‘There’s nothing left’: Thousands fleeing GOP
In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the GOP in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records by the New York Times found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data. (Nineteen states don’t have registration by party, including Texas.)
By comparison, about 79,000 have left the Democratic party since early January.
Voting experts said the data indicated a stronger-than-usual flight from a political party after a presidential election, as well as the potential start of a damaging period for GOP registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
“What happened in D.C. that day, it broke my heart,” said Nunez, a lifelong Republican preparing to register as an independent. “It shook me to the core.”
The biggest spikes in Republicans leaving the party came in the days after Jan. 6, especially in California, where there were 1,020 Republican changes Jan. 5 — and then 3,243 on Jan. 7.
In Arizona, there were 233 Republican changes in the first five days of January, and 3,317 in the next week. Most of the Republicans in these states and others switched to unaffiliated status.
Many Republicans denounced the pro-Trump forces that rioted Jan. 6, and 10 Republican House members voted to impeach Trump.
“Since this is such a highly unusual activity, it probably is indicative of a larger undercurrent that’s happening, where there are other people who are likewise thinking that they no longer feel like they’re part of the Republican Party, but they just haven’t contacted election officials to tell them that they might change their party registration,” said Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida. “So this is probably a tip of an iceberg.”
For Heidi Ushinski, 41, the decision to leave the Arizona Republican Party was easy. After the election, she said, she registered as a Democrat because “the Arizona GOP has just lost its mind” and wouldn’t “let go of this fraudulent election stuff.”
“The GOP used to stand for what we felt were morals, just character and integrity,” she added. “I think that the outspoken GOP coming out of Arizona has lost that.”
This is the third time Ushinski has switched her party registration. She usually re-registers to be able to vote against candidates. This time around, she did it because she didn’t feel that there was a place for people like her in the “new” Republican Party.
“I look up to the Jeff Flakes and the Cindy McCains,” she said. “To see the GOP go after them, specifically, when they speak in ways that I resonate with just shows me that there’s nothing left in the GOP for me to stand for. And it’s really sad.”