and republished on IVN with permission from the author.* Kyle Bailey, a former Maine state legislator and Maine’s leading major election reformer, had an excellent op-ed in the Portland Press Herald in 2025\. In that piece of commentary, [“How we do elections matters](https://www.pressherald.com/2025/07/06/how-we-do-elections-matters-opinion/?ref=ivn.us),” Bailey celebrates the value of ranked choice voting to Maine and urges its expansion to state general offices. This would be a step in the right direction. But America should be the land of we the people, not we the party. Ranked choice voting within the framework of a nonpartisan election system at all levels, including the presidential elections, is a far better solution. Former 16-year conservative Republican Congressmen Mickey Edwards wrote the bestselling book [“The Parties vs the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats Into Americans.” ](https://www.amazon.com/Parties-Versus-People-Republicans-Democrats/dp/0300198213?ref=ivn.us)Amen to that title. Already, 85% of all municipal elections in the nation, including Maine, are nonpartisan. Expanding this to include the primaries and the presidential elections is in the best interest of the people and our parties. Partisan “democracy” is America’s greatest hypocrisy at any level. The facts are [nearly 90 million voters did not vote](https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-15/how-many-people-didnt-vote-in-the-2024-election?ref=ivn.us) in the 2024 presidential election. Aren’t most Americans simply fed up with the party control of our “elections” system? Neither presidential candidate got even 50% of the vote. Independent voters nationwide are almost as big as both major parties. Maine’s only in the middle pack of primary election reform, way behind Alaska, California and Washington state. Now Maine, both voters and various organizations, needs to bring true election change, not just strengthen the partisan election system. The [Open Primary Elections and Ranked-choice Voting bill](https://legislature.maine.gov/legis/bills/display%5Fps.asp?LD=1422&snum=132&ref=ivn.us) will be resubmitted in 2027 if it qualifies before the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee. May it have many co-sponsors from both parties supporting its brave sponsor, Sen. Joe Baldacci. When I spoke on behalf of this bill in person as president of Mainers for Open Elections, co-founded by Dr. Robert Croce and his wife, Jill Martel, several national leaders supported the bill in writing, including Jeremy Gruber, vice president of Open Primaries, and Eric Bronner of all Veterans Vote. Some Mainers also supported it. But it will only pass if many Mainers demand it. I said in part to the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee at that last session: > *Why continue to tweak a semi-open primary, also called a semi-closed primary? It does not serve either the Maine voter or the parties in the long run. Mainers deserve so much better. Live Maine’s motto to lead in election reform. Move beyond a partisan-controlled semi-open primary to a nonpartisan primary. Our public primary elections are paid for by Maine taxpayers. We Mainers should truly own our system, not two private corporations through a partisan election process.* > *As a registered member of a major party (Republican), I believe our parties are vital and necessary for our not yet perfect democracy. But, remaining within a partisan election system is destructive to Maine, America and all parties because partisan elections are wrong in the first place. In the second place, the party members are dwindling. Partisan elections at all levels contribute to this decline. Eighty-five percent of the municipal governments including Maine are now nonpartisan.”* According to a Gallup poll in 2024, [51% of all voters identified as independent](https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/research-brief-growing-cohort-of-independent-voters-becomes-critical-segment-of-electorate?ref=ivn.us#:~:text=Dissatisfaction%20with%20the%20red%2Dblue,ever%20recorded%20in%20the%20survey.) nationwide, which is more than our Republican and Democratic parties combined. In the 1940 presidential election, both major parties [received nearly 99.5% of all votes](https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1940&minper=0&f=0&off=0&elect=0&ref=ivn.us#:~:text=Table%5Fcontent:%20header:%20%7C%20Presidential%20Candidate%20%7C%20Vice,:%20%7C%20Electoral%20Vote:%20%7C%20:%20%7C). The major parties surely represented America during that time. Not so today. Fast forward to the 2024 presidential election —nearly 90 million Americans did not vote. And neither major party candidate got 50% of the vote. This partisan election process is doing great harm to all of us, including our parties. The last time I testified before the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, though the members were respectful, they seemed committed to the “we the party” process. The Baldacci bill was defeated overwhelmingly, with one abstention. I told them I would return for the next session in 2027 to ask for their reconsideration. That will only happen if many Mainers show up in Augusta, write, call and demand a nonpartisan with RCV primary process. May our Legislature wake up and serve the people of Maine as well as their parties’ future. May we Mainers, by our actions, help save Maine and America and the parties themselves through a nonpartisan election system that features municipal, primary and presidential elections. It truly would make Maine and America better than before. ### Oklahoma Independents Drive Massive Push to Open Primaries With State Question 836 URL: https://ivn.us/oklahoma-independents-drive-massive-push-open-primaries-state-question-836-2026-01-27/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T21:48:56.000Z **OKLAHOMA CITY** \- While much of the U.S. was slammed with severe winter weather over the weekend, volunteers for Oklahoma State Question 836 – which would end the use of taxpayer-funded closed primaries in the state – made a final push to get their campaign to over 200,000 petition signatures. And on Monday, the campaign submitted these signatures to the secretary of state’s office. “This campaign started with everyday Oklahomans talking about ways we could make our government more accountable and more responsive to the people,” said Margaret Kobos, Founder and CEO of Oklahoma United, the non-profit that helped launch the initiative. > *That conversation has now become a statewide movement for reform, and I could not be prouder of the volunteers, donors and staff who got us to this point.”* The filing surpasses the 172,993 valid signatures required to qualify the initiative for the ballot. The question is, will it be enough cushion to give Oklahoma voters an opportunity to weigh in on an all-voter and all-candidate nonpartisan primary system under SQ836? Here is what the initiative does to state primary elections: - It places all candidates for an office on a single primary ballot, regardless of party; - Lists each candidate’s party affiliation (if any); and - Allows all registered voters, regardless of party, to participate Similar nonpartisan election systems are in place in California and Washington. Under Oklahoma’s current system, recognized major political parties can decide whether or not to allow independent voters to participate in their primaries. In 2026, the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian Parties all chose to bar independents from participating. “Roughly one in five registered voters – almost 500,000 independents – will be barred from participating in taxpayer-funded primaries that effectively decide the vast majority of elected offices in the state,” the Yes on 836 campaign states. Further, [as noted by SQ 836 supporters](https://ivn.us/posts/missouris-gerrymander-faces-citizen-veto-state-officials-arent-taking-no-answer-2025-12-19), “Oklahoma has a 68% uncontested rate. It’s the highest in the country. Politicians are not being held accountable term after term after term. They don’t have to run because no one is running against them.” Yes on 836 organizers say their petition milestone reflects growing frustration with an election system that sidelines hundreds of thousands of registered independent voters and leaves most meaningful elections decided before the general election even occurs. But the final days of signature gathering weren’t smooth. Severe winter weather across Oklahoma limited in-person signing opportunities, forced organizers to cancel events, and complicated the transportation of completed petitions to Oklahoma City. At the same time, the campaign faced legal challenges, establishment resistance, and organized opposition from political parties that benefit from closed primaries. “We are able to turn in these signatures today because hundreds of hardworking volunteers from every corner of the state stood in the wind, bitter cold, and the snow – even through the holidays – to get this on the ballot,” said Ken Setter, a retired Tulsa pediatrician and longtime supporter of the initiative. Setter said volunteers were motivated by a simple idea: Oklahoma cannot fix what is broken in state government without first fixing how leaders are chosen. “That means creating a system where all Oklahomans can bring their ideas and solutions to the table – and where no one is excluded from meaningful participation,” he said. “Along the way, they met thousands of voters who are hopeful to see this change.” For reformers, the stakes are high. Opening primaries would fundamentally shift power away from party insiders and toward a broader electorate, including independents, who make up a growing share of Oklahoma’s registered voters. As Setter put it, the goal is simple: ***“Fix how we choose our leaders and we can start fixing everything else.”*** The secretary of state will now begin verifying the submitted signatures. Campaigns typically expect some portion of signatures to be disqualified for technical reasons, but organizers are confident they have submitted enough to clear the threshold. If the initiative qualifies, Oklahoma voters will decide the future of their primary system in November 2026. ### Aisha Wahab Exits – Independent Voters Now Decide Silicon Valley Senate Seat URL: https://ivn.us/aisha-wahab-out-open-silicon-valley-senate-seat-decided-independent-voters-2026-01-26/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T18:26:35.000Z Stretching across portions of Alameda and Santa Clara Counties, California’s Senate District 10 is one of the state’s economic powerhouses. It includes the cities of Fremont, Hayward, Milpitas, Newark, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and Union City, as well as portions of San Jose. The district’s economy is anchored by Silicon Valley’s technology sector, which attracts a global workforce. The Apple factory where the first Mac computer was manufactured was located in Fremont. The Tesla factory is located in the district and employs tens of thousands of workers. SD10 is home to large immigrant Asian-American communities that have helped define the civic and cultural fabric of the South Bay in beautiful Northern California. The main campus of [California State University, East Bay](https://www.csueastbay.edu/?ref=ivn.us), is in Hayward, and 62.5% of undergraduates are first-generation Americans. **Nearly Half of the Residents Are Foreign Born** According to the 2023 American Community Survey, the district has a population of just over 1 million residents. More than 48% of residents are foreign-born, and 23.6% are non-citizens. The population is 52% Asian, 20.5% Latino, 18.4% White, and 3.6% Black. **Asian Voters Comprise 44 percent of Electorate** When it comes to registered voters, Senate District 10 has a plurality Asian electorate. Asians make up 44.5% of the voting population, up from 40.3% in 2019\. White voters comprise 28.6%, Latinos 18.8%, and Black voters 5.6%. **Educated and Affluent Communities** The community is highly educated and affluent. The median household income is $161,447, and the mean household income is $203,883\. Approximately 6.7% of residents live below the poverty line. About 3.5% of residents lack health insurance. An astonishing 55% of adults in the district hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 26.6% have a graduate degree. The district has 21,867 civilian veterans, or 2.7% of its population. **Housing Costs Are The Highest in the State and Nation** Housing costs are among the highest in the state and nation. The median home value in Senate District 10 is $1,173,400, and the median rent is $2,903\. About 54% of homes are owner-occupied, while 46% are rented. **Almost One in Three Voters is Registered With No Party Preference** As of October 20, 2025, the district had 528,830 registered voters. Democrats account for 266,312 or 50.36%, while **No Party Preference voters make up 154,831 or 29.28%**. Republicans represent 15.64%, and the remaining voters are affiliated with smaller parties, including American Independent (2.69%), Libertarian (0.68%), Peace and Freedom (0.53%), and Green (0.48%). The partisan advantage is Democratic +34.72%. The district’s registration is split between Alameda County (53.38%) and Santa Clara County (46.62%). Alameda voters favor Democrats by 40.70, while Santa Clara voters favor Democrats by 32.60. **Past Election Results** The previous version of Senate District 10 voted decisively for Democrats in recent national contests. In the 2020 presidential election, the district voted 73.26% for Joe Biden and 24.80% for Donald Trump, a Biden margin of 48.46%. In the 2024 general election, Kamala Harris received 234,182 votes (66.47%) to Donald Trump’s 102,961 (29.22%). Third-party candidates combined for just over 4% of the total, including Jill Stein (2.20%), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (1.22%), Claudia de la Cruz (0.47%), and Chase Oliver (0.42%). In the 2024 United States Senate race, Adam Schiff (Democrat) carried the district with 231,558 votes (68.79%), while Steve Garvey (Republican) received 105,061 votes (31.21%). **Incumbent Aisha Wahab Is Not Running for Re-Election in 2026** Aisha Wahab (Democrat) was elected to the California State Senate in 2022 after defeating Fremont Mayor Lily Mei in a Democrat versus Democrat top two general election. Wahab announced she will not seek re-election to the State Senate in 2026\. Instead, she is running for the open 14th Congressional District, which Representative Eric Swalwell is vacating to launch a campaign for governor. Her decision opens one of the Bay Area’s few competitive legislative seats, triggering early interest among local officeholders. **Carmen Montano** Democrat Carmen Montano, the [mayor of Milpitas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W%5FYjdeZUlcQ&ref=ivn.us), filed a statement of intention with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC ID 1402795) on July 3, 2025, becoming the first candidate to enter the Senate race. Montano announced her State Senate bid before Senator Aisha Wahab confirmed she would give up the seat to run for Congress, initially positioning herself as a challenger to the incumbent. In her announcement, Montano said, *“Our families deserve common-sense representation in Sacramento. Too much partisan politics are strangling progress in our state. We need strong leaders who can work with all legislators to find common ground and deliver solutions that truly serve our communities.”* In interviews, Montano has emphasized her belief that moderate voices are needed to bridge divides in Sacramento. *“I’m not really about the party, I’m about the people and the community,”* she told the *Oakland Tribune.* *“I feel that I could make a difference in people’s lives.”* She also said, *“People forget that they’re representing the people and not just representing the party.”* Montano brings more than 20 years of experience as an elected official to the race, having served as a Milpitas Unified School District Trustee, City Councilmember, Vice Mayor, and now Mayor. She was first elected to the Milpitas School Board in 2000, serving eight years, then to the Milpitas City Council for two nonconsecutive terms, before being elected Mayor in 2022. Montano is the [first woman to be elected mayor in Milpitas](https://milpitasbeat.com/carmen-montano-makes-history-by-becoming-first-woman-elected-as-mayor-of-milpitas/?ref=ivn.us). She won re-election in 2024 in a competitive race with a crowded field of four candidates and is now [serving her second term](https://milpitasbeat.com/continuity-and-community-mayor-carmen-montano-shares-her-second-term-plans-for-milpitas/?ref=ivn.us), which expires at the end of 2026\. Her 2024 re-election goals focused on ensuring police and fire departments are fully equipped, beautifying Milpitas, alleviating traffic congestion, attracting high-tech businesses, and revitalizing Main Street. Born February 21, 1955, Montano has lived in Milpitas since 1964\. She is a third-generation Californian whose grandparents settled in the state in the early 1920s. Her parents were farm workers who later moved from the Central Valley to the Bay Area in search of better opportunities. Her father worked at General Motors in Fremont and became a proud UAW union member. Montano’s family eventually settled in Sunnyhills, one of the first planned integrated neighborhoods in the country, an experience she says shaped her lifelong commitment to diversity and inclusion. She attended Abel and Curtner Elementary Schools, Russell Middle School, Samuel Ayer High School, and Milpitas High School. Earlier, she attended Snow Elementary in Newark, where she was named Citizen of the Year, and was an active member of St. Edward’s Parish, where she made her First Holy Communion. A semi-retired teacher with 26 years of experience, Montano continues to contract with several school districts in Santa Clara County, including Milpitas Unified School District. She holds a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from San Jose State University and a California teaching credential, which she maintains as a substitute teacher. She taught elementary and middle school students in the Franklin-McKinley School District in San Jose for more than two decades. Montano often describes her philosophy of public service through the Rotary motto “Service Above Self.” She has served on multiple city commissions, including the Parks and Recreation Commission, Library Commission, and Planning Commission, and was elected to the Milpitas School Board before transitioning to city government. She is touting her accomplishments which include attracting a [Rivian Electric Vehicle distribution center to Milpitas](https://www.milpitas.gov/Archive.aspx?ADID=1391&ref=ivn.us) and voting to approve two 100 percent affordable housing projects. Montano also supported efforts that cut the city’s five-year deficit by 43 percent. In October 2022, *The Mercury News* reported that the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) opened an investigation into a 2019 trip to China taken by then-Vice Mayor Montano. The probe centered on a $3,600 gift Montano reported receiving for an “educational and cultural exchange” and whether it complied with the state’s $520 gift cap for local officials. The complaint, filed by a Milpitas resident, alleged that the trip may have involved activities related to a trade fair rather than education. Montano said she traveled to observe new teaching strategies for her education business, Community Classrooms, and that she toured a middle school in Henan Province. The FPPC investigation remained pending at the time of the report. In 2023, former Milpitas City Manager [Steve McHarris filed a wrongful termination lawsuit](https://milpitasbeat.com/former-city-manager-steve-mcharris-versus-the-city-of-milpitas-legal-battle-continues-as-costs-escalate/?ref=ivn.us) against the city, alleging intimidation and unethical conduct by several city officials, including Mayor Montano, Vice Mayor Evelyn Chua, and former Mayor Rich Tran. The City of Milpitas has denied any wrongdoing and has spent thousands of dollars on its own internal investigation and related legal costs. In September 2025, Montano joined the Milpitas City Council in voting to approve a pay raise for the mayor and councilmembers. The increase, the first in more than a decade, will more than double council salaries but cannot take effect until after the November 2026 election under state rules. The ordinance raises council pay from about $10,800 to more than $24,000 annually, with the mayor’s salary increasing from $13,500 to about $29,000\. *“It’s long overdue,”* Montano said in an interview with the [Mercury News](https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/18/milpitas-city-council-double-pay-raise/?ref=ivn.us). *“We work hard and we address their emails and we’re out there in the community. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a labor of love.”* As a [State Senate candidate](https://www.carmenforsenate.org/?ref=ivn.us), she has pledged to emphasize public safety, affordable housing, K-12 education, job creation, and insurance reform, including proposals to allow home insurance premiums to qualify as tax deductions. She has also made modernizing mental health treatment facilities, supporting small businesses, and upholding law and order central to her campaign platform. She said she would prioritize accountability for those who commit crimes, including increased funding for Proposition 36 to expand access to substance abuse treatment, and cited smash-and-grab thefts as an ongoing public safety concern. She also emphasized balanced housing policies, improving literacy and academic outcomes, and making home insurance more affordable. *“Right now, our two-party system is broken,”* Montano said. *“Both parties are often too extreme or out of touch with everyday needs. The middle class is struggling more than ever. We need leaders willing to work in the middle to find solutions that benefit everyone.”* *“I will work every day,”* she added, *“to bring results that benefit society as a whole.”* [Montano’s](https://www.facebook.com/CarmenMontanoMilpitas/) passion for public service traces back to the early 1990s when she noticed that the Sunnyhills neighborhood, where she grew up, was not being properly maintained. She co-founded the Sunnyhills Improvement Association (now the [Sunnyhills Neighborhood Association](https://sunnyhillsneighborhood.org/?ref=ivn.us)) with community activist Bob Pecot to beautify and improve the area. Her success with that effort led to her continued involvement in city affairs and her eventual transition into teaching, which she says reflects her belief in “improving the lives of children and families.” **Scott Sakakihara** Democrat [Scott Sakakihara](https://www.electscott.com/about?ref=ivn.us), a [Union City Councilmember](https://www.unioncityca.gov/202/Mayor-City-Council?ref=ivn.us) and Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer, filed a statement of intention with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC ID 1486041) on January 13, 2026. Sakakihara was elected to the [Union City Council](https://www.unioncityca.gov/202/Mayor-City-Council?ref=ivn.us) in 2022 and represents District 4\. Before joining the council, he served on the Union City Planning Commission beginning in 2017, first as an alternate and later as a full member. He serves as the council’s representative on the [Housing Authority of Alameda County](https://www.haca.net/?ref=ivn.us), the Union City Parks and Recreation Commission, the New Haven Unified School District Joint Subcommittee, and the City of Union City Audit Subcommittee. He is an alternate representative on the Alameda County Transportation Commission, the Alameda County Waste Management Authority, and the ACWMA Programs and Administration Committee. He is a member of the [Union City Lions Club](https://www.facebook.com/UCLionsclub/) and Saint Paul United Methodist Church. In his professional life, he works as the finance chief of staff for a software company in Silicon Valley. Sakakihara grew up in Union City. He attended Pioneer Elementary, Itliong-Vera Cruz Middle School (formerly Alvarado Middle School), and James Logan High School. He spent his childhood in Union City’s public parks, took swim lessons at Logan High, and participated in community programs at Holly Center and Kennedy Center. Sakakihara met his wife, Melinda, at Pioneer Elementary School when they were six years old. Today, they live on Regents Boulevard in Union City with their two children. “My wife Melinda, a public school teacher, and I have three young children. Our two oldest attend the same public elementary school where Melinda and I first met as kids,” he said. Sakakihara credits his success to the public education system and opportunities that Union City provided. After graduating from James Logan High School, he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science with honors from the University of California, San Diego, and later graduated from Harvard Law School in 2008. After Harvard, Sakakihara interned with Congressmembers Pete Stark and Mazie Hirono and later served in the Obama White House during the administration’s fight to pass the Affordable Care Act. In 2009, he was awarded the [Japanese American Citizens League Mike M. Masaoka Fellowship](https://jacl.org/mike-masaoka-congressional-fellowship?ref=ivn.us), which placed him in Congresswoman Mazie Hirono’s Washington, D.C. office. The fellowship gave him additional opportunities for public service and legislative experience. After completing his fellowship, Sakakihara returned to California, passed the State Bar, and began working as an attorney in Silicon Valley. According to [East Bay Insider](https://eastbayinsiders.substack.com/p/june-primary-preview-a-first-draft), Sakakihara has emerged as an frontrunner in the race, due in part to his ability to self-fund. Reports indicated that he had personally committed $250,000 to launch his campaign, with speculation that he could contribute significantly more. At a recent Alameda County Democratic Party event, delegates responded favorably to Sakakihara’s remarks, though some raised concerns about his previous employment with Palantir, a technology company that has drawn criticism for its contracts with federal agencies and ties to Israel. The tension was notable because the local Democratic Party had earlier adopted a resolution describing Israel’s occupation of Gaza as genocide. Sakakihara directly addressed the issue, telling attendees that he left Palantir because of the company’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities, and devoted much of his speaking time to explaining that decision. Opponents, including Montano, later cited his Palantir background in messages to delegates ahead of the party’s pre-endorsement caucus. In 2017, he joined the [United States Navy Reserve](https://www.navyreserve.navy.mil/?ref=ivn.us), where he continues to serve as an Intelligence Officer. “I’ve served in an intelligence role in the US Navy Reserve, which included leading an intelligence team supporting special operations for eight months in the Middle East in 2021,” he said. Sakakihara is a fourth-generation Japanese American, and all four of his grandparents were incarcerated in internment camps during World War II. “Hard work and service are in my DNA,” he said. “I come from a family of farm and produce workers. All my grandparents were in Japanese American internment camps in World War II. One grandpa was given the option to join the US military, and he did, to give our family a better future after the camps.” He has said his grandparents’ experience rebuilding their lives after the war instilled in him an enduring sense of resilience, duty, and appreciation for diversity. “Even though my grandparents had to start back at the bottom after the war,” he said, “they created a better future for their families because of our diversity, opportunity, and resilience.” [In Union City,](https://scottforunioncity.com/?ref=ivn.us) Sakakihara’s priorities on the council have focused on land use, housing, and community development. His campaign for State Senate emphasizes affordability, education, public safety, and expanding opportunity for working and middle-class families. “Union City gave me everything,” Sakakihara said in announcing his campaign. “Now I want to make sure that future generations have the same chance to build a life, raise a family, and succeed here.” He has described his approach to public service as rooted in gratitude and obligation to the community that raised him. “I was made in Union City,” he said. “Everything I’ve achieved came from the opportunities this community gave me.” “I have dedicated my life to service, as a US Navy Reserve officer, Union City Councilmember, and former Vice Mayor. I love the Bay Area, where I was born and raised. And as we raise our three kids here, I feel a strong sense of duty to my family, community, and state. We can’t sit back when there are people living without shelter, neighbors who can’t pay for groceries, can’t afford to buy a home. When there are people who can’t sleep because they don’t know if they can give their kids a better life than they had. California can do better,” Sakakihara said. **Harris Mojadedi** [Harris Mojadedi](https://www.harrismojadedi.com/?ref=ivn.us), a Chabot-Las Positas Community College District Trustee and resident of Union City, also filed to run. Mojadedi was born on April 10, 1990. Mojadedi is the son of Afghan refugees who fled persecution and war during the 1980s to make a better life for their children. The youngest of five siblings, he grew up in Union City and attended Cabello Elementary, Alvarado Middle School, and James Logan High School. “Growing up in a beautifully rich and diverse city such as Union City gave me an appreciation and understanding of different people and cultures,” he said. “From an early age, my parents taught me never to take for granted our democracy and to be civically involved.” > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/CezoOxnKH2r/?ref=ivn.us) His early involvement in public service began in high school, when he was elected Student Trustee to the New Haven School Board. After graduating, Mojadedi earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from San Jose State University and a master’s degree from Saint Mary’s College. Mojadedi has worked in higher education for more than a decade, holding positions at California State University, East Bay, and the University of California, Berkeley, where he serves as Assistant Dean for Strategic Initiatives. His professional work has focused on access and inclusion in public education. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DROBFP3jv2g/?ref=ivn.us) In addition to his role as a college trustee, Mojadedi has held several local and county-level leadership positions. He serves as Chair of the Alameda County Human Relations Commission, has chaired the Union City Planning Commission, and sits on the boards of the New Haven Schools Foundation and the EDGE Youth Leadership Seminar. He also serves on the advisory board for SAVE, a local community advocacy organization. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/COcSi0whBJD/?ref=ivn.us) Mojadedi became one of the first LGBTQIA+ Muslims to hold public office in the San Francisco Bay Area when he was elected to the Chabot-Las Positas Community College District Board. “Being one of the first is an immense privilege in the sense that I get to help shape and help socialize for the elected class what an LGBTQ+ Muslim officeholder looks like,” he said in a statement shared by the district. As a Trustee, Mojadedi has supported programs that connect local schools, community colleges, and universities, with the goal of expanding access to higher education. “I believe that our community colleges can help address many of the most pressing issues of our time,” he said. “Education is the foundation of equity and progress, and I am committed to ensuring that every student has the tools and support they need to succeed.” Mojadedi’s campaign reflects his professional experience in higher education and his focus on education policy, civic engagement, and opportunity for students across the East Bay. **Linda Price** On the Republican side, Linda Price, a management trainer and small business executive, filed with the FPPC (ID 1463017) on October 20, 2025. Price was born on April 13, 1946, and lives in Sunnyvale. She holds an associate’s degree from Foothill-De Anza Community College (1974), a bachelor’s in business from the University of San Francisco (1976), and a master’s in business and management from Grambling State University (1981). She also earned a teaching credential in secondary education from UCSC-Berkeley. Price serves as vocational service director for [Rotary International District 5170](https://www.rotarydistrict5170.org/?ref=ivn.us), has taught at eight different colleges, and is the CEO of Professional Dynamics, a management training firm. She previously ran unsuccessfully for the Fremont Union High School District Board in 2022, [placing fourth](https://ballotpedia.org/Linda%5FPrice?ref=ivn.us) in a five-candidate race. The district’s open-seat dynamics will test whether independent and nonpartisan voters, who make up nearly 3 in 10 registrants, continue to exert influence in one of the most diverse and economically pivotal regions of California. **Paul Fong** Former South Bay Assemblymember Paul Fong was [mentioned as a possible candidate](https://eastbayinsiders.substack.com/p/june-primary-preview-a-first-draft) in the East Bay Insiders Newsletter, but has not officially filed. **About the 2026 California Nonpartisan Top Two Primary** The last day to register to vote for the June 2 Top Two primary is May 18, 2026\. All active registered voters in California will receive a vote-by-mail ballot for the primary. County election offices will begin mailing ballots by May 4\. Ballot drop-off locations open on May 5. Vote-by-mail ballots can be returned by mail, at a drop-off location, or to a county elections office. Vote centers open for early in-person voting in all Voter’s Choice Act counties beginning on May 23\. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by June 9. Source Notes: This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, CalMatters, the California Target Book, Ballotpedia, California FPPC campaign finance filings, individual candidate websites and social media accounts, and reporting from local and regional newspapers and television stations. ### For California Candidates Courting Independent Voters, These Reforms Could Win A Lot of Votes URL: https://ivn.us/california-candidates-courting-independent-voters-these-3-reforms-could-win-lot-votes-2026-01/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:19:35.000Z **SAN DIEGO, Calif.** \- California independent voters are not a monolith. They exist across the political spectrum and hold diverse opinions on a variety of social and political issues. But one thing that unites them is a shared belief that California needs more choice elections. Last week, the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) released the results of the largest poll to ever survey California independent voters, who are registered No Party Preference in the state. More than 1,700 independents participated. [NEW POLL: California Governor’s Race Sees “None of the Above” Beat the Entire Democratic FieldIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/IVP-California-Governor-Poll-2020-.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12) The results show clear and overwhelming majorities support more choice in elections, want to keep a system that protects their right to an equal vote, and want limits on corporate and foreign spending in elections. Support for these types of reforms could give California candidates the edge they need with independent voters to win the state's biggest and most competitive races, including the [competitive 2026 gubernatorial Top Two primary election](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-governor-race-democratic-nightmare-theres-one-easy-fix-2025-12-05). Independent voters will decide the future of California's political landscape. Here are 3 reforms, in particular, that were surveyed: **1\. A campaign finance initiative that limits money spent by corporations and foreign interests to influence California elections.** Nearly all respondents, 91%, said “Yes,” while only 2% said “No,” indicating a slam dunk reform for any campaign that wants to pursue it. California [already has limits](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes%5FdisplayText.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&division=&title=9.&part=&chapter=5.&article=3.&ref=ivn.us) on foreign spending in elections, but independent voters would also like to see more limits on corporate spending. ![California independent voters limit corporate spending in elections.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/california-independent-voters-corporate-election-spending_0.jpeg) **2\. A nonpartisan Top Five (or Final Five) election system**, which expands on the state’s Top Two System by advancing 5 candidates to the general election and uses ranked choice voting to determine a majority winner. 52.5% of statewide respondents said “Yes” to this reform, while roughly 21% said “No.” Notably, IVP has surveyed voters in [San Diego](https://ivn.us/posts/san-diego-candidates-come-out-support-more-choice-voting-reform-2024-09-13) and [Chula Vista](https://ivn.us/posts/chula-vista-voters-want-more-choice-will-city-council-listen-2025-05-14) and found that two-thirds of voters in this region would support an initiative that adopts these reforms. When IVP surveyed Los Angeles County independents, specifically, in the most recent poll, the number of independent voters who support more choice also exceeds 60%. **3\. Keeping a primary system in which all voters and candidates participate on a single primary ballot**, ensuring equal choice and inclusion for all eligible and registered Californians. This ensures equal voting rights for independent voters, who make up more than a quarter of the state's electorate. 