TROY – Former City Council president and mayoral candidate Rodney Wiltshire and his wife have left the Democratic Party, switching their enrollment to the Independence Party.

“It was really something that was brewing for a while,” Wiltshire said Thursday night.

Wiltshire and his wife Jolene posted their decision Wednesday on his campaign Facebook page, "Rodney Wiltshire for Troy." They made the change at the Rensselaer County Department of Motor Vehicles office.

“I’m going to stay politically active. I’m going to pick the fights appropriately,” Wiltshire said.

The couple have left their posts as city Democratic committee members.

Wiltshire twice bucked the city Democratic organization to challenge Mayor Patrick Madden, the party’s endorsed candidate. Each time Wiltshire lost the Democratic primary in 2015 and 2019 to Madden. Then running on minor party lines, he lost in the general election as Republican candidates made it three-way races.

The 2019 mayoral campaign had its own twists as Republican County Executive Steve McLaughlin pushed GOP-Conservative mayoral candidate Tom Reale to drop out of the campaign and endorse Wiltshire, who ran on the Green and Independence lines. Reale suspended his campaign but then reentered the contest.

It was a profanity-laden meeting on Oct. 7, 2018 at county Republican headquarters that was tape recorded, and figured in the final days of the mayoral campaign. McLaughlin and GOP political operatives Rich Crist and Jim Gordon could be heard on the recording yelling at Reale to quit. At one point, McLaughlin described himself as the "boss" of the county.

City Democratic Chairman Gary Galuski, referring to Wiltshire, said, “I’m surprised he didn’t switch to the Republicans.”

“He didn’t want to do anything with our party except stab us in the back,” Galuski said.

Wiltshire said he made sure in his announcement that he was as polite as possible and avoided any personal attacks.

“Besides me getting elected twice to the Troy city council as a Democrat, Jolene and I are both Democratic committee people (well not anymore), I am a former president of the Rensselaer County Young Democrats and Jolene was an executive board member as well. As lifelong Democrats who come from a long line of Democrats we have seen and feel that the party has evolved in a way that has strayed in a very unstable and destructive direction. Some of the things that I have seen on many recent agendas and platforms have been quite breathtaking,” Wiltshire said in his posting.

Wiltshire said he had issues with the Democratic Party’s stance on issues at the national, state and local level, like certain stances on gun control and the partisanship that has evolved. He had issues with the minimum wage increases and opposed the sanctuary city measure approved by the council, which was vetoed by Madden. Wiltshire said he also didn’t like the work of city Democratic operatives.

In his posting, Wiltshire encouraged Democrats “to do a political gut-check” and consider leaving the party.

Madden said he was unaware of Wiltshire’s decision.

“It’s news to me,” the mayor said. “I respect his decision to leave the party.”