Tim Walz lands late in Tucson, rallying a boisterous crowd with calls for unity and freedom

The main issue on the minds of many high-energy, dancing attendees at a Tucson campaign event with Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz was abortion and women’s health. Walz framed that key campaign issue mostly through the lens of freedom.

Walz said he and presidential candidate Kamala Harris would fight to ensure women could make their own decisions about their lives. “We trust women. Kamala Harris trusts women,” he said as the crowd roared.

Walz spoke Wednesday in the gymnasium of Palo Verde High Magnet School, where about 500 people filled the bleachers and a standing-room-only section in front of the stage. The time 20:24 was frozen on the scoreboard on either side of the gym. A mariachi band regaled the crowd waiting for the governor of Minnesota and former teacher to arrive. Behind the stage was a large banner reading “Arizona Votes Early.”

It was indeed the first day of early voting in Arizona, and Tucson got a visit from both vice presidential candidates. The “Harris for President Campaign” event was open to the public but required advance registration. Earlier Wednesday, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance spoke to crowds at the Tucson Speedway racetrack.

After a nearly two-hour delay, Walz took the stage to an explosion of applause. He waved and clapped back at the crowd, touching his heart and pointing. “Thank you Tucson,” Walz began. He stressed unity, and acknowledged the past and coming tragedies of the hurricanes Helene and Milton.

“You came here for one simple reason,” Walz told the crowd, because “you love America. You believe in the promise of America.”

He added, “The goodness of the American people will shine” in November.

The rival campaign visits are aimed at rallying voters in a key swing state —  with 11 electoral votes — where the race for president is razor-tight. President Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020 and former President Donald Trump won in 2016, though the Democrats won Pima County in both of those races. Two statewide polls showed Harris and Trump are essentially tied .

Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly spoke at the rally, talking about meeting Walz at the August Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Walz showed a “respect for culture” as he addressed a caucus of Indigenous Democrats, she said.

“I want our party to do more for communities like mine,” Cázares-Kelly said, defining herself as a progressive Democrat. She said that “the door was open” to people like her in the Harris-Walz campaign, comparing their stance to the “lack of safety” that comes from the Republicans for people like her.

“I don’t think that voting is the most important thing you can do,” she said. “Voting is the least that you can do if you have the right and the privilege, and the voice. The most important thing you can do is get involved.”

In the long delay before Walz took the stage, attendees lined up to do the Cupid Shuffle and dance to various popular songs.

High above the hullabaloo on the gymnasium floor, Keith Huffman was sitting in the upper row of the bleachers reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’s latest book, “The Messenger” as he waited. Huffman said his primary concern is education. He teaches English and AP U.S. History at Tucson High School.

“I’m an educator, and I want to hear Walz as an educator,” he said. Huffman sees recent moves by Republicans as particularly alarming, including efforts to ban books and crack down on the specter of critical race theory.

Huffman said that in terms of Middle East policy — “The Messenger” is about, in part, Israel and Palestine — and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, “Unfortunately, I don’t see much of a difference” between the two candidates. “I support a ceasefire,” Huffman said.

Reproductive rights

Linda Ritter, 73, of Tucson, went to a Harris rally in Phoenix a few months ago, saying “It was one of the best experiences of my life.” It was “the enthusiasm” she witnessed at the rally that most inspired her, she said.

Besides voting against Trump, Ritter said that women’s reproductive rights is the most important issue for her in the upcoming election, both in the presidential race and in Arizona’s Proposition 139, which would amend the state constitution to protect abortion until fetal viability, or about 24 weeks.

Ritter was attending the rally with four of her friends, all of whom are current or former teachers. They all listed reproductive rights as their No. 1 priority.

“We respect the Second Amendment, but our first responsibility is to protect our children,” Walz said, prompting an explosion of applause.

Owen Brosanders, 17, attended the rally with his friend Milo MacDonald, 16. “I love these political rallies,” Brosanders said. He said he works with Arizona Youth Climate Coalition , and has supported other local political races.

“My whole goal is to get people to vote,” Brosanders said. “Climate change is my big thing.”

He said Arizona is getting hotter and drier and climate change is going to have an increasing negative economic impact. “I’m unsatisfied with even Harris’ climate standards,” he said, referencing her current stance on fracking. In October, Harris told a Pennsylvania media outlet, questioning her reversal on the method for extracting natural gas, that she will not ban fracking and that’s been her stance since she joined the Biden campaign in 2020.

“But who would you rather protest under, Harris or Trump?” Brosanders asked.

Walz is on a swing through Nevada and Arizona for the Kamala Harris campaign. He spoke at events in the Phoenix area Wednesday before heading to Tucson for the late afternoon event.

Harris is also scheduled to be in Phoenix Thursday for a campaign rally.

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero called Arizona the “blue wall that will stop Trump and JD Vance in our country.”

Romero added: “The way to the White House is through Tucson.”

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