Last week I wrote about the six “jungle primary” measures that all failed on Election Day. Even though Oklahoma did not face such a measure this year, there is an effort to put a top-two jungle primary on the Oklahoma ballot in 2026. 

So why did all those measures fail this year? Many reasons, but one message was easy: Don’t turn our state into California. 

There are only two states that use the election system being proposed for the 2026 Oklahoma ballot measure. They are Washington state (where I grew up and once ran for the legislature) and California. Are these really the models that Oklahoma voters want to follow?  

Of course, California’s top-two primary may not be to blame for massive homelessness, brazen crime, and some of the highest taxes in the nation. It does, however, undercut claims that this system produces more moderate and constructive politics. What really happens is that this kind of primary solidifies one-party control, reduces voter choices, and introduces new ways to game elections. 

With top-two primaries, highly partisan districts often wind up with two candidates from the same party in the general election. This means that Democrats in strongly Republican districts may not have a candidate to vote for. The same goes for Republicans in Oklahoma’s handful of strongly Democrat districts. And third parties disappear entirely. So much for voter choices. 

There are also ways to upset this system, by accident or design. Imagine a district where 60 percent of the voters are Republicans. If just two Democrats run in the primary, but six Republicans run, it’s possible for the two Democrats to “win” and be the only candidates in the general election. (If votes from each party were equally split, the six Republicans would each get 10 percent of the vote, while the two Democrats would each get 20 percent of the vote.) 

Consider if Oklahoma had top-two primaries in 2018. That year, 10 Republicans and two Democrats ran for governor. The total votes for all of the Republican candidates was 452,606, while the total votes for the Democrats was 395,494. But even the losing Democrat had more votes than any of the Republicans. In other words, if Oklahoma had a top-two primary in 2018, the general election for governor would have been between two Democrats. 

It seemed far-fetched earlier this year when liberal reformers and their allies started talking about bringing California’s jungle primaries to Oklahoma. After Election Day, when all similar measures went down in flames (even in blue states like Colorado and Oregon), it seems downright preposterous. Yet it’s a bad enough idea that it’s worth keeping an eye on. 

[Photo via jewelslongbeach on Instagram]