Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz arrive at a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Big crowds, go-to applause lines, talk of joy — and some unsolicited Republican counterprogramming.
These were common themes during the first big campaign swing for Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as the new Democratic ticket barnstormed through five battleground states this past week on a get-to-know-us tour.
They opened with a boisterous rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, hours after Harris announced Walz as her running mate. From there it was a march through Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada. Planned stops in Georgia and North Carolina were washed out by Tropical Storm Debby.
The tour was a way to help both candidates introduce themselves to voters, especially independent and undecided voters in states where the Democrats are in tight races against Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
It was also a way for Harris and Walz to get to know each other better.
A look back at the campaign swing:
Size matters
Thousands of people have been flocking to Harris’ campaign rallies, a sign that her groundbreaking candidacy has generated new momentum among Democrats who were unenthused about President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. Harris is the first Black woman and first person of Asian descent to become a major political party’s nominee for president.
By the campaign’s count, 12,000 people turned out for rallies in Philadelphia and Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It was 15,000 in the Detroit area and in Glendale, Arizona. In Las Vegas on Saturday, more than 12,000 people were inside a university arena when authorities halted admissions because people were becoming ill waiting outside in 109-degree heat to go through security. About 4,000 people were still in line when the entrances closed, the campaign said.
To Lance Jones, a Tucson native who attended the Arizona rally, it felt like “the tables have turned with Harris and Walz.” He predicted his state “is going from basically red to purple to blue.”
Those crowd numbers annoyed Trump, who regularly attracts thousands to his own rallies.
“Oh, give me a break,” he said at a news conference when asked about Harris. “Nobody’s had crowds like I have.”
Republican counterprogramming
The Republican ticket didn’t just weigh in from afar, Vance tried to shadow his Democratic rivals during the opening days of their tour. He made appearances in Philadelphia and Detroit hours before the Democrats arrived in those cities.
But after Harris and Vance landed around the same time in Eau Claire on Wednesday, the Republican stepped off his plane and walked toward Air Force Two.
Vance later joked about the in-your-face move, saying he had a “bit of fun” while trying to “check out my future plane.” Air Force Two would become his primary mode of travel if he and Trump are elected in November.
The stump speeches
Harris and Walz delivered basically the same speeches — heavy on personal biography — from one rally to the next, with some tweaks to tailor their remarks to the particular audience and state.
Harris added lines about fighting for working people and the upside of organized labor to her remarks in Michigan. In Arizona and Nevada, where migration is a big concern, she drew on her prosecutorial background to tell the crowd she had gone after transnational gangs, drug cartels and smugglers when she was California’s attorney general.
“I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said.
In Las Vegas, where the economy is heavily dependent on the hospitality industry, she promised to work to eliminate federal taxes on tips for restaurant and other service industry employees. Trump, who floated the same idea several months ago, posted on social media that she was a “copycat.”
Harris closed her rallies by asking people what kind of country they want to live in, before calling them to action and declaring, “When we fight, we win.”
Walz, largely unknown outside the Midwest, went deep on his personal story of serving in the Army National Guard and his years as a high school teacher and football coach, as a member of Congress and governor. In a campaign partly centered on restoring reproductive rights, he shares that he and his wife, Gwen, suffered through years of in vitro fertilization treatments before their daughter, Hope, was born.
Go-to applause lines
Each candidate has lines that rev up the crowd
— “Hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type,” says Harris, describing the kinds of people she went after as a prosecutor.
— “Even if we wouldn’t make the same choice for ourselves, there’s a golden rule: Mind your own damn business,” says Walz, explaining what he said was the Midwest approach to private, personal decisions such as whether to have an abortion.
— “We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” says Walz, urging audiences to give it their all for however many days are left in the campaign.
New buzzwords: ‘joy’ and ‘weird’
Walz introduced both words to the campaign. Even before he joined the Democratic ticket, his description of Trump and Vance and their policies as “weird” caught on. Harris herself used the description a few times.
