THE OLD SWITCHEROO

Some Idaho Democrats Register as Republicans to Combat Far Right

They plan to vote in the GOP primary in an effort to ensure more extreme candidates are not elected.

In the deeply red state of Idaho, the Republican primaries generally decide who is going to make it into statewide office. As a result, The Spokesman-Review reports, some Democrats are changing their party registration so they can vote in those primaries and try to swing the election away from more extreme candidates and toward moderates. “We have such a faction of far-right Republicans in both Kootenai County and the state of Idaho,” Laura Tenneson, who made the switch, told the newspaper. “And there’s no way to work against those people without registering as a Republican in the primaries and voting for their opponents.” It’s hard to quantify how many Democrats changing their affiliation had the same motives, but the paper notes that a recent survey revealed 22 percent of Idahoans label themselves liberal, while only 14 percent of the state is registered Democrat.