Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made his first solo campaign stop in California, delivering a speech in front of one of the country’s most prominent unions.

“The vice president and I, we know exactly who built this country. It was nurses, it was teachers, and it was state and local government employees that built this nation. People in this room, built the middle class,” Walz said in a speech in front of members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), one of the country’s strongest public sector unions.

The stop marked Walz’s first on his own since being tapped to join Harris on the Democratic ticket, with the duo mostly hitting the road together since the announcement last month.

Walz touted his pro-union credentials, recalling his time as a “due-paying” member of a teacher’s union and his record as governor that made it easier for workers to collectively bargain.

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“Here’s a fact they shared with me as I came here to make this opportunity to say thank you… I happen to be the first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan,” Walz said. “But rest assured, I won’t lose my way.”

While a stop in deep-blue California might not be seen as an important one on the trail, AFSCME members from all over the country were there to meet and later hear from the country’s potential future vice president.

The union, which according to NPR boasts 1.5 million members of mostly state and local government employees, represents a powerful demographic for the Harris campaign to attempt to solidify support. 

Walz has brought a Midwest and blue collar vibe to the campaign, touting Harris’ working class credentials since joining the vice president on the trail.

“It’s very simple – she stands on the side of the American people and the American worker,” Walz said during a rally in Michigan last week.

While most unions have traditionally supported Democratic candidates, former President Donald Trump has attempted to make inroads with the country’s blue-collar workers and union members, most notably in Rust Belt swing states that will decide the election.

The former president has continued to attempt to make his case to the country’s workers throughout the campaign, targeting hospitality workers by promising to push through a bill that would eliminate taxes on tips.

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) and Minnesota Governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz gesture during a campaign rally at the Thomas and Mack Center, University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 10, 2024.  (RONDA CHURCHILL/AFP via Getty Images)

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Harris, meanwhile, attempted to chase the same voters by making a similar vow last week, while the Harris-Walz ticket has earned the endorsement of the hospitality union UNITE HERE.

“It’s sad that union bosses continue to be puppets for the Democrat Party and are completely out of touch with the workers they are supposed to represent,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital in response to that news.

The Trump campaign’s attempt to appeal to working class voters was also evident in the former president’s selection of Ohio Sen. JD Vance as running mate, who has made a broader pitch to Rust Belt workers to get behind the Republican ticket.

“In small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania, or in Michigan, in states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war,” Vance said in his speech at the Republican National Convention.

“To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and every corner of our nation, I promise you this,” he continued. “I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks during a campaign event in Glendale, Ariz., Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Meanwhile, cracks in the Democratic Party’s relationship with unions have started to appear, most notably when Teamsters President Sean O’Brien became the first leader of his organization to speak at the Republican National Convention and offer rare openness to support for Republican candidates.

“We are not beholden to anyone or any party,” O’Brien said. “We want to know one thing: What are you doing to help American workers?”

Nevertheless, Walz expressed optimism that American workers would ultimately take his and Harris’ side in November. 

“The only thing those two guys know about working people is how to take advantage of them,” he said, referring to Trump and Vance. “Every chance they’ve gotten, they’ve waged war on workers and their ability to collectively bargain, to take that away from them.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Republicans have more districts in their corner in the first Fox News Power Rankings House forecast, but overall, the race for a majority is a toss-up.

Two dramatic years in the House haven’t changed voters’ top concerns

Political junkies will tell you that it has been a chaotic couple of years in the House. 

With speaker battles, a debt ceiling crisis, the sixth-ever expulsion of a House lawmaker and the first ever shrinking of the “Squad,” there has been plenty to talk about on television and social media.

At the same time, Americans continue to hold congress in low regard, with only 16% saying they approved of its job in July. (It has been two decades since congress had an approval rating of over 50%).

These might seem like vulnerabilities for the ruling party, but when it comes to their congressional ballot, Americans are putting drama and dissatisfaction aside.

The top issues in the race continue to be the economy, immigration and abortion, and voters are locked in to their preferred party for each of them.

The top three issues in battleground states. (Fox News Power Rankings)

FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: VOTERS’ APPETITE FOR TICKET-SPLITTING WILL DECIDE THE SENATE

Because of that, you can expect similar electoral dynamics in the House as in the Senate. A win for former President Trump will help the GOP stay in power in the lower chamber, as we saw in 2016. A win for Vice President Kamala Harris will likely give the Democrats a win in the House too, as President Biden was able to deliver in 2020.

Fox News Power Rankings final house count prediction. (Fox News)

In the meantime, the race to rule the House starts off as a toss-up.

Five themes across dozens of competitive districts

House forecast themes (Fox News Power Rankings)

Every House seat is up for election every two years, but only a fraction are competitive. In this forecast, 16% of the 435 districts are firmly in play.

There are 19 toss-up races, and with Republicans enjoying a razor-thin majority in the House today, the results in those districts alone will decide which party gets the gavel.