74% of statewide independent respondents said, “Keep the current system.” Only 14% said California should return to a closed primary system. Needless to say, any attempt by the Democratic and Republican Parties to return to the old closed partisan primary system that locks out independent voters -- which party insiders want to do -- or support for these efforts is guaranteed to alienate independent Californians to the determinant of a campaign. ![California independent voters support Top Two primary. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/california-independent-voters-top-two-primary_0.jpeg) ## **U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman Supports Bigger Government Role in Suppressing Voter Choice** U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, who is running for governor in South Carolina, [supports his state moving to a closed primary system](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rep-ralph-norman-calls-for-closed-primaries-in-south-carolina/ar-AA1UjjiL?ref=ivn.us), relying on the familiar partisan argument that Democrats are infiltrating GOP primaries to weaken the party. Yet, when parties have tried to make the case of "sabotage" from opposing party members, whether Democrats in Hawaii or Republicans in Texas, they have failed to provide sufficient evidence that this actually happens. [Will the Texas Republican Party be Successful Where the Hawaiian Democratic Party Failed?IVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/texas-gop-hawaii-dems-closed-primaries.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/will-texas-republican-party-be-successful-where-hawaiian-democratic-party-failed-2025-09-05) Norman encourages the Republican-controlled legislature to pass House Bill 3310, which not only restricts access to taxpayer-funded primary elections to party members, but expands the government's authority to register and track a person's political activity by forcing them to join a party. It then will use this new registration model to suppress the voice of independent voters. A closed primary system would create two tiers of voters registered in South Carolina – those who can vote in primaries and those who can’t. "We can't have those on the opposite party stopping people from being elected, and we've got to put a stop to that," Norman said. “Putting a stop to it” suggests this happens in South Carolina, but current Republican Gov. Gov. Henry McMaster has previously opposed closing the state’s primaries because he says this alleged scheme, also called “party raiding.” is a myth. [SC Governor Rejects Calls to Close Primaries; Squashes Claims of 'Party Raiding'IVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/40759235220_e7ae6c9d56_k.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/sc-governor-rejects-calls-close-primaries-squashes-claims-party-raiding) “If they want to vote in a primary it’s because they want to go in and vote for somebody,” [McMaster said](https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article285690876.html?ref=ivn.us). > *That has been a great strength of South Carolina. If you close those primaries, that’s just one more thing that everybody has to register for or maybe carry a card. We think an inviting party is better. Our history has proven that it has worked and that’s how we became the majority party.”* Research also supports McMaster on this issue. John Johnson at the Marquette University Law School [found in 2019](https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2019/02/do-primary-voters-strategically-vote-in-the-oppositions-primary/?ref=ivn.us) that in Wisconsin, which also conducts open partisan primaries, "there is no evidence that \[party raiding\] occurs at all," despite some officials in both parties encouraging it. In fact, Johnson’s research found that in the extremely rare instances when a voter casts a ballot in a different party’s primary than the previous election, it is because they want to vote for a candidate – not sabotage or weaken a party. Political scientists in California also came to the same conclusion, reporting that if "crossover" voting happens in primaries, it usually accounts for 1-2% of a state's electorate, and these voters are solely motivated by a desire to vote for a candidate. Again, voters want choice. They do not think or scheme like partisans. They want candidates they can say they voted for rather than pick as the “lesser evil.” Yet, both parties have used the “party raiding” argument as an excuse to give their leaders and aligned-special interest groups outsized influence over election outcomes, and not just primaries, but general elections that are effectively already decided before November. The first committee hearing on the South Carolina closed primary bill and other related bills was held on Wednesday. It is reported that the state GOP is “at war” over the issue, with opponents not wanting to deny independent voters access to primary elections. ## Some Tennessee Lawmakers Also Want to Force Party Affiliation on Voters In Tennessee,[ House Bill 1159](https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/default.aspx?BillNumber=HB1159&GA=114&ref=ivn.us) in the state legislature is being considered, which requires voters to register with a political party in order to vote. State law already makes it a misdemeanor to vote in a party’s primary unless the voter is a “bona fide” party member. Yet, the law does not clearly define what is required of a person to be a “bona fide” member of a party, leading to confusion at the polls when voters see signs threatening them with prosecution if the party does not like them voting in their primary. Current Tennessee law doesn't make sense. It is technically an open primary state. Voters don’t have to register with a political party to vote in primary elections, but the 2023 law requiring voter allegiance has led to widespread instances of voter intimidation to keep them from voting. In August 2024, a federal judge[ dismissed a lawsuit](https://ivn.us/posts/federal-judge-dismisses-lawsuit-challenging-tenn-law-kept-voters-voting-primaries-2024-08-20) challenging the law. "After being targeted for voting in a primary for someone I've known since childhood, I feel strongly that this law is simply meant to intimidate voters and suppress the vote in Tennessee," said plaintiff Gabe Hart. > *I was told directly by my local D.A. that I should be concerned about being prosecuted; I was called a felon by a local elected official; and I was otherwise worried about both voting and speaking my mind because of this law."* Once again, it is a misdemeanor, not a felony. However, in states with partisan primary systems, independents often have difficulty voting in primaries or are treated like criminals – even in states where it is legal for them to vote in the primaries. Other plaintiffs shared similar stories. The judge in the case said these voters didn’t have standing to bring the lawsuit, and even if they did, state officials have "sovereign immunity,” which protects state officials from lawsuits that do not have their consent. HB 1159 would officially make Tennessee a closed primary state. Shannon Rasmussen, a veteran and independent representing the better elections group Open Primaries, says it's the easy button for state lawmakers who have long tried to shut out independents. “They have historically failed in the past (to pass closed primaries) and we will keep showing up for committees and testifying against them so that this one will do the same,” Rasmussen said. ## **Indiana Senate Advances RCV Ban that Decides for Voters What They Can and Cannot Understand** The Indiana Senate this week [passed a ban on ranked choice voting](https://www.swoknews.com/ap/national/indiana-senate-advances-ban-on-ranked-choice-voting/article%5F4c094590-b5f5-5aa6-ad8f-4b0fd76f7d9d.html?ref=ivn.us), advancing the legislation to the state House. If signed into law, Indiana (RCV) would become the 18th state in the last few years to ban the voting reform. And yet, no jurisdiction in Indiana has tried to use RCV. The bill’s author, State Sen. Blake Doriot, cited the 2022 special election in Alaska to illustrate why RCV “is not clear, it’s confusing, and it needs to be banned.” He noted that despite the Republican starting out with more votes, he ended up losing. The election he is referring to was a 3-way contest between ***current*** U.S. Rep Nick Begich, former Gov. Sarah Palin (two Republicans), and Democrat Amy Peltola. Peltola ended up winning because she got more second-choice support from Palin’s voters. In Doriot’s mind, his fellow Republican should have won, so RCV is bad, and yet Begich won in the next election cycle under RCV in another competitive election. RCV allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, etc.) If no candidate gets a majority of first-choice selections, then an instant runoff kicks in that eliminates the last place candidate and applies their voters’ next choice to the tabulation. Subsequent runoff rounds are held, if needed, until a single candidate has a majority. Doriot argues that people “should be able to understand how winners are chosen without needing a math lesson.” The only thing RCV requires of voters (and doesn’t even require it) is that they rank their options on the ballot like they would rank their favorite foods. Exit polling in jurisdictions that use RCV consistently find that most voters don’t see the confusion, they don’t struggle with their ballots, and they want to keep using RCV – but Indiana may ban it before voters even get a chance to understand it. RCV is not currently used anywhere in the state, so there is no reason for voters or public officials to give it much thought. Yet, Doriot and other RCV opponents are deciding for voters what they can and cannot comprehend. “When the legislature decides something is difficult or ‘hard to learn,’ it is ‘disparaging the ability of Hoosiers to understand complex things,’ said Democratic State Sen. Andrea Hunley. “We learned how to play Euchre for goodness sake.” It is an interesting example, but the [rules of Euchre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euchre?ref=ivn.us) are far more complex than understanding RCV. Hunley said she is not necessarily an RCV supporter, but she tried to get an amendment to the bill passed that would form a committee to study the impact of the reform. ## **Quick Takeaways** - President Donald Trump is [railing against “rigged elections" again](https://www.inquisitr.com/donald-trump-blasts-rigged-elections-again-demands-voter-id-nationwide?ref=ivn.us#deny), raising the topic of nationwide voter ID in response to Minnesota fraud investigations. While the fraud being investigated has nothing to do with elections, Minnesota is 1 of 13 states that does not require photo ID when voting. This also coincides with a California voter ID initiative, which looks likely to appear on the November ballot. The question is, will California Republicans lean on Trump to support the initiative? - Speaking of the California voter ID initiative, Reform California [announced this week](https://www.reformcalifornia.org/news/reform-california-launches-26-in-2026-campaign-to-win-seats-and-pass-voter-id?ref=ivn.us) that it will tie its proposed voter ID initiative with a grassroots effort to pick up 26 legislative seats for the Republican Party, a risky proposition as it connects an otherwise popular nonpartisan reform with partisan gain. “We’re done lighting money on fire with TV ads that voters ignore. If we want to win in California, we have to out-organize, out-work, and out-turnout the Left,” said Reform California chair and Assemblymember Carl DeMaio. DeMaio should announce in the next couple of weeks if the voter ID initiative has hit its final signature goal. - The Maryland redistricting commission created by Gov. Wes Moore [approved a new congressional map](https://www.wbaltv.com/article/state-redistricting-commission-passes-new-map-what-next/70067443?ref=ivn.us) that strengthens the Democratic Party’s odds of picking up all 8 of the state’s districts (they currently hold 7 out of 8). Republicans make up nearly a quarter of the electorate, but this will also impact the 23% of the electorate registered as independents, since they are locked out of the primaries, which are the most critical elections under gerrymandered maps. ### Everyone’s WRONG About ICE: Debunking the Red/Blue Narrative URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/everyones-wrong-about-ice-debunking-redblue-narrative-2026-01-22/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:42:51.000Z A viral question - “Has ICE gone too far?” - turns into a deep dive on immigration enforcement after the Minneapolis shooting of Renee Nicole Good. The team weighs conflicting video narratives, what voters actually want ICE to prioritize, and reports of would-be citizens being turned away at naturalization ceremonies. Separate from this conversation, political strategist and writer Gregory Graf joins the Independent Voter Podcast to break down Idaho’s semi-closed primaries, rising outside PAC money, and the growing split inside the GOP. The hosts explore why open/nonpartisan primaries (and where ranked-choice fits) could change incentives - and how “aggressive civility” might lower the political temperature. **Listen to this episode and more from Independent Voter Project on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn.us) **and** [**Apple Music**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### Gavin Newsom, Ben Shapiro, and Donald Trump Finally Agree on a Major Voting Rights Issue URL: https://ivn.us/gavin-newsom-ben-shapiro-and-donald-trump-finally-agree-major-voting-rights-issue-2026-01-20/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:19:36.000Z If you asked Gavin Newsom, Ben Shapiro, or Donald Trump whether they put voters first, all three would say yes. They would say it confidently. They would say it sincerely. But they aren’t being honest with themselves, or you. [Democrats Drive Out Anti-Trump Base to Propel Proposition 50 to VictoryIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/newsom-vs-trump.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/democrats-drive-out-anti-trump-base-propel-proposition-50-victory-2025-11-04) As a perfect example, Shapiro appeared on California governor Newsom’s podcast, and the expectation was that there would be conflict. An anti-Trump Democratic governor and one of the country’s most influential conservative commentators, supposedly, don’t agree on much… But they did on one of the most important issues related to representation itself. When the conversation came to gerrymandering, both Newsom and Shapiro agreed that allowing political parties to diminish the voting power of voters who don’t join their party is an acceptable thing to do. That’s the definition of putting a party before “We the People” of this country. This is a “just join the party” view of the government that is more associated with countries like China and North Korea than the United States of America. Newsom and Shapiro openly acknowledge that gerrymandering is a legitimate political strategy. One side does it, so the other side has to do it too. To refuse would be naïve. To stop would be unilateral disarmament. Shapiro goes further, arguing that gerrymandering is not election rigging at all. It is simply how politics has always worked. Newsom does not push back. He accepts the premise. ## **When honesty exposes the problem** There is something refreshing about the candor. No pretending this is about fairness. No claim that voters are being empowered. Just a clear admission that drawing districts to secure power is normal, expected, and necessary. But honesty without accountability is not courage. It is a confession without consequence. Because what Newsom and Shapiro are really agreeing on is this: *party power matters more than voter choice.* Donald Trump has said the same thing in different ways. Sometimes bluntly. Sometimes recklessly. He pressures officials, undermines trust in elections, and openly treats the system as something to be bent to maintain advantage. Democrats condemn him for it, often rightly. [Don’t Blame Trump for Playing the Gerrymandering Game So LoudlyIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/president.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/dont-blame-trump-playing-gerrymandering-game-so-loudly-2025-08-08) Yet when Democrats manipulate district lines to lock in power, it is suddenly described as pragmatism. Strategy. Playing the game the right way. Ben Shapiro criticizes Trump for delegitimizing elections, again often rightly. But in the same breath, he shrugs off gerrymandering as a perfectly acceptable tool to ensure the “right” outcomes. Different styles. Same result. ## **What voters actually think** Here is where the political class and the public sharply diverge. Recent, credible national polling shows that **voters across parties strongly oppose partisan control over redistricting and want a fundamentally different system**. According to [a *Common Cause*–commissioned national poll](https://www.commoncause.org/pennsylvania/press/poll-shows-americans-support-independent-commissions-for-redistricting/?ref=ivn.us) of more than 2,000 registered voters: - **77% of Americans support independent commissions made up of citizens, not politicians, to draw district lines.** - **60% of Americans oppose partisan mid-decade redistricting.** - **Majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike say it is bad for the country when one party controls how voting districts are drawn.** - Even among 2024 Donald Trump voters, **60% support Congressional action to stop partisan redistricting.** This isn’t marginal or hyper-partisan sentiment. It’s broad public consensus that the current system of political mapmaking is not working. [NEW POLL: California Governor’s Race Sees “None of the Above” Beat the Entire Democratic FieldIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/IVP-California-Governor-Poll-2020-.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12) ## **Power first, voters second** Gerrymandering is not an abstract process. It has very real consequences. It creates safe seats. Safe seats eliminate competition. Eliminated competition rewards ideological extremes. Candidates no longer need to persuade broad electorates. They only need to survive primaries or please party leadership. Accountability disappears. Polarization accelerates. Then those same leaders go on podcasts, television shows, and panels to complain that politics has become too partisan. This is not complicated. You cannot complain about polarization while defending the system that guarantees it. You cannot claim to support voting rights while endorsing maps designed to predetermine outcomes. You cannot put party first and still pretend voters come first. ## **Why independents are not surprised** Independent voters see this clearly because they live with it every election cycle. They are the fastest-growing segment of the electorate and the least represented. Gerrymandered districts are not drawn for them. They are drawn to protect party bases, punish competition, and minimize uncertainty. [Gallup: Independent Voters Break Another Record in 2025IVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/ChatGPT-Image-Jan-12--2026--03_09_56-PM.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/gallup-independent-voters-break-another-record-2025-2026-01-12) From the voter’s perspective, the effect is the same regardless of ideology. Their choices are constrained before they ever cast a ballot. The district is engineered upstream. The winner is often decided long before Election Day. That reality is why so many voters disengage. Not because they are apathetic, but because they are rational. ## **The irony no one wants to confront** The irony of the Newsom–Shapiro moment is not that they agree. It is that they agree while claiming to oppose the very outcomes their agreement guarantees. They recognize that politics feels broken. They acknowledge that trust is eroding. They lament extreme partisanship. And then they defend the mechanism that causes all of it. This is the core problem in American politics today. Not left versus right. Not red versus blue. It is a shared incentive structure that rewards control over consent. ## **What real reform would require** If leaders are willing to admit that gerrymandering works, the next step should be unavoidable. - **Independent redistricting commissions with real authority** - **Competitive districts that force broad appeal** - **Electoral systems that reward persuasion rather than power retention** Those reforms would weaken parties and strengthen voters. Which is precisely why they remain so rare. Instead, voters are offered resignation disguised as realism: *This is just how politics works. This is the price of winning. This is unavoidable.* It is not unavoidable. It is a choice. And when figures as different as Gavin Newsom, Ben Shapiro, and Donald Trump all make the same choice, voters should pay attention. Because when everyone in power agrees, it is usually not the voters who benefit. ### Leticia Castillo Doesn’t Fit California’s Political Boxes, and Neither Does Her District URL: https://ivn.us/leticia-castillo-doesnt-fit-californias-political-boxes-and-neither-does-her-district-2026-01/ Last updated: 2026-01-19T19:12:06.000Z The new [58th Assembly District](https://www.assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers/58?ref=ivn.us), previously AD60 before California’s 2021 redistricting, is considered the birthplace of California’s citrus industry. In 1873, two Washington navel orange trees sent by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and planted by Riverside resident Eliza Tibbets proved that Southern California could grow fruit delicious and sweet enough to ship across the country. AD 58 includes the entire cities of [Jurupa Valley](https://www.jurupavalley.org/?ref=ivn.us) and [Grand Terrace](https://www.grandterrace-ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us), as well as portions of the cities of [Corona](https://www.coronaca.gov/?ref=ivn.us), [Eastvale](https://www.eastvaleca.gov/?ref=ivn.us), and [Riverside](https://riversideca.gov/?ref=ivn.us). It includes the [The Mission Inn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKA1p3fugfA&ref=ivn.us), a grand hotel that has hosted ten presidents, and [Mount Rubidoux Memorial Park](https://riversideca.gov/park%5Frec/facilities-parks/mt-rubidoux?ref=ivn.us). According to the [*California Target Book*](https://californiatargetbook.com/?ref=ivn.us), the district was redrawn as a Voting Rights Act-compliant seat anchored in northwest Riverside County. Once a safely Democratic seat, it has become one of the most competitive districts in Southern California, with independent voters now holding significant sway. As of October 20, 2025, voter registration data show that nearly all of Assembly District 58’s voters — 97% — live in Riverside County, with the remaining 3% in San Bernardino County. The *Press-Enterprise* reported that Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate in two decades to win both Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The paper noted that Trump's 2024 performance was driven by Latino voters who shifted toward the GOP, but that recent polling indicates that support has since cooled. The 2023 U.S. Census American Community Survey reported a population of 498,471, with 62.6% Latino, 22.1% White, 7.5% Asian, and 4.9% Black residents. The median household income is $90,566, and the median home value is $541,500. Nearly sixty percent of the district's homes are owner-occupied, while 56,644 homes, or 40.4%, are renter-occupied. This is a region where rising housing costs continue to shape family stability and opportunity. About 25.6% of residents are foreign-born, and 11.6% are non-citizens. Voter registration data from October 2025 show 267,872 registered voters, including 111,076 Democrats (41.47%), 74,937 Republicans (27.97%), and 60,771 No Party Preference voters (22.69%), resulting in an overall Democratic advantage of 13.5 percentage points. Historically, the region leans blue. In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden carried the old district by 9.65 points, while Democrats held a 10.7-point registration edge. Yet, by 2024, Kamala Harris carried the district by only four points. In the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Adam Schiff edged Republican Steve Garvey 51.7% to 48.3%. In the 2022 governor's race, Gavin Newsom defeated Republican Brian Dahle by just 2.8%, down from a 14-point margin four years earlier. ### **2024 Election: A Razor-Thin Republican Flip** [Republican Leticia Castillo](https://ad58.asmrc.org/biography/?ref=ivn.us), a psychotherapist from Corona, narrowly defeated [Democrat Clarissa Cervantes](https://www.riversideca.gov/council/wards/ward-2?ref=ivn.us), a Riverside City Council member, [by 596 votes](https://ballotpedia.org/Leticia%5FCastillo?ref=ivn.us) to win the 58th Assembly District in November 2024\. The *Press-Enterprise* described the race as California’s closest legislative contest that year. During the March 2024 Top Two nonpartisan primary, Castillo led with 48.6% of the vote. Cervantes secured second place with 25.9%, narrowly edging fellow Democrat Ronaldo Fierro by just 199 votes. *CalMatters* and the *Press-Enterprise* reported that over $2 million was spent in the primary, much of it in independent expenditures attacking Clarissa Cervantes over her history of DUI arrests. Despite being heavily outspent in the general election, the GOP’s Castillo prevailed. Financial disclosures showed Cervantes raising over $1 million compared with Castillo’s $78,000. After her victory, Castillo posted on X, “To the voters, thank you for placing your faith and trust in me. I will work tirelessly in Sacramento for the people, striving to improve the lives of my constituents and all Californians.” The *Press-Enterprise* editorial board, which endorsed Castillo in September 2024, praised her “back-to-basics approach” and willingness to “stand up to special interests in Sacramento and against the excesses of the supermajority.” ### **The 2026 Campaign is In Full Swing** The *Press-Enterprise* and *California Target Book* note that AD58 is one of several Inland Empire districts expected to be highly competitive in 2026\. The paper cited Target Book publisher Marva Diaz saying, “Anything that had a very close margin in 2024 should be up for grabs right now.” The incumbent Castillo enters 2026 with strong GOP support and considerably more money than she had in 2024\. Clarissa Cervantes is seeking a rematch, with significant backing from organized labor and progressive groups. [Francis “Paco” Licea](https://www.pacotherealtor.com/?ref=ivn.us) is running as an additional Democratic challenger in the Top 2 nonpartisan primary. According to mid-year filings, Castillo had raised $341,000 and held $279,616 cash on hand by June 30, 2025, while Cervantes and Licea reported $49,545 and $44,553, respectively. The outcome may hinge on independent voters, who now make up nearly a quarter of the electorate. For both parties, their ability to appeal to those voters will determine whether AD58 remains the GOP’s only foothold in western Riverside County or reverts to Democratic control. ### **Assemblymember Leticia Castillo (R–Corona)** [Incumbent Leticia Castillo](https://www.assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers/58?ref=ivn.us) (b. April 27, 1971) grew up in Home Gardens, the youngest of six children of Mexican immigrants. Her father worked as a farm laborer, and she says he instilled in her a belief in hard work, faith, and the American Dream. After graduating from Buena Vista Vocational Educational High School and completing a cosmetology program at Corona College of Cosmetology, she worked at GTE/Verizon for 14 years. She later earned a bachelor’s degree in human services from the University of Phoenix and a master’s degree in counseling psychology from National University. Castillo worked for Riverside County’s Department of Mental Health before opening a private therapy practice. [*CalMatters*](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/leticia-castillo-187479?ref=ivn.us) reported that Castillo introduced 18 bills in the 2025 session: four failed, and fourteen remain pending. Among them is California Assembly Joint Resolution 24, dealing with enhanced premium tax credits and health savings accounts. She also co-authored AB 1382, the [Ethics Over Aesthetics Act](https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1382/id/3219914?ref=ivn.us), which [she discussed](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/278404?t=2417&f=8924c1f221aa505c09b8dda4ce54f007&ref=ivn.us) during a January 2026 committee hearing. Castillo currently serves as vice chair of the Assembly Human Services Committee and the Assembly Economic Development, Growth, and Household Impact Committee. She also serves on the Communications and Conveyance, Education, and Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committees. In July 2025, the *Colton Courier* reported that Castillo joined Republican and Democratic lawmakers in signing [a letter urging President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune to expedite work permits for undocumented essential workers, including farm laborers](https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/07/trump-immigration-state-sen-ochoa/?ref=ivn.us). That same month, she told the *Orange County Register*, “As a daughter of legal immigrants, I support humane and fair immigration practices, and public safety must remain a top priority.” In January 2025, *CalMatters* reported that [Castillo, speaking in Spanish, called for Governor Gavin Newsom’s resignation if he failed to call a special session on wildfires](https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2025/01/la-fires-california-legislature-bills/?ref=ivn.us). She has since continued to emphasize affordability, housing, and economic issues affecting families. *Following Newsom’s 2026 State of the State Address, Castillo said, “All Californians are looking for real solutions to lower their cost of living, address homelessness, and make homeownership a possibility for working families.”* Castillo co-authored Assembly GOP Leader James Gallagher’s resolution calling for a 51st state. ### **Clarissa Cervantes (D–Riverside)** [Clarissa Cervantes](https://www.riversideca.gov/council/wards/ward-2?ref=ivn.us) (b. Oct. 12, 1990) represents Ward 2 on the [Riverside City Council](https://www.riversideca.gov/council?ref=ivn.us) and is running again for the Assembly in 2026 after losing to Castillo in 2024. A lifelong Riverside County resident, she previously worked for Councilmember Andy Melendrez and for SEIU 121RN. She earned a bachelor’s in political science from CSU Northridge and a master’s in urban and regional planning from Cal Poly Pomona. According to her official City of Riverside biography, Cervantes has focused on empowering working families, fighting for social justice, and promoting civic engagement. She became the first woman, second Latina, and second openly LGBTQ+ individual elected to represent Ward 2 when she was sworn in in 2021. As reported by the *Press-Enterprise*, Cervantes has recently drawn attention for several high-profile City Council votes. She opposed an ordinance banning homeless encampments near schools and shelters, arguing, “We should do more, and that is our responsibility as public servants… to take care of each other.” She also voted against a 347-unit apartment project in 2024 and in favor of a $20 million state-funded motel conversion for homeless housing in 2025. The *Press-Enterprise* reported she supported new council meeting rules expanding oversight of debate time and public comment. The *Inland Valley Daily Bulletin* detailed her resolution requiring federal agents to identify themselves during operations, which she said was about “protecting our neighborhoods” and ensuring transparency. Cervantes has faced repeated scrutiny over her personal record. *CBS Los Angeles* reported that she was arrested in July 2023 for driving under the influence, her second DUI in less than ten years. She pleaded guilty in August 2023, receiving three years of probation after being stopped while driving 101 mph with a blood alcohol content of 0.19\. Forty-two days earlier, she had her 2014 DUI conviction dismissed after telling a judge she would never repeat the offense. Following her arrest, she completed rehab and said she was more than seven months sober, writing in a campaign mailer, “While we are not defined by our mistakes, I’ve come to terms with mine and am grateful they’ve led me to a path of personal recovery.” Her past convictions were highlighted in campaign ads and mailers, including one from a Mothers Against Drunk Driving board member urging voters not to give her “a third chance.” *CalMatters* reported that Cervantes’ campaign was under investigation by the Fair Political Practices Commission in 2024. The *Inland Valley Daily Bulletin* editorial board wrote in November 2023 that her campaign account included posts “suggesting Israel’s responses to Hamas terrorism is an act of genocide.” Her endorsements include the California Federation of Teachers, SEIU, UA Local 250, the California LGBTQ+ Legislative Caucus, and state legislators such as Senators Eloise Gómez Reyes, Bob Archuleta, and Sabrina Cervantes. She has also received support from civil rights icon Dolores Huerta. In March 2025, *City News Service* reported that Cervantes dropped a nearly three-year-old libel lawsuit against Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. That same month, the *Coachella Valley Independent* profiled her participation in the International Women’s Day Rally, where she spoke about civil rights and her family’s activism. *“People have always been at the core of moving and changing history,” she said. “History will repeat itself if we do not intervene to change its course.”* ### **Francisco "Paco" Licea (D–Jurupa Valley)** [Francisco “Paco” Licea Jr.](https://www.votepaco.com/about?ref=ivn.us) (b. June 2, 1976) is a [realtor](http://pacotherealtor.com/?ref=ivn.us), small business owner, and first-time candidate born and raised in the Inland Empire. Licea’s campaign bio says, “he learned about hard work at a young age, watching his father work in the Vineyards and as a restaurant chef to make ends meet for his family. Paco started working at a young age, picking grapes, painting homes, and flipping burgers at McDonald’s to help his family.” He received Pell Grants and became the first in his family to attend college, working multiple jobs to pay his way. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from Cal Poly Pomona. He serves as a director for the Inland Valley Association of Realtors and sits on its housing committee. In an interview with the *San Bernardino Sun* last April, Licea said he entered the race to confront the Inland Empire’s affordability crisis. *“If you make $100,000 a year, you struggle to survive in our area, let alone buy a house,” he said. “We have a supply issue. We just don’t build enough.”* Licea, the son of Mexican immigrants, said he lost his home and business during the 2008 recession. “It taught me what it takes to run a business and what people deal with every day in our district,” he told the *Sun*. His campaign emphasizes deregulation, small business growth, and reducing barriers to homeownership. Licea hosts a housing-focused [podcast](http://pacotherealtor.com/podcast?ref=ivn.us) and [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqXU5TENsw3XWqw0L2nPDLg?ref=ivn.us) under his professional moniker, Paco The Realtor. He has been a member of the Riverside County D.A. fraud task force and a board member for the City of Riverside Library Foundation. He is a father, a volunteer coach for soccer and track and field, and the driver for his daughter and her mariachi band across Southern California. According to his campaign website, “Paco is running for State Assembly because he believes that Inland Empire families today are being left behind due to California’s affordability crisis. In Sacramento, he’ll fight every day to build more affordable housing, address the homelessness crisis, improve public safety, and create better-paying jobs so that every family has a fair shot at success.” ### **Sources** *Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA); San Bernardino Sun; Inland Valley Daily Bulletin; CalMatters; Orange County Register; Colton Courier; CBS Los Angeles; City News Service; Coachella Valley Independent; California Target Book; U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (2023).