By GLENDALE, Ariz. — Speaking here Friday to the largest crowd of her nascent presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris responded to protesters by calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and the freeing of hostages there — a contrast with her response to a similar interruption earlier this week.
“Now is the time and the president and I are working around-the-clock every day to get that cease-fire deal done and bring the hostages home,” she said to cheers after pausing her stump speech to acknowledge a disruption in the crowd.
Harris has previously called for a cease-fire, in line with the Biden’s administration policy as it works to secure a deal. But when interrupted by protesters at a rally in Detroit on Wednesday, Harris responded, “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
The response garnered explosive cheers at the time, but some on the left were critical of what they believed was a dismissive tone. Democrats have been divided on the issue of Israel’s offensive in Gaza for nearly a year. And Harris — thrust to the top of the ticket when President Joe Biden decided he would not seek reelection — has tried to strike a balance between addressing the concerns of pro-Palestinian voters and Democratic supporters of Israel.
Speaking to an estimated crowd of more than 15,000 people, Harris’s rally in Glendale was her latest stop in a multiday swing through battleground states with her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D). The rallies have seemingly grown bigger by the day as Democrats try to harness the newfound enthusiasm for their nominee with just three months before Election Day.
Former president Donald Trump, meanwhile, is in red territory at a rally in Montana on Friday, where Republicans are in a fierce race to unseat Sen. Jon Tester (D) but have won handily in recent presidential elections.
The Montana visit comes as Trump has in many ways been playing to his base, even when he heads into less supportive territory. In Chicago last week, at a gathering of Black journalists, he falsely claimed that his opponent “turned” Black later in life, sparking a backlash. In Georgia a few days later, he repeatedly bashed Gov. Brian Kemp (R) for declining to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss there.
This week, Trump let his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), do the campaigning in battleground states while Trump focused elsewhere. He sat for a lengthy interview with a supportive young streamer, called into Fox & Friends and on Thursday took the unusual step of holding a news conference, inviting reporters to his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.
“What a stupid question,” he said when a reporter asked why he was not campaigning as frequently as Harris.
In a sign of how Harris has shifted the race, nonpartisan election analysts at Cook Political Report changed their assessment of swing states’ competitiveness this week. The publication had rated Arizona, Nevada and Georgia as “lean Republican” with Biden at the top of the ticket but now considers them to be a “tossup.”
Harris and Walz have used this week — Walz’s debut as the vice-presidential pick — to campaign intensively across the map of competitive states. First up were Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan; other stops in Georgia and North Carolina were canceled due to Tropical Storm Debby.
They will head to Nevada next.
Attendees waited for hours Friday in 105-degree heat to enter the Desert Diamond Arena, as the campaign provided water, chairs and campaign-branded navy cardboard fans to try to keep attendees cool. Inside the arena, supporters waved the fans in enthusiasm and chanted “Ka-ma-la.”
The campaign invited more than two dozen Arizona content creators and micro-influencers to the rally, ranging from food creators to a nail tech, and before the programming began they filmed videos dancing as the DJ played pop hits like Chappell Roan’s “Hot to Go!” and multiple songs from Charli XCX’s album “Brat.”
The album has become a cultural symbol of Harris’s campaign, and some supporters wore homemade chartreuse green shirts in an homage to the album and their support of the ticket. “Are there any brats in the house?” the DJ asked, before playing the song “Von Dutch.”
The crowd chanted “we’re not going back” as Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego spoke. Attendees held red, white and blue “COACH” signs, a reference to Walz’s previous role as a high school football coach.
Harris is enjoying a burst of attention, money and enthusiasm from Democrats since she took Biden’s place on the presidential ticket. Trump — who spent the first half of the summer gaining momentum — has had to retool for a new opponent and grown upset about Harris’s rise.
Trump campaign officials argued this week that the fundamentals of the race still favored the Republican, pointing to voters’ pessimism about the direction of the country and the economy under Biden and Harris.
They also expressed confidence about their paths to winning the electoral college. Those paths focus heavily on winning Pennsylvania, where Democrats and Republicans are both spending big. Trump lost Pennsylvania in 2020; now, campaign officials say, he could win the presidency by prevailing in Pennsylvania and potentially taking back just one other state he lost in 2020, Georgia.
Republicans were relieved this week when Harris didn’t make Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) her vice-presidential pick and opted instead for Walz, who has a more liberal record. But Democrats see Walz as someone with folksy, down-to-earth appeal to many voters, especially in the “Blue Wall” states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan that they have long viewed as critical.
Montana may not be in play in the presidential race, but it will be pivotal in the fight for Senate control. Tester is one of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents; Montana has grown politically redder since he was first elected to represent the state.
Tim Sheehy, the Republican nominee to challenge Tester, said he will join Trump on Friday evening at his Bozeman, Mont., rally at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse, an arena on the campus of Montana State University.
Yasmeen Abutaleb contributed to this report.
