OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A lifelong Democrat lawmaker and his wife has left the Democrat Party amid, what he believes, is growing antisemitism within its ranks.
Dov Hikind, who served three decades in the New York State Assembly as a Democrat, announced this week that he was leaving the Party and joining the Republican Party, Fox News reported.
“It’s official: My wife and I have switched our party affiliation from Democrat to Republican!” Hikind, who also founded Americans Against Antisemitism, said on Twitter.
“[People] have long been asking, ‘Dov, when are you gonna leave the Democratic Party?’ Well, the time has come [because] the Dems have turned their back on Jews & Israel, so it’s officially done!”
He and his wife sat together in the video as they explained their decision.
“I have been a lifelong Democrat — my family, my parents. But that’s over. That’s finished,” the former Assemblyman said. “I have decided to register as a Republican. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has become so radicalized … that people who are moderates or conservative Democrats are not welcomed in the Democratic Party, and I’ve had enough.”
“I am delighted to join the Republican Party,” he said. “This is about sending a message — a message to the Biden administration, a message to the Democratic Party. We’re losing the American people because you are not representing our values. You are not representing the Democratic Party that my parents were so proud of.”
Hikind joins another Democrat who left the Party this month.
A Georgia Democrat who infuriated members of her party after she supported a GOP-led school choice bill recently has announced she is switching to the Republican Party after taking heaps of abuse.
“Mesha Mainor – a Democrat who has represented District 56 in the Georgia state House since January 2021 – will announce shortly before noon Tuesday that she will switch her party registration to Republican,” Fox News reported exclusively.
She told the network: “When I decided to stand up on behalf of disadvantaged children in support of school choice, my Democrat colleagues didn’t stand by me. 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.”
“For far too long, the Democrat Party has gotten away with using and abusing the black community,” she noted further. “For decades, the Democrat Party has received the support of more than 90 percent 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.”
Mainor also made it clear that she’ll continue to work across party lines after she makes the switch to the GOP, saying she has “never hesitated to work across the aisle to deliver results for my community and the people I was elected to represent. And that won’t change.”
Mainor added that she’s “been met with much encouragement” regarding her decision to switch parties and said she feels it’s “humbling to be embraced – for the first time in a long time – by individuals who don’t find fault in a black woman having a mind of her own and be willing to buck the party line.”
Asked if she believes she will get pushback from Democrats, she responded: “The most dangerous thing to the Democrat Party is a black person with a mind of their own. So, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
She explained that her priorities after switching parties would be to continue focusing on education as well as expanding the GOP majority in the state legislature.
“Education and the importance of school choice has been – and will continue to be – a key focus of mine,” she told Fox News. “But outside of education, I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Georgia General Assembly to tackle the most pressing issues facing our state and to help grow the Republican Party, helping us not focus not just on preaching to the choir but growing the congregation.”
