Ever since Vice President Kamala Harris picked Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate in early August, it was considered something of an odd choice. For one, it had seemed as if she was going to pick Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), though he reportedly botched his interview and didn't want to be number two, plus the Democratic Party has plenty of antisemitism to contend with. On Tuesday night, Chris Cillizza put out a lengthy thread on why Walz wasn't the right pick, which became a trending topic over X.
From his far-left views to his own lackluster electoral vote history, connections with anti-Israel imams and concerns with stolen valor, plus habitual lying on many more matters, Walz was indeed a puzzling choice. He likely did nothing to help the campaign. The Harris-Walz ticket didn't win Minnesota by much, and the ticket even lost Walz's home county.
As Cillizza mentioned, the election was three weeks ago, and he feels there's enough time to make his analysis, though one could have predicted such takes even before President-elect Donald Trump won. Cillizza may also be giving Walz too much credit.
Pennsylvania is key, which is not just one of the crucial swing states and the one with the most electoral votes--at 19--but where Shapiro is a popular and moderate enough governor. Ultimately, Trump won Pennsylvania by 1.7 percentage points, and such a win in the Electoral College was enough to send him over the 270 mark.
2/ Before I get into it, let me say two things.
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) November 27, 2024
One: Tim Walz did not lose Harris the race (or even close to it)
Two: Josh Shapiro would not have made Harris win -- or even win Pennsylvania.
To say that "I just don't think the Walz pick made a ton of sense for Harris" is putting it rather politely. That Cillizza mentions how Walz came up with the "weird" campaign against Vice President-elect JD Vance may have endeared Walz to Harris and other Democrats, but it also is the start of what a nasty person, rather than "folksy" and "Minnesota nice" that Walz supposedly is.
When it comes to the short timeline, you won't get much sympathy from us when it still seems that Walz was not properly vetted. The "hottest thing in politics" doesn't translate well to Walz being a good pick, and again, he certainly was not.
Regardless as to if "Harris genuinely liked Walz and felt a rapport with him," the two were so cringeworthy together it's hard to tell if they were even for real or just full of it.
4/ Remember that Harris had an incredibly compressed timeline to choose a VP. From the day Joe Biden dropped out to the day Harris picked Walz was 16(!) days.
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) November 27, 2024
That's it.
6/ To be clear: I think Harris genuinely liked Walz and felt a rapport with him.
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) November 27, 2024
And that she and her strategists convinced themselves that Walz’s “big dad energy” might help her appeal to critical voters in the upper Midwest.
Where Cillizza is especially on to something is how the excitement was not so much about Harris once she was installed as the nominee--and it's worth mentioning that candidates do tend to get such a boost at a time--but that President Joe Biden was no longer the nominee.
Democrats, especially those party members who forced him out, no doubt thought that they had a better chance with someone, anyone else at the top of the ticket. That also leads to Cillizza's point about other potential vice presidential picks.
8/ Yes, there was excitement about the ticket after the pick.
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) November 27, 2024
But in retrospect that looks to me a LOT like excitement that Biden wasn't the nominee anymore.
Like, if Harris had picked Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer would the energy have been less?
I don't think so.
But then, Cillizza also aptly reminds how particularly bad Walz was, which includes how he "was mediocre (at best) in the VP debate," which is certainly putting it politely. Snap polls released not long after showed that Vance won the debate, a particularly good sign for the Republican ticket. A particularly painful and awkward moment involved Walz being caught lying about being in Hong Kong for the Tiananmen Square Massacre, when he got the timing wrong, and he just didn't have a sufficient answer. Or really any answer. CBS mercifully cut to commercial at that point of the debate.
Still, Cillizza may still be giving Walz too much credit. Rather than referring to the vice presidential nominee as a liar, he phrases it as how Walz's "tendency to exaggerate/misremember details about his past turned into a national story." Walz is also referred to as "just a nonentity" for "toward the end of the campaign." He was worse than that, though, as he made it his business to double down on referring to Trump supporters at the October 27 rally at Madison Square Garden as Nazis.
Could Harris have done better with another pick? Not necessarily so, it seems to be Cillizza's point, though Walz was a particularly bad choice, and as if he himself may be looking to run in 2028, that's worth reminding.
10/ Add it up and you get this: Walz was a mediocre pick based, largely, on a viral moment.
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) November 27, 2024
And with hindsight being 20-20 there were clearly better VP picks available to Harris.