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It feels like were living in the upside-down world, she said. Ocker feels that RINOs betrayed the president and wrongly blamed him for the riots, and she added that it was impossible that any Trump supporter could have committed violence that day.

Weve all been living a lie and been told a lie, she said.

She hasnt spoken with her parents, who are Biden supporters, since the election. They see her as a QAnon conspiracy theorist, she said, but she thinks of herself as a skeptic who does her own research. Now, she fears a civil war or, at the least, a generation-long rebuilding of conservative politics.

A partys got to implode, she said. I think thats whats happening to the Republican Party, a little bit.

Others are taking a pragmatic approach: Where will they be able to influence politics the most as Colorado stays blue?

Ive gotta tell you, the vast majority of my friends are laughing at me, that I switched over to Democrat. They think Im crazy, said Martin Lee Hussman, 45.

A well-connected resident of Alamosa, he was previously a registered Libertarian but voted for Trump in the most recent election. And as he watched the fallout of the riots, he decided that Democrats would hold power for the foreseeable future.

Honestly, I think the Republican Party is dead. I dont think theres going to be a Republican Party in the next couple years, said Hussman, a plumber.

Hussman figured that being registered as a Democrat would help him moderate the partys candidates. He plans to support people like Don Valdez, the Democrat who represents the area in the state House and has broken with his party on gun restrictions. But Hussman didnt feel very different after filling out the form.

Aw, hell, Hussman said. Its easy to switch back to something else if I dont like the way this ones going.

Denverite's Kevin J. Beaty performed the data analysis for this story.

Editor's Note: This story was updated to reflect the correct number of former Republicans who became unaffiliated.

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4600 Colorado Republicans Quit The Party After The US Capitol Insurrection - Colorado Public Radio

More than 30,000 voters who had been registered members of the Republican Party have changed their voter registration in the weeks after a mob of pro-Trump supporters attacked the Capitol an issue that led the House to impeach the former president for inciting the violence.

The massive wave of defections is a virtually unprecedented exodus that could spell trouble for a party that is trying to find its way after losing the presidential race and the Senate majority.

It could also represent the tip of a much larger iceberg: The 30,000 who have left the Republican Party reside in just a few states that report voter registration data, and information about voters switching between parties, on a weekly basis.

Voters switching parties is not unheard of, but the data show that in the first weeks of the year, far more Republicans have changed their voter registrations than Democrats. Many voters are changing their affiliation in key swing states that were at the heart of the battle for the White House and control of Congress.

Nearly 10,000 Pennsylvania voters dropped out of the Republican Party in the first 25 days of the year, according to the secretary of states office. About a third of them, 3,476, have registered as Democrats; the remaining two-thirds opted to register with another party or without any party affiliation.

By contrast, about a third as many Pennsylvania Democrats opted to either join the Republican Party (2,093 through Monday) or to register with no party or a minor party (1,184).

Almost 6,000 North Carolina voters have dropped their affiliation with the GOP. Nearly 5,000 Arizona voters are no longer registered Republicans. The number of defectors in Colorado stands north of 4,500 in the last few weeks. And 2,300 Maryland Republicansare now either unaffiliated or registered with the Democratic Party.

In all of those areas, the number of Democrats who left their party is a fraction of the number of Republican defectors.

Several local elections offices in Florida reported a surgein registration changes in the days after the assault on the Capitol. Two counties in the Miami area reported a combined 1,000 Republicans registering under other labels in just the two days after the Jan. 6 attack. In those same two days, only 96 Democrats switched parties.

Three counties in the Tampa Bay area reported more than 2,000 Republican voters registering under some other partys banner. In those same three counties Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas just 306 Democrats switched their affiliations.

So many voters switching parties absent a pending deadline has piqued the interest of elections experts. Most people tend to stick with the party with which they initially register, and those who do change are usually motivated by a looming primary election.

Usually, absent a primary election that would induce people to switch parties so that they could participate in that primary, you dont see much activity in party registration, said Michael McDonald, a voting and elections expert at the University of Florida.

Only a small handful of states report voter registration data on a weekly basis. Others report monthly activity, and many states do not report granular details about those who leave one party or the other. Once more states report party registration data, the true number of Republicans who have re-registered in recent weeks may prove to be much higher.

McDonald said those who would take the proactive step to change their registration are likely to be well-informed voters who both follow the news and are aware of the process by which they would change their actual registration.

These people who are doing this activity, they are likely very sophisticated voters. Theyre highly participatory, most likely, he said. If youre sophisticated enough to change your party registration, youre somebody whos likely to vote.

Some of the data suggests the Republican exodus is happening in the suburban counties where GOP candidates and former President TrumpDonald TrumpBiden reverses Trump last-minute attempt to freeze .4 billion of programs Trump announces new impeachment legal team after reported departures Republicans scramble to unify heading into next election cycle MORE struggled so much in both the 2018 and 2020 elections.

