Vice President Kamala Harris has touted the endorsement of former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and appeared with her at a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Thursday.
But it appears that her association with the Harris campaign has angered at least one pro-Palestinian group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, because of Cheney’s past stances.
“No elected official who cares about justice or the rule of law or human rights should ever praise Liz Cheney, a torture advocate, anti-Muslim bigot and warmonger who once refused to condemn racists spreading the Obama birther conspiracy,” CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement shared with the Washington Examiner.
“Supporting President Trump’s impeachment does not wash away Rep. Cheney’s support for crimes like torture. The same is true of Dick Cheney, a war criminal and one of the most disastrous vice presidents in U.S. history,” Mitchell added, referencing Liz Cheney’s father, the former vice president, who has also endorsed Harris.
Harris has courted voters who have been in fierce opposition to the United States’s support of Israel, which has bombed Gaza, causing thousands of civilian deaths. The latest statement from CAIR, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, condemned her efforts to relate to Republicans dissatisfied with former President Donald Trump.
“If Liz Cheney had ever advocated for the torture of Ukrainians instead of Arabs, or if she had delivered a keynote speech to an anti-Semitic conference instead of an Islamophobic conference, she would not be embraced and rehabilitated today by any mainstream leader,” Mitchell added.
Cheney spoke alongside Harris at a rally labeled “Country over Party” on Friday, an endeavor aimed at converting Republicans to vote for the Democratic candidate. Harris has spent energy courting conservative voters and has the support of hundreds of them.
Yet, alienating voters aligned with CAIR could prove devastating to Harris. Many progressive voters aligned with the movement to see a ceasefire in Gaza have disavowed the current administration’s pro-Israel stance, and Harris has worked to add nuance to her stance.
Cheney’s endorsement may undermine that. She denounced the U.S.’s decision to withhold arms to Israel in May, saying in a social media post: “Withholding aid to Israel is wrong and dangerous. America must not abandon Israel. Doing so would mean victory for Iran and all its terrorist allies.”
While there’s little chance anti-Israel voters would convert to Trump’s cause, a lack of turnout among the Democratic constituency, or a turnout in favor of Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who has expressed her views opposing Israel, could be damaging, especially in Michigan.
Muslim Americans and Arab Americans are a crucial voting bloc for Harris in Michigan, which holds the largest Muslim population of any swing state and the largest population percentage of Arab Americans of any state at 2.11%.
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Harris is set to meet with a group of Arab American and Muslim American leaders in Flint, Michigan, on Friday, according to CNN. Real Clear Politics’s polling average shows Harris with a slim 48.3% to 47.6% lead over Trump in the state.
The Washington Examiner contacted Harris’s campaign to ask for comment on the matter but did not receive a response.