The closed primaries vs. the top-two primaries
- Autores: Pablo Amorós González, Ricardo Martínez Rico, María Socorro Puy Segura
- Localización: Working papers = Documentos de trabajo (Universidad de León. Departamento de Economía y Estadística), Nº. 4, 2014, págs. 1-48
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The top-two primary recently approved in several states in the U.S.
eliminates the closed party primaries and creates instead a single ballot in which the Örst and second place winners pass to the general election.
We conduct a theoretical analysis to compare the electoral consequences of the top-two primary with those of the closed primaries. Each primary procedure induces a sequential game with three stages: candidate-entry stage, primary election, and general election. We analyze the equilibria of these games and show that the top-two primary contributes to political moderation. In particular, when the median voter is an extremist, the closed primaries always generate an extreme winner and yet the top-two primary can generate an equilibrium with a moderate winner. Furthermore, when the median voter is a moderate but his/her partyís median partisan is an extremist (and some additional mild conditions hold), the closed primaries always generate an extreme winner while the top-two primary always generates a moderate winner. We also show that the top-two primary may increase the number of swing states since, in certain cases, the party-a¢liation of the winner under the top-two primary may not coincide with the party a¢liation of the median voter.
