Walz Visited Santa Barbara Fundraiser Sunday

Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz paid a brief visit to Santa Barbara on the evening of October 6, attending a fundraiser at a private residence in Montecito on behalf of the Harris Victory Fund and showcasing his famed Midwestern appeal that has earned him the coveted spot on Kamala Harris’s presidential ticket.

As he bounced down the stairs of his Boeing 737 at Santa Barbara Airport around 5:20 p.m., Governor Walz gave the impression that he was just as excited to be in Santa Barbara as the swarm of Harris-Walz supporters on Hollister Avenue was to see him.

Greeted on the tarmac by a beaming Congressmember Salud Carbajal (CA-24) and his wife, Gina Carbajal, Walz embraced the Congressmember twice, before joining the motorcade to Montecito. 

The fundraiser yielded your average Montecito allure — a castle-like venue, a pool with American-themed beach balls floating on the surface, and even a Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom sighting. Santa Barbaran Gary Bradhering and his partner, Sheraton Kalouria, kicked off the campaign reception, stressing the importance of knocking on doors, voting, and getting others to vote with you. Echoing what they said was one of Walz’s catchphrases, “You can sleep when you’re dead, so get knocking!”

Walz took the patio stage around 6:30 p.m. with a very casual, conversational tone. Coming off of a mediocre performance in the October 1 vice presidential debate, Walz was fluid, concise, and agreeable. The event’s relaxed, intimate nature certainly didn’t hurt, with around 100 attendees cheering for him in between every sentence.

On the topic of his debate performance, Walz said he’s had an “interesting week this week, to say the least,” eliciting a wave of chuckles from the crowd. Part of his stress came from a severe sense of imposter syndrome he experienced before taking the debate stage, he added. “And then I look over, and I’m like, ‘There’s 345 million people in this country, and it’s me and this dude?’ It cleared me up on that.”

“It was baffling to me that it took about eighty-five minutes for them to ask the real question of the day about democracy,” Walz said. “About January 6.” This moment in the debate was one of the few that Walz seized, calling J.D. Vance’s calculated sidestep of answering whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 election a “damning non-answer.”

Governor Walz talked a lot about lessons learned from his past as a public school teacher in Minnesota. “Not everybody learns the first time,” he said. “So in 2020, Donald Trump did not learn that when you lose an election, you walk across and shake hands with the person who wins and you congratulate them … So the teacher in me is really pleased to be on this ticket and give him a second chance to lose this election.”

The issue of abortion was a hard-pressed one during the debate, and was hashed out again in an interview with Fox News just hours before Walz touched down in Santa Barbara. At the Montecito fundraiser, Walz rang the bell again. “’Women don’t trust us,’” he said. “No shit!” 

“I know I’m preaching to the choir, but our recital is thirty days from now,” Walz said. “And we need to sing.”

Governor Walz boarded his plane at the Santa Barbara Airport around 7:15 p.m. after the fundraiser and landed at Long Beach Airport an hour later to continue his West Coast tour. Walz’s next appearance is set to be on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, October 7.