Successes and failures in crossover voting
The impulse is understandable. Some Democrats and unaffiliated voters in states allowing crossover voting in primaries hope to help Republicans usher the likes of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene back into obscurity. Greene, she of “gazpacho police” and “peach tree dish” meat fame, is neither an attractive spokesperson for the GOP or for her alma mater, the University of Georgia.
Next door in North Carolina, Republicans and Democrats think the same about Rep. Madison Cawthorn. The voluble freshman felt he’d been sent to Congress more to own the libs than to bring home the bacon. Cawthorn generated embarrassing headlines as much for carrying guns in airports as for rhetorically shooting himself (and his party) in the foot.
The Associated Press this morning reviews the impacts of crossover voting on these and other races so far in the 2022 primary season. The practice is legal in dozens of states. Many have primaries scheduled in coming months.
Former president Donald Trump hopes his candidate will unseat Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney who refused to validate his stolen election lie and voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Trump opponents there are asking Democrats to cross over on Aug. 16 and protect her.
“I don’t know I’ll do it again because of how I felt afterward. I just felt icky,” said Diane Murray, a 54-year-old Georgia Democrat who voted a GOP primary ballot last week. She aimed to help keep a Trump “election denier” from defeating Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger:
Raffensperger, a conservative who refused to support the former president’s direct calls to overturn the 2020 election, probably would not have won the May 24 Republican primary without people like Murray.
An Associated Press analysis of early voting records from data firm L2 found that more than 37,000 people who voted in Georgia’s Democratic primary two years ago cast ballots in last week’s Republican primary, an unusually high number of so-called crossover voters. Even taking into account the limited sample of early votes, the data reveal that crossover voters were consequential in defeating Trump’s hand-picked candidates for secretary of state and, to a lesser extent, governor.
Non-Republicans who voted against Greene were disappointed. She won her 14th District Republican Primary by over 50 points.
In Cawthorn’s primary:
As was the case in Georgia, the AP found a sizable percentage of Republican early ballots were cast by voters who participated in the Democratic primary two years ago. Specifically, more than 14% of the 38,000 early or absentee votes cast in the Cawthorn race — more than 5,400 voters — came from a Democratic 2020 primary voter.
Cawthorn lost his primary by fewer than 1,500 votes.
That 14% figure on 38,000 votes is highly misleading. Republicans “bat last,” I like to say. Meaning, they tend to vote more on Election Day than early. After canvass, 88,223 voters had cast ballots in the crowded NC-11 Republican primary. That crossover voting cut Cawthorn’s tenure short is doubtful. Plenty of Republicans had had enough of his antics.
Any decision to cross over is a personal one. But remember, there are many Democrats who need votes to advance. Voting in the opposing primary means you have no voice in that choice.
Every vote counts. Ask Republicans in NC House District 115.
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