Former President Donald Trump is highlighting his endorsements from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, both former Democrats, as Vice President Kamala Harris increasingly turns to anti-Trump Republicans to signal her cross-party appeal.
Trump has used the endorsements, rolled out after a parade of centrist Republicans voiced their support for Harris at the Democratic National Convention last week, to demonstrate that he, too, has support beyond his Republican base.
On Tuesday, the Trump campaign hailed the “broad coalition” forming behind him as he named Gabbard, a one-time progressive Democrat, and Kennedy, a Democrat-turned-Independent who suspended his campaign for president Friday, to his White House transition team.
Each will campaign for Trump in the final weeks of the race after appearing with him at events last week. Already, Gabbard has been tapped to moderate a town hall for Trump in Wisconsin on Thursday.
Neither Kennedy nor Gabbard are traditional Democrats. Kennedy, though he challenged President Joe Biden in the primary, has been sidelined for his vaccine skepticism, while Gabbard, who represented Hawaii in the House, reinvented herself as a conservative culture warrior after she left the Democratic Party in 2022.
But Trump is hoping to use their endorsements to counter the sense of GOP disenchantment Harris has sought to cultivate in the early weeks of her campaign.
At the DNC, Republicans from Stephanie Grisham, the former Trump press secretary, to former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a member of the since-disbanded Jan. 6 committee, delivered speeches calling Trump unfit to serve. Harris received another chance to amplify that message Monday when more than 200 ex-staffers to establishment Republicans including former President George W. Bush and the late Sen. John McCain penned a letter endorsing her campaign.
The Trump campaign has downplayed the electoral impact of Republicans coming out in support of Harris. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told the Washington Examiner, “No one knows who these people are,” following the letter’s release, while surrogates have gone on air to dismiss critics such as Kinzinger as “RINOs,” or Republicans in name only.
But Trump appears eager to confront the narrative that Republicans are breaking for Harris by embracing a similar playbook. His campaign has teased that more Democratic endorsements will be rolled out and, with Kennedy and Gabbard, has attempted to strike a bipartisan note.
“Our movement is not about Democrat versus Republican. It’s about patriotism and common sense,” Trump said Friday at a rally in Arizona.
Moments earlier, Trump explicitly appealed to the “millions of disaffected Democrats, independents, moderates, and old-fashioned liberals” as he introduced Kennedy onstage.
Electorally, Republicans hope the Kennedy endorsement will bring the 5% support he attracted in polling over to Trump’s side, though early analyses suggest the impact only slightly favors Trump.
Kennedy’s support, announced hours after Harris accepted the nomination Thursday, also served to disrupt the wall-to-wall news coverage Democrats had been enjoying over the last week.
“I think the timing of that wasn’t accidental at all,” said Republican strategist Alex Conant. “If you have a big endorsement to roll out, that’s a good time to do it. You’re trying to step on your opponent’s momentum a little bit.”
Meanwhile, Gabbard and Kennedy have a loyal following that has grown in part through their appearances on popular podcasts, including the Joe Rogan Experience. Their addition to the campaign could help reach a segment of nontraditional and low-propensity voters disengaged from the political process.
Still, strategists doubt the endorsements will meaningfully bring Democratic votes over to Trump given Kennedy and Gabbard do not represent their party’s mainstream. For Harris, Conant said the Republicans endorsing her do not have very much “political capital,” either.
“I think we’re at the stage of the campaign where it’s hard to generate news, and I think both campaigns are doing what they can to show momentum, to show that they’re adding to their coalitions,” Conant said. “But I don’t think either’s endorsements cut into the other’s momentum in any significant way.”
If any state proves to be an exception, it will be Arizona, where Republicans who supported McCain are still smarting over the insults Trump hurled at the senator. Harris is relying on surrogates including Mesa Mayor John Giles, who spoke at the convention last week, to convince voters not to buy into what he called the “cult of Donald Trump.”
In 2020, Biden won the state by a razor-thin 10,000 votes.
Trump has attempted to neutralize a similar pocket of resistance in Georgia from centrist Republicans turned off by his feuding with Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), who refused to help him overturn the election results. Last week, Trump extended an olive branch to the governor.
Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona strategist who left the Republican Party in 2017 after Trump attacked McCain’s military service, said Harris has a “higher ceiling in terms of cross-party appeal.” He described Trump as a divisive figure whose rhetoric turns off traditional Democratic voters, including young people.
But Coughlin predicted the endorsements Trump received from Kennedy and Gabbard will, to some extent, help reinforce his anti-establishment campaign message. Both politicians have attracted support by criticizing the political “elite” over free speech concerns and foreign intervention abroad.
“It’s libertarians, it’s independents. It’s people who are not traditional voters,” said Coughlin.
“If you’re angry, you’re with us,” he added, describing Trump’s focus on American decline and corruption as ominous and negative. “I think that’s been his secret sauce.”
The Kennedy endorsement could help around the margins. Polling showed him pulling votes from both Trump and Harris, while he spent much of his speech withdrawing from the 2024 race explaining his disenchantment with the Democratic Party.
But he could also play spoiler in a handful of battleground states. Despite Kennedy’s pledge to remove himself from the ballot in places such as Michigan and Wisconsin, he missed the window to do so and could draw votes away from Trump.
At the same time, Democrats are determined to define Kennedy and Gabbard as “off-putting extremists” whose agenda is no different than Trump’s.
The endorsements are ultimately a “base consolidator” for Trump, according to Republican strategist John Feehery, that could help bring over voters disaffected by, among other things, the government’s vaccine mandates.
“I think a lot of them are Republicans who are disgusted with the political establishment,” Feehery said.
For the Trump campaign, it’s also viewed as a chance to blunt the momentum Harris has enjoyed since taking over the Democratic ticket from Biden.
“The Harris campaign is whining because they’re losing, and they know these well-respected thought leaders and former Democrats joining our winning team hurts their chances of defeating President Trump even more,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
The debate on Sept. 10 will give Trump his first real chance to reset the race. Harris enjoys a narrow polling lead nationally and in a handful of swing states.
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But for now, each side is using the endorsements to lean into the narratives that have defined their candidacies. Trump-critical Republicans have focused squarely on his character and temperament, while Trump on Friday alluded to disaffected Democrats like Kennedy who view Harris as out-of-step with the traditions of her party.
“I think every piece of news that the campaigns are trying to make over the next six weeks will reinforce those themes in some way,” said Conant.
