GOP Renegades Have History of Backing Dems
By John Gizzi
Wednesday, 12 May 2021 09:18 AM
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As Republican U.S. Representatives were poised to replace Liz Cheney as chairman of the House GOP Conference, both politicians and pundits were waking up to the news Wednesday morning that 100 former Republican officials were poised to leave the party.
Making little secret that their animosity was aimed at Donald Trump, the "Gang of 100" plan to release a statement Thursday announcing their break with the GOP.
"When in our democratic republic, forces of conspiracy, division, and despotism arise, it is the patriotic duty of citizens to act collectively in defense of liberty and justice," reads the preamble to the full statement, according to The New York Times.
Rarely mentioned is that a good number of these former Republican officials have supported Democrats for a while.
Both former Bush Cabinet Members Tom Ridge and Mary Peters, for example, were high-profile "Republicans for Biden" in 2020. Ridge, former secretary of Homeland Security and governor of Pennsylvania, made it clear in 2016 he wasn’t going to vote for the Trump-Pence ticket.
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