Young liberal voters love Tim Walz. He’s a reminder of the dad they lost to partisan division

He’s got jokes, enthusiasm and a smiley face that’s not even remotely trying to hide how he’s feeling. He’s Tim Walz - and he’s bringing major Midwestern dad energy to the Democratic ticket.

At least that’s how many white women feel when they see Walz in videos, riding the Slingshot at the state fair with his daughter, signing legislation to give kids in Minnesota free lunches or tweeting about his pet cat.

It’s in stark contrast to what some see in their own fathers - who often have more conservative political views.

“He is silly. My dad used to be very, very silly and goofy,” Pamela Wurst Vetrini, a woman who recently compared Walz to her father, said in a viral TikTok video. 

“[My dad] is really friendly, he loves people,” social media user Lydia said. “Except when he goes to the voting booth.”

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When Kamala Harris introduced Walz as her running mate, he appeared with energy that, for some, was a nostalgic reminder of fathers cheering at soccer games or pushing the swing.

For Vetrini, 40, a wash of emotion came over her after she started to research Walz and found that so much of his identity reminded her of her dad - a man she loves but who has leaned far-right in recent years that she can no longer have a conversation with him about anything other than the weather.

“He represents the dad that a lot of liberal women lost,” Vetrini said in her TikTok video.

“A lot of us had moderate to conservative, educated, sensible fathers that we lost to Rush Limbaugh. That we lost to Fox News. That we lost to Donald Trump. And the cult of conservatism that has grown and grown and grown has driven a wedge between millennial woman and her father,” she said.

Vetrini’s articulation resonated with millions online.

Her comment section was flooded with messages from women validating the experience of losing the relationship they once had with their fathers to political divisiveness.

For Lydia, 33, it was hard to find the words to explain how sad, yet hopeful, she felt watching Walz talk about expanding reproductive rights, enacting common sense gun laws, focusing on a healthier planet. Walz also proudly speaks about his evangelical upbringing, Army service, and, in true dad fashion, attending a Bruce Springsteen concert.

But Vetrini’s video put it perfectly.

“I saw someone say ‘he’s the dad who was stolen by Fox News’ and I thought ‘that’s it’,” Lydia said.

Watching conservative media personalities such as former Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly was a staple of Lydia’s childhood. She said her father once referred to himself as “moderate” but over the years he has leaned further into conservatism.

She says Fox News appealed to her father because it capitalized on his fear of the unknown future – and played into it. Right-wing media personalities became more divisive, asserting that Democrats or “others” were going to take away the lifestyle of the straight, white American man and replace it with something unfamiliar.

Lydia said her father’s views became so ingrained in his personality that it created tension in their relationship.

“Every time I see people like [JD Vance] talk about how childless women with cats shouldn’t have voting rights, I know he hears that. He’s not going to come to me and say ‘Hey I don’t think that about you’,” Lydia said.

“I’m forced to assume [my dad] believes that about me,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking to see Tim Walz and be like ‘That’s who my dad could be. Someone who actually loves me’.”

Lydia’s experience is not uncommon.

Jennifer, 50, said her father, a Vietnam War veteran, also fell down the Fox News rabbit hole when he got older, in part because the network validates his views as a veteran.

“Sometimes I think that the same thing that drove him to enlist in Vietnam is probably the same thing that drives him to Fox News,” she said.

It wasn’t until Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court in 2017 that Jennifer felt the tangible impact of her father’s political views.

“He said, ‘This is great. This will set the libs back 30 years.’ And I was so shocked. I looked at him and said, ‘That’s me. That’s my husband and my son. Why would you wish that on me?’ It was the one moment where I think my dad maybe realized the impact of his beliefs,” she said.

Tension over politics hasn’t stopped Jennifer’s father from sharing his conservative views with her, and hasn’t stopped Jennifer from arguing with her father about his beliefs.

Though Republicans and Democrats have been shifting away from each other for years, the political rift deepened when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. The media storm that erupted around the Trump administration was inescapable.

For some who did not have a political opinion before 2016, they certainly developed one after.

Issues that may not be perceived as partisan in other countries, such as gun control, climate change or abortion, were considered politically divisive. Last year, a Pew Research Center study found the US is more divided than ever.

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Vetrini said, at one point, her father would have described himself as a libertarian. In those days, Vetrini and her father would spend time together on the weekends by watching CBS Sunday Mornings, a magazine-like weekly show that focuses on one topic, often related to performing arts.

Her father still leaned more conservative than her mother but she said: “It didn’t feel like it affected his love for us. It didn’t feel like there were consequences for our beliefs.”

That was until he started to use political news shows as a form of entertainment.

Suddenly, he no longer wanted to watch CBS Sunday Mornings because it was “too liberal.” Vetrini said in recent years, she and her sisters’ left-leaning views began to feel “consequential.”

“In recent years, the obsession with the cult of conservatism, the way it’s taken over his life, has sort of driven a wedge in our relationship,” she said.

It’s difficult for Vetrini to see the rhetoric espoused by right-wing media and not feel hurt. Since going viral, Vetrini has been subject to vulgar and offensive comments from people who disagree with her perspective.

“Those comments are really hard to deal with, mentally. The hardest part is my dad feels the same way as these vitriolic commenters,” she said.

But she still recognizes the qualities in her father that remind her of Walz. Those are what keep her maintaining a “complicated” relationship with him.

After her TikTok went viral, Vetrini called her dad to tell him about it – hoping to hear it from her first rather than a news show.

“He responded exactly the way I would predict he would respond. Which was to remind me that socialism will ruin America,” she said.