* ### Joe Manchin is Furious as West Virginia Denies Independents a Vote — Again URL: https://ivn.us/joe-manchin-furious-west-virginia-denies-independents-vote-again-2026-01-16/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:06:25.000Z The Republican Party of West Virginia has elected to keep its primary elections closed to party members only, despite these elections being paid for by taxpayers and are the most critical stage of the public elections process. During [last weekend’s GOP Winter Meeting](https://wvmetronews.com/2026/01/11/gop-keeps-independents-locked-out/?ref=ivn.us), the party had an opportunity to re-open its primary elections after [it decided in 2024](https://ivn.us/posts/west-virginia-gop-officials-insult-independent-voters-vote-close-primaries) to bar independent voters from participating. At the time, Republican Delegate John Overington said: “I think we would welcome those people to become registered Republicans. There’s no reason that if they believe in our platform and they believe in what we stand for why they shouldn’t be Republicans.” Basically, it another way of saying what political parties have long argued – if you want an equal vote, join a party. Yet there is no evidence that every independent voter who previously chose a Republican ballot believed in the entire party platform. However, Republicans [hold most elected seats in the state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West%5FVirginia%5FLegislature?ref=ivn.us), so the GOP primaries are the most critical elections. Republicans hold 91% of state House seats. They hold all but 2 state Senate seats. It may seem like Republicans make up a majority of registered voters. But they don’t. They make up a plurality (42%), but registered independents make up a quarter of the electorate. Among these independent voters is former U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, who previously served in Congress as a Democrat but changed his affiliation to independent. In 2025, he spoke out frequently for nonpartisan primary reform, [from appearing on Bill Maher to CNN](https://ivn.us/posts/joe-manchin-taxpayer-funded-primaries-theyre-locking-us-out-2025-10-17). "You have a Democrat and a Republican business -- it's billions and billions of dollars," he said on Bill Maher. > *They close it down. They control the primaries. They can basically control who you are voting for."* He added: "We have to change the system to allow people to truly choose who they want." Keeping primary elections closed to party members gives the leaders of a single party and special interests aligned with outsized influence over election outcomes, allows them to weaponize elections against their members to keep them in line, and denies independent voters equal voting rights and meaningful representation. ## **Why Are Oregon State Officials Misleading Voters on Two Open Primaries Initiatives?** Oregon will vote on two ballot initiatives in November, one that would change the state constitution to make it illegal to conduct taxpayer-funded closed primaries, and the other changes state law to open primaries to the state’s 1.1 million registered independent voters. Both initiatives have cleared the verification stage to collect petition signatures for ballot certification and have plenty of support among voters. The problem? Voters may get confused when they go to the ballot box because of misleading ballot language. The [ballot title](https://egov.sos.state.or.us/elec/web%5Firr%5Fsearch.record%5Fdetail?p%5Freference=20260055..LSCYYYHELT&ref=ivn.us) for the constitutional amendment drafted by the Oregon Department of Justice’s attorney says, “Amends Constitution: Changes general election nomination processes for most partisan offices: single primary ballot; top two advance.” [The title](https://egov.sos.state.or.us/elec/web%5Firr%5Fsearch.record%5Fdetail?p%5Freference=20260056..LSCYYYHELT&ref=ivn.us) for the change to primary law says ““Changes general election nomination processes for most partisan offices: single primary ballot; top two advance.” Neither one states the purpose of its initiative, which is to open the state’s primary elections to more than a million voters who are registered independent of a political party and cannot participate in these taxpayer-funded elections because of the state’s closed primary system. This has [raised objections](https://sos.oregon.gov/admin/Documents/irr/2026/055cmts.pdf?ref=ivn.us) from many in Oregon, including 3 former governors, 2 former secretaries of state (the state’s chief elections office), the statewide chamber of commerce, and independent reform advocates. The former governors who have objected to this language are Barbara Roberts, Ted Kulongoski, and Kate Brown. Oregon Live [reports](https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2026/01/flawed-inaccurate-biased-influential-oregonians-say-states-lawyers-wrote-shoddy-explanations-for-proposed-ballot-measure.html?ref=ivn.us): > *Beyond omitting the measures’ central effect, the various objectors wrote, the wording is ‘flawed,’ ‘reflects … a misunderstanding’ of the measures, is full of inaccuracies, ‘biased against the measure’ and ‘must be amended.’”* The proposed constitutional amendment makes closed taxpayer-funded primary elections illegal in Oregon. This means parties can still conduct their own closed, private nomination processes, but they have to pay for it. On its own, this does not create a Top Two system since there are other avenues that candidates can advance to the general election, including through the public open primary, closed party primaries, and the petition process for independent/third party candidates. Yet the ballot language for the amendment says, “top two advance,” This is misleading. The second initiative is the nonpartisan Top Two measure that allows all voters and candidates to participate on a single ballot and the top two vote-getters move on to the general election. This system is already in place in Washington and California. But the language makes it sound like it is no different than the proposed constitutional amendment and doesn’t even clarify that it is not an amendment but a change to state law. In Oregon, there isn’t much room provided for ballot measure titles and captions. The limit is 15 words, along with a 25-word max summary for what a yes and no vote means. Still, critics across the political spectrum say the DOJ lawyer should have done a better job, Especially since one of the ballot titles is not even close to being correct, and neither make it clear that the initiatives are meant to ensure independent voters have equal voting rights in elections. It begs the question – why the misleading ballot titles? ## **From California to Missouri, Republicans and Democrats Will Make and Break the Rules** These types of concerns over ballot language, though, are something independent reformers have to deal with all the time, whether they are trying to pass systemic reforms into law or prevent partisan power grabs. In Missouri, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins admitted he wrote prejudicial ballot language for a veto referendum challenging mid-cycle gerrymandering, but will not go so far as to call it “insufficient” or “unfair.” [Missouri Republicans Admit They Skewed Ballot Language to Protect a Rigged MapIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/missouri-gerrymandering-ballot-gop-manipulation.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/missouri-republicans-admit-they-skewed-ballot-language-protect-rigged-map-2026-01-13) Instead, Hoskins’ attorney told Cole County Circuit Judge Brian Stumpe that while there is agreement that the language should be revised, the original language is “defensible.” In short, the veto referendum that is the target of partisan shenanigans in Missouri would repeal HB 1, the mid-cycle congressional gerrymander that carves up Kansas City in order to ensure the GOP one additional safe House seat. Right now, Republicans control 6 out of the state’s 8 congressional seats. The new map gives them 7 seats that lean their way, potentially reducing the Democrats’ presence in the congressional delegation to 1 seat or 12.5% of the districts. The current ballot summary for the veto referendum asks voters if they approve of HB 1, which Hoskins wrote: > *\[R\]epeals Missouri’s existing gerrymandered congressional plan that protects incumbent politicians, and replaces it with new congressional boundaries that keep more cities and counties intact, are more compact, and better reflect statewide voting patterns?”* It sounds like the state is ending a gerrymander, instead of making it worse. But this is also a similar tactic used by California Democrats when writing Prop 50 in 2025 by saying their gerrymander “protects democracy” and supports “independent redistricting.” Prop 50 suspended an independent congressional map approved unanimously by the state’s independent redistricting commission (by Democrats, Republicans, and independents) and replaced it with a gerrymander that gives Democrats 92% of the seats. The same people who are elected under a party banner make the rules that determine how much power their party has over the process. It’s like letting a baseball team call their own balls and strikes. But the system allows it. [Back in 2017](https://ivn.us/posts/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporation-with-no-obligation-to-follow-our-rules), the Democratic National Committee – faced with a lawsuit from Bernie Sanders supporters – argued in court that the party has every right to ignore primary results and put in their own candidates. And the court agreed, writing: > *To the extent Plaintiffs wish to air their general grievances with the DNC or its candidate selection process, their redress is through the ballot box, the DNC's internal workings, or their right of free speech — not through the judiciary."”* The same ballot box that benefits the DNC in Democratic-controlled states and the RNC in Republican-controlled states, because of closed primary rules and gerrymandering and other tactics to manipulate elections. ## **Quick Takeaways** - Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, the first Democrat to be elected to the U.S. House in Alaska since 1973, [is running for U.S. Senate this year](https://ivn.us/posts/mary-peltola-announces-run-us-senate-top-4-alaska-primary-2026-01-14) and stands a better chance of winning compared to just 6 years ago when incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan last ran for re-election. This is because the state’s nonpartisan Top Four primary has created a more competitive election system that incentivizes fewer extreme candidates. - Gallup reports independent voters [reached a new record-high in 2025](https://ivn.us/posts/gallup-independent-voters-break-another-record-2025-2026-01-12) at 45% of the electorate, surpassing the previous record that was held in 2023 and 2024 (43%). Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z are breaking historical trends by not only remaining independent the older they get but are in general independent in much greater numbers. ### California’s Biggest NPP Poll: What Independent Voters Really Want URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/californias-biggest-npp-poll-what-independent-voters-really-want-2026-01-15/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T14:33:22.000Z IVP just conducted the largest ever survey of California independent voters! Cara and Chad break down what NPP voters are really demanding, why insiders fight to keep them sidelined, and how battles over ballot language, gerrymandering, and open primaries in states like Missouri, Nevada, West Virginia, and Alaska could change elections nationwide. Read more and follow along at IVN.us. **Listen to this episode and more from Independent Voter Project on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn.us) **and** [**Apple Music**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### Are You Wondering Who is to Blame For Nationwide Verizon Outage? URL: https://ivn.us/are-you-wondering-who-blame-nationwide-verizon-outage-2026-01-14/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:07:07.000Z Verizon Wireless customers across the United States were hit by a major outage on January 14, leaving tens of thousands of phones in “SOS” mode and users unable to make calls, send texts, or access mobile data. More than five hours into the crisis, the cause of the outage and major disruption still had not been revealed to the public or to Verizon’s customers. The disruption began shortly after 9 a.m. Eastern time and quickly spread nationwide, according to [*The New York Post*](https://nypost.com/2026/01/14/business/verizon-customers-nationwide-left-unable-to-text-and-call-after-massive-network-outage/?ref=ivn.us). The New York Times reported that outage-tracking site Downdetector recorded more than [170,000 reports](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/business/verizon-outage-downdetector.html?ref=ivn.us) at the peak as complaints poured in from coast to coast. Users in major cities from coast to coast, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C., reported total signal loss, failed calls, and dead data connections. Verizon acknowledged the outage in a brief statement, saying it was aware of an issue impacting service for some customers and that engineers were working to resolve it. “We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers,” a Verizon spokesperson told *The Post*. “Our engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly. We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.” ### Mary Peltola Announces Run for US Senate in Top 4 Alaska Primary URL: https://ivn.us/mary-peltola-announces-run-us-senate-top-4-alaska-primary-2026-01-14/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:07:40.000Z Calling for “systemic change,” former Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola announced on January 12 that she will run for the U.S. Senate in 2026, setting up one of the most closely watched races in the country. Peltola will challenge incumbent Dan Sullivan in a contest likely to be shaped as much by Alaska’s unique election system as by the candidates themselves. Peltola, who represented Alaska’s at-large House seat from 2022 until her 2024 defeat, released an announcement video invoking her campaign slogan, “fish, family, and freedom,” while describing her focus on the high cost of living. “Growing up, Alaska was a place of abundance,” she said. “Now, we have scarcity. Many of our fish stocks and fish returns have been decimated. The salmon, large game, and migratory birds that used to fill our freezers are harder to find. So we buy more groceries, with crushing prices.” She added, “And I’ve got to tell you, it’s not just that politicians in D.C. don’t care that we’re paying seventeen bucks for a gallon of milk in rural Alaska, they don’t believe us. They’re more focused on their stock portfolios than our wallets. When they actually work together on something, it’s usually to help themselves.” In her announcement, Peltola also called for a return to what she described as a spirit of independence in Alaska politics. “Our delegation used to stand up to their party to put Alaska first,” she said, citing former [Senator Ted Stevens](https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/s000888?ref=ivn.us) and [Congressman Don Young](https://www.congress.gov/member/don-young/Y000033?ref=ivn.us). Under Alaska’s Top Four election system, all candidates, regardless of party, compete in a single, nonpartisan primary. The top four vote-getters advance to the general election, which is decided by ranked-choice voting. Supporters of the system say it is simple, fair, and easy, and that it eliminates spoilers and encourages candidates to reach beyond their party bases to appeal to the widest range of voters. The system has already reshaped Alaska politics. Both Republican US Senator Lisa Murkowski and Democrat Peltola herself were elected under it in the same cycle with the same electorate, reflecting the system’s proven potential to reward coalition-building and cross-partisan support. Even Senator Murkowski endorsed Peltola, although this time the Senator is sticking with Sullivan. Because Alaska has only one seat in the U.S. House, Peltola’s previous two victories and her defeat were all statewide races. The [*New York Times*](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/us/politics/mary-peltola-senate-alaska.html?ref=ivn.us) reports that in 2026, Peltola will be a heavy favorite to advance out of the nonpartisan primary, in which the top four candidates move on to the general election. But to win in November, she will need to attract support from Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike. Her opponents are expected to cast her as too liberal for Alaska, while her campaign will emphasize her focus on state priorities and the need to fix a rigged system, rather than adhering to party ideology. “It’s simple,” Peltola said. “The fight for fish, family, freedom depends on fixing the rigged system in D.C.” Although President Trump easily carried Alaska in 2024, his political influence may be shifting. A [Civiqs poll](https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-approval-rating-underwater-in-12-states-he-won-10951317?ref=ivn.us) conducted on October 17, 2025, found the President’s net approval rating in the state at minus one, despite the President's 14 percentage-point win there the previous year. The [*Cook Political Report*](https://www.cookpolitical.com/?ref=ivn.us) recently updated its outlook for the race, “shifting our rating from Solid to Lean Republican, given her (Peltola’s) unique political stature in Alaska and her proven crossover appeal, but Sullivan still starts with the advantage.” If the Top Four system works as promised, the 2026 Senate race will be decided not by partisan loyalty but by which candidate can best appeal to the broadest coalition of Alaskans who vote for people over parties. Whether that benefits Sullivan, Peltola, or another contender, the outcome will offer another test of Alaska’s groundbreaking experiment in open, nonpartisan democracy. ### Missouri Republicans Admit They Skewed Ballot Language to Protect a Rigged Map URL: https://ivn.us/missouri-republicans-admit-they-skewed-ballot-language-protect-rigged-map-2026-01-13/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:08:46.000Z People Not Politicians submitted over 300,000 signatures to put a veto referendum on Missouri’s ballot that overturns a new congressional map designed to enhance the GOP’s advantage in the state. However, state officials have pulled out all the stops to prevent it from getting on the ballot. This includes writing a ballot summary that makes it sound like the veto referendum is trying to protect gerrymandering -- not stop it. [Missouri’s Gerrymander Faces a Citizen Veto, but State Officials Aren't Taking 'No' for an AnswerIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/missouri-redistricting.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/missouris-gerrymander-faces-citizen-veto-state-officials-arent-taking-no-answer-2025-12-19) Secretary of State Denny Hoskins [now admits](https://www.kcur.org/politics-elections-and-government/2026-01-09/missouri-redistricting-ballot-measure-denny-hoskins-prejudice-summary?ref=ivn.us) the language comes “close enough to the line of being inherently argumentative and likely to create prejudice.” This is a quote from Hoskin’s lawyer, Kathleen Hunker, who said this in court. She added that this “means we can do better, and so we are going to withdraw our opposition to the plaintiff’s claim about how the language is inherently argumentative.” People Not Politicians (PNP), says this admission does not go far enough to meet the criteria for revising the language, which would be to admit that the language is insufficient and unfair. PNP attorney Chuck Hatfield told Cole County Circuit Judge Brian Stumpe that if state officials cannot admit this, then there needs to be a trial. The case is scheduled for trial on February 9 if there is no agreement on ballot language. ## **Referendum Summary Claims State Has Ended a Gerrymander – Instead of Making It Worse** The ballot summary written by Hoskins claims HB 1, the mid-cycle congressional gerrymander passed by state lawmakers in September 2025: “\[R\]epeals Missouri’s existing gerrymandered congressional plan that protects incumbent politicians, and replaces it with new congressional boundaries that keep more cities and counties intact, are more compact, and better reflect statewide voting patterns?” The referendum asks if voters approve of this new bill – except this is not what HB 1 does. The new congressional map under HB 1 carves up Kansas City to give Republicans a safe seat in 7 out of the state’s 8 House districts. This is 12.5% of the state’s congressional seats. While Missouri is a red state, L2 Data estimates that [at least a third of voters identify as Democrats](https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/mo?ref=ivn.us). Currently, Democrats hold 2 seats (25%). Looking at election results, Democrat Kamala Harris took 40% of the vote in 2024, which is consistent with statewide Democratic performance over the last few election cycles. So, across the board, HB 1 does not do what Hoskin’s ballot language asserts that it does. Missouri Republicans are relying on a similar tactic used by California Democrats for Prop 50 in 2025, which implements a new congressional map that gives Democrats an advantage in 92% of the state’s districts. Democratic leaders claimed it protected democracy and advocated for independent redistricting. [Democrats Drive Out Anti-Trump Base to Propel Proposition 50 to VictoryIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/newsom-vs-trump.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/democrats-drive-out-anti-trump-base-propel-proposition-50-victory-2025-11-04) This is an ongoing concern with nonpartisan reformers. The very people who write ballot measure titles and summaries are party loyalists who are incentivized to skew what voters see to protect the controlling party’s manipulation of elections. ## **A Critical Deadline Approaches to Freeze the New Map** PNP is not only challenging the ballot summary for the veto referendum. It is also challenging the state’s refusal to freeze the gerrymandered map under HB 1 now that signatures have been submitted as well as the secretary of state’s refusal to count a third the signatures gathered. The secretary of state justified his refusal to count 100,000 signatures collected between September 15 and October 14, 2025, by citing a law that no longer exists. The law prohibited petitions from being gathered before a referendum was approved by the secretary of state. [Missouri Map Mayhem: GOP Officials Try Everything to Block Citizen Veto on Extreme GerrymanderIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/getty-images-pkuhK2_SqLA-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/missouri-map-mayhem-gop-officials-try-everything-block-citizen-veto-extreme-gerrymander-2025) The state Supreme Court ruled this law violated voters’ constitutional rights. State officials also plan to move forward with the new map under HB 1, despite political and legal precedent that a law being challenged by veto referendum should be suspended the moment signatures are submitted. A judge has delayed a ruling on whether the state must count all signatures gathered until the verification process is completed in the event there are still enough signatures to certify the veto referendum for the ballot. The verification process generally takes 7-10 weeks, but election officials have until July to certify the referendum, and Hoskins has already said he will do everything in his power to protect the new map. Court cases on the ballot summary and the suspension of HB 1 are scheduled, but congressional candidate filings open on February 24\. After this date, state officials can argue that it is too late to suspend HB 1. ### This California Disposable Vape Ban Could Devastate The Legal Cannabis Industry Even Further URL: https://ivn.us/california-disposable-vape-ban-could-devastate-legal-cannabis-industry-even-further-2026-01/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:07:57.000Z Good intentions often make for compelling policy. But in practice, consequences rarely fall in line as neatly as the ideas that inspired them. California’s flavored tobacco ban has been on the books for years. [SB 793](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F201920200sb793?ref=ivn.us) passed in 2020, voters doubled down with [Proposition 31 in 2022](https://ballotpedia.org/California%5FProposition%5F31,%5FFlavored%5FTobacco%5FProducts%5FBan%5FReferendum%5F%282022%29?ref=ivn.us), and lawmakers piled on again with [AB 3218](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F202320240ab3218?ref=ivn.us) in 2025, creating an [Unflavored Tobacco List](https://oag.ca.gov/tobacco/flavorban/regulations?ref=ivn.us) and tougher penalties on paper. Yet walk into almost any smoke shop in California today, or even a kiosk sitting out in the open at a shopping mall, and flavored vapes are still available right there behind the counter. This is the reality of a ban without enforcement, where the only businesses actually harmed are the licensed, tax-paying retailers who try to follow the law and lose customers as a result. Consumers do not stop buying. They simply shift to the thousands of black- and gray-market sellers operating in plain sight, with little fear of consequences. Now, California’s cannabis industry faces another pivotal test on Tuesday, January 13, when [Assembly Bill 762](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca%5F202520260ab762?ref=ivn.us) by Assemblymembers [Jacqui Irwin](https://a42.asmdc.org/?ref=ivn.us) and [Lori Wilson](https://a11.asmdc.org/?ref=ivn.us) comes before the [Assembly Business and Professions Committee](https://abp.assembly.ca.gov/welcome-committee-business-and-professions?ref=ivn.us). The measure would prohibit disposable vape products, a proposal that supporters frame as an environmental reform and opponents warn could destabilize an already struggling regulated market. For years, California’s legal cannabis businesses have been [weighed down](https://ivn.us/posts/tariffs-and-vape-ban-could-push-californias-cannabis-market-further-underground-2025-04-11) by high taxes, extensive regulation, and unfair competition from the illicit market. [New federal tariffs](https://www.app.com/story/news/local/new-jersey/marijuana/2025/04/04/weed-tariffs-coming-after-donald-trump-liberation-day-announcement/82852566007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z113427p001050c001050d00----v113427d--50--b--50--&gca-ft=185&gca-ds=sophi&ref=ivn.us) on imported vape hardware, packaging, cultivation tools, and compost have intensified that pressure. “Those relying on exports from nations with tariffs, such as China, will need to take a serious look at how they might absorb the extra costs or alter partnerships,” said [Bryan Gerber](https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/high-just-got-higher-trump-tariffs-raise-prices-us-cannabis-users-2025-04-03/?ref=ivn.us), CEO of Hara Supply. MJBizDaily has reported that some brands plan to pass those costs to consumers, which could make legal cannabis even less competitive with unregulated sellers. Regulators have also acknowledged that high taxes keep the illicit market dominant. “The black market is very pervasive, and it is definitely larger than the legal market,” said Bill Jones, head of enforcement for [California’s Department of Cannabis Control](https://www.cannabis.ca.gov/?ref=ivn.us). AB 762 would ban all disposable vapes, including cannabis products, defined as any device that is not both rechargeable and refillable. Because refillable cannabis vapes are already prohibited under state law, the measure would effectively eliminate the entire category. At an April 8, 2025, hearing before the [Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee](https://aesm.assembly.ca.gov/welcome-committee-environmental-safety-and-toxic-materials?ref=ivn.us), Amy O’Gorman Jenkins, Executive Director of the [California Cannabis Operators Association](https://www.cacoa.org/?ref=ivn.us), said that describing these products as single-use is inaccurate. “A half-gram device delivers around 150 doses, and a full gram provides more than 300\. These are used over weeks or months, not discarded after one session,” she wrote in her testimony. Assemblywoman Irwin argues that the bill is about environmental safety, citing concerns over battery acid from discarded vapes. “We must transition away from these harmful single-use devices, and AB 762 will do just that,” [she said at a news conference](https://ivn.us/posts/tariffs-and-vape-ban-could-push-californias-cannabis-market-further-underground-2025-04-11) covered by IVN last February in Sacramento. O’Gorman Jenkins warned that removing regulated vapes from store shelves would push consumers further into the unregulated and unsafe illicit market, which faces none of the legal, environmental, or product safety requirements. “California’s legal cannabis industry is among the most regulated in the world. In contrast, the illicit market faces none of these requirements,” she said. “The public health risks are real,” Jenkins added, referencing the [2019 EVALI outbreak](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7428296/?ref=ivn.us), which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked to illicit market vapes. “Removing compliant, tested products does not protect consumers; it exposes them to far greater harm.” A coalition of organizations has written in support of AB 762, including its co-sponsors Californians Against Waste, the California Product Stewardship Council, CALPIRG, and ReThinkWaste. In their coalition letter, they wrote: “Single-use vapes contain embedded lithium-ion batteries that cannot be easily extracted from their plastic encasement, contributing to an egregious waste of valuable resources.” Opponents argue that the bill would not reduce demand but instead shift sales to unregulated sellers. The American Petroleum and Convenience Store Association wrote that “AB 762 will drive consumers to the unregulated, illicit market, increasing risks to public health and safety. Prohibiting the sale of disposable, battery-embedded vapor devices will not eliminate consumer demand, but merely shift sales to the unregulated and illicit market. This shift creates multiple risks. Products sold through the illicit market are not subject to the same safety standards, age verification, or quality controls that licensed retailers must adhere to. As a result, consumers, particularly young people, are exposed to potentially dangerous products that may contain harmful substances or defective batteries. Moreover, illicit sellers have little incentive to comply with California’s strict regulations, undermining the state’s efforts to protect public health and safety.” The California Cannabis Operators Association added that “AB 762 is both premature and counterproductive to California’s efforts to build a safe, sustainable, and legally compliant cannabis market. Rather than achieving its intended goals, AB 762 will empower illicit actors, reduce opportunities to educate consumers on proper disposal, and undercut tax-generating legal sales that fund youth programs, public health services, and environmental restoration. We believe there are more balanced policy approaches that can improve environmental outcomes without jeopardizing consumer safety or weakening California’s regulated cannabis market.” A [report by the Reason Foundation](https://reason.com/2022/05/05/a-new-report-explains-how-california-screwed-up-marijuana-legalization/?ref=ivn.us) estimates that as much as two-thirds of cannabis sales in California take place on the illicit market. Because unlicensed products are not tested or inspected, they can pose health risks. In August 2019, emergency department visits linked to cannabis vaping products increased sharply, with [2,807 hospitalized cases or deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention](https://archive.cdc.gov/www%5Fcdc%5Fgov/tobacco/basic%5Finformation/e-cigarettes/severe-lung-disease.html?ref=ivn.us). Much of the outbreak was traced to unlicensed and untested products. Similar concerns have surfaced in the tobacco sector. A 2023 study commissioned by Altria collected more than 15,000 publicly discarded cigarette packs and 4,529 vapor product packages from ten California cities. [The findings](https://s204.q4cdn.com/505541855/files/doc%5Fnews/2023/california-s-flavor-ban-leads-to-large-illicit-market-press-release-10-11-23-final.pdf?ref=ivn.us) showed that nearly all the discarded vapor products were flavored, despite California’s ban on flavored tobacco products, suggesting that illicit supply chains remain active. Recent amendments to AB 762 update the effective dates to reflect the passage of time since the bill’s introduction. The revised language now prohibits import or manufacture of disposable, battery-embedded vapor inhalation devices beginning January 1, 2027, and prohibits sales and distribution beginning January 1, 2028. Registered opposition includes the [American Petroleum and Convenience Store Association](https://www.apca.us/?ref=ivn.us), [BizFed Central Valley](https://bizfedcentralvalley.org/?ref=ivn.us), the [California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce](https://calasiancc.org/?ref=ivn.us), the [California Business Roundtable](https://www.cbrt.org/?ref=ivn.us), the [California Cannabis Industry Association](https://www.cacannabisindustry.org/?ref=ivn.us), the [California Cannabis Operators Association](https://www.cacoa.org/?ref=ivn.us), the [California Chamber of Commerce](https://www.calchamber.com/?ref=ivn.us), the California Distribution Association, the [California Fuels and Convenience Alliance](https://cfca.energy/?ref=ivn.us), the [California Grocers Association](https://www.cagrocers.com/?ref=ivn.us), the [California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce](https://www.cahcc.com/?ref=ivn.us), and NorCal Pheonix, Inc. As lawmakers prepare for the January 13 hearing, the debate over AB 762 reflects California’s ongoing effort to balance environmental priorities with the economic realities of a legal cannabis market still in competition with a widespread illicit one. ### NEW POLL: California Governor’s Race Sees “None of the Above” Beat the Entire Democratic Field URL: https://ivn.us/new-poll-california-governors-race-sees-none-above-beat-entire-democratic-field-2026-01-12/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T21:49:21.000Z A new statewide poll conducted by the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) finds California’s independent voters overwhelmingly support the state’s nonpartisan primary system and express broad dissatisfaction with the direction of state politics. IVP surveyed more than 1,700 California voters registered as No Party Preference (NPP) on a range of political and policy issues, as well as their preferences in the 2026 gubernatorial race. The results point to an electorate that remains politically independent, skeptical of entrenched power, and broadly aligned on several major policy concerns. Support for California’s [nonpartisan primary system](https://independentvoterproject.org/work/cas-nonpartisan-primary?ref=ivn.us) remains strong among independent voters, with just 14 percent favoring a return to the former closed partisan primary system. The findings reinforce earlier evidence that NPP voters view open elections as essential to fair representation. [The Real History: California's Top-Two Nonpartisan Primary Electoral ReformIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/hero-migrated-60f8b07446143924e3b78b96_0.