With Tim Walz, Kamala Harris Chose Joy
With one decision, Kamala Harris has singlehandedly brought the joy back to politics.
On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her VP running mate. The Harris campaign promptly raised $36 million in 24 hours and has since held three massive rallies, the first in Philadelphia on Tuesday to a packed crowd of 14,000, then on Wednesday in Eau Claire, Wisconsin to 12,000 supporters, and in Detroit, Michigan to the cheers of 15,000.
The pick of Walz has resulted in a surge of new energy and enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket. With Harris now barnstorming the swing states with Walz this week, she is poised to own the news cycle once again.
By all accounts, in a matter of just two weeks, Harris has turned Democratic presidential fortunes completely around. She is now leading Trump by 2.1% nationwide according to FiveThirtyEight.
Still, many can’t help but criticize Harris’s selection of Walz, particularly that she chose him over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
At best, some of these critics are suggesting Harris made a strategic error by not picking the popular governor of a crucial swing state. At worst, they claim the Vice President, who is married to a Jewish man, is somehow anti-semitic for passing up Shapiro.
This analysis, of course, unnecessarily injects controversy and negativity, but it also ignores some basic reporting about Harris’s selection of Walz.
Per Politico, during Walz’s final meeting with Harris on Sunday:
His message to Kamala Harris and her vetting team was one of deference.
“I’m at the end of my career. This is not about me. This is about America’s working families,” Walz told Harris and the vetting team…
That low ego, dutiful approach is exactly what Harris wanted to hear.
According to The Hill, Walz’s approach to the vice presidency was at direct odds with the model of veep that Shapiro expressed in his meeting with Harris. Per CNN’s Jamie Gangel, Shapiro, unlike Walz, wanted his Vice Presidency to be a “two for the price of one” partnership with Harris. This was not the vibe Harris was going for.
Additionally, while some have tried to suggest the Walz pick was made from a position of weakness, actually, according to The New York Times, it was quite the contrary:
Polls had been conducted. Focus groups had been commissioned. Records reviewed. And the upshot, Ms. Harris was told, was this: She could win the White House with any of the three finalists by her side. [...]
For Ms. Harris, it was an instinctive reaction to an instant connection rather than a data-driven exercise that many had expected would elevate Mr. Shapiro, the popular governor of Pennsylvania, the nation’s most important battleground state.
So, ultimately:
“She wanted someone who understood the role, someone she had a connection with and someone who brought contrast to the ticket,” said Cedric Richmond, a former White House adviser who was part of Ms. Harris’s selection team.
After watching Tuesday night’s rally in Philadelphia, as well as clips of the rallies on Wednesday and learning more about Walz’s biography, another way to put Harris’s decision-making here is that, with the Walz pick, she didn’t act out of fear, nor malice, nor weakness.
Rather, she simply chose joy.
In today’s piece, I’ll explore all the ways in which Tim Walz brings joy to the Harris ticket and why his biography, while not obviously an electoral benefit, actually makes Harris’s choice of Walz a smarter move than many give her credit for.
“Joyful Warriors”
Since Kamala Harris launched her campaign for President just over two weeks ago, “joy” is as good a word as any to describe how Democrats have reacted, whether it’s been the surge in grassroots organizing behind Harris, the record-breaking fundraising, or the near unanimity with which Democrats rallied behind Harris as the nominee.
So when Harris introduced Tim Walz as her running mate to a cheering and packed crowd in Philadelphia on Tuesday, it resonated with so many when he turned to Harris early in his speech, thanked her not only for the trust she placed in him, but:
“Maybe more so, thank you for bringing back the joy.”
As you can see in the clip below, the joy is palpable, not just between Harris and Walz, but also among the crowd.
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Walz’s acknowledgment of Harris hits because it rings so true.
And as Kamala Harris and Tim Walz continued their rally tour west across the swing states on Wednesday, they continued that theme, with Walz expressing anger at Republicans for “trying to steal the joy from this country.”
By contrast, Walz made clear, as President, Kamala Harris
“will bring the joy. She emanates the joy.”
