Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks at a campaign rally at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, on August 9. (Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press)
WASHINGTON – Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is breaking new ground this week, holding his first solo events as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, embarking on a five-state promotional tour to raise campaign funds and speaking at a key union gathering.
Walz will speak at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees convention in Los Angeles on Tuesday before emceeing a campaign fundraiser in Newport Beach, Calif. The 1.4 million-member union is backing Harris.
“Given the fear and uncertainty in the country, we have a responsibility to bring people together on the basis of shared values,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said in his keynote speech at the party’s convention on Monday. Then he added, referring to leading Republicans: “Instead, anti-worker forces have chosen to further pursue the most extreme and divisive agenda imaginable.”
On Wednesday, Walz will speak at fundraisers in Denver and Boston, and on Thursday he will give more such speeches in Newport, Rhode Island, and Southampton, New York.
Walz’s fundraising focus this week comes after he and Harris stormed through a series of swing states last week to introduce themselves to voters nationally. The two held rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada.
Ohio Senator JD Vance, who was announced as Republican Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, has had his own candidacy largely overshadowed by unforeseen events. The previous weekend, an assassination attempt had been made on the former president, and the following weekend, President Joe Biden had abandoned his re-election bid and endorsed Harris.
Walz has peppered his early campaign appearances with talk of joy and positivity, stressing that he and Harris stand for kindness and neighborliness. But he has spoken frequently about Trump’s policies and the former president’s 34 charges in a New York hush-money trial.
Vance, on the other hand, has focused more on the traditional role of second-term candidate and has sought to attack the opposition politically. He spent much of last week holding his own events in the same states that Harris and Walz visited, arguing that the Democrats are too ultra-liberal for most Americans.
The senator also suggested that Harris chose Walz over another vice presidential candidate, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, because Shapiro’s public support for Israel in the war against Hamas may have angered some progressives.
Vance said choosing Walz meant Harris was taking advice from the “Hamas wing of her party.” He also criticized Walz’s military career, arguing that his retirement before his National Guard unit deployed to Iraq and his suggestion that he had served in a combat zone suggested “stolen valor garbage.” Over the weekend, the Harris campaign said Walz had “misspelled” when he spoke of “weapons of war that I carried in war.”
Orange County Republican Party Chairman Fred Whitaker addressed allegations that Walz was inaccurate in his descriptions of his military service. In a statement Monday, he said the governor “may go home with plenty of campaign cash from liberal donors, but he will leave with the same empty and false record he came in with.”
Vance has also criticized Harris and Walz for not making themselves available for media interviews. As his plane rendezvoused with Harris’s on the tarmac in Wisconsin, where both sides held events last week, Vance approached the vice president’s motorcade and said he wanted to speak to the reporters traveling with him because she was unavailable to do so herself.
Harris has not yet given a major interview since Biden dropped out of the race, but has said she plans to do so later in the month. During her trip to the campaign trail last week, she twice briefly answered questions from the traveling press – something Walz did not do, except for one session where he answered questions off-the-record, meaning his answers could not be shared publicly.
Vance has appeared on numerous podcasts and is trying to appeal to a younger demographic. At 40, he is closer to that demographic than any of the other three leading candidates. Trump is 78, Harris 59 and Walz 60.
