That’s only looking at a single election. Being willing to vote for scum means your party is happy to send scum to the next general election, at which point you get to vote for even more scum.

Have some standards in the general election and people start looking at scum thinking their not electable.

If you want better politicians, there are two things you can do:

Vote in primaries, there are different rules about this but if it means you have to join and participate in party activity to vote for a candidate then so be it.

hold them accountable together as ironic as it is: as a lobbying group, or even more grandiose work together with as many citizens of the state (even across the party line, no craziness though), to hold the governor/politician accountable.

Some states have open primaries, eliminating the need to join a party. I wish my state was one of them, because I hate the political parties.

Yep don’t forget the second option. Direct action is always possible. I subscribe to a “block of marble” theory of politics: you can always METAPHORICALLY beat those in power into shape.

> but if it means you have to join and participate in party activity

Yeah. But my shiny karma doesn't want me to join a party whose policies I disagree with, just so I can influence their choice of candidates. That seems hypocritical, and I regard hypocrisy as the cardinal political "sin".

I've never agreed with the policies of any parties, so I have never joined a political party. The closest I got was that I joined CND, about 40 years ago. I quit about 39 years ago.

If you were already going to get what you didn't vote for, what's the difference?