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Does the Harris Campaign Regret Picking Walz Over Shapiro?

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  September 06, 2024 10:00 AM

While Vice President Kamala Harris may still enjoy an edge over former and potentially future President Donald Trump, it's almost certainly not where she needs or wants to be. It'll especially be interesting to see how she's doing in the polls after next Tuesday's debate against Trump. Two weeks after her acceptance speech at the DNC, the odds are going more so in Trump's favor. Another issue coinciding with the polls is how much, if any, benefit her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) may have provided. Should she have gone with Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), a pick who at one point seemed all but certain?

When President Joe Biden was on the ticket, there were plenty of states not normally in play that looked like they could be, including Walz's state of Minnesota. This comes despite how the state has voted for the Democratic nominee every year since 1972. That being said, in late June, before Biden disastrous June 27 debate performance against Trump, Walz still acknowledged that "this is always going to be a hard race" and "it’s going to be close."

Harris' chances do look better than Biden's chances against Trump, at least for now. When it comes to Minnesota, The Cook Political Report shifted the state back to the "Likely Democratic" category last week. 

That being said, the campaign still feels the need to go to Minnesota, as Nick Arama covered at our sister site of RedState. 

It's not just the need to campaign in Walz's own state. Recently, Matt also highlighted how Harris didn't get a boost in Minnesota. The KSTP poll has her with a lead of just 48-43 percent over Trump. Harris has gone down, while Trump has gone up in his support.

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The idea that the Harris campaign may regret picking Walz over Shapiro, which Arama addressed in another piece, comes from Nate Silver and is backed up by Jewish Insider's Josh Kraushaar.

Matt included such posts as well in his piece from Thursday covering how the polls show bad news for Harris. 

Silver's points are certainly interesting, including the idea about enthusiasm. When Biden was in the race, Republicans were the more enthusiastic ones about voting. Democrats were always going to be enthusiastic about someone other Biden. In Wednesday's VIP, we covered how recent polls from Michigan show that the race in one of the key battleground states is tightening up.

Such a piece mentioned a Tuesday post from Silver, who warned about how "there just hasn't been much positive state polling data entering the system for Harris lately."

On Thursday, two polls came out showing Harris with a +5 lead in Michigan--from CNN and YouGov for The Times. Another poll, however, from Patriot Polling, showed Harris and Trump tied at 48 percent each in Michigan. 

Silver's Thursday bulletin has Harris with a +2 lead over Trump in Michigan and just a +0.7 lead in Pennsylvania. The polls are going up in Trump's favor in both states over the past week and the past month. 

RealClearPolling shows Harris with a lead of +1.1 over Trump in Michigan, though those more recent polls have not been included, while the race is tied in Pennsylvania. 

Meanwhile, 538 on Friday morning has Harris withjust a lead of +0.7 over Trump in Pennsylvania while she has lead of +2.0 over Trump in Michigan, with the polls from CNN and Patriot Polling included. 

Harris not doing as well in Pennsylvania as she could be is particularly embarrassing, given that the numbers could be different if she picked the popular enough governor of the commonwealth as her running mate. 

Shapiro posted a message on Thursday night, accurately pointing out that "Pennsylvania is the ultimate swing state. It's tough to compete here, and it's tough to win here." Perhaps it would be a little bit less so for Democrats if he was on the ticket, though. 

Michigan is also relevant. Not only are Minnesota and Michigan both in the Midwest, but the Biden-Harris ticket and now the Harris-Walz ticket, as well as Democrats as a party, have found themselves in disarray catering to the anti-Israel base since last year's October 7 attack. In Dearborn, activists have been caught on video literally chanting "death to America" and "death to Israel."

When Harris picked Walz over Shapiro last month, there were reports that Shapiro didn't have the best interview and was unsure about leaving Pennsylvania as governor after he had just been handily elected in 2022. Be that as it may, it can't be ignored that Shapiro is Jewish and there were concerns he wasn't picked due to antisemitism in the party. In the days before Harris made her announcement, so-called progressives in the party pushed back against the idea of her picking Shapiro.

In the days before it looked like he was going to be announced as Harris' running mate, Shapiro tried to walk back his support for Israel. More recently, he also failed to properly call out Biden's shameful comments at the first night of the DNC when asked about them by Kraushaar, as we also covered at the time. As part of his improvised remarks at the DNC, Biden claimed that pro-Hamas protesters out in Chicago "have a point."

In stark contrast to a Jewish running mate is Walz, including and especially when it comes to the tragic news from late last Saturday night that six people taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 were murdered. Among them was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American citizen. 

When asked on Sunday a direct question from a reporter, specifically "what's your reaction to the 6 hostages being found dead in Gaza," Walz listened to her ask the question, and then allowed himself to be whisked away by staff as he shouted out "thanks everybody!"'

His X account offered a reaction that evening, but people weren't buying it. There were over 5,000 replies, many of them reminding Walz that he had ignored such a direct question. 

Then, on Thursday, as Arama covered in another article for RedState, Walz spoke to WCMU Public Radio in an interview during which condemned the actions of October 7 and reiterated Israel's right to defend herself, though he still threw in a "but" in the same sentence.

"Well, I think first and foremost what we saw on October 7th was a horrific act of violence against the people of Israel. They have certainly, and the vice president said it, I've said it, have the right to defend themselves and the United States will always stand by that, but we can't allow what's happened in Gaza to happen," Walz claimed. "The Palestinian people have every right to life and liberty themselves. We need to continue, I think to put the leverage on to make sure we move towards a two state solution. I think we're at a critical point right now," he added, as he continued to speak about "moving towards a sustainable two state solution."

He also praised the pro-Hamas agitators in Michigan, adding "I think those folks who are speaking out loudly in Michigan are speaking out for all the right reasons. It's a humanitarian crisis. It can't stand the way it is."

Further, let's not forget that Walz has connections to a pro-Hitler, anti-Israel imam, despite how the campaign tried to claim otherwise. 

Even still, it's not enough for the far-left part of the Democratic base that includes anti-Israel and even pro-Hamas with the "Abandon Harris" effort that came about after the DNC to replace "Abandon Biden" over what support the Biden-Harris administration has dared to show our ally in the Middle East.