The mayor of Waukesha, the seat of a reliably Republican county 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 be easier for me to remain quiet and vote my conscience privately, but the stakes of this election are so important that I feel compelled to publicly share that I am voting for Vice President Kamala Harris and I encourage other Wisconsinites those who care about our country should do the same,” Reilly said in a statement distributed by the Harris campaign.
Reilly added that former President Donald Trump poses “a unique danger to American democracy,” and that a second term “would be even more dangerous than the first because there would be no guardrails.”
“We cannot allow him to sit in the Oval Office again,” he said.
Milwaukee’s Fox News affiliate reported yesterday that the mayor was endorsing Harris, quoting him as saying he left the Republican Party after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 but still often votes Republican.
Wisconsin is a key battleground state that could be a crucial part of Harris or Trump’s path to victory on election night. While Milwaukee’s vote-rich suburbs haven’t shifted as dramatically to Democrats as similar areas outside major battleground cities during the Trump era, the party has gradually gained ground.
Waukesha in particular has long been a Republican stronghold, where Democrats have made slow gains in statewide and federal elections over the past two decades.
In 2000, only 32% of voters in Waukesha County voted for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, while in 2020, 39% of voters there supported President Joe Biden. Conversely, 65% of voters there voted for former President George Bush in 2000 and 60% of voters in Waukesha cast their ballots for Trump in 2020.
In a state that Biden won by less than a point in 2020, even marginal shifts in suburban counties could affect the statewide outcome.
Reilly’s endorsement comes as a wave of Republicans have rallied behind Harris this fall.
On Thursday, former Michigan Republican Party Rep. Fred Upton endorsed Harris, saying in a statement that he has never voted for a Democrat for president “yet.”
Trump is “unfit to serve as commander in chief again,” Upton said.
Other former GOP members of Congress who have endorsed Harris include Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. Harris also touts endorsements from GOP former Sen. Jeff Flake, former Vice President Dick Cheney, more than a hundred Republican former national security officials, former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and others.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
