In New Jersey, will a shattered candidate field cause trouble in November?

Now that the county line system of machine politics is gone, what comes next? The answer may be a rule change that empowers voters even more.

Next Tuesday, New Jersey holds primaries to pick candidates for governor. With five Republicans and six Democrats vying for office, this could leave parties divided and leaves November voters with choices that don’t reflect what they might actually want. As my article with David Daley in the Philadelphia Inquirer explains, there’s a better way.

The problem of resolving a disunified party is a new one - and potentially, a good one. Last year, a federal court case did away with New Jersey’s “county line” system, in which party leaders had enormous power to dictate who their nominee would be, both locally and statewide. But the end of the county line (note: I was an expert in that case) makes nominations a possible free-for-all.

The Republican field is reasonably solidified around Jack Ciattarelli, who is back for a return engagement after coming within three points of unseating incumbent governor Phil Murphy. After coming that close in 2021, they are now unified with the same candidate.

The Democrats have more of a problem. Their nomination process has revealed multiple major themes, including:

1. Level of confrontation with the Trump administration;

2. The need for political reform in New Jersey; and

3. Experience in Washington, D.C. vs. at home in New Jersey.

But these themes are spread across six candidates. That divides the vote.

On the Democratic side, no candidate seems likely to get a majority of the vote. That creates a risk that one wing of the party can dominate the nomination process. For example, if one-third of New Jerseyans are registered Democrats, and one-third of Democrats back the top finisher, that means that as few as 1 out of 9 voters will determine a major nominee. And with low turnout in an odd-numbered year election, as few as 100,000 voters could determine who the Democrats put up - in a state of 9 million people.

Dave Daley and I argue that this problem of extreme minority rule can be solved by ranked-choice voting. The ability to rank choices would give many more voters a say in this divided process. Ranked-choice voting can help identify a candidate that the most voters can unite around. In the case of a primary election, it creates a nominee that most reflects a party’s values in the November election. As Dave and I wrote, “the whole thing is looking like the three-way standoff in the movie Reservoir Dogs. And that shoot-out turned out poorly for everyone involved.”

The problem of resolving a disunified party is a new one - and potentially, a good one. Last year, a federal court case did away with New Jersey’s “county line” system, in which party leaders had enormous power to dictate who their nominee would be, both locally and statewide. But the end of the county line (note: I was an expert in that case) makes nominations a possible free-for-all.

This year, the best available option for Democrats is for their lower-ranking candidates (currently Gottheimer, Spiller, and Sweeney) to support one of the top three candidates (currently Sherrill, Fulop, and Baraka). That can unite their party - but it leaves voters out of the decision process.

As a replacement for the county line system, New Jerseyans would be better off allowing ranked-choice voting. However, ranked-choice voting is not the only solution. Another possibility is approval voting, in which voters simply check off all the candidates that they would be satisfied to see. It is amazingly easy to implement: clerks just have to turn off the feature that forces voters to pick exactly one candidate.

Approval voting has the advantage of not requiring rankings. Ranked-choice voting is viewed with suspicion among some voters, as evidenced by the fact that it wasn’t enacted in many jurisdictions in 2024. Approval voting is easier for voters to wrap their heads around.

Under New Jersey law, changing the law governing primary elections requires the legislature to act. By doing away with the county-line ballot system, reformers in the Garden State should be justly proud of putting a big dent in the machine politics of decades past. Now it's time to take the next step - and implement a voting rule that helps more voters be heard.