The Party Hopping Effect

When Democrats vote in Republican primaries - the result is a much more liberal Republican Party.

What happens when a party so dominates the politics of a state to make the other party almost irrelevant?

Well, I, for one, believe that Democrats are more and more thinking strategically and are pulling Republican ballots during the primary and voting for more liberal Republicans - much to the chagrin of Conservative Republicans. I believe this is the mindset: Well - it is not likely that we (Democrats) will win, so we’ll jump over to influence the Republican Party’s primary.

I’ve been told - well, certainly this happens - but it is far-fetched to believe that it happens with any scale that would actually affect primary elections. But is it really far-fetched?

I have always wondered why the Ohio Republican Party does not score the Republican voter file? - Something very common for the State Republican Party to do in the rest of the United States. There is a wealth of information to be gained that can be used for making better decisions. I mention this because scoring the voter file helps one deduce just who is party-hopping with the intent to alter the outcome of the Republican election unethically (but totally legally). When you use the Texas scoring method, there is a high degree of certainty of party hoppers with a score of 0 or less. The smaller the number, the greater the confidence (Texas Scoring uses negative numeric scoring to help identify those disloyal to the party.) that they are prone to vote for some other party.

So while a Texas Score of 4 or 2 almost certainly indicates a person has voted Democrat at some point in their life - they have still voted for Republicans in the primary enough to not consider them Democrats. A score of zero It is anyone’s best guess, but traditionally they have been considered disloyal Republicans, and there is a good chance of party-hopping activity. When you get a score of -22, you can be 99% certain they are party-hoppers.

I am not saying that this is conjecture or guesswork - absolutely not. By scoring the voter file, I am saying I can identify specific individuals that have party hopped with a very high degree of certainty. I can provide their SOS VOTER ID number, address, and all the affiliated and unaffiliated ballot designations they pulled in even-numbered years.

From my analysis of the voter database, I can tell you that since the year 2000, the number of Democrats that have jumped into the Republican primary is rising to epic proportions. Starting in the year 2000, there were about 30,000 identified party hoppers. During the last ten years, the number averages between 130,000 to 160,000, with the 2022 primary nearly topping 200,000 party hoppers. This has had serious consequences for the Ohio Republican Party - Ohio is a State that is characterized as a pay-to-play very corrupt state with very high taxation, the second most complex code of laws in the United States, a ridiculously corrupt legal system, and is very poor at producing jobs and entrepreneurial. As a result - crime is high, drug overdose deaths are out of control, child mutilations are the highest in the nation, Child-Sex trafficking is the second highest in the nation and the highest by far by a per capita measure, the education system has become effective liberal indoctrination centers. Ohio - by no means resembles Texas, Florida, or Utah (very conservative states) - Ohio more adequately resembles a Democrat State like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Ohio even has similar problems of those Democrat states. What is most telling is that Ohio had draconian lockdowns similar to New York State during the COVID-19 crisis - instead of adopting policies similar to Florida and Texas.

IS PARTY HOPPING NECESSARILY BAD?

Candidates will tell you, “Hey, I want the option to appeal to Democrats and convert them into Republicans - so we need not close our primary process!” It is hard to argue with that logic and reasoning until you look at the data and you see where Ohio stacks up and how the open primary process has been abused.

I will say this - “We cannot grow the Ohio Republican Party into an organization that can turn Ohio around if the party is electing liberal Republicans that are only slightly better than the Democrats.”

Conservatives will never be able to elect a Donald Trump or a Ronald Reagan for Governor of Ohio and will always settle for a liberal governor because Democrats will always decide the outcomes of our primaries.

As I see it, a Democrat can have three reasons for voting Republican.

1. They see that their candidate has no chance of winning against the conservative candidate - so they jump into the Republican primary to help the more liberal Republican win. They have nothing to lose by doing this - if they help get the more moderate elected, it would be preferable to having their candidate lose to the conservative candidate in the general election.

