Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz is making her mark on her husband’s first national campaign as she prepares to introduce Governor Tim Walz (D) at the Democratic National Convention.
Walz will comment on a video introduces her husband at the convention on Wednesday, according to a representative of the Harris-Walz campaign team. She attended all of the convention’s major speeches and enthusiastically joined in on former President Obama’s joke about her husband’s flannel shirt collection, writing on social media platform X: “Tim loves his flannel shirts.”
But as Vice President Harris’ campaign puts the Walz duo in the national spotlight, they are increasingly coming under scrutiny. Earlier this week, the Harris-Walz campaign was forced to disclose the type of fertility surgery the Walzes had undergone, drawing criticism from Republicans.
“This is a chance for them both to introduce themselves and give the public a glimpse into their story from a personal perspective,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “In many ways, that’s the job Gwen Walz will be doing tonight.”
The Waltzes are largely unknown the general American public. An AP-NORC poll released earlier this week found that 4 in 10 Americans said they did not know enough about Tim Walz to form an opinion about him.
“In many ways, your job at these conventions is to portray the human side of the candidate, and I find that particularly interesting with Tim Walz because he comes across as so human,” Walsh said.
Like her husband, Gwen Walz worked as a teacher. Before becoming Minnesota’s First Lady, Gwen Walz was an English teacher and former administrator of the Mankato Area Public Schools. She made education a central part of her platform as the state’s First Lady and advocated for access to education in prisons.
Democrats in the North Star State were thrilled when Gwen Walz was thrust into the national spotlight as a candidate for their party’s presidential nomination.
Nick Frentz (D), assistant majority leader in the Minnesota State Senate, called her rise “a continuation of Democrats’ realization that putting women in leadership positions pays off for everyone.”
“I think Gwen Walz is recognized as a star, as a teacher, as an assessment coordinator, as a wife, as a mother. It’s no big secret to us in Mankato, North Mankato,” he said. “And we’re excited for the nation to find out. She’s sensational.”
Christine DeVries, an alternate delegate from Minnesota, said it was “no big surprise” that Gwen Walz had come into the national spotlight.
“We were at a fundraiser with Gwen and Tim a few years ago, and she spoke, and so did the governor,” DeVries said. “But we all thought, ‘Wow, she could be governor.'”
Although their careers as educators are a substantial part of the Walz brand, the couple has been open about their struggles with fertility. Tim Walz previously seemed to hint that he and his wife had undergone in vitro fertilization (IVF), though the Harris-Walz campaign and Gwen Walz clarified that they had chosen intrauterine insemination.
“Governor Walz speaks like normal people speak,” said Mia Ehrenberg, spokeswoman for the Harris-Walz campaign, in a statement on the previous comments. “He used common-sense acronyms for fertility treatments.”
Gwen Walz shared details of her personal story in an interview with Glamour magazine Published earlier this week.
“Many of our closest family and friends were surprised when we talked about these experiences so many years later,” Gwen Walz told the magazine.
She called her fertility journey “an incredibly personal and difficult experience.”
This clarification led to attacks from Republicans, particularly Senator JD Vance (Ohio), the Republican vice presidential candidate. Vance accused Walz of lying that he had “fathered a family through artificial insemination.”
Ehrenberg said in a statement that the Trump campaign’s attacks on Gwen Walz “are just another example of how cruel and out of touch with reality Donald Trump and JD Vance are when it comes to women’s health care.”
“Infertility is a deeply personal matter, but the Governor and Ms. Walz have come forward to tell their story because they know that MAGA’s attacks on reproductive rights endanger all fertility treatments,” she added.
The attacks have also angered supporters of the couple, such as Minnesota delegate Lori Sellner, who said critics should “mind their own damn business.”
“How dare anyone question a couple’s path to having children,” said Jeanne Massey, who attended the Minnesota delegation’s breakfast on Wednesday but is not an official delegate.
“This is so incredibly offensive,” said Massey, who at one point had tears in his eyes. “They did everything they could because they wanted to bring children into this world, and I’m so glad they were able to do that.”
Brian Melendez, former chairman of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota, had more poignant words for Vance and his attacks on Tim Walz, which related to his portrayal of his military service and the way he described his family’s path to fertility.
“I think Tim Walz knows about his military service, and I think Tim Walz knows how his child was born,” Melendez said. “And people who don’t know that should just shut up.”
The nation is also quickly getting to know Gwen Walz through X, where her reactions to speakers like Obama and Hillary Clinton went viral. After Obama made his joke about the governor’s flannel shirts, the First Lady of Minnesota could be seen clapping and throwing her hands in the air.
As First Lady Jill Biden spoke Monday evening, Gwen Walz held up a green sign with the word “Jill” in block letters.
Supporters said voters should expect Minnesota’s governor and first lady to share more about their own family lives to give the impression of an identifiable family unit.
Following Harris’ decision to select the governor as her running mate, Gwen Walz posted an Instagram selfie of her family with the caption, “Walzes, gather around! Let’s go to Philly!”
Sellner, the delegate from Minnesota, recalled how the Walzes made an effort to invite all the children in their daughter’s class to her birthday party when she was in elementary school.
“I remember talking to Gwen about how I don’t usually see this, it’s usually just a couple of friends,” Sellner said. “She said, ‘Yeah, we just want to make sure everyone is included in things,’ and that’s always stuck with me since I’ve known her.”
“I knew them then and know them today as people who simply wanted to bring everyone to the table.”
