Billboards, in English and Spanish, that the Democratic National Committee launched in Phoenix on Aug. 12, 2024. Images courtesy DNC
Amid a surge in support for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and fresh off a campaign rally last week that drew more than 15,000 people on a Friday night, the Democratic National Committee has launched its first paid advertising for Harris in Arizona.
The DNC’s campaign is kicking off with a pair of billboards along the I-10 in Phoenix, part of a push in seven battleground states to contrast Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, with former President Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, his VP pick.
The billboards claim that Trump and Vance are “out for themselves,” while the Democrats are “fighting for” Americans.
“In the final weeks leading up to Election Day, voters across Arizona are tuning into the clear choice before them: a vision for Arizonans that prioritizes the needs of working people, that prizes our rights and freedoms, and that helps all communities get ahead, or a dark vision that drags us backwards and puts billionaires ahead of working Arizona families,” DNC spokesman Cameron Niven said in a statement to the Arizona Mirror.
Harris’ campaign is riding a wave of momentum, both in Arizona and nationally. Since President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection bid in late July, Harris has rocketed to the top of the Democratic Party and swiftly united a fracturing coalition. That velocity has translated into a swell of support in Arizona and other battleground states, which is being seen in the polls.
While Trump consistently led Biden in Arizona polls for the past year, his polling lead in Arizona has seemingly evaporated in the past several weeks. In late July, a poll by Bloomberg and Morning Consult found Harris leading by four percentage points. A poll released last week by The Telegraph, a British newspaper that covers American politics, found the race is a dead heat, with Harris up by a single point over Trump.
And Phoenix consulting firm HighGround reported last week that its latest poll shows Harris up by three points, capitalizing on a wave of support from independents and a sizeable chunk of disaffected Republicans who don’t like Trump but had been put off by Biden.
According to FiveThirtyEight, a website that tracks and analyzes polling data and uses it to forecast election results, Harris and Trump are tied in Arizona. That’s a massive shift from how the race was shaping up between Trump and Biden, which saw Trump leading by more than five points in the polls in the Grand Canyon State.
That enthusiasm for Harris was on full display on Aug. 9, when her supporters nearly filled a 20,000-seat arena in Glendale to rally for the vice president and support her bid to keep Trump out of the White House.
Harris has drawn similarly large crowds in recent days as she’s barnstormed through key battleground states and kicked her campaign into high gear following the selection of Walz as her running mate.
Her momentum is also seen in polling in other states that her campaign needs to win if she hopes to be president. Polling released over the weekend by The New York Times found Harris leading Trump by four percentage points in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, reversing nearly a year of Trump leads in those states.
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