Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee '75, currently a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, has left the Republican Party.
Records available on the Rhode Island Secretary of State's Web site show that Chafee is currently an unaffiliated voter. Rhode Island law allows voters to register as Democrats, Republicans, other or as unaffiliated with a party.
Chafee, a moderate Republican and former mayor of Warwick, was elected to a full term in the Senate in 2000 after being appointed to fill his father's seat in 1999, when Sen. John Chafee died. In 2006, Chafee was defeated by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse after a grueling Republican primary against then-Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey, a conservative. Chafee was backed by the national party in that race.
"It's not my party any more," Chafee told the Providence Journal in an article Sunday, citing ideological differences between himself and the national GOP as the reason for his departure.
Chafee also told the Journal that he had changed his affiliation sometime in June or July, but that no one had asked him about his move until the news broke this weekend.
