news-record.com

BLOGS

Advertisement | Advertise with Us

Capital Beat

Republicans mulling closed primaries

From a story in today’s paper:

RALEIGH — Elected Republican leaders, state party officials and activists are debating a proposal that would close the party’s primaries to all but registered members of the GOP.

Currently, unaffiliated voters may choose whether to vote in the Republican or Democratic primaries or to vote in neither. The Republican executive committee is expected to consider a change to the party’s policy Saturday.

Proponents of the change say open primaries have diluted the Republican brand, yielding candidates who do not always cleave to the party’s conservative ideals.

“I don’t want our party’s nominees to be watered down by someone who is outside the party. I want to give folks in the general election a solid conservative candidate,” said Bill Wright , chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party. “If we’re going to stand for something, then let’s stand for something.”

Click here for the whole thing.

Reaction from (Democratic-leaning) Public Policy Polling: “It would seem this movement is being driven by emotions rather than facts.” Click here.

Reaction from (Republican-leaning) N+R Editorial Writer Doug Clark: “Uh-oh, Republicans. You could make a very bad mistake here. Better wise up.” Click here.

Permalink
Tags: Republicans, Public Policy Polling, Bill Wright, Doug Clark, primaries

Posted by Mark Binker on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 10:54 am

What do you think?

1 comment(s)

Read other visitors' comments.

Other Recent Entries

Meet the Candidate: William Dean “Doc” Gillenwater (4:24 pm)
Meet the candidate: Paul Norcross (3:02 pm)
Duncan on charters, school reform (11:15 am)
Pawlenty at IEI (Feb. 8)
Republican health care web ad (Feb. 5)

RSS: Subscribe to this blog

Comments

This article has been closed to new comments. Comments are generally closed after 14 days. However, comments may be closed earlier at the discretion of the News & Record.

Inappropriate content? Please notify us.

ncpatriot

November 20, 2009 - 5:27 pm EST

This idea was a Twitter from Chad Adams during the GOP convention. It is not a well thought idea. Suppose this works out as it has with most Libertarians. With no chance of winning, they just register Republican--there goes some purity from the party. Non-affiliated can change their registration to Republican just to vote in the primary up to 30 days before the election--any body can. The law does not permit a chastity test before some one registers Republicans. With the numbers of unaffiliated voters can the GOP afford to send the message we do not want you now, but vote with us in the fall. If the trends continue and the Republicans don't want the Unaffiliated, those impure Unaffiliated voters may not let us Republicans vote in THEIR primary.