Democrats to swarm Arizona in major push at start of early voting

Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris and a string of her surrogates will flock to Arizona this week to engage in over 200 events as early voting gets underway in the swing state.

The visit comes as Democrats hope to win the state's electoral college votes and aim to keep a hotly contested seat in the Senate currently held by Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Democratic Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego is vying against Republican Kari Lake for the seat, and will partake in a debate on Wednesday night.

The blitz will include appearances by Harris, vice presidential hopeful Tim Walz, first lady Jill Biden, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, California Sen. Alex Padilla, and Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Maxwell Frost of Florida, according to NBC News.

Walz and Biden are expected to appear at events on Wednesday,  the first day of early voting, while Harris will campaign in Phoenix on Thursday. Walz will campaign in Tucson, and Biden will appear in Yuma.

“All of that, to me, is the type of activity that’s required to win a close race. It’s a race that we’ve known would be close, we’ve prepared and planned for it to be close,” Dan Kanninen, battleground states director for the Harris-Walz campaign, told NBC.

“We understand, and have understood this entire year, that to win in Arizona, you’ve got to have some Republicans, you got to have some moderates and Independents come to your side of the ledger,” Kanninen continued. “That has happened for Democrats in the recent elections, there have been some very close races for Senate and for governor and for President in that state, but we’ve come out on top because we’ve built coalitions that could speak to Republicans.” 

Campaign officials said Harris is expected to make appearances in other swing-states as they kick off early voting as well. The next swing state to hold early voting in person is Georgia, which begins early in-person voting and ballot drop offs on Oct. 15. North Carolina will be after Georgia, and early in-person voting begins there on Oct. 17.

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.