Sawt Falasteen - Upbeat Harris heads out on blitz through US swing states

The 59-year-old vice president has been riding a wave of excitement and an upward swing in polling in the two weeks since she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate to take on Republican Donald Trump on November 5.

Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will take their double act to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, before traveling to Detroit, Michigan, for a rally with members of the United Auto Workers union.

Just hours after Walz was announced on Tuesday, the pair held the biggest Democratic event of the election so far in front of a raucous crowd of around 14,000 in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania.

"We are the underdogs in this race, but we have the momentum and I know exactly what we are up against," Harris told the crowd.

Walz, a 60-year-old former Army National Guard officer, has been governor of the staunchly Democratic state of Minnesota since 2019 but before that he had a record as a congressman of winning over moderate and independent voters.

Seen initially as an outsider for the VP pick, Walz enjoyed viral success in distilling Democrats' attack lines against Republicans into a relatable one-word characterization -- "weird" -- that propelled him up Harris's shortlist.

He is scheduled to appear with Harris in each of the swing states, with stops in Arizona and Nevada later in the week. Events in North Carolina and Georgia were postponed due to bad weather.

Team Harris-Walz plans to have more than 750 staff on the ground in the "blue wall" states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan -- crucial for victory in November -- when the Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago in mid-August.

"Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz's momentum across the battlegrounds, including the blue wall, is real and will be on full display today," said Dan Kanninen, Battleground States Director for the Harris campaign.

- 'Kamabla'? -

But many Republicans have voiced delight that Walz was chosen over the more centrist Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, a popular leader of a state that most pundits agree will be the biggest prize in 2024.

Republicans are seeking to brand Walz as a far-left idealogue who offered benefits to undocumented migrants and tolerated rioting in the streets in 2020 after the police murder of African-American George Floyd.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise posted on X that Walz had "let rioters burn Minneapolis to the ground in 2020."

The Trump campaign itself has been accusing Walz -- who retired from the National Guard in 2005 -- of having "deserted" his unit just as it was being deployed to Iraq.

It's not clear how decisive the VP issue will be for either side. Trump himself acknowledged in a recent interview that "the vice president -- in terms of the election -- does not have any impact.... The choice of a vice president makes no difference."

Trump has declined to focus on Harris's policy weaknesses, instead favoring personal attacks to try to halt her rise.

Harris has a 51-48 percent lead over Trump in the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist survey and has edged ahead by 0.5 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics nationwide average of polls.

The organization had Trump three points ahead of Biden at the point when the president made way for Harris, 17 days ago.

Where Trump used to be famed for his knack of defining his opponents with an incisive one-word sobriquet -- such as "Crooked Hillary" Clinton or "Sleepy Joe" Biden -- he has struggled to come up with a nickname that sticks on Harris.

His latest taunt -- calling her "Kamabla" -- looks more like a typo than an effective insult and has left pundits scratching their heads.

A.AlHaj--SF-PST