Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz channeled his past as a high school football coach Tuesday, encouraging members of one of the largest worker unions in the country to take control of their destiny and spend the next 84 days until Election Day fighting for the Democrats to win the White House.
“We know how to do this,” he told 4,000 of the 1.4 million members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees at their 46th International Convention in Los Angeles. “We’ll sleep when we’re dead. We’ll do the work now.”
Walz’s appearance was the kickoff to his first solo campaign event since becoming Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate one week ago today. The two have been traveling to battleground states for the last week, campaigning on a message of hope.
“Hope is the most powerful word in the English language,” Walz said, noting that it's also his daughter's first name. “It’s a great word and a beautiful name, but it’s not a damn plan. We can’t hope we defeat Donald Trump. We can’t hope that we can collectively bargain. We can’t hope we protect Social Security. We can’t hope that we address climate change. You don’t hope to win. You plan, prepare and work to win.”
Walz drew cheers from the crowd when he said he knew they liked hard work. He encouraged every AFSCME member to put in an extra shift work an extra hour so they could “wake up on that morning after the election and know that the work we did transformed the lives for one million and transformed generations.”
Walz spent much of his 25 minutes before the crowd leaning into his resume.
A former teacher in his native Minnesota, Walz said it was nurses and teachers and state and local government employees that built the U.S. and “people in this room that built the middle class.”
Drawing a contrast between the Harris-Walz campaign and former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, he said the only thing “those two guys know about working people is how to work to take advantage of them.”
He derided Trump for not paying service workers at his own properties and criticized Vance as one of four U.S. Senators who never cast a vote on pro-worker legislation in Congress.
Acknowledging his service with the Army National Guard during the Korean War, and the GOP’s criticism of his record, he said, “I firmly believe you should never denigrate another person’s service record. To anyone brave enough to put on that uniform for our great country, including my opponent [J.D. Vance], I just have a few simple words: Thank you for your service and sacrifice.”
Referencing his years as a high school football coach, he said voters need to take Trump’s Project 2025 seriously, calling it a "playbook" for a far-right agenda.
“One thing I know for sure is if you’re gonna take the time to draw up a playbook, you’re damn sure gonna use it,” Walz said of the plan calling to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and gut Social Security and Medicare.
“We know what these guys are gonna do because they wrote it for us in Project 2025. That’s not the future we want.”
Walz’s speech builds on multiple union endorsements Vice President Kamala Harris has racked up since President Biden announced he was withdrawing his candidacy.
AFSCME, the United Auto Workers, the American Federation of Teachers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Communications Workers of America and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union are among the many labor groups that have endorsed Harris.
Walz’s speech also comes one day after former President Donald Trump insinuated striking auto workers should be fired during a livestreamed interview with Elon Musk on X Monday evening.
“I happen to be the first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan,” Walz said. “But rest assured, I won’t lose my way.”