Dick Cheney will vote for Kamala Harris in November, says his daughter Liz Cheney

CHEYENNE, Wyoming (AP) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney, a lifelong Republican, will choose Kamala Harris as his presidential nominee, his daughter Liz Cheney said Friday.

Liz Cheney, who herself endorsed Harris on Wednesday, made the announcement when asked by Mark Leibovich of The Atlantic magazine during an on-stage interview at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin.

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“Dick Cheney will vote for Kamala Harris,” said Liz Cheney to cheers from the audience.

“Wow,” Leibovich replied.

Like his daughter, Dick Cheney was an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump, particularly during Liz Cheney's ill-fated re-election campaign in 2022.

In a campaign ad for Liz Cheney, who was seeking a fourth term as Wyoming's only congresswoman, Dick Cheney called Trump a “coward” for trying to “steal the last election with lies and violence to hold on to power after voters rejected him.”

The ad did little to help his daughter in a deep-red state that was once dear to the Cheney family but is now squarely on Trump's side. Liz Cheney lost her Republican primary by a 2-1 margin to Trump-backed attorney Harriet Hageman.

The former vice president's absence from the announcement of his support on Friday was striking.

Dick Cheney, 83, has made little or no public appearances in the past year or more. He has suffered from heart problems since he was 40 and underwent a heart transplant in 2012.

Cheney issued a statement confirming his support for Harris, which was partly similar to the 2022 ad for his daughter.

“He can never be trusted with power again,” the statement said. “As citizens, we all have a duty to put country above party politics to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

When asked for comment, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said: “Who is Liz Cheney?”

The campaign confirmed that Cheung was being sarcastic, also pointing to a comment Liz Cheney posted online four years ago in which she called Harris a “radical liberal.”

Dick Cheney has been friends with the Democrats over the years, but has never supported one of them for president.

Both Cheneys supported Trump in 2016, but after Liz Cheney criticized his foreign policy decisions and Trump criticized the “endless wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq that were started during Dick Cheney's tenure as vice president, their support waned.

If either of the Cheneys supported Trump in 2020, it was kept quiet. Their home state of Wyoming gave Trump his biggest victory that year.

By 2021, Liz Cheney's vote for Trump's impeachment and her investigation of him over the 2021 U.S. Capitol riots made her irredeemable to Trump—and soon to most of the Republican Party.

There were exceptions, however. One was Cheney ally Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a Republican Trump critic who endorsed Biden earlier this year and spoke in favor of Harris at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Several other Republicans have spoken out in favor of Harris, while others, including Senator Mitt Romney and former Vice President Mike Pence, have said they would not vote for Trump.

Of them, only Romney, who is not running for re-election, is still in office.