Kamala Harris welcomes public support of Dick and Liz Cheney amid surge in Republican and Democrat defections.

Kamala Harris has welcomed the support of Dick Cheney, once dubbed ‘a dangerous man’ by Joe Biden, and his daughter Liz amid a surge in Republican and Democrat defections.

Liz Cheney and her father, former vice president Dick Cheney, are supporting Kamala Harris. Picture: AFP.

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Kamala Harris has said she is “honoured” to be endorsed by former Republican vice president Dick Cheney, a man once dubbed by Joe Biden as the “most dangerous Vice President in American history”, as Cheney’s daughter Liz declares Ronald Reagan would have backed Harris too.

Two days out from the first and probably only debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris the extraordinary realignment of political forces in the US continued apace as former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney called on other top Republicans to publicly back Harris while veteran Democrat lawyer Alan Dershowitz said he was “no longer a Democrat”.

“There is absolutely no chance that Ronald Reagan would be supporting Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn’t stand for any of the things that Ronald Reagan did,” Ms Cheney told ABC News on Sunday (Monday AEST), one day after Harris told reporters she was “honoured” to receive the support the elder Cheney, a man once loathed by Democrats for his role in orchestrating the Iraq war.

“I would urge my Republican colleagues in the Congress and across the country, to really look at Donald Trump’s policies, to really look at the danger that he presents, to look at, what he was willing to do to stay in a power,” Liz Cheney said.

Former US Vice President Dick Cheney was loathed by Democrats for his part in orchestrating the Iraq war.

Cheney, who was thrashed in her 2022 preselection for her Wyoming congressional district by Trump-loyalist Harriet Hageman, joined other high profile Trump sceptics, including Senator Mitt Romney and former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, who have already disavowed the Republican leader.

A spokesman for former president George W Bush on Saturday (Sunday AEST) said Mr Bush, who declined to support Mr Trump in 2020, and his wife would not be publicly endorsing anyone in the lead up to the November presidential poll.

Dick Cheney, whom Democrats once dubbed “Darth Vader” for his role as George W Bush’s Vice president from 2001 to 2009, said in a statement last week “in our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump”.

Speaking on a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Saturday (Sunday AEST, a critical swing state Harris must win in November to win the election, the Democratic party presidential candidate said she was “honoured” to have the support of the Cheneys.

“They … are well respected [and] are making an important statement that it is ok and is important to put country above party,” Ms Harris said, prompting an attack from former Democrat congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who herself joined the growing list of high profile Democrats who have backed Trump in recent weeks.

Tulsi Gabbard slams Kamala Harris for being honored to receive Dick Cheney’s endorsement, calling him the architect of two decades of failed wars in the Middle East:

"I have a very simple message for my Democrat friends, my independent friends, and those who may not be sure… pic.twitter.com/PlcrqTOjzs

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) September 7, 2024

“Dick Cheney has just made the choice very clear. A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for Dick Cheney, the architect of everything that has gone wrong in the Middle East for the last few decades,” she told Tucker Carlson in an interview.

Republican Arkansas governor and Trump loyalist Sarah Huckabee Sanders, speaking on ABC on Sunday (Monday AEST), said Liz Cheney was “in the significant minority”.

“I’m not trying to be rude, but you don’t get to call yourself a conservative or Republican when you support the most radical nominee that the Democrats have ever put up,” she said.

Two weeks after former independent presidential candidate and scion of the Democratic party Robert F Kennedy Junior publicly backed Donald Trump, veteran Democrat lawyer and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz also renounced his party membership on Saturday (Sunday AEST), after observing the party’s national convention in Chicago.

“It was the most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist convention I’ve experienced,“ he told radio host Zev Brenner.

“I was disgusted at the Democratic National Convention. Absolutely disgusted,” he added, prompting fresh bout of crowing on social media by Trump supporters who say Trump has emerged stronger after the series of high profile political defections, which includes Elon Musk, a former Democrat voter who publicly backed Trump in July.

We are glad. We don’t want anything to do with them. We remember when you spent your entire time bashing them

Now they are heroes?

Elon Musk is voting for Trump.
Alan Dershowitz is voting for Trump
RFK is voting for Trump. https://t.co/nNq2RzdlcL

— Alan Malki, M.D. (@_amalki) September 8, 2024

Turncoat Republicans have cited Trump’s alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election and his plan to make a deal with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine as reasons for their switch, while their Democrat counterparts have attacked the party’s alleged warmongering and attempts to crack down on free speech on social media.

The series of political defections has roiled an already feverish political contest, which polls suggest is neck and neck around two months from polling day as some states, including North Carolina, begin sending out mail in ballots, which were critical in tipping the 2020 election in Joe Biden’s favour.

Donald Trump had 48 per cent support nationally, one percentage point ahead of Harris, in a highly regarded New York Times/Siena poll released on Sunday (Monday AEST), which was conducted in the wake of the Democratic Party’s national convention in Chicago.

The poll found 28 per cent of voters wanted to know more about Kamala Harris before making their decision, compared to 9 per cent for Trump, potentially pointing to the risks attached to Harris’s political strategy of giving few media interviews and press conferences.

Harris remains around three percentage points ahead of Trump in an average of major polls tracked by 538, although political betting markets increasingly give Trump the slight edge to win in November, according to bookies’ odds tracked by RealClear Politics.