In his first solo appearance as the Democratic US vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has warned cheering union members that Donald Trump would wage war on working people.
Speaking on Tuesday in a cavernous, dimly lit ballroom to thousands of members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Walz said he and Vice President Kamala Harris want to spread collective bargaining and other worker protections to “every state in the union.”
The 1.4-million-member union has endorsed Harris.
"When unions are strong, America is strong," Walz, a former school teacher and union member, said.
He warned of a grim future for unions if Trump and Ohio Senator JD Vance are elected, describing a nation where bargaining rights, overtime pay and other protections would be scuttled. He said Trump and Vance have “waged war on working people".
“The only thing those two guys know about working people is how to work to take advantage of them,” Walz said.
However, Trump also has courted union support. When he accepted the Republican nomination, he said that he would rescue the auto industry from what he called “complete obliteration".
The Democratic campaign chose to kick off Walz's national swing on the safest of political terrain - heavily Democratic California, home to Harris and where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans about 2-1. The last Republican to win a presidential contest in the state was in 1988, George H.W. Bush, and Republican nominees haven't bothered to seriously contest the state that delivers the largest trove of electoral votes since 2000.
Introducing himself to voters who probably know little - if anything - about the plainspoken, avuncular governor, Walz echoed remarks he delivered in earlier appearances in Nevada and Arizona following Harris’ announcement that he would join her on the ticket.
Those speeches were built around key themes for Democrats in 2024: support for abortion rights, lifting the middle class and characterising Trump as “weird” - an attack line Walz has been credited with authoring.
Appearing in front of a union convention, he laced the speech with tributes to working Americans, saying at one point that he's the first union member to appear on a presidential ticket since Republican Ronald Reagan. But unlike the former Democrat Reagan, he promised, “I won't lose my way.”
Walz closed by urging union members to make phone calls and knock on doors on behalf of the Democratic ticket, spotlighting the importance organised labour can have on the expected close contest.
