As Kamala Harris solidified Democratic support to replace a disgruntled Joe Biden on her party’s presidential nomination, speculation quickly began about who her vice presidential running mate would be. The Democrats, who had what the traditional media described as a “large number of potential candidates,” quickly dwindled to three middle-aged white men of apparently moderate leanings: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly.

Shapiro and Kelly both hail from key swing states that Biden narrowly won in 2020 and offered to boost Harris’ chances in the Electoral College. Shapiro, a popular governor even among Republicans in Pennsylvania, also appealed to Jewish voters, who have increasingly trended red since Hamas’ horrific attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and given Harris’s expressed sympathies for the Palestinians.

Kelly is a former Marine pilot and astronaut who advocates for border security and gun control (his wife, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, is a victim of gun violence and was seriously injured by an assassin in 2012). That stance could have won moderate voters to Harris’ candidacy in Arizona and perhaps nationwide.

Either Shapiro or Kelly could have tipped the election in Harris’ favor, but on Monday the presumptive Democratic nominee announced that Walz would be her running mate. Walz was an outsider – 71 percent of Americans said they had never heard of him, while about half knew Shapiro and Kelly.

The Minnesota governor has passionately campaigned for his nomination in the national media, but is known only for launching a childish social media campaign branding Republicans “weird.” His own party, on the other hand, believes men can get pregnant and, until three weeks ago, was telling the world that Biden was mentally sharp.

While Republican nominee and former President Donald J. Trump had made some progress in Minnesota in the final days of Biden’s aborted re-election campaign, Walz’s state is a reliably Democratic one, having voted Republican only once since 1956. His two predecessors as Minnesota’s vice presidents, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, both suffered crushing defeats in their own presidential bids after serving only one term as unimpressive vice presidents.

Although only six months older than Harris, Walz, 60, hardly embodies the youth and energy she is desperate to project in order to escape Biden’s senile aura. In fact, Walz’s powerful frame, puffy cheeks, pronounced wrinkles and receding white hairline make him look more like the grandfather who voted for Trump than the running mate of a mixed-race Californian who is supposed to represent the future of the Democratic Party.

Adding to the incongruous image is Walz’s strong support for gun rights. He hosts an annual turkey shoot for governors and has even boasted that he could outdo Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance at a pheasant hunt. Upon closer inspection, his administration, while decidedly under the national radar, is riddled with scandal. Its dismal record includes a $250 million Covid-19 fraud that FBI Director Christopher Wray called “an egregious conspiracy to steal public funds intended for child care.” A state audit concluded that Minnesota education officials had simply ignored evidence of wrongdoing.

So why was the uninspiring Walz elected? As a near-unknown national candidate, he is unlikely to challenge Harris in office, while Shapiro or Kelly could potentially take independent positions to mitigate or outdo Harris’s radical left policies. Despite Walz’s blue-collar mentality and gun policies, he poses no challenge to Democratic buzzwords on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, the only issues on which Harris has even attempted to establish her own policies.

Perhaps worst of all, unlike Shapiro — who was reportedly Harris’ second choice — Walz is not Jewish when it comes to Muslim votes in swing states. Consider the extensive attention Democrats and their media allies gave to Shapiro’s college argument that Palestinians are incapable of living in peace and his apparently false claim that he volunteered for the Israel Defense Forces as a student. Then see Shapiro’s sheepish attempts to distance himself from both claims, which together weighed against his nomination as a candidate. While anti-Semitism has a shamefully welcome place in today’s Democratic Party, Harris’ hypersensitivity to the Palestinian cause may have led her to select a running mate who will do more harm than good.

Paul du Quenoy is president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute. The views expressed are those of the author.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author.