What Is the Primary Problem? (with Nick Troiano)

About this episode

This episode discusses the primary problem in congressional elections with guest Nick Troiano.

The topic of this episode is, “What is the primary problem?” Every two years, we have congressional elections, which feature both primary elections and general elections. For nearly everyone who listens to this podcast, this seems like an eternal feature of governance system: primary elections are used to winnow the candidate field, and then general elections give voters the choice between two or maybe three finalists. But in truth, congressional primaries are a more recent development in our political history. They became the norm only about five or six decades ago. And like any other system of rules—be it the laws restricting investments or the rules of baseball—primaries are imperfect and susceptible to gaming by the players. Worse, according to some critics, primaries are fueling toxic partisanship within Congress and curbing its capacity to serve the public. Is there a primary problem ? And what is this problem? To help us think through this subject I have with me Nick Troiano. He is the author of The Primary Solution: Rescuing Our Democracy from the Fringes (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Nick is the executive director of Unite America , an organization that advocates for…

People in this episode

Host: AEI Podcasts

Guest: Nick Troiano

Topics covered

• congressional elections
• primary elections
• partisanship
• political history
• election reform

Keywords

• primary elections
• congress
• partisanship
• election reform
• Nick Troiano

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Unite America, Simon & Schuster

Books & works: The Primary Solution: Rescuing Our Democracy from the Fringes

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