Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is launching a “Republicans for Harris” slogan on Sunday as she seeks to rally Republican voters angry at Donald Trump’s candidacy.
The event will be a “campaign within a campaign,” according to Harris’ team, using well-known Republicans to activate their network, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who supported former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. The program will kick off this week with events in Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The campaign said Republicans who support Harris will also appear at rallies with the vice president and her soon-to-be-nominated running mate this coming week.
The Harris campaign shared details of the event with The Associated Press ahead of the official announcement.
It is trying to create a “permission structure” for Republican voters who would otherwise have a difficult time voting for Harris. The effort will rely heavily on Republican-to-Republican voter contact, with the belief that the best way to persuade a Republican to vote for Harris is to hear it directly from another Republican who made the same choice.
Austin Weatherford, Harris’ national director of Republican outreach, said Trump’s “extremism is toxic to millions of Republicans who no longer believe that the party of Donald Trump represents their values” and will vote against him again in November. He said the campaign will “spend time every day to seek out the vote of Republicans who believe in putting country over party and know that every American deserves a president who will defend their freedom and a commander in chief who will put the best interests of the American people above their own.”
Weatherford was formerly chief of staff to Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, who endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket before President Joe Biden’s poor performance in the debates against Trump. Kinzinger is once again backing Harris 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 Vice President Harris will defend our democracy and make sure Donald Trump never returns to the White House.”
Kinzinger gained national recognition as one of two Republicans on the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The committee exposed numerous violations by Trump before and during the deadly assault, as Congress was trying to certify the results of the 2020 election in which Biden won over Trump.
Trump has made little effort to win over moderate Republican voters and on Saturday he criticized Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who has rebuffed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the battleground state.
Last month, when Biden was still at the top of the ticket, the campaign released an ad that highlighted former Trump staffers’ criticism of their one-time boss. A separate ad highlighted Trump’s frequent personal attacks against Haley, including calling her primary nickname “Birdbrain” and suggesting that “she’s not qualified to be president.”
Hundreds of thousands of registered Republicans voted for Haley in the primaries, even after she ended her bid for the 2024 Republican nomination and was trounced by Trump in nearly every contest.
Haley announced in May that she would vote for Trump and attended the Republican National Convention last month.
The Harris campaign’s efforts include former governors Bill Weld of Massachusetts and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and 16 former Republican members of Congress, including Kinzinger and Representatives Joe Walsh of Illinois and Susan Molinari of New York, all of whom have been notable critics of Trump in the past.
Trump’s former press secretary Stephanie Grisham is also supporting Harris.
“I may not agree with Vice President Kamala Harris on everything, but I know she will fight for our freedoms, defend our democracy, and represent America with honor and dignity on the world stage,” Grisham said in a statement.