5 Takeaways From Kamala Harris’s First Week With Tim Walz

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5 Takeaways From Kamala Harris’s First Week With Tim Walz

As supporters walked into the first rally for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, they were given light-up wristbands like the ones Taylor Swift’s fans wear at her concerts.

It was clear this was no longer President Biden’s campaign.

Seemingly overnight, the new Democratic ticket transformed the party’s presidential push from a dreary drag to — as Mr. Walz put it — “a joy.” The cross-country unveiling showcased an enthusiasm that more than a few Democrats say has not been on display since Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign.

The Biden-to-Harris swap has, in just three weeks, flipped the election on its head. Democrats can now avoid making the race a referendum on Mr. Biden — a contest that many worried they would lose — and instead cast it as a choice between a Harris-led future or a return to power by former President Donald J. Trump. Across the country, the vice president’s crowds have been chanting her refrain: “We’re not going back.”

Here are five striking themes that coursed through the first week of the Harris-Walz ticket.

Democrats suddenly seem to have the upper hand.

Ms. Harris is campaigning as if she is winning, even as she cautions Democrats that she and Mr. Walz remain the “underdogs” against Mr. Trump.

In a remarkable development, Ms. Harris has turned Mr. Biden’s alarming poll numbers around. She now leads Mr. Trump in a national polling average and has pulled ahead in the must-win Northern battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to new surveys from The New York Times and Siena College.

“We’re going to do this!” she told the crowd at her Friday night rally in Arizona.

On the other side, Mr. Trump finds himself in an unfamiliar position: the back foot. He has challenged Ms. Harris to three debates, a move typically made by a candidate who fears defeat. (She has so far agreed to only one.)

On Thursday, he held a news conference at Mar-a-Lago to try to reclaim the spotlight, flashing frustration about the size of Ms. Harris’s crowds and repeating falsehoods that only drew more attention to his role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Some of his lines of ******* on Ms. Harris, like questioning her ******* identity, have been less than politically wise. And his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, has hardly set the campaign trail alight.

“It’s been a pretty ***** good week,” said Representative Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, a Democrat who had publicly called for Mr. Biden to drop out. “Night and day isn’t enough of a contrast.”

Trump ridicule is the favorite new tactic.

Mr. Biden for years cast Mr. Trump as something of a ******* on the country who had worked to undermine elections, roll back fundamental rights and pit Americans against one another.

Ms. Harris and especially Mr. Walz have a new approach: mocking him.

It was Mr. Walz’s description of Mr. Trump as “weird” that helped pave the way for him to win the running-mate sweepstakes. In stump speeches, he calls Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance “creepy and weird.” And one of the biggest Walz applause lines last week was when he reminded audiences that violent ****** was up during the Trump era — “not even counting the ******* he committed.”

(Mr. Walz also made a reference to an off-****** false claim about Mr. Vance and a couch, but dropped the line after a single delivery.)

Ms. Harris hasn’t held back, either. During her first large campaign rally in Atlanta, she effectively called Mr. Trump a coward for waffling on whether he would debate her.

“Well, Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage,” she said, before drawing out the next line for maximum effect: “Because as the saying goes, ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.’”

Harris and Walz are avoiding tough questions.

With tens of thousands of people crowding into rallies, and hundreds of millions of dollars pouring in, the Harris campaign is surely asking: Why mess with a good thing?

One way to do that, potentially, would be for Ms. Harris to sit down for a formal interview with the news media — which she has not yet done, three weeks after Mr. Biden dropped out and endorsed her. She has struggled in such settings before, especially early in her tenure. Any gaffes, real or perceived, could take the shine off her tightly controlled rollout as the Democratic nominee.

Ms. Harris has also not yet ***** out her policy agenda, and her website does not include a page detailing her policy positions, although it is still early in her campaign and she is unlikely to diverge much from Mr. Biden.

In brief remarks to reporters on Saturday, she said she planned to deliver a policy platform this coming week.

Mr. Trump is trying to make Ms. Harris’s media-shy approach a campaign issue, accusing her of hiding from tough questions. But there is little evidence the subject matters much to voters.

On Saturday afternoon, Ms. Harris took five questions from her traveling press pool in Las Vegas.

And she told reporters last week, in a 70-second Q. and A. on an airport tarmac in Michigan, that she planned to hold a sit-down interview soon — but not that soon.

“I’ve talked to my team,” Ms. Harris said. “I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month.”

The energy is a release of years of Democratic frustration.

The last Democratic presidential campaign that produced party-wide, unencumbered enthusiasm was Barack Obama’s in 2008. His 2012 re-election was a slog, followed by Hillary Clinton’s often perfunctory 2016 bid and Mr. Biden’s consensus-minded and Covid-interrupted 2020 run.

The 2024 Biden experience was on track to be another eat-your-vegetables campaign for Democratic voters. But once he dropped out and Ms. Harris took charge, 16 years of waiting for new inspiration came rushing out, seemingly all at once.

Gone were Mr. Biden’s low-energy, small-room stops where he mumbled off script. Last week, the Harris-Walz rollout included a drum line in Philadelphia, a hipster folk band in Wisconsin and the largest Democratic campaign rally since the Obama days in Detroit.

Singing and dancing was widespread in the hours before Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz took the stage. In Philadelphia, online influencers had their own entrance to the arena. Musicians, actors and athletes offered to help. Nobody used to spend any time wondering if a shadowy silhouette in a Taylor Swift post on

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was a low-key Biden endorsement — but the internet lit up last week when one looked like Ms. Harris.

“Before President Biden dropped out, people would say the 2028 primary is so great because you’ll have young governors and new people and a shift generationally, and in a lot of ways this sped that up,” said Lt. Gov. Austin Davis of Pennsylvania, who was at the kickoff rally in Philadelphia. “The switch lit the match.”

The new running mates have chemistry.

For her partner on the ticket, Ms. Harris wanted someone she clicked with personally. So far at least, Mr. Walz has seemed to deliver.

At their first ****** appearance last week in Philadelphia, Mr. Walz’s beaming, open-mouthed smile gave the impression of a man who could scarcely believe where he was standing. Ms. Harris appeared delighted as she told the crowd his life story, repeatedly referring to him as “Coach Walz,” a nod to his days coaching high school football.

They have traveled the battlegrounds since then, campaigning in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada.

Representative Haley Stevens of Michigan, who spoke at the Harris-Walz rally in Detroit on Wednesday, said the new running mates were campaigning “like they’ve always been doing this” together.

“When he looks at Kamala Harris and he says, ‘Thank you for bringing back the joy,’ that is such a resonant message,” Ms. Stevens said. “Because people are so ***** of darkness and negativity and *****.”

Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance have hardly seemed to establish the same rapport. Asked last month if the Ohio senator was “ready on Day 1” to serve as president if the need arose, Mr. Trump avoided directly answering the question.

“Historically, the vice president — in terms of the election — does not have any impact,” he said.

He and Mr. Vance have appeared at only three rallies together.

Taylor Robinson contributed research.

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#Takeaways #Kamala #Harriss #Week #Tim #Walz

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