Former Florida GOP Chair Backs Kamala Harris: 'Preserve Our Republic'
October 7, 2024
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Cardenas revealed who he was voting for while filling out his absentee ballot in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter.
"I voted for Kamala Harris. And I did so to preserve our republic," Cardenas said. "My vote was cast this year not so much on policy issues, although I would have cast the same vote. It was based on preserving our democracy, respecting our institutions, being compassionate towards others, eliminating the damaging rhetoric towards immigrants. A whole lot of good reasons I voted for Kamala Harris."
He added: "But I have to admit the main reason was because I did not want Donald Trump sitting at the White House running our country."
The video was shared by political commentator Ana Navarro-Cardenas, who is Cardenas' wife and a vocal Trump critic.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump's campaign for comment via email.
Cardenas, a lawyer and top lobbyist who also worked under former President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush's administrations, is also the former chairman of the American Conservative Union. He was also a top adviser to Jeb Bush's 2016 presidential campaign.
Cardenas has also long been a critic of Trump. In 2018, he described the then-president as a "despicable divider" and "social poison." In addition, Cardenas said earlier this year that it "breaks my heart" to see MAGA (Make America Great Again) takeover of the Republican National Committee (RNC), which he described as the "demise" of his party.
Navarro-Cardenas wrote on X that her husband had worked for decades to build the Republican Party and was the first Republican Cuban-American to run for Congress in Florida, chair the Republican Party in the state and the ACU.
"He fled a dictator & values the freedom to vote his conscience. This wasn't easy. He put #CountryOverParty & just voted for @KamalaHarris," she wrote.
Cardenas has become the latest Republican to denounce Trump and say that they are voting for Harris.
Former Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, campaigned with Harris in Wisconsin on Thursday. Cheney has previously revealed that her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, will also be voting for Harris.
The former congresswoman has often distanced herself from some of the more extreme elements of her party, including election deniers, particularly after her break with Trump and the MAGA faction following the events of the January 6th, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot and her role as vice-chair of the January 6th select committee that investigated the insurrection.
Meanwhile, several other Republicans have said they plan to vote for Harris. These include more than 100 former members of Congress and national security officials from previous Republican administrations who signed a letter in September calling Trump "unfit to serve again" as president.
Trump is favored in Florida, where he is officially a resident, having won the state in the past two elections, 2016 and 2020. However, the state previously went blue, voting for former President Barack Obama twice. FiveThirtyEight's aggregate state poll shows Trump up 4.1 percentage points in the state (49.7 percent to 45.6 percent) as of Monday morning.
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