(CNN) – Vice President Kamala Harris made an aggressive move to reduce Donald Trump’s lead in immigration polls, traveling to the southern border for the first time as a Democratic candidate for the US presidency on Friday to lay out her plans to address what described as a problem that has languished for decades.
Harris, during her trip to the key state of Arizona, lashed out at Trump for his role earlier this year in sinking a border security bill that was the product of months of bipartisan negotiations.
It was one of Harris’ most targeted policy speeches since she became the Democratic nominee, attempting to use her past as California attorney general to show she has what it takes to attack Trump on his signature campaign issue.
“It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades. He was endorsed by the Border Patrol union. And it should be in effect today, producing results in real time, right now, for our country,” he said at a rally in Douglas, a city on the US-Mexico border.
“But Donald Trump sunk it. “He picked up the phone and called some friends in Congress and said, ‘Stop the bill,’” he said. “He prefers to campaign on a problem instead of solving it. And the American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games and his personal political future.”
The former president responded to Harris’ trip to the border by ramping up his own rhetoric on immigration. Highlighting violent crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, Trump told a crowd in Walker, Michigan, that Harris “delivered these horrors.”
“He unleashed these atrocities, and the blood is on his hands at a level that probably no one has seen in this country,” he said.
Trump also falsely accused Democrats again of letting people into the country illegally because “they want the votes.” People without U.S. citizenship cannot vote in U.S. elections, a reality ignored by Trump, who for years has lied about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
The Democratic offensive on immigration and border security is an attempt to reduce one of Trump’s clearest political advantages. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS and published this week found that 49% of likely voters trust the former president to handle immigration, while 35% trust Harris to do so.
On Friday, Harris also laid out proposals to strengthen restrictions that have largely prevented migrants from seeking asylum in the United States. And he said he would seek paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.
“They are Americans in every way. But they still do not have an earned path to citizenship. And this problem has remained unsolved until now for decades,” Harris said.
The battle over immigration and border security comes at a rare time at this point in a presidential race in which attention has shifted away from candidates in both parties.
Dozens of people died when Hurricane Helene swept across the southeastern US, causing massive flooding. Meanwhile, Israel escalated its battle with Hezbollah with an attack on a building in Lebanon that it said stored missiles.
And vice presidential candidates from both parties are preparing to take center stage next week, when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance face off in their only debate Tuesday night.
With less than six weeks until Election Day, the 2024 presidential map remains scrambled, with seven states of uncertain electoral trend coming into focus.
A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS on Friday showed Harris with a comfortable lead to a single electoral college vote in Nebraska that could have far-reaching implications.
Nebraska awards one electoral college vote to the winner of each congressional district. The Omaha-based 2nd District poll found Harris leading in the state’s most liberal region, with 53% support to Trump’s 42%.
That single electoral college vote could be critical if Harris sweeps the “blue wall” of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but loses the four Sun Belt battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. That could leave her with 269 electoral college votes, and one more from Nebraska could give her the 270 needed to win the White House.
Another CNN poll conducted by SSRS released Friday found the two candidates tied in North Carolina at 48% each. Trump faces limited paths to victory if he fails to hold North Carolina, the state where he won his narrowest margin of victory in 2020, in his favor. And the CNN poll found that the scandal-plagued Republican candidate for governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, is far behind his Democratic rival, as the party faces questions about whether Robinson could hurt the GOP’s overall ticket there in November.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee on Friday held a press call ahead of Harris’ visit to Arizona with three mothers of people killed by undocumented immigrants or accidental fentanyl overdoses, who blamed the vice president for what they described as a lack of responsibility in border security.
“This is not a safe time for Americans. Kamala Harris has not acknowledged my daughter’s death,” said Patty Morin, mother of Rachel Morin, who was raped and murdered by a 23-year-old citizen of El Salvador. Rachel Morin was a mother of five children.
“You are late to the table on this matter. At any moment, she could do something,” said Anne Fundner, a Southern California mother whose 15-year-old son, Weston, died of a fentanyl overdose.
The call was an effort to sow doubt about Harris’ proposals to address border security, as Trump argues that she and President Joe Biden have had four years to do so and have failed.
After a dramatic drop, border crossings are currently at their lowest level since 2020. US officials have highlighted consecutive months of low border crossings, citing recent executive actions to curb access to asylum at the southern border.
Republicans have labeled Harris the Biden administration’s “border czar,” overstating the president’s more limited allocation in 2021 for Harris to address the root causes of immigration in Central America.
On Friday, Harris attempted to leverage another part of her resume: her time as California attorney general. He highlighted efforts to prosecute members of transnational criminal organizations, including traveling to Mexico City with other attorneys general to share intelligence on gangs and cartels.
“Stopping transnational criminal organizations and strengthening our border is not new to me, and it is a long-standing priority of mine,” he said. “I have done that work, and I will continue to treat it as a priority.”
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Ali Main, Ariel Edwards-Levy and Kit Maher contributed to this report.
