New Hampshire
Tim Walz makes sudden schedule change amid VP buzz
In a move that has intensified speculation about his potential selection as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has reportedly canceled his planned trip to New Hampshire this weekend.
President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on July 21 following weeks of interparty fighting among Democrats on whether he should pass the torch to the next generation after his debate fiasco against Donald Trump in late June in Atlanta. Biden also endorsed Harris the day he withdrew from the race and she is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
The sudden change in Walz’s schedule comes as Harris is reportedly in the final stages of vetting candidates in her search for a running mate.
CNN senior reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote on X, formerly Twitter, about Walz’s change in travel plans: “A little more veepstakes NEWS: from Tim Walz’s spokesman: ‘The governor’s schedule has changed and he is no longer traveling to New Hampshire this weekend.’”
A little more veepstakes NEWS: from Tim Walz’s spokesman:
“The governor’s schedule has changed and he is no longer traveling to New Hampshire this weekend.”
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) August 3, 2024
Harris is expected to meet with her vetting team today for a series of in-depth presentations on each of the finalists. These briefings, lasting between 60 to 90 minutes each, are designed to provide Harris with comprehensive information on the candidates’ backgrounds, qualifications, and potential impact on the ticket.
The list of finalists reportedly includes Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, alongside Walz.
The presentations may result in a narrowing of the field, with Harris expected to conduct final interviews, possibly in-person on Sunday, according to CNN.
Newsweek has contacted the Harris campaign and Walz’s press office via email on Saturday for comment.
AFP/STEPHEN MATUREN
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, whose law firm is conducting the vetting process, was seen arriving at the Naval Observatory on Saturday morning, underscoring the high-stakes nature of these deliberations.
Walz, a former high school teacher and football coach with a 24-year career in the Army National Guard, brings a unique blend of experiences to the table. As a congressman, he represented a deep-red district in Minnesota, demonstrating an ability to appeal to voters across the political spectrum. His background in education, military service, and agriculture could potentially resonate with voters in key battleground states, particularly in the Midwest.
In a recent op-ed for Newsweek, former Representative Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat, made a case for Walz as Harris’ running mate. Ryan emphasized the importance of selecting a candidate who can connect with working-class voters, particularly in the Rust Belt. He highlighted Walz’s understanding of issues critical to Midwestern voters, such as job creation, health care access, and education.
The timing of Walz’s schedule change is particularly noteworthy, mirroring a similar move by Shapiro who recently canceled a fundraising trip to the Hamptons in New York. These parallel developments have intensified the buzz around both governors as potential VP picks.
Harris’ top consideration in selecting a running mate is reportedly electability. The choice will not only impact the campaign’s strategy, but also signal the Democratic Party’s priorities and vision for the future.
With Harris expected to announce her running mate before a planned campaign rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, the political world is on high alert for any further schedule changes or announcements from the potential VP candidates.
Soon after Joshua Bogden attempted to register to vote on the day of Portsmouth’s municipal elections Nov. 11, he faced a tough decision.
Bogden had not brought along a passport or birth certificate to prove his citizenship. And though he had previously been registered and voted in Wilton, poll workers told Bogden he needed to leave and return with one of those physical documents.
Bogden could either drive to city hall and request a same-day copy of his birth certificate, or rush home and find his own copy. But he had only hours until the polls closed, and only minutes before Portsmouth stopped its birth certificate service at 4:30.
In the end, Bogden decided to drive home and chance that he could find the certificate, he said during a press conference Thursday. He did find it and was able to vote. But the hassle he faced is at the center of arguments by some that recent changes to New Hampshire’s voter registration laws are too strict and will result in frustrated voters choosing not to vote.
“Luckily, I lived nearby,” he said. “But if there had been any more sort of traffic or anything in my personal life — going home to pick up the kids, trying to do this after work — there’s no way I would have been able to come back and vote successfully.”
Since a new law took effect November 2024, New Hampshire voters are required to produce hard copies of citizenship documents the first time they register to vote in the state. The law eliminated the previous option for voters registering on Election Day to sign a “qualified voter affidavit” that allowed them to vote without proving citizenship by testifying on penalty of perjury that they were a U.S. citizen.
Republican supporters of the law, House Bill 1569, say the new requirements are reasonable and necessary to close loopholes that could allow non-citizens to vote, and that voters should prepare by obtaining their citizenship documents in advance
Lawmakers also passed a follow-up law in 2025, House Bill 464, that allows local election officials to access the Statewide Voter Registration System, New Hampshire Vital Records, and Division of Motor Vehicle databases in order to attempt to corroborate a resident’s citizenship.
But a number of voting rights groups are suing in federal court to block the law, arguing it creates an unconstitutional burden and that it will disenfranchise eligible voters, especially those for whom obtaining a passport or birth certificate could be difficult.
In the meantime, the October and November municipal elections have offered a fresh look into how the new law might affect voting in practice.
According to a tally by the New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, 123 voters were turned away from the polls due to a lack of documents. Combined with the 121 residents the group reported were turned away for the same reason during town meetings in spring, at least 244 people were turned away in 2025, the group says.
