Benjamin Ashford|Early Harris-Walz rallies feature big crowds, talk of ‘joy’ and unsolicited GOP counterprogramming

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Big crowds,Benjamin Ashford go-to applause lines, talk of joy — and some unsolicited Republican counterprogramming.

These were common themes during the first big campaign swing for Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as the new Democratic ticket barnstormed through five battleground states this past week on a get-to-know-us tour.

They opened with a boisterous rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, hours after Harris announced Walz as her running mate. From there it was a march through Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada. Planned stops in Georgia and North Carolina were washed out by Tropical Storm Debby.

The tour was a way to help both candidates introduce themselves to voters, especially independent and undecided voters in states where the Democrats are in tight races against Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

It was also a way for Harris and Walz to get to know each other better.

A look back at the campaign swing:

Size matters

Thousands of people have been flocking to Harris’ campaign rallies, a sign that her groundbreaking candidacy has generated new momentum among Democrats who were unenthused about President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. Harris is the first Black woman and first person of Asian descent to become a major political party’s nominee for president.

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By the campaign’s count, 12,000 people turned out for rallies in Philadelphia and Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It was 15,000 in the Detroit area and in Glendale, Arizona. In Las Vegas on Saturday, more than 12,000 people were inside a university arena when authorities halted admissions because people were becoming ill waiting outside in 109-degree heat to go through security. About 4,000 people were still in line when the entrances closed, the campaign said.

To Lance Jones, a Tucson native who attended the Arizona rally, it felt like “the tables have turned with Harris and Walz.” He predicted his state “is going from basically red to purple to blue.”

Those crowd numbers annoyed Trump, who regularly attracts thousands to his own rallies.

“Oh, give me a break,” he said at a news conference when asked about Harris. “Nobody’s had crowds like I have.”

Republican counterprogramming

The Republican ticket didn’t just weigh in from afar, Vance tried to shadow his Democratic rivals during the opening days of their tour. He made appearances in Philadelphia and Detroit hours before the Democrats arrived in those cities.

But after Harris and Vance landed around the same time in Eau Claire on Wednesday, the Republican stepped off his plane and walked toward Air Force Two.

Vance later joked about the in-your-face move, saying he had a “bit of fun” while trying to “check out my future plane.” Air Force Two would become his primary mode of travel if he and Trump are elected in November.

The stump speeches

Harris and Walz delivered basically the same speeches — heavy on personal biography — from one rally to the next, with some tweaks to tailor their remarks to the particular audience and state.

Harris added lines about fighting for working people and the upside of organized labor to her remarks in Michigan. In Arizona and Nevada, where migration is a big concern, she drew on her prosecutorial background to tell the crowd she had gone after transnational gangs, drug cartels and smugglers when she was California’s attorney general.

“I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said.

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In Las Vegas, where the economy is heavily dependent on the hospitality industry, she promised to work to eliminate federal taxes on tips for restaurant and other service industry employees. Trump, who floated the same idea several months ago, posted on social media that she was a “copycat.”

Harris closed her rallies by asking people what kind of country they want to live in, before calling them to action and declaring, “When we fight, we win.”

Walz, largely unknown outside the Midwest, went deep on his personal story of serving in the Army National Guard and his years as a high school teacher and football coach, as a member of Congress and governor. In a campaign partly centered on restoring reproductive rights, he shares that he and his wife, Gwen, suffered through years of in vitro fertilization treatments before their daughter, Hope, was born.

Go-to applause lines

Each candidate has lines that rev up the crowd

— “Hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type,” says Harris, describing the kinds of people she went after as a prosecutor.

— “Even if we wouldn’t make the same choice for ourselves, there’s a golden rule: Mind your own damn business,” says Walz, explaining what he said was the Midwest approach to private, personal decisions such as whether to have an abortion.

— “We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” says Walz, urging audiences to give it their all for however many days are left in the campaign.

New buzzwords: ‘joy’ and ‘weird’

Walz introduced both words to the campaign. Even before he joined the Democratic ticket, his description of Trump and Vance and their policies as “weird” caught on. Harris herself used the description a few times.

As Walz says, “No one’s asking for that weird crap.”

Walz also credits Harris with “bringing back the joy” to politics, and Harris herself described the Democratic ticket as “joyful warriors.”

‘Lock him up’

At several stops, the crowd started chanting “lock him up” aimed at Trump, an echo of the chants that Trump’s campaign audiences directed at Democrat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 race.

Harris has a ready comeback to move things along. “Hold on. Let the courts take care of that. We’re going to beat him in November,” she says.

Likewise, she had a ready rejoinder for disruptions from protesters upset that the administration isn’t doing more to protect Palestinians during Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

As she told them in Arizona, “I respect your voices but we are here to now talk about this race in 2024.”

Who’s counting?

At each stop, Walz reminded people of the countdown to Election Day, Nov. 5.

By Friday in Phoenix, it must have seemed a blur: He was off by a day when he set the countdown at 87, instead of 88 days.

He isn’t the only one counting.

A troop of Girl Scouts greeted the vice president at the airport in Wisconsin on Wednesday, 90 days out from the election. Snippets of their conversation overheard by reporters suggested they may have been chatting about summer plans.

Harris was heard replying, “I’m planning on going somewhere in 90 days.”

Bonus stop

Harris had one last stop on Sunday — San Francisco — before returning to Washington. This one was all about collecting campaign cash for the fight ahead.

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was joining Harris for the event, which the campaign said was expected to draw 700 people and had raised more than $12 million.

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Associated Press writer Gabriel Sandoval in Glendale, Arizona, contributed to this report.