TUlsi Gabbard, a former Democratic presidential candidate turned independent, announced Tuesday at a Donald Trump rally in North Carolina that she is officially joining the Republican Party.

“I join the party of the people, the party of equality, the party founded to fight and end slavery in this country. It is the party of common sense, and the party led by a president who has the courage and strength to fight for peace,” Gabbard said. “You know, I was a Democrat for over twenty years. The current Democratic Party is completely unrecognizable,” she continued. “For example, if you look at Kamala Harris’ party, she is anti-freedom. She is for censorship, she is for open borders and she is for war, without even pretending to care about peace.”

Gabbard, 43, becoming a Republican should not come as a shock to anyone who has followed her career, especially in recent years. President Trump.

Her party switch announcement comes after prominent Republicans, such as former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney, have endorsed Harris in the 2024 elections. Gabbard cited the support of the Cheneys to Harris as proof that the Democratic Party is one of the “warmongers.”

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The daughter of teachers and small business owners involved in local politics, Gabbard began her political career in 2002, when she became the youngest person ever elected to Hawaii’s state legislature, serving District 42 in West Oahu as a Democrat represented. She left politics in 2004 to serve in the Army National Guard before returning after deployments to Iraq and Kuwait to win elections for the Honolulu City Council in 2010.

When Gabbard threw her hat into the ring in 2011 for the Democratic primary for Hawaii’s second district seat in Congress, she was still a relative unknown and underdog. But after defeating five other challengers, including the former mayor of Honolulu — in a campaign largely defined by her outspoken opposition to Bush administration-era foreign wars and her personal reversal on same-sex marriage, which she previously opposed was but now supported – Gabbard quickly emerged as a “rising star” of the Democratic Party, as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called her. Then-President Barack Obama supported her congressional proposal and she was invited to speak at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

After becoming the first Hindu, first American Samoan, and—alongside Tammy Duckworth of Illinois—the first female combat veteran elected to Congress in 2012, Gabbard quickly rose through the party and was elected vice chair of the House in 2013. D.N.C.

But Gabbard, known for her populist economics and pro-veteran yet anti-interventionist politics, certainly did not toe the party line. She often clashed with Democratic leadership for being publicly critical of Obama’s foreign policy, and during the 2016 presidential election she criticized the DNC’s primary process for being biased in favor of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton . In 2016, she resigned as vice chair of the DNC to support the campaign of independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, for which she became a prominent supporter and delivered the nomination speech at the 2016 Democratic Convention.

After Trump won the 2016 general election, Gabbard said she had a “frank and positive” meeting with the newly elected president and was rumored to be in consideration for a Cabinet position.

In 2019, Gabbard launched a presidential campaign and announced that she would not seek re-election to Congress. But especially after voting ‘present’ in Trump’s first impeachment trial, she became the ‘most hated’ candidate in the extensive Democratic field. One of the standout moments of her short-lived campaign came during a primary debate in which she questioned then-California Senator Kamala Harris’ record as a prosecutor. But it wasn’t enough to propel her candidacy, which never reached higher than single digits and was shelved in March 2020, after which she endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. She was not invited to speak at the 2020 Democratic Convention.

After leaving office in 2021, Gabbard became an even more outspoken critic of the Democratic Party, appearing frequently on Fox News and even serving as a guest host on Tucker Carlson’s show several times. She expressed her support for Republican candidates and Republican policies and spoke at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). In October 2022, she announced that she would officially leave the Democratic Party, which she labeled as “under the full control of an elite cabal of warmongers, driven by cowardly wokeness’. She then endorsed a number of Republican candidates for the 2022 midterm elections, including Trump’s current pal, Ohio Senator JD Vance.

Earlier this year, there was speculation that Gabbard would be a potential running mate for Trump, and when asked about it on Fox News in March, she said, “I would be honored to serve our country in that way and in a position to help President Trump.” After Gabbard formally endorsed Trump in August, she was joined by former independent candidate Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked to co-lead Trump’s transition team, which would set priorities for his new administration if he is elected in November.

When Trump took the stage after Gabbard announced her new GOP affiliation on Tuesday, he called it a “great honor” and exclaimed, “Wow, that was a surprise.”