Here & Now

How Many Dems Are Too Many?

Shawn Johnson:

We pivot now to the election year and a closer look at the deep pool of candidates running in the democratic primary for governor. The list goes up and down a number. Currently there are 16 democrats officially in the race. At least one long-time political observer in the state believes that’s not a good thing. That would be Mordecai Lee of the UW-Milwaukee political science department. Thanks for joining us.

Mordecai Lee:

Thank you, Shawn.

Shawn Johnson:

I want to throw out a theory here for you and see what you think about it. If two candidates run in a primary, that’s democracy in action. Democracy’s good. So if 16 candidates run in a primary, that’s even more democracy, even better. Does that check out?

Mordecai Lee:

Is this multiple choice? Are you going to give me a better option because it’s not good democracy, democracy with a small d, whether this were to be a republican or democratic primary. The closest example I can come up with was during my political career, the year I got elected to the state senate. 1982 the local congressman from Milwaukee retired. There were ten names on the ballot in the September primary. The winner, Jim Moody, got something like 19% of the vote and he then became the congressman. The number two person came in, I think it was about 17% or 18%. So that shows you a field of ten. Imagine what it would be like with a field of 16.

Shawn Johnson:

But if democrats are excited about running and they want their chance to take on Governor Scott Walker, that’s their right, isn’t it? Is there any alternative, really?

Mordecai Lee:

Well, there is an alternative. It’s called either second choice voting or runoff primary. In other words, when you’ve got three, four, five, 16 people running, nobody is going to get a majority and we believe that democracy is based on majority rule. So it seems to me that the way to go is what some southern states do. Trim the field to the last two. Then a month later they have a runoff primary. So if there are only two candidates on the ballot in the runoff, somebody is going to get a majority. The other way to do it is a little more complicated. It’s called second choice voting. Wisconsin had it for one election in I think it was 1911. That’s that you cast your vote that day and then you say but if my preferred candidate doesn’t win, then I would have voted for, fill in the blank. And then what the county clerks do is they sort of ratchet it down and ratchet it down until somebody gets a majority of votes.

Shawn Johnson:

So we don’t have that in Wisconsin, though, right now. Small d democratic concerns aside, what’s your best guess on what this large primary means for the big d democratic party? Is it good or bad for them?

Mordecai Lee:

I suppose theoretically it’s good. But the problem will be the winner. Let’s say the winner wins, I don’t know, 15% of the vote. The winner doesn’t necessarily represent how Democratic voters feel. For example, there are right now two silos. There’s the moderate Clinton wing and then there’s the Bernie Sanders wing. What if one wing doesn’t like the results of who won the primary with a plurality? And also there’s a problem here about name recognition. Sometimes people vote based on, oh, yeah, I've heard of that person. So right now some of the office holders who are going to be on the ballot have relatively high name recognition compared to the unknowns. But voting for somebody based on name recognition is not an affirmative vote. It’s not saying I agree with them. All it’s saying is I heard of them.

Shawn Johnson:

So you referenced another big primary. I’m not aware of any primary back through Wisconsin history that’s been this big in a race for governor. So why is this huge, potentially huge democratic primary happening this year?

Mordecai Lee:

Well, the logical interpretation is that there are a lot of people who sense that Governor Walker is vulnerable and so they want to be the one to run against him. But there are so many of them there’s sort of no weeding out. Now by June 1, the filing deadline, I suspect that some of those 12, 16 people are going to drop out. And maybe some more during the summer will either unofficially drop out or due to lack of money won’t be serious contenders. But nonetheless there will be at least a half a dozen names on the ballot of serious candidates. So that’s a problem in terms of majority rule. Who is the best candidate democrats want to run against Governor Walker.

Shawn Johnson:

You're talking about the field potentially getting smaller. Right now as we speak there’s another democratic, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who’s potentially going to get into this race. Why is that happening now given the size of the field already?

Mordecai Lee:

Well, presumably what’s happening is that Mayor Barrett is well-known because he ran for governor three previous times. And so he would have instant name recognition and instant credibility, because he used to be a state senator and he knows state issues. The problem is, again, the issue of name recognition. Would he win because he’s the preferred candidate of a majority of the voters or would he win because perhaps he has, let’s say, higher name recognition than the superintendent of public instruction or the mayor of Madison? So it all comes down to being able to interpret the choice as somebody who the democrats want to be their nominee against Governor Walker.

Shawn Johnson:

All right. Mordecai Lee, thanks very much for joining us.

Mordecai Lee:

Thank you, Shawn.