4 October 2024
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz made an appearance in Minnesota on Thursday, Oct. 3, when she spoke at a reproductive freedom rally in Minnetonka.
The exclusive event at Unmapped Brewery Co. drew nearly 250 spectators Thursday night, with extra onlookers from the streets. Organized by the “Democratic Coordinated Campaign Canvass,” a Harris-Walz campaign representative said at the rally they decided to stop in Minnesota on their way to Nebraska.
Gwen Walz captured the crowd’s attention at the end of the rally when she took the stage and detailed her personal experience with infertility and with intrauterine insemination.
“When the Alabama Supreme Court ruling came down, it brought Tim and I to our knees watching people get turned away from clinics,” she said, explaining that was when she and her husband, vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, decided to share their story with the public.
Gwen Walz asked audience members if they “tuned into the debate the other night,” using the recent vice presidential debate to take a jab at presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“I think Tim took Trump to task for causing chaos and cruelty for women all across the country,” Gwen Walz said, going on to say Trump was responsible for the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the constitutional right to abortion guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. “Clearly, JD Vance is a smooth talker, but as a longtime teacher, let me just say, in our classrooms, we believe in the facts, so here is a fact: Donald Trump is the one who took down Roe.”
The crowd chanted “Mind your own business,” a term popularized by Tim Walz early in his candidacy. Throughout the night, other slogans like “Our choice,” “Turn the page,” “When we fight, we win,” echoed outside.
The rally featured several prominent female politicians from Minnesota: U.S. Sens. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar and former Minnesota Sen. Kelly Morrison, who is running for Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District.
When Klobuchar spoke, she touted Minnesota for being the first state to codify abortion after the overturning of Roe, saying, “Nobody does it better than Minnesota.”
Klobuchar continued to urge Minnesotans to get out and vote, door knock and make phone calls.
“Plus, I want to show up my colleagues one more time and say ‘Sorry, we had the highest voter turnout in the United States,’ ” Klobuchar said.
Smith mirrored Klobuchar’s remarks, praised Tim Walz’s performance in the debate and spoke of her experiences working at Planned Parenthood.
Ann Johnson-Stewart, who is running in Minnetonka to fill the only open Minnesota Senate seat that will determine the Senate’s majority this fall, also joined the rally.
“Despite what my opponent says, the threat to women and their families is real,” Johnson-Stewart said. “We cannot let that happen in Minnesota.”
A longtime Minnesota resident, Linda Heuer, spoke of how this election has been different for her, and why she came to the abortion rally on Thursday.
“When I went to high school, I started in ’68 and abortion was illegal, and when I got out of school, it was legal,” Heuer said. “I’ve always been a Democrat, and this time, this feels important enough to me to just get involved. So there’s just so many factors in why this is so important, just respect for women, women’s rights, my granddaughter’s rights.”
Heuer added that she feels proud to be a Minnesotan during this time.
“It’s exciting, it feels great to have our name out there,” she said. “I’ll be online or something and someone will ask me, ‘Where are you from?’ and I say I’m from Minnesota and they say ‘Oh! Where Gov. Walz is from!’ ”
The rally was one of Gwen Walz’s few public appearances in Minnesota since leaving for the campaign trail in August. She has made four total, with her last one in Rochester just after the presidential debate, according to the Harriz-Walz campaign.
This stop was one of 44 in the Harris-Walz campaign’s “Reproductive Freedom Bus Tour.” The campaign hopes to make 60 stops total across the country before the election.
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