The first day of the Democratic presidential ticket featuring Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), had party members eager to march forward in the battle to block former President Donald Trump from a second term.
Harris and Walz held their first campaign rally Tuesday in Philadelphia, the birthplace of American democracy, as they presented a united effort to more than 12,000 adoring fans.
Walz delighted the crowd as he lambasted Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), at times making an off-color joke.
With less than 90 days to go until Election Day, Harris and Walz are embarking upon a battleground state tour, preparing for the Democratic National Convention starting later this month, and frantically working to mobilize Democrats.
The Washington Examiner’s five takeaways from the first day of their debut foretell the rest of the 2024 cycle.
Since President Joe Biden suspended his 2024 campaign on July 21, Democrats have projected a renewed sense of energy that the election won’t end in a Trump victory.
The rally in Philadelphia showcased an electrified crowd smitten with Harris and Walz who stuck to sunny depositions even as they made stinging attacks against the Republican ticket.
“Our campaign is not just a fight against Donald Trump. Our campaign, this campaign is a fight for the future,” Harris said to applause.
“Coach Walz and I may hail from different corners of our great country, but our values are the same, and we both believe in lifting people up, not knocking them down,” Harris later said. “We both know the vast majority of people in our country have so much more in common than what separates them.”
Walz made his debut appearance by thanking Harris “for bringing back the joy.”
The comments were meant to contrast Trump, who routinely describes the United States as failing because of rising crime, inflation, and immigration crises at the southern border due to Democratic leadership. Vance’s attacks on “childless cat ladies,” in addition to Trump’s questioning Harris’s biracial identity, have resulted in Walz branding his GOP opponents as “weird,” which Democrats have taken up gleefully. Attendees at the rally routinely chanted “weirdo” when Trump or Vance were mentioned.
In her speech introducing Walz, Harris repeatedly referred to him as “Coach Walz,” referencing his work transforming a losing football team into state champions.
Taking the metaphor one step further, Harris described the Trump-Vance as the lesser team compared to the Democratic ticket.
“When you compare [Walz’s] resume — shall we? — to Trump’s running mate, well, well, some might say, it’s like a matchup between the varsity team and the JV squad,” she said.
The Minnesota governor didn’t hesitate to get down into the mud by taking a shot at a debunked rumor that Vance had sex with a couch in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.
“Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, J.D. studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community,” Walz said. “Come on, that’s not what Middle America is. And I’ve got to tell you, I can’t wait to debate the guy. That is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.”
The quip drew laughter from Democrats in the crowd but angered Republicans on social media who complained that Walz was spreading known misinformation to the American public.
In less than two weeks since announcing her presidential campaign, the Harris campaign raised a staggering $310 million in July, more than double the $139 million Trump’s campaign raised.
In the first week alone after Biden dropped out, Harris raised $200 million, in a sign of Democratic enthusiasm for a new candidate to lead the ticket.
In the hours after Walz was announced as her vice presidential pick, the campaign raised another $20 million from grassroots donations.
The campaign will likely raise even more money in August as members descend on Chicago for the DNC from Aug. 19 through Aug. 22.
In choosing Walz as her running mate, Harris passed over the popular Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), who likely could have helped deliver Pennsylvania’s crucial 19 Electoral College votes in November.
Republicans quickly slammed the Shapiro snub as Harris caving into the progressive wing of the party, which allegedly did not want Shapiro on the ticket given his pro-Israel stance. Other vice presidential candidates, such as Walz, Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, have the same stance as Shapiro but the key difference is that they are not Jewish.
“Vice President Harris failed her first real test on the national stage,” Pennsylvania-based Republican strategist Vince Galko said. “She yielded to those in her party who are against defending Israel and to the teachers unions who fear school choice. In the long run, this will be a net positive for Gov. Shapiro. He had two weeks of national coverage and got an IOU from Harris while not having hitch his star to her wagon.”
The Trump campaign claimed Harris “bent the knee to the radical left” by choosing Walz over the Pennsylvania governor.
Shapiro has defended Israel’s right to self-defense, although he has been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But progressives have long called for a permanent ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas.
However, other political experts suggest that by choosing Walz, Harris was boosting efforts to solidify the midwestern battleground states such as Michigan and Wisconsin.
“I do think Walz gives her a bit of Midwestern street credit to some degree that may help in some of those other states,” said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Labor unions, a crucial voting bloc for Democrats, were also not as sold on Shapiro as they were on Walz, which could have factored into Harris’s decision.
“If I’m a Democratic candidate running in the Midwest, I’m going to want to have as much union support as I can,” Coleman added. “I’m going to want to have those guys fired up. So I think that’s part of it.”
At the Philadelphia rally, Shapiro shined in a roughly 20-minute speech in which he electrified the crowd, reiterated his Jewish faith, and championed the Harris-Walz ticket before they appeared onstage.
“I am going to continue to pour my heart and soul into serving you every single day as your governor,” Shapiro said. “And I’m going to be working my tail up to make sure we make Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the next leaders of the United States of America.”
In a subtle rebuke to Democrats who questioned his religion, Shapiro claimed he was not ashamed to be Jewish.
“I want to just say this: I lean on my family, and I lean on my faith, which calls me to serve, and I am proud of my faith,” Shapiro said, looking directly into the camera. “Now hear me: I’m not here to preach it, y’all, but I want to tell you what my faith teaches me.”
There was some angst that if Shapiro joined the ticket, it would propel unwanted tensions about how Harris would tackle Israel’s war. But other Democrats, such as Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), reportedly cautioned that Shapiro’s ambitious nature could create friction with Harris if she selected him.
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A viral social media post by Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker touting Shapiro as Harris’s running mate before a decision was announced also suggested that the governor was too eager to outshine the Democratic presidential nominee.
But in his speech, Shapiro claimed he was “more optimistic than ever before” that Democrats can retain control of the White House. Patriots of the past “came together to declare our independence from a king, and we’re not going back to a king,” Shapiro declared. The crowd roared back with the chant “We’re not going back.”