Kamala Harris and Tim Walz campaign in Arizona as they battle to gain ground in the Sun Belt
GLENDALE, Arizona: Vice President Kamala Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, drew thousands of supporters to a campaign rally as the new Democratic ticket continued its tour of battleground states.
As Beyonce's “Freedom” blasted throughout the arena, Harris took the stage to cheers and roars from the crowd of more than 15,000 people.
“As exciting as this is, we can't lose sight of one really important fact: We're definitely running as the underdog,” Harris said. “We're the underdogs. We're out in big numbers, but we've got a lot of work to do.”
The rally was held in a state represented by Democrat Mark Kelly in the US Senate, which Harris passed as the vice presidential candidate. The former astronaut and gun control advocate had been a front-runner to run. He has won two tough races in politically divided Arizona.
By going over Kelly, Harris may have also lost the chance to win over people like Gonzalo Leyva, a 49-year-old landscape architect in Phoenix. Leyva plans to vote for former President Donald Trump, a Republican, but says he would have backed a Harris-Kelly ticket.
“I prefer Kelly like 100 times,” said Leyva, a lifelong Democrat who became an independent at the start of Trump's term. “I don't think he's as extreme as the other guys.”
In Arizona, every vote will be critical. The state is no stranger to nail-biting races, including in 2020 when President Joe Biden beat Trump by fewer than 11,000 votes. Both parties are gearing up for a similar photo finish this year.
“These last few months will feel like years, and it's hard to see anyone winning by a wide margin,” said Constantine Querard, a veteran Republican strategist in the state.
Harris acknowledged how tough the race will be as she and Walz toured a campaign office in North Phoenix Friday afternoon and thanked volunteers, who made signs with sayings such as “This Mamala is voting for Kamala” and “Kamala and the coach.” (Walz has been a high school football coach).
“It's going to be a lot of work,” Harris told volunteers about winning in November.
Democrats profess 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 mentioned for possible cabinet posts or other prominent roles should the vice president ascend to the Oval Office. Kelly is expected to participate in the Arizona rally.
“Not electing Kelly hasn't slowed down support for Harris,” said Stacy Pearson, a Democratic strategist in Phoenix. She said she feels the same enthusiasm for the new ticket that has drawn huge crowds to greet Harris and Walz at previous stops on their tour, including the home of another vice presidential candidate also running, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Another Democratic strategist in Arizona, DJ Quinlan, agreed. “There's a lot of enthusiasm on the ground. It's the closest thing to what 2008 felt like,” he said, referring to former President Barack Obama's first election, which electrified Democratic voters.
Arizona is something of a magnet for Midwesterners looking to escape the cold. So, several observers say, Walz can still play well there. Scott Snyder, who moved to Phoenix three years ago from Detroit, was not familiar with Kelly's background or his politics, but said 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's something that resonates with me. You see him out there on ducks. Same thing. It's pretty common in Michigan, where I'm from.”
Arizona was reliably Republican until Trump's combative approach to politics went national.
In 2016, Trump won Arizona and then quickly began feuding with the late Republican senator John McCain, a political icon in the state. That sparked a steady exodus of educated, moderate Republicans from the GOP and against Democrats in top-of-the-ticket races.
In 2018, Democrats won an open Senate race in the state, foreshadowing Kelly's win in 2020 and Biden's victory there as well. In 2022, Kelly won again, and Democrats swept the top three statewide races for governor, attorney general, and secretary of state, defeating Republican candidates who pandered to Trump's style and his fraud lies that 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 recent cycles remain lukewarm about Trump at best.
“Trump is doing nothing to embrace that segment of the electorate,” he said.
The campaign is already being fought over familiar turf in Arizona – its border with Mexico. Trump and his allies have hammered Biden over the influx of migrants during his tenure and are shifting their attacks to Harris.
“It's very easy for us to race and shift focus and focus on her,” said Dave Smith, Pima County Republican Party chairman.
Kari Lake, who is running against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego for an open Senate seat in Arizona, unveiled an ad late last week in which Gallego bashes what the ad calls Biden and Harris' “radical border agenda,” with repeated clips of the vice. president chortling.
On Thursday, Lake argued to reporters that Harris is less popular in Arizona than Biden. “They like Kamala Harris even less,” Lake said. “They understand she hasn't done anything borderline.”
Meanwhile, Harris is targeting the state's fast-growing Latino population with her own ad showing how Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, reached the highest levels of American politics.
Harris' background and comparative youth have put Arizona and other Sun Belt states back in play in a presidential race that had been reduced to the trio of “blue wall” swing states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Although it has a robust younger population, Arizona is also known for its large number of retirement communities. Pearson argued that Biden's age, 81, put him at a disadvantage in the state.
“Fellow retirees were the first to say this is not OK,” Pearson said of Biden's age. “I'm so much more optimistic with Harris and Walz at the top of the ticket.”
