Republicans Skeptical, Democrats Divided on Election Reform

In an era where everything from electric vehicles to candy mascots seem to divide Americans largely along partisan lines, there’s one thing voters across the country agree upon: the political system isn’t working well. Unfortunately, if 2024 election reform measures in Cascadia are any indication, there isn’t a similar consensus on how to fix government dysfunction—at least not yet.  

Partisanship played an undeniable role in defeating Idaho, Montana, and Oregon reform proposals (as well as a near miss in Alaska) last year. Democrats and Republicans seemed to approach election reform in different ways: Democratic regions showed higher support for reform than Republican areas, but Democratic leadership was officially neutral across blue and red states. Republicans, on the other hand, were more likely to oppose electoral revamps across the board.  

While 2024 was not a permanent setback for the movement, reformers will likely need greater support across both major parties to win over the public at large. Sharing stories of election reform’s real-life benefits and expanding its use at the local government level can bring in more voters and usher new reform champions into positions of power. 

Election reform divided voters along partisan lines more than other issues 

In 2024 election reform opponents in Alaska put Ballot Measure 2 before voters in an attempt to repeal the state’s model system of unified primaries and ranked choice general elections.¹ Alaska’s cast vote record, which allows the public to view data on how voters filled out their ballots without exposing personal information, reveals that 83 percent of Harris supporters voted to keep open primaries and ranked choice voting, while only 19 percent of Trump voters did the same—a difference of 64 percentage points. (Unlike reform measures in other states, a “no” vote was the pro-reform stance; opponents voted “yes” to repeal.) 

In other words, for the most part, Ballot Measure 2 split voters along partisan lines. The measure was slightly less polarized than explicit partisan contests such as the statewide US House seat.² However, significantly more Trump voters supported Ballot Measure 1 (to increase the minimum wage).³

Other non-election ballot measures across Cascadia showed a similar pattern. Traditionally liberal issues outperformed electoral reform measures even in conservative-leaning states, and it wasn’t only because they ran up the score in the more liberal areas. Non-election measures such as Montana’s CI-128 (to enshrine in the state constitution the right to abortion) beat election reform by five or ten points in counties and districts across the entire political spectrum. 

The subject matter could have exacerbated the uniform dip in support. Election reform is unfamiliar to many voters, who are often wary of casting their vote for a concept they don’t fully understand. Anti-reform messaging breathed oxygen on the flames of uncertainty. Across ideological lines, opponents advanced the notion that electoral reform (particularly ranked choice voting) would be confusing, costly, slow, and/or unnecessary. 

Across states, Democratic support differed and Republican areas aligned

Oregon and Idaho provide further clues on how partisanship splits support. In Oregon, counties with high proportions of Democrats (measured by Harris vote share) showed somewhat less support for reform than similarly Democratic counties in Idaho. In other words, Oregon Democrats were likely less reform-inclined than their counterparts across the state line. 

Take Blaine County, Idaho, and Washington County, Oregon, for example. Both voted about 32 percent for Trump in the presidential race, but 60 percent of Idaho’s most Democratic county supported election reform while only 49 percent of the suburban Portland, Oregon, county did the same. A similar phenomenon appears in Teton County, Idaho, compared with Clackamas County, Oregon.⁴

The trend trails off as counties get more Republican: the reddest Oregon counties supported reform at about the same rate as similarly red Idaho counties. (Note that this analysis reflects Democratic- and Republican-leaning counties, not necessarily Democratic and Republican voters or leaders.) 

So what could this mean? One possible explanation is that Republican voters everywhere are skeptical of reform, regardless of whether it could help their standing in blue states or encourage more productive governance in red states. Democratic support for reform, in contrast, might depend on the party’s power share. 

Democratic areas showed higher support in red states where reform might help the party make policy inroads, but Democratic voters in blue states could be wary of an electoral model that would force their party to adjust its winning strategy. After all, plenty of Democratic voters didn’t support ranked choice voting. If all Harris voters in Oregon had voted for the measure, it would have easily passed. 

What positions did the parties take? 

The Oregon Democratic Party neither supported nor opposed Measure 117, even though the Democrat-led legislature placed it on the ballot in the first place. The Oregon Republican Party opposed it. Democrats also stayed neutral in Cascadia’s red states, but much of the Republican establishment in Alaska, Idaho, and Montana came out against reform, and the Republican National Committee staunchly opposed ranked choice voting. 

Ad campaigns addressed to conservatives framed reform as a Democratic ploy to steal elections and leaned into culture war talking points, using phrases like “Open borders, open bathrooms, open primaries.” Hyper-negative messaging coupled with explicit disapproval from Republican Party leaders seems a likely explanation for the rift in support between Democratic and Republican voters.  

