Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is on a blitz this week with early voting events in Arizona and plans to sink the battleground state with a sweeping effort.
This week, Harris, Minnesota Governor Tim Walsh, Second Lieutenant Doug Emhoff and First Lady Jill Biden, along with a bevy of surrogates, are all attending more than 200 events across the state, hitting every media market. first shared with NBC News for details. They include a tent rally Thursday in Phoenix where Harris will try to build momentum for the vote.
Around 6,000 people have already signed up to research and run phone banks this week, and the campaign said it planned more than 7,500 searches and phone banking queues over the weekend.
Walz heads to Tucson on Wednesday to begin early voting, while Biden heads to the border town of Yuma. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, California State Sen. Alex Padilla, Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost are also attending the event.
“All these are the type of activities required to win a close race for me. It’s a race we know is going to be close, we’ve prepared and planned for it to be close,” said Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s director of battleground states.
The focus on the Western state at such a critical juncture in the presidential race is a sign that the Harris campaign sees a competitive landscape there. Campaign officials also expect Harris to anticipate early voting events in many battleground states.
Arizona is voting but there is continuous tight pointed to former President Donald Trump with the edge. Those polls also show Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego leading Harris in his race against Republican Kari Lake. Republicans have reports. ahead of the Democrats in voter registration.
But Harris campaign officials say they rely on a ground game infrastructure that includes 19 offices and 190 staffers, as well as volunteers across the state.
The campaign said it has operations to reach out to Republicans and independent voters and pointed to the endorsements of Harris by a number of state Republicans, including former Sen. Jeff Flake and Jimmy McCain, son of the late Republican Sen. John McCain. Harris also visited recently Red area of Cochise County to discuss how to deal with illegal border crossing.
“We understand, and we’ve understood all this year, that in order to win in Arizona, you have to have some Republicans, you have to have some moderates and independents on your side of the slate,” Kanninen said. “It happened for the Democrats in the last election. There were very close races in this state for Senate, governor and president, but we came out on top because we built coalitions that could talk to Republicans.”
In Arizona, Democrats are hoping to build on the gains they made in 2022 when they took control of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state offices. An abortion initiative on the ballot could be another catalyst. And money also spilled down-ballot races, with Democrats trying to wrest control of the state legislature, which has long been dominated by the GOP.
Democrats started building infrastructure in Arizona when President Joe Biden was a candidate. But as Biden’s approval ratings faltered and concerns over immigration and the economy persisted, Arizona appeared out of reach. Harris’ candidacy, while still relatively new, has helped excite voters, boost fundraising and volunteer energy, and according to the poll, Arizona is back in the running for Democrats.
Since Aug. 1, Harris and his Arizona supporters have spent $61 million on TV, radio and digital ads, while Trump and related groups have spent $47 million, according to ads tracked by AdImpact.
Republicans report consistent energy for Trump despite growing concerns his campaign’s operation on the ground. Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in Arizona over the weekend.
In a recent interview, Arizona GOP Chairwoman Gina Svoboda played down the number of field offices the party compared to Democrats, pointing instead to enthusiasm for Trump.
“Our offices are full of people every day, and that’s why we’re adding more,” Svoboda said. “As more people come in, we keep building bigger buildings and filling them all up and then adding more. I haven’t seen the energy on the left. I think they’re kind of dead in the office. Our offices are kicking every day.”
Sean McEnerney, coordinating campaign manager for the Arizona Democratic Party, pointed to hundreds of new volunteers knocking on doors last weekend despite 100-degree October temperatures, a sign of continued energy on the left.
“We were really seeing it increase from September to October,” McEnerney said.
McEnerney, who has worked in Arizona for the past few major elections, said the battle is similar to what Democrats have faced before.
“We know it’s going to be really tight. We know it will be a close race. This is Arizona,” he said. “We’ve built a winning coalition here in 2022 and 2020 by doing all the little things right — building a coalition that can win some races by just a few hundred votes in 2022. “We know it’s going to be close, but we’re focused on mobilizing our supporters while continuing to convince voters, and we’ll do that throughout the early voting period.”