HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – In the 36 hours following last week’s deadly uprising at the U.S. Capitol, 112 Republicans arrived at the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania election office to change the party’s record. Ethan Demme was one of them.
“Ever since they started denying the election result, I knew it was going that way,” said Demme, the former president of the county’s Republican party that has opposed President Donald Trump and is now independent. “If they continued, I knew there was no way forward. But if you’ve been a Republican all your life, it’s hard to jump from one big boat to a small boat. “
Officials see similar scenes unfolding elsewhere.
In Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, 192 people have changed party records since the Jan. 6 riot. Only 13 passed into the Republican Party; the other 179 became Democrats, independents or third parties, according to Bethany Salzarulo, the director of the polling station.
In Linn County, Iowa, home of Cedar Rapids, more than four dozen voters left their Republican party affiliations within 48 hours of the Capitol attack. Most did not go to any party, said election commissioner Joel Miller, although a small number took the very unusual step of completely canceling their registrations.
The party change is evident compared to the more than 74 million people who voted for Trump in November. And it’s unclear if they’re united in their motivations. Some may reject politics altogether, while others may leave a Republican party they fear will be less loyal to Trump.
But they offer a first sign of the volatility the Republican Party will have as the party prepares for the political consequences of the riots incited by Trump..
“I think there’s a palpable shift, from the president’s defense to‘ wow, that was a bridge too far, ”said Kirk Adams, a former Republican speaker in the Arizona House of Representatives.
Adams said he knew several people, including Trump supporters, who change records. He said it could be weeks or months before the full impact of the insurgency becomes clear.
“Minds change,” he said. “But you can’t go from one day to the next from ‘I think the president’s right and the election is being stolen’ to ‘I guess he’s been wrong about everything.'”
The party register does not always predict how voters will vote, especially when the next major national elections are almost two years away. But party leaders across the country are expressing concern that the riots could have a lasting impact.
The Republican Party cannot afford to slip into its ranks after an election that, even with record-breaking Republican turnout, saw them lose control of both the U.S. presidency and Senate.
“I’ve seen more and more of my party in this state and our numbers are dwindling,” said Gary Eichelberger, a commissioner in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. “If we reduce the party base, we will lose this county.”
Washington Republicans approach the moment with caution, denounce the insurgency, and offer little defense to Trump. But so far, few have joined the Democratic calls for the removal of the president and immediate removal.
Only two Senate Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania, have called on Trump to resign.
Several Republican Party officials said there was some unease over the party leadership at the RNC winter meeting on Amelia Island, Florida, which took place a few days after the attack. According to Henry Barbour, a member of the Mississippi RNC, Henry Barbour, a member of the RNC, is holding serious talks in committee to conduct a thorough look at the 2020 election results to determine what the party did wrong and how to appeal. better to voters.
But Trump still has a strip of stripes from the Republican Party base.
A Quinnipiac poll released Monday found that about three-quarters of Republicans believe Trump’s false claims that there was widespread election fraud in the November election, which is what triggered the attack on the Capitol after Trump urged a crowd of supporters to go to Congress as he was to certify the victory of President-elect Joe Biden.
Overall, 7 out of 10 Republicans approved of Trump’s performance as president, compared to 89% of Quinnipiac’s December poll.
“When you love President Trump, you love President Trump,” said Michele Fiore, a Nevada RNC commissioner. “We wholeheartedly support him. We know that it did not create the chaos that happened in Washington, DC, on January 6. ”
Rae Chornenky, who resigned as president of the Maricopa County Republican Party in Arizona shortly after the election, amid a power struggle with those in the state party claiming widespread electoral fraud, said he believes the president he still has a hammer on the party bases.
“They just think it was a stolen election and they won’t withdraw that position,” Chornenky said. “He will be the engine” of the Republican Party for years to come, Chornenky predicted about Trump.
The midterm elections of 2022 can prove it. Former Rep. Ryan Costello is firmly considering running for the Pennsylvania Senate open presidency as a Republican. A longtime critic of Trump, he sees that the time is ripe for a candidate explicitly against the Republican Party Trump.
“We need people willing to lose careers, to lose political campaigns,” Costello said. “We need campaigns to clean up the party. Sometimes it is not possible to dance around land mines. Sometimes you just have to jump on it. ”
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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa, and Riccardi of Denver. Associated Press Summer Ballentine writers in Columbia, Missouri; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Hannah Fingerhut in Washington; Ryan J. Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; Steve Peoples in New York; and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.