CLEVELAND — President Donald Trump made headlines on the eve of the New Hampshire primary for encouraging Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary for the weakest Democrat.
"So I hear a lot of Republicans tomorrow will vote for the weakest candidate possible of the Democrats," Trump said to supporters. "Does that make sense you people wouldn't do that."
If they are registered Republican supporters of the president the answer is no they won't, not unless they officially changed their registration which would have had to have been done by October 25, 2019. But the Granite State is a semi-closed primary state meaning if you are a New Hampshire voter who is not committed to a particular party you can go to the polls and vote in the Democratic primary while also choosing to maintain your undeclared status.
So in New Hampshire there are 276,385 registered Democrats and 288,464 Republicans but the biggest block is "undeclared" which accounts for 415,871 voters. Those undeclared voters are free to vote in the Democratic primary if they choose.
In Ohio the process is somewhat similar only here Republicans and Independents who choose to vote in the Democratic primary are able to change their registration at the polls themselves simply by requesting the ballot of that party but unlike New Hampshire you don't have the option, you are now considered to be affiliated with that party.
With no primary for the Republican nomination this year in Ohio that's something that could come into play next month.
"There's the conspiracy theory," said News 5 Political Analyst Dr. Tom Sutton of Baldwin Wallace University. "The possibility that they'll try to pack it for a weak candidate to run against President Trump, we saw that in 2004 saying that Republicans were all going to vote for Dennis Kucinich nothing really came of that."
In 2008 it was given the name "Operation Chaos" led by talk show host Rush Limbaugh, urging Ohio voters at the time to vote for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama to extend the primary process. So in Cuyahoga County for example voter registration numbers from the Board of Elections shows that in late 2007 there were 251,139 registered Democrats a number that jumped by 36% the next spring to 395,712.
The increase wasn't necessarily a result of Republicans switching to vote in the primary because GOP numbers also increased by about 6%. The increase the figures show that was the result of an increase in registrations and non-partisan voters coming off the sidelines to vote as Democrats as their numbers dropped from 526,187 in late 2007 to 427,980 after that years primary.
"I highly doubt we're going to see that have a significant impact compared to the number of regular folks that are Democrats voting for the Democratic nominees in the primary," Sutton said.
