CNN —
Tim Walz is as nervous about facing J.D. Vance as he was that Sunday afternoon in August when he warned Kamala Harris in an interview with the vice presidential candidate that she was a “bad debater.” is telling people.
People who have spoken to him say he may be more nervous.
And the pressure is even higher because, for the first time in modern campaign history, Tuesday’s vice presidential debate is likely to be the last high-profile event before Election Day. Many voters say they don’t know enough about Harris yet, so it could be up to Walz to convince them to trust a vice president they barely knew before choosing her. There is.
Speaking to aides and other supporters who have rallied around him in Minnesota, Walz said he has always talked about how worried he is about disappointing Harris, who has been in contact with the governor and governors. Mr. Walz said, according to more than a dozen top campaign staffers and others involved. team. He doesn’t want Donald Trump to win. He doesn’t want Harris to think he made the wrong choice.
He feels genuine disdain and confusion for what he sees as Vance’s abandonment of their common roots and his inversion of many of his positions to suit Trump. According to people who know Mr. Walz, the reason why Mr. Vance criticizes Mr. Vance for saying he doesn’t know many Midwesterners who went to Yale is because he becomes a sharp debater at Yale. It is said that this is an expression of his anxiety that he may have learned something.
And aides insist this is not just about setting expectations.
“He’s a strong person,” said Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has known Walz since he was first elected to Washington in 2006. He didn’t dream of debating as a freshman. ”
Walz is confident in Harris’ vision. But people who have spoken to the governor say they fear he won’t be able to advocate as well as he needs to.
“How are you preparing for the debate?” asked Mr. Walz, a participant in a high-stakes fundraiser, as he stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room of megadonor Alex Soros’ penthouse in Manhattan on Monday. Someone asked:
“As teachers, we are trained to answer questions, and we train our students to answer questions,” Walz said. “That’s not going to happen.”
In long sessions that stretch late into the night and into the weekend, Walz and his team manage the Minnesota governor’s headspace, watch videos of Vance, and conduct mock sessions with a moderator stand-in in which Pete Buttigieg plays the Ohio senator. We have been trying to find a balance between holding events. . (However, the Transportation Secretary won’t be sporting a beard like Harris’ Trump replacement).
Several people told CNN that Tuesday night’s plan would largely be to ignore Vance and go head-to-head with Trump, but it would also target the senator to undecided voters. He said he will be caught between trying to appeal and the always difficult task of satisfying America’s most prestigious audience. One.
If they have their way, Mr. Trump could just as easily be swept up in a storm of anger, jealousy, and resentment as he was when he was prodded by Ms. Harris in the debate. Their goal is for Walz to rely on Vance to do him a favor regarding “Project 2025” and, as Walz put it at another New York fundraiser, to “sell his soul to Donald Trump.”
According to people familiar with the matter, Walz echoed a line that originated as Harris was preparing for the vice presidential debate before Joe Biden resigned: the former president chasing an angry mob with a gallows. There is a possibility that he may try asking Vance what kind of promises he made to Trump to prevent him from doing so. , as Mike Pence experienced on January 6th.
Mr. Walz and his team want to convey common sense outrage to the public, people familiar with the matter said. They worry that Vance will water down the governor’s dad-joke persona and make Walz seem like a fool, a raging bull, or even a crazed liberal defending the next administration. I wonder if that’s the case. Very liberal.
Make people feel “joy and hope”
Traditionally, running mates serve as attack dogs.
During coordinated campaign appearances over the past six weeks, Walz has been more of an emotional support animal for the party — according to people who were with them, which means Harris is energized by his energy and is more than happy to support her choices. Whether he feels vindicated by the reaction of voters (it was she who suggested calling him “Coach” as they prepared for their first joint rally), or whether he felt vindicated by the response of Rope last week. There was a voter who waited 30 minutes to get a fist bump upstairs and walked away yelling to a friend, “That’s it!” It was necessary. ”
“People think he’s a walking permit structure for rural and suburban white male hunters,” said a senior campaign aide. “Yes, I would like to move one or two of them, but it’s something deeper, and God is a walking permission structure for people to feel joy and hope for themselves.”
That seems to be working. At the Human Rights Campaign’s Black Tiger Gala in Washington, his remarks brought many at the expensive table to tears (he boarded a plane in a sweatshirt, then changed into a tuxedo in a convention center bathroom). Or in the stuffy gymnasium of the conveniently named Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where people like former federal employee Ana Gallardo say they love Waltz even if they can’t say why. .
Gallardo paused when I asked him what his favorite thing about the governor was and how excited he was to meet him.
“I really don’t know,” she said. “I’ll listen closer today.”
What Walz emphasizes about Harris and what he is careful about
With 12 years in the House and nearly six years as governor, Walz has more government experience and a deeper track record than many men who have served as president. But he was leaning towards feeling like the guy who just wandered wide-eyed when he saw thousands of people cheering him on and saw his name on the logo.
