Ashley Lopez

Like we're talking about the base of the party, really.

Lawmakers are thinking about that group of people more than they are these low propensity voters who tend to have like a economically different sort of situation.

or be more racially or ethnically diverse or younger.

So I think that also has an influence in how people govern.

Well, electoral reform is hard.

It's complicated.

I think like telling voters that something that is hard to fix is the root of all their problems.

It's not a fun conversation to have all the time.

And there have been efforts to get at the primary problem from like different angles.

During the Obama years, we saw a rise in the number of redistricting commissions that are aimed to be independent and not connected to politicians in any way, kind of taking the work of drawing districts away from politicians.

And then there are efforts to open up primaries as well, meaning allowing those independent voters to have a say in primaries to give them a bigger role.

And those have been a mixed bag in 2024.

A lot of the statewide efforts to do this did not pass.

A lot of it is because parties message a lot around these issues and parties don't want this to change.

They like that they have a lot of power here.

And it is really hard to get parties to relinquish that power in any meaningful way.

And I think voters, when they hear that messaging, they either get confused or they are suspicious of the intent of changing something big in the way our politics work.

Yeah.

And advocates who work in this space.

So Unite America, I talk about them a lot because they're very focused on the primary problem.