WASHINGTON — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has been tapped as Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate ahead of the Democratic National Convention.
Walz was one of a handful of candidates on a shortlist of potential VP picks Harris was considering.
Who is Tim Walz?
It would be hard to find a more vivid representative of the American heartland than Walz. Born in West Point, Nebraska, a community of about 3,500 people northwest of Omaha, Walz joined the Army National Guard and became a teacher in Nebraska.
He and his wife moved to Mankato in southern Minnesota in the 1990s. That's where he taught social studies and coached football at Mankato West High School, including for the 1999 team that won the first of the school's four state championships. He still points to his union membership there.
Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring from a field artillery battalion in 2005 as a command sergeant major, one of the military's highest enlisted ranks.
He won the first of six terms in Congress in 2006 from a mostly rural southern Minnesota district, and used the office to champion veterans issues. Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard, rising to command sergeant major, one of the highest enlisted ranks in the military.
Walz has proven he can win close races
In his first race for Congress, Walz upset a Republican incumbent. That was in 2006, when he won in a largely rural, southern Minnesota congressional district against six-term Rep. Gil Gutknecht. Walz capitalized on voter anger with then-President George W. Bush and the Iraq war.
He’s also shown a down-to-earth side, partly through social media video posts with his daughter, Hope. One last fall showed them trying a Minnesota State Fair ride, “The Slingshot,” after they bantered about fair food and her being a vegetarian.
He ran for governor in 2018 on the theme of “One Minnesota” and won by more than 11 points.
As governor, Walz had to find ways to work in his first term with a legislature that was split between a Democratic-controlled House and a Republican-led Senate. Minnesota has a history of divided government, though, and the arrangement was surprisingly productive in his first year. But the COVID-19 pandemic hit Minnesota early in his second year, and bipartisan cooperation soon frayed.
Walz relied on emergency powers to lead the state’s response. Republicans chafed under restrictions that included lockdowns, closing schools and shuttering businesses. They retaliated by firing or forcing out some of his agency heads. But Minnesotans who were stuck at home also got to know Walz better through his frequent afternoon briefings in the early days of the crisis, which were broadcast and streamed statewide.
Walz won reelection in 2022 by nearly 8 points over his GOP challenger, Dr. Scott Jensen, a physician and vaccine skeptic. Not only did Walz win, Democrats kept control of the House and flipped the Senate to win the “trifecta” of full control of both chambers and the governor’s office for the first time in eight years. A big reason was the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which held that the Constitution doesn’t include a right to abortion. That hurt Minnesota Republicans, especially among suburban women.
Walz is a midwesterner, through and through
While Walz isn't from one of the crucial “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where both sides believe they need to win, he's right next door. He also could ensure that Minnesota stays in the hands of Democrats.
That's important because former President Donald Trump has portrayed Minnesota as being in play this year, even though the state hasn't elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006. A GOP presidential candidate hasn't carried the state since President Richard Nixon's landslide in 1972, but Trump has already campaigned there.
When Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton decided not to seek a third term in 2018, Walz campaigned and won the office on a “One Minnesota” theme.
Walz also speaks comfortably about issues that matter to voters in the Rust Belt. He's been a champion of Democratic causes, including union organizing, workers' rights and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.
“Tim has been in the news because the country and the world is seeing the guy we love so much,” U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar said Monday.
Ken Martin, Chairman of the Minnesota-Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party said young people he spoke to on the campaign trail were “Walz pilled.”
What are Tim Walz's policies?
Walz and other Democrats went into the 2023 legislative session with an ambitious agenda — and a whopping $17.6 billion budget surplus to help fund it. Their proudest accomplishments included sweeping protections for abortion rights that included the elimination of nearly all restrictions Republicans had enacted in prior years, including a 24-hour waiting period and parental consent requirements. They also enacted new protections for trans rights, making the state a refuge for families coming from out of state for treatment for trans children.
Their other major accomplishments included tax credits for families with children that were aimed at slashing childhood poverty, as well as universal free school breakfasts and lunches for all students, regardless of family income. They also enacted a paid family and medical leave program, legalized recreational marijuana for adults and made it easier to vote.
Republicans complained that Walz and his fellow Democrats squandered a surplus that would have been better spent on permanent tax relief for everyone. And they’ve faulted the governor and his administration for lax oversight of pandemic programs that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Federal prosecutors charged 70 people with defrauding federal food programs that funded meals for kids during the pandemic out of $250 million on Walz’s watch. Known as the Feeding Our Future scandal, it’s one of the country’s largest pandemic aid fraud cases. The Office of the Legislative Auditor, a nonpartisan watchdog, delivered a scathing report in June that said Walz’s Department of Education “failed to act on warning signs,” did not effectively exercise its authority and was ill-prepared to respond.
Walz deployed National Guard after George Floyd protests
Republicans still criticize Walz for his response to the sometimes violent unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, which included the torching of a police station.
During a May fundraiser in St. Paul, Trump repeated his false claim that he was responsible for deploying the National Guard to quell the violence. “The entire city was burning down. ... If you didn’t have me as president, you wouldn’t have Minneapolis today,” Trump said.
It was actually Walz who gave the order, which he issued in response to requests from the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul. But within Minnesota, GOP legislators said both Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey were too slow to act. And there was finger-pointing between Frey and Walz on who was responsible for not activating the Guard faster.
Walz has served often as a Biden-Harris surrogate, and has made increasingly frequent appearances on national television. They’ve included an interview on Fox News that irritated Trump so much that he posted on Truth Social, “They make me fight battles I shouldn’t have to fight.” Walz is also co-chair of the rules committee for the Democratic National Convention. And he led a White House meeting of Democratic governors with Biden following the president’s disastrous performance in his debate with Trump.
Putting Walz on the ticket could help Democrats hold the state’s 10 electoral votes and bolster the party more broadly in the Midwest. No Republican has won a statewide race in Minnesota since Tim Pawlenty was re-elected governor in 2006, but GOP candidates for attorney general and state auditor came close in 2022.
Walz called Republican nominee Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance “just weird” in an MSNBC interview last month and the Democratic Governors Association — which Walz chairs — amplified the point n a post on X. Walz later reiterated the characterization on CNN, citing Trump’s repeated mentions of the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter from the film “Silence of the Lambs” in stump speeches.
The word quickly morphed into a theme for Harris and other Democrats, and has a chance to be a watchword of the undoubtably weird 2024 election.
Not selected: Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly
Alongside Walz on the shortlist were Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly.
Both come from battleground states that Harris is hoping to pick up votes in as she faces off against Republican Donald Trump.
Harris, who was officially declared the Democratic nominee Monday night during a delegate roll call, said she would announce her running mate before Aug. 7. The Tuesday decision beats that deadline by a day.
It is unclear if Walz will be at a Harris rally scheduled in Philadelphia later Tuesday, although Shapiro is expected to speak and introduce Harris.