Bill Cassidy and Joe Manchin endorse ranked choice voting

Last week, at the Milken Institute’s 2024 Global Conference in Los Angeles, Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and James Lankford (R-OK) participated in a panel discussion on the state of U.S. politics. Their conversation highlighted just how toxic and dysfunctional Congress has become, the source of that dysfunction, and what changes they believed could truly address this crisis. 

Each senator described various aspects of what FairVote has long captured in our biennial Monopoly Politics report and what Unite America has described as “The Primary Problem”: our current elections can be decided by a hyper-partisan minority in primary elections, rather than the majority of voters. 

Both Sens. Manchin and Cassidy pointed to open primaries and ranked choice voting (RCV) as key reforms that would change the incentives and reward politicians who deliver value for the majority of their constituents. Sen. Sinema also expressed more measured support for RCV, specifically highlighting how it could reduce negative campaigning. 

Sen. Bill Cassidy highlighted how RCV incentivizes candidates to make their case to more voters and build a broad coalition of supporters: 

I’m a big believer in open primaries, and ranked choice voting is a nice little addendum to that… It allows someone who is trying to work beyond his or her narrow interest group for everyone to actually benefit, rather than being punished.

Sen. Joe Manchin later pointed out how RCV would encourage higher-quality candidates to make the leap and run for office. Additionally, Manchin’s remarks speak to how the incentives in an RCV election align to what we want from our officeholders; in other words, the kind of behaviors that help a candidate win an RCV contest are also the kind of behaviors that facilitate successful legislating. 

[Ranked choice voting and open primaries] gives that person with the best ideas, the best character – the best quality of a human being you want to represent you in this democracy of ours – a chance.

It’s deeply encouraging to see such prominent leaders are not only aware of the problems which exist in our political system, but also understand that electoral reforms like RCV are the solution!

You can watch the full panel discussion here!