A Republican state senator from Utah said Monday he is leaving the Republican Party after the GOP convention last week failed to convince him to stick around.
“Every decision and inclination I had before was reinforced,” Mark Madsen told a press conference Monday, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. “No party is entitled to my membership or my support.”
Madsen, a Utah delegate to the Republican National Convention, said he went in support of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. The failure of Utah to work to deny Donald Trump’s presidential nomination reinforced his decision to leave the GOP, he said.
Madsen is retiring at the year’s end after three terms, and said he will become a Libertarian. The switch is “largely symbolic,” he explained.
He becomes the first sitting Utah lawmaker to leave his party since 2002, when Rep. Eric Hutchings switched from Democrat to Republican.
Madsen indicated the move has been a long coming. He said he often finds himself at odds with other Republicans in Utah’s legislature.
State GOP legislation has led to a population that is “less free,” Madsen said, adding that the current direction of the party “makes me want to cry.”
