One of the things that struck me most about the Democratic National Convention last week was the number of Republicans there, with prominent speaking roles.

Former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois spoke in prime time Thursday night. “I am proud to be in the trenches with you as part of this sometimes awkward alliance we have to defend truth, defend democracy and decency,” he said.

“The Republican Party is no longer conservative,” he announced. “It has switched its allegiance from the principles that gave it purpose to a man whose only purpose is himself. Donald Trump has suffocated the soul of the Republican Party.

“We must put country first,” he added. “Because democracy knows no party. It’s the living, breathing ideal that defines us as a nation. It’s the bedrock. When that foundation is fractured, we must all stand together united to strengthen it.”

Mesa, Ariz., Mayor John Giles said he felt out of place Tuesday, but that “I feel more at home here than in today’s Republican Party. The Grand Old Party has been kidnapped by extremists … John McCain’s Republican Party is gone, and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind.”

Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham in remarks Tuesday claimed that former President Donald Trump mocked his supporters as “basement dwellers” when he was president and she described Trump as having “no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth.”

In response, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said “Stephanie Grisham is a stone cold loser who clearly suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome and many other issues.”

Four other Republicans spoke at the convention, including former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan; Olivia Troye, who worked in the Trump White House as a national security official; Ana Navarro, a Republican co-host of the “The View” on ABC, who hosted the convention’s prime-time events on Tuesday; and Rich Logis, a former MAGA pundit.

David Urban, Republican strategist and former Trump campaign adviser, dismissed the speakers as Never Trumpers who are unlikely to sway any undecided Republicans.

“In no universe were they going to vote for Donald Trump,” he said on CNN. “They are disgruntled. They are not the folks who can speak to people who are on that bubble. You’re not winning any voters over with that crew.”

Dozens of other current and former Republicans also have endorsed Harris, including former governors Bill Weld of Massachusetts and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey; former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, former secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and former Republican National Committee delegate Rina Shah, according to Newsweek.

Former GOP members of Congress who have endorsed Harris, according to Newsweek, include Ron Chandler of Washington; Tome Coleman of Missouri; Dave Emery of Maine; Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland; Jim Greenwood of Pennsylvania; John LeBoutillier, Susan Molinari and Jack Quinn of New York; Denver Riggleman of Virginia; Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island; Christopher Shays of Connecticut; Peter Smith of Vermont; Alan Steelman of Texas; David Trott of Michigan; and Joe Walsh of Illinois.

A source told NBC that former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., will soon endorse Harris.

In June, the Biden campaign hired a national director of Republican outreach, Austin Weatherford, Kinzinger’s former chief of staff. He recently launched “Republicans for Harris,” a campaign that encourages high-profile Republicans to endorse Harris.

“We are here to be a part of a campaign within a campaign to build a coalition of Republicans speaking to Republicans about Trump’s unfitness to serve,” Weatherford told a recent virtual meeting of Republicans for Harris.

The group recently held an online rally and the Trump campaign responded by calling Harris “dangerously liberal,” and said her policies could do great harm to the country. In a press statement that did not directly address Republicans for Trump, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “President Trump is building the largest, most diverse political movement in history,”

Republicans across the country also have recorded testimonials for Republican Voters Against Trump, a $50 million advertising campaign running across all the swing states.

Many Republicans who are voting for Harris acknowledge that they do not agree with her on every issue.

“Look, you don’t have to agree with every policy position of Kamal Harris. I don’t,” Duncan said from the stage. ”But you do have to recognize her prosecutor mindset that understands right from wrong, good from evil. She’s a steady hand.”

Working with the Democrats and Harris, Duncan told the Los Angeles Times he would try to bring American politics more toward the middle.

“I feel like there is a gravitational pull to the center on some of these issues,” Duncan said. “Not all of them — this isn’t turning all Democrats into Republicans. But just governing more towards the middle, I think that’s an extremely healthy step for this country at this point in time.”

Some Republicans have urged disenchanted conservatives and evangelicals to show up at the polls and leave the line blank, rather than vote for Harris.

To understand this whole phenomenon better, I spoke to perhaps the most prominent Colorado Republican to endorse Harris, former Rhode Island U.S. Rep. Claudine Schneider. Schneider was one of the six petitioners at the heart of a lawsuit to try to stop Trump from appearing on the Colorado ballot.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” she said. “As a registered Republican, I looked at what’s been happening to the Republican Party over the last several years, and to have Donald Trump at the top of the ticket is, to me, horrific.”

“I look at three pivotal points. One is the lying about the 2020 outcome of the election. That lie has perpetrated for years now. That’s very disturbing.

“The second thing would be what happened on Jan. 6. I was in Washington, D.C., on Capitol Hill during that time. Afterwards, I walked down to the Capitol, and I actually was moved to tears. The disrespect, the destruction, the whole hatefulness was terrible. And I thought, ‘These are Republicans?’

“And the third thing which was really significant has to do with the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade. As a Republican, I mean we have always said ‘get the government off our backs.’ Now, it’s suddenly OK to have Republicans go into the examining room with women, and a bunch of government employees telling us what we can and cannot do?”

Harris’s gender is clearly a factor for Schneider, a fairly liberal Republican to start with. Schneider was the first and only woman elected to Congress from Rhode Island and is founder of a group called Republicans for Integrity. After teaching at Harvard, she moved to Colorado to work as a consultant specializing in environmental economics.

What Harris’ policies will be remains to be seen, she said. But Schneider said she sees some good things in Harris as “a person, as a human being.”

“Why do I like Harris? Well, she’s intelligent, honest, hard-working, and she genuinely cares about every citizen, and about justice. And for heaven’s sake, we need some justice, law and order at this time.”

“Not everybody in the Republican Party or the Democratic Party is right all the time,” she pointed out. “That’s why when I served for 10 years, sometimes we voted for Democratic policies, sometimes we voted for Republican policies. But we had one guiding principle, and that was: ‘What’s in the best interest of all the people?’”

For Schneider, choosing Harris is a moral decision rather than a political decision at this point. “It’s very much a question of ethics and morality,” rather than a question policy and party.

“I know so many people from all around the country who are just exhausted from the whole political scene and they want to get back to compromise and cooperation and collaboration. And they hate the hatred that’s out there.”

When Republicans challenge her stance, Schneider says she asks questions. “And my question is, ‘How would you describe yourself? Do you think that you are a moral person? Do you have ethics?’ And they say yes. Well, we have to remember, birds of a feather flock together.”

Retired federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative legal scholar put on the bench by President George H.W. Bush, probably made the strongest case for Republicans endorsing Harris in a five-page, single-spaced brief he issued Monday.

“In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her public policy views are vastly different from my own,” Luttig wrote in the statement obtained by CNN, “but I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be.”

“In the presidential election of 2024 there is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law,” Luttig wrote. “As a result, I will unhesitatingly vote for the Democratic Party’s candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.”

Luttig played a now-famous role in persuading then-Vice President Mike Pence to defy Trump and certify the 2020 presidential election.

It will be the first time Luttig, a veteran of two Republican administrations, has voted for a Democrat.

Luttig also made the point that he believes the country is in a moral moment rather than a political moment, and that requires a different kind of decision-making from Republicans.

In a text to Jamie Sue Gangel, CNN special correspondent, he put it this way: “Jamie, the first thing all of us are taught is right from wrong. We’re not taught right from left.”