Expect to see more of Tim Walz – in orange – this fall. Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, will wear a flashy vest and carry a rifle while pheasant hunting. He doesn’t wear it then sticky flannelstalking about cleaning the ditches or sings“Save big at Menards.”
Rounded out by the nickname “Coach Walz,” the EveryDad image is an unmistakable signal aimed at reaching white working-class and rural voters, the kind of voters that Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz’s ticket is trying to attract. fighting to the end in battlegrounds where reducing casualties in red areas can put them on top.
Democrats say that over the years they have given away rural districts and even some exurbs to former President Donald Trump. Rural counties in states like Wisconsin and Nevada have become deep red Trump territory, and since 2016 have been virtually impenetrable to the left.
Harris campaign officials, emphasizing Walz’s Midwest roots, military background, labor connections, experience as a hunter and career as a football coach, believe they have an opportunity with white, moderate and blue-collar voters — where Harris can make a softer appeal.
Harris, too, drew on her work as a prosecutor and her resume as the daughter of immigrants who worked at McDonald’s to win over those voters, then rose through the ranks to become vice president.
All in all, it’s a playbook not unlike the one in 2008 when Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate. Then, early in his political career, Obama reached out to a Washington veteran with foreign policy experience to appeal to labor and white working-class voters.
Some of them Key players on Obama’s team aides to Harris’ campaign, including David Plouffe, chief strategy adviser; Stephanie Cutter, senior messaging consultant; and Jen O’Malley Dillon, campaign chair.
The strategy was used in 2020 as well, but Biden and Harris switched roles. As a vice presidential candidate, Harris was supposed to help boost interest among women and voters of color while Biden touted his ties to labor and his roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
John Anzalone, a senior pollster for both the Obama campaigns and Biden’s 2020 campaign, is advising the Harris-Walz campaign. He said any presidential political strategist should remember that a mere 44,000-vote margin in battleground states puts Biden in first place in 2020. In rural areas, aggressive third-party spending may just make the difference, Anzalone added.
“You can’t just do substantive politics. You have to do base expansion and narrow margins, which is rougher for you in demographics,” he said. “You can kick your ass, but it’s kicking your ass by a smaller margin.”
On the ground, the Biden campaign began working months ago in the battleground’s rural counties to reach out to potential voters it said it had ignored for years.
“A lot of times, because Democrats are less efficient, they haven’t understood the value of showing up in places where it might be a little harder to win,” said Dan Kanninen, campaign field director for the Harris-Walz campaign. “It was more efficient to go to the big city markets, maybe to focus on the suburbs, but it was less efficient to go to rural America because the votes weren’t all in one place.”
Kanninen said the trend continues after the period, “you kind of lose people completely.” Democrats said they took a staggering 80% to 20% loss in red districts.
Kanninen said the campaign has begun to counter that by setting up offices and staff in those communities, talking to voters and holding events, including surrogate bus tours in more rural areas. Voters are starting to show up, he added, saying people “maybe need an invitation, need a place to go.”
The campaign is now highlighting the Harris-Walz ticket in those areas. Some of the themes highlighted at the Democratic National Convention also went toward that goal, bringing Walsh’s football team onto the convention stage and chanting “USA!” chanted slogans. and includes Democratic elected officials who are military veterans.
“It’s something you can do to attract a new kind of voter who isn’t part of the Democratic Party,” said a source close to the campaign. “You’ll see things like: Who’s going to be a better shot pheasant—Walz or [JD] Vance? We will throw them off balance.”
The campaign sees an opening to restore images associated with Republicans, including hunting, football and old-fashioned patriotism.
Walz is also expected to deliver a widely applauded biographical line at the convention, saying he’s in his 40s with young kids and has no political experience running for office in a deep red district.
“But you know what? Never underestimate a public school teacher,” he said.
One of the couple’s first rallies was in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where 12,000 people gathered. Walz may have another advantage in rural Wisconsin. More than 600,000 rural Wisconsinites live in Minnesota media markets or counties across the river from Minnesota, according to the campaign. This means that those areas are more familiar to Walz.
In Nevada, more than 3,000 new volunteers have signed up from rural areas alone since Biden endorsed Harris on July 21.
The campaign also plans to focus on issues related to the administration, including recent infrastructure funding, officials said. high speed internet promotes Medicaid expansion, popular in rural areas and places like rural North Carolina. The state, where a Democratic presidential candidate has not won since 2008, has already opened offices in rural communities. six counties.
In Wisconsin, the Harris campaign is operating in red states where Democrats have not previously opened offices.
“Rural” means different things in different states. Rural counties in North Carolina and Georgia are more diverse, while rural counties in Wisconsin and Nevada, for example, are predominantly white. Harris’ campaign touted the administration’s contributions in Georgia, including new clean energy jobs, rural health and significant investment Farmers in Georgia.
Speaking to reporters in Chicago last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said rural counties can also help decide the legislative agenda in the Senate and, by extension, the next president.
“We’re not going to win rural counties, but we’re going to reduce the margin for Republicans to win them,” Schumer said.
Republicans, meanwhile, have portrayed Democrats as out of touch with voters worried about border security, gas prices, rising auto insurance rates in places like Nevada and the cost of groceries.
“These are kitchen table issues and these kitchen table issues hit home. And Kamala Harris has done nothing for us in the last three years,” said Michael McDonald, Trump’s advisor and chairman of the Nevada GOP party.
At the same time, McDonald pointed to the intensity of the competition in a state where early voting gave Trump a significant advantage over Biden. The entry of Harris as a candidate for the presidency increased the number of Democrats.
“They are campaigning hard – as are we,” he said.
Trump’s team says it is more confident than ever of its deep support in rural America. He portrays Harris as “dangerously liberal” and describes Walz as a failed governor. accused of exaggeration his military background.
“Team Trump has hundreds of paid staff, more than 300 offices and tens of thousands of active volunteers in battleground states, and we are committed to active voter engagement in the rural, suburban and urban communities where President Trump has made historic gains. Democrats are being forced to play defense,” Trump spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt said.
“If dangerously liberal Kamala Harris and Tim Walsh think they’re going to score points in rural America, where hard-working families are left behind by Kamala’s terrible policies as Vice President, they should think again. Trump country more than ever.”