Arizona elected officials and labor leaders gathered in Phoenix on Thursday to urge working-class voters to back Vice President Harris in the 2016 presidential election.
Dolores Huerta, a legendary labor leader, appeared at a west Phoenix union hall alongside Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, Phoenix Councilwoman Betty Guardado, and Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the granddaughter of labor organizer Cesar Chavez.
The Harris campaign told the hundreds of Arizonans who attended the event that, unlike Trump, the vice president will fight for working-class families.
“I’ve seen who she’s fighting for when she’s in the halls of power—she fights for families like ours,” explained Chavez Rodriguez.
Romero, Harris’ campaign surrogate, told participants at a packed union hall in west Phoenix that Harris will fight for working-class families.
“And the road to the White House runs through Arizona,” Romero added. “And the organizing that happens in Arizona happens because of labor, unions, and nonprofit organizations that are canvassing every single night.”
Romero’s message to voters is that Harris supports public education, Medicare, Social Security, and abortion rights.
Huerta spent much of her remarks criticizing former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential contender.
She said a second Trump presidency would be detrimental for Latinos in Arizona, noting his ambitions to establish a mass deportation program and the insulting remarks he made about Mexicans during his previous presidential campaign in 2015.
“On day one, he launched an attack on the Latino community,” Huerta said. “He attacked the Latino community right away.”
“Well, hey, Arizona, thank you for paying him back,” she remarked, referring to President Biden’s victory over Trump in Arizona in 2020.