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In fact, Kamala Harris is now referring to herself and Walz as “joyful warriors.”
A standard quality in a Vice Presidential pick is a stronger shot at winning a crucial state. But an even better one is a partnership that not only resonates with the American people, but becomes an authentic political identity. The Harris/Walz joy feels genuine and authentic but is also perfectly at odds with the anger, division, and grievance of Trump/Vance.
JD Vance on the trail in Wisconsin on Wednesday, was even asked by a reporter:
“What makes you happy? What makes you smile?”
But he couldn’t even answer that softball question.
And here’s the thing: “joyful warrior” is not a new phrase for Harris. This is how she’s always referred to herself, as in this old clip, in which she says:
“Never let anyone take your joy away from you. I call myself a joyful warrior.”
And so shouldn’t we take her at her word that in Tim Walz, she saw a kindred spirit? Someone whom she could credibly partner with as her fellow joyful warrior?
And isn’t there plenty of evidence in Walz’s career not just that he would join her as a joyful warrior in this campaign, but that he would inspire joy across the Democratic base of voters, as this new presidential ticket has clearly done?
Walz’s Legislative Record
In the 2022 midterm elections, Governor Walz won re-election in Minnesota by almost eight percent in what was supposed to be a Republican year. Walz brought with him not just the reelection of a Democratic majority in the state House of Representatives, but a flip of the state Senate to the Democrats by one vote, which became known as the “Minnesota Senate miracle.”
But what Walz then proceeded to do with that slim Democratic trifecta was the true miracle.
Talk about joyous:
His track record of legislative accomplishments in the past 18 months is nothing less than a Democratic policy wishlist, including, as ABC News reports:
Walz signed legislation codifying abortion rights, repealing essentially all the state's restrictions and adding protections for patients who travel from states where abortion is restricted…Among the restrictions eliminated were a 24-hour waiting period and parental consent requirements.
Walz and his fellow Democrats also enacted new protections for the rights of LGBTQ+ people from Minnesota and other states to receive gender-affirming health care, specifically including families coming from elsewhere for treatment for trans children. The state also banned so-called conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children and vulnerable adults.
Under Walz's watch, Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize recreational marijuana for adults.
Walz signed legislation to make it easier to vote in Minnesota, where it was already pretty simple, and shoring up state-level protections for voting rights that federal courts had eroded. One major change was restoring the rights of convicted felons to vote as soon as they get out of prison…
Minnesota’s first lady, Gwen Walz, used her position to back up his advocacy of gun safety measures, including legislation her husband signed in 2023 to require universal background checks for gun transfers and a “red flag” law to let authorities temporarily take guns from people ruled a risk to themselves or others.
Two of his proudest accomplishments are tax credits for families with children that were aimed at slashing childhood poverty and free school meals for all kids regardless of family income. Democrats also enacted a paid family and medical leave program that has been held up as a potential model for federal legislation.
While, as some critics have noted, Walz’s progressive legislative record would seem to play into Trump’s hands, giving him ammunition to attack Walz as a wild-eyed liberal.
But if you take a look at this news report about Walz’s signing of the bill providing free breakfast and lunch to all children in public schools, you see the unique way Walz presents progressive policy.
As the reporter described it:
“It was a joyful day of high fives and hugs.”
Yes, with the pick of Walz, Harris is daring Trump: Go ahead, run against joy.
Walz’s IVF Journey
There are plenty of examples in Tim Walz’s own life and career that suggested he would be that partner in joy for Harris.
For one, we learned this week about Walz’s own IVF journey, even as the Republican Party continues to wage war on reproductive freedom, with JD Vance having voted to block consideration of The Right To IVF Act in the U.S. Senate.
For seven years, Walz and his wife Gwen struggled to conceive through infertility treatments until their first child was born in 2001.
When the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that discarding embryos is akin to murder, essentially outlawing IVF, Governor Walz spoke out on the issue:
Harris has been the Biden administration’s lead messenger on the fight for abortion rights ever since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe V. Wade. She has understood that the fight for reproductive freedom would be a central issue for Democrats this election, so among her VP finalists, who better than Walz, who not only has a personal story to tell about the importance of IVF but a deeply joyous one.
