100 REPUBLICAN EX-GOVS, LAWMAKERS DUMP TRUMP, ENDORSE BIDEN

Nearly 100 Republican and independent leaders will endorse Democrat Joe Biden for president on Thursday (Friday, September 4, 2020 in Manila), including one-time 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld and the former Republican governors of Michigan and New Jersey, people involved in the effort told Reuters.

The latest Republican-led effort to oppose the re-election of President Donald Trump also includes current and former Republicans in the key battleground state of Michigan that will help decide the outcome of the Nov. 3 election, the group’s members said.

Called “Republicans and Independents for Biden,” the group is headed by Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who has become one of Trump’s fiercest critics and who spoke at the recent Democratic National Convention in support of Biden. “Biden is a decent man, he’s a steady man,” Whitman told Tim Reid of Reuters. “Trump is trying to paint the world of Joe Biden as horrific - but that’s Trump’s America now.”

Weld, a former governor of Massachusetts, briefly and unsuccessfully challenged Trump in the 2020 Republican nominating contest. Another leading member of the group is Rick Snyder, a two-term governor of Michigan who left office in 2019. Snyder decried what he called Trump’s divisive and bullying tactics, adding: “Having worked with Joe Biden and Donald Trump when I was Governor, I believe Biden is the clear choice to put our country back on a positive path.”