Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sweep into Wisconsin seeking to build momentum

EAU CLAIRE – Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz rolled into western Wisconsin Wednesday seeking to build on their party’s newfound energy.

A little more than 24 hours earlier, Harris tapped Walz as her running mate for a 90-day sprint to Nov. 5. Now, Walz crossed his state’s eastern border seeking votes from his neighbors.

“Being a Midwesterner, I know a thing or two about commitment to the American people," the Minnesota Democrat told a large crowd packed around an outdoor stage just north of downtown Eau Claire.

“This is a campaign about where we’re going, and that’s a future where everyone matters, everyone is included,” Walz said.

The visit was an introduction of sorts to Walz for a swing state that will be critical on the path to the White House. It was the second stop for the new Democratic ticket on a week-long tour of battleground states across the country and among a swing through Blue Wall states key to Democrats’ victory in 2020.

Speaking in a key Wisconsin swing district, Walz detailed his background — from growing up in Nebraska, his service in the National Guard and as a social studies teacher and football coach before his students encouraged him to run for office.

Harris and her new running mate largely echoed remarks they made a night before in Philadelphia. They framed the race as a fight for freedoms, highlighting health care access, gun violence laws and lowering costs as top issues.

In her second visit to Wisconsin in her just over two-week-old presidential campaign, Harris again said the race was a choice between compassion and chaos as she took aim at former President Donald Trump and his own running mate, JD Vance, who held a campaign event not more than 3.5 miles south of his Democratic opponents the same afternoon.

“We’re not going back,” Harris said, calling Trump’s vision a “plan to weaken the middle class.”

And if Democrats hoped to continue their momentum, the crowd in Eau Claire answered.

Rallygoers holding blue Harris-Walz and KAMALA signs packed bleachers surrounding a stage as hundreds more stood in the grass behind the stands. The turnout — which the Harris campaign estimated at more than 12,000 people — was a notable contrast to Biden’s previous visits to Wisconsin in 2024.

Scott Richards, a 53-year-old Lutheran pastor from Gaylord, Minn., told the Journal Sentinel he planned to attend Harris’ pre-scheduled rally in Eau Claire before she made her vice presidential pick. But he called the selection of Walz the “icing on the cake.”

He reflected on a 2008 rally he attended for former President Barack Obama in St. Paul shortly after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination. The energy of Wednesday, he said, was comparable.

“What is happening right now in the Democratic Party — it is the only time that I have felt the same way, the level of engagement, energy, enthusiasm, the spirit of it all,” said Richards, who wore a rainbow-colored “Kamala” t-shirt. “It’s like a repeat of Obama in 2008.”

Another attendee, Emily Wirth of Milwaukee, suggested Walz has an ability to engage voters who might not normally consider themselves Democrats. A former Milwaukee Public Schools teacher, Wirth said Walz’s background as a teacher and football coach makes him more relatable.

“Not only has he worked in the blue-collar sector as an educator, as a coach — he talks the talk,” Wirth said. “He looks like many Wisconsin voters.”

The rally, which featured a performance from the Eau Claire-based band Bon Iver, came as new polling in the state showed Democratic enthusiasm in Wisconsin on the upswing since President Joe Biden withdrew from the race.

A Marquette University Law School Poll released an hour before the rally showed Harris in a dead heat with Trump in the state. Registered voters who considered themselves very enthusiastic to vote sided with Trump over Harris 52% to 47%

The numbers, though, are a notable improvement from the last Marquette poll released in late June. At the time, Biden and Trump were similarly tied among registered voters in the state. But voters who considered themselves very enthusiastic to vote sided with Trump over Biden 61% to 39%.

Republicans frame Tim Walz pick as 'defensive' for Harris

But Wisconsin Republicans on Wednesday brushed off the jump in Democratic enthusiasm. Rather, they framed Walz’s selection as damaging to Democrats in the state.

“Tim Walz is nothing more than a Californian with a Minnesota ZIP code,” said Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming, painting Walz as on the far-left and as a “defensive pick” for Harris.

“It’s a Blue Wall pick,” Schimming said. “She has to figure out a way to put together the old Democrat Blue Wall in the Upper Midwest of Minnesota, of Michigan, of Wisconsin.”

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, whose district borders the Minneapolis metropolitan area, similarly said Harris “probably lost Wisconsin” by picking Walz and slammed the Minnesota Democrat for his handling of protests in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer.

The campaign stop landed the Democratic ticket in a rural part of the state home to one of Wisconsin’s main battleground House districts. Trump won the 3rd Congressional District when he carried Wisconsin in 2016, and we won it again in 2020 — though Biden ultimately won the state by just over 20,000 votes that year.

Democrats this week pointed to Walz’s Midwest roots and ability to appeal to middle America as advantages the vice presidential pick brings to a state like Wisconsin. Some noted that Walz represented a similarly rural district for 12 years in Congress as they pitched him as someone who can connect with voters here.

(Walz on Wednesday told the crowd he brought members of his family to the rally and added: “A couple of them are Badgers, too, by the way.”)

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, a Madison Democrat, in a call with reporters last week called the 3rd District an “extremely important district for Democrats up and down the ticket” and said it was key for the party to turn out support for Harris and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin in the region’s numerous universities.

“The 3rd CD is a purple district in a purple state, and how it votes will very likely indicate how it goes statewide for Vice President Harris, as well as Tammy Baldwin,” Pocan said.

“It’s a bellwether district in a bellwether state,” Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Wednesday. Johnson claimed Trump’s success in the 3rd District boosted Johnson’s own electoral inroads in the area when he ran for reelection in 2022.

Before Harris and Walz took the stage Wednesday afternoon, top Wisconsin Democrats contrasted their nominees with Trump and Vance. They attacked Trump for taking credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the abortion rights case.

But they also highlighted Walz’s Midwestern sensibilities.

“He embodies our shared belief, which is: sometimes we need a hand, sometimes we lend a hand,” Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski said. “So let’s make sure Tim Walz goes from Midwest nice to Midwest vice.”

Baldwin, in a tight reelection race this year, made her second appearance with Harris Wednesday after largely avoiding talk of Biden before he dropped out of the race.

She called the Harris-Walz ticket “a new beginning for our party and our country.” Harris’ choice of Walz as her running mate, Baldwin said, showed the path to the White House goes through the Midwest and Wisconsin.

And Gov. Tony Evers called “my good friend and our next door neighbor.” He acknowledged the size of the crowd — noticably larger than the attendence Biden had drawn during his stops in the state this year.

“Good Lord there’s a lot of people here today,” Evers said. He used a phrase he often repeats. “Let me put it to you this way: Are you jazzed as hell?”

Rachel Hale of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kamala Harris, Tim Walz sweep into Wisconsin seeking to build momentum