Republicans’ fear of Trump keeps others off primary ballots

https://georgiarecorder.com/2019/12/26/bookman-republicans-fear-of-trump-keeps-him-off-primary-ballots/?fbclid=IwAR0HGIbgnm3VcDfeyK6cTmhNhfJ0Fd9MwR2C2gYA8oOGBnutFb_9dpTGUQA

By Jay Bookman -
December 26, 2019

If any Georgian Republicans are feeling a little queasy about Donald Trump and the direction that he’s taking their party and their country, they won’t have a chance to express it at the primary ballot box. That option has been slammed shut.

In a quiet decision earlier this month, the state GOP’s executive committee rejected requests from William Weld, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, and Joe Walsh, a former GOP congressman from Illinois, to appear on the 2020 presidential primary ballot. The only name allowed to appear on the ballot, the only choice that Georgia Republicans will have, is Donald J. Trump.

Similar steps are being taken all over the country, as part of a concerted effort to silence what remains of dissent in the party. So far, Republicans in ten states have ensured that primary voters will have no opportunity to express displeasure against their nominee. Minnesota, like Georgia, allowed only Trump’s name to be entered into nomination. Eight other states, including South Carolina, have canceled Republican primaries or caucuses altogether to prevent opposition from surfacing.

GOP officials in North Carolina and Michigan have also tried to bar his opponents from the ballot, but have so far failed. Even in Massachusetts, where Weld holds the record for largest margin of victory in a governor’s race, officials in his own party tried hard but failed to keep him off the primary ballot.

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