The endorsements keep coming for Kamala Harris — from Republicans

Former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld said he felt pretty lonely in 2020 as a Republican openly opposed to then-president Donald Trump, running a quixotic primary campaign against him and then announcing he voted for Democrat Joe Biden.

Four years later, Weld’s got more company.

“I feel great about it,” he said of the growing group of Republicans who have joined him in publicly declaring they will cross party lines and vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. “But I don’t think it’s my doing. I think it’s Mr. Trump’s doing.”

The fears of Trump’s return to power, especially after his 2020 election lies and the Jan. 6 insurrection, have spurred an outpouring in recent weeks of Republican politicians and former officials in previous GOP administrations announcing their endorsements of Harris. Now, they’re part of a Harris campaign grass-roots push in battleground states, begun while Biden was still running, that seeks to peel Republican voters away from Trump in a tight race.

“I’m pretty much spending all my time trying to keep Donald Trump the hell away from the White House,” said former representative Jim Greenwood, co-chair of Pennsylvania Republicans for Harris, which held a rally Tuesday in deep red Lancaster County. “I supported every Republican candidate for president, from Richard Nixon through [Mitt] Romney ... but when Trump came on board, I knew he’s a terrible human being and I could not possibly support him.”

The effort scored two major endorsements this month when former representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming and her father, former vice president Dick Cheney, announced they would be voting for Harris.That one-two conservative punch came after several Republicans supporting Harris got speaking roles at the Democratic National Convention, including Adam Kinzinger, the former Illinois congressman, and John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, Ariz.

In addition to the backing by the Cheneys and another prominent Republican, former US attorney general Alberto Gonzales, the Harris campaign has released a slew of other public GOP endorsements. They included a letter from more than 230 people who worked for President George W. Bush and former GOP presidential nominees Mitt Romney and the late John McCain, as well as another from more than 100 former national security and foreign policy officials. On Friday, Dawn Roberts, a lifelong Republican who was Iowa co-chair of Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential campaign, announced her backing of Harris.

“The Vice President is bringing together voters from across the political spectrum by running a campaign about freedom, democracy, and opportunity,” Austin Weatherford, the campaign’s National Republican Outreach director, said in a written statement to the Globe. “Our Republicans for Harris program is taking that unifying, inspiring message to anti-Trump Republicans, moderates, and independents. While we’re seeing a surge in support, we aren’t taking anyone for granted.”

Trump dismissed the Cheney endorsements, calling Dick Cheney “an irrelevant RINO,” an acronym for Republican In Name Only. The Trump campaign does not appear to have any organized effort aimed at luring Democrats. A spokesperson pointed to endorsements from former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ran as an independent for president this year, as proof Trump’s campaign has reach.

Republican pollster Jon McHenry said he doesn’t think the cross-party endorsements for Harris will make much difference because so few voters are undecided.

“It’s hard to imagine being on the fence now and then saying, ‘Well, Liz Cheney went over so I guess I will too,’ “ he said. “That group of people is just so small.”

But even a small number of votes could make a difference in tight battleground state races.

In a Marist College poll this month of Pennsylvania, which showed Harris and Trump tied, 4 percent of Democrats said they supported Trump and 3 percent of Republicans said they backed Harris. And while more than eight in 10 registered voters in the state said nothing would change their mind, 14 percent said they still could be swayed and 4 percent said they hadn’t decided yet.

In 2020, Biden won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona by less than 1 percentage point each.

“If we can help move and encourage a few thousand Republicans in each of the battleground states to get out there and vote for her, in an election this close, that could help make a difference,” said Joe Walsh, a former GOP congressman from Illinois who is a leading Republicans for Harris surrogate.

He has campaigned for Harris in New Hampshire and was at Tuesday’s Pennsylvania rally, along with former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan. They’re trying to show Republicans considering voting for Harris that they aren’t alone and that it’s OK to cross party lines in this unusual instance, Walsh said.

“I was the Tea Party crazy guy in Congress. If you told me 10 years ago I’d be doing this, I’d say no way. But [Trump] came along and he changed everything when it comes to Republicans,” said Walsh, who also challenged Trump in the 2020 primaries. “A big impetus for a lot of us, especially for a lot of local Republicans, is they want to fight to get their party back.”

Claira Monier, 83, who worked in the Reagan administration and chaired Republican Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential campaign in New Hampshire, said she voted for Biden in 2020. But she didn’t come out publicly for him.

This year, after the Capitol insurrection, she’s co-chair of New Hampshire Republicans for Harris.

“I’m still a Republican. Trump is not a Republican,” she said of his accusation that people like her are RINOs, noting she plans to vote for Republican Kelly Ayotte for governor in November. “You look at a lot of his positions, they aren’t even positions. They’re accusations. They’re lies if you check them out. I don’t think he knows what a Republican means.”

The New Hampshire group has a weekly conference call and has volunteers knocking on doors and distributing Harris signs around the state, Monier said. She’s been surprised at the reception.

“I thought I would get more pushback and I haven’t gotten one person who called me,” said Monier, who lives in Goffstown. “Walking down the street, when people recognize me, they roll down their windows and say, ‘Atta girl.’“

Weld, who participated in a nationwide call recently with senior citizens as part of the Republicans for Harris effort, said the vice president has run a strong campaign since entering the race and that has helped lure endorsements.

“They are mainstream Republicans, not Trump Republicans, and there are a lot of them,” he said.

Biden had numerous Republican endorsements in 2020, including from Walsh, Weld, and more than 120 former national security officials. Walsh said Harris has made it easier to publicly cross party lines this year because she’s widely viewed as having a better chance to win than Biden did, but the motivation for Republicans is still more about who they are voting against.

“If we didn’t believe in our heads and our hearts that Trump is utterly unfit, that he’s a horrible human being, most of these Republicans for Harris wouldn’t be supporting the Democratic nominee,” Walsh said. “Most of what I hear is Trump needs to be stopped, he’s bad for our party, he’s bad for our country, and that’s why I’m supporting Kamala Harris.”

Jim Puzzanghera from the Boston Globe