The Fight Over Tim Walz’s Midwestern Appeal

Now that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has skyrocketed into the public eye after being named Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, voters have been introduced to his plainspoken, Midwestern communication style.

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As former President Barack Obama wrote this week in his statement regarding Walz, “Tim’s signature is his ability to talk like a human being.”

Walz’s manner of speaking has already become apparent in his first days as a vice presidential contender and candidate. Walz’s jabs and jokes have gone viral and drawn attention from voters and the media, from Walz originating Democrats’ new strategy to call the GOP candidates “weird” to his reference in his very first appearance with Harris to a lewd Internet rumor about Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate.

Political strategists and experts say Walz’s style could be an asset to the Harris campaign. “The vice presidential nominees often take on the the role of attack dog, and the danger there is they end up looking nasty, but if you can do it with a smile and a wink and with some humor, you can convey that message without it necessarily backfiring on you,” says Travis Ridout, political scientist at Washington State University and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project. “That’s the Midwesternism that will allow him not to sound nasty.”

George Washington University Professor David Karpf agrees: “Two weeks ago, delivering that line about Donald Trump and J.D. Vance just being plain weird wouldn’t resonate, but because the ‘Midwestern dad governor’ said that, he can deliver that line and have it land really well.”

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The contrast between Walz and Harris, who is from California and spent her early career in San Francisco, also lends stylistic balance to the ticket. Born in the small town of West Point, Nebraska, Walz’s roots run deep in rural America. “Where I grew up, community was a way of life. My high school class was 24 people. I was related to half of them,” Walz said in a video posted on social media to announce he was running with Harris. After high school, Walz spent 24 years in the Army National Guard, before moving to Mankato, Minnesota, where he worked as a high school social studies teacher and football coach until winning his first congressional election in 2006.

“The question is do people identify him as a Midwesterner when they see him and hear him? And the answer is yes,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, professor of communication and the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. “That gives him credibility inside the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and rural Pennsylvania.”

The Trump campaign has already begun trying to separate Walz from his Midwestern identity, instead tying him to a “West Coast” liberalism like the kind they argue Harris represents. On Aug. 6, the Trump-Vance campaign released a statement about “Radical Leftist” Walz as Harris’ running mate, calling him a “West Coast wannabe.”

“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate – Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” Trump’s campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt wrote. “Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide.”

Vance has echoed this rhetoric, telling reporters in Philadelphia on Tuesday that Harris has “chosen a running mate who will be a San Francisco-style liberal.”

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A Harris campaign official argues this comparison is strained, noting San Francisco is “a city [Walz] has spent virtually no time in and visited for the first time last month.” The official also points out that Vance lived in San Francisco and began his career there.

The Trump-Vance campaign did not answer TIME’s request for comment.

Walz and Vance in particular will battle over the coming weeks to establish themselves as the representation of the Midwest and to help their respective presidential candidates win over those crucial votes. Vance grew up in Rust Belt Ohio and became famous after the publication of his memoir Hillbilly Elegy in 2016. 

At the Republican National Convention in July, Vance used his first speech as Trump’s running mate to cast himself as a fighter for the working class. Throughout his speech, he claimed that he would work to elevate the interests of blue-collar voters, repeatedly naming Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. “This moment is not about me,” Vance said. “It’s about the auto worker in Michigan, wondering why out-of-touch politicians are destroying their jobs.”

Now, as the Trump campaign attempts to paint Walz as a California liberal, Walz has begun highlighting Vance’s connections to Silicon Valley and Yale University to claim he’s the one out of touch with many Americans. When the campaign heats up, voters will take a gimlet-eyed look towards everything from finances to policies to upbringing to speaking style in order to, according to Jamieson, “certify a difference between Vance and Walz on whether they can still identify with the people they grew up with.”