Surrounded by more than 100 former Republican officeholders and officials, Democrat Kamala Harris urged GOP voters on Wednesday to put “country first” and abandon Donald Trump.
The Democratic presidential candidate made her case to Republican voters that the patriotic choice was her party in next month's election because Trump is “unstable” and “unhinged" and would eviscerate democratic norms if given a second White House term.
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“America must heed this warning," said Harris, speaking at a rally near where Gen. George Washington led hundreds of troops across the Delaware River to a major victory in the Revolutionary War.
Joined by the former lawmakers and government officials for a rally in the Philadelphia suburbs, Harris said, “Anyone who tramples on our democratic values as Donald Trump has, anyone who has called for the ‘termination’ of the Constitution of the United States as Donald Trump has, must never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States."
The rally was part of Harris' effort to appeal to a swath of Republican voters in battleground states that she believes still can be swayed.
With 20 days to go, Harris is hoping to tear away any Republican or on-the-fence voter by warning that Trump is looking to govern with “unchecked power.” She has pledged to nominate a Republican to her Cabinet and create a bipartisan council to advise her on policy matters if elected.
Meanwhile, Trump addressed Latino voters in Miami, Florida. It's a group that historically has leaned Democratic but that Republicans have made inroads with.
Trump is walking a tightrope as he looks to woo Latino voters.
On Wednesday, he defended his call for mass deportation of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, even as he nodded to a need for immigrant labor during a town hall-style event on Univision, the nation's largest Spanish-language network.
“We want workers, and we want them to come in, but they have to come in legally, and they have to love our country,” the Republican presidential candidate said during the event, scheduled to air Wednesday evening. Trump was answering the question of Jorge Velásquez, a farm worker who said most people doing such jobs are undocumented and suggested, if they're deported, food prices will increase.
Trump then returned to his criticism of Harris for being a critical player in the Biden administration's that presided over an influx of migrants with criminal backgrounds.
The event featured pointed questions for Trump, about his wife Melania's support for abortion rights, noted in her new memoir, and about the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters who breached the building in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results.
“Your own vice president doesn’t want to support you now," said Ramiro Gonzalez, of Tampa, Florida, a Republican who said he was no longer registered with the party but wanted to give Trump the chance to win him back. Gonzalez was referring to former Vice President Mike Pence, who has disavowed Trump in light of Jan. 6.
Trump's response: “Hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me. They came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election. That’s why they came."
“That was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions," Trump told Gonzalez.
Harris was in Bucks County, a vote-rich stretch of suburban Philadelphia where Democrats have held a narrow advantage in recent presidential elections. Her advisers believe she needs to improve her margins in Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs to win the state's 19 electoral votes.
Harris was joined for her rally by former Reps. Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Jim Greenwood of Pennsylvania, Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois as well as Republican officials from every administration going back to Ronald Reagan.
“No matter your party, no matter who you voted for last time, there is a place for you in this campaign,” Harris said. “The coalition we have built has room for everyone who is ready to turn the page on the chaos and instability of Donald Trump.”
Several of the GOP surrogates said that supporting a Democrat felt awkward but was necessary due to Trump's rejection of electoral norms and his support of the rioters who tried to stop the certification of his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
“You know, Donald Trump may be running as a Republican, but the truth is, he does not share those long held Republican values of supporting democracy, of standing for the rule of law, and a faithfulness to the Constitution as a Republican," Kinzinger said. “That saddens me.”
Harris tapped a couple, Pennsylvania farmers Bob and Kristina Lange who had previously backed Trump, to introduce her at the rally. Bob twice voted for Trump and Kristina backed him in 2016.
“Never in a million years did either of us think that we’d be standing here supporting a Democrat,” Kristina Lange said. “But we’ve had enough. We’ve had enough.”
Some of the rallygoers who have voted Republican in the past said they were looking for the party to rewind to its fiscal conservative roots.
“We need more Republicans to stand up and say, ‘This is not what our party is about, this is not what we are about,’” said Sarah Larson, 53, of East Rockhill Township, who last voted for a Republican presidential candidate in 2008 when John McCain was at the top of the ticket. “It’s not what we recognize anymore as Republican values - which is less government, more freedom - right now."
While in Pennsylvania, Harris conducted an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier in which the two sparred over immigration policy and her shifting policy positions over the years, among other things. A week after saying she couldn’t think of any move made by Biden that she would have done differently, Harris asserted that “My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency.”
Trump and Harris also campaigned in Pennsylvania Monday, when the Republican was in nearby Oaks while Harris was on the opposite end of the state in Erie County, among Pennsylvania's most closely divided counties over the past two presidential contests.
Harris' simplest path toward the 270-vote winning threshold in the Electoral College is by carrying a trio of northern battleground states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris campaigned in Detroit Tuesday and planned to campaign in three Wisconsin cities Thursday.
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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Maryclaire Dale in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, contributed reporting.