Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, rallied in a packed stadium outside Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday, drawing perhaps the largest Democratic crowd of the entire 2024 campaign season.
Harris, Walz and local leaders who joined them on stage lifted the crowd’s spirits by discussing immigration, abortion rights and indigenous sovereignty.
Speaking to the Native American leaders in attendance, the Democrat said, “I will always honor tribal sovereignty and respect tribal self-determination.”
Native American voters are credited with helping deliver Arizona to President Joe Biden in 2020, and the state is home to some 22 federally recognized tribes.
As President, I will always honor tribal sovereignty, respect tribal self-determination, and fight for a future where every Native person can realize their aspirations. pic.twitter.com/r44TWVxiDz
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 10, 2024
At one point in her speech, Harris was interrupted by protesters repeatedly chanting “Free Palestine, free Palestine” and other messages of support for Gaza. She stopped the conference to address the protesters.
“We are here to fight for our democracy, which includes respecting the voices that I think we are hearing. Let me speak to that for a moment and then I will come back to the issue at hand,” she said. “I have been clear: now is the time to get a ceasefire agreement and to get the hostage agreement. Now is the time. And the president and I are working day and night to get that ceasefire agreement and to bring the hostages home.”
Other Harris campaign events this week, which have drawn an estimated 15,000 people, have drawn the ire of former President Donald Trump, who claims to have “spoken to the biggest crowds.”
The Harris and Walz rallies represent a new push to put the Sun Belt back on the map for the still-young Democrat campaign.
Before Friday night, the state appeared to be shifting toward the Republican Party, with the New York magnate leading Harris in polls by single digits.
But by the evening of the rally, Harris and Trump appeared to be tied in the state, with FiveThirtyEight polls showing the vice president at 44.4 percent, trailing closely behind the Republican at 44.8 percent.
On Friday morning, Harris was shown to be narrowly ahead of Trump in the United States.
Despite the large crowd, the Democratic candidate reminded those present: “We are the underdogs.” She added that it will be necessary to work hard to emerge victorious from the elections in a short time. Harris officially became the Democratic nominee on Monday and announced her running mate on Tuesday, after Biden withdrew from the election on July 21.
Earlier Friday, the White House announced that Biden and Harris would attend their first joint event since the Democratic president dropped out of the presidential race, The Guardian reported.
Considering a border state like Arizona, the vice president adopted a tougher, but progressive tone, highlighting her record as a prosecutor who “pursued transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers” while also calling for a path to citizenship.
“We know our immigration system is broken, and we know what it will take to fix it: comprehensive reform. That includes strong border security and a path to citizenship,” Harris said.
While border apprehensions have declined across the United States, they have remained high in Arizona, where voters will decide next November whether to make illegal border crossings a state crime.
Her remarks echoed a campaign ad released yesterday, in which she said the vice president would “hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking.”
Arizona, a longtime Republican stronghold, swung Democratic in 2020 when Biden beat Trump by fewer than 11,000 votes, thanks to a coalition of Native Americans, Latinos, young people, suburban white voters and moderates who had traditionally voted Republican but were disenchanted with the Republican nominee.
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