“Jungle primaries usually always help Democrats. Why implement a Democrat trap? Just find a candidate who can beat Tester.”
A. These primaries “help Democrats”, if at all, only in heavily Democrat states or districts. Montana isn’t California or Washington. Yet.
Jungle primaries don’t help Democrats one bit in Louisiana anymore because the state isn’t 90%+ Democrat like it was in the 1970s when Eddie Edwards first implemented that scheme in order to screw Republicans.
B. This ensures a 1-on-1 battle in November, without Democrat shenanigans such as getting a Libertarian on the ballot to take votes away from the Republican, as happened in 2018.
The Libertarian (Rick Breckenridge) in that race, eventually realizing that he was just a dupe for the loony left and displeased with a particular dirty Democrat trick during the campaign, withdrew very late in the race and endorsed the R candidate. Tester got 50% — just barely — anyway.
This jungle primary may end up having no effect on the race whatsoever, even assuming some liberal judge doesn’t strike down this law before it’s ever used, but I give the Montana GOP credit for trying.
Sorry, this is going to backfire. Don’t implement Democrat policies. Are you seriously going to tell me there isn’t one conservative in the entire state of Montana who can beat Tester on the up and up?
Republicans aren’t nearly clever or competent enough to play the games Democrats do. The more states that do this, the more states will adopt it. Republicans could lose 50% of their Senators, just like that.