Ugh. This is some very frustrating news—and yet another reason why we hate top-two primaries with a passion. GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is looking decidedly vulnerable next year after his Southern California House seat swung from a 55-43 win for Mitt Romney to a 48-46 win for Hillary Clinton, and no fewer than four notable Democrats have jumped in to challenge the incumbent, who has only won by less than double digits once in his three-decade career.
But a new candidate in the race could screw everything up, and that's because businessman Stelian Onufrei is a Republican. In any normal state, Onufrei, who's pledged to self-fund $500,000, would simply run in the GOP primary against Rohrabacher, while Democrats would go about nominating their own candidate—no problem.
In California, though, all candidates from all parties run together on a single primary ballot, and the top-two vote-getters advance to the November general election—regardless of what party they belong to. That means that two Democrats or two Republicans could win any given primary, something that happens with some frequency. Most of the time, one-party races take place in dark blue or dark red districts and no one really complains. But sometimes, when dark stars align, they happen in swing districts, and it's always been to the detriment of Democrats.
The most poignant example took place in 2012, when GOP Rep. Gary Miller faced five opponents: one fellow Republican, then-state Sen. Bob Dutton, and four Democrats. While the 31st District was decidedly blue, turnout in California primaries always tilts more Republican. That allowed Miller and Dutton to neatly split half the vote while the four Democrats fought over the other half. In a catastrophic outcome, the leading Democrat, Pete Aguilar, wound up 2 points behind Dutton in third place, completely locking Team Blue out of the general election in a seat Barack Obama won 57-41. (Dutton wound up losing to Miller, who retired a cycle later and was belatedly succeeded by Aguilar.)
You'll notice that the arrangement of candidates on each side in the 48th is the same as it was in the 31st: a Republican incumbent, a non-Some Dude challenger, and four seemingly credible Democrats. That's a formula for disaster, especially since the 48th, located in Orange County, is more Republican than the 31st. That means the primary pie for Democrats to squabble over starts out smaller—and the biggest slice could very well not be big enough.
Even when they've managed to avoid calamity, California Democrats have had to spend time, money, and resources in order to do so. A good illustration came last cycle when the Democratic-held 24th District was open: The DCCC had to shell out over $450,000 to make sure at least one Democrat would advance. If Onufrei really follows through, and if Democrats don't unite behind a single standard-bearer, the party may have to do something like that again.
But it shouldn't have to. To give voters a proper choice in November should not require political parties to limit the choices they give to their own members in June. And Republicans should hate top-two just as much as Democrats. Last year, in the most high-profile breakdown yet, Republicans wound up with no candidate in the general election for Senate, which almost assuredly hurt them downballot as well—and the same thing could happen to them again next year with the governor's race.
Not only has the top-two system failed to reduce partisanship, as its naïve proponents had argued it would, but it introduced a major flaw into California's elections, one that's very unhealthy for democracy. But it's one we don't have to live with: Voters approved this change at the ballot box back in 2010, and they can get rid of it the same way.
