The first speech Tim Walz gave as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate was feisty, folksy, and funny. The Minnesota governor injected some Obama-esque hope and joy back into politics, while still managing to attack Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, as “creepy and weird.”
That’s the good news for Democrats. The harsher political reality is that Walz is also the perfect foil for the Trump campaign. After President Biden pulled out of the presidential race, Trump lost his target and focus. The former president was unprepared for Harris’s strong start and seemed unsure about the best way to attack her. His usual racist and sexist approaches weren’t working. The tough media spotlight on Vance added to the sense of a flailing campaign.
Against Walz, however, Trump and Vance know exactly what to do: Portray him as a dangerous, far-left wacko who, as governor, let Minneapolis burn after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and who, over time, has also caved on every policy wish of the liberal elite. After Walz delivered his speech Monday night, a conservative Minneapolis radio host on Fox News described him as “Gavin Newsom, with less hair, wearing flannel.” The words “true Marxist radical” were also tossed around. With descriptions like that, the Trump campaign hopes to lure independent voters who will decide this race to its side — however reluctant those voters may be to end up there.
In the immediate aftermath of Walz’s selection, I described it as a safe, do no harm, choice. When it comes to uniting Democrats, it does seem safe enough to keep the peace with progressives and safe enough to keep party centrists relatively content. “Not gonna lie, the Welcome team text threads did not exactly light up with celebratory emojis when the Walz pick was announced,” Liam Kerr, the cofounder of The Welcome Party, which promotes a big Democratic tent, told me.
Centrists like Kerr draw comfort from Walz’s voting record in Congress, where he represented a conservative-leaning, rural district and managed to get an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, while still voting for the Affordable Care Act. Walz “ran and voted to the right of most Democrats to win and hold a House seat,” Kerr said.
The less safe part of the political equation comes with Walz’s record as governor. As The New York Times reported, he has “worked with his state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature to enact an ambitious agenda of liberal policies.” That includes free college tuition for low-income students, free meals for schoolchildren, legal recreational marijuana, and protections for transgender people. He is also considered a leader when it comes to tackling climate change and signed a bill that guaranteed a “fundamental right to make autonomous decisions” about abortion, contraception, and fertility treatments.
Perhaps the most controversial part of his record involves his response to the looting, arson, and violence that broke out after the murder of Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. As the Times reported, two days after Floyd’s death, the city’s mayor asked Walz to deploy the National Guard. Walz did not sign an executive order allowing that to happen until the next day. He was reelected in 2022, despite the criticism he received in his home state over that slow response.
To that, Democrats can, of course, counter with the issue of Trump’s failure to do anything to stop the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But Walz’s record as governor, particularly in connection with the Floyd aftermath, has already riled up Trump’s MAGA base. The Trump campaign will do its best to make it as much an issue for Harris as Democrats have tried to make Vance’s denigration of “childless cat ladies” an issue for Trump.
To Democrats, Walz is everybody’s midwestern dad or favorite uncle and the guy who made “weird” the word of choice to mock Trump and Vance. While “weird” can help, it won’t be enough on its own to beat Trump, who has survived much worse name-calling.
Harris and Walz must find a way to blunt Republican attacks regarding immigration and the economy and keep the pressure on Trump and Vance on issues like abortion. Biden was incapable of doing that, which is why Trump has been fantasizing on Truth Social about “Crooked Joe Biden” crashing the Democratic National Convention and taking back the nomination. That’s not going to happen, so it’s going to be all-out war against the ticket Trump now faces.
In his speech, Walz showed he owns that rare ability to connect with voters with passion and positivity. As he stepped into the national spotlight, you could imagine the high school football coach he once was, revving up a locker room full of teenage athletes, getting them past the hump of defeat, and reveling in the ultimate thrill of victory.
Is that enough for a White House win in November? The Harris-Walz team is going up against a rival team that plays hard, dirty, and for keeps. They will need a perfectly executed master game plan to come out on top.
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at joan.vennochi@globe.com. Follow her @joan_vennochi.