The Democratic National Convention had the usual political fanfare, with prominent Democrats delivering thunderous speeches and attendees decked out in patriotic red, white and blue.
But it also featured one notable and unusual element for such a massive blue celebration: Republicans.
Among the remarks from the country’s most beloved and powerful Democrats over four days was a parade of current and former Republicans, all speaking in support of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
“If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat, you’re a patriot,” declared former Republican Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan as he took the stage at the Democratic National Convention to enthusiastic applause.
Olivia Troye, a former national security official in Trump’s White House, said in her remarks: “You’re not voting for a Democrat, you’re voting for democracy.”
Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger declared that Democrats “love this country as much as we do” as the crowd chanted “USA!”
And former senior adviser to Melania Trump and White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham claimed Trump calls his supporters “basement dwellers” behind closed doors.
A host of former Republican lawmakers, Trump officials and state Republicans spoke during the Democratic National Convention as Democrats try to build a coalition with anti-Trump Republicans to defeat the former president. From left: Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, former Trump official Olivia Troye, former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham
Republican strategist Kevin Madden said the speakers themselves won’t have much of an impact because few voters know who they are, but he believes they “are an avatar for many Republicans who describe themselves as ‘conscientious objectors’ to Trump’s vision of their party.”
“There are enough of them in battleground states to make a difference,” Madden said.
Harris’ campaign has been making a concerted effort to engage Republican and independent voters willing to reject the former Republican president and has recruited Republicans to help.
That was on full display at Chicago’s United Center and in stark contrast to the Republican National Convention a month earlier, where no Democrats took the stage in Milwaukee.
After her speech, Grisham said she was scared to appear at the Democratic National Convention, but that everyone welcomed her. She said that even if it only changed the minds of a few Republicans and independents, her appearance would have been worth it.
“Kamala Harris’ winning strategy is to re-energize and re-mobilize the anti-Trump coalition that defeated Donald Trump in 2020 and in that coalition, on the fringes, are the center-right swing voters who have historically identified as Republicans,” said John Conway of Republicans Voters against Trump. He argued that inclusion gave others “permission” to vote for Democrats.
Conway’s group has been conducting focus groups and outreach among those voters and noted that the convention included not only “elite” Republicans but also mainstream GOP voters.
Throughout the four-day event, a series of videos featuring former Trump supporters were shown on a giant screen as millions of Americans tuned in to the convention from home.
Two-time Trump supporter Kyle Sweetser speaks at the Democratic National Convention. Democrats are looking to revive the anti-Trump coalition that helped Biden win in 2020 and expand it with the help of Republicans who will tell their stories in 2024.
Mesa, Arizona Mayor John Giles spoke at the Democratic National Convention. He is part of the Republicans for Harris group.
Former Trump voter Kyle Sweetser, a Republican from Alabama, also took the stage and shared that he was voting for a Democrat for the first time in his life in front of thousands of Democrats.
“I feel more comfortable here than I do in the current Republican Party,” said John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, who also spoke at a recent Harris rally in his battleground state.
Giles invoked the late Republican senator and GOP presidential candidate John McCain during his speech when he declared, “Country first.”
The push to flip to Republicans began while Biden was still campaigning for reelection.
The Biden-Harris campaign was quick to welcome Nikki Haley’s disheartened primary voters as Trump attacked her candidacy earlier this year.
Haley has since announced she would vote for Trump, but that hasn’t stopped Democrats from seeking support from their voters.
Democrats are seeking support from voters who voted for Nikki Haley in the Republican primary even though the former UN ambassador said she would vote for Trump in November.
In June, the campaign announced the addition of a full-time National Director of Republican Engagement dedicated to promoting outreach to IIndependents and moderate Republicans.
Austin Weatherford of Virginia was Kinzinger’s chief of staff and had 25 years of political experience in the Republican Party.
He said the convention scheduling was just a last-ditch effort to “reach out to anti-Trump Republicans” and that they will continue to remind Republican and independent voters that “Donald Trump does not represent their values.”
The campaign has also been in regular contact with Republican Party leaders and organizations that want to combat Trump’s vision for the country, according to a campaign official, and will continue to work behind the scenes to help secure support.
She has spent more than seven figures on ads targeting undecided voters and earlier this month launched Republicans for Harris, a grassroots program to conduct outreach efforts to millions of Republican voters.
Former Republican Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan holds a note from his son at the Democratic National Convention that reads, “Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing.”
Critics have questioned whether convention organizers should have spent so much time on Republicans during the event. Some of the speakers acknowledged they were still Republicans and disagreed with Harris on policy.
Questions have also been raised about whether Republican voters who went for Biden in 2020 would also vote for the vice president, a Black woman who ran to the left of Biden in the 2020 primary and who Republicans have attacked for being more liberal.
But Conway’s research has found that Republican voters who supported Biden in 2020 had more concerns about the president than the vice president heading into November.
“It was clear that Joe Biden was facing problems from these voters, but those were problems specific to Joe Biden,” he said.
Conway said they really “saw the bottom fall out” after the president’s disastrous debate in June, but with Harris at the top of the ticket, they’ve seen a “strong rebound” with Harris at the top of the ticket, including among Trump voters in 2016 and Biden voters in 2020.