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/the-real-history-californias-top-two-nonpartisan-primary-electoral-reform) On partisan trust, respondents were closely divided. Thirty-four percent said they are more inclined to trust Democrats, while 32 percent leaned toward Republicans, underscoring the continued refusal of independent voters to align consistently with either major party. On policy questions, independent voters showed strong alignment across a wide range of issues, with notable consistency between statewide respondents and those in Los Angeles County. Large majorities of independent voters agreed that California needs to make homeownership more attainable, with roughly six-in-ten expressing strong agreement statewide and in Los Angeles County. Similarly, strong majorities said the cost of living, including gas, groceries, and energy bills, is out of control. Independent voters also expressed broad support for increased law enforcement. Statewide, a clear majority agreed with the statement that California needs more law enforcement, not less, a view that was shared by Los Angeles County respondents at comparable levels. Concerns about corruption and government waste were also widespread. More than half of independent voters statewide strongly agreed that there is too much government waste and corruption in California politics, with Los Angeles County voters closely mirroring that sentiment. Immigration enforcement was the only issue to produce a clearly polarized response pattern, with voters clustering at opposite ends of the scale rather than around a middle position. A plurality agreed that California should cooperate with federal ICE officials in cases involving public safety. Independent voters also showed strong support for structural political reforms. More than seven in ten supported keeping California’s current nonpartisan open primary system, with only a small minority favoring a return to closed party primaries. In addition, a majority supported allowing voters to rank up to five candidates in general elections rather than being limited to two. There was near-unanimous agreement on limiting the influence of money in politics. More than nine in ten independent voters supported an initiative to limit the amount of money spent by corporations and foreign interests to influence California elections. When asked what matters most in a candidate, independent voters prioritized honesty and ethics, followed by having good character and the ability to get things done, far outweighing ideology, party affiliation, or political experience alone. ## **Governor’s Race** In the 2026 governor’s race, independent voters split in patterns broadly consistent with other public polling, though IVP’s large sample allowed for additional insight, including comparisons between statewide results and California’s largest county, Los Angeles. **Respondents were permitted to select more than one candidate they were considering in the race, which is why the numbers do not add up to 100 percent**. Statewide results among NPP voters showed Chad Bianco leading at 26 percent, followed by Steve Hilton at 23.8 percent and “none of the above” at 22.3 percent. Eric Swalwell received 21 percent support, Katie Porter 20.3 percent, and Xavier Becerra 12.5 percent. Antonio Villaraigosa stood at 9.8 percent, Rick Caruso at 8.8 percent, Betty Yee at 6.8 percent, Tony Thurmond at 4.7 percent, and Ian Calderon at 2.4 percent. [California’s Governor Race Is a Democratic Nightmare, But There’s One Easy FixIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/tim-mossholder-Tk22VrN1yGE-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/californias-governor-race-democratic-nightmare-theres-one-easy-fix-2025-12-05) In Los Angeles County, the race looked meaningfully different. Bianco polled lower at 23 percent, while Rick Caruso saw substantially stronger support at 18.9 percent compared to his statewide standing. Support for Steve Hilton also dropped in Los Angeles County to 18.4 percent. Katie Porter and Eric Swalwell both performed slightly better in Los Angeles County than statewide, while Villaraigosa’s support rose to 12.1 percent. While Caruso has not declared his intentions, his stronger support in Los Angeles County is notable given [widespread speculation that he is considering another mayoral run or a bid for governor](https://www.foxla.com/news/is-rick-caruso-running-for-mayor-or-governor?ref=ivn.us). The Los Angeles County results underscore how regional dynamics continue to shape California’s open primary system, with independent voters in the state’s largest county responding differently to individual candidates than voters statewide. ## **Measuring the Impact of Tom Steyer’s Entry** During the polling period, Tom Steyer entered the gubernatorial race with a significant television advertising buy. IVP asked a follow-up question to assess whether his entry changed who respondents were considering in the governor’s race. Among participants, 10 percent said Steyer’s entry changed their consideration, 19 percent said it did not, and 71 percent were categorized as not likely to change their preference. ### Gallup: Independent Voters Break Another Record in 2025 URL: https://ivn.us/gallup-independent-voters-break-another-record-2025-2026-01-12/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:07:59.000Z Gallup released findings Monday that show independent voters make up a new record-high percentage of the U.S. electorate. Its data shows 45% of American voters self-identified as independent in 2025, breaking the 43% record in 2014, 2023 and 2024. What’s more, Gallup [found](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?utm%5Fsource=alert&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcontent=morelink&utm%5Fcampaign=syndication) that one reason independent identification not only remains high but is growing is because two generations, Gen X and Millennials, are bucking historical trends by remaining independent as they get older. “In contrast, older generations of Americans have been less likely to identify as independents over time. Generation Z, like previous generations before them when they were young, identify disproportionately as political independents,” Gallup reports. Additionally, younger voters are much more likely to be independent as they enter the nation’s voting population. Gallup, like many polling agencies, likes to divide these voters into “leaners,” determining whether they lean Republican or lean Democrat. This tends to feed a narrative that independent voters don’t really exist in such great numbers and are really closet partisans. Analysis tends to ignore that the U.S. has electoral systems specifically designed to divide voters into two sides and give them only those options. If a person goes out to eat, and their only options are McDonald's and Burger King, most people are going to consistently lean toward one over the other. Yet, independent voters are breaking another historical trend recorded by Gallup. Specifically, independent identification tends to be higher in odd-numbered years, starts to dip in midterm elections, and then drops in presidential elections because voters are expected to pick a side. ![Gallup results. Independent ID over time. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/U.S.-Political-Party-Identification-1988-2025.png) This includes in many states where voters have to register with either major party in order to vote in taxpayer-funded primaries. These systems bar 27 million voters each election cycle – a number that doesn’t include voters who are party members just to vote in primaries. This trend was broken in 2024\. Independent identification hit the previous record high of 43% in 2023 but remained unchanged in 2024 – signaling how fed up voters are with the status quo. U.S. citizens aren’t just self-identifying as independent. They are registering unaffiliated/independent/no party in greater numbers as well. In Colorado, for example, registered independents [surpassed 50% of the voting population in 2025](https://ivn.us/posts/colorado-voter-registration-data-shows-independents-now-majority-2025-09-17). ### California is Using Virtual Reality on People in Prison, and It's Working URL: https://ivn.us/california-using-virtual-reality-people-prison-and-its-working-2026-01-06/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:08:01.000Z In California, the birthplace of much of the world’s technology innovation, virtual reality is being used in an unexpected setting: inside prisons. In four facilities, incarcerated people put on Meta-donated headsets to help prepare them for reentry into society and the experiences they may encounter after release. These include exiting prison on release day, attending job interviews, navigating public spaces, paying for groceries, and even participating in family gatherings. ***Participants are using the headsets to experience and practice responding to these situations.*** For those held in solitary confinement, virtual reality offers scenes from the outside world, such as Paris and Thailand. Program organizers claim that the use of VR in solitary confinement has coincided with sharp reductions in disciplinary infractions, benefiting the correctional staff who deserve to work in safer, less volatile environments. Creative Acts, a nonprofit, currently operates the program in four California prisons, including Corcoran State Prison and the Central California Women’s Facility. The organization reports receiving requests from additional California facilities. The nonprofit developed the program after observing that people released from long prison sentences often struggle to adjust to life outside prison. To support a pilot program, Creative Acts received 20 donated virtual reality headsets from [**Meta**](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/01/apple-reportedly-cuts-production-vision-pro-headset-poor-sales?ref=ivn.us). ***According to data from Creative Acts, prisons that piloted the virtual reality program reported a 96 percent reduction in disciplinary infractions among participants in solitary confinement.*** At Corcoran, the number of infractions among men in solitary confinement dropped from 735 to one following a week-long session. One warden at the facility commuted enough solitary confinement sentences that one of four buildings dedicated to the practice was closed. Supporters of the program have pointed to these results as suggesting a potential benefit not only for incarcerated participants but also for correctional staff. Fewer infractions among people held in solitary confinement contribute to a less volatile environment inside prisons. Participants who completed the program reported increased awareness of emotional triggers and continued using the breathing and meditation practices introduced during the sessions. Some described responding differently to stressful situations after completing the program. Advocates also note that the program’s reentry-focused scenes are intended to help participants better navigate everyday situations after incarceration. If transitions back into society are smoother, they argue, that could have broader implications once people return to their communities. ### 2026 Will See an Increase in Rejected Mail-In Ballots -- Here's Why URL: https://ivn.us/2026-will-see-increase-rejected-mail-ballots-heres-why-2026-01-09/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:08:47.000Z While the media has kept people’s focus on the Epstein files, Venezuela, or a potential invasion of Greenland, the United States Postal Service adopted a new rule that will have a broad impact on Americans – especially in an election year in which millions of people will vote by mail. The rule went into effect on Christmas Eve and has largely flown under the radar, with the exception of some local coverage, a report from PBS News, and Independent Voter News. It states that items mailed through USPS will no longer be postmarked on the day it is received. Instead, items will be postmarked on the day they are processed, which will take longer under USPS restructuring. The reason this is so impactful going into an election year is because many states have absentee and mail-in voting rules that explicitly state that as long as a ballot envelope is postmarked by election day, it will count. However, in order for a ballot to count in 2026, voters will have to be aware of this rule change and not procrastinate their vote. [PBS reports](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/how-this-new-mail-rule-could-affect-your-ballot-your-tax-return-and-more?ref=ivn.us) that the Postal Service is undergoing reorganization, “including the consolidation of nearly 200 sectional facilities – where mail is typically postmarked – into 60 regional processing locations, which are likely to receive fewer truck dropoffs per day.” > *“More than 70% of post offices will now be more than 50 miles away from a regional processing center, according to an analysis from the Brookings Institution. More than 25% of post offices will be 150 miles or more away.”* Across the board, from ballots to bills to taxes and anything else that is time sensitive, this means there is going to be a delay in postmarking items. In 2024, [nearly 1-in-3 voters](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5379475-mail-ballots-2024-presidential-election-research/?ref=ivn.us) across the U.S. cast a ballot by mail. But where this will have the biggest impact are states that send absentee ballots to all voters, like California, and states that conduct their elections entirely by mail-in voting – like Colorado and Washington. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized mail-in voting, claiming that it is ripe with fraud and abuse. According to [data from the California secretary of state’s office](https://www.calvoter.org/content/california-elections-officials-rejected-122000-ballots-2024-election-here%E2%80%99s-why?ref=ivn.us), nearly 1% of ballots received by mail in 2024 were rejected. This accounts for nearly 123,000 ballots. An in-depth analysis by USC’s Center for Inclusive Democracy found that 27% of these ballots arrived late. This will also make it more difficult for voters to “cure” their ballots on time in the event of another type of discrepancy, like a mismatched signature or no signature provided at all. Californians can ensure same-day delivery of their ballot by taking it directly to the office of their county’s registrar of voters on election day or during early voting. The USPS also says people can go to a staffed retail location and ask for a manual postmark, but it must be requested. Voters left uninformed of these options may be impacted by the change, and it’s likely California and other states will see at least some increase in ballots rejected as a result of being late. ## **More Choice Opponents in Alaska Are Putting Repeal on the Ballot – Again** Alaska voters have been asked to weigh in on the state’s new nonpartisan, top four primary system with ranked choice voting (RCV) in the general election twice. In 2020, a majority of voters [approved the election model](https://ivn.us/posts/alaska-becomes-first-in-the-nation-to-approve-top-4-primary-with-ranked-choice-voting). Then, in 2024, [they rejected repeal](https://ivn.us/posts/alaska-reject-repeal-top-4-ranked-choice-voting-repeal-2024-11-14). But reform opponents are not giving up and will put repeal on the ballot again in 2026. The [Alaska Repeal Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative](https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%5FRepeal%5FTop-Four%5FRanked-Choice%5FVoting%5FInitiative%5F%282026%29?ref=ivn.us) will appear on the November 3 ballot at the same time voters will use RCV in statewide elections unless the Alaska Legislature passes similar legislation while in session. The initiative repeals 3 things: - The state's nonpartisan primary system that allows all voters, including the state's independent majority, to participate in taxpayer-funded primaries - RCV used in the general election that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference - A campaign finance rule adopted with these two other reforms that requires the source disclosure of political contributions over $2,000 that were derived from donations, gifts, dues, etc. (i.e. if someone makes a contribution from money they collected from someone or something else, they need to disclose the original source.) The state’s Top Four model is the first-of-its-kind. Like nonpartisan primary systems in Washington and California, all voters and candidates participate on a single primary ballot, regardless of party. The difference in Alaska is that the top four vote-getters, rather than the top two, advance to the general election where RCV is used to determine a majority winner. Voters can rank candidates in order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, etc.) Narrow majorities have approved and protected the adoption of this system. The vote to reject repeal was narrower in 2024 -- 50.1% to 49.9% -- which saw a lower turnout than 2020\. Advocates of repeal hope a lower turnout in the midterms will lead to success. These supporters include Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has said RCV “was pitched as a reform to solve a problem that, frankly, didn’t exist in Alaska.” > *We were told it would reduce partisanship, promote consensus candidates, and make elections more fair. In reality, what we got was a system that confused voters, made outcomes less transparent, and created deep concerns about how votes are tabulated and who ultimately decides an election."* Multiple outlets, including the [Alaska Beacon](https://alaskabeacon.com/2024/06/12/how-ranked-choice-voting-is-bringing-alaska-politics-back-to-the-center/?ref=ivn.us) and [Anchorage Daily News](https://www.adn.com/politics/2024/11/20/bipartisan-coalition-on-track-for-slim-margin-in-alaska-house-after-ranked-choice-tabulations/?ref=ivn.us), have reported on an increase in bipartisan and nonpartisan coalitions on the campaign trail and in the legislature under RCV. A [recent study](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-big-mad-indiana-republicans-wont-fight-his-gerrymandering-war-2025-12-12) also found an increase in turnout among underrepresented groups. Notably, Dunleavy does not mention the nonpartisan primary system, which also faces repeal under the initiative. This may be because repealing nonpartisan primaries means going back to a closed partisan primary system that shuts out 60% of the electorate that is registered independent of the two parties. An academic paper from December 2025 found what independent reformers have said for decades and that is closed primary systems create a system of political inequity that is designed to only benefit two private political groups, the Republican and Democratic Parties. "Consequences of this political inequality include the distortion of public policy where the preferences of certain groups are amplified by closed primary elections, and the resulting policies and candidates reflect the interests of the more powerful groups,” the paper found. Advocates of nonpartisan primary reform assert that limiting voter participation and denying independents equal voting rights allows private political groups like the two major parties and aligned special interests to have outsized influence and control over election results. Rebecca Braun, who is a member of Alaskans for Better Elections – the campaign that spearheaded Top Four with RCV in the state – said there’s no such thing as a perfect election system, but she thinks the new system is better. “Mathematicians study this, and there’s almost nothing where you have 100% perfect outcomes. But this seems like to me a better system,” she said. [Why Mathematicians Love Ranked Choice VotingIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/rcv-math.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/why-mathematicians-love-ranked-choice-voting-2025-12-11) ## **Santa Clara Holiday Runoff: Double the Cost with Half the Turnout** Santa Clara County, California, conducted a special election on December 30 to fill in a vacancy for county assessor following the resignation of Larry Stone. A general election was held on November 30 but because no candidate got a majority of the vote a runoff was triggered for the following month. The runoff election cost an estimated [$13.1 million](https://sccgov.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail%5FLegiFile.aspx?Frame=&MeetingID=17264&MediaPosition=2261.033&ID=125439&CssClass=&ref=ivn.us). This is on top of the $13 million price tag for the general election. Meanwhile, turnout in the runoff compared to the general elections dropped by 53%. So... same cost, half the turnout. Early voting was conducted over Christmas week, and the election was held right before New Year’s Eve, so few are surprised by the low turnout. The better elections group FairVote, a national advocate for ranked choice voting, [reports](https://fairvote.org/santa-clara-county-runoff-turnout-dropped-53-ranked-choice-voting-is-the-solution/?ref=ivn.us) that “the winner of the runoff, Neysa Fligor, received 33,332 fewer votes in the runoff than in the general election.” Ranked choice voting (RCV) advocates say that their reform could save taxpayers money and ensure elections are decided when the most voters participate by eliminating the need for a separate runoff election. Under the reform, voters can rank the candidates on the ballot in order of preference. If no candidate gets a majority of first choice selections, the last place candidate is eliminated and their voters’ next choices are applied to the tally. This process continues until a single candidate has a majority. This instant runoff process serves the purpose of a regular runoff process, but without the added time, resources, and expense of a separate election. It is possible for Santa Clara County to adopt RCV. County voters approved its use in a 1998 ballot measure. The county purchased new voting machines in 2019 capable of using RCV. And, the California Legislature approved AB 1227, which allows Santa Clara to adopt it. On December 2, [a county advisory committee](https://sanjosespotlight.com/santa-clara-county-committee-says-ranked-choice-voting-saves-money/?ref=ivn.us) recommended adopting RCV for special elections to start in order to save money. Whether the county adopts this recommendation remains to be seen. ## **It’s An 80-20 Issue: Maryland Voters Demand Equal Treatment and Fair Representation** In December, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s Redistricting Advisory Commission voted 3-2 to move forward with a mid-cycle congressional gerrymander. However, this is something most Maryland voters don’t want. Moore convened the commission following the passage of Prop 50 in California, which gives the Democratic Party an advantage in 92% of the state’s congressional districts. A [survey](https://marylandmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/UMBC-Poll-Part-1-Mon-Dec-15.pdf?ref=ivn.us) from the Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, found that 81% of respondents in the state said redrawing electoral districts to benefit a single party is “a major” problem for American democracy. Only 1-in-10 respondents supported a redistricting process in which state legislators redraw districts. But this isn’t the only survey that shows such a massive rejection of gerrymandering efforts in the state. The nonpartisan better elections group Open Primaries also released the results of its own survey this week which found that 80% of independent voters in the state oppose gerrymandering. Partisan gerrymandering ensures that districts remain safe for a single party, which makes independents feel double penalized in Maryland because they are shut out of taxpayer-funded closed primary elections where most political contests in the state are effectively decided. Open Primaries reports that its poll also found that 84% of independents believe that all voters should be able to vote in the primaries. "There is a widening gap between how Independent Marylanders view fair representation and how our elections are actually conducted," said Cathy Stewart, National Organizing Director of Open Primaries. > *"When you shut out independents, a quarter of the state's electorate, from the contests where 85% of elections are decided, gerrymandering creates a double penalty. We are barred from the primaries that matter, and gerrymandering makes the races uncompetitive in November, effectively rendering the voices of independent voters irrelevant."* Open Primaries has spearheaded [a lawsuit](https://ivn.us/posts/lawsuit-challenges-independent-voter-suppression-under-closed-primaries-maryland-2025-05-28) challenging the constitutionality of closed primaries used in the state. There are about 1 million registered voters in the state who are denied access to these elections each election cycle. ### Why Did Walz Drop Out? Daycare Fraud & Chaos in Minnesota URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/why-did-walz-drop-out-daycare-fraud-chaos-minnesota-2026-01-08/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:43:27.000Z Wondering how a major political figure walks away from power, and what that says about the system behind the scenes? This episode unpacks Tim Walz’s decision to step aside in Minnesota and how allegations around daycare funding brought to light by YouTuber Nick Shirley have cracked open a wide-open governor’s race. You’ll see how partisan spin quickly takes over moments like this, and why independent thinking matters when facts, accusations, and political incentives collide. Hosts Chad Peace and Cara McCormick break it down with real-world context, including what an open seat could mean for a Jesse Ventura-style independent run. We drop new episodes each week. You can read more and follow along at [IVN.us.](https://ivn.us/) **Listen to this episode and more from Independent Voter Project on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn.us) **and** [**Apple Music**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### California Prison Health Care Is Still Failing: Audit Exposes Dangerous Conditions Despite Billions in Funding URL: https://ivn.us/california-prison-health-care-still-failing-audits-expose-dangerous-conditions-despite/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:08:51.000Z Job vacancies in prison and state hospital health care have grown even as California has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to fill medical and mental health positions, according to [a new state audit](https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2024-114/?ref=ivn.us). The audit reviewed staffing at Atascadero State Hospital, Porterville Developmental Center, and Salinas Valley State Prison. These facilities house individuals who are incarcerated or institutionalized after being deemed dangerous to themselves or others or incompetent to stand trial. During fiscal year 2023–24, health care vacancy rates exceeded 30% at all three facilities. At Salinas Valley State Prison, more than half of the health-related positions were unfilled. Under federal and state law, as well as court rulings, California is required to provide adequate medical and mental health care in these settings. Most facilities are expected to maintain vacancy rates below 10%, a benchmark the state has not consistently met for more than 30 years. Independent Voter News has [previously reported](https://ivn.us/posts/health-care-behind-bars-how-it-really-works-2025-06-12) that nearly every person in California’s prison system has documented medical or mental health needs, with state data identifying 90,744 incarcerated individuals requiring ongoing care. [Health Care Behind Bars - How It Really WorksIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/ivn-article-imagehirw-corrections.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/health-care-behind-bars-how-it-really-works-2025-06-12) Courts have ruled that “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs” violates constitutional protections for incarcerated people, placing legal obligations on the state to maintain adequate staffing and care. In 2023, California was ordered to pay monthly fines for noncompliance with mandated mental health staffing levels. As of 2025, CDCR had [more than $95 million in accumulated fines](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/california-health-care-audit-salinas-valley-prison-porterville-atascadero-state-hospital/?ref=ivn.us), according to the report. [The audit](https://www.auditor.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2024-114-Fact-Sheet.pdf?ref=ivn.us) found that vacancy rates increased between 2019 and 2024, despite targeted wage increases and bonuses approved during the Newsom administration and through court orders. Prison psychiatrists received bonuses of up to $42,000 in a 2023 labor contract, and mental health workers later received $20,000 bonuses tied to a long-running prisoner rights lawsuit. Some prison health care employees rank among the highest-paid public workers in California. All 55 prison employees who earned more than $500,000 in 2024 were doctors, dentists, psychiatrists, or medical executives. A board-certified psychiatrist at Atascadero State Hospital can earn more than $397,000 in base pay and receive a pension through the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. The statewide mean wage for psychiatrists is $328,560. Even with that level of compensation, auditors found that psychiatrists had the highest vacancy rates at Atascadero and the second-highest vacancy rates at Porterville and Salinas Valley. In nearby private-sector hospitals, competition for health care workers remains strong. Auditors were told that private hospitals in Monterey County commonly offer hiring bonuses of up to $90,000. Staffing shortages worsened across all three facilities during the audit period. Salinas Valley State Prison experienced a 62% increase in vacancies between 2019 and 2024, with more than half of medical and mental health positions unfilled in 2024\. Atascadero State Hospital’s vacancy rate rose by 39% to approximately 30%, and during the final three years of the audit period, the hospital lost 90% of its staff to attrition. Porterville Developmental Center’s vacancy rate increased by 6%, leaving more than one-third of positions vacant in the final year reviewed. Administrators told auditors that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to higher turnover and increased reliance on contract workers. The Department of State Hospitals stated that staffing levels during the audit period were significantly affected by the pandemic and that reported salary savings were overstated. The department said its hospitals regularly meet or exceed mandated staffing minimums and described lapses as rare and tied to extraordinary circumstances. Auditors identified multiple staffing management deficiencies. They found that the Department of State Hospitals, the Department of Developmental Services, and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation lacked procedures to evaluate or budget for staffing needs on an annual basis. None of the departments had a system to determine whether facilities met minimum staffing requirements during each shift. Auditors also found that many vacant positions were not filled through overtime or temporary staffing. Over six years, the departments saved $592 million in payroll costs by carrying vacancies. Auditors reported that the agencies could not clearly track how that money was later spent. During the same period, the state spent $239 million on contract workers and was authorized to pay more than $1 billion to cover staffing gaps, though only a portion of that authority was used. Contract workers accounted for less than 10% of the health care workforce, but auditors found they cost more per hour than state employees, even after accounting for benefits. “To help address vacancies, each facility has significantly increased its use of contract workers: Atascadero by 79 percent, Porterville by 172 percent, and Salinas Valley by 46 percent. Contract workers generally cost the State more than state employees in the same job classifications, and the shorter tenure of contract workers presents challenges for facilities because of the training necessary to ensure that the contract workers are prepared to provide appropriate care to the facilities’ patient populations.” Labor organizations said contract workers are often paid two to three times as much per hour as state employees, based on job advertisements collected from staffing agencies. The many staff vacancies have resulted in each facility realizing significant savings from fiscal year 2019–20 through 2024–25: about $247 million for Atascadero, $188 million for Salinas Valley, and $157 million for Porterville. Workers told auditors that shortages affect safety and retention. “A high vacancy rate is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Dr. Stuart Bussey, president of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists. Labor representatives reported frequent verbal and physical assaults. “There were 2,700 assaults on staff last year. It’s not a matter of if, it’s when,” said Coby Pizzotti of the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians. The audit included reports from employees who stated a concern for their safety. “Several of the staff we interviewed at Porterville described working in conditions in which they are verbally and physically assaulted regularly,” the audit stated. The auditor [recommended](https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2024-114/?ref=ivn.us#Recommendations) that California conduct a statewide recruitment campaign, perform market analyses of health care positions, streamline hiring processes, and improve staffing oversight to address persistent vacancies in prison and state hospital health care. ### Josh Hoover’s Test as a Moderate Republican: Can He Win Independent Voters Again? URL: https://ivn.us/assembly-district-7-american-river-folsom-lake-independent-voters-poised-decide-hoovers-fight/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:08:52.000Z The American River connects the cities of Folsom, Rancho Cordova, and Citrus Heights, forming the core of California’s 7th Assembly District, which also includes the unincorporated communities of McClellan Park, North Highlands, Foothill Farms, Fair Oaks, Orangevale, Gold River, Rosemont, Mather, and most of Carmichael. The district lies entirely within Sacramento County. According to the 2023 Census American Community Survey, 496,790 people live in the district. The population is 57.7 percent White, 19.2 percent Latino, 10 percent Asian, and 6.1 percent Black. About 18.7 percent of residents were born outside the United States, and 6.5 percent are veterans. The [cost of living in Sacramento County](https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/793?ref=ivn.us) continues to shape daily life across the district. With a median household income of $90,390 and a median home value approaching $500,000, many families find themselves balancing opportunity and strain. Renters now make up nearly 40 percent of households, and the average rent of $1,760 reflects the broader pressure of California’s housing market. California homes are about twice as expensive as the typical US home. In Sacramento County, the monthly payment for a newly purchased “bottom-tier” home has gone up a whopping 74 percent since January 2020. Rising insurance costs, food prices, and utilities have further tightened budgets, especially in the newer suburban neighborhoods that define Folsom and Rancho Cordova. As of October 20, 2025, there were 299,234 registered voters in AD 7: 36.87 percent Democratic, 33.09 percent Republican, and 21.20 percent No Party Preference. The Democratic registration advantage of +3.78 percent has declined from +5.6 percent in 2022. Before redistricting, 64.5 percent of the current district came from the former AD 08 (D +6.9 percent), 33 percent from AD 06 (R +4.9 percent), and 2.5 percent from AD 07 (D +8.8 percent). Past elections in the region have been consistently close with frequent flips between blue and red. Barack Obama carried the area by just 0.54 percent in 2008, Mitt Romney by 1.88 percent in 2012, Hillary Clinton by 2.97 percent in 2016, and Joe Biden by 5.92 percent in 2020\. In gubernatorial races, Jerry Brown won by 6.52 percent in 2014, while John Cox defeated Gavin Newsom by 3.22 percent in 2018. In December, Politico listed this seat as one of two seats the California Democratic Party is targeting for a flip. ### **Joshua Hoover** Incumbent Joshua Hoover (R–Folsom) (b. April 11, 1988) was first elected to represent the district as an Assemblyman in 2022, defeating incumbent Democrat Ken Cooley 50.4 to 49.6 percent. In that race, Hoover focused on homelessness and crime prevention, flipping the seat from blue to red and winning by just 1,400 votes. Before his election in 2022, Hoover served as chief of staff to then-[Assemblymember Kevin Kiley](https://ivn.us/posts/ca-rep-no-one-wins-if-redistricting-war-continues-2025-09-02) and as an elected member of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District Board. Hoover won re-election in 2024 and is now seeking a third term in 2026. He is a member of the [Assembly Problem Solvers](https://www.assembly.ca.gov/caucuses/legislative-problem-solvers-caucus?ref=ivn.us) caucus. He earned an associate degree from American River College, a bachelor’s in political science from UCLA in 2011, and a master’s in public administration from USC in 2015\. His early career included roles with Senator Mimi Walters, Assemblymember Melissa Melendez, and Assemblymember Jay Obernolte, followed by his service in Kiley’s office beginning in 2016. He lives in Folsom with his wife, Nicole, and their three children. As a parent of a child on the autism spectrum, Hoover has served on the Folsom Cordova Special Education Community Advisory Committee and in local PTA leadership. Hoover’s 2023 scorecards included 100 percent from the California Chamber of Commerce, 92 percent from the National Rifle Association, 17 percent from the California Labor Federation, 6 percent from the California League of Conservation Voters, 27 percent from Equality California, and 17 percent from Planned Parenthood of California. By mid-2025, Hoover remained one of the best-funded incumbents in the region. He had raised $505,168 for his 2026 campaign, spent $96,025, and reported $320,992 cash on hand. In 2024, Hoover faced Porsche Middleton, a Citrus Heights City Councilmember, and YK Chalamcherla, a Folsom City Councilmember. In the primary, Hoover received 52.70 percent of the vote, Middleton 29.32 percent, and Chalamcherla 17.98 percent. Middleton raised $277,000 and Chalamcherla $178,000 before the primary, while Hoover raised nearly $700,000 for the cycle and reported $410,000 on hand by mid-February. The race also drew $232,000 in outside spending, all supporting Hoover. In the November general election, Hoover defeated Middleton 53.64 to 46.36 percent, a margin of more than 15,000 votes. The contest drew $1.55 million in outside spending, including $1.4 million benefiting Hoover and $154,000 supporting Middleton. The parties combined to spend $2.25 million through their state and county committees. Kamala Harris carried the district for president by 4.5 percent, and Adam Schiff won it for U.S. Senate by 0.2 percent, but Hoover outperformed both. The district’s 1.46 percent rightward shift from 2020 to 2024 was the smallest among California legislative seats. The June 2, 2026, nonpartisan top two primary election will feature Hoover, three Democrats (Christopher Gia Hoang, Vance Taylor, and Amy Slavensky), and one No Party Preference candidate (Sanaz Motamedi). ### **Chris Hoang (D)** [Christopher Gia Hoang](https://www.hoangforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us) (b. April 25, 2003) is a resident of Carmichael. “I was born and raised in the Sacramento area, and I have lived here for most of my life. My parents were refugees from Vietnam, but found the American Dream by working in healthcare. The work of my parents inspires me to help others, and I hope to serve the community in my own way,” Hoang said in a [questionnaire](https://ballotpedia.org/Chris%5FHoang?ref=ivn.us#Campaign%5Fthemes). He graduated from George Washington University in 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and has been very active in Democratic politics. Hoang supported Prop 50. Hoang previously interned for Nancy Pelosi, Ken Cooley, Doris Matsui, Suzanne Bonamici, and Paula Villescaz. He also interned with [Spiros Consulting](https://www.legistorm.com/organization/summary/166602/Spiros%5FConsulting%5FLLC.html?ref=ivn.us) in Washington, D.C., in 2025. The three key messages for his campaign are lowering costs, reducing homelessness, and raising wages. “People should have the opportunity to live where they grew up, near where they work, and near their friends and family, without worrying about raising prices,” he said. Hoang entered the race as a first-time candidate and had raised $10,803 by June 30, 2025\. [His campaign](https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Candidates/Detail.aspx?id=1481830&ref=ivn.us) had spent $1,601 and reported $5,093 cash on hand. ### **Vance Taylor (D)** [Louis "Vance” Taylor](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61582981448634#) (b. November 1, 1977) is chief of the Office of Access and Functional Needs at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. He was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2015. The office is “responsible for ensuring that our emergency management system works for everyone.” He was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy as a child and has used a wheelchair for most of his life. [Taylor](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vance-taylor-2b9b523?ref=ivn.us) was born and raised in San Francisco. He earned a bachelor’s in communications from Brigham Young University and a master’s in homeland security from the University of Connecticut. Taylor previously worked for Reps. Mike Thompson and Zoe Lofgren, directed security policy for the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, and was a principal at Catalyst Partners LLC. President Biden appointed Vance to serve as a member of the President's National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) in 2022. He resides in Rancho Cordova. He is married with two daughters. Taylor’s campaign reported $10,900 raised as of June 30, 2025\. He’s been endorsed by Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Operating Engineers Local 3, and Elevator Constructors Local 8. ### **Amy Slavensky (D)** [Amy Slavensky](https://www.amyslavensky.com/about?ref=ivn.us) (b. August 1, 1963) is an educational coach and consultant born and raised in the Fair Oaks and Carmichael communities. Slavensky left home at 17 and put herself through college. