OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Tim Walz touted his Nebraska roots Saturday in his first trip back to his home state since becoming the Democratic vice presidential nominee, and drew sharp contrasts between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Playing to the crowd, Walz noted his love of Nebraska football and joked about the historical significance of the Stonehenge replica built out of classic cars known as Carhenge that sits near where he taught in the Panhandle. He then emphasized the values he learned growing up of helping neighbors and minding everyone's own business.

“More than anything else — just like here in Nebraska — Minnesota's strength comes from our values,” he said about the state he serves as governor.

Walz stressed that he and Harris believe in helping all Americans succeed — not just the millionaires and billionaires he said Trump and the GOP want to help. It was all part of his appeal for the lone electoral vote in Omaha's swing Second Congressional District that can be split off from the rest of the heavily Republican state that Democrats Joe Biden secured in 2020 and Barack Obama in 2008. That swing vote is sure to be contested. Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance is expected to visit Omaha next week for a private fundraiser hosted by Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts.

“I think it just proves the importance that we as the blue dot — CD2 — has,” Omaha teacher Wes Jensen said.

Going after Republicans as intrusive in people's everyday lives, Walz said the fact they want to make decisions about Americans’ health care including abortion rights and try to hurt Social Security is “not just weird, it’s dangerous. And when they try to overturn elections, that’s not just weird, it’s un-American.”

He said Trump and his fellow Republicans are “super concerned with our bedrooms, our exam rooms and libraries.”

Nebraska Democrats Chairwoman Jane Kleeb joked near the start of the event that Omaha has a new nickname, “Kamaha,” as she encouraged everyone at the rally to work hard to elect Harris and Walz in November.

Supporters hope Walz’s knowledge of rural America — he grew up in the small towns of Valentine and Butte in the Sandhills — could help Democrats appeal to wide swaths of Republican strongholds where they have rarely been competitive in recent elections.

Former state Sen. Al Davis, who represented the Panhandle town of Alliance where Walz taught for six years before moving to Minnesota after meeting his wife, said he thinks Walz “can speak to rural parts of the country in ways that other candidates never could do." He added, "so I’m hoping that that will turn some votes in rural parts of Nebraska and across the Midwest."

Alliance residents are planning a local rally of their own next week to watch Walz speak at the Democratic convention in Chicago.

Even before Walz took the stage in Omaha, the Republican National Committee accused the Harris-Walz ticket of not representing “Midwestern values” and said Nebraska voters “will send a resounding message” when they help put the former president back in office.

Bill McCamley of Lincoln said he remembers that Walz was interested in government when he taught him social studies in the seventh grade in Valentine but he never expected him to go on to become governor or perhaps vice president someday.

McCamley said Walz came up with the idea on his own in the seventh grade to build a veterans memorial for everyone from Cherry County who had served in the military, and then he convinced local leaders to build a sidewalk for the memorial.

“I went with him, but he did the job. He talked to them and said this is that idea. This is what I want to do,” McCamley said. “Then he ... got them to agree to go along with it. I thought that was pretty impressive.”

McCamley had to call the state Democratic Party to get access to Saturday's rally after the online registration system was shut down once 10,000 had expressed interest in attending the rally at a theater in the Omaha suburb of La Vista that's only designed to hold about 2,500 people. However unlikely it was, McCamley hoped for a chance to reconnect with his former student and jokingly confront him about a valentine he gave his daughter, Julie Long, when the two dated in the seventh grade.

Long said she hung onto the valentine Walz gave her for a lot of years because the message declaring, “Ours is a strange and wonderful relationship,” made her laugh. On the inside, the card said, “You're strange and I'm wonderful.”

“That kind of sums up his humor,” said Long who used to compete with Walz to see which one of them was smarter because her dad was a teacher and his was the superintendent there.

They both moved away in high school and Long lost track of Walz — outside of a chance meeting when both of them lived in the Panhandle — until she noticed him showing up in the news as governor dealing with difficult problems like the protests that followed George Floyd's murder at the hands of Minneapolis police.

After dealing with that unrest and managing to pass key priorities like protections for abortion and free lunches for school kids, Walz has a long list of accomplishments that will appeal to Democratic voters.

But Long said Walz might also appeal to Republicans because he is smart, funny and cares about helping people.

“I think if people are willing to listen — really listen — to the things that he says and, and those kinds of things, that it will open some doors,” said Long who now lives in Hot Springs, South Dakota.

Walz's China experience draws GOP attacks, but Beijing isn't counting on better ties

WASHINGTON (AP) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has a history with China. And Republicans are seizing on it.

