Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, continued their swing-state tour with a rally in rural Wisconsin on Wednesday.
The rally, which followed a raucous event in Philadelphia, served as an opportunity for Harris to continue to introduce Walz, a formerly low-profile midwest governor, to Democrats in the critical swing state. Held in Eau Claire, a north-western Wisconsin city less than two hours from Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota, the rally drew attendees from both states.
Walz spoke first, focusing on his midwestern background and noting he had family in the crowd. “Being a midwesterner, I know something about commitment to the people,” he said.
He also spoke at length about his experience coaching football, teaching social studies and serving in the Minnesota National Guard, underscoring his role as a kind of ambassador to rural and working-class Americans for the Democratic party.
And he directly took on Trump. “Don’t believe him when he plays dumb. He knows exactly what he’s talking about. He knows exactly what Project 2025 will do in restricting and taking our freedoms. He knows that it rigs the economy for the super rich if he gets a chance to go back to the White House. It will be far worse than it was four years ago.”
Walz also revisited his support for and personal experience with IVF, the fertility treatment, which has become a contentious issue for Republicans after an Alabama court ruled that frozen embryos have personhood.
The rally highlighted Harris’s focus on Wisconsin, where she held her first rally after Joe Biden announced the end of his bid for re-election. In 2016, Donald Trump won Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes, and Biden won the state in 2020 by a similar margin.
Harris’s speech was similar to those at other recent campaign stops, with a focus on the future and Trump’s threat to democratic norms.
“Donald Trump has openly vowed, if re-elected, he will be a dictator on day one, that he would weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies, that he would round up peaceful protesters and throw them out of our country, and even, quote, ‘terminate the United States constitution’,” she said.
“Let us be clear, someone who suggests we should terminate the constitution of the United States should never again have a chance to stand behind the seal of the president of the United States.”
Rallygoers were enthusiastic at seeing the duo at the event.
“I’m elated,” said Lori Schlecht, a teacher from Minnesota who said she is excited about Walz given his background in public education – Walz was a public school teacher before he was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2006. “Minnesota is blessed to have him, and I’m glad to see him at the national level. He is authentic and real – he’ll get shit done.”
Many Minnesota residents in attendance pointed to Walz’s down-to-earth manner as an asset for the Democratic party ticket.
“Walz is my homeboy,” said Colin Mgam, who is 65 and retired and drove from St Paul for the rally. “He brings straight talk, and he’s going to do well,” Mgam added.
The indie folk band Bon Iver, whose lead singer is from Eau Claire and previously supported Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, opened for Harris at the Wednesday event.
Walz, who was not initially an obvious contender for Harris’s vice-presidential pick, garnered widespread attention within the party after giving a candid and upbeat interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe in which he boosted Harris and wrote off Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance as “weird”.
The “weird” moment went viral, and Democratic party officials and politicians quickly seized on the term to dismiss the Republican presidential ticket as reactionary and out-of-touch with everyday Americans.
Walz’s comments – and subsequent references to the “weirdness” of the Maga movement, including at the Wednesday rally – marked the beginning of a rhetorical shift for Democrats, with Harris reframing the election in more positive terms than the Biden campaign, which leaned heavily on grave warnings about Trump’s autocratic tendencies. Since ascending to the top of the ticket, Harris has instead emphasized a policy agenda with issues that are popular among Democratic voters, such as abortion rights, labor unions and the cost of childcare.
Donald Trump has been quick to paint Walz, who has worked with progressive lawmakers in Minnesota to pass a raft of progressive laws – codifying the right to abortion, expanding protections for workers and establishing landmark voting rights legislation – as a member of the “radical left”, a line of attack that the former president will likely continue to push.
But Walz pushed back against Trump on Wednesday. “This election is all about asking that question, which direction will this country go in? Donald Trump knows the direction he wants to take it. He wants to take us back.”
