Montana Republicans vowed to close their primaries last month at their election-year convention in Billings. There are several hurdles to overcome before the resolution can be implemented, but if it is, the consequences will be far reaching.
If “closed,” a primary requires that voters declare their party affiliation to participate. Montanans who do not declare party affiliation would only be allowed to vote for Republicans in the general election. Conservatives in the party largely support the proposed change and say Democrats influenced a number of primaries across the state.
Republicans and Democrats alike have promoted and lambasted crossover voters who vote in the opposite party’s primary for years. In 2008, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh announced “Operation Chaos,” in which he encouraged his listeners to cross over and vote in the Democratic primary for then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama to extend the nomination process. It’s unclear if the operation was effective.
More recent, and perhaps more tangible, evidence of crossover votes influencing an outcome is the Republican primary runoff between incumbent Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran and his tea party-backed opponent Chris McDaniel.
In the first Mississippi primary, which required a runoff because no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote, McDaniel beat Cochran. Three weeks later, Cochran prevailed in the runoff. Anyone could vote in that two-man race, and thousands more voters participated than in the initial primary. Moreover, turnout in more Democratic-leaning counties increased in the runoff from the primary.
Following his loss, McDaniel said he was beat by non-Republican voters. He declared, “Today, the conservative movement took a backseat to liberal Democrats in Mississippi.” That may be a stretch – after all, Cochran is a six-term Republican senator from Mississippi – but Democrats may have influenced the results.
In Montana, the most recent primary saw several more moderate Republican candidates, many of them incumbents, prevail in their respective races. The influence of crossovers in those races is more difficult to parse, although there were certainly a number of them, especially in the Flathead.
Take a look at the recent Flathead results in the primary race for Montana’s open U.S. House seat. About 14,000 Republican votes were cast compared to 3,000 for Democrats, or about 82 percent to 18. This is a GOP-dominated county, but those numbers still seem high.
So, let’s look at the 2012 general election for U.S. House. Alas, the Republican (Rep. Steve Daines) won the county with 27,000 votes compared to the Democrat’s (Kim Gillan) 14,000 votes. Still, the percentage was much smaller, 62.5 percent to 33 percent, with the Libertarian candidate David Kaiser garnering 4 percent.
In the Flathead, it’s common knowledge that some Democrats vote in the Republican primary so they can influence local elections – like those for county commissioners, state representatives and senators – because history shows that Republicans will be heavily favored in the general election.
With that said, Republicans aren’t going to do themselves any favors by closing their primaries, especially in Montana. And party leaders seem to realize that.
Following the convention, Montana Republican Party Executive Director Bowen Greenwood said he wouldn’t recommend any immediate action. Since many races, especially statewide, are still highly competitive in Montana, that’s a smart move on his part. Closed primaries often produce candidates considered less electable than open ones.
But as the rift in the state’s GOP continues to harden, I don’t expect this issue to go away either.