Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney joined Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign event in Ripon, Wisconsin, on Thursday, as the Harris campaign deploys Republican allies to key battleground states in the final month of the presidential race. part of the coordinated effort.
“I tell you, I’ve never voted for a Democrat, but this year, I’m proud to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” Cheney told the crowd.
Cheney said in September that both she and her father, Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney, would vote for Harris over their party’s nominee, former President Trump.
Cheney, a longtime critic of Trump, was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. She later served as vice chair of the House select committee investigating the fatal attack.
“At the heart of our survival as a republic is the peaceful transition of power,” Cheney said Thursday, adding that the president had an obligation to ensure that. “Every president in our history has fulfilled that duty until Donald Trump.”
Just a day before the joint Harris-Cheney event, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., unsealed a 165-page document filed by special counsel Jack Smith detailing criminal interference against Trump. Evidence in election cases.
After six years in office, including two years as House Republican Conference chair, Cheney lost the 2022 Wyoming Republican primary to Trump-endorsed Rep. Harriet Hagerman. In her primary concession speech, Cheney attributed her defeat directly to her opposition to Trump.
Thursday’s location was carefully chosen: Ripon, Wisconsin, is known as the birthplace of the Republican Party because a one-room schoolhouse there was the site of at least two meetings in 1854 that helped form the party. It has become a National Historic Landmark.
Harris also spoke of the town’s importance in her speech and pledged to be “a president for all Americans,” appealing directly to Republican voters.
“Liz Cheney carries on in the best traditions of (Republican) leadership,” Harris said. “If the people of Wisconsin and our country are willing to do what Liz is doing, defend the rule of law, defend our democratic ideals… ….Then I know that together we can chart a new path forward, not as members of any one political party, but as Americans.
Flanked by a campaign slogan that read “Country Before Party,” Harris spoke of the importance of a peaceful transfer of power in a democratic republic.
“If you share this view, no matter what party you belong to, you will have a place with us in this campaign,” she said.
The Harris campaign has been looking to exploit opposition to Trump within the Republican Party.
In August, the campaign launched the “Republicans for Harris” campaign. Since then, a small but growing number of prominent Republicans have come out to support Harris’ presidential bid, including former Trump White House aides Cassidy Hutchinson and the Cheney family.
Ahead of Harris’ visit, a group of more than 20 former and current Wisconsin Republican leaders launched the Wisconsin Republican Harris-Walz campaign platform and endorsed Harris’ candidacy for president in an open letter.
“We have many policy differences with Vice President Harris. But what we agree on is even more important,” the group wrote. “We agree we cannot afford another four years of broken promises, election denials and the chaos of Donald Trump’s leadership.”
The group said it will hold Republican voter outreach events focused on the Wisconsin area, where former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley won considerable support in the Republican presidential primary against Trump.
Although the former president won Wisconsin’s Electoral College vote in an upset victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race, Democratic President Joe Biden returned the Badger State to blue four years later.
Recent polls show Harris and Trump essentially tied, or within the margin of error, in the national presidential race. However, most polls show Harris holding a small but consistent lead over Trump in Wisconsin.
Thursday night’s campaign stop was Harris’ fifth trip to Wisconsin and her first to Ripon since launching her presidential campaign in July.
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