2. The Democrat has a Republican friend running and will become a Republican for one cycle to help their friend.

3. No Democrat is running that they can get passionate about, and the Republican is more liberal than the Democrat.

4. The Democrat has finally had a bonafide enlightening moment and is legitimately transitioning to becoming a Republican. This type of change of heart also means the Democrat will be voting Republican in the future and will become a legitimate Republican.

The only information I can find on exit polling shows that 1, 2, and 3 are 90% of party hoppers strategy, and only 10% legitimately want to become a Republican.

Current Ohio law makes a mockery of Ohio’s primary system and helps to maintain the status quo - of very, very, few people liking either the Republican or Democrat party.

We got problems as a Republican in Ohio because no one wants to upset the winning machine……but what good is winning if you are turning the state into a veritable (as President Trump would say) shithole?

For example, in 2022, Pennsylvania, a solid Democrat State, with a population of 12.96 million, had 3.4 million registered Republicans (26%). While Ohio’s population of 11.78 million, it had only 1.9 million registered Republicans (16%). Carefully consider that Ohio is considered a solidly Republican state that has far fewer registered Republicans than a Democrat State of equal size. What does that tell you? I personally consider Ohio a corrupt liberal Republican state - and that is demonstrated by how often we see Ohio Republicans involved in unethical scandals. I will let all Republican county chairs know - that I will personally debate them on this topic and I will defeat them on every argument against change in the party. I doubt there is anyone with the intellectual fortitude to have a calm, rational, and civil debate on this topic. Too many of our county leaders are too busy patting themselves on the back for turning out people to vote for Trump - when it was Trump that turned out the voters in Ohio. Ask me how I know the record turnout was not due to your efforts. I can demonstrate this scientifically.

Republicans in Ohio hold on to power by acting like Democrats

The State party chairmen of the Ohio Republican Party have been disloyal, disingenuous, and highly unethical. We also see this repeated at the county level - by Chairmen either being totally inept and unprofessional -or- remain silent when ethics and morality would drive an ordinary person to speak up.

Let’s look at State Representative Gary Click’s SAFE ACT which would stop the mutilation of children by hospital systems that see Gender Dysphoria as a giant payday. Why has there been no urgency to pass this piece of legislation? Where is the State Central Committee on this issue, and why are all the County Chairmen absolutely silent?

That is not to say that all County leaders are bad - on the contrary - we do have some bright spots - but they are the exception to the rule.

This is exactly the sentiment and strategy of many County Central Committee Chairmen, the State Central Committee, and many of our legislators and Statewide officers. This is not how a Republican Party acts - this is how a Democrat party acts. This is why Ohio has over a million fewer Republicans than the Democrat State of Pennsylvania. Our Republicans do nothing unless it is to consolidate more political power. Their inaction and ineptitude in pointing fingers to say someone else was driving the car is a ludicrous supposition.

FLIPPING THE SCRIPT

REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS HAVE AN EFFECTIVE MONOPOLY IN OHIO. Monopolies are never good for the consumer and are ripe for abuse - hence Ohio being a corrupt pay-to-play state. This is why Ohio’s budget is nearly the size of Florida’s - yet Florida has twice the population.

I submit that Ohio will never become a conservative mecca unless the monopoly is broken. We will never be a right-to-life state, we will never protect our children, and the ultimate endgame of moderate Republicanism is Socialism light - where the only jobs to be had will be working as an automaton for a “Woke” big tech, big pharmacy, or big education. Our state motto will speak of a God that will not be allowed to be uttered in our schools, in our courts, at our businesses, nor in our public spaces.

I contend that we need to close the Ohio primary (so Democrats don’t decide who our Republican candidates are), and we need to include independents in the primary process - just as we do Democrats and Republicans.

