Frank Barry, Columnist

Both Parties Hate Open Primaries. You Should Love Them.

Party bosses don’t want to give up power, but changing the primary system would encourage candidates to move toward the center.

November 16, 2024 at 1:00 PM UTC

By Frank Barry

Frank Barry is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and member of the editorial board covering national affairs. He is the author of the new book, "Back Roads and Better Angels: A Journey Into the Heart of American Democracy."

Open primaries were on the ballot in 2024. Most lost.
Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

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In this series, Frank Barry is retracing his 2020 Winnebago trip across America on the Lincoln Highway, the nation’s oldest transcontinental route. That adventure, which eventually became a book , focused on finding a way forward for a divided country. This time around, he’ll be revisiting some of the issues he examined, and some of the people he met, to learn what’s changed — and whether there is now more or less hope about the future.

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