Philadelphia – Minnesota governor Tim Walz kicked off his onstage remarks in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening with a sly crack at the current guy in the White House.
"Thank you for bringing back the joy!" Walz said to his new running mate in a speech that burnished his own Midwestern roots, hit Trump and Vance on policy and personality, and made clear he's in it to win Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes. By "bringing back the joy," Walz means giving voters who were apathetic about 81-year-old Joe Biden a reason to actually turn out on Election Day. "We'll sleep when we're dead!"
The hope for Pennsylvania Democrats is that Walz's Midwestern roots and relatable background as a football coach, social-studies teacher, and military veteran will help neutralize Harris's West Coast liberalism in this Rust Belt state that's likely to be decided by just tens of thousands of votes. As Chester County Democratic Party chairwoman Charlotte Valyo put it, he's "everybody's dad, coach, teacher, governor."
The hope for Republicans is that they can break through the media noise and define Walz as an ultra-progressive chief executive who, like "San Francisco" Harris, is "dangerously liberal" and out of touch with middle-of-the-road Americans. They also hope to neutralize his military bona fides by pointing out that he left the National Guard shortly before his unit deployed to Iraq, drawing the (on the record) ire of his fellow Minnesota guardsmen in a 2018 Facebook post.
Overall, Republicans believe they'll have an easier time defining Walz in the Keystone State than they would have had Harris defied her left flank and tapped Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate. While pundits insist that Harris will benefit from Walz's Midwestern moderate vibes, unlike Shapiro, Walz governed as a down-the-line progressive once he moved into the governor's mansion in Minnesota.
"Governor Shapiro has his detractors in the Democratic Party, and unfortunately their grievance is loud and clear. And instead of looking at the good things Governor Shapiro has done, they tend to focus on negative things," said John Merchlinsky, the Democratic chairman in "crimson red" Northumberland County.
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