Former President Donald Trump appeared at a campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona, to shore up his campaign, which continues to struggle with a realignment nearly two months after Harris replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Watch the event in the player above.
Trump said Thursday that as president he would seek to eliminate taxes on overtime wages, his latest appeal to the working-class voters he is counting on to put him back in the White House. Trump has also promised to eliminate taxes on tips and benefits.
Unless the proposals are accompanied by significant spending cuts, they would significantly reduce government revenues and increase the budget deficit.
“It’s time for working men and women to finally get a break,” Trump said. Harris has announced her own proposal to eliminate taxation on tips.
READ MORE: Eliminating the tip tax sounds good, but experts say it doesn’t solve the real problem
Arizona is one state where the presidential race could be influenced at least in part by the bottom-ballot race. Kari Lake, a prominent Republican voter who lost her gubernatorial race in 2020, is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Kyrsten Sinema.
Lake is an example of the state party’s shift to the right in the Trump era. Her opponent is Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who has led in several recent polls but narrowly missed in another.
Republicans have won nearly every presidential election in Arizona since World War II, but Biden narrowly won in 2020.
The rise of Democrats in Arizona can be attributed to the arrival of immigrants from Democratic states and a political realignment that saw suburban voters, particularly college-educated women, turn away from Republicans.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate, held a rally in the state on Tuesday ahead of the debate, and Democrats campaigned together there last month.
In Arizona, Republicans still outnumber Democrats, but a third of voters are independent. Ohio Senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, appeared last week in a heavily Republican area of the Phoenix metropolitan area with Charlie Kirk, the founder of an influential conservative youth group.
Trump was last in Arizona two weeks ago to attend a press conference at the US-Mexico border. There he launched one of his most effective attacks on Harris over the high number of people crossing the border to seek asylum. He then held a rally at a former hockey arena near Phoenix.
Both candidates will be on the road in the coming days. Trump will travel to Los Angeles for a fundraiser on Thursday evening, and he plans to speak to the media on Friday morning before raising more money in the Bay Area and traveling to Las Vegas for another rally.
Meanwhile, Harris will travel to Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania on Friday.
Cooper reported from Phoenix and Robertson from Raleigh, North Carolina.
