Jill Biden defended Kamala Harris against ‘lies’ told about her during a campaign swing in Arizona, as a new poll shows Donald Trump leading in the critical battleground state.
Trump leads 51% to Harris’ 46% in the state, according to a New York Times/Sienna poll.
Arizona is one of the most contentious battlegrounds of the 2024 elections, with both the Harris and Trump campaigns devoting significant resources to it.
And it’s where Jill Biden made her first-ever campaign stop for Kamala Harris, touting her candidacy in two days of events.
The first lady used her time on the campaign trail to criticize Donald Trump for his support of abortion bans and tax breaks for corporations, describing the former president as greedy and selfish.
Jill Biden made her first campaign stop for Kamala Harris, rallying voters in Arizona
She also addressed “lies” about Harris, who has been the subject of conspiracy theories and false claims from Trump.
“You’re probably hearing all kinds of lies about Kamala,” she said Friday evening at an event in Yuma. She then described Harris’ work as attorney general, senator and vice president of California.
Trump has falsely accused Harris of lying about her work at McDonalds as a teenager and misrepresented the role she played in the Biden administration’s work on border security.
Jill Biden painted a more compassionate picture of the Democratic presidential nominee as she talked about her work fighting crime as attorney general and how she helped a high school friend who was living in an abusive situation.
“That’s the Kamala Harris I know: a fast, tough, compassionate, decisive leader, and that’s the kind of president you Arizona deserves,” she said.
And Biden repeatedly attacked Trump for his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade undo.
“Donald Trump’s abortion ban has deprived women of the ability to make their own health care decisions,” she said.
“No one has to give up their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government should not tell women what to do with their bodies,” she said to loud applause.
Reproductive rights have proven to be a winning issue for Democrats, who used them to get their base behind the ballot box in the 2022 midterm elections.
Much of the First Lady’s five-day, five-state campaign will focus on rallying voters on the issue.
She also repeated some lines about Trump that she used while campaigning for President Biden, switching them up to work for Harris.
“As president, Kamala Harris will fight for you. Donald Trump still wakes up every day and thinks about one person: himself,” she said.
“A new Donald Trump presidency would lead to more chaos, more greed and more division. He still wants to cut taxes for rich people like him while raising costs for everyone else.”
A New York Times/Siena poll showed Donald Trump six points ahead of Kamala Harris in Arizona – the state is hotly contested in the 2024 presidential election
In addition to the first lady, the Harris campaign has sent running mate Tim Walz and second gentleman Doug Emhoff to Arizona. Harris will also be in the state.
Early voting has begun in Arizona and the first lady reminded people that President Biden won the state in 2020 by just 10,457 votes.
On Saturday morning in Phoenix, she spoke to a group of teachers who went out to collect votes, and she reminded them that every vote counts.
“You know, the first time I voted, I almost didn’t vote for my future husband. It’s true. Can you imagine if I hadn’t done that? I mean, thank God I did that,” she said.
She commented she was a student at the University of Delaware at the time and Joe Biden was running for senator.
“Actually, Joe won that election by only 3,000 votes, so it could have easily gone the other way,” she said.
This is Jill Biden’s fourth time in Arizona this year, but her first appearance for Kamala Harris.
It’s been about ten weeks since President Biden left the 2024 campaign.
At the time, the first lady felt the sting of ‘treason’ Democrats who privately offered her husband support — and then publicly called for him to quit the presidential race, those close to her told DailyMail.com.
Jill Biden stood by Joe Biden’s side in Wilmington, Delawareon that fateful day, he made his decision and even called Harris to express her support for the vice president.
“We love you,” she told Harris, a source familiar with the conversation said. She also called Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff, with whom she is close.
Now she’s making her support public with a high-profile campaign for Harris.
In addition to stops out west in Arizona and Nevada, she will focus on the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – three states the party sees as crucial to Harris’ victory.
It marks Jill Biden’s first return to the campaign trail since husband Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July and comes after reports of early tensions between the first lady and Vice President Harris.
Before President Biden left office, Jill Biden was a high-profile Democratic surrogate for both her husband and other members of the party. In the 2022 midterm elections, more congressional and Senate candidates wanted her at their rallies than the president.
Jill Biden was an enthusiastic campaigner for her husband and regularly went out to tout his achievements to voters. She led the Women for Biden-Harris effort, which saw her travel to battleground states where she praised the president and criticized Trump.
The first lady, who supported the president as he resisted party leaders to stay in the fight, disappeared from the campaign spotlight after he resigned.
She spoke at the Democratic National Convention and formally endorsed Harris, but otherwise focused on joining forces, women’s health and her other initiatives as first lady.
President Joe Biden gives wife Jill Biden a kiss after delivering the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in August
Early in the administration, it was reported that Jill Biden was angry with Kamala Harris over an incident during the 2020 primaries
Early in the Biden administration, there were reports of hard feelings between Jill Biden — who is known to harbor grudges — and Harris.
Biden was angry at Harris for a line of attack in one of the early primary debates, targeting Joe Biden for his record on school busing in the 1960s as part of the desegregation effort.
But those feelings — along with any lingering resentment over her husband’s treatment by party leaders — seem to have been set aside for the greater goal of winning the election.
The first lady started her campaign swing with a two-stop in Arizona and campaigned in Yuma and Phoenix.
She will be in Carson City and Reno, Nevada on Sunday, while she will spend Monday in suburban Detroit and in Madison, Wisconsin.
Her trip ends Tuesday with a stop in her hometown of Philadelphia.