As Republicans try to undercut Vice President Kamala Harris as a San Francisco liberal, the Harris campaign is making overtures to members of the GOP who dislike former President Donald Trump.
Rebranding its “Republicans for Biden” program from when President Joe Biden was running for reelection, the Harris campaign has recommitted to reaching out to GOP voters through events and other organizing efforts, in addition to ads, as it did during the primary when Trump was feuding with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Republicans for Harris will particularly rely on “local and trusted Republican voices to speak to their friends and family about the importance of voting for the vice president,” according to the Harris campaign.
“Online, we will also leverage a grassroots-driven digital campaign featuring direct to camera testimonials from Republican Harris supporters making their case to fellow Republicans about voting for Vice President Harris,” the Harris campaign wrote Sunday in a memo.
Republicans for Harris will roll out from Monday with events in Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, with plans for GOP Harris surrogates to appear at events with Harris and her running mate during their battleground state tour this week.
“Republicans for Harris is also engaging voters and organizers by building out State Advisory Committees in battleground states to engage Trump-skeptical Republican voters,” the campaign memo stated. “These committees will play a pivotal role in facilitating Republican-to-Republican voter contact, including by hosting Republican-featured events, door knocking, phone banking, spearheading letter-to-the-editor campaigns, and building local networks with Republican organizations, businesses, and community groups.”
The launch of Republicans for Harris coincided with Trump’s rally in Atlanta on Saturday, during which he criticized Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) in personal terms. Trump and Kemp continue to clash over the 2020 election, after which Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “to find 11,780 votes” so he could win the Peach State.
“He’s a disloyal guy, and he’s a very average governor. Little Brian. Little Brian Kemp. Bad guy,” Trump said this weekend.
Biden won Georgia, the first Democrat to do so since former President Bill Clinton in 1992, in part because of his appeal to black voters and his ability to connect with anti-Trump Republicans voters. For instance, Haley received 78,000 votes in the GOP primary in March after she had suspended her campaign.
But while the Republicans for Harris “campaign within a campaign,” as Harris aides describe it, has already been endorsed by the likes of former Trump White House officials Stephanie Grisham, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, it still has work to do with people, such as Principles First founder Heath Mayo, who started his “pro-democracy, anti-Trump” conservative organization in response to the former president.
“I voted Biden in 2020. [Evan] McMullin in 2016,” Mayo told the Washington Examiner. “This again will sadly not be an election about policy differences, but about the fundamental ingredients that have made America the envy of the world, respect for the Constitution, upholding the outcomes of our elections, accountability under the law, etc.”
“Harris needs to make the case to principled conservative voters in defense of these core commitments,” he said.
Republicans for Harris complements the campaign’s more traditional outreach, with volunteers making 2.3 million phone calls, knocking on 172,000 doors, and sending 2.9 million text messages to battleground state voters in the last two weeks, according to battleground states director Dan Kanninen.
“We currently have more than 260 coordinated campaign offices and more than 1,400 coordinated staff across the battleground states that are making investments in training and reaching supporters across the country with new organizing tactics,” Kanninen wrote Saturday in a separate memo. “In the next two weeks, we will also add 150 more staff to the blue wall and more than double our staff in Arizona and North Carolina to ensure we continue to capitalize and drive the enormous enthusiasm for the vice president.”
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“Meanwhile, Donald Trump is running a flailing campaign with no vision for the future, his brand new running mate is depressing Republican enthusiasm, and with only three months until Election Day, his campaign still lags far behind in the infrastructure needed to win in key battleground states,” he added. “For example, in Nevada, Team Harris has 13 offices, while Trump has just one. In Pennsylvania, we have 36 coordinated offices while Trump has just 3. In Georgia, we have 24 offices while the Trump team didn’t open their first until June.”
Harris had a good second week of her campaign last week, announcing her campaign raised $310 million last month and hosted a 10,000-person rally in Atlanta last Tuesday as she tries to put pressure on Trump to debate her on ABC next month. She is expected to announce her vice presidential pick soon, before she and her second in command embark on a five-day, seven-state swing, scheduled to begin in Philadelphia on that day.
