Democrats Welcome Disaffected Republicans With Open Arms

Plus: The glorious return of the political boater hat.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Republicans who have soured on their party and its swing to the far right since the ascension of Donald Trump have found a new home and presence at the Democratic convention this week.

Rich Logis, a former Trump voter and MAGA pundit who reversed course over the former president’s poor handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, was featured on the big screen in the convention hall. Other ex-Republicans are getting top speaking slots, such as Ana Navarro, one of the nightly emcees, Bulwark contributor and former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, and former Trump White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.

Prior to the start of festivities in Chicago, several high-profile Republicans announced their support for Harris, including former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), and Michael Luttig, a retired conservative federal appeals judge (or, as my lawyer friends call him, the retired conservative federal appeals judge).

“In the presidential election of 2024 there is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law,” Luttig said in a statement first reported by CNN. “As a result, I will unhesitatingly vote for the Democratic Party’s candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.”

Republicans have been defecting from their party for as long as Trump has run it. But these ones in particular are being welcomed with open arms by Democrats who view them as key validators for their case against the ex-president. They are being hailed as embodiments of the case Harris is making that voters should put country over party.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), formerly the third-ranking Democrat in the House, told me shortly after his speech that bringing Republicans into the fold is a matter of principle:

Well, you know, if you are going to profess ‘for the people,’ it doesn't mean some of the people. And I really applaud them for doing this to let the American public know that what's at stake here is, in fact, our democracy. Not [just for] Democrats or Republicans or independents, but it's for everybody.

And so I think to the extent that so many Republicans in my home state, believe it or not, of South Carolina, are now speaking out, and I think it is good for us to give a platform to those people while they are tuning in and trying to find out who Kamala Harris is. So this is a good time to do that.

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) told me that Kinzinger, who also hailed from the Illinois delegation, “speaks well to disaffected Republicans,” noting the need for more Republicans who are willing to break ranks when their conscience demands it.

He's a conservative’s conservative. And he stood up, when it needed to happen. If just a handful more Republicans had, Trump would have been impeached [and barred from serving again], and we wouldn’t be here.

In the past, there has been some mild discomfort among Democrats over courting GOPers rather than spending energy to juice their own base. But Cedric Richmond, a former congressman from Louisiana, Biden administration alum, and current senior advisor to the Democratic National Committee, told me the Democratic party is demonstrating a principle of inclusivity by enveloping anti-Trump Republicans.

I think it shows that Kamala Harris intends to be a president for black, white, rural, urban, Democrat, Republican; that she is intending to bring people together and uplift everybody at the same time. So I think it's good.

This isn’t the first time party defectors have made a splash at the national conventions. Press Pass readers may remember Sen. Zell Miller’s (D-Ga.) speech at the 2004 Republican convention (after which he tried to challenge Chris Matthews to a duel—look it up!). Four years ago, the virtual Democratic National Convention also featured videos of Republican voters endorsing Biden, as well as video addresses from then-Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The Republican convention this year treated party-switching a little differently. Normally, in today’s GOP, associating with Democrats in any way is a career killer and tantamount to treason—but there’s an exception for full converts to MAGA, such as video vixen Amber Rose and Nicaraguan immigrant Linda Fornos. In addition, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) delivered a speech declaring:

Along the way I noticed that I didn’t like what the Democrats had become as a party, but more importantly, I didn’t like what the Democratic party was doing to our great United States of America.

Van Drew represents a more conservative, somewhat-swing district that he initially flipped from red to blue in 2018. Before his first term was up, he flipped it back to red by switching parties. The fact that he’s still in office is evidence that the switch worked out for him.

Many Democrats see the conversion of former Republicans as critical to winning the 2024 election. They could make up the crucial votes Harris & Co. need to win swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, from where Duncan (Wednesday night’s speaker) hails.

Merch report

Regular Press Pass readers know my keen eye for the sartorial side of politics, and that includes peculiar political merchandise. So I wanted to provide a quick rundown of the most noteworthy getups I saw on the convention floor Monday evening.

I’ll start with the items that were actually good. There were quite a few delegates wearing classic boater hats, a staple of summer political conventions in the early 20th century. Boater hats are a great callback to the better-dressed politics of yesteryear. Seeing so many of them on the floor was a pleasant surprise. (I wish I’d had one on me when I was covering the protest outside yesterday.)

I saw one delegate wearing a navy blue seersucker suit—an incredible style move that keeps the wearer cool on the crowded floor without the typical stripes that look straight out of a ’90s Mentos commercial. Cedric Richmond wore a monogrammed Louis Vuitton backpack over his suit jacket, which is bad for the shoulder padding, but it was still cool.

As far as overtly political merchandise goes, there weren’t as many depictions of Harris’s or Biden’s face as one might expect. I did see a trio of women wearing matching dresses that featured the face of every modern Democratic leader on them.¹ There was also a fedora with pinwheels, sparkles, and a little Harris figurine.

In contrast, the Republican convention’s murals and attire featuring Trump’s face would make a Pyongyang parade planner blush.

Lastly, I spotted one man dressed like Waldo from Where’s Waldo? What do I win?

Say my name

In case you missed it, I previewed what to expect as the Democratic convention gets underway with my Bulwark colleague Sam Stein on YouTube. Sam wondered whether Democrats would invoke Donald Trump by name during the formal speeches on stage, so I kept a (loose) running tally of the various mentions of the man whom the Italian press corps refers to as “Il tycoon.”

During the opening speeches, the big screen played a montage of Trump’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic along with his fumbling interviews from 2020. Many of his comments were drowned out by boos, which flipped to cheers when the video highlighted Biden’s Harris’s management of the crisis and the vaccine rollout.

There were plentiful other mentions of Trump, especially from the lawmakers and elected officials who took the stage on opening night.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) mentioned Trump three times during his speech, as did Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.). Garcia also got a jab in at his regular sparring partner, Marjorie Taylor Greene—the only mention I heard of her that night.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), a regular Oversight Committee pugilist, called Trump a “78-year-old lifelong predator, fraudster, and cheat known for inciting violent mobs,” adding, “he’s only ever looked out for himself.”

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who chairs Senate Democrats’ campaign arm for the second cycle in a row, mentioned Trump by name once, invoking Project 2025 as “the same old, same old—gut worker protections, weaken unions, and cut Social Security and Medicare, all the while giving tax breaks to millionaires.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said, “Donald Trump was born a New Yorker, but ended up a fraud, a philanderer, and a felon.”

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) delivered one of the more memorable lines of the night: “Donald Trump is a plague on the American conscience.”

Typically, at major events like these, Trump’s name is Voldemortally avoided, replaced instead by circumlocutions like “that man” or “the ex-president.” So the desire to invoke his name is noteworthy.

1. Schumer-chic?