Florida Republicans who left party over Trump help launch ‘Republicans for Harris’

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Three Floridians who collectively spent decades as Republicans are part of a nationwide effort to convince GOP voters to cast ballots for Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump.

“I worked very hard to get former President Trump elected and reelected, and I’m going to work even harder to get Vice President Harris elected,” said Rich Logis, one of three Florida co-chairs of Republicans for Harris.

“There’s a lot of reasons in my opinion not to support Trump. One in particular is that Donald Trump has pitted complete strangers against each other, he has torn asunder families and communities and places of worship. And I know this because I helped him do the dividing. And I was wrong to do that and I need to make amends. And this is one of the ways I will make amends,” Logis said Monday in a phone interview.

Logis, who lives in South Florida, and the two other state co-chairs aren’t household names. Logis is currently a no party affiliation/independent voter. The Harris campaign said in a statement announcing their participation that the three Florida co-chairs are former Republicans.

Republicans for Harris is a major turnaround for Logis, who was deeply involved in Trump’s MAGA movement in 2016 and 2020, buying into the rhetoric, and espousing it as his own. He volunteered for the Trump campaign, spoke at events and helped develop a Broward-based political club, Americans for Trump.

Later this month, he’ll be attending the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

It is essential, Logis said, that the effort isn’t simply an anti-Trump campaign. “There has to be a pro-Harris message as well.”

Logis, who has lived in Broward and Palm Beach counties since moving to Florida from New York in 2012, is the leader of Leaving MAGA, an organization focused on onetime true believers who have left the MAGA universe, or are contemplating leaving it behind.

He said he’s involved in Republicans for Harris as an individual, not as leader of Leaving MAGA. He said he was connected with the Harris campaign by former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who rose to prominence as one of two Republicans on the House committee that investigated the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Former state Sen. Paula Dockery of Lakeland, another Florida co-chair, was a Republican state representative and state senator from 1996 to 2012. She sought her party’s nomination for governor in 2010, but dropped out and didn’t appear on the primary ballot that year.

She switched her party registration to Democratic on the day Trump was inaugurated president in 2017.

“I am deeply troubled by the radical transformation of the Republican Party under Donald Trump’s authoritarian grip — a party I no longer recognize. I am proud to throw my full support behind Vice President Kamala Harris,” Dockery said in a statement. “Kamala Harris embodies the leadership our nation desperately needs as we fight for the well-being of all Americans across this great country.”

The third Florida co-chair is Greg Wilson, a U.S. Treasury Department official in the administrations of former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and former senior Republican staffer for the Florida House of Representatives.

The Harris campaign said the effort was aimed at facilitating Republicans reaching out to Republicans by hosting events, knocking on doors, phone banking, spearheading letter-to-the-editor campaigns, and building local networks.

A small share of Republicans voting for Harris could have a big impact in the battleground states that are closely contested and will determine who wins the presidency.

Florida, for the first time in decades, is no longer considered a presidential swing state. It’s become steadily more Republican, and only the most die-hard Democrats assert that Harris could win Florida and its 30 electoral votes in November.

A poll conducted from July 24 to July 27 by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab found Trump ahead of Harris statewide 49% to 42%. Trump had the support of 82% of Florida Republicans, with 10% supporting Harris, 2% another candidate and 7% who didn’t know or didn’t answer.

Nationally, Republicans for Harris launched with endorsements from former Trump White House officials, former governors and members of Congress, and others.

The campaign said national effort would include paid advertising, and feature testimonials from Republican Harris supporters making their case to fellow Republicans.

On Monday, the Harris campaign planned kickoff events in two swing states, Arizona and Pennsylvania, and in North Carolina and promised “many more events across battlegrounds in the weeks to come.”

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