Kamala Harris returns to Phoenix in her latest outreach to Latinos

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

At the Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater in Phoenix, he was 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 stricter border measures for migrants seeking asylum.

The vice president made his closing argument by reminding the crowd that with five days until Election Day, Donald Trump has focused on grievances and his political enemies.

“Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t think people who disagree with me are the enemy,” Harris said. “He wants to put them in jail. I will give them a seat at the table. Because that’s how democracy works and how real leaders work.”

At the rally, she promised “to be a president for all Americans.”

She also promised to cut costs for everyone.

“My plan includes reducing child care costs, tax cuts for small businesses and reducing health care costs,” she said. “Donald Trump’s answer is a trillion dollars in tax cuts for billionaires and corporations, and this time, his plan is a 20 percent national sales tax on everything you buy that’s imported.”

Arizona Democratic leaders also rallied supporters in the Valley.

The mayors for Phoenix and Tucson, ex-Rep. Gabby Giffords, Representative Ruben Gallego, Senator Mark Kelly and Governor Katie Hobbs encouraged the participants.

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.

Representative Gallego, who is running for a seat in the United States Senate, opened the rally for Harris, linking the US Senate and the presidential election. He is running against Republican Kari Lake.

“If we fight together, we can fight number one: defeat Kari Lake, number two: defeat Donald Trump, and number three: fight for a better future,” Gallego said.

Harris urges Arizonans to make sure their ballots are counted. “You’ve got to vote Arizona because we’ve got five days left,” she said.

She says the campaign still has some hard work to do, but added: “Make no mistake, we will win.”

In addition, Harris once again used a new tactic when addressing protesters at her rallies. As she spoke, she told the crowd it was “okay” when protesters disrupted the rally.

“Democracy can be complicated. But we believe in democracy,” she said as the crowd drowned out the protest.

The vice president referenced Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments earlier this week that he would make “massive” changes to the Affordable Care Act, which expands health coverage to millions of Americans.

The Republican speaker has tried to clean up those comments and says he won’t repeal the program known as “Obamacare,” but Harris says it’s part of a larger GOP agenda to restrict access to health care and abortion nationwide .

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.

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