Vice President Kamala Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, spent their first full day of campaigning Wednesday battling for the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin and Michigan, while the Trump campaign launched a fresh attack on Mr. Walz’s military career.
The Democrats started a two-day introductory trip through the swing states, which along with Pennsylvania are traditional Democratic strongholds that form a blue wall to propel candidates to the White House. Republican nominee former President Donald Trump was able to flip all three states in 2016, but President Biden flipped them back in 2020.
During their rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on Wednesday, the newly minted Democratic ticket sought to connect with midwestern values. Mr. Walz emphasized his roots, telling the crowd that he grew up in a small Nebraska town where “community means everything.”
“Thank you for articulating what we know it means to live out here in the Midwest, care for your neighbors,” Mr. Walz told the crowd, adding that his time there taught him “generosity to my neighbors” and “to work for a common good.”
“Donald Trump sees the world differently than we see it,” he said. “He has no understanding of service because he’s too busy servicing himself again and again, and again and again. This guy weakens our country to strengthen his own hand. He mocks our laws.”
The Trump campaign quickly sought to discredit Mr. Walz’s military service, which the GOP ticket hopes will be a weakness. They pointed out that Mr. Walz ended his 24-year career in the Army National Guard to run for Congress in 2005, just before the unit he led deployed to Iraq.
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“When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, do you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him — a fact that he’s been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with,” said Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate and a Marine veteran who served in Iraq.
“I think it’s shameful to prepare your unit to go to Iraq, to make a promise that you’re going to follow through, and then to drop out right before you actually have to go,” Mr. Vance said at a press conference in Michigan.
In a move underscoring how critical Wisconsin is to victory, Mr. Vance also held a rally just a few short miles away from the Harris-Walz event at the same time. Speaking at a factory in Eau Claire, Mr. Vance depicted Ms. Harris as a liberal elitist who looks down on their values.
“I think to lead this country you should feel some gratitude for it and you should feel some admiration for the people who actually make this country run,” Mr. Vance said. “Sometimes I hear Kamala Harris talk about the history of the country and she likes to put it down. I don’t know that she actually admires the people who work in this factory. I hope she does, but I don’t really see the gratitude or hear that gratitude when she speaks.”
“I actually care about the people standing behind me and I think they feel like I care for them and I think they care for me too,” he said to applause.
Mr. Vance also blasted Mr. Walz’s handling of the riots in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. As governor, Mr. Walz waited three days while businesses burned before calling in the National Guard.
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“‘I’m scandalized by this guy pretending he stands for working people,” Mr. Vance said. “Working people need to live in a community with public safety. Working people need to build a business and know that some hoodlum isn’t going to come and burn it to the ground because of some political issue.”
At the Democrats’ rally, Ms. Harris acknowledged the toll inflation has taken on communities across the country, vowing to make it a “day one priority” to bring down high prices. She blamed corporations for soaring prices, accusing them of engaging in illegal price gouging.
“Strengthening our economy and building up the middle class will be the defining goal of my presidency because you see Coach Walz and I know that when America’s middle class is strong, America is strong,” she said. Mr. Walz was a high school football coach before running for office.
She pointed to Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for governance proposed by the Heritage Foundation that Mr. Trump has distanced himself from in recent weeks. Ms. Harris said Project 2025 is nothing more than a plan to weaken America’s middle class by giving tax breaks to billionaires and corporations.
Her campaign, Ms. Harris said, is a fight to preserve the promise of America, which allows the children of working-class parents to someday run for president. She pointed to the diverse backgrounds of herself and Mr. Walz as proof of that promise.
“Two middle-class kids, one a daughter of Oakland, California who was raised by a working mother and had a summer job at McDonald’s. The other, a son of the Nebraska plains who grew up working on a farm. Only in America is it possible for them together to make it all the way to the White House,” she said.
After Wisconsin, Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz traveled to Michigan for a campaign rally Wednesday night, and were scheduled to hold a second event Thursday morning in an effort to bring rank-and-file union members back into the Democratic fold.
They will then travel to the swing states of Arizona and Nevada. Campaign officials said they raised $36 million in the first 24 hours after the announcement of Mr. Walz as the running mate.
Mr. Vance will be following them for much of their travels and holding competing events.
Ms. Harris’ path to victory runs through Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Polling is tight in all three states, but Wisconsin is a dead heat between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump with each receiving support from 43% of respondents, according to a survey by Redfield & Wilson Strategies.
In Michigan, Mr. Trump is up by a single percentage point, 42% to 41%, and he has a lead over Ms. Harris in Pennsylvania, 46% to 44%.
Vice presidential candidates rarely alter a race, but both Mr. Walz and Mr. Vance were picked to reassure Midwestern voters that a homegrown son will be representing their interests in the next administration. Just as Mr. Walz hails from the solidly Democratic state of Minnesota, Mr. Vance comes from the Republican haven of Ohio.
Both presidential candidates are betting that they will exude Midwestern appeal that will play well in the blue wall states, if for no other reason than geographic proximity.
The Trump campaign has sought to undercut Mr. Walz’s appeal by characterizing him as a far-left California liberal like Ms. Harris, saying his support for gun control and expensive social programs make him a “West Coast wannabe.”
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign has portrayed Mr. Vance as someone who abandoned his Midwestern roots to become a Silicon Valley venture capitalist.
But the blue-wall states are increasingly diverse, complicating both campaigns’ efforts to connect with voters. Michigan is home to a large number of Arab and Muslim-Americans who are furious with the Biden administration’s strong support for Israel and delay in calling for a ceasefire in its war with Hamas.
Mr. Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes in 2020, but the state has more than 242,000 Muslim voters, according to the U.S. Religion Census.
While Arab leaders in the state have made it clear that they won’t support Mr. Trump, they have also pledged to take their anger out on Ms. Harris. She was the first member of the Biden administration to call for a ceasefire, but a group of Muslim and Arab-American community leaders operating as Abandon Biden says that simply isn’t enough.
On Wednesday, the group said they worry that Mr. Walz won’t push hard enough for a ceasefire, dismissing his selection as a facade.
“Our concern moving forward is that the party and the campaign are relying more on the appearance of change rather than any actual plan for it, specifically with regards to foreign policy, which directly impacts domestic policy as we have witnessed over 10 months,” Abandon Biden said in a statement.
— Lindsey McPherson contributed to this report.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.