FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – Tanya Torp had enough of the Kentucky Democratic Party when she saw one of the state’s politicians, Alison Lundergan Grimes, holding a gun.
Grimes, the Democratic secretary of state, was challenging Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2014 when she released a TV ad showing her holding a shotgun at a shooting range in an attempt to combat McConnell’s image of her as an out-of-touch liberal politician.
But it had the opposite effect for Torp, who has changed her party registration from Democratic to independent. “That’s what the Democrat Party is in Kentucky right now,” she said. “They are Republican lite.”
Torp was one of six Kentuckians who met with former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Tuesday at a Frankfort coffee shop. The encounter came as part of Sanders’ tour of Republican states – along with new Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez – in a bid to re-energize the party.
Sanders and Perez are seeking to jumpstart grassroots opposition to Republican President Donald Trump by focusing on such issues as raising the minimum wage and making public colleges and universities tuition-free.