IVN Editorial BoardThe 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.
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, 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, and Zohran Mamdani says the model can win “anywhere” — watch the clip. But turnout was only 9% in New York, while the nearly half of Americans who now call themselves independent were unable to participate.
Representative?
Even worse, Jeremy Gruber from Open Primaries joins the Independent Voter Podcast, 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.
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The Supreme Court Just Made America’s 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.
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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.
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Zohran Mamdani Says Democratic Socialists Can Get Elected President 'Anywhere'
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?
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IVN Joins Forces with Latino News Network & 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.
