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History suggests that running mate picks create a lot of sound and fury that rarely signify much. Kamala Harris’s selection of Tim Walz is by no means trivial. But it would be a shock were he to transform the dynamics of a close election.
The risk of that still belongs to JD Vance, Donald Trump’s number two, who has broken records by plunging deeper into negative ratings since his announcement. Minnesota’s governor, now the Democrats’ vice presidential candidate, offers a cheerful antidote to Vance’s dystopian musings. Walz is precisely the folksy type with whom people could imagine having a beer.
His selection nevertheless tells us a lot about what Harris is thinking — and the identity-balancing that Democratic politics demands. Much like Joe Biden signalling in 2020 that he was seeking a black woman to balance his demography, Harris made no secret that her shortlist consisted of white men.
That is why Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, immediately ruled herself out. That Pete Buttigieg is gay might also have counted against him — in addition to the fact that his cabinet status as transportation secretary would make it harder for Harris to distance herself from Biden. Asking Americans to vote for a black woman and a gay man might have tempted fate.
The biggest loser was Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro. Fans of Shapiro say Harris is jeopardising her chances of beating Trump in Pennsylvania, a state she must win to take the White House. But there is little evidence to back that up. The last time a running mate tipped a state was when John F Kennedy picked Lyndon Johnson in 1960 — before Harris and Walz were born. Texas went Democratic that year.
Since then, selections have paid little attention to the running mate’s state. The 2020 pick, Harris herself, was from liberal California. The 2008 pick, Biden, was from solid blue Delaware. Vance is from the safely Republican Ohio. And Shapiro is still in just as strong a position as governor to help Harris win his state.
What then is Walz’s appeal? The simple answer is blue collar. Republicans will try to paint him as a classic liberal who wants to regulate people’s lives. You only have to listen to Walz speak for a minute to grasp how difficult that depiction will be. His manner is about as far removed from the Berkeley-Boston coastal elite as a progressive can get.
Walz’s upbringing was working class. He only entered politics at 42, having spent two decades as a national guardsman and a high school geography teacher. Since then he has been elected six times to Congress and twice as governor. Walz is as happy fixing a car engine, coaching football or hanging out at agricultural fairs as Vance is to appear on fringe right podcasts and writing his blogs. Walz also likes to hunt.
It is no accident that it was Walz who 10 days ago branded the Trump-Vance types as “weird” — a term that spread like a prairie fire. “These guys are just weird,” Walz said. “They’re running for he-man women haters club or something.” Walz was picking up on Vance’s by-now infamous remarks about “childless cat ladies”. He was also playing on women’s fears of Trump’s affair with the Christian nationalist right — a tribe to which Vance belongs.
But Walz could just as easily have been referring to Bobby Kennedy Jr, son of the late president’s late brother, who this week confessed that he had once deposited a dead baby bear in New York’s Central Park that he found by the roadside. If that is not weird behaviour, it is hard to know what would be. RFK Jr could still split the vote as a third-party candidate in a handful of states. Walz would also be his ideal foil. As a Midwestern blue collar Democrat, Walz can counter RFK’s claim that the party is a vessel of urban elites. His earthy style would also blunt Vance’s near-identical charge.
There is no doubt that Walz is more to the left on economics than, say, Shapiro or Buttigieg. As Minnesota’s governor, Walz has provided free meals to all of the state’s public school children; he has improved paid and sick leave for workers; and he has raised the minimum wage. But these are popular stances across the spectrum. They also align with Harris’s economic instincts to the extent that we know anything about them.
Yet Minnesota remains one of the most business-friendly states in the US. Walz was also ranked as the seventh most bipartisan representative when he was in Congress. It will be hard to paint him as a Bernie Sanders radical.
Republicans are likely to find stronger material in Walz’s response to the police killing of George Floyd in June 2020 — an asphyxiation that took place in Walz’s state. As governor, he tried to push through an overhaul of the police that came close to the “defund the police” mantra that so damaged his party’s reputation. It foundered. He was also slow to respond to the rioting in Minneapolis.
He has admitted the city’s handling of the challenge was an “abject failure”. Since Walz already owned up to his part, he has probably limited the damage.
Either way, America now has two full presidential tickets. It is fair to say that one of the two running mates is not weird. By picking Walz, Harris has met her Hippocratic oath: do no harm.
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