Liz Cheney Tells Abortion Opponents It’s OK To Back Kamala Harris

Vice President Kamala Harris made a concerted effort on Monday to appeal to Republican women in the nation’s suburbs, using former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming as her ambassador to conservatives during events in well-to-do suburbs of the biggest cities in three important battleground states.

Stumping together in town-hall-style settings before intimate crowds at small theaters in the Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia suburbs, Ms. Harris and Ms. Cheney presented a united front against former President Donald J. Trump — though it was Ms. Cheney who offered the clearest rationale for why Republicans should vote for Ms. Harris.

On abortion rights, national security and foreign policy, Ms. Cheney painted Mr. Trump as irresponsibly dangerous while describing Ms. Harris as the safer, reasonable choice to maintain the stability of the country and protect women’s health.

“It’s not about party, it’s about right and wrong,” Ms. Cheney told the audience in Royal Oak, Mich., in a theater that in past presidential campaigns hosted events for Mitt Romney. “I certainly have many Republicans who will say to me, ‘I can’t be public.’ They do worry about a whole range of things, including violence, but they’ll do the right thing. And I would just remind people, if you’re at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody.”

Ms. Cheney sought to build a permission structure for Republicans to vote for a Democrat as the Harris campaign focuses heavily on appeals to conservative women in the suburbs, whom aides view as a key group of undecided voters in the race’s closing days.

Many of these women have spent years voting for candidates who are far more closely aligned with Ms. Cheney on social and foreign policy issues than they are with Ms. Harris — which helps explain why the vice president mostly repeated her campaign’s talking points as the former Wyoming congresswoman tried to make news with her support.