Kamala Harris Picks Tim Walz As VP: How It Played Out

CNN reports that it wasn’t just that they got along; Walz gave the right answers and made it clear he would be happy to do whatever Harris wanted:

Tim Walz was in the midst of his interview with Vice President Kamala Harris’ vetting team when he told them there was something important they needed to know. He doesn’t use a teleprompter, the Minnesota governor said. He doesn’t even have one, in fact. So if he was the pick, Walz said, Harris’ team would have to get him a teleprompter and teach him how to use it. It was a lighter moment, but it was also part of an interview process with Harris’ team that Walz aced, multiple sources familiar with the meeting told CNN. The Minnesota governor was upfront about his vulnerabilities, noting he wasn’t from a swing state or a household name. He also said he was a bad debater.

But Walz made it clear he would be a team player. Asked how he saw his role as VP, Walz said he would perform the job however Harris wanted him to. Asked if he wanted to be the last person in the room before Harris made a decision, Walz said only if she wanted him to be there. And asked if he had ambitions to run for president himself one day, Walz said he did not, a point that sources said was not lost on a team looking to minimize the potential for any internal drama in a future Harris administration.

Read the rest here.

At the end of his inaugural rally speech, Walz alluded to the sprint he and Harris now face between now and Election Day: “We’ve got 91 days … We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”

For non-boomers, this is a shout-out to the late, great rock-and-roll lyricist and performer Warren Zevon and his classic paean to living for the day, “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.” Here’s a verse with which Walz is likely familiar:

My eyes are stapled open wide

As I lay down on my side

I am bouncing off these walls

As I focus on the clock

Time stands still, but I cannot

I should strap myself in bed

I guess I’ll sleep when I am dead

A footnote: For those under the bizarre impression that Walz’s selection was a sign of Democratic antisemitism, Zevon was one of the great Jewish rock-and-roll stars. Walz is clearly a fan:

Compared to Trump’s attempt at a dramatic RNC reveal:

Of course, the other thing that messed up the Vance rollout was the fact that Trump was nearly assassinated less than 48 hours beforehand.

He defended IVF, citing his and his wife’s challenges in conceiving a child:

He also called for more civility and mutual respect — and ended with a reminder to “mind your own damn business”:

And, of course, Walz repeated the his now popularized frame for Trump, Vance, and the MAGA GOP:

The (baseless) running Vance joke made a cameo:

It’s been a busy day for the new Democratic VP nominee:

Walz’s first big swing at Trump prompted another “lock him up!” chant:

He opened his speech thanking Harris for “bringing back the joy” — then quickly said some good things about Josh Shapiro:

By way of emphasizing Walz will be ready on day one:

At least 20 million bucks (so far):

She then went on to list a few dozen facts about Walz, his life, and his many various jobs.

Not surprisingly:

Harris tried to quiet it down:

Behold the new and newly expanded Democratic ticket:

Harris quickly announced that her and Walz’s nominations had just been officially certified.

Arena politics:

Featuring second-place veep finisher Josh Shapiro as the opening act:

And the arena is packed:

Here’s Shapiro’s high-energy closer:

In my new post, I argue that Walz is far from radical:

Walz is authentically a product of the rural and small-town Midwest. He was born in West Point, Nebraska, a small town in the northeast segment of that famously agricultural state, and raised in Valentine, Nebraska, an even smaller town in north-central Nebraska, then in Butte, Nebraska, a tiny village not far from there. Far from the Ivy League campuses at which Donald Trump and J.D. Vance received degrees, Walz got his undergraduate education at an open-admissions teachers college in northwest Nebraska (Chadron State College). After he launched a public-school teaching career and got married to another teacher, he earned a master’s degree from Mankato State College in his wife’s home state, where he was indeed a football coach and also adviser to his school’s gay-straight student alliance. He eventually ran for Congress in the largely rural and relatively conservative First Congressional District, winning reelection there five times. There’s just no whiff of elitism or radicalism in his background. …

