U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) campaigns with U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Lansing) in Lansing, Mich. on Nov. 1, 2022. The event was Cheney’s first time campaigning for a Democrat. (Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)
During their second campaign stop on Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris and former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) were asked by a voter if they ever thought they’d be campaigning together.
“Perhaps not, but perhaps,” Harris said at the Royal Oak Music Theatre, whose marquee read, “Country Over Party.”
The duo did three events Monday in suburban communities in the “Blue Wall” battleground states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in an effort to court undecided and Republican voters. The Royal Oak event was moderated by journalist and former California first lady Maria Shriver, who billed the discussion stressing bipartisanship as “historic.”
In 2022, Cheney endorsed a Democrat for the first time: U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly), a former CIA analyst and Pentagon official. After campaigning for Slotkin in Michigan, Cheney returned in 2023 to speak at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference.
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who also endorsed Harris, went from being in U.S. House GOP leadership to a sharp critic of former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol following his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden. Liz Cheney voted to impeach Trump and played a pivotal role in the U.S. House Jan. 6 committee. She lost her primary in 2022.
In Royal Oak, Cheney said Trump was “absolutely unfit ever to be president again” and made her case for backing Harris, whom she called “supremely qualified.”
“I don’t know if anybody’s more conservative than I am, and I understand the most conservative value there is to defend the Constitution,” Cheney said.
There was a discussion of Republicans being concerned about coming out publicly against Trump and being attacked.
“I certainly have many Republicans who will say to me, ‘I can’t be public.’ They do worry about a whole range of things, including violence. But, but they’ll do the right thing,” she said.
“I would just remind people, if you’re at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody. And there will be millions of Republicans who do that on Nov. 5, vote for Vice President Harris,” Cheney added to applause.
Earlier this month, Michigan Republicans for Harris-Walz launched and it includes GOP former U.S. Reps. Dave Trott and Joe Schwarz. On Monday, the Harris campaign also announced and endorsement from Susan Ford Bales, the daughter of Republican former President Gerald Ford, the only Michigander to occupy the Oval Office.
And even though Trump’s primary opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — who won about 300,000 votes in Michigan’s GOP presidential primary, roughly one-quarter of the vote — has endorsed Trump, there’s a group of her supporters that haven’t followed suit.
“We are pleased that Kamala Harris is making a strong play for Nikki Haley voters and is spending a lot of time in the Detroit and Grand Rapids suburbs where many of the 296,200 Haley voters in Michigan reside,” said Robert Schwartz, Michigan director of Haley Voters for Harris. “Separate from democracy and rule of law messages, we hope Harris will focus more on economic messages in her closing argument — how Trump’s tariffs will raise prices for everyday Americans and Harris will give tax cuts to working families, how Trump’s fiscal policies will bankrupt Social Security and how Harris will protect it. These are the messages that we find are actually moving Nikki Haley and other undecided voters.”
Both Trump and Harris have been lavishing Michigan with attention this election, with the candidates doing multiple events in the state on Friday. Harris also did a Detroit campaign stop Saturday with singer Lizzo and is set to return over the weekend with former first lady Michelle Obama. Trump’s running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) is slated to stump in Oakland County on Thursday.
At the Royal Oak discussion, Shriver asked Harris to share three things about herself that voters can’t learn in an ad or campaign phone call.
“How much time do we have? I have lived a full life. I am a wife, I am a mother, I am a sister, I am a godmother. I love to cook,” Harris said.
Shriver also asked Harris what she’s doing to alleviate stress this election, noting that some people are turning to meditation, yoga and cannabis gummies.
“Not eating gummies,” Harris replied.
Pennsylvania event
The first Harris-Cheney event of the day was in the Philadelphia suburbs.
“For me, every single thing in my experience and in my background has played a part in my decision to endorse Vice President Harris,” Cheney, who once served as the third highest ranking member in her caucus, said. “That begins with the fact that I’m a conservative and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the Constitution.”
“And you have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the Constitution, who will be faithful, and [former President] Donald Trump, who, it’s not just us predicting how he will act, we watched what he did after the last election. We watched what he did on January 6th,” she added.
The event in Chester County drew a few hundred people, was invite-only and lasted just over 40 minutes.
During the event on Monday, Harris noted her foreign policy experience as vice president, saying she’s met with over 150 world leaders, and knows them on a “first-name basis.”
