Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz continued their blitz through the country\u2019s battleground states Wednesday, rallying supporters in the Midwest and seeking to sustain their momentum as Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance followed closely behind and escalated his attacks on the Democratic ticket.<\/p>\n
Harris\u2019s and Vance\u2019s planes landed within minutes of each other Wednesday in Eau Claire, Wis., before they held dueling events just four miles apart. The gatherings had very different tones: Harris and Walz rallied more than 12,000 boisterous supporters outdoors, while Vance appeared with a handful of workers at an aviation factory at an event largely designed for the media.<\/p>\n
The split screen underscored how much the presidential race has transformed since President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection bid on July 21. For years, former president Donald Trump has traveled the country to hold rallies with thousands of adoring supporters, while Biden usually appeared in carefully curated spaces, rarely able to draw a large crowd.<\/p>\n
For the moment, the Democrats have flipped that dynamic. Harris has held several packed rallies in the past two weeks while Trump has not appeared at a public event since Saturday night when he campaigned in Atlanta. He is scheduled to return to the campaign trail on Friday for a rally in Bozeman, Mont.<\/p>\n
Vance has been deployed in his stead, essentially trolling Harris and Walz as they campaign together following the vice president\u2019s selection of her running mate on Tuesday. Arriving shortly after Harris in Eau Claire, Vance walked over to Air Force Two to taunt Harris for not engaging more with the media. Republicans have criticized her for rarely taking questions from journalists since becoming the likely Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI figured I\u2019d come by and, one, just take a good look at the plane because hopefully it\u2019s going to be my plane in a few months, but I also thought you guys might get lonely because the vice president doesn\u2019t answer questions from reporters,\u201d Vance told reporters while Harris was still on the plane.<\/p>\n
At their rally, Harris and Walz ripped into Trump and sought to make their case to rural voters. Harris repeated what has become a favorite line, noting that she took on predators and fraudsters as a prosecutor: \u201cSo hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump\u2019s type. I know his type. In fact, I\u2019ve been dealing with people like him my whole career.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walz, who grew up in a small town in Nebraska and lives less than 90 miles from Eau Claire, has been leaning into his Midwestern background as he works to introduce himself to a national audience.<\/p>\n
The governor discussed his time as a high school social studies teacher and football coach, as well as his 12 years in Congress representing a conservative district. After asking if there were any Minnesotans in the crowd, Walz shifted his focus to highlight what he said were the differences between the Democratic ticket and Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t shy away from challenges, but I\u2019ll tell you what: Donald Trump, he sees the world differently than we see it,\u201d Walz said. \u201cHe has no understanding of service because he\u2019s too busy servicing himself \u2014 again and again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the Wisconsin rally, the Harris campaign took a page out of Trump\u2019s playbook, holding a large rally in a hangar at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport with Air Force Two sitting in the background. A DJ played Beyonce\u2019s \u201cRun The World (Girls),\u201d continuing a theme in which several speakers have focused on Harris\u2019s push to become the first woman elected U.S. president.<\/p>\n
The Harris campaign has struggled to find venues large enough to hold the crowds of people who are hoping to see Harris and Walz, in person, according to a campaign aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the planning.<\/p>\n
Walz\u2019s addition to the ticket, Democrats hope, will help them peel support away from Trump in largely White and rural areas that typically back Republicans by large margins. In what is shaping up to be a strikingly close race, winning even a slightly bigger proportion of those voters in states such as Wisconsin and Michigan could be critical.<\/p>\n
Harris, who spent much of her career in deep-blue San Francisco, is trying to move beyond the \u201cultraliberal\u201d label from Trump and broaden her outreach to voters who will decide the election in the Midwest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise you, our campaign is going to reach out to everyone, from red states, from blue states, from the heartland to the coast,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are running a campaign on behalf of all Americans. We will govern on behalf of all Americans. And we\u2019re clear about this, unlike the other side, we work for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republicans reject this characterization, depicting Harris and Walz as extreme liberals. They cite Minnesota\u2019s protection of gender-affirming care under Walz\u2019s leadership, for example, and his extension of driver\u2019s licenses to all residents regardless of their immigration status.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Kamala Harris is telling all of us by selecting Tim Walz is that she bends the knee to the far left of the Democrat Party,\u201d Vance said Wednesday. \u201cShe\u2019s done it every single time in government. She\u2019s done it in who she selected as her VP nominee, and she will do it if the American people give her a promotion to president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
