Can The Quiet Kamala Harris Voter Carry Her Across the Finish Line?

Former Representative Liz Cheney has predicted that millions of Republicans will quietly vote for Vice President Kamala Harris against former President Donald Trump.
Polls continue to show a tight race between Harris and Trump in the final stretch of the campaign, with each candidate shifting gears to mobilize their voter bases as Election Day inches closer.
Harris spent the last few weeks on the campaign trail targeting independent and Republican voters who may have previously supported Trump but no longer feel comfortable doing so over issues including abortion and his unproven election fraud claims after the 2020 race.
Cheney, a Republican who represented Wyoming in Congress but has endorsed Harris after breaking with Trump over the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol building, made her prediction while campaigning with the Democratic nominee in Michigan Monday.
“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. 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,” she said. “There will be millions of Republicans who do that on November 5.”
Her comments echo a similar prediction made by former Representative Barbara Comstock, a Republican who represented Virginia in Congress and has also endorsed Harris. She told The Daily Beast earlier in October she believes there will be a “silent group of women who will crawl over broken glass to vote against Trump and who will quietly vote for Harris.”
Democratic strategist Matt Bennett told Newsweek that 2024 may be “the inverse of what we saw in 2016, when Trump supporters were ashamed to tell pollsters they supported him, especially after the Access Hollywood tape came out.”
“But because they’re ‘silent,’ we don’t really know—all we have is anecdotal evidence and a gut feeling about how some Republicans view Trump after that assault on the Capitol on January 6,” he said. “So, given that we don’t know who or how many there are, it’s impossible to say if this group will be enough to counter the slight slippage Harris has seen with Black men and the larger trend to the right among Hispanic voters.”
GOP strategist Matt Klink told Newsweek that while there is a “small group of Republicans who are ‘never Trumpers,’ he believes Harris’ campaign has given most of them “nothing to attract them toward her candidacy,” and that Trump gains with Black and Hispanic men could offset any quiet Harris voter effect.
“Donald Trump will lock down mid 90s in terms of Republicans’ support. He is expanding the GOP base with key groups that have historically voted for Democrats—organized labor, Black and Latino men and married women—that will more than cover the loss of GOP voters,” he said.
In a statement to Newsweek, Brian Hughes, a senior adviser for the Trump campaign, pointed to a Wall Street Journal poll of Pennsylvania voters showing Trump winning 91 percent of Republican voters and 7 percent of Democratic voters, while Harris received support from 86 percent of Democrats and 6 percent of Republicans.
“Cheney’s premise is totally wrong because Harris is the one who is underperforming with her own party. Liz Cheney is a loser who is so desperate for relevance and attention, she has debased herself by campaigning with a weak, failed, and dangerously liberal in Kamala Harris,” he said.
Tammy Vigil, a senior associate dean at Boston University’s College of Communication, told Newsweek there will “certainly” be a group of Republican voters who quietly vote for Harris.
“As Cheney points out, the fear of reprisals among Republicans for going against Trump is real and concerning, and that will lead to a lot of anti-Trump sentiment that is not vocalized yet could show up in the ballot count,” she said.
It’s difficult to know how much of a factor they will play in the election, as it its “obviously hard to tell when it comes to hypothesizing about ‘silent’ groups,” Vigil said.
“Who knows how many ‘silent’ Harris supporters or anti-Trump voters might not be as vocal. In 2016, there was a hesitance among Trump supporters to speak out and that group was big enough in certain states to tip the Electoral College scales,” she said. “Most pollsters didn’t see that coming. It could be the opposite here.”
Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email.
Costas Panagopoulos, a professor of political science at Northeastern University, told Newsweek that he believes it is possible there is an “underbelly of support for Harris” not registering in polls because some of her supporters may be holding back that information. He noted, however, that claims of quiet Harris support could be similar to the shy Trump voter theory, which he said appears to have been a “fallacy.”
“The possibility of a shy Harris voter certainly exists, although we may not be able to gauge the extent to which it may have existed until we know the outcome of election,” he said.
There may be many reasons for Harris voters to stay quiet about their support for him, including that they may not agree with her on all of the issues or share her partisan identity, he said.
Polls tell a mixed message about whether Harris will win over a substantial number of Republican voters.
A New York Times poll showed Harris winning 9 percent of Republicans, while Trump won only 3 percent of Democrats. It showed Harris winning overall by three points (47 percent to 44 percent). It surveyed 3,385 likely voters from September 29 to October 6. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 points.
Meanwhile, a YouGov/The Economist poll, conducted 1,624 adults from October 12 to October 15, showed Harris winning 7 percent of Republicans and Trump winning 2 percent of Democrats. It also showed her winning by 3 points (48 percent to 45 percent). It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 points.
Other polls, however, showed a more even split. A Marist poll, conducted among 2,021 adults from October 8 to October 10, showed Harris winning 6 percent of Republicans and Trump winning 4 percent of Democrats. Results are significant within plus or minus 3.2 points.
A Suffolk University/USA Today poll, conducted among 1,000 likely voters from October 14 to October 18, showed Harris winning 2 percent of Republicans and Trump winning 3 percent of Democrats. It showed Harris up one point (45 percent to 44 percent). It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Harris has taken steps to win over Republican voters, touting her support from conservatives like Cheney, as well as sitting down for an interview with Fox News last week.
Vigil of Boston University said her Republican outreach has “largely been successful,” but she may be benefiting more from Trump himself alienating more traditional Republicans.
“He is making it difficult for reasonable, principled Republicans to stick with him. His policies, such that they are, and his rhetoric have moved quite far from a true conservative perspective and that has driven principled conservatives away from him,” she said.
Bennett said Harris tacking to the center and appealing to the “exhausting majority” is the best thing she has done since emerging as the Democratic nominee in late summer.
“That huge center space includes Ds, Rs, and Independents. They are hungry for sane, rational, pragmatic ideas and leadership, and she is offering a vision of that. If she wins, that will be the reason,” he said.
The results of the election could hinge on whether or not Harris convinces a substantial number of Republicans to vote for her, as polls in battleground states remain tight. Some recent polls suggest she is winning over more Republicans in must-win Pennsylvania than other battlegrounds.
FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregate showed Harris up 1.9 points over Trump on Tuesday. One month earlier on September 22, Harris held a 2.9 point lead in the aggregate.