The Economist - USA (2020-02-01)

BernieSanders

MichaelBloomberg

PeteButtigieg

AmyKlobuchar

AndrewYang

TulsiGabbard

TomSteyer 2% 21% 22% 32%

3%

4%

5%

11%

28%

6%

Warren30%

Biden53%

Biden42%

Biden

Warren47%

Joe

Biden

Elizabeth

Warren

Bernie

Othercandidates Sanders

↙A new round begins, and

Steyer’s votes are reassigned

Source:YouGov/TheEconomist *PollconductedDecember28th2019-January29th 2020

How ranked-choicevoting(RCV)works

Ina ranked-choiceprimary, Joe Biden would narrowly beat Elizabeth Warren

SimulationoftheDemocraticprimaryusingRCV,basedonYouGov’srankedpoll*

Democratic primary voters’ first and second choices

Shareofsecond-choicevotes,%

Votersrankasmany

candidatesastheywish

inorderofpreference.If a

candidategets>50%of

first-choicevotes,theyare

namedthewinner

Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is

eliminated. Their ballots are reassigned to each voter’s next

choice. The process repeats until someone reaches 50%

↓ Among Sanders voters at this

stage, 36% go to Warren and just

12% to Biden. But 52% refuse to

rank anyone else. Their ballots

are discarded once Sanders loses,

making Biden the winner

↙ With just three candidates left, the

two leading leftists combine for 58%

of the vote. Warren reaches the final

round because Buttigieg’s voters

strongly prefer her to Sanders

↓ Once Bloomberg

is eliminated, most of

his votes go to Biden

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

↓Thecandidatewith

thefewestfirst-choice

votesiseliminated

Vote share among

remaining candidates, %

0

25

50

75

100

0

25

50

75

100

Sanders

Biden

Warren Biden

Warren

Buttigieg

Warren

Sanders

0

25

50

75

100

No

second

choice

listed

Progressive

candidates

Other

moderates

Mostpopular

secondchoice

Biden

Biden

Klobuchar Bloomberg

→Sanders’sfirst-choice

voters are more

ideologically rigid than

Warren’s. They are far

less likely to rank a

moderate in second

place, and also much

more likely to refuse

to name any other

candidate

→ Voters who favour

these moderates

seem to like their

calls for unity, but

are not ideologically

fussy. About a third

of them list Warren

or Sanders as their

second choice

→ These candidates’

first-choice voters

appear determined to

stop the left from

winning the nomination.

Barely a fifth rank

Warren or Sanders as

their second choice. In

particular, Klobuchar’s

supporters are happy to

settle for an alternative

moderate

Progressive

first choice

Moderate

first choice

Moderate

first choice

Progressive Moderate

Progressive

Moderate

The EconomistFebruary 1st 2020 77

A

mong thereasons why Donald Trump

won the White House, America’s sys-

tem of choosing presidential nominees is

rarely discussed. Yet it was the Republican

Party’s winner-take-most allocation of

primary delegates that let him convert a se-

ries of narrow pluralities into a large lead.

Next week, the Democrats’ primary season

begins with the Iowa caucuses. In an echo

of 2016, Bernie Sanders, a factional leftist,

leads the polls in the first states to vote.

Could history repeat itself? To avoid

such an outcome, the Democrats distribute

delegates in proportion to votes. But this

carries its own hazard. If no one wins a ma-

jority, delegates to the party’s convention

choose the victor. That could leave the

nominee without democratic legitimacy.

Both risks can be avoided using ranked-

choice voting (rcv), in which voters rank as

many candidates as they want from first

place to last. If no one wins at least half of

first-choice votes, the least-popular option

is eliminated, and all ballots cast for them

are reallocated to those voters’ second

choices. The process repeats until some-

one wins an absolute majority.

Six states are set to use a partial form of

rcvin their primaries. And in the general

election, Maine will become the first state

to cast electoral votes using rcv.

What would happen if the Democrats

held a national rcv primary? YouGov, a

pollster, recently asked 2,000 voters to

rank the candidates. Its data show that Joe

Biden, the national polling leader, would

also win under rcv. But he would owe his

victory as much to the stubbornness of Mr

Sanders’s fans as to his own popularity. 7

In a ranked-choice voting system,

leftist purism would help moderates

Bernie and bust

Graphic detailThe Democratic primary