A group of South Carolina Republicans want to see Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) win the state's Democratic presidential primary, and they're about to take their message to the state's GOP voters this week.

The Charleston Post and Courier reports that a group of Republican activists is gearing up to start making the case for Sanders this week with the dual goals of propping up the candidate they believe poses the weakest threat to President Donald Trump's re-election bid in November and pressuring Democrats to join them in trying to close state primaries in the future.

Leaders of the effort — including local party chairs and tea party activists — are expected to formally announce their plans at a Thursday morning press conference. The Post and Courier says that the pro-Sanders message will be spread across social media and talk radio platforms.

South Carolina has open primaries, which means that voters don't have to formally belong to a political party in order to vote in either election, something that Republicans in the state have long sought to change over concerns about crossover votes affecting election outcomes.

And now, since the state GOP decided to forgo its primary election this year, the current situation frees up a lot of Republican voters to cross over themselves in an attempt to skew the outcomes of the state's Democratic primary.

"Bernie Sanders is the most socialistic, liberal candidate running in the Democratic presidential preference primary," Greenville GOP chairman Nate Leupp told the Post and Courier. "So we feel we can make a strong point that our Democratic state legislators need to help work to close our primaries so it protects them as well as the Republican brand."



Meanwhile, a separate pro-closed effort organized by a former Republican state House candidate is encouraging GOP voters to simply "vote for the 'worst' Democrat," without naming a specific candidate, the Greenville News reports.

The possibility of a Sanders nomination has also been a notable concern for some Democrats who fear that the far-left, self-described democratic socialist would alienate the swing voters needed to win in the general election against Trump.

According to a Post and Courier poll released earlier this week, Sanders is just five percentage points behind former Vice President Joe Biden, who is currently at the front of the pack in the Palmetto State. The South Carolina Democratic primary will be held on February 29.