Kamala Harris picks Tim Walz as her running mate. Tangle by Isaac Saul

Aug 8, 2024 at 1:01 AM//keep unread//hide

My take.

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This pick will matter, and I don’t think choosing Walz over Shapiro has anything to do with Israel.

Walz’s biggest strengths are that he is likable and will energize progressives.

His biggest weaknesses are his actions during the 2020 riots in Minneapolis and how easily he can be framed as far-left.

I’m going to break this up into four parts: Why this choice matters, Walz as a running mate versus Shaprio, Walz’s strengths, and his weaknesses.

First, there is a robust debate about whether vice presidents change the outcome of elections, but I think they clearly do. From Lyndon B. Johnson delivering the South for John F. Kennedy to Mike Pence helping Donald Trump win over evangelicals, we have plenty of examples of vice presidents helping presidential candidates address key vulnerabilities. In Harris’s case, she didn't win a primary, is on a compressed timeline in a very tight race, and is a living example that vice presidents can become presidents (or at least nominees) pretty quickly. So Harris’s choice will have a greater-than-usual influence on enthusiasm, turnout, and perceptions about her campaign — and her picking Walz is going to move some voters. 

Second, I want to address the decision to pick Walz over Shapiro. A lot of progressives — especially the anti-Zionist crowd — are celebrating her choice. They applied pressure on Harris's team to pick Walz and are now labeling the decision as proof the party is moving left and away from the influence of the Israel lobby. Interestingly, many conservatives are doing the same: Framing the pick as proof that Zionists and Jews can no longer operate in the Democratic Party.

I think this is total bunk. For starters, Shapiro did not "compare pro-Palestine protesters to the KKK," as many on the left accused him of doing. In fact, if you listen to or read the full transcript of his comments, you'll see he was criticizing antisemitic and Islamophobic protesters, saying we have a higher tolerance for bigotry against Jews and Muslims than we do against black people. Which — actually — is a reasonable take on Americans' current cultural sensitivities.

Also, Tim Walz’s positions on Israel seem nearly indistinguishable from Shapiro’s. The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg argued convincingly that Shapiro’s stance on Israel relative to other candidates has been receiving outsized attention because he is a practicing Jew. To show this, Rosenberg pointed out that Walz has:

Voted to condemn the UN resolution against Israeli settlements that Obama allowed to pass

Participated in the AIPAC conference, calling Israel "our truest and closest ally in the region, with a commitment to values of personal freedoms and liberties, surrounded by a pretty tough neighborhood"

Met with Netanyahu personally, and released a photo to media

Said of campus protests, "I think when Jewish students are telling us they feel unsafe in that, we need to believe them, and I do believe them."

Said in June, "the ability of Jewish people to self-determine themselves is foundational... The failure to recognize the state of Israel is taking away that self-determination. So it is antisemitic."

All this is to say: The left is wrong that Shapiro is distinctly Zionist in contrast to Walz and the field, and the right is wrong that Harris picking Walz is proof Zionists can't exist within the current Democratic Party. Walz certainly seems like a Zionist to me.

With that out of the way, here are what I see as the five biggest strengths of the pick:

1) Walz is a great communicator. His description of Republicans being "weird" went viral because it resonated with a lot of people in the center and the left who feel that Trump, Vance, and other conservatives spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about issues that don't matter to a lot of Americans. More generally, though, Walz is good at defending progressive positions in simple, down-to-earth terms, similar to the way Trump argues for conservative principles.

2) He’s likable. The first rule of picking a vice president is do no harm, and Harris picked a genial Midwesterner who won’t upset any particular segment of the Democratic Party. Walz first popped on the national radar for a viral video of him and his daughter at the Minnesota state fair where his down-to-earth personality is on full display. He’s just flat-out affable, and since presidential races are as much popularity contests as they are policy debates, that makes him a strong candidate.

3) He will energize the progressive base. This was the pick that the Democrat’s left flank wanted. Walz has a strong progressive track record, and the odds of the progressive wing of the Democratic base being activated in a genuine way go up with Walz on the ticket. The Philadelphia rally was a pretty shocking show of strength, with a larger and more energetic crowd than what Trump is drawing. It might not pan out, but Harris is making a strong bet that young, online, progressive voters actually show up to vote for her with Walz at her side.

4) He is very experienced. Walz survived in a purple congressional district for 12 years and has six years of executive experience as a governor. Love him or hate him, the guy knows how to pass legislation, and he knows how to work across the aisle. Minnesota's state Congress is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, and Walz has managed to “get stuff done.” That'll be a big selling point on the campaign trail.

5) Walz as a package is not nearly as progressive as some people are going to make him out to be. He’s a gun-friendly veteran. He has some low-key pro-market positions that have caught the attention of moderates. He signed the most comprehensive right-to-repair law in the country, brags about a $100 million tax cut that simplified the tax-filing system in Minnesota, and banned noncompete agreements. He is not an Ivy Leaguer, law-school graduate, or coastal elite. He grew up in Nebraska, oozes Minnesota vibes, and can genuinely trumpet populist ideas. People like Joe Manchin heartily endorsed Walz for a reason, and it’s not that he is an unhinged progressive.

Now, his weaknesses:

1) First and foremost, he was governor during the 2020 riots in Minneapolis, which did not reflect well on his leadership. He responded too slowly, downplayed the severity of the riots, excused the rioters’ actions, insisted the government should give them what they wanted, and did not communicate well as the protests escalated. Many conservatives are smartly putting this front and center, and I expect doing so will play really well with a lot of moderates. His handling of the unrest is probably his biggest failure as governor, and the biggest blemish on his record.

2) Under his leadership, Minnesota has given wide latitude to provide gender-transition treatments and surgeries to youth. This is an issue Republicans desperately want to run on, as they think average Americans will be turned off by what’s become commonplace progressive ideology. I’m still unsure how well this will play nationally (see: Ron DeSantis), but Walz opens the door for this criticism in a big way, as his state has passed some of the most progressive laws on this issue.

3) On the whole, Harris is viewed as to the left of Biden. Walz is viewed as left of Harris. I personally think both of these assessments are correct, and I think Trump and Vance can easily frame their opponents as too far left for voters. Walz might energize progressives, but I suspect he’ll turn some undecided voters and moderates away once they learn more about his record. 

4) Immigration is a huge weakness for Democrats, and let's just say Walz is not going to help. He has signed bills that allow unauthorized migrants to get driver’s licenses, joked about investing in the ladder business if Trump builds his wall, and pushed Democrats in his state to pass bills providing unauthorized migrants with healthcare and free college. These policy proposals are unpopular in normal times, but they will be especially so during the current migrant crisis.

5) He's not Shapiro. Josh Shapiro consistently gets 60% approval ratings in arguably the most divided state in the U.S. Many conservatives at least claimed that if Harris had tapped him, it would have constituted a move to the center, an appeal to never-Trump Republicans, and a signal to the country that the party wasn't moving leftward. We'll never know if Shapiro could have helped Democrats reach those voters, but I think it’s very plausible that he could have. And I’m 100% sure that, in Pennsylvania, he would have. If Harris loses Pennsylvania (and the election) by a thin margin, a lot of people will look back on this decision as a fatal mistake.

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