Moderator Mo Elleithee asked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz a simple question at Georgetown University on October 15: give some advice to the national Democratic Party. Walz's answer was three words. "Pick Pete Buttigieg."
Not Kamala Harris. The woman who put him on the ticket.
Walz — who rode Harris's coattails to a vice-presidential nomination in 2024, then watched their campaign implode on Election Day — apparently decided that the best thing he could do for the party was publicly recommend the man Harris passed over to pick him. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, according to Walz, is the future. His old running mate, who's been making noises about a 2028 presidential bid, didn't even get a courtesy mention.
The Georgetown moment lands differently when you know what Harris wrote in her memoir, 107 Days. She admitted Buttigieg "would have been an ideal partner — if I were a straight white man." Translation: she wanted him but calculated that a Black woman and a gay man on one ticket was too big of a risk. She picked Walz instead. And Walz just repaid that decision by telling a room full of people the other guy was the better choice all along.
Harris didn't exactly hide her feelings about how the Walz selection worked out, either. In the same book, she described watching Walz at the 2024 vice-presidential debate against JD Vance: "When Tim fell for it and started nodding and smiling at JD's fake bipartisanship, I moaned to Doug, 'What is happening?'" That's the woman who chose him as her running mate, watching in real time as he failed the one job she gave him.
Walz offered more advice at Georgetown beyond the Buttigieg endorsement. "We're going to have to figure out where can government best serve people," he said, before adding: "I think we'll win the midterms, and I think there's a good chance that we'll win the presidency, but God help us if we don't make big changes." The man who presided over $9 billion in taxpayer fraud in Minnesota has thoughts on where government can best serve people.
Meanwhile, 20 Democrats told Politico they oppose a Harris 2028 run. Donors have told her directly that another bid would be difficult. Harris herself has been noncommittal. "I go back and forth. I honestly go back and forth. There's so many factors," she said. When even the people who are supposed to be on your side are publicly shopping for alternatives, the "factors" she's weighing probably include the fact that her own former running mate just told America to go with somebody else.
Buttigieg, for his part, polls at zero or near-zero percent with Black voters — the demographic Harris was supposed to lock down in 2024 and didn't. So Walz's recommendation is for Democrats to invest their 2028 hopes in a candidate who can't crack the coalition that already rejected their last nominee. As commentator Nathan J. Robinson put it: "My advice is not to take election advice from people who lose elections."
The whole scene tells you everything about where the Democratic Party stands heading into 2028. The last VP nominee is telling the party to draft someone other than his own running mate. The running mate is admitting in print she settled for a second choice. And the second choice is now publicly agreeing with her assessment — of himself.
Harris picked Walz because Buttigieg was too risky. Walz picked Buttigieg because Harris was too risky. The only person nobody's picking is the one who already lost.