In last week’s installment, we looked at what the political landscape in the US would look like if we had a parliamentary system similar to most countries in the Western Hemisphere. While we are not holding our breath on a constitutional change to our governmental system, there is a growing popularity for ranked-choice voting (RCV) in many cities and states.

For those who are unfamiliar, RCV is an electoral system in which voters rank candidates in order of preference rather than selecting a single option. If no candidate secures a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and those ballots are redistributed to voters’ next-ranked choices. This process continues until one candidate achieves a majority.

Although RCV has not been implemented at the federal level (although states like Maine have implemented it) and may never be, its growing use raises an important question: which political party would Americans most often select as their second choice?

Understanding second-choice preferences is extremely important for parliamentary systems where more choices are available, but it is also an interesting exercise in the US to better understand how voters think.

Top Choice

As we discussed last week, Americans would split their preferences between five main party types in a parliamentary system. The largest party concentration would be with a traditional Center-Right party (25%), followed by a Conservative Christian Party (17%), a Socialist Party (16%), a Center-Left Party (16%), and a Labor Party (14%). Overall, a majority (52%) would choose a left-leaning party.

Overall, Americans would divide almost evenly between left-leaning groups and right-leaning groups. While this is not shocking given our current environment, the breakdown within the two sides of the spectrum is fascinating.

Second Choice

When asked what their second choice would be, we found some very interesting results. Not surprisingly, most voters' second choice is adjacent to their first. Seven in ten Americans would stick with the leaning of their first choice, while 30% chose a liberal bloc party first and then a conservative party for their second choice, or picked a conservative bloc party first and then jumped over to the liberal side. When breaking this down by the two-party types (liberal and conservative), there are very similar results, with 68% of liberal first-choice voters choosing another liberal bloc party, and 73% of conservative bloc voters sticking with a conservative party on the second choice.

Socialist Party Voters

Americans who indicated their first choice would be a Socialist (a party that focuses on income inequality, limiting the power of corporations, and increasing the living standards of low-income people) would split relatively evenly between a Green Party, a Labor Party, or a Center Left party as their second choice. A Labor Party was the most popular second choice (33%), followed by a Center-Left Party (28%), and then a Green Party (25%). One in 10 would move to a Center-Right Party, while 2% said they would move to a Conservative Christian Party, and 1% to a Far-Right Party.

Check out our website for the interactive graph of this data

Conservative Christian Party

Americans who chose a Conservative Christian Party (a party focused on the rights and advancement of Judeo-Christian beliefs) as their first choice had the second-highest concentration of voters moving within the same political bloc. More than half (53%) would choose a Far-Right Party, while 34% would move to a Center-Right Party. Six percent (6%) would move across the partisan divide and support a Labor Party as their second choice, while 5% would support a Center-Left Party. Movement to a Socialist Party or a Green Party was at 1% for both.

Movement within those who chose a Far-Right Party (a party that supports strict limits on immigration and a reduction in national sovereignty) had very similar patterns for their second choice

Center-Right Party

For the quarter of Americans who would feel most comfortable in a Center-Right Party (a party focused on small government, law and order, freedom of religion, and strong national security), their second choice is arguably the most interesting, as they have the largest concentration of members crossing the aisle. The biggest concentration of movement is to a Far-Right Party (34%), but the second largest group is those moving to a Labor Party as their second choice (25%). Movement to a Conservative Christian Party (17%) and a Center-Left Party (16%) are nearly identical, while movement to a Green Party (6%) or a Socialist Party (3%) were much smaller.

Center-Left Party

Supporters of a Center-Left Party (a party supporting a balance between a regulated economy and social justice) had a higher concentration of those sticking to the overall voting bloc than Center-Right supporters, but the movement is much more evenly distributed within this cohort of voters. The largest concentration (34%) would move to a Labor Party (a party focused on working-class people and increasing the quality of life for the working class) as their second choice. One in five (20%) would move to a Center-Right Party, while a similar 19% would choose a Socialist Party as their second choice. About 1 in 5 (22%) would move to either a Conservative Christian Party (11%) or a Far-Right Party (11%), while 6% would move to a Green Party.

A two-party system is incredibly limiting when it comes to an individual being able to show where their main priorities lie, and it makes movement incredibly difficult, especially in hyper-partisan times such as we live in today. If the Founding Fathers had decided on a Parliamentary system, it would certainly be more interesting, and it would arguably meet the current times better than our binary system.

You can checkout the interactive graph on our website

The Lincoln Park Strategies Team

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