As much as we criticize Kamala Harris for running a cowardly campaign that keeps her comfortably away from unscripted moments, her handlers know that this is the best way to keep her momentum going as long as possible. In that respect, the campaign is actually being smartly run, even if it is painfully obvious they're trying to hide how weak of a candidate she is. But was picking Tim Walz the first major blunder of her new campaign?
OutKick founder Clay Travis certainly thinks so. "As someone voting for Donald Trump and JD Vance in 2024, as I have told you all, I love the pick of Minnesota governor Tim Walz," Travis said. "He's a disaster. I thought surely Kamala would pick Josh Shapiro, Democrat governor of Pennsylvania. It's a no-brainer."
Travis believes that Harris effectively "kneecapped her campaign by picking a vastly inferior figure as her VP," and there are plenty of reasons to believe he's right. In the past two days, the damaging information about Walz, his political record, his dubious military credentials, and more — all of which will be a liability for the campaign.
Walz was a gift to the Democrat Party base — without a doubt. Picking him was the result of a major cost-benefit analysis that found that appeasing the base would be more important than trying to appeal to the middle with a candidate whom voters perceive as moderate.
While there are reports that Democrats are thrilled with the selection of the leftist Walz as Kamala's running mate, others are disappointed and see the failure to choose Shapiro as being a missed opportunity.
“Not only is he exceptionally smart and capable, but, in my opinion, he brought the math to the path of 270,” Ryan Bizzarro, a Democratic state lawmaker from Erie, Pa., told the Washington Post.
Even pollster Nate Silver argued that picking Shapiro was worth the risk.
"Do I think this is the right pick?" he asked. "No. On Saturday, I made the case that Harris should pick Shapiro. And nothing has really changed since then — although you could argue that Harris’s increasingly strong position in the polls compels greater risk-aversion than when she’d initially appeared to be an underdog against Donald Trump."
Silver continued, "The basic reasons for picking Shapiro are that he increases the likelihood you win Pennsylvania, he has a demonstrated track record of popularity in the most important swing state, he’s obviously an extremely talented politician and perhaps a future standard-bearer for the party himself."
Of course, Silver also said that Walz is "not particularly left-wing himself and will likely read as being pretty moderate to voters, having a fairly centrist track record as a member of Congress," which we all know is patently untrue. Frankly, I'm not even sure if Silver believes that.
Another factor that many are overlooking is that Shapiro appears to have taken himself out of consideration at the 11th hour — which I suspect may be due to the looming recession and its potential to sink the Democratic Party ticket. But it's also true that Shapiro's stock was tanking beforehand, and according to Yamiche Alcindor, the Washington correspondent for NBC News, Kamala's internal polling showed that Shapiro wouldn't be able to deliver Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, Josh Shapiro was seen as not someone who could deliver the state of Pennsylvania based on internal polling. The source also said Harris’ team was unconvinced that any one person could guaranteed any of the battleground states for the ticket.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) August 7, 2024
Would picking Shapiro guarantee Pennsylvania? No. Would it have made it easier? For sure. But if the Harris campaign thought that Shapiro, who won his election in Pennsylvania by double digits, couldn't deliver Pennsylvania, then its internal polling shows that Harris is weaker than public polls are showing right now. This all comes back to my theory that there isn't a lot of confidence that Kamala can close the deal in November, and Walz was the only contender whose political future won't be tarnished by being a part of the Harris ticket.
