What Tim Walz Brings to the Democratic Ticket

When Kamala Harris tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate today, the move was welcomed in many quarters of the Democratic Party because of his progressive credentials and his profile as the prototypical do-no-harm running mate. He is a vice presidential pick who provides regional balance — he’s expected to serve as the ticket’s Blue Wall whisperer — without alienating any of the party’s key interest groups or ideological wings.

As the governor of a Midwestern state that hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate in over a half-century, Walz might not offer the same swing state strategic value as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro or Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, two of the veep prospects Harris bypassed. But his profile is marked by one largely overlooked trait that could be of great value in November.

Walz is a product of the so-called Pivot Counties, a collection of roughly 200 counties across the nation that voted twice for Barack Obama before flipping to Donald Trump in 2016. More than 80 of these places are clustered in just four states: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. They tend to be whiter, less affluent, less educated and smaller in population than the U.S. average. The counties tend to be rural or small-town oriented — precisely the kinds of places where Democrats have been hemorrhaging votes in recent decades.

The southern Minnesota House district Walz represented in Congress for six terms is teeming with these counties — eight of them in all, including his home county. The political skills and style he honed in that crucible are likely to prove invaluable to the ticket.

Why? Walz learned not only how to win as a Democrat in a conservative-minded area — his initial 2006 victory was one of the biggest House upsets that year — but how to defend and sell progressive policies to skeptical white working class voters. Walz managed to survive the 2010 Republican landslide that buried most other similarly situated Democrats, and withstood the undertow from Trump’s runaway 15-point victory over Hillary Clinton in southern Minnesota. When he decided to run for governor in 2018, Walz was the last non-Twin Cities metro Democrat standing in the state congressional delegation. His district flipped to the Republican Party immediately after he left.

There are limits, of course, to what a progressive Minnesota governor can do to help deliver industrial states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for Harris. He can’t create the energy and enthusiasm that will be necessary to amp up big city turnout or reproduce Joe Biden’s huge suburban margins — that will be up to Harris. Instead, his value will be in tamping down rural Republican margins in competitive states, projecting an image at odds with how many perceive the national Democratic Party and messaging on progressive policies. His ability to speak to voters who have otherwise tuned out the party could make him especially effective on the attack against Trump.

If Walz is even moderately successful in taking on the GOP ticket in non-metropolitan areas, he will be doing a great service for Harris. It’s a page from the Obama playbook — shaving down the percentages in landslide Republican areas — and it was part of the victorious Democratic model in 2020, when Biden made modest advances over Clinton’s performance in rural America.

Walz could be especially useful in neighboring Wisconsin, which is home to 23 pivot counties, and Michigan, which is home to 12. Pennsylvania has just three pivot counties — Erie, Luzerne and Northampton — but they are especially relevant. Each casts well over 100,000 votes and two of them ditched Trump for Biden in 2020.

Harris’ ability to reach these kinds of voters is still in question, largely because she’s never really had to. Not in her one-party home state of California (which has no pivot counties) and not in 2020, when Biden largely handled the blue-collar portfolio. As vice president, Harris has spent much of her time feeding the party base.

Biden was able to win back 25 of the 206 pivot counties in 2020, so these voters are not completely out of reach for Democrats. Walz can be of great assistance with that mission.