Cheney, on the Sidelines as Harris Courts Her Endorsement, Plans to Weigh In Soon

 

Cheney, on the Sidelines as Harris Courts Her Endorsement, Plans to Weigh In Soon

 

The former Wyoming congresswoman, the most prominent Republican critic of Donald J. Trump, did not speak at Democrats’ convention, calculating that she could have more impact later in the race.

 

Annie Karni

By Annie Karni

Reporting from Washington

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/us/politics/liz-cheney-kamala-harris-endorsement.html

Aug. 30, 2024

 

When Democrats spread the word this month that there would be prominent Republicans onstage at their party convention making the case for Vice President Kamala Harris, all eyes turned to former Representative Liz Cheney, the onetime member of G.O.P. royalty who torpedoed her own political career by breaking vociferously with former President Donald J. Trump.

 

But Ms. Cheney, who has repeatedly pledged to do whatever it takes to stop Mr. Trump from holding office again, never took the stage in Chicago and has yet to endorse Ms. Harris despite repeated outreach from the vice president’s campaign.

 

Instead, on the eve of the convention, she posted a selfie with her daughter from a Taylor Swift concert in London. (When she referred to Ms. Swift, who has yet to endorse any candidate but backed President Biden and Ms. Harris in 2020, as a “national treasure” this year, Mr. Trump responded by saying that “Liz has gone full democrat.”)

 

In reality, Ms. Cheney has been virtually silent since Ms. Harris became the Democratic nominee last month, except to say that Mr. Biden’s decision to step aside was “courageous.” As the campaign has started a “Republicans for Harris” organizing program with a full-time national engagement director and a seven-figure ad buy targeting anti-Trump Republicans and swing voters, she has been conspicuously absent from its rollout of dozens of new G.O.P. endorsements.

 

Ms. Cheney, perhaps the most prominent Republican in the nation making the case against Mr. Trump, has notably stayed on the sidelines despite the campaign’s courting.

 

That is not expected to be the case for much longer. Ms. Cheney, who continues to describe Mr. Trump as “unstable” and “depraved,” has decided that September will be her moment to weigh in, according to three people familiar with her thinking, when early voting has begun and her voice will not be lost in a sea of back-to-back convention speeches.

 

Her objection to speaking in Chicago was almost entirely about timing, people familiar with her thinking said. It was a political calculation — which some of her allies disagreed with — about when she could maximize her impact on the outcome of the race.

 

The Harris campaign has reached out directly to Ms. Cheney and her team, a campaign official said, and will continue to do so. A spokesman for Ms. Cheney declined to comment on her plans.

 

But the vice president fanned speculation about whether an alliance could be in the offing during a CNN interview on Thursday night in which she said that if elected, she would name a Republican to her cabinet. Ms. Cheney’s name immediately began trending on social media, as Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans fantasized about the prospect of their unexpected hero serving in a Harris administration.

 

Democrats and other Republicans committed to defeating Mr. Trump view Ms. Cheney as a unique figure who can help with a critical slice of the electorate that the campaign is betting big on. Campaign officials note that almost one million voters in swing states cast ballots against Mr. Trump in the Republican primary, and could be ripe for the taking for Ms. Harris.

 

“We talk a lot about the Nikki Haley voters who could decide this election,” said Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Trump administration official who broke with her former boss. “More accurately, they are Liz Cheney voters, committed Republicans who likely supported Trump twice but can’t support him in the aftermath of Jan. 6 and his criminal convictions.”

 

She said that even if Ms. Cheney stopped short of endorsing Ms. Harris, she could make a critical difference by “speaking to skeptical Republican voters in swing states about why it’s OK to not vote for the Republican nominee,” and instead write in another name. That, Ms. Farah Griffin said, “could be enough to keep Trump out of the White House.”

 

Ms. Cheney has not yet signaled to the Harris campaign whether she plans to make a full-throated endorsement, although many people expect her to do so. But in a series of upcoming appearances in key states, Ms. Cheney plans to make plain the practical implications of what a second Trump term would look like, talking with specificity about his abuse of the intelligence community and his attempt to corrupt the Justice Department.

 

The former Wyoming congresswoman plans to talk about Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign against his vice president to throw out the results of the 2020 presidential election and map out the potential consequences of a second term.

 

Ms. Cheney, the most vocally anti-Trump member of a private and deeply conservative political family, is pro-gun, anti-abortion and in favor of stronger national defense. It may be easier for her to offer a full endorsement of Ms. Harris, friends said, after some of what she saw at the convention that spoke directly to the issues she cares most about.

 

That included Leon Panetta, the former defense secretary, who was given a prime-time speaking slot during which he quoted former President Ronald Reagan.

 

“Listen to President Reagan,” Mr. Panetta said in his speech. “Isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments.”

 

Since Ms. Cheney renounced Mr. Trump for his role in instigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, she has been blaring a warning siren about what would happen if Mr. Trump won the White House again. She was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him and one of two who served on the committee that investigated the attack.

 

The other Republican on that panel, former Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, accepted a prime-time speaking slot at the convention. In an essay explaining his rationale for doing so, Mr. Kinzinger wrote: “I wasn’t becoming a Democrat. They were just the only party offering me a chance to deliver my message to the whole country.”

 

Ms. Cheney, once seen as a potential future House speaker, lost her Republican primary in Wyoming by 37 points in 2022 to a Trump-backed challenger. While promoting her book this year, she briefly floated the possibility of running for president herself.

 

In the past, she has branded Mr. Trump a “con man” and a potential “tyrant.” She became a hero to the left for breaking with her party, despite her deeply conservative views that are at odds with almost everything else that liberals stand for.

 

While Ms. Cheney has been careful and strategic about picking her moment, some wish she had just jumped in on the biggest stage available, with the biggest audience tuning in, at the convention.

 

“Cheney is special in terms of the gravitas she brings to the Republicans-against-Trump case,” said Bill Kristol, another prominent Never Trump Republican. “She was in the House and she went along with Trump, while clearly uncomfortable doing so, throughout the whole first term, really. Then she broke so fundamentally and gave up everything.”

 

Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times. She writes features and profiles, with a recent focus on House Republican leadership. More about Annie Karni