About party affiliation and the NH primary
I want to clear some things up about the New Hampshire primary. In New Hampshire, there are 44% who are Democrats or lean Democrat, 35% who are Republicans or lean Republican, and 20% who report no lean. The latter group would represent the true Independents, if there be such a thing. The state has Republican state officials and Democrat federal representatives, which I suppose makes it officially purple. But on the federal level it is blue. Except for the year 2000, New Hampshire has voted for the Democrat in every presidential election since 1992.
But the voter registration rolls are a bit different. Because New Hampshire has long had an important position in the primaries, many people who are not Independents nevertheless register as “undeclared” (there is no other way to register as an Independent in NH). This gives them the freedom to vote in either the Democrat or Republican primaries. All they have to do, as an undeclared voter, is to ask for either ballot when they enter the polling venue. They can’t vote in both, of course. But they can vote in either.
This means that there is great incentive for people to register as “undeclared.” Voting in one primary or other changes their affiliation to that party, but they can change it right back that very day before they exit the place. That’s how it works, and so it was tailor-made for people on the left to vote for Nikki Haley if they wished to do so. But that’s not just a phenomenon this year; it happens in other years, in particular when the other party has an incumbent and therefore a non-competitive race. If both races are competitive, it’s less likely to feature crossover undeclared votes for the simple reason that there is far more motivation to vote in the primary of the party one wants to vote for in the general.
As far as registration numbers go, 30.28% of the voters are registered Democrats, 29.82% are registered Republicans, and 39.90% are unaffiliated (also sometimes called undeclared at other sites). Therefore I think we can safely say that at least half of the undeclared voters actually lean to one party or other, and more of them are Democrats. The people who are registered as being members of a certain party are also able to change their affiliation, with a deadline a few months prior to the primaries.
All of this is relevant to the statistic I’ve read, which is that 70% of Haley’s votes were not registered Republicans. This is made easier by the NH system of primary voting. I don’t know how it compares to other “moderate” candidates in previous years, though, because I’ve never read statistics on it, but a quick search located this:
In 2000, 62 percent of undeclared voters chose the Republican ballot — and 61 percent of that group voted for John McCain, helping him defeat George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary. But in the 2008 primary, when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off on the Democratic side, the group flipped, with 62 percent taking the Democratic ballot. Mrs. Clinton emerged as the winner.
This year [2016], undeclared voters are finding their decision especially daunting.
“I am truly, completely undecided,” said Barbara Wilson, 64, of Henniker, who said she liked both Democratic candidates, as well as Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. “I have no earthly idea what I’m going to do at the end of the day.” …
Then there is strategy to consider, with some undecided voters debating not just which candidates they like best, but also which primary would allow their votes to have a greater impact. The Democratic primary has been fairly static, with Mr. Sanders holding a sizable lead over Mrs. Clinton. But the Republican race feels up for grabs.
So you can see that this is an old story in New Hampshire.
We actually have a similar system in North Carolina, except that an unaffiliated voter can chose either primary ballot and remain unaffiliated; the vote does not automatically change the voter’s registration. BUT this is at the option of the political parties. I think the Republicans here should close the primary and accept votes only from registered Rs.
The system sounds pretty screwy to me and ripe for abuse.
Reminds one of something similar in Wyoming when Liz Cheney was running for whatever it was—Senator?—relatively recently, though I think that in that case, Democrats were urging themselves to register as Republicans so as to put her over the top.
Didn’t work out that way…but a system that allows that kind of manipulation to occur SO EASILY is clearly repugnant.
I went “undeclared” in Calif after decades of being registered (R) because I didn’t want any of my input to elected officials to automatically be [trash]canned. The *only* downside is that I can’t vote in the (R) presidential primary unless registered as a Republican (I am allowed to vote in the (D) one if I want), but considering when that primary is (and it being Calif) somehow that doesn’t seem to matter much.
Votes and Statistics, both Lie.
Barry Meislin, that was when Liz Cheney was running for reelection in 2022. There weren’t enough Dems in Wyoming to cross over and make any difference.
Trump said he won New Hampshire didn’t he? A lie or is he just getting as confused as Biden?
The declaration system does seem open to abuse.
Again, closed primaries are the only sensible system. Only registered Republicans should have been eligible to vote.
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As for the body of registrants, you should have a biennial schedule of stock checks wherein the whole roll is checked against a half-dozen state databases over a period of 730 days. People get moved to the inactive file if they fail the checks and are sent a notification at the most recent palpable residence they’ve listed. You have flow checks of new registrants and updating registrants contra the same set of databases. The entire process is undertaken by teams of two clerks, one drawn from the Republican staff and one from the Democratic staff of the board of elections. You publish your voter roll twice a year: once on the last Friday in March and one the first Friday in September. Those on the first are eligible to place a signature on designating petitions due in mid-July and to vote in May and in August. Those on the second are eligibile to sign petitions due the last week of the following January and to vote in November. If you scheduled a primary in the early months of the year, this publication would also indicate if you were eligible to vote therein.
