Analysis: Walz could help Harris shore up the ‘blue wall’ on the way to the White House
Stephen Collinson
Vice President Kamala Harris’ vice-presidential pick Tim Walz is known for bonding with rural voters who other Democrats can’t reach.
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CNN
Vice President Kamala Harris’ vice-presidential pick Tim Walz is known for bonding with rural voters who other Democrats can’t reach.

That’s one big reason why the Minnesota governor, who is largely unknown to most Americans, now finds himself on a major party ticket in the most intense sprint to an election in modern history following President Joe Biden’s late decision to abandon his reelection bid.

The selection of Walz reveals the geographic and demographic key to the 2024 election. If Harris is to win, her path will most likely run through Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which Donald Trump captured in 2016 only to lose them to Biden in 2020. Presently, they are threatening to tilt back to the Republicans again this year.

History suggests that vice presidential nominees rarely deliver a state to their ticket-mates as voters tend to focus on potential presidents. But Walz, a friendly and jocular leader whose urbanity doesn’t conceal an acidic partisan tongue, provides a political complement to Harris.

The vice president will hope to perform strongly among minority voters in cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Milwaukee and to run up Democratic numbers among suburban and women voters alienated by Trump. Walz may be able to help most by reaching out to rural Americans wavering over a vote for the ex-president but who are not yet convinced by the new Democratic nominee or may find her too liberal.

One of the key developments in Midwestern politics in recent years has been the shift of some White, working class and male voters from Democrats to Republicans, including those who voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but who were won over by Trump’s cultural conservatism and populist, nationalist economic values in 2016. If Walz can winnow Trump’s margins outside the cities in these states even by a few thousand votes, he could make an important contribution to the Harris campaign in a knife-edge race.

The importance of the Midwestern trio of states is no secret. Trump also appeared to have this in mind with his choice of Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate, whose political emergence epitomizes the transformation in the region’s politics.

Walz has emerged as something of a Democratic folk hero in recent days. In a party where many members appeared to be reconciled to defeat under Biden, he has added a carefree tone and coined a new angle of attack against Trump and Vance that delighted Democrats – branding them “weird.”

Harris’ decision to choose Walz, a 60-year-old former congressman, progressive, Army National Guard veteran and schoolteacher will be seen by some experts as a “safety first” move. The vice president certainly had a strong incentive to do nothing to upset her momentum after securing the Democratic nomination in a surreal period since Biden’s exit from the race just over two weeks ago.

And the perils of a botched vice-presidential rollout were illustrated in recent days as Trump and his team spent two weeks defending Vance after his past reference to Democratic politicians as “childless cat ladies” created the rockiest rollout of a vice-presidential pick since Republican Sarah Palin in 2008.

The question now is whether the compressed vetting period left any political skeletons or missteps the Trump campaign can discover and highlight.

Walz won the spot after Harris chose him over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, the other finalist in her hurried running mate search. The Keystone State governor offered the potential promise of helping to secure Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes.

But Shapiro, who is Jewish, was criticized by some on the left for comments condemning the tone of campus protests. While he has been more outspokenly critical about the choices made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than the president, some progressives had warned against his selection as vice presidential nominee.

One potential line of attack against the vice president may be that she decided not to contradict the most liberal voices in her party who were strongly against Shapiro.

And there is some relief among Republicans that a Democratic governor who easily won Pennsylvania and has high approval ratings did not get the nod from Harris. But Shapiro, a Democratic rising star, is likely to remain a vocal advocate for the Democratic ticket in the commonwealth.

Walz and Harris will hold their first joint appearance at a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday night that will kick off a sprint across an electoral map expanded Biden’s shelving of his campaign.

The theatrics will offer the vice president a fresh chance to supercharge her candidacy’s momentum, which has energized a party that had looked headed for defeat in November and tightened the contest into a 50-50 struggle in a polarized country. Her relative youth, at 59, has inverted the generational contrast with Trump, 78, now that the issue of Biden’s age and acuity in a potential second term is moot.