As he recounted during Tuesday’s Philadelphia rally, IVF is personal to him, and:
“It wasn’t by chance that when we welcomed our daughter into the world, we named her Hope.”
‘Coach Walz’ For Vice President
Tim Walz attributes his upset win in a swing district House race in 2006 largely to having helped coach Mankato West High School to a state football championship in 1999.
But the heartwarming part isn’t just Walz’s underdog story, both as the coach of a football team that started their winning season 2-4, or as a high school teacher who unseated a 6-term Republican House member. It’s what he did with the privilege he understood he had as a high school football coach.
When he was asked to be the faculty advisor for the high school’s first gay/straight alliance, as The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported:
Tim Walz was an enlisted soldier in the Minnesota National Guard in 1999 and defensive coordinator of the Mankato West High School football team. A student at the school, where Walz taught geography, wanted to start a gay-straight alliance.
"It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married," Walz said. In other words, he would be a symbol that disparate worlds could coexist peacefully.
Coach Walz told it in his own words to Now This:
It was a key part of Walz’s biography that Kamala Harris told the audience from the stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday as she introduced him as her running mate, saying:
“Tim knew the signal that it would send to have a football coach get involved. So he signed up to be the group’s faculty advisor. And as students have said, he made the school a safe place for everybody.”
This tweet says it all:
But Harris choosing a former high school football coach for her ticket is also a shrewd political move. While pundits wince at the political clout Harris passed on by not choosing the governor of Pennsylvania as her running mate, they ignore the cultural clout a high school coach brings the ticket.
Per Politico, quoting Wisconsin-based conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes:
“Wisconsinites look at [Walz] and say, ‘I know that guy,’” Sykes said. “He doesn’t come off as scary. He doesn’t speak like a coastal elite. If there’s anywhere where he really has an impact on the race, electorally, it’s going to be in places like western Wisconsin.”
This belief was shared by an attendee at Wednesday’s Wisconsin campaign stop:
At the rally on Wednesday, that’s exactly what Jan Porath, a 50-year-old from Eau Claire, said she sees in Walz.
“I think my neighbors can see themselves in him. He’s a school teacher, a football coach, that’s relatable here,” said Porath, who said the event was her first political rally.
As The New York Times reporter covering the Philadelphia rally, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, observed:
If Ms. Harris’s campaign started out as “Veep,” it has now taken a detour to “Ted Lasso,” by way of “Friday Night Lights.”
So to respond to those who cynically continue to question Harris’s pick of Walz, three things are now quite clear that make Walz such a strong pick.
One, relative to Josh Shapiro, as Tim Miller put it, “Tim Walz was a jolly ‘put me in coach’ type with a more complementary vibe/bio.”
Two, as anyone can see from their rallies, Kamala Harris has found her fellow “joyful warrior,” not just for three months of campaigning, but ideally for 8 years of governing as well.
And three, no other veep candidate so perfectly complements Harris to create such sharp contrast with the Republican ticket, particularly the “weird” anger and grievance that drive the Trump/Vance campaign.
Because, ultimately, as Chris Hayes said on MSNBC Tuesday night, after watching the joy on display at their Philadelphia rally:
“If you had to choose which side you’d rather be on, I think you’d choose the side of joy and energy and enthusiasm, rather than anger, bitterness and division.”
I choose joy. Thank you, Vice president Harris and Governor Walz, for giving me that choice. Thank you, President Biden, for making that choice possible.
VP Harris made the correct choice for her running mate because Coach Walz has that 'Every Man' vibe that most people can relate to and there is already a very comfortable chemistry that has developed between the two of them. Kamala Harris has demonstrated time and again that she has very good judgment, so we should not be at all surprised that she has made another wise decision, unlike someone who has declared bankruptcy 6 times, displaying very poor judgment and a callous disregard for the consequences to other people.