Mesha Mainor has received a bout of hate since she left the Democratic Party to become a Republican earlier this month.
The Georgia state representative told DailyMail.com that the treatment she received from Democrats, both when she was in the party and now that she left, is “vicious,” claiming that several colleagues want to leave the party with her.
Nasty messages sent to Mainor via the contact form on her website contained highly hateful sentiments for the now Republican legislator, including calling her the n-word and telling her to end her life.
Meanwhile, Mainor says she has been in contact with several Republican candidates running in the 2024 presidential election since her party switch earlier this month.
She predicted for DailyMail.com that at least one candidate will come to her deep blue district in Atlanta, Georgia, by October to talk to voters there about why they should vote red.
Georgia State Representative Mesha Mainor told DailyMail.com that Democrats are “despicable” to her — both before she left the party and after she switched to the Republican party.
“The Democrats sending me the hate messages – that just shows how intolerant the Democratic Party is,” Mainor said in an interview with DailyMail.com this week.
‘[Democrats] say it’s the celebration of inclusion,” she added. “They didn’t include me when I was with them, they don’t include me with them on their team. They’re not tolerant, which is another reason I left.’
‘The [Democratic] The party likes to say that the Republicans are mean. No Republican has left me such a nasty message. I mean, it’s the Democrats who are mean,” said the mother-of-two.
Mainor went to Howard University to study. She began her political career with Civil Rights icon and the late Rep. John Lewis, who died in July 2020.
She worked in healthcare on the administrative side, including at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a speechwriter and research analyst for Assistant Surgeon General Helene D. Gayle.
Mainor is currently working on her doctorate in business administration from Northcentral University with an 11-year-old daughter and her 17-year-old who will be attending college next year.
The legislator said she now has ambitions to remain in politics as her policies are no longer “sabotaged” by her own party.
“For four years I have been attacked in every possible way by my Democratic colleagues,” Mainor said. “So it led me to have more self-reflection of saying, ‘Okay, why am I being attacked.’ Because I was the only one who was attacked.’
Mainor posts on her Twitter the hate-filled, racist messages she receives from Democrats she claims do not live in her district
The extremely disturbing posts contain racial slurs, pushes and references to racist stereotypes of black people
Perhaps most concerning are the reports that Rep. telling Mainor to kill herself because she decided to become a Republican
She said she found that she was attacked mostly because of the policies she put forward that the Democrats did not support.
“If Democrats don’t support these policy issues, but these are the policy issues that positively impact my community, I may not be a Democrat,” she said of her conclusion.
Mainor claims that the hate messages she receives from Democrats come from people who don’t even live in her district and are not among her constituents.
She also says some of her Democratic colleagues in the Georgia House have contacted her claiming they want to leave the party but are too afraid of the same kind of backlash Mainor is now handling.
“My constituents immediately — like, as soon as the news got out, I had constituents calling me left and right saying, ‘We still support you.’ We agree. Thank you for standing up and doing this,” Mainor said.
“Even some Democratic colleagues, you know, say, ‘Mesha, you know, a lot of people feel just like you, you’re just the only one who has the courage to do it.’ So I got positive responses from the people who matter most,” the Georgia legislator told DailyMail.com.
The not-so-friendly reactions to her recent decision have mostly come from former colleagues and Americans outside her district — and sometimes even beyond Georgia.
Mainor, pictured with her fellow lawmakers in Georgia in 2021, said she has received a ton of hate from her former Democratic colleagues after she left the party — and said others fear following her lead because of the backlash she received
Mainor began her political career with the late Rep. and Civil Rights icon John Lewis, who passed away in July 2020
Mainor believes there are local officials who would leave the Democratic Party before state officials follow her lead because they are too concerned about backlash from colleagues.
“I think for elected officials, at least in the state, I think it will remain the status quo because they see the reaction of their counterparts, right?” she said. “Nobody wants to go through this.”
Mainor added: ‘I’ve had a hard life. So I guess God made me for this. What they say doesn’t affect me. So I’m great.’
A prompt on the contact form on Mainor’s website asks voters to share, “What are your concerns? What are your priorities?’ But instead of the constructive feedback she’s asking for, Mainor’s email is awash with racist hate messages.
One respondent wrote, “I am deeply concerned that you are a MAGA slave, bowing your head to your master, Donald Trump.”
When a second prompt asked, “How would you like to help,” the same respondent told Mainor, “By putting you in a camp to retrain you.”
A separate message says that ‘segregation is prescribed by the Bible’.
Other posts include spreading racist stereotypes towards Mainor.
The Georgia lawmaker shared images of the profanity, hate-filled, grease-phobic and racist posts on her Twitter.
Mainor usually appends a message with the image of the email she shares with something along the lines of, “Dear Democrat, I’m sorry you feel this way. Be blessed and don’t give yourself a heart attack from your hatred. I’ve only breathed since my switch from the Democratic Party.”