Longtime Republican Liz Cheney reveals she is voting for Kamala Harris for president – and she made her announcement in a battleground state.
Cheney, the former member of the House Republican leadership who broke with Trump over January 6 and served as an outspoken member of the House January 6 Committee, revealed her decision at Duke University on Wednesday.
In doing so, she said she wasn’t just sitting on the sidelines or even writing in an alternative, but throwing her support to Harris. While not entirely unexpected, the move is still a stunning statement from the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney who has spent her life immersed in Republican politics.
‘Because we are here in North Carolina, I think it is crucially important for people to recognize not only is what I have said about the danger that Trump poses something that should prevent people from voting for him, but I don’t believe that we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,’ Cheneys said.
‘And as a conservative and as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this, and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump but I am voting for Kamala Harris.’
Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney announced that she is backing Vice President Kamala Harris over Donald Trump
Her statement came days after she telegraphed to the New York Times that she would be making her position known within days. And she delivered it in a state that Harris hopes to pry away from Trump, who won it in 2020.
Harris made an explicit appeal for Republican support at her convention, and lined up GOP speakers including former Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Stephanie Grisham, the former Trump press secretary.
But Cheney notably did not appear (neither did Beyonce, despite the rumors).
The Harris camp has been reaching out to Cheney and other Republicans in an effort to build support
The Harris camp had reached out to the former Wyoming Republican who has called Trump ‘unstable’ and ‘depraved’ and who voted to impeach Trump after January 6.
Another recently retired Republican lawmaker, former Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, took a different path, announcing this week on CNBC that he would not vote for either Trump or Harris, even while acknowledging the contest was a ‘binary choice.’
Harris said in her recent CNN interview that she would put a Republican in the cabinet if elected.
Harris is fighting for Republican support in battleground states, including Pennaylvania, where she and Trump are in a virtual tie.
Harris, meanwhile, has been sending signals to Republicans and Independents that she will chart her own course and not adopt all of President Biden’s policies. She sent such a signal Wednesday on Capital Gains tax rates, a longtime fixture of Republican interest, while also saying she would continue to provide U.S. arms to Israel and would sign a bipartisan border deal.
The Trump campaign hit back with a clip of Cheney dissing Harris when Biden named her to the ticket, calling he someone whose ‘voting record in the Senate is to the left of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.’