Rep. Charlie Conrad said primary election results, Trump’s dominance drove him from the party.
Though his core beliefs haven’t changed, Conrad said the primary made clear his version of moderate Republican politics doesn’t represent the majority of Republican voters in his rural Lane County district. Just less than 1,400 of the more than 8,000 Republican voters who cast ballots in the 12th House District voted for him.
“If I’m not going to represent their voices as a Republican, then I’m not going to fight for it,” Conrad told the Capital Chronicle. “I’m not going to fight for Trump. I’m not going to fight to adhere to that party. As I see it, I don’t represent the party, but I still represent my district, and it’s more important that I represent the district. For me, it’s always been people come first, and then the policies, and the party politics are third.”
“I cannot support Trump,” Conrad said. “I mean, he is now a convicted felon, he is a rapist and he’s an insurrectionist. Regardless of what some folks think about the merits of his policies, his character is abhorrent, and he is absolutely everything that is antithetical to the Constitution – protecting liberties, protecting people, and everything that the framers fought for against the monarch. And now the MAGA folks want to go back to authoritarianism. I cannot support that at all.”
Best in Moderation