Open Primaries founder John Opdycke joins Chad Peace and Cara McCormick for a wide-ranging, no-bs conversation on where the reform movement actually stands, starting with Pennsylvania's open primary fight and then asking the question: are presidential primaries even elections in the first place?

John Opdycke breaks down why 48% of Americans now identify as independent and still have no real seat at the table, then walks through Pennsylvania's Senate Bill 400 (stuck in committee despite Governor Josh Shapiro's endorsement and a bipartisan House vote). Cara and John trade war stories from Maine and Oregon, including the 2014 top-two measure that got "wiped out" 65-35 and the hard lessons that shaped Maine's later ranked choice voting win, while Chad connects it back to California's Prop 14 and the simple turnout trick that got it passed. 

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Chapters:

00:00:00 – "Two warring tribes": who John Opdycke is

00:04:19 – Pennsylvania's lawsuit and open primaries as a voting rights issue

00:09:08 – Maine won ranked choice and still has closed primaries

00:12:09 – Why Alaska keeps fighting and Maine doesn't

00:15:04 – Throwing money in a furnace: Oregon 2014 and what Cara learned

00:19:02 – How Prop 14 won, and the money that changes nothing

00:23:47 – 2028: an independents primary, and where they disagree

00:29:14 – Presidential primaries are polls, not elections

00:32:55 – John's last word: independents getting back in the game