Ana Navarro, the former Republican strategist turned co-host of ABC's «The View», said she remains registered as a Republican voter for a practical reason: Florida's closed primary system. In a conversation with actor Michael Douglas on Tuesday's broadcast, Navarro explained that staying in the party allows her to cast a ballot in Republican primaries and work against candidates she opposes.
Douglas pressed her directly, saying he had admired her for years but wanted to know why she had not left the party. «Why aren't you independent? How can you still be a Republican?» he asked. Navarro, her co-hosts and the studio audience laughed before she answered. «I'll tell you why, because I live in Florida where the primaries are closed, and I want to be able to vote in the primaries and vote against those sons of b----es,» she said, adding that she hoped to «make a difference in the primaries.»
Navarro has long drawn criticism from conservatives for identifying as a Republican while supporting positions that align with her left-leaning co-hosts. She was a host at the 2024 Democratic National Convention and backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. In an interview this week with Entertainment Weekly, she addressed the criticism directly. «I'd argue that anybody who espouses the same views as Donald Trump isn't much of a traditional Republican,» she said. «I'm not going to be lectured to about what a Republican is or isn't.»
Her explanation of her party affiliation is not new. In 2019, she told her co-hosts she had supported former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's 2016 presidential bid and described herself as an «old-fashioned Republican.» Pressed for details, she said she believed in free trade, a strong foreign policy and was «pro-immigration.» The debate resurfaced in 2022 when co-host Sunny Hostin asked why she still saw herself as a Republican. Navarro responded with a question of her own: «Why are you still a Catholic? You don't agree with everything about the Catholic Church.»
The exchange comes after ABC and «The View» faced scrutiny last month when Navarro urged viewers to vote for a Democratic candidate in a key congressional race in Florida. Republican consultant Mary Marslender told Fox News Digital that Navarro does not represent a broader movement of Republican dissidents. «Ana Navarro doesn't represent a broader phenomenon of GOP dissidents; she represents a total grift,» Marslender said. «She hasn't supported anything from her supposed party in over a decade, but she won't surrender her Republican voting card because it's a credential that gets her on news programs.»
Marslender added that the program benefits from having a Republican voice that criticizes the party. «'The View' needs a fake Republican who will constantly criticize actual Republicans, the president, and party donors, and she's keeping the title because it's her business plan to pull the Republican card meaninglessly,» she said.
Navarro's comments highlight how closed primary rules in Florida and other states can keep voters registered with a party even when they disagree with much of its platform. For Navarro, the registration is less an endorsement of the party's current direction than a way to influence which candidates advance to the general election. Her stated goal of voting against certain Republicans in primaries places her among a group of voters who use party registration strategically rather than as a statement of ideological alignment.
The back-and-forth on «The View» also reflects a broader debate over what it means to be a Republican in the Trump era. Navarro has argued that the party's traditional positions on trade, immigration and foreign policy have been abandoned by its current leadership, while her critics say her continued use of the label is misleading. Neither side appears ready to settle the question, and Navarro has shown no sign of changing her registration.