Dems Eye New Way to Shake Up 2028 Primaries: Ranked-Choice Voting

The change would only happen by getting past the DNC’s rules and bylaws committee, then the majority of the committee’s 450 members, and then state Democratic parties. Some states would also have to change their election laws. Some localities already use it for local and state elections, including Alaska, Maine, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and most famously, New York City, where Zohran Mamdani’s upstart campaign used ranked-choice voting to triumph in the Democratic mayoral primary.

Will the Democratic Party go for it? Party moderates might be skeptical, considering that in 2016 and 2020, the current system produced their preferred presidential nominees in Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. But the 2016 primary fight also fueled discord between progressives and moderates as the contest between Sanders and Clinton went late into the primary process, with some blaming it for Clinton’s loss in the general election.

If the Democrats institute ranked-choice voting, it would certainly grab attention and give the party pro-democracy credentials, allowing more candidates a chance to win. But that may inspire pushback from the party’s old-guard—even as the Democrats continue to articulate a vision for the future.