CSPAN - Washington Journal Nick Troiano
Aired: 2026-04-02
Duration: 11:59


=== Gerrymandering and Open Primaries (11:59) ===

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[00:01:47]  Joining us this morning is Nick Troiano.
[00:01:49]  He's the executive director of Unite America and also author of the book, The Primary Solution Rescuing Our Democracy from the Fringes, here to talk about election reform.
[00:02:01]  Nick Troiano, let's begin with a new poll that was conducted recently.
[00:02:06]  And when they asked your confidence in your state and local governments will run a fair election, 34% said they were very confident or confident.
[00:02:19]  66% said they're not very or not confident at all.
[00:02:24]  Your reaction?
[00:02:26]  Well, I think Americans should be confident that they'll be able to cast a ballot in a free and fair election this year, but they shouldn't be confident that vote will actually matter because most elections, by the time that November rolls around, will have already been decided in low turnout party primaries.
[00:02:44]  And that's the core problem with our election system today.
[00:02:47]  It's again not about whether we can trust if our ballots can be counted, they will.
[00:02:52]  It's about whether we can trust if our elected officials and the candidates running to represent us will actually listen to us.
[00:02:59]  Because the sad reality is that it's only a small fraction of voters in the party base that actually have all of the influence because of the way our system is designed around party primaries today.
[00:03:10]  And what role does gerrymandering play in that and the fights in states like Texas and California that have played out this year?
[00:03:22]  Well, partisan gerrymandering is a scourge on our democracy because what it essentially means is that politicians are choosing their voters rather than the other way around by virtue of how they're drawing lines for our congressional districts.
[00:03:35]  And in an unprecedented way, we saw this year states actually do that mid cycle, not after the next census, but actually in the middle of the decade.
[00:03:44]  And it's been an arms race between both parties now to see who can gerrymander more, the result of which is that neither party is going to ultimately net out with much of an advantage.
[00:03:56]  The voters lose, however.
[00:03:58]  92% of U.S. House districts this year will be uncompetitive in November, which means 92% of our election officials will be decided in the primaries that are happening right now, when fewer than half of voters will be participating than compared to November.
[00:04:16]  And even worse, in 16 states, close to 17 million independent voters are going to be locked out of these elections that they pay for altogether because of closed party primaries.
[00:04:27]  So, gerrymandering is a problem.
[00:04:29]  Party primaries exacerbate that problem.
[00:04:32]  The good news is that these problems can be fixed at the state level around the country, either through state legislatures or citizen ballot initiatives.
[00:04:40]  And that's when voters are taking power into their own hands to say that our democracy should represent them, not these political parties.
[00:04:49]  So, what you were citing at the top was the Cook Political Report.
[00:04:52]  And according to their analysis, 399 of 435 seats.
[00:04:58]  Or 92% are safe for one party in this midterm election.
[00:05:05]  Again, that is the problem that we're facing.
[00:05:07]  In fact, we call it the primary problem in our politics today.
[00:05:11]  Again, November's elections will determine which party controls Congress, but these primaries that are happening right now will determine everything else who gets elected, what issues they'll prioritize, how they will govern.
[00:05:23]  So it's really important that people vote in the primaries, and it's even more important long term that we make sure these primaries are open to all voters and that candidates must win a true majority support to get elected.
[00:05:36]  Without doing this, we're going to be sending good people into a broken system where the incentives are to pander to their party base rather than work together to solve problems.
[00:05:47]  And that's why two thirds of Americans right now don't feel represented by Congress.
[00:05:53]  Again, this is a fixable problem by virtue of the way that we design our election system.
[00:05:59]  When you call for an open primary, how does it work?
[00:06:03]  Well, in an open primary, every voter, every eligible voter, will have the freedom to vote for any candidate.
[00:06:10]  That they want in every taxpayer funded election.
[00:06:14]  There are five states that have what we would call open all candidate primaries, which means on a single ballot, you get to choose your favorite candidate.
[00:06:22]  It could be a Republican for governor, a Democrat for senate, maybe an independent for your state legislature.
[00:06:27]  Then the top candidates advance to the general election where whoever wins majority support gets elected.
[00:06:34]  Under this system, there's more competition, which means that there's more accountability and better representation.
[00:06:40]  Which will produce better results on the issues that we care about, whether it's on health care, education, immigration, or growing debt.
[00:06:48]  If we want to fix any of those problems, we need to fix our political system because the system determines the incentives by which our leaders will govern.
[00:06:57]  How do you solve the problem, though, in that type of primary where if you have more competition from the Democratic Party, in other words, you have five Democrats running, maybe only one or two Republicans running, and that Democratic vote gets diluted among those five?
