The topic addressed in the title of this article may sound illegal at first glance, but let’s not be too hasty. The group under discussion is called Primary Pivot and they are investing resources to convince Democrats and left-leaning independents to change their registration to Republican and vote in the GOP primary. So who do they want these newly minted “Republicans” to support? It doesn’t matter as long as it’s anyone not named Donald J. Trump. Their motivation is obvious and not in the best interest of the voters. But it may also run into a few snags as we’ll discuss below. The linked article begins with the story of someone named Eitan Hersh in Pennsylvania who already changed his registration. And he asks, “Why wouldn’t everyone?” (Boston Globe)
Leaders at PrimaryPivot aren’t coy about their motivations. The super PAC wants to “weaken and defeat” former president Donald Trump in key states, including New Hampshire, with its crucial first-in-the-nation presidential primary; Virginia, a Super Tuesday state where Trump escaped with a slim victory in the 2016 primary; and Georgia, which, like Virginia, has an open primary where anyone can pull a GOP ballot.
Their plan: Convince independent and Democratic voters to flood the GOP race, starting in New Hampshire, where it’s targeting the roughly 130,000 independents who voted in the Democratic primary in 2020 with calls and texts.
“You only have two shots to stop Trump. Don’t throw away the first shot,” said executive director Kenneth Scheffler, a registered Democrat who himself plans to change his party affiliation to Republican in his home state of New York, where its closed primary system only allows those registered in a party to vote in its primary.
This is a sneaky maneuver, but it’s not a new idea. People from both parties have tried to encourage this in the past and done so for the same reason. They either wanted to stop someone they didn’t like from getting on the ballot or promote someone they felt would be easier to beat. It’s dirty pool, but it’s not illegal. But it’s also never been terribly effective as I recall. I can’t name one major election where a dominant poll leader suddenly fell behind following a measurable, sudden shift in voter registration in favor of their party.
Kenneth Scheffler, the executive director of Primary Pivot is a registered Democrat in New York. (New York has a closed primary system.) He said he plans to switch to the GOP to take part in this scheme. But he’s going to need to be quick about it. I still remember when I changed my New York voter registration more than twenty years ago. I was surprised to learn that the change doesn’t take effect until after the first full year after you submit the form, depending on when you turn it in. New York’s primary doesn’t take place until June 25, but it may already be too late for people who are only now considering switching parties to take part.
Now let’s say that Primary Pivot manages to somehow spur some significant movement in registration in the targeted areas. They are focusing on New Hampshire and Iowa initially, and it will be surprising if they have the resources to go much further. The last time anyone checked, Trump was leading DeSantis by almost 40 points in New Hampshire and by 35 in Iowa. That would be an awful lot of registrations that you would need to flip in each state to make a meaningful difference, and even then only if every one of them voted for DeSantis and not Haley or Ramaswamy or some other Republican.
But let’s be generous once again and say that they somehow pulled this off and Democrats gave DeSantis the primary nod in those two states. This isn’t the general election where you could flip the results by hammering out a narrow win in a few swing states. Trump would still have 48 more states to go and he’s leading in the primary polls in literally every one of them. He’s even leading DeSantis in Florida, for Pete’s sake.
I understand how desperately and deeply the Democrats both loathe and fear Donald Trump. I get it. But Primary Pivot is trying to benchlift a Buick here. Far too many Democrats will never hold their nose tightly enough to register as a Republican you would need almost all of them if you were going to pull it off. Trump may yet find a way to lose the nomination, but he’ll either do it on his own or the actual Republicans will do it for him. But neither looks like a very likely outcome at the moment.
