Durham Democrats celebrated the first day of early voting on Thursday with appearances by Tim Walz and Bill Clinton at an invite-only rally of about 200 officials and supporters in the Lyon Park community center gymnasium.
But in a rare instance when the warmup band was more exciting than the headliner, Durham’s own lineup of younger local officials may have accidentally upstaged the former president and current vice presidential hopeful.
The first speaker, Mayor Pro-Tem Mark-Anthony Middleton, danced as he took the stage to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?”
“Bull City, are you in the house today?” he asked the borderline-rambunctious crowd before launching into a five-minute rallying cry centered on the local angles—an investment in affordable housing and help for small business owners—to the Harris-Walz economic agenda.
“We’re the fourth most educated city in America,” said Middleton. “And since this is the Bull City, we know some bull when we see it. We’re aware of the choice that’s before us in this election.”
“NORTH CAROLINAAAAAAAA,” roared Middleton. “Come on and raise up!”
After Middleton, Sheriff Clarence Birkhead emphasized the ticket’s law-and-order credentials, and state Sen. Natalie Murdock and state Rep. Zach Hawkins both reminded the crowd of the importance of voting in a swing state.
“The path to the White House runs through the great state of North Carolina. But more importantly, it runs right here through the Bull City,” said Hawkins. Behind him, a massive poster broadcast to attendees that “NORTH CAROLINA VOTES EARLY.”
The high energy continued while the crowd, stuffed with even more local politicians like Mayor Leonardo Williams, state Sen. Mike Woodard, and Sophia Chitlik, Woodard’s likely successor, waited 40 minutes for Walz and Clinton to appear. Some young folks on the bleachers filmed a version of the viral “HOT-TO-GO” dance, while another part of the room did the wave.
When Walz finally took the stage, he seemed at home amid a flapping sea of orange text on camouflage background campaign signs. In his 30 minute speech, he railed against the disinformation—regarding migrants and election results—that have become the trademark of the Trump-Vance campaign and painted a dark picture of a second Trump administration.
“You remember 2016, you remember the way [Trump] talked,” said Walz. “This is not that Trump. This is something much more deranged, something much more desperate.”
The crowd booed and cheered at the appropriate moments, although one line about Walz and Harris both being gun owners got a lighter round of applause from the ultra-blue crowd.
Clinton, delivering the message that he is “not running for anything anymore except my grandchildren’s future,” pointed out that he is only two months younger than Trump. Later, he joked that he has a petition ready in case he gets sent to prison by a weaponized Justice Department in the second Trump administration.
“I want him to transfer me to Guantanamo ‘cause when you’re 78 you’re a lot more worried about it being too cold than being too hot,” Clinton said.
But after about 20 minutes, the vibe had clearly shifted from block party to lecture hall as Clinton used his raised, shaking hands to demonstrate an Economics 101 imbalance of supply and demand. Members of the crowd silently fidgeted while his voice, blending with the hum of the gymnasium HVAC, was punctuated only by the occasional ring of a phone. Several people quietly left the gym.
As the former president’s speech reached the 40 minute mark, having touched on every hot topic from tariffs to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s weather control conspiracy theories, he struggled to land as rousing or succinct a message as Durham’s younger politicians. And he may have accidentally reminded some Democrats why they recently pushed Joe Biden, 81, off the ticket.
“Bill, we can’t hear you,” shouted an audience member after Clinton’s first few lines were too breathily quiet to carry clearly over the gym’s speaker system.
One wonders, given the Democrats’ reported underperformance with Black voters this election cycle, if the Obamas weren’t available.
After the speeches, though, there was no shortage of admirers who pushed through the crowd to take selfies with the wide-eyed Walz and smiling Clinton.
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].
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