By Jeff Mason and Trevor Hunnicutt
US Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in a packed arena in Arizona on Friday, hoping to put Republican candidate Donald Trump on the back foot in the West, while Trump held his own rally in Montana to support a Republican candidate for Senate.
The Democratic presidential candidate, less than a month into her bid for the White House, has been on a week-long tour after naming her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, with a focus on building excitement for her campaign in seven states that could tip the Nov. 5 election.
That tour on Friday brought her to the Phoenix area, where she was visiting with volunteers at a campaign office and speaking to voters.
While travelling, Harris won the endorsement of LULAC Adelante, the political action committee for the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organisation. It was the group’s first-ever presidential endorsement.
In Glendale, a crowd estimated at more than 15,000 greeted Harris, including some pro-Palestinian demonstrators who interrupted the remarks. Harris has faced anger from liberal voters who disagree with her support for Israel in its war in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
“The president and I are working around the clock every day to get that ceasefire deal done and bring the hostages home,” Harris said, adding: “So, I respect your voices, but we are here to now talk about the race in 2024.”
Earlier in the week when some protested during her rally in Michigan and interrupted her speech, she had said: “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
Also in the West, Trump held a rally in Bozeman, Montana, a state that Republicans have carried in every presidential race since 1996. He again attacked Harris in personal terms – calling her “crazy,” “dumb” and “low IQ” – and criticised her for not doing interviews or major press conferences since she became the Democratic candidate.
CROWD SIZE, ‘WEIRD’ ATTACKS
Trump on Thursday had mocked the size of Harris’ campaign crowds, even though they have matched his of late.
He falsely compared the size of the gathering on Jan. 6, 2021 – the day his supporters stormed the US Capitol – to that who heard Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 in Washington.
“It’s not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything,” Walz quipped during a speech introducing Harris.
While Montana is not a battleground state in the presidential race, it will host a competitive race that could decide which party controls the US Senate in 2025.
Republican Tim Sheehy, who will be facing Democratic Senator John Tester, spoke at the rally. Trump began his speech around an hour and a half later than planned, after his plane was reportedly diverted to a different Montana airport due to a mechanical problem.
Before taking the stage, Trump shared posts on Truth Social insisting that he was in a near-fatal helicopter ride with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, although Brown said the incident never happened and another politician said he had been on a similar flight with Trump decades earlier.
In a speech running nearly an hour and 45 minutes, Trump again portrayed Democrats as left-wing extremists, dubbing the party’s ticket “comrade Walz and comrade Harris”.
Trump also responded to a new Democratic attack line, popularised by Walz, that Republicans were weird. “I think we’re the opposite of weird,” Trump said. “They’re weird.”
When the crowd at the Democrats’ Arizona rally chanted, of Trump, “Lock him up,” Walz discouraged them. “No, better than that, beat the hell out of him at the ballot box.”
Harris, responding to the same chant later, said: “Yeah, the courts will deal with that. We gonna win in November. We’re gonna win in November. We’ll handle that, too.” The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on the comment.
Pro-Trump crowds have often chanted that his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, should be locked up, and Trump called for her to be behind bars.
Democrats hope to take two Western states that are closely divided between Democratic and Republican voters in November: Nevada and Arizona, both of which Democrat Joe Biden carried narrowly over Trump in 2020.
Both are nearly one-third Latino, a demographic group of key focus for both parties. Recent polls taken in both states point to an exceptionally close race.
Harris was due to head to Las Vegas, Nevada, on Saturday. The powerful Culinary Union Local 226, which represents casino and hospitality workers there, also endorsed her on Friday.
Trump showed new focus on another competitive state on Friday, Georgia.
His campaign placed $37.2 million in television advertising, its biggest such purchase in a single day this election cycle, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks political advertising.
The ads will air in seven battleground states. Trump’s campaign is pouring the most advertising money into Georgia, spending $23.8 million in the Southern state, where polls have tightened since Harris’ ascent.
Trump lamented that he had debated erstwhile Democratic candidate Biden in June. Biden’s disastrous performance at the debate led to Democratic calls for him to drop his presidential bid, which Biden did last month.
“Why the hell did I debate him?” Trump said.
