Former GOP Rep. Charlie Dent votes for Harris

Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) said he voted for Vice President Harris in the 2024 presidential election and went after her opponent, former President Trump, saying he was “unfit” to serve as commander in chief since “day 1.”

“From day 1, I thought that Donald Trump was unfit to be president of the United States,” Dent told The Hill in a brief phone call Friday morning. “The moment he came down the escalator, he seems to have proved the point just about every single day since then. His behavior’s only gotten even more erratic and unstable.

“Just this week, he talked about using the military to go after his enemies who simply disagree with him, domestically. Just terrible,” he added before cautioning that he has policy disagreements with Harris despite backing her this election cycle.

“I’m not going to agree with everything Kamala Harris says,” Dent said. “There are going to be policy differences. I can probably point to several right now, but the question for me right now is his fitness.”

Dent became the latest former GOP House member to endorse Harris in this year’s White House race, casting an absentee ballot in Allentown, Pa. The former chair of the House Ethics Committee supported President Biden in 2020.

The Harris campaign has continued its effort to court Republicans as Election Day nears. Earlier this month, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) made a campaign appearance with the vice president in Ripon, Wis. Cheney said in early September she would be voting for the Democratic nominee, who has also gotten support from others such as Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.).

Dent, who served in the lower chamber from 2005-18, criticized Trump’s tariffs proposals during the call, arguing they would “do enormous damage to manufacturing, agriculture, branching and so many other areas of industry.” 

“We should have a constructive international policy, foreign national security policy, that embraces allies and rejects aggressive autocrats like Vladimir Putin and maybe need to resuscitate the conversation about fiscal reform in this country,” Dent said Friday. “Neither party is talking about it, so I think we need to start somewhere.” 

When reached for comment, Trump campaign’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “who?” 

Axios first reported on Dent’s voting choice Thursday.