Closing the primary eliminates the power of the Status Quo. Immediately, the Republican Party will become more Conservative and the Democrat Party will become more liberal. We need to give a home to those that flee their party. That is why we need to give the middle-of-the-road people a home of their own (Ohio’s largest voting block.

Creating an independent primary will give all parties the competition they need to truly represent their constituents. In my opinion, you’ll have the ability to vote in this new system in one of three ways:

1. Republican - Conservative - vote for those who want to do what is right rather than what is politically expedient.

2. Independent - Moderate - vote for those that want to do what is popular.

3. Democrat - Independent - vote for those that want to do what is stupid and what is driven solely by passion and not by logic and reason

By giving moderate Republicans a home - the Republican Party can truly become Republican. We will be letting go of the worst party of the party. The corrupt DeWine and Kasich part of the party. We can then rebuild our party from the ashes on conservative principles and with this and morality. Just as true conservatives resonate with the public (like Reagan and Trump), we can offer true conservatives to Ohioans for consideration.

AN INDEPENDENT PRIMARY

There is a right pertaining to elections that the Supreme Court has always ruled consistently on. The FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION! They have said that any primary election system must afford the individual the right to associate with the candidate of their choosing and allow the party to associate with members of its choosing.

In Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut (1986), the United States Supreme Court ruled that the state could not prevent political parties from inviting independents to vote in their primaries.

In California Democratic Party v. Jones (2000), the Court overturned a law requiring political parties to allow members of other parties to vote in their primaries. Until 2005, the Court had almost always sided with a political parties’ right to control its membership and election procedures.

In Clingman v. Beaver, 544 U.S. 581 (2005), the Supreme Court held 6-3 that Oklahoma’s interest in preserving the integrity of state parties as a viable interest group superseded the parties’ interest in opening their primary elections to members of an opposing party.

The SCOTUS has determined that State laws cannot tell a party who they can or cannot associate with - except for Clingman v. Beaver. But in Ohio - under the present system - Ohioans are not free to associate with candidates of their choice. In the primary, voters must affiliate with a party to support a candidate. If you want to support two candidates of different parties, you are out of luck.

THE CLOSED PRIMARY AND FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION - THE NEW HYBRID PRIMARY

How would the primary change under a close primary that respects the freedom of association?

First, there will always be at least three primary ballots for people to pick.

Republican, Democrat, and the Unaffiliated Ballot (meaning that you do not wish to affiliate with a party, but you do want to affiliate with certain candidates). When you pull a Republican or Democrat ballot, it works as it does now, you can only vote respectively for Republicans or Democrats. The Unaffiliated ballot has all candidates on it - so you can vote for any party candidate to support them. The winner of the Unaffiliated (Independent) ballot is the highest vote earner that is unaffiliated.

Then why vote and support a Republican or Democrat on an Independent ballot - if it does not count?

Ideally, Republicans and Democrats would be obligated to have a party convention every 2 or 4 years. At that convention, the party would vote to decide if they want to include - or not include - those that voted for Democrats or Republicans on the Independent ballot. This way, the party has the freedom of association.

Additionally, at the convention, the party can further limit whose vote counts in their primary by limiting the votes that count that have voted in at least 3 or fewer primaries. So you could wind up with a tally like this for a candidate:

1. 170,323 votes cast by those participating in three or more consecutive Republican primaries (these count)

2. 21,377 votes cast by those participating in fewer than three consecutive Republican primaries (these don’t count) (the party opted to only count those that have voted in at least three primaries in a row at the party convention)

3. 45,654 votes were cast by those participating in the Independent primary that are not Republican. (these don’t count) (the party opted to not count those that participated in the Independent primary at the party convention)

Of course, the party could opt to count those that have not voted in at least three Republican primaries and could count those that voted in the Independent primary. It is their option.

I will be writing more on this in the coming days and months and will be interviewing those with opposing views. The thing I will point out is in focus group testing is that the closed hybrid primary with the independent ballot is by far the most popular - though it takes some explaining.