There’s been an alarming uptick in calls in social media urging women to cross over into Republican primaries to vote for Nikki Haley based on a belief that it’s some kind of clever multi-dimensional chess move that could knock Trump out of the nomination.
But it is is a BAD idea – VERY bad – for many reasons. Here are a few of them:
1. It would take a huge, carefully implemented concerted effort and a massive shift in votes from Biden to Haley – tens of thousands and likely hundreds of thousands – to make any noticeable difference in the outcome. A few hundred or even a few thousand votes from random voters aren’t going to change the winner of the Republican primary.
And this would have to be done, not just in New Hampshire and South Carolina, but in state after state after state afterward. We don’t have that kind of bandwidth.
2. While such a crossover effort wouldn’t hurt Trump, it would, however, reduce participation in the Democratic primaries – possibly enough to make it appear that President Biden is losing support and that Democratic voters are not enthusiastic about his reelection.
Biden needs strong showings in all of the primaries, not just to win – which is a foregone conclusion – but to demonstrate strength and robust support from the base and from Independents, something that is absolutely critical for shaping a positive message going into the convention and the general election.
But if it appears that he is bleeding support or is getting fewer or not significantly more votes than he did in 2020, that will hurt him badly and feed the media narrative that Biden is not a popular candidate, when that is simply not true.
3. Biden wouldn’t be the only person hurt by this gambit. Democrats voting in the Republican primary could also undermine down-ticket Democrats who need votes but won’t be on the Republican ballot and thus, would lose a substantial number of votes.
It is essential that we not only reelect Biden and Harris, but also a elect a Democratic House and Senate and Democratic state legislatures for many reasons.
One of the most pressing reasons is the fact that we need that the January 6, 2025 Electoral College vote certification to be conducted in a House chamber under the control of Speaker Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats, not Speaker Johnson and the MAGAs.
The crossover game will water down the votes for good Democratic primary candidates, making that goal harder to achieve.
4. Democrats voting in the Republican primary will produce skewed numbers that will throw off Democratic fundraising, strategizing, and planning for the fall Get Out the Vote effort.
The national and state Democratic parties use primary voting numbers to help surgically target their GOTV and that requires solid, accurate numbers and information about who and where the likely voters are, how they’ve voted, and who needs to be persuaded and flushed out on Election Day
The crossover game would provide inaccurate information to the parties and also likely suppress fundraising needed to pay for these party GOTV efforts. That will be a serious problem for the general election.
5. And, finally and perhaps, most important – the national and state Democratic parties are actively discouraging this plan … because they know better than any of us what is needed, what will work, and what won’t.
The notion that some voters here and there know better how to do political strategy than the party, political experts and campaign operatives who have been analyzing this and working on this day and night, just makes no sense. None of us knows a fraction of what they do and it is really foolish and rather presumptuous for any of us to think we understand the numbers, the polling, and the other ins and outs well enough to craft our own strategy based on what we’ve heard and read pundits say on TV and in social media about the state of the race.
If the party and campaigns are not asking us to do this and aren’t telling us how to pull it off – and, in fact, are telling us NOT to do it – we should take the hint and not take it upon ourselves to come up with our own disjointed stealth guerrilla warfare plan.
In this monumental election, everyone has a lane. Our lane should be to vote for Biden and Harris and Democrats up and down the ticket, and to do everything in our power to get as many other people as possible to vote for them, as well. Please leave the political gamesmanship to the people responsible for that who know what they’re doing.
Please VOTE BLUE in the primary and then VOTE BLUE in the general election and do our part to save our democracy!