{"id":231907,"date":"2026-05-14T20:43:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/231907\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T20:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:43:13","slug":"open-primaries-have-their-fans-the-parties-are-not-among-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/231907\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Primaries Have Their Fans. The Parties Are Not Among Them."},"content":{"rendered":"

When Louisiana voters cast ballots on Saturday, Senator Bill Cassidy\u2019s political demise could be hastened by a decision his fellow Republicans made two years ago: getting rid of an open, nonpartisan primary in favor of a closed system in which Republicans and Democrats compete separately.<\/p>\n

That nonpartisan primary was adopted, in part, to empower politicians like Mr. Cassidy who have been willing to cross party leaders and reach across the aisle. Supporters of open primaries and political scientists who have studied them say they increase voter participation and elect more middle-of-the-road candidates.<\/p>\n

Across the country, partisans are turning against such systems. In response, supporters are intensifying their advocacy with an even bigger claim, based on research commissioned by open primary proponents: Open primaries may better people\u2019s quality of life in tangible ways that include increased prosperity, longer lives and lower murder rates.<\/p>\n

In a year when House control could hinge on a handful of races, Republicans and Democrats alike have embraced a win-at-all-costs mentality. An all-out war to redraw House maps has consumed statehouses in recent weeks. But open primaries can impede such partisan gains, because they allow voters across the political spectrum to choose candidates, often resulting in centrist choices.<\/p>\n

Open primaries, the thinking goes, allow non-party faithful to vote \u2014 and run \u2014 which increasingly polarized party leaders see as a potential forfeit of power. They also claim that open primaries, and more complicated systems that let voters rank candidates, are confusing and unfairly reduce the influence of loyal party voters.<\/p>\n

Mr. Cassidy, a moderate Republican who voted to convict President Trump after his 2021 impeachment trial, owes some of his success to Louisiana\u2019s previous system, which put politicians from both parties in a single primary. The top two met again in the general election.<\/p>\n

But conservative Republicans, eager to heed Mr. Trump\u2019s demands to make Mr. Cassidy pay for his conviction vote, scrapped the so-called Cajun primary system. They said Republican voters \u2014 not Democrats crossing party lines \u2014 should choose Republican nominees.<\/p>\n

Polls suggest that Mr. Cassidy is in grave danger of losing to Representative Julia Letlow, who has Mr. Trump\u2019s endorsement.<\/p>\n

Similar retrenchments are happening across the country. In Massachusetts, Democrats<\/a> are rallying against a proposed ballot measure to enact an open primary. A Democratic strategist in California is pushing to repeal the state\u2019s open system in 2028. And Alaska Republicans are backing a November ballot measure to close primaries and end ranked-choice voting.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Alaska voters adopted their system, in which the top four finishers in an August open primary advance to the general election. Scott Kendall, who designed the process, argues it has made Republican legislators more willing to work with the Democratic minority and unaffiliated legislators.<\/p>\n

\u201cElected officials behave differently when fear isn\u2019t driving their decisions,\u201d said Mr. Kendall, a former aide to Senator Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican, and former Gov. Bill Walker, a Republican turned independent.<\/p>\n

In 2024, six states considered joining Alaska in opening their primaries. But state parties spent heavily against the initiatives, and voters in all six states rejected them, some by enormous margins. (Voters in Washington, D.C., did pass an open primaries measure that year.)<\/p>\n

Unite America, which spent about $20 million through its super PAC in 2024 in an unsuccessful effort to push open primaries, published a study on Thursday<\/a> suggesting that open primaries being used in five states \u2014 California, Louisiana, Alaska, Nebraska and Washington \u2014 have improved lives by encouraging the election of pragmatic lawmakers likely to enact useful legislation.<\/p>\n

Richard Barton, a Syracuse University political scientist who conducted the study, analyzed 14 metrics and found that states with nonpartisan primaries had seen \u201cstatistically significant improvements\u201d in nine of them \u2014 even when accounting for other factors.<\/p>\n

Mr. Barton\u2019s research offered case studies to back up his statistical observations.<\/p>\n

In Louisiana, he argued, nonpartisan primaries had prompted the election of moderate Republican lawmakers who were forced to appeal to a broader coalition of voters. The result: Legislators expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act a decade ago, making Louisiana one of only a few Southern states to do so.<\/p>\n

Mr. Barton wrote that open primaries are \u201cundercutting the power of each party\u2019s ideological base, incentivizing candidates to build broader coalitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two political scientists asked by The New York Times to review the research said they were intrigued, but skeptical, especially given how few states the study had to analyze.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it suggestive, but far from definitive,\u201d said Henry Brady, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. \u201cStill, \u2018suggestive\u2019 might be enough to encourage some policymakers to try an innovation that might make things better in our polarized time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unite America plans to use the research as ammunition in its continuing battles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to increase conviction that these reforms aren\u2019t just good ideas, but can actually make a difference in people\u2019s lives,\u201d said Nick Troiano, Unite America\u2019s executive director. \u201cThat requires connecting the dots.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Alaska, early research found that the new nonpartisan system had fostered more middle-ground positions on issues like abortion.<\/p>\n

Glenn Wright, a political scientist at the University of Alaska Southeast, said lawmakers \u201cseem to realize they don\u2019t need to pander to the more extreme fringes of their parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

But open primaries are not a settled question in Alaska. A Republican-driven effort to repeal the system in 2024 failed by fewer than 700 votes out of more than 320,000 cast.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump endorsed this year\u2019s repeal effort last month, calling ranked-choice voting \u201cONE OF THE GREATEST THREATS TO DEMOCRACY.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernadette Wilson, a Republican candidate for governor and repeal organizer, said voters, especially older ones, find ranked-choice ballots confusing. She said she also worried that open primaries actually lead to intraparty polarization, because parties cannot heal their wounds after a bruising race.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might end up with two Democrats or two Republicans on the general election ballot, still battling it out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Louisiana\u2019s open primaries date to the 1970s, when Gov. Edwin Edwards, a Democrat, pushed them to save taxpayer money by conducting fewer elections and to help Democrats hold onto power by avoiding intraparty primary fights.<\/p>\n

By the 2020s, conservative activists were arguing that the system gave Democrats and independents too much power, and in 2024, Louisiana\u2019s Legislature, controlled by Republicans, returned to closed primaries \u2014 just in time to make Mr. Cassidy pay for his impeachment vote.<\/p>\n

Robert Hogan, a Louisiana State University political scientist, called Mr. Cassidy \u201cthe poster child for why Republicans wanted to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cParties can\u2019t pick their candidates in smoke-filled rooms anymore,\u201d Mr. Hogan said, \u201cbut choosing who gets to vote comes pretty close.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Louisiana voters cast ballots on Saturday, Senator Bill Cassidy\u2019s political demise could be hastened by a decision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11601,82363,82362,1452,1775,46937,9,11,10,1875,1069,1876],"class_list":["post-231907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-alaska","tag-bill-1957","tag-cassidy","tag-donald-j","tag-louisiana","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-primaries-and-caucuses","tag-trump","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}