A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are on an introductory tour.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
They'll be in Phoenix tonight, and then head toward Las Vegas. Yesterday, they drew thousands of people on a hot Midwestern summer day in Wisconsin and Michigan. The energy around the campaign is heating up.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TIM WALZ: They try and steal the joy, but you know what? You know what? Our next president brings the joy. She emanates the joy.
(CHEERING)
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Tamara Keith is traveling with the candidates, joins us now from Detroit. Tamara, we're seeing lots of images of big crowds, hearing a lot of cheers. What did you experience there on the ground?
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Yeah, these are the biggest rallies I've seen in a very long time. These are the kinds of rally crowds that you would see in October or early November, just ahead of the election, but it's August right now. This is really not the campaign that Democrats were girding themselves for even just a month ago, and it's the kind of enthusiasm they haven't experienced since Obama. I talked to Cathy Wendorf (ph) of Madison, Wis., at the rally in Eau Claire. And she had driven about three hours to get to the rally, and said before President Biden dropped out, she was in a funk, depressed about politics.
CATHY WENDORF: They felt like Trump had won the election. I think that's how people felt. And so this is what's, like, jazzed everybody up, because now we have hope and there's a chance.
KEITH: The second rally was at the airport in Detroit, in an aircraft hangar, and Air Force Two pulled right up. It reminded me of so many Trump rallies I've covered over the years, but the mood was different. There were DJs hyping up the crowd. And when Harris and Walz walked off the plane, everyone went wild.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, you mentioned how it's November energy but in early August. It is early August only, so, I mean, what does this mean for the campaign, practically speaking?
KEITH: Well, in the first 24 hours since Walz was announced as the running mate, the campaign raised $36 million. A million of that was from people buying camouflage hats with orange writing on it that says Harris Walz, because Walz is known for wearing a hunting-style camo hat. You know, there's definitely optimism, but there's also an urgency to their message. In their speech - in her speeches, Harris talks about winning. But she also talks about needing to do a lot of work - knocking on doors, talking to neighbors. And they don't want people to assume that they'll win and then just not show up and vote in the end. She's holding rallies with 12,000, 15,000 people and still describing herself as an underdog.
You know, there's a lot that could go wrong for Harris in the next 90 days of this campaign. She is very much in the honeymoon period right now, and nobody knows when it will end. She's got the stump speech down, but she hasn't put herself in a position to be pressed on exactly what her positions are or how her positions have changed since 2019. As vice president, it wasn't her job to set a policy agenda. As the Democratic nominee now, it absolutely is her job.
MARTÍNEZ: And quickly, how has the Trump campaign been handling this shift?
KEITH: Well, JD Vance has been shadowing her. His plane was on the tarmac at the same time ours was in Wisconsin. Trump himself is not having any rallies in swing states this week. He does have a rally, however, in Montana, which is not a swing state.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Tamara Keith, in Detroit. Tam, thanks.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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