The small city of Ripon, in eastern Wisconsin, is perhaps best known as the home of a historic one-room schoolhouse where the Republican Party was formed in 1854. This fact made it a potent place for Vice President and 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and former Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney to campaign together on Thursday night—about a month after both Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, publicly declared their suppport for Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, in this year’s election. Still, the Ripon event represented a kind of across-the-aisle collaboration that has become vanishingly rare in American politics.
At the moment, Harris maintains only a narrow lead in the polls over former President Donald Trump in Wisconsin, but with barely more than a month to go until November 5, every public appearance counts—especially in swing states, and especially when Harris happens to be accompanied by a prominent Republican. “Our republic faces a threat unlike any we have faced before,” Cheney told the gathered crowd at Ripon College on Thursday, “a former president who attempted to stay in power by unraveling the foundations of our republic by refusing to accept the lawful results, confirmed by dozens of courts, of the 2020 election.” Indeed, Cheney spoke at length about Trump’s actions on (and in the months leading up to) the January 6 insurrection, urging that “Donald Trump is not fit to lead this good and great nation.” She added that as a lifelong Republican—someone whose political engagement began at age 10, when she volunteered for Gerald R. Ford’s reelection campaign, and who cast her first-ever vote for Ronald Reagan in 1984—Cheney would be backing a Democrat for the first time ever this November. (“I was a Republican even before Donald Trump started spray-tanning,” she cracked to appreciative laughs.)
“You may not have supported a Democrat for president before, but as you have also said, we both love our country, and we revere our democratic ideals,” Vice President Harris later said, addressing Cheney, after taking the stage on Thursday. She went on to prasie Cheney as “a leader who puts country above party and above self—a true patriot,” encouraging the crowd as they chanted “Thank you, Liz.”
Cheney, for her part, urged voters to “reject the depraved cruelty of Donald Trump” because “violence does not and must never determine who rules us. Voters do.” Just beyond her, a huge sign read “Country Over Party” amid red, white, and blue bunting, reflecting the evening’s spirit of dutiful bipartisanship. One can only hope that Harris and Cheney’s alliance will send a message of civility—and unity—to a tense and grieving nation in the remaining weeks before November 5.
