Tennessee’s primaries are designed to fail the voters. As designed, the current Tennessee party primary process has the intentionally designed result of allowing the declared primary winner to be a candidate that sometime 70% or more of the voters actually rejected. That actually makes no sense except in the minds of politicians.

For example, consider the governor race in 1974. In November, Democrat Ray Blanton easily beat Republican Lamar Alexander with 55.4% of the general election vote for those who even bothered to 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. Haslam won (some might say purchased) with only 47.34% of the Republican primary vote. Two other 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 but Randy Boyd received 24.3%, Diane Black received 23% and Beth Harwell received 15.3%. If any one of Boyd, Black or Harwell had not been in the race, Lee could have easily lost to probably either Boyd or Black.

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 you might have with the upcoming Tennessee District 07 Special Election for the recently vacated seat previously held by Dr. Mark Green is that Tennessee completely fails to require a majority of the votes to win a primary. That is, with say 5 or more candidates the one who wins might have as few as 20% + 1 of the total vote can win the primary and potentially the general election. In other words, approximately 79% of the total primary votes could be against that individual and they still win both the primary and then the general election. It could explain a lot about the problems that particularly conservatives feel exist over and over in Tennessee.

Another issue often discussed in Republican circles, well not all Republican circles but at least those occupied by mainly conservatives, is the fact that Tennessee does not truly have and enforce closed primaries. Attending even a single Reagan Day event or monthly meeting and you are likely to hear complaints about cross-over Democrats voting in Republican primaries. Talking to some strategists in the Democrat party, they don’t complain about the open primaries, they seem to be considering how to take advantage of it. Curiously 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 bona fide Democrats are voting in the Republican primaries, it is that individuals who are not conservative Republicans are voting in Republican primaries – individuals often labeled as RINOs by some or “trans-Republicans” by others.

Addressing both the lack of primary runoffs and the closed primaries would solve a lot of problems at least with the issue of how these non-governmental entities, i.e., the political parties, select their candidates. But that also raises the question of whether these non-governmental entities, using their rights under the 1st Amendment, could solve either or both of these problems without any change in Tennessee law at all.

Ultimately, it is in world of Establishment Republican policy leaders, like Cameron Sexton and Randy McNally, and their lieutenants, William Lamberth and Jack Johnson, that you an end up with —

– party primaries that are not closed;

– primaries in which the winner very frequently has less than 50% of the total vote; and

– a state law (ala Senator Jack Johnson ) that prohibits county caucuses for local officials (which are not even government officials).

Why is it that way? Likely because some who “identify” as Republicans likely could not win a primary race and get the “R” behind their name in the general elections if either Tennessee closed party primaries and/or runoffs. Why is it, knowing this problem exists in the state law, that the Republican State Executive Committee does not take action that the 1st Amendment guarantees to ensure that its primaries (or caucuses) are conducted in a way that makes sure that only bona fide Republicans are eligible to run and in which the winner must achieve at least 50% + 1 of the vote even if that requires a runoff?

If you want a true Republic, you cannot allow your government to be controlled by people who are more loyal to their party than they are to the people and the constitutions.