Coach “joy” pumps up the Park Place

Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz’s visit to Traverse City

By Jacob Wheeler

Sun editor

Just before Minnesota Governor, and Democratic Vice Presidential hopeful, Tim Walz approached the lectern to address an enthusiastic, packed crowd of 800 in the ballroom of Traverse City’s Park Place Hotel on Friday, Nov. 1, he turned around and fist-bumped supporters flanking him on stage with Harris-Walz campaign signs. Grand Traverse County Commissioner Ashlea Walter and her daughter Phoebe were among them. (Leelanau County residents may remember Walter from her Empire days when she ran the Empire Asparagus Festival.)

“He complimented me on my (black and red) plaid shirt choice, with a King Orchards logo, and said ‘You got the memo!'” recalled Walter.

Upbeat and enthusiastic, with John Mellencamp’s “Small Town” playing in the background, Walz arrived early and spent 23 minutes during his pep rally with the Northern Michigan crowd of progressives and Democrats, reminding them that polls in the Nov. 5 presidential election would close in under 100 hours. He encouraged them to vote, and turn out others to vote, for Kamala Harris for President, and push away the vitriol and and dark vision of Republican candidate Donald Trump. Polls show that Michigan, a crucial swing state, is very close.

The consummate coach and educator, Walz used his favorite football metaphors to describe the final days of this tight election. “This thing is gonna be close,” he said. “The final two minutes of the game. We got the ball. And we got the best quarterback in Kamala Harris. We go the best team, which is all of you. We don’t get tired, because if we do we’ll wait ’til we’re dead to do the sleeping, because not now!”

Education took center stage, too. Walz was preceded at the lectern by Genevieve Minor, a library media specialist at Traverse City West High School. With the United States approaching its semiquincentennial in 2026, Walz reminded the crowd that “It’s taken us 250 years to get a public school teacher on the ticket. We’re not losing this one. We’re winning.” The former geography teacher delighted in a reference to Traverse City sitting on the 45th parallel, halfway between the equator and North Pole.

Walz’s tone, and that of other Democrats who preceded him on stage, was forward-thinking and focused on specific policy priorities under Democratic Party leadership. They talked of the need to build more housing, expand education funding, make childcare more affordable, ban price gouging to bring down the cost of goods, and cap drug prices such as insulin.

He borrowed the well-known quote from the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone: “We all do better when we all do better.”

Walz also criticized Trump for the former president’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and forcing governors and citizens to play “Hunger Games against each other just to find toilet paper”; for his proposed tariffs which Democrats allege would “blow the national debt through the roof”; for Project 2025, a conservative think tank initiative that aims to drastically restructure the federal government; for Trump’s Supreme Court appointees who overturned Roe v Wade and women’s nationwide right to access an abortion, and for Trump’s patriarchal, misogynistic language that the Republican candidate would “protect women … whether they like it or not.”

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Traverse City native Chasten—both of whom preceded Walz on stage—spoke about the strides this region of Northern Michigan has made toward tolerance. Growing up in nearby Grawn, Chasten remembered rainbow-colored “We are Traverse City” bumper stickers being torn off car windows, and workers fired for being gay. The Buttigiegs’ adopted children attended the Walz rally—their first political rally.

“He changed my life, and we are so proud to be raising our son and daughter in this great state in this great community,” Pete said of Chasten. “This community has been so great to us. It’s a community of honest and hard-working people.

“In a freedom-loving country you get to be who you are and love who you love.”

The upbeat tone at the Democrats’ pep rally at the Park Place differed sharply with the atmosphere at Trump’s rally at the Traverse City Airport one week prior. Trump arrived 3 hours late to his rally, leaving his followers, including many senior citizens and young children, waiting through the night in a cold, open-air hangar. Trump eventually entered that rally to the ominous music of the Undertaker wrestler. His meandering speech lasted more than an hour, included dark and misleading claims about immigration and the transgender community, included crude humor, bullying language, and shots at the media.

Traverse City boasts no more than 15,000 year-round residents; its tallest building is the Park Place Hotel with 10 stories. Nevertheless, this metropolis of the rural north has attracted all of the top candidates for office—with the exception of Kamala Harris—during this nail-biter of an election season. Republican VP candidate JD Vance visited the Northwest Michigan Fair Grounds on Sept. 25; Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders stumped for Harris at Dennos Museum’s Milliken Auditorium on Oct. 13; Trump came to the airport on Oct. 25; First Lady Jill Biden and Tim Walz’s wife Gwen visited the Democratic campaign field office in the Grand Traverse Commons on Oct. 28, punctuated by the visit by Harris’ running mate on Nov. 1.

The difference between Walz’s tone, policy-focused language, and his punctuality contrasted with Trump a week before, stood out to some Leelanau County progressive voters.

“I think one of the things that I noticed was the lack of hostility, the lack of bombast, the lack of grievances,” said Glen Arbor resident (and occasional Sun contributor) Katie Dunn. “It was the antithesis of a Trump rally. It was well organized, well spirited, well attended, and the speeches were concise and uplifting. There a palpable sense of joy and an abundance of energy.”

“Seeing so many folks who were joyful without putting anyone down was inspiring to me,” said Sam Getsinger, who lives near Suttons Bay. “Hearing Pete and Chasten reveal their deepest emotions toward each other, and their gratefulness for being accepted and their ability to adopt children. That hit my heart the strongest.”

“I saw kids cheering and grandparents with hope in their eyes,” said Elitza Nicolau, a member of the National Nurses United union, which endorsed Harris. Nicolau lives between Traverse City and Suttons Bay. “Students overwhelmed and feeling seen, and a Midwestern dad being treated like a rock star. … The room (was filled) with the energy of going forward together and feeling like a team working toward something positive instead of one that’s filled with a group that’s focused on anger and fear.”