Kennedy and Kinzinger, Gabbard and Cheney, Democrats for Republicans, and Republicans for Democrats. Partisan defectors remain a coveted prize on the campaign trail as we enter the final eight weeks of the 2024 presidential race.
Under America’s political duopoly, party affiliation is one of the sharpest markers of identity. And claiming allies across the aisle is a slick way to court the voters in the middle who could decide a close contest.
Yet not all cross-party endorsements are created equal. The former Democrats who have endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump cut a very different profile from the exiled Republicans who are lining up for Kamala Harris—and the differences between them say a lot about where the parties are today.
Republicans Defect, But Don’t Necessarily Become Democrats
Some of Donald Trump’s most vocal opponents on the Republican side have not actually become card-carrying Democrats. Take, for example, former GOP Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who recently addressed the Democratic National Convention and endorsed Harris. On everything from abortion to healthcare reform to taxes, he is to the Democrats’ right.
Under normal circumstances, his natural political home would be the Republican Party. Indeed, a candidate with his views would be unlikely to win a Democratic primary in most constituencies. He has not forced a change in his beliefs on substantive issues in order to ingratiate himself with liberals and even said he would have addressed the RNC if given the opportunity. Yet Kinzinger finds himself an outcast in today’s GOP for one reason: he worked to take Donald Trump to task in the wake of January 6th.
The same is true of former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, Kinzinger’s colleague on the January 6th Commission. Just yesterday, Cheney made the long-expected announcement that she would be voting for Harris. She was driven from the Republican Party over her pursuit of accountability for the insurrection, but she is no Democrat in any meaningful sense of the term. In fact, she even voted for Trump four years ago “based on policy.”
Cheney, whose father served as secretary of defense and VP for Presidents George H.W. and W. Bush respectively, could have had a promising career with the Republicans. Kinzinger was once a rising star in the party as well, a young congressman elected in 2010 on a wave of Tea Party enthusiasm with the endorsement of one-time vice presidential hopeful and right-wing firebrand Sarah Palin.
If the Republicans of 2024 were anything like the Republicans of 1974, a Kinzinger or a Cheney could have had a future in the GOP. Recall that amid the Watergate scandal, it was a group of senior Republican legislators who made the final push for a president of their own party to resign. President Nixon, not those Republican dissenters, became the pariah within the party. With Trump and his Republican critics, the inverse is now the case.
The Democrat-To-MAGA Pipeline
The factors driving some former Democrats into the Trump column are markedly different from Republicans charting the opposite path. Unlike Cheney and Kinzinger who sacrificed serious ambitions in the GOP, the Democrats now supporting Trump were hardly rising stars in their party before jumping ship. Instead, shifting into Trump’s orbit is a bid to maintain political relevance.
The Democrat-to-MAGA pipeline follows two routes. There are those who were already on the outs with the Democratic mainstream because of their views. And then there are ex-Democrats who have no future with the party because of some crime or misdeed.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. belongs to the first category. While RFK Jr.’s environmental advocacy nearly won him the top job at the EPA under Barack Obama, his increasingly vocal anti-vaccine activism in the intervening sixteen years would be a non-starter with most Democrats, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in 2017, Kennedy even claimed that Trump considered him to head up a government commission on vaccine safety.
Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii representative, presidential primary candidate, and Kennedy’s fellow ex-Democrat, has long shared this ideological estrangement from the party. During her tenure in Congress and presidential campaign, Gabbard and other Democrats increasingly diverged on foreign policy (most notably her apologia for Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad), certain LGBT rights issues, and Trump’s first impeachment. She finished in the party’s 2020 presidential primary with less than one percent of the vote, about the same share Tom Steyer received. No one is talking about him anymore, but he isn’t endorsing Trump.
Beyond these ideological exiles, there are those whose personal baggage have made them personae non gratae in Democratic circles. Former Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, who did a stint in federal prison for trying to sell Obama’s vacated Senate seat, is now a regular contributor in pro-Trump media. Whether New Jersey’s erstwhile US Senator and newly convicted felon Bob Menendez will join Blagojevich in Trumpworld remains an open question.
More Than a Little Flip-Flopping
Politicians are entitled to evolve and grow in their views. When Kamala Harris launched her campaign back in July, she attracted criticism for some visible shifts to the center. She wouldn’t be the first person to do a little bit of flip-flopping while vying for the presidency.
Less than sincere? Perhaps, but it’s standard-fare electioneering and it rarely results in a politician completely upending their stated worldview. Harris may have walked back her previous support for Medicare for All, for instance. But her new position is not that the current healthcare system is fine, or to oppose reform and government intervention in the insurance market altogether.
Agree or disagree with her positions, but the Kamala Harris of 2020 would still have a home in the modern Democratic Party. The same cannot be said for the ex-Democrats on the MAGA side. That dynamic is fitting for Donald Trump, who is the most prominent former Democrat in the Republican Party. The hollowed out institutions of the GOP proved the perfect vehicle for the ambitions of a candidate who is ideologically unmoored like Gabbard and Kennedy and with enough skeletons to fill several of Rod Blagojevich’s closets.
Evan Gottesman is chief of staff at the Renew Democracy Initiative.
