Arab-American community, key unions encouraged by Harris' choice of Walz as running mate
EAU CLAIRE, Wis.: Leaders of the Arab-American community and key labor unions in the American 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 Michigan Democratic Party leaders worried that the wrong choice of running mate could slow momentum and fracture a coalition that had only recently begun to coalesce after President Joe Biden's landmark decision to drop out of the race and to give way to Harris.
Walz's addition to the ticket eased some tensions, signaling to some leaders that Harris had heard concerns about another front-runner for the vice presidential job, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who they felt had gone too far in his support for Israel.
“The party recognizes that there is a coalition that they need to rebuild,” said Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan. “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 on a Wisconsin tarmac with Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance.
Democrats toured Wisconsin and Michigan in hopes of drumming up support from younger, diverse and labor-friendly voters who were instrumental in helping President Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
Harris told the first rally of the day in Eau Claire, “As Tim Walz likes to point out, we are merry warriors.” Adding to that sentiment, the Harris campaign said it raised $36 million in the first 24 hours after she announced Walz as her running mate.
The vice president said the pair were optimistic about the future, unlike former President Donald Trump, whom he accused of being stuck in the past and preferring a confrontational political style — even as he criticized his own opponent.
“Someone who suggests that we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again have the opportunity to stand behind the seal of the United States,” Harris said, her voice rising to cheers from a crowd that the campaign they said it numbered more than 12,000.
Wednesday's campaign shift was especially important for her and Walz because Biden's winning coalition of four years ago showed signs of falling apart over the summer — particularly in Michigan, which has emerged as a focal point of Democratic divisions over Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. .
Speaking at the Wisconsin Democratic rally before Harris, Walz had some critical words for Vance, but aimed most of his sharpest words at Trump, saying the former president “makes a mockery of our laws, he sows chaos and division among people, and that's not to say anything about the job he's done as president.”
Republicans are trying to paint Harris and Walz as too liberal for the Midwest, with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, saying on a conference call that Walz is “part of the radical, crazy left, just like Vice President Harris is.”
Enthusiasm growing
But Democratic enthusiasm has grown since Harris announced his candidacy and chose Walz as his running mate.
“We love Joe. Joe was an incredible president, but he's just 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 this is Kamala.”
The momentum could be crucial in Detroit, which is nearly 80 percent black, where leaders for months have warned administration officials that voter apathy could cost them in a city that is typically a stronghold for their party.
Pastor Wendell Anthony, president of the NAACP Detroit branch, said the excitement in the city now is “amazing.” 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 had grown concerned that the wrong choice of running mate could still slow that momentum and fracture a coalition that had only recently begun to coalesce.
Arab American leaders, who wield significant influence in Michigan due to their large presence in metro Detroit, have voiced opposition to Shapiro over his past comments on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
These leaders specifically pointed to a comment he made earlier this year regarding protests on college campuses, which 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, editor of the Dearborn-based Arab American News 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 kept in touch with some Dearborn leaders since he and other top officials traveled there with Biden in an effort to restore 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, he would “shut down” future conversations.
“Not picking Shapiro is a very good move. It opens the door a little bit more for us,” said Siblani, who along with Hammoud emphasized that any meaningful conversation must include political discussion.
Dueling programs
Trump also has focused on wooing Midwestern voters, with the choice of Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, as his running mate. Vance was even bracketing the Harris-Walz ticket with his appearances in Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday.
The dueling schedules overlapped enough that while Harris was still greeting a group of Girl Scouts who had come to see her off at Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley Regional Airport, Vance's campaign plane landed nearby and was running in the distance.
Harris posed for a group photo with the girls around the same time Vance was disembarking and began walking toward Air Force Two, trailed by his security detail.
The vice president eventually got into her motorhome and drove away before they could interact. That the pair came so close to doing so on a tarmac was unusual, however, given the carefully scripted nature of the campaign's schedules.
“I just wanted to check on my future plane,” Vance later told reporters, meaning he would travel on Air Force Two if he and Trump were elected in November. He also criticized Harris for not taking questions from reporters, although she sometimes answers shouted questions as she boards or leaves her plane for the campaign stop.
Vance later told the crowd at his Eau Claire event, “I actually just saw the vice president's plane,” then joked about the reporters traveling with him: “I thought they must be alone because Kamala Harris accepts no question”.
“If those people want to call me weird, I call it a badge of honor,” Vance said, responding to a nickname Walz describes that made the Minnesota governor an Internet sensation in the days before Harris named him his running mate them of leadership.