Yes, as governor of Minnesota, Walz was able to compile a progressive record, particularly after his party won a trifecta in 2022. But as his remarkably successful quasi-candidacy for veep has illustrated, he hasn’t lost his folksy manner or cracker-barrel sense of humor. He isn’t just normie; he’s super-normie and will present a constant contrast to the distinctly radical intellectualism of Vance — which you might even call weird. Walz may or may not be able to help Harris gain votes in some tangible way, but he adds toil and trouble to every Republican effort to depict Democrats as a party in the grip of un-American forces (one example of a problem he presents is that both of his children were conceived via IVF treatments, which the anti-abortion lobby has frowned upon). And unlike the last Democratic veep chosen to offset fears about a female president, Tim Walz (so far) does not come across as boring.

Read the rest here.

Ben Jacobs reports:

The divide among Republicans wasn’t whether Harris made a sub-optimal choice but whether she actively made a bad one selecting the Minnesota governor. On the mild side of that debate, the senior Capitol Hill aide didn’t think Walz did Harris “any harm” — but also noted that the Minnesota governor was not the right pick to get her to 270 electoral votes.

Other GOP operatives saw Walz as presenting a plethora of weaknesses. One longtime Republican strategist described the Minnesota governor as “arguably the most pro-China Democrat not named Hunter Biden” and thought that Walz’s views on the issue would be political kryptonite in the industrial Midwest. “They don’t realize that arguably the most salient issue uniting everything in the Midwest, from fentanyl to deindustrialization to the culture wars, is China, and they just picked biggest China dove possible to be vice-president for Kamala Harris.”

The veteran operative thought the culture wars presented a ripe target. And every Republican thought that Walz’s handling of the unrest in Minneapolis in 2020 in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd would be political gold in November. As a result, the insider chortled, “No Republican is playing defense today — full offense and we’re just so grateful to Kamala for punting the ball back in our direction.”

Read the rest of Jacobs’s report here.

Ahead of Walz’s first official appearance as Harris’s running mate on Tuesday evening, the campaign published a video introducing the Minnesota governor to the American electorate. The short clip details Walz’s small-town upbringing in Nebraska and his pre-Congress backstory as a Army National Guard veteran and a public school teacher. “We believe in the promise of America, in those values I learned in Nebraska, and we’re ready to fight for them,” Walz says in a voice-over. “Because, as Kamala Harris says, when we fight, we win.”

Harris also released a video of their conversation on Monday morning:

Given the recent interest that has developed about J.D. Vance’s fairly recent conversion from a vague Appalachian Evangelicalism to traditionalist Catholicism, it’s worth knowing that his counterpart, Tim Walz, has a religious affiliation that’s more congruent with his own background as a German American living in Minnesota: He’s a member of the mainline Protestant Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (he has called Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul “my parish”).

Unlike the hyperconservative but well-known Missouri and Wisconsin Synod Lutherans, the larger ELCA accepts LGBTQ+ members and clergy, and is willing to consecrate same-sex marriages.

The basics:

Politico reports that Shapiro and Harris didn’t have much chemistry, and his public audition didn’t go over as well as Walz’s:

Harris appreciated Walz’s two terms as governor because he had accomplishments in Minnesota that Harris wants to replicate in her presidency — access to reproductive health, paid leave, child tax credits and gun safety. Harris was also taken with Walz’s biography — a former high school teacher, a football coach and a veteran who flipped a Republican-leaning district in 2006 — which she believes will play well in all three of the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, including his win as a House member in a Republican district.

Walz is seen by Harris’ camp as a deft messenger, popularizing “weird” as a messaging framework to describe former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance — a cutting and clear tagline that went viral over the last two weeks.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, another finalist, avoided the green-room circuit and instead touted Harris and his own record at a series of events throughout the state. A pro-Harris event in Philadelphia turned into a Shapiro-for-VP party. His style was seen by at least some in Harris’ world as showboating. One senior Democrat in touch with Harris’ team called it “counterproductive.” And there was a sense within Shapiro’s team that, unlike Walz, his interview with Harris did not go as well as it could have. There was “not a great feeling” coming out of it, according to a person in touch with his advisers.

