Decision Time
Republican commentator Ana Navarro votes for Hillary Clinton: 'I cast my vote against Donald Trump'
CNN commentator and Republican strategist Ana Navarro made a dramatic announcement the day before the presidential election: She has voted for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, in her home state of Florida, in order to stop Donald Trump.
In an op-ed posted on CNN, Navarro writes that she had carried her absentee ballot around the country with her for the last four weeks, and had originally decided to write in her mother's name as a protest vote — hoping that Florida would not be so close for her vote to truly matter, anyway:
But darn it, my home state is too close to call. Florida could be the decisive state (again) as to who ultimately becomes the next president of the United States. I thought back to the 2000 election, which was decided by 537 votes in Florida. I thought about how I would feel if the same thing happened in 2016. I thought and I thought and I thought ... Then I cast my vote for Hillary Clinton. Let me rephrase that. I cast my vote against Donald Trump. I did it without joy or enthusiasm. I did it out of civic duty and love for our country. [Ana Navarro, CNN]
Navarro, a former supporter of Jeb Bush in 2016 who previously worked on Hispanic outreach for John McCain in 2008, has emerged as one of the prominent Republican women who have spoken out against Trump. She has made such statements as that she was "embarrassed of my party," and she dismissed Trump supporters' as "50 shades of crazy" for their efforts to spin away the tape in which he discussed sexually assaulting women.