Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz made a brief fundraising stop in Chicago on Saturday, telling a group of about 200 donors their money will help fuel the ground game in battleground states to defeat former President Donald Trump.
The Minnesota governor, a former high school teacher and football coach, also leaned into his gridiron roots during his speech. In mixing football references and politics, he noted that not only the presidency is on the line but the fate of the current Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate is dependent upon Democratic wins in his home state as well as Wisconsin and Michigan.
“This year, the Senate, the White House and the Super Bowl are all going through the NFC North. Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota are going to have a lot to say with that,” Walz said of the states with teams in the NFL division.
Walz was alluding to the reelection bids of U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s bid to replace retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. Illinois does not have a Senate seat up for election this year.
“You know what’s at stake here, and so I would just tell all of you, please know that the resources you’re providing have made sure that those community offices in Wisconsin, those over 300 paid staffers are there to organize the tens of 1000s of volunteers,” he said, before transitioning to swing states in the South. “And look, it’s anecdotal at this point in time, but the hard work in Georgia, I don’t think it’s by mistake that Georgia and North Carolina early voting has set records.”
Walz spoke for about 10 minutes Saturday afternoon at a fundraiser for the Harris Victory Fund at the Park Hyatt Chicago off North Michigan Avenue. The victory fund is a joint fundraising committee for the presidential ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz, along with nearly two dozen state Democratic committees, including Illinois. No estimate of dollars raised was immediately available. After his Chicago visit, Walz was scheduled to head to Michigan.
Among those attending were Mayor Brandon Johnson, senior U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and a few members of Congress.
“We’re going to win the electoral votes that come from this state,” Walz said of Illinois, which has voted Democratic for president since 1992 and twice voted against Trump by 17 percentage points in 2016 and 2020. “But what you come here today (and) understand is that we need to win in Wisconsin. We need to win in Michigan. We need to win Pennsylvania. We will win North Carolina.”
“You’re here because you believe in the promise of America, because we love this country, and you are doing everything in your power to make sure that we fulfill the promise of this country, which we will do,” he said.
Walz, who has lately amped up publicly questioning Trump’s fitness for president by discussing his age and stamina, said, “It’s pretty clear the tired, divisive and old rhetoric of Donald Trump matches the tired, divisive and old Donald Trump.” He added the former Republican president is “unfit for the goodness of what this country can be.”
Walz said the Democratic ticket was the underdog in the race and predicted a close outcome of the Nov. 5 election.
“That’s the way our country is,” he said, contending younger people are particularly disinterested in voting because they have “witnessed nine years of just pure hell of politics.”
“I can hear that from some people. Look, I’m just not into politics. The answer to that is: Too damn bad. Politics is into you,” Walz said. “The policies we’re advocating for, I think everybody in this room knows, will far outstrip and benefit the folks who think Donald Trump’s for them.”
He also recounted Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 results in Georgia, where the former president pleaded with the state’s top election official to “find 11,780 votes.”
“How perfect would the universe align if we win Georgia by one vote and it was Jimmy Carter’s vote?” Walz said of the 100-year-old former president who fulfilled a wish to live long enough to cast an early ballot for the Democratic ticket.