Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris said she will create a bipartisan council of advisers if elected president, her latest effort to woo moderate Republican voters potentially disenchanted with former President Donald Trump.

Speaking at a campaign event in Scottsdale, Ariz., Friday, the vice president said the advisers will give her feedback on policy ideas.

What You Need To Know

  • Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris said she will create a bipartisan council of advisers if elected

  • "To maintain our status as the strongest democracy in the world, we need a healthy two-party system," she said at a campaign event in Scottsdale, Ariz., Friday

  • It's the second day in a row Harris has campaigned in the battleground state

  • She praised the late Republican Senator John McCain for believing in the important of patriotism, sacrifice and what the U.S. stands for as a country

“In order for us as America to maintain our status as the strongest democracy in the world, we need a healthy two-party system. It’s in the best interest of all of us,” she said on a second day of campaigning in the key battleground state, where she and former President Donald Trump are polling neck and neck with 25 days until the election.

“I don’t want any ‘yes’ people. I want people to come in and kick the tires on ideas because the best ideas will survive those kinds of challenges, and the best ideas will then be most relevant to the American people, most effective to the American people,” she said.

Speaking with a backdrop that read “Country Over Party,” Harris praised the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain for preserving the Affordable Care Act during a vote on the Senate floor in 2017. 

She also shared an anecdote from her time as a U.S. Senator representing California when the two of them sparred over a prospective nominee of former President Donald Trump during a committee hearing.

“McCain’s going after me, and I’m going back after him, and that was it. This is what the public saw,” she said. “And then I step onto the floor of the Senate later that day and I pass by McCain, and he says, ‘Kid, come over here. You’re gonna make a great senator.’ True story. That was John McCain.”

Saying he was an example of someone putting country before party, she praised McCain for his strength of character, saying he stood on principle and “a belief in the importance of patriotism, of sacrifice, of what we stand for as a country.”

In Arizona, where early voting began Wednesday, Harris talked about the high stakes of this year’s election, including the country’s reputation on the world stage.

Harris discussed meeting more than 150 world leaders as vice president, many of whom have told her, “'I hope you guys are going to be OK.' One of the things I think about and weighs on me sometimes is I hope we as Americans really understand how important we are to the world.”

She said the U.S. is a role model for the many countries that are fighting for democracy and the many people who are fighting for freedom in the world. 

“I know we are going to win this election, and it is not going to be easy,” she said, sounding a more assured note than what she told supporters one night earlier in Chandler, Ariz., when she asserted, “we are the underdog.”

In Arizona, President Biden narrowly defeated Trump in 2020 by 10,457 votes, or 0.3% of the 3.4 million ballots cast. Since 1948, the only other Democrat to win the presidential election in Arizona was Bill Clinton in 1996. Trump currently leads Harris by 48.2% to 46.8% in Arizona, according to the most recent polling averages on FiveThirtyEight.com.