| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. As nomination season for U.S. Senate seats approaches, we're already seeing some scare stories, particularly from the Democratic side, about the possibility of costly contested nominations. So it's worth a quick trip through the basics. The big thing to know is that rising partisan polarization means that congressional midterm elections are increasingly nationalized votes on the popularity of the incumbent president — which means that individual candidates, whose importance has always been overrated, are now less important than ever. A disastrous nominee can still have a huge effect; see, for example, Republican Roy Moore's loss to Democrat Doug Jones in a 2017 special election in overwhelmingly GOP Alabama thanks to personal scandal. But barring something that seems disqualifying to everyone but intense partisans, candidate effects in the 2022 midterms are going to be small. Primary elections are important because nominations define political parties, not because they determine which party will win in November. But defining the parties is important. Yes, party actors who are mainly focused on November often want to eliminate conflict from the process, and may have strong views about which candidates — which kinds of candidates — help the party win. As a contribution within the overall party, those impulses can be healthy. Those party actors can, at their best, keep intraparty conflict from running too hot. They can help bring everyone together after the nomination has been decided. And they can remind everyone that the party cannot achieve its goals without winning office. But parties are coalitions, and contesting nominations allows the various groups within the party to compete and cooperate over their policy preferences. It allows the party to renegotiate the terms of the coalition, empowering growing groups. Internal party competition also gives candidates and other party actors incentives to embrace new policy ideas that can appeal to multiple groups, or new ways of expanding opportunities for others within the party as well as themselves. Too much focus on November can lead the party to stagnate, with the status quo always seeming like the safer bet than new voices. More hierarchical parties may be able to negotiate such things at the elite level. U.S. parties simply aren't like that. Parties are unusually open to new groups beginning to be heard just by showing up — especially if they show up with resources important to the party, whether it's votes or money or electioneering skills or policy expertise or something else. Those who are happy with the status quo may resist; as the Marquette University political scientist Julia Azari argues, in some senses political parties are inherently conservative. And yet they do change. For example, we've seen Democrats in the last few cycles more open to a diverse set of candidates in several ways than they were before, say, Barack Obama's presidency. The bottom line is that contested 2022 primaries are unlikely to be significant problems for either party as long as party actors from all sides accept the nomination winner. And that some internal arguments are healthy for the party, as long as they can be resolved in time for the general election. 1. Aidan Smith at the Monkey Cage on Black women and the political use of motherhood. 2. Brian Klaas makes the case for ranked-choice voting. I'm pretty skeptical about it, but the argument is worth reading. 3. Zeynep Tufekci on what health experts got wrong about the coronavirus pandemic, and why. 4. Harry Enten on vaccinating those who are hesitating. 5. Jenny Deam on junk health insurance plans. 6. And my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Michael R. Strain on the disappointing April jobs report. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
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