Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Ripon, Wisconsin, Oct. 3, 2024, with Republican former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, right. On Friday, three high-profile Republicans added their names to the list of Harris' Wisconsin Republican supporters. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

The list of Wisconsin Republicans endorsing the Democratic presidential ticket in November has added three high-profile names: Longtime conservative commentator Charlie Sykes, former lawmaker and judge David Deininger and onetime state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz.

The three went public just before the weekend in a Zoom call with reporters to declare their support for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, and their opposition to the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.

“It is a uniquely dangerous moment, and it’s a moment for us to set aside our differences,” said Sykes, explaining why supporting Harris was “not a difficult choice for me” even though he said he’s likely to disagree with many of the policies on her agenda.

“That’s not the point,” he said of those policy differences. “The point is this choice that America has to make — what kind of country we want to be.”

In backing Harris, the three added to the Democratic campaign’s concerted appeal across party and ideological lines to people who view Trump as a distinct, existential threat. All three declared that under Trump the Republican party has evolved far from the party with which they historically have aligned themselves.

“Unless or until the Trump era ends, that party will not regain its footing, and I think defeating him this year is a way to make sure the Republican Party can rebuild and get back to what has always been the party of Lincoln,” Deininger said.

Sykes has opposed Trump since before he first won the Republican nomination for president in 2016. He’s one of the founders of The Bulwark, a digital publication established in 2019 by anti-Trump conservatives.

Schultz left the state Senate midway through Scott Walker’s tenure as Wisconsin governor after voting against two of Walker’s signature pieces of legislation — a bill that stripped public employees of most of their union rights and another loosening mining regulations.

Deininger was among the former judges who served on the Government Accountability Board — a nonpartisan agency that for a few years served as Wisconsin’s elections and ethics watchdog.

After the board investigated Walker’s campaign for coordinating spending with outside groups in the 2012 recall election — at the time a violation of Wisconsin law — Republicans in the Legislature abolished the independent board in 2015 and changed the state’s campaign finance laws to permit coordination.

“When I was on the Government Accountability Board, our primary function was to protect and preserve the integrity of Wisconsin government and our elections,” Deininger said. “That’s the kind of leadership we need at the federal level, and sadly, it’s the opposite of what we saw from Donald Trump.”

Deininger didn’t equivocate in his criticism of the former president.

“Trump has lied repeatedly to the American public about just about everything, but probably the worst of all is his lies about the outcome and integrity of our elections,” he said, recalling that on Jan. 6, 2021, “Trump encouraged a violent mob to attack the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election.”

“The reality is a second Trump term would be far worse and far more dangerous,” he added.

A U.S. Navy veteran, Deininger also asserted that the president has unique responsibility for overseeing national security — and that he was “dismayed at some of the public comments, publicly reported comments, that former President Trump has made about veterans and military service.”

Schultz emphasized his belief in a bipartisan approach to governing and his faith that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, would govern in a bipartisan manner. In contrast, he pointed to the destruction brought by Hurricane Helene to the American Southeast and lies spread by the GOP standard bearers in the storm’s aftermath.

Schultz also drew a contrast between Trump’s evocation of “a dystopian future” and “a candidate seeking the highest office in the land talking about the need to come together, joyfully, working on the problems that all of us face” — Harris.

“I myself want to cast my lot with those folks who are [optimistic about] our future, not who are hung up on some sort of Mad Max scene that they see as a future for our country,” Schultz said.

While echoing some of the same criticisms of Trump, Sykes focused on the party that once served as the political homeland for all three Wisconsin Republicans on the press call.

“I have been surprised and disillusioned by watching how many conservatives have gone along with Donald Trump — his lies, his insults, his kowtowing to dictators, his willingness to violate the law,” Sykes said. “One after another, Republicans have decided that winning or staying in power is more important than standing up for these values that used to be, I think, fundamental.”

He also noted the number of staff and appointees  from Trump’s four years in the White House “who are now saying that he is not fit to be returned to office,” including his former vice president, his former defense secretary and his former national security advisor. “There’s no historical parallel for this,” Sykes said.

Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, and former U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the Janesville Republican who served in Congress for two decades, have both publicly stated Trump should not be reelected but have declined to endorse  Harris.

Sykes professed his respect for them, but also said leaving the presidential line on the ballot empty or writing in a name — George Washington, Edmund Burke or Ronald Reagan — wasn’t a sufficient response, since it won’t prevent Trump from being reelected.

“The only two candidates who have a chance to win this election are Kamala Harris and Donald Trump,” Sykes said. “And by voting for Kamala Harris, I think that we draw the line and say that Donald Trump should never be allowed anywhere near power again.”

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A crowd of Harris-Walz supporters applauds at a campaign rally in Ripon Thursday, Oct., 3, where former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican, spoke in support of Harris. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

When Steve Michek voted for Donald Trump in 2016, the Republican sheriff from Iowa County was mainly focused on the fact that his party’s candidate for president that year came from the private sector.

“I learned enough through my experience as sheriff, you can’t run government like a business — it’s not the same,” said Michek, 64, who retired in 2023. “Nonetheless, I thought having some business-related experience certainly is not a bad idea.”

During Trump’s four years in office, however, Michek found the news from Washington increasingly disturbing. A revolving door of cabinet members hired and fired — “or he was belittling them in public,” Michek told the Wisconsin Examiner. “I was like, ‘What the hell? You don’t do that.’”

Then came Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 and early 2020, and his appointment of his daughter and son-in-law to “high-level jobs” in the White House. As sheriff, Michek said, “The people in the county wouldn’t permit me to do things like that.”

By 2020 “I’d had enough,” he said. Michek cast his ballot that November for former Vice President Joe Biden as the only other practical option. Then came the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters who sought to prevent Biden from being certified as the winner of the election.

“I was appalled and even terrified,” Michek said. “I thought, what in God’s green earth are we doing?”

Michek had been a leader in the state sheriff’s association and visited Madison during the massive protests over Act 10, the legislation to end most union rights for state employees in 2011. He recalled those protests as primarily peaceful and “well-behaved.”

What he saw unfold on television from the U.S. Capitol was entirely different. “This was worse than anything I’d ever witnessed,” Michek said.

All of that explains why Michek was in Ripon Thursday to introduce former Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney at a rally to showcase GOP support for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president.

“It is now clear to me that Donald Trump is a danger to our country. That is why I am voting for Vice President Kamala Harris,” Michek told the crowd at Ripon College. “As we gather in the very town where the Republican Party was founded, I am asking my fellow Republicans to join me as we turn the page on Trump’s campaign of division and chaos.”

‘Ronald Reagan conservative’ makes common cause with Democrats

The Harris campaign is emphasizing its outreach to Republicans in the 2024 election, including knocking on more than 200,000 doors in Wisconsin counties where Trump won four years ago. Trump carried Fond du Lac County, where Thursday’s rally was held, with 62% of the vote in 2020.

At the rally, a large sign declaring “Country Over Party” towered over one section of the audience, which greeted Cheney with cries of “Thank you, Liz!”

Cheney, who endorsed Harris in September, harkened to the Republican Party’s founding in 1854 by opponents of slavery.

Underscoring her Republican credentials — “I was a Republican even before Donald Trump started spray tanning,” she quipped as the crowd laughed and cheered — Cheney called herself “a Ronald Reagan conservative.” She defined that ideology as a belief in limited government, low taxes, a “strong national defense” and the premise that “the private sector is the engine of growth of our economy.”

Although she had never voted for a Democrat before, Cheney said she would “proudly” vote for Harris in November. 

“Vice President Harris is standing in the breach at a critical moment in our nation’s history. She’s working to unite reasonable people from all across the political spectrum,” said Cheney. Lauding Harris for a career in public service, she added, “I know that she will be a president for all Americans.”

She reiterated her call for Republicans to cross party lines in November. “We cannot turn away from this truth in this election — putting patriotism ahead of partisanship is not an aspiration,” Cheney said. “It is our duty.”

