Christian Science Monitor Article on Whether Eric Cantor’s Defeat Was Partly Caused by Strategic Voting by Democrats

This Christian Science Monitor article discusses the June 3 primary in Virginia’s 7th U.S. House District, in which incumbent Eric Cantor was defeated for re-nomination. It considers the claims that two particular Democratic activists influenced partisan Democratic voters to vote in the open Republican primary against Cantor, not because they favored his Republican opponent, but to injure the Republican Party. However, the article seems to suggest that these claims are overblown.

Alabama Republican Party State Chair Says He Will Work for a Closed Republican Primary

The state chair of the Alabama Republican Party, Bill Armistead, says he will work to enable the Republican Party to close its primary to non-members. The Times Daily of Florence has this short editorial, opposing the idea. The Decatur Daily has this short editorial in support of the idea.

The Times Daily is in error to say there are only eleven states with open primaries. There are nineteen such states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Of those, Illinois and Ohio are borderline; those states do not ask voters to choose a party on voter registration forms, but they try to keep a record of which party’s primary is chosen. An “open primary” in one in which, on primary day, any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot, but parties do have primary ballots and party nominees.