John Giles, the Republican mayor of Arizona’s third largest city and a previous thorn in the side of his party for endorsing Democrats, has thrown his support behind Kamala Harris for president.
Giles, who since 2014 has been mayor of Mesa near Phoenix, also rebuked Donald Trump in an opinion piece for the Arizona Republic published Monday.
“Our party used to stand for the belief that every Arizonan, no matter their background or circumstances, should have the freedom, opportunity and security to live out their American Dream,” Giles wrote.
“But since Donald Trump refused to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, Republicans have yet to course correct,” he continued. “The Republican party with Trump at its helm continues down the path of political extremism, away from focusing on our fundamental freedoms.”
Giles claimed that, under Trump, cities didn’t receive the federal support they needed compared to the infrastructure funding and Chips act funding provided to cities under the Biden-Harris Administration.
He also criticized Trump on foreign policy, stating that the former president would threaten to leave Nato and harm America’s standing abroad. He compared Harris’s leadership favorably to that of John McCain, the late US senator.
Giles was censured in 2022 by the Arizona Republican party for endorsing the Democrat Mark Kelly in his ultimately successful bid for the Senate. He has characterized himself as “a Republican in the spirit of Ronald Reagan”, and said the reason he sometimes endorses across party lines is because he supports candidates who do not threaten democracy.
“Conservative-leaning people, who aren’t extremists, no longer have a home. And there are a lot of us,” he said in his 2022 endorsement of Kelly. “The only thing I fear more than my Republican party losing in this election is the prospect of this current slate of Maga candidates winning and enacting lasting damage on the party and nation that I love.”
Recent polling shows Trump with a five-point lead on Harris in Arizona.
Other Republicans have come out to endorse Harris, including Geoff Duncan, the former lieutenant-governor of Georgia, and the Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey.
“Vice-president Harris is fighting to make sure Americans can get ahead and be safe from gun violence and to restore and protect the rights of women. Donald Trump, on the other hand, could enact the extreme and dangerous Project 2025 agenda if elected, which would roll back our rights and freedoms,” Giles added in his article.
“That’s why I’m standing with her. Kamala Harris is the competent, just and fair leader our country deserves. This year too much is at stake to vote Republican at the top of the ticket.”
The Harris campaign claims the vice-president has also received endorsements from border towns in Arizona, including the mayors of Bisbee, Nogales, Somerton and San Luis, who were were elected without party affiliations but represent areas that lean Democrat.
