There's a big difference between "Democrats voting in Republican primaries" and "people who haven't registered as Republicans in states where you don't have to register with a party to vote in primaries, voting in Republican primaries."
There's a big difference between "Democrats voting in Republican primaries" and "people who haven't registered as Republicans in states where you don't have to register with a party to vote in primaries, voting in Republican primaries."
This is a difference, but I'm not sure it's a big difference. In open primary states, like South Carolina, there is no party registration at the primary stage. That is to say, whether someone is registered with any particular party is not collected in the primary. So otherwise-registered partisans can vote in either primary.
Obviously, you can compare the voter rolls to party registration, and in fact my original comment was incorrect; I said "registered" Republicans, but in truth it was "self-identified" Republicans, my bad.
The point is that open primaries can very easily be manipulated and diluted by members of opposing parties. It doesn't take a conspiracy or even much organization. I don't know the precise extent to which it actually happens (and it seems like data overall is lacking; doing the comparison I mentioned is probably not that easy), and in fact despite the high stakes of elections in the US, they don't actually attract that much attention or spending.
For example, considering the budgets controlled by the federal government, it doesn't follow that only $1-2 billion are spent on presidential campaigns, when winning grants control over trillions. According to the treasury, the Federal government has already spent $1.5 trillion in 2023.
I'm sceptical this happens in any sort of large numbers. Voting in an R primary means not voting in a D primary, which are contested in most presidential elections; as the lady from Idaho who wrote to Josh last year described, there's a pretty big stigma against participating in Republican elections when you're a Democrat; and when it does happen, I would assume the vast majority of it is Dems in deep red states voting for the less extreme of the Republican candidates, which I would view as a good thing.
There's a big difference between "Democrats voting in Republican primaries" and "people who haven't registered as Republicans in states where you don't have to register with a party to vote in primaries, voting in Republican primaries."
This is a difference, but I'm not sure it's a big difference. In open primary states, like South Carolina, there is no party registration at the primary stage. That is to say, whether someone is registered with any particular party is not collected in the primary. So otherwise-registered partisans can vote in either primary.
Obviously, you can compare the voter rolls to party registration, and in fact my original comment was incorrect; I said "registered" Republicans, but in truth it was "self-identified" Republicans, my bad.
The point is that open primaries can very easily be manipulated and diluted by members of opposing parties. It doesn't take a conspiracy or even much organization. I don't know the precise extent to which it actually happens (and it seems like data overall is lacking; doing the comparison I mentioned is probably not that easy), and in fact despite the high stakes of elections in the US, they don't actually attract that much attention or spending.
For example, considering the budgets controlled by the federal government, it doesn't follow that only $1-2 billion are spent on presidential campaigns, when winning grants control over trillions. According to the treasury, the Federal government has already spent $1.5 trillion in 2023.
I'm sceptical this happens in any sort of large numbers. Voting in an R primary means not voting in a D primary, which are contested in most presidential elections; as the lady from Idaho who wrote to Josh last year described, there's a pretty big stigma against participating in Republican elections when you're a Democrat; and when it does happen, I would assume the vast majority of it is Dems in deep red states voting for the less extreme of the Republican candidates, which I would view as a good thing.