The Risky Payoff Matrix of Democratic Primary Strategies
The 2022 midterm elections are coming up, and are looking to be hotly contested by both sides. Democrats, although they are performing much better in the polls than they were during the summer, with problems such as Joe Biden’s popularity and massive inflation rates generally subsiding. However, the Democrats are still attempting to hold onto their razor thin majorities in both the House and Senate in what is looking to be a neutral to lean Republican year, and many pollsters and statisticians predict that, based on current trends, the Democrats, at the very least, are likely to lose their House majority after the 2022 midterm elections, with their Senate majority in an extremely precarious position as well, as if they lose even one seat to the Republicans, they will also lose their Senate majority.
In order to combat this, the Democratic party took on an extremely risky strategy in certain districts: funding far-right Republicans. Indeed, the Democratic party has been shown to fund far-right candidates in Republican party primaries, especially in “swing” districts, or districts that may vote for either Republican or Democrat candidates, or slightly Republican-leaning districts, which may vote for a Democratic candidate in the right circumstances. The Democratic Party is betting that “the right circumstances” include a far-right candidate becoming the Republican nominee.
However, this Democratic strategy relies on a number of assumptions, and while none of them may be completely accurate, they are generally likely to happen in the slightly Republican-leaning environment that the midterm elections are likely to take place in. This means that they are a good base to rely on strategically. The assumptions include the idea that, especially in a Republican-leaning environment, many of these districts would vote for normal, and especially moderate Republican candidates over Democrats. Another is that in the case that the Democrats help fund far-right candidates in Republican primaries, that they will win the primary. A third assumption is that some more moderate Republican voters will see a Democrat as the more acceptable candidate over a far-right one, titling the election towards Democrats. They can also assume that this will not be the case for all Republican voters, and that the Republican electorate, depending on how moderate they are, may either shift the election towards the Democrats, or vote for the far-right candidate. Indeed, it is safer to assume in this political environment, that for the majority of Republicans, even a far-right Republican would be more favorable than a Democrat. Finally, an assumption is that a regular Republican will be much more willing to work with Democrats than a far-right one, meaning that if a far-right candidate does end up winning the general election, it would be much more costly to Democrats than if a general Republican had won.
Indeed, many commentators see this as an extremely risky strategy, though one that has an extremely high payoff if achieved: a high risk, high reward situation. Indeed, the New York Times notes that this has worked before, such as in the case of the 2012 Missouri Senate Election, where a controversial and very right-leaning Republican was boosted by the Democratic party to become his party’s nominee, before losing the general election to a Democrat. This is especially significant because at the same time, Missouri had overwhelmingly voted for a Republican for president, showing how this strategy can pay off for Democrats pushing to win in otherwise uncompetitive elections.
However, some worry that through this strategy, Democrats may be eliminating much of the few Republicans left in Congress willing to work with them. For instance, the Washington Post mentions how the Democratic party received criticism for their strategy in Michigan’s 3rd district, a swing district in the western portion of the state. Here, Democrats spent revenue in the Republican primary boosting far-right candidate John Gibbs over the moderate incumbent Peter Meijer, who voted with Democrats on key issues such as the impeachment of President Donald Trump. Indeed, John Gibbs ended up winning the primary, and though Democrats now have a stronger chance of winning the district, if Gibbs does win the general election, he will not be as willing to compromise as Representative Meijer was.
When looking at the actual strategy of the Democrats, we can generally line it up with a Game Theory 2×2 payoff matrix:
(Note that the matrix is talking about the Democratic Party supporting far-right Republicans in the primary, while talking about Republican voters supporting far-right candidates in the general election against Democratic candidates).
Here, we can see that the Democratic Party can get both its best and worst payoff if it funds a far-right candidate in the primary, while it can attain a low, but consistent payoff if it does not support a far-right candidate in these competitive elections, and allows a more moderate Republican to win, who is willing to work with their party. Indeed, for Republican voters, the best strategy is when they do not support a far-right candidate, and win the election because Democrats did not fund a far-right candidate, leading to most Republican voters being happy. However, in any other case, significant portions of the party will be upset either because a Democrat won (see Funding a Far-Right Candidate, Vote Against Far-Right Candidate) or because a portion of the party dislikes the far-right candidate/dislikes the outcome of the primary. For example, the result for (Don’t Fund Far-Right Candidate, Support Far-Right Candidate) may look strange, it is because the non-far right candidate wins the primary, and although the electorate would support the far-right candidate in the general election, they are only half satisfied with the result, as a Republican won, but not a far-right one. We can also see that in this case, there is no pure Nash equilibrium, mostly because the best responses and interests of the Democratic party and Republican voters are opposite of one another, and both of them cannot be completely satisfied with the result at the same time.
However, when we look at the mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium, we can see how risky the Democratic strategy in the primaries just is. This is because through the calculations of this mixed-strategy, we can see that while it is only worth it for the Democratic party 50% of the time to fund far-right candidates to win their campaigns, while for Republican voters, it’s worth it to support far-right candidates 75% of the time, assuming that they place enough value on the Republican ticket over the Democratic one, regardless of the candidate.
Assuming all of this is accurate, if Democrats want to continue to fund far-right candidates in order to have a chance at gaining swing districts or otherwise uncompetitive seats, they better be very sure that they can convince enough Republicans to vote for their candidates.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/12/democrats-interfere-republican-primaries/