Former vice president Dick Cheney, one of the most influential and hawkish conservatives in the modern Republican Party and a figure reviled by the left, said on Friday (Saturday AEST) he would be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris because he regards former president Donald Trump as a grave danger to the country.

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney, 83, said in a statement. After Trump’s actions trying to steal the 2020 presidential election and then using “lies and violence” to keep himself in power, Cheney said, “he can never be trusted with power again”.