Posted on 07/02/2014 2:42:33 PM PDT by thetallguy24
Last week, Senator Thad Cochran narrowly defeated Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel in the Mississippi GOP run-off. The way he won however, (and in a larger sense, if he won) is what has attracted the most news coverage. As has been well covered, Thad Cochran’s campaign worked extensively to recruit Democrats to get out the vote for Cochran, who they positioned as a moderate alternative to McDaniel, even going so far as to suggest that McDaniel was a racist who would turn back the clock in Mississippi to the Jim Crow Era. From all the exit polling data examined thus far, it appears that Cochran’s strategy did indeed work, as the turnout in heavily Democratic areas increased dramatically when compared with historical averages.
The way Democrats were even able to vote in a GOP Primary is pretty straight forward because much like Texas, they have an open primary. Thus, when someone claims to be a registered Republican or Democrat in a state with an open primary, this is not so, as these states do not require voters to register with a party and can vote in one of the two primaries. In the case of the runoff, however, any voter who has not already voted in the Democratic Primary would still be eligible to vote in the GOP run-off. Again, similar to Texas, Mississippi is a mostly one party state, with Republicans holding all major statewide and national offices. This lack of party competition has heavily driven down participation by Democrats in their own primaries, leaving a significant number Democrats still eligible to vote in the GOP primaries whenever they so choose. These similarities being what they are, it begs the question, could this happen in Texas?
Let’s look at a case study from the last round of statewide races in 2010. During this election year, approximately 680,000 people voted in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Compare that with the 2,000,000 who would cast their ballots for the Democratic nominee, Bill White, in the general election that November, which suggests slightly less than 1.5 million Democratic voters did not participate in their primary, and would have thus been eligible to vote in the GOP one had they so chosen. If, for instance, Democratic Party leaders in the state believed Kay Bailey Hutchison would have been easier to beat than Rick Perry, they could have gotten their 1.5 million still eligible voters to try to swing the GOP primary in a direction that would have benefitted them in the general election.
With the new attention Texas has been receiving from outside Democratic groups like Battleground Texas who’s sole purpose is to turn Texas blue, the question is not could the tactics of Mississippi happen here, but when?
They tried to beat Ted Cruz but couldn’t, but I wonder what would happen when the next TEA Party candidate challenges the big dogs.
My guess is when George Prescott tries to run for higher office, he gets challenged by a Tea Party candidate and has to run to the Democrats to win.
There are 19 states with open primaries and a couple with some other form such as the
Jungle primary. You don’t select a party but rather register as a voter only.
Provides a detailed analysis of types of primaries in all 50 states..interesting comments as well..
Shouldn’t be able to as when you try to vote in a runoff the poll workers actually check to see which Party’s primary you voted in. Now as for those who did not vote in the primary, or voted in the other Party’s primary to,..... influence the outcome that certainly can happen.
After the backlash in Mississippi, this scenario will be much harder to pull off again.
It has not and likely will not happen here in Texas. why? Because Texans won’t put up with such BS. Shenanigans are tried where they are likely to succeed. The Barbour clan figured they were fast enough and smart enough to get away with it in Mississippi, but they didn’t count on McDaniel not just rolling over.
Also, how can a state not have a solid system for determining voter eligibility or allow safeguards to be loosened willynilly if not to cheat? I think this was the worst case scenario in the full out Chicago style political aggression of the national and state RINO elites and an indication of the lack of control and corruption in the state voting process to allow disqualified voters to vote. It is not simply that the Tea Party was outsmarted and outspent as some freepers think.
Texans have made some good choices and we are further along in wresting political control away from the elites than Mississippi. We have Voter ID and a very conscientious Secretary of State, Nandita Berry, wife of Michael Berry. We are working to clean out the rino GOP party leaders at all state and local levels.
I’m not sold on that. In my county, we had a Black guy run for DA in the Republican primary. He even admitted to going to Obama’s inauguration in 08. They were actively recruiting Democrats because there was no Democrat in any local primary running. Used that tactic to win in the runoff.
Democrats cross over all the time to vote for the most moderate, mainly because there aren’t any Democrats running. Or they just run as Republicans.
The Secretary of State has little to no power. Just look at Thomas Ratliff. He’s on the SBOE illegally, and the AG and SOS basically said, yeah he shouldn’t be on there, but we have no power to remove him.
Maybe in conservative states and districts, we should run the conservative candidate in the Democrat primary, so we wouldn’t have to defeat the RINO machine and to get on the ballot.
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