CHICAGO (AP) — Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and former President Bill Clinton are headlining the Democratic National Convention’s third day on Wednesday, as the party hopes to build on the momentum that Kamala Harris has brought since joining the race a month ago.
Walz, the Minnesota governor who has become known among supporters as a folksy, Midwestern teacher, football coach and dad, will introduce himself to the rest of the country. He’s also become the target of Republican criticism over how he’s portrayed his National Guard service and his personal story.
Organizers have dubbed Wednesday night “a fight for our freedoms,” with the programming focusing on abortion access and other rights that Democrats want to center in their campaign against Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Speaker after speaker argued that their party wants to defend freedoms — especially abortion access and voting rights — while Republicans want to take them away.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis used a prop that has become a staple at the convention, an oversized book meant to represent the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a sweeping set of goals to shrink government and push it to the right, if Trump wins. Polis even ripped a page from the ceremonial volume and said he was going to keep it and show it to undecided voters.
The former president has distanced himself from Project 2025, but its key authors include his former top advisers. His running mate, JD Vance, wrote the foreword for the Heritage Foundation CEO’s new book.
Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the story of a woman in her state, which enacted new abortion restrictions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, who was forced to carry to term a child with a fatal illness, only to watch the newborn die just hours after birth.
And Dana Nessel, Michigan’s attorney general and an openly gay woman, declared, “I got a message for the Republicans and the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: You can pry this wedding band from my cold, dead, gay hand.”
Trump bashed the convention on Wednesday as a “charade” and noted the fact that he has been a frequent topic of conversation. He also singled out his predecessor, Barack Obama, for a highly critical speech Tuesday night and said Obama had been “nasty.”
On the program are Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, whose speeches will come alongside videos of what organizers called “everyday Americans” describing how their freedoms hinge on the result of the upcoming election.
Also expected onstage are music icon Stevie Wonder and legendary talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who gave a critical endorsement of then-Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. Country music star Maren Morris sang her ballad “Better Than We Found It,” and poet Amanda Gorman was also set to take the stage.
Democrats recognized the hostages still being held by Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed. Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin brought some in the arena to tears as they paid tribute to their son Hersh, who was abducted in the attack.
Freeing hostages “is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue,” Jon Polin said, adding that “in a competition of pain there are no winners.”
The Israel-Hamas war has split the Democratic base, with pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating outside the United Center and several speakers this week acknowledging civilian deaths in the Israeli offensive in Gaza. More than 40,000 people have died in Gaza, according to local health authorities.
In another contrast, Democrats argued that they are offering “real leadership” on the U.S.-Mexico border, working toward policy solutions rather than simply demonizing immigrants and trying to use the issue as a political motivator for their base. That was part of a larger effort to defuse Trump’s effort to make cracking down on the border a centerpiece of his campaign.
Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar, from the border city of El Paso, said, “Forget what you hear on the news, I’m from there.”
Speaking later is Clinton, the nation’s 42nd president and a veteran of his party’s political convention going back decades.
“In 2024, we have a clear choice: ‘We The People’ versus ‘Me, Myself, and I,” Clinton plans to say, according to early excerpts of his address.
He will add, “Kamala Harris is the only candidate in this race with the vision, the experience, the temperament, the will and yes — the sheer joy — to do that on good and bad days. To be our voice.”
Two high-profile governors, Wes Moore of Maryland and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, were speaking, as were Democratic senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
Democrats are trying to demonstrate that they have a large number of future potential contenders for the White House beyond Harris, and that includes others who have gotten huge cheers while appearing throughout the week at the convention, like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Walz hasn’t been as high-profile. In fact, many Americans had never heard of the governor until Harris chose him to join her ticket. In his first weeks of campaigning, he’s charmed supporters with his background and helped to balance Harris’ coastal background as a cultural representative of Midwestern states whose voters she needs this fall.
But Walz also has faced scrutiny, including questions about embellishing his background. His wife this week clarified that she did not undergo in vitro fertilization, as Walz has repeatedly claimed, but used other fertility treatments. Republicans also have criticized Walz for a 2018 comment he made about carrying weapons in war. Though he served in the National Guard for 24 years, he did not deploy to a war zone.
Walz has been working on his speech to the convention for about a week and planned to use a teleprompter for a first time, which he practiced in preparation. He plans to talk about growing up in Nebraska, his National Guard service, his work as a teacher and coach and his time in Congress before he was elected governor two years ago.
Ahead of his appearance onstage, John Legend and Sheila E. are set to perform a tribute to Prince, who hails form Minnesota and whose work Walz routinely celebrates.