I see.
The primary was the Republican party contract with the voters. They can’t just decide to break it without the permission of the voters.
State laws do indeed apply to political parties, same as they do to any other organization. In fact, there are some court cases that would treat political parties as something like public utilities, subject to even greater regulation than other private organizations.
French is continuing the strategy of trying to bait Trump and supporters into doing something so stupid as to make NR arguments seem reasonable. I’ve been saying it for months - they got nothin’ except bluffing and attempting to rope-a-dope.