Liz Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman and daughter of a former Republican vice president, will join Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday at a campaign event in Ripon, Wisconsin, the city commonly recognized as the birthplace of the Republican Party.
Cheney will campaign for Harris for the first time amid a larger effort by the Democratic ticket to capture the support of Republicans disillusioned with former President Donald Trump.
Cheney, who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection and led the committee that would ultimately refer Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, endorsed Harris last month in North Carolina.
“As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this. And because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris,” Cheney said at Duke University in Durham at the time.
Days later, Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, said he planned to vote for Harris, as well.
“In our nation’s 248 year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump,” he said in a statement. “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump lashed out at the Cheneys on Truth Social following the endorsements, calling Dick Cheney “an irrelevant RINO,” or "Republican in name only,” and saying his daughter should be “prosecuted” for her role investigating the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Ripon was the site of at least two meetings in 1854 that laid the foundation for the creation and naming of the Republican Party.
At her campaign event there Thursday, Harris plans to play into that symbolism by recognizing the founding principles of the Republican Party and pledging to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law, a senior campaign official said.
Harris regularly criticizes Trump for what she has characterized as his disregard for the Constitution in his effort to overturn the 2020 election.
“Let us be very clear: Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States,” Harris said at a campaign event in Madison, Wisconsin, last month.
In a 2022 Truth Social post, Trump called for the “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” as he continued to falsely assert there was “massive fraud” in the 2020 election.
The Harris campaign continues to win the support of several high-profile Republicans, including former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who served with Cheney on the House Jan. 6 committee; Jimmy McCain, the son of the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona; and most recently, former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona.
“I believe that we don’t have to agree on every issue or policy, but that we should use the political process created by our Founders to debate and persuade, not disparage and demonize,” Flake said in his endorsement on X. “I’ll be supporting Kamala Harris for President and Tim Walz for Vice President.”
Ahead of the event, the Harris campaign announced the launch of Wisconsin Republicans for Harris-Walz, an effort led by 24 conservatives from across the state, including a former Republican county chair, and several state elected officials.
"Donald Trump does not align with Wisconsin values. To ensure our democracy and our economy remain strong for another four years, we must elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to the White House," the Republicans wrote in an letter released Thursday.
In August, the campaign launched its broader Republicans for Harris-Walz coalition group. Since then, the ticket has gotten the support of more than 200 former staffers for former President George W. Bush and for McCain and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, two previous Republican presidential nominees.
