MILWAUKEE – Gov. Tim Walz made his final pitch for a Kamala Harris presidency on Monday to voters in the critical “blue wall” states of Wisconsin and Michigan, which Harris must almost certainly win to be elected.
The DFL governor’s final vice-presidential campaign swing went through La Crosse, Stevens Point, Milwaukee and Detroit. Walz will make his last campaign stop of the election in Harrisburg, Pa., on Tuesday morning before departing to Washington, D.C., for an election night watch party at Howard University, Harris’ alma mater.
A roaring crowd greeted Walz at his campaign rally in Milwaukee early in the evening, frequently chanting, “We’re not going back!” Walz told the crowd that women’s rights are at stake in this election. He addressed the men in the room directly.
”Let me speak with the guys in this room. I want you to think about the women in your life that you love. Their lives are literally at stake in this election,” Walz said. “More than 20 states now have abortion bans, and our daughters and those loved ones you’re thinking of now have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers.”
A glaring gender gap could define this year’s presidential election, with polls showing women favoring Harris by large margins while former President Donald Trump has the advantage among men. A Star Tribune/MPR News/KARE 11 Minnesota Poll conducted in September found that 59% of women said they’d vote for Harris and 53% of men were supporting Trump.
At an outdoor rally in downtown Detroit late Monday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer fired up the crowd before Walz took the stage, saying “we deserve leaders who know us and see us.”
“Tomorrow, let’s turn the page and chart a new way forward,” Whitmer said. “... Together, we’ll win this thing and put Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the White House.”
Walz told the Detroit crowd that women across America “are going to send a loud and clear message to Donald Trump, whether he likes it or not.”