CNN
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Former Republican Representative Liz Cheney will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November, she said in a speech at Duke University, according to an audio recording obtained by CNN.
The former congresswoman from Wyoming stressed the importance of voting for Harris in states like North Carolina, where she appeared on Wednesday.
“I think it’s critical that people realize that not only what I just said about the danger posed by Trump should deter people from voting for him, but I also don’t think we have the luxury of putting the names of the candidates on the ballot box, especially in the swing states,” Cheney said.
According to a source close to Cheney, she made this announcement specifically in North Carolina because it is a swing state.
“And as a conservative, as someone who believes in the Constitution and cares about it, I have thought about this carefully, and because of the danger posed by Donald Trump, not only will I not vote for Donald Trump, I will vote for Kamala Harris,” she continued.
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and a vocal critic of Trump, had previously told CNN that she was determined to do whatever was necessary to prevent the former president from returning to the White House.
Cheney’s outspoken comments against Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election – including her vote for his impeachment – ultimately cost her her position in the House Republican leadership. House Republicans removed her as conference chair and replaced her with one of Trump’s top defenders, several months after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
She subsequently served as vice chair of the House select committee investigating the insurrection, but lost her congressional seat to a Trump-backed challenger in the 2022 primaries.
Cheney sought to neutralize Trump’s influence in the 2022 midterm elections by opposing candidates who repeated his lies about the 2020 election fraud. The political action committee she founded ran an ad urging Arizona voters to reject Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem. She also crossed party lines to campaign for two moderate Democrats in the hotly contested House elections this year.
This story has been updated with additional information.
