After Vance-Walz VP Debate, Campaigns Fan Out to Swing States: Election Live Updates

The clash with Mr. Vance, after a day of buildup over an inaccurate anecdote he has told often about being in Hong Kong when Chinese troops crushed pro-democracy dissidents in Tiananmen Square 35 years ago, highlighted a tendency to exaggerate his biography and speak imprecisely or inaccurately.

And on the biggest stage of his career, he was plainly an uneven surrogate. The version of the punchy Midwesterner who rocketed onto Ms. Harris’s ticket in part by branding former President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Vance as “weird” on national television was rarely seen when confronted by two probing moderators and a slick opponent untroubled by frequent twisting of the truth.

In fact, since Mr. Walz joined the ticket, the Harris campaign has almost entirely kept him off national television, negating what was seen as one of his greatest strengths.

That may be about to change, at least to some extent: In the coming days, Mr. Walz is expected to take part in two national interviews, including one with CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” the nation’s most popular television news program; make his late-night television debut as the vice-presidential nominee during a West Coast fund-raising trip; and appear on a prominent pop culture podcast, according to the campaign.

And on Wednesday, Mr. Walz did speak to reporters, seeking to clean up his comments about where he was during the Tiananmen crackdown.

“Yeah, look, I have my dates wrong,” he said in Harrisburg, Pa. “It was profound for me — that was the summer of democracy.”

“I speak like everybody else speaks. I need to be clearer,” he acknowledged, before seeking to pivot. “I do understand China a hell of a lot better than Donald Trump. Kamala Harris understands China.”

Off the debate stage, Mr. Walz has been a far more effective surrogate, at least in front of the audiences that see him. With his down-home dialect, fluency in rural issues and ability to package liberal-leaning views in the language of common sense and patriotism, Democrats see him as a walking permission structure for white working-class men in particular, who often view the Democratic Party as a bastion of coastal elitism.

Heading into the debate, polling showed that voters viewed Mr. Walz more favorably than they did Mr. Vance, whose past comments deriding “childless cat ladies” rankled even some fellow Republicans, especially women.

Mr. Walz has also given several interviews to local television stations in battleground states, an attempt to directly reach the voters who the Harris campaign believes will decide the election.

Democrats have sought to downplay Mr. Walz’s verbal stumbles, suggesting that voters were unlikely to care about the exact timing of a decades-old anecdote. They have also argued that his missteps are in a different universe from the conspiracy theories promoted by Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, such as the false and outlandish claim that Haitian migrants are abducting and eating house pets.

In a spin-room interview before the debate, former Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, noted Mr. Vance’s comment that he was willing to “create stories so that the American media actually pays attention.”

“He is running against two people, one of whom has bragged about creating stories to get attention, and the other one who lies like other people brush their teeth — I am not worried about Tim Walz’s misstatements,” Ms. McCaskill said. “Has he said everything perfectly? No.”

“He’s not perfect,” she added. “He’s relatable.”

Still, Mr. Walz has a history of misspeaking, misstating facts and otherwise getting over his skis.

And that was evident onstage on Tuesday.

In perhaps his most uncomfortable moment, he stumbled badly when asked why he had repeatedly misstated his whereabouts during Tiananmen. “I will get caught up in the rhetoric,” he offered, calling himself a “knucklehead at times” in an explanation that answered not a single question.

When pressed on the discrepancy, Mr. Walz said he misspoke (though he seemed to muddle the timeline again immediately afterward).

The gaffe — and Mr. Walz’s failure to craft a reasonable explanation — raised questions about the Harris campaign’s vetting process and its readiness to deal with such inconsistencies in Mr. Walz’s life story, including his false suggestion that he had carried a weapon “in war” when he served in the National Guard.

Two people briefed on the Harris campaign’s vetting process, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the operation’s internal workings, said that to their knowledge, the Tiananmen issue had not surfaced during a review of vice-presidential contenders that had to be rushed after President Biden dropped out of the race. The news of Mr. Walz’s misstatements was earlier reported by Minnesota Public Radio and The Washington Free Beacon.

The Harris campaign declined to comment. It previously managed to defuse the controversy over Mr. Walz’s military service to the point that Mr. Vance, who had frequently attacked the governor on the campaign trail, did not even mention it at the debate, a possible sign that the Tiananmen issue could also soon blow over.

After the debate, Jen O’Malley Dillon, the Harris campaign chair, expressed confidence in Mr. Walz’s performance.

“Governor Walz showed exactly why Vice President Harris picked him: He is a leader who cares about the issues that matter most to the American people,” she wrote in a statement.

The Trump campaign was quick to try to stir the pot.

“Kamala Harris probably wishes that she picked Josh Shapiro,” said Jason Miller, a top campaign adviser to Mr. Trump, referring to the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, an accomplished orator who was seen as the other leading candidate for Ms. Harris’s ticket.

Part of the difference on the debate stage may also have come down to preparation. Mr. Walz — a veteran politician who has participated in many debates — has effectively been kept in Bubble Wrap from the national news media since joining the ticket.

He has generally stayed far away from the inquiring reporters who travel with him on the campaign trail and generally ignores their daily shouted questions. It is a marked contrast with his approach before joining the presidential ticket: As chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, he was highly accessible, and a ubiquitous surrogate for Mr. Biden. His frequent television appearances this summer helped turned him from a little-known state official to a national name in liberal circles.

Mr. Vance, for his part, regularly engages in back and forths with reporters in front of crowds at his campaign rallies, and often appears on cable news shows. It was easy to tell which candidate seemed more practiced at answering tough questions off the cuff under high pressure.

Of course, Mr. Vance’s frequent television appearances — during which he has made missteps that have taken him out of line with some of Mr. Trump’s policy positions — seem to have done little to improve his ratings with voters. And Mr. Walz performed creditably in interviews he gave to ABC and MSNBC after Ms. Harris’s debate last month.

Win or lose, vice-presidential debates have almost never moved the polls. Snap surveys conducted on Tuesday night suggested that voters did not believe that either candidate had scored a decisive victory — unlike this year’s presidential contests, in which Mr. Trump was widely seen as beating Mr. Biden and losing to Ms. Harris.

On Wednesday in Pennsylvania, Mr. Walz will campaign with someone who has proved how little debates can matter: Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. In 2022, Mr. Fetterman was widely seen as bombing his debate performance months after suffering a stroke. But he still strolled to an easy victory over Dr. Mehmet Oz, his Republican opponent, less than two weeks after Dr. Oz ran circles around him onstage.

Democrats took the Fetterman example as evidence that Beltway perceptions of strong or weak debate performances are not always shared by voters.

At the debate, Mr. Walz seemed to grow more comfortable as the night went on. He often came across as earnest, and many voters found him likable.

He also scored some points, as when he cornered Mr. Vance into refusing to answer a question about whether Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election. “That is a damning non-answer,” Mr. Walz replied.

The Harris campaign quickly turned the moment into a digital ad.

Reporting was contributed by Kellen Browning, Jazmine Ulloa, Katie Rogers, Reid J. Epstein and Michael C. Bender.