Political scientists say all roads to the White House run through Tim Walz’s Minnesota

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Supporters say a single word of attack, the word weird, may have sealed the deal for Tim Walz as Vice President Kamala Harris’s pick for vice president. In recent days the plain-spoken Minnesota governor used the word weird to describe the activities of some Republicans.

The former football coach will stand alongside Kamala Harris as the ticket that could elect the first woman, and first Black woman, as president of the United States of America.

Norfolk State University political scientist Dr. Eric Claville has the X’s and O’s of the Harris-Walz ticket.

“Well, first of all, the presumptive nominee, now Vice President Harris, for the Democratic Party as president, is a historical figure,” Claville said. “With that, you now couple that with a traditional figure, you know, a 60-year-old White male who represents the middle of the country.”

Dr. Ben Melusky, a political scientist from Old Dominion University, said the man from Minnesota could shake up the political calculus in the Rust Belt.

“It’s the most Republican of the Democratic states there,” Melusky said. “He was a member of the NRA. He’s a hunter and he’s a veteran.”

With 90 days until election day, both sides are dealing with the unusual — an attempt on Donald Trump’s life, and Biden bowing out just as internal and external factors loom.

“So this election, as we see it, with the economic issues that we’re having domestically, the international issues that we’re having on the military front, both in Europe and in the Middle East and also in South Asia, it becomes a very, very important election for America as a whole,” Claville said.

On the home front, Melusky said the road to the White House still runs through the Rust Belt.

“The Rust Belt states are still very much swing states in play,” Melusky said, “and you look at a state like Minnesota — even Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are scheduled to campaign there very shortly, so both campaigns realize that the road to the White House still runs through those states.”

In 2016, Claville analyzed voting in the battleground states and called the race for Trump and Mike Pence. Because of the energized Harris-Walz ticket, Claville said that, right now, the race is a dead heat.