Many of the highly competitive races share key features.

Redistricting

The redistricting process occurs at the beginning of each decade, but a mountain of litigation over racial or partisan gerrymandering issues has left some states redrawing boundaries as recently as May.

The upshot is that several seats are likely to change hands early on election night.

Alabama and Louisiana each have redrawn seats with higher Black voter populations after court rulings. Both seats are represented by vacating Republicans and are Democrats’ best flip opportunities of the night. 

Meanwhile, a state Republican supermajority approved a more favorable map in North Carolina. Three seats currently represented by Democrats will now be open in November, and Republicans are favored in all of them.

Fox News Power Rankings races that lean Democrat. (Fox News)

Redistricting will also affect a highly competitive race in New York.

A district containing Syracuse that currently belongs to Rep. Brandon Williams will shift leftward this year, putting the first-term congressman in a much tougher fight to hold on for a second. New York’s 22nd district is rated Lean D.

Candidate quality

One of the reasons Republicans underperformed expectations in the midterms was candidate quality. In other words, the party fielded nominees who were poor matches for their district, had baggage, or were ineffective campaigners.

This year, the party is working with a stronger bench.

The most notable example is Alaska’s statewide House district. In 2022, moderate Democrat Mary Peltola pulled off a historic upset when she beat former Governor Sarah Palin in the final round of the state’s ranked choice ballot tabulation.

This year, Republicans hope that either second-time candidate Nick Begich or Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom will retake the seat; both have been stronger campaigners.

Peltola is well-liked in her state and has been an advocate on local issues, chiefly the state’s fishing industry. This seat is rated Lean D.

Fox News Power Rankings house races that are toss-ups. (Fox News)

Back on the mainland, Ohio’s 9th district has been in Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s hands since 1983. She has crafted a brand around her pro-agriculture and anti-free trade views.

But with Ohio’s rightward drift, this is a very competitive seat.

In the midterms, Republicans fielded a candidate who was in lock step with Trump but struggled to appeal to centrists. This time, state Rep. Derek Merrin will be on the ballot for the GOP, bringing conservative principles and a wealth of campaign experience along with him.

This seat is a toss-up.

Republicans still have candidate issues in some key races. Washington’s 3rd district will be a rematch between first-term Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Blue Dog Democrat who recently suggested that Biden resign from office, and Joe Kent, her Republican challenger.

Kent, a veteran and former CIA officer, was mired in controversy in 2022. That will continue to be a liability, but Republicans are hopeful that he will run a more disciplined campaign this time. This race is also a toss-up.

Trump helps down ballot Republicans, including in suburban districts

Trump struggled in the suburbs when he last ran for president. According to the Fox News Voter Analysis, he lagged Biden by 10 points with all suburban voters and 19 points with suburban women, leaving him with critical deficits in the battleground states.

House Republicans in city and suburban districts did not fare so poorly. Challengers like Nicole Malliotakis in New York’s 11th district, Young Kim and Michelle Steel in the California suburbs and Maria Elvira Salazar in Miami flipped Democratic districts.

This all suggests that Trump is more helpful to House Republicans than the conventional wisdom might say. He brings out core “MAGA” voters who vote red down the ballot, while allowing candidates to make inroads with moderates and independents.

Fox News Power Rankings races that lean Republican. (Fox News)

The best example is in Nebraska’s 2nd district, containing Omaha and its surrounding suburbs.

At the presidential level, this is a Lean D district (and unlike most, it gets an electoral vote in November). The area has a larger proportion of college-educated voters, who dislike Trump and show up to vote against him.

However, in the House, the race is rated Lean R.

That is thanks to Rep. Don Bacon, a moderate conservative, veteran and Trump critic who has won the district four times from 2016 onwards.

He has another tough battle against state lawmaker Tony Vargas this year, who is running a disciplined and well-funded campaign.

Unlike the presidential race, the Republicans have an edge here so far.

Fox News Power Rankings Democrat vs. Republican “good night” analysis. (Fox News)

Open seats and first-term incumbents

There are several departing Democrats in competitive districts, including Elissa Slotkin in Michigan’s 7th district and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia’s 7th. 

These moderate congresswomen in swingy parts of their states are running for Senate seats this year, leaving highly competitive races behind.

Republicans are hopeful that the departure of these well-known incumbents will give their challengers a boost, but with both parties fielding high-quality replacements, these races will be close (Democrats have an edge in Virginia’s 7th).

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Democrats will also play defense in dozens of districts with first-term incumbents, like Rep. Yadira Caraveo in Colorado’s 8th district. This newly created district includes the northern Denver suburbs and surrounding areas, and Caraveo won it by less than a point last time. This race is a toss-up.

Competitive races in blue states

California and New York run deep blue at the statewide level, but just outside highly populated liberal cities, plenty of districts are in play.

