Why I’m voting in my first Republican primary.




Tomorrow, Super Tuesday, is the presidential primary in my new state of Vermont. It is also the first day I will ever vote in a Republican primary. I am doing this because: 1) I can, 2) I care about my country, 3) it’s strategic.

Why?

1. I can. Vermont is one of 11 states that has an “Open Primary”, meaning a voter can choose to vote in either party’s primary. My understanding is that Vermont voters are handed two or more ballots and instructed to just fill out and deposit one of them. This encourages strategic voting.

2. I care about the tenor of politics in this country. I will be voting in the Republican primary to vote against Donald Trump. Trump is probably more moderate than his main competitors, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, but ideology is not everything.

The lack of civility that Trump brings to politics is unhealthy. While many have lamented the state of affairs in Congress, electing Donald Trump would not fix anything. Just look at Maine, which elected Governor Paul LePage in 2010. He says what he thinks about politics and his willingness to speak his racist, bigoted mind only makes things worse. As my own research suggests: Maine is a polarized mess.

I study polarization. I am well aware of the lack of cooperation between the parties. But I believe that the parties need to be civil with one another for there to be any hope that things improve. Even if Cruz or Rubio are pledging to make things worse, maintaining a poor status quo is preferable to electing a candidate who has made disdain for Mexicans and Muslims the foundation of his platform. 

3. Because it is strategic. On the surface, this may not make sense. I have a long history with the Democratic party and once worked for John Kerry. My first choice candidate is Hillary Clinton. However, a strategic voter needs to take note of the context around an election. Vermont is feeling the Bern: Sanders currently has a 77 point lead in the polls. Therefore, voting in either the Democratic or Republican parties is a symbolic vote in Vermont this cycle. Rejecting the premise of Trump’s campaign, with its fascist overtones, is a more important message for me to project than revealing my preference for the more pragmatic progressivism of Hillary over Sanders’ audacious democratic socialism.

It’s not a perfect plan. There is no viable choice in the Republican field that agrees with my ideology, and I’ll probably end up voting for John Kasich. Rubio may even make things harder for my chosen candidate, Clinton, in the General Election. But those are problems for another day. I believe that every citizen’s vote matters and I will be using mine against Trump. Presidential primaries are more complex than a simple horse-race; performance in relation to expectations matter. Trump’s victory margin in Vermont matters, and I want to reduce it if I can. 

I don’t have children, but years from now if asked me how Donald Trump was nominated to be a major party candidate, I would like to be able to say I did what I could to stop it.

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