Conservative Republicans see the coming election as a Lose/Lose for the GOP.
“It’s a true reflection of how bad Trump is — to think about a Dick Cheney, who is as time-tested of a conservative Republican as anybody in the roster, to come out and take a stance to support, like myself, Kamala Harris,” said former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican Harris supporter. “Look, the Republican Party loses no matter what. If Trump gets beat by Kamala Harris — like I think is going to happen — the Republican Party loses. But if Donald Trump wins, the Republican Party loses even more: We’ll lose any and all credibility that we’ve got.”
“I think Dick Cheney’s voice is incredibly important, because I think it will draw some more traditional conservatives to pause for a second and kind of take that in,” said former Trump national security official Olivia Troye...
Charlie Sykes, a former conservative radio talk show host in Wisconsin who is now anti-Trump, said the “one-two punch” of Cheney and former Vice President Dick Cheney’s endorsement gives conservatives wavering on Trump consent to back Harris. And while others in Trump’s administration who have broken with the former president have been reluctant to endorse a liberal Democrat, including former Vice President Mike Pence, the endorsement of someone like Dick Cheney carries significant weight.
“Both living Republican ex-vice presidents are now saying they’re not going to vote for Trump. And one of them, a two-term Republican vice president, is saying he’s going to vote for Kamala Harris,” Sykes added. “That clearly creates this permission dynamic.”