The Harris campaign on Sunday laid out its plan for winning over Republican voters in an effort to mobilize swing-state voters who cast ballots for former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley — but the effort is not without its hurdles, according to a source familiar with the campaign’s Republican outreach efforts.
The campaign is tapping state political directors to lead outreach to Republicans in their regions, the source told NBC News. However, the source said that the campaign is having a difficult time locking in support from certain state leadership teams to head GOP outreach.
“That’s the dream of theirs, but I don’t actually think that’s going to happen on the level they want,” the person said.
The source has been nervous about getting Republicans behind Harris because of some of her policy positions during the 2020 Democratic primaries, such as her co-sponsorship of the Green New Deal and her support for mandatory gun buyback programs. But her shifting positions on some of those policy issues have reassured the person.
The campaign on Sunday announced a new push to appeal to GOP voters, which includes the creation of state advisory committees across battleground states that the campaign said will “play a pivotal role in facilitating Republican-to-Republican voter contact,” such as door knocking, phone banking and hosting events featuring Republicans. As part of Sunday’s announcement, the Harris campaign said that it will unveil a digital campaign where Republican Harris supporters make “their case online to fellow Republicans.”
During the 2020 election the Biden-Harris campaign relied on independent, never-Trump groups to court GOP voters. This time around, the 2024 campaign created a specific position to court them, hiring Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s former chief of staff, Austin Weatherford a few months ago.
“Donald Trump’s MAGA extremism is toxic to the millions of Republicans who no longer believe the party of Donald Trump represents their values and will vote against him again in November,” Weatherford, the Harris’ campaign’s national director of Republican outreach said in a statement. “Donald Trump said he doesn’t want these voters, but Vice President Harris and our campaign are working overtime to earn the support of my fellow Republicans who care about defending democracy and restoring decency.”
The campaign also unveiled a slew of endorsements from Republicans, many of whom were already openly critical of former President Donald Trump, including former Gov. Bill Weld, R-Mass.; former Rep. Denver Riggleman, R-Va.; and former Trump administration press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
Republican surrogates will also join Harris at events during her seven-state campaign blitz this week, though the campaign did not specify which ones are slated to appear.
When the Harris campaign asked whether there were high-profile Republicans who could be courted to make an endorsement, the source said that it was difficult to find people who were willing to endorse the Democratic ticket in 2020, and they suspect it will be harder now. That source believes former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., will eventually endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, though she was not included in Sunday’s rollout of campaign endorsements. The source also said that they suggested that the Harris campaign court the endorsement of former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who endorsed President Joe Biden in 2020.
Neither Cheney nor Flake had made a 2024 endorsement before Biden bowed out of the race.
If Cheney were to endorse Harris, it would once again align her with former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., the only Republican other than Cheney to serve on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and a fellow Trump critic.
“As a proud conservative, I never thought I’d be endorsing a Democrat for President,” Kinzinger said in a statement. “But, I know Vice President Harris will defend our democracy and ensure Donald Trump never returns to the White House.”
Similarly, Grisham said in a statement that she “might not agree with Vice President Kamala Harris on everything, but I know that she will fight for our freedom.”
“I encourage other Trump administration officials who saw the tyrant we worked for in office to speak out and stand with Kamala Harris this November to keep integrity in the White House and ensure democracy for our country,” she continued.
The endorsements come as the Trump campaign is working to paint Harris as “dangerously liberal,” a position the former president reiterated during his rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday when he called Harris a “radical left freak.”
But the broadsides from Trump have not dissuaded the person familiar with the Harris campaign’s GOP outreach, who previously worked in Republican politics.
“I feel really at peace with doing everything we can to beat him with Harris,” said the source. “I think defeating Trump is the best way to get to a healthy Republican Party.”