Fox News Power Rankings projected house wins chart. (Fox News)

In California, keep an eye on the 13th district, home of Modesto; the 27th district, north of Los Angeles; and the 41st district, which includes Palm Springs.

Republicans won all three seats by narrow margins in the midterms and are now locked in tough re-election battles with well-funded Democratic opponents. The forecast has Democrats with an edge in the 13th and 27th districts at Lean D, while the 41st is a toss-up.

Across the continent in New York, and Brandon Williams is not the only Republican fighting for his political career.

New York’s 17th, 18th and 19th districts, all in the Hudson Valley region, were hotly contested in the midterms, and two out of the three are now represented by Republicans with strong bipartisan brands. Rep. Mike Lawler is the best known but also has the bluest territory to defend of the two, with Rep. Marc Molinaro in another tight race nearby. Both these races are toss-ups.

In between them is Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, whose race starts at Lean D.

Governor rankings are out tomorrow as the countdown to the DNC continues

Voters in 11 states will cast a ballot for governor this year; tomorrow’s Power Rankings takes a look at the most competitive races on the map.

Then, on Sunday, Fox News Democracy 24 special coverage for the Democratic National Convention begins with an all-new Power Rankings Issues Tracker.

Never has the GOP been more unified, and Donald Trump deserves all the credit. The issue uniting pundits, editorial boards, virtually all Republican politicians, GOP consultants, MAGA warriors and rallygoers: the need for Trump to lay aside personal gripes and grievances and to stick to the issues and attack Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz on their records.

The New York Times asked former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) what he made of Trump attacking Harris for inventing her Black identity only recently. He replied, “I would stick to the price of groceries.”

“All Trump has to do is talk about his positions, like he did in 2016,” insists columnist Ann Coulter.

“He’s more comfortable with personality-driven attacks, rather than issue-driven attacks,” Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster, told The Times. “But given that Kamala’s a relative unknown, the policy- and issue-related attacks would get more traction right now.”

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro concurs: “All he has to do is focus the attack, to dump the war chest he’s accrued on this extremist ticket, to stick to a simple point: You were better off in 2019 than you are in 2024.”

Even Trump campaign honcho Chris LaCivita says as much. “At the end of the day, it’s really about demonstrating through her own words how dangerous, how weak and failed she really is, and it’s not hard to do when you have her doing the talking,” he told the Washington Post.

Obviously following this advice would be better than Trump’s current approach — race baiting, election denial, whining about Biden’s defenestration, attacking fellow Republicans, crowd size boasts, etc. — all of which is clearly ill-advised.

But “ill-advised” is the wrong word, because pretty much everybody advising Trump is telling him to stop. In other words, the conventional wisdom is well-advised, it’s just that Trump can’t or won’t follow it. This is not a new phenomenon. Expecting Trump to “pivot” or “act presidential” has been a political pastime for almost a decade. It’s like betting Godot will be punctual or Lucy won’t yank the football from Charlie Brown.

But what’s interesting to me is not the tiresome assumption that Trump can be anything other than who he is; rather it’s the assumption that if he ran the focused campaign his boosters favor, it would guarantee success. It would certainly improve his chances. But as a subscriber to the view that “vibes” have supplanted substantive issues and personal character as the decisive factors in elections, I’m not so sure.

Ever since Trump came down the escalator in 2015, I’ve been asking my pro-Trump friends some variant of the question, “What can the next Democratic president — or Democratic candidate — do that won’t make you a hypocrite for criticizing?” There are a few defensible answers to this question, but they miss the larger point. Trump has been inconsistent on so many issues — abortion, socialized medicine, transgender rights, debt, deficits, military interventions, criminal justice, etc. — that his supporters have largely given up on the idea that he should be held to a consistent position or principle. His personal character has been more consistent, but consistently wretched. The people who love his shtick like politics as a reality show. And those are the people he cares about because their adulation ratifies his own self-regard. Trump wants to believe that his awesome personality is the only thing that should matter, which is why he rejects the idea he needs to change.

The problem is he needs a majority.

Trump was narrowly beating Biden in the polls because the Biden reality show had worse vibes. His physical and mental deterioration amplified his political failings. Trump exuded strength and confidence, and that was enough, vibes-wise. At 78, by contrast with Biden, he managed to be both the “youthful” candidate and the “change” candidate.

The switch to Harris reversed all that. The vibe shift is real, as a stream of polling has shown. People were tired of the Biden show, and when the alternative was a rerun of the Trump show, they settled for that. But now a whole new series is on offer.

Trump and his enablers created the vibe petard, and now they’re being hoisted on it.

Now that Trumpworld is on the receiving end of the reality show politics they helped create, they want to pivot back to issues. But what if voters, at least the ones who will decide the election, think politics-as-vibes is the new normal, particularly as Harris helpfully walks away from her most controversial positions? Trump has always benefited from the fact the rules of normal politics applied to everyone but him. Perhaps he succeeded in liberating his opponent from those rules, too.

@JonahDispatch