A desperate Vice President Kamala Harris is adopting an interesting strategy to win over voters in Arizona. She is courting moderate Republicans using the legacy of the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

As polling shows Harris in a statistical dead heat with her opponent, former President Donald Trump, the vice president appears to understand that she needs all the help she can get. However, her record may still present an obstacle to winning over Republicans who might not be as keen on Trump.

Concentrated in the suburbs of Phoenix, those voters were decisive in 2020 in delivering the state for Joe Biden, the first Democrat in a quarter-century to carry Arizona in a presidential race.

But Harris' history of progressive positions is complicating her path to replicating her boss' coalition in the former GOP stronghold.

“The McCain wing of this party is a conservative group. It just isn’t nuts,” Phoenix-based Republican consultant Barrett Marson said.

“It makes it hard to vote for someone like Kamala Harris, because she’s the antithesis of a lot of things John McCain advocated for throughout his life. But on the other hand, she doesn’t want to overthrow the government. She doesn’t want to institute a dictatorship. She doesn’t want to instruct the Justice Department to start arresting Republicans left and right,” Marson said, calling the contrast enough for him to cast his ballot for her.

“So the choice isn’t a very good one for McCain Republicans, but it is also probably easier because of the actions of Donald Trump.”

Harris’ strategy involves painting Trump as a “threat to democracy,” a phrase that has become popular among Democrats and their close friends and allies in the establishment media. The Arizona push is part of a larger strategy to bring in anti-Trump Republicans who are disaffected with the direction of the GOP under his leadership.

Jen Cox, a senior adviser for the Harris campaign in Arizona, told NBC News that “respect for the rule of law is a critical component” of Republican voters who are supporting the vice president.

Mesa Mayor John Giles, a Republican who backs Harris, indicated that the vice president needs to convince GOP voters that she is not as far left as they might think. “They need to know that she is not a wild socialist, progressive person that is contrary to their very soul, that she is someone who’s going to govern from the middle,” he said.

Harris has previously supported a government takeover of the healthcare system while banning private insurance. She has also argued in favor of radical gun control laws that might offend conservative-leaning Arizonans.

During a recent campaign stop in Arizona, Harris spoke positively about Sen. McCain and his decision to vote against Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare, a move that was roundly condemned by conservatives.

In a campaign swing through Arizona last week, Harris fondly — and repeatedly — spoke of McCain and lavished praise on his ACA vote.

She served with McCain in the Senate until he died in 2018.

“It required one more vote to keep it intact, and that vote was the late, great John McCain,” Harris said in Chandler, just outside Phoenix.

“A great American, a war hero: John McCain.

And I’ll never forget that night.”

Team Trump lambasted Harris’ push for McCain-esque Republican voters. Rachel Reisner, the campaign’s director of battleground state communications, told NBC News that Democrats are “trying to capitalize on so-called soft Republicans” and that “on the ground we’re not seeing that go anywhere.”

In an interesting twist, Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late senator, slammed Harris on Friday, Oct. 11, after she told a story about a positive interaction she supposedly had with McCain.

Harris said the exchange happened after she and McCain were "going after each other" at a committee hearing. The Republican approached her later that day, she said.

"I step onto the floor of the well of the Senate later that day — we had votes — and I passed by John McCain, and he looks at me, and he says, ‘Kid, come over here.

You’re going to make a great senator,’" Harris recalled. "True story. True story."

McCain struck back in a post on X, accusing Harris of trying to turn her father “into any illusion you guys need him to be depending on the political moment you need to bastardize his memory for.” She then threatened to speak publicly about how her father actually felt about Harris.

Now, I know democrats want to reinvent history and turn my Dad into any illusion you guys need him to be depending on the political moment you need to bastardize his memory for…

But please don’t make me start sharing what I remember him ACTUALLY saying about Kamala Harris….

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) October 11, 2024

And consider this my final warning shot, I will start spilling tea.

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) October 11, 2024

The latest Real Clear Polling average puts Trump 1.4 percent ahead of Harris in Arizona.

Harris' strategy makes sense, given the closeness of the race – especially in swing states. There are plenty of Republican voters who have soured on Trump, although it is difficult to say whether she can win enough support among these voters to turn the tide in her favor. Several prominent anti-Trump Republicans have joined up with the vice president. But most of these individuals are relics of the establishment GOP that was widely rejected by the Republican base when Trump came on the scene in the 2016 race.