Walz visits farm in return to Western Pennsylvania

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz didn’t speak to reporters or roll out new policy prescriptions during his visit to Western Pennsylvania Wednesday — but the visit itself did make a kind of statement.

Walz, a native of Nebraska and the governor of Minnesota, largely bypassed the kind of urban areas from which Democrats have traditionally drawn their electoral strength, and instead headed to a farm in Trump Country.

To be sure, when Walz landed at the Pittsburgh International Airport in a campaign jet a little after 2:30 p.m., he was greeted on the tarmac by Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato. (She later said the two talked about the fact that “we’d be seeing a lot of each other.”) Soon after, Walz and his daughter Hope stopped the campaign caravan at the Moon Township Milkshake Factory. There they purchased chocolate-covered pretzels and a milkshake that, according to campaign sources granted anonymity to speak candidly about sensitive issues, was mint cookies and cream.

But from there, it was a drive of well over an hour to the Maple Bottom Farm outside Dawson, Pennsylvania.

Surrounding Fayette County was once solidly Democratic, but in 2020 backed Donald Trump by two-to-one margins. And while Trump signs seemed somewhat less visible than in previous election cycles, there were several lining the road to the farm itself.

But the presence of Walz there symbolized presidential nominee Kamala Harris' ambitions to compete for votes everywhere in the state. Earlier this week, the campaign announced the opening of its 50th state field office, boasting that Democrats were “reaching out to voters in every part of Pennsylvania, from Allegheny County to … deep-red counties like Jefferson and York.” And on Wednesday, Walz did his part by taking a tour of the farm, while reporters watched the livestock and the livestock watched the reporters, with somewhat less evident interest.

As security personnel in tactical gear looked out over a field of sunflowers, Walz inspected a cow shed and fed a calf (“I was making you work too hard!” he exclaimed after it latched onto the bottle he was holding.) And he spoke with members of the Baker family, who own the farm, about the rigors of agriculture.

“There is no holiday,” he said.

Eventually, Walz and the family sat down at a picnic table to sample some of the farm’s wares — “he can’t do spicy,” Hope warned in a reprise of a campaign joke — and discuss some of the challenges facing agriculture, as well as energy policy. And while the issue is considered a hot-button in Pennsylvania, due to Harris’ previous hostility to fracking for natural gas, there was ready agreement around the table that, for example, solar panels would be a great addition to barn roofs but shouldn’t occupy fertile land.

As for the arguments over fossil fuels and green energy? “You can do both,” Walz said, objecting to “this false choice that you can’t have one or the other."

“We’re producing more oil than we ever have at any time, which is fine,” he said. But investing in solar and wind energy were also important, he added: “Give people a choice.”

Soon after, reporters were corralled back to the caravan for the drive back to Pittsburgh.

Much like a one-day tour of the area made by Walz and Harris last month, the trip eschewed stump speeches or policy discussions for a series of tableaux that situated the candidate in backdrops identifiable to locals — and identified with them. Walz stayed the night in Downtown Pittsburgh with plans to travel to Erie on Thursday … having been seen, if not herd.