Gerald Ford’s daughter announced Monday she was endorsing Kamala Harris for president despite them disagreeing on “some policy matters.”
Susan Ford Bales, 67, is a registered Republican like her father was, but said she’d support Harris because she has the same “principles” that guided her dad during his ascension from VP to president in 1974 after the resignation of Richard Nixon.
“She recognizes the goodness and the greatness in our country,” Ford Bales said in her endorsement. “I know she will defend the rule of law and our Constitution. And I know she will work to bring all Americans together to move us beyond partisanship.”
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Aside from notching the public backing from yet another lifelong Republican, the endorsement of Ford Bales is particularly valuable to Harris’ campaign because of the Ford family’s prominence in Michigan, a key swing state that remains neck-and-neck in polling. While Gerald Ford has no familial relation to the Ford Motor Company, which was founded in Michigan and still employs tens of thousands in the state, he is the only president to hail from the Great Lakes State.
Ford Bales said in her statement that America is in a “turbulent time,” as it was amid the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. She said the country is in need of a “compassionate and honorable leader,” which she suggested is something Donald Trump, 78, is not.
“America cannot regress back to a divisive paradigm of loathing toward one another and disdain for our Constitution,” she said. “We witnessed on Jan. 6 the horrors of what that looks like, and we can never allow a repeat of that tragedy.”
Ford Bales never mentioned Trump by name in her statement, but made clear she was disgusted with his actions that contributed to the riot at the U.S. Capitol. She said the “forces that incited” that dark day should “never be in a position to ever do it again.”
Gerald Ford was president between Aug, 9, 1974 and Jan. 20, 1977. Ford Bales is the youngest of the former president’s four kids and his only daughter. The elder Ford died in 2006, aged 93.
Ford Bales has remain outspoken since her father’s presidency and death. She is an author, photojournalist, and formerly chaired the board of the Betty Ford Center. She now joins a growing list of Republicans—like former GOP lawmakers Jeff Flake, Adam Kinzinger, and Liz Cheney—who’ve thrown their support behind Harris.
