Harris campaign dropped ball on one basic task with Walz rollout, Dem and GOP strategists agree

The Harris campaign did not properly prepare for potential attacks on the vice president’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, according to political strategists from both sides of the aisle.

“The Walz military record story was clearly a failure of ‘reverse’ opposition research by the Harris campaign,” Democratic strategist Julian Epstein told Fox News Digital.

The comments come as Walz has continued to face scrutiny over his military record, with critics accusing the vice presidential candidate of “stolen valor” for seemingly misleading statements he has made about his service.

Critics have claimed that language Walz has used when describing his time in service had misleadingly suggested that he served in a war zone, including one statement in which he said he would like to ban the kind of weapons he had “carried in war,” despite having never been deployed to a combat zone during his 24 years of service.

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In response to the controversy, the Harris campaign said Walz “misspoke” when making the infamous “carried in war” remarks.

“In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke,” campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt told the media. “He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them, unlike Donald Trump and JD Vance who prioritize the gun lobby over our children.”

But the “carried in war” remarks were not the only quotes to raise eyebrows, with critics accusing Walz of being misleading when he boasted of deploying “in support” of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), a deployment that was actually to Italy and not to Afghanistan.

In another instance, Walz harkened back to his experience in the National Guard during a speech on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 before claiming to have “stood one night in the dark of night at Bagram Air Base” and watched the transfer ceremony of a soldier’s body.

While Walz did go to Afghanistan while serving in Congress, he did not deploy to Afghanistan as part of his military duties.

Some former members of Walz’s unit, meanwhile, have accused the Minnesota governor of abandoning his troops and retiring to get out of a planned deployment to Iraq.

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“When the nation called, he quit. He failed to complete the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy. He failed to serve for two years following completion of the academy, which he dropped out of. He failed to serve two years after the conditional promotion to Command Sergeant Major. He failed to fulfill the full six years of the enlistment he signed on September 18th, 2001. He failed his country. He failed his state. He failed the Minnesota Army National Guard, the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, and his fellow Soldiers. And he failed to lead by example. Shameful,” read an open letter penned by two former members of Walz’s unit ahead of his run for governor in 2018 that resurfaced again this year.

Walz has also faced claims of being misleading about his rank, at various points saying he retired as a command sergeant major, a rank he obtained and served with but did not retire as due to his decision not to complete the required coursework to keep the rank.

The claim that Walz is a “retired command sergeant major” was also featured on the Harris campaign website, which was later changed to state that he “served” as a command sergeant major.

Such an oversight is one example of where the campaign failed, Republican strategist David Polyansky told Fox News Digital, noting that a campaign would typically catch such “vulnerabilities.”

“I assume part of this is just the abbreviated nature of it,” Polyansky said, referring to the quick timeline between Harris being elevated to the top of the ticket and choosing a running mate. “But the fact of the matter is it’s one of two things, either in their vetting, in their interviews with him, failed to catch some of those potential vulnerabilities, or they knew it and just failed to adequately prepare for the messaging offensive that was about to come.”

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“Either way… it put them in a tough position on his rollout, put them on the defensive on a vice presidential pick that should have given them an immediate boost,” Polyansky added.

Whether Walz’s military record continues to haunt the Harris campaign will largely be up to former President Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, another military veteran who did serve in Iraq and is “comfortable” with his service record, Polyansky said.

“You’re going to see [Walz] have to go up on stage and debate against a guy who is pretty comfortable and confident in his military record,” Polyansky said. “I don’t think that’s going to be the final decision-making point for most voters… but the attention it will get in terms of grabbing earned media can cast a little bit of a negative light on Kamala Harris’ decision-making.”

While Epstein agrees that Democrats mistakenly overlooked the potential controversy on Walz’s record, he argued that Republicans would be better off avoiding a “tit-for-tat” campaign and focusing instead on Harris’ record.

“More than anything else, Democrats want to memory-hole the Biden/Harris record of the last four years,” Epstein said. “They want to memory-hole Harris’ fringe left views from just five years ago.”

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

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