'It’s a real thing': Ex-GOP official says 'whisper caucus' of Republicans will pick Harris

19 October 2024

One Republican former statewide elected official from one of the most important swing states thinks there's a burgeoning movement within his own party that could prove decisive in the November election.

In a recent NBC News report, former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan — who has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris — described how many Republicans are susceptible to "peer pressure" in politics. According to Duncan, his fellow Republicans are likely to say they'll vote for former President Donald Trump to each other, but cast their ballot for Harris in the private comfort of the voting booth.

“It’s a real thing, and so a lot of Republicans don’t want to publicly state [support for Harris], and that’s what I think is leading to the tightness of the polls that we see," Duncan said. "I think there’s a whisper caucus that’s going to do something different [at the polls] than they’re signaling.”

Harris has hit the campaign trail with former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), who appeared alongside the vice president in Ripon, Wisconsin earlier this month. The symbolism of Cheney's appearance was underscored by the location, which was the birthplace of the Republican Party in 1854. Still, Duncan acknowledged the difficulty in Harris' strategy in courting disaffected members of the opposition party.

"When they’re in private, it seems like an easy task, he said. "When they’re in a public setting, it doesn’t seem like an easy task."

According to the most recent New York Times/Siena College poll — which polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight rates as the most reliable in the United States — Harris has the support of 9% of Republicans. This outpaces the 6% support from Republicans that President Joe Biden had in 2020, when he narrowly defeated Trump in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin by less than 50,000 combined votes.

However, former President Donald Trump's campaign said any exodus of Republicans to Harris' side is offset by its own coalition of right-leaning Democrats and independents. while Harris has surrogates like Cheney and Duncan, Trump is buoyed by support from former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who previously ran in the Democratic primary against Biden.

“Kamala is spending more time trying to cobble together her own base than reach independent voters,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said. “President Trump is on full blown offense, polling better than he ever has, leading in the battlegrounds, and picking up historic gains with new voters.”

The last two weeks of the 2024 campaign cycle are rife with uncertainty, with the contest in the seven battleground states most likely to decide the election all within the margin of error. Harris and Trump are campaigning particularly hard in both North Carolina and Pennsylvania, with the Wall Street Journal estimating that should either candidate take both states, it would make them the "overwhelming favorites" to win the entire election.

Click here to read NBC's report in full.

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