Posted: 13 November 2024 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | 2
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Steven wrote:
The problem that has evolved from the way primaries are done is that it has pushed the parties towards the fringes. |
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That only holds true for the GOP, now, who frequently have their traditional conservative seat holders get successfully primaried from the right. It's quite the reverse for Democrats, where heavily progressive candidates tend to lose to less left-leaning ones except in very specific districts.
The Democratic primaries start with states that favor white progressives and then go towards the center as the later states enter. It's why Bernie supporters were so bitter in 2016 (and to a lesser extent, 2020), since Bernie took an early lead and then saw it erased as the calendar moved to the south. Many of them took this as a sign that shenanigans were afoot, a narrative that's been difficult to disabuse them of.
Steven wrote:
Because only party members vote in the primaries the candidates have to please the party members, which is an increasingly small group as voters leave the parties. |
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Except, as I noted upthread, that's not true for more than half the country, where people are free to vote in whichever primary they choose regardless of affiliation. And if you take a close look at the states with closed primaries - which, by the way, are sometimes only closed for one party - they're mostly a) later in the calendar, and b) not battleground states (with the exception of Pennsylvania and Nevada, though the latter is a caucus state - and weirdly seems to have only moved to that recently).
Edited by Dave Kopperman on 13 November 2024 at 5:31pm
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