Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, looking to strengthen the Democratic ticket in Midwestern states.
After an introduction from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, she and Walz made their joint debut at a rally Tuesday evening in Philadelphia, kicking off their battleground state tour.
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Trump says he’ll debate Harris and predicts there’ll be an announcement about it soon
The former president’s comments came after he pulled out of a scheduled debate on ABC News.
“I hear she’s sort of a nasty person but not a good, good debater. But we’ll see because we’ll be debating her, I guess in the pretty near future. It’s going to be announced fairly soon but we’ll be debating her,” Trump in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday.
Trump said he wants to debate Harris and he would prefer it to be on Fox, which is perceived as being friendlier to him, but said “every network loves me very much right now” and even suggested openness to debating on ABC News despite his protestations in recent weeks as he claimed the network was biased against him.
He claimed there “might be” a conflict with ABC News because he sued the network in March following a statement by anchor George Stephanopoulos that Trump had been found “liable for rape.” A New York jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll but rejected her claim that she was raped.
“You could use that as an excuse. I could use that. I’ve said that, is there a conflict. And you know, there might be,” Trump said.
Trump agreed to the ABC debate two months after filing his lawsuit at the time when he initially was expected to face President Joe Biden. He’s recently cited his frustrations with Stephanopoulos as reason why he would not keep the debate commitment, along with the fact that he agreed to it when he thought he would be debating Biden, not Harris, and claimed that agreement was scuttled by Biden ending his reelection bid.
But Trump on Wednesday noted that ABC had said the debate would be moderated by “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir and “ABC News Live Prime” anchor Linsey Davis, which he didn’t voice any objections about.
Trump didn’t offer any further details.
With Walz on the national ticket, a colleague is taking over his role leading the party’s governors
The Democratic Governors Association announced Wednesday that Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly would assume Walz’s post as chairman of the organization.
Walz gave up his post as chairman Tuesday, when Harris tapped him as her vice presidential running mate, but continues to serve as Minnesota’s governor.
Kelly, in her second term as Kansas governor, has served as the DGA’s vice chair since late 2022. In a statement, she credited Walz with “breaking fundraising records and putting Democratic candidates for governor in the best position to be competitive in tough races this year” during his time leading the DGA.
Sen. JD Vance is hitting the campaign trail again Wednesday, but he’s not going it alone
The GOP vice presidential nominee boarded his campaign plane along with his wife, Usha.
Vance is heading to the battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin — the same two states his Democratic opponents are hitting, on the same day.
The Democrats’ Midwest swing comes a day after Vice President Kamala Harris officially unveiled Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate and appeared with him at a rally in Philadelphia, just hours after Vance made a campaign stop in the same city.
Both campaigns had planned to journey to North Carolina this week as well but called off those plans due to inclement weather concerns.
Harris-Walz vs. Trump-Vance: It’s now an expanded battle for both the Sun Belt and Rust Belt
The most turbulent presidential campaign in generations is now set to play out as a 90-day sprint across two fronts: the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt.
With her choice of a Midwestern governor as a running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris pushed to shore up “Blue Wall” states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — that Democrats need to win to keep the White House.
Harris, the first Black woman and woman of South Asian descent to head a major party ticket, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, will also be locked in Sun Belt competition to win Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, an electoral map that has expanded since Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race.
An underappreciated jump-start for Walz
Tim Walz had two jump starts, the first largely unnoticed, the second underappreciated.
The first came earlier this year when the governor and the vice president visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul. That visit underscored shared values between the two, according to people familiar with Harris’ thinking. Key issues that resonated with Harris included Walz’s advocacy for in vitro fertilization and child tax credits — an idea Walz has used in Minnesota.
The next key moment came July 23, two days after Biden’s withdrawal, when Walz went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and uttered a dig at Trump and Vance that quickly went viral.
“These guys are just weird,” Walz said, in his signature conversational, informal manner.
For years, Democrats, including Biden and Harris, have leveled high-minded attacks on Trump as a threat to democracy. They spotlighted his legal troubles, racist and sexist rhetoric, the hard-right policies found in the “Project 2025” agenda that Trump disavows. The jovial governor of Minnesota encapsulated it all in one word: “weird.” And he smiled while doing it.
Social media did its thing, and the Harris campaign took notice. Within days, the vice president — and other vice-presidential contenders — were using “weird” like an epithet.