Kamala Harris says Donald Trump is a threat to the Constitution as she makes an appeal to Republicans in Bucks County

Vice President Kamala Harris framed former President Donald Trump as a threat to the U.S. Constitution and pledged to unify the country Wednesday in a pitch to Republicans at Washington Crossing as she tries to expand support in Pennsylvania, the key battleground of the 2024 race.

“At stake in this race are the democratic ideals that our founders and generations of Americans before us have fought for,” she said. “At stake in this election is the Constitution of the United States.”

Harris delivered remarks to a group that included more than 100 Republicans who support her candidacy at the Bucks County park, not far from where George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River en route to a victory in the Revolutionary War. The event took place with just 20 days until Election Day and as mail voting is already underway in Pennsylvania.

The vice president’s visit to the Philly suburbs came just two days after Trump’s bizarre town hall in Montgomery County — which featured an extended playlist listening session — intensified scrutiny of the 78-year-old Republican nominee’s mental acuity ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

It also comes as the former president has drawn backlash for suggesting he would deploy the military to go after “the radical left” and saying the biggest threat facing the country is the “enemy from within.”

Harris, in the meantime, has been trying to appeal to moderates and anti-Trump Republicans. She invoked Trump’s remarks Wednesday, saying “let that sink in.” In front of a white barn draped with a red “Country Over Party” banner, she said Trump would “target” journalists, nonpartisan election officials, and judges with whom he disagrees.

“The Constitution is not a relic from our past, but determines whether we are a country where the people can speak freely and even criticize the president without fear of being thrown in jail or targeted by the military,” she said, adding: “It is clear Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged, and he is seeking unchecked power.”

Harris took the stage flanked by about 20 Republicans supporting her campaign, including former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, former U.S. Rep. Jim Greenwood, who represented Bucks County, and former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a Republican who voted for Trump’s impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Olivia Troye, a former member of Trump’s administration, and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan of Georgia, both Republicans who have endorsed Harris, addressed the audience ahead of the vice president’s arrival.

Bob and Kristina Lange, Republican farmers from Malvern who formerly voted for Trump but are now supporting Harris, introduced the vice president. The couple appeared in a campaign ad supporting Harris, and then received a barrage of online harassment from Trump supporters.

”Never in a million years did either of us think we’d be standing here voting for a Democrat. But we’ve had enough,” Kristina Lange said. “It’s time to turn the page on Trump and his chaos and the way he divides us as people in this nation. We’ve got to move forward.”

Trump’s campaign in a statement slammed the Republicans who attended and supported Harris, with a spokesperson calling them a “theatrical prop.”

“It’s quite pathetic to see former ‘Republicans’ of the past dug up out of irrelevance to have one last moment in the sun by campaigning for another four years of unlimited illegal immigration, rising prices, and endless wars under Kamala Harris,” said Kush Desai, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign in Pennsylvania.

Harris was also greeted in Bucks County by more than a dozen Trump supporters, who gathered at a vacant gas station in preparation of the vice president’s motorcade traversing through the area. They held various Trump flags and banners — including one emblazoned with Trump’s mug shot — and distributed merchandise including Trump playing cards and visors.

Donna Parell, the Republican committeewoman for Upper Makefield Township in Bucks County, said she’s been knocking on doors in support of Trump and “the animosity while door knocking is minimal compared to how it was, even last year.”

“I think it’s because the policies and what we’re living under, under [President Joe] Biden and under Harris,” Parell said.

Harris, for her part, said she would be a president “for all Americans” and reiterated her pledge to appoint a Republican to her cabinet who would oversee a council for bipartisan solutions.

”I want to fix problems,” she said, “Which means working across the aisle. … It requires embracing good ideas from wherever they come.”

In the homestretch of the election, as the race in Pennsylvania remains neck-and-neck, Harris is looking to appeal to Republican and moderate voters. Two weeks ago, she was joined by former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming for an event in Ripon, Wis., the birthplace of the Republican Party. Harris was interviewed on Fox News later Wednesday, and she might appear on a podcast with comedian Joe Rogan, who has at times criticized the left.

Harris’ interview Wednesday with Fox News’ Brett Baier was at times combative, with the vice president pushing back on a string of questions about immigration and what would be different under a Harris administration as opposed to the Biden administration.

She again referred to Trump as “unstable” and “dangerous” and framed herself as a unifying candidate.

Harris said she is focused on “turning the page from the last decade, in which we have been burdened with the kind of rhetoric coming from Donald Trump that has been designed and implemented to divide our country, and have Americans literally point fingers at each other.”

Former GOP party chair Rob Gleason said he was unconcerned about the Harris campaign’s outreach to Republicans boosting her in Pennsylvania.

“I think the Democrats are beginning to not feel so good because if you’re gonna be interviewed by Fox, something you’ve resisted for months, that tells me something. Nobody watching Fox is gonna vote for you. You’re struggling if you have decided to do that — and then today, they attacked Trump, said he’s demented. Come on, they’re really struggling.”

Harris’ campaign hopes she can appeal to disaffected Republicans in Bucks, the critical swing county where Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton narrowly beat Trump in 2016 while losing the state. Biden improved on Clinton’s margins in 2020 on his way to winning Pennsylvania and the presidency.

» READ MORE: Bucks County, the last purple part of Philly’s suburbs, could swing the race for Trump or Harris — and they know it

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley won more than 157,000 voters in Pennsylvania in the GOP primary, which included about 12,000 in Bucks County, or about 19% of the Republican electorate there. Those are voters the Harris campaign hopes to reach, especially as Trump has made some inroads with Latino and Black voters in urban areas and as he continues to grow support with the white working class.

Attendees at the rally Wednesday included several Republicans who had switched parties during Trump’s political rise.

Addison Jenkins, a former Republican from Texas who recently moved to Philadelphia for a professorship at Penn, registered here as a Democrat.

“I think a lot of everybody’s worst nightmares came about between 2016 and 2020,” Jenkins said. “Things were crazy and chaotic. I’m gay, and LGBTQ rights were threatened. Progress wasn’t made. Things that could be so much better now, we’re still behind on.”

» READ MORE: The five kinds of places that win you Pennsylvania

Kari Hyer, 64, of Doylestown, changed her party registration after Trump’s first run.

“I’m really a middle-of-the-road person, financially conservative and socially liberal,” she said. “I look to see the solutions, not the party.”

But it’s hard for Hyer to predict how well Harris’ message is resonating with Republicans who hadn’t already turned on Trump.

“I have senior relatives, they talk like you heard her talk today,” Hyer said, referencing appeals to unity and protecting democracy. “But they’ve been Republicans their whole lives, and I can’t tell you what they’re gonna do.”