Ranking the Best: A Shift Towards More Favorable U.S. Presidential Candidates

By Hannah Oommen on April 4th, 2025

It seems that today, our political parties, Republican and Democrat, are farther apart than ever. Alexander Hamilton once called political parties “the most fatal disease” of popular governments. George Washington’s family had fled England due to the political parties that caused the civil war during the 17th century. In fact, it was no accident that our founding fathers did not include any political party in the Constitution, as they knew that political parties could and would cause division in the United States. The division in parties that exists today has cornered American voters against the wall, deciding between life or death, Republican or Democrat, with no strong alternative.

During the 2024 election, we see the division between parties growing deeper and deeper. Over the last 30 years, the Democratic Party has moved more to the “left,” while the Republican Party has moved more to the “right.” 62% percent of Republicans and 54% of Democrats had a very unfavorable view of the other party in 2022– a higher percentage than it was just five years prior. While political polarization is growing in other countries worldwide, it is more significant in the United States.

There’s been a growing trend of voters supporting candidates they dislike but prefer over the other leading candidate. Many voters do not even bother to look at third-party candidates due to the strong stigma that a vote for a third party candidate is a vote wasted, even if they were the more preferred candidate.

 Over the years, the increase in party division has caused voters to feel stuck with two options. Our current voting system first starts with primary and caucus elections, where states decide the preferred candidate for the election. Following that, they represent their state at national party conventions. Once they have finished campaigning, there are typically two popular candidates, one from each of the two parties. On the night of Election Day, which is at the beginning of November, voters cast their votes, and whoever wins with 270 or more electoral college votes out of the current 538 wins the presidential election even if they don’t have the popular vote.

By implementing ranked-choice voting, voters can put their most favored candidate first. If that candidate doesn’t have a good chance of winning, they are removed, and the votes transfer to the second-choice candidate, and so forth. By incorporating this system, voters can support candidates they truly prefer, and even if their top choice has no chance of winning, the candidate ranked below them will receive their vote.

Currently, our elections run by plurality, so even if a candidate doesn’t receive the majority of votes, they can still win as long as they have more votes than the opposition. Ranked-choice voting is currently reaching nearly 14 million voters in 51 cities, counties, and states in the United States. A median of 68% of voters rank multiple candidates.

A historical example of how RCV could have impacted elections is the 1992 presidential election. Bill Clinton won 43% of the popular vote, George H.W. Bush had 37%, and Ross Perot received 19%. With our current voting system, Perot’s voters had no say in the decisive outcome between Clinton and Bush. With RCV, they could have.

Ranked-choice voting gives more power to citizens in the United States to elect leaders who represent their values and beliefs rather than voting for the leader who seems more likely to win and is simply the lesser of two evils. By implementing ranked choice voting America could change the outcomes of elections into a more positive direction.