A soda sip-off or an election? Tim Walz, JD Vance fight over the 'Mountain Dew Belt'

Call it the bipartisan bubbly.

In a bitterly divisive election cycle, the Republican and Democratic tickets have united around a single issue. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris' running mates JD Vance and Tim Walz are both fans of the same fizzy beverage.

Their swill of choice? Ice cold cans of the bright neon yellow, nose-tickling, super-citrusy, highly caffeinated Diet Mountain Dew, a popular cooler staple in backyards and on backroads. 

Soft drinks often become associated with certain demographics, but Mountain Dew more than most. It has deep roots in rural America – what analysts call the “Mountain Dew Belt.” 

"Mountain Dew" is old-timey Appalachian slang for moonshine. Its Tennessee creators Barney and Ally Hartman originally crafted Mountain Dew as a mixer for whiskey in the 1940s. Its slogan was: “Yahoo, Mountain Dew. It’ll Tickle Yore Innards!”

Mountain Dew was sold to PepsiCo in 1964 but never quite shook that hillbilly image. In the 1980s, it was marketed as “Dew It Country Cool.”

Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of Mountain Dew owner PepsiCo, told BuzzFeed News in 2015 that Mountain Dew is "an attitude. It's a fantastic attitude in a bottle."

Now that Walz and Vance have added Diet Dew to their political bonafides, the nation's fifth-most-popular soda is having a moment.

And, as the old slogan goes, don’t underestimate the power of Dew, especially in an election year. Walz and Vance are sending a clear message to voters: This is not the La Croix-and-latte crowd.

Kamala Harris picked Minnesota’s governor as her running mate on Tuesday, catapulting the outspoken Midwestern statesman into the national spotlight, from his close ties to organized labor to his dog Scout. 

Soon, his tonic of choice was the talk of social media. Walz was pulled over in 1995 for going 96 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone after watching college football with friends. He failed a sobriety test and a breath test and pleaded guilty to reckless driving.

Diet Mountain Dew lifted his spirits after he quit drinking. He once joked he would happily guzzle a 52-ounce can of the stuff for breakfast.

“At times, it seems to fuel Walz's dizzying conversational style, as he moves from education policy to football, words tumbling out like coins from a slot machine,” the Star Tribune wrote in 2018.

Diet Mountain Dew is Vance's fave, too. In fact, he has made headlines for hyping the Dew on the campaign trail.

“This is the good stuff here,” Vance said during an appearance on the conservative broadcast network Newscast. “High caffeine, low calorie.”

At a recent campaign rally, he joked that Democrats would probably say he was racist for his Diet Dew habit. “I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today, and I’m sure they’re going to call that racist too,” he said, adding, “But it’s good.”

The Harris campaign posted an edited video of Vance's viral remarks about Diet Mountain Dew and racism, with the caption "It's getting weird...".

After criticizing Vance for “weird” comments about Diet Mountain Dew, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said to CNN: "Who drinks Diet Mountain Dew?" Then he apologized…to Diet Mountain Dew.

“Folks, I’ve been a person that when sometimes I’ve gone over the line, I’ve wanted to make sure that I set the record straight, so, I do owe an apology to Diet Mountain Dew,” Beshear, also a Harris VP contender, said at a press conference. “So if you enjoy Diet Mountain Dew, you be you, we wanna support you.”