Democrats appear to be inching toward one of the biggest changes to their presidential nominating process since the advent of primaries.
Party leaders are beginning to explore whether ranked choice voting could make the 2028 primary fairer, less divisive, and better at producing a nominee who reflects the full breadth of the Democratic coalition. It’s a quiet development, but a potentially transformative one, and Axios reports that senior Democratic National Committee officials have met with reform advocates to discuss making it real.
Ranked choice voting is simple at its core. Instead of marking only a single candidate on their ballot, voters rank the candidates in order of preference—first choice, second choice, third choice, and so on. If someone wins a majority of first-choice votes outright, the election is over. If nobody wins a majority, the last-place candidate is eliminated, and voters who ranked that candidate first have their second-choice votes counted. The process continues until one candidate grabs a majority of the vote.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, shown in 2024.
The goal is to give voters more freedom to vote their values without worrying about “spoiler” candidates, while also encouraging campaigns to build broader coalitions.
According to Axios, the conversation inside the party is still in its early stages. A formal move toward ranked choice voting would require layers of approval from the DNC’s rules and bylaws committee, buy-in from the larger membership, and cooperation from state parties—some of which would need legislative changes to adopt the system.
That’s a long road. But the fact that these discussions are happening signals something important: The existing primary model is divisive and has served our party’s broad base poorly.
A primary system driven by majority support, not fractured pluralities
Party stalwarts know the challenges primary season brings—the formation of camps as activists and rank-and-file Democrats pick their candidates. It is rarely enough to simply support one’s own; people feel pressure to tear down everyone else. Few of us are immune to those dynamics, including me. We are human, after all.
But ranked voting changes that dynamic. You can no longer alienate supporters of other candidates; you need them. Candidates have to court those voters, convince them that even if their first choice is someone else, they’re still worthy of a high ranking. Obnoxious, destructive behavior serves zero purpose.
An end to outsized early-state distortions
Ranked choice voting fixes some long-standing distortions in the primary calendar. Iowa and New Hampshire may no longer have top billing, but there will still be early states—meaning most of us still won’t have a meaningful voice in the opening rounds. Under the current system, those early results create intense pressure for candidates to consolidate or drop out. Ranked voting weakens that incentive. It rewards broad appeal rather than whoever happens to eke out, say, 22% in the first few contests.
A check against media-manufactured momentum surges
By producing clearer, majority-driven outcomes, ranked voting blunts the breathless media narratives that inflate or deflate campaigns based on tiny, unrepresentative early-state pluralities. The early-state circus becomes less important, and candidates who don’t appeal to wide swaths of the electorate can’t ride a fluke finish into weeks of free media.
Protection against crowded-field chaos in 2028
Ranked choice voting is also a hedge against crowded fields, which we’ll certainly have in the 2028 cycle. Under the current system, someone can walk away with the lead simply because everyone else cancels each other out. Ranked voting breaks that dynamic and ensures candidates can’t prevail with narrow, factional support.
A boost for candidates who actually build coalitions
Ranked choice voting rewards candidates who do the hard organizing work—building relationships in multiple communities, showing up for constituencies outside their ideological home turf, and proving they can win not just a slice of the party but a majority of it.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, shown voting in November.
Even candidates who seem to win on “vibes,” like New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, succeed because that energy rests on top of real coalition work. His campaign may have projected momentum and enthusiasm online, but underneath that was the kind of multilingual, cross-community organizing that ranked voting structurally favors.
That kind of coalition building led to one primary ad in which Mamdani and one of his opponents, Comptroller Brad Lander, endorsed each other, telling their backers to rank the other person second.
Put simply, vibes help, but they don’t replace the coalition—they amplify it.
Higher turnout from voters who no longer fear “wasting” their vote
A lot of people skip primaries because they think their preferred candidate isn’t “viable.” Ranked choice voting eliminates that psychological penalty. Voters can safely choose their favorite and still influence the final outcome. That especially matters for younger voters, working-class voters, and voters of color—exactly the parts of the Democratic coalition that benefit from having their voices counted in full.
A calmer, more unified party heading into the general election
Ranked voting lowers the temperature inside the party. This isn’t about being nicer for the sake of niceness; it’s about avoiding the durable bitterness that can seep into the general election. When candidates need second-choice votes, they have real incentives to avoid torching their rivals’ supporters.
Space for ideological allies to cooperate instead of cannibalize
From left, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former President Joe Biden, shown in 2020.
Ideological blocs can work together rather than undermine each other. Imagine a 2020 Democratic primary cycle where Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders didn’t split the left but ran as an informal one-two ticket—encouraging their supporters to rank them together, strengthening each other rather than sabotaging both of them.
A system that welcomes movement candidates without creating spoilers
Ranked choice voting discourages spoiler narratives without discouraging participation. Movement candidates, regional candidates, and single-issue candidates can all run without getting blamed for “splitting the vote.” The system absorbs that diversity instead of letting it distort the outcome.
A nominee tested across the entire Democratic coalition
Perhaps most importantly, ranked choice voting produces a nominee who has been tested across the full breadth of the party—someone who has earned not just passionate first-choice supporters but broad second-choice goodwill. That’s the kind of candidate who enters the general election stronger, more grounded, and with fewer wounds to heal.
Ranked choice voting in primaries won’t magically heal every tension inside the Democratic Party, and it won’t guarantee a drama-free primary season. Nothing ever does. But it does offer something better than what we have now.
Ranked voting rewards coalition building, respects the full diversity of the Democratic electorate, and reduces the incentives to burn down half the party in the name of a fleeting advantage. It gives voters more freedom, gives campaigns better incentives, and gives the eventual nominee a stronger foundation heading into the general election.
Whether the DNC ultimately embraces the change or not, these discussions are an acknowledgment that the old model has limits—and that a healthier, more representative process is out there.
