The problem with primaries 

The U.S. primaries system, used to determine the presidential nominees for each party during election season, is broken.  

This disfunction becomes most apparent when the electorate is both evenly split and highly polarized, which is the nation’s current political environment. This permits a large group of voters to select each party’s nominee, though a much smaller group actually impacts who will win the general election. Data from recent elections support such an observation. 

Recall that, in 2016, Donald Trump won the Electoral College, while losing the popular vote. However, just three states ultimately led to his victory (Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania), with the difference across these three states totaling less than 110,000 votes. Other battleground states that contributed to such a close election included North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Minnesota and Florida. 

In 2020, Joe Biden won both the Electoral College and the popular vote. Once again, three states ultimately led to his victory (Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin), with the difference across these three states totaling less than 44,000 votes. This would have led to a 269-269 tie, so a flip of Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District would have made a difference. Nevada and Pennsylvania were also close enough to impact the outcome. 

In essence, though millions of voters ultimately determine each party’s nominee, the vast majority of them will have no impact on who wins the general election. 

By creating multiple levels of democratic voting, the system for choosing each party’s nominee is ultimately asking voters the wrong question. Rather than voting for who they want to be president, the more salient issue is who is most likely to win the general election. By flipping the objective, Republican and Democratic voters may not be best suited to make such a selection. 

Let’s take a look at the last two standing nominees for the Republican Party: Donald Trump and Nikki Haley.  

Donald Trump has a clear base of supporters that remains unshakable, even in light of the criminal charges that he faces. In fact, his best hope of beating such charges may be to get elected president. His unwavering base means that his floor of political support in the general election remains solid and firm. 

However, his popularity outside his base is tenuous at best.  

In its current format, winning the nomination does nothing more than confirm that the majority of Republican voters support him. However, that is insufficient to win the ultimate prize, which is the White House in November. This places an anchor on his ceiling in the general election. 

Haley’s situation is nearly exactly the opposite. She has been abandoned by much of the Republican mainstream (including former candidates like Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott), placing a fragile floor under her. In the high-risk game of political power grabbing, all these people are backing the odds-on favorite, hoping for a chance to be his running mate or, if elected, a place in his Cabinet. 

Haley has garnered several endorsements, including Asa Hutchison, Larry Hogan and Chris Sununu. Yet they do not provide the high visibility that she hopes for — and needs — to remain viable and in the race. 

The good news for Haley is that she provides an attractive alternative to the presumptive Democrats’ nominee, President Biden. Polls suggest that she is likely to attract independents in the general election, given that 70 percent of her votes in New Hampshire came from independents. In the general election, this gives her a much higher ceiling than Trump. 

Without Republican voter support, Haley is unlikely to get the delegates needed to give her the nomination. However, as long as she has the financial means to continue, and the sinew to endure pressures from the GOP establishment to drop out, she still provides the Republican Party’s best hopes to win the White House. 

The best scenario for Trump is that Biden remain in the race, since the majority of voters do not want a Trump-Biden rematch. This makes many voter choices based on who they do not want to win, rather than who they want to win. Yet with two elder candidates, the possibilities for health issues and other unplanned challenges means that such a rematch may get derailed. 

Let’s not forget that if Trump does win, he will assume office at 78 years of age, older than what Biden was when he assumed office in 2021. 

Given that the president of the United States is the de facto leader of the free world, having choices that are less than optimal is disappointing for the majority of voters. This highlights why the process to pick nominees is indeed broken, and that each party’s voters are their own worst enemy when they vote in their primaries.   

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He applies his expertise in data-driven risk-based decision-making to evaluate and inform public policy.