WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign on Sunday is launching “Republicans for Harris” as she looks to win over Republican voters put off by Donald Trump's candidacy.
The program will be a “campaign within a campaign,” according to Harris' team, using well-known Republicans to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. The program will kick off with events this week in Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Republicans backing Harris will also appear at rallies with the vice president and her soon-to-be-named running mate this coming week, the campaign said.
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FILE - Former Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., speaks during a campaign event, Jan. 29, 2020, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Walsh, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
FILE - Christine Todd Whitman, right, the former Republican Governor of New Jersey, speaks, March 6, 2019, in Seattle. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Todd Whitman, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
FILE - Former Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., speaks during a campaign event, Jan. 29, 2020, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Walsh, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
In this image from video, former Rep. Susan Molinari of N.Y., speaks from Sarasota, Fla., during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 17, 2020. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Molinari, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (Democratic National Convention via AP)
FILE- White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham listens as President Donald Trump speaks at the White House in Washington, Oct. 3, 2019. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Grisham, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
FILE - Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speaks at the White House in Washington, April 29, 2013. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including LaHood, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld speaks during a Town Hall, Feb. 5, 2020, in Concord, N.H. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Weld, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
FILE - Christine Todd Whitman, right, the former Republican Governor of New Jersey, speaks, March 6, 2019, in Seattle. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Todd Whitman, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
FILE - Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is pictured in Washington, Nov. 11, 2022. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Hagel, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
FILE - Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., speaks during a hearting at the Capitol in Washington, July 21, 2022. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Kinzinger, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
FILE - Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the American Federation of Teachers' 88th national convention, July 25, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, file)
The Harris campaign shared the details of the program first with The Associated Press before the official announcement.
It is trying to create “a permission structure” for GOP voters who would otherwise have a difficult time voting for Harris. The effort will rely heavily on Republican-to-Republican voter contact, with the belief that the best way to get a Republican to vote for Harris is to hear directly from another Republican making the same choice.
Trump's "extremism is toxic to the millions of Republicans who no longer believe the party of Donald Trump represents their values" and will vote against him again in November, said Harris' national director of Republican outreach, Austin Weatherford. He said the campaign would be "showing up and taking the time every single day to earn the vote of Republicans who believe in putting country over party and know that every American deserves a president who will protect their freedoms and a commander in chief who will put the best interests of the American people above their own.”
Weatherford is a onetime chief of staff to former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who had endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket before President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump. Kinzinger is backing Harris once more as part of the launch.
“As a proud conservative, I never thought I’d be endorsing a Democrat for President," he said in a statement. “But, I know Vice President Harris will defend our democracy and ensure Donald Trump never returns to the White House.”
Kinzinger developed a national profile as one of two Republicans on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The committee highlighted a number of Trump’s transgressions before and during the deadly attack as Congress tried to certify the results of the 2020 election that Biden won over Trump.
Trump has done little to try to win over moderate Republican voters and on Saturday criticized anew Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who rebuffed Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election in the battleground state.
Last month, when Biden was still at the top of the ticket, the campaign went out with an ad highlighting former Trump staffers' criticism of their onetime boss. A separate ad highlighted Trump’s often-personal attacks against Haley, including his primary nickname of her as “birdbrain” and suggestion that “she’s not presidential timber.”
Hundreds of thousands of registered Republicans voted in primaries for Haley even after she ended her bid for the 2024 Republican nomination and as Trump trounced her in almost every contest.
Haley in May announced she would vote for Trump and appeared at last month's Republican National Convention.
The Harris campaign's effort includes former Govs. Bill Weld of Massachusetts and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and 16 former Republican members of Congress, including Kinzinger and Reps. Joe Walsh of Illinois and Susan Molinari of New York. All have been notable critics of Trump in the past.
Former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham is also endorsing Harris.
“I might not agree with Vice President Kamala Harris on everything, but I know that she will fight for our freedom, protect our democracy and represent America with honor and dignity on the world stage," Grisham said in a statement.
