Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a moderate Democrat who demonstrated an ability to work with Republican lawmakers while serving in Congress, as her running mate, according to a person briefed on the decision.
Although popular at home, Walz did not have much of a national profile until his recent outspoken criticism of Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, calling them “weird.” That word proved surprisingly effective in eviscerating a former president known for his insults.
“There are strange people on the other side,” Walz said. In an interview with MSNBC in July. “They want to take your books away. They want to be in your exam room.”
It was a shift in language after years of Democrats calling Trump a threat to democracy, and Harris’ campaign seized on it, issuing a statement calling Trump “old and pretty weird.”
Waltz It was later explained that constantly calling Trump an existential threat “gives him too much power.”
“Tim Walz would be the worst Vice President ever!” Trump wrote in a fundraising email after the decision was leaked Tuesday, in which he attacked Walz on immigration and environmental spending.
Walz has deep rural roots, which could prove a counterpoint to Vance, whose political rise began with his bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which chronicles his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio.
Walz, a former high school teacher and football coach who often appears in public wearing T-shirts and hats, brings a gentle, Midwestern dad sensibility to his candidacy.
“The excitement is in the air, it feels like the first day of school, and as a football coach, we’re back on offense,” Walz said in a video message on X in support of Harris’ campaign. “Vice President Harris is bringing energy, making sure she’s going to be there to protect democracy and … bring some joy back to our politics.”
Walz, 60, was born in rural Nebraska and went to high school in the small town of Butte, graduating in a class of 25 students. He told the New York Times that the class included 12 cousins and “finding someone to date was kind of a problem.”
In 1989, Walz graduated from Chadron State College in Nebraska with a bachelor's degree in social science education.
He moved to Mankato, Minnesota, a small town south of Minneapolis, in 1996. He taught social studies at Mankato West High School and helped coach the football team that won the school's first state championship. He and his wife, Gwen, a co-worker, have two children.
Walz also spent 24 years in the Army National Guard, having enlisted at 17. He rose to the rank of command sergeant major before retiring in 2005.
He said He first decided In 2004, he tried to get involved in politics after trying to take a group of students to a presentation by then-President George W. Bush in Mankato. They were denied entry, he said, because One of the students sported a John F. Kerry sticker.
“I had just returned from military service in Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and wanted to hear directly from the President and my students, regardless of political party, deserved to witness the historic moment of a sitting president coming to our city,” Walz said. wrote on Twitter, now known as X“Most of all, I was struck by how deeply divided our country was, to the point where a veteran and a group of high school students were turned away at the door.”
Angry over the incident, Walz volunteered for Kerry's campaign and two years later was elected to Congress representing the Republican-leaning 1st Congressional District in rural southern Minnesota. He was reelected five times.
As a congressman, he was praised for his bipartisanship. From 2015 to 2017, more than a half The bills he co-sponsored were introduced by lawmakers who were not Democrats.
He was the highest-ranking enlisted soldier to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and was appointed ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee in 2017.
Once accepted by the National Rifle Association, which endorsed him and gave him an “A” grade, Walz denounced the organization after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He began backing gun control measures, including banning assault weapons.
“The world has changed,” he told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2018. “I have changed.”
Walz was elected governor of Minnesota in 2018.
Conservatives sharply criticized Walz for his executive actions early in the COVID-19 pandemic, including stay-at-home orders, mask mandates and closures of businesses and school campuses.
Critics also said he did not do enough to quell the chaos after Minneapolis was overwhelmed by protests and chaos following the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white police officer. Walz deployed the Minnesota National Guard three days after Floyd's death. Some said he waited too long to act.
Despite the criticism, Walz was re-elected in 2022 and recent polls show a majority of Minnesotans approve of his job performance.
As governor, he signed laws that codified the right to abortion and reproductive care, guaranteed free school meals for all students in kindergarten through 12th grade regardless of income, banned so-called conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ minors and vulnerable adults, and allowed immigrants without legal status to obtain driver's licenses.
And like Vance, he likes the diet drink Mountain Dew. At a rally in July, Vance joked that Democrats might call his fondness for the drink racist.
Walz’s affinity for the neon green soda has been well documented for years. In 2022, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan posted an X-rated photo showing Walz grabbing a Diet Dew from a convenience store cooler.
“He’s freaking out again! #dadjoke,” he wrote.
“I had to spray it,” Walz replied.
Times staff writer Noah Bierman contributed to this report.
