Vice President Kamala Harris has decided on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in her bid for the White House. The 60-year-old Democrat and military veteran rose to the forefront with a series of plain-spoken television appearances in the days after President Joe Biden decided not to seek a second term. He has made his state a bastion of liberal policy and, this year, one of the few states to protect fans buying tickets online for Taylor Swift concerts and other live events.
Some things to know about Walz:
Walz comes from rural America
It would be hard to find a more vivid representative of the American heartland than Walz. Born in West Point, Nebraska, a community of about 3,500 people northwest of Omaha, Walz joined the Army National Guard and became a teacher in Nebraska.
He and his wife moved to Mankato in southern Minnesota in the 1990s. That’s where he taught social studies and coached football at Mankato West High School, including for the 1999 team that won the first of the school’s four state championships. He still points to his union membership there.
Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring from a field artillery battalion in 2005 as a command sergeant major, one of the military’s highest enlisted ranks.
He has a proven ability to connect with conservative voters
In his first race for Congress, Walz upset a Republican incumbent. That was in 2006 when he won in a largely rural, southern Minnesota congressional district against six-term Rep. Gil Gutknecht. Walz capitalized on voter anger with then-President George W. Bush and the Iraq war.
During six terms in the U.S. House, Walz championed veterans’ issues.
He’s also shown a down-to-earth side, partly through social media video posts with his daughter, Hope. One last fall showed them trying a Minnesota State Fair ride, “The Slingshot,” after they bantered about fair food and her being a vegetarian.
He could help the ticket in key Midwestern states
While Walz isn’t from one of the crucial “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, where both sides believe they need to win, he’s right next door. He also could ensure that Minnesota stays in the hands of Democrats.
That’s important because former President Donald Trump has portrayed Minnesota as being in play this year, even though the state hasn’t elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006. A GOP presidential candidate hasn’t carried the state since President Richard Nixon’s landslide in 1972, but Trump has already campaigned there.
When Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton decided not to seek a third term in 2018, Walz campaigned and won the office on a “One Minnesota” theme.
Walz also speaks comfortably about issues that matter to voters in the Rust Belt. He’s been a champion of Democratic causes, including union organizing, workers’ rights, and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.
He has experience with divided government
In his first term as governor, Walz faced a Legislature split between a Democratic-led House and a Republican-controlled Senate that resisted his proposals to use higher taxes to boost money for schools, health care, and roads. But he and lawmakers brokered compromises that made the state’s divided government still seem productive.
Bipartisan cooperation became tougher during his second year as he used the governor’s emergency power during the COVID-19 pandemic to shutter businesses and close schools. Republicans pushed back and forced out some agency heads. Republicans also remain critical of Walz over what they see as his slow response to sometimes violent unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
Things got easier for Walz in his second term after he defeated Republican Scott Jensen, a physician known nationally as a vaccine skeptic. Democrats gained control of both legislative chambers, clearing the way for a more liberal course in state government, aided by a huge budget surplus.
Walz and lawmakers eliminated nearly all of the state abortion restrictions enacted in the past by Republicans, protected gender-affirming care for transgender youth, and legalized the recreational use of marijuana.
Rejecting Republican pleas that the state budget surplus be used to cut taxes, Democrats funded free school meals for children, free tuition at public colleges for students in families earning under $80,000 a year, a paid family and medical leave program and health insurance coverage regardless of a person’s immigration status.
He has an ear for sound-bite politics
Walz called Republican nominee Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance “just weird” in an MSNBC interview last month and the Democratic Governors Association — which Walz chairs — amplified the point in a post on X. Walz later reiterated the characterization on CNN, citing Trump’s repeated mentions of the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter from the film “Silence of the Lambs” in stump speeches.
The word quickly morphed into a theme for Harris and other Democrats and has a chance to be a watchword of the undoubtedly weird 2024 election.
She will introduce Walz at a rally Tuesday evening in Philadelphia.
Harris was the only candidate eligible to receive votes after no other candidate qualified by a deadline last week. She officially claimed the nomination Monday night when the DNC released the final results.
