Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to Arizona this week on the heels of Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s visit here last week. And, the political world is on fire with speculation about a Harris running mate pick — Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly is among the finalists for the gig.
So, once again, Arizona is finding itself at the center of the political word. And KJZZ's Ben Giles is here to talk more about it.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Ben.
BEN GILES: Good morning.
GILGER: So you are living this right. You'll be at Kamala Harris' rally here this week. You were there when JD Vance spoke to a crowd in Glendale last week. Let's talk about what we saw in presidential politics in Arizona last week. Let's start with JD Vance. What did we hear from him in Glendale?
GILES: Well, it was Vance's first trip through the Southwest. He also made two stops in Nevada before he was in Glendale on Wednesday evening trying to pin what he describes as the failures of the Biden administration directly on Kamala Harris and in fact, at the border in Cochise County on Thursday morning, he used this one particular phrase, the Harris administration multiple times during the comments to reporters along the southern border. It's a part of the Trump-Vance strategy of shifting focus to Harris now that she is the likely Democratic nominee.
The campaign had obviously pretty effectively attacked President Biden when he was still in the running. But now they've had to shine the spotlight on Harris and are trying to pin again what they describe as the failures of that administration directly on the vice president.
GILGER: The Harris administration. That's really interesting, Ben. How much do you think the border Arizona immigration will play into their new tactics in terms of how the Trump campaign is going to go after Kamala Harris.
GILES: in Arizona quite a bit. Immigration is a big consequential issue for this state and for border communities like some of those in Cochise County, the border and securing the border might be the biggest issue to those communities. And the Trump campaign certainly thinks it's going to be a winning issue. All we should note that illegal border crossings are far, far down than they were earlier in the Biden administration the last five months. They've been on the decline.
GILGER: Right. Right. So tell us Ben, what do we expect to hear then on the Democratic side this week, we have Kamala Harris heading to Arizona later this week, Mark Kelly's in the mix. What kind of issues are going to be top of mind on that side.
GILES: Well, I think we'll hear a lot from the vice presidential pick this week. There's some reports this morning that that announcement is coming tomorrow,, likely before her first campaign stop as a part of this swing through seven swing stage. She's starting in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
But I think the arguments will be tailored to those specific states. And I think for Arizona, you are going to hear about the border from the Harris campaign. You are going to hear about her efforts to slow down migration from Central American countries. That was a big issue when Biden first took office in 2021.
You're also going to hear about how border crossings have declined and you're going to hear a little bit of a blame game on Trump and Republicans in Congress. But Trump specifically discouraging Republicans in the U.S. Senate from voting on a bipartisan border security bill that folks like Mark Kelly were pushing for earlier this year.
Trump did publicly discourage Republicans in Congress from supporting that measure and the Harris campaign is likely going to use that as a cudgel to say Trump wants to use the border as a political talking point rather than actually coming up with solutions.
GILGER: That's interesting. So they're not on the Harris side running away from border the border or immigration as an issue. What about abortion? That's always been a central issue in Arizona politics. In the last, you know, couple of years as it has been pretty much everywhere. We're going to hear Democrats talking a lot about that here?
GILES: Absolutely. Even before Harris became the likely Democratic presidential nominee, she made multiple trips to Arizona to highlight the issue of abortion. We obviously made national headlines earlier this year when the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that an 1860s territorial era near total abortion and could take effect that law has since been repealed.
But abortion is literally on the ballot in Arizona this year with a citizen initiative that would make abortion legal up to 24 weeks and would actually prevent the state Legislature from restricting access to abortion in state law.
So candidates from Harris to Congressman Ruben Gago running for Senate to candidates for legislative office are going to be hitching their wagon to that initiative and hoping that it succeeds and they along with it.
GILGER: What is the polling look like on these issues though right now, Ben, in Arizona, like is abortion as salient an issue as the border is?
GILES: They're both. I'd say immigration is a little higher but they're, they're both up there and abortion. It just depends on who you talk to, but there is certainly room for the Harris campaign to make pitches to voters on both of those issues. And I'm, I'm sure you'll hear both of them come Friday night when Harris is expected in Phoenix campaigning alongside her, her new vice presidential nominee, perhaps Mark Kelly, right?
GILGER: Whoever that may be last question about Mark Kelly and a potential VP running mate slot for him. How likely is this? What's the latest on this? As you said, this could announcement could come today or tomorrow?
GILES: Yeah, it really could be Kelly. He is, as you said in your, in your opening, one of the finalists, he was reportedly interviewed in Washington by Harris' vetting team for this vice presidential role. He's an astronaut. He's a military veteran. He has a very personal story to tell when it comes to gun violence because of the tragic shooting in 2011 of his wife, then Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
So there's a lot of compelling stories for Mark Kelly and his family to tell on the campaign trail that I think play into a lot of the issues that the Harris campaign wants to highlight. Not the least of which Kelly has fashioned himself as a bit of a truth teller when it comes to, you know, criticizing his own party, the Democratic Party.
He was critical of the Biden administration early on when he was first elected to U.S. Senate for the border crisis. So somebody who's a center, right, kind of moderate or sorry, center left, moderate democrat could be a compelling candidate to run alongside Harris.
