The phone calls that come to my office are often an interesting gauge of the political winds of the moment. This past week, they have been Republicans asking how to become Democrats in Ohio.
For the last 10+ years I’ve been the guy answering the phone at the Hamilton County Democratic Party (Cincinnati, OH). When I started Bush was still President. I’ve been through the elections of 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.
Over that all time nothing like this last week has ever happened.
When the the ACA passed we got lots of angry phone calls from conservatives, someone even tried to throw a rock through our window.
The most recent call today came from a guy in a rural County east of Cincinnati. He wanted to know how to become a Democrat, said he’d been a Republican all his life and voted for Trump. But now he’s disgusted. And he is not at all alone.
In Ohio that’s a simply a matter of voting in the next Democratic primary. That is the only way Party affiliation is determined in Ohio.
Polls still show a majority of self identified Republicans supporting Trump. What they don’t measure so well i how many people there are like him, who not so long ago called themselves Republicans but no longer do.
Sadly the gerrymandering of Ohio is so severe that even this may not be enough to change seats in Congress. But I suspect Republicans are noticing the same thing I am.