Harris Teams Up with Anti-Trump Republican in Swing State Battle

AFP/APP

Washington: Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris joined forces with Liz Cheney, a prominent Republican critic of Donald Trump, on Thursday for a rally in Wisconsin, a key swing state in the upcoming election.

Cheney, known for voting to impeach Trump after the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, shared the stage with Harris as they sought to rally support against Trump’s candidacy.

Earlier that day, Trump held his own rally in Michigan, another battleground state, where he repeated debunked claims of election fraud, despite his seven-million-vote loss to Joe Biden in 2020.

The event came on the heels of a significant legal filing in Trump’s ongoing prosecution for an alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election. The filing argued that Trump had no presidential immunity for what was described as a “private criminal effort” and introduced new evidence of his misconduct.

“We did great in 2016 — a lot of people don’t know. We did much better in 2020 — we won. It was a rigged election,” Trump told the crowd, continuing his familiar refrain of election fraud.

Throughout his speech, Trump also misrepresented the Biden administration’s hurricane response, exaggerated migrant crime statistics, and questioned the mental fitness of Harris and two senior Democratic lawmakers. His remarks were delivered in Saginaw County, a crucial rust-belt area in Michigan, which Trump won in 2016 but lost to Biden in 2020.

Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are three of seven critical swing states expected to determine the outcome of the 2024 election, now just over a month away. Both Harris and Trump have been focusing heavily on these states, with Harris holding a narrow lead in the polls.

At the Wisconsin event, Harris appeared with Cheney in Ripon, the symbolic birthplace of the Republican Party. Cheney, who has since distanced herself from Trump, was one of only 10 Republicans to vote for his impeachment.

Her outspoken opposition to Trump led to her removal from House leadership, and she has since endorsed Harris and the Democrats in the fight against Trump’s extreme rhetoric.

Harris, who replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee in July, is appealing to moderate Republicans and independents, especially those turned off by Trump’s stance on issues like abortion and democracy.

Meanwhile, Trump has avoided addressing sensitive topics like his wife Melania Trump’s forthcoming memoir, in which she reportedly expresses views in favor of a woman’s right to choose, diverging from her husband’s position on abortion.

With just 33 days until the election, both candidates continue to battle for votes in these closely contested states.