After a long crisis, the Democrats are trying to radiate enthusiasm. With a new vice president at Kamala Harris’ side, there is also a new strategy in the election campaign.
Kamala Harris’ words are drowned out by the noise several times. Thousands of spectators around the 59-year-old cheer, clap and applaud. Her supporters repeatedly start chanting. The Democratic US presidential candidate is beaming. The man diagonally behind her is beaming even more: Tim Walz.
Until recently, only a few people outside of his state knew the governor of Minnesota. But on this evening he is the big star. Harris introduces the 60-year-old as her new vice presidential candidate in a sports stadium in Philadelphia. Walz listens with a broad grin, repeatedly touches his heart with his hand, folds his hands in a gesture of thanks, and makes several bows.
The Democrats now have three months to make Walz known in the country and in the party. That is no easy task. And with the new vice president, they are also reorganizing their election campaign. A little more lightness as a contrast to the grim horror scenarios of their opponent Donald Trump – that is at least the plan. Whether it will work is an open question.
This includes approaching Trump with a little more humor than panic. That is Walz’s job now. Harris hired him to deliver messages that are straightforward, with a down-to-earth Midwestern twist. At his debut in Philadelphia, Walz said of Trump that the crime rate in the USA had risen during his time in office, “and that doesn’t even include the crimes he himself committed.” The crowd cheered.
And Walz repeatedly tries to portray the Democrats as the new team of good cheer. Harris has “brought the joy back,” he calls out to the room. The party has not been very enthusiastic about the vice president in recent years. But in times of need, Harris has become the new beacon of hope.
Until Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, the mood among Democrats was gloomy – alternating between hopelessness, resignation and sheer despair. Now Biden is gone, Harris is here – and the base is feeling a sense of optimism.
“Until Biden dropped out, the mood was really low,” says Ken Grimes, who came to the rally from a suburb of Philadelphia. “Now it’s different. Everyone is excited.” The mere prospect that the presidential race no longer seems completely lost has sent the party into raptures within a matter of weeks. It is completely unclear whether Harris will actually be able to prevail against Trump in the end. The fact that the race against a convicted criminal who has been surrounded by scandals for years is so close should give the Democrats pause for thought.
But the people at the rally put that far away. They are happy to have put the recent Biden crisis behind them and are raving about the new “energy” and “enthusiasm” in the party – men, women, young, old, black, white alike. Suddenly the race is open again, they say, and there is a chance that in the end it will not be Trump who moves into the White House, but Harris – as the first woman in the country’s history, and the first black woman at that.
Harris is already a pioneer in the vice presidency in both respects. She is more popular with black voters, women and young people than Trump. But the former prosecutor from the west coast state of California is having a harder time with male white voters from the working class. And that’s where Walz is supposed to help – even if some viewers in Philadelphia admit that until recently they didn’t even know he existed.
