This week’s Democratic National Convention may not just be notable for U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris’s historic nomination for president, but also for the number of high-profile Republican speakers supporting her.
Day 2 of the convention on Tuesday will be hosted by a longtime Republican critic of Donald Trump, and anti-Trump Republican groups have flocked to Chicago to show their support for Harris and warn of the dangers of electing Trump.
“We’re here (at the convention) to make common cause with the (Democratic) party faithful for the purpose of this election,” said Craig Snyder, director of Haley Voters for Harris, a group of like-minded Republicans who cast votes for former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley in this year’s Republican primaries.
Snyder told Global News the group is developing messaging to reach right-leaning independents and moderate Republicans “to show them that there is a community of people who agree with them, who are like-minded with them, but who’ve reached the conclusion that voting for the vice-president is the best thing to do for the country.”
Resistance to Trump from within his own party has steadily increased since Trump first launched his 2016 campaign, and some GOP officials and former supporters were featured speakers at the last Democratic convention in 2020. But that event was an entirely virtual affair due to the pandemic, and most of those Republicans were limited to the opening night.
This year, Republicans are being featured every night of the convention in front of huge crowds at the United Center, where they will underscore the growing opposition to Trump among traditional and moderate conservatives and help paint Harris as a consensus candidate.
Tuesday’s speaking schedule will be hosted by Republican strategist Ana Navarro, a friend of Harris’s who has been a prominent anti-Trump voice in her roles as a CNN political commentator and co-host of ABC’s The View.
“We need to love our country more (than our party),” Navarro said on CNN Tuesday in explaining her decision to accept the hosting gig, despite noting she’s still a registered Republican.
“I’ve had this clear from the get-go. I’ve had this clear from 2016. My purpose is to make sure that Donald Trump does not get anywhere near the White House. We failed in 2016, but we’re not going to fail in 2024.”
Other speakers on Tuesday include John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Ariz., and Stephanie Grisham, who served in Trump’s administration as communications director and, briefly, the White House press secretary.
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Later in the week, the convention will hear from former Georgia lieutenant-governor Geoff Duncan and former U.S. representative Adam Kinzinger, the latter of whom sat on the special House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
During the convention’s first night on Monday, a video was played of Florida resident Rich Logis, who said he was a diehard Trump supporter before the pandemic forced him to step outside the “MAGA echo chamber.”
“I made a grave mistake, but it’s never too late to change your mind,” said Logis, who now co-chairs the Florida chapter of the Republicans Against Trump group and has endorsed Harris.
Since she became the nominee, Harris has steadily racked up endorsements from Republicans opposed to Trump, including those speaking at this week’s convention and groups like Snyder’s and Logis’s who had pledged to support U.S. President Joe Biden before he dropped his re-election bid last month.
Other notable Republicans — including Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence, Sen. Mitt Romney and former House speaker Paul Ryan — have declined to endorse Trump but have yet to say if they will support Harris.
While Trump handily won the Republican primaries early this year, he faced a sizable resistance movement from Haley supporters, particularly after she became his sole opponent. Even after she dropped out of the race in March, between 10 and 20 per cent of voters in multiple states still cast their votes for Haley.
Haley has since endorsed Trump and sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Haley Voters for Trump group to try and stop them from using her name, which the group says has no legal merit.
“I am a Haley voter in the state of Pennsylvania, a registered Republican, and I’m for Harris,” Snyder said with a laugh. “It’s really is as simple as that.
“(Haley’s endorsement of Trump) is not a decisive factor in the minds of these voters. They’re going to make up their own mind based on what they think is best for themselves, their families, their communities, their country.”
Trump has angrily dismissed Republicans who oppose him as “RINOs,” or “Republicans in Name Only.”
Past conventions have featured speakers from the opposite party on occasion, as well as figures who switched parties. But the number of anti-Trump Republicans at the Democratic convention this year is notable and emblematic of a new political era, analysts say.
“With Donald Trump, there’s really a new dimension of politics — or a very old dimension of politics — which is pro-democracy or anti-democracy,” said Matthew Lebo, a political science professor at Western University.
For some Republicans, he said, “perhaps all the other issues that are usually so important are just secondary to that this year.”
Unlike Biden, Harris and her campaign have opted to focus less on painting Trump as a threat to democracy and more on the economy, health care and other “kitchen-table” issues.
While other Republicans are picking up the democracy messaging, Snyder said he and his group are more focused on portraying Harris truthfully, and countering the radical left caricature she’s become in conservative media.
“Haley voters sent a very clear signal, that they don’t want Donald Trump,” he said. “And so the question for them is, can they go that last mile and vote for the Democratic nominee?
“Our job is to help them reach that decision.”
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