Harris takes on the 250,000 voters who rejected Trump in the North Carolina primary

APEX, NC – Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan likes to talk about a “whisper group” of fellow Republicans who calmly tell him that they, like him, plan to vote for Kamala Harris next week.

John Robertson could be a solid member.

He does not like to talk about politics with friends and neighbors to avoid arguments. He has voted for Republicans in the past. And he is completely done with Donald Trump.

Robertson was one of 36,358 Wake County voters who supported former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley during North Carolina’s presidential primary. Eight months later, he supports the Democratic vice president in the fight against the former president who is trying to stage a coup.

“The Republican Party is not what it used to be. It’s not my dad’s Republican Party,” Robertson said as he stood in the early voting line Thursday at the John Brown Community Center. “It’s no longer Republican.”

Brittany Samuel, a 38-year-old nurse, was another Haley-Harris voter who lined up to cast her vote.

“He’s a criminal,” she said of Trump, whom she voted for in 2016 but not in 2020. “And I just don’t think a criminal should run our country.”

Samuel and Robertson were willing to talk about their decision to vote for Harris. Many others, North Carolina Republicans for Harris leaders said, would just as soon keep their choice to themselves.

At a news conference earlier Thursday in downtown Raleigh, Duncan appeared with former Republican Reps. Joe Walsh and Susan Molinaro, and former Trump White House national security aide Olivia Troye, to urge Republicans who similarly did not want Trump to regain the presidency. to urge you to join them. vote for Harris.

“We know it’s going to be close,” Duncan said. “We know it will come down to just a handful of votes, and we know exactly where that handful of votes will come from. And this is certainly one of those areas.”

Duncan added that with all the Republicans approaching him to tell him they agree with what he says about Trump but will only express those opinions at the ballot box, he is optimistic Harris will win.

“I think the whisper meeting will appear in epic proportions on Tuesday,” he said.

A quarter of a million votes for Haley

As the last candidate to oppose Trump in the Republican Party’s presidential primaries, Haley became the tool for opposing Trump within the Republican Party — even after it was clear she was on a near-impossible path following her losses in both primaries in New Hampshire in January as well as in the New Hampshire primary. then a month later in her home state of South Carolina.

By the end of the June primary, she had won 4.4 million votes, 20% of the votes cast. Of those, 1.2 million were in the seven states that will likely decide the November election, making them a key focus of the “Republicans for Harris” effort.

North Carolinians cast 250,838 votes for Haley in the March 5 primary, just under a quarter of all votes cast on the Republican side that day. It was the second-largest anti-Trump turnout in the primaries among the seven swing states, with only Michigan scoring higher.

Officials with Republicans for Harris believe that if she can win more than three in 10 of those quarter-million Haley voters, that would give Harris the margin she would need to win in that state.

In North Carolina, Harris had one of those Haley voters introduce her at a rally on Wednesday — a public affirmation of how important her campaign believes anti-Trump Republicans are to putting together a winning coalition.

Jennifer Bell said she voted for Trump in 2016 because she was a Republican and Republicans voted for their candidate in the presidential election. She said she quickly came to regret that choice.

“Are there any Haley voters for Harris?” Bell asked from the stage in front of an audience of 8,000 people. “Conservatives for Harris? Yes, we are all a family now.”

Bell, a 49-year-old engineer, later told HuffPost that she is shocked by what happened to the party she grew up in. “The Republicans were used to the party of intellect, the party of business savvy. All of that is gone,” she said, adding that she makes a point of wearing her “Republicans for Harris-Walz” T-shirt when she goes out to spread the word.

“If you don’t want Trump to be elected, you should vote for Harris. … Hopefully there was a conservative Republican in the crowd so maybe I could change my mind.

The vast majority of those who attended Harris’ rally at an outdoor amphitheater on the outskirts of Raleigh were longtime Democrats. They said they were happy that their candidate reached out to the other party.

“I think it’s a fantastic idea,” said Jill Bliss, a 70-year-old retired public school librarian.

Her husband, Bill Bliss, 72, a retired advertising executive, said he could not understand some Democrats’ anger over Harris welcoming endorsements from former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney – both conservative Republicans.

“When the Democrats said, ‘No, you can’t forgive him, throw him out,’ I don’t think that’s the right way to do it,” he said.

The ‘shy’ Harris voter

In 2016, the Trump campaign said they had identified the existence of “shy” Trump voters, those who did not want to tell friends, family or pollsters that they planned to vote for him to avoid criticism. Eight years later, it is Harris supporters who think – and hope – that there are shy Harris voters in pro-Trump areas, people who are tired of the former president but would prefer to keep that view secret.

“I compare it to Trump’s stealth vote in 2016, which no one predicted,” said Robert Orr, a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice and co-chair of “Republicans for Harris” in the state. “I think it’s a stealth vote for Harris in 2024.”

In fact, a Christian group that supports Harris has one advertisement targeting a subcategory of that group, women whose pro-Trump bands expect them to also vote for MAGA. In the ad, narrated by actress Julia Roberts, two women hug each other at the polling place and smile, out of sight of their husbands, and cast their votes for Harris.

Former first lady Michelle Obama made the same point at a rally in Michigan last week. “If you are a woman living in a household with men who don’t listen to you or value your opinion, remember that your voice is a private matter,” she said. “Regardless of your partner’s political views, you get to choose.”

It was a message that Liz Cheney repeated in a Sunday interview with CBS. “I think, quite frankly, you’re going to have a lot of men and women who are going to go to the voting booth and vote their conscience and vote for Vice President Harris,” she said. “They may never say anything publicly, but the results will speak for themselves.”

Of course, not every Haley voter will be convinced.

Shiva Gangu said he voted for Haley in March in large part because he believed Trump’s various criminal cases — he was found guilty of a felony by a jury in May and still faces dozens of other felonies for his attempted coup on January 6 – would do that. be his downfall.

“Trump went through what he went through,” said Gangu, 48, as the line for the first round of voting slowly moved out the door.

“Now that he’s through it,” he said, “well, I don’t want to say it, but you can see my tendencies.”