About a third of the Pennsylvania voters who dropped their affiliation with the Republican Party are registered to vote in Montgomery, Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties, the so-called Collar Counties outside of Philadelphia that once decided the balance of power in the Keystone State. Those counties have trended increasingly Democratic in recent years; President Biden won 58 percent of the vote in Chester County, the best performance ever recorded by a Democratic candidate there.

By contrast, Republicans picked up more former Democratic voters in places like Berks, Luzerne and Cambria counties, exurban and rural areas where Trump did better than previous Republican nominees.

Trump scored 68 percent of the vote in Cambria County, home of Johnstown and ancestral Democrats once represented in Congress by Rep. John Murtha (D). That tally was better than any previous Republican nominee, besting even the 66.5 percent Trump won there in 2016.

McDonald cautioned that the number of voters switching parties overall was relatively small the 10,000 Republicans who fled in Pennsylvania represents a tiny fraction of the partys almost 3.5 million registered voters in the state, for example. But the figures represent a reversal of registration trends that were taking place before Election Day.

Prior to the election, the trend was in the opposite direction, there were more Republicans that were registering, McDonald said. Its not just like its a little blip, its also a blip in a different direction than weve seen in previous years.

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Tens of thousands of voters drop Republican affiliation after Capitol riot | TheHill - The Hill

Its been less than a month since rightwing insurrectionists stormed the Capitol building in a deadly riot incited by the former president and his false claims of mass voter fraud. In the riots wake, many prominent Republicans have tried to distance themselves from the attackers and those who spurred them on. The mob was fed lies, said the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.

Those other powerful people were powerful members of the Republican party and leading voices in conservative media, who are now either claiming we simply need to move on for the sake of healing, or saying that actually, the riot was the lefts fault. But while some Republicans are positioning themselves as honest and reasonable by condemning the riot and recognizing that it was sparked by lies about voter fraud, their partys actions and policy priorities tell a very different story. Because as our nation remains rocked by an attack on the heart of our democracy, Republicans are using the same baseless lies that fueled it to push a staggering number of laws to scale back voting rights.

A new report from the Brennan Center for Justice shows just how effectively Republicans have been talking out of both sides of their mouths, at once decrying the violence over false allegations of election rigging, and at the same time using false allegations of voter fraud to make it harder for people to vote. In 2021 legislative sessions (which six states havent even yet begun), lawmakers in 28 states have pushed a whopping 106 bills that would restrict voting access and were not even a month into the year. According to the Brennan Center, thats three times the number of restrictive voting laws that were introduced by 3 February last year. These laws are clearly responsive to widespread conspiracy theories on the right conspiracy theories started by the Republican party and the former president.

Each one of these 106 bills aims to make voting harder, either by scaling back vote-by-mail, imposing stricter voter identification laws, limiting policies that successfully registered large numbers of voters, or allowing states to more easily and aggressively purge their voter rolls.

None of these laws actually correct an existing problem because, as we learned through a great many court cases brought by the Trump administration, there simply was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. And there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in elections before that one, either.

So why, then, would Republicans waste their time and taxpayer dollars so aggressively battling a problem that doesnt exist? Its because Republicans do have a voting problem or rather, a voter problem. Many of their policies arent actually that popular, and the more eligible voters turn out for elections, the less Republicans win. Their clearest path to staying in power is limiting the number of people who are able to cast a ballot and particularly limiting the number of Democrats: people of color (and Black people in particular), people in cities and college students. The sharper members of the Republican party rely on claims of election security and voter fraud to justify limiting what is perhaps the most sacred duty of any individual living in a democracy. The duller just flat-out admit that making it easier for people to vote would hurt the Republicans. Former president Donald Trump, for example, told Fox & Friends that Democratic appeals for wider use of absentee ballots and vote-by-mail would cause levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, youd never have a Republican elected in this country again.

Republicans trying to restrict voting rights is not new the conservative justices of the US supreme court even sided with them in overturning key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which is why so many new anti-voting laws have flooded the nation in recent years.

But the context after the Capitol riot is different: Republicans now cannot deny the serious, deadly and democracy-threatening costs of exploiting lies about voting fraud to the advantage of Republican politicians. And yet, across the nation, theyre choosing to do it anyway. Until they drop this dangerous farce and quit using the big election fraud lie to strip Americans of our right to vote, no one should believe a word they say about defending democracy, admonishing those who physically attacked it, or aspiring to national healing.

