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By Joe Edwards
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Statistician Nate Silver has suggested that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz may not have been the best choice for Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate.
In a written online conversation published in The New York Times, contributing writer Frank Bruni asked Silver, founder of polling aggregator 538 and author of the Silver Bulletin newsletter, whether he felt Harris should have gone in another direction.
"As a founding member of She Shoulda Picked Shapiro, I think it's relatively clear now that she made a mistake," Silver replied.
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"Pennsylvania seems to be lagging a little behind the other blue-wall states. Meanwhile, Walz was mediocre in the debate, and he's been mediocre and nervous in his public appearances."
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However, Silver added that former President Donald Trump's running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance was the "worse" pick.
He said the Vance pick was "made at a time when the Trump campaign got really overconfident — that was back when Biden was still running and they couldn't seem to fathom that Democrats would summon the power to replace him, you'd just had Trump shot at in Pennsylvania, and they thought they couldn't possibly lose. He remains one of the most unpopular running mates in modern history."
Newsweek has contacted the Harris campaign for comment via email.
Shapiro had been among the frontrunners for Harris' running mates, but the vice president opted instead for the Minnesota governor in August.
Harris had been leading Trump in Shapiro's state of Pennsylvania since July, but late last month 538's aggregation of national polls showed that Trump had narrowly overtaken her─though only just.
At the time this article was written, the Republican was a minuscule 0.1 points ahead, implying a dead heat in the Keystone State─one of the vital battleground states that will likely play a pivotal role in deciding who will replace President Joe Biden.
No Democrat has won the White House without Pennsylvania since 1948. With 19, it has more Electoral College votes than any other swing state.
Silver previously cast doubt on Harris' selection of Walz as her running mate, saying in an October 9 episode of his Risky Business podcast: "I'm not into Tim Walz."
He went on to describe Walz as "fine," but criticized the latter's October 1 debate performance against his Republican counterpart.
Silver said Walz was "obviously extremely nervous for the first 15 minutes of the debate, which is the part that people often remember."
He added that while the debate wouldn't matter much in the end, it was Walz's "one job," so he "should really nail that debate."
Silver also said Walz was "tactically not very good at going after JD Vance," whom he described as "an objectively better debater."
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