Data News Staff Edited Report
Vice President Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her Vice-Presidential running mate, according to three sources with knowledge of the pick, adding a popular Midwestern State Executive to the Democratic ticket as the party gears up to hold onto key Northern battleground states this fall.
In picking Walz, who’s in his second term and also served 12 years in Congress, Harris will have as her No. 2 someone with a proven record of winning over White working-class voters in Rust Belt Sates while also boasting a robustly progressive record.
Now Harris has chosen a governing partner who has leaned in at times to a folksy, Midwestern reputation while also proving to be a reliable attack dog against Trump.
Walz, a Nebraska native, enlisted in the National Guard when he was 17 and served for more than two decades, with both domestic and overseas deployments. He later was a high school social studies teacher and football coach in Mankato, about 80 miles south of Minneapolis, before he won a congressional seat in a largely rural and agricultural district in 2006.
Walz’s allies have spoken frequently about how his background representing rural communities is much needed in the party, noting that he won re-election in a red-trending district — one that was about evenly divided in 2012 but swung heavily to Trump in 2016 — and could help Democrats compete for some moderate or conservative voters skeptical of Trump this time around.
As governor, Walz has overseen a bonanza of progressive policy accomplishments — particularly during his second term, during which Democrats have also controlled both Chambers of the Legislature.
He has signed laws protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana, restricting gun access and providing legal refuge to trans youths whose access to gender-affirming and other medical care has been restricted elsewhere. Progressives elsewhere have pointed to Minnesota as a case study in how to effectively use the power of a legislative trifecta to achieve policy priorities.
Walz also enacted laws expanding paid family leave, banning most non-compete agreements, providing universal school meals for students and capping the price of insulin in Minnesota (three years before Biden did it nationally) — a list of legislative wins his colleagues and supporters have said would translate nationally.
Walz doesn’t have the same degree of name recognition as many of his presumed competitors to be Harris’ running mate, though he spent a year leading fundraising efforts for Democratic Governors as Chair of the Democratic Governors Association. In recent days, Walz has turned up the publicity dial, trying out attack lines against Trump and Sen. JD Vance in a slew of media appearances.
In a late July interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he ripped Trump and Vance as “weird,” gaining wider notice. Harris herself began using the “weird” line almost immediately.
“It’s not about hate. It’s not about collapsing in. The golden rule there is mind your own damn business,” Walz said, adding that Republican “policies are what destroyed rural America. They divided us. They’re in our exam rooms. They’re telling us what books to read.”
“And what I think, what Kamala Harris knows is bringing people together around the shared values, strong public schools, strong labor unions that create the middle class, health care that’s affordable and accessible, those are the things,” Walz said.
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