Vice President Kamala Harris and her new running mate will hold a rally in Arizona on Friday as part of their tour of battleground states, visiting a state where Harris bypassed a prominent Democrat in favor of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and gun control advocate, was a hot candidate for the vice presidency, winning two tough races in politically divided Arizona.
By passing over Kelly, Harris may also have lost the chance to win over people like Gonzalo Leyva, a 49-year-old landscaper from Phoenix. Leyva plans to vote for former President Donald Trump, a Republican, but says he would have supported a Harris-Kelly ticket.
“I prefer Kelly a hundred 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 others.”
In Arizona, every vote will be crucial. The state is no stranger to nail-biting elections, including in 2020, when President Joe Biden defeated Trump by less than 11,000 votes. Both parties are bracing for a similar outcome this year.
“These final months will feel like years, and it’s hard to imagine anyone winning by a large margin,” said Constantine Querard, a veteran Republican strategist in the state.
Democrats are confident that Harris is well positioned even without Kelly on the ballot. The senator is expected to remain a strong supporter of Harris and is already being considered for possible cabinet posts or other key roles should the vice president ascend to the Oval Office. Kelly is expected to attend the rally in Arizona.
“Kelly not being nominated has not dampened support for Harris,” said Stacy Pearson, a Democratic strategist in Phoenix. She says she feels the same enthusiasm for the new slate as she did at previous campaign stops, where Harris and Walz were greeted by huge crowds, including at the home of fellow running mate, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
Another Democratic strategist in Arizona, DJ Quinlan, agreed. “There is tremendous enthusiasm on the ground. To me, that’s the closest feeling to 2008,” he said, referring to former President Barack Obama’s first run that electrified Democratic voters.
Arizona is a magnet for Midwesterners looking to escape the cold, so several observers think Walz could still play well there. Scott Snyder, who moved to Phoenix from Detroit three years ago, wasn’t too familiar with Kelly’s background and politics, but said Harris made the right choice in Walz.
“He reminds me a lot of my dad,” said Snyder, an electrician. “You see pictures of him coaching high school football. That’s something that touches me. You see him out duck hunting. Same thing. That’s pretty common in Michigan, where I’m from.”
Arizona was a reliably Republican state until Trump’s hawkish policies gained national traction.
Trump won Arizona in 2016 but quickly fell out with the late Republican Senator John McCain, a political icon in the state. This sparked a steady exodus of educated, moderate Republicans from the GOP and swept the Democrats in top-tier races.
In 2018, Democrats won an open race for the state’s Senate seat, foreshadowing Kelly’s 2020 victory and Biden’s victory there as well. In 2022, Kelly won again, and Democrats won the three key statewide races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, defeating Republican candidates who maintained Trump’s style and his lies about voter fraud that cost him the 2020 presidential election.
Chuck Coughlin, a Republican strategist and former McCain aide, said the same voters who swung the state to Democrats over the past few election cycles remain lukewarm at best toward Trump.
“Trump is doing nothing to appeal to that part of the electorate,” he said.
The election campaign is already taking place on familiar terrain in Arizona – on the border with Mexico. Trump and his allies have sharply criticized Biden during his time in office for the influx of migrants and are now directing their attacks at Harris.
“It’s very easy for us to change focus and focus on them,” said Dave Smith, chairman of the Pima County Republican Party.
Kari Lake, who is running against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego for a vacant Senate seat in Arizona, released an ad late last week criticizing Gallego for his support of what the ad calls Biden and Harris’ “radical border agenda.” The ad repeatedly shows cutouts of the vice president chuckling.
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 that she has done nothing at the border.”
Meanwhile, Harris is targeting the state’s rapidly growing Latino population with an ad of her own, which highlights how Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, rose to the highest ranks of American politics.
Harris’ background and her relatively young age have brought Arizona and other Sun Belt states back into the race in the presidential election, which had narrowed to the three “blue wall” swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Although Arizona has a strong younger population, it is also known for its numerous senior living communities. Pearson claimed Biden’s age of 81 means he is at a disadvantage in the state.
“My fellow retirees were the first to say that was not OK,” Pearson said of Biden’s age. “I’m much more optimistic when Harris and Walz are at the top of the ballot.”