Its not all bad news on the voting front, though. Appalled by conservative malfeasance, newly emboldened by the success of mail-in voting during Covid, and heartened by hard-won wins in Georgia, more Democrats are latching on to what leaders and organizers like Stacey Abrams have been doing for years: fighting for expanded voting rights. Legislators in 35 states have introduced a total of 406 bills that would make voting easier for more people. The most common new laws seek to expand mail-in and early voting, methods of casting a ballot that enable far more people to participate in the democratic process people who are ill, elderly or disabled and find it challenging to vote in person; people who work demanding jobs, or several jobs, or jobs without predictable schedules, and dont get the first Tuesday in November off of work; people who are caring for small children or the elderly or the infirm and cant easily sneak away to stand in line for what can turn into hours. Other proposed laws would make it easier for citizens to register to vote, allowing same-day, online, or automatic registration so no one shows up on election day only to learn that, despite being a US citizen, they cant cast a ballot. And still other laws would allow people who have served time and paid their debt to society to regain their right to vote.

Its easy for anyone to say all the right things about valuing democracy, especially in the aftermath of a stunning attack on it. But words are free. The real question is what both parties are actually doing to strengthen American democracy and ensure that all American citizens have a say in our governance. And while Democrats are pushing for expansion, Republicans are using the same dangerous lies that caused an anti-democratic insurrection on 6 January in the service of their own anti-democratic policies. The visuals arent as shocking. But the damage to the nation is just as severe.

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Republicans are going all-out to limit voting rights. We know why - The Guardian

WASHINGTON Josh Holmes spent much of Wednesday in Washington watching the populist uprising over GameStop in the stock market with fascination and a growing sense of familiarity.

He has seen this movie before.

Holmes, president of the issue management firm Cavalry, is best known as the former chief of staff to former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Holmes has spent his career among the Republican establishment, which has spent the past five years getting steamrolled by the populist force of Trumpism a grassroots movement that stormed the ramparts of the GOP, ousted the establishment and remade the party in its image.

Almost no one in the party saw it coming. When it did, few of the establishment players understood just how vast the force was that suddenly lined up against them.

On Wednesday morning, as GameStop shares continued to surge, Holmes took to Twitter and typed out a simple message: "Wall Street, welcome to our world."

I called him to ask what he meant by that. "This is an event," he explained. "This is a social and economic moment in our society. There are a few times when you can definitely point to a moment and say society has changed, and this is one of them."

There are a few times when you can definitely point to a moment and say society has changed, and this is one of them.

Josh Holmes

former chief of staff to Sen. Mitch McConnell

There are scores of similarities between former President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement and the GameStop surge. There is a sense of fighting back against disrespect of the elites, belief that systemic rules have been written to benefit insiders at the expense of regular people, and new internet technologies that widely distribute power that was once held exclusively by a small group.

There's a healthy dose of skepticism of the media, and a belief in fake news. And both movements are inspired by viral memes funny, angry and engaging images depicting the movement as engaged in a heroic struggle.

Before the bell Thursday, GameStop shares briefly eclipsed a previously unthinkable $500, more than the share prices of Apple, Goldman Sachs and General Motors. After trading opened, the stock jumped more than 6% to about $370 a share. GameStop shares were worth about $40 a week ago.

The Reddit forum WallStreetBets on a smartphone arranged in Sydney, Australia, on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021.

Brent Lewin | Bloomberg | Getty Images

But the most important similarity is the bravado of the members of the movement. On a Reddit forum Wednesday, users cheered each other on, urging "Hold the line, boys!" and "buy and hold!"

One user, named "ishabwa," wrote "THE OLD GUARD IS HORRIFIED. BACKS AGAINST THE WALL. PAINTED INTO A CORNER. ITS ALL BECAUSE OF YOU." Another described this moment as the GameStop "revolution" and wrote: "This is our chance to stick it to those who never took us seriously. Either we forge economic history or loose it all, I'm willing to take this risk."

Scouring those same Reddit message boards, entrepreneur William LeGate felt like he had seen this happen before, too.

But he uses a different touchstone: Occupy Wall Street, the left-leaning anti-establishment movement that blossomed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

"This is Occupy Wall Street Part 2, but this time it is on their turf, and there are real financial consequences," he said. LeGate, who received a $100,000 Thiel fellowship to drop out of college and start a company when he was 18 years old in 2013, has been watching the WallStreetBets Reddit discussion for several years.

He said he is seeing increasing frustration and anger, which is exploding in the Covid pandemic era and it is bringing together the traditional political left and right.

"People were willing to take a risk on Trump and now they're willing to take a risk in the markets," he said. "A lot of people just want to see the world burn right now, and they're enjoying watching it happen."

He said he's already seeing people on the WallStreetBets Reddit page looking for new targets and there are two themes. First, they're looking for highly shorted stocks where big hedge funds might have a lot of leverage. And second, they're looking for nostalgia plays to bring back the companies from their youth. That's why Nokia, Blackberry and Blockbuster are all getting attention.

Wall Street investors are going to have to factor in a new set of risks. "The risk assessment that they're going to have to make is this: is this a meme-able stock that a bunch of kids on Reddit could hit and blow up the price?" LeGate said.

