'I've lost friends and family members - but right's right'

Andrew Feinberg speaks to the former Trump voters who are now planning to pull the lever for Kamala Harris - and the campaign politicos who came up with an unusual strategy

- Andrew Feinberg

For generations of American schoolchildren, a key rite of passage in civic education has been a visit to a centuries-old, two-storey Georgian structure in downtown Philadelphia.

That building, formally known today as Independence Hall, has over the centuries played host to multiple American presidents, and remains the centrepiece of a national park celebrating America’s founding. It is where the constitution was born.

On Thursday, it was business as usual outside the iconic venue. Young students in identical hats emblazoned with their school and class year filed past on their way into the rooms where the Declaration of Independence and the US constitution were debated and approved by the nation’s founding fathers. Senior citizens on an organised tour walked past the front entrance on their way to the next stop on their journey.

But across Chestnut Street, on a pavement abutting the green grass of Independence Mall, another, much smaller group was gathering for a group photograph. In this extremely Democratic city, they were card-carrying members of the Republican Party who’d come as part of a bus tour put on by Republican Voters Against Trump, or RVAT.

RVAT is a political action committee that has spent the 2024 election cycle running advertisements meant to convince a small segment of GOP voters to step away from the party they’ve supported for all of their lives. One of them, David McHenry of Oregon, is a Republican through and through, as well as an army veteran with nearly a quarter of a century in uniform under his belt.