Vice President Kamala Harris cast herself as a leader who would work with the private sector to grow the US economy as she sought to win over Republican voters disenchanted by Donald Trump during a blitz Monday through three key battleground states.
Harris enlisted former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, a vocal Trump critic, to help with the effort to appeal to disaffected voters whose support could tip the balance in battlegrounds where polls show a deadlocked race just over two weeks before Election Day. The Democratic presidential nominee positioned herself as willing to work across the aisle - and with business leaders - as she kicked off a tour across the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
“As a devout public servant, I also know the limitations of government. I want to work with the private sector,” Harris said in Malvern, Pennsylvania in a discussion with Cheney moderated by Sarah Longwell, who publishes The Bulwark, an anti-Trump website. “Most of my career was not spent in Washington. I say that with pride in that most of my career was spent as a prosecutor making decisions that had a direct impact on people’s lives.”
One of Harris’ biggest challenges is running as an incumbent in an election in which voter frustration with the policies of Democratic President Joe Biden, in particular on the economy, threaten to undercut her campaign. She has sought to counter that by pledging to bring her own approach to government, touting initiatives to address voter anxiety over high prices and job growth and by trying to signal to business leaders that she will bring a more accessible approach.
“When I was attorney general California, which is, by estimates, the fifth-largest economy in the world, I was acutely aware that the words I spoke moved markets. I like getting things done, and part of my approach — which is, I think about a new generation of leadership — is let’s cut through the red tape, let’s cut through the bureaucracy,” she said.
Trump and Harris are competing for any votes among the few remaining undecideds likely to decide the 2024 election. Harris has embraced Cheney and other Republicans opposed to Trump to appeal to what her campaign sees as a growing cohort of conservative voters who want to prevent Trump’s return to power.
Earlier: Harris, Trump Scrap for Few Undecided Voters as Race Tightens
Cheney, a former lawmaker who hails from a prominent Republican family — her father is former Vice President Dick Cheney — saw her rise in the GOP halted by her opposition to Trump. She was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol.
“Especially here in Pennsylvania, we have the opportunity to tell the whole world who we are, and we have the chance to say, you know, we’re going to reject cruelty. We’re going to reject the kind of vile vitriol that we’ve seen from Donald Trump, we’re going to reject the misogyny that we’ve seen from Donald Trump,” Cheney said.
Harris has expanded her outreach to Republican-leaning voters in recent days, appearing last week with about 100 Republicans who are supporting her candidacy — including former House members and ex-Trump aides — and sitting for an interview with Fox News. She also pledged to include a Republican as a member of her Cabinet.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Trump ahead of Harris by 1.2 percentage points in Michigan, up by one-fifth of a percentage point in Wisconsin, and up eight-tenths of a percentage point in Pennsylvania. Trump carried all three states in 2016 but saw President Joe Biden flip them four years later on his way to victory.
With assistance from Skylar Woodhouse.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
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