(C) Pennsylvania Capital-Star
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Kamala Harris' campaign launches effort to woo Republicans in Pennsylvania • Pennsylvania Capital-Star [1]
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Date: 2024-08-05 21:40:44+00:00
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has launched a new effort to try to persuade Republicans in several key battleground states, including Pennsylvania, to vote for her for president.
Former Congressman Jim Greenwood, who represented a district in the Philadelphia suburbs from 1993 to 2005, and Ann Womble, who was the Lancaster County Republican Party’s chairperson from 2012 to 2014, will serve as co-chairs of Pennsylvania Republicans for Harris. They spoke on a call with reporters on Monday about the new initiative.
“Over the next three months, we will be recruiting fellow Pennsylvania Republicans who share our concern, our conviction that patriotism requires placing country over party, and never before has doing so been more important than the imperative to keep Donald Trump from returning to the White House,” Greenwood said.
Womble, who switched her party registration to Independent in 2016, said she views this new effort as a “Republicans and Independents for Harris,” saying it’s a coalition for “decency, honesty, and competence in government.”
“I, too, do not need a president whom I agree with on every issue,” Womble said. “I need a president I can trust. I need a president who is someone that I’m not embarrassed by, that behaves like a decent human being. I need a president that I feel proud representing our country on the international stage.”
Greenwood said that the group plans to reach out to every registered Republican in Pennsylvania and will provide opportunities for those who support Harris to join their campaign, while also attempting to persuade undecided Republican voters. Womble said they also will try to have weekly Zoom calls so the Republicans in the group feel like they are part of a community.
The Trump campaign responded to news of the new coalition by criticizing Harris.
“President Trump is building the largest, most diverse political movement in history because his winning message of putting America first again resonates with Americans of all backgrounds,” Karoline Leavitt, National Press Secretary said in a statement to the Capital-Star.
Trump has won the Republican Party primary for president in Pennsylvania the past three elections. However, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley tallied 158,000 votes, 16%, statewide in April’s primary election even though she bowed out of the race in March.
Womble said that although the coalition is not expecting all of the Haley voters to jump on board with Harris, she believes that there’s a significant portion that are willing to “take a new path,” in backing a Democratic candidate for president. She accused Trump of alienating those voters by selecting U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate.
Although Womble said character and fitness were more important than specific issues, she said she was happy to see Harris “evolve” on certain issues, including fracking. During Harris’s previous bid for the White House, she called for a ban on fracking, but recently said she no longer holds that point of view.
Womble also spoke in support of Harris and the Democratic Party’s defense of NATO, while Dr. Andrea Fellerman-Kesack, a clinical pathologist and member of the Republicans for Harris coalition, referenced Trump’s opposition to abortion rights. Harris has been the Biden administration’s main voice on reproductive rights, particularly since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe. v Wade.
“As a woman, a mother and a physician, I’m horrified by Donald Trump’s extreme attacks on women’s reproductive freedom, and terrified of what he will do if he’s elected for a second term,” she said.
“I and my fellow Republicans don’t agree with her on all of the issues, of course, but we’re confident that there will be enough Republicans in the House and the Senate so that whatever issues with which we may disagree with her will be tempered by the Republicans in the Congress,” Greenwood said.
This is not the first time that Greenwood has been involved in a coalition opposing fellow Republicans in Pennsylvania. In 2020, he joined other former GOP members of Congress in supporting Joe Biden’s candidacy over Trump. In 2022, he led a PAC that supported Gov. Josh Shapiro for governor in 2022 in opposition to GOP state Sen. Doug Mastriano.
During the call, Greenwood described himself as “very very biased,” but said Shapiro would be a great candidate for vice president and said he’ll be in attendance for Harris’s first event with her soon-to-be announced running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
While the co-chairs are unified in supporting Harris at the top of the ticket, those on the call mentioned they are willing to split their ticket in November. For example, Greenwood and Fellerman-Kesack both said they plan to vote for U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-1st District) in his reelection bid over Democratic challenger Ashley Ehasz.
Greenwood represented much of the current configuration of Fitzpatrick’s district during his time serving in the U.S. House.
However, Greenwood and Kesack said they support U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) over Republican challenger Dave McCormick in the pivotal race which could determine control of that chamber.
Greenwood and others on the call said Monday they were hopeful that a Trump defeat would lead to changes in the GOP.
“I’m hopeful that once Donald Trump leaves the scene… that the Republican Party can start to have internal discussions on rebuilding,” Greenwood said, adding that he’d love to see the Republican Party return to supporting “individual freedom, individual accountability, careful spending, leadership in the world, and free trade.”
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