IV. What Fusion Can Accomplish: Coalition Politics and the Centrality of Parties in a Democracy

How might one get out of the self-reinforcing cycle of hyper-partisan polarization and create a compromise-oriented, multi-party democracy that would welcome the emergence of new and constructive political parties?

The answer lies in our own history of “fusion” voting. Once legal in all states, fusion allows and even encourages cross-party coalitions and alliances. A world in which the binary, winner-take-all, two-party system has essentially eliminated any incentives for cooperation and collaboration cannot help but make the multi-party cooperation and coalition inherent in a fusion-legal system all the more attractive, even imperative.¹

Fusion refers to a system in which a candidate wins the support of more than one party—usually one major party and one “minor” party—in a marriage that is both principled and practical. Each party nominates the same candidate, and the candidate appears twice on the ballot under two distinct party labels. The votes for the candidates are tallied separately by party, and then added together to produce the final outcome.

Fusion voting does a few things at the same time: (1) It eliminates the “wasted vote” or “spoiler” dilemma that plagues minor parties in our plurality-voting, single-member district system; (2) It allows a new minor party the chance to develop an identity with voters because it is not pretending it can win elections on its own—it needs an alliance with a major party; (3) Its signals to candidates and elected officials from the other, usually larger party that some portion of this new fusion-party vote carries a distinct meaning, and a competent elected official will welcome that information; and (4) It encourages principled, positive-sum coalition-building amongst the parties which are fusing on the same candidate.

Imagine an election contest between a Democratic centrist and a hardline Republican—or the reverse, in which a Republican centrist faces off against a hardline Democratic leftist.

In the case of a candidate running as the fusion nominee of both the Democrats and the Moderates, it is easy to see what the Moderate Party would say to its members and supporters:

“We have evaluated the two major party Congressional candidates in our district on their commitment to bi-partisanship, civility and the rule of law. And we're recommending Jane Smith. She is also the nominee of one of the major parties, in her case the Democrats. As you know, the Moderate Party includes citizens who are Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, and after due consideration feel that Smith is far the superior candidate on the issues of bipartisanship and civility and the rule of law. If you agree that these values are important, we urge you to vote for her under the Moderate Party label. It counts the same as a vote on the major party line, but it lets her know that these values matter to you.”

Election Day rolls around and Smith gets 45 percent on the Democratic line, Jones gets 48 percent as a Republican, and the last 7 percent is cast for Smith on the Moderate line. The votes are tallied by party and then added together to produce a 52 to 48 percent victory for Smith, the Dem-Mod nominee.

The Moderate Party can claim, with merit, to have produced the “margin of victory.” The minor, fusion party will now have a modest claim on Smith as she takes office. She’ll be more attentive to her own “home” party (Democrats in this case), but she will also make sure she stays in close touch with the Moderates and takes their advice sometimes. But even more importantly, it sends a loud-and-clear message to the hard-right Republicans that they cannot win without the Moderates’ support. Rather than disappointed voters going back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in hope of elusive moderation, voters can now tell their family, friends and colleagues to vote on the moderate party line as well.

In sum, fusion not only avoids the traps of the spoiler or the wasted vote, it gives voters the ability to cast a constructive, expressive vote. And in doing so, it pushes against extremism and in favor of coalition and compromise.

Whether voters like political parties or not, scholars of democracy consider it axiomatic that political parties are the central institutions of modern mass democracy. That’s because parties organize political conflict into manageable coalitions and programs, and they mobilize and engage voters in the service of winning elections. Without political parties, politics becomes chaotic. This is why every stable modern democracy has strong political parties.² Were fusion in place, moderate voters could find an identity in a center party (of whatever name) by voting regularly on that line, even if they were voting for candidates aligned with one or the other major party.

Of course, fusion wouldn’t be limited to a moderate party. Other parties could emerge, and likely will. And there would be tremendous value. Parties on the extremes might emerge as well, but since fusion is voluntary, only candidates who wish to be associated with more extreme positions will accept such nominations. Just as a moderate party label will convey information to a voter, a communist party label or a Q-Anon party label would convey information to voters. Most political candidates would reject these nominations as counter to their interests.

The history of fusion candidacies is clear on this point: it does not lead fusion to a proliferation of fringe parties because fringe parties cannot get the candidate to accept their nomination. New parties that offer valuable endorsements to either incumbents or challengers will emerge, and those that command genuine support will last. In both Connecticut and New York, the number of active parties has rarely exceeded five. Most modern democracies have at least five active parties (and some have many more) and citizens around the world seem to manage just fine.

Additionally, fusion could make more districts competitive because of the path for moderate parties to fuse with the less popular of the two major parties. Both more choices and more competitive elections would almost certainly increase voter participation and turnout, since the lack of choices and the lack of competition are the main reasons why the United States has low voter turnout compared to other democracies.³ The United States is unique in having just two major parties, and one of only a handful of democracies that use single-member districts, which tend to generate few competitive districts even when districts are drawn through independent commissions (this is because parties tend to have geographical bases, and partisans cluster in different places).⁴

From the perspective of elected officials, the moderate party label becomes meaningful as a way to communicate moderation. In an era of nationalized politics, Republicans and Democrats are tied to their national parties, and typically, to the most extreme elements of their parties. Candidates can say that they are a different kind of Republican or a different kind of Democrat, but it is almost impossible to communicate this fact to voters, given that they have very few opportunities to break from their national parties, and most voters pay very limited attention to politics and largely rely on party labels.

The core problem here is that our highly nationalized political environment forecloses other more candidate-centric solutions because, under nationalized politics, parties matter to voters more than candidates. Voters may like individual candidates of an opposite party, but in competitive districts they are told repeatedly that they are not voting for a candidate; they are voting for which party gets control of the majority in Congress. And even more centrally, they are voting for or against the president, a force that individual members of Congress have no control over.

Under fusion, a moderate party could reward and incentivize moderation and compromise because it has real leverage. Unlike parties on the extreme, who have much less leverage because they are only taking votes from one side, a moderate party has much more leverage because it will almost surely endorse candidates from both sides.

Finally, from the perspective of potential candidates, the ability to run with a moderate party endorsement could conceivably attract a new generation of more moderate candidates. One of the reasons why the two parties have become more extreme is that more moderate candidates have chosen not to run. Scholars have identified three primary reasons why moderates do not run. First, because they do not see themselves “fitting” with either of the two parties given who represent the two parties in Congress.⁵ Second, because they do not wish to endure the gauntlet of running for office when they have many other career opportunities.⁶ And third, because local party leaders are more encouraging of more extreme candidates as opposed to more moderate candidates, since party leaders tend to be extreme. ⁷ By opening up an alternative path to office and the ability to gain support from a moderate party, such would-be moderates might be more inclined to run for office.

Though the geographic sorting of parties, the nationalization of politics, the close national elections have both been key drivers of hyper-partisan polarization (see above), all three of these forces have made the two-party system extremely friendly to recalibration through fusion.

The rigidness of the two-party system in this moment means that a small but thoughtful reform such as fusion could realign the U.S. party system in productive ways that could get us out of the doom loop, and reestablish a new version of the moderate cross-partisan politics that previously existed and which allowed our system of government to muddle through. It must look different now than it did in previous times because the underlying conditions no longer hold. But we cannot simultaneously have a rigid and polarized two-party system and vibrant political middle at the same time. Since a vibrant political middle is essential to the functioning of democracy, modest changes (like the restoration of fusion balloting) that can break the rigidity of the current hyper-polarized two-party system and restore a political center would have profoundly positive effects on the health of American political life, and the functioning of the U.S. government.