New Hampshire Republicans have a small margin of control in the state house, and Rep. Marsh's is the second seat they've lost in the past month. Oh dear! Via the Hill:
State Rep. William Marsh, an ophthalmologist who has won election to four terms in the state House, said he had met with the town clerk of Brookfield to change his registration to affiliate with Democrats.
“I have come to realize a majority of Republicans, both locally and in the NH House, hold values which no longer reflect traditional Republican values. And so I am recognizing the reality that today’s Republican Party is no longer the party I first joined when campaigning for President Reagan many years ago,” Marsh wrote in a press release.
He said he had been content to ride out the rest of his term without attracting any attention until state Republican leaders held a rally Tuesday in opposition to President Biden’s vaccine mandates for federal and private sector workers.
He's an ophthalmologist, the real kind -- not the Rand Paul kind, and he's disturbed by the anti-science, anti-vax turn the GOP has taken:
“I cannot in good conscience support this selfish refusal to take reasonable precautions,” Marsh said. “So far, NH has done remarkably well with Covid by taking all reasonable precautions while carefully reopening our economy. I was proud to be part of the Governor’s Economic Reopening Taskforce that made that happen. I cannot stand idly by while extremists reject the reasonable precautions of vaccinations and masks which made that happen.”
