Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate and vice presidential candidate in her presidential race against Donald Trump and JD Vance.
Walz brings a rural, Midwestern perspective to the Democrat’s campaign, while also laying out liberal policy goals like legalizing cannabis and increasing worker protections.
The Governor is in his second term and served 12 years in Congress.
In him, Harris will have someone with a progressive track record and a proven track record in winning over white working-class voters in the Rust Belt and/or Manufacturing Belt states of the Northeast and Midwest of the United States.
The Democratic ticket is expected to shore up support in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, Democratic strongholds at the presidential level that Donald Trump toppled in 2016 and Joe Biden reclaimed in 2020.
Walz, 60, was a long shot among the candidates to run alongside the current vice president, with notable profiles including the governors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky, Josh Shapiro and Andy Beshear, respectively, as well as Arizona senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly.
The gubernatorial pick sticks to the conventional wisdom of a balanced ticket, complementing Harris, who hails from California and is seeking to become the first African-American president in U.S. history, across demographic, cultural and political lines.
Harris is expected to appear with her running mate at an event in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
Who is Tim Walz?
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is a military veteran and union supporter who helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state.
He gained greater national visibility since the 2023 legislative session, which he considers one of the most important and productive in state history. He was elected chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in December.
Walz won his first of six terms in Congress in 2006 in a largely rural district in southern Minnesota and used his office to champion veterans’ rights.
He served for 24 years in the Army National Guard, enlisting at age 17 and rising to command sergeant major, one of the highest ranks. He served in the United States and abroad.
He later served as a high school social studies teacher and football coach in Mankato, about 80 miles south of Minneapolis, before winning a congressional seat in a largely rural and agricultural district in 2006.
When he was first elected Governor in 2018, he had to find ways to work with a Legislature divided between a Democratic-controlled House and a Republican-led Senate.
Minnesota has a history of divided government, and the agreement was surprisingly productive in its first year. But the Covid-19 pandemic hit that state early in its second year, and bipartisan cooperation soon frayed.
A 1995 reckless driving arrest in Nebraska, in which he failed a sobriety test, came up in his House and gubernatorial campaigns, but he was elected anyway. In a local interview he called the episode a “courage-testing moment” and that he quit drinking afterward.
Walz won re-election by nearly 8 points in 2022 and Democrats maintained control of the House and won the Senate to have full control of both chambers and the Governor’s office for the first time in eight years.
He and other Democrats entered the 2023 legislative session with an ambitious agenda and a massive $17.6 billion budget surplus to help fund it.
Among their most important achievements were sweeping protections for abortion rights. They also enacted new protections for trans rights, making Minnesota a haven for out-of-state families seeking treatment for trans children. They also signed laws restricting access to guns.
Additionally, he signed into law 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 so nationally) — a list of legislative victories that his colleagues and supporters have said would translate nationally.
In recent days, Walz has upped the ante by launching attacks against Trump and Sen. JD Vance.
#Harris #selects #Tim #Walz #vice #presidential #candidate