[00:07:15]  And perhaps the two Republicans are at the top of the ticket, the outcome, and it's those two Republicans that then advance.
[00:07:24]  Well, obviously, some people are concerned about that scenario that may, that potentially could play out in the California governor's race this year.
[00:07:32]  But I don't think that's likely to happen.
[00:07:34]  I think what will happen is that more support will consolidate around the front runner candidates, and you're likely to see more choice, more competition rather than less come the general election.
[00:07:44]  Some states, like Alaska, for example, have improved upon that.
[00:07:48]  Top two system, for example, by advancing the top four candidates to the general election.
[00:07:55]  Other states have experimented with using ranked ballots, which will produce an instant runoff in these elections to ensure or to mitigate against the risk of vote splitting.
[00:08:05]  No matter what system we're looking at, we have to compare it to the status quo.
[00:08:09]  And the status quo right now is that fewer than 8% of voters nationally are deciding over 90% of our elections in these low turnout party primaries.
[00:08:19]  We need to get rid of that system and replace it with one.
[00:08:22]  Where every voter has a meaningful say in who represents them.
[00:08:26]  So, what do you do?
[00:08:28]  How would you get states to adopt what you are suggesting?
[00:08:33]  You said only five states do it right now.
[00:08:36]  Yes, and that number is larger than it was just a few years ago because citizens at the state level can champion these reforms.
[00:08:43]  Alaska in 2020 passed a citizen ballot initiative that replaced its party primaries with all candidate primaries.
[00:08:50]  Citizens can also put pressure on their elected officials and state legislatures.
[00:08:55]  Last year in New Mexico, for example, there was a bipartisan bill that advanced to open the primaries to independent voters, such that this year over 330,000 voters in New Mexico who are unaffiliated with either party. Can vote.
[00:09:10]  There's similar bills like that in the state legislatures, including in Pennsylvania, for example.
[00:09:16]  So the good news is that no matter how broken the system seems today, we still have the tools to fix it.
[00:09:22]  It requires citizens getting involved to make those changes.
[00:09:27]  And how would independents play a role in an open primary system?
[00:09:32]  Well, independents are the largest and fastest voting bloc in the country today.
[00:09:38]  You know, they're turned off by the Party purity on both sides, the inability to solve problems, they don't feel at home comfortably in either political party.
[00:09:48]  But they're the ones that are most disadvantaged under the current system, you know, in 16 states, not even having the ability to cast a ballot in a primary.
[00:09:57]  So when we advance open primaries and all candidate primaries, independents will get more power and more voice in a system.
[00:10:05]  And I think that's a good thing because right now we see the partisanship and the polarization dominate.
[00:10:13]  And that's the biggest tragedy in our politics today.
[00:10:15]  It's not that we, the people, are hopelessly divided on issues.
[00:10:19]  It's that our Congress remains so even when we can find agreement.
[00:10:22]  And that includes on tough issues like immigration.
[00:10:25]  You know, most Americans want to see a secure border, a modernized immigration system, a humane way of treating those that entered the country illegally.
[00:10:36]  But we've been vacillating between one extreme and another, between open borders under the prior president, between Masked federal agents in streets under our current president.
[00:10:45]  That's not the type of policy that most Americans want to see.
[00:10:48]  They want our elected officials to work together and find common ground.
[00:10:52]  And I think as political independents gain more voice in our election system, we will see representatives have to represent that viewpoint more and better in our institutions.
[00:11:03]  All right, well, let's go to calls.
[00:11:04]  Frank in San Francisco, an independent.
[00:11:07]  Frank, good morning.
[00:11:08]  Welcome to the conversation.
[00:11:09]  Namaste, everybody.
[00:11:13]  I'm here in San Francisco.
[00:11:17]  I don't believe in political parties.
[00:11:18]  Political parties have way too much power.
[00:11:20]  The Democratic Party doesn't represent.
[00:11:23]  We're not being pandered to.
[00:11:25]  Democrats aren't being pandered to.
[00:11:27]  I mean, what?
[00:11:29]  8% of Democrats think we should stop arming Israel for their genocidal wars.
[00:11:34]  And yet, all the party leadership Hakeem Jeffries, APAC Shakur, Shux Schumer, Shux Chumer, they're all for it.
[00:11:43]  So, How is this going to help?
[00:11:45]  It's not going to help.
[00:11:46]  We have a jungle primary in California, and we've got like a dozen Democrats running.
[00:11:51]  It's the top two vote getters who are going to be in the final.
[00:11:54]  So it's very likely we're going to have two Republicans running against each other.
[00:11:57]  Campaign finance, that's the problem.