Only four months after winning re-election as a longtime Democrat, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced that he was defecting to the Republican party. Before assuming office, Johnson served nearly a decade in the Texas Legislature as a Democrat — making his decision to switch parties all the more shocking.
On Friday, Johnson announced his decision in an 0p-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “Today I am changing my party affiliation,” wrote Johnson. “Next spring, I will be voting in the Republican primary. When my career in elected office ends in 2027 on the inauguration of my successor as mayor, I will leave office as a Republican.”
In his op-ed, Johnson says that he won 98.7% of the vote in his re-election. Although it’s worth noting that was when he was running as a registered Democrat in a county that President Joe Biden overwhelmingly carried. The mayoral position is technically non-partisan, but it’s hard to argue that running as a registered Democrat in a deep-blue county didn’t have some impact on the vote.
Johnson criticized Democratic leadership, arguing that Democratic mayors (of which he was one until a few hours ago) have allowed cities to crumble into “disarray” and lawlessness. Johnson also pats himself on the back for standing up against the defund the police movement.
Johnson paints a picture of Democratic Mayors that is wholly incongruent with the state of play in blue cities. New York City’s Democratic Mayor, Eric Adams, is literally a former cop. And D.C.’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser has fought tooth and nail to prevent criminal justice reforms from going into effect.
He isn’t the only southern Democrat to defect to the Republican party in a dramatic fashion. In July, Georgia State Representative Mesha Mainor announced that she was switching to the Republican. Mainor, who served in a deep-blue Atlanta district, defended her decision by arguing that she was pushed out of the Democratic party. Mainor was criticized by Georgia Democrats but welcomed with open arms by folks like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who applauded her decision to move parties.
As for Johnson, there will surely be a ton of backlash, but maybe, like Mainor, he’ll make some friends in his new party.
If you switch parties, it should be an automatic special election to be reelected.
I came to, apparently, agree with you. My exact thought.
This is clearly a trick to get into power, and we all know Republicans love power before anything else. Morals, the children, the budget, actual constitutionally protected rights, etc.
I don’t see why, people vote for the candidate not the party
And it’s fairly evident that parties aren’t a single voting block
I agree that people should be voting for person not color and doing so is quite the failing at most Americans consideration towards politics…
But unfortunately party lines does still in fact matter a lot. Nominations can still only be done by them and certain blanket funds go towards party specific nominees no matter what so he has essentially stolen money from people who donated to a party not person.
I’d say it should trigger a vote of confidence for the general populace but not necessarily immediately new elections and he may still be open to lawsuits if there was intent he knew what he was doing running in a party he didn’t agree with.
And here’s the mentality that comes with voting for teams. Government isn’t a team sport. Stop being the problem.
If you campaign as X for X.
Then as soon as you win, you change to Y.
Thats a fundamental fraud against the voters, and 100% deserves a special election… Especially since he could have easily changed his party BEFORE the election, or after his term was up.
Theres nothing tribal about it.
Changing parties doesn’t effect his policies
It doesn’t necessarily have to, but then you have someone like Trisha Cotham in NC who switched parties to give the GOP a veto-proof majority and has been voting with them in lockstep ever since.
If they weren’t planning on acting as Republicans they could just as easily become independents.
bullshit
So had he stayed D, he would in no way vote R?
Parties define policies, basically.
Do you feel as though him staying a D would have meant he would continue to vote D instead of just voting R?
Huh? He’s a mayor, not a senator. The only voting R/D he does is as a private citizen, just like us.
Mayors vote on city policies, which are unlabelled, but you can still categorise laws based on what they do.
I’ll rephrase for you
As mayor, do you think the way he votes will change based on the party he’s apart of
“voting”… ignoring your limited concept and moving on:
Do I think that changing parties will change the sort of people who will vote for him next election?
Yes.
Do I think that the sort of actions which would make him a favourable candidate to his voters are different to those of his previous voters?
Yes.
Do I think he will take those sorts of actions?
Logic dictates… yes.
I guarantee you it does.
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