Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz returned to Asheville on Wednesday to headline a closing-sprint rally that was equal parts football-coach pep talk, praise for the region’s resilience after Tropical Storm Helene, and a pitch for tourists to return to help fuel an economic recovery.

The rally at the Orange Peel concert venue, which holds 1,050, was designed to pump energy into the Democratic Party’s push to win the White House for Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz, the folksy Minnesota governor. It was Walz’s second campaign visit to Asheville, coming six weeks after a similar event at a rival music venue, Salvage Station, which was destroyed by the overflowing French Broad River. 

Making full use of his Minnesota-nice personality and background as a high school football coach, Walz fired up the passionate crowd for the closing push for votes.  

Election Day, Nov. 5, is “just 150 hours away,” he said, adding “we can sleep when we’re dead.”  

But Walz devoted his opening remarks to praising those behind the ongoing relief efforts, and to bolstering the community’s spirit as it struggles to recover from Helene, which killed more than 100 in North Carolina, including 43 in Buncombe County, and destroyed countless businesses and homes. The governor said he returned to Asheville to highlight “revival and restoration” rather than “revenge and retribution,” a slap at Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump’s grievance-fueled campaign. 

Walz reminisced about his September visit where a capacity crowd withstood a drenching rain to hear him speak at the Salvage Station, located just yards from the French Broad River. 

“We’ve done a lot of events,” Walz told the crowd, but said the Salvage Station rally remains vivid in his memory. “We stood out in the drizzle, then it started to pour, but everybody stuck around.

“Maybe that was foreshadowing a little bit of what was to happen because in the wake of  Hurricane Helene, this community did the exact same thing: The community stuck around and pulled together.”

State’s key role means multiple candidate visits

Both Walz and Harris were in North Carolina Wednesday, and Trump and running mate J.D. Vance, the Ohio senator, are expected in the state over the next few days. The attention paid to North Carolina reflects its key role in the election’s outcome and the razor-thin margin separating the rival campaigns.

Asheville is a Democratic Party outlier in a region hammered by Helene. Particularly hard hit was the city’s River Arts District, where many arts studios, restaurants, craft breweries and other tourist attractions have been damaged, many beyond repair, and thousands of workers are unemployed.

Facing the crowd in front of a backdrop reading “When we vote, we win,” Walz singled out Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer for her “leadership under pressure” in dealing with the city’s on-going challenges. Gesturing toward her in the crowd, Walz said he and Harris “are not going to rest until you get all the support to rebuild this community.”

Walz turned to the bank of television cameras broadcasting the event to “make a pitch to some of those folks who may be watching tonight.

“If you have never visited this American treasure of Asheville, book your tickets now,” he said, igniting cheers. “This [city] is a treasure. The food’s fantastic. The music is electric. The creativity of the River District is second to none.

“These small businesses need your help. Come down here and spend your money.”

Turning back to the crowd, he showered the community with praise: “The spirit of Asheville is the spirit of this country. It is tenacious and it is not going down without a fight.”

The rally was in marked contrast to Trump’s deliberately low-key visit Oct. 21, which featured a photo opportunity and private meeting with Republican office holders and local supporters whose businesses had been damaged. The Republican nominee went by motorcade to a devastated section of Swannanoa 15 miles east of Asheville for the meeting and held no crowd events.  

Like his Democratic rivals, Trump also pledged his administration’s support for rebuilding local businesses and assisting the storm’s victims. But he also repeated his frequent and controversial attacks on the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its oversight of federal recovery efforts, and falsely claimed FEMA is “broke” because it diverted relief money from the region to care for undocumented immigrants at the southern border.

Walz didn’t neglect the typical vice presidential candidate’s role as the ticket’s attack dog, adopting a tone of a trash-talking athlete.

