Independents Are Primary

Much has been written about the 2026 primaries – the muscle of the DSA, tension within MAGA over Iran, and Trump’s ability to punish Republicans who don’t play ball.

Little has been written about the people who never show up in that story at all.

Walk into any Congressional office and look at who’s actually there. The town hall crowd. The callers. The people at the county fair booth, the ones who show up to the coffee with constituents, the names in the “frequent contact” file. Almost all of them vote in your primary. That’s not an accident – it’s the whole design of the system.

But 45% of the electorate is independent now. They pay the same taxes, live under the same laws, call the same casework line when their Social Security check doesn’t arrive. They are, in every sense that matters, your constituents. And in primary after primary – the elections that actually decide who governs, now that gerrymandering has neutered most November contests – many of them don’t get a ballot.

Thirty-four states allow independents to vote in primaries. Sixteen states do not. And independents are impacting both closed and open states.

New Mexico and Maine recently changed their laws to let independents in. Turnout surged in both states. In New Mexico, local boards of elections didn’t bother telling independents about their new rights – so independents told each other, running “independent to independent” educational videos on streaming sites. Nobody was going to do it for them.

California just proved what happens when every voter, not just party members, gets the same ballot. Democratic consultants spent the Gubernatorial race trying to kill the state’s popular “people’s primary” – because more turnout means more work for them. Voters weren’t having it. California posted the highest primary turnout of any state in the country: 41%.

New York’s turnout was 9%.

New York City and State still run a closed system, and it shows. The left is winning low-turnout primaries and grabbing headlines. But underneath the headlines, a quieter fight is building. A petition drive is underway to force a referendum on closed primaries. Hundreds of independents have testified before Mayor Mamdani’s Charter Commission about what it’s like to be shut out of voting.

Just last week, amNY quoted Mamdani saying he’s “quite content” with the closed primary system as it stands. We answered with an op-ed from a Brooklyn independent and my Open Primaries colleague Jeremy Gruber, making the case for why that comfort comes at the expense of independent voters. And we’ve called on Mayor Mamdani directly: join us for a town hall and hear from independent voters yourself. He has yet to respond.

Fifty-four percent of NYC’s independents are people of color. They are Mamdani’s constituents too. The question is whether he’ll treat them like it.

DC didn’t wait for permission, either. Independents spent two years pressuring the city council to fund open primaries after voters passed it via referendum with 73% in 2024. The Council sat on it – until independents applied enough pressure that it relented. In 2028, 85,000 DC independents will finally have a say in choosing the people who represent them.

Delaware shows what that pressure looks like in real time. HB 188, an open primaries bill from Rep. Michael Smith, was supposed to die quietly in committee. Instead, independents flooded the airwaves, called their legislators, and showed up to testify – and it passed the Assembly with strong bipartisan support. The Senate hasn’t acted yet, so it isn’t law. But the politicians are watching the registration numbers: Democratic registration down 20,000 in the last year, Republican down 10,000, independent up 17,000. Delaware voters are leaving the parties behind. The parties haven’t caught up.

Texas is moving in the other direction. Governor Abbott caved to MAGA and endorsed a legal push to dismantle the state’s open primary system. Secretary of State Jane Nelson, a Republican, is being pressured to resign for opposing it. Now that the state is maximally gerrymandered, whoever controls the primary controls the outcome – and MAGA wants that control, even if it means shutting out millions of Texans who are still, on paper, everyone’s constituents.

Ninety percent of Congressional general elections are now uncompetitive. That means the primary is the election. Which means the primary electorate is, functionally, the only electorate most members ever have to answer to.

So here’s the question worth asking, honestly, in a quiet moment: who calls my office? Who fills the town hall? Who do I picture when I picture “my district”? And how much of that picture was built for me by a primary system that only let a fraction of my constituents in the room?

90% of Congressional general elections are now uncompetitive.  This is good for parties, good for consultants, terrible for voters and members of Congress who want to do the people’s business.  The primaries have become more important.  And independents are noticing.  The story of how they are voting in primaries where they are allowed, and fighting to change the rules where they are not is an important one that will grow in importance.