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Independent and unaffiliated voters were saved by the snow last week after the West Virginia Republican Executive Committee postponed its winter meeting where they were to take up a resolution to close the May GOP primary to non-Republicans.
That meeting was postponed until this Saturday, so the state Republican Executive Committee is set to consider the resolution again, with the possibility of amending it to postpone closing the primary until 2026.
Limiting the Republican primary to just registered Republican voters has been discussed before. State Code gives political parties wide latitude to allow voters unaffiliated with any political party to vote in party primaries. Republicans have allowed for open primaries for nearly 30 years. But while the state GOP committee has considered closing its primary before, past resolutions have failed.
For one thing, it wasn't until February 2021 when Republican voter registration exceeded Democratic voter registration for the first time since the Great Depression. There were 445,132 voters registered as Republicans as of February 2021. But as of December 2023, there were 469,099 registered Republicans -- a more than 5% increase in nearly three years.
However, during that same time period, growth in unaffiliated voters outpaced Republican voter registration slightly, with a 6% increase from February 2021 (270,576) to December 2023 (286,918). As of the end of the year, 39.9% of voters in West Virginia were registered Republican, while 24.4% were registered as unaffiliated.
This is a state where Democrats dominated elected offices and voter registration for decades. But with the national Democratic Party moving more to the left, some traditionally Democratic voters in the state felt the party left them. Having been lifelong Democrats, there was still a stigma among some with switching to Republican.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard from voters that they can't support the Democratic Party, but they can't switch to Republican and risk their ancestors rolling over in their graves. Registering as unaffiliated provides these voters a safe harbor to be able to vote for those who support their conservative values but who are unable yet to pull the trigger and join the Republican Party.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against the closing of the primary. It's their party and their primary and they can limit who gets to vote in it. But considering Republican voter registration in West Virginia is more of a plurality than a majority, is now the time to close the primary to a segment of like-minded voters?
Also, why now? We're still in the candidate filing period until midnight Saturday. The absentee ballot application period opened at the beginning of the year. County clerks are trying to estimate how many printed ballots they need to have as backup if there are issues with the electronic voting machines most counties have. And the education campaign to let voters know they must register as a Republican to vote in the May GOP primary will be expensive.
I can already see a scenario where someone who wants to vote for former Republican president Donald Trump in the primary but is only registered unaffiliated walks into a polling place and requests a GOP ballot only to be told they can't vote in the primary. Let's be honest, we in the media can write multiple stories about the closed primary, party committees could put up paid ads educating voters about the change, and you'd still have people unaware of this change and get upset.
Sure, I have no doubt Trump wins the West Virginia Republican primary in May, and West Virginia's primary really doesn't matter anyway since it falls so late in the national primary season. But considering Trump obsesses over crowd sizes and voter totals, isn't he going to get upset that he didn't win the West Virginia primary by as large of a margin as possible?
Considering all the doubt that has been sown about the 2020 election (even by state election officials here), is there not a concern closing the primary could discourage voter turnout later in the general election? I really don't think some of the effects of closing the primary this close to May and key deadlines have been thought through.
And is there an ulterior motivation at work? Sources tell me the effort to close the primary is being led and whipped on behalf of Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (running for governor), U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney (running for U.S. Senate), and the Warner brothers (Secretary of State Mac Warner is running for governor and Economic Development Authority Executive Director Kris Warner is running for Secretary of State).
The thinking is closing the primary would harm the campaigns of some of their opponents, such as Gov. Jim Justice (running for U.S. Senate), former Kanawha County delegate Moore Capito (running for governor) and Democrat-turned-Republican former House Minority Leader Doug Skaff (running for Secretary of State).
I don't see closing the primary hurting Justice, who is wildly popular across the board. I also don't see closing the primary hurting Kris Warner or other Republican Secretary of State candidates, because while Skaff has a lot of money, his recent party change and other potential political baggage could make it an uphill battle in the primary even with unaffiliated voters able to vote for him.
But closing the primary could benefit Morrisey and Mac Warner, with Morrisey running as the "true conservative" and Warner increasingly trying to appeal to the fringe right. Both are trying to run to Capito's right and see him as the establishment candidate and therefore most likely to benefit from unaffiliated votes in a primary.
It should be noted that closing the primary only marginally helps Mac Warner, seeing as he is ranked fourth among the top four GOP candidates for governor in polling and fundraising. But Morrisey and Capito are seen as the frontrunners, with Morrisey leading in polling and Capito not that far behind. Plus, it is all but certain that Capito will be endorsed by Justice at some point and named heir apparent to the governor seat.
There are a lot of undecided voters in the Republican primary for governor still, and as we move closer to May, it's very likely Capito begins closing the gap with Morrisey in support. Closing the primary to unaffiliated voters could possibly kneecap Capito, but it could have the potential of alienating general election voters. And I just wouldn't underestimate Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, the Democratic candidate for governor who is well liked and respected in many quarters.
After all, voters in West Virginia did elect a Democratic candidate for governor in 2016.