Brutal Mississippi Primary Prompts College GOP Chair To Switch Parties

The chairman of the Mississippi Federation of College Republicans’ (MFCR) announced on Monday he was resigning and planned to become a Democrat following a brutal U.S. Senate primary.

“The Republican Party has shifted too far to the right in my opinion,” Evan Alvarez wrote in a resignation statement sent out by MFCR, according to The Clarion-Ledger newspaper. “When I ran for Chairman in the spring, I ran to be Chairman of the Mississippi Federation of College REPUBLICANS, not the Mississippi Federation of College ‘Tea Partiers,'” Alvarez said.

The resignation came after the MFCR board decided to not impeach the organization’s executive director, Kolby Busby, for publicly endorsing state Sen. Chris McDaniel in the GOP primary against U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran. McDaniel eventually lost the race in a runoff.

Busby came under fire for the endorsement because he affiliated himself with the MFCR in the McDaniel endorsement, which was against the organization’s rules. The MFCR policy is to stay neutral during primaries.

The board decided against impeachment and asked for an apology from Busby, which Busby reportedly refused to do. “He said he was not apologizing for anything and refused to be reprimanded,” Alvarez told The Clarion-Ledger.

“I refuse to simply let people break the rules and think they don’t have to answer for their actions, admit they were wrong, or even apologize,” Alvarez wrote in his resignation statement.

He then went on to criticize the Republican Party, saying the platform has allowed “groups of extremist to have too much of a voice.”

Late Monday, the Mississippi Democrats bragged about Alvarez joining the party:

We welcome former Republican Evan Alvarez and all who are fed up with the gamesmanship and rancor of the Republican mess in Mississippi.

— MS Democrats (@msdemocrats) June 30, 2014

This post has been updated.