EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Long before Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz took the stage at a country music festival ground among the rolling corn fields of western Wisconsin, an unscheduled guest was drawing huge applause from the audience of several thousand assembled in the Midwestern sunshine.
It was a few minutes past noon on Wednesday, Aug. 7, about the time Air Force Two was landing nearby, when a bald eagle slowly circled the grounds, offering a recognizable image of patriotism to the gathered crowd.
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When she finally took the stage more than two hours later, Harris concluded what felt like a Midwest reunion tour for the recently affirmed Democratic presidential ticket that will face Donald Trump and J.D. Vance in November.
Harris acknowledged her roots in the Bay Area of California, and Walz’s roots in rural Nebraska, saying that only here could such an unlikely and diverse pair have realistic designs on the highest offices in the land.
“Only in America is it possible for them together to make it all the way to the White House,” she said near the end of her 23-minute address. “This is a fight to make real the promise of America, for every person.”
Harris, a former attorney general of California and a criminal prosecutor, spent the heart of her talk contrasting the differences between her vision for the future and Trump’s, taking well-rehearsed shots at his felony conviction and other scandals that have rocked the Floridian in and out of office.
“I took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, and scammers who broke the rules for personal gain,” she said. “So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
She was introduced by Walz, who many in the audience — which was split between Minnesotans and local Wisconsinites — know well from his six years as governor on the other side of the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers.
Walz spoke for 16 minutes, which included a pause of a few minutes in the middle when he directed event organizers to a person in the crowd who had become overcome by the heat. He opened by pointing out his family sitting in the front and noted that, “a couple of them are Badgers,” which got a strong ovation.
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Barely 24 hours after being named to the ticket, Walz gave a brief rundown of his resume — the National Guard, being a school teacher, coaching a football team to a state title — then, similar to Harris, took a few shots at the former president.
“We don’t shy away from challenges … but Donald Trump sees the world differently,” Walz said. “He has no understanding of service, because he’s too busy servicing himself.”
Walz also repeated a theme he had laid out one night earlier in Philadelphia, when he was introduced to the nation as the person who could potentially be the third American vice president from Minnesota, following Hubert Humphrey in the 1960s and Walter Mondale in the 1970s. The two-term Minnesota governor is pushing the notion that in the American heartland, privacy to make your own decisions is one of the core ideals of freedom.
"We're pretty neighborly with Wisconsin. We have our friendly battles, but here and in Minnesota we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make," Walz said. "Even if we wouldn't make the same choices for ourselves, because we know there's a golden rule: mind your own damn business. I don't need you telling us about healthcare. I don't need you telling us who we can love, and I sure the hell don't need you telling us what books we're going to read."
As in Philadelphia, he transitioned into a story about he and wife Gwen needing help from in vitro fertilization to conceive their first child, a daughter — now in her twenties — they named Hope.
Cognizant of the recent assassination attempt on Trump at an event in a similar setting in Pennsylvania, a Coast Guard helicopter also made regular passes over the grounds, which were surrounded by at least a half-dozen rifle-toting snipers.
Fitting for a music festival grounds, local favorite rock band Bon Iver played a quartet of songs as the multi-vehicle motorcade arrived, prompting a rush of people to the fence line with phone cameras in-hand.
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The crowd, estimated at about 12,000, overwhelmed the two-lane roads leading to the event, causing some attendees to spend more than two hours in their cars, and others to park miles away and walk.
“You’re busy people, you’ve got things to do, it’s a summer day, you had to walk two miles — I had nothing to do with that,” Walz said, with a laugh.
Wisconsin governor Tony Evers and U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin spoke early in the event, with the governor welcoming his “good friend and next door neighbor” Walz, and saying the two at the top of the Democratic ticket go together like, “custard and curds…brats and beer” and drawing a huge ovation from the locals.
The Trust Project
