Thread by @gelliottmorris

#NEW from me: What would happen if the Democrats instituted a national primary using ranked-choice voting? I got the data from @YouGovUS and crunched the numbers:

economist.com/graphic-detail…

@YouGovUS We had YouGov ask over 2,000 Democratic voters to rank all the 2020 candidates over the past month. We used those responses to simulate ranked-choice voting in the primary.

How does RCV work, you ask? Just a reminder....

@YouGovUS 0. Count up all the ballots
1. Did someone win a majority of the vote? If yes, they win. If not....
2. Anyone who listed the last-place candidate gets their votes redistributed to their next-ranked option.
3. Re-tally the votes and repeat 1-2 until someone gets a majority.

@YouGovUS The results rankings are SUPER COOL and the design from our excellent visual journalists likes VERY NICE. Here's what the race would look at each round of voting:

@YouGovUS The rounds sort of proceed as you'd expect, with "moderate" candidates giving most of their votes to Biden and "liberals" splitting between Sanders and Warren.

However, not everyone follows this rule, and many candidates simply stop ranking after their candidate drops out.

@YouGovUS For example, nearly half of Warren voters rank a "moderate" candidate as their second-choice option. And we found that Sanders voters were particularly likely not to rank anyone at all in second place.

@YouGovUS This "Bernie or bust" mindset is very consequential in a ranked-choice primary.

In the last two rounds (seen here), left-leaning candidates combine for a 58% of the vote. If they simply combined their voters, Democrats would have a progressive nominee.

BUT...

@YouGovUS But once Sanders is eliminated (more voters support Warren in round 7, So Bernie's voters go to their next option) so many Bernie voters refuse to rank another choice that Biden ends up winning with 53% of the vote to Warren's 47.

So, what did we learn?

@YouGovUS 1. There aren't rigid ideological lanes to the primary
2. We also need to consider hardened support (IE "x candidate or bust") a part of the equation, not just left v center
3. When we do, we see that the stubbornness of Bernie voters spoils their chance at a progressive nominee.

@YouGovUS Fin! Thanks to @futuraprime and @p_lloydy for the great visualization work.

Read: economist.com/graphic-detail…