Tim Walz has confided in those close to him that he is as nervous about facing JD Vance as he was on a Sunday afternoon in August, when he warned Kamala Harris, during her interview as a potential running mate, that she was a bad debater. The pressure is even greater considering that, for the first time in modern campaign history, Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate will likely be the last major event before Election Day.
With many voters still saying they don’t know enough about Harris, it may be up to Walz to help convince them to trust a vice president he himself barely knew before being chosen by her. Talking to aides who have gathered around him in Minnesota and other supporters, Walz constantly returns to his concern about disappointing Harris, according to about a dozen senior campaign officials and others who have been in contact with the governor. and your team.
He doesn’t want Donald Trump to win. He doesn’t want Harris to think he made the wrong choice. He feels genuine contempt and confusion at what he sees as Vance’s abandonment of his common roots, and for having changed so many of his positions to align with Trump. His taunts of Vance, saying he didn’t know many Midwesterners who went to Yale, are a glimpse of his anxiety that his opponent learned to be a keen debater there, according to people who know Walz.
“He’s a strong person,” said Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has known Walz since they were both first elected to Washington in 2006. “He’s just not the lawyer-debater type. It’s not like he was dreaming about debates when he was in first grade.”
Walz is confident in Harris’ vision. But the governor fears he won’t be able to make his case as well as he needs to, according to people who have spoken with him.
“How is the preparation for the debate going?” one person at an exclusive high-dollar fundraising event asked Walz as he stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows at mega-donor Alex Soros’ Manhattan penthouse on Monday. “As teachers, we are trained to answer the question, and we train our students to answer the questions,” the person recalled Walz saying. “That’s not how this works.”
In long sessions that have stretched into late nights and weekends, Walz and his team have balanced managing the Minnesota governor’s mental state, watching videos of Vance and holding mock sessions with substitute moderators, with Pete Buttigieg playing the Ohio senator.
The plan for Tuesday night, several people involved told CNN will largely ignore Vance and go straight against Trump — but also pressure the senator between his attempts to appeal to undecided voters and the ever-tricky task of satisfying America’s most prominent viewer.
Walz and his team want common-sense outrage to shine through, according to multiple interlocutors with access to the Democratic campaign. His concern is that Vance will shatter the governor’s family man persona and make Walz look like an idiot or a raging bull, or even a misfit liberal defending another misfit liberal.
Over the past six weeks of calibrated campaign appearances, Walz has been more of an emotional support for her party — whether it’s Harris feeling buoyed by his energy and validated by voters’ reactions to her pick (she was the one who suggested calling him ‘Coach’). as they prepared for their first joint rally) or the voter who waited half an hour in line last week for a fist bump and left shouting to a friend, “That’s all I needed.”
“People assume he is a figure who gives rural, suburban and white hunters permission to be themselves,” said a senior campaign official. “Yes, for the one or two points that we want to move. But it goes much deeper than that: He gives people permission to feel joyful and hopeful.”
This seems to be working: whether at the Human Rights Campaign gala dinner in Washington, where his comments drew tears from many at the high-priced tables (he changed into his tuxedo in the convention center bathroom after flying in a sweatshirt) or in the stuffy gymnasium of the conveniently named Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where people like Ana Gallardo, a retired former federal government employee, said they loved Walz even though they couldn’t say why.
Walz very deliberately – and without being instructed by Harris or her inner circle – never asks a crowd to elect him vice president. He never talks about what he would do in office. He doesn’t even talk about electing ‘us’ or what a Harris-Walz administration would look like. He talks about Harris, how important it is to get her to the White House, and how excited he is to see what she does in office.
“The guy is reclaiming old white male masculinity away from toxicity,” said one person who has spoken frequently with Walz since he was cast.
For Adrian Fontes, the Democratic secretary of state in Arizona, that’s the difference between what he calls the ‘machito’ of the Republican ticket and the true male icon, in a way he believes will resonate far beyond people who look like they sound like Walz.
“Tim Walz embodies the Latino father. He loves his family. He loves families in general. He has a good sense of humor. He’s warm. … He’s just there to support, and he’s very proud of the success of others,” Fontes said.
Walz maintained this approachable demeanor, even though he still seems to be coming to terms with how much his life has changed – and could change even more. “How have the last six weeks been?” he said at the beginning of his speech in Pennsylvania. “Quite strange.”
This content was originally published in Tim Walz faces nervousness before vice-presidential debate on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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