https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/29/texas-republicans-open-closed-primaries-nikki-haley/Texas Republicans are increasingly debating who should be allowed to vote in their primary as the March 5 contest nears with the presidential nominee at the top of the ticket.
The debate has increased in recent days as presidential candidate Nikki Haley has talked openly about targeting states like Texas that have open primaries, or primaries that are open to voters regardless of partisan affiliation. But even before the former South Carolina governor started trumpeting her strategy, GOP activists in Texas were zeroing in on limiting the state’s primary to Republicans, crafting a nonbinding ballot proposition on the March 5 ballot to gauge support for the idea.
Haley’s strategy only added fuel to the fire.
“This is a very obvious call for Democrat crossover voting in the Republican Primary, which we know already happens in Texas on a large scale,” Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi said last week in response to a Haley campaign memo on the topic. “The [Texas GOP] must prioritize closed primaries.”
Even U.S. Sen. John Cornyn — who is often at odds with the state party under Rinaldi — said he is fine with closing the primary.
“I don’t have any problem with closing the primary, but I don’t see it as a huge issue in Texas,” Cornyn said in a radio interview last week.
Texas is one of 16 states that have open primaries, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Texas voters do not have to declare a party affiliation when they register to vote, and they can choose to vote in either the Democratic or Republican primaries. In the event of a runoff election, they cannot switch to the other party’s primary runoff to vote.
Eight states have fully closed primaries, according to the NCSL. Those are states where a voter formally affiliates with a party and can only vote in that party’s primary.
