Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, nominated Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday in an effort to boost the Democratic candidates’ appeal in key Midwestern states and among the working class.
Walz, a former social studies teacher and Army National Guard veteran who won a tough election in a rural U.S. House district before running for governor in 2018 and winning re-election in 2022, balances Harris geographically and demographically, while bringing a history of campaign victories in areas ranging from purple to red and a governing record that is among the most progressive of any contender on the ballot.
“One of the things that struck me about Tim is his deep conviction to fight for middle-class families,” Harris wrote in a statement. “This is personal. As a governor, coach, teacher and veteran, he has fought for working families like his own. We will build a great partnership. We start as underdogs, but I believe together we can win this election.”
Walz was also considered the preferred vice presidential candidate of the progressive wing of the party, especially as an alternative to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Harris interviewed both governorsand U.S. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, in Washington on Sunday as she shortlisted her candidates.
Outside his home state, Walz was known until recently only to the closest political observers, but his relaxed style and approachable demeanor — as well as his blunt attacks on his Republican rivals Donald Trump and JD Vance — during his weeks of national television appearances earned him praise from Democratic officials and strategists seeking to break Trump’s dominance among white voters without college degrees.
Walz, 60, has proven himself to be one of the party’s best communicators in recent weeks through the power of a single adjective for the Republicans and their political goals.
“They’re strange people on the other side,” Walz said in an interview with MSNBC on July 23. “They want to take your books away, they want to get into the exam room … These are strange ideas.”
Despite all the efforts of President Joe Biden’s aborted re-election campaign to portray the Republicans under Trump’s leadership as a threat to American democracy and reproductive rights who could not be trusted to run a responsible government, the attacks remained ineffective and Trump’s poll numbers continued to rise.
But shortly after Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, Democrats adopted the succinct message attributed to the Minnesota governor.
“I love Tim Walz on TV,” Rebecca Pearcey, a Democratic strategist, said in a July interview with States Newsroom about possible vice presidential candidates for Harris.
“I love that he’s so down to earth and succinct and says, ‘These guys are weird,'” she added. “That’s exactly it – we’re overcomplicating the message.”
In a statement, Shapiro said he was grateful to have been considered as Harris’s vice presidential running mate and would continue his work as governor, calling the role the “greatest honor” of his life.
Shapiro congratulated Walz, saying he was an “extraordinarily strong addition to the list.” He said he would work to ensure the Harris-Walz list wins in November.
“Vice President Kamala Harris has my enthusiastic support – and I know Governor Tim Walz is an exceptionally strong addition to the electoral slate that will help Kamala move our country forward,” he wrote. “Over the next 92 days, I look forward to traveling across the Commonwealth to unite the people of Pennsylvania behind Kamala Harris’ campaign to defeat Donald Trump, become the 47th President of the United States, and build a better future for our country.”
According to his official schedule, Shapiro is scheduled to speak at Walz’s first public appearance with Harris, a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening.
“Left-wing radical”
Shortly after reports of Walz’s selection emerged, the Trump campaign issued a scathing statement attacking him, attempting to undermine his appeal to rural Midwestern voters and link him to Harris’s Bay Area background – perhaps foreshadowing the attacks Walz will face in the three months leading up to Election Day.
“It’s no surprise that San Francisco liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running mate – Walz spent his term as governor reshaping Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
“If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: Like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerous liberal extremist, and Harris and Walz’s California dream is every American’s nightmare.”
Leavitt highlighted Walz’s signature on a bill that requires the state to transition to 100% carbon-free energy by 2040.
A political action committee linked to Trump also sharply criticized the Minnesota governor.
A written statement from MAGA Inc. criticized Walz’s positions on transgender rights and immigration, as well as his response to the unrest in Minneapolis after police there killed unarmed black man George Floyd.
The PAC also attempted to link Walz to a federal fraud case in the state in which five convicted in federal court for embezzling federal COVID-19 relief funds intended for feeding needy children. The case involved a nonprofit organization, but a June report by the state auditor general found that the state’s Department of Education had failed to properly monitor federal payments.
“Governor Tim Walz and Kamala Harris will get along great,” the statement said. “They are both left-wing radicals who do not know how to govern.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also from San Francisco, said in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday that the characterization of Walz as an extreme leftist was “puzzling.”
“To call him left is so unrealistic,” Pelosi said“He’s right in the middle. He’s a Democrat from the heartland of America.”
As the leading Democrat on the U.S. House Veterans Affairs Committee, Walz has made “tremendous, tremendous progress” for veterans, Pelosi said.
Communicating rural values
Walz, who grew up in a rural Nebraska community, has been a piercing critic of Republicans nationally for their relentless focus on cultural issues. He recently aimed that criticism at Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio whose rise to the Republican vice presidential nomination was based on his controversial book describing the lives of people in needy rural Kentucky.
Vance and the Republicans are “obsessed” with taking away rights from others, Walz said, especially in the context of reproductive rights and education that includes the discussion of gender and sexuality.
“The golden rule that makes small towns work, so that we in small towns aren’t constantly at each other’s throats, is mind your own business,” Walz told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki on July 25. “I don’t need him (Vance) to tell me about my family, I don’t need him to tell me about my wife’s health care and her reproductive rights, I don’t need him to tell my kids what books to read.”
Instead, Walz presents a pragmatic vision of democratic governance.
“They scream socialism, we just build roads and schools and create prosperity,” he told Psaki.
Message from the working class
As governor, Walz has had a number of policy accomplishments that he can boast about to the progressive wing of the party, including signing legislation that provides free meals to all public school students, expanding access to abortion and legalizing some recreational uses of THC.
But the sometimes bespectacled former high school teacher and football coach, who wore T-shirts and hunting caps on national TV hits, also projects the image of a Midwestern pragmatist.
This could support balance voters’ views on a Democratic slate led by Harris. Harris would be the first female president, the first president of South Asian descent and the second black president. After her successes in the Democratic primary in California, she is considered more liberal than most in the party.
Christopher Devine, a political scientist at the University of Dayton, said Walz’s appeal is not unlike that of Harris’ last vice presidential candidate.
“Walz has a message that kind of reminds me of Joe Biden’s appeal, a kind of working-class focus,” he said. “He can speak from a rural background, he was a teacher and coach and also has a military background. He seems to me like someone who could maybe help with a kind of working-class message.”
During the election campaign, it will be vital for Walz to carry this message to neighboring Wisconsin and other vital Rust Belt states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Kim Lyons contributed to this report.
