Will McCain Republicans ‘put country over party’ and come through for Harris?

Vice President Kamala Harris’s rally last week in Arizona featured several speeches from prominent Democrats in the state, from Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is running for Senate against Kari Lake, to Sen. Mark Kelly, who was at one point on Harris’s short list of potential running rates.

But perhaps one of the most impassioned speeches came from a local leader who isn’t a Democrat at all. John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, delivered a message for disaffected Republicans like him and was met with vigorous applause.

“I have something to say to those of us who are in the middle: You don’t owe a damn thing to that political party,” he said about Donald Trump and the GOP. “I would say in the spirit of the great Senator John McCain, please, please join me in putting country over party and stopping Donald Trump and protecting the rule of law, protecting our constitution and protecting the democracy of this great country.”

The speech was a conscious effort by the Harris campaign to bring Republicans into the fold. Earlier that week, the campaign had rolled out Republicans for Harris, which held a Zoom on Tuesday evening that attracted 60,000 people, according to Olivia Troye, a former adviser to Mike Pence.

It makes sense for Harris to invoke McCain, given that he was widely viewed as the conscience of the GOP, even though he largely voted along party lines. But he delivered Trump’s biggest policy blow when he voted to kill their repeal of Obamacare.

On the surface, courting McCain supporters might seem to be a harder lift for Harris than it was for her predecessor Joe Biden. Despite being a Democrat, Biden forged close friendships with McCain and other powerful Republicans, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, during his 36 years in the