EXCLUSIVE: Democrat Senate Candidate Leaves Party To Put ‘Our Country First’

Virginia Senate candidate Mark Moran announced Thursday that he is leaving the Democratic Party and continuing his run as an independent, the Daily Caller News Foundation has exclusively confirmed.

Moran is challenging three-term incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Warner in the general election, who he says epitomizes the entrenched status quo he is running to disrupt. The now-independent candidate made his announcement in a video first shared with the DCNF, recorded outside the same historic Richmond, VA church where Founding Father Patrick Henry delivered his 1775 “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech. (RELATED: ‘America First’ Democrat Mark Moran Excoriates Own Party On Gerrymandering, Gun Control)

The 34-year-old former investment banker and reality TV candidate also unveiled a series of policy proposals he says are aimed at putting the U.S. first and giving more power to everyday Americans as opposed to corporate interests.

“I’m breaking free from the Democratic establishment. I’m going to run for United States Senate as an independent,” Moran, who regards himself as “Virginia & America First,” said in his announcement outside St. John’s Episcopal Church. “I’m doing that because I’m putting our country first. I’m putting it above these divisive issues that the left, that the right and our corporate media control.”

“I’m running as an independent because this message is about much more than me. It’s about the idea of America,” the candidate continued. “We’re 250 years in. We have to have big, bold, beautiful ideas to change things, and it’s up to us to not fall into the trap that [George] Washington warned about of being divided by political parties.”

“It’s time for us to unite, to realize we can close our borders, we can earn our citizenship and the right to vote, and that we can do this together, and we can put America first. We can put the Commonwealth of Virginia first, but it’s up to us to take it back,” he emphasized.

Today, I am putting Virginia & America First, to announce that I am running as an Independent for U.S. Senate. pic.twitter.com/NUPa5xTvd0

— Mark Moran for U.S. Senate (@itsmarkmoran) April 2, 2026

“We can’t afford homes, we can’t afford health care. We’re dropping bombs on another country at the behest of another country,” Moran added, referring to America’s ongoing cost of living crisis and the Iran war.

“We’re entirely controlled by corporate institutions. We make it so that when we take out a 30-year mortgage to buy a house, over 50% of what we pay over that 30 years, it goes to the bank. We’re ripping off the middle class with our tax code that the elites who are controlling us get loopholes while we don’t,” he also stated in his announcement. “We need to fundamentally restructure and turn this around so that it works for the people. Everything is wrong, and it’s because money controls. That is not the system that our Founding Fathers designed.”

“The United States is no longer functioning as a Republic; it is functioning as a publicly traded corporation that is being systematically asset-stripped by financial interests,” Moran wrote in his policy plan, “Common Wealth,” first obtained by the DCNF. “With $39 trillion in debt and $1 trillion in annual interest payments, the financial trajectory is unsustainable.”

“The solution is not marginal policy reform. The solution is a controlled, Chapter 11-style reorganization of the Republic,” he continued in his plan. “And the political strategy to achieve this is not a traditional campaign. It is a Proxy Fight.”

“I am running as an independent for the United States Senate not to join the Board of Directors, but to launch an activist investor proxy fight against a failing Board on behalf of the shareholders—the American people,” the Wall Street banker-turned-candidate wrote. “The mapping is simple: Mark Warner is the CEO of a failing company. Congress is the captured Board of Directors. I am the activist investor. You are the shareholders. And this November is the shareholder vote.”

One of Moran’s policy proposals is what he calls the “20/20 Plan” for home ownership.

“We will abolish the 30-year mortgage and replace it with a 20-year, government-backed Prosperity Mortgage. The interest rate will be pegged to inflation plus 1%,” Moran outlines in the policy proposal shared with the DCNF. “After 20 years, the citizen owns their home free and clear. For the next 20 years, they live with no mortgage payment, building pure equity.”

We are a naturally rebellious people indeed pic.twitter.com/EBgSoFHvbI

— Mark Moran for U.S. Senate (@itsmarkmoran) March 29, 2026

“The 30-year mortgage was created in 1948 and up to that point, houses weren’t considered this investment set,” Moran told the DCNF in a Monday interview. “This country was founded on property rights.”

“The entire system of housing, because of the 30-year mortgage, is designed to rapidly inflate over what the median salary increase will be over any time,” he said. “That is an absolute captured system of control that banking and moneyed interests have upon us. And that’s what Jefferson warned of, that moneyed institutions are more dangerous than standing armies, and they are because the United States is becoming this asset-stripped corporation.”

“The era of the asset-stripped corporation is over. The reclamation of the Republic begins today,” Moran wrote at the end of his plan.

Moran also supports replacing the federal income tax, which he says “punishes the working class while allowing corporations to exploit endless loopholes,” with a tax on consumption.

“If you are a billionaire buying a third yacht, you will pay taxes on that consumption. If you are a middle-class family saving your wages, you keep what you earn. This eliminates the corporate loopholes entirely and ensures that the wealthy pay their true share based on what they extract and consume, not what their accountants can hide,” the candidate’s plan reads.

While he was running as a Democrat, Moran frequently blasted his then-party for both its support for a restrictive gun control bill and a proposed gerrymandered House map which Virginians will vote on April 21. He told the DCNF Monday that it is “absolutely tyranny” for Virginia Democrats to use President Donald Trump “as an excuse for authoritarianism.” (RELATED: Democrat Gerrymanding Gambit Will Give Huge Middle Finger To Rural Americans, Group Argues)

Now that he is no longer running in his state’s Aug. 4 Democratic primary, the independent candidate is focused on the November general election campaign against Warner. He told the DCNF that he plans to drive his 2014 Corvette, which he dubs “The Transparency Machine,” around the state to meet voters.

“My goal is to drive 50,000 miles across the Commonwealth by November, meeting everyone. And I look at that as a direct testament to commitment to an area, but it’s how we should be judged as politicians,” Moran said during his Monday interview, adding that he aims to be a “direct contrast” to Warner.

He added that the Corvette will resemble the race car driven by NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt, in that he will put “sponsors” on it. Moran told the DCNF that since he is not taking corporate money he will instead feature the logos of small businesses owned by his individual donors.

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