Tim Walz talks Midwest nice in Michigan: Don’t mistake ‘kindness for weakness’

• Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz spent parts of Thursday and Friday rallying supporters in Michigan 
• Walz’s spoke at length about Tuesday’s debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, but also drew some contrasts on policy
• He predicted a “razor-thin” presidential race and said Democrats are “still the underdogs”

LANSING — In his first solo visit to Michigan as a vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz rallied supporters in Grand Rapids and East Lansing, urging Democrats to organize and contact voters in what he is certain will be a “razor thin” election.

In multiple campaign stops Thursday and Friday, Walz drew parallels between Minnesota and Michigan with regional references to portray the two states as kindred spirits.

“We're nice folks — we'll dig you out after a snowstorm, we'll say hi to you at the store. Some of us might even let you merge on the highway,” he said. “The one thing I'll tell you about Midwesterners that stretches across that beautiful blue wall of Northern America here … don't ever mistake our kindness for weakness.”

With less than two weeks until absentee ballots become available and less than two months until the Nov. 5 election, presidential campaign visits have become frequent in Michigan, a key swing state where recent polls of likely voters have shown Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in a statistical tie. 

‘That glass ceiling’

At the rooftop bar of an East Lansing hotel Friday afternoon, Walz addressed a gathering of students, local officials and party insiders, encouraging them to “put that fist through that glass ceiling for the last time” by electing Harris as the first female president.

The crowd trended younger, and Walz highlighted climate change, student loan relief, and housing affordability as key issues. 

Related:

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• In mid-Michigan, economic worries persist. So does disgust of politics

“You should be super concerned, even more than me about (those issues), because I will be dead long before you, and you're going to have to deal with it for decades to come,” Walz said. “ So the folks who we’re electing right now have a responsibility to you to think about the future and think several generations ahead.”

Walz also dropped by a campaign office for Democrats in East Lansing, greeting volunteers and encouraging them to keep working to contact voters.

In a statement on Walz’s visit, Michigan Republican party spokesperson Victoria LaCivita called him “a midwesterner who hates the midwest.” 

“His values are just as dangerously liberal as Kamala Harris', but he's not trying to hide them. … Walz ignored the concerns of auto dealers, allowed Minneapolis to burn at the hands of violent rioters, and put tampons in boys' bathrooms,” she said in the statement.

‘Screaming about eating cats is not a solution’

In a Thursday evening speech in Grand Rapids, Walz went on the attack, criticizing Trump as selfish and arguing Republicans are doing too little to prevent gun violence in schools.  

Speaking to a crowd of supporters Thursday evening at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, Walz spent much of his remarks discussing this week’s presidential debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Democrats emerged from the debate ebullient, with polls showing undecided voters favored Harris’ performance despite Trump’s insistence he had won.

Trump “did not say one thing he would do to make life better for the American people,” Walz argued, while Harris, by contrast, “spent her time talking about you and the way forward, talking about the future.”

He ridiculed the Republican presidential nominee for some of the debate’s viral moments, quipping, “screaming about eating cats is not a solution.”

When discussing healthcare and whether Trump would again seek to repeal the Affordable Care Act, “apparently he has ‘the concepts of a plan,’” Walz added.

“I taught high school for 20 years. Every one of my kids had a better excuse for not doing their work than that.”

The campaign event was the first visit to Kent County by a Democrat on the presidential ticket since February, when Harris held a roundtable supporting President Joe Biden’s reelection effort, which he abandoned in July. 

Former President Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have repeatedly held events in the region, a former GOP stronghold that has shifted toward Democrats since Trump narrowly won the state in 2016. 

‘Sheer terror’ for too many

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was one of several Democrats who warmed up the crowd before Walz took the stage in Grand Rapids. 

“This debate showed us how stark this choice is ahead of us, a tough, tested prosecutor versus an angry convicted felon who lies about crowd size,” she said.

There were more serious moments in the remarks by Walz, who didn’t dwell on policy plans. While touching on last week’s school shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia, Walz referenced previous mass shootings in Michigan: “You know it here — Oxford High School, Michigan State.”

Back to school is “the best time of year,” the former high school teacher said, “… but (for) too many of our kids, these first days of school are a time of sheer terror.”

He and Harris both own guns so “I'm not going to take any crap from them about the Second Amendment.”

“We support the second amendment, but our first responsibility is keeping our children safe, and you can have both,” Walz said, without mentioning any specific steps he and Harris would take to lessen the country’s gun violence epidemic.

As Walz recalled other moments of Tuesday’s presidential debate, the crowd gathered to hear him speak began to chant – apparently sarcastically — “we don’t eat cats.”

The vice presidential nominee asked those supporters to volunteer and campaign for Harris in what he predicted would be a “razor-thin” race where Democrats are “still the underdogs.”