In Walz, Harris Sees a Battleground Strategy Dressed in Carhartt

In selecting Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota arsenic her moving mate, Vice President Kamala Harris has picked a spouse who is galore things she is not: a merchandise of small-town America. A national subordinate known to run successful a T-shirt and camo hat. A achromatic feline who exudes Midwestern dada energy.

And, possibly astir important, a person who has had to trust connected the enactment of independent, oregon adjacent Republican, voters to triumph elections.

Their pairing is somewhat predictable; a cardinal regularisation of vice-presidential enactment is to conception the summons with governmental equilibrium successful mind. But it is besides a connection astir what galore Democrats judge is 1 of Ms. Harris’s cardinal vulnerabilities: that she is perceived arsenic excessively liberal, putting adjacent the tiny portion of rural, working-class and mean voters that she needs crossed Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan retired of her reach.

Ms. Harris, a California Democrat, has ne'er won an predetermination arsenic a solo campaigner extracurricular the wide bastion of California, wherever races often hinge not connected winning plaything voters but connected successfully navigating intraparty fights. That has near her with constricted acquisition acquiring a governmental accomplishment Mr. Walz honed implicit his astir 2 decades successful politics: talking to conservatives.

The large imagination of Ms. Harris’s prime is that Mr. Walz’s marque of affable taste authorities tin assistance broaden her entreaty and triumph backmost immoderate of the voters who person been fleeing the enactment for years.

In different words, Democrats anticipation that “Brat summer,” the lime green, pop-culture meme for Ms. Harris’s campaign, tin construe into the benignant of brat summertime that evokes a staple of Midwest barbecues.