By: John Harris
Tennessee’s primaries are designed to fail the voters. As designed, the current Tennessee party primary process has the intentional result of allowing the declared primary winner to be a candidate that 70% or more of the voters actually rejected. That actually makes no sense except in the minds of politicians.
For example, consider the Governor’s race in 1974. In November, Democrat Ray Blanton easily beat Republican Lamar Alexander with 55.4% of the general election vote. But what about the 1974 primaries? In the Democrat primary that year, it was reported that 21.9% of the voting age population participated. Ray Blanton got 22.73% of the vote and Jake Butcher got 20.18%. The remaining roughly 57.09% of the primary vote was spread among 10 other candidates. In the Republican primary, it was reported that 8.6% of the voting age population voted. In that race, Lamar Alexander got 48.48% of the vote with the remaining votes spread among three other candidates. Thus, Blanton became the Democrat nominee even though more than 72% of the voters in that primary opposed him and Alexander became the Republican nominee even though more than 51% of the voters opposed him.
Let’s look at more recent results. In 2010, Bill Haslam won his first bid for Governor. However, in the primary that year there were 5 candidates, with Haslam winning (some might say purchased) with only 47.34% of the GOP primary vote. Two other more conservative contenders, Zach Wamp and Ron Ramsey, had a total of 51.23% of the vote. If there had been a “top two” runoff and had Wamp picked up Ramsey’s votes, he would have beaten Haslam.
In 2018, Karl Dean won the Democrat primary with 75.14% of the vote. But the Republican primary once again provided evidence of the problem. Bill Lee won the primary with 36.7% of the vote with Randy Boyd receiving 24.3%, Diane Black receiving 23% and Beth Harwell receiving 15.3%. If any one of Boyd, Black or Harwell had not been in the race, Lee likely would have lost to either Boyd or Black, who each spent tens of millions of dollars.
Contrast those years with the 2002 Tennessee gubernatorial primaries where Van Hilleary won the Republican primary with 64.31% and Phil Bredesen won the Democrat primary with 79.05%.
One of the concerns many have with the Tennessee 7th District Special Election for the seat previously held by Dr. Mark Green is that Tennessee fails to require a majority of the votes to win a primary. With 9 or more candidates in that race the one who wins might have as few as 20% + 1 of the total vote, and in a strong Republican district they will likely win the general election. In other words, with about 79% of the total primary voters opposed to that individual they could still easily head to Washington.
Another issue often discussed in some Republican circles, particularly conservative ones, is the fact that Tennessee does not truly have or enforce closed primaries. Cross-over Democrats regularly vote in Republican primaries with impunity. Some strategists in the Democrat party acknowledge that they use this loophole to seek to water down the electability of certain strong conservative Republicans. The Republican State Executive Committee has reportedly voted to call on the General Assembly to close the primaries, but the Republican super-majority in the Legislature has refused, or at least failed, to do so. But some might admit that the real problem with the open primaries is not that Democrats are voting in the Republican primaries, it is those individuals who are not conservative Republicans who are voting in Republican primaries – often labeled as RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). As more blue state Republicans flee to Tennessee, the RINO problem will likely get worse.
Addressing both the lack of primary runoffs and the closed primaries would solve a lot of problems. And it is probably not necessary to change Tennessee law to fix those issues.
Ultimately, it is in the strong arm world of Establishment Republican political leaders, like Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lt. Governor Randy McNally, and their lieutenants, Rep. William Lamberth and Sen. Jack Johnson, that good ideas like closing party primaries and requiring primary election runoffs go to die. They preserve the status quo because they fear the potential loss of power.
Why? Because some who “identify” as Republicans likely could not win a primary race and get the all important “R” behind their name in the general elections if Tennessee closed party primaries and/or instituted runoffs. And the Republican legislative leaders depend on the caucus votes of those “Republicans” to retain their positions.
The bigger question is why the Republican State Executive Committee does not take the action within their power to put these common sense primary election procedures in place. They have the power, without changing state law, to fix these problems. So, why don’t they act? Ambition? Fear of rocking the boat and losing their own positions? It is long past time for the GOP State Executive Committee follow the mantra of “lead, follow or get out of the way”.
John Harris is an attorney and Executive Director of the Tennessee Firearms Association.
