[muawiyah]

I think the onliest states wif those "primary run offs" are Souvrn' ~ it's a custom generally unknown in the Nawth.

It was developed back in the days when Southerners thought it useful to make sure that the Democrat candidate was a white man ~ women, blacks and Republicans were easily kept out of the primary/runoff system.

[Paleo Conservative]

Both Democrats and Republicans have runoffs in Texas. The only restrictions are that candidates must vote in the party primary in which they are running and if you vote in one party's primary, you can't vote in the other party's runoff.

I think that if we didn't have a primary runoff the Republican candidate in my house district would have not been strong enough to have beaten the 14-term congressman in my district. The front runner in the primary who had just over 32% in the primary lost the runoff to the second place finisher who had 30%. The process of campaigning for the runoff exposed some of the front runner's flaws especially in the candidate debates even though he was a much better looking candidate than the second place finisher who eventually won the runoff.