Talk politics.

I think you'd find a preferential system would promote less tyranny of the majority. If a president got elected on preferences then that president would know he had a whole cohort of people who didn't like them as their first choice, and would have to adjust policy accordingly. Take, for example, Australia in the mid to late 90s. We had a racist party pop up who didn't steal votes from the right wingers (because they ended up with the preferences) but gave the party an idea that there were people who weren't completely happy with them. The right went further right on racial issues (mainly through dogwhistling so as not to upset the centre) and wiped out the party. It also gives minor parties a chance. A) people don't feel like they've "wasted their vote" by voting for a minor party; if your candidate doesn't get up, you still get to vote for the lesser of two evils and B) if you get over 4% of the primary vote here, you get $2 per vote. This money is essential for the minor parties to keep going and continue to be advocates, regardless of whether they win any seats. This system has allowed our Green party to now essentially be in a coalition government with our left in one state. It's taken them close to 30 years to build that support, but without preference voting they probably would have disappeared in the early 90s.