Gov. Tim Walz's campaign rally in Asheville: What to expect? Why is he coming to WNC?

ASHEVILLE - North Carolina is firmly in play this presidential election, area pundits say, and that Democratic vice-presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has Asheville in his sights comes as no surprise.

"The candidates and surrogates for the Democratic candidates for president have not spent as much time in Western North Carolina as have the Republicans, in recent years," said Chris Cooper, a professor of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University.

"So it makes sense that the Democrats would want to show a little more love and show a little more attention to the western part of the state."

The Harris-Walz campaign announced over the weekend that Walz would rally in Asheville Sept. 17, arriving at around 4:30 p.m., following visits to Macon and Atlanta, GA. It will be the second time Walz has visited North Carolina since August, when Vice President Kamala Harris chose Walz as her running mate, and is the campaign's first visit to Asheville.

Asheville is Western North Carolina's economic and Democratic stronghold, "a blue city, in a blue county, in an otherwise pretty red region of the state," as one political scientist put it, and it offers a chance for Walz to woo voters from both camps.

“I think he’s going to try to thread that needle and attract both," said Ashley Moraguez, UNC Asheville associate professor and co-chair of the political science department.

"I think for Walz and Harris to compete in North Carolina, they really need to drive up their turnout in cities and then shrink Trump’s margins in more rural areas and Asheville can help accomplish that potentially."

Plus, she added, its proximity to other swing states, like Georgia, makes the area even more attractive.

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Republican nominees, former President Donald and running mate, Sen. JD Vance, also head to North Carolina this week. Vance will stop in Raleigh Sept. 18 and Trump in Wilmington Sept. 21.

Trump paid a visit to Asheville in August, where what he promised to be a policy-focused discussion by the campaign, spent time taking aim at Harris, hyping an adoring crowd and vowing a brighter future for America if reelected.

North Carolina is a battleground state, which Cooper refers to as a "coin toss," and of all the states that went for Trump in 2020, North Carolina was his narrowest victory — a margin of 1.34%, about 75,000 votes.

Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College in Salisbury, said that in North Carolina, it's a "turnout" election, less so than an election relying on persuading voters.

"So if (Harris-Walz) can get on the ground, get energy, get enthusiasm, get their base of voters out, that 75,000 vote total can certainly evaporate very quickly," he said.

What to expect from Walz's visit?

Cooper said he expects a classic Walz stump speech. That means portraying both Trump and Vance as extreme, he said — including a likely mention of Vance and Trump's false claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, OH are eating household pets — talking about reproductive health and abortion rights, and stressing "what a Harris-Walz ticket does for the American people."

"My guess is he will lean into some issue and rhetoric that will benefit the democrats in the rural parts of the state, but he tends to do that everywhere, that's just kind of who Tim Walz is," Cooper said. That might mean, "reinforcing the idea that you can be a hunter, you can love high school football, and you can still vote for a Democratic candidate.”

Generally, Moraguez said she anticipates talk about the "forward looking nature of the campaign ... trying to paint the Harris-Walz ticket as for the voters and paint Trump as out of touch, or more in it for himself, which is the message they've been trying to push for a while."

"I also expect that he'll condemn political violence in light of what happened yesterday," Moraguez said, in reference to an apparent assassination attempt targeting former President Donald Trump at his Florida golf course Sept. 15.

How significant is Walz's visit?

Of the significance of Walz's visit, Cooper said while it's not going to change the election, it sends an important signal.

"In this day and age, candidates can raise money almost at will. So the one finite resource they have is time. So if you look at where candidates spend time, it tells you what they value and whose votes they value the most. I think that’s why it’s so important, right?" Cooper said.

"You’ve only got so many days and hours to go around, and if Tim Walz is spending it in Western North Carolina, that says something about attention, just like when Donald Trump came, it said the same thing.”

It's unclear exactly how much a VP pick impacts an election, Moraguez said, but "what’s really important is that there is a surrogate coming to this part of the state."

"It’s a high-profile surrogate, it’s the vice presidential candidate, but I think that message, and how it resonates with voters, is what’s going to matter more," she said.

Will Harris come to Asheville?

Bitzer said Asheville has "as good a shot as any" city in the state to see a visit from Harris in the seven weeks left before the November election.

Moraguez agreed it would "make a whole lot of sense" for Harris to stop in WNC.

"It is a very strong blue area here in Asheville and in Buncombe County in an otherwise red part of the state where she might not have the most natural base of support, but if she wants to win North Carolina, or make it truly competitive, I do think that pulling off some of those rural voters, or some of those undecided voters in more rural areas in this part of the state could be a game changer for either candidate," she said.

Similarly Cooper said people should expect Harris back in the state multiple times, "and I'd be shocked if at least one of those stops weren't in the west."

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Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email [email protected] or message on X, formerly Twitter, at @slhonosky. Please support local, daily journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Gov. Tim Walz's campaign rally in Asheville: Why is he coming to WNC?