Kamala Harris doubled down Thursday on her campaign’s effort to woo GOP voters, launching two new battleground ads targeting Republicans who are turned off by MAGA and tapping a GOP aide to help lead the charge.
In the pair of digital ads, first reported by NBC News, a Pennsylvanian who once voted for Donald Trump slams the billionaires now backing him. The campaign is also bringing on Maria Comella, previously an aide to Republican New Jersey former Gov. Chris Christie and Democratic New York former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to focus on Republican and independent women voters.
A month before Election Day, in an incredibly tight race, Harris is daring to cross party lines to find voters who could be the key ingredient to a recipe for success.
Harris is showcasing her GOP outreach efforts Thursday at a campaign event in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party, with former Rep. Liz Cheney, the one-time Democratic bogeyman who has already endorsed her.
The vice president is expected to contrast the noble origins of the Grand Old Party and the way Trump has twisted it into something unrecognizable to traditional Republicans.
Cheney is just one of many prominent Republicans who has backed the Democratic nominee. Others include her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson joined the crew on Wednesday, saying that she was proud “as a conservative” to vote for Harris and Tim Walz, her running mate.
The campaign launched Republicans for Harris in August, and state level groups have since sprung up across the country. On Thursday, Republicans in Wisconsin launched their own group, as did Michigan Republicans for Harris.
“I’m embarrassed to say I voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and I’ve been wrong about Trump every step of the way,” former Rep. Dave Trott (R-MI) said during a press call Thursday morning.
A Harris campaign official tells the Daily Beast that the team has a GOP outreach infrastructure in every single swing state. The campaign has spent seven-figures courting GOP swing voters, money which has helped air other ads highlighting former Trump voters who saw the light after Jan. 6, 2021, as well as the former president’s disparaging comments about Nikki Haley and her supporters.
But in an era of ultra partisanship, only a sliver of the electorate is willing to cross party lines. Most Republicans will end up voting for Trump. But with both camps predicting slim margins in a handful of battleground states, even a few thousand Republicans at the margins could decide the winner.