Taking the podium and calling Cheney “a true patriot,” Harris thanked her “for your support and your leadership and your courage.” She also thanked Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has said he will vote for Harris because of Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“We both love our country and revere our democratic ideals, and our oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America is a sacred oath — an oath that must be honored and must never be violated,” Harris said. She framed the choice at the polls in November as an answer to the question, “Who will obey that oath?”

Harris reprised an appeal that she’s been making since the Democratic National Convention in August, when a series of Republican former office holders, including some former Trump aides, endorsed the Democratic ticket.

“No matter your political party, there is a place for you with us and in this campaign,” Harris said.

Republican Harris endorsement letter

Michek was one of 24 Republicans to sign an open letter backing Harris that the campaign released Thursday.

Over the last year, he said, when talk has turned to politics among friends and acquaintances he has been open about his opposition to reelecting Trump.

“I would say I’m not going to vote for a criminal — he’s a convicted felon,” Michek said.

When some people have pushed back, “I ask, ‘Would you vote me in for sheriff if I was a felon?’ They’ll say ‘Oh, hell no!’ So why would you for a president? I think it’s an easy argument this time around.”

He said he hasn’t volunteered for the campaign or for the Democratic Party. He only learned about the rally and the open letter two days before the Thursday event when he got a request to speak.

“I didn’t hesitate — I was glad to,” Michek said.

The request came through a sheriff colleague who’s a Democrat. “He knew there were things I didn’t like about the Trump administration,” Michek said. When the request came, “To me it was like, ‘Wow, he was paying attention to the things I was saying.’”

Another signer was Mark Becker. A former Brown County Republican Party chair, Becker said he opposed Trump from the day the developer and reality TV star declared his candidacy and “just starting talking about migrants as, you know, terrible people,” Becker told the Wisconsin Examiner during a Zoom call Sunday morning.

After unsuccessfully urging Republicans “to do the right thing back in 2016” and reject Trump, Becker became part of a nascent never-Trump movement that former Milwaukee talk radio host Charlie Sykes helped to spearhead.

Trump “spent his time in office dividing us and creating chaos,” Becker said. “And then, of course, he capped it all off with Jan. 6, where he tried to overthrow and overturn a free and fair election and encouraged his supporters to violently storm the Capitol, resulting in 140 police officers being injured. It is clear that Donald Trump is a danger to our country, and this time there will be no guardrails.”

Becker now hosts a weekly talk show on Civic Media radio stations in Wisconsin, where he aims for discussion that goes across partisan lines. His motto is, “I don’t advocate for left versus right, but we advocate for right versus wrong.”

Former Illinois Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, who was also on the Sunday call, turned against Trump in 2018 after “I made a mistake in 2016” and campaigned for him.

“Trump has reshaped the GOP into something extreme and dangerous,” Walsh said — “a party driven by conspiracy theories, authoritarianism and personal enrichment.”

Calling Jan. 6 “a defining moment for our nation,” Walsh said that in addition to failing to uphold a peaceful transfer of power after losing the 2020 election, “Donald Trump has pledged to do the same thing this year if he were to lose.”

Insurrection, insults and invective

The Capitol attack on Jan. 6 tops the list of anti-Trump Republicans’ reasons for opposing the former president.

“People lost their lives,” Michek said. “Not everyone’s been held accountable for that.”

He referred to former Gov. Scott Walker’s statement that people should “move on” from those events, although he didn’t mention Walker by name.

“I don’t think we should move on,” Michek said. “It’s similar to 9/11 — that’s something we should never forget.”

But criticisms of Trump don’t stop there.

Former state Sen. Barbara Lorman of Fort Atkinson was another GOP veteran to sign the letter supporting Harris. Like Becker, Lorman said she opposed Trump from the first time he ran in 2016 — turned off by his divisive rhetoric and what she saw as a lack of a moral compass.

“It’s about leadership,” Lorman told the Wisconsin Examiner in a telephone interview. “What kind of a leader do you want? Do you want a leader who admires despots? Who admires Putin? Who admires [Hungarian President] Viktor Orban? [That] should be a price to pay for any political party.”

