Minnesota is as folksy a state as you can find in the United States. At its famous—and massive—state fair, held later this month, you can buy more than 150 items on a stick, including deep-fried spaghetti and a sublime pork chop. The spaghetti on a stick is mostly a golden, encrusted meatball, but I can report from personal experience that it, too, is weirdly delicious.
Democrats are hoping that voters will also find Kamala Harris’s pick to be her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, to be weirdly delicious. Indeed, Walz’s rise coincided with his choice of the word “weird” to brand the politics of Harris’s opponents, Donald Trump and JD Vance. On CNN, he said, “I see Donald Trump talking about the wonderful Hannibal Lecter or whatever weird thing he is on tonight.... That is weird behaviour. I don’t think you call it anything else.”
It was an artful description, suggesting that their views are far out of the mainstream, especially on issues relating to abortion and the role of women. The clip went viral and helped create a groundswell for the white-haired, 60-year-old governor, who is the current chairman of his party’s national governor’s association
But Walz himself could fall prey to being seen as weird and too far to the left, a juicy target—dare I say, meatball—for Trump and Vance. As governor, he legalised recreational marijuana, provided free school meals and allowed all residents, no matter their immigration status, to get a driver’s licence. Before Harris made her pick of a running mate, Governor Walz was endorsed by liberal lion Bernie Sanders. He was seen as gen Z’s favourite choice and his elevation to the Democratic ticket will surely energise the left-wing base of the party.
The test for Walz, however, will be whether he can prove himself to be a folksy Midwesterner who can attract the votes of undecided and independent voters in the so-called Blue Wall battlegrounds of Michigan and Wisconsin and in the Rustbelt. Two other liberal Democrats from Minnesota, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, who each served as vice-president, both failed when they ran for president, in part because they were viewed as too far to the left. Minnesota has consistently voted for the Democratic presidential candidate, with a winning streak for Democrats there so long that only DC surpasses it. (The last time a Republican carried the state was Richard Nixon in 1972.)
A bolder choice would have been Pennsylvania’s popular governor, Josh Shapiro. Viewed as a centrist and a supporter of Israel, he would have also been a riskier option, given that the liberal base of the Democratic Party has expressed outrage over the US’s continued support for Israel, despite it likely breaking international law in its long war in Gaza. A ticket headed by a black woman and a Jew might also have been a little too historic for some mainstream voters.
Harris reportedly, like her boss, President Biden, has a hard time making high-stakes decisions. In passing over Shapiro for Walz, she’s proven herself to be adverse to controversy, a potential weakness for someone who must prove she is a strong leader on her own. She may have also diminished her chances of carrying Shapiro’s Pennsylvania, perhaps the most important battleground state with 19 electoral votes.
But Walz has strengths that could also prove significant assets. He is plain-spoken, in the mould of another Midwesterner, former president Harry Truman. While Harris has been criticised for a speaking style derided by Republicans as “word salads,” Walz’s authentic style—he was a football coach and schoolteacher—and folksy manner will appeal to voters. “He says what he means and that’s refreshing,” one Minnesota Democrat told me when his name first surfaced as a potential running mate for Harris. Democratic delegates will be gathering in Chicago, the urban heart of the Midwest, where Walz and Harris will likely receive a rapturous reception.
The choice of a vice-president has rarely moved the needle in a big way for the top of a ticket. One of the best vice-presidential debate performers, Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, drew accolades for telling Dan Quayle that he was “No Jack Kennedy” in one sharp retort, but the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket still lost badly in 1988. Senator John McCain’s surprise choice of a newcomer from the right, then Alaska governor Sarah Palin, may have cost him votes in his losing 2008 race against Barack Obama.
It says something that news of Walz’s pick was greeted rapturously by a sampling of my Republican sources from the past 11 Presidential elections I have covered. The prospect of painting him—and Harris, a native of the most liberal part of California—as far-out leftists has them salivating. It’s as if the Democratic Party just dangled a succulent pork chop on a stick before them.
