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A notable Republican judge and politician in Hamilton County, Ohio, has announced she is leaving the party while placing a “big part” of the blame on former President Donald Trump.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Leslie Ghiz said Trump played “a big part of it” as she struggled to figure out which party she wanted to run on or whether she even wants to seek reelection at all, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
“Ghiz, who had been a Republican during her previous runs for Cincinnati City Council and judge, tried to get the endorsement of the Hamilton County Democratic Party for her reelection campaign in 2024,” the outlet reported. “The Hamilton County Democrats declined this month to endorse her, according to Ghiz and Hamilton County Democratic Chair Gwen McFarlin. Neither Ghiz nor McFarlin gave a reason for why they didn’t endorse her.”
She will now consider running independently of both major parties, the paper said.
“I was assessing on where I stood on matters and I feel like I didn’t have a home one way or the other,” Ghiz told The Enquirer Tuesday, one day after withdrawing her petition to run as a Democrat.
Ghiz did not want to provide many specifics about why she left the GOP, but she did tell the Enquirer that Trump was “a big part of it.”
“I’m not going to go into that,” she told the outlet. “I’ve got too much going on to let him spoil my day.”
She also described her politics as “middle of the road,” adding: “I’m trying to figure out where I fit right now.”
The deadline to file as a Democrat or Republican in Hamilton County, which is trending blue, is Wednesday. To file as an independent, Ghiz has until March 18 to file.
“So I don’t really know, at this point,” Ghiz said. “I’m looking over independent, what the options are with that, and that kind of thing. And I’ve got time. I don’t have to make a decision right this second.”
Meanwhile, on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday, a lifelong Democrat-turned-independent voter said she recently left the party over Biden’s “lack of understanding” of American voters, going on to say that for now, she plans to vote for Trump.
“I’m very dissatisfied with the current president,” Barbara Tulko told the program. “I was a lifelong Democrat and recently changed to independent because I have found that every time I try to go to the grocery store, it costs me more money. I’m a little afraid about what’s going on with our border. I’m kind of concerned about it.
“I live within five minutes from New York City, and I’m actually kind of afraid to go there. And I think a lot of it has to do with his lack of understanding of what’s really important to the American people. He’s busy worrying about what’s going on in other places,” she added.
Fox News noted further: Only one-third of Americans gave Biden a thumbs up on the job he is doing in the White House, according to a new national public opinion survey. The president stands at 34% approval in a Monmouth University poll released on Monday, with 61% giving Biden a thumbs down on his job performance.
The president’s approval is at an all-time low in Monmouth polling since Biden took over the White House nearly three years ago. Americans questioned in the survey gave the president particularly low marks for his handling of immigration (26%) and inflation (28%).
For much of his term, Biden out-polled Trump in a potential rematch of their 2020 battle, but that has steadily changed over the course of the past several months as Biden’s approval rating tanked amid rising prices for food, gasoline, energy, and housing.