FILE - Former Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., speaks during a campaign event, Jan. 29, 2020, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Walsh, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
In this image from video, former Rep. Susan Molinari of N.Y., speaks from Sarasota, Fla., during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 17, 2020. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Molinari, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (Democratic National Convention via AP)
FILE- White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham listens as President Donald Trump speaks at the White House in Washington, Oct. 3, 2019. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Grisham, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
FILE - Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speaks at the White House in Washington, April 29, 2013. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including LaHood, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld speaks during a Town Hall, Feb. 5, 2020, in Concord, N.H. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Weld, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
FILE - Christine Todd Whitman, right, the former Republican Governor of New Jersey, speaks, March 6, 2019, in Seattle. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Todd Whitman, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
FILE - Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is pictured in Washington, Nov. 11, 2022. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Hagel, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
FILE - Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., speaks during a hearting at the Capitol in Washington, July 21, 2022. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching "Republicans for Harris" as she tries to win over Republican voters put off by former President Donald Trump's candidacy. Harris' team says the program will aim to use well-known Republicans, including Kinzinger, to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
FILE - Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the American Federation of Teachers' 88th national convention, July 25, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, file)
What's in a name change, after all?
The water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba will be critical to shipping lanes and vacationers whether it’s called the Gulf of Mexico, as it has been for four centuries, or the Gulf of America, as President Donald Trump ordered this week. North America’s highest mountain peak will still loom above Alaska whether it’s called Mt. Denali, as ordered by former President Barack Obama in 2015, or changed back to Mt. McKinley as Trump also decreed.
But Trump's territorial assertions, in line with his “America First” worldview, sparked a round of rethinking by mapmakers and teachers, snark on social media and sarcasm by at least one other world leader. And though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put the Trumpian “Gulf of America” on an official document and some other gulf-adjacent states were considering doing the same, it was not clear how many others would follow Trump's lead.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum joked that if Trump went ahead with the renaming, her country would rename North America “Mexican America.” On Tuesday, she toned it down: “For us and for the entire world it will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico.”
Map lines are inherently political. After all, they're representations of the places that are important to human beings — and those priorities can be delicate and contentious, even more so in a globalized world.
There’s no agreed-upon scheme to name boundaries and features across the Earth.
“Denali” is the mountain's preferred name for Alaska Natives, while “McKinley" is a tribute to President William McKinley, designated in the late 19th century by a gold prospector. China sees Taiwan as its own territory, and the countries surrounding what the United States calls the South China Sea have multiple names for the same body of water.
The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran — formerly Persia — threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company’s decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps. Many Arab countries don’t recognize Israel and instead call it Palestine. And in many official releases, Israel calls the occupied West Bank by its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria.”
Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.
Trump's executive order — titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” — concludes thusly: “It is in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our Nation’s rich past.”
But what to call the gulf with the 3,700-mile coastline?
“It is, I suppose, an internationally recognized sea, but (to be honest), a situation like this has never come up before so I need to confirm the appropriate convention,” said Peter Bellerby, who said he was talking over the issue with the cartographers at his London company, Bellerby & Co. Globemakers. “If, for instance, he wanted to change the Atlantic Ocean to the American Ocean, we would probably just ignore it."
As of Wednesday night, map applications for Google and Apple still called the mountain and the gulf by their old names. Spokespersons for those platforms did not immediately respond to emailed questions.
A spokesperson for National Geographic, one of the most prominent map makers in the U.S., said this week that the company does not comment on individual cases and referred questions to a statement on its web site, which reads in part that it "strives to be apolitical, to consult multiple authoritative sources, and to make independent decisions based on extensive research.” National Geographic also has a policy of including explanatory notes for place names in dispute, citing as an example a body of water between Japan and the Korean peninsula, referred to as the Sea of Japan by the Japanese and the East Sea by Koreans.
In discussion on social media, one thread noted that the Sears Tower in Chicago was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009, though it's still commonly known by its original moniker. Pennsylvania's capital, Harrisburg, renamed its Market Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard and then switched back to Market Street several years later — with loud complaints both times. In 2017, New York's Tappan Zee Bridge was renamed for the late Gov. Mario Cuomo to great controversy. The new name appears on maps, but “no one calls it that,” noted another user.
“Are we going to start teaching this as the name of the body of water?” asked one Reddit poster on Tuesday.
“I guess you can tell students that SOME PEOPLE want to rename this body of water the Gulf of America, but everyone else in the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico,” came one answer. “Cover all your bases — they know the reality-based name, but also the wannabe name as well.”
Wrote another user: “I'll call it the Gulf of America when I'm forced to call the Tappan Zee the Mario Cuomo Bridge, which is to say never.”
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - Peter Bellerby, the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, holds a globe at a studio in London, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
FILE - A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in the background. Denali, the tallest mountain on the North American continent, is located about 60 miles northwest of Talkeetna. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)
FILE - The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)