Will her move open the door to more Republicans doing the same?
Big-name Republican endorsers of Vice President Kamala Harris are testing just how many disgruntled GOP voters are up for grabs in her race against a polarizing former President Donald Trump.
Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a member of pre-Trump GOP royalty, became the latest and most prominent Republican to back Harris Wednesday. Harris also has endorsements from former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and hundreds of local Republican officials to try to puncture what her campaign views as Trump’s soft underbelly with Republican voters who are uncomfortable with the former president’s brash and unorthodox brand of politics.
The campaign’s consistent outreach is just one part of Harris’ overall path to Election Day, but now, with no bigger names left on the table for support, the vice president will likely find out if there’s more support to be had from dissatisfied Republicans — or if she’s already maxed out.
The ABC News presidential debate will take place on Sept. 10 at 9 p.m. ET and air on ABC and stream on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu.
“The Kinzinger/Cheney endorsements are designed by Democrats to make Republican voters who are alienated by Trump’s dishonesty, bad character, felony conviction, public policy ignorance, etc., feel better about not just abstaining but actively showing their displeasure by voting for Harris”, said former Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., a conservative six-term lawmaker who clashed with Trump during his 2022 Senate race.
“The number of Republican voters swayed by Republicans who endorse Harris is relatively small”, he added. “But in an otherwise close race, it could be the difference between winning and losing.”
Cheney, a rising star in yesteryear’s GOP who became both an outcast and the face of the anti-Trump GOP flank after the Jan. 6 insurrection, said Wednesday in GOP-leaning North Carolina that she would back Harris out of fear for American democracy. On Friday, she said her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, would do the same.
“I felt that it was a particularly important discussion to have for the first time in North Carolina, where, you know, one of the questions that that I hear from Republicans who know that they would not support Donald Trump again, but, you know, have sort of said, well, maybe I’ll just write someone in, ” she said on Friday. “And I think that, particularly when we’re talking about states where we know it’s going to be close, where the election will be decided, we don’t have that luxury and I think it’s really important to recognize the nature of the choice that we have”, she said.
