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Chad Mayes, the until-recently Republican state assemblyman from Yucca Valley, didn’t want to talk about President Trump.

But it was impossible to avoid the elephant in the room.

“Even though I’m a state legislator, trying to focus on state policy, the question I get from my constituents is, are you with the president or are you against the president?” Mr. Mayes, a former party leader, told me on Monday morning, a few days after he made headlines by leaving the Republican Party. (He filed for re-election without a party preference.)

“Before President Trump was elected to office, nobody ever asked me that.”

Mr. Mayes is the second California lawmaker to leave the party this year, as the influence of the state’s Republicans continues to wane.

I talked to him about his decision to leave. Here’s our conversation, edited and condensed for length.