The United States presidential election is currently in a fierce competition stage. Vice President Harris held a campaign event in Arizona on Friday (August 9), while former President Trump rallied in Montana, showing support for a Republican candidate running for the federal Senate.
On August 6, Democratic presidential candidate Harris announced that she had chosen Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running mate. Following this announcement, Harris began a week-long campaign rally focusing on seven battleground states that could impact the outcome of the presidential election on November 5.
This was the first gathering that Harris held in Arizona since becoming the Democratic presidential candidate. Harris and Walz have been rallying in this crucial battleground state since Thursday (August 8).
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Trump held a rally in Bozeman, Montana.
Harris acknowledged that the competition would be tough. On Friday afternoon, she visited volunteers at her campaign office and spoke with voters in the Phoenix area.
In Glendale, Arizona, it is estimated that over 15,000 supporters attended Harris’s rally, including some pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
“(President Biden) and I are working around the clock every day to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and bring hostages home,” Harris said. “So, I respect your voices, but we are here today to talk about the 2024 election.”
In response to criticisms from Trump’s team regarding the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies, Harris pledged to fight for “strong border security” at her rally in Arizona.
“We know our immigration system is broken and we know how to fix it: comprehensive reform. This includes strong border security and a pathway to citizenship,” Harris said, blaming her Republican opponent Trump for the failure of a bipartisan border agreement earlier this year.
At his rally in Bozeman, Trump criticized Harris for allowing illegal immigrants to “invade” the southern border, a topic that has drawn attention from voters.
Trump also countered the new attack strategy by the Democratic vice-presidential candidate Walz, suggesting that Republicans are “weird.”
“I think we are the exact opposite of weird. They’re weird,” Trump said.
Even though Montana is not considered a battleground state in the presidential race and has been a stronghold for Republican candidates in recent elections, in the 2020 election, Trump won the state by a 16-point margin.
The state will hold a fiercely contested federal Senate election which could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate in 2025.
While rallying for his own campaign on Friday, Trump also threw his support behind Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy, who is seeking to defeat the incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Tester.
Trump’s speech at the rally lasted nearly 1 hour and 45 minutes.
The Democratic party aims to secure two fiercely contested western battleground states, Arizona and Nevada, in the November election. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden narrowly led Trump in these two states.
Both states have nearly one-third of Latino voters, a key demographic for both parties. Recent polls in both states show a fiercely competitive race.
On Friday, Harris held a campaign rally in Arizona and secured the endorsement of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the first time the Latinx civil rights organization has endorsed a presidential candidate.
Harris is scheduled to rally in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday, while Trump has shown a new focus on another fiercely contested battleground state, Georgia.
According to the company AdImpact, which tracks political ads, Trump’s campaign team has spent $37.2 million on TV ads, the largest single-day ad spending in this election cycle.
These ads will run in seven battleground states, with Georgia receiving the highest ad spend of $23.8 million.
Since Harris took over Biden’s presidential candidacy, the polls in Georgia have been tightening.
(Reference: Reuters, Politico, and KTAR News)