With Walz Pick, Kamala Harris Leans In — to the Left

Kamala Harris picked Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate.

It was a surprise that she didn’t go with Josh Shapiro, the popular governor of the must-have battleground state of Pennsylvania. But there was a very public pressure campaign against Shapiro based on the fact that he’s a Jewish supporter of Israel who has criticized pro-Hamas protesters. Shapiro also projects a pragmatic image and departed from progressive orthodoxy by flirting with Republicans on school vouchers, another unforgivable offense. On top of this, one of Pennsylvania’s senators, John Fetterman, loathes him and worked to knife him in public and private.

It’s impossible to know how much the critique of the anti-Israel Left affected Harris’s decision, but her choice is exactly what you’d expect of a candidate afraid to cross the party’s young activist base.