In August 2012 Crist endorsed President Obama in his campaign for reelection over Republican nominee Mitt Romney , saying that the Republican Party " pitched so far to the extreme right on issues important to women , immigrants , seniors and students that they 've proven incapable of governing for the people . " Crist was a speaker at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte , North Carolina , saying , " I did n't leave the Republican Party ; it left me . " On December 7 , 2012 , Crist announced that he had joined the Democratic Party . In his 2014 book '' The Party 's Over '' he recounted his journey from one party to the other . He claimed that his career in the Republican Party was destroyed by a hug between him and Obama at a Fort Myers town hall on February 10 , 2009 . " It was the kind of hug I 'd exchanged with thousands and thousands of Floridians over the years , " Crist wrote . " I did n't think a thing about it as it was happening . " But it " ended my viable life as a Republican politician . I would never have a future in my old party again . My bipartisan hopes and dreams , I would discover soon enough to my shock and disappointment , were vastly overstated and hopelessly out of date . " In May 2014 , however , Crist told Fusion 's Jorge Ramos that he had left the Republican Party because of its racial attitudes . " I could n't be consistent with myself and my core beliefs , and stay with a party that was so unfriendly toward the African-American president — I 'll just go there , " Crist said . " I was a Republican and I saw the activists and what they were doing . It was intolerable to me . " '' The Washington Post '' 's Chris Cilizza rejected this claim , citing '' Tampa Bay Times '' political editor Adam Smith as saying that Crist " was happy as a Republican when the polls showed him leading Marco Rubio by 20 points . " Cilizza wrote that Crist 's party switch " epitomized for many within the Republican base that Crist lacked any core principles or beliefs and , instead , simply went with whatever was popular at the moment . " In a '' New Republic '' review , Isaac Chotiner called '' The Party 's Over '' an " account of why Crist switched parties " and wrote that Crist had " revealed himself " . Writing in '' Rolling Stone Magazine '' in 2014 , Jeb Lund described Crist as " a Republican conveniently converted to Democrat " , adding , " what made Crist dynamic as a Republican ... was a vaguely populist nose-thumbing at Republican orthodoxy " , and that " Charlie Crist is a Democrat only if you are a Republican . " In July 2013 it was announced that Crist was releasing a new book in the process of being written . The release hinted that he would run in the 2014 gubernatorial election . The book , released in February 2014 , is titled '' The Party 's Over : How the Extreme Right Hijacked the GOP and I Became a Democrat '' . It details why Crist left the Republican Party and became a Democrat . On November 1 , 2013 , Crist filed to run for governor as a Democrat . He won the Democratic nomination but was defeated in the general election by Republican incumbent Rick Scott . Crist holds the rare distinction of losing a statewide general election in Florida as a Republican , Democrat and Independent candidate
2012 Democratic National Convention
2012 Democratic National Convention
Charlie Crist