‘He has a proven track record’: behind Tim Walz’s appeal to workers

Vice-presidential picks have little effect on who wins a presidential election, many political scientists say. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s choice as her running mate, could prove the exception to that rule. Not least because of his track record of successfully appealing to working people.

Angela Ferritto, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, voiced confidence that Walz will help the vice-president win in three pivotal states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin: “I strongly believe that Governor Walz will help the ticket. He has a proven track record of accomplishing things for working people.”

Ferritto noted that as Minnesota’s governor, Walz enacted paid sick days, guaranteed more protection to construction workers against wage theft, and gave teachers greater negotiating power “over class sizes so they can give students the attention they need”.

Celinda Lake, a longtime Democratic pollster, said Walz had an underappreciated strength that is political gold. “He gets policies out of the left-right divide and gets people to agree that this is the right thing to do,” she said. “Who’s for large class size? Who’s for poorly paid teachers? Who’s not for letting Mom and Dad have time with their new baby? He has a way of taking ideology out of policies and making them seem like things we can get together on.”

Steve Rosenthal, a political strategist and former political director of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main labor federation, said Walz had another important trait – he is the type of candidate blue-collar workers would be happy to have a beer with. Walz likes to hunt and fish, he was long a union member while a teacher, and his financial disclosure forms show he owns no stocks or bonds.

“What the two parties’ vice-presidential picks say is that both sides recognize the critical nature of winning Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,” Rosenthal said. “I think Walz is a huge addition in those states.”

He explained that people normally focus on who is at the top of the ticket, but “to the extent Harris has someone who can represent her in those three states, he can be a big help. He can camp out in those states. He can walk a picket line and go to union halls. He can be a huge plus.”

While history shows that vice-presidents don’t often move voters to the polls, with Walz things “could be a little different”, said Lake, noting that Harris’s selection of Walz was getting huge attention partly because it was the biggest, early decision of her presidential campaign. “I think Walz definitely helps in terms of the blue wall strategy [of winning Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin]. It’s great to have someone from the midwest on the ticket. His story is great and complements hers.”

On paper, political experts say, Walz should be an alluringly strong running mate because he served in the army national guard for 24 years, was a high school teacher for two decades and coached his football team to a state championship. Moreover, Walz, a 60-year-old father of two, grew up on a farm in a Nebraska town of just 300 people.

Related: The evolution of Tim Walz: from high school teacher to VP nominee

Ever since Walz’s selection was announced, he and Harris have trumpeted his rural roots and decades of public service, while Donald Trump and his campaign have rushed to portray Walz as “ dangerously liberal ” and in other unflattering ways. In recent days, the Harris and Trump campaigns have been rushing to put forward clashing definitions of Walz, and which side prevails in defining him to the nation could have a major effect on how much Walz boosts the Democratic ticket.

“A handful of national polls show that 60% and up of voters say they don’t know enough about Walz to have an opinion,” said Charles Franklin, director of the Milwaukee-based Marquette Law School Poll. “The Republicans are pushing hard to paint him in a negative way. Things are wide open as to whether he will be defined as a Minnesota dad or the socialist governor of Minnesota.”

The Trump campaign’s attacks “are really exploding on him”, Franklin said, adding, “If Walz deals with them effectively, more power to him. If he ends up being swiftboated, just like John Kerry was, that’s not so good.”

JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, has accused Walz of leaving the military early to avoid serving in Iraq, but Walz says he retired from the national guard in 2005 to run for Congress, months before his artillery unit received orders to deploy to Iraq.

Many Democrats voice confidence that Walz will beat back the Trump-Vance attacks and be a boon to the ticket. They point to his superb communications skills – he’s down to earth, clever and humorous, and he came up with the term “weird” to describe and deride Trump and Vance. Many Democrats applaud the policies he ushered in as Minnesota governor, including 12 weeks’ paid family and medical leave, free breakfasts and lunches for public school students, strong protections for reproductive freedom, and free college tuition at public universities for students from families making less than $80,000 a year.

Even though studies have shown that vice-presidential picks usually affect election results by only a small margin, Walz’s addition to the ticket – and his midwestern, pro-worker bona fides – could make a crucial difference in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump won each of those states by less than 1% in 2016.

In June, Emerson College Polling and the Hill did a poll in Minnesota that found that Walz was plus 12 with women, minus nine with men, and plus 11 with 18-to-29-year-olds. Spencer Kimball, director of Boston-based Emerson College Polling said Walz could certainly help Harris attract and motivate younger voters. “Younger voters had moved away from Biden, not necessarily to Trump, maybe to a third party,” Kimball said. “What we’ve seen recently is the youth vote moving toward Harris, and I think Walz helps double down on that. The youth vote is one of the Democratic party’s bases. To get young people excited about the race is a potential gamechanger and can help reset the election map.”

With regard to the three key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Ken Kollman, director of the University of Michigan’s center for political studies, said that there was “a big mother lode” of votes in Detroit and that voter turnout in Philadelphia and Milwaukee was hugely important. “The national election may very well hinge on turnout in those areas,” he said, adding that he didn’t think Walz would make much difference in those three cities.

Related: Tim Walz pick excites hopes of taking US healthcare beyond Obamacare era

Walz could prove important, however, Kollman said, in making overtures to Democrats and blue-collar voters who have gravitated to Trump. “There is a group of Trump supporters who are pretty liberal on issues, which is one of the paradoxes of Trump’s appeal – people who actually rely on or believe in government support and active government intervention in their lives, their industry or their company.”

Kollman said that Walz, because of his rural background and pro-worker record, “might be able to get some of them to break away from Trump. That remains a big question.”

Lake, the pollster, agreed that Walz “can provide an opening” to voters leaning toward Trump, but said that Walz’s personal appeal alone could not win over many Trump-leaning voters. Lake said the “whole ticket has to improve” its efforts to reach them and persuade them.

Ferritto of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO voiced optimism about Walz’s ability to win over Trump voters. “He flipped a congressional district that borders Iowa from red to blue,” she said. “He wouldn’t have been able to accomplish that unless he appealed to blue-collar voters.”

Some, perhaps many, blue-collar Trump supporters will never hear Walz’s or Harris’s message, Ferritto acknowledged, because they are inundated from one side. “But I believe there are blue-collar voters who are willing to listen,” she said. “They want to hear facts. They want to hear about achieving real results. I do believe that Walz can reach those voters.”