Liz Cheney to campaign for Kamala Harris in Ripon, Wisconsin

In an effort to win the votes of disaffected Republicans as she battles former President Trump in the race for the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris Heading to the city that claims to be the birthplace of the GOP.

A senior Harris campaign official says the vice president will team up in battleground Wisconsin on Thursday Former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, A once rising conservative star in the GOP who has become his party’s most visible anti-Trump leader.

The campaign event will take place in Ripon, Wisconsin, where a one-room schoolhouse was designated a National Historic Landmark because of its role in holding a series of meetings leading to the formation of the Republican Party in 1854.

According to her campaign, Harris plans to highlight the significance of that moment and that location — as she makes another direct appeal to Republican voters who are disappointed that Trump is their party’s presidential nominee — and as She reiterates her pledge to be a president for all Americans.

Harris is also expected to praise Cheney for her courage and patriotism in putting country above party.

Cheney announced in early September at a speaking event at Duke University in the swing state of North Carolina that she would vote for Harris in the presidential election.

“As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this, and because of the threat of Donald Trump, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump. “I would rather vote for Kamala Harris.”

Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, also endorsed Harris.

Trump hit back, calling the endorsement “irrelevant.”

The younger Cheney was once rising in the ranks of the House Republican leadership.

But she was the most high-profile of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach then-President Trump in early 2021 on charges of inciting the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which was incited by right-wing extremists and other Trump Had gone. Supporters whose aim was to disrupt Congress’ certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory in the 2020 election.

The conservative lawmaker and defense supporter immediately came under verbal attack from Trump and his allies and was ultimately ousted from the House GOP’s No. 3 leadership position.

Cheney, who has been vocal in defending the country’s democratic process and emphasizing the importance of putting country before party, was one of only two Republicans who served on a special select committee organized by House Democrats, which Investigated the riot in the Capitol.

In 2022, he was ousted in the GOP congressional primary in Wyoming by a candidate endorsed by Trump.

Cheney – who has argued that the former president is a “liar”, a “fraudster” and a potential “tyrant” who, if re-elected, would “set the Constitution on fire” – vowed after leaving Congress that ” “I will do everything I can to make sure (Trump) is never around the Oval Office again.”

The Harris campaign says the vice president, at her event with Cheney, plans to note that Republicans may not agree with her on every issue, but that she will uphold the Constitution, America’s fundamental principles and the rule of law. Promises.

Cheney is part of a growing list of prominent Republicans who are endorsing Harris.

Two other high-profile anti-Trump Republicans — former Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and former Lieutenant Governor of Georgia Geoff Duncan — had speaking roles at the Democratic National Convention, which was held in Chicago six weeks earlier.

And Harris has the support of more than 200 alumni who served in both the Bush administrations or worked for the late Senator John McCain and Senator Mitt Romney, the 2008 and 2012 GOP presidential nominees. He also has the endorsement of more than 100 Republican former national security officials and other prominent Republicans.

Ripon isn’t the only city that claims to be the birthplace of the GOP. Exeter, New Hampshire also has some bragging rights, as it was the site of meetings in 1853 – a year before the Ripon gatherings – by dissident political leaders who discussed the formation of a new party of Republicans.

But Ripon officials said the group in Exeter never actually formed a political organization, or elected officials, as they did in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is one of seven key battleground states with razor-thin margins that decided Biden’s 2020 White House victory and are likely to determine whether Harris or Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.

With less than five weeks left until Election Day in November, Harris and Trump are locked in a margin-of-error race in key swing states.

While Trump retains widespread influence over the GOP, even a small share of Republicans supporting Harris could have a significant impact in marginal races in battleground states.