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The selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as Kamala Harris’ running mate checks several important boxes for a Democratic candidate and is unlikely to generate any of the controversy that might have been generated by J.D. Vance, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro or Sen. Mark Kelly on the Republican side.
Tim Walz is not only a safe choice, but a logical one. He approaches several important constituency groups in a way that benefits the candidate. First and foremost, he was a teacher. Given the importance of teachers unions, and educators more generally, to the Democratic Party, it is significant that he was both a football coach and a social studies teacher.
Another plus is that he served in the Army National Guard for 24 years. When he was sworn in as a U.S. Representative, Walz was the highest-ranking military veteran from either party to have served in Congress. It may not seem like much after all these years, but for Kamala Harris, having a running mate from the Midwest who is a teacher, coach and has served in the military ticks a lot of boxes that the former prosecutor and senator doesn’t have and wouldn’t easily attract on her own.
Walz has another clear demographic advantage: He has done a good job representing rural districts and rural battleground states that have been close and leaned Republican in recent years.
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A weakness of the Democratic Party, and especially of the San Francisco Democratic presidential candidate, is their failure to connect with rural America, the very people Hillary Clinton inappropriately called “deplorables.” With Tim Walz on the ticket, these so-called “deplorables” become a key target demographic.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has officially become Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Walz has some advantages that Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Mark Kelly don’t have. He’s approachable and non-confrontational. At the same time, his campaign is already showing him delivering tough Republican messages with a smile. I wouldn’t go so far as to compare him to Harry Truman, but he has the same country, wide-eyed partisan appeal that has served my party well in the past.
Another advantage of Waltz is that he has had very few scandals. Josh Shapiro had a sexual harassment scandal in office that drew a lot of attention before the election, and Mark Kelly is an extraordinary man with an extraordinary resume, but he also drew a lot of complaints about his personal business dealings. I don’t think either of them should have been disqualified for those reasons, but as far as I’m concerned, Tim Waltz is the kind of vice presidential candidate who has had very few scandals, who is just a regular guy.
And then, of course, there’s the political side: Finally, a Walz candidacy would immediately eliminate Minnesota from the running (if it had been on the ballot) and would undoubtedly give Kamala Harris an edge in the neighboring battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin.
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Waltz takes mainstream Democratic positions on abortion, health care, and education and would undoubtedly be considered the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, but given his moderate personality, the district he represents in Congress, and where Kamala Harris has stood on issues to date, I think Republicans would be much more successful and credible attacking the presidential candidate as a far-left liberal than they would be attacking the VP candidate.
Democrats are clearly gambling that they can win Pennsylvania without Josh Shapiro, and I suspect that for political and personal reasons they felt that Walz, with his richer and more diverse personal and political background, was a safer choice than the Keystone State’s governor.
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So the question arises: Will Tim Walz help Kamala Harris win the election? If I had to say, my guess would be that he wouldn’t. But I believe Walz would meet one of the most important criteria in a presidential election: do no harm. It’s not yet clear whether that applies to Republican candidate JD Vance.
Overall, Kamala Harris was a safe choice, a good one, and at worst, it will have no impact, and at best, it could help the Democratic Party slightly.
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