What Harris tapping Walz as VP says about her campaign and possible administration

Vice President Kamala Harris picking Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) to be her running mate is the most important decision she has made since becoming the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.

Her decision underscores her desire to present the public with a biographically, geographically, and ideologically balanced ticket. It also shows she wants to have a campaign partner with whom she has personal rapport should they win November’s election and need to become governing partners.

Despite the possibility of popular Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) helping her win Pennsylvania, Harris decided to tap Walz, who has been described by Democrats, including an adviser to President Joe Biden, as a “blast.” The pick echoes former President Barack Obama‘s decision to choose Biden as his running mate in 2008, not only because of the balance of considerations regarding their respective backgrounds and experiences but also because of the public perception there was a camaraderie between the two men.

“When a presidential candidate chooses a running mate, it says a lot about who they are and what kind of president they’ll be,” Obama wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “By selecting Tim Walz to be her vice president from a pool of outstanding Democrats, Kamala Harris has chosen an ideal partner — and made it clear exactly what she stands for.”

Former Obama White House spokesman Eric Schultz sidestepped any comparisons among Obama, Biden, Harris, and Walz, but did describe Walz as “the perfect complement to the vice president.”

“We now have a ticket that hails from urban and rural areas,” Schultz told the Washington Examiner. “He represented a red district in Congress, has wide appeal in the Midwest, and has a strong record of working with Republicans to get things done. He’s as likable and relatable as they come.”

Despite his relatively low national political profile, Walz made his mark on the very short vice presidential selection process with his plainspokenness. He was the one who started dismissing former President Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as “weird.”

During the White Dudes for Harris Zoom call last week, Walz also referred to Trump as a “bastard.”

“How often in 100 days do you change the trajectory of the world?” Walz said. “How often do you get to do something that will impact generations to come? Make that bastard wake up afterwards and know that a black woman kicked his ass and sent him on the road.”

Even Obama, whose former White House and campaign aides have also been hired by Harris’s team, alluded to Walz’s manner of speaking in his statement.

“Tim’s signature is his ability to talk like a human being and treat everyone with decency and respect,” Obama wrote.

Regardless of Walz’s low name recognition, he is likely to “do no harm” to the Harris campaign, in addition to being “unlikely to overshadow Harris in her historic bid,” according to Northeastern University political science professor Costas Panagopoulos amid reporting that Shapiro’s own presidential aspirations undermined his vice presidential candidacy.

“One good thing about lack of familiarity with Walz is that there is not an extant reservoir of negative views to combat,” Panagopoulos told the Washington Examiner. “The challenge for Democrats is to hurry to define him favorably before Republican attacks can tarnish his image.”

Republicans have already embarked on that endeavor, with Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt criticizing Walz as a “West Coast wannabe” who has “spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” Harris’s home state.

“From proposing his own carbon-free agenda, to suggesting stricter emission standards for gas-powered cars, and embracing policies to allow convicted felons to vote, Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide,” Leavitt wrote in a statement similar to ones she has disseminated regarding “San Francisco liberal” Harris. “If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.”

Claremont McKenna College politics professor and former Republican operative John Pitney quipped that “whiskey companies should encourage a drinking game where everybody takes a swig every time a Republican goes on TV and says ‘liberal’ or ‘left-wing.’”

“Their stocks will soar,” Pitney told the Washington Examiner.

“Expect many mentions of the George Floyd riots,” he said of the 2020 racial justice unrest that started in Minnesota after Floyd’s police-caused death. “The attacks on Walz’s liberalism will appeal to the GOP base, but it is not clear that they will sway the small sliver of swing voters who will decide the election. Walz comes across as an old high school football coach, which he is.”

To that end, although the Harris campaign has sought to distance her from the more liberal positions she ran on during her 2020 Democratic primary bid, more liberal Democrats have welcomed her decision regarding Walz.

“Vice President Harris made an excellent decision in Gov. Walz as her running mate,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) wrote on social media on Tuesday. “Together, they will govern effectively, inclusively, and boldly for the American people.”

“The selection of Tim Walz as the vice presidential nominee is a clear indication that the Harris campaign is listening to the voices of progressives across the country,” added Our Revolution executive director Joseph Geevarghese, who leads the pro-Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) political action group.

Republicans have already scrutinized Harris’s decision regarding Walz as another instance of her kowtowing to more liberal Democrats who protested Shapiro’s vice presidential candidacy over his stances concerning Israel and Palestinians amid the war with Hamas in Gaza with their own “No Genocide Josh” campaign. Shapiro, who is Jewish, has adopted a similar posture toward the war as the other contenders.

At the same time, Republicans have welcomed Harris’s decision regarding Walz because polling indicates her path to 270 Electoral College votes and the presidency appears to run through Pennsylvania and the so-called blue wall.

“Pennsylvania is undoubtedly in play, regardless of [the] VP choice,” Franklin & Marshall College Center for Opinion Research Director Berwood Yost told the Washington Examiner. “VP picks don’t usually mean much in terms of vote shares, but I did think Shapiro brought specific attributes to the race that could have helped her in the state.”

But Panagopoulos, of Northeastern University, contended Walz could “attract moderates, independents, and possibly even appeal to Republican voters who may have reservations about Harris, especially in crucial, upper Midwest and Rust Belt states.”

“He may not be from a must-win swing state, but he’ll certainly appeal to some voters who live in those states,” he said. “It’s doubtful this decision was made willy-nilly without careful consideration of all sorts of factors. Walz clearly had the right mix of advantages in the Harris campaign’s view.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV), for one, endorsed Harris’s decision regarding Walz, arguing he will “bring normality back to the most chaotic political environment that most of us have ever seen,” a possible signal related to a Harris-Walz administration.

“I can think of no one better than Governor Walz to help bring our country closer together and bring balance to the Democratic Party,” Manchin wrote. “Governor Walz is the real deal.”

Walz, 60, was born in Nebraska, where he enlisted in the Army National Guard when he was 17 and served for more than two decades, rising to the rank of command sergeant major. After working in manufacturing, he earned a degree in social studies education and became a high school teacher and football coach following a year teaching abroad in China.

Walz and his wife Gwen, a fellow teacher, later returned to her home state of Minnesota. There, he ran for Congress and was elected to represent Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, a largely rural and agricultural district in the southern part of the North Star State, during the “quasi-Democratic wave year” of 2006, according to Eric Ostermeier, Smart Politics founder and Minnesota Historical Election Archive curator.

Walz won that race against a six-term incumbent, former Republican Rep. Gil Gutknecht, by campaigning as more of a centrist Democrat compared to how he has governed Minnesota since 2017, per Ostermeier.

“Walz was able to nimbly maintain his seat in a competitive, Republican-leaning district, eking out multiple single-digit victories, and then pivot to be seen as a more progressive politician during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign where he had to solidify some progressive support in a competitive Democratic primary,” Ostermeier told the Washington Examiner. “Walz followed that up by signing almost all of the policies sent to his desk from the narrowly Democratic-controlled legislature in 2023 to solidify his progressive bonafides.”

What has not changed about Walz, “is his ‘everyman’ approach and demeanor when being interviewed, talking with citizens, or giving speeches,” Ostermeier continued.

“In short, he has governed like a progressive without coming across as elitist or ideologically strident as some of his colleagues,” Ostermeier said. “By selecting Walz, the Harris campaign will look to seize upon his positive energy and hope that he can use his rhetorical skills adeptly to both assure Americans he is not as far Left as the Republican ticket will portray by highlighting the progressive bills he has signed into law as ‘common-sense’ reforms, and also point out to the Democratic base that he has nonetheless been an ally in many of their causes.”