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Harris to Visit Midwestern Suburbs 10/21 06:12
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Democrat Kamala Harris is out to win over suburban
voters uneasy about Republican Donald Trump as she touches down in three
Midwestern battleground states on Monday to hold moderated conversations with
Republican Liz Cheney.
The vice president will make appearances in three suburban counties won by
Republican Nikki Haley before she dropped out of the race for the GOP
nomination: Chester County, Pennsylvania; Oakland County, Michigan; and
Waukesha County, Wisconsin.
Harris' travel companion, Cheney, is a former GOP congresswoman from Wyoming
and a fierce critic of Trump. Their conversations will be moderated by a
conservative radio host and a GOP strategist.
With just over two weeks to go before the presidential election and the race
a dead heat, the Democratic nominee is looking for support from every possible
voter. Her campaign is hoping to persuade those who haven't made up their
minds, mobilize any Democrats considering sitting this one out, and pick off
voters in areas where support for Trump may be fading.
A few votes here and there could add up to an overall win. In Waukesha
County, for example, Haley won more than 9,000 primary votes even after she
dropped out of the race. Overall, Wisconsin was decided for President Joe Biden
in 2020 by just 20,000 votes. In-person early voting in the state starts
Tuesday.
Cheney and Harris will be joined at the events by Charles Sykes, a
conservative radio host and editor-in-chief of the website The Bulwark, and GOP
strategist Sarah Longwell.
Cheney has endorsed Harris because of her concerns about Trump. She lost her
House seat after she co-chaired a congressional committee that investigated the
Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. That's when a violent mob of Trump supporters broke
into the building and beat and bloodied law enforcement in a failed effort to
stop the certification of Biden's 2020 presidential win.
Cheney is not the only Republican to back Harris. More than 100 former GOP
officeholders and officials joined Harris last week in Washington Crossing,
Pennsylvania, not far from where Gen. George Washington led hundreds of troops
across the Delaware River to a major victory in the Revolutionary War.
At a rally there, she told GOP voters the patriotic choice was to vote for
the Democrats.
As the election draws near, the vice president has increasingly focused on
Trump's lies around the 2020 election and his role in the violent mob's failed
efforts. She says Trump is "unstable" and "unhinged" and would eviscerate
democratic norms if given a second White House term.
"I do believe that Donald Trump is an unserious man," she says at her
rallies, "and the consequences of him ever getting back into the White House
are brutally serious."
Trump has been trying to minimize the violent Jan. 6 confrontation as he
campaigns, claiming it was "a day of love from the standpoint of the millions."
Harris will be back in Pennsylvania on Wednesday for a CNN town hall in
Delaware County, where she will take voter questions.
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