Independent Voter Podcast
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 and produced by Olas Media. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
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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.
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.
