Vice President Kamala Harris — this year’s Democratic pick for president — and her running mate, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz, visited Arizona last Friday for a campaign event amid this final stretch before the 2024 election. And while there, rally-goers started chanting “Lock him up!” in reference to Republican nominee Donald Trump.
The chant was heard during Walz’s speech and during Harris’ remarks coming immediately afterwards.
“Better yet, beat the hell out of him at the ballot box,” Walz said, drawing applause. “Beat the hell out of him at the ballot box.”
“Yeah, the courts will deal with that,” Harris said when the chants resumed during her speech. “We’re going to win in November. We’re going to win in November. We’ll handle that too.” The crowd applauded.
The two were appearing before a very large crowd that apparently hit 15,000 — which is actually larger than the margin by which President Joe Biden won in Arizona in the 2020 race. Before Biden, the southeastern state didn’t go to a Democrat in a presidential election since 1996, but after the 2020 results, Democrats saw further success in the state. Mark Kelly won a full term as Senator in 2022, defeating Republican candidate Blake Masters, and that same year, Arizonans made Democrats their governor and attorney general — both replacing Republicans.
Harris’ Arizona campaign stop was part of visits by her to a slew of battleground states across the country, starting with Pennsylvania last Tuesday — the day that she made her decision public to add Walz to the ticket.
Walz became known in his state in recent years for helping spearhead the implementation of a raft of progressive policy including universal free school lunches and gun reform. He is also a veteran and former Congressman.
Trump, meanwhile, still isn’t appearing on the campaign trail much at all beyond a rally last Friday held in Montana, though his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) is out there.
