PHILADELPHIA — In the city of brotherly love, Vice President Kamala Harris and her recently announced running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), held their first campaign rally together Tuesday evening in Philadelphia where they championed unity as they prepare for a brutal campaign cycle against former President Donald Trump.
“We are the underdogs in this race, but we have the momentum, and I know exactly what we are up against,” said Harris to a raucous crowd eager to cheer the campaign on.
“Our campaign is not just a fight against Donald Trump. Our campaign, this campaign, is a fight for the future,” she continued after the crowd chanted “Lock him up!”
As Harris introduced Walz, she praised him as a leader, fighter, teacher, and coach who has defended reproductive access, provided free meals to Minnesota school children, as well as championed a high-school Gay Straight Alliance. “And in 91 days, the nation will now coach Walz by another name: Vice President of the United States,” Harris told a cheering audience.
“Coach Walz and I may hail from different corners of our great country. But our values are the same,” said Harris. “We both believe in lifting people up, not knocking them down. He and I, we both know that the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us.”
“I couldn’t be prouder to be on this ticket and to help Vice President Harris become what we all know is very, very good for us to think about: next president of the United States of America,” Walz declared.
After lambasting Trump as an ineffective leader, the Minnesota governor claimed he was prepared for a vice presidential debate against Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Trump’s running mate. “I got to tell you, his running mate shares his dangerous and backward agenda for this country,” Walz said. “J.D. Vance literally, literally wrote the foreword for the architect of the Project 2025 agenda.”
Democrats have sought to link Trump and Vance to Project 2025, a more than 900-page conservative guidebook for a possible second Trump presidency with ties to the Heritage Foundation. The former president has tried to distance himself from the project.
“Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, J.D. studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community,” Walz said, drawing laughs from the crowd. “Come on, that’s not what Middle America is. And I gotta tell you, I can’t wait to debate the guy. That is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.”
The quip is about a false claim that caught fire over the internet that Vance wrote about having sex with a couch in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. The crowd burst into laughter at the sofa reference, which Walz emphasized by adding, “These guys are creepy, and yes, just weird as hell.”
The rally in Pennsylvania, possibly the most crucial state needed to win the presidency, launches a battleground state tour that will see the pair stumping in seven states that will decide the next president.
Democrats remain largely enthused over Walz joining Harris’s campaign and quickly raised $20 million in grassroots donations following the announcement.
Progressives such as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) have all voiced support for Walz, as have other big names affiliated with the party, such as former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, and Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV). Even Maryland Republican Senate nominee Larry Hogan congratulated Walz, a notable moment given his muted response when Vance was announced as Trump’s running mate last month.
Walz was selected over Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), a fact that Republicans have denounced as antisemitic. Vance suggested Shapiro had to downplay his Jewish heritage under attacks from the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party. “I think that’s scandalous and disgraceful,” Vance said.
Shapiro, who received loud applause as he spoke to the Philadelphia rally, praised Walz and claimed he would do all he could to unite Pennsylvania behind the Democratic ticket.
“I’m going to be working my tail off to make sure we make Kamala Harris and Tim Walz the next leaders of the United States of America,” Shapiro said.
The GOP slammed Walz as another “radical extremist” who was destroying the nation in a signal of how they are trying to brand the Democratic ticket. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley slammed Harris and Walz as “the most dangerously liberal ticket in history” in a statement.
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“By selecting tyrannical Tim Walz, Harris doubled down on her radical agenda to bring four years of soft on crime policies, an invasion at our southern border, and the elimination of the oil and gas industry across the country,” Whatlety continued. “Pennsylvanians don’t want a radical extremist duo in the White House – they want to make America wealthy, strong, safe, and great again with President Trump.”
Harris, however, claimed at the rally that the public would choose Walz’s record over a Republican ticket. “When you compare his resume — shall we? — to Trump’s running mate, well, well, some might say, it’s like a matchup between the varsity team and the JV squad,” she said.
