Trump, Harris campaigns race to define Tim Walz

The Kamala Harris and Donald Trump presidential campaigns on Tuesday raced to push out dueling portraits of Harris’ newly announced Democratic running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

To hear the Harris campaign tell it, Walz is a relatable moderate. According to Trump’s operation, he’s a radical leftist.

What neither campaign disputes is that Walz is a relative unknown on the national stage. In a campaign that is playing out on a turbocharged timeline, both camps have a narrow window to shape how voters view Harris’ running mate.

According to an NPR/Marist poll released Tuesday morning, 70% of registered voters had either never heard of Walz or had no clear opinion of him. Among those who did have an opinion of Walz, 17% were favorable and 12% were unfavorable, the survey found.

Harris praised Walz’s character and his working-class background in her rollout, describing him as a champion for average Americans who has a track record of success.

“One of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle class families run deep,” Harris said in a social media post Tuesday morning. “It’s personal.”

Walz’s brand-new bio on the Harris campaign’s website refers to “family” or “families” eight times and highlights his life as a National Guardsman, high school teacher and football coach before he entered politics.

The bio describes Walz in ways that, at times, make him sound like a traditional Republican. He won a seat in Congress in a conservative-leaning district by “representing the needs of farmers and rural America,” it says, before touting his support for the Second Amendment and his gubernatorial record of “putting more cops on the street.”

It also notes his efforts to enshrine abortion rights in Minnesota after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Walz’s triumph in the Harris veepstakes quickly won the approval of labor unions and some young activists who had been pulling for him.

“I’m hearing from a lot of young voters who are really excited. A month ago they could barely imagine voting,” New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer wrote on X.

The Trump campaign and its Republican allies, meanwhile, are trying to frame Walz’s selection as a capitulation to the Democratic Party’s far-left flank.

“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Tuesday morning.

“Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” Leavitt said. “Just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California…