Walz On Over

On Aug. 6, Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate for the upcoming 2024 election. In one of the most competitive veepstakes in years, Walz secured the spot over picks like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. 

Despite many viable, qualified candidates, Walz was the best possible pick for vice president. 

Walz has an incredible record. In addition to being a member of the U.S. National Guard, he has also been a teacher, football coach, House Representative of a rural district and high-achieving governor. He’s also clearly a loving dad who understands family values and their importance to so many voters. 

Most importantly, however, he is a better version of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance. While former President Donald Trump likely chose Vance as his running mate for his appeal to Midwestern voters, Walz consistently attacks Vance’s claim to be a Midwesterner.

As Walz sarcastically argues in his rally speech, “Like all regular people I grew up with in the Heartland, J.D. studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community,” he said.

Still, Harris’s pick implies more than just a good decision. It shows that the Democrats are learning from their previous errors, turning hindsight into foresight and strategically thinking of how to win a race that is going to come down to the wire. 

The 2016 race between Hillary Clinton and Trump feels much like this one, one of the candidates is the same person, and the other is vying to be the first female president of the United States. As such, it’s important to look back at that election for hints of how this one could go.

Clinton lost the race largely due to her inability to win the Rust Belt swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Had she won these three states, Clinton would have reached 273 electoral points and the presidency. Perhaps if Clinton had selected a Midwestern vice president, instead of Virginian Sen. Tim Kaine, she would’ve had better luck.

Harris and her campaign aren’t naive to these facts. Hence, they chose a candidate with appeal to the Rust Belt. He is a governor loved throughout the Midwest, who has great relationships with the top leaders in these key states.

And this isn’t the only thing the Harris campaign learned from 2016. One of the main reasons that Clinton lost was because of her image to common voters. On the outside, she came off as elitist, arrogant and self-righteous. To use a common litmus test for presidential candidates, she wasn’t the kind of person you could grab a beer with.

Fairly consistently, this is an image that Democrats have trouble avoiding. Harris, being from the San Francisco Bay Area and a lifelong politician married to a lawyer, was not the person to change this image.

But Walz is. He’s a teacher, football coach, former union member and veteran who used the GI Bill to attend state college. He unapologetically displays his love for his wife, cat, rescue dog and children.

One of the legislative highlights of his governorship was bringing free lunch to kids in public schools. During the middle of his speech in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Aug. 7, he stopped the entire rally for two minutes to make sure that a dehydrated audience member was getting proper care while repeatedly preaching that you must “take care of your neighbors.” He’s as homegrown as it gets. 

Whereas the Republicans could typically rely on displaying themselves as the common people fighting against the snobby elites, Walz practically destroys that talking point. As someone on X, formerly Twitter, even said, “Walz is the kind of guy you could get a beer with. Vance is someone you wouldn’t leave your drink unattended with.” 

In the end, Walz may be a sign that the Democratic Party got smart. In the past few months, the entire party has felt unorganized, divided and chaotic.

Since President Joe Biden’s withdrawal and Harris’s winning of the nomination, the Democrats have never looked stronger and smarter. Almost immediately, the party unified, fundraised and reinvigorated crowds across the nation. Every choice has felt like a strategic decision, and Walz is one of those decisions. 

With Walz, continued energy, more good choices and consistent fundraising, Harris and the Democrats seem well-poised to sit back behind the desk of the Oval Office. 

Acknowledgment: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author.