Walz Favorability Survives GOP Attacks, Vance’s Rebounds After Slump
The GOP’s attacks have yet to dent Governor Walz’s favorability.
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New polling suggests that GOP attacks against the Democratic nominee for vice president, Governor Walz, are not denting his popularity, drawing a contrast against Senator Vance, who is relatively unpopular.
Polling provided to Semafor by a Democratic internal pollster, Blueprint, found that Mr. Walz enjoys a favorability of 10 points, with 44 percent seeing him favorably and 34 percent seeing him unfavorably. The poll of 1,025 registered voters was conducted on August 15 and 16.
The polling was conducted about a week and a half after Vice President Harris chose Mr. Walz as her running mate and suggests that Mr. Walz has survived Republican attacks during his introduction to the American public.
After Mr. Walz was announced as the vice presidential pick, Republicans launched attacks on his military record, handling of riots in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd by police, a long-ago DUI arrest, and his support for protections for LGBTQ rights.
A Blueprint pollster, Evan Roth Smith, told Semafor of the results that “so long as he continues to deflect Republican attacks by dismissing them and returning to tried and true Democratic talking points, rather than digging in on defensiveness, he’ll prove to be a boost to the ticket, rather than a drag.”
The results also come after Mr. Walz’s political operation has spent considerable time qualifying and clarifying statements from his campaign.
For instance, Mr. Walz’s family has clarified that they used IUI treatment, not IVF, in order to help him and his wife start a family. Mr. Walz has repeatedly discussed his family’s experience with fertility treatments on the campaign trail.
In the same time period he was on defense for a past comment he made regarding his military service when arguing in favor of laws controlling assault weapons.
“We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war,” Mr. Walz said, referencing his military career. Mr. Walz has since drawn criticism for this comment because he was not deployed in war during his 24-year service in the National Guard.
A group of congressional Republicans have also doubled down on this line of attack against Mr. Walz, calling the comment an “egregious” misrepresentation.
The congressional Republicans also claim Mr. Walz abandoned “the men and women under your leadership just as they were getting ready to deploy.”
Mr. Walz retired from the military after news of a potential deployment to Iraq by President Bush’s administration was announced — but months before President Bush’s administration notified Mr. Walz’s unit would be mobilized that year, 2005.
Republicans attempted to deploy this strategy in Mr. Walz’s re-election campaign in 2022, an election that saw Mr. Walz defeat the Republican candidate for governor by 8 points.
The results strike a contrast against Mr. Vance’s introduction to the American public, which saw him defend past comments on everything from the Democratic Party being run by “childless cat ladies” to the idea of giving people with children more votes.
Mr. Vance’s introduction to a national audience saw his favorability drop to negative 13 points from negative 1 point in Morning Consult polling. It’s since rebounded to negative 2 points, in the pollster’s most recent survey.