John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, delivered a brief, targeted message Tuesday night to moderates and Republicans, urging them to join him in supporting Vice President Kamala Harris over their own party’s nominee.
“I feel more at home here than in today’s Republican Party,” said Giles, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who oversees a city of 500,000 east of Phoenix. “Let’s put adults in the room that our country deserves.”
Giles’ presence and prime-time speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention was a sign of how Democrats are working to sway independents and convert anti-Donald Trump conservatives in their bid to hold onto the White House. Harris has reinvigorated the Democratic base, but polling has suggested some voters view her as more liberal than President Joe Biden and too liberal for them.
Giles, the rare Republican mayor of a large city, will try to help her soothe those concerns. He is the most prominent Republican to back her in Arizona, a key battleground state and longtime conservative bastion that has been trending purple in recent elections.
Last month, he penned an opinion piece in The Arizona Republic endorsing Harris. He positioned himself as a member of the moderate wing of the Republican Party in Arizona in the mold of John McCain, the longtime senator who died in 2018. His kind is a bit of an anomaly in today’s state party, which has veered sharply to the right. After the publication, he embarked on a media blitz and spoke at Harris’ campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona.
“I have an urgent message for the majority of Americans who, like me, are in the political middle,” Giles said at the convention Tuesday. “John McCain’s Republican Party is gone, and you don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind.”
Giles could also appeal to Latter-day Saint voters, who helped Biden win Arizona in 2020. And he could prove an important messenger on immigration, a top priority in Arizona that Republicans view as a particular vulnerability for Harris.
“Immigration is not an issue here: It is the issue here,” he said in an interview last month, stressing that Harris needed to remind voters that Trump tanked a bipartisan bill that would have boosted border security. “The other side has done a good job of demonizing her on that issue, unfairly I would say.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.