A Moment for Hope Walz and Her Brat-Green Nails at the DNC

As we all know, Kamala is brat. And that’s a message that Hope Walz, the 23-year-old daughter of vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, seems to cosign.

The Walz family stepped into the national spotlight in a big way on Wednesday night, as the Minnesota governor accepted the nomination for veep at the Democratic National Convention. And while people online can’t stop talking about Hope’s brother, Gus, and his emotional reaction to his dad’s speech, I couldn’t help but notice another detail.

As her brother stood and cheered and shouted and wept, Hope Walz sat teary-eyed beside him, making a Taylor Swift–like heart with her hands. Her nails, I saw, were painted a very specific shade: brat green.

Brat green is, of course, the official shade of brat summer, the movement sweeping the nation in response to Charli XCX’s now-iconic album brat. This pop-culture movement has not only taken over the zeitgeist, but has also had a consequential impact on the 2024 presidential election.

When Vice President Kamala Harris announced her candidacy for president following President Joe Biden’s departure from the race, Charli anointed Harris as “brat” on social media, leading to an explosion of memes and discourse and actual, legitimate excitement for Harris’s candidacy. And as the DNC has gotten underway this week, the excitement among young people in particular has been palpable, proving that the campaign’s embrace of the meme-heavy online discussion of her seems to be having an actual real-world impact.

Therefore, it doesn’t feel plausible that Hope’s choice of this particular nail-polish shade could be a coincidence, right? Especially because, since her emergence on a national stage less than a month ago, Hope has already proven to be a bona fide Gen Z woman of the people with her styling choices.

Consider her ’fit for her first official appearance as hopeful second daughter, which was a who’s who of trendy yet accessible favorites of the TikTok generation. Hope wore a pair of pink Adidas Sambas, a Baggu banana bag, and Patagonia leisure shorts.

For many Zoomers, this fit was the moment they fell in love, and many on TikTok have already started to stan Hope. Her clear commitment to sustainability, her vegetarianism, her job as a social worker, and her inability to work a disposable camera all cemented her place as a true People’s Midwestern Princess.

As for the rest of her Wednesday-night look, Hope wore a blue lace midi-dress that appears to be this style from Self Portrait, with her hair in loose waves around her shoulders. She paired the dress with peep-toe heeled clogs.

And as my colleague Malia Griggs pointed out, the small chips on the side of Hope’s nails give the impression that this was an at-home mani, perhaps one Hope even did herself.

A second daughter that does her own nails? Now that’s brat.