Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images
For several well-placed Republican insiders on Tuesday, the response to Kamala Harris’s choice of Tim Walz as vice-president was one of overwhelming joy. “We are cheering,” said one veteran Republican operative, opining that Harris had picked the weakest-possible running mate on Harris’s short list. A plugged-in Washington insider marveled: “Republicans were in need of a lifeline this week and all so thrilled that Kamala Harris willing to give one to our side in our moment of need.”
Until Tuesday morning, these Republican operatives had been universally convinced that Harris would pick Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. For them, it was a no-brainer. “Shapiro would have taken Pennsylvania off the table,” said the Washington insider. That would have then left Trump with a far more tenuous path to victory. As a senior Capitol Hill aide said of the choice, “I was super-shocked.”
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.”
Another Republican working on a competitive race simply thought that Walz made things a little easier in November. “It doesn’t drastically change my life,” said the Republican. In comparison to Shapiro, “it just makes it a bit easier to bash Harris and her ticket as radically progressive.”
However, some cautioned simply that the vice-presidential pick might not matter much at all. As one activist from the MAGA wing of the party dismissed the pick, “This is basically Midwest Tim Kaine with more baggage.”
What most mystified Republicans was why Walz was picked at all. Staring at polling data that presented Shapiro as a clear threat to Trump’s reelection, they were trying to understand the choice. Obviously, they conceded that Walz shored up Democrats in Minnesota but, of course, if Democrats were in trouble in Minnesota, there would be bigger issues on the electoral map.
The MAGA activist opined at what they saw as the psychology of the choice: “Walz is the honeymoon-extension choice. She is picking Tim Walz because really enjoying that the entire Democratic Party is unified and is desperate to extend that through the election.” Shapiro, according to this line of thought, would have been more controversial within the party, if more strategically sound for winning the election.
Others thought that Democrats perceived the Minnesota governor as “a white working-class whisperer” and believed that they thought that voters in the Midwest would simply embrace Walz’s persona. However, Republicans universally thought that was a flawed calculation considering that Walz’s liberal record as governor and his embrace by the left wing of the Democratic Party, noting that figures like Bernie Sanders were lobbying for Walz to be Harris’s running mate.
One question they frequently raised was whether Shapiro’s being Jewish had somehow put the kibosh on his candidacy. Although all of Harris’s potential vice-presidential picks had broadly the same views on the Middle East, anti-Israel activists within the Democratic Party had rallied specifically against Shapiro, who is a practicing Jew.
The veteran operative said that he was already hearing dissatisfaction with the pick from wobbly Republicans who were at least open to the idea of voting for a Democrat. The seeming snub of Shapiro was being read as antisemitic. The DC insider simply described the selection of Walz as “a kick in the nuts to Jews.”
It’s unclear how much vice-presidential picks matter and how voters will receive Walz, who had been a relatively unknown figure nationally until recently, in the weeks ahead. But, for now, Republicans are happy. Pennsylvania is still on the table for them and, after a stretch where Democrats have enjoyed a honeymoon after Biden’s decision to drop out, they finally see a shift. As the activist said, “Today is the best day for the Trump campaign since Kamala Harris was picked.”
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