If the great Tim Russert were with us today deciding the southernmost pivot point of the 2024 presidential election, he might pull up his famous “Florida Florida Florida” whiteboard from 2000, and write down NORTH CAROLINA NORTH CAROLINA NORTH CAROLINA as one of the more viable electoral avenues to winning this November. There’s fresh evidence that the state’s voters, and one former Republican lawmaker with credibility as a moderate, think the Kamala Harris campaign could take that road to the White House.
Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming Republican in Congress, went on Wednesday to Duke University in Durham, N.C. to join in a moderated conversation on “Defending Democracy.” That’s where she doubled down on her longtime role as conservative iconoclast, when she said it was “crucially important” for people to grasp the “danger” that former President Donald Trump poses to the country if he were to win a second term.
“I don’t believe that we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,” Cheney said. “And as a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this, and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris in this election.” Her comments at Page Auditorium were met with robust applause — before a standing ovation.
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Cheney’s statement was consistent with her previous positions on the former president and his fitness to serve. She was vice chair of the House Select Committee hearings on the January 6 Attack, serving with Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger. Cheney lost her re-election bid in the 2022 primary.
A frequent burr under Trump’s saddle, Cheney is just the latest high-profile Republican stalwart willing to cross the aisle this November to support a Democrat. Kinzinger, who chose not to run for re-election in October 2021, spoke at the Democratic National Convention last month, among others. Such overtures may have objectives that are mutually aligned.
In Harris’ interview last week with Dana Bash on CNN, Harris announced her intention to appoint a Republican to her cabinet if elected, saying that it would “be of benefit to the American public.” Also, The New York Times reported Aug. 30 that the Harris campaign had reached out directly to Cheney and her team, requesting an endorsement — no doubt the one Cheney gave her on Wednesday.
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However shrewd and canny this move from Team Kamala might be, it’s also sound bicameral politics, an early indication of outreach to an opposing party, and the first break with the zero-sum game theory of administration staffing — all of one party or all of another — in recent years. It’s also a bid for political centrism that independent voters, weary of the see-saw of party-driven politics, may find refreshing (and at odds with those in the Trump campaign desperately trying to brand the vice president as “Comrade Kamala”).
Harris’ efforts may be working. In its latest assessment of Electoral College ratings, the Cook Political Report moved North Carolina to tossup.
Amy Walter, from her analysis in the Aug. 27 Report:
“Since the beginning of this cycle, Democrats were confident that President Joe Biden could win North Carolina. Its demographic profile as an ethnically diverse and rapidly suburbanizing state looks similar to other former Republican-leaning Sun Belt states that Democrats have flipped over the last few cycles, like Georgia, Arizona and Virginia. Moreover, Donald Trump won North Carolina by just over one point in 2020, his smallest margin of victory in any state that year.
“But despite the optimism and hype, Biden was never able to keep this race close. By the time he dropped out of the race in late July, the president was trailing Trump by almost seven points.
“Today, however, the Tar Heel State looks more competitive than ever.”
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Citing current polling averages from 538 and RealClearPolitics, Walter said: “North Carolina is now a Toss Up.” And Walter ascribed this seismic shift to trading places — mainly, with Harris’ taking over Biden’s spot at the top of the Democratic ticket. As soon as it happened, Harris acquired instant momentum, traction that Biden wasn’t able to achieve. “Trump hasn’t lost political ground since July; instead it’s that Harris has improved on Biden’s vote share by seven points,” Walter writes.
National polling is showing much the same thing. The just-relaunched CPR National Polling Average — a poll of polls that reflects a sampling from televisual, online and print media surveys — finds Harris with a narrow lead over Trump, 47.9% to 46.3%.
But the polls are about to give way to actual voting with actual ballots. Voters in the state of North Carolina will be the first in the country to do that, when the state starts mailing absentee ballots for the 2024 race on Friday.
