Former President Donald Trump emphasizes that he has the support of two former Democrats, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, while Vice President Kamala Harris is increasingly reaching out to anti-Trump Republicans to signal her bipartisan appeal.
Trump used these expressions of support, which he made after a number of centrist Republicans expressed their support for Harris at the Democratic National Convention last week, to demonstrate that he, too, has support outside his Republican base.
On Tuesday, the Trump team hailed the “broad coalition” that formed behind him when he named Gabbard, a former progressive Democrat, and Kennedy, a Democrat-turned-independent who suspended his presidential campaign on Friday, to his White House transition team.
Both will campaign for Trump in the final weeks of the campaign after appearing with him at events last week. Gabbard has already been selected to moderate a town hall meeting for Trump in Wisconsin on Thursday.
Neither Kennedy nor Gabbard are traditional Democrats. Kennedy, who challenged President Joe Biden in the primaries, was marginalized for his vaccine skepticism, while Gabbard, who represented Hawaii in the House of Representatives, reinvented herself as a conservative culture warrior after leaving the Democratic Party in 2022.
But Trump hopes that her support will help counteract the disappointment among Republicans that Harris tried to stoke in the first weeks of her campaign.
At the Democratic convention, Republicans from Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s former press secretary, to former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a member of the now-disbanded Jan. 6 Committee, delivered speeches declaring Trump unfit to hold office. Harris got another opportunity to amplify that message on Monday when more than 200 former staffers of establishment Republicans, including former President George W. Bush and the late Sen. John McCain, wrote a letter endorsing her campaign.
The Trump team is downplaying the impact of Republican support for Harris on the election. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told the Washington Examiner, “Nobody knows who these people are,” they said after the letter was released, while surrogates went on air to dismiss critics like Kinzinger as “RINOs,” or Republicans in name only..
But Trump appears to be trying to counter the narrative that Republicans will vote for Harris with a similar game plan. His campaign has hinted that other Democratic candidates will receive support and has tried to strike a bipartisan tone with Kennedy and Gabbard.
“Our movement is not about Democrats versus Republicans. It’s about patriotism and common sense,” Trump said at a rally in Arizona on Friday.
Moments earlier, while introducing Kennedy on stage, Trump had explicitly appealed to the “millions of dissatisfied Democrats, independents, moderates and old-fashioned liberals.”
In terms of the election, Republicans hope that Kennedy’s support will boost Trump’s 5% vote share, which he was polling at, but early analysis suggests that this will have only a marginal impact on Trump.
Kennedy’s endorsement, announced hours after Harris accepted the nomination on Thursday, also helped break the nonstop coverage of the Democrats over the past week.
“I don’t think the timing was a coincidence at all,” said Republican strategist Alex Conant. “If you want to launch a big endorsement campaign, this is a good time to do it. You’re trying to get a little bit out of the momentum of your opponent.”
Gabbard and Kennedy now have a loyal following, which has grown in part through their appearances on popular podcasts, including Joe Rogan ExperienceTheir participation in the campaign could help reach a portion of non-traditional and low-voter populations who have turned away from the political process.
Still, strategists doubt that these endorsements will really bring Democratic votes to Trump, since Kennedy and Gabbard do not represent the mainstream of their party. As for Harris, Conant said the Republicans who are backing her also do not have much “political capital.”
“I think we’re at a stage of the campaign where it’s difficult to generate messaging, and I think both campaigns are doing what they can to show momentum and show that they’re strengthening their coalitions,” Conant said. “But I don’t think supporting one of them is affecting the momentum of the other in any meaningful way.”
If one state is proving to be an exception, it is Arizona, where Republicans who supported McCain are still reeling from the insults Trump hurled at the senator. Harris is relying on surrogates like Mesa Mayor John Giles, who spoke at the convention last week, to persuade voters not to buy into what he called the “cult of Donald Trump.”
In 2020, Biden won the state by a razor-thin 10,000 votes.
Trump has sought to neutralize similar resistance in Georgia. Centrist Republicans were put off by his dispute with Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), who refused to help him overturn the election results. Last week, Trump extended a peace offering to the governor.
Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona strategist who left the Republican Party in 2017 after Trump attacked McCain’s military service, said Harris has “a higher potential to have bipartisan appeal.” He described Trump as a divisive figure whose rhetoric alienates traditional Democratic voters, including young people.
However, Coughlin predicted that the support Trump received from Kennedy and Gabbard will go some way to boosting his anti-establishment campaign message. Both politicians have gained support by criticizing the political “elite” over concerns about free speech and foreign intervention abroad.
“They’re libertarians, they’re independents. They’re people who are not traditional voters,” Coughlin said.
“If you’re angry, you’re on our side,” he added, describing Trump’s focus on American decline and corruption as threatening and negative. “I think that’s his secret sauce.”
Kennedy’s support could be helpful for the fringe. Polls show him taking votes away from both Trump and Harris, while he spent a lot of time declaring his disappointment with the Democratic Party in his speech withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race.
But he could also be a spoiler in some swing states. Although Kennedy had promised to withdraw from the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin, he missed the opportunity to do so and could take votes away from Trump.
At the same time, Democrats are determined to portray Kennedy and Gabbard as “chilling extremists” whose agenda is in no way different from Trump’s.
According to Republican strategist John Feehery, Trump’s recommendations ultimately serve to solidify his base and win over voters who are dissatisfied with the government’s vaccination mandate, among other things.
“I think a lot of them are Republicans who are disgusted with the political establishment,” Feehery said.
For the Trump team, this is also an opportunity to slow the momentum that Harris has enjoyed since she took over the Democratic ticket from Biden.
“Team Harris is whining about losing, and they know that adding these respected thought leaders and former Democrats to our winning team will further hurt their chances of defeating President Trump,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
The September 10 debate will give Trump his first real chance to recalibrate the race. Harris has a narrow lead in the polls nationally and in some swing states.
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But for now, both sides are using the support to lean into the narratives that shaped their candidacies. Republicans critical of Trump have focused entirely on his character and temperament, while Trump on Friday alluded to disillusioned Democrats like Kennedy who see Harris as out of step with their party’s traditions.
“I think every message the campaigns try to spread over the next six weeks will amplify these themes in some way,” Conant said.