But voters don’t always follow the party script. Across the country in Washington, DC, the heavily left-leaning public pushed back against local Democratic officials’ opposition to ranked choice voting and approved the district’s 2024 Initiative 83, with 73 percent in favor. Some Republican leaders bucked the trend as well. For example, Alaska state Sen. Cathy Giessel, a Republican who lost to a partisan primary challenger under the state’s old rules, won back her position in the 2022 ranked choice election and opposed the system’s repeal in 2024.  

Other voters and officials may also back reform once they understand how it benefits them, their party, and their government. 

Good news for the reform movement 

Though reform opponents will likely run another Alaska repeal measure in 2026, ranked choice voting’s 2024 win in the northernmost state means two more years of positive outcomes to share with voters and leaders everywhere. Gathering reform success stories, encouraging voters and politicians to engage with ranked choice voting, and growing opportunities to implement reform at the local level will all be key to advancing long-term change—and increasing support among both parties. 

The narrative of positive outcomes is building 

When it comes to reform, perception is everything. Many Alaska reform opponents initially focused their ire on former Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat who won Alaska’s first statewide ranked choice election in 2022. But conservative Republican Nick Begich flipped the seat in 2024, which might turn down the partisan heat on ranked choice voting.  

And the Alaska legislature is in the middle of another productive session: both chambers organized their leadership on day one (for the first time in eight years); the closely divided House passed an education funding increase with votes from both the bipartisan majority and the Republican minority caucuses; and the Senate finance committee unanimously proposed a budget-balancing tweak to the state’s Permanent Fund Dividend across party and caucus lines. 

Alaska is only one chapter in the reform textbook. In Oregon, Portlanders used proportional ranked choice voting for the first time in 2024, and the newly constituted city council is more representative of the city than ever. And some stories remain evergreen for even the most skeptical audiences: how Virginia Republicans benefitted from a consensus-building ranked choice primary and pulled off an upset in the 2021 gubernatorial election, for example, or how many Utah Republicans continue to support ranked choice voting even as the nationwide party has turned against it. 

Alaskans are getting to know—and like—their model method 

As voters keep using the Alaska system and politicians win more ranked choice elections, Alaskans may increasingly resist repeal. The state’s model system and its healthy incentives, such as collaborative campaigning and appealing to a wider swath of the electorate for second-choice votes, will remain in place for at least another cycle. This means more time for the adjustment period to taper and ranked choice voting to become normalized, and for Alaskans to start seeing the outcomes of their system. 

Even the Alaska GOP might engage with ranked choice voting if they find cause to do so. Some Republicans hesitantly attempted to promote ranked choice voting in 2022 under a “rank the red” strategy. But former Gov. Sarah Palin, one of two Republican frontrunners, initially refused to promote ranking, which may have contributed to moderate Democrat Peltola’s win. In 2024, Rep. Begich could have lost the ranked choice election if second-choice votes broke more strongly against him. Down-ballot Republicans elsewhere in the state may face similar realities and encourage potential supporters to use second-choice votes accordingly. 

Local reform opportunities abound 

Similar to reading instructions to an unfamiliar board game, new electoral rules can feel agonizingly abstract until voters get hands-on experience, but the rules are easy once they’ve given it a go. Reformers will likely continue to push for new models at the local level and even within parties (for chair of a state or county political party, for example), giving voters and politicians the opportunity to engage with reforms and understand their benefits. 

As mentioned above, Portland just ran its first proportional ranked choice election for its city council, which proved popular with voters. And notably, Benton and Multnomah Counties, both of which hold ranked-choice elections, showed above-average support for reform in 2024.⁵ A city-and-county strategy offers reformers an opportunity to shore up support through exposure. 

Local campaigns can also identify reform champions in party leadership, legislatures, and other decision-making organizations. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, then Speaker of the House, led the legislative push for ranked choice voting in 2023. Rayfield cut his teeth on election reform as a first-term state representative in 2016, when he was one of the driving forces behind ranked choice voting for Benton County. Local officials who learn how to win in ranked choice elections could ascend to higher offices and similarly support state-level reform. 

One tough reality is that local government elections are fairly inflexible in some states. In recent years, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming all signed ranked choice voting bans into law, limiting advocates’ ability to propose reform at the local level. Washington state restricts most local elections to the top-two format. But nongovernmental bodies such as student governments or corporate and nonprofit boards could be places to familiarize the next generation of voters and community leaders with new election methods. 

Though voters (especially Republicans) appeared wary of changes to their state’s elections in 2024, wins in Alaska, local governments, and Washington, DC, will continue to build the case for better electoral models. Voters are becoming increasingly familiar with concepts such as unified primaries and ranked choice voting, and the coming years will let reformers further engage with both political leaders and the public to increase awareness, understanding, and enthusiasm for reform.