What's up with crossover voting
Daily Digest 6/2/26
Protecting our primary
Idaho is a firmly red state, so it makes sense that left-wing progressives might strategically interfere in the Republican primary election. It’s also reasonable for we as Republicans to fight back. Today I dug into some numbers regarding voter registration and potential crossover voting in the GOP primary:
Those two perspectives neatly illustrate Dr. May’s explanation of the contrasting priorities of activists and government officials: Lauer wants to see more conservative victories, while McGrane wants to see greater participation. The question of whether the Idaho GOP should pursue a switch to a caucus system will be hotly debated at the state convention later this month, and I will share my thoughts on it in a future article. For now, however, let us clearly identify the problem.
There are three ways crossover voting occurs: partisan Democrats switching their affiliation to vote in the Idaho GOP primary, unaffiliated voters requesting a Republican ballot and then disaffiliating afterward, and ideological progressives who permanently register as Republicans.
Healthy or normal?
Regular health and nutrition columnist Savanna DeHay says it’s more important to be healthy than to go with the flow:
Americans are sick. Many are overweight or obese, plagued by chronic diseases and symptoms that just won’t go away. We’re overweight and we get our fast food delivered right to our doors because we are too tired to cook. We think nothing of adding yet another prescription to our medicine cabinets – filled with pills of all shapes and sizes.
Diet and lifestyle are perhaps the biggest influences to our health, yet they are the last things people are willing to change. Most of us are getting sicker and sicker every day, trapped in this unhealthy norm.
IFPC fights back
Idaho Family Policy Center has filed a complaint on behalf of a man who was fired after not using a fellow employee’s preferred pronouns:
The charges detail how Hahn, who was employed by MOR Manufacturing in Post Falls, Idaho could not, due to his religious convictions, refer to his transgender-identifying colleague by a name and pronouns not in accordance with the employee’s biological sex. Hahn requested a religious accommodation from the company and also gave his coworkers information about Title VII and their right to request an accommodation. MOR Manufacturing disciplined him for that, accusing him of talking to other employees about his “religious . . . beliefs.”
Hahn eventually submitted a two-weeks’ notice of resignation because of upper management’s hostility towards his religious beliefs. But rather than letting him leave peacefully, the company fired him during his last week on the job, saying he was a “distraction” in the workplace.
I’m proud of the work my friend Caleb Pirc has been doing with IFPC on this and many other issues.
I came across this video a while back that attempts to explain why cities have become increasingly progressive while rural areas have become more conservative:
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The tension between the activist and government perspectives arises largely out of a simple confusion. Let us start with the proposition that we should all hope for high rates of participation. That said, the party and the activists should be concerned foremost with participation in primaries or caucuses as demonstrating the strength of the party. The government's SOLE concern should be participation in the general election. Government has no business interfering with or being concerned with what happens among free citizens at the party level.
Further, one way to address the issue of crossovers, at least in part, is to require those registering with a party in the primary to commit to vote for the party's nominee in the general. Hardcore activists may well so commit and then renege, but the conscience of the casual crossover will likely diminish their mischief-making.