From my response to Harris’s veep pick:

A somewhat modified version of the left’s belief that moving left can increase political viability is that personal style can make up for a deficit in substance. Rather than move to the center on policy, they hope nominating candidates with a reassuring personal affect and personal biography can reassure moderate voters.

Walz generates so much enthusiasm on the left in part because he represents the apotheosis of this strategy. He is jolly, fun, a rural veteran and former football coach with a personal comfort with white rural voters.

There is probably something to this theory. If Harris had nominated a pink-haired professor from Brooklyn with a centrist voting record, that candidate probably would not provide a huge political heft.

But at the end of the day, issue positioning matters a lot. There is a reason Walz is less popular in a light-blue state than Josh Shapiro is in a purple state — indeed, when Walz shared a ballot in his own state with the moderate Amy Klobuchar, her victory margin (24 points) was more than double his (11.4 points). It’s not because Walz is less likable than Shapiro or Klobuchar. It’s because he’s less moderate.

Read the rest here.

Notes Glenn Thrush:

Or maybe not:

Biden calls Harris’s choice “a great decision”:

Barack Obama is out with a statement, too, championing Walz’s public service and belief in government:

Though Harris ultimately landed on Tim Walz during her quick search for a running mate, there appear to be no (public) hard feelings among the other candidates vetted for the role.

Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who was said to be the other finalist Harris was seriously considering, issued a long statement throwing his support behind the ticket. “Vice-President Kamala Harris has my enthusiastic support — and I know that Governor Tim Walz is an exceptionally strong addition to the ticket who will help Kamala move our country forward,” he said. Shapiro is set to appear at Harris and Walz’s dual campaign debut at a rally held at Temple University’s Liacouras Center in North Philadelphia later this evening (we’ll be live blogging that, too, by the way).

Other potential candidates also weighed in on social media:

He’s put out a message acknowledging the news (and doing a little fundraising off it):

Initial reports suggest …

John Fetterman’s feedback may have mattered as well:

As Walz’s name rose in the vice-presidential candidate rankings, conservative operatives began to resurface a purported photo of the Minnesota governor: an alleged 1995 mug shot taken after Walz was arrested in his home state of Nebraska due to suspicion of drunk driving.

The incident emerged in 2006 when Walz first ran for Congress in Minnesota but did not hinder his ultimately successful bid. In 1995, a 31-year-old Walz was arrested and jailed after he was seen going 91 mph in a 55-mph zone, per a piece from the Rochester Post-Bulletin. Walz failed a field sobriety test and a preliminary breath test, according to an affidavit filed by a Nebraska state trooper.

He would later plead guilty to reckless driving and pay a $200 fine. In an interview with the outlet, Walz’s campaign manager at the time insisted that Walz was not drunk and attributed the arrest to his later-corrected deafness that he had as a result of his time in the Army National Guard. However, Walz categorized the incident as a moment of change for him in a 2018 interview with the Star-Tribune, saying he no longer consumes alcohol and that Diet Mountain Dew is now his drink of choice.

In choosing Tim Walz as her running mate, Kamala Harris has put forth the most western Democratic ticket in American political history, with two candidates from west of the Mississippi River. (Actually, South Dakotan George McGovern chose Missouri senator Tom Eagleton as his running mate in 1972, but the ticket didn’t survive until Election Day; Eagleton was replaced by the very eastern Sargent Shriver). Walz was a Nebraskan until his late 20s; he then moved to Mankato, Minnesota, where he was elected to Congress. The only previous Democratic ticket composed of two relatively western candidates was Texan LBJ and South Dakota–born and Minneapolis-bred Hubert Humphrey in 1964. While Harris-Walz can’t compete with such truly western tickets as Bush-Cheney, the GOP lineup in 2004, or McCain-Palin, the 2008 Republican ticket, it also doesn’t live down to the bicoastal image of today’s Democratic Party.

Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling explains why that matters in an X post:

Many followers not familiar with the military are asking me “so what’s the big deal about a command sergeant major?” Walz joined at 18 as a private. Rose through the NCO (sergeant) ranks, each requiring extreme competence at increasingly demanding jobs with more people & responsibility at every rank.

When you reach “Master Sergeant” you are selected to serve as a First Sergeant (1SG) of a unit…if you’re good enough. Then, those 1SGTs compete for selection to Sergeant Major. Only the best Sergeant Majors are selected for Command Sergeant Major (CSM) billets.

CSMs serve as the senior enlisted person in the unit and the advisor to Commanders at battalion and above. Having served with dozens of CSMs as my unit & command “battle buddy” I will attest they were all awesome.

They know what they’re doing. They uphold standards. They speak their minds to all ranks (private to generals). They’re not afraid of getting bad news because they know how to fix things when they go wrong. And they serve the command (their commander and their soldiers) with a selfless integrity and a complete dedication.

During social events and informal occasions, they’re usually a whole bunch of fun. And they always have great stories. But they’re always professional. So, those are my thoughts on Command Sergeants Major. While I don’t know the details of @GovTimWalz career wearing the cloth of our country, just the fact that he volunteered to serve and wore the CSM rank tells me a lot about him.

You’re going to hell, America:

And it’s going to be a nightmare:

According to Minnesota law, if Walz is elected vice-president in November, the lieutenant governor would assume the position of head of the state. Since Walz first came into office in 2018, his second-in-command has been Peggy Flanagan, a longtime progressive activist and former statehouse member. Not only would she be Minnesota’s first-ever female governor, as a citizen of the federally recognized White Earth Nation, she would be the nation’s first-ever Native American governor.

Credit where credit is due:

Also:

Amid the excitement over Tim Walz’s selection will be an undertow of quiet unhappiness among a slice of Democrats who will be inflated by open trolling from Republicans about Harris choosing not to go with Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro. Other than Pennsylvanians, the Democrats who will be upset about the choice fall into two camps: (1) those who are convinced that the Keystone State is uniquely crucial to the entire election, with Shapiro being capable of delivering it, and (2) those who believe the ticket needed an overtly “moderate” veep to offset the relentless attacks on Harris as a “radical leftist.”

But while disappointed Democrats will get over it, Republicans are already quadrupling down on claims that Harris decided against the obviously superior running mate out of fear of the same “radical left” to which she is allegedly beholden. We will hear again and again from conservative gabbers that the left shivved Shapiro, as part of a parallel effort to make Walz out as a scary lefty despite his folksy image and popularity in Minnesota. And then there will be an uglier conservative claim about the decision not to go with Shapiro:

Immediately after Walz’s nomination was reported on Tuesday morning, Republicans began to hit the law-and-order angle on the Minnesota governor, who they claim was absent during the unrest in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd. “This is the image that defines Tim Walz,” wrote the Daily Wire columnist Matt Walsh above a photo of a Minneapolis police station in 2020. “During the Floyd riots, he allowed a mob of thugs to burn a police station to the ground right in the middle of Minneapolis. Everything you need to know about him can be seen here.”

Tim Walz became the third Minnesotan to win a Democratic vice-presidential nomination. The first two both went on to a general-election victory and service as vice-president: Hubert H. Humphrey in 1964 (as LBJ’s running mate) and Walter Mondale in 1976 (as Jimmy Carter’s running mate). Both men were later presidential nominees who lost their own bids for the White House (Humphrey in 1968 and Mondale in 1984). A number of other Minnesotans have run unsuccessfully for presidential nominations in modern history, including Democrats Eugene McCarthy (1968 and 1972), Amy Klobuchar (2020), and Dean Phillips (2024). And Republicans Harold Stassen (ten times!), Michale Bachmann (2012), and Tim Pawlenty (2012).

Per CNN and the AP’s sources: