Mayor Shawn Reilly of Waukesha, Wisconsin county, who was a Republican for most of his life, has now said that he will be endorsing Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for president.
Speaking in an interview on Wednesday (Oct 23), Reilly said he does not want Donald Trump to return to the White House.
Wisconsin is the most populous Republican-voting county in the state that is viewed as crucial to Harris’s hopes of winning the US Presidential elections.
Reilly, 63, said that he had never endorsed a Democrat before, adding that this election is different.
“It’s very easy to not even stick your nose in this — that’s the easiest way to go about it,” he said. “But the reason I’m doing it is because I think we’re at a crossroads. I’m very afraid of the direction our country will head in if Donald Trump becomes president. I think we’ll be heading down a road of authoritarianism and fascism.”
“It is a vote against Trump,” he said. “I am terrified of Donald Trump becoming our next president for all the reasons I have indicated: he’s already been impeached twice. He’s been convicted of felonies and this is not what the United States needs.”
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Moreover, Fred Upton, a Republican former congressman also endorsed Kamala Harris, the Detroit News reported. He has been representing a western Michigan district for 36 years.
He was one of 10 Republicans to vote for Donald Trump’s impeachment after January 6, however, he said, he had voted Democratic in a presidential election for the first time in his life because he is turned off by the former president’s extremism and believes Harris will be more successful at governing with bipartisan support.
“Watching Trump day after day, he’s ignored the advice of many senior, respected Republicans to stay on the issues,” Upton said in an interview with the Detroit News.
“Instead, he’s still talking about the election being stolen, trashing women left and right. He’s just totally unhinged. We don’t need this chaos. We need to move forward, and that’s why I’m where I am.”
(With inputs from agencies)