Mike Pence’s former aide, Georgia’s ousted lieutenant governor and ex-husband of Kellyanne Conway have defected from the Republican Party. They are now running for Congress as Democrats.
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A former aide to Vice President Mike Pence announced his candidacy for Congress earlier this week, testing whether Democratic primary voters will support President Trump’s House seat.
Eagle-eyed cable news viewers may know Olivia Troy, who now spends her days as a TV commentator scolding President Donald Trump. Troy announced his candidacy in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District on April 14th. Troy will face a crowded field of candidates, including Dorothy McAuliffe, the state’s former first lady.
Mr. Troy left Mr. Trump’s orbit five years ago and became a television commentator. She left the White House for the first time in 2020 during the first Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus, and spoke about her rationale on “The View,” which has become a hotbed of hostility between China and Trump.
“Too many families are struggling to make ends meet while Washington turns a blind eye,” Troy said in an announcement video. “I don’t do it because that’s not how I live,” said Troy, who grew up in a border town in Texas, the daughter of a truck driver and Mexican immigrants.
Troy is one of the few Democratic candidates in the United States who has a past relationship with Trump and has campaigned on an anti-Trump platform. The candidates include former Georgia lieutenant governor Jeff Duncan, who is currently running for governor, and George Conway, the ex-husband of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway.
Will partisan change succeed in the Trump era?
Party switching has long been a part of American politics, but it remains to be seen how effective switching of that nature will be in the Trump era. Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist left the Republican Party and became a Democrat in 2012.
After switching parties, he lost to Republican Sen. Rick Scott in the 2014 gubernatorial election, but served three terms as a Democrat from 2017 to 2022. Later that year, he lost the gubernatorial race to current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley registered as an independent earlier this year and faces a tougher situation for his former party in California’s redistricting. Former Arizona state senator Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic Party and became an independent.
She did not seek re-election and was replaced by Sen. Ruben Gallego.
Duncan, a former lieutenant governor of Georgia, has faced criticism in the Georgia gubernatorial race for her past opposition to abortion access from groups such as Emily’s List, the nation’s largest network focused on electing Democratic women. The group criticized his “anti-abortion record” on its website and claimed he helped pass Georgia’s controversial six-week abortion ban in November 2022.
George Conway told CNN that in 2016, his ex-wife, who was Trump’s chief press secretary during his first term, was “crying with joy” after successfully leading the campaign of the first woman to win the White House, but “never realized how bad this guy was going to be, how bad it was going to be.” Conway is in a crowded field of candidates to replace U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York’s 12th District. The race also includes John F. Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg.
“I was a Republican, but in 2018 I realized that the Republican Party had become a cult of personality and that I could no longer stand for what I had stood for for years,” Conway said.
However, it is Troy who can distance himself the most from Mr. Trump. In her announcement video, she claimed to have voted for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, saying, “But even after Trump won, I continued to go to work.”
“Because serving your country shouldn’t be partisan,” Troy continued. “The evil I saw in the White House was astonishing. In 2020, I finally said enough.” Whether this message works remains to be seen.
