CHICAGO \u2014 More than a few moderate Donald Trump critics were puzzled and concerned by Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019s selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate. And Walz\u2019s liberal-leaning record as governor \u2014 at least compared to other finalists \u2014 has combined with controversies about his biographical claims to give Republicans real fodder.<\/p>\n
Shortly after Walz\u2019s selection, Trump even professed to being \u201cthrilled\u201d by what Republicans suddenly had to work with.<\/p>\n
But more than two weeks later, as Walz took the stage to accept his party\u2019s VP nomination here Wednesday night, both the fears and the thrill (for Trump) have faded.<\/p>\n
Despite plenty of incoming \u2014 Republicans have at times seemed more intent on attacking Walz than Harris \u2014 Walz is a popular running mate. He\u2019s significantly more popular than Trump running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), a historically disliked VP pick who has wilted in the face of scrutiny.<\/p>\n
And Walz\u2019s speech \u2014 which included a touching moment when his son, Gus, pointed and said \u201cThat\u2019s my dad!\u201d \u2014 was well received. It seemed likely to rally Democrats to a pick that some were uncertain about.<\/p>\n
So far it\u2019s gone well for Walz. But why? Why has the candidate Republicans have tried to label \u201cTampon Tim\u201d looked more like Teflon Tim?<\/p>\n
First, a look at the numbers. A new AP-NORC poll Wednesday showed more Americans liked Walz than disliked him (36 percent favorable to 25 percent unfavorable). That\u2019s compared to Vance\u2019s double-digit negative ratings (27-44).<\/p>\n
A Washington Post\/ABC News\/Ipsos poll over the weekend showed a slightly less pronounced gap, but a sizable one nonetheless: Walz nine points positive, and Vance 10 points negative.<\/p>\n
Other polls have been less strong for Walz, but he hasn\u2019t been underwater in even one quality poll, just as Vance hasn\u2019t seen a positive poll in a month.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a real question about just how much Americans might have consumed the hits on Walz on issues like his military service, his family\u2019s use of fertility treatments and his past campaign\u2019s false version of his 1990s DUI arrest; it\u2019s still relatively early.<\/p>\n
But Vance\u2019s quick negative turn would seem to suggest that many Americans are paying attention and are willing to ding a running mate about whom they don\u2019t like what they hear.<\/p>\n
A big part of the problem for Republicans would seem to be that they\u2019re casting stones from a glass house.<\/p>\n
Their ticket abruptly abandoned any moral high ground on adherence to facts nine years ago, with Trump uttering tens of thousands of false and misleading claims and outright lies since then. Perhaps voters increasingly just assume all politicians inflate their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s to one degree or another, and Walz\u2019s potential sins are relatively minor.<\/p>\n
The GOP\u2019s allegations of Walz\u2019s \u201cstolen valor\u201d might have provided the exception.<\/p>\n
But even there, Republicans have severely undermined their own cause.<\/p>\n
A Trump campaign letter Wednesday hitting Walz on his claims about his military service \u2014 which included his citing a rank he had attained but couldn\u2019t claim in retirement because he hadn\u2019t satisfied the requirements \u2014 was signed by 50 Republican lawmakers, but it listed many with \u201cretired\u201d military ranks despite them not having attained retired status. Veterans take these distinctions seriously.<\/p>\n
Two of the letter\u2019s signers have faced their own well-substantiated recent allegations of inflating their service; one, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.), has claimed the rank of retired Navy rear admiral despite having been demoted in 2022. The letter itself cited rear admiral as Jackson\u2019s current retired rank.<\/p>\n
The Trump campaign blamed a \u201ca copy edit mistake made by a staffer\u201d and nixed the ranks from a corrected version. But if it was trying to muddy the waters for its own attack, it surely succeeded.<\/p>\n
The handicapping on how Walz would play politically might have missed the root of his potential appeal.<\/p>\n
The Midwest has a long history of successful, pretty liberal \u201cprairie populist\u201d Democratic politicians who succeed by cultivating ties with and speaking the language of the working class. Think former Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone, former Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold, former Iowa senator Tom Harkin and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Democrats maintained a solid foothold in the Dakotas for years with this brand of politics, even as much of the Great Plains had gone red at the federal level.<\/p>\n
That breed has seen a sharp decline, as American politics have become more polarized and people vote in an almost parliamentary fashion \u2014 viewing a candidate as a vote for one party or another rather than according to their own merits. But it\u2019s not an extinct one.<\/p>\n
And Walz has demonstrated a talent for tapping into its ethos. In his speech Wednesday, Walz cited his triumphs in a \u201cdeep red\u201d congressional district in southern Minnesota. That\u2019s certainly an exaggeration; his district favored Trump by 15 points in 2016, but it went for both Barack Obama and George W. Bush before then. \u201cConservative-leaning\u201d would be more apt.<\/p>\n
But he did win that 2016 race, even as Trump carried the district by a wide margin. And he survived the 2010 tea party wave in the kind of district that Republicans otherwise cleaned up in.<\/p>\n
Plenty of attention has been paid to what Walz did when he was able to pursue a more progressive agenda as governor of a blue-leaning state, and his 2022 reelection win wasn\u2019t as resounding as some other vice-presidential contenders\u2019 most recent races.<\/p>\n
But the most gifted politicians can change it up when they need to and be what voters and their party need them to be in a given moment. That populist appeal is clearly what Walz was brought in for. And so far, he seems to be passing that test.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
CHICAGO \u2014 More than a few moderate Donald Trump critics were puzzled and concerned by Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019s selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate. And Walz\u2019s liberal-leaning record as governor \u2014 at least compared to other finalists \u2014 has combined with controversies about his biographical claims to give Republicans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}