What to make of Tim Walz, Harris’s vice-presidential pick

“Tim Walz? What a relief,” jibed Trump’s former senior advisor, Kellyanne Conway, upon hearing the news of Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick. 

“I am proud to announce that I’ve asked Tim Walz to be my running mate. As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. It’s great to have him on the team,” said Harris this afternoon, as she officially declared the 60-year-old Minnesota Governor her running mate. 

Walz has labelled it “the honour of a lifetime” to join Harris on the campaign trail. “It reminds me a bit of the first day of school,” he added, “so, let’s get this done, folks!”

Is Conway bluffing or is the Harris-Walz ticket a genuine boost for the Republicans?

Walz was not the obvious candidate. Few even had him on the early list of Harris’s potential picks. Unlike Josh Shapiro, the better-known and highly ambitious governor of Pennsylvania. 

Aside from being higher profile, Shapiro also offered the advantage of governing in a key swing state; some have even gone as far as to label Pennsylvania the lynchpin to a Democratic victory. Minnesota, in contrast, isn’t a battleground state.

So why did Harris opt for the underdog? 

She may well have felt the pressure from pro-Palestine groups in the US. Shapiro, an observant jew, has been criticised from many leftists for his strongly pro-Israel stance. 

She may also have been wary of her opponents latching onto some recent controversy over sexual harassment accusations against a top aide who served in Shapiro’s administration, and the subsequent scrutiny over his office’s handling of complaints. 

As for Walz’s own merits, the plain-spoken and cheerful governor, who hails from small-town Nebraska, has an interesting resume. 

Before being elected as Minnesota’s governor in 2018, he served 12 years in Congress but he is also a former high school teacher and football coach, who served for more than 20 years in the Army National Guard.

While he may not be from a swing state, Democrats will be hoping that his plainspoken and small-town Midwestern persona, paired with his army background, give him broad appeal across the mid-west, including in crucial swing states such as Wisconsin and Michigan.

And Walz has already proven his ability to land a successful rhetorical blow on the Trump-Vance ticket in recent weeks, thanks to his viral “these guys are just weird” remark.

The big issue, however, with Harris’s VP pick is that it will be a lot easier for the Republicans to attack him as a far-left menace. Certainly easier than it would have been had she opted for Shapiro, who is one of the most moderate governors in the party. 

While Walz was seen as a moderate congressman, he has moved further to the left since winning the governorship. 

He has signed a host of progressive bills, including free breakfast for all, a state-wide paid sick leave programme, a bill that protects the right to abortion and provisions to provide state funds to help lower-income residents buy homes. 

According to political sources who spoke to CBS, Harris is hoping that Walz’s strong record of policy achievements in Minnesota could be replicated across the US.

But this record will also cause them both problems. Republicans will accuse him of being reckless with public money and will no doubt latch onto the policies he has enacted for undocumented immigrants, such as providing them with free health care and allowing them to get driver’s licenses. 

Another Republican line of attack will be accusing Walz of bring weak on crime, harking back to his time leading Minnesota through the 2020 protests over George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Walz deployed the National Guard to quell riots that broke out during the demonstrations. But Republicans have heavily attacked him for being too slow to do so. 

The framing of Harris’s vice president as a figure of the far-left has already begun. 

This afternoon, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a former candidate in the presidential race, labelled the pair “the most left-wing ticket in American history”.

Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt declared: “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.”

Those on the other end of the political spectrum in America might well argue that it is inaccurate to even describe Walz as a leftist, yet alone a far-left radical. 

But he was one of the more left-wing picks that Harris could have opted for. Which, in this race, could matter. 

Polling suggests that, if Harris is to win the election, the main priority for her will be to win over voters who don’t like Donald Trump but worry she is too liberal. Walz is unlikely to make that task any easier. 

Kellyanne Conway’s relief may be a little genuine. 

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