“I don’t think we were ever ahead,” the former vice presidential candidate said in criticizing his ticket’s overly cautious approach.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president last year, believes the campaign led by former Vice President Kamala Harris was overly cautious and should have taken more risks, he told Politico.
“In football parlance, we were in a prevent defense to not lose when we never had anything to lose because I don’t think we were ever ahead,” Walz said in a pointed assessment of why his side lost to the Republican ticket featuring President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
The Harris campaign was criticized repeatedly for dodging scrutiny from media—an Axios headline in September described its strategy as “hide from the press”—while Trump and Vance canvassed traditional and upstart media for exposure.
“Even the press-averse [former president Joe] Biden took more questions in the final two months of his campaign than Ms. Harris has in what is nearly the first two months of hers,” The New York Times wrote the same month.
Walz told Politico that the Democratic Party is “more cautious” when it comes to engaging with media and said he believes the campaign should have done open events where voters could grill members of the ticket.
“I think we probably should have just rolled the dice and done the town halls, where [voters] may say, ‘You’re full of s–t. I don’t believe in you,’” Walz told the news outlet. “I think there could have been more of that.”
Walz—who stressed the campaign “shouldn’t have been playing this thing so safe”—added that the truncated nature of the Harris campaign contributed to its tendency to avoid risk.
Biden, who was originally the Democratic nominee, dropped out of the race in July amid concerns about his age after he turned in a halting, disastrous debate performance.
Harris only became the nominee on Aug. 5, and Walz said her campaign didn’t have the chance to get its “sea legs” and run a full race over the course of the year like Trump did.
He stresses his ownership of the campaign’s failings as well, noting “when you’re on the ticket and you don’t win, that’s your responsibility.”
Three former Harris aides told Politico that her campaign failed to effectively use Walz by reining in his public appearances and telling him to soften his aggressive critiques of Republicans as “weird.”
