Report: No One Guarding the House

With congressional primaries getting more crowded, moving on to the general election requires less popular appeal—and fewer votes.

The number of candidates in contested U.S. congressional primaries has grown significantly in just the last few cycles. And findings from an ongoing analysis of the 427 contested congressional primaries since 2009 suggest a negative correlation between the number of candidates vying for nomination and the share of ballots needed to determine a first-place finisher.

For our democracy, this trend risks elevating more radical leadership, intensifying political polarization and ultimately undermining faith in our democratic institutions.

Thanks to the support of generous supporters like you, we dug deep into recent congressional primaries and put together this report where you’ll discover:

• how crowded primaries are affecting partisan candidate selection
• how crowded primaries affect the number of votes needed to win
• how gerrymandering contributes to the issue
• what this trend means for 2022 midterm elections

Get your free copy of the report now!

Get a free copy of No One Guarding the House to find out how crowded primaries, choose-one voting, and gerrymandering are combining to create increasingly unrepresentative elections.

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“The CES is an island of common sense, clarity, and open-mindedness in a field where those commodities have been in limited supply. Given the importance of voting to every free society, they deserve our support.” — William Poundstone, best-selling author of Gaming the Vote