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IMO, all presidential primaries and caucuses should take place over two Saturdays in June. Just hate the current system.
Trump said he won New Hampshire didn’t he? A lie or is he just getting as confused as Biden?
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You’re confused.
Barry Meislin, that was when Liz Cheney was running for reelection in 2022. There weren’t enough Dems in Wyoming to cross over and make any difference.
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IMO, in constituencies where the number of the most popular party’s registrants is more than 2x that of the runner up, you should have a pure petition system to designate candidates for the ballot rather than party primaries (bar in cases where you are nominating multi-member slates to compete for seats on conciliar bodies). Each candidate would petition within the body of registrants of which he was a member, attempting to obtain sufficient valid signatures (which might be, say, 2% of a partisan body of registrants and 0.55% of the body of no-preference registrants). In such a contest, you don’t have a single stereotype for your printed ballots, but as many as have qualified for the ballot, with each candidate having an equal chance to occupy the 1st, 2d, 3d, &c place in the order. You’d print up and distribute equal numbers of each stereotype. One precinct would get one stereotype, another precinct another, &c. If only one candidate qualifies for the ballot, you have a referendum on whether to install or reject that person; if he’s rejected, you hold a special election in which he’s debarred from running. If you have two candidates, you have a first-past-the-post ballot. If you have more than two, you have a ranked-choice ballot.
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Wyoming is the odd state where Republicans have an insuperable advantage, so such a system for statewide elections would be preferable. About 10 candidates ran for the House in Wyoming in 2022. You’d hope that the signature threshhold or, if you used monetary deposits, that dollar threshhold, would suffice to screen out some of the lark candidacies.
@ Art Deco – so your man Trump didn’t lie about winning in New Hampshire or you just don’t care about him lying?
DCL proves to be a cloth-headded dummy (Bertie)?
Bertie(DCL):
https://apps.npr.org/primary-election-results-2024/states/NH.html#date=1%2F23%2F2024&office=P&party=GOP&counties=true&state
Just for you from a source you would trust.
@ Om Your Orange, whatever it is you call him (Trump) claimed to have won NH in the regular election. Got any data for that?
Yes he did in total numbers
Compare the tories who deliver what no one wanted more crime more immigration less economic growth because thet went along with feely ferguson magic beans
DCL:
Trump won the NH primary in 2016, which was a real turning point for him. He has a soft spot for NH, I’m pretty sure.
He has never won the general there. However, in 2016 he lost the general in NH by a hair. In 2020 he lost handily. His claim that he won the primaries there is correct. His claim that he won the generals there is incorrect. People who hate Trump hear him say he won the general and they immediately say “He’s lying!” or “He’s mistaken but senile!” I say “Neither.” It’s an error. Should Trump remember the outcome of every single state in the US in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections? It would be nice if he did, but if he doesn’t I don’t consider it some nefarious lie or evidence of senility. Trump is still super-sharp compared to Biden, who barely knows what state he’s in sometimes and makes constant basic errors on nearly every topic under the sun.
So Bertie is concerned about the general in 2020 versus the 2024 New Hampshire primary.
The CC™ annex needs better trolls.
The Great Orange Whale is your nemisis. Minions for Ahab aren’t what they used to be.
If he follows the bbc even sky news one can be easily confused
@ Neo I admire your defence of Trump but he didn’t tell the truth and we all know he will never change that response.
He lies a lot. As did the highly disappointing Johnson over here. It simply isn’t good enough.
Conservative, well all, politicians should be truthful, moral and lawful. Trump fails badly on all three. tbh I find lots of what you say really interesting but I am puzzled by your, possibly reluctant, support of such a man.
@ Neo I admire your defence of Trump but he didn’t tell the truth and we all know he will never change that response.
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Maybe you should figure out the referent of his statements before making accusations. You’re making a clown out of yourself.
The lesson of KJP and John Kirby seems to be that governments always lie. Lying, or fudging the figures, is apparently how politicians get their jobs, and lying for politicians is literally the job of press secretaries. The system functions when the media calls those in power to account and contests their version of things.
When Trump doesn’t tell the exact truth it’s to make himself out to be more popular than he really is. It’s likely that he really believes what he’s saying, rather than outright lying, but everyone knows he exaggerates. Is anyone really deceived?
I worry more about politicians who aren’t challenged and fact checked at every turn.
Kirby was a hack in the obama admission the uncle to heckle and jeckel (harf and psaki) of course pierre came from moveon then commissar sanders