Ex-Democrat in Georgia said party to blame for crime, failing schools: 'Look around you'

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Ex-Democrat turned Republican blames former party for failing schools, high crime in her community

Georgia state Rep. Mesha Mainor told CNN she left the Democratic Party because of its opposition to school choice and supporting policies like 'defund the police.'

Georgia State Rep. Mesha Mainor said she chose to leave the Democratic Party after realizing they were responsible for the "problems in [her] community."

"Every single policy issue that is important to my community was a policy issue that the Republican Party was supporting," Mainor explained to CNN of her decision to officially switch her party registration to Republican earlier this month. "So, it’s not party. It’s really policy. Who is supporting my community?" she asked.

The lawmaker cited poor literacy and math skills in her district's public schools, blaming her former Democratic colleagues for "relentlessly" stonewalling her efforts to help minority families access better schools. 

"I tell people, ‘Look around you. The schools are failing. We have high crime. There is not a Republican in office, so we can’t blame Republicans. Democrats need to blame themselves for the problems in our community.' And I’m just trying to make a difference, honestly," Mainor said.

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Georgia State Rep. Mesha Mainor explains why she left Democratic Party on CNN. (Screenshot/CNN)

Mainor has represented District 56 in the Georgia House since January 2021. The lawmaker angered her former party after standing with Republicans in supporting a school choice bill last May. 

"It really is a policy issue. So if you are against children being able to have a choice when 97% of the kids don’t know how to read, that is a policy issue. If you want to defund the police, that is a policy issue. If you want to put prosecutors or systems above families that are seeking justice, that is a policy issue. So once my colleagues started putting up 1,000 dollar checks on social media for anybody to run against me, I did some self reflection and said, ‘okay, why is this happening?’ It is a policy issue," she told CNN.

"As a former Democrat, it was quite difficult to get things done if you have groups of people continuously and relentlessly trying to stop every single move that I did for my community," she explained.

Mainor said she made a "moral" decision to leave the Democratic Party, in her announcement earlier this month.

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Mainor previously explained to Fox News Digital that she was at odds with her party on education reform and believed Democrats were being "hypocritical" in not defending parents' rights and disadvantaged children.

"Why is no one fighting for young Black minds? Why isn't that one of the things that we're fighting for?" Mainor said, adding, "I actually say you're a hypocrite. That's what I tell them directly. You are being a hypocrite. There are state lawmakers right now where their children are in schools that they're not even zoned for… They're lying about their address, state lawmakers, but they won't vote for this bill."

"When I decided to stand up on behalf of disadvantaged children in support of school choice, my Democrat colleagues didn’t stand by me," Mainor elaborated after making the choice to leave her party.

Representative Mesha Mainor accused Democrats of turning against her for being a strong school-choice advocate.  (Mesha Mainor)

She added, "They crucified me. When I decided to stand up in support of safe communities and refused to support efforts to defund the police, they didn’t back me. They abandoned me."

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Fox News' David Rutz, Brian Flood, Kyle Morris contributed to this report.