SACRAMENTO, California – A moderate Democratic congresswoman from California announced her switch to the Republican Party on Thursday, while criticizing the leadership and policies of her former party.
State Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil said she has been a Democrat for a long time, but since her election in 2022, she and the Democratic Party no longer share the same values.
“Over the last two years of serving in the Senate, I have not recognized the party I belong to,” Alvarado-Gil said in a statement on “The Steve Hilton Show,” a YouTube series hosted by a former Fox News host and political adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron. “The Democratic Party is not the party I joined decades ago.”
Alvarado-Gil represents a mostly rural district northeast of the Central Valley. She said Democratic Party policies are hurting California’s middle class and children and are pushing the state in the wrong direction.
“It is not a very popular decision to leave a party with a two-thirds majority where you may have much more power and opportunities,” she said.
She adds: “But this is a decision that is right for the voters who voted me in office.”
Alvarado-Gil is known for her support of a tough-on-crime approach and her fiscal conservative views. She has also voted with Republicans on labor legislation.
“It takes courage to stand up against the overwhelming majority in California, and Marie has what it takes,” Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones said in a statement. “Her record of fighting crime, protecting communities from sexually violent predators and prioritizing her constituents speaks for itself.”
Their defection gives Republicans nine votes in the 40-member Senate, which is still far below the majority they need to control the chamber. Democrats have a two-thirds majority in both the Assembly and the Senate in the Capitol.
State Senate President pro tempore Mike McGuire said her decision was “disappointing to the voters” who elected her in 2022.
“They trusted her to represent them and she abused that trust,” he said in a statement.
He added: “One bright spot is that MAGA Republicans are gaining a colleague who is pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ+ rights and anti-Trump. We wish her the best of luck.”
Alvarado-Gil, who represents a conservative-leaning district, won her 2022 election by more than 5 points against a progressive Democrat after the duo defeated six Republican candidates in the primary. Her district has become slightly more Republican since 2022, with Republicans making up nearly 39% of registered voters in 2024, while Democrats make up 34%.
Alvarado-Gil will not be up for re-election until 2026.
In California’s history, 273 lawmakers have switched parties during their term, and it’s even rarer for a member of the majority party to defect to another party, said Alex Vassar, historian at the California State Library. The most recent example was when former state Rep. Dominic Cortese left the Democratic Party in 1995 to join Ross Perot’s Reform Party.
