Kamala Harris returns to Phoenix in her latest outreach to Latinos

PHOENIX (AZFamily/AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is returning to several battleground states, including Arizona, with Election Day less than a week away as polls show the Democratic nominee polling by a tight margin with former President Donald Trump.

In Phoenix, they are to be joined by a legendary Mexican regional band Los Tigres Del Norte as part of the campaign’s latest outreach to boost turnout among Latino voters, who have historically favored Democrats and are last-minute voters among the undecided and more socially conservative.

The band opened Harris’ rally with a song that wants to break free of the border and unite the resulting big country. The norteño band, founded in the 1960s, resonates across the Mexican-American border and among generations of loyal fans.

“Here comes Kamala Harris!” and “Vamos Kamala!” cheered the band members as they finished their act. They also urged the Phoenix crowd to vote in English and Spanish.

Harris presented a strong alternative to Trump’s anti-immigration views, but also said he would like to revive efforts to pass tougher border measures on migrants seeking asylum.

A Pew Research Center 2022 survey showed that 15% of US Latinos identify as Evangelical Protestant. Of all American evangelicals, they are the fastest growing group. About half of Latino evangelicals identified as Republicans or right-leaning independents, while 44% identified as Democrats or left-leaning independents.

While U.S. Latinos generally prefer Democratic candidates, a majority of Latino evangelicals supported Donald Trump in 2020. According to AP Votecast, about six in 10 Latino evangelical voters supported Trump in 2020, while four in 10 supported Biden.

A pew study released last month, showed that about two-thirds of Latino Protestants planned to support Trump this year, while about two-thirds of Catholic Hispanics and religiously unaffiliated Hispanics said they supported Vice President Kamala Harris.

Kamala Harris says Trump’s comment about women ‘is offensive to everyone’

Harris urged Americans on Wednesday to “stop pointing fingers at each other” as she sought to push back against comments made by President Joe Biden about Donald Trump supporters and “rubbish “and to keep the focus on her Republican opponent in the final days of the race.

Harris said Donald Trump’s comment that he would protect women whether they “like it or not” showed the Republican presidential candidate’s lack of understanding of women’s rights “to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies.”

“By the way, I think it’s offensive to everybody,” Harris said before beginning to spend the day campaigning in the western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada.

Trump’s remarks come as he has struggled to connect with women voters and as Harris courts women in both parties with a freedom-centered message. She argues that women should be free to make their own decisions about their bodies and that if Trump is elected, more restrictions will follow.

Trump appointed three of the US Supreme Court justices who formed the conservative majority that overturned federal abortion rights. As the fallout from the 2022 decision spreadsbegan claiming at public events and in social media posts that he would “protect women” and make sure they wouldn’t “think about abortion”.

At a rally Wednesday night near Green Bay, Wis., Trump told supporters that aides had urged him to stop using the phrase because it was “inappropriate.”

Then he added a new bit to the guard line. He said he told his aides, “Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I will protect them.”

Harris said the remark was part of a pattern of troubling statements by Trump.

“This is just the latest in a long line of revelations by the former president about how he thinks about women and their agency,” she said.

Trump’s comments increased sniping between the campaigns, both of which are vying for voters who generally make up the majority of the electorate. Harris’ surrogate billionaire businessman Mark Cuban said in an interview with “The View” that Trump doesn’t surround himself with “strong, smart women — ever.”

Cuban’s remark drew swift rebuke from women involved in Trump’s political operation, with his campaign manager Susie Wiles saying in a rare social media post that she “was proud to run this campaign.” Campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt also took after Cuban, saying he “implied that Trump’s female supporters were ‘weak and stupid.’

The dispute showed signs Thursday that each candidate’s support is still entrenched.

It wasn’t just women who described Trump’s remarks as offensive. At the Harris rally in Phoenix, Edison Kinlicheenie, 50, said he sees Trump more as a threat than a protector, noting that the former president has a history of preying on women.

“I have a wife and a daughter, so I wouldn’t let any predator like that come around them,” Kinlicheenie said.

See a spelling or grammar mistake in our story? Please click here to report it.

Have a breaking news photo or video? Send with us here with a brief description.