Mastodawn

California Democrats are proof positive that humans are not an intelligent species.

Here in Calif we have a unique primary system - a single primary for *all* parties. The top two move onto the general election, the rest are out of the game.

So here we have two R's splitting a smaller part of the electorate and a dozen D's splitting a larger part.

The result is that it is likely that the two R's will get larger vote counts than any of the dozen D's. Thus *only* those two R's will move onto the general election and *ALL* of the D's will be sent to the showers. And California will end up with a conservative R governor despite the state being overwhelmingly D.

The key is that at least ten of the D candidates need to drop out, IMMEDIATELY. But they are squabbling like D's normally do about identity politics and other stupid things.

"California governor poll raises prospect of two Republicans contesting runoff"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/24/california-governor-election-republicans

California governor poll raises prospect of two Republicans contesting runoff

Survey puts Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco ahead with Democratic vote split between large field of candidates

The Guardian

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Steven Zekowski 19h ago

@karlauerbach
#RankedChoiceVoting #RCV #InstantRunoff would solve this. Just sayin’

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Karl Auerbach

@steve_zeke ?? I do not see how ranked choice would have any impact on the fact that the D party is effectively committing suicide in the California governor's race.

Even with ranked choice the top two are almost certainly going to be R party because they are dividing their supporters two ways while the D's are diving theirs 10 or 12 ways.

(By-the-way, much as I like various instant-runoff style vote systems, I really have doubts that most voters will understand it and that it will lead to greater spread of voter skepticism and claims of election fraud.)

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Steven Zekowski 17h ago

@karlauerbach
We’ve been using it here in twin cities for a good while. People understand it well. Fair vote probably has lots of data on acceptance elsewhere.

All 12 Dems will have voters ranking them as 1, 2, or 3, etc. So even with a large field, the odds of one getting to 50%, possibly over several rounds is quite good*. That’s presuming the ranking of R candidates by D voters is very infrequent.

*The runoff doesn’t stop until someone gets 50% + 1 vote. No plurality winners

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Karl Auerbach 16h ago

@steve_zeke I have run in a instant-runoff election with seven candidates. It took multiple rounds before I won. Most of the voters were computer types and there was a lot of mis-understanding and skepticism about how whether the counting could be gamed.

So my experience is that even with technically skilled people there is difficulty in getting acceptance. And in today's "voter fraud is everywhere" climate (nonsense) I am afraid of introducing significant changes to what has been the norm, at least since the WW-I era.

(My I ran as a trio of candidates and we did find a way to game the system somewhat, which was to spread our positions only slightly so that the remaining of us would tend to pick up the voters for the one who fell out on a round.)