David Bell – A Prairie Populist Joins Harris on the Ticket

It has been just two and a half weeks since Joe Biden decided to end his campaign for reelection, and in that time the presidential race has been entirely transformed. Most Democrats had concerns about Vice-President Kamala Harris, for reasons I went into in my last column. But so far, she has not put a foot wrong. Within days, she locked up the nomination, won endorsements from every major party figure, and staged animated rallies that immediately underlined the contrast between her and the faltering President—not to mention between her and Donald Trump. The polls now show her either in a dead heat with Trump or moving slightly into the lead. On August 6, she picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her own vice-presidential candidate, which will provide an additional jolt of energy and enthusiasm ahead of the Democratic convention that begins in two weeks.

By all accounts, the vice-presidential choice had come down to two Democratic governors: Walz, and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. The differences were stark. Shapiro is 51, looks younger, is brilliant, hard-driving, and very much belongs to the northeastern elite: he is a Jewish doctor’s son from suburban Philadelphia, and a Georgetown law graduate. Walz is 60, looks older, and has a folksy, relaxed mien. He is a Lutheran former schoolteacher and football coach with a farm background and long service in the National Guard: very much a “prairie populist” son of the Midwest. Both have been notably successful governors, and both have relatively similar, liberal views. Shapiro tends somewhat more conservative, supporting lower corporate tax rates and allowing the state to subsidize private school tuition. Walz comes out of the storied tradition of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and has signed legislation codifying abortion rights, legalizing cannabis, and guaranteeing free meals for school students.

Shapiro’s popularity in his closely divided swing state, with its 19 crucial Electoral College votes, in many ways made him the more obvious choice. The pollster Nate Silver argued that he would boost Harris’s chances of election more than any other possible veep. But leftists pushed hard against him because of his strong support for Israel, and his harsh criticism of pro-Palestinian student protestors this past spring, even labeling him “Genocide Josh.” A Shapiro pick risked dividing the party, with disruptive protests at the convention. The progressive journalist David Klion, who wrote an influential article arguing against Shapiro, tweeted that “the goal… was to make clear the left considers hardcore Zionism a liability in Democratic politics, and you know what? I think we succeeded.” Predictably, Republicans have greeted the choice of Walz with accusations that Harris has given in to anti-Semitism.

Walz is certainly the more cautious pick, although his liberal record, especially on immigration, will give the Trump campaign plenty of fodder for attack ads. But he is also a smart pick. To start with, Harris is right not to underestimate how badly angry protests from the left might damage her campaign at this stage. Yes, the number of voters who consider the Middle East conflict a decisive issue is low. But the perception of a party in disarray, just three months before the election, could significantly disrupt Harris’s momentum.

It also matters that, for the moment, Trump himself is flailing. Biden’s withdrawal and Harris’s quick ascension punctured the momentum he himself had built up after his debate with Biden, and the assassination attempt. The pick of the brazenly hypocritical and unpopular JD Vance as the Republican vice-presidential candidate, a doubling down on hardline MAGA ideology which reflected overweening confidence on Trump’s part, has so far been fairly disastrous. Trump’s strange, rambling, sinister public pronouncements have gotten even more strange, rambling, and sinister, as when he appeared before a group of black journalists and questioned Kamala Harris’s blackness, or when he told a Christian group: “Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.” Some Republican insiders have even complained to journalists about what they call Trump’s “public nervous breakdown.” On social media, Trump rants at Harris with his usual grace and sophistication, calling her “dumb,” “stupid,” and “low IQ.” The Democrats, meanwhile, are calling attention to the impressively large number of Trump appointees who call him unfit for office. Harris clearly understands the wisdom in Napoléon’s line: “Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake.”

Just as important is Walz himself. He excited Democrats by giving them an attack line against Trump that worked surprisingly well: simply calling the former president “weird.” But most of all, more than Shapiro, he is enormously likable. He connects easily with voters. He understands everyday concerns. In a revealing interview with Ezra Klein of The New York Times, he underlined Donald Trump’s disconnect from ordinary Americans this way: “Just picture in your mind Donald Trump coming home after a day of work and picking up a Frisbee and throwing it. And his dog catches it, and the dog runs over, and he gives him a good belly rub because he’s a good boy.” Walz poses for pictures with a piglet. As a congressman, in 2016, he won reelection in a district that went for Trump by 17 points.

These abilities matter for the Democrats. What drives Trump voters more than anything else is resentment and anger against American elites: a sense that wealthy, out-of-touch graduates of prestigious universities, lacking patriotism and common sense in equal measure, are deliberately flooding the country with immigrants, sending jobs overseas, spurring ruinous inflation, and in general “destroying America.” Fox News, Newsmax, Sinclair Media, conservative talk radio “shock jocks” and MAGA websites repeat this message ad nauseam, twenty-four hours a day, and it clearly has an impact in swing states, driving Republican turnout and making a difference to at least some undecided voters. When it comes to actual policy positions, Walz, with his liberal record, is easier to caricature in this manner than Shapiro. But when it comes to background and personality, there is no contest. Walz will help reassure voters who see Harris as out of touch, or who, tuning in to racist dog whistles, wonder if she is a “real American.” Ironically, it is Trump and JD Vance—two wealthy Ivy League graduates—who in reality have far more of a claim to membership in the American elite than Harris, who went to historically black Howard University, and Walz. But Trump of course has made a career of posing as an angry outsider: the son of Queens forever railing against glittering Manhattanites (yes, in reality he hoped for decades to win their acceptance, but no matter).

Walz’s liberal positions—which grew more liberal after his election as governor—do matter, along with Harris’s own liberal record—she grew up in California politics, after all. As Jonathan Chait has written, having satisfied the left with the Walz pick, the Democratic candidate now needs to pivot to the center. The Republicans will of course accuse her of hypocrisy for doing so. But coming from the party whose vice-presidential candidate once called his running mate “America’s Hitler,” and now grovels at his feet while praising a book that literally calls liberals “Unhumans”—Unmenschen—this charge may not be particularly convincing.