JD Vance attempted to confront Kamala Harris on the tarmac as they landed at Eau Claire County Airport in Wisconsin at the same time as part of their rival tours of the battleground states.

The Republican vice-presidential candidate was filmed marching over to Air Force Two, telling a crowd of reporters he hoped it would be “my plane” soon.

“I figured I’d come by and just get a good look at the plane because hopefully it’s going to be my plane in a few months,” the Ohio senator said on Wednesday afternoon, just minutes after Ms Harris had left the airport.

The unexpected stunt drew attention from Ms Harris’s nearby rally with her new running mate Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who joined the Democratic presidential ticket on Tuesday.

Seizing the moment, Mr Vance criticised the vice-president for being absent on the campaign trail and dodging reporters.

“But I also thought you guys might get lonely because the vice-president doesn’t answer questions from reporters and hasn’t for 17 days,” he said.

“It would be good for the American people and for all of you if she ran a real campaign instead of from a basement with a teleprompter.”

Ms Harris and Mr Walz kicked off a five-day campaign blitz on Tuesday, starting with a packed debut joint rally in Pennsylvania, followed by night stops in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada.

Mr Vance, meanwhile, has been trailing behind in his Democratic rivals’ wake, with smaller campaign events in the swing states that both sides see as essential to win on their march to the White House.

Ms Harris’s campaign quickly responded to the tarmac incident, with a video that mocked Mr Vance’s arrival as an unwelcome, “grating” interjection to their otherwise sunny day.

The clip first showed the Democratic nominee shaking hands with Girl Scouts, before zooming in on the “Make America Great Again” plane as it landed along with the viral TikTok sound: “All of a sudden, I hear this agitating, grating voice.”

The plane wars continued when Steven Cheung, the spokesman for the Trump-Vance campaign, tweeted back: “Make sure AF2 is deep cleaned because Lord only knows what @‌KamalaHarris and her team have done on there.”