“To be quite honest, he never would have crossed my mind,” said Greg Jones. Jones, who has taught English in the Duluth public school system for 27 years, was surprised by Vice President Kamala Harris’ selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate in the 2024 presidential race.
“I thought he would never get chosen. He’s way too nice of a guy. People talk about the Midwest as being flyover states and say that we don’t really matter all that much—we’re not particularly unique—so I thought that the people who are decision-makers would also think that,” said Jones
The Harris campaign’s selection of Walz came as a shock to many Democrats and Republicans alike. Historically, presidential candidates use their vice presidential pick as a means of appealing to a demographic of voters that the candidate wishes to court. Though it is difficult to demonstrate direct causality, some partially attribute former President Donald Trump’s popularity among white evangelical voters to his vice presidential choice of Mike Pence, a devout evangelical, who during the 2016 campaign repeatedly called himself, “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.” Similar to Pence’s embodiment of the evangelical vote in 2016, Walz may appeal to Midwestern voters. The Midwest is bound to play a significant role in this election, given that Michigan and Wisconsin are imperative states for a Harris victory in November.
“Every decision is consequential; most effects are probably incredibly tiny, but even tiny effects like a couple hundred or a couple thousand votes in a close presidential election are going to be significant,” said Joshua Kalla, a Yale University professor of political science and data science who studies political persuasion, as well as voter and campaign decision making.
Aside from Walz, two other running mate candidates were shortlisted for this position. The first candidate was Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who was Pennsylvania’s attorney general from 2017 to 2023 and was subsequently elected Pennsylvania Governor in 2022 by a margin of nearly 15 percentage points. The other contender was Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a former United States Navy captain and astronaut who flipped a senate seat by defeating the incumbent Republican, Senator Martha McSally, in the 2020 Arizona special senate election.
Many commentators expected Shapiro to be the frontrunner as Harris’s running mate due to his status as a popular politician from a battleground state that holds the potential to decide the presidential race by a razor-thin vote margin. In the wake of the Harris campaign’s selection of Walz, some criticized the Harris campaign for ignoring the opportunity to garner a “home state advantage” in Pennsylvania. Such criticism insinuates that the edge Shapiro may have offered in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state, made him a more politically strategic pick than Walz, whose home state of Minnesota is far less likely to be competitive in this election.
Kalla summarized this sentiment among pundits: “If Pennsylvania ends up being the tipping-point state and if Harris loses Pennsylvania by 5000 votes, are there going to be 1000 op-ed’s saying Harris should have picked Josh Shapiro? Yes.”
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During his time as the governor of Minnesota, Walz has championed ample progressive legislation while appealing to his Midwestern, rural, middle-class roots. For example, Walz has made it clear that education is one of his top priorities. “The way the state funds education is important to me,” said Jones. “We live in a state where we have a governor who is an educator and so he also pays a lot of attention to choices that are made on the state level that would impact classrooms.” Among the most notable legislation Walz signed into law as governor was an education package that, among other initiatives, provides free breakfasts and lunches for all students in Minnesota public schools.
For decades, Democrats have been working hard to shake the label of being a party dominated by out-of-touch politicians and elites, removed from the needs of many voters. Walz appears to be countering this reputation. Jones reported that Walz’s consideration of teachers is frequently visible on the campaign trail: “I liked him from the beginning when he first started running for governor. He went all over the state to reach out to voters and came up to teachers who came out to hear what he had to say, and he’s a good listener.”
Outside of Walz’s flagship education package, other bills he signed into law as Minnesota governor include voting re-enfranchisement of 50,000 former felons, statewide legislation guaranteeing access to abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, and the adoption of stricter background checks for gun sales. While the Trump campaign criticized Walz as “dangerously liberal” upon his selection as Harris’s running mate, Walz has some characteristics that may appeal to wider interests beyond progressives alone, such as being a gun owner and an Army veteran. On a larger, national scale, Jones finds Walz to be a compelling figure for the future of America on a national stage, representing a Midwestern identity: “I appreciate his values.”
Aside from Jones, other voters find the choice of Walz on the Harris ticket to be compelling for broader reasons. Zach Pan ‘27, Treasurer of Yale College Democrats, along with many other supporters of the Harris campaign are enthusiastic about the narrative that Walz brings to national politics in the Democratic Party. “He has a no-nonsense, common sense style of approaching governing that’s needed in our politics,” said Pan.
Despite disagreement on whether Walz will be of much consequence for the persuasion of voters, Pan expressed confidence: “When you elect a leader, the story matters. Walz coached a high school football team in a small town. And you combine that with a legacy of policy successes as Minnesota Governor, and that’s a pretty potent formula for winning votes: not only being able to point to a record, but also being able to be someone who’s likable, genuine and kind.”
