Kari Lake hurls broadsides at Kamala Harris ahead of Phoenix visit, touts Dem supporters

Kari Lake assailed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris ahead of her Friday rally in Phoenix while several dozen Arizonans described as independents and Democrats said they backed Lake’s U.S. Senate bid.

At a news conference in Gilbert, Lake, two Republican members of Congress and the state’s GOP chair took turns hitting Harris, her running mate, Lake’s opponent, and President Joe Biden.

It came not long after former President Donald Trump held a rambling news conference from his Florida resort similarly ripping Harris as her campaign has tapped a cash gusher and favorable recent polling in a race that not long ago appeared headed to Trump.

The splintered messages seemed intended to hold back Democratic momentum and often zeroed in on a theme that helped give Trump a sizable lead over Biden in the first place: border security.

Lake accused the media of trying to turn “this horrible (Harris) ticket, the worst we’ve ever seen, and turn it into something special.”

“You’re trying to say that somebody who has done nothing for the border, called herself the border czar, has done absolutely nothing, is a San Francisco liberal who destroyed San Francisco — who destroyed San Francisco,” Lake said.

Latest news: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in Arizona

“And you’re trying now to all of a sudden act like she’s the biggest superstar on the planet. You can say that all you want. There’s a reason that your viewership and your subscriptions are just in the tank right now, because nobody’s believing the fairy tales that you’re telling.”

It was a reference to GOP attacks on Harris using a term to describe an assignment from Biden for her to examine the "root causes" of migration from places like Central America that contribute to the problem of illegal immigration.

She made two trips to Central America as part of that, Reuters reported.

“The reality of it is that we have to deal with causes, and we have to deal with the effects,” Harris told reporters during a visit to the border in El Paso, Texas, in June 2021, Reuters noted. She has not made a similar trip to the border in Arizona, a point Republicans have eagerly brought up repeatedly during her visits to the state.

Vice President Kamala Harris: Comments on Central American migration draw fire from left and right

Like other swing states across the country, Arizona is newly viewed as competitive for Harris after polls and political pundits suggested for months it was tilting to Trump.

Biden won the state by the narrowest margin of any state he carried in 2020, but it consistently leaned to Trump with Biden in the race.

The reshaped Democratic ticket seems to have brought Arizona within Harris’ reach, and her scheduled Friday rally is fresh evidence that her party intends to compete here in November.

While Trump held a stable edge over Biden in Arizona, Gallego has held a consistent lead over Lake since Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., announced in March that she would not seek reelection.

Lake touted the support of Democrats and independent voters after her Democratic Senate rival, Ruben Gallego, rolled out 40 notable Republicans and former Republicans who have endorsed him.

Gallego’s list landed on the same day the Harris campaign offered up their own GOP backers in Arizona and included some of the same names. One of them, for example, is Mesa Mayor John Giles, a Republican who has prominently backed several Democrats in the Trump era.

Gallego’s list included people such as former staffers to the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., or political consultants like Chuck Coughlin, who worked for McCain and Republican former Gov. Fife Symington and was an adviser to Republican former Gov. Jan Brewer.

Former Democrats explain why they are backing Kari Lake

Lake’s campaign didn’t provide the names of her Democratic and independent backers, but cast them as coming from ordinary walks of life.

And in some particularly wrenching cases, their lives were shattered by the loss of a loved one to opioids, a top Lake campaign issue.

Matt and Lindsay Taylor of Gilbert said they were one-time Democrats who became independent Trump supporters eight years ago. Now they are backing Lake, too, because of her outspoken concern about fentanyl overdoses.

The issue is personal for the couple, whose 17-year-old son, Alex, died from the drug in 2021.

'Fentazona': A cheap and deadly drug brought in by cartels has hijacked Arizona's opioid crisis

“I think Kari speaks truth when it comes to this,” Lindsay Taylor said. “This is a fentanyl crisis and lives are getting lost every single day. No one’s immune.”

Matt Taylor, who held a portrait of his son, said they were initially drawn to Trump’s priorities, and they still see him as fighting for a better America.

Phoenix resident Jade Gillon, 44, described herself as a Democrat-turned-Republican and “unlike Kamala Harris, I’m an actual, real-life Black woman.”

“I’m tired of the Democrats using the generational trauma of my people to garner votes,” she said. “They invoke fear and tell me I’m oppressed. … They tell me that my white brothers and sisters in Christ are my enemy. They are not.”

Lake picks up endorsement from former GOP Senate primary rival

While Lake’s previously left-leaning backers were perhaps more obscure, Lake did pick up a notable Republican endorsement on Thursday. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who challenged her for the GOP’s Senate nomination, released a social media post urging his supporters to send Lake to Washington, along with Trump.

Lake rejected questions that her campaign was underperforming, either in polls or resources.

She defeated Lamb by about 16 percentage points after her campaign said two weeks before voting began that she was ahead by 30 percentage points. Gallego has generally led for months in public polling and has raised millions more than her.

“I feel very comfortable with our polling. It’s very close. It looks good. My internal polling actually shows me up,” Lake said. She said she expects to “catch up with President Trump,” who led Biden significantly in Arizona.

Polling for a Trump-Harris race in Arizona is still in its early stages, but it seems to point to a closer race. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report, for example, moved Arizona, Georgia and Nevada from “lean Republican” to “toss-up” status on Thursday.

Lake painted Harris as soft on crime by bailing out criminals after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and said Gallego was marching in protests against the police at that time.

“He calls the police the bad guys,” Lake said in describing both of them as reflecting “destructive” Democratic policies.

Hannah Goss, a Gallego campaign spokeswoman, said he is a former Marine combat veteran who has protected Americans in dangerous situations and continues to do so.

“Ruben supports our police and has fought to secure funding to hire more police officers, boost community-based violence prevention initiatives and provide resources to state and local law enforcement,” she said.

“Kari Lake will say or do anything to get elected, but no amount of lies can erase her record of prioritizing her power-hungry political ambitions ahead of Arizonans.”

Lake seemed to allude to Gallego’s June 2020 appearance at a protest outside the Phoenix Police Department after Trump responded to protests, looting and violence across the country by calling it “acts of domestic terror” and threatened to deploy the military in response. Before Trump spoke, police in Washington memorably forced a calm crowd away from his path to an adjacent church.

Gallego, who did not speak at the Phoenix protest, called Trump’s actions a “photo op” and used social media to call on the House of Representatives “to restrict the program that provides military gear to police departments.”

Reps. Andy Biggs, Eli Crane rip media, Harris' running mate Tim Walz

On Thursday, Republican U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Eli Crane echoed complaints with the media’s coverage of Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, ahead of their visit to Phoenix.

Crane, a former Navy SEAL, accused Walz of “lying on his military record” and accused Harris and Walz of pushing socialism.

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has accused Walz of evading combat in Iraq by retiring from the National Guard before it was called up to active duty in that country and of exaggerating his service.

Walz served in the guard over 24 years and began the process of retiring before his unit received orders to deploy and as he was gearing up for a congressional run.

Vance accused Walz of falsely casting himself as a combat veteran with a comment referencing “weapons of war that I carried in war” though Walz never served in combat. The Harris campaign has said Walz “carried, fired and trained others” using weapons of war many times in his military service.

Biggs, a longtime border security critic, urged the media to look at recent crimes involving illegal immigrants and question Harris about her unwillingness to visit the border.

“She was the border czar! I never called her the border czar! It was the media that called her the border czar, but now she doesn’t want to be called the border czar,” he said. “She’s memory-holing this. That’s what she’s doing. Don’t facilitate this.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake blasts Kamala Harris ahead of AZ visit, touts Dem support