There was a curious buzz around campus with the arrival of Gov. Tim Walz on Sept. 17. Students flocked to the John Lewis Student Center and Rocky Mountain Pizza to see the Democratic vice presidential nominee, albeit with a different energy than they would likely have in most election years. After Biden’s last-minute departure from the presidential race, the overwhelming question — although still paired with a visceral excitement — about Vice President Kamala Harris and her VP pick is, “Who are they?”
“I think the campaign as a whole is trying to connect to young people,” Aarington Brown, 2nd year PUBP who waited for Walz at the student center, told the Technique. When asked how well Walz is building that connection with young voters, Olivia Kawala, 2nd year CS, reserved judgment. “I have to see more because of how recent Kamala running and everything is,” she said.
But young people certainly were the focus for the nominee’s Atlanta visit. After stepping onto the Hartsfield-Jackson airport tarmac and entering his motorcade — without speaking to press, something opponents have criticized at various campaign stops — he visited both Georgia Tech and Atlanta University Center students before leaving the city to head to North Carolina. It was only one day after Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance spoke to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a Christian organization that seeks to influence public policy.
Walz’s first stop was a packed John Lewis Student Center, where he toured Burdells with Audrey Zeff, 2nd year EIA and president of the GT College Democrats, and Sam Bolton, 3rd year BA and president of the Organization for Student Activism at GT.
“One of the great privileges of my life — I served with John Lewis,” Walz told the two students. “For me, it feels special to be in here. I miss him. Especially at a time when it seems like things are chaotic, John was like a rock in the middle of a storm.”
He asked Bolton what is compelling students to vote for Harris. “We basically just talked about how important it is that he is fighting for what people need, fighting for the right for people to live in peace and keep their rights intact no matter who they are, which is really just what we need right now,” Bolton told the Technique.
For Harris and Walz, Georgia is a pivotal battleground state that the campaign is hoping could, after a narrow Biden win in 2020, go to the Democrats again in 2024. With barely more than a month before the election, the state looks almost like a tossup — a far cry from earlier this year where former President Donald Trump pulled ahead of Biden by five points. Harris currently trails Trump by less than a percentage point.
“This is going to be so razor close, it is not out of the realm to think folks in here getting five more groups of folks to get five more groups of folks — that this presidential election could run through Rocky Mountain Pizza,” Walz said to an intimate gathering of a few dozen Tech students at the pizza joint right off campus.
The group at Rocky Mountain erupted in applause when the vice presidential nominee — that they affectionately referred to as “Coach Walz” — arrived. “To each of you, as an American, thank you for believing in our democracy,” Walz said. “For believing that our politics can be something bigger, it can be something more positive, it can be something that all of us can be proud to be a part of.” He repeatedly emphasized the positivity and “joy” that the campaign has been using as a foil to Trump and Vance’s more ominous messages about the end of America.
“This pessimism in our electoral system — this has not always been there,” Walz said. “And it’s really really scary.” Several times, Walz reminded students how many of the country’s current problems did not exist in decades past. “There had been joy in this. And we had watched people shake hands, and then they worked together for a common good.” It felt like a throwback to a kind of politics that died in 2016. “The policies we’re advocating for are the policies that help those folks who are actually going to vote against us. And that’s ok with me,” he said.
But he held that sense of nostalgia in tension with some of his more progressive policy goals and a campaign slogan of “We’re not going back.” While at times he appealed more to centrism and unity, at others, he outlined more left-wing changes a Harris administration could bring, mentioning proposed changes regarding reproductive rights, student loan debt cancellation, climate change, and Harris’ “opportunity economy.” If students were looking to hear moderate, “return to normalcy” rhetoric, they could. And if they were looking for signals that a Harris administration would be more progressive than the Biden presidency, they could find that, too. At times, Walz even sounded libertarian, centering his talk around freedom. “Things work best if people just remember that Golden Rule, ‘Mind your own damn business,’” Walz said.
“Just based on talking to him, based on meeting his daughter, just seeing him as a human being, I’m like, I think he does care and does have very strong, probably more liberal — I don’t want to say extreme — but less moderate opinions. But I think for this campaign, I do think it is a relatively moderate appeal,” Bolton said about Walz’s positions.
The Tech students in attendance received him enthusiastically. Harrison Baro, 4th year ENVE, described Walz as “very endearing and very captivating.”
Walz’s speech was similar when talking to students at the Atlanta University Center, which has Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine and Spelman College as member institutions. He did emphasize voting accessibility more than at Georgia Tech. “You need to get yourself a governor who believes in voting,” he told the audience to applause.
After talking with the attendees, Walz left for the airport to fly to North Carolina. With 39 days until what will likely be the closest election in years, Harris, Walz, Trump and Vance are working overtime to win over undecided voters and increase base turnout. And Walz isn’t planning on lowering the campaign’s intensity in the home stretch. As he told his supporters at Tech, “Sleep when we’re dead. All gas, no brake.”