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In the days following the Jan.6 attack on Capitol Hill, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were skipping: tens of thousands of Republicans calling or logging in to change their membership in a left.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans quit the party in the three weeks following the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the GOP last month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January’s voting records by the New York Times found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had left the party in 25 states with readily available data (19 states are not registered per party). Voting experts said the data pointed to a stronger-than-usual leak from a political party after a presidential election, as well as the potential start of a damaging period for GOP registrations as voters retreat from the presidential election. violence of the Capitol and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He said he had long believed that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that the election campaign fighting ended on election day, when all parties peacefully accepted the result. The January 6 riot changed that, he said.
“What happened in Washington that day broke my heart,” said Mr. Nunez, a longtime Republican who is preparing to register as an independent. “It shook me deeply.”
The biggest spikes in Republicans leaving the party came in the days after January 6, particularly in California, where there were 1,020 Republican changes on January 5 – then 3,243 on January 7. In Arizona, there were 233 Republican changes in the first five days of January and 3,317 next week. Most Republicans in these states and others have moved to unaffiliated status.
Voters’ lists often change after presidential elections, when registrations sometimes shift to the winning party or people update their old affiliations to match their current party preferences, often in an automotive department. Other states remove inactive voters, deceased voters, or those who left the state from all parties, and lump these people with voters who have changed their own registration. Of the 25 states polled by The Times, Nevada, Kansas, Utah and Oklahoma had combined this management of the voters list with changes in registration, so their overall totals would not be limited to changes that voters have made themselves. Other states may have done so as well, but have not reported it in their public data.
Among Democrats, 79,000 have left the party since early January.
But the uproar on Capitol Hill and the historic unpopularity of former President Donald J. Trump created an extremely fluid period in American politics. Many Republicans denounced the pro-Trump forces that rose up on Jan.6, and 10 members of the Republican House voted to impeach Mr. Trump. A significant number of Republicans now say they support key elements of President Biden’s stimulus package; generally, the opposing party is suspicious, even hostile, of the high political priorities of a new president.
“Since this is a very unusual activity, it probably points to a bigger undercurrent, where other people also think they don’t feel like they are part of the Republican Party anymore, but they don’t have it all. you just haven’t “contacted election officials to tell them they could change their party’s registration,” said Michael P. McDonald, professor of political science at the University of Florida. “So it’s probably the tip of an iceberg.”
But, he warned, it could also be the vocal reality of the ‘Never Trump’ which is simply coming to the fore as Republicans finally made the decision to change their recording, even though they didn’t. ‘had not supported the president and his party since 2016.
Kevin Madden, a former Republican agent who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, fits that trend line, although he was ahead of the recent exodus. He said he changed his recording to independent a year ago, after observing what he called the harassment of career foreign service officials in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial.
“It is not a birthright and it is not a religion,” Mr. Madden said of party affiliation. “Political parties should be more like your local condominium association. If the condo association begins to act in a way that is inconsistent with your beliefs, you move out.
As for the general tendency of Republicans to quit their party, he said it was too early to say if this posed any long-term problems, but the numbers could not be overlooked. “All the time I worked in politics,” he said, “what always worried me was not the position but the trend line.
Some GOP officials noted the significant recording gains Republicans have seen recently, including ahead of the 2020 election, and noted that the party has rebounded quickly in the past.
“You never want to lose registrations at any point, and it’s clear that the January scene on Capitol Hill exacerbated the already considerable problems Republicans face with the center of the electorate,” said Josh Holmes, political adviser to the Senator Mitch McConnell, the Minority Leader. “The waning support today is really pale compared to the challenges of a decade ago, when Republicans went from being completely irrelevant to a House majority in 18 months.
He added: “If Republicans can come together behind basic conservative principles and resist the liberal outrageousness of the Biden administration, things will change a lot faster than people think.”
