Morning Jolt: Kamala Harris’s First Big Mistake

WITH NOAH ROTHMAN

August 07 2024

This is Noah Rothman filling in for Jim Geraghty.

On the menu today: Kamala Harris takes what may be the biggest opportunity in the modern history of American presidential politics and blows it.

Harris's Veep Pick Error

In selecting Minnesota governor Tim Walz to join her on the presidential ticket in November, Harris has declined to make the most of the impossibly rare chance to skip over the fractious and embittering dynamic that typifies primary elections. By selecting Walz over Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, the Harris campaign has signaled that the lady is not for triangulating. Rather than appealing to the middle of the electorate, this will be an election in which both parties try to maximize turnout among their respective partisans.

Partisan Democrats insist that Harris's pick was the path of least resistance. Walz is inoffensive to every faction of the Democratic Party — progressives, youth voters, minority voters, squishy moderates, and low-information voters whose political preferences are ...

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