It's easy for the press to disguise these numbers by only talking about percentages, and not total numbers of votes.
It will be interesting to see the numbers of votes cast in the full election, and if any of those Dems crossed over to vote Republican.
7% of Rs voted against repealing zerocare (!): those were the RAT crossover votes that Cornyn enjoyed.
In Texas, your party affiliation is determined in the primary election. If you voted in the Republican Primary, your voter card is stamped “Republican” and you are on the master voter list as a Republican until the next primary when you vote again two years from then. So, a Democrat at heart who voted in the Republican Primary, cannot vote in the Democrat run-off as he/she is now officially a Republican. The person would have to vote in the Republican run-off or the person can't vote in the run-off.
Hard core Democrats know how the system works and they don't want to have Republican stamped by their name, so most would not vote in the Republican Primary. They also know if they vote Republican in the primary, it makes the reporting number of Republicans in the state larger and they don't want that.
ALSO, the effect of a Democrat voting in the Republican Primary and the Democrat state convention: A Democrat who votes in the Republican Primary is then a Republican and the person cannot go to the state Democrat convention. Only those who vote in the Democrat Primary may go to a Democrat state convention.
One year, I read the Texas Democrat website about their upcoming state convention. I copied that and still have it saved on my computer because it was gross. On the application to go to their state convention, you had to choose if you were “straight”, “gay”, or “transgender”, think lesbian choice was also there, as it said they wanted to have an equal representation of all life style choices at their convention. They were going to go through the applications and make sure they chose enough of each sex group to have equal representation.
This was in 2004 because I just opened that file on my computer. Here is their “2004 Texas Democrat Party Rules and Platform” relating to their convention goals (this is not the application):
“Summary of Representation Goals:
African American 52 delegates
Hispanic 72 delegates
Asian American 1 delegate
Native American 1 delegate
b. To continue the Democratic Party’s ongoing efforts to include groups historically under-represented in the Democratic Party’s affairs, priority of consideration shall also be given to other groups by virtue of race/ethnicity, age, sexual orientation or disability.”
I wrote an article about that for our county Republican newsletter. I wrote an article every month as the secretary of the party and I was the one who published and mailed the newsletter. I poised a question in that article wondering what a person should choose if he/she was about to undergo a sex change operation before the convention started. Should such a person choose the sex he/she was then or wait until after the operation and choose the other sex choice designation.
I also said if Republicans had to fill out a form like that to go to their convention, they would probably show up with a shotgun and dare anyone to make them list their sexual orientation.
That was in 2004, I wonder what the sexual orientation rules are now? They are likely on that state website just as they were in 2004.