Black lawmaker Mesha Mainor who defected from Democrats to join Republicans says the African-American vote has been taken for granted for 50 YEARS as evidence grows that Biden’s support is collapsing

“Nobody ever tells us what the Democratic platform is or what the Republican platform is,” Georgia state Rep. Mesha Mainor said in her cramped office.

“They just say you're a Democrat. And that's how you vote.'

That wasn't good enough for Mainor, an African American in a state where the black vote carried Joe Biden to Georgia's 16 electoral college votes in 2020.

Earlier this year, the woman who was elected Democrat in 2020 did the unthinkable: she crossed the aisle and became the only Black Republican in the state Legislature.

Her decision was driven by failing schools, the need for better safety on Atlanta's streets and a growing sense that Democrats were not acting in the best interests of her black voters.

The move sparked a swift backlash, including a barrage of online abuse from people telling her to commit suicide or referring to her as “Aunt Jemima.”

But during an interview with DailyMail.com, she said she was confident she could win re-election as a Republican in a largely black and impoverished district.

Her town hall events have become busier since she switched, she added, indicating she has fallen in step with her constituents and a growing distrust of Democrats.

“I feel like the story will get through especially to minority voters that we've been listening to you for 50 years,” she said.

“You can't keep telling us one more law that we're going to believe. Were done.

“And I'm only the first black Republican in metro Atlanta to ever be in a position like this.”

Black voters in Georgia could not only play a key role in how the state awards its Electoral College votes, but also decide who wins the White House in 2024.

They make up about a third of the electorate in the closest battleground states.

In 2016, Georgia went for Trump before narrowing it to Joe Biden by just 0.2. percent of the votes.

Exit polls show he won the election with 88 percent of the black vote.

This time he may have to find votes elsewhere. A survey of 550 likely voters in the state for Dailymail.com found that Biden has the support of 54 percent of black respondents, while Trump has 16 percent.

The sample size is small and does not have the kind of statistical weight that allows for firm conclusions.

However, it mirrors other polls showing Trump advancing with a bloc that helped Biden to victory in 2020.

A recent New York Times and Siena College head-to-head survey found that 22 percent of black voters in six battleground states would support Trump.

Mainor said she only recently began to reconsider what she learned about politics growing up.

“It wasn't until I got elected and was reading the legislation that I went to the Democratic leadership and said this doesn't help Black people… this doesn't help my community,” she said.

One of the sticking points was 'school choice', in a city where children remain far below the expected level of literacy. OAccording to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 32 percent of fourth-graders in Georgia were proficient in reading in 2022.

A graduate of Howard University in Washington, DC, Mainor knew the importance of education from an early age. Her mother gave her a head start and used someone else's address to enable her daughter to avoid the local failing school in favor of a better place in an affluent neighborhood.

The solution for another generation of children, Mainor said, was to use state and federal money for vouchers that parents in the lowest-performing public schools could use to get into private schools.

But Senate Bill 233, which would have paid $6,000 per student to schools, was defeated by Democratic opposition during the last legislative session of the Georgia Assembly.

Critics said it would take money out of the public school system to help those who could already afford to pay part of a private school bill.

Mainor said the reasoning was wrong.

'It doesn't really matter how you get the opportunity. It's about how quickly you can give them the opportunity,” she said.

“So Democrats prefer to say, let's wait and fix the broken system.

'Well, I'm almost fifty. And the system has been broken for over fifty years. So how much longer do you want to wait?'

Another sticking point was the bill to establish a monitoring panel for prosecutors.

Democrats opposed the measure, which they say Republicans say was aimed at reining in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her prosecution of Trump for challenging the 2020 election results.

“It wasn't about Donald Trump,” Mainor said.

When she fell victim to a stalker, she discovered that the prosecutor in the case was friends with the suspect's attorney. It was something that greater scrutiny could have prevented, she said.

Corwin Monson, a former campaign volunteer, was sentenced in 2021 to one year in prison and two years of probation.

Toughening up on prosecutors, she added, would also increase the prosecution rate of police officers in fatal shootings, which is a major problem for Black people.

“This bill is about prosecutors not doing their jobs,” she said.

In 2021, she was also one of only three Democrats in the state House to support a Republican bill to curb counties' powers to reduce funding for police.

Over time, she became isolated within her party.

'It was stressful. I walked into rooms with Democrats and they rolled their eyes at me,” she said. “They were literally in my face and pointing their fingers in my face.”

She announced his move on July 11, saying she was forced out by colleagues because she questioned policies that were considered articles of faith by the rest of the caucus.

That should be a lesson for Democrats, she said, if they want to retain Georgia's electoral college in next year's presidential election.

“I don't think the Democrats are listening to the voters. I think they are listening to themselves,” she said.

“And they're going to lose, because whoever actually listens to them, whoever actually listens to the voters, is going to get their vote.”