Story highlights State Democrats have set up 32 offices and hired more than 160 staffers

A new poll out Wednesday shows Clinton with a 5-point lead

Phoenix (CNN) Harriett Freedman doesn't just sense the once reliably Republican state of Arizona is now a battleground. The 67-year-old grandmother and lifelong Democrat sees it in its ground game.

"I've been volunteering a long time and this is the first time I really feel people are taking us seriously and we really have a chance," she said while volunteering for the Clinton campaign at a rally headlined by Chelsea Clinton in Tempe on Wednesday. "They're sending people. They're sending money. They've never done that before."

Freedman, a self-proclaimed "lonely Democrat" in Carefree, population 3000, exudes triumphant joy as she talks about the political shift. But she can't hide her surprise.

It's a sentiment shared by Alexis Tamerón, Arizona Democratic Party state chair. "We were playing the long game. 2020, 2022," she explains, as the target years where state Democrats would harness a changing demographic of more Latinos and millennials to edge Arizona into battleground territory. But then an unlikely catalyst came along.

"I do believe Donald Trump has helped us jump our timeline," she says.

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