Jill Biden defended Kamala Harris against ‘lies’ being told about her during an Arizona campaign swing as a new poll shows Donald Trump leading in the critical battleground state.
Trump is leading 51% to Harris’ 46% in the state a New York Times/Sienna poll found.
Arizona is one of the most-contested battlegrounds of the 2024 election. Both the Harris and Trump campaigns are spending considerable resources here.
And it’s where Jill Biden made her first ever campaign stop for Kamala Harris, touting her candidacy in two-days worth of events.
The first lady used her time on the campaign trail to slam Donald Trump for supporting 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 tackled ‘lies’ about Harris, who has been the subject of conspiracy theories and false claims from Trump.
‘You’re probably already hearing all sorts of lies about Kamala,’ she told an event in Yuma on Friday night. She went on to describe Harris’ work as California attorney general, senator and vice president.
Trump has falsely accused Harris of lying about working at McDonalds as a teenager and has misrepresented the role she played in the Biden administration’s work on border security.
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EXCLUSIVE
What Jill Biden said to Kamala Harris after Joe dropped out is revealed for the first time
Jill Biden painted a more compassionate picture of the Democratic presidential nominee, talking about her work in fighting crime as an attorney general and how she helped a friend in high school who lived in an abuse situation.
‘That’s the Kamala Harris I know – a quick, tough, compassionate, decisive leader, and that’s the kind of President you deserve Arizona,’ she said.
And Biden repeatedly attacked Trump for his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
‘Donald Trump’s abortion ban has taken away that ability for women to make their own health care decisions,’ she said.
‘No one has to abandon their faith or their deeply held beliefs to agree that the government should not be telling women what to do with their bodies,’ she said to great applause.
Reproductive rights has proven a winning issue for Democrats, who used it to rally their base to the voting booth in the 2022 midterm elections.
Much of the first lady’s five-day, five-state campaign swing will focus on rally voters on this issue.
She also repeated some lines about Trump she used when she campaigned for President Biden, switching them to work for Harris.
‘As President, Kamala Harris is going to fight for you. Donald Trump still wakes up every day thinking about one person: himself,’ she said.
‘Another Donald Trump presidency would lead to more chaos, more greed, more division. He still wants to lower taxes for rich guys like him, while costs are going up for everyone else.’
A New York Times/Siena poll showed Donald Trump leading by six points in Arizona over Kamala Harris – 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 only won the state by 10,457 votes in the 2020 contest.
In Phoenix on Saturday morning, she spoke to a group of educators going out to canvass for 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? I mean, thank God I did,’ she said.
She noted 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 3000 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 10 weeks since President Biden exited the 2024 campaign.
At the time, the first lady felt the sting of ‘betrayal’ from Democrats who privately offered support for her husband – and then publicly called for him to exit the presidential race, those close to her told DailyMail.com.
Jill Biden was at Joe Biden’s side in Wilmington, Delaware, on that fateful day he made his decision and even got on the phone with Harris to declare her support for the vice president.
‘We love you,’ she told Harris, a source familiar with the conversation said. She also called Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff, who she is close to.
Now, she is taking her support public with a high-profile campaign swing for Harris.
In addition to stops out West in Arizona and Nevada she’ll target the ‘blue wall’ states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – three states the party sees as essential for Harris’ victory.
It’s 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 tension between the first lady and Vice President Harris.
Before President Biden stepped down, Jill Biden was a high-profile Democratic surrogate both for her husband and other members of the party. In the 2022 midterm election, more congressional and Senate candidates wanted her at their rallies than they wanted the president.
Jill Biden had been an enthusatic campaigner for her husband, regularly going out to tout his accomplishments before voters. She led the Women for Biden-Harris’ effort that had her traveling to battleground states where she praised the president and criticized Trump.
The first lady, who supported the president when he was pushing back against party leaders to stay in the contest, faded from the campaign spotlight after he stepped down.
She did speak at the Democratic National Convention and formally endorsed Harris but has otherwise concentrated on Joining Forces, women’s health and her other initiatives as first lady.
President Joe Biden gives wife Jill Biden a kiss after he gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in August
Early in the administration Jill Biden was reported to be angry at Kamala Harris over an incident in the 2020 primary debates
Early in the Biden administration there were reports of hard feelings between Jill Biden – who is known to hold a grudge – and Harris.
Biden was upset at Harris for an attack line in one of the early primary debates, targeting Joe Biden for his record on school busing in the 1960s as part of desegregation efforts.
But those feelings – along with any lingering feelings of resentment about her husband’s treatment by party leaders – appear to have been set aside for the greater goal of winning the election.
The first lady kicked off her campaign swing with a two-stop in Arizona, campaigning in Yuma and Phoenix.
She’ll be in Carson City and Reno, Nevada, on Sunday while she’ll spend Monday in the Detroit suburbs and in Madison, Wisconsin.
Her trip will wrap up on Tuesday with a stop in her hometown of Philadelphia.