Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Thursday capped two days of crisscrossing Pennsylvania, talking up Vice President Kamala Harris’s experience, taking shots at former President Donald J. Trump and making his now familiar urgent pleas to voters that they fight for freedom with optimism.
“Look, it would be easier if we didn’t have to do this. It would be easier if these guys wouldn’t undermine our system, if they wouldn’t lie about elections, if they wouldn’t put women’s health at risk. But they are, so it’s a privilege for us to do the fight,” he said in Erie, Pa., where he stumped from a stage at the edge of Presque Isle Bay before hundreds of cheering supporters waving “Coach” and “Kamala” signs.
The appearance was one of several events that Mr. Walz used to blitz the local media airwaves and fire up Democratic volunteers with the Midwestern dad charm that his party is banking on to help draw white working-class voters. Mr. Walz, and his daughter, Hope, hit three cities in counties that went for Mr. Trump in 2016 — stung by fading American manufacturing and a difficult economy.
The shooting this week at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., added urgency to his message at the Erie rally and at local Democratic offices, where he stressed it was in voters’ power to elect leaders willing to pass gun-safety laws, tackle climate change and ensure freedom in health decisions.
“I say it as a gun owner; I say it as a veteran; I say it as a hunter: none of the things we’re proposing infringes on your Second Amendment right. But what does infringe upon this is our children going to school and being killed,” he said at a Harris-Walz field office in Erie. “It is unacceptable, and it doesn’t have to be this way. So we end that with our votes. We end it with a vision of a better America.”
Onstage later, he recalled sitting with the parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut when he was still a member of Congress and a cardholder of the National Rifle Association. “I think about it — today, my son, this week, started his senior year of high school,” Mr. Walz said. “And it’s bittersweet for me because those killed at Sandy Hook would have been entering their senior year, too.”
His trip also underscored the challenges for his ticket as Democrats aim to improve their margins in rural and red-leaning areas in November. The specter of the former president loomed at nearly every stop, and interactions with swing voters themselves were limited. And Mr. Walz frustrated a handful of local reporters as he refused to answer questions.
On Wednesday, as the Walzes arrived in Lancaster, Pa., their motorcade passed a couple of dozen people holding Trump-Vance campaign signs as it left the airport. They made stops at an orchard there, a Milk Shake Factory in Moon Township, and a farm in Dawson, where the two fed caramel-colored calves out of milk bottles.
Retail politicking comes naturally to Mr. Walz, who appears to genuinely enjoy it. At the orchard, he and his daughter delighted customers with their affable nature and quick banter.
“We’re pumpkin people,” Hope Walz declared, as they picked out whoopie pies and cider doughnuts for their volunteers.
But few voters were around to meet the Walzes, and even fewer at the Milk Shake Factory. At the farm, Mr. Walz chatted with owners about their businesses, and spent a good chunk of time speaking with the dairy farm managers about shortages in veterinarians and teachers and the dairy and mining industries. In the distance, a Trump flag rustled in the breeze from a pole in a neighbor’s yard.
On Thursday, in Erie, the Walzes shook hands with some young voters before sitting down behind them to enjoy a burger, onion rings and a hot fudge milkshake. Two of the women told a reporter they were voting for Mr. Trump over concerns about inflation. One said she would cast her ballot for Ms. Harris.
Pennsylvania has emerged as a crucial battleground for the Harris campaign, which has been investing heavily in the state to court anti-Trump and Trump-skeptical conservatives and independents. Early polls have shown Ms. Harris slightly ahead or tied with Mr. Trump and underperforming with male voters. Harris campaign officials say they are under no illusion that they can win outright in these right-leaning rural regions, but they are trying regardless, knowing any movement can matter at the margins.
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