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“Both candidates did a great job in picking someone that would back them 100 percent,” said Hilda Barragan-Reyes ‘26, chairman of the Yale Tory Party, a conservative-leaning Yale Political Union debate society. Barragan-Reyes agreed to speak to The Politic under the condition that it was noted that her views do not necessarily reflect those of the Yale Tory Party as a whole.
Assessments of the vice presidential candidates vary among conservatives. Barragan-Reyes spoke highly of the American success story that JD Vance YLS ‘13 brings to the Trump ticket and suggested that it may be compelling to some voters: “I’m a huge fan of Hillbilly Elegy…[Vance] is the classic American example of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.”
Vance’s 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, chronicles his experience growing up in Appalachia, confronted with familial and systemic challenges, such as alcoholism, abuse, and poverty. Since Vance graduated from Yale Law School in 2013 and subsequently published his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy has provided a story of social mobility in the face of hardship, and has served as a cornerstone of Vance’s depiction of himself on the campaign trail, both as a Senator and vice presidential candidate.
Despite the compelling individualist and American Dream narrative that some voters believe Vance provides, Barragan-Reyes is skeptical as to whether he will prove to be an asset for the Trump campaign. She suggested that a more moderate or less abrasive figure could have better served the Trump campaign. “Trump is already a controversial figure. JD Vance has said some equally off-putting things on social media and in public…I wouldn’t want to put two explosive people together,” said Barragan-Reyes. While Barragan-Reyes indicated that Vance may be too callous and inflammatory for the Trump campaign, she doesn’t necessarily see Walz presenting the same danger to the Harris campaign. She insinuated that in addition to his moderating character influence, Walz may have a centrist appeal that Vance does not possess: “I don’t see Walz as being an incredibly left-leaning candidate.”
Barragan-Reyes continued, “[Vance] says things that are completely out of whack and makes voting for Trump look more ridiculous. It’s hard for people now, even amongst conservatives, to say with a straight face, ‘I’m voting for Donald Trump,’ and I think JD Vance has been a huge part of that.”
Vance has been the subject of bipartisan criticism for changing his position on Trump; despite his current position of loyalty as Trump’s running mate, Vance has sharply attacked Trump in the past. In a 2016 private message to a colleague, Vance wrote “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”
“The Trump campaign really lost out on their VP pick,” said Barragan-Reyes. “Tim Walz comes off as the fun-loving dad. And again, it’s all about the vibes,” she added, suggesting that Walz would prove to be useful for the Harris campaign in an election where character assessments of candidates may shape its outcome. Barragan-Reyes said, “I think Tim Walz is going to be huge.”
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The electorate’s varying views of the vice presidential candidates raise the question: will the vice presidential candidates play a significant role in influencing the presidential race?
Though many Democrats like Pan are optimistic about what a Harris-Walz ticket will mean for undecided voters, some analysts believe Walz might not be a deciding force for the election. A September 5, 2024 USA Today and Suffolk University poll of likely voters found a 48% favorability rating for Walz, compared to a 37% favorability rating for Vance. Similarly, the poll found that Walz had a 36% unfavorability rating, compared to 49% for Vance. The poll also found that both candidates are approximately equally well-known.
However, the share of respondents who did not express an opinion on the vice presidential candidates is significantly higher than for the top of the tickets. Kalla explained what these results may imply about the influence the vice presidential candidates might have on the race: “The type of people who have an opinion about JD Vance or Tim Walz are the type of people who follow the news and the presidential race pretty closely. They already have a lot of opinions. They are quite partisan and quite set in their ways. Swing undecided voters: they’re the ones who don’t have an opinion of JD Vance or Tim Walz.”
It is true that many decided voters described Walz to be a compelling, warm, likable politician, who is particularly appealing to working class Midwestern Americans. However, it is unclear whether Walz will have the same effect on the undecided portion of the electorate whose votes will ultimately be decisive in this election.
“There’s a reason why HBO made the show Veep, right?” quipped Kalla. “People just don’t really care about the vice president.” In a political climate dominated by daily news cycles, short-term political battles, and partisanship, the nuances of the vice presidential race can appear far-removed from the lives of voters who will ultimately decide this election.
Moreover, Kalla suggested that local political races may be of far more consequence for many voters: “If you have limited time to be worried about politics, to learn about politics, you should be focusing on your school board, you should be focusing on your mayor, you should be focusing on your member of Congress.”
Ultimately, it may be impossible to conclusively determine whether the vice presidential candidates will prove to be consequential for the outcome of the election, though it appears unlikely. The presidency and the occupant of the second-highest executive office in the United States will be in the hands of the voters on November 5th.
As for one of those voters specifically, “I would like [Minnesota] to keep Walz, personally,” Jones said endearingly of the governor of his home state, “But I’m happy that the rest of the country is getting to know him.”