These are the Republicans endorsing Harris over Trump

[Thiệu Ngô]

The growing list includes former vice president Dick Cheney, top George W. Bush and Reagan officials and many who served under Donald Trump.

By Niha Masih

A growing number of prominent Republicans have come out in support of Vice President Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the November election, sounding the alarm over the potential dangers of a second Trump term.

The list includes former vice president Dick Cheney, several people who served directly under Trump and hundreds of officials in the George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations who articulated their positions in open letters.

The Harris campaign has discreetly sought some of these endorsements, while the Trump campaign has criticized and attacked those who crossed the partisan divide — even as his latest bid for the Oval Office is backed by only half of those who worked in his Cabinet, according to a Washington Post analysis.

Defections from the Democratic Party to the Trump camp have been far smaller in scale. Trump has scored the endorsement of two prominent former Democrats, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, both of whom he added to his transition team in August.

Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, a center-right online publication that opposes Trump, said the number of high-level Republican endorsements of Harris was unprecedented. She added that this lack of support for Trump — including from his own vice president, Mike Pence, who in March refused to endorse the former president — “sends an important signal to conservative-leaning swing voters.”

“It helps establish a permission structure for them to vote their conscience by supporting Kamala Harris, or at least leaving the top of the ticket blank. For an election that is likely to be decided by the narrowest margins, every one of these voters matters,” she said in an emailed statement.

Here are the prominent Republicans who are backing Harris over Trump for president.

Dick and Liz Cheney

Dick Cheney, who served as vice president under President George W. Bush, last month became the most notable defection from the Republican Party over its embrace of Trump. He said he would vote for Harris to “put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution.”

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in his endorsement. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”

His daughter, former congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), once the No. 3 Republican in the House, had earlier made a similar argument when she revealed she would vote for Harris. This month, she campaigned with Harris in Ripon, Wis. — known as the birthplace of the GOP — in an emphatic display of cross-party support for the Democratic nominee. Cheney was one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Jimmy McCain

Army 1st Lt. Jimmy McCain, the youngest son of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said last month that he planned to support Harris and has changed his voter registration from independent to Democrat.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), “embody a group of people that will help make this country better, that will take us forward,” he told CNN. He added that he “could never forgive” Trump for what he said about his father. Trump has for years mocked John McCain, saying he was not a war hero because he was captured during the Vietnam War.

Adam Kinzinger

Former congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — one of the 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment over Jan. 6 — also made his case for Harris at the Democratic National Convention.

In a Substack post defending his decision to speak at the convention, Kinzinger called himself a “lifelong Republican” and wrote: “There will be those who accuse me of betrayal, who see this as a repudiation of conservatism. But I see it as a defense of conservatism, of the true conservative values that prioritize the common good over personal power.”

Geoff Duncan

Former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan, who broke with Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, spoke at the DNC convention to woo anti-Trump Republicans into Harris’s camp.

“These days, our party acts more like a cult — a cult worshiping a felonious thug. … Let me be clear to my Republican friends at home: If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat; you’re a patriot,” he said.

Stephanie Grisham

Stephanie Grisham, former press secretary to Trump and chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump, captured attention when she appeared at the DNC convention in August and appealed for voters to back Harris. Trump mocked his supporters as “basement dwellers,” Grisham said in her speech.

“He has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth,” she said. “He used to tell me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie. Say it enough, and people will believe you.’”

Bush, Romney, McCain staffers

In an open letter published in USA Today in August, 238 Republicans who worked for the late President George H.W. Bush, President George W. Bush, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) or John McCain endorsed Harris and warned that another Trump term “will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions.”

The Republican alumni wrote that Trump presents a threat to the United States and countries around the world, adding that Trump and his “acolyte,” running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), “kowtow to dictators like [Russian President] Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies. We can’t let that happen.”

Republican national security leaders

In September, 114 Republican former national security and foreign policy officials who served under the administrations of Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump released a letter urging people to support Harris, saying that Trump is “unfit to serve again as President, or indeed in any office of public trust.”

Those who signed the letter include former CIA director Gen. Michael V. Hayden; John D. Negroponte, former director of national intelligence; former FBI and CIA director William H. Webster and former deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick.

Reagan staff members

Seventeen former Reagan staff members endorsed Harris in a letter this month, adding that had the former president been alive, he would have supported the Harris-Walz ticket too, CBS News reported.

“Our votes in this election are less about supporting the Democratic Party and more about our resounding support for democracy,” they wrote, according to the report. The signatories include Ken Adelman, the ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. Arms Control director under Reagan, and B. Jay Cooper, his special assistant and deputy press secretary.

White House lawyers

A dozen lawyers who served under Republican presidents backed Harris in a letter published in August by Fox News. “Trump’s attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after losing the election proved beyond any reasonable doubt his willingness to place his personal interests above the law and values of our constitutional democracy,” they wrote.

Former chairs of the Maine Republican Party

Robert A.G. Monks, Ken Cole and Ted O’Meara, three former chairs of the Republican Party in Maine, endorsed Harris in an op-ed last month. Trump was on a mission to divide the nation, they wrote, arguing that they worried his presidency “will follow the Project 2025 blueprint to gut programs and policies that are good for Maine people.”
John Giles

Mayor John Giles of Mesa, the third-largest city in the battleground state of Arizona, endorsed Harris in a July op-ed and later appeared at the DNC convention.

“The Republican Party with Trump at its helm continues down the path of political extremism, away from focusing on our fundamental freedoms,” wrote Giles.

Jeff Flake

Jeff Flake, the former senator from Arizona who served as U.S. ambassador to Turkey in the Biden administration, announced his support for Harris in a social media statement last month.

“I believe in our constitutional system and in the rule of law and I want to support a candidate who respects the will of the voters and would never attempt to use the powers of the presidency to overturn an election after having been turned out by the voters,” he wrote.

Alberto Gonzales

In an op-ed in Politico last month, Alberto R. Gonzales, who served as U.S. attorney general and counsel to the president in the George W. Bush administration, described Trump’s reelection as a threat to the rule of law.

“Power is intoxicating and based on Trump’s rhetoric and conduct it appears unlikely that he would respect the power of the presidency in all instances; rather, he would abuse it for personal and political gain, and not on behalf of the American people,” Gonzales wrote.

Olivia Troye

Olivia Troye, the former homeland security, counterterrorism and coronavirus adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, wrote in an op-ed MSNBC in August that she was a “proud member” of Republicans for Harris and described Trump as “unhinged, dangerous and extreme.”

“Trump wants to be a dictator on day one and his MAGA loyalists are all too willing to let it happen,” she wrote.

Nancy Kassebaum

Former Kansas senator Nancy Kassebaum — along with former Kansas state senator Sandy Praeger and retired federal judge Deanell Reece Tacha — endorsed Harris last month, Fox News reported. “This election presents a stark choice that is not easy for any of us,” they said in a statement, adding that it “requires Republicans speaking out and putting country over party when those values are at stake.”