President Donald J. Trump will be visiting Arizona on Friday according to an announcement from Turning Point Action. Trump will be visiting the border with Mexico on Thursday and holding a rally at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale on Friday. After Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz tread water in Chicago at the DNC with radical leftists breaking down barricades, their opponent, resurgent in the polls, will be touching down in the Arizona battleground and playing to a 20,000 seat arena.
Turning Point Action touted the visit on their website writing, “In his first scheduled rally following the conclusion of the DNC in Chicago; the rally will provide President Trump, Turning Point PAC and Turning Point Action speakers their first opportunity to react to updates and news from the convention, as well as take direct aim at Kamala Harris’ economic proposals that have been widely-criticized by mainstream, and even left-leaning news media as ‘communist’ policies that have ‘failed’ in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, and Argentina.
Harris and Walz rallied in the same arena on August 9. Doubtlessly both campaigns will seek to compare audience sizes and enthusiasm. The Harris event allegedly drew a crowd of 15,000 or 75% occupancy according to the outlet. Based on a study from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the event on Friday will be telling with a unique opportunity for an apples to apples comparison. On average in 2024, Trump events have drawn about 5,000 attendees cross 28 rallies so far. Biden, before dropping out, only drew about 1,300 average across the four rallies he held. Meanwhile Harris and Walz have capitalized on post-Biden enthusiasm and played exclusively to larger venues with an average across the six venues so far of about 13,400 attendees.
Trump last played in Arizona to a packed house at the Phoenix Dream City Church, and the 3,000 seat venue was easily overwhelmed by the response. Trump’s rallies routinely have crowd responses that pack houses and overrun venue capacities.
The Trump campaign said in a press release,
“President Donald Trump and JD Vance are heartbroken to see the path of death and destruction left behind by Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Hard-working Arizona families are paying a steep price for Kamala’s dangerously liberal agenda that is devastating American cities with skyrocketing costs and crime ridden streets.
Kamala’s open border policies are fueling a drug crisis in the state. In Maricopa County, more than three people die every day on average due to fentanyl. Over half of the total fentanyl pills entering the country originate from the Arizona border. Fentanyl has overtaken meth as the deadliest drug in Arizona. Enough Fentanyl was seized last year to kill every Arizonan 14 times over.
President Donald Trump and JD Vance will fight to ease the financial pressures placed on households and re-establish law and order in Arizona! We can Make America Great Again by tackling lawlessness head-on, ceasing the endless flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border, and reversing the detrimental effects of inflation by restoring people’s wealth.“
Republican Senate nominee Kari Lake is expected to speak at the rally as well according to her post to X on Monday.
Since President Joe Biden stood down from the 2024 election, Arizona’s battleground status was entrenched with Harris enjoying a bump from 2 to 5 percent in polls according to RealClearPolling. However, in the past two weeks the race has narrowed to within a single percentage point per the RCP average. Prior to Biden’s withdrawal, Trump enjoyed a firm 5-6 point advantage over the former Democrat incumbent that only grew as concerns over Biden’s viability grew.
In Glendale the event’s doors are set to open at 11:00 a.m. and President Trump is expected to deliver his remarks at 4:00 p.m., although other speakers will be presenting starting at 2 p.m.
Arizona finalized its Presidential Preference Election (PPE) list of candidates on Monday.
There will be seven Democratic candidates and nine Republican candidates on the PPE ballots.
The seven Democratic candidates are Minnesota businessman Frankie Lozada, Nevada businessman Gabriel Cornejo, author Marianne Williamson, Maryland venture capitalist Jason Palmer, Oklahoma resident Stephen Lyons, President Joe Biden, and Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips.
The nine Republican candidates are former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida businessman David Stuckenberg, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former President Donald Trump, Texas businessman Ryan Binkley, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The PPE allows certain voters to select their presidential candidate for the 2024 General Election. Each party will then finalize their winner at their national convention.
Only voters registered with participating parties — Democratic or Republican — may vote in the PPE. The deadline for registering with a party is Feb. 20, 2024. Independent voters who desire to vote in a party’s PPE may register with that party prior to the deadline, then revert to Independent after the deadline.
The Democratic National Committee will host its national convention in Chicago, Illinois from Aug. 19 to 22, 2024. The Republican National Committee will host its national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from July 15 to 18, 2024.
The latest cumulative polling data reflects Trump leading at 63 percent, with DeSantis at a far second of 12 percent, followed by Haley at 10 percent, Ramaswamy at four percent, Christie at three percent, and Hutchinson at less than one percent.
The latest polls from last month and this month focused in Arizona reflected Trump leading Biden anywhere from several points to 10 points. By comparison, Biden leads by eight points over Haley and seven points over DeSantis.
Averages of polling data reflect Trump leading Arizona by about five percent, and the nation by over two percent.
Biden currently has a cumulative approval rating of about 39 percent, and an over 55 percent disapproval rating. Trump has a cumulative approval rating of 42 percent, and an over 53 percent disapproval rating.
For more information on the PPE, please visit Arizona Clean Elections. The PPE is scheduled for March 19, 2024.
The general election will take place on Nov. 5, 2024.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The Democratic Party’s “go-to lawyer,” Marc Elias, promised he would sue Arizona over its election integrity laws passed recently by the state legislature if Governor Doug Ducey signs them into law. Elias was sued by former President Donald Trump on Thursday for his role in the Russigate hoax.
Elias has an expansive and varied portfolio of nearly 30 years among Democrats and corporate capitalists like the major Big Tech companies Facebook and Google. He played an integral role in Hillary Clinton’s Russiagate hoax. He hired intelligence firm Fusion-GPS for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Fusion-GPS then obtained the debunked dossier from former British spy Christopher Steele, dubbed the “Steele dossier,” who relied on a Russian analyst living in Virginia, Igor Danchenko, for the majority of its information.
As AZ Free News reported earlier this month, Elias already submitted a motion to intervene in a case challenging the constitutionality of Arizona’s no-excuse mail-in voting system.
Elias has filed suit in numerous states over their new election integrity laws. He characterized Arizona’s most recent legislation passed, HB2492 requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, as voter suppression and disenfranchisement. The bill mainly impacts those who register using federal forms, which don’t require proof of citizenship.
Other laws that Elias has watched under threat of lawsuit include: HB2237, HB2238, HB2170, and HB2243, which recently passed their Senate committees, and SB1058, which hasn’t been passed by the Senate yet.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.