A Florida State Representative has become the latest disaffected Democrat to join the Republican Party.
Susan Valdes, a Cuban-American who recently won re-election in her constituency in West Tampa, wrote in a post on the X platform that she felt ignored by the Democratic caucus and that only by joining the Republican Party could she get her ideas across.
She explained:
I have spent my adult life fighting to give a voice to the people of my West Tampa home. I have done so as a Democrat partly out of habit – I come from a family of Democrats – and partly because I believed the Democrats were the party most concerned with the working families I represent.
In the House, I have long known that no one has a monopoly on good ideas. 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…