Let's ask the true question of our time ... do Republicans actually "pounce"? Or do they "seize"? Enquiring minds want to know!

The answer: Republicans have seized a moment in this election cycle largely handed to them by the Kamala Harris campaign. By picking a relatively obscure governor as a running mate, Democrats handed Donald Trump and the GOP a golden opportunity to redefine their opposition. 

And Trump's making the most of it, when he can remained disciplined enough to stay on message. The selection of Tim Walz and his hard-Left policies has allowed Trump to return to the ideological argument, calling him a "shocking pick" for the election. "This is a ticket that would want this country to go communist immediately," Trump argued earlier today on Fox News:

'This Is A Shocking Pick': Trump Says Harris-Walz Ticket Would Make America 'Go Communist Immediately' pic.twitter.com/YLsYw4SYfh

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 7, 2024

“If you look at his record, with no walls, no security, let everybody in, he is worse than they are,” Trump said. “You know, nobody knew how radical left she was but he is a smarter version of her, if you want to know the truth. He is probably about the same as Bernie Sanders, he is probably more so than Bernie Sanders, she is more so than Bernie Sanders. That’s got to be your guide, Bernie Sanders. That’s not a great guide, but there has never been a ticket like this.”

“This is a ticket that would want this country to go communist immediately, if not sooner,” Trump continued. “We want no security. We want no anything. Is he very heavy into transgender, anything transgender he thinks is great and he is not where the country is on anything. This is a shocking—let me tell you, this is a shocking pick.”

Call this pouncing all you want, but it's smart politics, especially given the initial fumbles to define Harris after The Anointment. Trump and his team unwisely went after her identitarian claims, which backfired to some extent at an event that could have provided Trump with some narrative cred for political courage otherwise. Also, Harris' visibility has already largely left her defined in the public sphere, a situation where a smarter strategy would have instead focused on policy failures in the Biden-Harris administration entirely.

But that isn't true of Walz, who barely has had any national exposure outside of the Minneapolis riots. A Morning Consult survey shows just how undefined Walz is, even to fellow Democrats, before being picked to run on the presidential ticket. He's literally the least known of the rumored Veepstakes short-listers (via Andrew Malcolm):

Nearly 3 in 5 voters nationwide (57%) said they’d never heard of Walz, far more than the 38% and 35% of voters who respectively said the same of Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, the other reported finalists for the job. 

That gives Walz, and campaign operatives on both sides of the aisle, plenty of room to try to move his numbers in the right or wrong direction. Walz and his party are trying to frame him as a so-called normie who has passed common-sense legislation with Democratic partners in the legislature, while Republicans have leaned into attacks branding him as a radical leftist that makes the top of the Democratic ticket the most extreme in history.

This is yet more evidence of poor choice in the Veepstakes decision. Josh Shapiro would have been harder for Republicans to define in the election cycle when two-thirds of voters already know who he is. That's even more true of Gretchen Whitmer, although her negatives are slightly higher than Shapiro's. Furthermore, both Shapiro and Whitmer come from must-win states (PA and MI, respectively) where they are already much more well-known than they are overall on a national basis. Choosing either one of them would have largely left Republicans without a target other than Harris.

Instead, Harris chose the one short-lister that Republicans have the most opportunity to define to voters. Furthermore, Walz will be just as much a cipher in PA and MI as he is to the rest of the country, and only slightly more familiar to voters in the other must-win state for Democrats, Wisconsin. And even where Walz is better known -- in Minnesota -- he doesn't fill any gaps for Democrats:

The bad news is that the worst-performing groups for Walz all look like the worst-performing groups for Democrats in general: whites without a college degree, conservatives, Republicans and voters who backed Trump in 2020. 

Those groups of voters over in Pennsylvania, are also more likely to approve of Gov. Shapiro, the other VP finalist, especially Trump ‘20 voters and Republicans, at 29% and 30%, respectively. 

Needless to say, Republicans saw this opportunity within the first minutes of Harris' "shocking" choice, as Trump put it. They immediately launched a campaign to define Walz as a hard-Left progressive that is completely out of touch with voters outside the bubbles of Academia and Urbania. They have plenty of ammunition to use for this argument, and we haven't seen most of it yet. By allowing Republicans this opportunity, they get a golden opportunity for a do-over on defining Harris as well.

For this to succeed, though, Trump and the GOP have to discipline themselves to stay on target and on point. They fumbled that opportunity after The Anointment by getting distracted by identity politics. David had more on that earlier, but this shows the scope of the opportunity Harris has graciously provided for, er, pouncing.