Vice President Kamala Harris declared herself and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “joyful warriors” against Donald Trump on Wednesday as they spent their first full day campaigning together across the Midwest. They got an unusual glimpse of how hotly contested the region would be when they overlapped on a Wisconsin tarmac with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance.
The Democrats visited Wisconsin and Michigan, hoping to shore up support among the younger, diverse, labor-friendly voters who were instrumental in helping President Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
Harris told the day’s first rally in Eau Claire, “As Tim Walz likes to point out, we are joyful warriors.” Contributing to that feeling, the Harris campaign said it had raised $36 million in the first 24 hours after she announced Walz as her running mate.
The vice president said the pair looks at the future with optimism, unlike Trump, the former president and Republican White House nominee, whom she accused of being stuck in the past and preferring a confrontational style of politics — even as she criticized her opponent herself.
“Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again have the chance to sit behind the seal of the United States,” Harris said, her voice rising.
Dan Miller, from Pelican Lake, Wisconsin, who was among 12,000-plus Eau Claire rally attendees, said Biden “has been an incredible president, but he just isn’t the same messenger.”
“And sometimes you need a better messenger,” Miller said. “And that’s Kamala.”
Later, at an evening event in an airport hangar outside Detroit where the campaign announced a crowd of 15,000, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — herself frequently mentioned as a future presidential candidate — declared, “We need a strong woman in the White House and it’s about damn time.”
“This election’s going to be a fight,” Harris told the same event. “We like a good fight.”
The swing was especially important for Harris since Biden’s winning coalition from four years ago has shown signs of fraying over the summer — particularly in Michigan, which has emerged as a focal point of Democratic divisions over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
With the president now out of the race, leaders of the Arab American community and key unions say they are encouraged by Harris’ running mate choice. Walz’s addition to the ticket has soothed some tensions, signaling to some leaders that Harris had heard concerns about another leading contender for the vice presidential slot, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who they felt had gone too far in his support for Israel.