As Walz says, “No one’s asking for that weird crap.”
Walz also credits Harris with “bringing back the joy” to politics, and Harris herself described the Democratic ticket as “joyful warriors.”
‘Lock him up’
At several stops, the crowd started chanting “lock him up” aimed at Trump, an echo of the chants that Trump’s campaign audiences directed at Democrat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 race.
Harris has a ready comeback to move things along. “Hold on. Let the courts take care of that. We’re going to beat him in November,” she says.
Likewise, she had a ready rejoinder for disruptions from protesters upset that the administration isn’t doing more to protect Palestinians during Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
As she told them in Arizona, “I respect your voices but we are here to now talk about this race in 2024.”
Who’s counting?
At each stop, Walz reminded people of the countdown to Election Day, Nov. 5.
By Friday in Phoenix, it must have seemed a blur: He was off by a day when he set the countdown at 87, instead of 88 days.
He isn’t the only one counting.
A troop of Girl Scouts greeted the vice president at the airport in Wisconsin on Wednesday, 90 days out from the election. Snippets of their conversation overheard by reporters suggested they may have been chatting about summer plans.
Harris was heard replying, “I’m planning on going somewhere in 90 days.”
Bonus stop
Harris had one last stop on Sunday — San Francisco — before returning to Washington. This one was all about collecting campaign cash for the fight ahead.
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., joined Harris for the event, which the campaign said raised more than $12 million.
Pelosi spoke of wanting “democracy to win an Olympic gold” on Election Day. And Harris, to cheers after saying “we will win this election,” told supporters, “We do not have a day to waste.”
DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press
Associated Press writer Gabriel Sandoval in Glendale, Arizona, contributed to this report.
Kamala Harris makes an immigration pitch in Arizona as she fights to gain ground in the Sun Belt
GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris drew on her prosecutorial background to make her first expansive pitch on immigration to border-state voters as she and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, attracted thousands to a campaign rally in Arizona during their tour of battleground states.
Harris, the former attorney general of California, reminded the crowd that she, as a law enforcement official, targeted transnational gangs, drug cartels and smugglers.
“I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said in front of a crowd of more than 15,000 in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix. “So I know what I’m talking about.”
Harris promoted a border security bill that a bipartisan group of senators negotiated earlier this year, which Republican lawmakers ultimately opposed en masse at Republican nominee Donald Trump’s behest.
“Donald Trump does not want to fix this problem,” Harris said. “Be clear about that: He has no interest or desire to actually fix the problem. He talks a big game about border security, but he does not walk the walk.”
Her effort to address immigration — a political liability that has dogged Harris for most of her vice presidency — head-on in the critical battleground state is part of a broader push from her campaign to make gains in Sun Belt states that had become increasingly out of reach with Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.
Trump and his allies, who had long hammered Biden over the influx of migrants during his term, are now shifting their attacks to Harris. Kari Lake, who is running against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego for the open Senate seat in Arizona, bashes Gallego in a recent ad for supporting Biden’s and Harris’ “radical border agenda,” featuring repeated clips of the vice president chortling.
“It’s very easy for us to segue and switch our sights and focus on her,” said Dave Smith, Pima County’s Republican party chairman.
But Harris has been courting the state’s fast-growing Latino population and released a new ad of her own, highlighting how Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, rose to the highest echelons of American politics.
And, as she has done in other campaign stops, Harris during the rally infused the theme of “freedom” throughout her remarks, especially as it came to voting rights, gun safety, LBGT rights and access to abortion.
“Arizona, ours is a fight for the future and it is a fight for freedom,” Harris said, who had walked out on the stage as Beyonce’s “Freedom” blared throughout Desert Diamond Arena.
Harris’ message on safety and gun restrictions resonated with Jen Duran, a 37-year-old mother and independent voter.
“I have an elementary school daughter who has been going to this school since she was 4, and today we got a notification that there was a lockdown drill,” Duran said. “So safety for our kids is really important.”
