There are 276,262 registered Republicans in NH as of 12/28/23. The total number of Republican primary voters is reported to be 322,284, a 121% turnout. How was this possible? Assuming an 80% registered Republican turnout, I estimate that 109,000 non-Republicans crossed over on election day to tip the scales!
What would have happened if the primary was closed to only registered Republicans? Assuming a high turnout of about 80%, there would have been about 213,000 cast. (FYI, Democrat turnout was 120,851, approximately 46% of the 262,262 registered Democrats). Now, according to CNN’s exit poll (hardly a Trump-supporting organization), Trump received 70% of the votes of registered Republicans, while Haley won only 27% of the Republican vote, far less than her 43% official total. I am providing a link to a news story confirming these numbers.
It should be noted that not all of the undeclared who became Republicans for a day voted for Haley. If you assume that Trump received 70% of the votes from an 80% registered Republican turnout, his vote tally would be about 149,700. Trump’s actual final vote tally was 175,153. This means that Trump got about 25,400 of those crossover votes. The good news is that those votes will be there for Trump in November.
Using the same approach for Haley, 27% of 80% of 267,262, her vote tally would have been 57,700. Trump would have crushed her except for the 81,900 cross-overs that voted for her. The real difference being that next to none of those voters will be there for her in November.
Thanks to a great NH Republican turnout and with the help of patriotic Undeclareds, Trump won the primary and the Uniparty was defeated. The shame is that Trump had to spend more time, effort and money than he should have needed and he received less Republican delegates than he deserved. This primary result also allows the farce of a two-person race to continue keeping Trump from focusing all his energies on defeating the regime hell-bent on destroying America.
I have voiced my displeasure with the open primary system to the Republican Party and have been told they wish to maintain the status-quo in order to appear to be a welcoming party to potential recruits. I reject that reasoning. The Republican party has been around for a long time and our party platform is written for all to see. If a person can’t make the small effort to get on board, keeping an open primary in the hopes of recruiting a few new members isn’t worth the price we, and America, just paid.
NH Republicans, we’ve seen enough, close the damn primary!