I’m a little confused about your problem statement, indeed, most of the extreme politicians in the U.S. seem to win outright, in ranked-choice primaries, or systems with two-candidate runoffs.
In the Democratic party, which I’m more familiar with, their most extreme (this is not an endorsement or disendorsement of their policies, just to note that these politicians are the furthest left in the party) elected officials tend to win outright majorities or in reformed elections:
Mamdani won a ranked-choice primary and then an outright majority in the general
AOC won an outright primary in 2018 against a single candidate (no coalescing issue)
Although Rashida Tlaib won her first successful primary in FTTP, in 2020 she won outright against a single candidate
Ilhan Omar similarly won her first two primaries with a minority of the vote, but won her last three outright, in 2 cases against one ‘reasonable’ candidate (i.e. all other candidates got a small share of the vote)
Bernie Sanders has a very strange electoral history due to running as an independent but usually being on the Democratic primary ticket. Nevertheless, he has pretty much always won his elections outright.
Similarly, I skimmed the Wikipedias for a few far-right politicians, whom I’m less familiar with, and they demonstrated similar trends. MTG, for example, won a contested primary with 40%, but then won a two-candidate runoff and has seen outright wins since.
It seems as though extreme politicians are genuinely popular—enough that people don’t form coalitions to oppose them in future elections, even when there’s only one other candidate on the ballot. I am not very convinced that your proposed form would work.
I’m a little confused about your problem statement, indeed, most of the extreme politicians in the U.S. seem to win outright, in ranked-choice primaries, or systems with two-candidate runoffs.
In the Democratic party, which I’m more familiar with, their most extreme (this is not an endorsement or disendorsement of their policies, just to note that these politicians are the furthest left in the party) elected officials tend to win outright majorities or in reformed elections:
Mamdani won a ranked-choice primary and then an outright majority in the general
AOC won an outright primary in 2018 against a single candidate (no coalescing issue)
Although Rashida Tlaib won her first successful primary in FTTP, in 2020 she won outright against a single candidate
Ilhan Omar similarly won her first two primaries with a minority of the vote, but won her last three outright, in 2 cases against one ‘reasonable’ candidate (i.e. all other candidates got a small share of the vote)
Bernie Sanders has a very strange electoral history due to running as an independent but usually being on the Democratic primary ticket. Nevertheless, he has pretty much always won his elections outright.
Similarly, I skimmed the Wikipedias for a few far-right politicians, whom I’m less familiar with, and they demonstrated similar trends. MTG, for example, won a contested primary with 40%, but then won a two-candidate runoff and has seen outright wins since.
It seems as though extreme politicians are genuinely popular—enough that people don’t form coalitions to oppose them in future elections, even when there’s only one other candidate on the ballot. I am not very convinced that your proposed form would work.