Another One: A Blue-to-Red Party Flip, This Time In...

In case you missed it, earlier in the week, a formerly-Democratic member of the Florida state legislature announced she was bolting from her party and joining the GOP. Susan Valdez of West Tampa announced her decision Monday, stated that she'd grown "tired of being the party of protesting when I got into politics to be part of the party of progress. I know that I won't agree with my fellow Republican House members on every issue, but I know that in their caucus, I will be welcomed and treated with respect." Valdes does not have a conservative voting record, to put it mildly, but we'll see if that changes in the days to come. Regardless, she clearly decided remaining a Democrat was a dead end in her state and for her constituents, so she made the jump.

Perhaps she also did the math and saw some writing on the wall:

Notably, over Valdés’ time in office, Hillsborough County has shifted increasingly Republican. More voters there backed Republican Donald Trump for President in November than supported Democrat Kamala Harris, four years after Democrat Joe Biden received more votes in the county. According to MCI Maps’ Matt Isbell, Valdés’ House District 64 was one of a small number of legislative districts in which a Democrat was elected, but a majority of voters supported Trump over Harris...The House website listing Representatives has already been updated to reflect Valdés will caucus with Republicans. Valdés’ departure leaves just 34 Democrats in the 120-member Florida House of Representatives. The Republican supermajority now sits at 86 members, a net increase of two seats since before the General Election.

As the story notes, it is pretty wild that the Florida GOP somehow increased its lower chamber super-majority, even beyond the massive red wave that swept Democrats away in 2022. Then again, Donald Trump carried Florida by a wider margin that Harris won New York, so it was that sort of year. Another red state that got redder in 2024 was Texas, where Democrats' dreams of flipping it blue crashed and burned this past cycle. Trump won Texas by 14 points, with Sen. Ted Cruz winning re-election relatively handily in the process. Some heavily-Hispanic areas of the state swung significantly to the right, as we've mentioned previously. One of those jurisdictions features another D-to-R defection:

New: Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, elected nearly a decade ago as the top executive of the border county that includes Laredo, announced Tuesday that he is switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. https://t.co/uEw4DqToKx
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) December 10, 2024

Tijerina explained his reasoning on Fox & Friends yesterday:

After much thought, prayer, and conversations with my family and friends, I have made the decision to switch to the Republican party.

Our shared values here in South Texas — hard work, faith, family, and freedom — are no longer pillars in the Democrat party and I want to be… pic.twitter.com/OJzGT0uVW1
— Judge Tano Tijerina (@JudgeTano) December 10, 2024

One wonders if a guy like this -- and we've seen others in Texas doing the same in recent months -- might have seen how his former party operates and decided there wasn't really much of a future there: