Parallels with Arizona when McCain would run in primaries against true conservatives.
Like Georgia, Arizona is a Red State with an electorate that will get behind the GOP and shun the Democrats.
AZ Democrats knew their ability to elect a Democrat candidate was low, so they looked for ways to bolster a Republican candidate that would do their bidding, a “moderate” of sorts, aka RINO.
The idea of running a fake Republican in a Red State is no longer an idea, it is an action item.
McCain helped Democrats develop the playbook to ensure “moderates” would win Republican primaries.
When it came to Conservative principles, McCain was good at talking the talk, but not walking the walk. Eventually, Arizonans got wise to McCain’s deceit and started running true conservatives primary challengers, like for example, JD Hayworth.
Hayworth was a wildly popular true conservative who was leading McCain in all polls. But McCain’s campaign, including the network of his liberal wife, Cindy McCain, reached out to Democrat connections for help. With high probability, $$$ was channeled from Cindy McCain’s vast inheritance (built on depression-era rum running by her gangster father) to Democrats to buy Democrat voters for the GOP primary.
The result was a large turnout of Democrats voting in the GOP primary.
Long story short:
In Red States, Democrat voters cross over into GOP primaries to install a GOP moderate, a fake Republican, a RINO.