Explaining the Top Two "Jungle Primary"

Many voters are still confused by the Top Two "Jungle Primary" system in California that has created the current jeopardy for Democrats in the race to replace Darrell Issa in the 49th congressional district.

Here are the three most important things to know about this primary election:

• All candidates who have filed to run in the 49th district will appear on the ballot that you will either receive in the mail or see in person at the voting booth. You can vote for any candidate regardless of how you registered to vote (e.g. "Democrat", "No Party Preference", or "Republican"). 

 

• The top two vote-getters from this primary election will go on the November ballot regardless of party affiliation (if two Republicans get the most votes, then they'll be the two  names on the November ballot). In other congressional districts that are mostly Republican, the November ballot will likely have two Republicans. In districts that are mostly Democratic, the top two in November will be Democrats. However, things get very funky in districts like ours that are evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. 

 

• The primary election in a balanced district like the 49th becomes critically important because the top two vote-getters can win with a small percentage of the overall vote. Too many strong candidates from the same party will end up splitting the votes from voters who are inclined to vote with that party. This creates a very serious risk for one party to get locked out of the final November ballot. In the 2018 election for the 49th, the top two vote-getters are likely to win with 18%-22% of the overall vote. If the top two Republicans each get 20% of the vote, the rest of the Republicans get a total of 10%, and four Democrats evenly split the rest (about 13% each), the Democrats get locked out. The danger is even more acute because the Republicans enjoy a registration advantage (37% of voters in the district are registered as Republican while 31% are registered as Democrats).

So, you can see why we've been trying to educate voters about how important the primary election is this year. If you want a real choice in November, you need to vote in June to make sure that at least one Democrat makes it on to the final ballot. And you need to be strategic in the way you vote. Throwing away a vote on a candidate who can't win in June simply increases the odds that two Republicans will go on the final ballot in November. This is tragic when all four Democratic candidates share the same policy positions on the important issues.

You can help get a Democrat on the final ballot by voting for the Democratic front-runner when the time comes. You'll know who that is because of polling. The current front-runners are Doug Applegate and Mike Levin with Sara Jacobs and Paul Kerr trailing. We'll publish all the polls as they come in, but you'll also see results in the news.

You have seen us try to reduce the number of Democratic candidates competing for your vote; we've been putting gentle but unrelenting pressure on Sara Jacobs and Paul Kerr to be heroes and patriots by stepping aside this year and giving the two Democratic front-runners the best shot at getting on the final ballot. Hopefully you now understand why this is important.

If you want to know more about the Top Two primary and what it means for us, we've provided a link below to a KCRA TV News story from 2014 that explains how the system works and also posted a link to a current Los Angeles Times article with more detail about the effects on the 2018 congressional races including the 49th district.

And here is the link to the LA Times article about the Top Two primary in 2018:

DANGERS FROM TOP TWO PRIMARY: LOS ANGELES TIMES

---