Walz boasts he’s not ‘in the pocket’ of organized labor: ‘I am the pocket!’

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) boasted on Monday that he’s “the pocket” of unions, as he and Vice President Harris court support from the critical voting bloc in several “blue wall” states to mark Labor Day.

“Republicans came up to me in one of my campaigns and they said, ‘Tim is in the pocket of organized labor.’ I said, that’s a damn lie. I am the pocket,” Walz told the crowd at Laborfest in Milwaukee .

“And I told them, if you want to attack me for standing up for collective bargaining, for fair wages, for safe working conditions, for health care and retirement – you roll the damn dice. I’ll take my chances on that,” he said to cheers.

A former teacher, Walz has touted along the campaign trail that he was a member of the National Education Association. He kicked off the Labor Day holiday by meeting with local labor leaders in Minnesota before heading to neighboring Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Harris stopped in Detroit before participating in a campaign event with President Biden in Pittsburgh, the pair’s first together since Biden’s historic withdrawal from the 2024 race.

Harris has largely aligned herself with Biden on union issues, and her Monday remarks also echoed her boss’s opposition to the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel. The vice president’s campaign has already drawn the backing of several major organized labor groups, including the AFL-CIO and United Auto Workers .

The endorsements could help her rally support among working-class voters in critical swing states as the polls show her neck-and-neck with former President Trump, just over two months away from Election Day. The campaign has argued that union workers will be critical to driving Democrats’ success this fall.

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