“They’re very concerned, our allies,” Harris said, alluding to concerns other world leaders have about Trump winning back the presidency. “Because as you know, when we walk in those rooms around the world representing the United States of America, we have traditionally been able to walk in those rooms chin up, shoulders back.”
Cheney pointed out the number of former GOP officials who served under Trump that are also supporting Harris as evidence that she’s the right person for the job, particularly on foreign policy.
Harris recently appeared on “The View” and said that “nothing comes to mind” when asked if she’d change anything from the previous four years serving in President Joe Biden’s administration. During a rally in Pennsylvania on Oct. 9, Trump played a clip of that as an attack against her.
But on Monday, Harris made clear her campaign slogan, “New Way Forward,” would guide her if she wins the election.
“First of all, I will say that it is a metaphor that is meant to also describe my intention to embark on a new generation of leadership,” Harris said. “And, needless to say, mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration.”
“I bring to it my own ideas, my own experiences,” she added, emphasizing the need to move beyond the past decade of discourse that’s been so heavily influenced by Trump.
Harris briefly highlighted her “opportunity economy,” on Monday, and the investments she believes are needed from the federal government are needed to address the housing shortage in the United States, while also appearing to make overtures to Republicans or Independents skeptical of government influence.
“As a devout public servant, I also know the limitations of government,” Harris said. “I want to work with the private sector,” adding that she already has in her career and used the example of her plan to partner with developers to increase the supply of housing and said her approach includes cutting through “red tape.”
Sarah Longwell, publisher of Bulwark and head of Republican Voters Against Trump, moderated the discussion.
Harris responded to an audience question by detailing her plan to restructure Medicare to cover costs of in-home health care for parents, so they can remain at home.
Harris also emphasized her belief that the government does not have a role limiting women’s reproductive rights, saying if Congress passed a law reinstating those protections at the federal level, she would sign it. The audience applauded.
In 2022, Cheney applauded the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. However, she shared a different point of view during Monday’s event in Pennsylvania.
Vice President Kamala Harris (center), the Democratic nominee foe president, speaks during a discussion with former GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney (r) and Bulwark editor Sarah Longwell (l) in Chester County Oct. 21, 2024 (Capital-Star photo by John Cole)
“I think it’s such an important point,” Cheney said. “I think there are many of us around the country who have been pro-life, but who have watched what’s going on in our states since the Dobbs decision and have watched state legislatures put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care that they need.”
Cheney used Texas as an example, describing the current situation as “not sustainable” and adding “something has to change.”
The Trump campaign shrugged off the effort from the Harris campaign events with Cheney.
“Showing off irrelevant former ‘Republicans’ of the past at campaign events doesn’t change the fact that Kamala Harris is running to extend her record of unlimited illegal immigration, rising prices, and endless wars abroad by another four years,” Trump campaign spokesperson Kush Desai said in statement. “Another incompetent Harris administration is the last thing Pennsylvanians want or need, regardless of Liz Cheney’s opinions.”
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Chester), represents the district that hosted Monday’s event. She told reporters following the discussion that she believes Cheney is an effective surrogate for the Harris campaign.
“She’s an enormously serious person,” Houlahan said. “Say what you will, as I mentioned, disagree with her on a lot of policy issues, but she takes her role as a patriot and as a representative of our country really, really seriously and so I think it’s pretty brave when somebody as serious as she and her father are coming out with this really important message to the American people to Republicans and Independents, specifically, that this is a very different election.”
Ashley Scott, who grew up in Bucks County and lives in Chester County, was able to ask a question to Harris on Monday. She told the Capital-Star following the moderated discussion that it’s really important that Harris shows a bipartisan front, mentioning the campaign’s line about putting “country over party.”
Scott said that she thinks the economy is the main issue for people her parents’ age, those in Gen X, but said “reproductive health” was a big issue for her generation.
The Philadelphia suburbs have shifted towards the Democratic Party in recent years, although Chester County, which hosted Monday’s event, has the distinction of being the only county in the whole state that flipped from red in 2012 to blue in 2016 for the presidential election.
The last event Harris and Cheney did was in Brookfield, Wis., on Monday evening. The discussion was moderated by Charlie Sykes, a longtime conservative talk show host in the state who has endorsed Harris.
Cheney talked about the need for a peaceful transfer of power, but said, “We’ve never faced a threat like this before.”
“This Republic only survives if we protect it,” she added.
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