Lifelong Democrat Bails On Party, Says It Makes Him ‘Sick’
During a segment of C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Friday, a caller from Oklahoma who identified himself as a 78-year-old lifelong Democrat said he had finally reached his breaking point after voting for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 purely out of party loyalty.
“I’ve been a Democrat all my life. I’m 78 — and my folks were too — but this party has changed so damn much,” he said.
“It makes me sick. I’m going to move out of it. It’s terrible. Schumer, he needs to be in a home. Take Pelosi with him.”
His remarks come as Democratic Party favorability has dropped to just 34.7 percent, according to the RealClearPolling average, signaling deep grassroots dissatisfaction.
The caller said he voted for Harris not because he supported her, but because “that’s what Democrats did.” Now, he said, he’s done.
He is not alone.
Earlier this week, another caller — this one from Pennsylvania — told Washington Journal she would no longer vote for Democrats at all, even though she plans to stay registered.
“I have a problem with my party, and I’m not going to change my party. I just won’t vote for a Democrat,” she said, citing anger over the shutdown, which began after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) led Senate Democrats to block a bipartisan funding bill on October 1.
This trend has been building for months. In an August segment, multiple Democratic voters called into the same program to express disillusionment, citing the party’s leftward lurch, fixation on attacking President Donald J. Trump, and embrace of overtly socialist candidates.
One caller summed it up bluntly:
“I’m registered Democrat, but I hate my party… Democrats have had terrible policies.”
He continued:
“And now we have the rise of the so-called progressives. They’re really regressives. People like the Squad and [Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez and now [Zohran] Mamdani… he’s a proven socialist and Marxist as well as an antisemite.”
Mamdani is currently leading in polling to take the New York mayoral office — a sign of just how far left urban Democrats have shifted.
Meanwhile, voter rolls reflect the exodus. A New York Times analysis shows that between 2020 and 2024, Democrats lost roughly 2.1 million registered voters, while Republicans gained nearly 2.4 million.
Even major labor leadership is distancing itself.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien stood outside the White House on Thursday — alongside Vice President JD Vance and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy — urging Senate Democrats to stop using workers as leverage.
“Pass a clean CR, get to the table, negotiate a deal. Do not put working people in the middle of a problem. They should not be in there,” O’Brien said.
He emphasized that the shutdown is already hurting working families:
“Think about when you can’t pay your mortgage. Think about when you can’t pay your tuition.”
As Democrats continue to stall, it’s becoming clearer who is actually paying the price — and which party voters are beginning to walk away from.