Phyllis Zeno, a 65-year-old grandmother from Maricopa, said she was thrilled to hear Harris’ message of unity and her policy positions, especially on affordable health care and reproductive rights.
“Her message to me, it wasn’t just hope, but renewed faith in democracy, that we can do this,” Zeno said.
Arizona is represented by Democrat Mark Kelly in the U.S. Senate, who has won two tough races in the politically divided states and whom Harris passed over as a running mate this week.
In choosing Walz over Kelly, Harris may have lost the chance to win over people like Gonzalo Leyva, a 49-year-old landscaper in Phoenix. Leyva plans to vote for Trump but says he would have backed a Harris-Kelly ticket.
“I prefer Kelly like 100 times,” said Leyva, a lifelong Democrat who became an independent at the beginning of Trump’s term in office. “I don’t think he’s that extreme like the other guys.”
In Arizona, every vote will be critical. The state is no stranger to nail-biter races, including in 2020 when Biden bested Trump by fewer than 11,000 votes. Both parties are bracing for a similar photo finish this year.
Harris acknowledged how tough the race will be as she and Walz toured a campaign office in North Phoenix Friday afternoon and thanked volunteers, who were making signs with sayings such as “This Mamala is Voting for Kamala” and “Kamala and the Coach.” (Walz has been a high school football coach.)
She also emphasized it during the rally.
“As exciting as this is, we cannot lose sight of a really important fact: We are definitely running as the underdog,” Harris said.
Democrats are confident Harris is in solid shape in the state even without Kelly on the ticket. The senator plans to remain a strong advocate for Harris and is already mentioned for possible Cabinet posts or other prominent roles should the vice president ascend to the Oval Office.
“What this is about is who works harder. That’s it,” Kelly said at the rally. “It is as simple as that.”
Arizona is something of a magnet for Midwesterners seeking to escape the cold. So, several observers say, Walz may still play well there. The governor himself noted that during his opening remarks for Harris, saying: “I’m like a damn snowman, I’m melting here.”
Scott Snyder, who moved to Phoenix three years ago from Detroit, wasn’t too familiar with Kelly’s background or his politics, but said Harris made the right choice with Walz.
“He reminds me a lot of my dad,” said Snyder, an electrician. “You see pictures of him out there coaching high school football. That’s something that resonates with me. You see him out there duck hunting. Same thing. That’s fairly common in Michigan, where I’m from.”
Arizona was reliably Republican until Trump’s combative approach to politics went national.
In 2016, Trump won Arizona, then quickly started feuding with the late Republican Sen. John McCain, a political icon in the state. That sparked a steady exodus of educated, moderate Republicans from the GOP and toward Democrats in top-of-the-ticket contests.
In 2018, Democrats won an open Senate race in the state, foreshadowing Kelly’s and Biden’s wins in 2020. In 2022, Kelly won again, and Democrats swept the top three statewide races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, defeating Republican candidates who hewed to Trump’s style and his lies about fraud costing him the 2020 presidential election.
Chuck Coughlin, a Republican strategist and former McCain staffer, said the same voters who tipped the state to Democrats in the past few cycles remain lukewarm, at best, on Trump.
“Trump’s not doing anything to embrace that segment of the electorate,” he said.
Meanwhile, there was a fresh reminder of yet another liability for Harris when she was interrupted by Gaza protesters.
Harris said she has been clear that “now is the time to get a cease-fire deal” to end fighting between Israel and Hamas that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Gaza. She stressed that she and Biden “are working around the clock every day to get that cease-fire deal done and bring the hostages home.”
Harris added, “I respect your voices, but we are here to now talk about this race in 2024.”
She responded differently earlier this week when Gaza protesters interrupted her during a Detroit-area rally. She talked over the protesters.
GABRIEL SANDOVAL, DARLENE SUPERVILLE, SEUNG MIN KIM and NICHOLAS RICCARDI Associated Press