While the naming of the Democratic vice presidential pick is the focus of the campaign, new developments Monday – outside a race that has been on a momentous trajectory since Trump escaped an assassination attempt and Biden pulled out – hinted at potential new twists to come before November.

Economic and Middle East drama loom as Harris makes her pick

Harris’ final deliberations took place against a backdrop of fast-developing domestic and global events that reflected the complex political environment she must navigate if the novelty of her sudden elevation wears off.

A global stock market plunge, for instance, sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 1,000 points Monday, amid rising unemployment and revived fears of a US recession that could further sour voters on an economy that the White House insists is in great shape but that has nevertheless left millions of people feeling deeply insecure.

There is no sign that the US economy faces a looming meltdown on the scale of the 2008 crisis that helped lead to the victory of Obama over Republican John McCain. The banking system appears strong, inflation has ebbed and the US has bounced back more strongly than other developed nations from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Still, in a tight election likely to be decided by a few thousand votes in a handful of swing states, any issue can be decisive. Any economic shocks in the weeks to come could prove treacherous for Harris given she’s tied to the current administration but also lacks the ability to influence factors like whether the Federal Reserve will begin to make long-awaited interest rate cuts.

Harris on Monday also had to juggle discussions on her pick with her official duties. She joined Biden in the White House Situation Room amid intense diplomacy as signs point to an Iranian retaliatory strike against Israel that would risk igniting a full-scale regional war that could drag in the United States.

News that several US service members were injured in a suspected rocket attack on an air base in Iraq again underscored the many factors that are beyond the vice president’s control that could rock the race in the run-up to November. Multiple US officials told CNN that the US expects Iran to hit back for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran perhaps within a 24-hour time frame – a period that could coincide with the vice president’s plans to name her running mate.

The Middle East war has already had a significant impact on the campaign. Israel’s repeated disregard for Biden’s calls to shield civilians in its assault on Hamas in Gaza following the October 7 terror attacks has carved splits in the Democratic coalition, especially in the critical battleground state of Michigan, which is home to many Arab Americans.

Trump seeks opening as he struggles to deal with Harris

Trump, who has struggled to adapt his campaign to his new Democratic foe, sought to exploit both evolving crises on Monday in a way that pointed to a potentially more effective attack against Harris than his questioning of her racial identify last week. He blasted the stock sell-off as a “Kamala Crash” on social media and warned World War III was beckoning.

The ex-president’s comments lacked context and were overly alarmist. But perception is often as important as reality in a presidential race. Trump is seeking to tie Harris to what he claims are Biden’s failures as he seeks to foster a sense among Americans that the country and the world are fast spinning out of control.

At the very least, the economy and Middle East instability will increase pressure on Harris to do more to counter Trump’s populist economic arguments and to flesh out how she would lead at a time when US global power is more challenged than it’s been in decades.

A critical choice

Tuesday’s events in Philadelphia would have been unthinkable less than three weeks ago when Biden was resisting growing Democratic efforts to push him aside after his disastrous June debate performance in Atlanta. At the time, the 2024 race – which promises sweeping consequences for America’s democracy and future path – was still reeling from the attempt to kill Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania just before he claimed his third-straight GOP nomination.

The contest for the White House had previously been shaped by Trump’s multiple legal woes, but the success of his courtroom delaying tactics and assists from conservative judges have pushed off a reckoning for his most serious alleged offenses – including his attempt to steal the 2020 election that he lost in a bid to remain in power.

Still, Harris’ strong start appears to have restored the election to a neck-and-neck race, according to recent surveys. In the latest CNN Poll of Polls, for instance, there was no clear leader nationally with Trump at 49% and Harris at 47%. But the vice president’s campaign is so new that it’s too early to judge the full impact of her entry into the race, especially without a critical mass of new swing state data.

A successful rollout of her running mate offers the prospect of another few weeks of positive vibes in a transformed race – if outside events don’t intervene.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.