Home Town Love from Coach

What the debate told us about Tim Walz and JD Vance's achievements in their home states

Politico

Last night was a doozy. I stayed up way too late on our Veep debate chat thread analyzing how JD Vance gets such perfect thin wings in his eyeliner. It’s truly remarkable.

I also couldn’t stop thinking about how wonderful the world would be if all women had a mute button. The dream, right?

But there was a lot to take in on the policy side too, even if watching Vance smirk at us for nearly two hours felt soul crushing by the end. One thing that struck me the most was just how much love America’s favorite cuddly uncle Tim Walz gave to his home state of Minnesota and how J.D. Vance pretty much ignored his own state of Ohio.

During the debate Walz mentioned Minnesota on over 25 different occasions.

JD Vance mentioned Ohio three times.

Why does this matter? For a lot of reasons, but most importantly it shows a stark contrast in both experience and connection to the people the candidates are serving. Walz has so clearly done the work of governing that Vance has been playacting at since he got elected. He has implemented actionable policies that have changed people’s lives and he was able to directly point to those policies as examples of what he and Kamala Harris can and will do for the country.  

I want to call out a few of these because I think it truly does make the policy positions of the Walz-Harris ticket more digestible AND it helps with our talking points when we’re discussing this election with undecided voters.

What Walz Said:

ON CLIMATE:

Walz explained that the largest solar manufacturing plant in the United States is in Minnesota.

Senator Vance has said that there's a climate problem in the past, Donald Trump called it a hoax and then joked that these things would make more beachfront property to be able to invest in….The largest solar manufacturing plant in North America sits in Minnesota. But my farmers know climate change is real. They've seen 500 year droughts, 500 year floods, back to back…the solution for us is to continue to move forward, that climate change is real.

ON THE HOUSING CRISIS:

Walz detailed how they worked to build 12% more houses in Minnesota and the prices went down by 4%.

As far as the housing goes, I've seen it in Minnesota, 12% more houses in Minneapolis, prices went down on rent, 4%. It's working.

ON REDUCING CHILD POVERTY:

Walz talked about how he’s put pro-family rhetoric into action.

And then making sure tax cuts go to the middle class, $6,000 child tax credit. We have one in Minnesota, reduces childhood poverty by a third. We save money in the long run and we do the right thing for families.

ON RESTORING ROE IN MINNESOTA:

He talked about protecting reproductive freedom.

So in Minnesota, what we did was restore Roe v. Wade. We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care. But look, this is not what, if you don't know Amanda or a Hadley, you soon will. Their Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies. It's going to make it more difficult, if not impossible to get contraception and limit access, if not eliminate access to infertility treatments.

ON PAID FAMILY MEDICAL LEAVE:

He talked about real experience ensuring families can grow with paid leave.

We in Minnesota passed a paid family medical leave. You have a child. You, and I had to go back to work five days after my kids were born. This allows you to stay home a certain amount of time. What we know is that gets the child off to a better start. The family works better. We stay in their employers. We get more consistency in that. So Kamala Harris has made it a priority. We implemented it in Minnesota, and we see growth. That's how you become a pro-business state.

What Vance Said:

In comparison, JD Vance only mentioned his home state of Ohio three times and it wasn’t to explain how he has implemented any real world policies that have improved the lives of actual Americans.

He mentioned Springfield, Ohio in order to continue his unfounded attacks about illegal immigrants:

Look, in Springfield, Ohio and in communities all across this country, you've got schools that are overwhelmed, you've got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes. The people that I'm most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris's open border.

In the second mention of the state in which he is a Senator Vance admitted that he is on the wrong side of history when it comes to sentiments in Ohio on abortion:

Norah, you know, one of the things that changed is in the state of Ohio, we had a referendum in 2023, and the people of Ohio voted overwhelmingly, by the way, against my position. And I think that what I learned from that, Norah, is that we've got to do a better job at winning back people's trust.

He also referenced Ohio in his closing statements to attack what he called Kamala Harris’s energy policy (someone really needs to give this man a civics lesson on the job of the Vice President):

And I remember when I was being raised by my grandmother, when she didn't have enough money to turn on the heat some nights because Ohio gets pretty cold at night and because money was often very tight. And I believe, as a person who wants to be your next Vice President, that we are a rich and prosperous enough country where every American, whether they're rich or poor, ought to be able to turn on their heat in the middle of a cold winter night. That's gotten more difficult thanks to Kamala Harris's energy policies.

Experience matters. Putting real world policies into action that actually change people’s lives matters. The Republicans are very good at lying to us and telling people what they want to hear, but that will never bring about the kinds of results that Tim Walz has actually seen in Minnesota.