President Biden's campaign's effort to target both supporters of former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and moderate Republicans in general are on the rise.
The Biden-Harris campaign announced Thursday the hiring of Austin Weatherford, chief of staff to former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, as “director of Republican national engagement,” a Biden campaign official told CBS News.
Weatherford will lead outreach efforts to “independents and moderate Republicans who know what a danger Donald Trump is to the country if he is re-elected to a second term,” according to the official.
Moderate Republicans, specifically those who supported Haley GOP presidential candidacythey have been a target of the Biden campaign since he dropped out of the primary race in March.
Even after dropping out of the race, Haley has still garnered a significant share of the primary vote in battleground states. In some of those states, they outnumber the 2020 margin between Mr. Biden and former President Donald Trump. In Pennsylvania, for example, Haley received 16% of the vote in the Republican primary in April, or just over 158,000 votes. Biden won the Commonwealth by more than 80,000 votes in 2020.
Last week, Biden campaign aides held a Zoom call with two dozen former GOP members of Congress, according to a campaign source familiar with the meeting. CNN first reported on Zoom's call and Weatherford's hiring.
The Haley Voters Task Force, an anti-Trump group of Haley supporters and volunteers who support Mr. Biden or are undecided, is also hiring more staff in battleground states. The group has been in contact with the Biden campaign in recent months and hosted a virtual meeting with the Biden campaign in the evening after Haley. announced on May 22 she would vote for Trump.
The group's new director will be Craig Snyder, chief of staff to former Sen. Arlen Specter and a 30-year veteran of national GOP policy consulting. Emily Mathews, another Kinzinger aide, was also hired to join the group's leadership.
Kinzinger himself he told CBS News in December 2023, would support Mr. Biden in November if Mr. Trump were the nominee.
Robert Schwartz, chairman of Haley's voter task force, noted that his coalition supports Mr. Biden. recent executive order on immigration, the authorization of the president giving to Ukraine limited approval use American weapons to attack Russia, and his speech on Thursday in Normandy on the 80th anniversary of D-Day that reaffirmed America's support for its allies.
“These actions show that Biden is governing for all Americans rather than catering to the left wing of the Democratic Party,” Schwartz said. “While Biden has been doing all this, you know, the news about Trump is about his personal vendettas.”
Schwartz added that while there are significant differences in political views between Biden and Haley supporters, such as their level of support for Israel, his group will work to woo Haley's more than one million voters to the oscillating states.
The Biden campaign's efforts to reach those voters began in early March when the president said “there is a place” for Haley's supporters in his campaign after she dropped out of the primary race. The campaign has also released ads featuring digital montages of Trump criticizing Haley. Going forward, the Biden campaign plans to appeal to those voters' concerns about possible threats to democracy and the Constitution in a second Trump term.
As the election nears, the Biden campaign also plans to create an outreach program aimed specifically at Republicans. But the campaign says discussions with voters on the ground will be led by Republicans who already support Mr. Biden, in an attempt to establish more genuine conversations.
Former Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman of Virginia cast some doubt on whether the Biden campaign's efforts to woo disenchanted Republican voters will ultimately work. “They need heavy hitters,” he said.
“Who else is there? What real person who wants to win a GOP office would step up?” he added, referring to possible pushback Republican candidates and lawmakers could get from Trump and his supporters if they publicly support Mr. Biden.
The Biden campaign says that while they are in contact with potential Republican endorsements, they are keeping their dust dry and won't announce them until closer to November. They are looking at a timeline similar to 2020, when notable GOP endorsements were announced after the Democratic National Convention and closer to the election in order to maximize impact when more voters are out.
Although she said in late May that she would vote for Trump, Haley implored the presumptive GOP nominee to “win the votes of those in our party and beyond who did not support him.”
Trump was highly critical of Haley during the GOP primary between the two, saying in January that his campaign “will not accept” her supporters. However, after a rally in the Bronx last month, Trump softens his posturesaying that “I'm sure he'll be part of our team.”
In a Tuesday interview with NewsMax, however, Trump expressed disappointment with Haley “because she stayed [in the primary race] too long.”
“Remember I beat her in her own state [primary]. I beat her pretty badly everywhere,” he said, adding that “some people would be very disappointed” if they chose her as their running mate, but that “some people would be fine” with that.
