As we enter the post-Labor Day phase of the presidential campaign, self-reflection is in order. It’s time to confess the one big swing and miss I made this summer: My contention that Kamala Harris’s selection of Tim Walz was a mistake.
If you watched Walz rally the union vote in Wisconsin over Labor Day weekend, his contribution to the campaign is obvious: After Donald Trump found a way to miraculously out-populist Democrats in 2016, Walz is the key to making sure Trump doesn’t repeat the trick in 2024.
Just as Harris seems hell-bent on beating back Trump’s encroachment into blue-collar populism (see her plan not to tax tips, among other positions she has switched or coopted), Walz is the personification of Harris’s strategy to pander to the populists — and cast Trump as Gordon Gekko.
Consider Walz’s remarks on Monday about Trump: “He’s sitting down at Mar-a-Lago … and this was his exact quote, he’s talking to a bunch of folks at Mar-a-Lago: ‘You’re rich as hell, and we’re gonna give you a tax cut.’ At the same time, he was telling workers they get paid too much already. That’s who this guy is.”
Walz continued: “You tell me who in Wisconsin is sitting around saying, ‘Damn, I wish they’d give billionaires tax cuts and screw me over. Damn, I wish they’d take my health care away. I wish they’d underfund my public school. I wish they would make my job more difficult and more dangerous. And then at the end of the day I wish they’d make me work ’til I’m 75 years old.’”
In another section, Walz reframed the abortion debate and excoriated Republicans for wanting a government “that’s small enough to be in your bedroom.”
It is now cliche to point out that Walz codes as being a regular guy. When contrasted with Trump’s VP pick, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) — a man whose inauthentic demeanor and right-wing ideological positions are both detriments to the Trump campaign — Walz looks even more attractive. It isn’t so much what he says, as it is how he says it.
So how did I get it wrong?
The man I was rooting for Harris to pick, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, has much to recommend him, including a more moderate record than Walz put up as governor of Minnesota. He’s also younger than Walz, which might have aided Harris in demonstrating the generational change aspect of the election.
But rather than exuding a Joe Sixpack vibe of a Tim Walz, Shapiro presents more as a law professor or technocrat.
Now, if Harris loses the presidency because she loses Pennsylvania by a fraction of a point, she might regret the decision to choose Walz over Shapiro (and I might regret going back on my reservations). But based on what we have seen since his selection, Walz’s charismatic "everyman" appeal more than makes up for his potential downside.
Another reason I initially preferred Shapiro was that Walz came out of nowhere, having essentially thrust himself into VP contention by virtue of a couple good TV hits where he branded MAGA Republicans as “weird.”
Harris, I reasoned, could scarcely afford to gamble on a relatively obscure nominee that might be harboring some embarrassing baggage.
And, indeed, Walz’s progressive record as governor of Minnesota, coupled with questions regarding his past military service, opened the door for such scrutiny.
But after turning against Joe Biden, the mainstream media showed little interest in taking down the new Democratic ticket. At the same time, Trump was too busy focusing on whether Harris was actually Black — or a DEI pick — to negatively define Walz in the immediate days after he was selected to be Harris’s running mate.
Having made it past Labor Day, Walz is likely now in the clear.
As everyone knows, elections are decided by who’s at the top of the ticket; running mates, at best, affect things on the margins. But the margins are narrow, and the stakes are high — which means that every little bit helps.
And between now and the election, Walz will barnstorm the rural and working-class battleground states, likely delivering better speeches, interviews and quips than Harris, yet never overshadowing her — which is a significant talent in and of itself.
If the choice of a running mate were up to me today — with just about two months left in the presidential campaign — I would do exactly what Kamala Harris decided to do: Start Coach Walz in the big game.
Matt K. Lewis is a columnist, podcaster and author of the books “Too Dumb to Fail” and “Filthy Rich Politicians.”
