For the last few weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris has sought to brand herself a moderate. She has changed many of her earlier positions—now (softly) condemning anti-Israel protesters, for example, walking back her calls to ban fracking, and suddenly talking tough on border security. The media has collaborated in the shift. Axios edited articles calling her the “border czar” and GovTrack removed her 2019 “most liberal” senator designation from its site. Numerous commentators suggested that Harris would choose a white midwestern male to moderate the ticket, seeking to appeal to swing voters. In selecting Walz, that’s what Harris has done—at least on the surface. A closer look at Walz’s record, however, reveals a different picture.
Despite his “dad vibes,” Walz does not share the political beliefs of most American men his age. While approximately 57 percent of men between the ages of 50 and 64 are Republicans, Walz has pushed left-wing policies that lack support among Democrats and Republicans alike. In Minnesota, his administration, for example, has been at the forefront of some of the most progressive positions on “gender-affirming care” for minors. Last year, he signed into law a bill that gives Minnesota “temporary emergency jurisdiction” over children who have been “unable to obtain gender-affirming health care.” The law also makes Minnesota effectively a sanctuary state for minors pursuing trans medical care blocked in their home states, preventing their extradition and gaining it the name the Trans Refuge Bill from supporters. Minnesota also adopted a transgender-athlete policy earlier this year, permitting trans women of all ages to participate in women’s sports. And Republicans have branded Walz Tampon Tim because of his support for a bill that put menstrual products in public school bathrooms for children in grades four through 12.
Whatever one’s personal positions on these issues, it is demonstrable that they are out of step with the median American voter. According to polling from the Manhattan Institute, more than 60 percent of likely voters say that athletes should play on teams consistent with their biology. Similar numbers support parental notification of gender transition actions taken in schools and oppose trans children receiving gender-related medical treatment before age 18. These positions are held by Republicans, a plurality of Democrats, and a majority of Independents.
Governor Walz’s reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated his willingness to act in tandem with left-wing political positions. Today, he claims to champion a “mind[] your own damn business” approach to politics, but during the pandemic he pioneered a Covid “snitch hotline,” a telephone number through which Minnesotans could report violations of the governor’s stay-at-home order up until June 2022. Minnesota also imposed extended masking and vaccine mandates for public employees.
Walz’s state was home to some of the most violent and destructive riots of 2020, following the death of George Floyd that May. Minnesota saw multiple deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage. Amid the mayhem, Walz waited three days before calling out the National Guard, much to the frustration of local authorities who say that they felt “abandoned.” Mainstream media are running articles claiming that President Trump “praised” Walz’s response. He was actually applauding the National Guard’s handling of the riots, after it was finally deployed. The Minnesota State Senate concluded in an October 2020 report that the governor could have and should have acted more swiftly, a failure that cost lives and livelihoods.
Walz’s public support of Black Lives Matter likely stalled his response to the protests. In June 2020, Walz tweeted “My administration will use every tool at our disposal to deconstruct generations of systemic racism in Minnesota,” a sentiment he has continued to echo in years since. His wife expressed similar views, saying that, during the riots, she “kept the windows open as long as I could [to smell the fires] because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.”
These views are far from the American mainstream, especially in 2024. Our polling also showed that people across party lines “reject race-conscious policies.” Most voters believe in broad colorblindness, with only approximately 20 percent of respondents supporting the kind of action that Walz suggests.
Walz’s commitments to racialist proposals can also be found in his gubernatorial agenda. With his first executive order, he established the One Minnesota Council on Diversity, Inclusion and Equity, on which he would serve as chair. In 2021, he expanded these DEI programs to include a Governor’s Community Council on Inclusion and Equity, and signed a measure in 2023 affirming that “[e]quity and inclusion are top priorities of [his] administration.” He also implemented racial quotas in the state’s health department and permitted the rationing of drugs to patients on the basis of race.
These actions further alienate a potential Harris–Walz administration from the average voter. Seventy-one percent of likely voters believe that only merit (not race) should be considered for government hiring and contracting decisions, and Independents reject DEI initiatives in numerous areas, including in higher education. Progressives have sought to position Republicans as “racist” for suggesting that Harris is a “DEI hire” and have defended the utility of diversity initiatives. DEI policies are deeply unpopular, however, and Harris and Walz’s support for such proposals is a matter of public record.
“Excuse me, what is Tim Walz and Josh Shapiro, if not a DEI pick?” asks Joe Nocera. “She needed a white man on the ticket. That’s gender and race. That’s DEI.” He’s right. The self-affirming logic of the DEI mindset assumes that all members of a gender or race are interchangeable. This explains why so many in the media endorse the notion that picking Walz “moderates” a potential Harris administration. Those not in thrall to the doctrine of DEI understand that race and gender do not dictate someone’s political positions. The policies they choose to support do.
The Walz pick was celebrated on the far left, from the leaders of Democratic Socialists of America to Squad member Representative Ilhan Omar. Their good cheer is telling: it’s hard to deny that Kamala Harris’s selection of Tim Walz proves that she is just as progressive as Republicans have made her out to be.
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