Associated Press — Democrat Kamala Harris is out to win over suburban voters who are worried about Republicans Donald Trump as she lands in three battleground states in the Midwest on Monday to hold moderate talks with Republican Liz Cheney.
The vice president will appear in three suburban counties won by Republican Nikki Haley before she withdrew from the race for the GOP nomination: Chester County, Pennsylvania; Oakland County, Michigan; and Waukesha County, Wisconsin.
Harris’ traveling companion, Cheney, is a former Republican congressman from Wyoming and a fierce critic of Trump. Their conversations will be moderated by a conservative radio host and a GOP strategist.
With just over two weeks to go until the presidential election and the race at a dead end, the Democratic candidate is seeking support from every possible voter. Her campaign hopes to convince those who haven’t yet made up their minds mobilize all Democrats who are considering delaying thisand choose voters from areas where support for Trump may be fading.
A few votes here and there can yield an overall victory. In Waukesha County, for example, Haley won more than 9,000 primaries even after withdrawing from the race. Overall, Wisconsin was elected to President Joe Biden by just 20,000 votes in 2020. In-person early voting in the state begins Tuesday.
Cheney and Harris will be joined at the events by Charles Sykes, a conservative radio host and editor-in-chief of the website The Bulwark, and GOP strategist Sarah Longwell.
Cheney has endorsed Harris because of her concerns about Trump. She lost her House seat after co-chairing a congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. then a violent mob of Trump supporters broke into the building and beat and bloodied law enforcement officers in a failed attempt to stop the certification of Biden’s 2020 presidential victory.
Cheney is not the only Republican supporting Harris. More than 100 former Republican officeholders and officials joined Harris last week in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, not far from where Gen. George Washington led hundreds of troops across the Delaware River to a major victory in the Revolutionary War.
At a rally there, she told Republican voters that the patriotic choice was to vote for Democrats.
As the election approaches, the vice president has increasingly focused on Trump’s lies surrounding the 2020 election and his role in the violent mob’s failed efforts. She says Trump is “unstable” and “unhinged” and would undermine democratic norms if given a second term in the White House.
“I truly believe that Donald Trump is an unserious man,” she says at her rallies, “and the consequences if he ever enters the White House again are brutally serious.”
Trump has tried to minimize the January 6 violent confrontation while campaigning, claiming it was “a day of love from the standpoint of millions.”
Harris will be back in Pennsylvania on Wednesday for a CNN town hall in Delaware County, where she will answer voter questions.