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Point Loma Nazarene University, a master’s from Azusa Pacific University, and a Ph.D. in educational leadership from Claremont Graduate University. She has spent the last 40 years in public education, including as Superintendent of the [Amador County Unified School District](https://www.amadorcoe.org/?ref=ivn.us) from 2016 to 2021 and in the San Juan, Upland, and Sacramento City school districts. “I stand for strong, well-resourced public schools because I have witnessed for decades how education transforms lives,” she said. In mid-2019, Slavensky was involved in a [controversy](https://fox40.com/news/local-news/parents-students-staff-up-in-arms-about-dismissal-of-beloved-amador-county-principal/?ref=ivn.us) after a well-liked high school principal was fired after a negative performance review. She and her husband, Mike, have five children and three grandchildren. “I am, at my core, a mom, a wife, an educator, and a neighbor who believes in showing up for people with compassion and integrity,” she said. Her personal experiences influence her campaign platform. “Having lost my brother after years of homelessness, I believe we must treat people experiencing mental illness, trauma, and housing instability with humanity, while expanding mental health care, diverse housing options, and pathways to stability.” Slavensky has been endorsed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the California Women's List, and Porsche Middleton, the 2024 candidate for the seat, as well as by other local leaders. Her campaign had raised $11,900 as of mid-2025. ### **Sanaz Motamedi Atkinson (NPP)** [Sanaz Motamedi Atkinson](https://www.instagram.com/sanazberries/?hl=en&ref=ivn.us) (b. January 6, 1992) is a realtor from Rancho Cordova. She has been licensed since 2022 and filed as a No Party Preference candidate in November 2025 after previously registering with the American Independent Party. Motamedi is a first-generation American. “I’m not here for politics as usual. I’m here for \*you\*. I’m here to bring a new voice to the table, one that listens, learns, and takes action for the people,” Motamedi said, emphasizing her outsider background. She [graduated](https://www.instagram.com/p/BwAhJTOHSaM/?hl=en&img%5Findex=1&ref=ivn.us) from Cal State Northridge with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental and Occupational Health > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DTE7fExjBm1/?hl=en&ref=ivn.us) At the time of her filing, Motamedi had not reported fundraising activity. ### **A District Defined by Competition** Assembly District 7 is one of California’s most evenly divided districts, having swung between the two major parties for more than a decade. It continues to draw statewide attention ahead of the 2026 election. The presence of more than 21 percent No Party Preference voters has made independent voters pivotal to the outcome. ## **About the 2026 California Nonpartisan Top Two Primary** The last day to register to vote for the June 2 Top Two primary is May 18, 2026\. All active registered voters in California will receive a vote-by-mail ballot for the primary. County election offices will begin mailing ballots by May 4\. Ballot drop-off locations open on May 5. Vote-by-mail ballots can be returned by mail, at a drop-off location, or to a county elections office. Vote centers open for early in-person voting in all Voter’s Choice Act counties beginning on May 23\. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by June 9. *Source Notes: This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State, CalMatters, the California Target Book, Ballotpedia, California FPPC campaign finance filings, individual candidate websites and social media accounts, and reporting from local and regional newspapers and television stations.* ### With Tim Walz Out, Is Minnesota Ripe for The Next Jesse Ventura? URL: https://ivn.us/tim-walz-out-minnesota-ripe-next-jesse-ventura-2026-01-05/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:08:55.000Z Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat and Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election that Donald J. Trump ultimately won, announced January 5 that [he will not seek a third term](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/us/walz-governor-fraud-klobuchar.html?ref=ivn.us) this year. Walz’s announcement comes at a turbulent moment for Minnesota. The Minnesota House was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans until [the political assassination of Melissa Hortman](https://ivn.us/posts/price-our-divisions-rage-rhetoric-and-political-violence-america-2025-06-23). Now, the Walz administration is [locked in a high-profile legal and political battle](https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/02/us/fraud-minnesota-programs-scandal-trump?ref=ivn.us) with the Trump administration over allegations of fraud tied to federal pandemic relief programs. Governor Walz’s willingness to give up his power is rare among politicians. However, it has happened in Minnesota before, when [Gov. Al Quie](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/us/politics/albert-quie-dead.html?ref=ivn.us) announced he would not run for reelection in January 1982\. In both cases, the timing left enough time for a meaningful contest. *It might even raise an intriguing question: Could the state that once elected Jesse Ventura as governor be ready to unify behind an independent candidate? Could that independent candidate help heal the state’s political wounds and reflect its finely balanced politics?* In 1998, former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura stunned the political world by winning the governor’s race as a Reform Party candidate. Ventura’s blend of populism, fiscal restraint, and anti-establishment rhetoric deeply resonated with Minnesotans who felt alienated by partisan politics. Independent registration has only grown, and voter disgust with partisanship has deepened. History rarely repeats neatly, and Minnesota probably won’t see another former Navy SEAL and pro wrestler running the state. But as voters look past the Walz era, it’s easy to imagine some unconventional names sparking curiosity. [Chris Pratt](https://www.instagram.com/p/DTIhFCCDu5f/?ref=ivn.us), the Guardians of the Galaxy star from northeastern Minnesota, married into politics as the son-in-law of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. He has an independent streak and a kind of plainspoken charisma that plays well across partisan divides. Then there’s [Lindsey Vonn](https://www.instagram.com/p/DQUZSGXDZsU/?ref=ivn.us), the St. Paul–born Olympic champion with national name recognition and a famously competitive drive. On December 12, Vonn became the oldest downhill skiing World Cup winner in St. Moritz at the age of 41, claiming her 83rd World Cup win and her first since 2018. As Minnesotans seek healing from political violence and reposition for a post-Walz era, could an independent once again capture the public’s imagination and win an election to lead the state? ### A Million Californians Sign On to Voter ID – Forcing a 2026 Ballot Fight URL: https://ivn.us/million-californians-sign-voter-id-forcing-2026-ballot-fight-2026-01-05/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:08:56.000Z California Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s Reform California, which has proposed amending the California Constitution with a voter ID ballot measure, says it has crossed a major threshold going into 2026 – and it is not slowing down. The campaign announced on January 3 that it had collected more than 1 million signatures in 90 days, which it says puts the measure well ahead of pace to qualify for the November 2026 statewide ballot. State law requires 874,641 valid signatures for a constitutional amendment to qualify for the ballot. Organizers say they plan to submit at least 1.2 million signatures to ensure the initiative survives the state’s verification process. “We are absolutely thrilled with the overwhelming and broad-based support,” said DeMaio. “By submitting 1.2 million signatures, we are confident this initiative will qualify for the November 2026 midterm ballot.” Reform California reports that more than 18,000 volunteers continue to gather signatures statewide. They have been instructed to return all petitions by February 6, which would allow the campaign to submit them a full month before the March deadline. DeMaio framed the rapid signature haul as a direct challenge to California’s political power structure, calling it “a shock to California’s corrupt political establishment.” He believes state officials will try procedural and legal tactics to block the initiative. ## **What the Initiative Would Do** The California Voter ID Initiative is a state constitutional amendment that would: - Require government-issued voter identification to cast a ballot in all elections - Require voters who submit their ballot by mail to include the last 4 digits of their - Mandate that state election officials verify the citizenship of registered voters - Require regular maintenance ofvoter rolls Currently county election officials are responsible for maintaining their voter rolls and submitting updates to the secretary of state’s office. ## **Voter ID: A Nonpartisan Issue That Both Parties Get Wrong** Republican leaders argue that the voter ID requirement is critical in securing elections, though [research ](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=61343&utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com)shows that election fraud in the U.S. (including voter impersonation) is so rare that statistically it might as well not exist. For example, the Heritage Foundation found just 34 cases of voter impersonation across the U.S. in the last 30 years. Democratic leaders claim voter ID will lead to voter suppression, denying people who cannot easily acquire or update a government-issued ID their right to vote. However, the same research that found zero impact on election security also found little to no impact on voter turnout. Both sides have turned this into a polarizing issue, suggesting that the other side is either trying to rig elections or deny eligible voters their constitutionally-protected rights. But it turns out, both sides are wrong. Still, supporters of the California voter ID initiative say this about bolstering voters’ floundering trust in the elections process. “You’ve got an interesting issue that fully unites people. And for the last several decades, most political initiatives have either intentionally or unintentionally divided the electorate,” [said Republican strategist Ryan Erwin](https://pro.stateaffairs.com/ca/elections/california-voter-id-initiative?ref=ivn.us). > *This one unites it. I think that’s a big part of the eagerness to sign and participate.”* Erwin is not wrong about public support for voter ID. A [Gallup poll](https://news.gallup.com/poll/652523/americans-endorse-early-voting-voter-verification.aspx?ref=ivn.us) from October 2024 found that 84% of voters favor a requirement that people show photo ID in order to vote, including two-thirds of Democrats surveyed. ![Gallup results.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/Americans-Support-for-Election-Law-Policies_0.png) A [January 2025 poll](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/67cb80487fbb0791e702f69a/67cf0bfe127615809cc5d895%5FPoll%20on%20CA%20Voter%20ID%202025.pdf?ref=ivn.us) from Public Opinion Strategies found that 52% of Democrats, 70% of independents, and 93% of Republicans in California support voter ID. If Reform California clears the signature verification process, it could be a rare instance where Republicans can lead on a nonpartisan, 80-20 issue in the state. But will they focus on how voter ID unites voters or divides the parties? ### Missouri Map Mayhem: GOP Officials Try Everything to Block Citizen Veto on Extreme Gerrymander URL: https://ivn.us/missouri-map-mayhem-gop-officials-try-everything-block-citizen-veto-extreme-gerrymander-2025/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:08:59.000Z Missouri state officials are getting slammed with lawsuits over a new congressional map that People Not Politicians (PNP) says should be frozen after it submitted over 300,000 signatures to let voters decide to keep or reject the map. However, despite legal and political precedent to back up the expectation that Missouri will now have to use the pre-2025 map, the secretary of state and attorney general are moving forward with the gerrymandered districts. > [](https://x.com/PeopleNotPolsMO/status/2004979466192167154?ref=ivn.us) Right before Christmas, PNP filed a lawsuit on behalf of Missouri voters to force the suspension of HB 1, a map that carves up Kansas City in order to give Republicans 7 out of the state’s 8 congressional seats. Suspending the law would mean the map should be frozen until voters have a say. [Missouri’s Gerrymander Faces a Citizen Veto, but State Officials Aren't Taking 'No' for an AnswerIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/missouri-redistricting.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/missouris-gerrymander-faces-citizen-veto-state-officials-arent-taking-no-answer-2025-12-19) “The constitution does not allow the attorney general or secretary of state to unilaterally implement a statute that has been lawfully suspended,” said PNP Executive Director Richard von Glahn. > *This 180-degree pivot, made after People Not Politicians successfully turned in over 305,000 signatures, is just the latest in a series of legally baseless claims made by the Attorney General via social media. People, not unelected politicians, will have the final say on the maps.”* Von Glahn points to previous cases where a law being challenged by a veto referendum was suspended the moment signatures were submitted, like a “right to work” law in 2017 when Jay Ashcroft was the secretary of state and Josh Hawley was the attorney general. Current Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway and Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins say the new map will not be frozen until after the signatures are verified and Hoskins certifies the referendum for the ballot. The verification process generally takes 8 to 10 weeks, but Hoskins has already gone on record saying he will do everything in his power to protect the new map. Election officials have until July 28 to verify the signatures. Absent a court order, there is nothing to stop Hoskins from dragging his feet on certification. It’s possible that once candidate filing opens on February 24, state officials will go before the courts and say it is too late to use the pre-2025 map. This is why PNP wants an expedited ruling – but the group is not alone. A set of lawsuits in Jackson County are asking a circuit court for the same thing as candidates want to know their district before filing. All these lawsuits will have a 4-day trial in January. There is also a lingering case in Missouri over Hoskins' refusal to count 92,000 signatures collected by PNP prior to October 15, the date he approved the veto referendum for petition circulation. At the time, Hoskins cited a law that no longer exists as justification. Specifically, he said under the law signatures gathered before a referendum is given a title don't count, but the state Supreme Court ruled that this violates citizens' constitutional rights. Still, Hoskins says he won't count the signatures unless ordered to by a court. A ruling on the matter has been delayed until after the signature verification process is complete. Republican officials and aligned groups [pulled out all the stops](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/missouri-trump-redistricting%5Fn%5F693b07a1e4b053d6e8f0e259?ref=ivn.us) to keep PNP from being successful. Advanced Micro Targeting, Inc., the signature gathering group hired by PNP, alleged in a lawsuit that its contractors were bribed to switch sides. And if the contractors refused, they were threatened and harassed. But there’s more. A federal court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Hanaway in an effort to have the veto referendum declared unconstitutional. She also [reported the referendum campaign to ICE](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article313026819.html?ref=ivn.us), alleging it was using undocumented migrants to collect signatures. And on Black Friday, mass text messages sponsored by the Republican National Committee were sent out to Missouri voters warning them not to trust “out of state” signature gatherers trying to trick them while shopping. The irony, of course, is that the RNC is an out-of-state organization pushing an agenda. PNP needs about 110,000 of its signatures to be verified in order for its veto referendum to qualify for the ballot. Even if 92,000 signatures remain disqualified, the campaign has more than enough to be certified. ### How Gavin Newsom’s Prop 50 is Reshaping California - For Better or For Worse URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/how-gavin-newsoms-prop-50-reshaping-california-better-or-worse-2025-12-19/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:43:57.000Z Prop 50 is redrawing California’s political battlefield, sparking new fears of gerrymandering, backroom mapmaking, and voters losing their voice. We cut through the spin to explain what’s really changing, who benefits, and what it could mean for competitive elections, election reform, and independent voters. Plus, Independent CA-40 candidate Nina Linh joins us to spell out how Prop 50’s map shifts are already reshaping her district - and her race. **Listen to this episode and more from Independent Voter Project on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn.us) **and** [**Apple Music**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### Missouri’s Gerrymander Faces a Citizen Veto, but State Officials Aren't Taking 'No' for an Answer URL: https://ivn.us/missouris-gerrymander-faces-citizen-veto-state-officials-arent-taking-no-answer-2025-12-19/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:08:59.000Z People Not Politicians (PNP) submitted over 305,000 signatures last week to freeze a congressional gerrymander passed by the Missouri Legislature in September. However, state officials are doing everything they can to pretend this citizen revolt isn’t happening. “The citizens of Missouri have spoken loudly and clearly: they deserve fair maps, not partisan manipulation,” said PNP Executive Director Richard von Glahn. Yet the partisan manipulations continue. Not only have state officials sued to block the referendum, but they are defying their own precedent to ignore citizens entirely and move forward with the gerrymandered map. > [](https://x.com/agchanaway/status/1999111133114909025?ref=ivn.us) ### **Here Is What Voters Need to Know** Article III, Section 52(a) of the Missouri Constitution states that voters have the right to challenge actions taken by the General Assembly through a veto referendum if they collect enough signatures to put it on the ballot. Petitioners are required to get signatures from 5% of legal voters in two-thirds of the state’s congressional districts, which in 2025 means about 110,000 Missourians. PNP started to collect petitions in mid-September after the Republican-controlled Missouri Legislature [passed HB 1](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article312066876.html?ref=ivn.us), a new congressional map that carves up Kansas City in an attempt to give the GOP one additional seat (which would give them 7 of the state’s 8 seats). Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed HB 1 into law on September 28\. After Texas and California, it fueled further escalation in a bipartisan race to the bottom that IVN News [has covered extensively](https://ivn.us/tag/gerrymandering?tid=72). Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, also a Republican, approved PNP’s referendum petition to overturn the gerrymander on October 16, but said any signatures collected prior to October 14 would not count. By then, PNP [says it had collected 100,000 signatures](https://peoplenotpoliticiansmo.org/politicians-attempt-to-silence-constitutional-right-and-voice-of-100k-missourians/?ref=ivn.us). “Under Missouri law, no signatures gathered before this approval date are valid, and doing so constitutes a misdemeanor election offense,” Hoskins said. Von Glahn asserts that this position not only deliberately deceives voters, but violates court precedent: > *Secretary Hoskins is deliberately spreading misinformation for political purposes. Our campaign has gathered signatures at a historic pace — I’ve never seen Missourians unite and mobilize this quickly,” he said in October.* He also cites [*No Bans on Choice et al. v. Ashcroft*](https://www.courts.mo.gov/file.jsp?id=184176&ref=ivn.us) *(2022)*. In its decision, the state Supreme Court found that the law Hoskins claims still exists was struck down for violating citizens’ constitutional rights. PNP’s referendum was then taken to court – not only on the subject of signatures, but Hoskins and State Attorney General Catherine L. Hanaway also sued PNP. They claimed that the anti-gerrymandering referendum violated the U.S. Constitution. On December 8, [a federal judge dismissed the case over a lack of jurisdiction](https://missouriindependent.com/2025/12/08/federal-judge-rejects-missouri-ags-push-to-block-referendum-on-gerrymandered-map/?ref=ivn.us). At the same time, Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh heard arguments on the signature issue. On Monday, December 15, Limbaugh delayed ruling on the case until after election officials are done verifying the 305,000 signatures submitted by PNP. > [](https://x.com/DLHoskins/status/1999143199902781537?ref=ivn.us) PNP delivered more than 600 boxes of signatures to Hoskins. However, the secretary says HB 1 will not be suspended until he certifies the referendum for the ballot, which Von Glahn notes is another departure from established precedent. "It is very clear in law and in practice in Missouri that upon the submission of signatures, until the Secretary of State makes a decision to either certify the initiative as sufficient or to certify the petition is insufficient, the map is frozen,” he said. PNP points to 2017 when then-Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft suspended a “right to work” law the moment veto referendum signatures were submitted – not when Ashcroft certified the referendum for the ballot. But Hoskins has made it clear that protecting the new map is his priority: "I’m going to do everything I can to protect Gov. (Mike) Kehoe’s Missouri First Map – the map the General Assembly passed,” he said. The signature verification process generally takes 8-10 weeks, but state law allows election officials to drag this out until July 2026\. The state could then argue it is too late to suspend HB 1 because candidates have filed and primaries have been held. PNP has vowed additional legal action if Hoskins does not suspend HB 1. “If the secretary of state refuses to certify the referendum or attempts to put HB1 into effect prematurely, People Not Politicians is prepared to take immediate action in state court,” the campaign states. > *The organization expects the state and allied intervenors to attempt procedural delays, but remains confident that Missouri’s courts will uphold voters’ constitutional rights.”* ### **For Reformers in Maine, This Situation Is All Too Familiar** Missouri is [one of 23 states](https://ballotpedia.org/Veto%5Freferendum?ref=ivn.us) that have some form of veto referendum process. Another state that allows it is Maine, where reformers are familiar with the procedural stalling tactics lawmakers and state officials on both sides of the aisle use to circumvent the will of voters. In 2016, Maine became the first state in the nation to adopt ranked choice voting after a majority of voters approved Question 5\. Then, after a rollercoaster of a legislative process on the issue in 2017, state lawmakers passed LD 1646, which delayed RCV and set it up for repeal. Lawmakers did this even after [voters packed committee rooms](https://ivn.us/2017/10/16/voters-pack-capitol-testify-maine-ranked-choice-voting), [thousands of calls were made to legislative offices](https://ivn.us/2017/06/15/maine-lawmakers-decide-fate-ranked-choice-voting), and voters made it clear that they wanted their vote on RCV respected. The Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, the same group that spearheaded the 2016 RCV campaign, [launched a People’s Veto to overturn LD 1646](https://ivn.us/2017/10/27/rcv-maine-launches-peoples-veto-restore-ranked-choice-voting), which was [approved by voters on June 12, 2018](https://ivn.us/2018/06/18/independents-made-difference-maines-ranked-choice-voting), with a higher percentage of the vote than 2016. Reformers, however, faced the same type of stalling tactics seen in Missouri. Not only did the legislature set RCV up for repeal, then-Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, a Democrat, tried to keep LD 1646 in place even when the People’s Veto was certified for the ballot. In Maine, an action by the legislature being challenged by voters has to be suspended until a vote is held on the veto referendum. It took [a court order](https://wgme.com/news/local/maine-judge-puts-ranked-choice-voting-on-track-for-june-elections?ref=ivn.us) to force Dunlap to implement RCV for the June 12 primary elections. It looks like it will take a court order in Missouri to get state officials to comply with their own laws. Expect another lawsuit to be filed by People Not Politicians. ## **Rand Paul Says Gerrymandering Fight Could Lead to More Violence and Maryland Voters Say ‘Stay Out of It’** On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (Kentucky) said the mid-cycle gerrymandering fight between the two major parties is going to “lead to more civil tension and possibly more violence." “When it becomes so extreme – like if California has no Republican representatives after this is done or has one left, I think that makes people so dissatisfied, they think the electoral process isn’t working anymore. 'Maybe we have to resort to something else,'” he said. Paul didn’t just call out Democrats in California, but both sides for escalating the situation. These comments come at the end of a year that saw a surge of politically motivated violence and threats of violence, from the assassinations of Charlie Kirk and Democratic state legislators in Minnesota, to Indiana senators receiving death threats over refusing to gerrymander. Paul believes mid-cycle gerrymandering adds more chaos and exacerbates a system in which people think their vote doesn’t matter – and that is a recipe for disaster. Multiple polls show voters do not approve or like the gerrymandering that has occurred in 2025\. The most recent poll this week came out of Maryland from the Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. [According to the results](https://marylandmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/UMBC-Poll-Part-1-Mon-Dec-15.pdf?ref=ivn.us), 81% of Maryland respondents said redrawing electoral districts to benefit a single party is “a major” problem for American democracy. Further, only 12% of respondents supported a redistricting process in which state legislators redraw districts. The poll comes as an advisory commission commissioned by Gov. Wes Moore [voted behind closed doors](https://marylandmatters.org/2025/12/18/ferguson-decries-secret-meeting-of-redistricting-panel-preordained-predetermined-outcome/?ref=ivn.us) to move forward with the redistricting process mid-cycle. Currently, all but one of the state’s congressional districts are held by Democrats. Democrats in the Maryland legislature previously decided not to hold a special session to redraw its maps. ## **In Other Reform News…** ### **Time Is Running Out for CA Voter ID Initiative to Hit 1 Million Signatures** With Christmas week coming up and New Years the following week, many of the reform campaigns IVN News is following are going to slow down their operations or take a break completely for the holidays. However, Reform California’s Voter ID initiative is an exception as the group faces a self-imposed December 31 deadline to gather one million petition signatures – a tall and expensive order for any statewide initiative campaign in California. To qualify for the ballot, close to 875,000 signatures will need to be verified. Ballot initiative campaigns always give themselves extra cushion just in case signatures cannot be verified or are disqualified, which is why Reform California is shooting for a million going into the new year. The group’s voter ID initiative requires every voter to present a government-issued ID when voting in person or provide the last 4 digits of their ID when voting by mail – which is now most voters in the state. “This is going to be a popular reform measure,” said California Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, who is also the chair of Reform California. “Even a majority of Democrats support it, and 72% of Latinos support it.” Reform California announced on December 4 that it had reached 750,000 signatures, meaning it had less than a month to collect the remaining 250,000 it needed. However, the campaign also tweeted 5 days later that it needed 300,000 signatures. > [](https://x.com/ReformCalif/status/1998478719716049343?ref=ivn.us) No updated numbers have been provided since then. “Californians are speaking loud and clear: they want election integrity – and they’re ready to make history to get it,” DeMaio said. A [January 2025 poll](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/67cb80487fbb0791e702f69a/67cf0bfe127615809cc5d895%5FPoll%20on%20CA%20Voter%20ID%202025.pdf?ref=ivn.us) conducted by Public Opinion Strategies found that 52% of Democrats, 70% of independents, and 93% of Republicans in California support a state requirement that voters show government-issued photo ID when voting in person. The most outspoken opponents to voter ID are Democratic leaders who say it leads to voter suppression. Republican leaders say voter ID protects elections from fraud. But research shows both parties are wrong. Election fraud in general is considered so rare in the U.S. that statistically it doesn’t exist (and this is using data compiled by the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation), including the type of fraud voter ID is supposed to prevent: voter impersonation. [Other research](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=61343&utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), including from Harvard, has found that not only does voter ID have no impact on election security, but there is also no evidence that it has a negative effect on voter turnout. This has led to some calling the whole debate on the issue [a waste of time](https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/the-voter-id-debate-is-a-waste-of-time/?ref=ivn.us). [Trojan Horse: How CA Democrats Might Use Voter ID to Turn Back the ClockIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/ChatGPT-Image-Jul-25--2025--03_51_19-PM.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/trojan-horse-how-ca-democrats-might-use-voter-id-turn-back-clock-2025-07-25) Still, as previously reported on IVN News, this is [a nonpartisan issue Republicans can take the lead on in a deep blue state](https://ivn.us/posts/voter-id-republicans-nonpartisan-issue-california-2025-06-17), particularly after a year in which they may have lost half of their congressional seats going into the 2026 midterms under Prop 50. ### **Oklahoma Independents: We Deserve the Right to a Meaningful Vote** The campaign for State Question (SQ) 836 in Oklahoma released a new video featuring interviews with Republicans, Democrats, and independents at the Tulsa State Fair who all agree that the state’s taxpayer-funded elections should be open to all voters. The Yes on 836 campaign is currently gathering signatures for its ballot initiative that, if approved by voters, implements a nonpartisan top-two open primary that allows all voters and candidates to participate on a single primary ballot, regardless of party. Oklahoma uses a semi-closed primary election system, which means the parties eligible to hold primaries can decide whether or not to allow independent voters to participate in the most critical stage of the public elections process. For the 2026-2027 cycle, the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian Parties will use closed primaries. State Democrats say they voted to keep their primary open to independents, but the Oklahoma Election Board claims they did not file the right notice in time. The party is [reportedly considering its legal options](https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/politics/2025/12/10/oklahoma-elections-2026-will-primaries-be-open-to-independents-confusion/87702646007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z115421p116650c116650d00----v115421d--42--b--42--&gca-ft=197&gca-ds=sophi&ref=ivn.us). “Roughly one in five registered voters — almost 500,000 independents — will be barred from participating in taxpayer-funded primaries that effectively decide the vast majority of elected offices in the state,” the Yes on 836 campaign states. It is noted in the video that “Oklahoma has a 68% uncontested rate. It’s the highest in the country. Politicians are not being held accountable term after term after term. They don’t have to run because no one is running against them.” Even more seats are safe for one party, which means the most consequential vote is in the primaries, which limit choice for party members and bar independent and third-party voters entirely. “Of the 445 county, state, and federal races up for election last cycle, only seven (about 2%) were decided in November general elections by fewer than 10 points,” Yes on 836 notes. > *The remaining 98% of November races were blowouts, determined instead in June primaries or August runoffs, or ended on filing day when candidates ran unopposed.”