It was less It’s only been a day since Vice President Kamala Harris officially selected Tim Walz as her 2024 running mate, and he’s already got a specific mandate from his boss: drive Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and the right as crazy as he can.
According to multiple Democratic sources in and close to the Harris 2024 campaign, the vice president and her allies plan to use Walz as a constant attack dog in the media and on the campaign trail over the next three months. Walz is set to be, in the words of one Harris 2024 campaign source, “the sledgehammer against Vance and Trump” between now and Election Day.
That role was on full display at Harris and Walz’s first rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday. “These guys are creepy, and yeah, they’re really weird,” Walz said of Trump and his running mate Vance. He described them as wanting to “invade your doctor’s office.” Walz even referred to the unfounded claim that J.D. Vance had sex with a couch. “I can’t wait to debate the guy,” he said, waiting for the crowd to calm down before dropping the gavel. “That’s if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.”
Harris and her top staffers were impressed by Walz’s progressive, anti-Trump messaging, as well as his ability to completely upend news cycles at this relatively late stage in the presidential election, sources say. It was Walz who helped drive the message that Trump and Vance were “weirdos” — an attack that quickly became a widespread Democratic talking point against the Trump team and the Republican Party.
The “strange” message rolling stone The accusations have recently angered Trump. “Nobody ever called me a freak,” the former president protested last week. In private conversations with aides and advisers, Trump has been particularly angry about the way the attacks have been directed at Vance.
“We’re fighting a dangerous, bizarre agenda of taking away people’s rights, monitoring women’s pregnancies, and other crazy, harmful nonsense like making Trump a dictator,” says a source familiar with Harris World’s thinking about Walz. “The antidote to that is a regular guy like Tim Walz—a veteran football coach, a friendly neighbor who helps you fix your car, and a really successful governor. That’s why his attacks were so powerful last month and why he won in a swing district for years against GOP attacks. His nonsense isn’t a poll test, it’s been tested.”
After Walz announced his candidacy as the Democratic vice presidential candidate on Monday, Trump and his allies spent the day testing out a variety of messages. They tried to portray Walz as a dangerous, San Francisco-loving liberal who lacks charisma, despite his obvious talent for gab and Midwestern fervor. Conservative media outlets have launched a series of attacks on Walz’s military record, criticizing him for retiring from the Minnesota National Guard after two decades of service to run for Congress. Meanwhile, Walz said Tuesday that Trump “doesn’t know anything about service — because he’s too busy serving himself.”
Walz was a progressive governor, especially in his second term. After Minnesota’s Democratic, Farmer and Labor Party secured a governing triumvirate, capturing both houses of the legislature for the first time in years, he and lawmakers passed free school meals for all, child tax credits, strong abortion and gay rights protections, paid leave, infrastructure investments and universal gun background checks.
But Walz has not shied away from his record on social issues. “In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make — even if we don’t make the same choices for ourselves,” he said Tuesday. “And there’s a golden rule: Mind your own business.”
Walz is proud of the way he and his party have implemented their agenda. Last summer, he wrote, “Minnesota is showing the country that you don’t win elections to make political capital—you win elections to burn political capital and improve people’s lives.”
Since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, there has been a major shift in strategy, with the party showing a new willingness to play tougher and engage in a fight with Trump. While Harris was reportedly enthusiastic about Walz’s track record as governor, his selection is a sign that Democrats intend to continue their attacks on the Republican Party.
Democrats have seized on Walz’s “bizarre” attack on Republicans since he launched it. “These people are bizarre on the other side,” he said in an interview with MSNBC on July 24. “They want to take your books away. They want to be in your exam room. That’s the gist of it. Don’t sugarcoat it. These are bizarre ideas.”
Walz’s message delighted liberal TV viewers, upset Trump and made an impression on Americans more broadly, according to a new University of Massachusetts Amherst poll. Participants were asked to provide one-word descriptions of Vance — without any preamble — and the UMass Poll created a word cloud with the results. The top two words: “unknown” and “weird.”
Harris’s choice of Walz has been well-received by some Democrats and centrists who have often been highly critical of the party’s more progressive wing and cultural liberalism. Even Joe Manchin—Joe Manchin!—has approved of Walz’s choice. He wrote Tuesday that Walz “will bring normalcy back to Washington.”
James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist who played a pivotal role in engineering Bill Clinton's presidential victory, also praised Harris's choice as vice president.
“I've been saying that Democrats have their scariest problems with male voters,” Carville says. rolling stone“But this guy is a veteran, he's a hunter, a football coach, a fisherman – he's definitely a man. Everything about [Tim Walz] “The male screams.”
Carville has been sharply critical of Democrats for not pushing Biden to abandon his reelection bid sooner, and recently warned liberals to temper their “victory” over Harris’ rise.
“The NPR audience will never understand this,” Carville adds. “But 48 percent of people who turn out to vote are male, which is not a small percentage of voters. Right now, we have yet to see if this is the right choice, but the early signs are encouraging.”