But what explains that nostalgic impulse in the midst of a revolution? It is the same emotion that animated the MAGA movement which, after all, stood for make America great, again. It is a desire to return to an earlier time that the members of the movement remember as better than today.

"There's a feeling I sense across society that people want to go back to a simpler time," LeGate said. "No one likes Covid. People don't feel the economy is fair. Everything looks better in hindsight."

And he argues that efforts to regulate trading will feel to Reddit traders more like suppression, and could fuel more anger.

"If someone on Main Street loses half their portfolio in a day, nothing's going to happen. But if a hedge fund does, they literally stop the trading," he said. "I myself question whether this is really about protecting the individual investor or protecting the hedge fund."

Holmes believes the key to understanding the power of this new movement is the gamification of investing melded with an anti-elite fervor. Sticking it to hedge funds and potentially making a lot of money is, simply, fun. And if you believe its also the right thing to do, and thrive on the engagement of a community of like-minded traders, so much the better.

Josh Holmes, chief of staff for presumptive Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., attends a rally at the airport in Bowling Green, Ky., November 3, 2014.

Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

"When things really get going is when the fun meets the purpose," Holmes said. "This is the perfect storm of those two."

His warning to Wall Street is: understand this. Be willing to scrutinize yourself. This not going away, and it is probably bigger than you think.

"People need to take the time to understand the social dynamics of this. What are the problems that have created this class of retail investor who seek to completely destroy your industry, and how do you remedy that?" Holmes said.

Holmes said he has spent the past decade watching American politics turned inside out. An earlier generation of politicians spent their time raising money at country club ballrooms from hundreds of donors writing $500 or $1,000 checks.

But now they spend their time on the internet raising money from millions of donors making $5 and $20 contributions. In politics, the retail money turned out to be bigger much bigger -- than the institutional money. And that's driven massive political spending inflation: the big Senate campaigns that once cost $15 million now cost $100 million.

"The pool is unlimited," Holmes said. "And that's the problem. The volume of potential participants is a hell of a lot bigger than people think it is, and it is certainly a lot bigger than the number of people who participated in this."

Other establishment Republican veterans agree.

"Don't underestimate the very real anger and sense of grievance and the very justified sense of grievance among the American people," said Michael Steel, a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies who was a senior advisor to the Jeb Bush presidential campaign in 2016. Understanding that, he said, can help investors understand who the next targets of Reddit rage might be, and how extensive the new movement is.

Kevin Madden, a former advisor to Mitt Romney, said, "anger can oftentimes be a more potent force than ideas. Those who felt they belonged to a political party of ideas found that grassroots anger, which can be very intoxicating, took over the political marketplace. It can also take over a financial marketplace."

Madden recalled the way populism overtook the Republican presidential primary in 2016.

Kevin Madden, then senior advisor and spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, talks with reporters aboard the campaign plane on October 23, 2012 en route to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

"One of the mistakes an establishment can make at the beginning is thinking this is someone else's fight. Marco Rubio says this is a Jeb Bush problem, and Jeb Bush says this is a Rick Perry problem," he said. "They all believed this was someone else's fight, and they all paid a huge price. That force redefined the party in its image for potentially the next decade."

Together these Republican strategists see Melvin Capital's decision to close out its GameStop position and take an enormous loss this week as something akin to the victory of populist Republicans in driving the establishment Republican House leader Eric Cantor from office in Virginia in 2014. It was an early demonstration of power. And it was a precursor to the much more dramatic events to come in 2016 and in 2021.

LeGate, the WallStreetBets watcher, agrees.

"It's a really powerful message," he said. "I think this is the first wave of what's going to happen."

But LeGate said he didn't buy any GameStop stock himself, for fear of an SEC investigation into his viral tweets about the movement.

Instead, he said, he is 100% invested in cryptocurrencies.

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Republicans in Washington warn Wall Street: The GameStop populists are more powerful than you think - CNBC

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy warned his members to stop the public bickering within the conference if they want to effectively push back on the Biden administration and win back the majority in 2022, a congressional aide tells CBS News.

His blunt message to his colleagues on Wednesday's phone call: "Cut this crap out."

The warning comes as several members within the conference are organizing aneffort to oust the number three House Republican, Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, from her position as conference chairwoman. Cheney voted to impeach then-President Trump and angered many Republicans by releasing a statement the day before her vote outlining her position which was later quoted by several House Democrats during the floor debate.

McCarthy had previously warned his members about calling each other out in public after the January 6 riots in the Capitol because it could potentially put their colleagues in danger.

The aide said McCarthy's frustration was audible on the call and his message was even stronger. McCarthy also said that the intra-party warfare was getting in the way of the GOP focusing on policy initiatives and countering the new president.

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McCarthy to House Republicans: "Cut this crap out" and stop infighting - CBS News