Charleston, West Virginia Mayor Danny Jones has changed his party registration from “Republican” to “independent”, according to this story. He has been elected Mayor four times in partisan elections. The last re-election for him was in 2015. He says he will not run for yet another term in the future. He also says he expects to vote for Gary Johnson in November.
Hmmm. Will the Elephants magically disappear like the Whigs in the 1850s ??? —
due to the *leader* Trump ??? Stay tuned.
West Virginia was one of a handful of states that voted Democratic for President in the Reagan landslide of 1980. It was one of only ten states that voted for Democrat Michael Dukakis against George H.W. Bush in 1988. It voted Democratic for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Starting in 2000, it has been a reliably red state which the Democrats haven’t bothered to contest in presidential elections.
This mayor is kind of an outlier in that he was a Republican as far back as 1971 in what was then a heavily Democratic state and city. Through the 1980s and 1990s and 2000s, many Democratic elected officials in Southern and border states switched to the Republican party, which became overwhelmingly dominant in federal elections. In West Virginia, many Democrats haven’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in a generation.
That the mayor is leaving the Republican party is perhaps a harbinger of the future. Or it may simply be the effect of having such a weird and distasteful Republican candidate for President this year. Time will tell.
Anti-gun crybaby Danny Jones should change it to Democrat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brwewb3WaaQ