WASHINGTON -- Jason Linkins is a writer for The Huffington Post who lives in Virginia, which held a primary election on Tuesday. Since it was an open primary, Linkins could pick a candidate from among either Republicans or Democrats.
He chose Marco Rubio.
"I realized that what I wanted to do on Super Tuesday was cast a vote against fascism," Linkins told "So That Happened," the HuffPost politics podcast. (The interview starts in the 56th minute of the podcast.)
In other words, despite the fact that Linkins is a liberal, he felt it was more important to throw his support behind someone who could trip up Donald Trump than to pick between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side.
Trump, the Republican front-runner, is a professional entertainer who recently said he would like to destroy American democracy by curbing the freedom of the press.
"He essentially has now indicated that he will fight the First Amendment," Linkins said.
"My thought was what needed to be done was to try to keep Donald Trump's delegate count down," he added. "And that Marco Rubio probably needed a little bit of help to get over the 20 percent threshold to claim delegates away from Donald Trump."
Rubio wound up 31.9 percent of the vote in Virginia, compared with Trump's 34.7 percent.
Linkins wasn't the only crossover voter who supported a Republican candidate in an open primary state, though some voted for Trump because they figure the eventual Democratic nominee will have an easy time beating him. Linkins does not agree with that strategy.
"I personally think you're always taking a chance with a dangerous nominee even if you think you can pick him off," he said.
"So, That Happened" is hosted by Jason Linkins, Zach Carter and Arthur Delaney. Joining them this week is Amal Alderat, comedian Anthony Atamaniuk, and Huffington Post reporters Akbar Ahmed and Lauren Weber.
This podcast was produced, edited and engineered by Christine Conetta.
To listen to this podcast later, download our show on iTunes. While you're there, please subscribe to, rate and review our show. You can check out other HuffPost podcasts here.