The claim has been made that State Question 836, which changes Oklahoma’s primary election to a “top-two” model, would benefit taxpayers. Real-world experience suggests otherwise. 

Since California adopted a “top-two” primary election system in 2010, the tax burden on Californians has skyrocketed. 

The 15 years preceding the implementation of the “top-two” primary saw a rate of tax growth, which, although still higher than the national average, was more in line with the rest of the country. Between 1995 and 2009, California’s per capita tax burden grew by 15 percent compared to 10 percent for the rest of the country. 

Since 2010, however, California's per capita tax burden has grown by 62 percent when adjusted for inflation. That’s almost double the national average over that same 15-year period. It’s not exactly breaking news that California is a high-tax state, but the truth is that California hasn’t always been as bad as it is today.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI Inflation Calculator

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI Inflation Calculator

Californians took note, and many of them became former Californians. While people had been moving away from this blue state for decades, the exodus accelerated after the new primary model gave Democrats even more control of the state.

Between 1995 and 2009, California lost $62 billion in adjusted gross income when adjusted for inflation. That number grew to $120 billion between 2010 to 2022, the most readily available data. Between 2010 and 2022, California lost some 688,000  tax returns. To put that in perspective, that’s the equivalent of losing nearly the entire population of Oklahoma City.