Vice President Kamala Harris will intensify her pitch to dissatisfied Republicans this week, hosting a series of moderated conversations with GOP former Rep. Liz Cheney in battleground states.
Ms. Harris will participate in a series of conversations with Ms. Cheney of Wyoming in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, campaign officials say. The events will be moderated by longtime Republican strategist Sarah Longwell and conservative radio host and writer Charlie Sykes.
Ms. Harris and Ms. Cheney will seek to appeal to Republicans frustrated with former President Donald Trump by warning about the risk he poses to democracy. They will argue that the vice president is offering a vision for an America that focuses on people’s needs, not the “chaos and division” of Mr. Trump, the campaign said.
The talks will be held in Chester County, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia; Oakland County, Michigan, a Detroit suburb; and Waukesha County, Wisconsin, near Milwaukee. Campaign officials say those counties are a key target because they are purple areas where Mr. Trump has lost support in recent years.
Mr. Trump lost Chester County by 9 points in 2016, which expanded to 17 points in 2020. He lost Oakland County by 8 points in 2016 and then 14 points in 2020, and he saw a 7-point erosion in support between 2016 and 2020 in Waukesha County.
The events mark a significant ramp-up of Ms. Harris’ efforts to attract anti-Trump Republicans.
On Wednesday, Ms. Harris made a bid to welcome disaffected conservatives into her coalition at an event in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where she showcased more than 100 Republican supporters. During her remarks, she urged Republicans to put country over party and unify against Mr. Trump, whom she said has no regard for the Constitution.
Later Wednesday, she made her first formal appearance on Fox News, sitting down for a contentious interview with anchor Bret Baier.
Ms. Harris is betting that enough conservatives have serious concerns about Mr. Trump that bringing them into the fold could be enough to swing a tight election in two weeks.
There is some evidence that her strategy could pay off. In Pennsylvania, 150,000 Republicans voted for Nikki Haley, the most serious challenger to Mr. Trump in the GOP primary weeks after she dropped out of the race.
Haley Voters for Harris, a SuperPAC working to convince conservatives to vote for Ms. Harris, estimates that the number of people who voted for Ms. Haley in the 2024 primary is enough to swing battleground states North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona.
However, 36% of Haley supporters say they’ll vote for Ms. Harris, compared with 45% who say they will vote for Mr. Trump, according to pollster Blueprint. About 20% of those voters say they are undecided.
A New York Times/Siena poll estimates that Ms. Harris is winning about 9% of Republican voters.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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