The math behind why Harris picked Walz and why she may regret it

CNN —

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz hadn’t been in the top tier of potential running mates for Kamala Harris until the past few weeks. But his selection to join the vice president on the Democratic ticket underscores both the power of social media and of being relatively affable and nondivisive.

So what took Walz from, nationally speaking, a relative unknown to major-party vice presidential nominee? You might just call the entire thing “weird.”

Recall how Democrats started calling Republicans Donald Trump and JD Vance “weird” a few weeks ago. The attack might have felt like something out of high school, but the crazy thing is that it seems to have worked.

A look at Google trend data reveals a recent increase in searches for the word “weird.” More than that, the topics associated with “weird” were Make America Great Again, the Republican Party, Vance and Walz.

Why Walz? He’s been credited as the first one to have started calling Republicans weird in any large-scale way.

And we know that the Harris campaign was paying attention because it fired off at least one email missive that suggested that the “weird” attacks against the Republican ticket were driving the online conversation.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a Biden-Harris campaign and DNC press conference on July 17 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Related article Harris decides on Tim Walz as running mate

The fact that Harris selected a candidate who does well online shouldn’t be surprising – this is the campaign that has embraced “coconut tree” and “brat.” Harris has also done very well on TikTok, which is something Joe Biden’s campaign couldn’t do.

But is the Walz pick indicative of a campaign that is too online?

That’s a fair question given that Harris