Kinzinger Tells Conservatives “Hold Your Nose” and Vote for Biden

Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger advised American voters to “hold your nose” if need be and vote for Democrats in 2024 to prevent a second Trump presidency: “America can survive another four years of Joe Biden. I’m not sure we can survive four [more] years of Donald Trump.”

Kinzinger, who used to represent a district of Illinois in Congress, is an unusual Republican in more ways than one.

He didn’t vote for Trump in 2016—but bewilderingly voted for him in 2020. He voted against impeaching Trump the first time in 2019, but voted for the second Trump impeachment in 2021. He was one of two Republican Congresspeople, alongside Liz Cheney, to join the House January 6th Select Committee which investigated Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Kinzinger was up for reelection in 2022 and opted not to seek another term. Since leaving Congress in January 2023, he has become a CNN commentator and author of a new political memoir: Renegade.

Unusually candid in interviews for a Republican politician, Kinzinger has repeatedly admitted moral culpability in Trump’s rise to power and the extremism which pervades his party.

Touring the media circuit in support of his new book, Kinzinger—who considers himself a patriotic conservative—has urged voters more than once to not reelect the current iteration of the Republican Party.

His comments in this interview is a reaffirmation of that.

Cautioning against third party runs, Kinzinger says conservatives like him (but not him, he insists) who are disgusted by Trump may succumb to temptation and give their votes to a more centrist option—like “Joe Manchin or somebody.”

Though he supports the right of people to “vote their conscience,” Kinzinger advises American voters to “hold their nose” if need be and support President Biden’s reelection.