* The campaign began gathering signatures in November. Margaret Kobos, the CEO and founder of Unite Oklahoma (which spearheaded SQ 836), expressed her optimism with IVN News about the initiative’s chances going into the new year. “Oklahomans are ready for an open primary system where every voter matters and has a voice," she said. "We have been working hard, visiting communities across the state to ensure every voter has a chance to sign our petition and put this initiative to a vote of the people.” ## **Quick Takeaways** - The Department of Justice [accused Democrats in court Monday](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-accuses-democratic-campaign-arm-obstruction-lawsuit-over-california-redistricting?ref=ivn.us) of obstructing discovery in a lawsuit against Prop 50 in California. The DOJ and the California GOP allege the gerrymandered map approved by voters constitutes a racial gerrymander. - The better elections group Open Primaries[ launched a litigation portal](https://openprimarieseducationfund.org/litigation-by-state/?ref=ivn.us) so that people can track the progress of legal challenges to closed primaries across the country, including Florida’s historic case considered by SCOTUS, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Wyoming, and Oregon. - In New Jersey, Morris County Democrats [used ranked choice voting](https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/morris-dems-vote-to-endorse-malinowski/?ref=ivn.us) to decide their endorsement of former Rep. Tom Malinowski in a special primary election for the state’s 11th Congressional District. The state still uses closed primaries that will shut out 36% of the state’s electorate in the special primary election. - The Utah Forward Party [used a first-of-its-kind preference poll](https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2025/12/12/utahs-forward-partys-first-of-its-kind-preference-poll-picks-a-winner-to-replace-sen-thatcher/?ref=ivn.us) to select a replacement for retiring state Sen. Dan Thatcher – a process opened to all district voters that used approval voting, which allows voters to select as many candidates as they want. - The better elections group FairVote [released a new in-depth report](https://fairvote.org/report/nyc-report-2025/?ref=ivn.us) on ranked choice voting in NYC in 2025, finding that the reform continues to deliver everything advocates promised. ### Trump Signs Order to Reclassify Cannabis to Schedule III URL: https://ivn.us/we-called-it-trump-reschedules-cannabis-2025-12-18/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:12:01.000Z WASHINGTON — Calling it "commonsense change" President Donald Trump announced Thursday that his administration will officially move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act, a decision that marks the most significant change to U.S. drug policy since the early 1970s. The reclassification ends a decades-long federal stance that treated cannabis as equally dangerous as heroin and LSD, despite mounting evidence of its medical benefits and widespread legalization in 24 states. The President’s move will ease barriers to research, allow medical use under federal law, and eliminate the IRS 280E tax penalty that has cost legal cannabis operators nearly $2 billion. President Trump’s decision fulfills a campaign promise that has been years in the making and could reshape electoral politics heading into the 2026 election cycle. As[ *Independent Voter News reported*](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-about-outflank-democrats-cannabis-progressives-sound-alarm-2025-12-08) on December 8, progressive groups like the Progressive Turnout Project have been warning that President Trump and the GOP could “steal marijuana reform right out from under us,” urging Democrats to act in Congress before Republicans claim credit for a policy long associated with liberal reform efforts. The announcement follows months of speculation and signals from the administration. In[ *Trump Could Reschedule Cannabis Tomorrow: Here’s What That Would Change Overnight*](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-could-reschedule-cannabis-tomorrow-heres-what-would-change-overnight-2025-12-17), IVN reported that such a move would bring federal law closer to the reality of 24 state-regulated markets. In [*Will Trump Reclassify Cannabis?*](https://ivn.us/posts/will-trump-reclassify-cannabis-week-2025-08-28), IVN detailed how the change could hit illicit cartels harder than any international crackdown by easing tax burdens and giving licensed U.S. companies a fairer playing field. The president’s tone toward cannabis has softened. In [*Trump Shares Pro Cannabis Video From Longtime Friend, Heightening Suspense Over Cannabis Rescheduling*](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-shares-pro-cannabis-video-longtime-friend-heightening-suspense-over-cannabis), IVN noted that Trump called CBD a “game changer” for seniors. This message sent cannabis stocks soaring and fueled speculation of imminent reform. While rescheduling does not fully legalize cannabis federally, it represents a major realignment of national drug policy. As [*How It Really Works: The Unfair Fight Between Legal Cannabis and Unregulated Gas Station Hemp*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbx2s4x%5FEzs&ref=ivn.us) explained, outdated federal definitions have allowed untested synthetic products to thrive. At the same time, legitimate operators face heavy regulation and taxation. IVN’s ongoing coverage has also placed the announcement in historical context. In [*Why the War on Cannabis Refuses to Die: How Boomers and the Yippies Made Weed Political*](https://ivn.us/posts/why-war-cannabis-refuses-die-how-boomers-and-yippies-made-weed-political-2025-06-30), the outlet chronicled how cannabis became a political flashpoint beginning with the Nixon era, when it was classified under Schedule I as part of a broader war on drugs. Thursday’s action marks the federal government’s first acknowledgment that those policies are no longer defensible. ### Quirk Silva’s Exit Sparks a High-Profile Orange County Clash, Where Independent Voters Control the Math URL: https://ivn.us/quirk-silvas-exit-sparks-high-profile-orange-county-clash-where-independent-voters-control/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:03:03.000Z California’s 67th Assembly District stretches across parts of Orange and Los Angeles counties, connecting some of the region’s most dynamic and diverse suburban communities. It includes the entire cities of Cerritos, La Palma, Hawaiian Gardens, Artesia, Buena Park, and Cypress, as well as portions of Fullerton and Anaheim. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DP7JuunEsP1/?ref=ivn.us) Drawn to satisfy Voting Rights Act obligations in neighboring areas and to balance population, this assembly district captures the essence of modern Southern California, a blend of cultures, economies, and political perspectives sharing the same busy corridors. This has historically been a strongly Democratic, plurality Asian district that mirrors California’s changing demographics. The 67th Assembly District contains about 142,000 households, and its demographics have shifted dramatically over the past decade. About 32 percent of eligible voters are Asian, 31 percent are White, 30 percent are Latino, 5 percent are Black, and roughly half a percent are Indigenous. Families here work in education, health care, and hospitality, and the area is home to one of the largest commercial districts serving Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian communities in the nation. It also hosts the headquarters of a major international humanitarian relief organization. The district’s economic backbone is tourism, anchored by Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, two of California’s most iconic destinations that employ thousands of local residents and shape the region’s identity. Nearly half of residents are renters, with a median rent of about $2,100 a month and household income below $100,000 a year. The district reflects California’s affordability crisis in real time, where the cost of living, transportation, and housing pressure middle-class families across political lines. For the past decade, [Assemblymember Sharon Quirk Silva](https://www.assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers/67?ref=ivn.us) has represented this area. A former teacher and mayor of Fullerton, Quirk Silva first won the seat in 2012\. Now, at 63, she is termed out, leaving one of the most competitive open seats in Southern California. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Fullerton, she spent 24 years teaching in the Fullerton School District, where she and her husband, Jesus Silva, also an educator, raised four children. In Sacramento, she gained attention for her successful effort to reintroduce cursive instruction in public schools, a bill she pursued for nearly a decade before its passage in 2023\. The law now requires cursive writing to be taught in grades one through six. Quirk Silva also authored AB 480, signed into law by Governor Newsom in October 2025, which helps developers build more affordable homes by expanding the flexibility of California’s housing tax credits. She has long advocated for Orange County’s first veterans cemetery, noting that the county remains the largest in the state without one. With her departure, the race to succeed her has drawn some of the region’s most prominent local leaders. [Ali Sajjad Taj](https://ali4assembly.com/?ref=ivn.us), a Democrat and longtime Artesia City Councilmember, enters the race with strong local support. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Taj attended The British School at The Hague and earned a degree in economics from the University of the Punjab before immigrating to the United States in the mid-1990s. He completed a master’s degree in public administration at the University of the Pacific and built a career in finance, working with American Express, Ameriprise Financial, Waddell and Reed, and TD Ameritrade. Fluent in six languages, Taj brings an international perspective to local governance. He was first elected to the Artesia City Council in 2013 and made history four years later as the city’s first Pakistani American mayor. He has served as president of the League of California Cities and previously ran for State Senate in 2018. Taj is endorsed by Assemblymember Quirk Silva, Senator Adam Schiff, Representatives Linda Sanchez, Derek Tran, Dave Min, and Norma Torres, as well as former lawmakers Loretta Sanchez and Josh Newman. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSCJc7vkUON/?ref=ivn.us) He has raised more than $450,000 for his campaign, with $418,000 cash on hand. [Ada Briceño](https://www.adabriceno.com/?ref=ivn.us), co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11 and former chair of the Orange County Democratic Party, is another leading contender. Born in Nicaragua in 1973, she immigrated to California with her family at age seven and began working at 14\. By 18, she was a hotel desk clerk and soon joined the union that would define her career. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFLOd52vVHb/?hl=en&ref=ivn.us) At 26, she became the first Latina to lead UNITE HERE Local 11\. Briceño has spent decades organizing service and hospitality workers and is a recognized voice for economic justice and immigrant rights. > [](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIhcJL-zshz/?ref=ivn.us) She lives in Cypress and is endorsed by Representative Derek Tran, former Representative Katie Porter, and Assemblymembers Rick Chavez Zbur, Liz Ortega, and Pilar Schiavo, as well as by her own union, UNITE HERE. She has raised nearly $400,000, ending the mid-year filing period with $324,000 cash on hand. [Mark Pulido](https://markpulido.com/?ref=ivn.us), a Democrat and longtime [Cerritos City Councilmember](https://www.cerritos.gov/city-government/city-council/mayor-and-councilmembers/mark-e-pulido-councilmember/?ref=ivn.us), brings deep experience in public policy and local government. Born in 1968, he grew up in Cerritos. He graduated from Whitney High School before earning a bachelor’s degree in history and Asian American Studies from UCLA, where he served as student body president. He later earned a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DFhIComRupw/?img%5Findex=1&ref=ivn.us) Pulido was first elected to the ABC Unified School Board in 2001 and served three terms before joining the Cerritos City Council in 2011\. He was reelected in 2015, served until term limits in 2020, and returned to office in 2025. [https://www.tiktok.com/@robbonta/video/7489585180441677061](https://www.tiktok.com/@robbonta/video/7489585180441677061?ref=ivn.us) Over nearly three decades, he has worked at every level of government, including as an Assembly consultant, a district director for Senator Alan Lowenthal, and chief of staff in Lowenthal’s congressional office. Governor Jerry Brown appointed him to several state commissions between 2013 and 2019. [Pulido is endorsed](https://markpulido.com/assembly-1?ref=ivn.us) by Attorney General Rob Bonta, Senator Christopher Cabaldon, Assemblymembers Josh Lowenthal, Mia Bonta, Jessica Caloza, Corey Jackson, and Al Muratsuchi, former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, former Treasurer John Chiang, and former Representatives Alan Lowenthal and Mike Honda. He has raised about $322,000 and has $343,000 cash on hand. Adrian O. Ayub, a 28-year-old Republican and entrepreneur from Cerritos, represents the youngest voice in the race. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DOo%5F3wokmQp/?hl=en&img%5Findex=1&ref=ivn.us) Born in 1997, he studied at Long Beach City College and Cerritos College and now works as a self-employed real estate investment advisor. [https://www.tiktok.com/@adrianoayub/video/7468164942890339627](https://www.tiktok.com/@adrianoayub/video/7468164942890339627?ref=ivn.us) He ran for Cerritos City Council in 2025, finishing tenth out of ten candidates with 1.4 percent of the vote. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DQqDyGdCRke/?hl=en&ref=ivn.us) Ayub’s campaign focuses on business growth, entrepreneurship, and reducing regulatory barriers that he argues stifle opportunity in California. As of October 2025, there are 264,000 registered voters in AD 67\. Democrats make up 41.63 percent of the electorate, Republicans 27.86 percent, and 24.8 percent are registered with no party preference. While the district remains solidly Democratic, it has inched slightly to the right in recent cycles, with Republicans often holding above 40 percent in statewide contests. From Fullerton’s historic downtown to the entertainment corridors of Anaheim and Buena Park, AD 67 is a microcosm of California’s political evolution, young, diverse, and increasingly defined by affordability rather than ideology. For the one in four voters who decline to register with either party, this race will be less about labels and more about who can deliver real results for a region that anchors the state’s tourism industry yet struggles with the everyday costs of living. Source note: This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State’s voter registration database, CalMatters, the California Target Book, Ballotpedia, California FPPC campaign finance filings, candidate websites, and reporting from local news outlets. ### Trump Could Reschedule Cannabis Tomorrow — Here’s What That Would Change Overnight URL: https://ivn.us/trump-could-reschedule-cannabis-tomorrow-heres-what-would-change-overnight-2025-12-17/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:12:05.000Z If reports prove accurate, tomorrow may mark the most significant shift in federal drug policy in 55 years. Multiple administration sources are signaling that President Trump is poised to follow through on what has long been teased: rescheduling cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act. Since 1970, cannabis has shared the same legal category as heroin, a classification that ignored decades of science, the experience of millions of patients, and the realities of a multi-billion-dollar legal industry operating in 24 states. By reclassifying cannabis to Schedule III, President Trump would keep his campaign promise to formally recognize accepted medical use under federal law and unlock new pathways for research and business operations. Yet, as the move edges closer, the reaction from parts of the media has been revealing. Correspondents on Fox News have been in overdrive this week, fixating on the potency of modern cannabis products and warning of public health risks. The irony, of course, is that potency is not an argument against rescheduling; it is the reason for it. For years, critics of federal reform have argued that keeping cannabis illegal prevents misuse. In reality, prohibition has pushed the market underground, where quality control, dosage transparency, and age limits mean nothing. Licensed cannabis offers seed-to-sale traceability: when a contaminant is detected, regulators can pinpoint the farm, batch, and lab results within hours. With “gas‑station weed,” the supply chain often ends at a P.O. Box. This is precisely the kind of unregulated commerce rescheduling seeks to end. [How It Really Works: The Unfair Fight Between Legal Cannabis and Unregulated 'Gas‑Station' HempIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/hirw_reelsog.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/how-it-really-works-unfair-fight-between-legal-cannabis-and-unregulated-gas-station-hemp-2025) In October, [IVN reported](https://ivn.us/posts/fox-news-and-its-very-dishonest-cannabis-dui-story-2025-10-10) on a misleading [Fox News segment](https://www.foxnews.com/health/fatal-crash-report-finds-nearly-half-deadly-wrecks-tied-illegal-drug?ref=ivn.us) about 106 drivers with THC in their systems who died in car crashes, showing how media networks can package limited research findings into sensationalized news that seeks to influence political debate. Fox & Friends sprang into action just days after former President Trump [shared a pro-medical-cannabis video](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-shares-pro-cannabis-video-longtime-friend-heightening-suspense-over-cannabis) on his social media accounts, signaling his potential support for rescheduling cannabis at the federal level. > [](https://x.com/TrumpDailyPosts/status/1972421089784725978?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1972421089784725978%7Ctwgr%5E239cf9376c5c8c6ee365cf5384c9a21fbbb6ae6d%7Ctwcon%5Es1%5F&ref%5Furl=https%3A%2F%2Fivn.us%2Fposts%2Ffox-news-and-its-very-dishonest-cannabis-dui-story-2025-10-10&ref=ivn.us) By moving cannabis to Schedule III, the federal government would not be legalizing it outright, but it would be creating a framework where the product can be studied, standardized, and sold by licensed, taxpaying businesses. That shift could hit criminal cartels harder than any symbolic war on drugs ever has. Legitimate cannabis companies have paid nearly $2 billion more in federal taxes than comparable businesses due to Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code, which prohibits tax deductions for companies handling Schedule I or II substances. Rescheduling would finally relieve that burden, giving licensed operators a fighting chance against the illicit market. The Washington Post [reported](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/12/11/trump-marijuana-reclassification-executive-order/?ref=ivn.us) on December 11 that, according to six people familiar with the discussions, President Trump was expected to make his move imminently. Trump discussed the matter on a December 10 call with House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as marijuana industry executives, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Mehmet Oz. ### Arambula Departure Turns Fresno’s Safe Democratic Seat into a Battle Independent and GOP Voters Could Win URL: https://ivn.us/arambulas-departure-turns-fresnos-safe-democratic-seat-battle-independent-and-gop-voters/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:12:07.000Z California’s 31st Assembly District runs through the agricultural heart of the San Joaquin Valley, where the land is lined with orchards, vineyards, and produce fields that feed the state and the nation. It covers portions of Fresno County, including the cities of Parlier, Selma, Orange Cove, Fowler, and Sanger, as well as parts of Fresno and Clovis. The district follows the Highway 99 corridor, stretching east along Highway 180 and south along Highway 41, connecting small rural towns to the city of Fresno. It is a culturally rich and economically vital region where Latino, Hmong, Sikh, Black, and Middle Eastern families live and work side by side. Shared concerns in these communities include immigrant rights, affordable housing, education, and reliable transportation. This is a majority Latino district, with Latinos making up about 63.8 percent of the population according to 2023 census data. The district includes roughly 150,000 households and remains protected under the [Voting Rights Act](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47520?ref=ivn.us) to ensure fair representation. As of October 2025, there are 229,000 registered voters in AD 31\. Democrats account for 43.42 percent, Republicans 24.10 percent, and No Party Preference voters 23.72 percent. About 13,744 veterans call this district home, many of them employed in agriculture, logistics, and local government. Though the seat has long been safely Democratic, voting patterns across Fresno County have trended more conservative in recent years. AD 31 is one of the most economically challenged districts in the state. The median household income is about $56,000, and more than half of residents, about 51.9 percent, are renters. The median rent is $1,100 a month, a relatively modest figure by California standards but high compared with local wages. Nearly 28 percent of residents rely on food assistance programs, a measure of how tight household budgets remain even for working families. For families across the Valley, the cost of housing, food, and transportation defines the struggle to remain stable in a region that powers the state’s economy but rarely sees its prosperity shared equally. [Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/joaquin-arambula-17377?ref=ivn.us), a Democrat and emergency room physician, has represented the district since winning a 2016 special election. Born and raised in the San Joaquin Valley, Arambula is the son of former Assemblymember and Fresno County Supervisor Juan Arambula, who held the same seat from 2004 to 2010. Before entering politics, Joaquin Arambula worked as an emergency room physician at Adventist Medical Center in Selma. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College in Maine and his medical degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth. He lives in Fresno with his wife, Elizabeth, and their three daughters. In Sacramento, Arambula became known for his focus on health care access, early childhood development, and protections for immigrants. He led California’s efforts to expand Medi-Cal access regardless of immigration status. In 2020, he was selected to lead the Assembly’s informal business-friendly New Democrats caucus but stepped down several months later after casting a decisive vote in favor of expanding family leave. In July 2023, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas [removed him from the Assembly’s health committee](https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025/06/arambula-off-health-00409517?ref=ivn.us) after Arambula [discussed](https://sjvsun.com/news/politics/joaquin-arambula-removed-from-the-assembly-budget-committee/?ref=ivn.us) challenging Rivas for the leadership seat earlier in the year. Because his service began mid-term in 2016, an additional term would exceed California’s 12-year legislative limit, and he will leave office in 2026\. Arambula has filed to [run for a Fresno City Council seat](https://public.netfile.com/Pub2/AllFilingsByFiler.aspx?id=214310067&aid=COF&ref=ivn.us) in 2026. The race to replace him has quickly become one of the most competitive contests in the Central Valley. Two Democrats, Fresno City Councilmember [Annalisa Perea](https://www.instagram.com/councilmember%5Fperea/?hl=en&ref=ivn.us) and nonprofit executive [Sandra Celedon](https://sandraceledon.com/vote-sandra-celedon/?ref=ivn.us), have declared their candidacies, along with one Republican, retired county engineer [Jim Polsgrove](https://www.facebook.com/jim.polsgrove/). [**Annalisa Perea**](https://www.pereaforassembly.com/?ref=ivn.us), the daughter and granddaughter of Mexican American farmworkers and railroad workers, and the sister of former Assemblymember [Henry T. Perea](https://hsr.ca.gov/about/board-of-directors/board-members/henry-perea/?ref=ivn.us), represents District 1 on the Fresno City Council and comes from one of the region’s best-known political families. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DSQDRQtjMPY/?ref=ivn.us) She has built her career on housing, infrastructure, and community redevelopment, particularly in Fresno’s urban core. Perea has a degree in City and Regional Planning from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and has spent her career as an urban planner. Perea is the city's first openly gay council member. Perea entered the race with strong name recognition and substantial early fundraising success, collecting more than $306,000 for the cycle and finishing midyear with about $257,000 in cash on hand. She has been endorsed by Attorney General Rob Bonta, the Fresno City Employees Association, and SEIU. [**Sandra Celedon**](https://sandraceledon.com/?ref=ivn.us), president and CEO of [Fresno Building Healthy Communities](https://fresnobhc.org/home/?ref=ivn.us), is a longtime nonprofit leader and community advocate. She has spent years working on housing equity, public health, and youth programs and has earned endorsements from Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula and former Assemblymembers Sarah Reyes and Juan Arambula. Celedon highlights her involvement in local initiatives, such as Measure P, which funds Fresno’s parks, arts, and trails. Her website says she worked to bring in $70 million in state funds to transform Fresno, which included $17 million to construct a Fresno City College campus in Southwest Fresno and create hundreds of jobs. Her campaign has also been endorsed by the California Working Families Party. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DRSMMHqlOUD/?ref=ivn.us) Celedon has raised nearly $109,000 for her campaign and ended midyear with $95,000 on hand. Her campaign reflects a progressive vision rooted in grassroots engagement and neighborhood empowerment. Republican candidate [**Jim Polsgrove**](https://www.polsgrove4calif.com/?ref=ivn.us) is a retired senior engineering technician for Fresno County. He was born in Fresno and grew up on a small ranch. He was a member of the Fresno County GOP committee, the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, and the Fresno County California Republican Assembly. He was also the Vice President of the NRA Members Council of the Central Valley. He is campaigning on a platform of lowering taxes, reducing crime, and bringing common sense to Sacramento. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DSLvuBkjk1L/?ref=ivn.us) Polsgrove has contributed $25,000 of his own funds to his campaign. He reported raising a total of $25,050 and finished the period with about $22,000 cash on hand. He’s been endorsed by actor and comedian Rob Schneider. While Republicans face a steep climb here, Polsgrove’s entry signals an effort to test whether the district’s slow rightward movement might open the door to new competition. Sanger City Councilmember Esmeralda Hurtado, the sister of State Senator Melissa Hurtado, briefly entered the race before withdrawing to pursue a run for the 14th Senate District instead. Between 2020 and 2024, this assembly district swung 17 points toward the right in presidential voting, moving from a 30-point Biden margin to a 13-point Harris margin. That swing, in a place where one of four voters has refused to affiliate with either major political party, has caught the attention of strategists from across the political spectrum. Source note: This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State’s voter registration database, CalMatters, the California Target Book, Ballotpedia, California FPPC campaign finance filings, candidate websites, and reporting from local news outlets. ### Trump Big Mad that Indiana Republicans Won’t Fight His Gerrymandering War URL: https://ivn.us/trump-big-mad-indiana-republicans-wont-fight-his-gerrymandering-war-2025-12-12/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:12:08.000Z Things looked like they could get even more chaotic this week in the mid-cycle gerrymandering arms race between the two major parties as the Indiana Senate took up a new congressional map to give Republicans an even greater electoral advantage in the state. Trump has told Republicans to redraw their maps. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has made it clear Democrats are willing to do the same. But Indiana Senate Republicans this week put their foot down and declared that they want no part in this race to the bottom. [Did the Republicans or Democrats Start the Gerrymandering Fight?IVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/andy-feliciotti-8cvjI48SFtY-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/did-republicans-democrats-start-gerrymandering-fight-2025-11-11) Passing a new gerrymandered map wouldn’t have been hard in Indiana, where Republicans hold a super-majority in the legislature. However, the Indiana Senate [voted 31-19 against the plan](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/11/indiana-republicans-redistricting-vote-trump-00687714?ref=ivn.us). This means 21 Republicans joined the 10 Democrats in the chamber to vote down a new congressional map in the midst of a partisan fight that has gotten so bad that senators received death threats, including bomb threats, unsolicited pizza deliveries, and swatting. State lawmakers also faced political pressure from the White House, state visits from Vice President JD Vance, and whip calls from U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson – not to mention threats of political consequences from Gov. Mike Braun. > [](https://x.com/GovBraun/status/1999234066680512867?ref=ivn.us) By small group, he means more than half of sitting Republicans. Braun said he will be working with President Trump to primary the lawmakers who defied party leaders. In his response, Trump specifically singled out Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray and said he hoped he will be primaried. The use of partisan primary elections as a weapon to keep members in line is nothing new to the Republican and Democratic Parties – but it has become much more visible to the public over the last few years as party leaders openly threaten their members over any sign of revolt. And for MAGA Republicans, defiance represents an existential threat to the Trump movement. “You have a state full of MAGA Republicans run by Republican MAGA haters,” said Trump 2024 campaign manager Chris LaCivita. > *If you don’t defend a political movement from those that stand in the way — then it’s not a movement at all — a handful of politicians in Indiana will now know what standing in the way really means.”* What the future holds for Indiana Senate Republicans remains to be seen. For now, their rejection of a mid-cycle gerrymander could stall escalation. Just next door, the Democratic-controlled and already heavily gerrymandered Illinois was watching and waiting. > [](https://x.com/GovPritzker/status/1999240445063205180?ref=ivn.us) “Our neighbors in Indiana have stood up to Trump’s threats and political pressure, instead choosing to do what’s right for their constituents and our democracy,” said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. “Illinois will remain vigilant against his map rigging — our efforts to respond and stop his campaign are being heard.” ## **In Other Reform News…** ### **Closed Primaries Are Democracy’s Silent Inequality Machine, New Study Finds** A new study released on Monday, December 8, found that not only do nonpartisan primaries increase turnout among historically under-represented voters, but it also confirms something reformers have said for decades: **Closed primary elections create a system of political inequality that is designed to benefit the two major political parties and their most loyal, rank-and-file members.** "Consequences of this political inequality include the distortion of public policy where the preferences of certain groups are amplified by closed primary elections, and the resulting policies and candidates reflect the interests of the more powerful groups,” [the study finds](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0335840&ref=ivn.us). > *This can lead to policies that benefit various categories of partisans over people with weaker party affiliations, but also the older and wealthier at the expense of the less privileged. Another consequence of political inequality is the erosion of trust in government.”* The analysis was written by political science professors Todd Donovon from Western Washington University, Nathan K. Micatka out of the University of South Alabama, and Caroline J. Tolbert from the University of Iowa. All three authors previously published research that looked at increased voter turnout in Alaska when the state first used its nonpartisan Top Four primary system in 2022. “We find that Alaska’s change to a top-4 nonpartisan primary in 2022 corresponded with proportionately greater increased turnout among independents, younger voters, liberals and to some extent, moderates,” [they write](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00344893.2025.2460451?ref=ivn.us#d1e339). Their latest paper is one of the first academic studies outside the reform space that uses voter files to explicitly make the connection between political inequality and primary election rules that bar millions of independent voters from participating. “Barriers to primary participation for unaffiliated voters posed by closed primary rules may be further exacerbated by other trends in American politics, including partisan gerrymandering and geographic self-sorting of the electorate along ideological lines,” the authors write. > *This makes most House elections in the U.S. uncompetitive, with primaries determining outcomes.”* They note that the Cook Political Report has found that 95% of U.S. House races are safe for the Republican or Democratic Party, which means the most consequential vote is cast in taxpayer-funded primaries where the winner is effectively chosen. IVN News is cited in this study, as we have reported extensively on this topic – including on Unite America research that “a mere 8 percent of voters elected 83 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives in uncompetitive general election districts” in 2022. This is important because as the authors note, “Political scientists and policymakers don’t often connect primary election rules as contributing to political inequality.” Of course not. Political scientists have looked at U.S. politics the same way for the last half century. And policymakers – they know how important primary elections are, but they also benefit from the very political inequities they have long ignored. As the study notes, 27 million independent voters are now locked out of primary elections they fund, and many more live in states with mixed primary systems that effectively require them to join a party to get full and meaningful participation in elections. The continued growth of independent voters across the country is making it harder for those who have long operated under the country’s two-party structure to overlook the connection between closed primaries and political inequality. ### **The Study Shows Reformers Are on the Right Track** The authors of the study do not explicitly advocate for reform. It is strictly an academic paper motivated by a question: Do primary systems that allow independent voters to participate have higher turnouts across demographic groups? “Since unaffiliated voters are disproportionately young, less affluent, and people of color, this study is interested in the possible downstream effects of open primaries on the turnout of various demographic groups,” the paper states. However, while researchers remain neutral on the subject of reform, their data suggests reformers are moving in the right direction. They make a critical distinction between nonpartisan open primaries – like in California, Washington, and Alaska – and open partisan primaries, which allow independent voters to select a party’s ballot but limit their choices to the candidates of that party. This primary system still serves a partisan purpose (i.e. selecting party nominees for the general election). [How Do Primary Elections Work? An Overview and Legal AnalysisIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/hero-migrated-5d1d1842c8d10818908412e1.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/how-do-primary-elections-work-an-overview-and-legal-analysis) A nonpartisan system is party agnostic. All voters and candidates participate on a single ballot, regardless of political affiliation. All Democrats, Republicans, third party, and independent candidates compete against each other for a spot in the general election. The number of candidates that advance can vary. In California, there are two candidates that advance – though the [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) (which authored Top Two in the state) now advocates for five candidates. In Alaska, there are four candidates that advance. In short, under nonpartisan primary systems: - Every voter receives the same ballot – no need to opt into a party. - Independent voters (who skew young and lower-income) face no administrative barrier. - Competition is higher, because all candidates appear on the same ballot. - Parties can't weaponize these elections because they don't control them - Moderates and independents feel more empowered, so turnout broadens. Researchers have found that there is not much of a difference in turnout in states that use open partisan primaries versus closed primaries. However, there is a notable difference in turnout under nonpartisan systems. “Across age, education, and income groups, with family income measured by credit bureau reports, we find that turnout is higher in nonpartisan primaries than in closed primaries,” the study finds. > *When open primary states are compared to closed primary states, we find no differences in turnout across these demographic groups, apart from higher turnout for people in the lowest income category.”