Walz trains harshest criticism at Musk

He didn’t repeat Harris’s recent attacks on Trump as a “fascist” following a Nazi playbook. Nor did he single out Trump supporters for demonizing immigrants, insulting Hispanics, calling Harris “the devil,” and – at the former president’s closing rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday – denigrating Puerto Rico as “an island of garbage.” 

Walz repeated his description of Trump and Vance as “weird” more than malevolent. And he directed his harshest criticism at Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Trump’s close confidant. Trump has said he would appoint Musk as his commissioner on government efficiency, instructing him to cut trillions of dollars from federal spending. 

“If you’re a billionaire like Elon Musk, you get something,” Walz said. “You get a tax cut. And the rest of us get squat.” 

He pointed to Musk’s recent comment that if he adhered to Trump’s policies in overhauling the nation’s economy, the short-term impact would be to “tank the economy” and perhaps crash the stock market, before recovering to a stronger level. 

Walz repeated Musk’s forecast, adding: “Americans will have to face, and I quote, ‘some hardships.’  What in the hell does the richest man on the planet know about hardships?”

Walz also urged the crowd to seek out voters who, while acknowledging they’re unhappy with Trump’s harsh attacks, say they’ll support his reelection because they believe the economy was better in the Trump administration from 2016 to 2020. 

“I think they may be remembering things a little bit differently than the way they were,” Walz said. “So let me refresh their memories: Four years ago our country had lost 2.7 million jobs; unemployment was way up because Donald Trump botched the pandemic relief. He botched it so badly, do you remember, that under Donald Trump we were fighting to get toilet paper.”  

He recited a litany of promises that Harris has made if she wins election. Among them tax credits for young families, first-time business owners and first-time home buyers; an expansion of Medicare to include home care, dental care and hearing aids, and a cap on costs for such drugs as insulin.

Walz said the Republican platform as outlined in Project 2025 –  the 900-page report written by Trump allies but disavowed by Trump – would severely cut Social Security and Medicare, and would kill the Affordable Care Act. 

“People are going to ask – and it’s a good question – is, ‘How are you going to pay for this?’ And I say, well a starting point would be to have Donald Trump pay his damn tax,” Walz continued. “Ten of the last 15 years he hasn’t paid federal tax, but he tells us every day how rich he is. How does he think we pay for our police and our teachers and our firefighters and our roads and our water treatment plants? That’s what we do, we pay our taxes.” 

Walz’s sharpest attack was aimed at Trump’s role in reversing abortion rights through the Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade. Since then 20 states, including North Carolina, have banned abortion in most cases, or reduced women’s right to choose abortion. 

Walz, like Harris, is a strong supporter of a national reproductive-rights law that would limit government’s ability to restrict abortion rights. He addressed men in the crowd, telling them: “Picture those women you love in your life: your wife, partner, daughter, neighbors, everyone else.”

“And when you think about this election, [think of] the way they’re seeing it and the way we need to see it,” Walz continued.  “It is their lives that are at stake. Their lives are at stake. And that’s not hyperbole.”

He spoke for more than 30 minutes without a teleprompter or notes, wrapping up by reverting to the vocabulary of a coach exhorting a team to rise to the effort needed for victory.  

“It’s a tight game,” Walz said, “and we’ve got two minutes on the clock. We’re moving down the field. We have the best quarterback in Kamala Harris. We’ve got the best team in all of us. 

“There will be plenty of time to sleep when we’re dead.” 

Among the most emotional moments of the event were remarks delivered by Danny McClinton, owner of the demolished Salvage Station, who was asked by Walz to make the introduction. McClinton noted the paradox of speaking at the Orange Peel, a competitor for 10 years.

 “You talk about coming together,” he said. 

“As our local communities have worked together, I look at it as if Republicans, Democrats and independents could work together before our country slips into a form of government more dangerous than the hell we have gone through.”  

[Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified Salvage Station owner Danny McClinton in a photo caption.]

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Tom Fiedler is a Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter and dean emeritus from Boston University who lives in Asheville. Email him at tfiedler@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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