Longtime Republican Liz Cheney reveals she will vote for Kamala Harris for president, making her announcement in a battleground state.
Cheney, the former member of House Republican leadership who broke with Trump on January 6 and served as an outspoken member of the House January 6 Committee, revealed his decision at Duke University on Wednesday.
In doing so, she said she wasn’t standing on the sidelines or writing an alternative, but was instead voicing her support for Harris. While not entirely unexpected, the move is still a surprising statement from the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has spent her life immersed in Republican politics.
“Because we’re here in North Carolina, I think it’s crucially important that people recognize not only that what I’ve said about the danger that Trump represents is something that should prevent people from voting for him, but that I don’t think we have the luxury of writing down the names of candidates, particularly in the key states,” Cheneys said.
“And as a conservative and as someone who believes and cares about the Constitution, I’ve thought deeply about this and because of the danger that Donald Trump represents, not only am I not going to vote for Donald Trump, I’m going to vote for Kamala Harris.”
Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney announced she is backing Vice President Kamala Harris over Donald Trump
Her statement came days after she sent a telegram to the New York Times saying she would make her position known within days. And she did so in a state that Harris hopes to snatch from Trump, who won it in 2020.
Harris made an explicit appeal for Republican support at her convention and featured GOP speakers including former Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s former press secretary.
But Cheney notably did not appear (nor did Beyoncé, despite rumors).
Harris’s group has been reaching out to Cheney and other Republicans in an effort to build support.
Harris’ team had reached out to the former Wyoming Republican who has called Trump “unstable” and “depraved” and who voted to impeach Trump after Jan. 6.
Another recently retired Republican lawmaker, former Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, took a different tack, announcing on CNBC this week that he would not vote for either Trump or Harris, though he acknowledged the race 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 Pennsylvania, 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 that signal Wednesday on capital gains tax rates, a longtime Republican focus, while saying she would continue to provide U.S. weapons to Israel and sign a bipartisan border agreement.
Trump’s campaign return with a clip of Cheney disparaging Harris when Biden named her to the ticket, calling her someone whose “voting record in the Senate is to the left of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.”