Commentary: The Democratic Party's backward induction problem in the presidential race

In game theory, games among strategic players that continue over time can often be solved by “backward induction”: Look at the outcome at the last stage of the game to figure out whether the players will end the game before it gets there.

As it stands, by backward induction, Vice President Kamala Harris will be the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. And everybody who wants to have an open competition for the nomination or a nominee other than Harris has a difficult task ahead — and not much time to accomplish it. Even if the party announces an open process, chances are that nobody other than the vice president will show up for it.

I say this wishing it were otherwise. The Democratic Party has an opportunity not only to make up the ground it has lost in the last three weeks but to gain ground in the weeks ahead. Harris is a strong candidate, to be sure, but not the strongest candidate for this moment. The Democrats do not need extra help to win California, the vice president’s home state, but rather swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The Democrats would be better off with a candidate who has experience as a chief executive, as a governor. And the Democrats would be better served by a presidential nominee who does not bear responsibility for conditions on the border or the crisis in Israel and Gaza — whether the policies of the administration contributed to those problems or not.

Donald Trump’s campaign has already said it will run against Harris by running against Joe Biden. The best ticket for the here and now, I think, is Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Harris.

The only way for the Democratic Party to seize this opportunity, though, is to devise an open process — and have talented candidates such as Whitmer, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro participate in it. And unless the party is able to change the incentives of the decision-makers in the final stage of the process, they will not.

At the end of an open process, at the last stage of some kind of “beauty contest” mini-primary, the choice of the nominee will belong to the delegates to the 2024 Democratic National Convention. There once was a time when convention delegates were party officers and elected officials who actually brokered nominations. But that was more than 50 years ago. Today’s delegates are chosen, most of them, as a reward for their loyalty to the Democratic Party and the strength of their personal and political connections to the winner of the primaries. Ninety-nine percent of them are pledged to Biden and Harris. Many of them are devoted to Harris. Even more are longtime Biden supporters who will put heavy weight on the endorsement he has given his vice president.

Even after an open process, conducted in good faith, the delegates to the 2024 convention, by their very makeup, are very likely to vote for Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee. Reasoning by backward induction, then, the major talents waiting in the wings are very likely to stay right there, declining to be considered, uniting behind the vice president. Indeed, the cascade has already begun: Recently, Beshear, Newsom, Pritzker and Arizona U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly pledged their support for Harris.

Unfortunately, the advocates for a truly open, competitive process do not have many options for solving the backward induction problem. Party leaders could implore them, for the good of the party, to keep an open mind and select the candidate best positioned to beat Trump. All or even a majority of the delegates could publicly pledge to do so. But who among the prospective contestants would believe them? The delegates are human, with their own leanings and ways of seeing things, just like the rest of us.

Unless the Democratic Party can secure credible commitments from the delegates to put their own interests aside and act in the interest of the party, the most impressive talents in the party aside from Harris are unlikely to compete in a mini-primary. And if the open process is unlikely to be a competition, or even a qualifying test for the vice president, well, then party leaders might have to give up their hopes for it and let Harris get a campaign underway now, not a month from now after Chicago. The fierce logic of backward induction applies equally well to them.

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John Mark Hansen is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

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