In choosing Walz, she’s turning to a Midwestern governor, military veteran, and union supporter who helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state, including sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families. The people were not authorized to speak publicly about the choice and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
A 'UNICORN'
The stage is set for an election that was unimaginable mere weeks ago when President Joe Biden was atop the Democratic ticket. Now Vice President Kamala Harris has tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate to take on Republican Donald Trump and his No. 2, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
As different as they are, Walz and Vance both qualify as picks meant to reassure their party’s loyal base voters rather than adding homegrown heft in a critical battleground state.
The two No. 2s will also get a chance to square off in almost real-time as Walz is traveling this week with Harris to Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada, while Vance will follow an overlapping itinerary to offer his own counterprogramming in some places.
Some takeaways on the race now that Harris has settled on Walz:
How Walz might help — or hurt — Harris’ chances
Opting for the Minnesota governor immediately calms the Democratic Party’s left wing, which was worried that another contender, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, might have pushed the party closer to Israel and disheartened Arab American and younger voters. Some in Harris’ inner circle saw Walz as a do-no-harm choice who could keep the party unified heading into the Democratic National Convention opening in Chicago on Aug. 19.
Progressives are already celebrating Walz’s ability to deliver an unapologetically populist message in the style of a Midwestern dad who recalls the social studies teacher and football coach he once was.
Activists who for months have followed Biden around the country to protest his full-throated support for Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza are hopeful that Walz will help Harris take a more nuanced approach than someone like Shapiro.
But some critics will point to 2016 when the only other woman to be nominated for president, Hillary Clinton, picked a mild-mannered dad with centrist views and a modest national profile: Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. That ticket was lost to Trump.
Exciting each side’s most loyal supporters
Neither vice presidential pick seems to do much to build out his party’s coalition — a sign that both campaigns view this election as about boosting turnout from their existing bases.
Just as Walz hails from the solidly Democratic state of Minnesota, Vance comes from the safely Republican state of Ohio. There is a bet that each choice can radiate Midwestern appeal to the key “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin simply by dint of geographical proximity.
Harris's allies have stressed Walz’s ability to appeal to rural voters, although his 2022 reelection as governor roughly matched the margins of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win in Minnesota. Trump won 6 in 10 rural and small-town voters nationwide in 2020, according to AP VoteCast.
The Trump campaign was quick to try to connect Walz to its characterizations of Harris as a California liberal, saying his support for gun control and teachers unions make him a “West Coast wannabe.”
Vance, for his part, comes from a state that has twice backed Trump by 8 percentage points. Just like the former president with his book “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” Vance achieved national recognition with his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” Vance has mainly played to cultural and policy issues favored by strict adherents of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement such as cutting military support for Ukraine.
Vance offering battleground counterprogramming to Walz
Vance is set to follow an overlapping itinerary to Harris and Walz over the next two days, including stops in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. His role is to attack the Biden administration’s policies and tear down Harris’ record on the economy, public safety, and immigration.
Vance got out ahead of the Democrats in Philadelphia on Tuesday, holding an event hours before Harris was to formally introduce her new running mate at a rally. He said during his Philadelphia stop that “I absolutely want to debate Tim Walz,” but not until after the Democratic convention.
Harris’ team seemed to be happy to have Vance making the contrast with the Democrats.
“We appreciate JD Vance providing voters in battleground states exactly the split-screen that defines the choice this November,” said Harris campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak.
Plenty of drama still to come
Walz’s selection settled one big question mark among Democrats, but plenty of major challenges remain for the final months of a race already defined by its unexpected twists and turns.
There is the prospect of a wider war in the Middle East, the possibility of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve that might calm global financial markets, and questions about whether Trump and Harris will actually square off in a September debate that was set before Biden bowed out of the race.
No matter what happens, the conventional narratives of a presidential campaign have already had seemingly brief shelf lives. Voters over the past few weeks have dealt with Biden’s disastrous performance in the June 27 debate against Trump, a brazen assassination attempt on Trump, Biden’s exit from the race and Harris’ quick ascendance among Democrats.
Now that both tickets are settled, a reckoning will take place over positions, and small differences can matter to voters who on the margin could decide a narrow election. Global events can upend talking points in ways that are hard to predict. The 2008 campaign intensified with that year’s financial crisis, while the persistence of the coronavirus shaped 2020.
If there are any lessons from this year, it’s that election-year surprises are no longer reserved for October.