In North Carolina, the change was immediately noticeable. The state has seen a notable increase in the number of Republicans who have changed party affiliation: 3,007 the first week after the riot, 2,850 the following week, and 2,120 the following week. A steady number of 650 Democrats changed their party affiliation every week.
But GOP state officials downplayed any importance in the changes and expressed confidence that North Carolina, a battlefield state that recently leaned on the Republican, will remain in their column.
“The relatively small fluctuations in voter registration over a short period of time across North Carolina’s pool of more than seven million registered voters are not of particular concern,” said Tim Wigginton, director of communications for North Carolina. State party, in a statement, predicting that North Carolina would continue to vote Republican nationally.
In Arizona, 10,174 Republicans have changed their party registration since the attack as the state party has shifted further to the right, as evidenced by its decision to censor three Republicans – Gov. Doug Ducey, the former Sen. Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain – for various acts deemed disloyal to Mr. Trump. The party continues to raise questions about the 2020 election and last week Republicans in the state legislature backed the arrest of Maricopa County election officials for refusing to comply with numerous subpoenas for election materials and materials.
It was these actions, some Republican strategists in Arizona say, that caused the GOP’s voter registration decline in the state.
“The exodus that’s happening right now, based on my gut and all the people calling me here, is that they are leaving as a result of the acts of sedition that have taken place and the continued questioning of the vote in Arizona. said Chuck Coughlin, a Republican strategist in Arizona.
For Heidi Ushinski, 41, the decision to quit the Arizona Republican Party was an easy one. After the election, she said, she signed up as a Democrat because “the Arizona GOP just lost their minds” and would not “let go of this fraudulent election thing.”
“The GOP represented what we believed to be morality, just character and integrity,” she added. “I think the GOP outspoken from Arizona lost that.”
This is the third time that Ms. Ushinski has changed her party registration. She usually re-registers to be able to vote against the candidates. This time around, she did it because she didn’t feel there was a place for people like her in the “new” Republican Party.
“I admire the Jeffry Flakes and the Cindy McCain,” she says. “Seeing the GOP sue them, especially when they speak in a way that I resonate with, just shows me that there’s nothing left in the GOP for me. And it’s really sad.
Mr. Nunez, the Pennsylvania military veteran, said his distaste for the Capitol Riot was heightened when Congressional Republicans continued to push back the sending of stimulus checks and strongly opposed the increase in the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour.
“They have been so quick to bail out companies, giving money to big companies, but continue to fight to give money to people in need,” said Mr. Nunez, who plans to change. gone this week. “Plus, I’m a business owner and can’t imagine living on $ 7 an hour. We must be fair. “
Although the volume of voters leaving the GOP varies from state to state, almost every state surveyed showed a noticeable increase. In Colorado, about 4,700 Republican voters changed their registration status within nine days of the riot. In New Hampshire, about 10,000 left the party’s electoral rolls over the past month, and in Louisiana, about 5,500 did as well.
Even in states without party registration, some Republicans have spoken out about leaving.
In Michigan, Mayor Michael Taylor of Sterling Heights, the state’s fourth largest city, already had one foot out of the Republican Party’s door ahead of the 2020 election. Even as a longtime Republican, he didn’t. could not bring himself to vote for Mr. Trump for the presidency after supporting him in 2016. He instead voted for Mr. Biden.
After the election, the relentless promotion of conspiracy theories by GOP leaders and the attack on Capitol Hill prompted him to quit the party.
“There were enough before the election to swear the GOP, but the incredible events since then made it clear to me that I do not fit into this party,” Taylor said. “It was no longer just a matter of complaining about electoral fraud. They took control of the Capitol at the behest of the President of the United States. And if there was a clear break with the party in my mind, that was it.
Mr Taylor plans to run for office this year, and although this is a non-partisan race, community members are well aware of the change in his thinking since the last election across the country. of the city in 2017.
He already has two challengers, including a staunch Trump supporter, who has started criticizing Mr. Taylor for his lack of support for the former president.
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