With various camps vying for leadership among the staff, it was extremely difficult to push this man into the camp that Harris suddenly had to take over. While some in the campaign are working hard to get as many appearances and funds as possible from the unexpectedly high-demand vice presidential candidate, others are wondering why he is a white man in any field. I wonder if they aren’t continuing to focus on the fundamentals needed to appeal to men. The day he was elected, aides were calling the state “Blue Walz.”
This is also reflected in our daily interactions. The governor, who until six weeks ago was one of the most fervently accessible Democratic politicians in the country, essentially pitching himself as a running mate after making several scathing TV appearances, has delivered. There are only a few. There have been very few interviews since he was selected, and all of them have been unremarkable. He does not take questions from reporters and rarely chats off the record on campaign planes. Aides declined even a brief interview request to CNN.
Walz’s aides knew their approach risked making Walz rusty, watching how Vance fencing with reporters during Q&As after a number of incidents. are.
Their hands are tied, multiple sources acknowledged: The vice president’s staff doesn’t want a contrast that emphasizes how little Harris does without scripts.
But Walz reminded his staff that he was not the head football coach during his time at Minnesota. He has served as an assistant coach and defensive coordinator, and his experience is put to use now.
Very deliberately and without being told by Harris or her aides, Walz never asks the crowd to elect him vice president. He never talks about what he does at work. He doesn’t even talk about electing “us” or what a Harris-Waltz administration would look like. He talks about Harris, how important it is to have her in the White House, and how excited he is to see what she does in the job.
“This guy is moving away from his toxicity and back to his old white masculinity,” said one person who has spoken to Walz frequently since he was elected.
For Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, it’s the difference between what he calls the “machito” on the Republican ticket and true masculinity, and it spills over far beyond people who look and sound like Walz. Then he believes.
“Tim Walz is the epitome of a Latino father. He loves his family. He basically loves his family. He has a sense of humor. He’s warm. … He’s supportive. I’m just there to do it, and I take great pride in other people’s successes,” Fontes said. “‘Machito’ – Not very mature. It seems to have something to do with the loud music version of big trucks and Latino men. And there are a lot of people like that out there, don’t get me wrong. But… We can quickly get out of the situation.”
Fontes said the difference was reinforced by the fact that “this person looks like a father who is very proud of his daughter.”
Waltz maintains a relatable demeanor, even as he still seems to be wrapping his head around how much, and maybe even more, his life has changed.
“How have the last six weeks been for you?” he said at the beginning of a speech in Pennsylvania. “That’s pretty weird.”
In a suite on the 36th floor of Manhattan’s InterContinental Hotel, most of the seats were filled with millionaires, and snacks included thick wooden boxes of macadamia nut cookies and brownies stored under a glass dome. , when one of the hosts was on the spot, Waltz deflected. She said she was excited to have the vice president-elect with her.
“That still sounds really weird,” he said, shaking his head.
“I know, but I have to keep saying it,” she said.
Behind the scenes and on the stumps
Behind the scenes, the man hanging out at donut shops and convenience stores could be a hard-nosed politician who has won Republican House seats over the years by running in districts without major media markets of their own.
When Jimmy McCain, son of the late Sen. John McCain, wanted to support Harris, Walz was the first person he contacted, according to people familiar with internal discussions. It was Walz who spoke to Joe Manchin on the phone when the West Virginia senator had requested to speak with Harris as a precondition for his endorsement. (Manchin later said he did not support Harris.)
Walz is also a liaison with former House colleagues and labor leaders, and firefighters union president Ed Kelly and the Harris campaign are optimistic they can gain support soon, according to people who have met with Walz. We even talked about it. Or, some people call digital influencers to thank them for posting about their campaigns.
Walz recently spent part of a weekend replacing the seals on the washer and dryer in the home where he lives while the Governor’s Mansion in St. Paul is being renovated. Upon encountering a marching band on a bus tour in Georgia in August, Walz learned that Harris had played the French horn in high school, and told his aides that what they should really follow was the high school band’s music. I thought about the children and the graduates. He says it’s the group with the best organized infrastructure and email list in the school.
Whatever Mr. Walz does, no one on his staff or Mr. Harris believes he can move the needle much in Tuesday’s debate, especially not by a line or two. More than anything, his inner circle wants him to continue to feel that sense of joy and security during those 90 minutes at CBS Studios in New York.
Former Ohio congressman Tim Ryan, who won praise for his performance in two debates with Vance during his 2022 Senate campaign, gave this advice to Walz’s team without speaking directly to his House colleagues. I told you.
“If I were Tim, I wouldn’t have been intimidated by[Vance]at all,” Ryan told CNN. “Be who you are. Everyone meets you and enjoys who you are. Just be that guy.”
The headline for this article has been updated.
