President Ronald Reagan’s quip, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me,” resonates with many longtime Democrats who no longer recognize their party. For me, a lifelong Democrat now running for Manhattan district attorney as a Republican, this shift reflects the party’s leftward lurch, its embrace of extremism, and its alienation of working-class voters. Polls reflect this discontent, with Democrats’ approval ratings hitting historic lows of 27%.
I was stunned in 2016 when I learned that some of my fellow Bernie Sanders supporters voted for Donald Trump after the bruising primary with Hillary Clinton. To me, a pro-choice feminist and Manhattanite, Trump was unthinkable. I voted for Clinton. Yet eight years later, I cast my first Republican presidential vote, drawn by policies such as securing the southern border, protecting female athletes by acknowledging biological sex, and the promise, now fulfilled, of appointing credible figures such as Jay Bhattacharya to the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya, like the “open schools moms” I campaigned with, was right about the harms and futility of COVID-19 school closures.
