Donald Trump Jr. addresses the crowd in Gilbert fours days before Election Day. (Photo by Allyson Hoskins/Cronkite News)
GILBERT – Donald Trump Jr. took Republican supporters to the water on Friday, urging them to vote as he stood beneath the iconic Gilbert Water Tower.
Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are in a tug of war over voters in Arizona, a state that has voted for a Democrat for president only once since 1948.
“We have been able to get out there, we have been able to meet these incredible people who have that hope in their eye that we can get someone in the White House who can break this up,” Trump Jr. said to about 100 in his second Arizona stop in little more than a week.
Terryn Barker, a Trump supporter from Laveen, said there is no way Arizona will swing blue.
“I don’t think it’s a battleground state,” she said, “I think when the polls come out, he’s going to be leading in a lot of states.”
The water tower is the center of this southeast Valley town, once considered one of the fastest growing communities in the country.
“Let’s keep fighting, we’re going to win on Tuesday and it’s because of you,” Trump Jr. said.
Trump and Clinton, along with their surrogates, have alternated visits to Arizona in the waning days of the election cycle.
Trump visited the Valley on Oct. 29 – his seventh trip to Arizona, and Clinton came to the Valley on Wednesday, her first trip to the state since winning the nomination. Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine held two rallies in the state on Thursday.
Earlier this month, former Democratic presidential candidate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s daughter Chelsea Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama urged Arizona voters to choose Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump Jr. and his father had back-to-back speeches in Arizona on Friday and Saturday.
Sanders is expected to be in the Phoenix area on Sunday.