WASHINGTON (AP) — After days of speculation, Vice President Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz This means that on Tuesday she will elect a likeable, long-serving politician who the Democrats hope can maintain the party’s newfound unity in a campaign heading toward election day.
Harris said in a social media post that Walz had “made a difference for working families.” The two will appear together at an evening rally in Philadelphia.
By choosing Walz, 60, she is turning to a Midwestern governor, a war veteran and union supporter who helped push through an ambitious Democratic program for his state that includes comprehensive protections for abortion rights and generous support for families.
He joins Harris in one of the most turbulent periods in state-of-the-art American politics and promises an unpredictable campaign. Republicans rallied around him after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in July. Just a few weeks later, President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaignforcing Harris to unite Democrats and consider possible vice presidential candidates over a breathtaking two-week period.
Harris hopes to strengthen her campaign’s position in the Midwest, a key region in presidential politics that often serves as a buffer for Democrats seeking the White House. The party is still hurting from Trump’s victories in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016. Trump lost those states in 2020 but has them in his sights as he seeks re-election this year and expands his focus to Minnesota.
Harris, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Walz are scheduled to appear together at an evening rally in Philadelphia, commemorating a joint appearance by Biden and Harris in Wilmington, Delaware, in 2020.
After traveling to Pennsylvania on Tuesday, they will spend the next five days flying thousands of miles across the country, visiting crucial swing states. On Wednesday, they will visit Eau Claire, Wisconsin and Detroit, and later in the week, Phoenix and Las Vegas.
Planned stops in Savannah, Georgia, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, were postponed due to Tropical Storm Debby‘s effects.
A team of lawyers and political operatives led by former Attorney General Eric Holder reviewed documents and conducted interviews with the potential candidates, and Harris herself met with her three finalists on Sunday. She discussed the decision with her top aides at the vice president’s residence in Washington on Monday and made it final on Tuesday morning, the informants said.
Harris, the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to lead a major party’s ticket, initially considered nearly a dozen candidates before narrowing her efforts to a handful of grave contenders, all of whom were white men. In Walz, she chose a low-key partner who has proven to be a champion of Democratic causes.
“It’s no surprise that San Francisco liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running mate – Walz has spent his time in office remaking Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign press secretary. “Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide.”
Walz was a powerful public advocate for Harris in her campaign against Trump and Senator JD Vance of Ohio. the Republicans describe as “just weird” in an interview last month. Democrats have picked up the message and have been amplified ever since.
During a fundraiser for Harris in Minneapolis on Monday, Walz said, “Calling these guys weird wasn’t an insult. It was an observation.”
Walz, who grew up in the tiny town of West Point, Nebraska, was a social studies teacher, football coach and union member at Mankato West High School in Minnesota before entering politics.
He won the first of six terms in Congress in 2006 from a predominantly rural district in southern Minnesota and used his office to champion veterans’ issues. Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard and rose to the rank of Command Sergeant Major, one of the highest ranks in the military.
He ran for governor in 2018 on the topic “One Minnesota” and won by more than 11 points.
As governor, Walz had to find ways to work with a legislature split between a Democratic-controlled House and a Republican-led Senate in his first term. But Minnesota has a history of divided government, and the The arrangement was surprisingly productive in his first year. But the COVID-19 pandemic hit Minnesota at the start of his second year, and bipartisan cooperation soon began to falter.
Walz invoked emergency powers to direct the state’s response. Republicans suffered from restrictions These included lockdowns, school closures and business shutdowns. They responded by firing or sacking some of his agency heads. But Minnesotans stuck at home also got to know Walz better through his habitual afternoon briefings in the early days of the crisis, which were broadcast and streamed nationally.
Rolling won re-election in 2022 by nearly 8 points over his Republican challenger, Dr. Scott Jensen, a physician and vaccine skeptic. The Democrats also retained control of the House of Representatives and won the Senate to gain the “trifecta” of full control both houses and the governor’s office for the first time in eight years. One crucial reason was the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case, which ruled that the Constitution does not include a right to abortion. This has hurt Republicans in Minnesota, especially among women in the suburbs.
“Tim was in the news because the country and the world saw the man we love so much,” U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar said Monday.
Ken Martin, chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, said the newborn people he spoke to during the campaign were “overwhelmed by Walz pills.”
Walz and other Democrats entered the 2023 legislative period with an ambitious agenda – and a A well budget surplus of $17.6 billion to finance it. Your proudest achievements included comprehensive protection for abortion rights, which included the removal of almost all of the restrictions that Republicans had enacted in previous years, including a 24-hour waiting period and the requirement for parental consent. They also enacted up-to-date protective measures for trans rights, make the state a place of refuge for families who come from another state to receive treatment for transgender children.
Their other major achievements included tax breaks for families with children aimed at reducing child poverty, and free school breakfasts and lunches for all students, regardless of family income. They also passed a paid family and medical leave Program, legalized recreational marijuana for adults and made voting easier.
Republicans complained that Walz and his Democrats had squandered a surplus that would have been better spent on eternal tax relief for all. And they criticized the governor and his administration for lax oversight of pandemic programs that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Federal prosecutors have charged 70 people with defrauding $250 million in federal food programs that funded meals for children during the pandemic under Walz’s watch. The scandal, known as Feeding Our Future, is one of the largest in the country Cases of pandemic aid fraud. The Office of the Legislative Auditor, a nonpartisan oversight agency, presented a devastating report in June, which said Walz’s Department of Education had “failed to respond to warning signals,” had not exercised its authority effectively, and had been ill-prepared to respond.
Republicans still criticize Walz for his response to the partly violent unrest after the Murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, which also included setting fire to a police station.
During a fundraiser in St. Paul in May, Trump said repeated his false claim that he was responsible for deploying the National Guard to contain the violence. “The whole city burned down. … If I hadn’t been president, Minneapolis wouldn’t be here today,” Trump said.
In fact, it was Walz who gave the order, which he issued in response to requests from the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul. But within Minnesota, Republican lawmakers said both Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey were too snail-paced to respond. And Frey and Walz pointed fingers at each other about who was responsible for not activating the National Guard more quickly.
Walz has often served as a Biden-Harris surrogate and has appeared more and more frequently on national television. They released an interview on Fox News that irritated Trump so much that he posted on Truth Social: “You’re forcing me to fight battles I shouldn’t be fighting.” Walz is also co-chair of the Rules Committee for the Democratic National Convention. And He chaired a meeting of Democratic governors at the White House with Biden after the president’s disastrous performance in his debate with Trump.
Walz’s nomination could lend a hand Democrats hold on to the state’s 10 electoral votes and strengthen the party more broadly in the Midwest. No Republican has won a statewide election in Minnesota since Tim Pawlenty was re-elected governor in 2006, but Republican candidates for attorney general and state auditor came close in 2022.
Trump was only 1.5 percentage points behind Democrat Hillary Clinton in Minnesota in 2016. While Biden won Minnesota in 2020 by more than 7 percentage points, Trump falsely claimed that he had won the state last time and can do it again.
Minnesota has produced two vice presidents, Hubert Humphrey And Walter Mondale.
