Trump-Endorsed Congressman Ditches Republican Party

Four years ago, Donald Trump praised a young California congressman, calling him a champion of the “MAGA” slogan, which helped him get elected to Congress. Today, that same politician has left the Republican Party.

Representative Kevin Kelly of California announced Monday, during a conference call with reporters, that he was leaving the Republican Party “immediately” to become an independent. Kelly, 41, explained that his decision was motivated by his “frustration with partisan bigotry.”

The California congressman, who is running for reelection this year, also refused to commit to voting for Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for the rest of his term.

“I don’t know if he would tell you I have been so far,” Kelly said, according to Axios.

Kelly, 41, officially announced his departure from the Republican Party on social media Friday, criticizing “partisan bigotry” and calling gerrymandering “a plague on democracy.”

“As an elected official, I have always considered my role to be to represent our community independently and to hold politicians in Sacramento and Washington accountable for their commitment to my constituents. I am accountable to you, not to party leaders,” Kelly wrote in a post on X, which had garnered nearly 600,000 views at the time of publication.

“This is the kind of representation I believe the redrawn Sixth District deserves.”

He continued: “I make no secret of my frustration, even disgust, with the excessive partisanship in Congress. Last year, it resulted in the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, a massive increase in healthcare costs, and, of course, the absurd gerrymandering war.” This gerrymandering epidemic has spread from Texas to California, and to other states across the country. And both parties are complicit.

Kelly added that political division has become a “serious problem” nationwide and called for greater unity, which he said is now “more important than ever.”

The congressman recently emerged as one of the few moderate Republicans in the House to distance himself from the 79-year-old Trump after the Republican Party abandoned him during last year’s partisan redistricting.

When California’s redistricting forced Kelly to run again in a traditionally Democratic district, he adopted a more centrist stance. Since then, he has helped draft bipartisan legislation to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies and has repeatedly criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson for adopting Trump’s ideas.

Previously, Kelly had made a name for himself in the state legislature as a fierce opponent of California Governor Gavin Newsom, earning him Trump’s respect.

“No one fought Gavin Newsom harder than Kevin,” Trump said in his endorsement, according to the Sacramento Bee. “He doesn’t wait for a confrontation, unlike the cowardly Republicans who let the extremists in Sacramento destroy California.” He then called him a “conservative hero of the California Capitol.”

Kelly’s departure from the president’s party narrows the gap in the House of Representatives, where Republicans currently hold only a slim two-seat majority. This comes as the Republican Party braces for potential losses in the upcoming midterm elections, with Trump’s popularity at a historic low.