Caso Caesar vs Trinidad y Tobago

Were prognosticators right about the consequences of the top-two primary? Findings from the preceding chapters contribute to a growing literature about the reform, with which we may evaluate the degree to which advocates and critics of the top-two primary were correct in their respective predictions.

First, critics of the top-two primary contend that the system denies voters a choice when both candidates are from the same party in the general election. This dissertation offers evidence to the contrary. Legislative contests with traditional primary rules may offer voters a choice between two different parties, but they only do so approximately two-thirds of the time. The partisan balance in many districts is so lopsided that it discourages challengers from running altogether. Furthermore, when candidates of both parties do appear on the ballot, they often offer voters a symbolic choice rather than a substantive choice. When only 30% of legislative contests nationwide are within a margin of fewer than 20 percentage points, most contests are decided long before Election Day. Such a system does little to offer voters

meaningful choice. Findings in chapter 2 support the notion that one-party contests contribute to a more competitive electoral environment through the increased effectiveness of challenger campaign spending. In such contests, which nearly always occur in lopsided districts,

challengers are able to earn more than twice as many votes per dollar spent when compared with challengers in two-party contests. The ability for challengers to get “more bang for their buck” is important for helping them to overcome the steep resource advantages enjoyed by legislative incumbents, who are re-elected at the same rate as members of Congress.

Second, advocates of the top-two primary argued that the reform would improve representation of the mass public. Findings from this dissertation offer much evidence in support of this claim. In chapter 3, an analysis of the content from candidate campaign websites shows that rhetoric used by candidates running in one-party contests varies

races employ several strategies to broaden the range of voters to which they appeal. Evidence from interviews conducted in chapter 4 build upon these findings to reveal the motivations and strategies behind efforts made to broaden candidates’ electoral constituencies. In short,

candidates demonstrate greater sensitivity to the median voters of their district, while those running in two-party contests uniformly acknowledge that they perceive that their role is to serve as a champion for their extreme party base. Those who call for improved responsiveness by elected officials may be heartened by these findings.

Third, advocates argued that the reform would ease the symptoms of polarization by creating an electoral environment in which moderate candidates are more likely to survive the primary process. The evidence for this assertion is mixed. While other scholars find that voters are largely unable to discern which legislative candidate is more moderate (Ahler et al. 2015), I find that candidates in one-party contests self-moderate in several meaningful ways. Interviews revealed that this tendency is driven by electoral uncertainty, whereby candidates in one-party contests take neither their elections nor their voters for granted. In contrast, candidates in two-party contests spoke at length about how the fact that their contest had virtually no uncertainty meant that they had no incentive to actively campaign for their voters’ support. As one candidate in a two-party contest aptly stated, “that’s bad for democracy.”

It remains to be seen whether the uncertainty produced by same-party contests–and the competitive candidate behaviors that stem from that uncertainty–are a temporary effect, or whether candidates in top-two primaries will adapt to better gauge voter behavior in the future. There are several reasons to expect, however, that the uncertainty invoked by a same-party opponent will be long-lasting. First, to see an “adaptation effect” would suggest that only the same subset of candidates would face same-party challengers in cycle after cycle. This prospect seems particularly unlikely in California due to the eventual turnover imposed by term limits. Furthermore, the fact that such strong evidence persists nearly a full decade after Washington implemented the top-two primary suggests that the effects for candidate behavior discussed herein will be resilient. Finally, it is well-established that candidates are risk-averse actors with a propensity to “run scared” at even the slightest hint of vulnerability

lasting feature of same-party contests under the top-two primary.

Those who favor term limits may view this dissertation as reason to support adoption of the top-two primary in their respective states. Despite reformers’ intentions to the contrary, research at the state level provides evidence that term-limited legislators actually become less – not more – concerned with the priorities of their constituents (Carey et al. 2006).

Furthermore, the vast majority of congressional districts are drawn to overwhelmingly favor one party, a feature that suppresses the emergence of quality, viable challengers, thereby reducing incentive for responsiveness. However, the top-two primary may be an alternative pathway through which reformers might invoke responsiveness, competition, and turnover in congressional elections, especially in the absence of competitive districts. It is in safe districts where we are most likely to see one-party general election contests occur, and as the

preceding chapters find, challengers in such races can be more electorally competitive in the presence of resource imbalances. Ultimately, from a practical standpoint, it is more plausible that the top-two primary may be enacted than national term limits, while primary reform may also come closer to achieving the goals of those who advocate for term limits.

While it is clear that the top-two primary offers normatively desirable benefits for representative democracy, it is worth acknowledging the consequences that some may

consider undesirable. First, if candidates from the majority party split the vote too many ways in the primary, this may produce a runoff without any candidates from the party that received the most votes. In 2016, two Republicans and three Democrats ran in the primary for

Washington State Treasurer. The two Republicans placed first and second by earning a combined 48.42 percent of the vote. The three Democrats earned a combined 51.57 percent, but were all shut out of the general election. Some may view such circumstances as an example where the top-two primary inhibits representation of the mass public, contrary to reformers’ goals. Future work should investigate the larger impact of coordination problems caused by candidate entry decisions. Relatedly, there is much evidence that when the top-two primary produces one-party contests, voters from the party with no candidates on the ballot are substantially likely to abstain from voting in that contest altogether (Fisk 2017; Nagler 2015). Future work should evaluate how this affects the constituent-legislator connection.