By Jeff Mason and Trevor Hunnicutt
GLENDALE, Arizona (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned to a packed stage in Arizona on Friday, hoping to put Republican candidate Donald Trump at a disadvantage in the West , while Trump held his own rally in Montana to support Republican candidates for the Senate.
Less than a month into her bid for the White House, the Democratic presidential candidate embarked on a week-long tour focused on seven states after naming her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Build excitement for her campaign.
That trip Friday took her to the Phoenix area, where she was visiting volunteers at campaign offices and speaking to voters.
While traveling, Harris earned an endorsement from LULAC Adelante, the political action committee of the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organization. This is the first time the organization has ever received a presidential endorsement.
In Glendale, an estimated crowd of more than 15,000 people greeted Harris, including some pro-Palestinian demonstrators who interrupted her speech. Harris faces anger from liberal voters who disagree with her support for Israel’s war in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
“The president and I have been working around the clock every day to complete the ceasefire and bring the hostages home,” Harris said. “So, I respect your voices, but we are here now discussing the 2024 campaign,” he added. ”.
Earlier this week, when some protested and interrupted her speech during a rally in Michigan, she said: “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say so. Otherwise, I’m here Speech.
Also in the West, Trump held a rally in Bozeman, Montana, a state where Republicans have contested every presidential campaign since 1996. Stupid” and “low IQ”. and criticized her for not giving interviews or holding major press conferences since becoming the Democratic nominee.
Crowd size, “weird” attacks
Trump on Thursday mocked the size of Harris’ campaign crowds, even though they have recently matched his numbers.
He mistakenly compared the size of the rally on Jan. 6, 2021 — the day his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol — to hearing Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington in 1963. Gathering sizes were compared.
“No one seemed to care about the crowd size or anything,” Walz quipped in his speech introducing Harris.
While Montana is not a battleground state in the presidential race, it will host a hotly contested race that could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate in 2025.
Republican Senator Tim Sheehy will speak at the rally, facing off against Democratic Senator John Tester. Trump’s plane was reportedly diverted to another airport in Montana due to mechanical issues, and Trump began speaking about an hour and a half later than originally planned.
Before taking office, Trump shared posts on The Truth Society insisting that he and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown nearly died in a helicopter ride, although Brown said the incident never happened, another politician said He was on a similar flight with Trump decades ago.
In a speech that lasted nearly an hour and 45 minutes, Trump once again portrayed the Democratic Party as left-wing extremists, calling the party’s candidates “Comrade Walz and Comrade Harris.”
Trump also echoed Walz’s popular new line of attack on Democrats that Republicans are weird. “I think we’re the odd opposite,” Trump said. “They’re weird.”
When crowds at the Democratic Arizona rally chanted for Trump to “lock him up,” Walz shut them down. “No, better than that, defeat him at the ballot box.”
Harris later responded to the same chant by saying, “Yes, the courts are going to deal with this. We’re going to win in November. We’re going to win in November. We’re going to deal with this, too.” There was no immediate response from the Harris campaign. Describe this request for comment.
Pro-Trump crowds often clamor for jailing his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton, while Trump has called for her to be jailed.
Democrats are hoping to win two Western states in November that are closely divided between Democratic and Republican voters: Nevada and Arizona, which Democrat Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020.
Both men are nearly one-third Latino, a demographic group that both parties have focused on. Recent polls in both states show the race to be extremely close.
Harris was scheduled to travel to Las Vegas, Nevada, on Saturday. The powerful Local Culinary Alliance 226, which represents local casino and hotel workers, also expressed support for her on Friday.
On Friday, Trump focused new attention on Georgia, another competitive state.
His campaign spent $37.2 million on television ads, the largest such spend in a single day this election cycle, according to AdImpact, a company that tracks political advertising.
The ads will air in seven key states. Trump’s campaign has poured the most ad dollars into Georgia, spending $23.8 million in the southern state where polls have tightened since Harris took office.
Trump lamented his debate with former Democratic nominee Joe Biden in June. Biden’s disastrous performance in the debates led Democrats to call on him to abandon his presidential bid, which he did last month.
“Why on earth would I argue with him?” Trump said.
