Harris a familiar face in battleground Arizona as Biden political drama unfolds

As speculation around President Joe Biden’s campaign swirls, his running mate and potential top-of-the-ticket replacement is no stranger to battleground Arizona. But many party operatives in the state say they are still "riding with Biden" or have chosen to say nothing at all.

Vice President Kamala Harris has made a half-dozen visits to Arizona during her time in the Biden administration, including three campaign stops in the past few months. The frequent visits underscore how crucial the battleground state is to the Biden reelection campaign.

Harris is a familiar face of the administration as the party weighs what to do about its aging nominee. Democrats remain divided after the president’s stumbling debate performance last week. Some, including Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, have urged Biden to step aside.

“What he needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race,” Grijalva told the New York Times, noting Harris as a possible replacement.

Harris is often named as a potential nominee who could seamlessly inherit Biden’s reelection campaign and his hefty war chest. Still, as the Democratic Party frets about the best way to go up against Republican former President Donald Trump, many Democrats in Arizona said they backed Biden and appreciated the job Harris has done as vice president.

“People always talk about grass being greener. I live in the desert,” said Mark Robert Gordon, a member of the Democratic National Committee who spoke to The Republic in his personal capacity. "(Biden) is the only person, to date, that has beaten Donald Trump. My bet is with the guy that has delivered.”

Any Democrat in the presidential race will have an uphill climb this fall. Trump leads Biden by 5 percentage points among Arizona registered voters, according to a Fox News poll conducted in June. Biden won Arizona by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2020.

With that tight margin in mind, Biden has made Arizona a focus of his presidential campaign. He has come to the state four times since his swearing-in, making three of those trips in the past 10 months. The president is planning another trip to Arizona this month as part of a battleground state campaign swing. Trump has been to Arizona once in 2024.

The president insists he will not drop out of the race, assuring a crowd in Wisconsin on Friday that “I am running and am going to win again.” Harris has defended Biden, too.

“Joe Biden is our nominee. We beat Trump once, and we’re gonna beat him. Period,” Harris said in a CBS News interview. “I am proud to be Joe Biden’s running mate.”

Brian Fallon, Harris’ campaign communications director, reiterated that point in a statement: “The President is and will remain our party’s nominee, and Vice President Harris is proud to be his running mate, and looks forward to serving at his side for four more years.”

The campaign also shared a statement from state Democratic Party Chair Yolanda Bejarano.

“The most important thing we could be doing right now is reminding Arizonans of Trump’s dangerous plans for our communities — from Project 2025, to Trump’s plan to ban abortion nationwide, dismantle Social Security and Medicare and Trump’s repeated promises of bloodshed and retribution,” Bejarano said. “Joe Biden is our nominee and we will stand behind him because he has defeated Trump before, will defeat him again, and delivered results for our working families.”

But that has not stopped some political watchers from wondering whether a Barry Goldwater moment is on the way. Fifty years ago this summer, the U.S. senator from Arizona went with others to the White House to warn then-President Richard Nixon he would be doomed by the Watergate scandal.

Biden on Friday brushed off the possibility of withdrawing from the race, despite reports that Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner is assembling a group to urge the president to end his campaign.“He’s the only one,” Biden told reporters, speaking of Warner.

Harris, Whitmer, or ... an open convention?

Harris is not the only Democrat with presidential buzz to visit Arizona in recent months. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer campaigned for Biden in Phoenix in April, while Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is spending cash to boost an abortion rights ballot initiative here.

The vice president has an advantage as Biden’s second in command, coming to Arizona to represent the White House on reproductive rights, clean energy, democracy and other issues. Shifting from the president’s defender to the nominee would pose challenges, though.

“She suffers, as all vice presidents do, from the shadow of the presidency, and she has not been able to stand out on her own,” said Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Republican consultant in Phoenix who left the party during Trump’s term.

“She would have to engage in a very aggressive campaign to convince Arizona voters that she's capable of leading the country. I do not think that a majority of Arizona voters feel that way right now, that she can lead as well as Biden has.”

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Arizona Democrats were reluctant to speculate on what would happen if Biden were to step aside, but some were supportive of an open convention process versus shifting the nomination directly to Harris. The Democratic National Convention begins Aug. 19 in Chicago.

Patti Serrano, a member of the Arizona Democratic State Committee who has been critical of the Biden administration, emphasized that the decision to step aside was up to the president.

“If that decision is made, I would encourage, in the name of democracy, an open convention. That is what I would like to see happen so that there's some sense of democracy,” Serrano said.

Gordon said with Biden at the top of the ticket, Harris could “make the difference” to voters with her message on abortion. A ballot initiative to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution is likely to be on the Arizona ballot this fall.

Harris’ message on reproductive rights is particularly effective, he said, calling her an “incredibly talented and forceful” and “heartfelt” voice for the administration.

“She will be the nominee for vice president and she's going to be reelected as vice president,” Gordon said. “I think that she's going to, in large part, make the difference to a lot of people.”

VP has made frequent visits to Arizona

Harris made her first official visit to Arizona as vice president in January 2023, when she celebrated the groundbreaking of a clean energy project in Tonopah. The vice president visited a water-treatment project in the Gila River Indian Community in July of that year. Months later, she took an October trip to Flagstaff for a college tour stop at Northern Arizona University.

As Election Day gets closer, Harris has picked up the pace. The vice president hosted three abortion rights events in Phoenix and Tucson in recent months. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff has also been here, coming to Arizona in April for the NCAA Final Four tournament and an event focused on “lowering costs for Americans.”

At a June event in Phoenix, Harris gave a shoutout to Ruben Gallego, the Democratic congressman running for U.S. Senate against Republican Kari Lake. The pair have a political relationship that goes back to Harris’ own presidential bid.

Gallego endorsed Harris over Biden during the 2020 Democratic primary cycle, lauding her as a “bold, compassionate and capable commander-in-chief” and joining her campaign as national security chair. Harris dropped out in December 2019, before the Iowa caucuses. Gallego later endorsed Biden after his Super Tuesday comeback and supports Biden for reelection this cycle.

Ending her remarks at that Phoenix event, Harris painted the 2024 presidential race as existential for the nation and Arizona.

“This election is going to determine the trajectory of our country for generations,” Harris told supporters in Phoenix last month. “Our work right now is absolutely directly going to affect the people of Arizona, the people of our country.”

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: VP Kamala Harris familiar face in Arizona as Biden speculation swirls