Harris campaigns in Arizona, while Trump is in Montana

By Jeff Mason and Trevor Hunnicutt

GLENDALE, Arizona (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in Arizona on Friday, hoping her less-than-one-month-old bid for the White House can put Republican candidate Donald Trump on the back foot in the West.

The Democratic presidential candidate has been on a week-long tour after naming her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, with a focus on building excitement for her campaign in seven states that could tip the Nov. 5 election.

That tour brought her to the Phoenix area on Friday, where she was visiting with volunteers at a campaign office and speaking to voters.

While traveling, Harris won the endorsement of LULAC Adelante, the political action committee for the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organization. It was the group’s first-ever presidential endorsement.

Trump was in the West too, holding a rally in Bozeman, Montana, a state that Republicans have carried in every presidential race since 1996.

The state will host a competitive race this year that could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate in 2025.

Trump’s flight was reportedly diverted to a different Montana airport due to a mechanical issue.

“I just landed in a really beautiful place: Montana,” Trump said in a video from his plane posted on social media, which made no mention of a mechanical issue.

“I’m here to do some fundraisers and most importantly to support Tim Sheehy who’s running for the U.S. Senate and we think he’s going to do really well. We’re going to have a rally. And it’ll be a lot of fun.”

Sheehy will be facing Democratic Senator John Tester, who is seeking a fourth term.

CROWD SIZES

In Phoenix, a crowd estimated at more than 15,000 greeted Harris, including some pro-Palestinian demonstrators who interrupted the remarks. Harris has faced anger from liberal voters who disagree with her support for Israel in its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

“The president and I are working around the clock every day to get that ceasefire deal done and bring the hostages home,” Harris said in her remarks, adding: “So, I respect your voices, but we are here to now talk about the race in 2024.”

Earlier in the week when some protested during her rally in Michigan and interrupted her speech, she had said: “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”

Trump had on Thursday mocked the size of Harris’ campaign crowds, even though they have matched his of late.

He falsely compared the size of the gathering on Jan. 6, 2021 – the day his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol – to that who heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 in Washington.

“It’s not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything,” Walz quipped during a speech introducing Harris.

When the crowd there chanted, of Trump, “lock him up,” Walz discouraged them. “No, better than that, beat the hell out of him at the ballot box.”

Harris, responding to the same chant later, said: “Yeah, the courts will deal with that. We gonna win in November. We’re gonna win in November. We’ll handle that, too.” The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on the comment.

Pro-Trump crowds often chanted that his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, should be locked up, and Trump also called for her to be behind bars.

Democrats hope to take two Western states that are closely divided between Democratic and Republican voters in November: Nevada and Arizona, both of which Democrat Joe Biden carried narrowly over Trump in 2020.

Both are nearly a third Latino, a demographic group of key focus for both parties. Recent polls taken in both states point to an exceptionally close race.

Harris was due to head to Las Vegas, Nevada, on Saturday. The powerful Culinary Union Local 226, which represents casino and hospitality workers there, also endorsed her on Friday.

Trump showed new focus on another competitive state on Friday, Georgia.

His campaign placed $37.2 million in new television advertising, its biggest such purchase in a single day this election cycle, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks political advertising.

The ads will air in seven battleground states. Trump’s campaign is pouring the most advertising money into Georgia, spending $23.8 million in the Southern state where polls have tightened since Harris’ ascent.