Political scientists largely agree that, today, the modern presidential nomination process favors the rise of ideologically extreme candidates who contribute to the ideological polarization that the country is experiencing. Political scientists, however, disagree about the direction in which reform should move. Most political scientists believe that the process has become too democratic and that the cure for the current ideological polarization is to return the nomination process to the control of party leaders. This prescription for reform, however, ignores the fact that, when party leaders did control the process in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they too often chose ideological extremists or populist demagogues. Rather, as the Conclusion elucidates, the problem with the current process is that it is insufficiently democratic: the rules governing the process exclude too many ideologically moderate voters, thereby encouraging the selection of more ideologically extreme candidates. The Conclusion closes with several suggestions for how the nomination process could be opened more fully in the future so as to remedy this ideological polarization.