The sheriff of a western Virginia county has ditched the Democratic Party ticket over the demands to “defund the police,” all before Virginia’s primary elections on Tuesday.
Smyth County Sheriff Chip Shuler is now the third elected law enforcement official to switch parties in the past year, due to what Shuler calls a “relentless attack on law enforcement by Democrats in Richmond and Washington.”
Shuler, who previously ran as a Democrat, is now running for another team due to the establishment left’s adoption of extreme leftist causes such as BLM and “defund the police.”
“My deputies work hard to serve and protect the citizens of Smyth County. As sheriff, it has been difficult to watch my deputies try to move forward during this unprecedented assault on our profession,” Shuler said in a statement. We (law enforcement) remain an honorable profession and should not be judged by the bad acts of a few. I have always been a conservative throughout my law enforcement career of 38 years.”
According to Fox News, Virginia won a narrow Democratic majority in 2019, primarily due to transplants settling in northern Virginia (NOVA) near Washington, DC.
Since then, backlash has come in the form of pro-Second Amendment rallies and other demonstrations by conservatives and libertarians.
“I congratulate Sheriff Shuler on taking this bold move to leave the Democratic Party and join the Republican Party,” said Smyth County Republican Party chairman Adam Tolbert. “We are thrilled to have him as a member of the Republican Party in Smyth County.”
Historically and culturally, the Democratic party of Western Virginia is more “Blue Dog” centrist in nature, and many in the region have become alienated by the far-left shift of the party, to include policies that hamstring law enforcement efforts.
In addition to Schuler, Sheriffs John McClanahan of Buchanan County and Brian Hieatt of Tazewell County both decided to stepped away from the party in 2020.
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