Voting rights advocates and Democrats argue those tallies are a cautionary tale for the state ahead of the September 2026 state primaries and the November 2026 midterm federal election. Many more people are likely to vote in those elections, and many more who don’t bring along their citizenship documentation could be turned away, advocates warn.
They hope U.S. District Court Judge Samantha Elliott, who is presiding over the lawsuit, will issue an injunction ahead of the midterms. A full evidentiary trial in that case is expected in February.
At Thursday’s press conference, advocates attempted to show the difficulty posed by the new documentary requirements, which election law experts have called the strictest in the country.
In addition to Bogden, Brayden Rumsey, a Dover voter, said he had to drive home to retrieve his passport in order to vote Nov. 11. Rumsey was not aware of the new citizenship documentation requirements; he had assumed that showing a REAL ID driver’s license would suffice, since to obtain it he had been required to show his passport.
“I have my own car. I have my own way of getting there. I don’t have any kids to take care of. I have access to a passport and access to my birth certificate that I could easily get,” he said. “I know a lot of people don’t have that privilege like I do.”
And Michael Blanchette, who recently moved from Concord to Manchester, said he had called the city ahead of the Nov. 11 election to get confirmation of his citizenship using his previous registration and presence on the voter database. But despite that confirmation, Blanchette said he was still asked for citizenship documentation at the Manchester Ward 7 polls, and had to wait an hour for multiple election workers and city officials to clear him to vote.
“(I knew) if I went back home and took my pain meds, I was not coming back out,” he said. “And it was now or never. So I stuck through it. I didn’t realize it would just drag on.”
Linnea Hartsuyker, a supervisor of the checklist in Dover’s Ward 5, said she had seen at least one prospective voter leave and not return once learning of the requirements.
Hartsuyker said the 2025 law providing election workers access to the state voter file proved helpful, allowing her to verify at least those voters who had already registered. That remedy would not have worked for new voters who moved from out of state, she said.
“Last year at the general (election) I and my team registered 50 people per hour for 12 hours,” she said. “That’s almost one person per minute with the old system, and I am quite worried about being able to do that in the coming election, at the midterms.”
Access to those state databases might vary from polling place to polling place depending on internet availability and the amount of time and manpower available during a rush of voters, critics say. Rumsey and Blanchette said workers at their polling places did not appear to have direct access to those databases, necessitating calls to city hall officials.
It is not clear how the apparent tallies of voters turned away from voting might affect the trial in next year’s lawsuit.
In a July 29 ruling, Elliott ruled that some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed in 2024, lacked standing because their experiences did not directly demonstrate a potential unconstitutional barrier to voting. But she granted standing to other plaintiffs, such as the Coalition for Open Democracy, the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire, the Forward Foundation, and three plaintiffs who were minors but planned to register to vote when they turned 18 and said the need to procure documentation was a burden.
The Attorney General’s Office has defended the law and said the constitutional challenges are not substantiated. In a Nov. 7 memorandum asking Elliott to dismiss the case, Assistant Attorney General Michael DeGrandis argued that the law struck a balance between allowing every eligible person to vote and safeguarding the process from fraud.
“New Hampshire pairs that open access with commonsense eligibility checks so only the votes of eligible voters are counted,” DeGrandis wrote. “Striking this balance is essential to guarantee an election system that is both welcoming and vigilant in protecting the integrity of the ballot.”
And he wrote that the law does not impede the organizations suing, and that the individual plaintiffs “have not offered competent evidence of cognizable injuries.”
“It is Plaintiffs’ burden to come forward with definite, competent evidence of injury, causation, and redressability, but they have not,” DeGrandis wrote.
Kansas State’s Chris Klieman fights back tears after loss to Utah: ‘One of the greatest efforts I’ve been a part of’
Julia Pellerin Hat Trick Propels Huskies Over Vermont – University of Connecticut Athletics
Wisconsin football insider: A closer look at Darrion Dupree’s 84-yard touchdown run
West Virginia health system plans to acquire 5 Pa. hospitals | Chief Healthcare Executive
Josh Allen’s jersey number becomes the first in UW Football history to be retired
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
President says Chicagoans are ‘chanting bring in Trump’ after violent downtown riot leaves 8 shot, 1 dead
Get to know Méabh McMahon, co-anchor of Euronews’ Europe Today
Hitting the road for Thanksgiving? Here’s the best time to go
Video: In Charlotte, Border Patrol Arrests Send Families Into Hiding
GOP Senate hopeful reveals how Dems are making America ‘weaker’ in viral video ahead of Thanksgiving
-
Business6 days agoFire survivors can use this new portal to rebuild faster and save money
-
World5 days agoFrance and Germany support simplification push for digital rules
-
News6 days agoCourt documents shed light on Indiana shooting that sparked stand-your-ground debate
-
World1 week ago2% of Russian global oil supply affected following Ukrainian attack
-
World6 days agoCalls for answers grow over Canada’s interrogation of Israel critic
-
World5 days agoSinclair Snaps Up 8% Stake in Scripps in Advance of Potential Merger
-
Business5 days ago
Amazon’s Zoox offers free robotaxi rides in San Francisco
-
Politics5 days agoDuckworth fires staffer who claimed to be attorney for detained illegal immigrant with criminal history
