Tulsi Gabbard campaigning for pro-Trump candidate after leaving Democratic Party

Retired army general running for Senate in New Hampshire says ‘Tulsi is a fellow change agent’

A day after she announced her departure from the Democratic Party, Tulsi Gabbard was due to join a pro-Trump candidate’s campaign in New Hampshire.

The one-time Democratic presidential candidate will stump for retired Army general Don Bolduc on Wednesday, the Republican said in an announcement on Twitter.

He said he was honoured to have the aid of Ms Gabbard, who announced her departure from the very same party she once attempted to represent as president on Tuesday – eventually being beaten by Joe Biden for the 2020 nomination.

“We don’t agree on every issue, but I am honored to have the support of Tulsi Gabbard who shares my view that the status quo is broken, and we need a change of direction,” said Mr Bolduc in a statement.

“Tulsi is a fellow change agent and independent-minded outsider willing to speak truth to power,” he continued. “I am going to spend every day between now and election day building a wide coalition of supporters that includes Republicans, independents and even disaffected Democrats who know that Senator Hassan is a career politician and must be retired.”

Issuing a lengthy video statement on Tuesday, Ms Gabbard railed against the US President’s border policy and Democrat “ideology”, as well as so-called hostility “to people of faith & spirituality” as she explained her long expected departure from the party.

Mr Biden, who is Catholic, has long expressed his support for law enforcement, however – particularly in light of the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6.

Ms Gabbard has long expressed criticism of Mr Biden and the Democratic Party as a whole, and went as far as casting the Justice Department investigation into former US president Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents into doubt in her statement on Tuesday.

Ms Gabbard continued by alleging that today’s Democratic Party also worked to “weaponise the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war”, in largely unfounded remarks.

Responding to the news on Twitter on Tuesday morning, many Democrats and political analysts expressed a lack of surprise over the former congresswoman’s departure from the party however, with many mocking the former Hawaii senator for staying in the party until now.

On Tuesday night, Ms Gabbard appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast, where she said she was the recipient of “negative stigma” and had been shunned for appearing on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show.

Both Mr Carlson and Mr Rogan are known sympathisers of Mr Trump, who has called Mr Bolduc a “strong guy”, as The Guardian reported last month following his primary win.

The former army general has repeated many of the former president’s false claims about 2020’s election being stolen, but has not been formally endorsed by Mr Trump, with polls showing the New Hampshire contest leaning Democrat in November.