If the majority of Tennessee Republican legislators thought the state — or perhaps even the party — would benefit from having closed primaries, they already would be closed.
A report in the online Tennessee Conservative Monday says voter data from the Bradley County Election Commission states more than 600 people who voted in the county’s 2020 Democratic primary voted in this year’s Republican primary in March. The report suggests that not passing state legislation to close primaries is to blame.
We would suspect similar crossover voting occurred in counties across the state; indeed, across the country. But it probably had more to do with the specific people at the top of the ticket than any intrigue that would affect a county election result.
After all, President Joe Biden was the only choice for Democratic voters in the March presidential primary. Although the result on the Republican side was pretty much a foregone conclusion by the date of the vote, there were other names besides that of former President Donald Trump. And, further, we would bet that some of those 600 Bradley County 2020 Democratic primary voters were 2016 Trump voters who felt the country simply needed a change.
A “source” for the Tennessee Conservative article opined that it was “obvious that there was a concerted effort”to get 2020 Democratic voters to vote in the 2024 Republican primary. To that, we say balderdash.