Battle for defectors: Trump draws more high-profile Dems than Harris does high-profile Republicans

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are seeking to gain high-profile endorsements from their opponent’s party in the presidential race, with the former receiving more than the latter.

As Trump has received endorsements from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Harris has struggled to receive as many major endorsements from Republicans.

During his speech on Monday at a National Guard Association conference in Detroit, Trump said, "This fight is no longer between Democrats and Republicans. This is a fight between communism and freedom, very serious fight.

"That's why millions of traditional Democrats, including FDR Democrats, JFK Democrats, independents and old fashioned liberals are joining our movement. Our poll numbers are great. We're uniting forces to end the endless foreign wars, stop the censorship, end weaponization of our government, defend our borders, rebuild our middle class, protect the health of our children, and, above all, restore our republic."

Gabbard officially endorsed Trump on Monday, noting his foreign policy record. Gabbard served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard while deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was stationed in Kuwait from 2008 to 2009 as an Army Military Police platoon leader.

“I know that President Trump understands the grave responsibility that a president and Commander-in-Chief bears for every single one of our lives. Whether you're a soldier, you're an airman, a Marine, sailor, or a Coastie, he keeps us in his heart in the decisions that he makes,” Gabbard said. “We saw this through his first term in the presidency when he not only didn't start any new wars, he took action to de-escalate and prevent wars. He exercised the courage that we expect from our Commander-in-Chief in exhausting all measures of diplomacy, having the courage to meet with adversaries, dictators, allies, and partners alike, in the pursuit of peace, seeing war as a last resort.

“The truth is, as we head towards our decision as a country in November, the same cannot be said about Kamala Harris,” she continued. “In fact, the opposite is true, and we're living through this reality today as this administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts in regions around the world, and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before.”

On Friday, Kennedy announced he was suspending his presidential campaign and endorsing Trump.

“I attended my first Democratic Convention at the age of six in 1960,” Kennedy said, remembering when his uncle John and father Robert Sr. ruled the Democratic establishment. “Back then, the Democrats were the champions of the constitution, and of civil rights. The Democrats stood against authoritarianism, against censorship, against colonialism, imperialism and unjust wars."

“We were the party of labor, of the working class,” he added. “The Democrats were the party of government transparency and the champion of the environment. Our party was the bulwark against big money interests and corporate power. True to its name, it was the party of democracy.”

Kennedy argued he didn’t leave the Democrat Party, but rather that “it had departed so dramatically from the core values that I grew up with” that it left him and other traditional Democrats like him.

“It has become the party of war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Ag and big money,” he declared.

Kennedy noted Sunday that there will be more Democratic endorsements of the GOP presidential nominee, saying, “Trump is going to make a series of announcements about other Democrats who are joining his campaign.”

Musk had first endorsed Trump following the assassination attempt on the former president last month.

“Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt,” Musk posted on X hours after the assassination attempt.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley told the "John Solomon Reports" podcast the fact that Kennedy followed Musk and Gabbard out of the Democrat fold is important "on two levels."

"First, it shows you that today's Democratic Party is leaving these people behind. Today's Democratic Party is so radical, so dangerous, so progressive, that there are millions of Democrats who are leaving that party every day," Whatley said Friday. "We're seeing thousands of them that are coming our way. Just look at the voter registration statistics in places like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan and around the country. That's a huge thing, that people are leaving the Democratic Party. Because, frankly, the Democratic Party has left them.

"The other side of it is that the Republican Party is very quickly becoming the big tent party," the GOP chairman added. "Donald Trump is willing to work with anybody who wants to make America great again, and he's willing to sit down with nontraditional platforms. He's willing to meet with nontraditional groups."

Meanwhile, Harris has received endorsements from several Republicans, including former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan; former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who was on the House Jan. 6 Committee; former homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, Olivia Troye; and former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. All four of them spoke at the Democratic National Convention last week.

Former Republican governors Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, Jim Edgar of Illinois, and Bill Weld of Massachusetts have also endorsed Harris, Newsweek reported. There have also been multiple former Congress members who gave Harris their endorsement.

Also, last Friday, 12 Republican White House lawyers wrote a letter endorsing Harris, Fox News reported. All of them served in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. A more prominent Republican on the list is Michael Luttig, a retired federal appeals court judge who served as assistant counsel to the president in President Reagan’s administration.