Three days after Secret Service agents protecting former President Donald Trump fired shots at a gunman who reportedly lay in wait for him while he was golfing at one of his country clubs, the Harris-Walz presidential campaign continues.
In Minneapolis, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz refused to address the horrific events — the second attempt on the Republican presidential candidate’s life since a bullet nearly killed him at a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — as he boarded the campaign’s charter plane for a flight through Georgia and North Carolina. Hours later, when the plane landed in Macon, Georgia, Walz did not answer shouted questions from The Independent asked him if he had responded to the attempted shooting. But he did not respond until the next morning when he arrived at a Harris-Walz field office in East Macon.
As campaign volunteers — standing at long tables in the office to make calls — watched intently, Walz said it was “worth noting” what happened to Trump in Florida.
He called it a “terrible situation” and said he was “grateful” for the Secret Service and law enforcement, pointing to the security detail surrounding the room where he spoke. He also said he was “grateful” that Trump was safe.
“I think we all know that we don’t resolve our differences in this country through violence. We condemn it in all its forms. We resolve our differences through the ballot box. That’s how we get this done,” Walz added.
Traveling with Kamala Harris’ running mate can be a surreal affair. Instead of the indignities of dealing with the Transportation Security Administration, airport security consists of a dog sniffing your belongings and a Secret Service agent rummaging through your luggage as it sits on a hot airport runway. You stand under the wing of the plane as its motorcade arrives, shouting questions at the top of your lungs over the roar of an idling turbofan engine in the hope that Walz will deign to shout back an equally hard-to-hear response.
Once you’re on board and you’re lucky enough to be offered something to eat by the flight attendants on the charter plane, you make sure you eat it, no matter what it is. Because once you’re in the vans that ferry reporters from event to event in a procession with flashing lights and sirens, you never know when you’ll have the next opportunity to eat something to keep your energy levels up.
The governor of North Star State later declined a request from The Independent on his response to Trump’s claim that he blamed the rhetoric of Vice President Kamala Harris and other leading Democrats for both assassination attempts.
While Walz comes across as a friendly presence who normally wouldn’t hesitate to mingle with reporters, the Harris-Walz campaign has gone to great lengths to prevent either “principal” from answering too many press questions, even when traveling with a group of journalists. And this week, Walz found himself sitting at the front of the plane, with rows and rows of Secret Service personnel — and armed Secret Service personnel — between him and the press box, which was located toward the back of the plane.
This means that it’s not uncommon to have to ask something several times before getting an answer, or to have to wait until you get to an event where the vice president or her running mate is scheduled to give a speech.
When Walz addressed the crowd of enthusiastic volunteers and supporters in Macon after we landed, he told them that being there had made them “clearly understand” that “this idea of democracy” is “a joy to be a part of,” especially since “billions of people around the world” are unable to decide for themselves who their representatives will be.
The elections Americans will participate in in November, he continued, will hinge on whether the country is “a place where the middle class gets pushed forward, or a place where billionaires get pushed forward,” and whether America is “a place where our politics … is a joyful endeavor.”
“Politics is about community. Politics is about everyone counts and everyone is welcome. That’s what we know,” he said. “It’s not about the lowest common denominator.” Walz, quoting Vice President Harris, added that “one lesson Donald Trump can learn” about democracy is that real leaders “are the ones who lift people up” rather than “the ones who knock people down.”
The governor made the comments as he began a half-day visit to Georgia, which he will conclude with a meeting in Atlanta before traveling to North Carolina for a campaign rally.
The Peach State narrowly delivered its electoral votes to President Joe Biden four years ago. Until Biden dropped out of the race in July, it looked like it might swing back into the Republican column in November. But Harris’s rise to the top of the Democratic ticket and her choice of Walz as her running mate have upended the race in unprecedented ways.
With Election Day less than 50 days away, the combination of Harris — the first Black woman on a presidential ticket — and Walz, the former National Guard soldier and teacher turned politician, are competitive again in a state that has tilted Democratic for years. Even with Republicans still holding every statewide office except Georgia’s two Senate seats, the GOP knows it can’t get too comfortable.
Recent polls have indeed shown Harris narrowing Trump’s lead in Georgia or even taking a small lead herself. An average of polls from FiveThirtyEight shows that she is only four-tenths of a percent behind him, 47.6 percent to 47.2 percent.
A poll average calculated by The hill And Head office of the decision-making agency shows she is only three-tenths of a point behind Trump, 48 percent to 47.7 percent.
A Harris-Walz aide who worked on the campaign effort in the state said Georgia is “absolutely in play” this time around. And Walz told volunteers in Macon as much as he concluded his speech.
He said the election would undoubtedly be a close one, with the outcome determined not by the pursuit of influence on social media, but by hard work on the ground.
“You’re not going to win this with a Twitter fight. It’s going to happen with neighbors calling each other,” he said. “I think one of the things is we know it’s going to be a close race. It’s going to come down to a few states. Georgia is probably the center of that big chunk. That’s the privilege. That’s a privilege that you have, because you’re the people in this room who can very likely make a difference by appointing Kamala Harris as Madam President.”