U.S. Vice-President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks next to her newly chosen vice-presidential running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz during a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pa., on Aug. 6.Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, put his Midwestern credentials to the test on Wednesday with rallies in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan.
“Hello, Eau Claire!” Mr. Walz said to a boisterous crowd of thousands in the Wisconsin city about 130 kilometres away from his home across the Minnesota border. “Isn’t it good to have a candidate who can pronounce the name correctly?”
The Democratic candidates are using the campaign swing states to introduce Mr. Walz, a former teacher and football coach and a veteran of the Army National Guard, to voters around the country after he beat out better-known Democrats for the No. 2 spot.
They are also making their case against Republican rival Donald Trump and his running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance, with less than three months until the Nov. 5 election, highlighting in particular their threat to abortion rights.
Polls show Ms. Harris has erased the lead Mr. Trump had built during the final faltering weeks of President Joe Biden’s campaign, and a re-energized Democratic Party has flooded her campaign with donations since she rose to the top of the ticket two weeks ago.
The Harris campaign said it raised US$36-million in the 24 hours after announcing Mr. Walz as the vice presidential pick on Tuesday.
A former congressman, who won elections in a Republican-leaning district before becoming governor, Mr. Walz has a record of appealing to the white, rural voters who have increasingly turned to Mr. Trump over the years.
But Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance have rushed to portray Mr. Walz as too left-wing, echoing their criticisms of Ms. Harris.
Debra Thompson: Tim Walz’s VP selection shows that, in politics, representation matters
With Mr. Trump largely off the road this week, Mr. Vance has been trailing Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz around the country and holding campaign events near their rallies, an effort that comes as Ms. Harris’s surge appears to have rattled the Trump camp.
In an unusual moment on Wednesday, Mr. Vance approached Air Force Two while Ms. Harris appeared to be in her motorcade on the tarmac in Wisconsin. He asked reporters nearby why she didn’t take more of their questions.
The two candidates’ planes were several hundred yards from one another at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Eau Claire.
Mr. Vance said he was trying to “check out this plane that’s going to be mine in a few months” and briefly spoke to reporters while Ms. Harris’s motorcade drove away, video taken by local reporters showed.
Ms. Harris’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident, which several people travelling with the vice-president said went unnoticed at the time.
Ms. Harris and Mr. Vance postponed planned events for Thursday across Georgia and North Carolina due to Tropical Storm Debby.
In an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he would debate Ms. Harris in the “pretty near future” and that details would be announced soon. He said his preference was for Fox to host the debate.
Last week, Mr. Trump proposed a debate with Ms. Harris on Fox News on Sept. 4. The Harris campaign said Mr. Trump was trying to back out of a debate that had already been set with ABC on Sept. 10.
Earlier in the day in Detroit, ahead of Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz’s scheduled evening rally there, Mr. Vance tried out some attack lines on his Democratic counterpart, criticizing Mr. Walz’s handling of the protests in Minneapolis following the killing of George Floyd there by police in 2020.
Mr. Vance, who served in the Marine Corps and was a public affairs officer during a six-month stint in Iraq, also slammed Mr. Walz’s military record, saying he abandoned his National Guard battalion right before its deployment to Iraq in 2005. Mr. Walz, who served in the Guard for 24 years, retired to run for Congress.
Democrats regard Wisconsin and Michigan as near must-wins in the 2024 election. The states have loomed large for the party since Hillary Clinton’s unexpected defeats there helped clinch Mr. Trump’s 2016 win.
Mr. Biden beat Mr. Trump in both states in 2020. But opinion polls showed him facing a close battle in Michigan before he dropped out of the race last month, with much of the state’s significant Arab and Muslim American population fuming over his administration’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks.
Vice President Kamala Harris has picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate, turning to a Midwestern governor, military veteran and union supporter who helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state.
The Associated Press