WASHINGTON – vice president Kamala Harris’ campaign on Sunday is launching “Republicans for Harris” as it seeks to win over Republican voters turned off by Donald Trump’s candidacy.
The program will be a “campaign within a campaign,” according to Harris’ team, using well-known Republicans to activate their networks, with a special emphasis on primary voters who supported former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. The program will begin with events this week in Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Republicans supporting Harris will also appear at rallies with the vice president and her soon-to-be-nominated running mate next week, the campaign said.
Harris’ campaign shared details of the program first with the Associated Press, ahead of the official announcement.
It is trying to create “a permission structure” for Republican voters who would otherwise have difficulty voting for Harris. The effort will rely heavily on outreach among Republican voters, with the belief that the best way to get a Republican to vote for Harris is to hear directly from another Republican who makes the same choice.
Trump’s “extremism is toxic to the millions of Republicans who no longer believe Donald Trump’s party represents their values” and will vote against him again in November, said Harris’s national Republican outreach director, Austin Weatherford. He said the campaign would be “showing up and dedicating some time every day to winning the vote of Republicans who believe in putting country above party and know that every American deserves a president who will protect their freedoms and a commander in chief who will put best interests of the American people above their own.”
Weatherford was the former chief of staff to former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who had endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket before President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump. Kinzinger is supporting Harris once again as part of the launch.
“As a proud conservative, I never thought I would support a Democrat for president,” he said in a statement. “But I know that Vice President Harris will defend our democracy and ensure that Donald Trump never returns to the White House.”
Kinzinger developed a national profile as one of two Republicans on the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. The committee highlighted a series of transgressions by Trump before and during the deadly attack as Congress sought to certify the results of the 2020 election in which Biden beat Trump.
Trump has done little to try to win over moderate Republican voters and on Saturday again criticized Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kempwho rejected Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election in the swing state.
Last month, when Biden was still at the top of the ticket, the campaign came out with a Ads highlighting former Trump staffers’ criticism of their former boss. A separate ad highlighted Trump’s often personal attacks on Haley, including his primary nickname for her as “bird brain” and the suggestion that “she is not a presidential member.”
Hundreds of thousands of registered Republicans voted in the primary for Haley, even after she ended her bid for the 2024 Republican nomination and as Trump defeated her in nearly every race.
Haley announced in May that she would vote for Trump and appeared at last month’s Republican National Convention.
Harris’ campaign effort includes former governors. Bill Weld of Massachusetts and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and 16 former Republican members of Congress, including Kinzinger and Representatives Joe Walsh of Illinois and Susan Molinari from New York. All have been notable critics of Trump in the past.
Trump’s former press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, also supports Harris.
“I may not agree with Vice President Kamala Harris on everything, but I know she will fight for our freedom, protect our democracy and represent America with honor and dignity on the world stage,” Grisham said in a statement.
