After 35 unbroken years as a loyal member of Grand Old Party, GOP, {Republican}, an Iowa’s longest-serving lawmaker, Andy McKean, has joined the Democrat Party.
Coming just ahead of US presidential election, Mckean, who revealed this on Tuesday, stated that he took the painful decision because of President Donald Trump, who he described as a “a poor example for the nation and particularly for our children.”
Mckean has served in both Iowa’s Senate and House chambers.
“With the 2020 president election looming on the horizon, I feel as a Republican that I need to be able to support the standard bearer of our party. Unfortunately, that is not something I am able to do,” McKean said at a news conference.
“He sets, in my opinion, a poor example for the nation and particularly for our children by personally insulting — often in a crude and juvenile fashion — those who disagree with him, being a bully at a time when we we are attempting to discourage bullying, his frequent disregard for the truth and his willingness to ridicule or marginalize people for their appearance, ethnicity or disability,” McKean said.
McKean’s explanation speaks to the political challenges facing some Republicans across the nation about whether to stand with a President who has brazenly disregarded the traditional norms of decorum that for centuries have defined the office.
His defection also comes soon after the release of a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election revealed a President and administration that frequently lie on an array of matters.
McKean’s district sits in two rural, blue-collar counties in Iowa — Jones and Jackson. Because Iowa is both a perennial swing state and a battleground state, it is often used as a litmus test for the direction both parties are moving . Though Trump has only one announced Republican challenger, Iowa could be an important state for the President to win in the general election.
McKean’s defection puts the Democrats four seats away from taking control of the Iowa House, according to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
“I believe that it is just a matter of time before our party pays a heavy price for President Trump’s reckless spending and shortsighted financial policies, his erratic, destabilizing foreign policy and his disregard for environmental concerns,” McKean added.
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