EAU CLAIRE, Wisconsin: Leaders of the Arab American community and major unions in the US Midwest said Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris made the right choice in choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in the November election.
Some Democratic Party leaders in Michigan worried that picking the wrong running mate could slow momentum and tear apart a coalition that had recently begun to coalesce after President Joe Biden's landmark decision to drop out of the race and give way to Harris.
Walz's addition to the ticket has eased some of the tension, with some leaders indicating that Harris had heard concerns from another leading contender for the vice presidency, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who felt he had gone too far in his support for Israel.
“The party is recognizing that there is a coalition that they have to rebuild,” said Dearborn, Michigan Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. “Choosing Walz is another sign of good faith.”
Harris and Walz spent their first full day campaigning together in the Midwest on Wednesday, where they got an unusual glimpse of how hotly contested the region will be when they overlapped with Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance on a Wisconsin tarmac.
Democrats toured Wisconsin and Michigan, hoping to drum up support among the young, diverse, labor-friendly voters who helped President Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
“As Tim Walz likes to point out, we are happy warriors,” Harris said at the day's first rally in Eau Claire. Contributing to that sentiment, the Harris campaign said it raised $36 million in the first 24 hours after announcing Walz as his running mate.
The vice president said the pair looked 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 criticized her rival.
“Let no one who suggests that we should repeal the Constitution of the United States have the opportunity to sit behind the seal of the United States again,” Harris said, his voice rising to applause from the crowd of more than 12,000 his campaign said.
Wednesday's campaign swing was especially important for him and Walz because Biden's winning coalition four years ago showed signs of fracturing in the heat — particularly in Michigan, which has emerged as a focal point of the Democratic divide over Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. .
Addressing a Wisconsin rally of Democrats ahead of Harris, Walz had some critical words for Vance but directed many of his sharpest words at Trump, saying the former president “makes a mockery of our laws, he sows chaos and division among people and has nothing to say about it. Work as done.”
Republicans are trying to paint Harris and Walz as ultra-liberal for the Midwest, with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, saying in a conference call that Walz is “part of the radical, crazy left, like Vice President Harris.”
excited enthusiasm
But since Harris announced his candidacy and picked Walz as his running mate, Democratic enthusiasm has soared.
“We love Joe. Joe has been an incredible president, but he's not the same messenger. And sometimes you need a better messenger,” said Dan Miller of Pelican Lake, Wisconsin, who attended the Walz-Harris rally. “And that's Kamala.”
The momentum could be decisive in Detroit, which is nearly 80 percent black, where leaders have warned administration officials for months that voter apathy could cost them the city, a stronghold of their party.
NAACP Detroit Branch President Rev. Wendell Anthony said the excitement in the city right now is “mental.” 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.
Some Democratic leaders in Michigan worried that picking the wrong running mate could slow that momentum, and tear apart a coalition that had only recently begun to coalesce.
Arab American leaders, who hold significant influence in Michigan because of their large presence in metro Detroit, were vocal in their opposition to Shapiro because of his past comments about the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Those leaders pointed in particular to comments he made about protests on university campuses earlier this year, which they felt unfairly compared the actions of student protesters to white supremacists. Shapiro, who is Jewish, has become a staunch supporter of Israel by criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Osama Siblani, publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News and a prominent leader in Michigan's large Muslim community, was among those in Michigan last week to meet with White House adviser Tom Perez.
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 improve relations 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 “shut down” future talks.
“It's a very good move not to cut Shapiro. It opens the door a little bit more for us,” said Siblani, who emphasized with Hammoud that any meaningful conversation must include policy discussions.
Dueling tables
Trump has also been pushing voters in Midwestern states to pick Ohio Republican Senator Vance as his running mate. Vance was also breaking the Harris-Walz ticket with his own appearances Wednesday in Michigan and Wisconsin.
The conflicting schedules overlapped enough that while Harris was still greeting a group of Girl Scouts who had arrived at Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley Regional Airport, Vance's campaign plane landed nearby and taxied in the distance.
Harris posed for a group photo with the girls as Vans deplaned, and he began walking to Air Force Two, followed by his security detail.
The vice president finally got into his motorcade, and it pulled away before they could interact. Still, the pair came so close to doing so on the tarmac that it was unusual given the carefully scripted nature of the campaign schedule.
“I just wanted to check out my future plane,” Vance later told reporters, implying that he and Trump would travel on Air Force Two if elected in November. He also criticized Harris for not fielding questions from reporters, even though she sometimes answers shouted questions when boarding or leaving her plane during campaign stops.
Vance later told the crowd at his Eau Claire event, “We actually saw the vice president's plane,” and then joked to reporters traveling with him, “I thought they must be alone because Kamala Harris doesn't take any questions.”
“If those people want to call me weird, I call it a badge of honor,” Vance said, responding to a moniker Walz tapped when Harris tapped him as his running mate in the days when he made the Minnesota governor notable online.
