PHOENIX (AP) – Vice President Kamala Harris and her new running mate will hold a rally in Arizona on Friday as part of a tour of campaign battlegrounds, visiting the state where Harris edged out a prominent Democrat for Minnesota governor. Tim Walz.
Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and arms control advocate, had been the front-runner. He has won two hard-fought 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 in Phoenix. Leyva plans to vote for the former president Donald Trumpa Republican, but says he would have supported the Harris-Kelly ticket.
“I like Kelly more than 100 times,” said Leyva, a lifelong Democrat who became an independent early in Trump’s term. “I don’t think he’s as extreme as the other guys.”
In Arizona, every vote counts. The state is no stranger to contested races, including in 2020, when President Joe Biden beat Trump by less than 11,000 votes. Both sides are gearing up for a similar photo shoot this year.
“These last few months feel like years, and it’s hard to see anyone winning by a wide margin,” said Constantine Querard, a veteran state Republican strategist.
Democrats are confident that Harris will be in good shape in the state even without Kelly. The senator is expected to remain a strong advocate for Harris and is already being mentioned for possible cabinet posts or other high-profile roles should the vice president ascend to the Oval Office.
“Not electing Kelly hasn’t slowed Harris’ support,” said Phoenix Democratic strategist Stacy Pearson. He said he feels the same enthusiasm for the new ticket that has led to huge crowds greeting Harris and Walz at earlier stops on their tour, including the home of another running mate, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Another Democratic strategist in Arizona, DJ Quinlan, agreed. – There is a lot of enthusiasm in the country. It’s the closest I feel to what 2008 felt like,” he said, referring to former President Barack Obama’s first-election case electrifying Democratic voters.
Arizona is 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 very familiar with Kelly’s background or 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 duck hunting. 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 Sen. John McCain, the state’s political icon. This caused a steady exodus of educated, moderate Republicans from the GOP and toward the Democrats at the top of the ticket races.
In 2018, Democrats won an open Senate in the state, foreshadowing a 2020 victory for Kelly and a Biden 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 corrected Trump’s style and his lies about the fraud that cost him the 2020 presidential election.
Republican strategist and former McCain staffer Chuck Coughlin said the same voters who tipped the state to Democrats over the past few cycles are lukewarm about Trump at best.
“Trump is doing nothing to embrace this segment of the electorate,” he said.
The campaign is taking place on familiar turf in Arizona – on its border with Mexico. Trump and his allies have bashed Biden over immigration during his tenure and are 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 Rep. Ruben Gallego for an open Senate seat in Arizona, released an ad late last week blasting Gallego for supporting what the ad calls Biden and Harris’ “radical border agenda,” which includes repeated snippets of vice. the president shouts.
On Thursday, Lake argued to reporters that Harris is less popular in Arizona than Biden. “They like Kamala Harris even less,” Lake said. “They realize he hasn’t done anything at the border.”
Meanwhile, Harris is targeting the state’s fast-growing Latino population with her own ad, highlighting how the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica rose to the highest levels of American politics.
Harris’ background and relative youth have brought Arizona and other Sun Belt states back into play in a presidential race that had narrowed to a trio of “blue wall” swing states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
While Arizona has a strong younger population, it is also known for its extensive retirement communities. Pearson argued that Biden’s age — 81 — put him at a disadvantage in the state.
“Retired colleagues 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.”
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Riccardi reports from Denver. Walt Berry in Phoenix contributed to this report.
