West Virginia’s governor is switching parties. And Democrats just hit a new low.

In November, Republicans solidified and/or expanded their majorities at all levels of governance, and it looked as if things couldn’t get worse for Democrats. Except, it just did.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced Thursday he is leaving the Democratic Party, just six months after taking office, and becoming a Republican. An extra twist of the knife for Democrats: He did it alongside President Trump, at a rally in West Virginia.

“Like it or not, but the Democrats walked away from me,” he told Trump supporters. ” … West Virginia, I can’t help you anymore by being a Democratic governor.”

It’s not immediately clear why Justice is doing an about-face. But the fact he is underscores just how fragile Democrats’ hold on power is. With one politician’s decision to switch parties, Democrats now hold a record-low number of governorships — and Republicans hold a record high.

Party switches, especially at the gubernatorial level, don’t happen very often. Justice is the first governor to switch from Democrat to Republican in 2½ decades. And it’s not clear he did it because of broader partisan dynamics.

This appears to be more of a personal decision. Justice didn’t give his now-former party or his new party a heads up. He didn’t call the Democratic Governors Association, which spent $1.5 million to help Justice win election, and sources say even some of his staff was caught off guard.

As we wrote back then, Democrats are basically extinct in the South. Justice may have just solidified that a little farther north, in West Virginia.

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