At a campaign event in Arizona, GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake criticized Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, labeling them as threats to border security.
Lake highlighted Harris’s absence from the southern border and featured parents of fentanyl crisis victims and Jade Gillon, a former Democratic voter who expressed her support for Trump.
Gillon, an African American, criticized the Democratic Party for exploiting racial trauma for votes and argued that economic struggles have worsened under the Biden administration compared to Trump’s presidency.
“My name is Jade. I am a former Democrat. Unlike Kamala Harris, I’m an actual real-life black woman. I’m a former Democrat who is currently registered Republican,” Gillon said. “I’m tired of the Democrats using the generational trauma of my people to garner votes. They invoke fear, they tell me I’m oppressed, they tell me I’m less than, they tell me I’m not good enough, and they tell me that my white brothers and sisters in Christ are my enemy. They are not.”
“The enemy is telling me that, don’t worry that I can’t pay my bills and I’m working six days a week this week and I’m tired. And I went to school and I have a career. I’m doing worse under this administration than in Donald Trump’s administration, but I’m told to be afraid of a man who made my life better?”
“How does that work? Make it make sense,” Gillon asked. “During COVID, I knew more of my white guy friends that lost their jobs than me and my black girlfriends. We are the same in this country. All these Americans want the same thing.”
Gillon called for a shift away from fear-based politics and urged attendees to vote for Trump to restore prosperity.
“We want safety. We want prosperity. We want peace. And the Democrats keep going back and look, check it out, right? I honor my ancestors and the people who fought for us to be in this room here today. No one is discounting what my people went through,” she said.
“So let’s move past this. Let’s vote for Donald Trump so we can all be prosperous again. Let’s get out of this fear, this rage, and this anger, because it comes from the devil.”
“I don’t owe the Democrats anything. They owe me. They’re to serve us. They’re public servants. Stop putting them on a pedestal.”
The rally also included remarks from U.S. Representatives Eli Crane and Andy Biggs, who condemned Lake’s Democratic opponent, Ruben Gallego.
