Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign started out fun. It opened with the politics of joy, and a hearty dose of mockery aimed at Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance. The campaign quickly adopted a different tack — attempting to project strength and leadership, while courting support from Republicans concerned about the threat posed by Trump.
That approach culminated with Harris campaigning with former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and touting an endorsement from her father, former Vice President and Iraq War architect Dick Cheney. The pitch bombed with Republicans, as Democrats’ share of moderates and independents fell and overall Democratic support crumbled, too.
Now, several Democratic operatives and insiders tell Rolling Stone they tried to convince the Harris campaign and her allies that palling around with the Cheneys was a bad idea with little upside — and could harm Harris’ support among disaffected Democratic voters. The sources requested anonymity to discuss sensitive intraparty matters.
One source close to the Harris campaign tells Rolling Stone they reached out to several staffers in and around the campaign to voice concerns about the candidate embracing Dick and Liz Cheney.
“People don’t want to be in a coalition with the devil,” says the source, speaking about Dick Cheney. They say a Harris staffer responded that it was not the staff’s role to challenge the campaign’s decisions.
A Democratic strategist says they warned key Harris surrogates and top-level officials at the Democratic National Committee that campaigning with Liz Cheney — and making the campaign’s closing argument about how many Republicans were supporting Harris — was highly unlikely to motivate any new swing voters, and risked dissuading already-despondent, infrequent Democratic voters who had supported Biden in 2020. The strategist says they also attempted to have big donors and battleground state party chairs convey the same argument to the Harris campaign.
On Wednesday, senators in the party caucus will decide who will replace Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell – the longest-serving lea
