Political pundits are busy parsing the results from the Illinois primaries for a sense of where the Democratic electorate stands headed into this fall’s midterms.

Perhaps the analysis should be this: Who knows? 

In Illinois’ 7th Congressional District, state Rep. La Shawn Ford won the all-important Democratic primary with just 24% of the vote. In the 9th, Daniel Biss won with 29%. In the 8th, Melissa Bean won with 32%. 

These results don’t tell us what most Democratic voters want. Here’s what we do know: These candidates emerged from bruising campaigns dominated by gamesmanship, attack ads and outside spending. The vast majority of their own party preferred another candidate — no mark on these winners, but a simple math problem in races with so many candidates. 

And, though they lack majority support in their own parties, these nominees in deep-blue congressional districts will all coast into victory in November.

The good news is that it’s possible to offer voters lots of choices and produce a winner most preferred by the most people — in a way that’s good for voters, candidates and parties. Illinois should join a growing number of states and localities nationwide and adopt ranked choice voting for primaries.

In a ranked choice voting race, candidates need a majority to win. Voters can rank their favorite candidates in order: first, second, third and so on. This is a powerful tool in a crowded race. It ends any talk of spoilers, because if your first choice can’t win, your vote counts for your second choice. This encourages candidates to make a positive pitch to voters, even seeking to appeal to their opponents’ supporters — to earn those voters’ second choices.

Most everyone agrees that more choices are better than fewer choices and that elections should be won by a majority. But as the Illinois results show, you usually can’t have both. 

Just look at Illinois’ 7th. U.S. Rep. Danny Davis retired after 15 terms, giving voters the first opportunity for a new face since the 1990s. Thirteen candidates crowded into this overwhelmingly blue district’s primary. Ford will likely head to Washington with just 23,419 votes. He won by just over 3,100 votes — a margin surpassed by the vote totals of eight other hopefuls. 

There’s an even more complicated and contentious story in Illinois’ 9th District. Fifteen candidates sought this seat, which also opened for the first time in three decades, with the retirement of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky. Generational and ideological battle lines were drawn; perhaps most bitterly, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and aligned super political action committees spent $7 million in this district alone. 

Patrick Hanley: Ranked choice voting is a better way to make votes count

In the final days of the race, AIPAC was accused by several candidates of trying to game the system by dividing progressive voters and creating a “spoiler.” One late ad elevated a young progressive long shot and hailed her as the “real deal” fighting for “real economic justice.” That candidate, Bushra Amiwala, disowned the support and condemned the ad, widely seen as an attempt to siphon voters from another young progressive, Kat Abughazaleh.

On Election Day, three candidates earned more than 20%: Biss, Abughazaleh and state Sen. Laura Fine. Biss emerged as the nominee, holding off Abughazaleh, who finished second, by fewer than 5,000 votes.

The night’s marquee race was to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who has also served since the 1990s. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton also won the Democratic primary with a minority — though it was a comparatively whopping 40% of the vote. As in the 9th District, the race turned ugly. 

Super PACs poured tens of thousands into the campaign in the final days to boost a long-shot candidate and attempt to split the vote — this time, between the two Black women candidates seeking the office. 

Ranked choice voting puts an end to gamesmanship like this. It allows everyone to run without splitting the vote or playing spoiler. Voters need this tool to cast an informed vote in any election this crowded; a new survey suggests about two-thirds of Illinois Democrats would support its use. Candidates and parties should see ranked choice voting as a valuable tool for primaries that unite their party, instead of dividing it further. 

New York City’s Democratic primary last summer offered a powerful example of ranked choice voting in action. Voters received a campaign unlike most any other. Instead of cutting each other down, candidates lifted each other up: Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander cross-endorsed each other, cutting joint ads, riding bicycles together to shared events, even sharing the couch with late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert.

Instead, in Illinois, millions of dollars in negative ads from outside spenders dominated the airwaves. A fraction of a fraction decided who represents everyone. As little as 23,000 votes will send someone to Congress — in a district with more than 770,000 people.

The real takeaway from Illinois’ primaries isn’t the mood of the electorate on President Donald Trump, or Israel, or progressives versus moderates. It’s this: Our elections need ranked choice voting. 

Without it, contested primaries such as our recent one will continue producing results — and nasty campaigns — that don’t capture what majorities of Americans want from their politics.

David Daley is a senior fellow and Rachel Hutchinson a senior policy analyst at FairVote. 

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