Webinar on new book

A shorter video than the previous one

If almost four hours on the topic of institutional reforms to combat polarization and extremism is too much (and understandably so!), the good folks at Reform Elections Now kindly hosted a 90-minute webinar on the new book co-edited by Larry Diamond, Rick Pildes, and me. I thought the discussion a particularly useful one. Based on helpful input from the webinar’s organizers, I focused my remarks on the more practical aspects of the book’s research and analysis. (My part starts at about 13 minutes in.) Specifically, I discuss how this year’s US Senate election in Ohio would have had a very different outcome if a Top-3 Condorcet system had been used: non-MAGA traditional Republican candidate Matt Dolan, endorsed by Governor Mike DeWine and former Senator Rob Portman, would have won, rather than the Trump-endorsed MAGA candidate Bernie Moreno. I went on to explain that the prospects for achieving electoral reform along these lines would be most likely in red-leaning states that permit citizen-initiated ballot measures, like Ohio, Missouri and Nebraska. In those states, Democrats would be well-served to enter a reform coalition with non-MAGA Republicans, since Democrats are unable to win statewide elections there, and in a Top-3 Condorcet system Democrats at least could assure that more palatable non-MAGA Republicans would prevail. The Q&A usefully pursued the best way to market this kind of reform.