Don’t Blame Ranked Choice Voting Just Because Democrats Had to Choose Between a Socialist and a Swamp Monster

Editor’s Note: For this piece I teamed up with Chris Saxman, a Republican who served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2002 until he retired in 2010. Delegate Saxman has seen first hand how RCV has benefitted Republicans in his home state.

Democrats in New York recently faced a thrilling choice. They could vote for a self-proclaimed socialist, a scandal-plagued former governor who seemed to believe campaigning was beneath him, and a few other uninspiring candidates who failed to break through in a party that can’t seem to get past Bernie v. Hillary. Ultimately, it wasn’t so much a contest of ideas as it was a political version of “Would you rather?” with two options that should probably come with warning labels.

Naturally, some folks are now trying to blame Ranked Choice Voting for the outcome. Let’s be clear. This wasn’t a failure of RCV. It was a failure of the Democratic Party to offer credible, broadly appealing candidates. RCV just counted the votes and told the truth.

Ranked Choice Voting doesn’t care what your politics are. It isn’t designed to favor the far left or the far right. It’s just a better way to reflect what a majority of voters actually want. And regardless of who wins, RCV still delivers the same benefits. It elects a majority winner, saves taxpayer money without costly and low-turnout runoffs, and gives voters a chance to express real preferences. 

If anything, this election showed how to run a good campaign. And a bad one. It’s a lesson for conservatives who should want to use RCV to take on the swamp and win, instead of writing it off completely. 

Let’s talk about the campaigns. Andrew Cuomo ran the political equivalent of a vanity tour. He skipped candidate forums, ignored the press, and held a few sleepy events. He assumed his last name, establishment endorsements, and donor checks would do the hard work for him. Voters weren’t buying it.

Meanwhile, Zohran Mamdani ran like he actually wanted the job. He walked across Manhattan talking to voters, showed up everywhere, actually engaged with ranked choice voting with a “cross-endorsement” strategy, and turned social media into a campaign machine. While Cuomo sat still, Mamdani moved.

Cuomo hovered around 35 percent of first-choice support since February. Mamdani started at 1 percent, climbed to 44 percent by election night, then won 56 percent in the instant runoff. That’s not some RCV gimmick. That’s the result of one candidate outworking the other.

Cuomo also entered this race with more baggage than a Delta terminal during spring break. And he did it in a moment when Democratic voters are clearly frustrated with the status quo. Kamala Harris lost in 2024, Biden didn’t step aside when he should have, and the base (particularly in deep-blue areas like New York) is looking for something new. So who do the Democratic elites rally around? The guy who inherited power from his dad and left office in disgrace. Bold strategy, Cotton.

Let’s not forget who was propping him up. Bloomberg. Clinton. Jim Clyburn. It was a Wall Street and political royalty reunion tour. If you’re wondering why grassroots Democrats didn’t swoon, that’s probably your answer.

So what should conservatives take from this? For starters, RCV is not the villain. If anything, it gives underdog candidates a shot when they can build real coalitions. Mamdani didn’t win because of a trick in the system. He won because he worked harder and tapped into real energy.

Conservatives, especially the MAGA crowd, should take note. RCV doesn’t belong to the left. Glenn Youngkin won an RCV primary in 2021 and became the first Republican elected governor of Virginia in over a decade.

RCV belongs to the voters. A broken political machine challenged by someone willing to knock on every door and shake every hand? That’s a story we’ve seen play out in Republican primaries too.

Bottom line: the problem here wasn’t the voting system. It was the options. Ranked Choice Voting just told the truth about who Democratic voters liked least. And spoiler alert: it wasn’t the socialist. It was the guy who thought he didn’t need to try.