Vice President Harris' campaign is seeking to expand her base and highlight the support of anti-Trump Republican lawmakers ahead of November.
On Wednesday, Harris received the largest endorsement yet from a Republican, when former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said she would be voting for Harris. Multiple people in Harris' campaign shared the statement on X, and the campaign said it was “proud to have earned the endorsement.” On Friday, Cheney said her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, also plans to vote for Harris.
The Harris campaign has also touted the endorsements of more than 200 former Republican staffers for the past four GOP presidential nominees, following key speeches at the Democratic National Convention by several prominent anti-Trump Republicans, including former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.).
Democrats and anti-Trump Republican groups say they don't expect any major breakthroughs among Republicans, but rather plan to use the “permission structure” to show moderate Republicans and center-right independents that they don't have to be liberal, or even Democrats, to vote for the Democratic candidate.
“There's a very real sense of party identity,” said Olivia Troye, a former national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence and Harris' Republican surrogate.
“This is saying I understand where you stand,” she said, “and yes, I know it's hard to walk away from your party, especially at this time. But if we all come together, if we stand together, maybe we can make a difference within our own party as well.”
Polls suggest there may be an opportunity for Democrats to appeal to moderate Republicans.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll released last week found that 24% of Republicans said they had a “favorable view” of Harris' campaign, and 56% of independents said the same. Thirty-eight percent of independents and 13% of Democrats said the same about Trump's campaign.
“The center-right swing voters that our campaign is targeting are interested in Kamala and they're listening to her pitch,” said John Conway, director of strategist for the anti-Trump group Republicans Against Trump.
“For our voters, this is going to be a choice about Donald Trump first and foremost,” he continued, “and they're going to turn out to vote in November primarily because of the danger that Donald Trump poses to the country. I think Kamala Harris is re-introducing herself to those voters.”
The group launched an $11.5 million ad buy earlier this week targeting Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District.
“There's a bit of Trump amnesia among some voters, and they've forgotten all the reasons why they couldn't support Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 election,” Conway said. “We have to do our best to remind voters why they couldn't support Donald Trump in 2020.”
Many other anti-Trump groups, including the Lincoln Project, are also active in battleground states.
“We've identified 1.3 million voters spread across four states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona,” said Jeff Timmer, executive director of the Lincoln Project. “They're former Republicans and they can't support Donald Trump,” he said of the group's target voters. “It took them a while to get to voting Democratic. They may not have voted yet, but now is the time to vote. We're going to build the messaging and the infrastructure. That's what these efforts are all about.”
Democrats and Never-Trump Republicans have pointed specifically to President Trump's response to COVID-19, his involvement in and response to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and his past comments about foreign adversaries, particularly Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But other anti-Trump Republicans have refuted the “Trump amnesia” theory, pointing to developments since the 2020 election.
Republican strategist Mike Madrid, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, said more focused messaging is needed in light of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, President Trump's denial of the results of the 2020 election and the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“The messaging from the Republican group has been inadequate. There needs to be more focus on direct advocacy, especially on the more extreme elements,” Madrid said. “All three of these issues are new since 2020. They were not the reason for the doubling and tripling in 2016.”
Madrid also opposed the use of “permission structures” to appeal to center-right and conservative voters disappointed with President Trump, saying “it doesn't make much sense anymore.”
“They seem to be stuck in an old model of what's called a permission structure,” Madrid said. “You have voters who are saying, 'I'm a Republican and I do this, you can do it too.'
Pro-Trump Republicans have downplayed the strength of the Never Trump movement and its ability to appeal to swing voters, calling it a “vanity project.”
“They're only doing this for the media attention,” said Republican strategist Ford O'Connell, calling the group “just a bunch of con artists.”
In a statement to The Hill, the Trump campaign said the Harris team was “desperately grasping at straws” to appeal to Republican voters.
“No sane conservative would vote for Kamala Harris, who is a radical Marxist, soft on crime, open borders and high taxes,” Trump spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said.
But Democrats say the rifts in the Republican coalition date back to this year's presidential primaries. Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley garnered a significant number of protest votes during the primaries, even after dropping out of the race in March. Haley won more than 26% of the Republican primary vote in Michigan, and more than 100,000 votes each in two key battleground states, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
“She was rallying together an anti-Trump coalition because she was taking on Donald Trump directly,” Conway said. “She was speaking to issues that resonated very deeply with center-right voters who were skeptical of Trump, including why he was unfit to be president and why he was responsible for the events of January 6th.”
Before President Biden dropped out of the race, his campaign had tried to target Haley's supporters. In June, the Biden campaign announced it had hired Kinzinger's former chief of staff, Austin Weatherford, as director of Republican national engagement. And in April, the campaign ran an ad called “Save America, Join Us” aimed at Haley's supporters.
Still, there's no guarantee these voters will translate into reliable support for Harris' campaign.
“Those who didn't [vote for Trump]”They're going to go home,” O'Connell said. “Democrats are going to go back to being Democrats, and some of them might not vote at all.”
