Harris makes last-ditch appeal to disenchanted Republicans

Vice President Harris and her allies are making a last-ditch effort to peel off Republican support from former President Trump in the final days of the election.

Harris rallied with a number of her prominent Republican supporters in battleground Pennsylvania on Thursday, telling the party’s voters “there is a place for you in this campaign.” During the same trip Harris took part in her first sit-down interview with Fox News, a cable network with a sizable right-leaning audience. And Republican Voters Against Trump and the FF PAC launched an eight-figure ad buy hitting the former president in key swing states.

The effort comes as the Trump and Harris campaigns seek to reach out to voters outside of their traditional constituencies in an effort to close the margins and make up for ground lost among other groups.

“They know they are going to disagree [with Harris] on somethings,” said Olivia Troye, a Harris surrogate and former national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, referring to Harris’s GOP supporters. “They are looking at two very different types of personas that could potentially lead our country and the contrast between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump could not be any starker.” 

Many of Harris’s Republican supporters point to Trump’s denial of the 2020 election results, his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the overturning of Roe v. Wade as reasons for them crossing party lines this November. 

Over the past month Harris has escalated her effort to appeal to persuadable Republican voters. Earlier this month, the vice president hit the campaign trail with former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), something that would have seemed far-fetched four years ago. The campaign has also rolled out a number of ads featuring Republicans, including one released last week in Arizona featuring Mesa’s Republican Mayor John Giles. The spot is airing on local broadcasts and cable networks, including the Fox News Channel. 

In the latest encouraging sign for Harris, former GOP Rep. Charlie Dent (D-Pa.), who endorsed Biden in 2020, said Friday he had cast his vote for the vice president in Allentown. 

“The commitment to the outreach has really made a difference for the voters,” Troye said. “This hasn’t been just one thing. It’s been an ongoing series of events where this outreach has continued and the momentum has continued to gain and grow.” 

Harris made her first appearance on Fox News earlier this week when she sat down with the network’s chief political anchor Bret Baier. The interview exposed Harris to a massive audience, including many viewers who lean to the right politically.

“It won’t move the needle much, but if it moves it one percent, that will be determinative,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who co-founded the Lincoln Project. “That’s what they’re doing, they’re playing a game of margins now,” he added, referring to the Harris campaign. 

Harris’s efforts to appeal to Republican voters come as Trump appeared frustrated with calls for him to deploy his former opponent Nikki Haley on the campaign trail in an effort to keep persuadable Republicans in the party’s fold. While Haley lost to Trump in the GOP presidential primary earlier this year, she had a number of strong showings during the contests.

The Bulwark reported on Thursday that Trump’s team was in discussions with Haley to join him on the campaign trail toward the end of the month, but details have reportedly not been worked out. 

The chances of Harris peeling off a large number of Republican voters are unlikely given the partisan divide among voters and Trump’s iron grip on the GOP base. Last month’s New York Times/Siena College poll showed Trump with 89 percent support among Republicans and Harris with 96 percent support among Democrats.

But the same poll showed a potentially hopeful sign for Harris among Republicans. The survey found that nine percent of Republicans said they would vote for Vice President Harris, up from five percent in September. 

Harris’s allies argue that roughly that amount of support for Harris from GOP voters could increase her chances of winning outright. 

“Six, seven percent is basically what we peeled off of [Trump] in 2020,” Madrid said. ”There’s a very good chance that you could see 10 percent Republican defections which would have an enormous impact.” 

“If Trump loses, it’s going to be because he’s lost a record number of Republican voters,” he said. 

But Harris is grappling with cracks in her own coalition, notably among Black and Latino voters. 

A New York Times/Siena College poll of likely Black voters released last week showed Harris with 78 percent support among Black voters, while 15 percent said they supported Trump. Former President Biden, by contrast, won 90 percent of Black voters and Trump won nine percent in 2020. The New York Times/Siena College poll of likely Hispanic voters showed Harris leading with 56 percent of the voting bloc while Trump trailed at 37 percent. According to 2020 exit polls, Biden won 65 percent of Latino voters while Trump carried 32 percent. 

The numbers are particularly concerning for Democrats among Black and Hispanic men. The poll showed Trump receiving support from 20 percent of likely Black male voters while Harris received 70 percent support. Among likely Hispanic male voters, Harris carried 48 percent support and Trump carried 45 percent. 

“The race is going to be decided by whether or not Democrats can offset their losses with Black and Hispanic men by getting more Republicans,” Madrid said. “So Donald Trump is openly saying we’re going after Black and Hispanic men and Kamala Harris is openly saying we’re going after Republican voters.” 

Troye called the Republicans who are voting for Harris “an influential vote,” but pushed back on the notion that there are concerning cracks in Harris’s coalition. 

“Her coalition and her support continues to grow in each interview that she does,” she said. 

Troye, who is a Latina, added specifically that she was not convinced Harris is struggling with the Latino and Hispanic community. 

But many Republicans are skeptical Harris will be able to turn enough Republican voters to have a meaningful impact in November, pointing to Trump closing the gap in a number of key swing states. 

“At this part of a campaign it’s all about addition, not subtraction,” said one Republican strategist. “You’re out there trying to beat the bushes and trying to get every single vote you can.” 

“Both sides are doing it and it’s smart. It’s common sense politicking,” the strategist added. “I just don’t think they’re going to be all that successful in luring Republicans to come over to a Harris-Walz ticket.” 

The Hill/Decision Desk HQ average shows Harris leading Trump by less than a percentage point in Michigan, while in Arizona Trump leads 1.5 points. Harris leads by 0.2 points in Nevada, while in Wisconsin Trump is up by 0.5 points. And in Pennsylvania, the battleground state with the most Electoral College votes, Harris leads Trump by a narrow 0.3 points.

“Over the last few weeks he’s regained the advantage in terms of driving message,” the strategist said. “You can only run so many paid media ads in Pennsylvania but you can influence the way voters there see the race and see the candidates through their local media, through national media, through social media and everything in between.”

“Trump’s begun to overwhelm her in that regard and I think that's really why we’re starting to see it impact the polls so much,” the strategist said.