Lorman, 92, served in the Wisconsin Senate from 1981 to 1995, an era when she served “with very nice Republicans” as well as with some legislators who “went to jail — both parties.”

She recalls her tenure there as a time when lawmakers were able to work across party lines.

“We need a strong two-party system,” Lorman said. “And we need people who can compromise — who can negotiate, who can work in a group, and who understand you can’t always have everything you want.”

Those are not qualities she sees in Donald Trump.

“To slam the other side, to say if they win, you’re going to die — I don’t want a leader who talks like that,” Lorman said.

She is baffled by Republican politicians who have thrown their support to Trump despite being targets for his scorn in the past — often because of their earlier criticism of Trump.

“His loose tongue has insulted so many people, and then when they get an opportunity they turn around and support him,” Lorman said.

But the Capitol attack was the worst offense in her eyes. “After Jan. 6, and after watching him on TV over and over, I just don’t understand why anyone would support him,” Lorman said.

Walsh told the Wisconsin Examiner that being a Republican for Biden in 2020 was “a much lonelier position than it is right now to be a Republican for Kamala Harris.”

The former Illinois congressman counts as many as 500 to 600 anti-Trump Republicans, including former members of Congress, former national security officials and veterans of past GOP administrations, all the way back to Reagan.

“This movement right now of Republicans for Harris is really something the country’s never seen,” Walsh said. In visits to all the battleground states in recent weeks, “I’m blown away by the local support of so many local Republicans in each of these states coming up to me when I’m in town with them, and saying, ‘Joe, I’m with her. I’m a Republican. I’m going to vote for her.’”

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Republican lapel buttons. Photo by U.S. Consulate General Barcelona via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

Two dozen Wisconsin Republicans, including former lawmakers, other former elected officials and a GOP sitting district attorney, have signed an open letter declaring their support for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in her campaign for president and condemning the Republican nominee former President Donald Trump.

The Harris campaign released the letter early Thursday, describing it as the product of months of outreach by the campaign and by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to Republicans.

“We, the undersigned, are Republicans from across Wisconsin who bring the same message: Donald Trump does not align with Wisconsin values,” the letter says. “To ensure our democracy and our economy remain strong for another four years, we must elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to the White House.”

The letter was released as part of the launch of a formal Wisconsin Republicans for Harris-Walz organization, with just over a month to go before the Nov. 5 election.

“Wisconsin Republicans for Harris-Walz will play a pivotal role in facilitating Republican-to-Republican voter contact,” said the Harris-Walz campaign announcement Thursday. Through phone banking and networking with “Republican organizations, businesses, and community groups,” the GOP-oriented group will focus “in part on the more than 120,000 Wisconsinites who voted against Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary earlier this year,” the campaign announcement said.

Trump’s Wisconsin primary opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, finished with more than 16% of the vote in Ozaukee, 12% in Washington and 14% in Waukesha counties.

The letter and the announcement coincide with a Harris campaign trip Thursday to Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party in the 19th century. The Harris campaign announced Thursday that Liz Cheney, the Republican former member of Congress who endorsed Harris last month, will be part of the Ripon campaign event.

The letter makes clear that the signers do not intend to change political parties. 

“We have plenty of policy disagreements with Vice President Harris. But what we do agree upon is more important,” the letter reads. “We agree that we cannot afford another four years of the broken promises, election denialism, and chaos of Donald Trump’s leadership.”

The single current office holder signing the letter is Tom Bilski, the district attorney for Buffalo County. Other signers include three Republican former members of the Wisconsin Legislature: Former Sen. Barbara Lorman, Fort Atkinson, and former Reps. Margaret Lewis of the Town of Middleton and Susan Vergeront of Sun Prairie.

Also signing are  former Brown County Republican Chair Mark Becker, former Iowa County Sheriff Steve Michek and Tracy Ann Mangold, former Republican Party secretary for the 8th Congressional District.

The balance of the 24 signers of the letter do not list current or former political titles. Their home towns include Madison, Milwaukee, communities in Southeast Wisconsin, northern outlying suburbs of Milwaukee, Appleton and Hudson among other places.

This report has been updated.

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