TEMPE, Arizona – Police are investigating damage caused by an overnight shooting at a Democratic Party-coordinated campaign office. Vice President Kamala Harris.
The incident happened a few days before Harris visited Arizona during the presidential election campaign.
“We can confirm that damage was discovered as a result of a shooting at the DNC Campaign Office on 9/23/24,” the Tempe Police Department said in a statement to NBC News on Tuesday.
The office is shared by staff for the Arizona Democratic Party, the Harris campaign, and the Senate and House campaigns in November to boost the party’s turnout.
Sean McEnerney, the state Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign manager, confirmed the incident in a statement.
“Several shots were fired at the Tempe Democratic Party coordinated campaign office overnight,” McEnerney said. No one was in the office or injured.
local NBC affiliate KPNX Earlier, it was reported that the office was damaged as a result of firing.
Harris returns to the state on Friday, his first trip there since a packed rally in Glendale on Aug. 9. At that rally, he fought immigration head-onoffers proposals to increase border security and create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. On that trip, Harris is considering stopping at the border, according to two people familiar with his schedule. His campaign declined to comment on the possibility.
The coordinated campaign office in Tempe is one of 18 field offices for the Harris campaign in Arizona, according to Patty Socarras, communications director for the state Democratic Party.
Tempe, a college town home to Arizona State University, will be critical if Democrats hope to win the state in November. ASU’s student enrollment was about 57,000 in 2023, a group that could prove a key constituency in a state President Joe Biden won by just 10,000 votes in 2020.
On August 28, the Harris campaign campaigned with Democratic Florida Representative Maxwell Frost in Tempe. The 27-year-old congressman has made a political name for his focus on gun control issues, and he jammed on behalf of the Harris campaign this summer, making gun violence the cornerstone of his speech to ASU students.
“We still have to work to end gun violence,” Frost said Parkland school shooting In 2017 in his homeland. “We can work to create a society where people don’t need to use guns to solve their problems in the first place.”