The mayor of Waukesha, a reliably Republican county seat outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president on Wednesday — the first time the former Republican city leader has endorsed a Democrat for commander-in-chief, the campaign said.
“It would have been easier for me to remain silent and vote my conscience, but the stakes of this election are so important that I feel compelled to publicly share my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and encourage other Wisconsinites who care about us. the country must do the same,” Reilly said in a statement released by the Harris campaign.
Reilly added that former President Donald Trump “poses a unique threat to American democracy” and that a second term “will be more dangerous than the first because there will be no safety bars.”
“We cannot allow him to sit in the Oval Office again,” he said.
Milwaukee’s Fox News affiliate The mayor announced his support for Harris yesterday, saying he left the Republican Party after the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol and voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, but still often votes Republican.
Wisconsin is a key battleground state that could be a critical part of Harris or Trump’s path to victory on election night. While Milwaukee’s vote-rich suburbs haven’t swung to Democrats as dramatically as similar areas outside the battleground major cities have in the Trump era, the party has made gradual inroads.
Waukesha, in particular, has long been a Republican stronghold, with Democrats slowly making gains in state and federal elections over the past two decades.
In 2000, only 32% of voters in Waukesha County voted for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, and in 2020, 39% of voters there supported President Joe Biden. By contrast, 65% of voters there voted for former President George W. Bush in 2000, and 60% of voters in Waukesha voted for Trump in 2020.
In a state where Biden won by less than a point in 2020, even marginal swings in suburban counties could affect the statewide outcome.
Reilly’s endorsement comes as a wave of Republicans aligns behind Harris this fall.
On Thursday, former GOP Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan also endorsed Harris, saying he had never voted for a Democrat for president “until now.”
Trump is “unfit to serve as commander-in-chief again,” Upton said.
Other former GOP members who have endorsed Harris include Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. Harris also named former GOP Sen. Jeff Flake, former Vice President Dick Cheney, more than a hundred Republican former national security officials, former Lt. Gen. Jeff Duncan of Georgia, and others.