Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele is supporting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for president as the 2020 presidential election nears.
“I am an American, a conservative and a Republican, in that order. And I am voting for Joe Biden on November 3,” Steele wrote in an op-ed on the NBC News website published Tuesday.
After noting his choice for president is not because of “political expediency,” Steele declared that “I cannot support the nominee of my party.”
He wrote, “So here we are, faced with the reelection of President Donald Trump and the prospect of a nation still struggling against Covid-19, reeling from the ravages of a flattened economy and in pain from civil unrest and our genuine concern for how we treat one another.”
Steele continued to blast President Donald Trump:
“Rather than binding up the nation’s wounds, Trump exacerbates division. Rather than standing up to the world’s dictators, Trump cravenly seeks the favor of thugs. Rather than fostering free enterprise, Trump embraces economic principles not only outdated in Lincoln’s time, but made even worse today by a leader who lost close to a billion dollars in a single year running a casino. Rather than seeking to build on the legacy of the Republican Party’s founders, of which Trump is surely ignorant, Trump has posited a single purpose for the GOP — the celebration of him.”
Steele said the U.S. has seen the Republican Party “given up its voice on things that mattered and instead bent the arc of the party towards the baser motives of one man, who is neither a Republican nor a conservative.”
Additionally, while he disagrees with Biden “on many issues and policies, sometimes vigorously,” Steele said he hopes Biden “will pursue policies that will help our country heal.”
“This election is not about those issues or policies. Rather, it is about the course of a nation and the character of her people reflected in the leader they choose. I am asking my fellow Americans to consider what is in your best interests, and not Donald Trump’s.
[…] I cannot be silent, and I hope neither can you because we know a vote for Joe Biden is what is best for our country — because America matters.”
Steele is not the only former RNC chair who has endorsed Biden. Last month, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot tossed his support behind the former vice president.
The Nov. 3 election is 14 days away, as of publication.