TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — U.S. Senator Mark Kelly made an appearance on the University of Arizona Mall Tuesday, Oct. 15, in an effort to encourage U of A students to vote early.

Kelly is campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris, Governor Tim Walz, and Democrats down the ballot.

Senator Mark Kelly was on campus at the University of Arizona on Tuesday, talking with a group of students about their ability to sway the election to help the Harris Walz campaign win.

“Who gets elected president should matter a lot more to you than it does to me,” he said during a speech to them.

Students like Rahel Hehn were at the event where Kelly encouraged them to vote early.

“You can’t sit there and complain and be upset about a world where you can step in and make a difference,” Hehn said.

Other students like Belicia Lynch were also at the event with signs showing their support for the Harris Walz campaign.

“To see everybody connect and prepare for an election that could possibly change our lives, I thought it was very important,” Lynch said.

Kelly said young voters are making decisions about the next president who will control issues that matter most to them like climate change, housing costs, jobs that pay well, and abortion rights.

“They’re going to have to deal with the decisions that this president, this next president makes for longer than I will,” Kelly said.

Kelly said young voters can help get out the vote by volunteering for the Harris Walz campaign by making phone calls and going door-to-door.

“For a young voter, the consequences of this election is even higher,” he said.

A study done by Arizona State University said two out of three Gen Z registered voters in Arizona say they will vote in this election and almost half of them are independent.

“I helped a friend register to vote. She’s 19. She had never registered to vote and that made me really proud just to see that people my age are willing to,” Hehn said.

Getting out the vote, Kelly said, can make a difference in Arizona where one candidate might only win by thousands of votes.

“It can feel like our vote doesn’t matter, or that everyone is looking at us to make a difference but wouldn’t you rather be part of the difference than the person who stood by and did nothing?” Hehn said.

The U of A said students are going to be able to vote early in the Student Union Memorial Center’s Santa Cruz room from October 28 to November first.

Meanwhile, an event held today in Tucson at a local restaurant by “Latinos for Trump” encouraged Donald Trump’s plan to have no sales tax on tips.

They were there to offer voters information on propositions and remind voters of important dates to vote.

Former President Trump has offered a plan for series of tax breaks over the last several months including tipped and hourly workers, social security recipients, and now car buyers who have experienced sticker shock, as well as Americans who live and vote abroad.

Former Congressman from New York Lee Zeldin was at the event was at the event to support Trump’s plan.

“President Trump’s proposal for no tax on tips has been outstanding from all across the country and there are a lot of people who connect with it, they want more of their hard earned money And at a time like this, where so many people struggling to make ends meet, this is something that allows you to make a little bit easier to afford to get by,” Zeldin said.

Trump has not stated whether his proposal would exempt tips solely from federal income tax, or whether it would also exempt tips from payroll tax which is the federal tax used to fund medicare and social security.

As it stands, the senate bill only includes an exemption for income tax.

WATCH SEN. KELLY ON CAMPUS:

Full video: Sen. Mark Kelly campaigns on

Arizona is a swing state. So why is former President Donald Trump handily beating Vice President Kamala Harris in recent polls of Arizona voters? 

After decades as a perennial red state, consistently voting for Republicans, Arizona turned purple in 2018, electing Kyrsten Sinema as its first Democratic U.S. senator in 30 years. Then in 2020, the state elected Democrat Mark Kelly to the Senate and went for Joe Biden over Trump by just over 10,000 votes — the first time a majority of Arizonans voted for a Democrat for president since Bill Clinton in 1996 (Harry Truman was the last Democrat to win Arizona before Clinton, back in 1948). Most recently, in 2022, Democrats took the majority of statewide offices, including governor, secretary of state and attorney general. 

But a New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll conducted this month showed the former president up by a full 6 percentage points (with a margin of error of 4 points). Is the state swinging back to deep red? Probably not, but it’s complicated.

Arizona’s Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters, dropping from 1.38 million in 2020 to 1.19 million in 2024. Republicans dropped, too, from 1.5 million to 1.45 million in 2024, but the much larger drop in Democratic voters is glaring, especially in a state now led by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. 

Arizona’s unaffiliated voters have always been a large voting bloc, but that group is growing. In Maricopa County — the most populous county in the state and the fourth-largest in the country — Democrats voters fell from 814,000 to 692,000 in 2024. Biden won Republican-heavy Maricopa County in 2020, but Republicans’ voter advantage is much larger today.

Arizona is also missing strong statewide leadership despite having a Democratic governor. Hobbs is missing in action when it comes to the presidential and Senate races. She has not publicly appeared with Harris or her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — despite numerous Arizona visits. Other swing-state governors, like Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan and Roy Cooper in North Carolina, are pulling out all the stops for the Democratic ticket, but Hobbs and her team are fumbling what should be a tactical advantage for Harris in Arizona.

Arizona has the fourth-largest Hispanic population in the country, making up one-third of the state’s population. Polls show Harris receiving much less support from this vital voting bloc than Biden did four years ago.

Border security and illegal immigration are top issues nationwide, but Arizona is the only swing state where they are truly front and center. The recent one-hour Senate debate between Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake included no less than 30 minutes on immigration and border security issues. 

Arizona also has an initiative on the ballot this year that purports to give law enforcement expanded powers to arrest immigrants who entered the country illegally. The latest polls show that ballot initiative favored by about 60% of Arizonans. The Biden/Harris administration is seen by most Arizonans, including Democratic politicians, as failing Arizona border towns and counties that are often overwhelmed with asylum-seekers and those who crossed the border illegally. These issues are personal to many Arizonans.

