Chad Mayes | Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo Assemblyman becomes latest California Republican to leave party

Another California Republican leader is renouncing his GOP status in the latest blow to the diminished state party.

After twice winning election as a Republican, Assemblyman Chad Mayes is renouncing that status to join the state’s growing ranks of no-party-preference voters — a designation that has surpassed the Republican Party as California’s second-largest voting bloc.


The move continues a long political transformation for Mayes, who at one time served as Republican leader but was ousted for voting with Democrats to extend California’s cap-and-trade program. His departure leaves Assembly Republicans with 18 lawmakers in the 80-member house.

Mayes has become a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, who retains broad popularity among California Republicans but is faulted by some within the state GOP for exacerbating the party’s plummeting standing.

Mayes said in an interview that he had grown frustrated with the California Republican Party’s failure to “modernize” and “keep up with the changing of California,” where an evermore diverse electorate has paralleled growing Democratic dominance.

“We’ve failed to be a party that met Californians where they were at and I unfortunately think we’ve paid too much attention to the national brand that the Republicans in this state just keep holding on to, thinking that is the way to win," Mayes said.

But while Mayes bemoaned the fact that “Trumpism now equals Republicanism and Republicanism equals Trumpism,” he cast his decision as a rejection of the caustic tribalism that he says has infected both parties in the age of Trump. “Democrats are as big of a mess as Republicans are,” he said.

Mayes said he has not decided whether he will caucus with Republicans in Sacramento. But he argued that his voting record is still more conservative than that of some fellow Republicans and was enough to win the party’s recent endorsement.

“I assume they’re endorsing me and my voting record and how I’ve behaved as a legislator,” Mayes said.

The chair of the Republican Party of Riverside County, Jonathan Ingram, said he had not had time to talk to Mayes about his reason for the decision. But he said he was “a little taken aback” given that the local party had re-endorsed Mayes for another Assembly term.

This is the second time this year that a member of Sacramento’s shrunken Republican delegation has abandoned the party. In January, San Diego Assemblyman Brian Maienschein switched his affiliation from Republican to Democrat — a change that came just months after Maienschein narrowly retained his seat as Democrats flipped seats around California.