Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney excoriated Donald Trump, including for his appearance, at a rally alongside Kamala Harris on Thursday—part of the Democratic nominee’s ongoing effort to woo GOP voters.
Cheney began her speech by listing off her Republican bona fides—she began her career in Republican politics at age 10, when she sealed envelopes for the re-election campaign of President Gerald Ford. Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, served as Ford’s chief of staff from 1975 through 1977, when Democratic President Jimmy Carter took over in the White House.
Cheney was eventually elected as Wyoming’s single member of the House of Representatives in 2016—a job her father had also held for a decade from 1979-1989.
ADVERTISEMENT
“In other words, I was a Republican even before Donald Trump started spray-tanning,” Cheney joked. She went on to further castigate the former president for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice our Capitol, to allow law enforcement officers to be beaten and brutalized in his name, and to violate the law and the Constitution in order to seize power for himself,” Cheney added later. “I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. That is depravity, and we must never become numb to it.”
A month before Election Day, in an incredibly tight race, Harris is daring to cross party lines and link hands with Cheney in an attempt to find voters who could be the key ingredient to a recipe for success.
The push also includes launching two new battleground ads targeting Republicans who are turned off by MAGA, and tapping a GOP aide to help lead the charge.
The pair of digital ads, first reported by NBC News, features a Pennsylvanian who once voted for Donald Trump now bucking him for coddling billionaires. The campaign is also bringing on Maria Comella, who was an aide to both former Govs. Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), to focus on Republican and independent women voters.
At the event with Cheney Thursday, Harris heaped praise on her Republican counterpart, saying she stood “in the finest tradition” of Republican leaders.
“Liz Cheney really is a leader who puts country above party and above self—a true patriot,” Harris said. “And it is my profound honor to have your support.”
The Harris campaign’s efforts to woo Republicans comes a day after special counsel Jack Smith detailed new evidence of Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including allegedly saying “so what” when he was told that his vice president, Mike Pence, had to flee the Capitol as rioters threatened to hang him. Cheney was the top Republican on the House Jan. 6 committee.
“Liz Cheney is a stone cold loser who is so desperate for relevance and attention, she has debased herself by campaigning with a weak, failed, and dangerously liberal in Kamala Harris,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast. “The both of them are made for each other.”
The vice president sought to contrast the noble origins of the Grand Old Party and the way Trump has twisted it into something unrecognizable to traditional Republicans.
Harris thanked both Cheney and former Vice President Dick Cheney. “We might not see eye-to-eye on every issue, and we will get back to a healthy two-party system, I am sure of that, where we will have vigorous debates,” Harris said.
Cheney is just one of many prominent Republicans who has backed the Democratic nominee. Others include her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson joined the crew on Wednesday, saying that she was proud “as a conservative” to vote for Harris and Tim Walz, her running mate.
The campaign launched Republicans for Harris in August, and state level groups have since sprung up across the country. On Thursday, Republicans in Wisconsin launched their own group, as did Michigan Republicans for Harris.
“I'm embarrassed to say I voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and I've been wrong about Trump every step of the way,” former Rep. Dave Trott (R-MI) said during a press call Thursday morning.
A Harris campaign official tells the Daily Beast that the team has a GOP outreach infrastructure in every single swing state. The campaign has spent seven-figures courting GOP swing voters, money which has helped air other ads highlighting former Trump voters who saw the light after Jan. 6, 2021, as well as the former president’s disparaging comments about Nikki Haley and her supporters.
But in an era of ultra partisanship, only a sliver of the electorate is willing to cross party lines. Most Republicans will end up voting for Trump. But with both camps predicting slim margins in a handful of battleground states, even a few thousand Republicans at the margins could decide the winner.
