Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) is kicking off a media blitz and campaign bus tour following his shaky performance in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.
The more aggressive public schedule is a departure from the previous strategy, in which the Democratic vice presidential candidate mostly avoided national media, a miscalculation that some strategists believe contributed to his “subpar” debate performance.
Walz is traveling across Pennsylvania on Wednesday on the campaign bus tour before heading to Cleveland and Cincinnati on Saturday to raise money. He will later head to the West Coast for fundraisers in California and Washington state before holding a rally in Reno, Nevada, and stopping in Arizona in the coming days.
The Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential nominee, who has conducted a limited number of national media interviews, will participate in two TV interviews and make his late-night TV debut during a stop on the West Coast, according to the campaign.
He is also scheduled to record multiple digital engagements, appear on a pop culture podcast, and participate in interviews with local and Hispanic media outlets, though it’s not clear how many.
Walz’s increase in public activity comes after Vice President Kamala Harris recently agreed to sit down with 60 Minutes for an interview that will air Monday, a rare appearance for the Democratic nominee who has maintained a media-light campaign.
Walz was noticeably less comfortable on stage than his Republican opponent, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), but settled in after a rocky start when asked about foreign policy at the beginning of the debate.
Still, some Democratic strategists said the beginning of the debate was difficult to watch.
“I was surprised at just how deer-in-the-headlights he was for the first half,” New York-based Democratic strategist Jon Reinish said. “There was seemingly no effort to control the conversation. He was on defense. He is not a sleek and slick guy, but I was surprised to the level that he just seemed not to be in the moment.
“I couldn’t tell if he was underprepared or way, way, way overprepared,” Reinish added.
Ahead of the debate, Walz’s only national TV appearance was a joint sit-down interview with Harris on CNN on Aug. 29. The Minnesota governor also has held few media availabilities with his traveling press corps over the last eight weeks.
Some believe Walz’s media drought may have worked against him. During the vice presidential selection process, the governor rose to the top of the shortlist as he participated in countless TV hits and press conferences after campaign events. As governor, a former chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, and a former congressman, he was accessible to the press.
“Everyone was wondering last night, where’s the guy who owned Trump and Vance and the Right for three weeks and defined them all as weird and brought the fight, and like had a big smile while skewering them,” Reinish said. “Why didn’t that guy show up to the debate?”
Others pointed to Walz’s failure to land any punches on Vance, whose performance was praised by those on both sides of the aisle after the debate.
“Was it a terrible performance from Walz? Absolutely not, it was just subpar,” said a Democratic consultant speaking on the condition of anonymity. “It just felt uneven at times — as if he was just reciting talking points without taking things a step further and reacting on the fly.
“Even if you’ve done a million interviews in your life, being out of practice and not having the repetition of those interviews over the last eight weeks would result in the same outcome for anyone,” the person said.
Vance, a Yale Law School graduate who has always loved to debate, has made himself available to the press more often than any of the other national candidates. Since being picked by former President Donald Trump, Vance has done over 100 interviews, press conferences, and gaggles with reporters.
He also has willingly appeared on adversarial outlets that many other Republicans often avoid. The Ohio senator aims to include press gaggles at as many events as possible, according to a source familiar with Vance’s strategy. However, it is unclear if the strategy is working — an average of his favorability ratings shows he is still underwater with voters, although recent polling has shown an improvement since the debate.
“While I don’t completely agree with Vance’s anytime, anywhere media strategy, I do think it at least helped him during the debate,” the Democratic consultant said. “He seemed calm, cool, and collected, and that just comes with his interactions with the press and being a senator who often has to answer to reporters constantly on Capitol Hill.”
New reporting ahead of the debate called into question some of Walz’s claims about the frequency with which he traveled to China and whether the Minnesota governor was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. When asked about the reporting, Walz noted he could sometimes be a “knucklehead” before admitting that he misspoke when pressed further.
“First of all, why answer the question? Why fall on your sword especially when you’re running against people who lie every other second,” Reinish said. “When the word ‘China’ came up, all he had to do was talk about China, Chinese tariffs, take the word ‘China’ and have your own conversation.”
Reinish said he would have advised Walz not to answer the question at all.
“It’s kind of a gotcha, why bother to answer it? Put it this way — J.D. Vance would not answer that question,” he said.
The Harris campaign is highlighting an internal focus group of undecided voters in battleground states, 45% of whom chose Walz and just 18% picked Vance following the debate.
Campaign staffers are also pointing to what they call the “top moment of the night,” in which Vance refused to say Trump lost the 2020 election and downplayed the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The campaign launched a new ad, “JD Vance’s Damning Non-Answer,” across the seven battleground states on Wednesday, aimed at attracting undecided voters.
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The Harris campaign revealed that its internal polling found Vance’s dodging of the question scored the “lowest ratings of the night.” The ad features a clip in which Walz looks directly at the camera and says: “America, I think you’ve got a really clear choice of who’s going to honor democracy and who’s going to honor Donald Trump.”
Many snap polls conducted immediately after the debate suggested the two candidates performed about evenly and both candidates received a favorability boost.
