At a Harvard Kennedy School panel in April, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz offered a blunt postmortem of the failed Harris-Walz presidential ticket: “I also was on the ticket, quite honestly… because I could code talk to white guys watching football, fixing their truck… that I could put them at ease.” And because Walz is white, he “had the permission structure” to convince white Americans to support Harris. 

The comment, while refreshingly candid, laid bare a strategy that underestimated white working-class voters. Walz, a former high school football coach from rural Minnesota, was added to the ticket in hopes of bridging the cultural gap between Kamala Harris and skeptical white men in swing states. But the strategy backfired—because voters don’t want a character sketch, they want results.

Donald Trump didn’t need to cosplay as a pickup-driving, camo-wearing Midwesterner. He spoke directly to the concerns that resonated with white working-class Americans: inflation, crime, border security, and the loss of American manufacturing. He didn’t talk about watching football or fixing trucks—he talked about restoring the nation’s economic strength and cultural identity. That’s what voters heard.

“I was on the ticket, I would argue, because we did a lot of amazing, progressive things in Minnesota to improve people’s lives,” Walz explained. But those policies—however progressive—did not address the cultural displacement or economic frustration many working-class Americans feel. Instead of authentic outreach, Walz was deployed as a mascot to appease a demographic that has increasingly gravitated toward Trump—not out of nostalgia, but because they view him as a candidate who doesn’t condescend to them.

Trump’s appeal to these voters was rooted not in strategic messaging but in a perceived authenticity and alignment with their cultural and economic concerns. He effectively tapped into sentiments of cultural displacement and economic anxiety, positioning himself as a champion of the “forgotten Americans” .​

In the end, the Democrats’ attempt to “code talk” came off as precisely that—an attempt. Voters sensed the inauthenticity. For a party that once claimed to be the voice of the working class, relying on a cultural translator instead of speaking plainly to real issues only widened the trust gap.

Harris didn’t lose because of Tim Walz. She lost because voters didn’t believe her party really saw them.