(TRENTON, N.J.) — Democratic gains in state legislatures didn’t end with last November’s elections. Over the past two months, as lawmakers were sworn in to office and this year’s legislative sessions got underway, Republicans in California, Kansas and New Jersey switched their party affiliations and became Democrats. Their reasons varied, but the party-switchers have one thing in common: They say the GOP under President Donald Trump has become too extreme. “The Republican Party, for all of its statements of having a big tent, continues to limit the tent,” said Kansas state Sen.