WASHINGTON – Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, a past GOP leader from Wyoming who was shunned from her party over her criticism of former President Donald Trump, will campaign with Vice President Kamala Harris in Wisconsin on Thursday.
Cheney will appear with Harris at an event in Ripon, an eastern Wisconsin town known as the birthplace of the Republican Party, according to the Harris campaign.
The appearance is the Wyoming conservative’s first with Harris and comes in the key swing state critical to the path to the White House. Cheney said last month that she would vote for Harris in November. Her father, former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, also endorsed Harris.
Cheney, who was born in Madison, is one of the most high-profile anti-Trump Republicans in the country.
She was ousted as chair of the House Republican Conference — the third highest-ranking House Republican — over her criticism of Trump following his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. She was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and served as the vice chair of the House select committee investigating the insurrection.
She was disavowed by Wyoming Republicans and lost her House re-election bid in 2022 over her break with Trump.
“As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this,” Cheney said when she announced her support for Harris last month. “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.”
In recent weeks, Cheney has endorsed and appeared alongside Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who is challenging Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for his Senate seat in Texas.
Harris in her remarks Thursday is expected to acknowledge the Little White Schoolhouse in Ripon where the Republican Party was reportedly founded in 1854 and make an appeal to Republican and independent voters, according to a senior Harris campaign official.
Harris, the official said, plans to reiterate her commitment to upholding the Constitution and the rule of law and will praise Cheney for her own commitment to the country as Harris attempts to draw a contrast between herself and Trump.
The Harris campaign in recent weeks has touted the support it has received from Republicans, including a number of former Republican Wisconsin state lawmakers, has evidence of what they’ve painted as a broad coalition of support from those both inside and outside of the Democratic Party.
During Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Walz referenced the support his ticket received from Dick Cheney, who served under Republican President George W. Bush.
“I’m as surprised as anybody of this coalition that Kamala Harris has built, from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift and a whole bunch of folks in between there,” Walz said.
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