Arizona has a strong MAGA contingent, including some of the most extreme members of Congress in Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar and Eli Crane. It is the home of the money-raising MAGA activist group Turning Point USA. And yet, despite this loud minority contingent, every Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for statewide office lost in 2022, while Republicans who did not go all in on Trump won their races for treasurer, superintendent of public instruction and Corporation Commission. Lake lost the governor’s race in 2020 (although she still calls herself Arizona’s rightful governor and has pending election lawsuits to this day) and is greatly underperforming Trump in her Senate race. 

That’s why all hope is not lost for Harris’ winning Arizona in 2024 — the state is truly purple. But she must overcome these significant headwinds if she wants to be only the fourth Democrat to win Arizona’s presidential vote in the last 76 years.

PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz. — Multiple Republican lawyers in Arizona say they and others who were involved in the party’s election litigation efforts in past cycles are keeping their distance this time around, in large part due to Senate candidate Kari Lake’s history of spurious fraud claims.

Earlier this month, Kory Langhofer resigned his position as the chief legal counsel for former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee’s “election integrity” operation in Arizona. He is now among more than a dozen Republican lawyers in the state who were a part of the GOP’s Arizona litigation team in past election cycles, including in 2020 and 2022, but are not slated to participate in its efforts this fall.

It’s a dynamic that has created uncertainty around the party’s much-touted legal efforts in a key state in the battle for the White House and the Senate weeks out from Election Day.

Langhofer, who filed the Trump campaign’s initial legal challenge of his loss in the state in 2020 and represented the Arizona state Senate in its discredited “Cyber Ninja”-led audit of that year’s election, declined to comment to NBC News about his departure. 

Three GOP lawyers involved in previous Arizona campaigns, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak openly about their hesitation to engage this cycle, told NBC News that there is concern particularly over a penchant from Lake — who continues to challenge her loss in the 2022 state’s gubernatorial race while sowing doubts about the upcoming election — to push litigation and question proceedings. One of the lawyers described it as “fatigue.”

“Kari creates this environment that is inhospitable for very reasonable people,” said one Arizona Republican attorney who was involved in past cycles. 

In addition to Lake, Arizona has been a hotbed for GOP-fueled conspiracy theories about stolen elections since Trump’s 2020 defeat in the state and nationally in the presidential race.

“There’s just a perception that [Republican lawyers] are not doing enough proactively,” a second lawyer said about staving off supposed fraud. “But what’s enough? If you can’t identify something [wrong to legally challenge], then what do you do?”

After Langhofer’s departure, the Trump campaign announced the hiring of Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican National Committeewoman and high-powered California lawyer, last week to relocate to Arizona for the final weeks of the campaign. Dhillon doesn’t have a license to practice law in Arizona, but a source familiar with the effort said that Dhillon would be expected to hire local counsel.

“I don’t know who is going to be in the war room or what other Arizona lawyers are going to be there,” said a third Republican lawyer in Arizona who is among those not involved in this year’s legal efforts. “I really don’t know what’s going on.”

Each of the three lawyers who spoke to NBC News said that they would still be willing to help the Arizona legal operation in the month ahead if legitimate concerns impacting the election arise.

After Langhofer’s departure, Lake’s senior campaign adviser Caroline Wren rebuked the RNC and the Trump campaign in a post on X for “telling us they have the ‘greatest election integrity program’ yet they don’t have a single attorney on the ground in Arizona.”

In April, the RNC, touted that it would build a massive “election integrity” operation with 100,000 attorneys and volunteers across the country to prevent fraud ahead of November’s election. 

“Is it possible we are all being gaslit by the @gop regarding a fake ‘Election Integrity’ program that doesn’t actually exist?” Wren wrote in the post. “Yes, and frankly, it’s more plausible than it is possible.”

Days later, the RNC onboarded Dhillon to oversee the state’s legal front. Dhillon does not have a deep history in the state, though she worked for Lake on election week in 2022 when the then-gubernatorial candidate assailed Maricopa County elections officials for mechanical issues with some of its vote center printers that caused longer wait times in several precincts.

According to multiple sources engaged in deliberations over the decision to turn to Dhillon, the Trump and Lake campaigns are confident in her decision-making related to the filing of any potential litigation in the weeks ahead. 

Still, the Arizona Republican Party is now relying on its party chairwoman, Gina Swoboda, to initiate dialogue with state and county elections officials. Swoboda does not have a law degree, though she previously worked in the Arizona secretary of state’s office.

In a statement, Swoboda expressed confidence in Dhillon. 

“Harmeet is ready to lead the fight,” said Swoboda. “We are full steam ahead in our unprecedented dedication to Election Integrity,” she added. 

Wren wrote in a statement to NBC News: “The Kari Lake campaign has full confidence in Harmeet Dhillon and Gina Swoboda to lead the Election Integrity efforts in Arizona and we are thrilled with this outcome.”

Lake’s legal efforts around her last election are still causing headaches for Arizona Republicans.  Earlier this year, one of Lake’s attorneys, Bryan Blehm, was fined and suspended for lying to the Arizona Supreme Court during his representation of Lake’s 2022 election challenges.

An Arizona court is also due to determine the damages that Lake owes Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer as part of a defamation suit he filed against her following the 2022 election. Richer, a Republican, alleged in the suit that Lake “repeatedly and falsely accused Richer of causing Lake’s electoral defeat.”

Part of the intraparty legal tension also stemmed from the discovery by Richer, the Maricopa County Recorder, that 218,000 Arizona voters had never proven their citizenship as part of their process to determine voter eligibility — the result of an apparent clerical error years ago.

Earlier this month, Wren openly questioned why the Trump campaign had not filed a lawsuit to challenge the eligibility of the “218,000 unconfirmed ‘US citizen’ voters.”

The Arizona Republican Party, however, filed an amicus brief with the courts that sided with Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, calling for the court to maintain those voters’ eligibility — a plurality of whom were registered as Republicans — to allow them to take part in this fall’s election.