An Iowa Republican State Senator is using this primary election day to change his political party affiliation, protesting the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
Northwest Iowa legislator David Johnson of Ocheyedan, who has served 18-years in Iowa’s legislature, issued a blistering statement after changing his voter registration to “no party.”
Senator Johnson’s statement says “mark me down as never Trump, and at the same time, never Clinton”.
He calls Trump’s statements concerning the Mexican heritage of a federal judge the last straw prompting his decision, though he doesn’t yet know how it’ll affect him politically.
“But how do you stop a bigot? You’ve got to stop him or her in their tracks,” he says. “That’s what I was thinking here. I might be a humble state senator from northwest Iowa. I represent the third most Republican district, Senate district in the state, but I cannot tolerate this. Somebody has to make a statement.”
Johnson says his new, no-party status will be unchanged until he sees what happens at next month’s Republican National Convention.
“It seems that everyone is using the strongest language they can to condemn his remarks about somebody who is an American, who is a judge, but calls into question his Mexican heritage, that they’ll still support him. That makes no sense to me. That’s shear insanity,” Johnson says.