Wisconsin Republicans announce their plans to vote for Kamala Harris

Wisconsin Republicans this week announced plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris for president, turning against Donald Trump and citing concerns the former Republican president would not protect the Constitution.

The traditionally conservative politicians and commentators called out Trump's increasingly erratic behavior on the campaign trail and his promises to use the U.S. military on "the enemy within" the U.S. The announcements came after former Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney made two trips to the battleground state to urge a split from Trump, including one moderated by conservative commentator Charlie Sykes, an outspoken Trump critic.

"Trump has to be defeated and we have to protect the Constitution," Republican state Sen. Rob Cowles of Green Bay said in an interview with Civic Media. "And the country will go on, even with some liberal things that Harris might do, or might not do. You have the foundation of the Constitution, to protect democracy. If you don't have that, we will disappear."

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Cowles, who has served in the Wisconsin Legislature as a Republican since 1987 before deciding not to run for reelection this year, said he had concerns about blowback over his announcement but said the risk of having a "totalitarian" and "fascist" serving as the commander in chief outweighed those worries.

"I probably should have done this sooner, but there was concern," he said in the interview with Civic Media. "You know, about blowback and public safety and all that."

Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly, who already broke from the party after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, also announced he'd vote for Harris.

"It's simply because Donald Trump cannot be our president," he said during a call Friday with other Wisconsin Republicans. "He doesn't represent my values, and his character is such that I think, I think it's difficult for anyone to argue that he should be our president because of his character, and he's shown us his character for four years now."

Tiffany Koehler, a Republican from Washington County who ran for the Wisconsin Assembly in 2018, also said during the call she planned to vote for Harris.

"This election is one of those moments in history where we must stand up and put our country over our party," she said, echoing the "country over party" slogan Harris has embraced during her run for president.

Still, other prominent Republican Trump critics have declined to heed Cheney's pitch to go further than not voting for Trump but to cast a ballot for Harris, including former U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble and former Speaker Paul Ryan.

Trump's campaign team blasted Republicans for turning their back on the former president, saying Harris is too dangerous to run the country.

"President Trump is building a historic unified movement to make America great again. He's been endorsed by Nikki Haley, RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard," Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

"President Trump will continue prosecuting the case against Kamala Harris as more moderates and independents realize Kamala Harris is a dangerous liberal who wants to ban guns, supports freeing violent criminals into our communities, and keeping our border wide open to deadly drugs and criminals. This election is about freedom versus communism."

A campaign official also said it was also seeing gains among traditional Democratic voting groups, such as Black voters and blue collar workers.

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At an event earlier this month in Ripon, known as the birthplace of the Republican Party, Cheney said she'd never voted for a Democrat before but was proud to do it this year.

"Vice President Harris is standing in the breach at a critical moment in our nation's history," she said to the crowd. "She's working to unite reasonable people from all across the political spectrum."

Cheney 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.

At Cheney's event with Harris in Brookfield this week, Sykes pledged his support for Harris.

"I never thought that I would be here, you never thought that I would be here, but that's because this is not a normal election," he said at the event. "This is not an election between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives."

Former Nikki Haley voters in WOW counties also plan to back Harris

Craig Peterson, a Milwaukee-based GOP strategist, is spearheading a group of Republicans who voted for Nikki Haley or other Republican candidates in the primary earlier this year but plan to vote for Harris.

Haley won about 13% of the GOP vote in the Wisconsin presidential primary despite having already dropped out of the race. She later endorsed Trump but hasn't been deployed on the campaign trail.

He said Trump is going against the grain of conservatism with his plan for tariffs on goods coming into the country, and his policies on immigration.

"We don't agree with everything Kamala Harris says," he said. "However, we have more in common than we have more than we have differences."

Peterson said his movement to see Harris elected has been well-received, especially among women in the counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington, commonly referred to as the WOW counties.

"Our democracy is in jeopardy. Everything Donald Trump has said and demonstrated to us is that he's a fascist," he said. "If we don't support Kamala Harris, what is our country going to look like? Are we even going to have a country in four more years?"

(This story was updated to add additional information.)

Laura Schulte can be reached at [email protected] and on X at @SchulteLaura.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Republicans announce their plans to vote for Kamala Harris