This is a hopeful sign. New York City is considering outlawing the party primary; rather, they’ll have one big primary for everyone after which the top two vote-getters will face off in the general election.
There are plenty of flaws with the idea, of course, and it’s not mathematically strong. Consider the following preference breakdown:
Candidate A: 20% first choice but nobody’s last choice
Candidate B: 45% first choice but 55% last choice
Candidate C: 35% first choice but 45% last choice
You could pretty easily argue that Candidate A is the best candidate, since nobody hates her, but she wouldn’t make the runoffs. Still, getting rid of party politics is a good sign and it’s not as if we don’t have similar mathematical inequities in the current system.