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 FairVote report, 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, 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.