Legendary Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, who spent 50 years teaching and mentoring some of America’s most prominent elites, including former President Barack Obama, has just quit the Democratic Party in disgust.
After 67 years as a registered Democrat, Dershowitz officially changed his loyalty to the Republican Party on Monday.
Dershowitz announced the switch in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Why I’m Becoming a Republican.” The legal mastermind said the Democratic Party’s increasingly hostile stance toward Israel was one of the many reasons for his departure.
“I am a lifelong Democrat. I started campaigning for the party’s local candidates as a teenager in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been a registered Democrat for 67 years, made speeches for John F. Kennedy as a college student, and can count on one hand the number of Republicans I’ve ever supported for any office,” Dershowitz wrote. “Yet I’ve decided to bite the bullet and register as a Republican.”
The breaking point, he said, was a recent Senate vote in which all but seven Democrats backed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders’ arms embargo against Israel.
“The Democratic Party has become the most anti-Israel party in U.S. history,” Dershowitz wrote.
Despite the switch, Dershowitz made clear the Republican Party is not a perfect fit. He said he “strongly” disagrees with the GOP on abortion, immigration, healthcare, taxes, and the separation of church and state.
But the Democratic Party has swung too far left, so he said the scales have tipped.
“I believe that the Democratic Party’s hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center and toward a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world,” he wrote.
Dershowitz pledged to actively campaign and fundraise against Democrats going forward.
“I will contribute money to Republican candidates, campaign for them, make speeches at Republican events, and urge pro-Israel Americans to change party affiliation or at least vote against Democrats,” he wrote. “Until something changes, I will vote Republican for representative, senator and president.”
The move completes a political shift that began in 2024, when Dershowitz first cancelled his Democratic registration and identified as an independent following the Democratic National Convention. At the time, he cited the growing influence of anti-Israel voices within the party.
Over his career at Harvard Law, Dershowitz taught Obama and various other prominent figures across the political spectrum. He also served on President Donald Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment in 2020, though he endorsed Joe Biden in that same election cycle.