Walz Chances For Harris Ticket Revealed

MSNBC data reporter Steve Kornacki suggested on Tuesday that Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota may struggle to make a significant impact in key states as the party’s vice-presidential nominee.

Vice President Kamala Harris selected Walz as her running mate on Tuesday morning, opting not to choose Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. During an appearance on “Ana Cabrera Reports,” Kornacki noted that Walz’s 2022 re-election victory mirrored President Joe Biden’s performance in Minnesota during the 2020 election.

“When you look at what Tim Walz actually pulled off to get elected, to get re-elected in 2022, it’s the Biden model, demographically, regionally,” Kornacki told host Ana Cabrera. “You go county by county, there’s not much variance between how Walz did and how Biden did. Walz ran up huge numbers, look at this, this is the biggest county in the state, Hennepin County, Minneapolis here. Walz ran up huge numbers, Biden ran up huge numbers. Now go into greater Minnesota, let’s take a look at, like, Stearns County here. Look, Walz lost this by 23 points. What did Biden lose it by? 23 points. And this is the kind of county, by the way, in Minnesota and across the Midwest here, that Democrats are hoping Walz will help them with. “Look, let’s go back in time here. Once upon a time, just a dozen years ago, Democrats weren’t winning a county like this, but look, Barack Obama was able to get 43% of the vote here, basically run just over 10 points behind Mitt Romney. Obama was able to do that in a county like Stearns, and he was able to do that in counties like this all over the Midwest: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.”

'You Don't Quite See That': MSNBC Data Guru Delivers Brutal Reality Check To Dems After Walz Pick pic.twitter.com/J020ClHAtw

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 6, 2024

According to the Real Clear Politics polling average from July 22 to Aug. 4, Harris holds a slight 0.2% lead over Trump in a national head-to-head matchup. This lead increases to 0.4% when Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and independent candidates Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are included in the surveys.

“You see that fell off the cliff for Democrats with Clinton, with Biden and there’s Walz, his tally in this county, right between where Biden and Clinton’s was,” Kornacki said. “So, the Walz victory in 2022 looks like what is now a standard Democratic victory in Minnesota: Heavy reliance on the Twin Cities metro area and taking big losses in greater Minnesota. The Democrats’ hope is that he’s going to appeal to the blue-collar areas in these other three states, maybe he will, but when you look at what he’s done in Minnesota, you don’t quite see that.

BOMBSHELL: Tim Walz's superior officer in the National Guard tells CNN that Walz knew he was going to be deployed to Iraq six months before he decided to retire. He also says Walz promised he would deploy and went back on his word and abandoned his men.pic.twitter.com/6Vpw9KQ0Vl

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 10, 2024