* States like Washington and California have not only removed barriers to participation by using nonpartisan systems, but they also have made voting more accessible through other state policies. Thus, turnout is higher in these states compared to the national average. The thing that motivated the fundamental question of the study were claims the authors say reformers have made that nonpartisan systems lead to higher turnout, more representative primary outcomes, and less extreme candidates. However, higher turnout isn’t the reason for reform. It is a possibility under a system that drastically lowers social inequities. When every voter gets equal access and treatment in elections, it creates opportunities that don’t exist under closed primary systems. And *that* is the point. Nonpartisan election reform is about ending systems designed to only benefit two private political corporations and their members at the expense of independent voters, who tend to be younger, less affluent, and people of color. The most important takeaway from the study is that political scientists are starting to write about what reformers have talked about for decades, lending further credibility to the independent reform movement. ### **AZ Democrats Sue to Stop Arizona Independent Party from Emerging** This week, The Democratic Party of Arizona filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, to prevent the No Labels Party from changing its name to the Arizona Independent Party. It claims he does not have the authority to allow it. Fontes is Arizona’s chief elections officer. The main argument the Democratic Party is relying on is that the name change will cause confusion, noting that Fontes has instructed county supervisors to register voters who write “IND” on their registration form as unaffiliated and those who write “IND Party” with the Arizona Independent Party. “In other words, in some cases, the only distinction between voters who will be registered as Arizona Independent Party members and those who will be registered as unaffiliated is the lone word ‘Party,’” [said attorney Roy Herrera](https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2025/12/08/arizona-democrats-sue-to-block-no-labels-party-rebranding/?ref=ivn.us). The Citizens Clean Election Commission has already filed a lawsuit, making the same claim. Whether the Democrats’ lawsuit is actually about preventing voter confusion is subject to dispute. In 2023, the Democratic Party filed a lawsuit when Fontes first recognized the No Labels Party. It claimed the No Labels organization violated disclosure requirements in its effort to get the party certified ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Both major parties in Arizona have a history of trying to snuff out competition. For example, the state GOP [passed a 2015 law that targeted only the Libertarian Party.](https://ivn.us/2018/06/29/arizona-gop-war-libertarian-party) It raised the number of signatures Libertarian candidates need to qualify for their own party’s primary ballot from a couple hundred to a few thousand. Efforts by the Libertarian Party to have the law overturned have[ failed](https://lp.org/arizona-daily-sun-law-requiring-signatures-libertarian-candidates-remains/?ref=ivn.us). Still, while the Democratic Party’s motives are in question, there is historical evidence that adding “independent” in a party’s name can lead to voter confusion. In particular, this can be seen in California. In 2014, IVN News was the first to report that most voters registered with the American Independent Party (AIP) in California had done so by mistake, thinking that they were registered independent of a party (which is No Party Preference in the state). Two years later, the LA Times published its own report confirming that many voters were registered with AIP by mistake, including quotes from registered voters who said they meant to register as an independent. Since California uses a nonpartisan Top Two primary, this doesn’t prevent AIP voters from expressing themselves in most elections. However, California still uses a semi-closed presidential primary which has [a documented history of causing confusion](https://ivn.us/posts/the-impending-disaster-of-californias-confusing-presidential-primary). Under a semi-closed primary system, political parties can decide whether or not to allow No Party Preference voters to participate. However, registered party members can only vote in their respective party’s primary, including voters registered with AIP. If voters think they are registered independent… It is easy to see why this causes confusion. The Independent Voter Project [petitioned the Supreme Court to hear its challenge to California’s use of semi-closed presidential primaries](https://independentvoterproject.org/work/california-presidential-primary-lawsuit?ref=ivn.us) when the state constitution calls for open primaries. The high court chose not to hear the case. Arizona uses a semi-open primary system, which allows independent voters to select a party ballot in primary elections. However, registered party members are limited to their own party’s primary – meaning Arizona Independent Party voters could run into the same problem. This story highlights a number of issues with Arizona elections: - Both parties have fought against nonpartisan primary reform that would eliminate the confusion problem and treat all voters equally in primaries – [like Prop 140 in 2024](https://ivn.us/posts/arizona-rejected-primary-reform-2024-they-dont-support-status-quo-either-2024-11-12). - While voters rejected Prop 140, which did not clearly define what nonpartisan primary model would be used, they also rejected a ballot measure that would ban primary reform – indicating a desire for change. - Third parties are often the target of lawsuits by the major parties, either to prevent their recognition by the state or to stop their candidates from gaining ballot access. - No Labels Party is changing its name in part to entice independent candidates to run under the party banner because of the state’s discriminatory petition requirements for independents. Qualifying for the ballot as an unaffiliated statewide candidate requires over 42,000 valid signatures – significantly higher than party candidates. ### **RCV Goes National? New Bill Aims to Blow Up America’s Broken Elections** U.S. Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.), Don Beyer (Va.), and U.S. Senator Peter Welch (Vt.) reintroduced legislation Wednesday that requires the use of ranked choice voting in all congressional elections, both for the primary and the general. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DSGg7gqAk%5Fz/?ref=ivn.us) The bill gives every voter in the country the opportunity to rank congressional candidates in order of preference (first choice, second choice, third choice, etc.). If a candidate wins more than 50% of first-choice votes, they win outright. If not, the candidate with the fewest first-choice selections is eliminated and their voters’ ballots are redistributed to their next choice. The process continues until one candidate has majority support. “Ranked choice voting is a great advance in democracy. It gives voters more power at the ballot box and makes our politics more positive and inclusive, encouraging candidates to connect with more voters,” Raskin said. > *I’m proud to partner with Representative Beyer and Senator Welch on this important legislation to keep growing and improving electoral democracy.”* [Ranked Choice for Every Voter? New Bill Would Transform Every Congressional Election by 2030IVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/RCV-Act.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/ranked-choice-every-voter-new-bill-transforms-every-congressional-election-2030-2025-12-10) ### **Speaking of RCV, Report Shows Mathematicians Love It** IVN News author Cara McCormick [reported this week](https://ivn.us/posts/why-mathematicians-love-ranked-choice-voting-2025-12-11) on a new comprehensive report that – like the study on turnout in nonpartisan primaries – shows researchers outside the reform space see the value of more choice elections. The 60-page report from the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy (IMD) analyzes nearly 4,000 real ranked ballot elections and 60 million simulated ones to test how different voting methods compare and perform. “The study’s conclusion is clear. Ranked choice voting methods outperform traditional first-past-the-post elections on nearly every measure of democratic fairness,” McCormick writes. > *IMD’s research team, led by mathematicians from Wellesley College, William Jewell College, Colby College, High Point University, and Boston University, found that IRV and Condorcet methods of tabulation consistently produce outcomes that better reflect the majority will and reduce the effects of vote splitting and ‘spoiler’ candidates.”* IMD Director Ismar Volic said: > *We need better electoral engineering, namely a better design of mechanisms of democracy that would produce outcomes that are favorable to more people.”* [Why Mathematicians Love Ranked Choice VotingIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/rcv-math.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/why-mathematicians-love-ranked-choice-voting-2025-12-11) ### Breaking Report: Trump Set to Reclassify Marijuana to Schedule III URL: https://ivn.us/washington-post-report-trump-verge-rescheduling-cannabis-2025-12-11/ Last updated: 2025-12-12T01:18:01.000Z The Washington Post [reports](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/12/11/trump-marijuana-reclassification-executive-order/?ref=ivn.us) that according to six people familiar with the discussions, President Donald Trump is expected to direct federal agencies to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III controlled substance. Trump discussed the matter on a December 10 call with House Speaker Mike Johnson, along with marijuana industry executives, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Mehmet Oz. Trump cannot unilaterally reclassify marijuana. However, he can direct the Department of Justice to forgo a hearing and issue a final rule. If the report is correct it would mark the most significant change in federal cannabis regulation in more than 50 years. Ever since President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one” in 1970, cannabis has remained federally classified alongside heroin and LSD as a substance with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” As IVN reported in[ Nixon Admitted Weed Wasn’t Dangerous, But Killed It to Crush Political Dissent](https://ivn.us/posts/nixon-admitted-weed-wasnt-dangerous-killed-it-crush-political-dissent-2025-07-09?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), Nixon’s own commission on drug abuse concluded that cannabis posed minimal harm compared to other controlled substances. Yet Nixon ignored those findings, using the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 to solidify federal prohibition, a decision whose political consequences shape today’s debate. The second Trump administration has kept the proposal to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III active since the Department of Health and Human Services recommended the change in 2023\. That process remains paused by a DEA administrative judge but is pending final review. Reclassification would formally recognize the medical use of cannabis and lift the tax restrictions that have burdened licensed operators under IRS code 280E. IVN has followed the reclassification process closely, [reporting earlier this week](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-about-outflank-democrats-cannabis-progressives-sound-alarm-2025-12-08) that speculation over potential executive action had been building since Trump said publicly in August that his administration was “looking at reclassification.” The move could have broad implications for the legal cannabis industry, the illicit market, and ongoing debates over federal drug policy. [IVN also reported this week](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-about-outflank-democrats-cannabis-progressives-sound-alarm-2025-12-08) that the Progressive Turnout Project sounded the alarm in a fundraising appeal warning that Trump was about to “steal marijuana reform right out from under” the Democrats by acting first on reclassification. Independent Voter’s Facebook post foreshadowing the possibility of a Trump cannabis reclassification went viral just one day before the Washington Post story broke. ### Why Mathematicians Love Ranked Choice Voting URL: https://ivn.us/why-mathematicians-love-ranked-choice-voting-2025-12-11/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:12:10.000Z The [Institute for Mathematics and Democracy](https://mathematics-democracy-institute.org/?ref=ivn.us) (IMD) has released what may be the most comprehensive empirical study of ranked choice voting ever conducted. The 66-page [report](https://drive.google.com/file/d/123CQSeBL3DrFXV5GLsMVxbIt67nKC82e/view?usp=sharing&ref=ivn.us) analyzes nearly 4,000 real-world ranked ballot elections, including some 2,000 political elections, and more than 60 million simulated ones to test how different voting methods perform. The study’s conclusion is clear. Ranked choice voting methods outperform traditional first-past-the-post elections on nearly every measure of democratic fairness. IMD’s research team, led by mathematicians from Wellesley College, William Jewell College, Colby College, High Point University, and Boston University, found that IRV and Condorcet methods of tabulation consistently produce outcomes that better reflect the majority will and reduce the effects of vote splitting and “spoiler” candidates. “The best performing methods are IRV and Condorcet,” the report concludes. “They are least likely to be susceptible to spoiler effects, are mostly resistant to strategic voting, and are unlikely to elect weak or fringe candidates.” ## **Mathematics for Democracy** Founded in 2019, the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy brings together [academics, educators, and civic leaders](https://mathematics-democracy-institute.org/scholars-and-affiliates/?ref=ivn.us) around a single mission: to use mathematics as a force for democratic renewal. [Ismar Volic](https://ivolic.wellesley.edu/?ref=ivn.us), the institute’s director, said the study reflects that mission in action. “We need better electoral engineering, namely a better design of mechanisms of democracy that would produce outcomes that are favorable to more people,” he said. At its core, the Institute believes that mathematical literacy is civic literacy, and that understanding how votes are counted is just as essential as casting them. ## **The Evidence Behind Reform** IMD’s latest research analyzed ranked-choice data from Australia, Scotland, and the United States, alongside simulated models based on tens of millions of hypothetical ballots. Across both real and simulated elections, IRV and Condorcet methods agreed on the winning candidate in an overwhelming majority of cases. Plurality voting, the system used in most U.S. elections, performed the worst. It regularly rewarded polarizing candidates and encouraged strategic “lesser of two evils” voting. Ranked systems, on the other hand, gave voters the freedom to express their full preferences without fear of wasting a vote and encourage moderation, since candidates must appeal beyond their base to earn second-choice rankings. While IRV earned praise for its simplicity and real-world adoption, Condorcet stood out in the data as the most mathematically fair system. Condorcet methods were found to be “the most resistant to the spoiler effect” and to produce the most broadly supported winners. The report notes that Condorcet elections were the best at avoiding “fringe” or extreme candidates. This is because [Condorcet elections avoid a “center squeeze”](https://edwardbfoley.substack.com/p/keep-condorcet-in-consideration-as) in which a candidate preferred by a majority of voters when considered head-to-head against either a candidate on the left or a candidate on the right cannot prevail. ## **From Theory to Practice** The IMD’s work connects with a growing academic interest in how mathematics can inform public policy. Among those bridging that gap is [Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2007/maskin/facts/?ref=ivn.us), who spoke at the Institute’s recent [conference on mathematics and democracy](https://thewellesleynews.com/21886/news/nobel-laureate-eric-maskin-and-leading-scholars-attend-wellesleys-mathematics-and-democracy-conference/?ref=ivn.us) held at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Maskin, a pioneer in the field of [mechanism design](https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/maskin%5Flecture.pdf?ref=ivn.us), studies how institutions can be structured to achieve socially desirable outcomes. “Mechanism design is centered around the goals that society wants to attain,” he explained. “The idea is to try to figure out a mechanism or an institution or a procedure that will attain those goals.” In his presentation, Maskin highlighted the same flaw that IMD’s study quantifies: First-past-the-post elections too often produce winners that most voters actually oppose. He advocated for Condorcet-style voting, in which voters rank candidates, and the winner is the one who would defeat all others in head-to-head matchups. He also spoke about the challenge of translating technical research for a broader audience. “It’s actually much harder to write for a general audience,” he said. “They’re not going to understand the language that professionals use. I have to think about every word, and I don’t want to oversimplify.” That commitment to clarity mirrors the Institute’s philosophy. For IMD, reform depends as much on education as on analysis. The organization focuses on teaching citizens how to evaluate claims about fairness, data, and democracy. “Most ideas for reform, if you trace them back, go back to an academic,” Maskin said. “But it can’t end with academics. There’s also the very practical problem: how do you get these changes adopted?” ## **The Path Forward** Maskin pointed to ranked-choice voting initiatives in Maine, Alaska, New York City, and San Francisco as examples of progress made possible by education. “In order for the public to be willing to vote for change,” he said, “they have to be educated. They have to understand why the current system is flawed and why the new proposal is better.” That is precisely the Institute’s mission: to make democracy not just fairer, but smarter. Through its research, teaching, and outreach, the mathematicians at IMD are helping citizens see elections the way mathematicians do, not as static contests but as underlying systems that can be designed, tested, and improved. If democracy is a design problem, perhaps it is time to let the mathematicians help solve it. ### Trump, Cannabis & the Progressive Left’s Freakout Over the Marijuana Issue URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/trump-cannabis-progressive-lefts-freakout-over-marijuana-issue-2025-12-11/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:44:30.000Z Independent Voter Podcast host Chad Peace and co-host Cara McCormick dive into the left’s political freak-out over Trump potentially rescheduling cannabis — and what it exposes about a system that weaponizes even 80/20 issues. With guest Adam Swart of Crowds on Demand, they go from weed reform to immigration to gerrymandering asking: Can independents help drag politics back to common sense solutions? [Is Trump About to Outflank Democrats on Cannabis? Progressives Sound the AlarmIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/trump-cannabis-whitehouse.png)](https://ivn.us/posts/trump-about-outflank-democrats-cannabis-progressives-sound-alarm-2025-12-08) **Listen to this episode and more from Independent Voter Project on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn.us) **and** [**Apple Music**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### Americans Hate Gerrymandering. This New Party Hack Can Defeat It URL: https://ivn.us/americans-hate-gerrymandering-new-party-hack-can-defeat-it-2025-12-11/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:12:14.000Z In 2024, measures for statewide election reform failed in all eight states where they were on the ballot. Despite growing support for competitive elections, these initiatives unraveled as the result of pushback from the political establishment. The major parties only agree to oppose any measure impeding their incumbents' re-election. [The Parties Strike Back: Deceptive Tactics Lead to Rough Night for More Choice ElectionsIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/jigar-panchal-LoVA3VXv5sA-unsplash--2-.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/parties-strike-back-deceptive-tactics-lead-rough-night-more-choice-elections-2024-11-06) Most state constitutions require officeholders to pledge to ensure fair elections. Yet the practice of gerrymandering - institutionalized unfairness - is now the norm. And instead of occurring every ten years, legislatures now regularly game the system as it suits their own strategies. The public hates gerrymandering but is forced to accept it because, frankly, what choice do we have? In a two-party system, the goal is to stack all three branches in one party's favor and then ram through their agenda. When it goes too far, and it always does, the pendulum swings back to the other side. Each time, the response is greater. Without a correction, our political system, like a pendulum pushed too far, spins out of control. But from chaos comes opportunity. The solution is [a free and equal nominating system](https://www.mainstreetparty.org/our-plan?ref=ivn.us) courtesy of a new kind of political party. This one foregoes ideology in favor of technology, producing an alternative primary system without any new laws. In fact, this “People’s Primary” is already taking shape. [College students](https://www.mainstreetparty.org/news-introducing-amsp?ref=ivn.us) are piloting a new method for nominating a member of Congress. It consists of a multi-round competition where constituents’ endorsements are the only currency that counts. Potential candidates contend on a level playing field where the media, political insiders, and outside donors have no say. When the “party” gains national status, the winner of the nomination is automatically on the general election ballot. The system is designed to be “free” for all to participate, as initially guaranteed by the 1689 English Bill of Rights, and to be “equal,” as first written in the 1790 Pennsylvania Constitution - the model for our union. Even without these assurances, common sense dictates that fairness is required for governance to work properly. The nonprofit [Digital Democracy Project](https://digitaldemocracyproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) has deployed a mobile voting system in Florida that scales nationally. The platform builds on government approved technology produced to let service members securely cast their ballots from anywhere in the world. Integrating the “party” nominating contest into DDP’s system - a relatively straightforward programming step - is all that remains to be done to prepare for the 2026 midterm elections. A free and equal system is within reach, restoring the voice of voters silenced by redistricting. Gerrymandered districts will be targeted first, since they offer the greatest opportunity for candidates to emerge from the center-left and center-right. The goal is to elect enough “pink” and “baby blue” representatives to push the election of the Speaker of the House into the main chamber. By ending rule by majority party, this solution offers the potential to moderate Congress, incentivize compromise, and quell our civil unrest. This approach offers a practical, legal, and fair means of mitigating the effects of gerrymandering. Changing the relationship between politicians and money requires a complete rethinking of how we choose our representatives. Only a system of accountability can reclaim a government of the people. ### **About The Author** *Tom Joseph is the founder and treasurer of America’s Main Street Party (mainstreetparty.org), and the producer of Wilson’s Fountain ([wilsonsfountain.us](https://www.wilsonsfountain.us/?ref=ivn.us)), a repurposing of the United States political committee system. Tom is also the founder of Bookminders ([bookminders.com](https://bookminders.com/?ref=ivn.us)), a pioneer in remote-first employment.* ### Ranked Choice for Every Voter? New Bill Would Transform Every Congressional Election by 2030 URL: https://ivn.us/ranked-choice-every-voter-new-bill-transforms-every-congressional-election-2030-2025-12-10/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:12:17.000Z **WASHINGTON, D.C.** \-- As voters brace for what is expected to be a chaotic and divisive midterm election cycle, U.S. Representatives Jamie Raskin (Md.), Don Beyer (Va.), and U.S. Senator Peter Welch (Vt.) have re-introduced legislation that would require ranked choice voting (RCV) for all congressional primaries and general elections beginning in 2030. Sponsors say the goal of the bill –titled the [**Ranked Choice Voting Act**](https://raskin.house.gov/%5Fcache/files/1/5/150ff99b-f21c-42d0-8f8a-fef0b0f1f624/06D60ABDF45B852215423EE6D4002E2E131CD8861538099F00071A83F2DA216C.rcv-act-full-legislation-text.pdf?ref=ivn.us) – is to end a system that rewards candidates who appeal to narrow, highly partisan primary electorates and replace it with a system that incentivizes coalition building and civility on the campaign trail. “Ranked choice voting is a great advance in democracy. It gives voters more power at the ballot box and makes our politics more positive and inclusive, encouraging candidates to connect with more voters,” Raskin said. > *I’m proud to partner with Representative Beyer and Senator Welch on this important legislation to keep growing and improving electoral democracy.”* Under the RCV Act, every voter in the country would have the option to rank congressional candidates in order of preference (first choice, second choice, third choice, etc.). If a candidate wins more than 50% of first-choice votes, they win outright. If not, the candidate with the fewest first-choice selections is eliminated and their voters’ ballots are redistributed to their next choice. The process continues until one candidate has majority support. “Our democracy is at its strongest when everyone is heard and represented,” said Welch. > *Ranked choice voting offers an opportunity to break through polarization and strengthen our democracy by ensuring that our elected candidates have received the broad support of the folks they’ll represent.”* The RCV Act has a broad coalition behind it. Dozens of national and state organizations have endorsed it, including FairVote Action, Rank the Vote, RepresentUs, RepresentWomen, Campaign Legal Center, Public Citizen, People Power United, and Third Way. But the endorsements don’t end there. The list also includes: - Bridge Alliance Education Fund - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) - Citizen Works - Clean Elections Texas - Connecticut Voters First - DemCast USA - Divided We Fall - FairVote Illinois - FairVote Minnesota - Fix Democracy First - Ranked Choice Voting Maryland - Voter Choice Arizona - Voter Choice Massachusetts - Women's Committee of the Forward Party And the list still doesn’t end. The RCV Act has one of the most diverse coalitions behind any effort to reform elections at the federal level. See the full list of endorsements on Raskin's [press release sent out Wednesday](https://raskin.house.gov/2025/12/raskin-beyer-welch-introduce-bicameral-legislation-to-expand-ranked-choice-voting-to-all-congressional-elections?ref=ivn.us). “The Ranked Choice Voting Act will give voters more choice and more power. It will make Congress more responsive and more accountable to the people they represent,” said Meredith Sumpter, president and CEO of the better elections group FairVote. > *At a time when polarization and gridlock are making it harder for Congress to deliver for the American people, ranked choice voting gives members of Congress incentives to lead, legislate, and govern together.”* It also has 14 cosponsors attached to it so far in the U.S. House, including lawmakers already elected under RCV systems: Steve Cohen (TN-09), Angie Craig (MN-02), Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Summer Lee (PA-12), Teresa Leger Fernandez (NM-03), Kelly Morrison (MN-03), Seth Moulton (MA-06), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Scott Peters (CA-50), Chellie Pingree (ME-01), Delia Ramirez (IL-03), Eric Swalwell (CA-14), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), and Shri Thanedar (MI-13). ### From the Palisades to Simi Valley, Independent Voters Poised to Decide the Fight to Replace Jacqui Irwin URL: https://ivn.us/palisades-simi-valley-independent-voters-poised-decide-fight-replace-jacqui-irwin-2025-12-10/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:12:15.000Z The coastline that defines California’s mythology begins here. From Malibu’s winding cliffs to the leafy streets of Brentwood and Bel Air, through Topanga Canyon and into the valleys of Calabasas, Agoura Hills, and Thousand Oaks, the 42nd Assembly District holds some of the most photographed, most coveted, and most challenged terrain in the state. It is home to entertainment executives and teachers, firefighters and software engineers, and families who have watched costs rise even as they face the fear and reality of devastating fires. The Palisades Fire, which tore through parts of the coastal Los Angeles County side of the district last January, remains one of its defining events. It forced evacuations from Malibu to Topanga to Pacific Palisades, destroyed homes that had stood for generations, and left residents facing a tangle of insurance disputes and rebuilding delays. For many, it changed the meaning of affordability. The price of recovery has climbed alongside the price of living, leaving homeowners and renters alike wondering how long they can sustain life in one of the most beautiful regions on earth. The 42nd District is a study in contrasts when it comes to politics. The same hills and beaches that attract celebrities and filmmakers are also home to the workers who support them. Malibu and Pacific Palisades glow blue on the electoral map. At the same time, Simi Valley has remained a Republican stronghold since the Reagan era, voting about 53 percent for Donald Trump in 2020. The district stretches north through the Conejo Valley and as far as Camarillo, covering a blend of coastal affluence, suburban calm, and middle-class resilience. Out of roughly 355,000 registered voters, about 40 percent are Democrats, 32 percent are Republicans, and 21 percent are independents. The total population is approximately 510,000, spread across 186,000 households. Roughly 30 percent of residents rent their homes, 20 percent of voters are Latino, and about 18,000 veterans live in the district. After more than a decade in office, Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin is retiring. An engineer by training and a centrist by instinct, Irwin built a record focused on cybersecurity, veterans’ services, and public safety. Her departure creates an open race, and it has already drawn a field of candidates who reflect the district’s political diversity. **Deborah Klein Lopez**, a member of the Agoura Hills City Council, was the first to announce her candidacy. She grew up in Agoura Hills and has lived there for more than four decades. Before entering politics, she worked as a project manager and financial analyst. A graduate of Northwestern University with degrees in mathematical methods in the social sciences and economics, she has a long history of community service, including two decades volunteering with local schools and homeless outreach programs. Klein Lopez was elected to the Agoura Hills City Council in 2018, just two days before the Woolsey Fire devastated the region. Her platform centers on wildfire preparedness, environmental protection, and education funding. She has the backing of Assemblymember Irwin, Congresswoman Julia Brownley, and much of the Democratic establishment. > [](https://x.com/deborahklopez/status/1889722890691494002?ref=ivn.us) **Kelly Honig**, the Mayor of Westlake Village, is a lawyer and educator. She earned her law degree from the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law and her bachelor’s degree in economics and international relations from UC Davis. She practiced law for thirteen years before teaching business law and criminal law at Oxnard College. Honig has served three terms on the Westlake Village City Council and is now in her second term as mayor. Blanca Rubio, California State Assemblymember, ​Assembly Speaker Emeritus & Senate Majority Leader Bob Hertzberg (Ret.), and Mike Gatto, Former California State Assemblymember, have all endorsed her candidacy. Honig is also endorsed by Ventura County Deputy Sheriffs' Association, Ventura County Professional Peace Officers Association, Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association, Los Angeles Police Protective League, Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC), California Association of Highway Patrolmen, California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA), State Coalition of Probation Organizations, ILWU Local 65/Los Angeles Port Police Association, UA Local 250 and Democrats for Israel. Her work extends beyond city boundaries. She has represented her community on the Las Virgenes Malibu Council of Governments since 2019 and has served on several regional policy committees dealing with transportation, public works, and liability oversight. Honig has also spent decades volunteering on school boards and with local nonprofits, including the Rotary Club of Westlake Village and Art Trek, a Ventura County arts organization. She has made housing affordability, wildfire recovery, and public safety the central issues of her campaign, arguing for practical governance that avoids partisan extremes. **Ted Nordblum**, a Republican small business owner from the Conejo Valley, is seeking the seat for the second time after challenging Irwin in 2022 and 2024\. He is also an [actor](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1329177/characters/nm1360405/?ref%5F=ttfc%5Ffcr%5F3%5F34&ref=ivn.us) and martial artist who has lived in the region for many years. Nordblum has positioned himself as a government reform advocate, calling for more transparency and fiscal responsibility in Sacramento. In an [opinion column](https://www.vcstar.com/story/opinion/2025/08/24/guest-column-save-independent-redistricting-in-california/85783439007/?ref=ivn.us) earlier this year, he criticized state leaders for weakening California’s independent redistricting process. He argues that political insiders have lost touch with local communities and that the state’s rising costs, homelessness, and slow wildfire recovery demand stronger oversight and accountability. **Dan Weikel**, a small business owner and lifelong Conejo Valley resident, is a Republican from Thousand Oaks. In his announcement, Weikel emphasized a commitment to “restoring the California dream through common-sense, people-first leadership.” The 47-year-old currently serves on the Thousand Oaks Traffic Commission and the Ventura County Transportation Advisory Committee. A graduate of Agoura High School, Moorpark College, and Pepperdine University, Weikel has called the area home since 1980. In the 2024 general election, Irwin defeated Nordblum with 54 percent of the vote to his 46 percent. She won nearly 60 percent in the Los Angeles County portion of the district, but Ventura County was far closer at 52 percent to 48 percent. Those results suggest that this open race could go either way, especially with so many independent voters in play. Beyond the electoral math, AD 42 embodies the central tensions of modern California. It is a region of extraordinary beauty and wealth, but also of displacement and strain. Insurance cancellations, delayed rebuilding, and soaring housing costs have reshaped the daily lives of its residents. For families still recovering from fires, and for young people trying to afford rent in places their parents once owned, the question of who represents them in Sacramento feels less abstract and more personal. One in five voters in AD 42 are registered with no party preference, and their choices will almost certainly determine the outcome of this closely watched race in 2026. *Source note: This article draws on publicly available information from the California Secretary of State’s voter registration database, CalMatters, California Target Book, Ballotpedia, California FPPC campaign finance filings, candidate websites, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and reporting from local news outlets, including Thousand Oaks Acorn, Agoura Hills Acorn, Simi Valley Acorn, Ventura County Star, and The Malibu Times.