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Posted on 12/10/2025 8:46:42 AM PST by Twotone
If Democrats seem extreme now, wait until they adopt ranked-choice voting. Some activists inside the party want exactly that — a reform that would push presidential nominations even further left and force establishment figures to navigate an ideological gauntlet to win.
Multiple reports indicate that Democratic Party activists and elected officials are pressuring the party to adopt ranked-choice voting for its 2028 presidential primaries. Axios notes that the push has grown serious enough that top party officials met in late October with advocates including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), pollster Celinda Lake, and representatives from FairVote Action.
Such an effort fits a long pattern: For decades, Democrats have shifted presidential nominations away from party leadership. On ranked-choice voting specifically, several states already use it — Maine and Alaska among them — along with deep-blue cities such as New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Seattle.
Ranked-choice voting takes multiple forms, but New York City’s model illustrates the dynamic. Voters rank up to five candidates. If no candidate wins an initial majority, the last-place candidate drops out, and those voters’ second-choice votes are redistributed. This “loser leaves” process continues until a candidate secures a majority.
Assuming rational behavior, Democratic voters would likely rank candidates from more extreme to less extreme. That pattern would advantage the leftmost candidates again and again as lower-preference votes transfer upward.
This structural boost would encourage both supply and demand for extreme candidacies. Candidates on the ideological edge would have more incentive to run. Voters who prefer them would have more influence. Ranked-choice voting’s supporters tout this expanded participation as a virtue.
Offering voters multiple choices would foster coalition-building. Knowing the race may go to multiple rounds, candidates would angle for second- and third-choice votes. The horse-trading once done in old convention “smoke-filled rooms” would unfold publicly through a series of ranked ballots.
But the key question is simple: Why would ranked-choice voting necessarily supercharge extremism inside the Democratic Party? Because the system rewards voters for casting marginal votes — and among today’s Democrats, “marginal” means “further left.”
The party’s ideological shift is measurable. In Gallup’s 2023 polling, 54% of Democrats identified as liberal — an all-time high. Support for democratic socialists in major-city mayoral primaries shows how rapidly the party’s activist base has moved left. In 1995, the liberal share of the party was 25%, roughly equal to conservatives. Three decades later, conservatives make up just 10% of Democrats.
Exit polling confirms the trend: In 2024, 91% of self-identified liberals voted for Kamala Harris; only 9% of conservatives did.
Extrapolate from this trajectory, and the danger becomes even clearer. Extreme candidates increasingly win Democratic primaries in major cities. Those cities dominate statewide Democratic politics. And in closed primaries, only Democrats vote — meaning the hyper-engaged activist left already sets the terms of competition. Ranked-choice voting would amplify that influence. The same voters who nominated democratic socialists in New York and Seattle would wield disproportionate power in a presidential contest.
Consider how the 2020 Democratic primary might have played out under ranked-choice voting. Joe Biden — an establishment candidate favored by moderates — would have faced a field dominated by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Tom Steyer, and others to his left. Ranked-choice voting would have forced him through a gauntlet designed by the party’s most ideological voters.
This trend is not new. In 1972, George McGovern reshaped Democratic nominating rules and then benefited from the changes. Since then, the party has repeatedly weakened its establishment’s role (with key exceptions). Ranked-choice voting would accelerate that shift dramatically.
With moderates now only 36% of the party, according to Gallup, how could they resist a move toward ranked-choice voting? More importantly, which remaining moderate or establishment Democrat could survive a ranked-choice system dominated by the party’s left wing?
Ranked-choice voting would pour accelerant on a process already pulling Democrats further left. The only question is how long it takes for the party to adopt it — and how long the party can remain viable nationally if it does.
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The left is just amazing. They keep making up wild ways to get and stay in power. They never cease to amaze!
Dems used ranked choice voting in the Iowa primary in 2016. We still don’t know who won.
It’s unconstitutional!
This is how Murkowski (uber-Rino) keeps getting re-elected in AK.
The left has many plans. Expand the Supreme court by 4 justices. Mail in ballots nationwide. Puerto Rico and DC as states. Expand the senate like the house so California gets a huge increase in senators. Get rid of electoral college.
And filibuster. Gone first chance.
So it seems no ID voting, multi-week voting periods, mass mail in ballots, ballot harvesting, drive up registration, illegals voting, dominion voting machines, and dirty voter rolls aren’t enough to ensure a one-party, woke, globalist government
They need to confuse and manipulate the electoral process even more....
Maine uses a similar system. No other state -- yet -- uses RCV for statewide elections. Naturally Democrats will push hardest for this in Republican states or marginal states; it's less likely to appear in places like Illinois or Massachusetts because Republicans are already screwed there and Democrats don't need to rig the game any further.
Many states (17 to be exact) -- all of them Republican states -- have passed laws prohibiting RCV, but since when can Democrats NOT skirt a law they don't like?
Top remaining Democrat targets for implementing RCV would include (but are not limited to):
Pennsylvania
Georgia
Arizona
Texas (when Texas goes "blue", America is dead)
Wisconsin
Michigan
North Carolina
Nevada
New Hampshire
Ohio
All of which are either marginal states or, for now, GOP states.
“They never cease to amaze!”
And our side never ceases to acquiesce.
The Dems have proved they will do anything to get back into power - and keep it in their hands forever - 10-20 million new Democrat voters via Biden’s open border, mail-in ballots nationwide, vote harvesting, vote fraud - even calls to “vote by phone.”
Once they retain power (God Forbid) - they will try to expand SCOTUS, approve gerrymandering in every state and make sure no Republicans are forever the emasculated “out” party.
Re: California.
If Indiana doesn’t agree to redistrict tomorrow (and it may not with 14 RINO’s already promising to vote with the democrats in opposing it) it will be just another example of Republicans unwilling to play ‘hardball’ like the democrats.
And Susan Collins in Maine as well.
Don’t care what the donks do....it actually might put more radical —less electable—candidates up for the general, which benefits Rs.
“And Susan Collins in Maine as well.”
Ranked Choice Voting has never been a factor in any election involving Collins.
The only time it could have applied was in 2020, and Collins won with 51% in the “first round” therefore RCV was not used.
Rank Choice Voting systems are unconstitutional as they change one’s vote from what you entered to another candidate if the re-shuffling algorithm is invoked.
RCV and global mail-in balloting should be illegal.
The two party, first past the post system was intentionally designed to push both parties to the center. Plus it’s simpler and we can know the results election night, instead of waiting weeks while the counting disappears into backrooms.
The centrist bias of the first past the post system has always encouraged radicals to seek other methods. Ranked choice is a device for nuking the centrist bias. It is fully intended to empower extremist splinter groups and highly motivated, disciplined factions that will follow orders and vote strategically as directed by the Central Committee.
If ranked choice is adopted, the only option for the sane people is to clear the field so that only one center-left to center-right person appears on the primary ballot. That essentially means a pre-primary, or perhaps a caucus from which the radicals are excluded. However it’s done, the field has to be cleared so that the loonies can be isolated. Three more-or-less sane Democrats can’t split the vote.
In theory, we would have the same problem on the right, with ranked choice benefitting all the single issue zealots. And the libertarians will never play ball. They would rather split the vote and lose so that they can preen endlessly about their ideological purity, with a candidate who gets their usual 1-2 percent.
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