Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist told Fusion on Tuesday that he left the GOP over racism, the New York Daily News reported.
"They're perceived now as being anti-woman, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-gay, anti-education, anti-environment," said Crist, who switched to the Democratic Party in 2012. "I just wasn't comfortable."
Crist, who is running for governor as a Democrat, said the Republican party took a turn after President Barack Obama was elected.
"They Republican Party went off a cliff," Crist said. "They're so hard right now, they won't cooperate with the President on anything."
"It's very disappointing and very discouraging," he added. "I couldn't ... stay with a party that was so unfriendly toward an African-American President."
Crist served as governor, as a Republican, from 2007 to 2011 and stepped down to run for U.S. Senate as an independent. After losing to Republican Marco Rubio, he officially switched parties and launched another bid.
"I am liberated as a Democrat, my true soul is able to be seen, and I couldn't be happier about it," Crist told Fusion.
Republicans did not take Crist's recent remarks lightly.
"Being a flip-flopper is bad enough, but playing the race card to win over voters is pitiful," Izzy Santa, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, wrote in an email.
Though he has received criticism for changing his views on issues like health care and immigration, he defended his modified perspective as a positive.
"All of us in the beginning of something big like that happening, until you can get really comfortable with it, it's hard to embrace," he said. "But I fully embrace it. I know it's the right thing to do."
