Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in the vain hope that he would deliver key Midwestern states.
But amid the wreckage of her failed campaign, new numbers show Walz could not even get the county where he lives into the Harris column.
President-elect Donald Trump won 49.6 percent of the votes in Blue Earth County, where Walz’s family has lived for more than 20 years. Harris was at 48.3 percent, according to the New York Post.
In 2020, President Joe Biden won the county with 51 percent of the vote against 46.5 percent for Trump, according to Politico.
Walz’s selection has been cited as a possible reason Harris lost.
Failed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris lost running mate Tim Walz’s home county in rural Minnesota to Donald Trump, a defeat that will intensify criticism of her decision to run alongside Minnesota’s progressive governor. | @jameslynch32 https://t.co/vO4WfM334c
— National Review (@NRO) November 7, 2024
Lindy Li, a member of the Democratic National Committee’s National Finance Committee and Pennsylvania commissioner, said selecting Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro instead might have rescued the campaign, Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich posted on X.
Do you think Trump won by a landslide?
“Tim Walz was a bad choice of running mate, Shapiro would have carried the blue wall,” Heinrich quoted Li as saying, referring to the northern states of Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that have often carried Democrats to victory.
Walz ran into headwinds amid allegations of fabricating his National Guard record.
Donald Trump won every swing state, will win the popular vote, and moved 48 states to the right. This is an undeniable mandate. pic.twitter.com/JWU06ERL8o
— Charles Correll III (@_CharlesCorrell) November 7, 2024
Trump’s showing was part of a nationwide dominance that has him projected to emerge as the winner of the popular vote, according to The New York Times.
Trump received more than 72.6 million votes; Harris about 68 million votes.
The last Republican to win the popular vote was former President George W. Bush in 2004.
Because massive blue states such as New York and California are traditionally places where Democrats have a wide margin in the popular vote, a Republican winning the popular vote is considered unusual.
>lost all the swing states
>lost the popular vote
>lost the electoral college
>lost the electionAbsolutely mogged by Trump pic.twitter.com/CmhqAgQVlN
— Kangmin Lee | 이강민 (@kangminjlee) November 7, 2024
For example, in 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million votes over Trump, as noted by CNN. That year, Clinton’s margin over Trump in California was almost 4.2 million votes and in New York state was 1.7 million votes, according to The New York Times.
This year, according to The New York Times, Harris’s margin over Trump in deep-blue California — her home state — was only about 1.7 million votes, while her margin in New York state was about 900,000 votes.
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