Harris and Cheney Visit Swing States to Declare Trump Unfit for Office

The Washington Post / Tyler Pager

13:53 JST, October 22, 2024

MALVERN, Pa. – Vice President Kamala Harris joined forces with Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney in three swing states Monday to denounce GOP nominee Donald Trump as unfit for office, part of an urgent 11th-hour effort by the Harris campaign to win over moderate Republicans and independent voters.

The unlikely pair appeared in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, holding onstage conversations in an effort to persuade undecided voters, especially Republicans with misgivings about Trump, to cast their ballot for Harris. With a back-and-forth that had the occasional feel of a buddy movie, the two women – in similar pantsuits, Harris in green and Cheney in blue – assailed Trump, as Harris heaped praise on Cheney for her support and Cheney made the case that Trump was no conservative.

“I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the Constitution,” Cheney said in Pennsylvania. “And you have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the Constitution – who will be faithful – and Donald Trump.”

Cheney, who served as the third-ranking House Republican until 2021, called her decision to endorse Harris “not at all a difficult choice.” She slyly signaled that Republicans did not have to disclose the selections they made in the privacy of the voting booth: “And I would just remind people, if you’re at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody.”

Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, emerged as one of the most vocal GOP critics of Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, going on to lose her seat in a Republican primary because of that criticism. She endorsed Harris in September and appeared at her first campaign event with the vice president this month in Wisconsin.

Cheney and her father are perhaps the most prominent Republicans to endorse Harris, the result of an intensive effort by the Harris campaign to recruit high-profile conservatives to back the Democratic nominee. Given the closeness of the election across all the battleground states, Harris’s advisers believe that attracting even a sliver of disaffected Republicans could prove pivotal.

On Monday, Susan Ford Bales, the daughter of former president Gerald Ford, announced that she was also endorsing Harris. She joins such notable Republicans as former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) in supporting the vice president, while some prominent GOP figures, like 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, have chosen not to back either candidate.

At the Pennsylvania event, Cheney frequently noted that she had vast disagreements with Harris on a range of policy issues. But she said that Harris, unlike Trump, “will always do what she believes is right for this country.”

In one striking moment, Cheney showed more agreement with Harris than she has previously. A lifelong opponent of abortion, Cheney said some states have gone too far in restricting the procedure since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision. That position could resonate with some Republican women who are uncomfortable with the antiabortion laws enacted by many red states in the past two years.

“I think there are many of us around the country who have been pro-life, but who have watched what’s going on in our states since the Dobbs decision and have watched state legislatures put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care they need,” Cheney said.

She added, “In places like Texas, for example, the attorney general is talking about suing – is suing – to get access to women’s medical records. That’s not sustainable for us as a country. And it has to change.”

Trump has attacked Cheney since she emerged as a major critic of his in 2021. On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social to deride her as a “war hawk,” a comment that plays into his recent efforts to appeal to Arab American voters in Michigan.

“Arab Voters are very upset that Comrade Kamala Harris, the Worst Vice President in the History of the United States and a Low IQ individual, is campaigning with ‘dumb as a rock’ War Hawk, Liz Cheney, who, like her father, the man that pushed [President George W.] Bush to ridiculously go to War in the Middle East, also wants to go to War with every Muslim Country known to mankind,” Trump wrote.

Harris is pushing hard to broaden her appeal to centrist and Republican-leaning voters. She has distanced herself from some of the liberal policy positions she took in the 2020 Democratic primary, and on Monday, she reiterated her promise to appoint a Republican to her cabinet if she wins.

“We need a healthy two-party system,” Harris said. “We need to be able to have these pretty intense debates about issues that are grounded in fact.”

“Imagine!” Cheney, seated next to Harris, chimed in.

As the crowd cheered, Harris said, “Wow, can you believe that’s an applause line?”

Still, Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist and former chief of staff to Sen. Joe Manchin III (I-West Virginia), questioned the strategy of deploying Cheney, arguing that it does little to address voters’ deep concerns over inflation and the economy.

“Not sure what turnout model they are looking at, but there is no Cheney bloc of voters that I am aware of that will win this election for Harris,” Kofinis said. “Even worse, the more events they do with her, the more they remind Democrats, progressives and voters in general that her father was Dick Cheney and the enduring damage he did to this nation.” Many progressives see Dick Cheney as an architect of the Iraq War, which they regard as a tragic foreign policy blunder.

Even as she faces an electorate yearning for change, Harris has shied away from identifying clear differences with President Joe Biden. When asked by the moderator in Pennsylvania to outline her agenda, Harris said, “Mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration. I bring to it my own ideas, my own experiences.”

But she did not articulate specific differences. Rather, Harris went on to explain her vision for an “opportunity economy” and her plan to address the nation’s housing shortage. Last week, Harris told NBC News that it was not part of the American tradition for vice presidents to criticize the president they serve.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pennsylvania), who represents Chester County after flipping the seat in 2018, said she had asked the Harris campaign to schedule an event in her swing district featuring the vice president and Cheney. “This is absolutely where the rubber meets the road, literally where the red meets the blue,” Houlahan said.

She added, “It’s pretty grave when somebody as serious as [Cheney] and her father are coming out with this really important message to the American people, to Republicans and independents specifically, that this is a very different election.”

At the Pennsylvania event, several people in the audience suggested that Harris was having at least modest success in attracting former GOP voters. Mary Jean Moroz, who said she was a registered Republican until the Jan. 6 attack, gushed about watching Harris and Cheney onstage together. She voted for Harris by mail last week.

“It was nice to hear two women from two different parties come together with great ideas,” said Moroz, 60. “It’s very reassuring to see someone from my former party be so supportive of a Democrat.”

Glenn Gerhard, a registered Republican who voted for the libertarian candidate in the last two presidential elections, said he mailed in his ballot for Harris last week, marking his first time voting for a Democratic presidential nominee.

“It’s my first time voting for Democrat, and I may never again,” he said. “Hopefully I will never again.”

Gerhard, a 63-year-old professor at Temple University, said Trump “was unacceptable for any kind of office.” He called the former president one of the “crudest, lewdest and disgusting individuals.”

“I want my party back,” Gerhard said. “We have to defeat Trump in as loud and dramatic way as possible and then start getting back to the roots of the party.”