Former Arizona congressman opens up on why he bolted from Trump's GOP

On Tuesday, The Arizona Republicprofiled former Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), who in 2018 quietly left the Republican Party in rejection of President Donald Trump.

"People are making a bigger deal about [the voter registration change] than I have," said Kolbe. "I've always been fairly independent in my thinking. It doesn't change my values."

Kolbe, who served in the House from 1985 to 2007 and sits on international advocacy groups for American values like the International Republican Institute and the Bretton Woods Committee, said that he began openly denouncing Trump in March 2016, and did not stop after he took over the party. To him, he said, Trump's presidency is eroding American leadership worldwide.

"You go abroad and see the American flag. People like American values, and those are things we should be promoting," said Kolbe.

Kolbe is one of many current and former lawmakers to leave the Republican Party, including Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, former Florida Rep. David Jolly, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, and a number of state lawmakers. One such lawmaker, Barbara Bollier of Kansas, is now running for Senate — as a Democrat.

"I feel very strongly about the breaking of norms that is happening," Kolbe said. "It isn't just the political environment. We have a social environment — in part because of social media — where we are much more polarized and where civil discourse is poor. Trump certainly contributes to it. He runs his presidency by tweets. My view is you can’t have a serious policy discussion in 140 characters."

Arizona has long voted Republican at the statewide level. But the state has moved leftward in recent years due to changing demographics, and Democrats hope to target it in the 2020 presidential election.