Will the Harris-Cheney show persuade anti-Trump Republicans?

The California senator spent the entire Monday doing a direct appeal to the moderate and Republican leaning voters in the three states which form the Democratic electoral base, the ‘blue wall’.

Just two weeks to the election, Harris campaigned through Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin with former Republican Congresswoman, Liz Cheney, who is a bitter critic of the incumbent president.

That it is not unusual for Harris to tour some of the most fiercely fought states towards the end of the campaign is not shocking, what is interesting is that she avoided most of the ‘campaign rally’ form.

Instead she opted for a ‘town hall’ debate with Cheney, a series of debates moderated by personalities selected with an eye to the other side of the political spectrum.

In PA there was Republican pollster and publisher Sarah Longwell and in Wisconsin there was conservative commentator Charlie Sykes. The third moderator was Maria Shriver in Michigan, niece of Johnny Kennedy and ex first lady of California for Governior Arnold Schwarzenegger a republican.

The places, the suburban counties outside each of the state’s biggest cities, were not selected randomly either. They are chock full of the sort of voters who are college educated, traditionally Republican, but who polling suggests are shifting towards the Democrats as some chunks of the blue collar demographic move in the opposite direction.

That is another indication of the fact that the coalitions around the two mainstream parties in the age of Trump are shifting more and more.

As Craig Snyder, a Republican strategist from Pennsylvania, who supports Harris, said the Democrats are deliberately courting the ‘angry white man,’ but just listening to the Democrats is not enough.

“These voters want to hear from other Republicans,”, he said. “It’s important for them to hear that they are not the only ones in pain.”

Across the three states, it was Liz Cheney, who as the co-chair of the congressional committee that was studying the 6 January attack on the US Capitol was ousted in 2022 by a Trump-backed primary challenger, who delivered that message.

“That implies you can vote with your conscience and never have to say a word to anybody,” Cheney said in Michigan. “And, as I said before, there will be millions of Republicans who will do it.”

Harris quickly replied that she knows from Republicans approach Cheney and thank her for speaking against the former president even if people will never hear about that.

From where I sit I see that she is accompanied.” Harris stated.

The viewers of the venues were reportedly Republicans and undecided voters but the questions were chosen in advance, and the reaction – nodding in understanding and occasional gasps of surprise at some specifics of Trump’s political misconduct and improprieties – more than suggested that the audience was sympathetic.

Dan Voboril, a retired schoolteacher in Wisconsin who is deeply troubled by the toxicity of Trump’s Republican Party, said that he was a true swing voter but he was thinking of voting for Harris.

“Come on, Dan,” Cheney urged. The former congresswoman continued to say that the partisan divide was secondary to having a person of integrity and beliefs occupying the presidency.

“And Obama said: If you wouldn’t hire somebody to babysit your kids, then you shouldn’t make that guy the president of the United States,” she continued.

Many of the questions during this three-state town hall trip, though, appeared to be designed for Harris to recite the campaign’s main messages.

A young mother in Pennsylvania needs advice on how to take care of her elderly mother with dementia.

At the hearing, Harris explained how nursing was to be available at the homes with financial support from the government. In Michigan there was a question about Ukraine, and both Cheney and Harris got to state that if Trump wins, Putin will be sitting in Kyiv.

The isolationist tendency in the approach to the war, supported by Trump and his vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance, has found an echo in Americans who believe that billions of dollars spent on supporting Ukraine since Russia’s invasion should be better spent at home.

Abortion and reproductive right question was asked at each stop of this Harris-Cheney day tour; Cheney who is anti-abortion, made it possible to claim that the GOP states banning the procedure are over-reaching.

Recent polls of the general public give us a very close race for the presidency both nationally and in the blue wall, battleground states.

In the year 2016, now President Donald Trump secured the three states that are normally Democratic referred to as the ‘rust belt’ states; states that would once hold the nod for being the manufacturing hub of the America but in the year 2020, the ‘rust belt’ states went to Joe Biden.

By far most surveys today point below 10% of Republicans as supporting the Democratic side.

If those numbers are skewed - if Cheney is correct and there are hidden Republicans out there who will inevitably switch to Democratic side – Harris’s chances improve significantly.

One thing is clear: somewhere, the Harris campaign concluded that a shot at peeling even a tiny slice off the electoral map where Trump might be most vulnerable should be worth a day’s work.