* ### Is Trump About to Outflank Democrats on Cannabis? Progressives Sound the Alarm URL: https://ivn.us/trump-about-outflank-democrats-cannabis-progressives-sound-alarm-2025-12-08/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T03:20:06.000Z As President Donald Trump signals renewed interest in reclassifying cannabis from a Schedule I drug to Schedule III, a policy goal long championed by liberals and libertarians, the reaction among some partisan progressive advocates is not celebration, but concern. As first reported by [Kyle Jaeger of *Marijuana Moment*](https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-and-republicans-could-steal-marijuana-reform-from-democrats-progressive-pac-warns/?ref=ivn.us), a political committee known as the Progressive Turnout Project is warning its supporters that President Trump and Republicans could “steal marijuana reform right out from under us.” The group’s fundraising email urges Democrats to reclaim the issue before Trump acts and gives the GOP credit for a reform that many on the left have spent decades advancing. Progressive Turnout says it supports the creation of a “Marijuana Decriminalization Advisory Board” and is urging Democratic support for the MORE Act, recently reintroduced by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). “Look, anti-marijuana policies wrongfully target Black Americans and have cost the U.S. BILLIONS of dollars,” it says. “Thankfully, House Democrats are working to federally legalize cannabis by sponsoring [the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act.](https://www.marijuanamoment.net/democratic-lawmakers-file-bill-to-federally-legalize-marijuana-as-trump-weighs-rescheduling/?ref=ivn.us)” For 55 years, ever since President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one,” voters on the left have decried the moral and economic failures of classifying cannabis alongside heroin and LSD as "drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." As IVN reported in[ *Nixon Admitted Weed Wasn’t Dangerous, But Killed It to Crush Political Dissent*](https://ivn.us/posts/nixon-admitted-weed-wasnt-dangerous-killed-it-crush-political-dissent-2025-07-09?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), Nixon’s own commission on drug abuse concluded that cannabis posed minimal harm compared to other controlled substances. Yet Nixon ignored those findings, using the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 to solidify federal prohibition, a decision whose political consequences shape today’s debate. The second Trump administration has kept a proposal to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III formally active since the[ *Department of Health and Human Services recommended the change in 2023*](https://ivn.us/posts/cannabis-rescheduling-remains-paused-despite-trump-support-2025-04-01?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). The process, as IVN has covered, remains administratively paused by a DEA judge but is alive and awaiting final review. The shift would recognize the accepted medical use of cannabis and ease the tax burdens that have crippled legal operators under IRS code 280E.[](https://ivn.us/posts/schedule-1-v-schedule-3-does-trump-know-why-black-market-doesnt-want-cannabis-legalization?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) During his April confirmation hearing, Trump’s nominee for DEA administrator, Terrance Cole,[ *declined to commit to moving forward with rescheduling*](https://ivn.us/posts/sen-padilla-pushes-dea-nominee-terry-cole-wont-commit-cannabis-rescheduling-2025-04-30?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), leaving the industry, investors, and reformers guessing whether the administration would deliver on Trump’s campaign promise. But [The Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-marijuana-federal-drug-classification-01a73b8c?gaa%5Fat=eafs&gaa%5Fn=ASWzDAitiKWDg%5F1DwNt0I4nuNOMs5Qo8qznzRMpuyxnyd%5FL7IGBv00l%5FB9umoSXQiU0%3D&gaa%5Fts=6898b7ef&gaa%5Fsig=AGNAkU2DXNqshQywRlvohYINhB-OqIu3TeTG8xYtD0KbYPuEtqT6ifQruHgGQ2H%5FhS4LiD7oM%5FY-F-5v%5F3XbFA%3D%3D&ref=ivn.us) and CNN reported August 8 that President Trump said privately at a fundraiser that he was open to reclassifying cannabis under federal law, a move that could have far-reaching implications for the legal industry, the illicit market, national drug policy, and electoral politics in the 2026 cycle. On August 11, in a news conference held in the White House briefing room, Trump made it public: > *We're looking at reclassification, and we'll make a determination over the next -- I would say over the next few weeks, and that determination hopefully will be the right one. It's a very complicated subject.”* Celebrities, veterans’ advocates, and patient groups have urged the White House to act, most visibly after[ *Mike Tyson publicly called on President Trump*](https://ivn.us/posts/mike-tyson-calls-out-donald-trump-make-good-cannabis-rescheduling-promise-2025-07-11?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) to “make good” on his pledge to reschedule cannabis, calling it “a victory for science and common sense.” As[ *IVN reported in late August*](https://ivn.us/posts/will-trump-reclassify-cannabis-week-2025-08-28?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), speculation that Trump could take executive action “within days” sparked a wave of anticipation and unease across both political camps, the first credible sign in decades that federal drug classification might finally shift. On September 28, President Trump posted [a Truth Social video praising CBD](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115283887618990920?ref=ivn.us) as a “game-changer” for seniors. The post sent cannabis stocks soaring, with one company’s shares climbing more than 40 percent. The video the President shared was created by [The Commonwealth Project](https://commonwealthproject.org/?ref=ivn.us), a pro-cannabis organization founded by Howard Kessler, who is a friend of the President described in the press as being part of his “inner circle.” Kessler and his wife attended Trump’s [2005 wedding](https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2024/06/26/melania-trump-wedding-guests-hillary-clinton-lauer-kraft-giuliani/74202478007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z113723e000700v113723b0042xxd004265&gca-ft=126&gca-ds=sophi&ref=ivn.us) to Melania and are longtime members of his Mar-a-Lago club. Yet for progressives, the timing of Trump's forward movement is awkward. As *Marijuana Moment* reported, the Progressive Turnout Project is pushing instead for the passage of a bill that will never pass as long as the GOP controls the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. “The GOP controls the House, and they want this bill canceled,” the email says. It is the political optics about which side will appear to have liberated cannabis from its decades-long stigma that seems to matter most in today’s political environment. Surveys show that younger and independent voters, many of whom view cannabis reform as a litmus test for generational progress, could reassess Trump if he enacts a change that Democratic administrations (Carter, Clinton, Obama, Biden) only debated and never accomplished. IVN’s reporting has traced how rescheduling, even without full legalization, could transform the cannabis market overnight, legitimizing medical research, expanding access to banking, and narrowing the gap between state and federal law. As IVN explored in[ *Why the War on Cannabis Refuses to Die: How Boomers and the Yippies Made Weed Political*](https://ivn.us/posts/why-war-cannabis-refuses-die-how-boomers-and-yippies-made-weed-political-2025-06-30?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), cannabis reform has always been about more than policy. It is a measure of cultural identity and political trust. Now, the prospect of a Republican president securing that legacy invites discomfort, even resentment. As Jaeger’s reporting makes clear, the tug of war over cannabis reform may be less about classification than credit. “If Democrats don’t act now,” the PAC warned, “Trump and the GOP could steal marijuana reform right out from under us.” That message shows how divided politics can twist incentives until partisans hesitate to celebrate the very progress they once demanded, preferring to lose an issue rather than let the other side win it. The bigger lesson for independent voters is not about cannabis at all. It is about what happens when a two-party dominated system turns every policy into a contest for political gain instead of an earnest search for solutions. In a healthier democracy, the power of a good idea that makes sense would matter much more than which party is advancing it. Whether it is drug reform, election reform, or anything else that serves the public good, progress should not depend on which party stands to get the credit. Until our system is opened up to include independent voters and give them meaningful participation, the ideas that unite most Americans will keep dying in the crossfire of politics designed to divide us into two groups. ### California’s Governor Race Is a Democratic Nightmare, But There’s One Easy Fix URL: https://ivn.us/californias-governor-race-democratic-nightmare-theres-one-easy-fix-2025-12-05/ Last updated: 2025-12-05T17:03:32.000Z A [new Emerson College poll](https://emersoncollegepolling.com/california-2026-new-poll/?ref=ivn.us) of California’s 2026 governor’s race confirms what many election observers have suspected. California is entering a high stakes primary season with no clear front runners, a crowded field, and an election system where the outcome often depends less on voter preference and more on mathematical luck. ![Emerson poll](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot_5-12-2025_104812_emersoncollegepolling.com_.jpeg) And before anyone rushes to blame the nonpartisan primary, it is worth remembering that *closed* primaries produce even fewer Democratic outcomes. Closed primaries exclude independent voters, reduce participation, empower hardened partisans, and guarantee that November voters are stuck choosing between nominees they never had a meaningful chance to support. California’s nonpartisan system was designed to improve on that. The problem with the top-two system, particularly with a large field, is that the math breaks down in ways voters rarely see. But 2026 might expose the need for a fix. Under California’s rules, who advances to November is often determined not by who voters like the most, but based on who else happens to file and get into the competition. Yes, candidates must raise money and build coalitions. But once enough candidates enter the race, the decisive variable becomes something they can’t control: *each other.* A random Republican “John Smith,” for example, is almost guaranteed to advance if no other Republican runs. But add one more GOP contender, even a weaker one, and the vote splits in ways that could knock both out. On the Democratic side, the dynamic becomes even stranger. If dozens of Democrats file, mainstream candidates divide the majority vote across many similar choices, while a fringe candidate with a small but concentrated base can jump into the top tier simply because their voters don’t split. This isn’t voter driven competition, its math. And it could create a Democratic nightmare. ## **Scenario One: Two Republicans Advance in a Deep-Blue State** If several Democratic candidates split their own coalition into small slices while one or two Republicans consolidate theirs, a blue state can easily end up with two Republicans on the November ballot. It has happened before under California’s rules and can happen again, especially when large fields dilute competitive lanes. ## **Scenario Two: Democrats Advance That Most Democrats Didn’t Support** Even if Republicans fail to place a candidate in the top two, Democratic voters could still be stuck with nominees who only captured a small fraction of primary support. In a crowded field, it’s entirely possible for finalists to advance with backing from well under 20 percent of voters. That leaves the broader electorate with choices they never made and never endorsed. ## **Scenario Three: A Celebrity Candidate Breaks the System** California has a long track record of elevating celebrity figures into political contention practically overnight. Under a top two system, a recognizable outsider only needs 15 to 20 percent of the vote to outpace a field of experienced candidates who divide the remaining support among themselves. We’ve seen this dynamic in California. We’ve seen it nationally. A system built on plurality advancement practically invites it. ## **The Pattern Is Familiar, and Other States Have Responded** California is not the only state that has run into these structural failures. Alaska [moved to a top four system](https://ivn.us/posts/alaska-reject-repeal-top-4-ranked-choice-voting-repeal-2024-11-14), giving voters a broader and more representative general election field. Local efforts such as [More Choice San Diego](https://morechoicesd.org/?ref=ivn.us) are pushing for a top five structure, and early polling shows support hovering around 70 percent. **Voters understand the core principle: broader choice in November leads to stronger legitimacy and better outcomes.** [Independent Voter Project](https://independentvoterproject.org/?ref=ivn.us) has been advocating this reform for years, alongside a national coalition of nonpartisan organizations committed to giving independent minded voters a meaningful voice in elections. And the data [we gather](https://ivn.us/posts/poll-nearly-two-thirds-chula-vista-voters-want-change-way-they-vote) from statewide engagement confirms something consistent: when voters are given more options, they participate more, pay more attention, and feel better represented by the process. ## **Here’s the Easy Fix: Advance 5 Candidates to the General** California doesn’t have to overhaul its entire election system. It simply has to finish the job it started when it adopted the nonpartisan primary. Instead of advancing two candidates to November, advance **five**. A top five general election and let voters rank them: - Prevents two Republicans from advancing in a blue state. - Prevents Democrats from being stuck with nominees they never supported. - Prevents a celebrity from hijacking the ballot with a fractured primary plurality. - Gives November voters a field that actually reflects their preferences. - Aligns California with modern nonpartisan reform models already succeeding elsewhere. - Retains the virtue of Top Two because no one gets elected in November without a majority of voter support. California’s current system forces too many voters to choose between too few options they never selected. Expanding the November ballot to five finalists gives voters what the system was supposed to deliver in the first place: more choice, more legitimacy, and outcomes that reflect the will of the full electorate. The nightmare scenarios are all possible. The fix is simple. And California already has the blueprint to get it done. ### Nonpartisan Reformers Unite: NANR Summit Charts Bold Path for Election Reform in 2026 URL: https://ivn.us/nonpartisan-reformers-unite-nanr-summit-charts-bold-path-election-reform-2026-2025-12-05/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T05:19:41.000Z The National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers (NANR) held its 9th annual summit in Miami this week following a year of political chaos and partisan machinations that put power before representation, accountability, and fairness. What’s more, the U.S. is headed full speed into the 2026 midterms, giving an already exhausted electorate little reprieve from the hyper-partisanship and division that constantly dominates the airwaves and headlines. But while independent reformers carry the weight of everything that has transpired in 2025 like the rest of the country, they see an opportunity to stand out and build on the growing momentum that is shaping efforts to make U.S. elections better for voters. “When I look at 2025 into 2026, I see enormous opportunity for reform,” said Andy Moore, executive director of NANR. > *When else in history has gerrymandering been on the evening news, which is happening overtly in multiple states? When else have people paid this much attention to elections and the heightened interest in election security and administration?”* NANR is a coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to structural electoral reforms that put the public interest first and foster more robust competition among many political parties and independent candidates. Its members may focus on different initiatives and ideas, but they are united by a shared goal: ***Level the playing field for all voters and candidates who want to participate in a truly democratic process.*** The coalition was founded in 2017 by reform champions like the Independent Voter Project, FairVote, Unite America, Open Primaries, and it has grown to include groups that focus on a broad array of proposals and issues, like: - Ranked choice voting - Other new voting methods - Independent voting rights in primaries - Campaign finance - Gerrymandering - Fair and competitive treatment of independent candidates - Vote at home - Third party empowerment - And more NANR’s summit was an opportunity for these reformers to meet, celebrate successes, find areas of collaboration, debate, hear what is going on in the independent reform space, and learn about ways to expand and empower this movement. ## **‘No Man Is an Island’** While many expect odd-numbered years to be a mostly uneventful transition between one election cycle and the next, 2025 was anything but uneventful. This includes the chaos of the ongoing mid-decade gerrymandering fight between Republicans and Democrats [covered extensively on IVN](https://ivn.us/tag/gerrymandering?tid=72). But it is not just gerrymandering. There is also the way both parties have [shut out millions of independent voters from critical primary elections](https://ivn.us/posts/paxton-concedes-he-has-conflict-interest-texas-primary-lawsuit-2025-10-13) and have [applied political pressure to block or stall more choice reforms](https://ivn.us/posts/games-politicians-play-after-voters-pass-election-reforms-2025-12-04) passed by an overwhelming majority of voters. In fact, along with the mid-decade gerrymandering fight, 2025 was a busy year for reformers – with a mix of good news and bad: - New Mexico [adopted semi-open primaries](https://ivn.us/posts/opening-door-how-new-mexico-reformed-its-primary-elections-and-what-others-can-learn-2025-05) - A similar system [passed the Nevada legislature](https://ivn.us/posts/independent-voters-just-got-power-nevada-if-governor-lets-it-happen-2025-06-03), but was vetoed by the governor - Nevada Democrats [blocked an independent redistricting initiative](https://ivn.us/posts/nevada-dems-block-independent-redistricting-going-voters-again-2025-10-03), but an initiative to enshrine equal independent voting rights in the state constitution advanced to the petition gathering phase - Maine Question 1 from 2024, which reins in super PACs and was approved by 75% of voters, [has been challenged in court](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/25/opinion/campaign-finance-maine/?ref=ivn.us) - Maine Question 1 of 2025, which proposed a new voter ID law and restrictions to absentee voting, [was rejected by voters](https://www.wmtw.com/article/maine-question-1-fails-voter-id-law-absentee-voting-changes/69257156?ref=ivn.us) - The city council in Washington, DC, [refused to fund open primaries approved by voters](https://ivn.us/posts/dc-dems-independent-voters-you-dont-matter-2025-07-29) and dragged its feet to fund ranked choice voting passed under the same initiative - [18 local jurisdictions used ranked choice voting in 2025 elections](https://ivn.us/posts/ranked-choice-voting-expands-across-america-2025-new-york-city-fort-collins-2025-10-24) (outside a major election cycle), more cities approved its usage, and new campaigns emerged - A [lawsuit challenging closed primaries in Florida](https://ivn.us/posts/retired-attorney-takes-voting-rights-case-all-way-supreme-court-himself-2025-09-09) was discussed by the U.S. Supreme Court – the furthest such a lawsuit has moved to date - Additionally, [lawsuits have been filed](https://ivn.us/posts/virtual-discussion-fight-equal-independent-voting-rights-makes-it-scotus-2025-09-29) challenging the use of closed primaries in Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming And this doesn’t cover everything. [2025 Has Already Been a Monumental Win for Independent VotersIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/nicholas-green-nPz8akkUmDI-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/2025-has-already-been-monumental-win-independent-voters-2025-06-18) Independent reformers know there is no such thing as an off-season, which is why many of them gathered in Miami this week to discuss, debate, and propose pro-voter ideas to promote more inclusion, more choice, and more accountability in elections. “We have to use this moment to find ways to help the public understand that how elections are structured results in the policy outcomes that affect their daily lives,” Moore said, acknowledging that there can be a disconnect between kitchen table issues and election reform. Many people would say the system is broken, but those in attendance at the NANR summit collectively understand the truth: The system is not broken. It is functioning the way it was designed to function – and that is the problem. One of the biggest challenges reformers continue to face is making that connection to voters. However, the NANR summit offered them a chance to engage with each other and learn what messaging works and what doesn’t. Moore believes this is one reason NANR as a coalition and its summit are so important. The disorientation caused by 2025 is felt by those who have committed their time and careers to structural political reform, but Moore said despair wasn’t the mood in Miami. “I noticed a vibe shift,” he said during the opening plenary on Thursday. “It was a different tone in a very welcomed way. There is something that changes when we gather in person. Being here reminds us that we are not alone.” Up until NANR’s creation, many reformers existed in their own isolated silos. But the more they saw what was possible with reform, the more they realized how much they could accomplish through joint collaboration, dialogue – even civil debate when they disagreed. “We do this work because there is someone out there who believes politics isn’t working for them – and we want to prove them wrong,” Moore said. “This work does not happen in isolation.” ## **Reform Roundup** ### **Ranked Choice Voting Survives Stalling Tactic in DC City Council** Nearly three-quarters of DC voters approved Initiative 83 in 2024, which calls for the use of semi-open primary elections and ranked choice voting in all District elections. Earlier this year, the DC City Council chose only to fund RCV. However, even then there was reluctance among some of the council members. Political insiders looked for procedural hurdles to stall RCV implementation past the 2026 elections, suggesting that there was [no rush to honor the will of voters](https://ivn.us/posts/dc-politicians-persist-seeking-delay-citizen-approved-law-2025-12-01). Councilmember Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7) offered emergency legislation that would have required a comprehensive needs assessment from the D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE) before the city moved forward with RCV. > [](https://www.instagram.com/p/DRxfO-xDC%5FS/?ref=ivn.us) Notably, DCBOE Director Monica Evans told the Council, “I feel like I’m being set up to be the fall guy,” because of the political pressure she was receiving from opponents of DC ranked choice voting who want to halt the system as well as advocates who want immediate implementation. In the end, Felder withdrew his legislation after he failed to get enough support. IVN author Cara Brown McCormick [writes](https://ivn.us/posts/ranked-choice-voting-survives-delay-attempts-dc-2025-12-04-0): > *After withdrawing the measure, Felder told colleagues there were 'a lot of questions that the Board of Elections couldn’t answer.' He said the agency 'doesn’t have the proper equipment' and raised 'concerns about things like staff overtime.'* > *Felder said he plans to introduce the emergency legislation again in January.”* McCormick added in her report: > *Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen told WUSA9 that “the legislation before the council is just a delay tactic.” At the same time, Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker added that the council’s focus should be on helping with implementation.”* [Ranked Choice Voting Survives Delay Attempts in DCIVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/jacob-creswick-ra3oAd6hrnM-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/ranked-choice-voting-survives-delay-attempts-dc-2025-12-04-0) ### **Maine’s Matt Dunlap Raised Doomsday Alarms about RCV – Now He’s Using It for His Campaign** RCV faced similar challenges from political insiders in Maine from both sides of the aisle. In fact, Mainers approved its statewide use twice, once in 2016 and again in 2018 via a people’s veto after the legislature passed what was essentially an RCV repeal. Then-Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap (now state auditor), a Democrat, argued that RCV implementation was impossible (even though it is broadly used in the U.S.) and that the reform would lead to “cars burning in the streets.” Since its passage, Maine has conducted RCV elections without issues – and Dunlap is using it as a talking point for his congressional campaign in the state’s 2nd congressional district. He [wrote in an op-ed](https://observer-me.com/2025/12/01/opinion/im-running-for-congress-because-mainers-deserve-a-better-future/?ref=ivn.us) for The Piscataquis Observer: > *Over the course of the ensuing months, a number of people approached me about that future and my history of taking on tough challenges — everything from the transparent administration of elections, to opposing REAL ID, to the Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission,* ***to the implementation of ranked-choice voting*** *and the Help America Vote Act, to taking on President Donald Trump’s bogus Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Likewise, they argued, my record of helping people in countless scenarios — administering driving exams, serving with community nonprofits, promoting accountability in government, moderating town meetings, and helping people navigate state bureaucracies, among many other examples — shows I’m someone who stands up to be counted when challenges emerge.”* Dunlap could face former Gov. Paul LePage in the 2026 general election, who is a vehement opponent to RCV. In their own ways, both tried to block RCV implementation, despite the reform’s support with a majority of Maine voters. ### **Costly, Delayed Runoffs Rally Ranked Choice Voting Supporters in New Mexico** Delayed runoff elections were held in Miami, Florida, Jersey City and Hoboken, New Jersey, and other places. Albuquerque, New Mexico, is slated to vote for their next mayor in a runoff on Tuesday, December 9, and Santa Clara County, California, will have its polls open the week of Christmas for its own special election runoff on December 30. How many voters will turn out to vote in these late runoff elections in an odd-numbered year? Especially so close to or even over the holidays? [According to a 2024 report from FairVote](https://fairvote.org/report/low-turnout-and-high-cost-in-primary-runoffs-1994-2024/?section=executive-summary&ref=ivn.us), runoff turnout falls by an average of 40% (that is the average!), while these elections end up costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Ranked choice voting advocates say their reform can solve this issue by promoting majority rule without needing another election. Several runoff cities have taken steps to implement RCV. The Jersey City and Hoboken councils will allow RCV ballot measures to go before city voters if the state legislature allows them to use the reform. [Ranked Choice Voting ABQ](https://rcvnm.com/?ref=ivn.us), a joint effort by Common Cause New Mexico and NM Voters First, is pushing RCV in Albuquerque – New Mexico’s largest city. Las Cruces and Santa Fe, its next largest cities, have already adopted RCV. On Monday, December 1, the Albuquerque Journal published a piece titled, “[Price tag of Albuquerque's runoff election reigniting ranked-choice voting debate](https://www.abqjournal.com/election/article%5F870778fb-3af5-46ad-9283-079537205cdb.html?ref=ivn.us),” which puts the estimated price tag for the city’s runoffs at $1.6 million. ### **Florida Joins ‘Race to the Bottom’ Mid-Decade Gerrymandering Fight** On Thursday, the Florida House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting [met to discuss redrawing the state’s congressional map](https://www.mysuncoast.com/2025/12/04/florida-house-begins-controversial-congressional-redistricting-effort/?ref=ivn.us) with less than a month until 2026\. If Florida moves forward, it will join a chaotic gerrymandering fight between the two major parties. This “race to the bottom,” as reformers have come to call it, now includes Texas, California, Indiana (after it initially wasn’t going to join), Missouri, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and other states could still try before midterm election deadlines. “We may ultimately decide to propose a new congressional map based on our exploration or we may not. But if we do, we will do so in a timely manner,” said Republican State Rep. Mike Redondo of Miami. President Donald Trump called on Republican states to redraw their congressional maps to protect the GOP’s slim majority in the U.S. House. California Gov. Gavin Newsom then called on Democrats to “fight fire with fire,” leading his state to make this a bipartisan fight. [Did the Republicans or Democrats Start the Gerrymandering Fight?IVN![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/andy-feliciotti-8cvjI48SFtY-unsplash.jpg)](https://ivn.us/posts/did-republicans-democrats-start-gerrymandering-fight-2025-11-11) ### **Gallup: More Voters Than Ever Say The Parties Have Gone Too Far with The Rhetoric** ![Gallup survey results. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dc/be/dcbe1ac4-146f-43be-92a6-ea84728d86a6/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot_4-12-2025_16154_news.gallup.com_.jpeg) [According to Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/699077/americans-say-political-rhetoric-gone-far.aspx?utm%5Fsource=alert&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcontent=morelink&utm%5Fcampaign=syndication), “Larger majorities of Americans than in the past believe that both the Democratic and Republican parties and their supporters have gone too far in using inflammatory language to criticize their opponents.” > *Sixty-nine percent now say this about the Republican Party and Republicans, a 16-percentage-point increase from 2011, and 60% currently believe this applies to the Democratic Party and Democrats, which is nine points higher than 14 years ago.”* So, when people say this is a “both sides” issue, the data supports it. This is a consequence of an election system that not only incentivizes partisanship, but also encourages both parties to raise infinite stakes in order to win. And when the stakes are infinite, so is what a candidate will say on the campaign trail – and inevitably the loyal opposition becomes a bitter enemy. For example, it is how we go from nuanced perspectives on issues like illegal immigration to “they’re nothing but criminals.” Check out [this video](https://www.facebook.com/reel/1856190202445990) of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan when they debated the issue in 1980: There are people alive today who are old enough to vote, but do not remember a time when the U.S. had better political discussions because hyper-partisanship continues to push both sides further and further toward ideological extremes. ### **Maryland Delegate Qi: It is Undemocratic to Deny Independents Access to Taxpayer-Funded Primaries** Maryland Delegate Lily Qi [penned an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun](https://www.baltimoresun.com/2025/11/21/maryland-primary-elections/?ref=ivn.us), calling on the state to give independent voters equal voting rights and allow them to participate in taxpayer-funded primary elections. She wrote: > *“Maryland is now home to nearly a million independent voters, about one in four voters. This reflects a national trend. Many are party-averse immigrants from countries where politics often evoke fear and distrust. In fact, immigrant-heavy Hispanic and Asian communities top the list, with 52% and 41% of registered voters identifying as independents, respectively. Another fast-growing cohort of independent voters is young people, who are significantly more diverse than their parents’ generation and less likely to be party loyalists.”* > *Often, independent voters are unaware that in a state like Maryland, they can only vote for the non-partisan school board positions, with all other options intentionally left blank.* > *This is undemocratic.”* Qi noted that the state has done a lot to expand access to elections, including expanding voting centers, voting hours, drop box access, and vote-by-mail permissions. Yet, these benefits don’t apply to independent voters in taxpayer-funded primary elections. “As more Americans are turned off by political divisions, we should use every tool to bring our politics to the middle, where most Americans are. The best way to achieve this is by bringing the middle into politics,” she concluded. ### The Games Politicians Play After Voters Pass Election Reforms URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/games-politicians-play-after-voters-pass-election-reforms-2025-12-04/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T00:44:56.000Z As IVN’s Shawn Griffiths travels to Miami to share hard-earned intel at the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers (NANR) conference, Chad and Cara focus on Washington, DC, where a 73 percent mandate for an open primary and ranked-choice voting is being slow-walked into something smaller and safer for the political class. It’s a replay of battles in Maine, New York, California, and Alaska - places where the fight for reform continued long after Election Night. For anyone wondering why popular reforms like RCV and Open Primaries are so hard to pass and protect, this episode offers at least one answer: power never yields without sustained resistance, so reformers survive by comparing notes, learning from one another, and sticking together. **Listen to this episode and more from Independent Voter Project on** [**Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/1VnqtqjZh9EbmDtVxvHF3R?ref=ivn.us) **and** [**Apple Music**](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independent-voter-podcast/id1680559155?ref=ivn.us)**.** ### Remembering Bob Foster URL: https://ivn.us/remembering-bob-foster-2025-12-04/ Last updated: 2025-12-12T18:13:21.000Z Independent Voter News is saddened to share the passing of Bob Foster, a trusted advisor to the Independent Voter Project and a longtime friend of our organization. He died on Sunday at the age of 78. Foster dedicated his life to public service and community leadership. Born on January 1, 1947, in Brooklyn, he built a career that blended energy policy expertise with a deep commitment to the people of California. He helped shape statewide energy-efficiency standards while serving on the California Energy Commission. Later, with Southern California Edison, he guided efforts that expanded clean and renewable energy programs that continue to benefit the state today. Foster served two terms as the 27th mayor of Long Beach from 2006 to 2014\. He led the city through the financial crisis of 2008 with honesty and fiscal discipline, helping Long Beach restore stability and long-term resilience. His vision played a key role in the development of the new Civic Center and the Billie Jean King Main Library, and the council chambers now bear his name. “Bob Foster was a modern-day Cincinnatus,” Long Beach City Manager Tom Modica said in a statement. Cincinnatus was a Roman figure known for stepping into leadership only long enough to guide his nation through crisis, then willingly giving up authority to return to his life as a farmer once the danger was over. George Washington shaped his reputation around this example of humble service. “He took the responsibility of public service incredibly seriously and was never afraid to do the right thing, even if it was unpopular,” Modica added. Throughout his career, Foster was admired for his sharp wit, authenticity, and care for people from every walk of life. He believed deeply in community and public responsibility, always willing to make difficult decisions for the public good. His leadership strengthened communities far beyond Long Beach, California. In 2006, he helped organize support for Long Beach, Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina, leading fundraising efforts that contributed money, supplies, and community support to help the storm-damaged city recover. In 1983, he coached the Pacific Little League West Region Team from Sacramento [all the way to the Little League World Series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983%5FLittle%5FLeague%5FWorld%5FSeries?ref=ivn.us) in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. After leaving office, he continued to support nonprofits across Long Beach, from mental health programs to student and library initiatives. Foster’s counsel and friendship meant a great deal to the Independent Voter Project. He brought wisdom, humor, and an unwavering belief in service. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife, Nancy, his sons and grandchildren, and the entire Foster family. His legacy will continue to inspire all who had the privilege to work with him. [https://independentvoterproject.org/es-mx/our-people/bob-foster](https://independentvoterproject.org/es-mx/our-people/bob-foster?ref=ivn.us) _Includes the latest 500 public posts. Use `/sitemap.xml` for the complete archive of public content._