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Florida Primary: Not so Closed After All |
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Wednesday, 30 January 2008 |
When I woke up this morning I was quite surprised to find out that McCain had won the Florida Republican primary. I posted early about why I was confident that Romney would win Florida and apparently my mistake was in assuming that Florida's closed primary would actually be - well, closed. Actually, maybe the primary wasn't so closed after all, and this would completely explain McCain's win.
Michelle Malkin
has all the updates on this: 20% of the Republican primary voters
identified as Independent or Democrat in the exit polling! For
self-identifying Republicans, McCain and Romney came in a virtual tie.
It was the Independent and Democrat votes that brought McCain to the
top.
So what happened? Some newspaper reports suggest that
polling workers allowed independents to use party ballots, and we can
probably assume now in retrospect that a lot of Democrats and
Independents re-registered as Republicans prior to the Dec. 31, 2007
deadline. This isn't good news for the Republican party: There is a distinct lack of enthusiasm among Republicans if 1 out of 5 people showing up to the vote, in a "closed primary," aren't Republicans at all. Take a look at the total numbers: NPR is reporting that 1.9 million voted in the Republican's contest and 1.7 million votes in the Democrat's contest. With 20% of those Republicans not being Republican at all, and 1.7 million Democrats showing up when there are no delegates at stake, its starting to look like Florida will go blue this November.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 09 April 2008 )
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