Tim Walz has proven himself to be a liability for the Harris Campaign.
He embarrassed himself at the debate and has made some other public gaffes.
And Tim Walz had another knucklehead moment and he is already backpedaling.
Walz can’t stay on message
Tim Walz seems to have a problem with making up stories.
He’s been caught lying about his military record, claiming he retired at a higher rank than he earned.
Walz also claimed that he was in China during the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Prior to the debate, evidence emerged that Walz was in the U.S. at the time.
When confronted by debate moderators about this discrepancy, he said, “I got there that summer and misspoke on this. I’m a knucklehead at times.”
Now, Walz is finding himself going against the Harris campaign’s message.
At a fundraiser at California Governor Gavin Newsom’s home, Walz said, “I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” Walz said, according to Bloomberg. “We need a national popular vote, but that’s not the world we live in.”
The Harris campaign claimed that eliminating the Electoral College was not their position.
ABC host Michael Strahan asked Walz about his statement.
“The point I’m trying to make is that there’s folks that feel every vote must count in every state, and I think some of the folks feel that’s not the case,” Walz said. “We’re out there making the case that the campaign’s position is clear, that that’s not their position. Their position and my position is to make sure that everybody understands their vote, no matter what state they’re in, matters.”
“So that’s something you and Vice President Harris disagree on,” Strahan asked him.
“Um, I have spoken about it in the past, that she’s been very clear on this, and the campaign and my position is the campaign’s position,” Walz replied.
The National Popular Vote Scheme
Walz signed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in 2023, adding Minnesota to the agreement.
The agreement would trigger once enough states to reach 270 electoral votes have signed on, and would cause each state to allocate all of the state’s electoral votes to whomever wins the popular vote, regardless of how the voters in that state voted.
The Harris campaign is trying to appeal to moderates and doesn’t want to anger voters from rural and small population states that would be disempowered by the national popular vote scheme.
It’s highly unlikely that Harris actually opposes eliminating the Electoral College.
The Electoral College was an important check on the danger of the tyranny of the majority.
It ensures that voters from rural areas have a say in who the President will be.
Eliminating the Electoral College would almost certainly mean a Republican wouldn’t win the Presidency ever again.
While many Republicans have indeed won the popular vote in the past, changing the rules would lead Democrats to shift strategies.
They would simply work on driving turnout in large cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, while ignoring the rest of the country.
Then every President would only need to appeal to people in those cities, resulting in disastrous policy results for the entire nation.