August 19, 2024. The Democratic convention opens in Chicago. Almost a month after the withdrawal of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris is officially inducted as the candidate of the Democratic camp. But beyond the speeches of the Obama couple, Joe Biden, the new running mate Tim Walz and obviously the vice-president herself, one speech stood out. Adam Kinzinger, former Republican congressman; Stephanie Grishim, former White House press secretary for Donald Trump and main advisor to Melania Trump, and Olivia Troye, former Donald Trump national security advisor, make a notable appearance on the main stage. The content of their speech is quite clear: no, they do not agree with Kamala Harris on her entire assessment and her project. But the danger that Donald Trump embodies for the United States is in their eyes much greater than these programmatic disagreements.
It is along this line that the “Republicans for Harris” movement was born, which seeks to convince more moderate elected officials and voters of Grand Old Party (GOP) to give up voting for Donald Trump and support the Democratic candidate, even while holding their nose. And if the first Republican figures to let go of the former American president initially did so of their own free will, Kamala Harris’ campaign team seems to have fully integrated the strategic interest of convincing and integrating other former GOP members in their camp.
Growing support…
This is particularly the case of the former elected representative to the House of Representatives Liz Cheney, daughter of the very influential former vice-president of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney. While she increased criticism against Donald Trump in recent months, she was discreetly contacted by Joe Biden’s former campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, reports the Washington Post. If she had not passed the course for the current American president, it was ultimately a call from Kamala Harris herself who convinced her to publicly support his campaign a few weeks ago. She thus affirmed during a speech at Duke University that although she is conservative, she would vote for the current vice-president “because of the danger that Donald Trump represents”. Before adding two days later that his father would do the same.
Liz Cheney has joined a growing list of members of the Republican camp publicly voting for Kamala Harris next November, and above all calling on voters to do the same. Among the most prominent names, for example, is George W. Bush’s former attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, who called in an op-ed in Politico on September 12 to defeat Donald Trump, “perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation.”
On September 18, more than 100 former senior officials from Republican administrations (under the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George Bush father and son or Donald Trump) signed a letter affirming their support for Kamala Harris and declaring Donald Trump “unfit” to be president. This Sunday, former Republican senator Jeff Flake – who was also ambassador to Turkey under Joe Biden – also officially showed his support for Kamala Harris. The Democratic camp even recruited Republican opponent Adam Kinzinger’s former chief of staff, Austin Weatherford, as “national director of Republican mobilization”, with the role of “building the coalition to save democracy”. Just that.
… but missing figures
If the Democratic campaign team insists on the slightest war gain made to the Republican camp, the question of whether these defectors can really swing the vote deserves to be asked. Because so far, the Republican elected officials who have passed the threshold are largely those who were already firmly opposed to Trump since 2021 (or even 2016). And who, at the same time, were already for many marginalized from the Grand Old Party. Adam Kinzinger like Liz Cheney, for example, were two of the ten Republican representatives to sign the procedure of iimpeachment against Donald Trump in 2021, causing them to be almost ostracized from their party. Republican Senator Jeff Flake also served as ambassador to Türkiye under Joe Biden. The Trump campaign team also wants to be convinced of this: “no one cares about what these disgruntled and disturbed people have to say,” insists Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for the Republican candidate, in a press release.
A way of self-persuasion, or a concrete reality? It is in any case clear that some of the most important names in the Republican camp have not yet passed the threshold, and that the attitude of the latter could definitively mark a real split in Donald Trump’s camp. This is particularly the case of American senator Mitt Romney, unsuccessful candidate in the 2012 presidential election and sharp critic of Trumpism since 2016. According to the Washington Postthis figure particularly coveted by the “Republicans for Harris” would have expressed his reluctance about such a choice, first of all with a view to a possible recovery of the GOP post-Donald Trump. But above all, the 77-year-old man – who will leave the Senate at the end of the year, officially to retire – confided fears for… the safety of his family if he ever chose to publicly support Kamala Harris . A fear of reprisals from the pro-Trump movement which would also be mentioned by other Republican opponents of Donald Trump, according to the American newspaper, and which testifies to the climate that the ex-president has installed in his own party.
Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist now engaged against Donald Trump, for his part explained, still to the Washington Postthat the Democratic camp should in particular target the rallying of former senior officials of the Trump administration who have already tackled the former president, such as his former chief of staff John F. Kelly or his former Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis. “Given that they worked directly for Trump, they have the greatest responsibility to warn others and their words would have a greater impact,” he explains.
“People are going to take a moment and say, ‘What is going on here, with all these different leaders and former prominent members of all the Republican administrations coming forward?’ It’s going to help on the ground.” her side the former adviser to Donald Trump, Olivia Troye. It will obviously be impossible to quantify the electoral impact that this support could have. But in an election that could be decided by a handful of votes in certain key states, it is better to put all chances aside.