Arab American community, key union encouraged by Harris' choice of Walz as candidate
EAU CLAIRE, Wis.: Leaders of the Arab American community and key labor unions in America's 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 Democratic party leaders in Michigan had grown concerned that choosing the wrong candidate could slow down and split a coalition that has only recently begun to coalesce after President Joe Biden's momentous decision to drop out of the race and give way to Harris.
Walz's addition to the ticket has calmed some tensions and signaled to some leaders that Harris had heard concerns about another leading contender for the vice presidential nomination, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who they believed had gone too far in his support for Israel.
“The party recognizes that there is a coalition they need to rebuild,” said Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, Michigan. “Choosing the waltz is another sign of good faith.”
Harris and Walz on Wednesday spent their first full day campaigning together across the Midwest, where they got a rare glimpse of how hotly contested the region will be when they overlapped on a Wisconsin tarmac with Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance.
Democrats visited Wisconsin and Michigan in hopes of supporting the younger, diverse, working-class voters who were crucial to helping President Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
Harris told the day's first rally in Eau Claire, “As Tim Walz likes to point out, we are happy warriors.” Adding to that sentiment, the Harris campaign said it had raised $36 million in the first 24 hours after she announced Walz as her running mate.
The vice president said the couple is looking to the future with optimism, unlike former President Donald Trump whom she accused of being stuck in the past and favoring confrontational politics — even as she herself criticized her opponent.
“Anyone who proposes that we repeal the Constitution of the United States should never again have the chance to sit behind the seal of the United States,” Harris said, her voice rising to applause from a crowd her campaign said numbered more than 12,000.
Wednesday's campaign swing was particularly important for her and Walz because Biden's winning coalition from four years ago has shown signs of wear and tear over the summer — particularly in Michigan, which has emerged as a flashpoint for Democratic divisions over Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Speaking at a Democratic Wisconsin rally before Harris, Walz had some critical words for Vance but trained most of his sharpest words on Trump, saying the former president “makes a mockery of our laws, he sows chaos and division among the people and it's too not to say anything about the job he did as president.”
Republicans are trying to portray Harris and Walz as too liberal for the Midwest, and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, said on a conference call that Walz is “part of the radical, crazy left like Vice President Harris.”
Increased enthusiasm
But Democratic enthusiasm has grown since Harris announced his candidacy and chose Walz as his running mate.
“We love Joe. Joe has been 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 it's Kamala.”
The momentum could be crucial in Detroit, which is nearly 80 percent black, where leaders had warned administration officials for months that voter apathy could cost them in a city that is typically a stronghold for their party.
The Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the NAACP Detroit chapter, said the tension in the city is now “dizzying.” He likened it to Barack Obama's first election as 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 picking the wrong candidate could slow that momentum, splitting a coalition that has only recently begun to coalesce.
Arab American leaders, who have significant influence in Michigan due to a large presence in metro Detroit, had been vocal in their opposition to Shapiro because of his past comments on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Those leaders specifically pointed to a comment he made earlier this year regarding protests on college campuses, which they felt unfairly compared the actions of student protesters to white supremacists. Shapiro, who is Jewish, has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while being a strong supporter of Israel.
Osama Siblani, publisher 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 maintained contact with some Dearborn leaders since he and other top officials traveled there with Biden in an effort to mend ties with the community.
Siblani said he met with Perez for over an hour on July 29 and told him that if Harris chose Shapiro, it would “shut down” future talks.
“Not choosing Shapiro is a very good step. It opens the door a little bit more for us,” said Siblani, who along with Hammoud stressed that any meaningful conversation must include policy discussions.
Dueling schedules
Trump has also emphasized appealing to voters in Midwestern states with his choice of Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, as his running mate. Vance even played the Harris-Walz ticket with appearances of his own in Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday.
The dueling schedule overlapped enough that while Harris was still greeting a group of Girl Scouts who came to see her arrive at the Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Wisconsin, Vance's campaign plane landed nearby and taxied in the distance.
Harris posed for a group photo with the girls at the same time Vance left the field, and he began walking over to Air Force Two, followed by his security detail.
The vice president eventually climbed into her motorcade, and it pulled away before they could interact. Still, it was unusual for the pair to come so close to doing so on a tarmac given the carefully scripted nature of campaign schedules.
“I just wanted to check on my future plan,” Vance later told reporters, implying that 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 campaign stops.
Vance later told the crowd at his Eau Claire event, “We actually just saw the vice president's plan,” then joked about reporters traveling with him, “I thought they must be alone because Kamala Harris isn't answering any questions.”
“If these people want to call me weird, I call it a badge of honor,” Vance said, responding to a moniker Walz used to describe him that made the Minnesota governor notable online in the days before Harris named him his running mate.
