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PHOENIX (CN) — On the eve of the last day of in-person early voting in Arizona, Vice President Kamala Harris teamed up with norteño band Los Tigres del Norte to encourage voters to hit the polls.
“We are proud to be here in Arizona supporting Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz” Los Tigres accordion player Jorge Hernandez told the Halloween crowd “Make sure your friends and family have a plan to vote by Nov. 5 so we make our voices heard.”
Harris painted the election as a chance to step forward into a new version of the country.
“It is time for a new generation of leadership in America,” Harris said Thursday afternoon. “And I am ready to offer that leadership as the next president of the United States.”
She addressed the crowd after a 30-minute music set from the featured musicians.
Los Tigres performed for nearly 20,000 people at the Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater in Phoenix on Thursday, playing hit songs like “Somos Más Americanos” and singles from its Grammy-winning album “Gracias!… América… Sin Fronteras,” which translates to “Thank you… America… Without Borders.” They finished their performance chanting “Kamala” as they left the stage.
Los Tigres del Norte is famous for its political messaging regarding social injustices, the immigrant experience and the realities of the Mexican drug trade. The band has been censored both abroad and in its home country for its somewhat controversial topics. The city of Chihuahua fined the band in 2017 for playing a narcocorrido, which the city’s mayor said glorifies drug trafficking.
The state of Chihuahua fined the band in 2012 and temporarily banned it from performing its most well-known song, “La Reina del Sur,” which tells the story of a woman drug dealer in Mexico.
Thursday’s event was part of a series of concerts and rallies across America aiming to mobilize young and nontraditional voters. Harris shared the stage with rock band Mumford and Sons and pop singer Remi Wolf on Wednesday in Madison, Wisconsin.
Harris followed up Los Tigres’ performance by emphasizing her plan for the White House.
“If he wins, Donald Trump will walk in with an enemies list. If I win, on day one, I’ll walk in with a to-do list,” Harris said. “On top of that list is bringing down your cost of living.”
Harris vowed to give tax cuts to more than 100 million middle-class Americans and enact the first-ever federal ban on corporate price gouging on groceries.
Continuing a theme across her rallies, Harris spent most of the time contrasting herself with Trump.
“As president, I pledge to you to seek common ground and common sense solutions to the challenges you face,” she said. “I pledge to you to listen to people who disagree with me. Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table. Because that’s how democracy works. And that’s how real leaders work.”
Harris vowed to sign a bill federally protecting abortion rights and to work to end the violence in Gaza and release hostages on both sides, responding to protesters in the crowd accusing the vice president of complicity in the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians.
“We all want this war to end,” she said.
Before the headliners took the stage, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego welcomed “Fellow Democrats, independents and some smart Republicans” to the amphitheater.
Gallego, noting that Thursday was also Halloween, warned against what she characterized as a dark road ahead.
“Tonight we will see a lot of spooky costumes, but we know there’s nothing more scary than four more years of Donald Trump,” she said.
“We are not going back,” she continued, reciting the mantra repeated often at Harris’ rallies. The crowd chanted the phrase in response.
Gallego praised the Biden-Harris administration for its passage of the CHIPS and Science Act, to which she attributed more than 13,000 new manufacturing jobs and 42,000 new construction jobs in Arizona.
“So many of those are union jobs,” she celebrated.
Other speakers, including Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs and U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, urged voters to take action to protect reproductive rights under attack from Republicans across the nation.
“Everything we care about is on the line this November,” Hobbs said.
Thursday was Harris’ eighth visit to the Grand Canyon state.
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