In an attempt to rally swing-state voters who supported former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, the Harris campaign unveiled its strategy for winning over Republicans on Sunday. However, a source familiar with the campaign’s Republican outreach efforts claims that there are challenges ahead.
According to NBC News, the campaign is enlisting state political directors to spearhead outreach efforts to Republicans within their respective regions. The source did add that the campaign is finding it challenging to secure the backing of specific state leadership teams to spearhead GOP outreach.
The other added, “That’s their dream, but I don’t think it will materialize to the extent they desire.”
Due to several of Harris’s policy stances from the 2020 Democratic primary, including her co-sponsorship of the Green New Deal and her support for mandatory gun buyback programs, the source has expressed concern about her ability to win over Republicans. Her evolving stances on a few of those policy matters, however, have comforted the individual.
In an effort to reach more Republicans, the campaign on Sunday announced a new initiative. One of the initiatives is the formation of state advisory committees in key battleground states, which will, according to the campaign, “play a crucial part in enabling voter engagement between Republicans,” which includes activities like door knocking, phone banking, and organizing events with Republicans. The Harris team said on Sunday that it will launch a digital campaign in which Republican backers of the senator will present “their case online to fellow Republicans.”
The Biden-Harris campaign courted GOP voters in the 2020 election by relying on independent, never-Trump groups. This time, the 2024 campaign established a special post to woo them, employing Austin Weatherford, the former chief of staff of Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger, a few months ago.
The national director of Republican outreach for the Harris campaign, Weatherford, released a statement saying, “The MAGA extremism of Donald Trump is poisonous to the millions of Republicans who will vote against him again in November because they no longer think his party reflects their principles.” “Despite Donald Trump’s declaration that he doesn’t want these voters, Vice President Harris and our team are making a special effort to secure the support of my fellow Republicans who believe in upholding democracy and bringing back decency.”
The campaign also revealed a long list of Republican endorsements, many of whom were already publicly critical of the outgoing president, Donald Trump. These individuals included former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, former Republican Representative Denver Riggleman of Virginia, and former press secretary Stephanie Grisham of the Trump administration.
Republican surrogates will also accompany Harris at events this week as part of her seven-state campaign blitz; however, the campaign has not disclosed which surrogates are scheduled to make appearances.
The source stated that it was challenging to locate people who were prepared to endorse the Democratic ticket in 2020 and they anticipate it will be harder now, in response to the Harris campaign’s inquiry about whether there were prominent Republicans who could be courted to give an endorsement. The source asserts that although she was left out of Sunday’s announcement of campaign endorsements, former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney (R) will eventually support Vice President Kamala Harris. The source added that they recommended that the Harris campaign pursue the support of former Arizona senator Jeff Flake, a Republican, who backed Joe Biden for president in 2020.
Before Biden withdrew from the campaign, neither Flake nor Cheney had offered an endorsement for 2024.
Should Cheney support Harris, it would put her in line with Kinzinger, another Trump critic and the only other Republican on the House committee that looked into the Capitol incident on January 6, 2021, besides Cheney.
In a statement, Kinzinger stated, “I never imagined that, as a devout conservative, I would be supporting a Democrat for president.” “However, I have faith that Vice President Harris will uphold our democratic system and make sure Donald Trump never wins another election.”
Similarly, Grisham declared in a statement that she “knows that Vice President Kamala Harris will fight for our freedom, even though I might not agree with her on everything.”
She went on, “I urge other Trump administration employees who witnessed the despot we served under to come forward and support Kamala Harris this November in order to preserve integrity in the White House and safeguard democracy for our nation.”
The endorsements coincide with efforts by the Trump campaign to portray Harris as “dangerously liberal,” a stance that the former president reaffirmed on Saturday at his rally in Atlanta when he referred to Harris as a “radical left freak.”
However, the Republican political insider who was aware of the Harris campaign’s GOP outreach and who was not swayed by Trump’s insults has not given up.
The insider stated, “I’m perfectly content to use all of our resources to defeat him with Harris.” “I believe that the best path to a robust Republican Party is to defeat Trump.”