In an effort to win the vote of disgruntled Republicans as she battles former President Trump in the race for the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to the town that claims to be the birthplace of the GOP.
A senior Harris campaign official says that the vice president on Thursday will team up in battleground Wisconsin with former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, a one-time rising conservative star in the GOP who became her party’s most visible anti-Trump leader.
The campaign event will take place in Ripon, Wisconsin, where a one-room schoolhouse was designated a national historic landmark due to its role in holding a series of meetings in 1854 that led to the formation of the Republican Party.
According to her campaign, Harris plans to spotlight the significance of that moment and that place – as she makes another direct appeal to Republican voters frustrated that Trump is their party’s presidential nominee – and as she reiterates her pledge to be a president for all Americans.
Harris is also expected to praise Cheney for her courage and patriotism in putting country over party.
Cheney, at a speaking event in early September at Duke University in swing state North Carolina, announced that she would be voting for Harris in the presidential election.
“As a conservative, 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 will be voting for Kamala Harris.”
Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, also endorsed Harris.
Trump, firing back, has called the endorsements “irrelevant.”
The younger Cheney was once rising in the ranks of House Republican leadership.
But she was the most high-profile of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach then-president Trump in early 2021 on a charge of inciting the deadly Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol, which was waged by right-wing extremists and other Trump supporters who aimed to disrupt congressional certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory in the 2020 election.
The conservative lawmaker and defense hawk immediately came under verbal attack from Trump and his allies, and was eventually ousted from her number-three House GOP leadership position.
Cheney, who has been vocal in emphasizing the importance of defending the nation’s democratic process and of putting country before party, was one of only two Republicans who served on a special select committee organized by House Democrats that investigated the riot at the Capitol.
In 2022, she was ousted in the GOP congressional primary in Wyoming to a candidate that was backed by Trump.
Cheney — who has argued that the former president is a “liar,” a “con man” and a potential “tyrant” who, if elected again, would “torch the Constitution” — vowed after leaving Congress that “I will do everything I can to make sure [Trump] is never anywhere near the Oval Office again.”
The Harris campaign says that the vice president, at her event with Cheney, plans to note that while Republicans may not agree with her on every issue, she promises to uphold the Constitution, America’s fundamental principles, and the rule of law.
The Cheneys are part of a growing list of prominent Republicans who are supporting Harris.
Two other high-profile anti-Trump Republicans — former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan – had speaking roles at the Democratic National Convention, which was held six weeks ago in Chicago.
And Harris is backed by more than 200 alumni who served in both Bush administrations or worked for the late Sen. John McCain and Sen. Mitt Romney, the 2008 and 2012 GOP presidential nominee. She’s also supported by more than 100 Republican former national security officials and other prominent Republicans.
Ripon is not the only town that claims to be the birthplace of the GOP. Exeter, New Hampshire also has some bragging rites, as it was the site of meetings in 1853 – a year ahead of the Ripon gatherings – by disenchanted political leaders who discussed the formation of a new party of Republicans.
But officials in Ripon said the group in Exeter never actually formed a political organization, or chose officials, as they did in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin is one of seven crucial battleground states with razor-thin margins that decided Biden’s 2020 White House victory and are likely to determine if Harris or Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.
With less than five weeks until Election Day in November, Harris and Trump are locked in a margin-of-error race in the key swing states.
While Trump retains vast sway over the GOP, even a small sliver of Republicans supporting Harris could make an important impact in what will likely be a race within the margins in the battleground states.
