The vice-president is relying on support of high-profile GOP refuseniks as she moves to the centre despite warnings from progressives

As the daughter of a man who drove George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Liz Cheney seemed a strange political bedfellow for a Democratic candidate intent on reclaiming disaffected Arab support in one of the US presidential election’s key battlegrounds.

But Cheney, the former third-ranking Republican in Congress before her career was derailed by her enmity with Donald Trump, was cast in precisely that role with Kamala Harris last week.