Harris and Walz rally in the Midwest, seeking a boost in critical states

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz continued their blitz through the country’s 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’s and Vance’s 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.

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.

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.

Vance has been deployed in his stead, essentially trolling Harris and Walz as they campaign together following the vice president’s 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.

“I figured I’d come by and, one, just take a good look at the plane because hopefully it’s going to be my plane in a few months, but I also thought you guys might get lonely because the vice president doesn’t answer questions from reporters,” Vance told reporters while Harris was still on the plane.

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: “So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type. I know his type. In fact, I’ve been dealing with people like him my whole career.”

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.

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.

“We don’t shy away from challenges, but I’ll tell you what: Donald Trump, he sees the world differently than we see it,” Walz said. “He has no understanding of service because he’s too busy servicing himself — again and again and again.”

Following the Wisconsin rally, the Harris campaign took a page out of Trump’s 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’s “Run The World (Girls),” continuing a theme in which several speakers have focused on Harris’s push to become the first woman elected U.S. president.

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.

Walz’s 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.

Harris, who spent much of her career in deep-blue San Francisco, is trying to move beyond the “ultraliberal” label from Trump and broaden her outreach to voters who will decide the election in the Midwest.

“I promise you, our campaign is going to reach out to everyone, from red states, from blue states, from the heartland to the coast,” she said. “We are running a campaign on behalf of all Americans. We will govern on behalf of all Americans. And we’re clear about this, unlike the other side, we work for you.”

Republicans reject this characterization, depicting Harris and Walz as extreme liberals. They cite Minnesota’s protection of gender-affirming care under Walz’s leadership, for example, and his extension of driver’s licenses to all residents regardless of their immigration status.

“What 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,” Vance said Wednesday. “She’s done it every single time in government. She’s 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.”

In contrast to the Democrats’ 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 “radical human being” and accused him of exaggerating his military record and quitting the National Guard to avoid a deployment to Iraq.

Walz’s defenders note that his retirement came after he had served more than two decades in the National Guard.

“Every month thousands of people retire,” former U.S. congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a Republican and a military veteran who supports Harris, posted on X. “The 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.”

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.

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 “weird.”

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 “normal people” in a way others can’t. He also said he enjoys beer, a noted contrast to Trump and Walz, who do not drink alcohol.

“I guess they’d 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’s okay,” Vance said. “I’m sure the media won’t give me too much crap over that.”

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’ 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.

Since Biden dropped out of the race, Democrats have flocked to Harris’s 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.

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.

Tammy Hanley, 53, jumped up and down when asked how she felt about Harris being the Democratic Party’s nominee. Hanley, a special-education teacher from Anchorage, was visiting family in Minnesota and changed her flight to attend the rally.

“I’m going to cry when I see her,” Hanley said. “I feel so much more hopeful about the future. Everyone is feeling more hopeful.”

Hanley’s 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. “It just felt like the options weren’t great,” she said

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’s first female president. “I might cry, too,” she said, laughing.

Rodriguez and Kornfield reported from Eau Claire, Wis., and Markus from Shelby Township, Mich. Toluse Olorunnipa in Detroit contributed to this report.