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.
Time to recall
Exactly it should be illegal to change parties AFTER being elected as the another.
You know what two can play at this. See what happens if I run as a Republican for office get elected and then switch to a Democrat afterwards.
How long before Republicans outest me?
Fucking the Democratic party who back him and probably finance him should make part of the party creed that can’t just change parties like that after you won.
Right? Parties are just a way for people to try to guess how and if their elected officials are going to lead.
“I’m sorry, fairly-right-of-center Southern Democrats. You’re not quite evil enough for me anymore, I need to spread my wings.”
If you switch parties, it should be an automatic special election to be reelected.
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.
These people are so fucking selfish. You were hired as a public servant, you should serve the people who elected you
Maybe we shoukd vote for people’s platforms and not a political party. Rank choice perhaps…
I keep seeing this said on these sort of posts, like the average voter has anything to do with the voting system being used or has the power to change it. Those with the power to change would never change the voting method. They would almost assuredly gain nothing and lose almost everything.
This isn’t a direct rag in you, personally. I just don’t know how to expect the wolves to accept the addition of other predators in the hen house. Obviously, it takes a unified electorate to get change like this via elected officials with simple goals and they’ve spent the last several decades hyping up wedge issues for people to fight each other over that no one could ignore those things to vote and push for a change to the national voting method.
Just like the president not having the power that the electorate believes them to have, I’m just too cynical, now, to expect anything positive to change before I die of cancer from some shitty corporation that wants to cut corners to add some zeros to their bank accounts.
Another black Republican? WTF?
Seriously. I have no idea how you could be non-white and vote for these people.
I know the white working class has been fed a steady diet of fox propaganda for 30 years, but bipoc and lgptq? You’re not the target audience for the propaganda, and it should be pretty obvious how much they hate you.
A lot of older black people are super conservative, many are single issue voters. Sadly they will gladly vote for the side that hates them, so long as that side opposes abortions, or vaccines or whatever they are against this year.
No they’re not. Black people vote +90% for Democrats, even if they’re conservative. Years of hard experience has given them the ability to see through lots of bullshit.
The ones who vote Republican are always the craziest and most self-centered people. Ones who love tax cuts above everything. Herman Cain died of Covid and his family made him keep tweeting. How craven can you be?
Maybe its because people keep saying the Republicans hate them and then they come to find out that its not true. But also lots of minorities are very conservative in their beliefs. Plus Democrats and the left are very abrasive. Like saying the entire Republican party hates black people.
All these “gays for republicans” are really on the borderline of cognitive.
Wealth, probably. I would guess someone like that lives and works in a well-insulated bubble of whiteness that now feels like home to him. He now basically identifies as white, unless it’s convenient not to. The guy probably believes that racism is not a modern problem, bootstraps, etc.
