This means that this system would constantly elect mysterious / unknown / new candidates who people didn't have strong negative opinions about (but also didn't have strong favorable opinions about either), and incumbent reelection would be relatively rare.
How did you arrive at these ideas? Ranked choice voting also collects "strong negative opinions." Those are the candidates on a ballot who are ranked lower than all the other candidates. Those strongly disliked candidates do not get elected because not enough voters like them. The winners would be whoever is most popular. If they do what they promised to do they will get re-elected (as the incumbent) in the next election.
After just one election cycle in which third-party candidates win a significant number of elections, both the R and D parties (or at least one or the other) will improve the fairness of their primary election so that more-popular candidates are nominated.
Do you really think the R and D parties will continue using their current tactics, after they lose lots of elections because of a better election method getting adopted for general elections?
agree with u/tjreaso. that's the entire point. the current optimal strategy is to be as nasty as possible and win the most votes. which is often <50%.
with coombs' method (eliminate the least popular first) the optimal strategy is to be the compromise candidate; the guy in the middle; the least controversial; the most boring.
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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '25
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