Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, announced on Wednesday that she will vote for Kamala Harris in the November 5 elections. The influential former legislator, daughter of George W. Bush-era vice president Dick Cheney, thus officially makes her break with the Republican Party controlled by Donald Trump. “Because of the danger he represents, not only will I not vote for Donald Trump, but I will vote for Kamala Harris,” Cheney said at a forum held at Duke University in North Carolina.
Cheney has become the latest Republican figure to call for a vote for the Democratic candidate. Jimmy McCain, another member of a family of American conservatives, did the same this week. The son of John McCain, the late senator from Arizona and former presidential candidate in 2008, said he has registered as a Democrat and will vote for Harris. His support could be important in Arizona, one of the seven territories that remain in dispute two months before the elections.
“As a conservative and someone who believes in and cares deeply about the Constitution, I’ve thought a lot about this,” Cheney told students at the Sanford School of Public Policy at the famed university.
Cheney was punished for Trumpism after becoming one of ten Republicans who voted in favor of the impeachment against Trump in the House of Representatives for the Assault on the Capitol. She was one of the legislators who formed part of the committee that investigated the events of January 6, 2021, when a group of supporters of the former president tried to reverse with violence the result of the November 2020 election.
Cheney was elected to Congress in 2016. In 2022, however, she was defeated in a primary by a candidate backed by Trump, who has taken revenge on Republicans who betrayed him in Congress. After her impeachment vote, Cheney was ostracized by her then-colleagues, who ousted her from top legislative posts.
Jimmy McCain, a 36-year-old Marine lieutenant, had jumped ship earlier when Trump took control of the party after the 2016 election. During that campaign, the businessman mocked McCain, a war hero who suffered lifelong injuries after being tortured in Vietnam. Jimmy, however, was not too harsh on Trump at the time, saying that his father had been a public figure and that with that came criticism. In rejection of those remarks, the soldier changed his voter registration to independent. Now he is taking a step closer to the Democrats. He says he was convinced after seeing the Republican campaign use Arlington Cemetery as the setting for a political stunt.
“The people buried there gave their lives as the ultimate sacrifice. They have no political opinion. We don’t know what those people felt, thought or believed. We know they believed in this country, but that’s all,” said McCain, who admitted to CNN that Trump’s visit filled him with anger. The Republican candidate said he was invited to the military cemetery by the families of Marines who died during the chaotic withdrawal of US military forces from Afghanistan.
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