(Bloomberg) -- Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the US-Mexico border on Friday in an attempt to show voters that she has a firm grasp on the issue of immigration and border security, a key policy concern in the November election.
Harris will travel to Douglas, Arizona on Friday, according to her campaign, kicking off a West Coast swing that also includes California and Nevada.
In Arizona, a battleground state where Harris has been deadlocked against Trump, Harris plans to tout her efforts to bring forth a bipartisan bill that would address border security and the influx of fentanyl, according to a campaign aide who asked not to be named while discussing a trip still being planned.
Harris will look to point blame at former President Donald Trump for the failure of that legislation to pass Congress, claiming that he blocked Republican support for political purposes, the aide added.
“We do have a broken immigration system and it needs to be fixed,” said Harris in an interview Wednesday with MSNBC. “My pledge is that when elected president, if the American people will have me, I will bring that bill back and I will sign it into law.”
Immigration remains a cornerstone of Trump’s election pitch, and in August he toured Montezuma Pass, Arizona, a border area in a swing state. He has pledged to complete the construction of a border wall and to carry out the largest deportation effort in US history.
A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll conducted in late August showed the presidential race was closest in Arizona, where the two candidates were deadlocked, and where immigration and the opioid epidemic are front of mind for voters.
The former president has repeatedly attacked Harris for what he calls “weak” border security stances and mocked her as the “border czar” referring to her work on solving the root causes of immigration during the early years of the Biden administration.
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In the same Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll, 6 in 10 swing-state voters said immigration was a “very important” issue in deciding who to support. At the time, 53% of respondents across the seven swing states polled said they trusted Trump more to handle immigration versus 39% who put their faith in Harris.
--With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron.
(Updates throughout with additional comments from Harris, aide)
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