Tim Walz visits Sacramento in West Coast fundraising swing as Election Day draws near

Monica Madden Image
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
Tim Walz visits Sacramento in West Coast fundraising swing
Tim Walz visits Sacramento in West Coast fundraising swingGov. Tim Walz made a stop in Sacramento Tuesday for a fundraising event with Gov. Gavin Newsom, part of a campaign swing on the West Coast.

SACRAMENTO (KGO) -- Gov. Tim Walz made a stop in Sacramento Tuesday for a fundraising event with Gov. Gavin Newsom, part of a campaign swing on the West Coast with the presidential election right around the corner.

The vice presidential hopeful kicked off his fundraising blitz on Sunday, visiting California and Washington. On Sunday, Walz visited San Diego, Montecito and Los Angeles.

While it's expected for politicians to court California for its wealthy donor base, presidential nominees tend to spend most of their time courting undecided voters in swing states during the final weeks before the election.

Political analysts like Nolan Higdon, a history and communications professor at UC Santa Cruz, said all rules are out the door in a campaign season as atypical as this one.

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"Tim Walz's visit to California is somewhat abnormal this late in the presidential campaign. Typically by this point, they're spending most of their energy in swing states.The fact that they're fundraising -- and the Trump campaign as well to a degree -- I think really speaks to how close this race is," Higdon said.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are neck-and-neck, with Harris leading by just two points, according to RealClear Politics, which aggregates and averages national polling data. The average of national polls shows Harris at 49.2% and Trump at 47.2%, well within the margin of error.

With another nail-biter election, both campaigns have been burning through cash on things like advertising and outreach.

Higdon said it's difficult to judge differing strategies in this presidential election since it's been anything but normal.

"(Harris and Walz) started the campaign very late. So they're always going to be doing things that are nontraditional due to the truncated timeline," he said.

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President Joe Biden's historic decision to bow out of the race in July gave Harris mere months to campaign as the Democratic presidential nominee, a process that usually begins after the primaries.

Additionally, Trump -- who is known for drawing thousands of supporters at his signature rallies -- has been holding far fewer rallies this cycle. After Trump survived a July assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, his campaign temporarily halted outdoor rallies, but began those again in late August.

"A lot of this race is being fought on the airwaves with advertisements, which costs money. And so, I think they're coming to a place like California, which has over a million millionaires," Higdon said.

In a rare move, Trump will be headed to the Coachella Valley to hold a rally this upcoming Saturday.

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