In contrast to the Democrats\u2019 large rallies, Vance has held small events, designed to attack Harris and Walz in front of cameras. He first visited a police department in Shelby Township, Mich., on Wednesday morning, assailing Harris and Walz for their record on immigration and policing. He attacked Walz as a \u201cradical human being\u201d and accused him of exaggerating his military record and quitting the National Guard to avoid a deployment to Iraq.<\/p>\n
Walz\u2019s defenders note that his retirement came after he had served more than two decades in the National Guard.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery month thousands of people retire,\u201d former U.S. congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a Republican and a military veteran who supports Harris, posted on X. \u201cThe fact that Walz did 25 years, 5 OVER retirement eligibility, and 4 years after 9\/11, is honorable. Many people at 25 years today would get out even if there was a deployment possibility because they DID THEIR DUTY.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Wisconsin, Vance appeared with a few dozen factory workers who make aviation equipment at Wollard International. He focused his remarks on Harris, largely ignoring Walz as he questioned whether the Minnesota governor would still be on the ticket in the coming weeks, given the tumult in the Democratic Party over the past month. The party officially certified Harris and Walz as its nominees on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Vance also blamed Harris for fentanyl deaths in the United States and for sending jobs overseas, promising that a Trump-Vance administration would heighten border security and place tariffs on Chinese goods. He sought to burnish his image as an everyday American, a depiction that Walz and other Democrats have attacked by describing Vance and Trump as \u201cweird.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked by a reporter why Wisconsinites would want to have a beer with him, Vance laughed before saying he and Trump can admire and listen to \u201cnormal people\u201d in a way others can\u2019t. He also said he enjoys beer, a noted contrast to Trump and Walz, who do not drink alcohol.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess they\u2019d want to have a beer with me because I actually do like to drink beer, and I probably like to drink beer a little bit too much, but that\u2019s okay,\u201d Vance said. \u201cI\u2019m sure the media won\u2019t give me too much crap over that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris and Walz were slated to campaign in the seven most competitive battleground states over the course of four days, though events in North Carolina and Georgia were postponed because of Tropical Storm Debby. Vance, who has largely been following in the Democrats\u2019 footsteps this week, like them appeared in Philadelphia on Tuesday and was scheduled to campaign in North Carolina on Thursday, though his events were similarly postponed because of the weather.<\/p>\n
Since Biden dropped out of the race, Democrats have flocked to Harris\u2019s rallies, exhibiting a level of energy and enthusiasm that many in the party concede has been absent for years. The Harris campaign said it raised $36 million in the 24 hours since Harris announced Walz as her running mate, adding to its massive fundraising haul since Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed the vice president.<\/p>\n
Three hours before Harris and Walz took the stage in Eau Claire, the line of cars trying to park at the event stretched more than a mile-and-a-half down the road.<\/p>\n
Tammy Hanley, 53, jumped up and down when asked how she felt about Harris being the Democratic Party\u2019s nominee. Hanley, a special-education teacher from Anchorage, was visiting family in Minnesota and changed her flight to attend the rally.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to cry when I see her,\u201d Hanley said. \u201cI feel so much more hopeful about the future. Everyone is feeling more hopeful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanley\u2019s niece, Sydney Hooppaw, 20, said that three weeks ago, when Biden was still running for reelection, she was not sure if she was going to vote. \u201cIt just felt like the options weren\u2019t great,\u201d she said<\/p>\n
But now, Hooppaw said, she is thrilled to vote for president for the first time, particularly to cast her ballot for Harris, who could become the country\u2019s first female president. \u201cI might cry, too,\u201d she said, laughing.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez and Kornfield reported from Eau Claire, Wis., and Markus from Shelby Township, Mich. Toluse Olorunnipa in Detroit contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz continued their blitz through the country\u2019s battleground states Wednesday, rallying supporters in the Midwest and seeking to sustain their momentum as Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance followed closely behind and escalated his attacks on the Democratic ticket. Harris\u2019s and Vance\u2019s planes landed within minutes of each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}