The Jungle Primary

California has adopted a jungle primary system for congress and the senate in 2012. Speculation is that this'll lead to more moderate candidates winning.

Georgia-9 is the most Republican district in the country. Last year they had a jungle primary in a special election. Six Republicans beat the Democrat 92%-6%. Tom Graves was elected in a run-off with fellow Republican Lee Hawkins. I believe Graves was the more conservative of the two. There'll be a lot of California districts that are heavily Democratic or heavily Republican. I don't think the centerist will win in them.

Hawaii-1 held a jungle special election last spring. The district is fairly Democratic, but not overwhelming like Georgia-9. The Democrats took 58% of the vote and the Republican 39%. The Republican and the more liberal Democrat finished 1-2 and then faced off against each other in November. Even in a Republican year the liberal won.

Florida had a similar general election this year for the senate, with a Republican running against a Democrat and a centerist former Republican. The election was equally split with Republicans and Democrats. Marco Rubio, the Republican, got 87% of the Republican vote, freezing out Charlie Crist from any moderate Republicans. Crist split Democrats with Meek, but was only able to take 36% of independents. Rubio took 51%. The more conservative candidate won.

In 2006 the moderate Democrat won a 3 way race in Democratic Connecticut and the moderate Republican won a 3 way race in conservative Alaska. In both cases the opposing party ran an uninspiring candidate. That enabled the moderate to suck up a lot of votes from the other party. There's no way of knowing how the candidates would do in a 2 way race with the entire electorate voting.

Washington had a top two primary last fall. All the incumbents but one finished first. Rick Larsen finished 0.2% back. They all faced the candidate who was expected to get the nomination from the other party in the general. They all won. The lone open seat, the third, drew five candidates who each got at least 11%. The party preferred Republican and Democrat finished 1-2 and faced off int he general. So there's no evidence that a moderate candidate will beat an incumbent or the conservative or liberal. In cases where the moderate won, e.g. the Rhode Island governor, he or she was always a high profile well funded candidate.