They’re conservative, they oppose Trump. But some are at odds over whether to vote for Kamala Harris.

In the last two U.S. presidential elections, a number of senior Republicans opposed to Donald Trump’s candidacy indicated they would not be voting for the party’s nominee.

They also indicated they would not be voting for the Democratic candidate. Instead, many decided to write in another candidate’s name. For example, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he wrote in his wife’s name in 2016; George W. Bush said that in 2020, he wrote in former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

However, in 2024, there appears to be a shift among some Republicans, who have announced they will be marking an X beside the name of Democratic candidate Vice-President Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election.

Rylee Boyd, spokesperson for Republican Voters Against Trump told CBC News that there are certainly more Republicans coming out to support Harris than came out for Biden in 2020.

“I just think, at this point, everyone knows how much of a threat Donald Trump is,” she said, adding that many of these Republicans are coming to terms with the fact that there isn’t a place for them in the current Republican Party.

“And if there was ever going to be some type of normal Republican Party in the future, Donald Trump needs to be defeated for that to even be possible.”

Some say endorsing Harris goes too far

But for some anti-Trump conservatives, endorsing Harris is a bridge too far.

“I don’t think it’s good, frankly, for these Republicans who have been coming out and affirmatively endorsing a candidate who has no record of … any affinity for their governing program, their values and their ideology,” Noah Rothman, a senior writer at the conservative website National Review and a frequent critic of Trump, told CBC News in a phone interview.

Still, while they may oppose many of her policies, those who have said they will vote for Harris see Trump, who continues to deny the 2020 election results, as a potential existential threat to democracy.

That’s why some anti-Trump Republicans and former Republican staffers appeared on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to publicly announce their support for Harris.

Meanwhile, more than 200 staffers for four previous Republican presidential nominees have endorsed Harris, concerned that another Trump presidency would represent another four years of “chaotic leadership,” jeopardize democratic movements abroad and hurt “real everyday people.”

Although the Republicans and conservatives supporting Harris have not been as well known to the general public, that changed last week when former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney announced at Duke University that she would be voting for Harris.

Cheney, who co-chaired the House investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, and has been a vocal critic of Trump, said those conservatives and Republicans who oppose Trump don’t have “the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states.”

Trump poses a ‘danger’: Liz Cheney

“As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the constitution, I have thought deeply about this,” said Cheney. “Because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”

Days later, her father, former vice-president Dick Cheney, also announced his support for Harris, citing Trump’s attempt to steal the election in 2020 through “lies and violence to keep himself in power.”

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” he said in a statement. “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our constitution.”

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Alberto Gonzales, the former attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, also announced his support for Harris, saying he couldn’t “sit quietly as Donald Trump — perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation — eyes a return to the White House.” 

The reaction to such endorsements from Trump supporters, and Trump himself, has been mostly dismissive. Trump blasted Dick Cheney as being “irrelevant,” and characterized both Cheneys as “RINOs” — Republicans in Name Only.

Before these higher profile endorsements of Harris, David French, a conservative New York Times columnist and frequent Trump critic, stirred the pot among some anti-Trump Republicans when he wrote in August that he’d be voting for Harris to help save conservatism from itself.

French, who had declined to vote for either candidate in 2016 and 2020, felt that support for Ukraine in its war with Russia is a geo-political necessity, and on that issue, Harris is on the right track.

“If Trump wins again, it will validate his cruelty and his ideological transformation of the Republican Party. If Harris wins, the West will still stand against Vladimir Putin,” French wrote.

Jonah Goldberg, co-founder of The Dispatch, a conservative news, opinion and analysis website, wrote that while he agreed with French’s criticisms of Trump, he was wrong about voting for and endorsing Harris and about “writing a column pegged to his vote rather than his endorsement.”

Goldberg, who noted that he would never vote for Trump, nevertheless said writing in the names of Republicans you might admire, or even leaving the presidential line blank would “send a better — and clearer — message.”

Harris presidency ‘lesser of two evils’

Instead, Goldberg said French, a colleague and friend, should have said: “I think Harris is pretty terrible for a slew of reasons, but a Harris presidency would be the lesser of two evils for the following reasons.”

In another column, Goldberg wrote that Cheney’s endorsement of Harris was problematic. He said she should be doing more to combat the charge that she and other anti-Trump conservatives are “just born-again left-wingers”

“Why don’t they criticize Harris’ progressive politics while saying they’re going to vote for her anyway because supporting Trump isn’t an option,” he wrote.

Stephen F. Hayes, The Dispatch’s co-founder, echoed Goldberg’s thoughts on X, formerly known as Twitter, when he wrote that he was concerned that some conservatives were “fluffing” Harris, who he sees as “a far-left senator now trying to run away from her rhetoric and record.”

“Trump is a dangerous demagogue, uniquely unfit to serve another term as president,” Hayes said, adding, “opposing Trump doesn’t require pretending Harris is something she’s not.”

That prompted an angry response from Sarah Longwell, founder of Republican Voters Against Trump, and publisher of the conservative anti-Trump website The Bulwark. 

She wrote on X that Goldberg and Hayes’ “tedious rationalizations” for standing on the sidelines instead of “taking a stand against the worst threat to American ideals in our lifetimes” was “deeply disappointing.”

“I’ll never understand it as long as I live. This is basic right and wrong stuff.”

Rothman of the National Review told CBC News that by endorsing Harris, Republicans are sacrificing any influence they may still have over the Republican Party. 

He said that if they’re seeking to restore the values of the Republican Party of old, “they’re taking themselves off chessboard right now.”