Harris introduces new mate Walz as ‘vice president America deserves’

It was her biggest decision yet as the Democratic nominee and she went with a broadly palatable choice someone who says politics should have more joy and who deflects dark and foreboding rhetoric from Republicans with a lighter touch, a strategy that the campaign has been increasingly turning to since Harris took over the top spot.

He’s the kind of person who makes people feel like they belong and then inspires them to dream big … that’s the kind of vice president America deserves, she said.

Walz is joining Harris on the ticket during one of the most turbulent periods in modern American politics. Republicans have rallied around former President Donald Trump after he was targeted in an attempted assassination in July. Just days later, President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign, forcing Harris to scramble to unify Democrats and decide on a running mate over a breakneck two-week stretch.

Harris hopes Walz will help her shore up her campaign’s standing across the upper Midwest, a critical region in presidential politics that often serves as a buffer for Democrats seeking the White House. The party remains haunted by Trump’s wins in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016. Trump lost those states in 2020 but has zeroed in on them as he aims to return to the presidency this year and is expanding his focus to Minnesota.

Since Walz was announced, the team raised more than $10 million from grassroots donations, the campaign said.

Walz is far from a household name; an ABC News/Ipsos survey conducted before he was selected but after vetting began showed that nearly 9 in 10 US adults did not know enough to have an opinion about him. Harris devoted much of her speech to telling the audience about Walz life and work.

To those who know him best, Tim is more than a governor, she said.

Harris, the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to lead a major party ticket, initially considered nearly a dozen candidates before zeroing in on a handful of serious contenders.

Trump has focused much of his campaign on appealing to men, emphasising a need for strength in national leadership and even featuring the wrestler Hulk Hogan on the final night of the Republican National Convention. Harris’ finalists all white men marked an acknowledgement of the Democrat’s need to at least try to win over some of that demographic.

She personally interviewed three finalists: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Walz. Harris wanted someone with executive experience who could be a governing partner, and Walz also offered appeal to the widest swath of the diverse coalition.

His selection drew praise from lawmakers as ideologically diverse as progressive leader Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and independent Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a moderate who left the Democratic Party earlier this year.

A team of lawyers and political operatives led by former Attorney General Eric Holder pored over documents and conducted interviews with potential selections. Harris mulled the decision over on Monday with top aides and finalised it Tuesday morning, according to three people familiar with Harris’ decision who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations.

Shapiro, an ambitious politician in his own right, struggled with the idea of being No. 2 at the White House and said he felt he had more to do in Pennsylvania, according to one of the people familiar with Harris’ decision. There was also public pushback to Shapiro for his stance on Israel from Arab American groups and younger voters angry over the administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.

The other contenders threw their support behind the ticket Tuesday, and Shapiro was one of the speakers at Tuesday’s Philadelphia rally. Biden described the Harris and Walz ticket as a powerful voice for working people and America’s great middle class.

Walz coined one of Democrats’ buzziest campaign bits to date, calling Trump and his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance just weird, a label that the Democratic Governors Association of which Walz is chairman amplified in a post on X and Democrats more broadly have echoed.

During a fundraiser for Harris on Monday in Minneapolis, Walz said: It wasn’t a slur to call these guys weird. It was an observation.

Harris, second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Walz will spend the next five days touring critical battleground states, visiting Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday and Arizona and Nevada later in the week.

Vance, for his part, planned stops in some of the same areas. He said Tuesday that he called Walz earlier in the day and left a voice message.

First Published: Aug 07 2024 | 7:15 AM IST