Beyond ‘weird’: Walz intensifies Trump criticism in convention debut

Good morning and welcome to US Election Countdown. As we enter the final day of the Democratic National Convention, let’s dive into:

• Tim Walz’s DNC debut

• JB Pritzker sideline chat

• Harris and Trump’s July fundraising hauls

It’s Kamala Harris’s big night.

She will give the most important speech of her political career this evening, formally accepting the nomination from a party that sees her as an agent of change and capping off the four-day DNC.

Last night belonged to Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate. Still largely unknown to much of the electorate, Walz anchored his remarks around his biography to deliver a plain-spoken, passionate and energetic speech — full of American football metaphors — about protecting personal freedoms and attacking the Republican ticket as extreme:

When we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love. Freedom to make your own healthcare decisions. And yeah, your kids’ freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall.

“Leaders don’t spend all day insulting people and blaming others. Leaders do the work,” the Minnesota governor proclaimed. “So I don’t know about you, I’m ready to turn the page on these guys.”

Walz has been one of the most effective Democratic attack dogs against Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, labeling them and their platform as “weird”. He took this lambasting further in his keynote, saying the Republicans’ agenda is one “nobody asked for. It’s an agenda that serves nobody except the richest and the most extreme amongst us”.

“Is it weird? Absolutely. But it’s also wrong and it’s dangerous,” Walz said. 

The Trump campaign quickly responded to Walz’s remarks by saying he “spent *ZERO* minutes offering a plan on ANYTHING”. Republicans are trying to find their own new attack lines since Joe Biden’s exit from the race, including going after Walz for his progressive policies in Minnesota and his long personal history with China [free to read].

Campaign clips: the latest election headlines

• As the US labour market cools — including in key election battleground states — all eyes will be on this week’s gathering of central bankers [free to read] in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

• Robert F Kennedy Jr is expected to drop out of the race tomorrow and endorse Trump. (ABC)

• In new messaging, Trump is trying to label himself as someone with “common sense” as Democrats continue to attack him and his running mate, JD Vance, as “weird”. (Bloomberg)

• Police have clashed with anti-war protestors near the DNC, with more than 100 people arrested across multiple days of demonstrations. (FT, AP)

• Walz’s progressive policy record as Minnesota governor has opened the Democrats up to attacks from the right that will likely intensify. (WSJ)

• Unusually for a Democrat, Harris is light on climate policy. (NYT)

Behind the scenes

Illinois governor JB Pritzker — who was briefly mentioned as a potential Biden replacement on the ticket — seems to be basking in the spotlight that the DNC is shining on his state’s biggest city.

A Q&A session with him was one of the best-attended events on the sidelines of the convention, according to the FT’s US managing editor, Peter Spiegel:

Pritzker was pressed on whether he had considered throwing his hat into the ring after Biden announced his withdrawal. The governor didn’t exactly deny it, but said everything had happened so fast that he really didn’t have time to weigh his options.

He also regaled the crowd with a story about the first time he met Trump — at the White House in 2018, when he was still governor-elect. Pritzker had opened almost every one of his 2018 campaign rallies with a litany of insults aimed at Trump, so he was shocked that the president made a beeline straight for him at the White House reception, where the two chatted amiably. Everyone in the room was thinking: maybe it’s because Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, was a billionaire property developer — just like the former president?

The overall mood at the convention is buoyant, Peter reports, but there have been logistical hiccups that suggest organisers struggled a bit to centre the event around a new candidate just a month before the extravaganza:

Attendees nervously watched the clock on Monday night as speeches kept running increasingly late, pushing Biden well out of prime-time on the east coast, and eventually in Chicago’s central time, as well.

Datapoint

The vice-president is perched atop quite the cash pile, having raised four times as much as Trump in July. 

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She even pulled in a record number of small donors (those giving $200 or less), as extraordinary enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket swap had people keen to open their wallets.

The Harris campaign received $204mn in contributions last month compared with Trump’s $48mn, according to a Financial Times analysis of federal filings. Her campaign ended the month with $220mn in cash on hand, $69mn more than Trump’s. 

On July 22, the day after Biden endorsed Harris, she notched 631,000 small donations, blowing past the 450,000 Trump groups got the day after his felony convictions in his New York hush-money trial.

She’s also bringing new donors to the table, with 60 per cent of the 2.6mn gifts in the first 11 days of her campaign coming from people who hadn’t donated to the Biden-Harris ticket. 

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Trump still got a fundraising boost last month from billionaire Tim Mellon, part of a US banking dynasty, who gave another $50mn to a pro-Trump group on top of $65mn he had already given. 

The donor picture will become clearer in October, when third-quarter figures for super political action committees are released. 

Viewpoints

• The war in Gaza is the Democratic taboo of the convention and Harris is wise to to stay silent, argues Edward Luce.

• In the Trade Secrets newsletter, Alan Beattie welcomes Harris’s attacks on Trump’s trade plans, which include an income tax revenue replacement scheme “so stupid you feel it ought spontaneously to combust on contact with air”. [Available for Premium subscribers]

• The FT editorial board says the US economy needs a comprehensive vision, not the sort of misguided populist agenda Harris is pushing.

• Janan Ganesh thinks Harris should distance herself from Bidenomics so that the party stops vilifying trade and markets as a shortcut to votes.