Many voting for Clinton to boost GOP (TX connection)

[sonias]

Boston Globe 3/17/08
Many voting for Clinton to boost GOP
Seek to prolong bitter battle

For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an awful lot of ballots lately for Senator Hillary Clinton: About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi, exit polls show.

A sudden change of heart? Hardly.
(snip)

Walter Wilkerson, who has chaired the Republican Party in Montgomery County, Texas, since 1964, said many local conservatives chose to vote for Clinton for strategic reasons.

"These people felt that Clinton would be maybe the easier opponent in the fall," he said. "That remains to be seen."

Wilkerson added, "We have not experienced any crossover of this magnitude since I can remember."

Sonia

[WolverineDG]

1. I know of at least one person locally who did just that

and also one more who was, but ended up voting R instead.

dg

[Lithos]

2. I remember an R in line ahead of me

Don't know who he voted for, but he was most definitely interested in voting the Democratic Primary.

L-

[crispini]

3. Oh, we had lots of crossover in our precinct.

One, the Republican judge told me so.

Two, I added all of the emails to an invite list for Democratic email, and got very little response. Like, maybe 5 people out of hundreds.

I honestly am a little disappointed at the turnout. It wasn't all us, and I doubt they'll be back in the fall.

[sonias]

4. I would love to see the map of those 119,000 in Texas

What counties did they come from. We see Montgomery County weighing in but what other counties made up this 119,000 in Texas?


Sonia

[flamin lib]

5. cross post from GD

Let’s stop with the hysteria of Republicans throwing the Dem Primary vote to their advantage.

In Texas, 119,000 votes in the Democratic Primary were confirmed as previously voting in a Republican primary. There were 2.8 Million votes cast. That’s 4%. In Tarrant County, the Reddest of the red, 2% of voters had voted more than once in the last three presidential primaries and 5% only once (total 7%). 46% of all voters had never voted in a primary of either party.

One cannot assume that all 4% (statewide) Republican votes were cast to affect the Primary outcome; many of them had to be disgusted Republicans or Independents switching parties. Of those who actually tried to affect the Dem Primary my impression was that they canceled each other out, an equal number voting for each candidate. I get my impressions from working the Primary polling place. Some Republicans openly admitted to voting in the Dem primary to affect the outcome (my guess is 1%). Of those who did so and also volunteered who they planned to vote for it was a more or less even split.

[tammywammy]

6. I personally know a few republicans that voted for Clinton

because they perceive her as the weaker candidate against McCain. :shrug: