Florida state legislator Susan Valdes has announced that she is leaving the Democratic Party and joining the GOP, provoking outrage from the Left.
Valdes’s switch adds to the Republicans’ supermajority in Tallahassee.
After winning re-election last month as a Democrat, Valdes said in a statement announcing her decision that she no longer wants to be with the “party of protesting.”
Her move leaves Florida Republicans with their largest-ever supermajority of 86-34 supermajority.
Valdes’s move is another blow to Democrats in a former swing state.
In recent years, Florida has shifted significantly to the right.
President Donald Trump won Florida by a monster, double-digit margin in last month’s election.
The victory saw Trump reclaim the presidency with a broad, multi-demographic coalition supporting him.
This month, Trump had a street officially named after him in Miami-Dade County.
Trump flipped the county red for the first time since the 1980s.
In a post on X, Valdes said she comes from a family of Democrats.
She asserted that she had long believed the party fought for the working class.
However, she has now changed her mind.
She slammed her fellow Democrats as close-minded, echoing critics who blame progressive intolerance for the party’s shellacking in November.
“I’m tired of being the party of protesting when I got into politics to be part of the party of progress,” Valdes wrote in her statement.
“I know that I won’t agree with my fellow Republican House members on every issue, but I know that in their caucus, I will be welcomed and treated with respect.
“In the House, I have long known that no one has a monopoly on good ideas,” Valdes wrote.
“I will not waste my final two years in the Florida Legislature being ignored in a caucus whose leadership expects me to ignore the needs of my community.”
See statement below… pic.twitter.com/JUVhsziSL7
— Susan L. Valdés (@SusanLValdesFL) December 9, 2024
Republicans embraced Valdez’s move.
Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis wrote, “Welcome to the GOP, Rep. Valdez.”
But Democrats like Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith accused her of being an opportunist.
“To be clear— her community re-elected her as a Democrat, just to get that straight,” Smith said.
“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for everything…
“And only a few days ago, she lost a leadership race for the Democratic Party to be the local chair.”
Democrats are just proving her point, however.
If Democrats want to rebuild their party, they will have to stop attacking everyone who disagrees with them.
