GEORGIA LT. GOV DUNCAN LEAVES trump's REPUBLICAN PARTY & JOINS DEMOCRATS
By David Moye
Aug 5, 2025, 05:05 PM EDT
|Updated 11 hours ago
A former Republican politician just made a decision that will surely piss off President Donald Trump.
Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan announced on Tuesday that he has left the GOP and officially joined the Democratic Party.
Duncan, who served as lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2023, made the announcement official in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed headlined “From Republican Lt. Governor To Democrat: Loving My Neighbor Is Easier Now.”
In the piece, Duncan said that the switch was a long time coming, starting “well before” Trump “tried to steal the 2020 election in Georgia,” but he admitted there wasn’t any “date on a calendar or line in the sand that points to the exact moment in time” he made up his mind to become a Democrat.
Duncan said his decision was “centered around my daily struggle to love my neighbor, as a Republican.”
Although Duncan said “there will never be a shortage of people or places to exercise the time-tested approach of loving your neighbor, regardless of race, religion, lifestyle or immigration status,” he wrote that recent decisions by his former party to cut SNAP benefits and slash Medicaid funding go against his Christian faith.
“Any state-led expansion of Medicaid now will be complicated and expensive given the current dynamics,” Duncan said. “Nobody ever said loving your neighbor was going to be easy or cheap, just worth it.”
Duncan also criticized Republican immigration policies, saying they have “turned into a lesson on how not to love your neighbor.”
He added:
“Ordering military style raids on undocumented but law-abiding families for the sole purpose of creating a feeding frenzy on social media is the epitome of heartless, not to mention pointless.”
The White House did not immediately reply to HuffPost’s request for comment on Duncan’s party switch.
While Duncan told Atlanta PBS affiliate WABE that he expects some Republican pushback, but hopes it’s friendly.
Meanwhile, he said Democrats have welcomed him to the party, and admitted he’s willing to consider running for office again.
“I have been receiving phone calls and conversations and cups of coffee from Democrats, independents and even some common sense Republicans who are sick and tired of watching not only the direction of this party, but this country — encouraging me to look into seeking higher office. And it’s something I’ll seriously consider,” Duncan said.
“If Georgia wants to elect somebody that wants to come into the office every day and make a difference, build consensus and turn chaos into conversations, then it’s something I’ll certainly entertain,” he added.
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