Is "Republicans for Harris" important?

and will big name GOP endorsements of Kamala Harris make a difference?

Let’s plug in a “No” to both for a moment.

Let’s go back to 1984 and to 2004.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan was reelected with nearly 59% of the vote. He won 49 states and the Democratic Party had just gone 1 for 5 in presidential elections dating back to 1968. A true Mendoza line had been hit.¹

It was far worse than that, Reagan won 26% of the Democratic vote. Worse still was the fact that 29% of self-described liberals supported Reagan. Of course, 18% of self-described conservatives vote for Mondale; but in 1984, conservative Democrats were still a thing and a meaty part of its majority in the House of Representatives.

Why the Party defections? The economy mostly, but a realignment was forming in the South as conservatives were voting more Republican and the Democrats were nominating less conservative candidates for office.

In 1984, there was a group called “Democrats for Reagan” and numerous influential Democrats expressed their support for Reagan. Some of those endorsements came from elected Democrats.

In 2004, the crossover was less debilitating politically, but it was still problematic electorally. Eleven percent of Democrats voted for George W Bush. Thirteen percent of self-described liberals voted for W as well.

Why the defections? 9/11 and the War on Terror.

And yeah, there was a “Democrats for Bush” group and there was quite a few painful party defections. That list includeed a “dyed in the wool” Democrat named Zell Miller, who had been Georgia’s governor and was a US Senator at the time of his endorsement of the GOP ticket.²

Outside of this election year, I cannot recall such a sizable and similarly organized effort for the Democratic presidential ticket. Neither can I remember a piling on by elected Republicans in rejecting their party’s presidential nominee.

What does it mean? Probably bupkis.

The Republican Party is approaching the zenith of its nihilistic furvor after it essentially began eschewing ideology for raw political power beginning in the 1990s.³

That’s not to say, there aren’t idealists in the GOP. There are, it’s just the party has sidelined them along with its precious few realists, who once defined its foreign policy views and its influence over the military establishment. One need only look at Nikki Haley’s 19.7% of the vote in the GOP presidential primaries this year to see that idealism and realism within the GOP have fallen by the wayside.

It’s not as if these two minor factions in Trump’s GOP have nowhere else to go — the Libertarian Party is right there with ballot access in every state. And had the Libertarians nominated Liz Cheney or someone with similar high name recognition and policy credentials, the “spoiler effect” would have been cataclysmic for the GOP.

You don’t have to be a realist to see why that’s not a path the idealists in the GOP want to pursue. Party splits rarely go well. Both the Whigs and the Democrats paid for that kind of thinking in the 19 Century.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendoza_Line#:~:text=The%20Mendoza%20Line%20is%20baseball,his%20nine%20big%20league%20seasons.

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/politics/trail/bush-campaign-gets-backing-of-a-democrat.html

3. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trumpism-was-born-in-the-90s/