The Arab-American community and key unions are encouraged by Harris' choice to nominate Walz as her running mate.
EAU CLAIRE, Wisconsin: Arab American community leaders and key labor unions in the American Midwest said Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris made the right choice in selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in the November election.
Some Michigan Democratic Party leaders worried that picking the wrong running mate could slow momentum and fracture a coalition that had only recently begun to coalesce after President Joe Biden’s dramatic decision to drop out of the race and give Harris the lead.
Walz’s addition to the list calmed some tensions, signaling to some leaders that Harris had heard concerns about another leading candidate for vice president, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who they said had overreached in his support for Israel.
“The party is acknowledging that there is a coalition that they need to rebuild,” said Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, Michigan. “Choosing Walz is another sign of good faith.”
On Wednesday, Harris and Walz spent their first day of campaigning together in the Midwest, where they got an unusual glimpse of just how contested the region will be when they met on the Wisconsin trail with Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance.
Democrats have visited Wisconsin and Michigan, hoping to shore up support among the younger, more diverse, pro-worker voters who played a major role in helping President Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
Harris said at the first rally of the day in Eau Claire, “As Tim Walz likes to point out, we are joyful warriors.” Demonstrating that sentiment, Harris’s campaign said it had raised $36 million in the first 24 hours after announcing Walz as her running mate.
The vice president said the couple is looking to the future with optimism, unlike former President Donald Trump, whom she accused of being stuck in the past and preferring a confrontational style of politics, even as she herself criticizes her opponent.
“Anyone who suggests that we should end the Constitution of the United States should never again have the opportunity to sit behind the seal of the United States,” Harris said, raising her voice to cheers from a crowd that her campaign said numbered more than 12,000.
Wednesday’s campaign turn was especially important for her and Walz, as Biden’s winning coalition of four years ago has shown signs of fraying over the summer, particularly in Michigan, which has emerged as a flashpoint for Democratic divisions over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Addressing a Democratic rally in Wisconsin ahead of Harris, Walz had some critical words for Vance, but focused most of his sharpest words on Trump, saying the former president “makes a mockery of our laws, sows chaos and division among our people, not to mention the job he did as president.”
Republicans are trying to paint Harris and Walz as too progressive for the Midwest, with Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, saying in a conference call that Walz is “part of the radical, crazy left, as is Vice President Harris.”
Growing enthusiasm
But Democratic enthusiasm has increased since Harris announced her candidacy and chose Walz as her running mate.
“We love Joe. Joe was an incredible president, but he's not the same messenger. And sometimes you need a better messenger,” said Dan Miller, of Pelican Lake, Wis., who attended the Walz-Harris rally. “And that's Kamala.”
That momentum could prove decisive in Detroit, a city that is about 80 percent black, where leaders have warned administration officials for months that voter apathy could cost them dearly in a city that is usually a stronghold for their party.
The Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit NAACP, said the excitement in the city now is “mind-blowing.” He compared it to Barack Obama’s first run for president in 2008, when voters waited in long lines to help elect the nation’s first black president.
But some Michigan Democratic leaders worried that picking the wrong running mate could slow that momentum and fracture a coalition that had only recently begun to coalesce.
Arab-American leaders, who wield considerable influence in Michigan thanks to their strong presence in the Detroit metropolitan area, had been outspoken against Shapiro because of his past comments on the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Those leaders specifically referenced a comment he made earlier this year about protests on college campuses that they said unfairly compared the actions of student protesters to those of white supremacists. Shapiro, who is Jewish, has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while remaining a staunch supporter of Israel.
Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News in Dearborn and a prominent leader in Michigan's large Muslim community, was among those who met with White House adviser Tom Perez in Michigan last week.
Although Perez was in the state on official business, he has maintained contact with some Dearborn leaders since he and other top officials traveled there with Biden in an effort to repair ties with the community.
Siblani said he met with Perez for more than an hour on July 29 and told him that if Harris chose Shapiro, it would “block” future conversations.
“Not choosing Shapiro is a great step. It opens the door a little bit more for us,” said Siblani, who along with Hammoud stressed that any meaningful conversation must include policy discussions.
Duel Programs
Trump also emphasized appealing to Midwestern voters with his selection of Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, as his running mate. Vance even sidelined the Harris-Walz ticket with appearances in Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday.
The two schedules overlapped enough that while Harris was still greeting a troop of Girl Scouts to see her off at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Wisconsin, Vance's campaign plane landed nearby and taxied away in the distance.
Harris posed for a group photo with the girls about the same time Vance was disembarking and began walking toward Air Force Two, followed by his security personnel.
The vice president eventually got into his motorcade, which sped away before they could interact. Still, that the pair came so close to doing so on a tarmac is unusual, given the carefully scripted nature of campaign schedules.
“I just wanted to take a look at my future plane,” Vance later told reporters, meaning he would ride on Air Force Two if he and Trump were elected in November. He also criticized Harris for not taking questions from reporters, even though she sometimes answers shouted questions as she boards or disembarks from planes for campaign stops.
Vance later told the crowd at his event in Eau Claire, “We actually just saw the vice president's plane,” and then joked about the reporters traveling with him: “I thought they must be alone because Kamala Harris doesn't take questions.”
“If those people want to call me weird, I take that as a badge of honor,” Vance said, responding to a nickname Walz used to describe him that had made the Minnesota governor famous online before Harris chose him as her running mate.
