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Robert Garcia Flipped From Republican To Democrat… But I Don’t See Lisa Murkowski Doing Likewise



Democrats tend to treat party switchers very well. All Republicans welcome whether they bring their conservative baggage with them, like most of them do, or they are reborn as a progressive, like Elizabeth Warren. Not many are like Warren, but one who seems to be is California Congressman Robert Garcia. He was just elevated to ranking member of the House Oversight Committee— and by an overwhelming margin against 3 Democrats who were never Republicans. It’s possible that no one knew he had been a very active Republican operative until relatively recently. The NY Times reporter who wrote up the story about him winning didn’t mention it and probably didn’t know. I asked someone his closest buddies in Congress and not one of them knew either. 


He’s been an excellent Member of Congress, not Republican-lite at all. His ProgressivePunch score is a solid “A” (96.37%, in line with the Progressive Caucus members). And very outspoken on all the right issues, as well as on how unfit to be president Señor TACO is. He's also gone after Musk and Marjorie Traitor Greene. I never imagined he would turn out so well and I almost feel sorry for saying such awful things about him when he first ran (all true, but awful).


In general, I’m very suspicious about some Republican flipping registrations and wanting to run as a Democrat a week later. That doesn’t describe Garcia, who served as mayor of Long Beach as a Democrat. In any case… he’s proving himself now. And that brings us to independent-minded-but-conservative Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, serving her 5th term. She was gifted the seat from her father in 2002 when he was elected governor, quit the Senate and appointed her to serve the rest of his term.


For a Republican, she’s a “moderate,” but she’s very significantly to the right of the most right-wing Democrats from Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to Elissa Slotkin and John Fetterman. On the other hand, she voted against confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and in favor of confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson. She also voted to convict Señor TACO after he was impeached after the J-6 insurrection. The Alaska Republican Party censured her for that vote. No love lost there.


In 2010 she lost the GOP primary to Tea Party psychopath Joe Miller and ran in the general election as a write-in candidate— and won! Six years later Miller, running as a Libertarian, endorsed Trump for president, something Murkowski refused to do. She beat him. 


Trump helped recruit a Republican to challenge her in 2022, Kelly Tshibaka, who he endorsed— as did the state GOP. Murkowski beat her in both the first and final round of ranked choice voting. On Monday, she announced that if the Democrats had enough upsets to produce a 50—50 tie, she might decide to become an independent and caucus with them, the way Maine independent Angus King does. Asked about the switch, though, she said “My problem with your hypothetical is that as challenged as I think we may be on the Republican side, I don’t see the Democrats being much better. And they’ve got not only their share of problems, but quite honestly, they’ve got some policies that I just inherently disagree with.”


Besides, the only seats the Democrats could possibly flip, besides Maine, would be extremely difficult without a massive blue wave: Iowa, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Florida, South Carolina (and Nebraska, where Republican Pete Ricketts is being challenged by independent progressive populist Dan Osborn). Meanwhile, the Democrats will have their hands full defending Georgia, New Hampshire and Michigan.


Still, in light of the off-the-charts toxicity of the two major parties, it’s interesting to fantasize about a 2027 independent caucus— Angus King, Bernie, Dan Osborn, Lisa Murkowski… conceivably John Fetterman, Josh Hawley, maybe even Rand Paul and, if he manages to survive the primary, Bill Cassidy. As a caucus, they would absolutely control the Senate no matter which party was running it.

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