Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn) continues to shoot himself in the foot on the campaign trail.
Or he would, if he knew how to load the gun.
Video of the Democratic nominee for vice president out on a pheasant hunt this weekend was supposed to be part of the Harris-Walz ticket’s outreach to men. Polls show Harris’ support is softening, Trump is gaining, and a major part of the problem is a lack of support among men — working class men in particular.
Late last week, the campaign announced a “media blitz” targeting those voters, including an interview on ABC News with former NFL player Michael Strahan and a stop by Mankato (Minn.) West High School Friday night to deliver a pep talk at the school where Walz was once an assistant coach. On Saturday, he joined “a group of online influencers” for some pheasant hunting in Sleepy Eye, Minn.
The tour was not a hit.
First, Walz struggled to answer when Strahan asked him about his repeated false claims, from his military service to lying about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre. “I know that things get spun in a political environment,” Walz deflected. He also issued an answer on his previous support for eliminating the Electoral College that he had to clean up in subsequent interviews.
Then came Saturday morning’s pheasant hunt, and despite claiming to be an experienced hunter, Walz struggled to load his Beretta A400 semiautomatic shotgun — a struggle caught on video and quickly spread across the internet.
Walz’s woes were noted in New Hampshire, a state that has both a strong gun ownership culture and a large hunting population. Granite State gun enthusiasts were less than impressed.
“Oh, people are definitely laughing at it,” said New Hampshire attorney Sean List, who represents the firearm industry and is a Second Amendment activist. “A Beretta semi-automatic shotgun is incredibly easy to load. The idea that this was Walz’s attempt at appealing to gun owners and hunters is pretty comical. I think it is safe to say that his A400 hasn’t seen much action.”
“The typical New Hampshire gun owners saw this as further evidence that Gov. Waltz is anti-gun based on the fact that he simply can’t load a firearm,” added state Rep. JR Hoell (R-Dunbarton) with the New Hampshire Firearms Coalition.
The National Rifle Association, which once gave Walz an “A” rating on Second Amendment issues, also posted the video on social media, along with the message, “Reminder: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are no friends of hunters and gun owners. The Harris-Walz ticket is an existential threat to our Second Amendment freedoms.”
A meme even emerged as gun owners and Second Amendment activists mocked Walz by posting images of him next to Elmer Fudd, the hapless hunter who pursued Bugs Bunny in the classic Warner Brothers cartoons.
In the past, Walz called himself a “gun guy,” another reason why his struggle to load his shotgun was embarrassing. Bryan Strawser, chairman of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, told The New York Times last summer that Walz stance on Second Amendment rights was purely transactional.
Walz had “always voted to support gun rights until it no longer suited him,” Strawser said.
Another bad weekend for Walz isn’t good news for the Democratic ticket. While Harris is all but certain to win New Hampshire, a spate of new polls released over the weekend show the national race tightening. She is tied or trailing in the RCP polling average in nearly every swing state, and a new NBC News poll shows the national race tied at 48 percent.
CBS News reported only one pheasant was shot and none were recovered during the three-hour hunt.
Several social media posters noted Harris claims to own a Glock, one that she has fired at a gun range.
“Glock-enthusiast Kamala Harris needs to teach Tim Walz how to load a gun,” Kate Hyde quipped.
