Agencies
Philadelphia
Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s candidate for November’s United States presidential election, has held her first rally with running mate Tim Walz, describing their campaign as a "fight for our future”.
The two took the stage in Pennsylvania on Tuesday to Beyonce’s Freedom just hours after Harris named Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her vice presidential pick.
Democrats are hoping Walz’s down-to-earth background will win over voters in crucial swing states in the Midwestern region, including Wisconsin and Michigan.
Introducing the Army National Guard veteran and school-teacher-turned-politician, Harris said Walz was "a leader who will help unite our nation and move us forward, a fighter for the middle class, a patriot who believes, as I do, in the extraordinary promise of America.”
A former attorney general of California, 59-year-old Harris has sought to contrast her past as a prosecutor with Republican rival Donald Trump’s criminal record.
She told the crowd of about 10,000 supporters: "This campaign – our campaign – is not just a fight against Donald Trump. Our campaign – this campaign – is a fight for the future.” Walz, 60, was combative as he went on the attack against 78-year-old Trump.
"He mocks our laws, he sows chaos and division, and that’s to say nothing of his record as president,” Walz said of Trump who was president for four years until 2020. "He froze in the face of the COVID crisis, he drove our economy into the ground, and make no mistake, violent crime was up under Donald Trump,” Walz said.
"That’s not even counting the crimes he committed,” he added to roars of laughter and boisterous applause.
The first joint appearance by Harris and Walz offered a glimpse of how they might appeal to voters – one a trailblazing Black and South Asian former senator from California, the other a white ex-congressman from the blue-collar US heartland.
Trump and his running mate Senator JD Vance were quick to tag the new competition as too liberal. "This is the most Radical Left duo in American history,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.