Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s tour has reached the West. Arizona is the penultimate stop in a frenetic week that has taken the candidates to Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina and Georgia. In a stadium with a full capacity, the vice president was forced to go off script when a pro-Palestinian group broke in to protest the 300 days of violence in Gaza moments after the candidate came on stage. “I’m going to say it clearly and only once: it’s time for an immediate ceasefire and for all the kidnapped hostages to be released and to come home. I respect their voice, but today we’re here to talk about the 2024 elections,” Harris said to the applause of nearly 20,000 people at the Desert Diamond stadium in Glendale, on the outskirts of Phoenix.
“This has been a great week. On Monday I officially became a candidate and on Tuesday I announced Tim Walz as my running mate,” Harris said moments before being interrupted. This was her penultimate appearance in the so-called Sun Belt, where the vice president needs the support of moderate Republicans and independents to stay in the White House. “We are going to win because we remember what happened with Trump, he is not going to make us lose.” gaslight (manipulate). Now that we know how it was, we will not go back to the past. We will move forward,” he added.
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Harris spoke about one of the issues that most concerns Arizona, a border state, illegal immigration. “I know our immigration system is broken. We need more secure borders and a path to citizenship,” said the candidate. She said that her rival, Donald Trump, is not interested in “fixing this problem.” “He talks a lot about it, but he doesn’t commit,” said Harris. The vice president recalled how the Senate negotiated a law between Democrats and Republicans that would reinforce the border. “He sank this bipartisan proposal, but when I am president I will sign that law,” said Harris.
The visit served to reinforce unity within the party after the process of choosing the vice presidential candidate. One of the speakers in the afternoon was Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, one of those considered by Harris. He applauded the addition of the Minnesota governor to the ticket. “You know I’m a Navy guy, but now we need an Army. And our vice presidential candidate is from the Army… we need an unstoppable Army that will go into the trenches and lead us to final victory,” said Kelly, who was accompanied by his wife, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who served alongside Walz in Congress in 2006.
“Thank you so much to Arizona for sharing Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords with the rest of the country,” Walz said as he walked out onto the stage. “I’m being told this is possibly the largest rally in Arizona history,” he said. Democrats have flexed their muscles in the turnout. Organizers had to turn away several people an hour before the event began because the venue had reached capacity. “It doesn’t matter, I don’t think anyone is obsessed with the size of an audience,” the Minnesota governor joked in reference to Donald Trump. It wasn’t the only jab he took. He also took a few shots at his rival, Ohio Senator JD Vance. “Every kid in my class went to Yale, had their college education funded by Silicon Valley millionaires and then wrote a book badmouthing the people who raised them,” he said.
Republican John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, speaks at the Harris and Walz event in Glendale, Arizona.Go Nakamura (REUTERS)
The Sun Belt is made up of 15 states in the South of the country. It stretches from Virginia in the East to the West Coast, to California. There are still many disputed territories in this vast strip. One of them is Arizona, a Republican stronghold that Joe Biden snatched from Donald Trump in 2020 by less than 11,000 votes, the closest result of that cycle. Harris wants to keep this entity, along with its eleven Electoral College votes, in the Democratic column. It is necessary for her to build alliances with the Republicans, who have conquered the state in eleven presidential elections since 1976.
The Democratic campaign announced earlier this week that a group of Republicans has joined the effort to elect Kamala Harris. The group is made up mostly of conservative politicians who have been pushed out of their positions by the rise of Trumpism. There are some who have remained in office and are critical of Trump. One of them is John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, the third most populous city in Arizona behind Phoenix and Tucson. Giles will coordinate a group that seeks to boost the votes of those disenchanted with the so-called Grand Old Party.
Giles was present at Harris’ event in Glendale on Friday and was invited to cross enemy lines and attend the Democratic National Convention as a guest, which will be held in Chicago starting on August 19. “I feel a little out of place… I don’t recognize my party. It has been hijacked by people who have forced centrists to abandon it,” said the mayor.
In a text published in the newspaper Arizona RepublicGiles said Republicans still have an obligation to “correct course.” “The party, with Trump at the helm, continues down a path of political extremism and takes the focus away from our fundamental freedoms. Now more than ever, we must put country before party,” the mayor said. Giles believes Trumpism has led to “misinformation, denial of election results, and an erosion of trust in the judicial system” in Arizona.
What Giles and other Republican mavericks criticize can be found in candidates like Kari Lake, a former news anchor who entered politics as one of Trump’s most radical acolytes. “We’re going to buckle up, put on our helmets, our armor of God and maybe carry a Glock with us so that everything goes smoothly,” she told supporters at an April rally.
Lake, who holds extreme anti-abortion and anti-illegal immigration views, is trailing far behind in the polls. Democratic candidate Ruben Gallego, a Latino congressman with military experience, is leading the race. Gallego has a comfortable 11-point lead, according to a poll released this week by the Democratic Party. local pollster HighGroundThe presidential election is much closer. Harris maintains a 2.8% lead in the state over Trump in Arizona.
The numbers have made the Republican Party bet on other states to obtain a majority in the Senate. The conservatives’ efforts have focused on West Virginia, Ohio and Montana. Trump held an event in Montana this afternoon aimed at mobilizing his base and thus defeating Jon Tester, one of the weakest Democratic senators because he represents a solidly red region.
