closed primary

1. 1.

   a primary in which only registered members of a particular political party can vote

   “closed primaries strengthen party unity”

   Broaderdirect primary

Questions about closed primary

What does closed primary mean?

closed primary means "a primary in which only registered members of a particular political party can vote".

Is closed primary a common word?

closed primary is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.