The ‘never-Trump, not-quite-Harris’ voters

An earlier version of this article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings here.
Hello, friends. I’m writing from North Carolina, where former President Donald Trump made a pitch to religious voters Monday night. More on that below.
The fight for the Romney voters
There are two groups of Trump-averse Republican voters still in play, Sarah Longwell believes: those who haven’t decided if they can support Harris, and those who haven’t decided if they’ll vote at all.
Standing backstage at a chic Philadelphia theater last Thursday, Longwell — a former Republican strategist who has spent the past year conducting hundreds of voter focus groups — laid out her plan to win over both. The people in the second group, the low-propensity voters, just need a gentle nudge, she said: “That kind of person trying to decide — do they care enough to get out and vote?” she told me. “That is the kind of stuff where hand-to-hand combat and persuasion really works for friends and family,” she said.
That first group, though, is what gets Longwell excited. “There are the right-leaning, independent, soft GOP voters who are trying to figure out, can they get there on Kamala Harris? They know they’re they don’t like Trump, but, like, can they vote for her?”
Longwell thinks they can — and she thinks she can convince them. In recent months, her organization, the Republican Accountability PAC, has poured tens of millions of dollars into ads that allow former Trump voters to share their own testimonials, explaining why they won’t be backing him again. Several of those voters were flown out to Pennsylvania last week for a bus tour across the swing state, where they — alongside Longwell’s colleagues at online news site The Bulwark — told packed concert halls why they’ve decided to vote for Harris this cycle.
Harris herself has gotten in on the play: over the past week, the Democratic nominee has spent as much time courting Republican voters as any other group. Last Wednesday, she rallied in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, with over 100 former Republican officeholders, repeating her pledges to appoint a Republican to her cabinet and to create a bipartisan policy committee if elected. Yesterday, she bolted around Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, hosting a trio of town halls alongside ex-Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming. (Longwell moderated the town hall in Pennsylvania.)
With only two weeks until Election Day, the gamble Harris, Longwell and the rest are making is that there’s a sizable chunk of “Mitt Romneys” out there — Republicans who won’t vote for Trump, but who aren’t on board for Harris — who they can convince.
But they’ve yet to get to Romney himself. The senator from Utah, once a hero on the “never-Trump” right, has quickly become something of a frustration. Romney has made clear, time and time again, that he cannot vote for Donald Trump, citing issues of character. He has also made clear that he will not publicly endorse Kamala Harris. “I believe I will have more influence in the party by virtue of saying it as I’ve said it,” he said.
To many anti-Trump conservatives, Romney’s non-answer is infuriating. Bill Kristol, one of Longwell’s co-founders at The Bulwark, suggested that Romney and the other Republicans who haven’t endorsed Harris or Trump — like George W. Bush, John Kelly and Jim Mattis — are “cowering.” Tim Miller, The Bulwark’s podcasting star, applauded Romney’s “singular bravery” throughout the Trump impeachment trials, but noted that now — when Romney could help ensure Trump never returns to office — Romney “stands on the sidelines.”
Perhaps Harris, Cheney and Longwell are making the wrong pitch. The argument they make is the same one central to Biden’s now-defunct campaign: that the Democratic ticket will protect democracy, and Trump will not. “I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the Constitution,” Cheney said at the town hall Monday. “You have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the Constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump.” The only logical way to voting against Trump, then, is to vote for Harris, she argues.
If the undecided Republican voters believed this, would they not already be Harris supporters? On the question of defending democracy, there’s no daylight between Cheney and Romney: They were both in the Capitol on January 6, where a brave Capitol police officer may have saved Romney life. Romney forcefully rebuked efforts by Trump and his Senate colleagues to unlawfully overturn the 2020 election. He has been outspoken about the threat he believes Trump poses to the country.
Romney needs no convincing. But he’s still not a vocal supporter of Harris. An effort to keep a foot within the Republican Party may be one motivation. A disdain for Harris’ policies may be another. “Biden’s policies drive me crazy,” Romney told his biographer, McKay Coppins, earlier this year, when Biden was still the Democratic nominee. “And one of the reasons I think there are people like me who shrink at the idea of endorsing Biden is, does that mean I endorse his border policies? Or do I endorse giving trillions of dollars to college students to pay their debt?”
To the Republican Voters Against Trump, some of whom may have significant policy differences with Harris, they say they all take a backseat to the issue of democracy. When I asked Dave McHenry, a voter from Missouri who flew to Philadelphia for last week’s Bulwark event, about his disagreements with Harris, he shrugged. “Honestly, I hardly follow what she says, because that’s not the point,” he said. “No matter what she does, I think the most important thing is the image she’s demonstrating. … She wants to heal this nation. She wants to end the divide.”
As Election Day rapidly approaches, another group is taking a different approach to woo Republican voters. Robert Schwartz, founder of Haley Voters for Harris, told me he’s seen “a small but clear movement toward Kamala” in recent weeks among the voters who supported Nikki Haley in the Republican primary. Polling seems to back this up. “The ones I’m talking to were impressed with (Harris’) outreach to the GOP in Pennsylvania and now Liz Cheney,” he said.
The pro-democracy argument, Schwartz has told me before, is important. (He sees the election as “choosing democracy over dictatorship.”) But at this juncture, that isn’t the right pitch, he said. “The late deciders aren’t moved by January 6,” Schwartz said. “They just aren’t. They are moved by who is going to be better on the economy and lowering prices.”
This month, Schwartz’s group launched a seven-figure ad buy that contrasts Harris’ and Trump’s plans on the economy and pitches Harris as a centrist — an argument that Schwartz believes will be more effective at this point.
As for the “Romney voters” — the Republicans who won’t vote for Trump, but can’t bring themselves to back Harris? “We say. take the field goal,” Schwartz said. “Take the win. No one should judge you for voting your conscience.”
As Election Day nears, a number of stories — including in the New York Times and Politico — question whether Trump will try to seize power regardless of the election’s outcome. Trump has not said whether he will accept the results of the election, and our polling shows a majority of Americans are concerned about post-election violence, regardless of who wins. But we should take heart that our country’s institutions are prepared for this moment, this essay argues: There Are Guardrails in Place to Avert Partisan Manipulation of the Election Outcome (Richard H. Pildes, Lawfare)
In rural North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene’s damage is still being assessed, the election marches on. Some people, displaced from their homes, cast early votes this week. “I think they’ll just crawl over broken glass to get to the polls,” one local said. They lost their homes and possessions. They’re showing up to vote in NC. (Natalie Allison, Politico)
Harris’ biggest hurdle in the West? Skyrocketing housing prices — and disgruntled renters and buyers who are footing the bill. Harris’ economic plan promises to expand housing availability and help first-time buyers, but in the Las Vegas metro area, her plan is met with “scorn,” the Times reports. As Harris Courts Sun Belt, Housing Costs Stand in Her Way (Jennifer Medina, The New York Times)
See you on the trail.
Editor’s note: The Deseret News is committed to covering issues of substance in the 2024 presidential race from its unique perspective and editorial values. Our team of political reporters will bring you in-depth coverage of the most relevant news and information to help you make an informed decision. Find our complete coverage of the election here.