JB Pritzker, while still supposedly being Governor of Illinois, is more concerned about Arizona and Kamala Harris’ chances of taking that swing state in the November presidential election. He’s beating the abortion drum and claiming the vice president is winning in Arizona.
His statements have the distinct tone of whistling past the graveyard.
“She’s going to win in Arizona. And when she wins in Arizona, that, frankly, torpedoes the entire Trump campaign.”@GovPritzker joins @jaketapper from battleground Arizona, where he is stumping for Kamala Harris’ campaign. pic.twitter.com/FCMwK8Izp8
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) September 29, 2024
In this video, Jake Tapper points out the strength Trump has among voters on the economy and asks about that issue:
…the economy remains a top concern for voters in that state, and they prefer Donald Trump over Kamala Harris on that issue by 17 percentage points. Are you worried that support for abortion rights in Arizona will not translate to support for Harris?
Pritzker replies:
…no one is really a single-issue voter, right? They’ve got a number of things they go into the ballot box thinking about before they pull the lever for one candidate. Abortion rights is going to be a very important one, I helped to get that on the ballot here, in Arizona, through Think Big America.
Governor Pritzker goes on to describe the many and wondrous economic plans of the Harris/Walz ticket – without noting that we have been suffering under those policies for almost four years now. Tim Walz was right about that one thing – we can’t afford four more years of this.
But the Governor maintains that Kamala Harris will win Arizona. That doesn’t look likely. Donald Trump is leading Kamala Harris by 2.0 percent in the RealClearPolitics average for that state, and the trend looks to be moving Trump’s way, although the USA Today/Suffolk poll that has him up by 6 points appears to be an outlier. But then, again, the polls for both the 2016 and 2020 cycles tended to underestimate Trump’s support.
See Related: New Emerson Swing-State Poll Puts Trump in the White House
CBS Has Bad News for Kamala Harris in Nevada As They Canvas Voters, Find Out ‘Really Excited About Trump’
A Marist poll released Thursday presents an interesting picture of what issues matter to Arizonans this year:
When thinking about voting in November, the following issues are top of mind for Arizona residents:
- Preserving democracy is the top voting issue for 27% of Arizona residents.
- Inflation follows with 26%.
- Immigration is the top issue for 21% of residents statewide.
- Abortion is the motivating issue for 14% of Arizona adults.
- Health care (5%), crime (3%), and the war in the Middle East (3%) follow.
Abortion is down the list a ways. It’s there – in fourth place, behind “preserving democracy,” a notion so vague so that it could mean almost anything, but more to the point, inflation and immigration are both well above abortion as a key issue – and those issues are Trump’s strongest.
Unless something dramatic happens in the next few weeks, the odds are against Kamala Harris winning Arizona. Oh, there have been greater upsets in the past, but this isn’t looking like it’s going to be one of those. The data all favors Trump, Arizona’s history favors Trump, and that’s where the smart money should be right now.
JB Pritzker is propagandizing, not predicting.
