Minnesota’s Walz seeks to take on ‘Scran­ton Joe’ man­tle in the Mid­west

The 2024 elec­tion was once thought to rest almost entire­ly on the Rust Belt states of Penn­syl­va­nia, Wis­con­sin, and Michi­gan, and while Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Harris‘s ascen­sion has altered the dynam­ics, both par­ties still des­per­ate­ly want to win the Mid­west­ern swing states.
Har­ris and her new run­ning mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D‑MN), will sweep into Penn­syl­va­nia and Wis­con­sin this week as they look to keep those blue-col­lar, “blue wall” states in the blue cor­ner this fall. But where­as Pres­i­dent Joe Biden was able to regale crowds with his “Scran­ton Joe” upbring­ing and his res­i­dence in near­by Delaware, Har­ris is a Cal­i­for­nia fig­ure who was raised by par­ents who both held grad­u­ate degrees.
To plug that gap, Har­ris has tapped Walz, who hails from Min­neso­ta, as a region­al appeal to Mid­west­ern vot­ers who may find him more relat­able. But many Repub­li­cans, and some Democ­rats, thought Har­ris may have made things hard­er on her­self by skip­ping over Gov. Josh Shapiro (D‑PA), who was wide­ly viewed as a more cen­trist …