Top California Democrat urges change to ‘free-for-all’ primary to keep governor’s mansion blue

Rusty Hicks, the California Democratic party chair, in Anaheim last year. Photograph: Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

The chair of the California Democratic party says he wants to get rid of the state’s idiosyncratic “open primary”, calling it a failure that risks pitting a crowded field of Democratic candidates against each other to the point where a Republican can be elected governor of one of the bluest states in the US.

“The current system we have does not work,” Rusty Hicks said in an interview. “It needs to be revised or repealed.”