(States Newsroom) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made his first solo campaign appearance as the Democratic vice presidential candidate Tuesday, telling a union audience in Los Angeles that the Democratic ticket led by Vice President Kamala Harris would prioritize worker-friendly policies.
Walz appeared to tailor most of his 20-minute speech to the audience of members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a 1.4-million-member union of public-sector workers.
Walz, who was a union member as a public school teacher in southern Minnesota before he won a U.S. House seat in 2006, praised the policies Harris championed as part of President Joe Biden’s administration and those he pushed as Minnesota governor.
Walz and Harris come from working-class backgrounds, he said, noting that Harris worked at McDonald’s as a student.
“Vice President Harris took that work ethic, goes to work every single day to make sure families don’t just get by, but they get ahead,” he said.
Harris led the administration’s work to eliminate barriers to organizing and cast the tiebreaking vote in the U.S. Senate to pass the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill in 2021 that Walz said kept public-sector workers employed during the pandemic.
As governor, Walz said he made it easier to form unions, strengthened worker protections and banned “those damn captive audience meetings for good,” referring to meetings employers can mandate workers attend ahead of union votes to discourage support for organizing.
Both Walz and Harris have walked on picket lines with striking workers, he said.
Walz is the first former union member to appear on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan, who led the Screen Actors Guild before a career in politics, in 1984. Unlike the two-term Republican president, who engaged in a high-profile standoff with the federal air traffic controllers’ union, Walz told the audience he would not “lose (his) way” once elected.
Walz called on the union audience to get involved in campaign organizing, saying that if the group could mobilize friends and neighbors, it could make a difference in an election that could be decided by tens of thousands of votes in a few key states.
“This is going to be a close, tough race,” he said. “But if each of us does an extra shift, an extra hour, a little bit more, we get to wake up on that morning after the election and know that the work we did transformed the lives for millions, transformed generations, impacted the world.”
He closed with a campaign slogan Harris has been using, leading the crowd in a chant of, “When we fight, we win.”
Attack on GOP
Walz asked for organized labor to help turn out Democratic voters in November.
“I know I’m preaching to the choir a little bit today,” he said. “But the choir needs to sing.”
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, were “not in the choir” of union supporters, Walz said.
Trump has said he supports “right-to-work” laws that make union organizing difficult, Walz said.
Walz related a conversation he’d had with United Autoworkers President Shawn Fain in which the labor leader called Trump a derisive name for an anti-union worker over his position on such laws.
“I saw our friend Shawn Fain at the UAW had a name for that, he called him a scab,” Walz said. “That’s not name-calling; it’s an observation, in fact, just to be clear.”
Project 2025
A second Trump administration would work to “put the screws to working people,” Walz said, noting that sections of the “Project 2025 to-do list” call for restricting union organizing and reducing overtime.
Project 2025 is a list of policy goals developed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, with input from former Trump administration officials. Democrats have worked to tie Trump to the document they describe as radically conservative.
Trump has denied any involvement in its drafting and has not committed to working toward it if elected.
Walz, a former high school football coach, said Trump was “playing dumb” about the contents of Project 2025.
“I’m a football coach at heart,” he said. “I’ll tell you one thing I know for sure is, if you’re going to take the time to draw up a playbook, you’re damn sure going to use it.”
Broader message
Walz also peppered his remarks with messages seemingly meant for a broader general-election audience, advocating for reproductive rights and criticizing restrictions on book bans some Republican states have led against gender or race-based content and Trump’s position on cutting taxes for the wealthy.
Highlighting the campaign’s theme of freedom, Walz said the government should not be involved in “personal choices” about how to start a family, what books to read or whether to join a union.
“This country is great because we have a golden rule that makes things work. We mind our own damn business on those things,” he said.
He also defended against criticisms of his record in the Army National Guard that has come under scrutiny from Republicans, including Vance, who is a Marine Corps veteran. They have said Walz exaggerated his role and left his unit months before it was deployed to Iraq in 2005.
Walz said he was proud of his 24 years of service in the National Guard, which only ended in 2005 so he could run for Congress, where he joined the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
“I’m proud of my service to this country,” he said. “And I firmly believe you should never denigrate another person’s service record. Anyone brave enough to put on that uniform for our great country, including my opponent, I just have a few simple words: Thank you for your service and sacrifice.”
