AP Photo/Alex Slitz “The most dangerous thing to the Democrat Party is a black person with a mind of their own.”
Those are the words of Rep. Mesha Mainor, the Georgia state representative for District 56 who announced Tuesday after months of being badgered by her Democratic colleagues for being insufficiently woke on education and public safety matters that she was switching to the Republican party:
“When I decided to stand up on behalf of disadvantaged children in support of school choice, my Democrat colleagues didn’t stand by me,” Mainor explained of her decision in a statement to Fox News Digital. “They crucified me. When I decided to stand up in support of safe communities and refused to support efforts to defund the police, they didn’t back me. They abandoned me.”On her Twitter feed, she reiterated her point about how the decision was a “moral one” for her while noting that she will “NEVER apologize for being a black woman with a mind of my own”:
“For far too long, the Democrat Party has gotten away with using and abusing the black community,” she added. “For decades, the Democrat Party has received the support of more than 90% of the black community. And what do we have to show for it? I represent a solidly blue district in the city of Atlanta. This isn’t a political decision for me. It’s a moral one.”
In the statement she issued, Mainor vowed not only to continue to help advance the issues she cared about but also to help the Republican party grow, “helping us not focus not just on preaching to the choir but growing the congregation.”
https://twitter.com/MeshaMainor/stat...-party-n774841
Later, Mainor used a line similar to one the late, great former President Ronald Reagan, also a former Democrat, once used to describe how the Democrat party left him:
https://twitter.com/MeshaMainor/stat...-party-n774841
In a follow-up video, Mainor addressed her district’s voters directly. “We have been on a journey together for two terms, and we’ve had some wins,” she stated. “But there is a better path, and we can do so much more. That is why today I am announcing that I am joining the Republican party”:
https://twitter.com/MeshaMainor/stat...-party-n774841
Mainor is not the first Democrat member of a southern state legislature to formally switch to the Republican party in 2023. State Rep. Tricia Cotham from North Carolina announced she was switching parties back in April, which was a pretty significant move considering it gave the GOP-controlled state legislature veto override power over Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper. Her district, like Mainor’s, is also reliably blue.
A similar situation also occurred earlier this year in Louisiana, where not one but two Democrat state reps switched parties, effectively giving Republicans there a super-majority.
I should also note that Mainor is not the first Georgia Democrat state lawmaker in recent memory to break from her party. Then-Democrat Rep. Vernon Jones famously endorsed then-President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020, and walked away from the party in January 2021. He officially became a Republican after completing his term in office.
