This spring, California came close to a governor’s race with no Democrat on the November ballot.
Under our Top-Two primary, voters of every party and independents all vote in one primary, and only the two highest vote-getters advance.
Early polls showed two Republicans in front because seven prominent Democrats were splitting the vote. It didn’t happen this time, but it points to a simple fix: send more candidates to November.
Top-Two was adopted to force candidates to respond to all voters, not just the primary voters of one party. The goal was to elect candidates who could work with others to get things done.
But the governor’s race exposed a flaw: It is possible that the general election could have only two candidates from the same party.
To prevent this from happening in the future, some have proposed to make things worse by returning to separate partisan primaries with their “Undo the Top Two” campaign. This would eliminate the open primary benefits of making candidates responsive to all voters, including independents, instead of the special interests that dominate the two main parties.
The possibility of two candidates from the same party is not a new problem.
A recent study from the California RCV Institute showed that between 2012, when Top-Two was first used, and 2024, 15.8% of the races had the top two candidates from the same party (173 races out of a total 1,111 races in districts and statewide).
This deprives the voters in the general election, which generally has twice the turnout, from having a real choice. So not only are we given two choices, those choices are decided by the minority of voters who vote in the primary.
The solution is obvious: Send more candidates to the general election.
We could send the top five candidates to the general election, instead of just two. With five candidates in November, the winner could get well under 50%. Ranked ballots fix that with an instant runoff, so the winner has majority support without a third election.
This is already done in several California cities (San Francisco, Eureka, Redondo Beach, Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro). It would eliminate the vote splitting between similar Democrats or Republicans, with one becoming an instant runoff winner.
Sending the top five to the general election would have other benefits. It would enable third parties to be on the general election ballot, which is currently nearly impossible.
This would significantly increase the support for third parties, since they’d have a chance, and it would also encourage more third party and independent candidates to run, giving voters more choices.
The Top-Two could also be improved by allowing the parties to indicate any endorsement on the primary and general election ballot, through their own privately funded process (e.g., convention, caucus, etc.).
If there are five or fewer candidates for any race, the primary would simply be skipped for that particular race. This would save candidates campaign costs for a primary. This would have saved voters and candidates from the time and money for a primary in 85% of the races between 2012 and 2024.
Top-Two opened our primaries to every voter. Now let’s open November to more candidates. Fix it, don’t undo it.
Marcela Miranda-Prieto is executive director of the California Ranked Choice Voting Institute.