Arab-American community, key unions buoyed by Harris' choice of Walz as running mate
EAU CLAIRE, Wis.: Representatives of the Arab-American community and key unions in the American Midwest said Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris made the right choice in selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in the November election.
Some Michigan Democratic leaders have grown concerned that picking the wrong candidate could slow the pace and fracture a coalition that has only recently begun to coalesce after President Joe Biden's high-profile decision to drop out of the race in favor of Harris.
Walz's addition to the ticket calmed some tensions and signaled to some leaders that Harris had heard concerns about another front-runner for the vice presidency, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who they say has gone too far in his support for Israel.
“The party recognizes that there is a coalition that they have to rebuild,” said Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan. “The selection of Walz is another sign of good faith.”
Harris and Walz spent their first full day campaigning together in the Midwest on Wednesday, getting an unusual look at how hotly contested the region will be when they overlapped with Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance on the Wisconsin tarmac.
Democrats visited Wisconsin and Michigan, hoping to drum up support among the younger, diverse and work-friendly voters who helped President Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
At the first rally of the day in Eau Claire, Harris said, “As Tim Walz likes to point out, we are joyful warriors.” Adding to that sentiment, the Harris campaign said it raised $36 million in the first 24 hours after announcing Walz as its 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.
“Someone who suggests that we should abrogate the Constitution of the United States should never again be allowed to sit behind the seal of the United States,” Harris said, her voice rising to applause from the crowd, which her campaign said was more than 12,000 people.
Wednesday's campaign swing was especially important for her and Walz as Biden's winning coalition of four years ago showed signs of fraying over the summer — particularly in Michigan, which has emerged as a focal point of Democratic divisiveness over Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. .
Speaking at the Democratic convention in Wisconsin before Harris, Walz had some critical words for Vance, but aimed most of his harshest words at Trump, saying the former president “makes a mockery of our laws, sows chaos and division among people, and I'm not talking about the job he did 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 “as much a part of the radical, crazy left as Vice President Harris.”
Growing enthusiasm
But Democratic enthusiasm has grown since Harris announced her candidacy and chose Walz as her 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 key in Detroit, which is nearly 80 percent black, where leaders have warned administration officials for months that voter apathy could cost them in a city that is typically a stronghold of their party.
Roar. Wendell Anthony, president of the NAACP's Detroit chapter, said the excitement in the city right now is “overwhelming.” 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 have grown concerned that picking the wrong candidate could slow that momentum and fracture a coalition that has only recently begun to coalesce.
Arab American leaders, who wield significant influence in Michigan due to a large presence in metro Detroit, have spoken out against Shapiro over his past comments regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Those leaders specifically pointed to a comment he made earlier this year regarding protests on college campuses that they said unfairly compared the actions of student protesters to white supremacists. Shapiro, who is Jewish, has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while remaining a staunch supporter of Israel.
Osama Siblani, publisher of 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 last week in Michigan.
Although in the state officially, Perez has maintained contact with some Dearborn leaders since he and other top officials traveled there with Biden in an effort to mend 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.
“Not selecting 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 policy discussions.
Schedule of duels
Trump also emphasized reaching voters in Midwestern states by choosing Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, as his running mate. Vance even held the Harris-Walz ticket on Wednesday with his own appearances in Michigan and Wisconsin.
The schedules of the fights overlapped so much that while Harris was still greeting a group of Girl Scouts who had come to visit her at Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley Regional Airport, Vance's campaign plane landed nearby and taxied in the distance.
Harris took a photo with the girls around the same time Vance took off and began walking toward Air Force Two, followed by his security detail.
The vice president finally got into her column and she pulled away before they could talk. Yet for the pair to come so close to it on tarmac was unusual given the carefully scripted nature of the campaign plans.
“I just wanted to look at my future plane,” Vance later told reporters, implying 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 when she boards or leaves planes for campaign stops.
Vance later told the crowd at his Eau Claire event, “We actually just saw the vice president's plane,” and then joked about the reporters traveling with him, “I figured they must be lonely because Kamala Harris isn't asking any questions.”
“If these people want to call me weird, I call it a badge of honor,” Vance said in response to the moniker Walz used to describe him, which made the Minnesota governor notable online in the days before Harris labeled him as her running mate.
