Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are campaigning in Arizona, battling for a spot in the Sun Belt
GLENDALE, Arizona: Vice President Kamala Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, drew thousands of supporters to campaign rallies as the new Democratic ticket continued its tour of battleground states.
As Beyoncé's “Freedom” blasted across the arena, Harris took the stage to cheers and roars from the crowd of more than 15,000 people.
“As exciting as it is, we can't lose sight of a really important fact: We're definitely running as the underdog,” Harris said. “We are the underdogs. We are outnumbered, but we have a lot of work to do.”
The rally was held in a state represented in the U.S. Senate by Democrat Mark Kelly, whom Harris passed as his running mate. The former astronaut and gun control advocate was a top contender for running mate. He won two tough races in politically divided Arizona.
By passing Kelly, Harris may have also lost a chance to win over people like Gonzalo Leyva, a 49-year-old landscaper from Phoenix. Leva plans to vote for Republican former President Donald Trump, but has said he will support the Harris-Kelly ticket.
“I prefer Kelly 100 times over,” said Leyva, a lifelong Democrat who became an independent early in Trump's tenure. “I don't think he's as extreme as the other guys.”
In Arizona, every vote will matter. The state is no stranger to nail-biter races, including President Joe Biden's 2020 win over Trump by less than 11,000 votes. Both parties are striving for a similar photo finish this year.
“These last few months are going to feel like years, and it's hard to see anyone winning by a large margin,” said Constantine Querrard, a veteran Republican strategist in the state.
Harris acknowledged how tough the race will be, as she and Walz visited a campaign office in north Phoenix on Friday afternoon and thanked volunteers, who chanted slogans like “This Mamala is voting for Kamala” and “Kamala and Koch.” (Waltz has been a high school football coach).
“It's going to be a lot of work,” Harris told the winning volunteers in November.
Democrats expressed confidence that Harris is in solid shape in the state even without Kelly on the ticket. The senator is expected to remain a strong advocate for Harris and has already been earmarked for possible cabinet posts or other key roles should the vice president ascend to the Oval Office. Kelly is expected to attend the Arizona rally.
“Not leaving Kelly has not put a brake on Harris' support,” said Stacey Pearson, a Democratic strategist in Phoenix. She said she feels the same enthusiasm for the new ticket that has drawn huge crowds that have greeted Harris and Walz at previous stops on their tour, including the home of another running mate, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Another Democratic strategist in Arizona, DJ Quinlan, agreed. “There's a ton of excitement in the land. It's the closest thing to what 2008 feels like to me,” he said, referring to former President Barack Obama's first run, which electrified Democratic voters.
Arizona is a magnet for Midwesterners looking to escape the cold. So, many observers say, Walz could still play well there. Scott Snyder, who moved to Phoenix from Detroit three years ago, wasn't very familiar with Kelly's background or his politics, but Harris made the right choice with Walz.
“He reminds me a lot of my dad,” said Snyder, an electrician. “You see pictures of him out there coaching high school football. That resonates with me. You see him out there duck hunting. The same thing. It's common in Michigan, where I'm from.”
Arizona was reliably Republican until Trump's militant approach to politics became national.
In 2016, Trump won Arizona, then quickly clashed with Republican Sen. John McCain, a political icon in the state. This sparked a steady exodus from the GOP to educated, moderate Republicans and Democrats in top-ticket contests.
In 2018, Democrats won an open Senate race in the state, foreshadowing a 2020 victory for Kelly and a victory for Biden there. In 2022, Kelly won again, and Democrats won the top three statewide races for governor, attorney general, and secretary of state, defeating Republican candidates whose style and lies about Trump's fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election.
Chuck Coughlin, a Republican strategist and former McCain staffer, said the same voters who tipped the state to Democrats in the past few cycles remain soft on Trump.
“Trump is doing nothing to embrace that segment of the electorate,” he said.
The campaign is already being fought on familiar turf in Arizona — its border with Mexico. Trump and his allies have been hammering Biden over the influx of immigrants during his tenure and shifting their attacks to Harris.
“It's very easy for us to shift our focus and focus on him,” said Dave Smith, chairman of the Pima County Republican Party.
Kari Lake, who is running against Democratic Republican Ruben Gallego for an open Senate seat in Arizona, unveiled an ad late last week bashing Gallego for supporting what he calls the “radical border agenda” of Biden and Harris. President chortling.
On Thursday, Lake argued to reporters that Harris is less popular than Biden in Arizona. “They even like Kamala Harris less,” Lake said. “They understand that he didn't do anything out of bounds.”
Meanwhile, Harris is targeting the state's fast-growing Latino population with her ad about how Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, rose to the highest levels of American politics.
Harris' background and relative youth have put Arizona and other Sun Belt states back in play in a presidential race that has narrowed to a trio of “blue wall” swing states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Although it has a strong young population, Arizona is also known for its vast swaths of retirement communities. Pearson contends that Biden's 81-year-old age has put him at a disadvantage in the state.
“Fellow retirees were the first to say it's not okay,” Pearson said of Biden's age. “I'm very optimistic with Harris and Walz at the top of the ticket.”
