I’ve been hearing about Republicans crossing over and voting in the Democratic primary for Obama. Since I didn’t witness such behavior at my own precinct while I was there (and, in fact, my precinct captain called me later in the evening to say he hadn’t seen any of the usual Republicans at our precinct), I really didn’t give it a whole lot of thought. Hillary lost Virginia. I was ready to move on to help her win in other states.
But then I saw this article. The part that jumped out at me:
Stephen G. Trent, the chairman of the Suffolk Republican Party, who talked with election workers in five precincts, said longtime Republicans were getting Democratic ballots so they could vote against Clinton.
“People who never voted for a Democrat in their lives said they were going to vote in the Democratic primary,” Trent said.
“But if the Democrats think they’ve got something going here in Suffolk, they’re whistling past a graveyard.”
So, while anecdotal, there does to appear to have been some crossover voting for Obama. The question in my mind is why? I see two possible scenarios.
The first is that the Republicans who crossed over did so because they support Obama and intend to vote for him in November. Those are obviously not the folks Trent is talking about here and perhaps he’s just blowing smoke to try to put a good face on things.
The second possibility is the one that I’ve hinted at before: that the Republicans really don’t want to face Hillary. If they truly believed that Hillary Clinton was the one candidate who could unify the Republican Party behind their candidate, why not cross over and vote for her?
So what do you think? If they did cross over, why did they? Inquiring minds want to know 😉
Bonus question: I find the results in the 9th CD, where Hillary and Mike Huckabee won, mystifying. The only explanation I’ve been able to come up with is that because that district had relatively low turnout (like most primaries) that the only voters were the party faithful. Any ideas on this?
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Re: VA-09 — one in three white evangelical voters voted Dem in MO, TN, and apparently broke for Hillary.
MO: 54-37
TN: 78-12
Their #1 issue in both states: jobs and economy, leaving social wedge issues in the dust.
dh – what do those numbers represent?
Considering Dem participation still outpaced Republican participation in that district (but not nearly to the same degree as statewide, in the 9th district the ratio is about 3:2 as opposed to better than 2:1 statewide) I am willing to acknowledge the possibility that a statistically significant percentage of evangelical primary voters decided to participate in the Dem primary, in fact I think it’s probably likely. But I don’t think they voted for Hillary because they’re evengelicals, I think they’re concerned about the economy and also happen to be evangelicals.
And Hillary’s internal polling apparently has her ahead of of Obama on economic issues. That’s the only reason I can think of to explain why she invested so much of her money on stupid ads involving parachutes that you couldn’t really follow unless you were paying super close attention to the voiceover. Seriously, I saw that ad a couple of times and thought to myself, “That reminds me, I should go get myself a Pepsi ™before my show starts.”
Thanks for posting this topic. I have worked at my Republican-dominated, neighborhood precinct for a number of years. I know a large number of the Republicans who live and vote here and I know there political leanings are very conservative. Only a handful of my neighbors know my political affiliation, Democrat. Votes here are usually the 65-35 Republican outcome. But on Tuesday, these same Republicans came in and asked for a Democratic ballot and winked, said “I’m voting Democratic this one time”, literally. This precinct, that is a majority white, and who usually have a strong turnout, voted Democratic and Obama won 2 to 1 over Clinton. Republican votes were much less in numbers. My fellow pollworkers noticed the same thing and since they were the Republican representatives at the polls didn’t seem much surprised.
Curious, and as one who looks at the precincts’ outcome in detail after every election, I looked up and found the results of the gated, all-white very-upper class community here in my county had the same results…Obama 2 to 1 over Clinton and neglible Republican votes. This time they were for Obama but in November they voted against Edd Houck, the conservative Democrat.
Republicans at my precinct were not shy in speaking of their distaste for Hillary Clinton. I heard: “she’s a socialist and in the Netherlands where they have socialized healthcare, they euthanize people, and kill children.” My jaw dropped.
There is no doubt in my mind, in my neck of the woods, that much of the Republican crossover was to prevent Hillary from being on the ballot. And I feel they really fear being pitted against her in November.
Yes, Vivian, I agree with your conclusion: that the Republicans really don’t want to face Hillary.
As to conservatives who “have strong disagreements with Mr. Obama on some social / domestic policy matters” but yet would support him, I’m wondering why they would. If we start closing down Iraq and eliminating some of its associated costs, Democrats are going to expect Obama, if he is the nominee, to live up to his promises of providing social programs such as healthcare, increasing the burden of social security costs on larger-earning Americans. There will be substantial costs associated with these new programs and I find it hard to believe that a conservative would go along with that.
From what I can discern, two schools of thought were at work with the Republicans who voted in the Democratic primary. The first is “anyone but Hillary.” The second reasons that Clinton would be an easier opponent to defeat in November. They voted for Obama and Clinton respectively, of course.
I think that the bigger story is the disparity in turnout, with Democratic voters roughly doubling Republicans. It appears that independent voters went for Obama in much greater numbers than they did for McCain (though I don’t think that entirely explains it – Dems are much more motivated as well.)
I’m a Republican and I’ll be voting for the Constitution Party candidate.
-John
http://www.patrioticactivist.com
Yeah. He’s a shoe-in.
vjp — % of white evangelicals, Hillary:Obama.
source
sleepless in VA — are the precinct results available by county, CD, city or …?
Looking at the county-by-county results for VA-09, I found that after accounting for student voting in Montgomery and Radford, and an additional cludge for extra-progressive Floyd, the results fall right in line with two factors: median income and % black population.
I’d be able to improve the model tremendously if I could access precinct-level results.
DH, precinct results are typically available on county websites (see, e.g., Arlington’s results here). If anyone knows of a state-wide or CD-wide resource for the same info, posting it would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Are the precinct results on the SBE website not enough info? If you drill down by city, you can get the precinct results. (I do know, though, that you have to do some extrapolation to get the results by CD when you have split precincts, like mine.)
I’ve been hearing some Republicans are voting for Hillary because they believe she will be an easier opponent, just as much as some are voting for Obama because they don’t like the Clintons. Perhaps they are canceling each other out?
(I’m in Arlington, VA)
Barak Obama may well attract a lot of Ron Paul’s supporters as he is the least pro-war candidate between himself, Mrs William Jefferson Clinton (who may have breached the 22nd Amendment), and John McCain.