The ousted Montco Republican swatted after supporting Kamala Harris appears in campaign’s new ads airing in swing states

Matthew McCaffery, the ousted Montgomery County Republican official who was swatted after speaking out against former President Donald Trump, is now featured in new ads for Vice President Kamala Harris airing across swing states beginning Thursday evening — including Pennsylvania.

McCaffery, 43, a veteran who lives in West Conshohocken, has been featured on “Republicans Against Trump” billboards in Pennsylvania, penned an Inquirer op-ed against Trump, and spoke about supporting Harris on CNN before his home was swatted in August, a prank in which someone calls in a fake emergency to draw police to a specific address.

McCaffery, the head of risk management at a grocery store, was then ousted from his position as a Montgomery County Republican Committee member and the chair of the Upper Merion Republican Committee, just days after the incident for encouraging people to vote against the party. He later voiced support for Harris in a video displayed at the DNC, and is involved with a Philly-based ”Haley Voters for Harris” group.

In one of two new ads featuring the Montco Republican, McCaffery says he voted for Trump and went to his inauguration in 2016. The ads are his first direct collaboration with the Harris campaign.

“We tried it for four years, it just didn’t work, and it’s time to move on,” McCaffery, who is originally from Roxborough, said in one ad. “It’s going to be more of the same, and the middle class is going to suffer. Take it from me, I’m a lifelong Republican, I’m still a Republican. Kamala is trying to help the American people, especially the American middle class.”

The new ads will run on digital services like ConnectedTV, YouTube, and YouTube TV in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District (which has its own electoral vote), according to the Harris campaign.

McCaffery said in an interview that he voted for Trump in the 2016 primary election, not thinking the former reality TV star and businessman would beat Democratic presidential nominee Hilary Clinton. But he voted for an independent candidate in the general election, deciding not to throw support behind Trump or Clinton.

“I remember saying to myself, and I regret it ... I was like you know what? The Republican party thinks that we need a Donald Trump, then here you go,” he said of his primary vote for Trump.

McCaffery voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, the second time he’s supported a Democratic presidential nominee. The first time was when he voted for former President Barack Obama in 2012, largely because of his foreign policy efforts, including killing Osama bin Laden, he said.

McCaffery said that while he won’t agree with Harris on everything, he believes she will look out for the country as a whole and that she’s embraced a message of patriotism and collaboration, which are values he used to see in his own party before Trump’s political rise.

“It’s kind of odd for me to even say, the Democratic party is becoming more of what I grew up knowing the Republican to be,” he said.

» READ MORE: These Republicans are on a mission to persuade Pa. GOP voters to back Kamala Harris.

But McCaffery isn’t a Republican-turned-Democrat. He hopes for a Trump loss this year, and that it’ll make way for the Republican Party to rebuild.

“Hopefully we can readjust,” he said. “There’s going to be a need for Republicans like me to pick up the pieces of what Trump and his cronies have done to the Republican party in the last eight years.”