JD Vance calls Walz a 'San Francisco liberal' despite his own SF ties

In his first public remarks since Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio called his new opponent a “San Francisco-style liberal.”

“Kamala Harris is running as a San Francisco liberal,” the vice presidential candidate told reporters in Philadelphia Tuesday. “She governed as a San Francisco liberal and she’s chosen a running mate who’s going to be a San Francisco-style liberal.”

But while Harris’ political career began in the Bay Area, where he served as San Francisco district attorney for seven years from 2004 to 2011, Walz has spent virtually no time in the city. In fact, his first visit to the city was last month.

“Last week was my first time in San Francisco,” Walz said on an episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” that aired Aug. 2. “It’s the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to.”

Walz said he had come to San Francisco for meetings and had jogged in the Presidio neighborhood. The Minnesota governor said the city felt “exotic” to him, lamenting that it had been “demonized.”

Meanwhile, after graduating from law school in 2013, Vance moved to San Francisco, where he eventually began his career as a venture capitalist. Vance even wrote about his time in the city in a 2016 essay in the Atlantic, where he denounced his current running mate, Donald Trump, and compared its appeal to that of opioids.

A few Saturdays ago, my wife and I spent the morning volunteering at a community garden in our San Francisco neighborhood. After a few hours of casual work, we and the other volunteers dispersed to our respective destinations: tasty brunches, day trips to wine country, art gallery tours. It was a perfectly normal day, by San Francisco standards.

He returned to Ohio, where he grew up, in 2017. Vance has since made several trips to the city, including to a fundraiser for Trump last week.

Vance also described Walz on Tuesday as “one of the most left-wing radicals in the entire United States government at every level” and criticized him for his response to the 2020 riots in Minneapolis following the killing of George Floyd, saying he “let the rioters burn” the city.

But the relatively general and all-purpose nature of the opening attacks — “San Francisco” is a relatively common buzzword that Republicans use to bash Democrats — reflects a campaign still struggling to adapt to a suddenly changing ticket.

In fact, Vance even suggested that Walz might not In fact to be Harris’ running mate, alluding to President Joe Biden’s recent decision to withdraw from the race.

“First of all, the reason I haven’t talked a lot about Tim Walz is because the Democrats have shown that they’re willing to play a little sleight of hand on us,” Vance told reporters. “I don’t even know if we’re really going to get Tim Walz out of this campaign.”

Harris selected Walz on Tuesday over several other candidates, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, after a selection process that lasted about two weeks.

Vance is expected to follow Harris and Walz in several other key states this week.