A recent article in the Gazette-Mail reported that a resolution to close the Republican primary to independents (allowing only registered Republicans to vote in the May, 2024, primary election) would be presented at the Jan. 20 meeting of the WVGOP Executive Committee (now postponed until Jan. 27).
Consider the failure to manage the COVID pandemic well. One of the problems was that people do not remember history. Recalling the history of past pandemics would have allowed better management of COVID and saved many lives.
The West Virginia Republican Executive Committee needs to remember its history, and how their primary came to be open. John Raese was state Republican chairman in 1988, when the GOP decided to “open†the Republican primaries to nonaffiliated voters. At that time, there were only four parties recognized on voter registration forms. That situation persists today with Republican, Democratic, Mountain and Libertarian parties.
When Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was the West Virginia secretary of state, people wanted to register as “independents,†thinking they were registering as members of the “Independent Party.†It was not a recognized party and the term was confusing to those who did not want to be members of one of the four recognized parties.
Manchin clarified the situation by explaining that Independent (with a capital “Iâ€) could be a party if its candidate received 1% of the vote for governor in the last gubernatorial election.
The voter registration form was updated to allow independents (with a lower case “iâ€) to indicate “no party of choice†if one did not desire membership in a recognized party. The form still offers that category.
In the same era, Manchin helped convince the Democratic Party to open its primary, presumably to compete for nonaffiliated voters who were voting Republican.
Party registration in West Virginia in 1988 was overwhelmingly Democratic. Donna Boley was the only Republican in the West Virginia Senate and House Republicans were in the low 20s. There was celebrating when it once reached 31 House members. Only five or six counties had a Republican majority.
The intent of opening the Republican primaries to nonaffiliated voters was to get them interested in Republican candidates and ideology in the hope that they would eventually register as Republicans. This hope did not come to fruition for about 20 years.
In 2008, in spite of the “Obama Tsunami,†West Virginia was one of only six states to increase Republican numbers in its Legislature.
In 2014, while hoping to get 47 members in the House of Delegates and 17 in the Senate, Republicans instead won 64 and 17, respectively. A Senate majority came soon, when one Democrat changed his registration to Republican.
The red switch was on in West Virginia and was markedly increased by Donald Trump’s arrival on the political scene. Now, all 55 counties have a Republican majority and all but one statewide elective offices are held by Republicans. With this in mind, it seems pointless to allow nonaffiliated voters to choose Republican candidates.
Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Alex Mooney made all the points for not allowing unaffiliated voters to help choose our candidates or to vote for those they judge to be easier to defeat in November. On Jan. 19, Mooney sent an impassioned email to Executive Committee members making all the cogent reasons to close the primaries. The above scenario has happened several times in other states and is occurring in New Hampshire now.
Tucker Carlson has pointed out that as much as 40% of Nikki Haley’s support in New Hampshire is from non-Republicans.
Even Trump, in a recent speech, was highly critical of the open primary in New Hampshire. He wants Republicans to choose their candidates.
As many members of the state GOP were not even born at the time of opening its primaries, I hope that the foregoing history will help them to decide to close their primaries to only registered Republicans.
Douglas E. McKinney was chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party from 2006 to 2010.
