The few weeks of speculation are over. Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her VP running mate.
All six of the leading candidates had strengths and weaknesses that have been endlessly discussed. Whoever Harris selected, some of her supporters were bound to be disappointed. I believe that nothing is more important in U.S. politics at this moment than defeating both Trump and Trumpism. And so I have been prepared to write in support of whoever was the nominee. All the same, I honestly think that Walz is the best choice, and I am both relieved and heartened that it is he that Harris has chosen.
Walz is a Minnesota progressive (think Walter Mondale with a touch of Paul Wellstone) who can help carry Minnesota and Wisconsin (states in his media market) and Michigan, and he is the kind of plain-spoken, no-bullshit guy that will play well throughout the “heartland”—and will be able to call bullshit, figuratively and literally, on J.D. Vance and his “hillbilly elegies.”
While Josh Shapiro, like Harris, has had a “typical” career trajectory from law school to politics, Walz served for 24 years in the Army National Guard and is the highest-ranking enlisted soldier to ever serve in the U.S. Congress—where he served for 12 years as a major supporter of veteran’s affairs. He is a former high school teacher and football coach who received his college degree—a B.S.—from Chadron State College in Nebraska (where, you ask? Exactly the point). He is a hunter and gun owner. In other words, he is the farthest thing from a “coastal liberal” that it is possible to be.
Walz is very strong on social and economic issues, which is why he has been the favored choice of Bernie Sanders and other progressives. He has been described as a “Minnesota social democrat,” and this is accurate. But so too was Walter Mondale and Hubert Humphrey before him—neither a Bernie Sanders-type. Walz might well be the person in this race whose profile is closest to—Joe Biden. And he promises to do for Harris’s campaign what Biden did for Barack Obama’s in 2008.
Shapiro is a very successful Democratic governor who promised to carry Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes (it is worth noting that Minnesota and Wisconsin each have 10 electoral votes, and Michigan another 15). He is a more “centrist” politician than Walz, and he was supported by many donor-types because of his more neoliberal views on economics (especially school choice), and also by many pro-Zionist groups because of his positions on the Israel/Gaza war and on campus protest. And he is probably more closely associated with the Biden administration’s feckless handling of the Middle East crisis than any other candidate. But these policy positions also threatened to alienate many of the base democratic constituencies—young people, Arab-Americans, many of the BLM-linked civil rights groups—whose mobilization will be crucial in November. (And the notion that progressive opposition to Shapiro because of his positions on the Gaza war and campus protest is antisemitic is bullshit, though it draws on tropes that right-wing Zionists have been deploying ever since October 7.).
Shapiro’s profile as a Democratic rising star is indeed rather close to Harris’s—and indeed in the end it might have been his ambition and his strong personality that caused Harris to look elsewhere for a partner. The notion that Harris is a “leftist” who needs to be balanced by Shapiro’s centrism is risible, and it is worth reminding those making this claim that when she campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019-2020, she was very much in the middle of a race whose two most dynamic candidates, for some time, were Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. At that time, she was being attacked from the left for not being radical enough (I published a piece on this back in February 2019 entitled “Kamala Harris Is Not a Red-Baiter, She’s Just Not a Socialist, Like Most Americans.”) The Trump campaign will lie about her “leftism.” But the proper antidote to such lies is simply the effective promulgation of the truth.
In short, Walz “balances” Harris on the ticket better than Shapiro ever could.
And if Shapiro and Fetterman–who hate each other, another interesting dynamic that might have played a role in Harris’s choice of Walz–are the Pennsylvania power-houses they each claim to be, then they should be able to deliver their state to the Democrats anyway (I assume that at some point the support of “Scranton Joe” might also play a role).
Harris has made a fantastic choice, even if it will disappoint some of the neocons who have realigned with the Democratic party.
In yesterday’s The Bulwark, Bill Kristol—full disclosure, a friend with whom I have collaborated—argued strenuously that Shapiro is the only strong VP candidate, and that Harris’s failure to name him would be the “first unforced error of her campaign,” potentially stalling her momentum and also making her look weak “after the campaign against him from the left.” Kristol was not wrong to note Shapiro’s strengths. But, as I indicate above, these strengths are exaggerated, and come with serious weaknesses; indeed Kristol admits that “Harris could still win without Shapiro.”
Kristol exaggerates the extent to which there has been a “campaign against” Shapiro as opposed to an honest debate about who would be best. For as he himself notes, most Harris supporters have said that they would support whoever Harris picks. The differences between the VP candidates were not great, and all were and are firmly in the general orbit of Harris—who is of course the person who matters most.
The Democratic party is a big tent party that has become even bigger since Trump forced many former Republicans out of the GOP. “Never Trump” Republicans are now an important part of the “common front” against the MAGA movement, as the Harris campaign has clearly acknowledged with its launching of “Republicans for Harris.” And centrist Democrats—of which there are a great many—are a core constituency of the party. But the progressive wing of the Democratic party is equally central; it has been pivotal for the Biden administration’s economic agenda and for its legislative success; and the successful mobilization of its supporters is essential to a Harris victory in November. Harris has demonstrated her savvy, and her leadership skills, by refusing to play against her own party’s left, and by choosing a running mate—Walz—who is, in all honesty, capable of appealing to the party’s diverse constituencies, while being as mainstream and middle America as they come.
But the main reason why Harris’s choice of Walz is the right choice is much simpler: because it was Harris’s choice to make, and she has made it.
In a matter of weeks, she has gone from being the running mate of a depressed and failing Biden campaign to being the dynamic leader of her own presidential campaign. She has been able to bridge divides within her party, to mobilize the entire range of Democratic constituencies behind her candidacy, and to generate an unprecedented amount of fundraising and volunteer enthusiasm.
For whatever combination of personal and political reasons, she has chosen Tim Walz.
It is now incumbent on everyone who believes that a Trump victory would be a disaster for social justice and democracy to support the Harris-Walz ticket and to do the work necessary to bring it a resounding victory in November.
Jeffrey C. Isaac is the James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. Editor in Chief of Perspectives on Politics, a flagship journal of the American Political Science Association, from 2009-2017. Author of #AgainstTrump: Notes from Year One (2018), Professor Isaac has published in a range of public intellectual venues, including Public Seminar, Common Dreams, Dissent, the Nation, Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Guardian.
This piece was originally published on August 6th, 2024, on Democracy in Dark Times.
Why Tim Walz Is the Right Pick for Vice President