At 25, Walz taught a year of high school in China. He returned for his honeymoon and many more times with American exchange students. As a congressman, he served on a committee tracking China’s human rights and met figures like the Dalai Lama.

Now that Walz is the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Republicans have accused him of a decadeslong relationship with “Communist China” and even opened an investigation. The attacks reflect how, amid a tense U.S.-China relationship, visits once seen as simple cultural interactions have become a target for political opponents. Ultimately, Beijing does not expect U.S. policy to thaw regardless of who is in the White House, experts say.

With competition defining Washington's relationship with Beijing, any interaction with China appears to be “regarded with skepticism, if not outright suspicion,” and it's become “a well-worn tactic to attack opponents simply for having a China line in their resumes," said Kyle Jaros, an associate professor of global affairs at the University of Notre Dame.

"The assumption behind these attack lines is that having China connections makes individuals beholden or sympathetic to China and compromises U.S. interests,” Jaros said. “There is definitely such a thing as being too cozy with one’s geopolitical rival, but blanket China-bashing and excluding people with firsthand China experience from U.S. policymaking is also bad for U.S. interests.”

Republican Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, announced on Friday an investigation into Walz’s China connections, including the student trips he had organized. Comer said he asked the FBI for information on whether Walz could have targeted by or recruited for Beijing’s influence operations.

Walz’s “longstanding and cozy relationship with China” should be a concern for Americans, Comer said in a statement.

Walz spokesman Teddy Tschann pointed to the governor’s record in standing up to China’s Communist Party and fighting for human rights and democracy.

“Republicans are twisting basic facts and desperately lying to distract from the Trump-Vance agenda,” Tschann said.

Scrutiny started almost immediately after Walz was named Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate in the November presidential election.

“Communist China is very happy with" Walz, Richard Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence in President Donald Trump's administration, posted on the social media platform X.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote on X that Walz ”owes the American people an explanation about his unusual, 35-year relationship with Communist China." Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, called Walz “an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders.”

Walz was 26 when he returned from a one-year teaching gig in China. He spoke kindly of the Chinese people and said they had been “mistreated and cheated” by their government. He told the newspaper Chadron Record in his home state of Nebraska that he wished they had proper leadership.

Walz returned to China in 1994 for his honeymoon. He got married on June 4, the fifth anniversary of the bloody crackdown of the student-led pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, which remains a political taboo in China.

“He wanted to have a date he’ll always remember,” Gwen Whipple, Walz’s wife-to-be, told the Star-Herald of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, ahead of their trip.

Later, when Walz came to Washington as a Minnesota congressman, he became a champion for China’s human rights and served on a congressional committee that tracks the issue. He called a lunch with the Dalai Lama “life-changing.”

He also posed for photos with Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, who testified before Congress in 2019 when the territory was engulfed in monthslong protests over an unpopular proposal to allow suspects to be extradited to China for trial that raised concerns about Hong Kong's autonomy. Beijing sees the Tibetan spiritual leader and Wong as threats to its rule and disapproved of U.S. politicians meeting them.

In recent years, China has moderated its hopes for U.S. politicians with a history in the country, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the foreign affairs think tank Stimson Center. That’s partly because they might know details of China’s internal problems, she said.

Walz's knowledge could actually lend credibility to U.S. criticism of the ruling Communist Party, said Dimitar Gueorguiev, an associate professor of political science at Syracuse University.

He also shows “how it is possible to have China experience and human-level empathy while retaining moral clarity" about the Chinese government, said Jaros of the University of Notre Dame.

In China, the public has been curious about Walz's experience in the country, but the government is tamping down discussions.

Alumni of Foshan No. 1 High School, the Chinese school where Walz taught in 1989-90, were asked not to post anything about Walz or accept media interviews, especially not with foreign journalists. The notice, posted to at least one alumni chat group and shared with The Associated Press, cited the “extremely sensitive” China-U.S. relationship, the anti-China consensus of both political parties and the need to “avoid unnecessary troubles."

The nationalistic Chinese news site guancha.cn published an exclusive interview with Chen Weichuan, a retired English teacher from the school who was a translator between Walz and the principal and had taken Walz out for street food.

Chen described Walz as “very nice, easygoing and loved by students" and expressed admiration for Walz's ascent from a teacher to governor and now vice presidential candidate. “He is remarkable,” Chen told guancha.cn.

Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, declined to comment, saying U.S. elections were a domestic affair.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has no illusion that Washington would soften its stance on Beijing, regardless of who gets elected in November, said Willy Lam, a senior fellow at the research institute Jamestown Foundation.

“They have stopped entertaining the aspect that individual politicians, individual CEOs might push the White House towards a more China-friendly policy,” Lam said.