Seventeen former staff members of the late Republican President Ronald Reagan are endorsing the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a joint statement first obtained by CBS News, the staff members wrote that Reagan, if alive, would have supported Harris.
“President Ronald Reagan famously spoke about a ‘Time for Choosing.’ While he is not here to experience the current moment, we who worked for him in the White House, in the administration, in campaigns and on his personal staff, know he would join us in supporting the Harris-Walz ticket,” the group writes. “The time for choosing we face today is a choice between integrity and demagoguery, and the choice must be Harris-Walz,” the group added. “Our votes in this election are less about supporting the Democratic Party and more about our resounding support for democracy.”
Over 230 former officials for Republican presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have also backed Harris, in addition to campaign staffers for Republican presidential nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney. Biden received a similar amount of GOP support in his 2020 run against Trump.
Former Reagan staff backing Harris includes Ken Adelman, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. arms control director under Reagan, as well as B. Jay Cooper, the special assistant and deputy press secretary to Reagan. Adelman had endorsed former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, as well as President Biden’s 2020 run. He backed Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, but was against Trump’s 2016 run.
The list also includes Pete Souza, the chief White House photographer for both Reagan and Obama.
The group says they are looking to convince other former Reagan staffers to back the Harris-Walz ticket, calling it “the only path forward toward an America that is strong and viable for our children and grandchildren for years to come.”
CBS News has reached out to the Trump campaign for reaction. Trump has gotten support from only a couple of Democratic officials who have since distanced themselves from the party, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who ran for president as an independent before ending his bid and endorsing Trump last month, and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Democratic party in 2022.
In April 2021, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, launched a speaker series that featured several Republican presidential candidates who later ran against Trump in the 2024 Republican primary. The library did not invite Trump to speak and told Politico it was because he is a former president and they wanted speakers who haven’t held that level of office.
Their backing of Harris follows a swath of endorsements from Republican officials, including several staffers during Trump’s first term, as well as former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney.
“We’re not the only ones that are taking a stand here. You’ve heard it, many people who have worked for Donald Trump have said that they do not support Donald Trump coming back to the presidency. And I think that speaks volumes, because we know him,” said Olivia Troye, a former adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, prior to Tuesday’s debate between Harris and Trump in Philadelphia.
Troye, former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger and former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan all had speaking slots at the Democratic National Convention in August.
The new endorsements arrive as the Harris campaign works to siphon support away from Trump in what remains a margin-of-error race in the battleground states, according to CBS News polling. Outside groups and the campaign have made a concerted effort to target battleground state voters who voted for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the Republican primaries earlier this year.
CBS News polling of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this month indicates that only a small number of undecided voters remains. Harris and Trump have near total support with their party’s voters, though Harris has a slight edge over Trump with the sliver of moderate voters in these states who say there’s still time left to make a final decision.
“The choice between truth and lies demands support for Harris-Walz. The choice between freedom and suppression of freedoms means support for Harris-Walz. The choice between serving the people and serving the few leads us to support Harris-Walz,” the Reagan White House staffers wrote in the letter.
