San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
In defense of the top-two primary
Rare is the election where both major parties celebrate victory over a common enemy. But that was the case in California on Tuesday night when Republicans and Democrats breathed a sigh of relief that each was not the victim of a system that allows the top two finishers, regardless of party, to advance to the general election.
Republicans had been worrying that they might not have a candidate on the November ballot in the marquee races of governor and U.S. Senate. That fear was alleviated with the late surge of gubernatorial candidate John Cox, boosted by an endorsement from President Trump and a push from Democrat Gavin Newsom, who saw the businessman as easy prey in the general election.
“Republicans were in a panic in January, and today they’re feeling a lot better than they were even three weeks ago,” said Sean Walsh, a veteran Republican strategist.
For Democrats, their nightmare scenario was being shut out in some of the seven House seats held by Republicans in districts carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016. Democratic victories in those seats are considered critical to the party’s chances of recapturing control of the House. A Democrat finished second in each case, keeping the party’s hope alive.
The two parties have hated the toptwo system since it was adopted by California voters with Proposition 14 in 2010.
“I think there likely will be some attempt to reform this, given that both parties have now seen some negative consequences,” said Mac Zilber, a Democratic strategist from Los Angeles. Why do the parties dread the top two so much? It puts voters, not the party leaders, in control of who reaches the general election.
“In the long term, the parties being worried and not guaranteed anything is going to be good,” said John Opdycke, president of the national advocacy group Open Primaries. “It’s going to be good for the voters, it’s going to be good for government, and ultimately it’s going to be good for the parties ... if they embrace that they have to operate in a much more competitive marketplace.”
Bay Area voters do not need to look far for examples of the system’s benefit. Neither Eric Swalwell nor Ro Khanna, two of the rising stars in Congress, could not have been elected under the old system. The party establishment was solidly behind Rep. Pete Stark, who edged Swalwell by six points in the 2012 primary in a heavily Democratic East Bay district. But in the general election, Swalwell was able to make an extended case to voters, including Republicans and independents, and ousted the incumbent who had become out of touch and ineffective.
Similarly, Khanna’s exposure in the 2014 general election against a fellow Democrat, longtime South Bay Rep. Mike Honda, set the stage for a convincing victory in a 2016 rematch.
In each case, the Democratic registration was sufficiently overwhelming that no Republican would have had a chance against an entrenched incumbent. The Democratic primary had always been the last word. The top-two system gave voters a choice — and they took it.
It’s a democratic reform worth preserving, even if the political parties despise it.
“I dare anyone on the Democratic side to show that it’s detrimental to Democrats. It’s quite the contrary,” said Democratic strategist Garry South, a top-two supporter who noted that the party has not lost a statewide race and gained a supermajority in both houses of the Legislature under the system.
However, it’s not without its curious twists.
For Democrats determined to take back the House, the source of the Panic of 2018 was too much democracy. Democratic candidates sensing the opportunity of an anti-Trump blue wave jumped into the fray for those targeted seats, raising fears that they would divide the vote and thus leave a pair of Republicans atop the count. That concern prompted the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to endorse favored candidates and pour $7 million into those primaries.
The frantic efforts worked. A Democrat qualified for November in each of the seven. It was “the asteroid missed,” as Rob Pyers of the California Target Book put it to Politico.
Now the Democrats’ hope in the House faces another potential asteroid, courtesy of their gubernatorial nominee, Gavin Newsom.
The former San Francisco mayor had no desire to face fellow Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa, the former Los Angeles mayor with more centrist views on education and health care, in a general election. So Newsom worked to elevate the chances of Republican Cox, a California transplant and perennial candidate from Illinois with some oddball ideas — such as creating a 12,000-member citizen legislature — and an avowed supporter of a president who is deeply unpopular in the state.
A Newsom-Villaraigosa matchup at the top of the ticket would have been a sure suppressant for Republican turnout, which would have lifted the chances of Democrats in the seven targeted congressional districts. Now Newsom is on a glide path to the governor’s office.
Newsom had better put as much effort in assisting those House Democratic candidates as he did in advancing Cox ... or risk being blamed for helping keep Republicans in control of Congress and Trump in the White House.
Former San Francisco Mayor and now fellow Chronicle columnist Willie Brown said Newsom’s attempt to get an opponent of choice was neither surprising nor unfair. It’s politics as played in any system.
“Everybody should assume that Newsom is going to look out for Newsom, which is a selfish way to be, but that’s who politicians are,” Brown said in an election-night SFChronicle.com video interview with Editor in Chief Audrey Cooper and me. “He clearly does not want somebody who can beat him running against him. Period.”
“This is not reform. It is terrible.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi “I hate the top two.” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy