Governor Tim Walz (D., Minn.), former Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, said one reason she picked him was to talk to white people and give them permission to vote for her.
Walz spoke at Harvard’s Kennedy School on Monday night to discuss the future of the Democratic Party and Harris’s failed 2024 campaign against President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. He said Harris chose him to be her running mate on the presidential ticket because of his progressive governing record and ability to talk white men into potentially voting for her.
“I could code talk to white guys watching football fixing their truck doing that, that I could put them at ease,” Walz said. “I was the permission structure to say ‘look you can do this and vote for this.'”
Walz admitted that he and Harris “didn’t get enough of those votes” in swing states except for his home state. Harris lost resoundingly to Trump as he captured the rust belt swing states and other toss-up areas. Trump’s victory propelled Republicans to a 53–47 Senate majority and allowed them to maintain their narrow hold over the House, giving Trump both congressional chambers to work with.
A former Army national guardsman and high-school football coach, a Harris campaign aide previously told CNN that Walz was a “permission structure” for rural white males or anybody who wants to feel “joyful” about themselves, playing into Walz’s attempt to act like a sitcom dad.
The Harris campaign tried to use Walz to appeal to men through various stunts including playing Madden with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and going pheasant hunting in October. Walz was widely ridiculed for putting up a poor showing in the NFL video game and struggling to reload his shotgun during the hunting trip.
Walz took heat throughout the presidential campaign for his history of exaggerating his military record and his longstanding ties to China. He struggled during his lone debate against Vance, at one point calling himself a “knucklehead” when pressed about falsely claiming to have been at the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. Conservatives also attacked Walz’s progressive governing record in Minnesota, especially during the Summer 2020 Black Lives Matter riots.
ABC News reporter Brittany Shepherd moderated the conversation with Walz at Harvard and pushed him on why he did not appear on cable news more often with the messaging he described.
“But I also said I understand myself. I said I think I’ll give you pretty good stuff but I’ll also give you 10 percent problematic,” Walz stated.
Reflecting on the election defeat, Walz said Democrats will have to think about why it lost its “self identity” as a party for “personal freedoms,” the middle class, and organized labor. Walz doubted that more interviews from him would have made the difference for how Democrats branded themselves against Trump.
When Harris was in the process of selecting her Vice President, Walz’s remarks on cable news about Vance being “weird” drew applause from the left and turned into a party talking point. Once he was selected, Walz rarely appeared on cable news as the Harris campaign greatly restricted her access to media.