Shawn Griffiths
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 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, Colorado, Texas, South Carolina, 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. 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," 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 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.