An Institute of Governmental Studies poll of the California gubernatorial election of 2018, released June 8, shows these results: Gavin Newsom 22%, Antonio Villaraigosa 17%, John Cox 9%, David Hadley 7%. Newsom and Villaraigosa are Democrats and both have declared. Cox and Hadley are Republicans. Cox has declared his candidacy, but Hadley so far has only said he is exploring running. He is a former Assemblymember.
Even though June 2018 is a year away, these results show the potential for a November 2018 race between two Democrats, with voters not being permitted to vote for anyone else in the election itself. That would resemble the 2018 California U.S. Senate race, which was also between two Democrats.
It is bad enough that “Top Two” practically forces you to vote either Democratic or Republican. This, on top of the Calif. 2016 US Senate election, just shows the further danger of “Top Two” forcing a single party upon the voters. As a Californian, I really resent it!
I have argued time and again on this website that Top Two is a bad idea. They may as well make the Democratic Party the only legal party in California.
Gene, not really. It’s just people don’t understand how to take advantage of the system. People really need to see the primary as a free for all… The top candidates should advance with less than 8% of the vote, because the primary should roughly be evenly split between 12 candidates.
The real problem is human beings are fucking retarded. I don’t know how many people I’ve encountered that are convinced they can never, under any circumstances (including the general election) vote for somebody outside of the party they’re affiliated with on their voter registration. This is how fucking clueless people are in this country about our election system. This is a major reason why in races that end up with two Democrats (or occasionally two Republicans) in November have lower turn out; 40% of the Republicans (or Dems) believe they’re not allowed to vote in the race.