Just a thought about crossover primary voting...

[lees1975]

It sounds like there are several Republican plots, emerging from the flailing Trumpie brigade, to motivate GOP voters to cross over and vote for RFK Junior, or Williamson, to keep the turmoil going in the primaries.

But Joe Biden is a sure thing.

So what do the Democrats here think about the idea of crossing over to vote for a specific Trump opponent, maybe Christie, in large enough numbers to keep the orange headed buffoon guessing?

[yellowdogintexas]

1. waste of time, it does no good at all plus you can't vote for Democrats

in other races.

I would never do it because there are always races which really need my vote; besides which I'm a precinct chair and I would have to jump through a few hoops to keep that position if I voted in the R primary.

[brooklynite]

5. "You can't vote for Democrats in other races"

Most of the early critical contests are ONLY for the Presidential nomination.

[Hekate]

2. Bad bad idea

[GreenWave]

3. We were allowed to vote in both primaries

so we picked a magat whackadoodle for them. Bastard won!

[marble falls]

4. Baaaad idea. If both parties did it, we'd be running two turkeys.

[MichMan]

6. Sometimes it can lead to unintended consequences

In Michigan in 2010, Gov. Granholm was term limited and could not run again. Michigan has had a history of changing parties every 8 years, so the odds were that a Republican was favored to win. Granholm's Lt Gov Cherry declined to run, so the Democratic primary field was pretty sparse. Lansing mayor Virg Bernero had a big lead in polling in the Democratic primary.

In the Republican primary, there was a pretty big field, and while there were a number of current Republican political figures, there was no real frontrunner. There was this one candidate named Rick Snyder who was a virtually unknown businessman with no prior political experience. Many thought he was a lessor of evils as his positions weren't known.

Turnout in the Republican primary was higher than the Democratic primary and in a big upset, Snyder won the primary and then defeated Bernero in the general. He ended up being one of the more conservative governors the state had seen and did a lot of damage.

I would not be surprised if Trump got crossover votes in 2016 primary from people figuring Hillary was a sure lock and he would be easier to beat. Don't know if that is true or not and if it was enough to make a difference.

[csziggy]

7. Two of my BILs did it for a while

Both have been Democrats basically since birth, but along about the George Bush era they registered as Republicans and voted for the Republican candidate in the primaries they thought would be easiest to beat in the main election. They've stopped doing that now, I'm not sure of all their reasons.