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LAS VEGAS — Big crowds, thunderous applause, joyous conversation — and some uninvited Republican countermeasures.
These were common themes during the first major campaign Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz, Last week, the Democratic Party’s new campaign line-up toured five battleground states.
On Tuesday, hours after Harris announced Waltz as her running mate, they held a lively rally in Philadelphia. From there, the march moved through Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada. Stops originally scheduled in Georgia and North Carolina were postponed due to Tropical Storm Debbie.
The tour is a way to help both candidates introduce themselves to voters, especially independents and swing voters in states where the Democratic race is tight. Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance.
It was also a way for Harris and Waltz to get to know each other better.
Let’s review the campaign process:
Size matters
Thousands of people have flocked to Harris’ campaign rallies, a sign that her groundbreaking candidacy has generated new momentum among Democrats who had previously been wary of the possibility of a new administration. President Joe Biden’s re-election campaignHarris is the first black woman and person of Asian descent to be a major party presidential candidate.
According to the campaign, 12,000 people attended rallies in Philadelphia and Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Another 15,000 people attended rallies in the Detroit area and Glendale, Ariz. In Las Vegas, more than 12,000 people were inside a college stadium on Saturday when authorities suspended admission because people got sick while waiting for security checks in 109-degree heat. The campaign said about 4,000 people were still in line when the entrance was closed.
For Tucson native Lance Jones, who attended the Arizona rally, it felt like “Harris and Waltz flipped the tables.” He predicted his state is “basically going to go from red to purple to blue.”
Such large crowds irritated Trump, who often draws thousands to his rallies.
“Oh, spare me,” he said at a news conference when asked about Harris. “Nobody has as many viewers as I do.”
Republican counter-plan
Not only did the Republican candidate campaign from afar, Vance also tried to shadow his Democratic opponent in the opening days of the Democratic campaign, showing up in Philadelphia and Detroit hours before Democrats arrived in those cities.
But after Harris and Vance landed in Eau Claire at about the same time on Wednesday, the Republican stepped off the plane and walked toward Air Force Two.
Vance later joked that he had tried to “check out my future airplane” and it was “kind of funny.” If he and Trump are elected in November, Air Force Two would become his primary mode of travel.
Campaign Speech
Harris and Waltz delivered essentially the same speech at a rally, mostly biographical, with some tweaks to target specific audiences and states.
Harris added a message in her Michigan speech about fighting for the advantage of working people and labor organizations. In Arizona and Nevada, With immigration in the spotlight, she drew on her background as a prosecutor, telling the crowd that while serving as California’s attorney general, she had gone after transnational gangsters, drug cartels and smugglers.
“I sued them over and over again and I won every time,” Harris said.
In Las Vegas, The U.S. economy relies heavily on the restaurant industry, and she promised to work to eliminate federal taxes on tips for restaurant and other service industry workers. Months after Trump floated the same idea, she called him a “copycat” in a social media post.
Harris closed the rally by asking people what kind of country they want to live in, then called them to action, declaring that “when we fight, we win.”
Walz, little known outside the Midwest, spoke in depth about his personal experiences serving in the National Guard, as a high school teacher and football coach, as a congressman and as governor. In an event centered in part on restoring reproductive rights, he shared how he and his wife, Gwen, endured years of in vitro fertilization treatments before their daughter, Hope, was born.
Commonly used applause lines
Each candidate has a line that excites the audience
— “Listen, I know the type of people that Donald Trump is,” Harris said, describing the kind of people she goes after as a prosecutor.
— “Even if we wouldn’t make the same choice ourselves, there’s a golden rule: Mind your own business,” Walz said, explaining the Midwest’s attitude toward private decisions like whether to have an abortion.
— “When we die, we sleep,” Walz said, urging the audience to give it their all for the rest of the campaign.
New buzzwords: “happy” and “weird”
Waltz introduced both words to his campaign. Even before he joined the Democratic field, his description of Trump and Vance and their policies was popular, calling them “weird.” Harris herself has used the adjective several times.
As Waltz said, “Nobody wants this weird crap.”
Waltz also praised Harris for “putting fun back into politics,” while Harris herself described the Democratic candidate as “Happy warrior.”
‘Lock him up’
At several stops, crowds began chanting “lock him up” against Trump, echoing the Trump campaign’s slogan against Democrat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
Harris is ready to fight back and move things forward. “Hold on. Let the courts handle this. We’re going to beat him in November,” she said.
Likewise, she was ready to push back against disruptions by protesters who were upset that the Israeli government had not done more to protect Palestinians during Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
As she told them in Arizona, “I respect your voices, but we’re talking about this race in 2024 here.”
Who is counting?
At each stop, Walz reminded people of the countdown to Election Day on November 5.
By Friday in Phoenix, it all seemed a blur: When he set the countdown to 87 days instead of 88, he was just one day off.
He wasn’t the only one calculating.
On Wednesday, 90 days before the election, a group of Girl Scouts greeted the vice president at a Wisconsin airport, and reporters heard snippets of their conversation that suggested they might be discussing summer plans.
Harris responded, “I plan to be somewhere in 90 days.”
Bonus Stop
Harris has one last stop on Sunday, San Francisco, before returning to Washington, D.C. The main task of this stop is to raise funds for the next campaign.
Harris was joined by House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at the event, which the campaign said it expected to draw 700 people and raise more than $12 million.
Associated Press writer Gabriel Sandoval in Glendale, Arizona, contributed to this report.
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