Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, choosing a progressive political champion and regular speaker from America's heartland to help win over white rural voters, US media reported.
Walz, a 60-year veteran of the US Army National Guard and former teacher, was elected to a Republican district in the US House of Representatives in 2006 and served 12 years before being elected governor of Minnesota in 2018.
As governor, Walz has pushed a progressive agenda that includes free school meals, goals to address climate change, tax cuts for the middle class and expanded paid leave for Minnesota workers.
Walz has long advocated for women's reproductive rights but has also shown a conservative bent when he represents a rural district in the US House, defends agricultural interests and supports gun rights.
Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, adds a popular Midwestern politician whose home state votes reliably Democratic in presidential elections but is close to Wisconsin and Michigan, two crucial battlegrounds.
Such states are seen as crucial to deciding this year's election, and Walz is widely seen as adept at connecting with white, rural voters who in recent years have voted broadly for Republican Donald Trump, Harris' rival for the White House.
The Harris campaign hopes that Walz's extensive National Guard career, along with a successful run as a high school football coach, and his dad's prank videos will attract the kind of voters not yet committed to a second Trump term in the White House.
Harris, 59, has revived the Democratic Party's electoral victory hopes since becoming its nominee after President Joe Biden, 81, ended his failed re-election bid amid party pressure on July 21.
Walz was a relative unknown nationally until the Harris “veepstakes” heated up, but his profile has since risen. He was a popular member of Congress and reportedly had the support of powerful former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in persuading Biden to drop out of the race.
Harris and Walz will face Trump and his running mate JD Vance, also a Midwestern military veteran, in a Nov. 5 election.
Walz runs into Harris, sometimes wearing a camouflage baseball cap and T-shirt, and has attacked Trump and Vance as “weird,” a catchy insult that has been picked up by the Harris campaign, social media and Democratic activists.
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Walz gave the nascent Harris campaign the new line of attack in a late July interview: “These are weird people on the other side: They want to take away books. They want to be in your fitting room,” referring to book bans and women's reproductive consultations with a doctor.
Walz has also attacked Trump and Vance's claims of having middle-class credentials.
“They keep talking about the middle class. A robber baron and a venture capitalist trying to tell us they understand who we are? They don't know who we are,” Walz said in an MSNBC interview.
That approach has struck a chord with the young voters Harris needs to reengage. David Hogg, one of the founders of the gun safety group March for Our Lives, described him as a “great communicator.”
Walz is “something of a unicorn,” said Ryan Dawkins, a political science professor at Minnesota's Carleton College — a man born in a small town in rural Nebraska who can carry Harris' message to Democratic voters and those the party has failed. to reach in recent years.
Dawkins praised his ability to connect with rural voters. It's a group the Biden administration has tried to reach with infrastructure spending and other pragmatic policies, but with little messaging success so far.
In the 2016 election, Trump won 59 percent of rural voters; In 2020, that number rose to 65 percent even though Trump lost the election, according to Pew Research.
In the 2022 gubernatorial race, Walz won with 52.27 percent to his Republican opponent's 44.61 percent, even though parts of rural Minnesota voted for the opponent.
While Walz has supported Democratic Party orthodoxy on issues ranging from legalized abortion and same-sex marriage to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, he also earned a centrist voting record during his congressional career.
He was a strong defender of government support for farmers and military veterans, as well as gun ownership rights that won praise from the National Rifle Association, according to The Almanac of American Politics.
He subsequently registered a failing grade with the NRA after supporting gun control measures during his first campaign for governor.
Walz's transition from a centrist representing a single rural congressional district to a more progressive politician as governor may have been a response to the demands of voters in major cities such as the Minneapolis-St. Paul. But that leaves him open to Republican attacks, Dawkins said in a phone interview.
“He runs the risk of amplifying some of the worst fears people have about Kamala Harris being a liberal in San Francisco,” Dawkins said.
Walz has a clear counterattack.
“What a monster. Kids eat and have full bellies, so they can go and learn and women make their own health care decisions,” Walz said in a CNN interview in July. “So if that's where they want to label me, I'm more than happy to label.”
As the state's top leader, Walz mandated the use of face coverings during the COVID-19 pandemic and signed a law making marital rape illegal. He presided over years of budget surpluses in Minnesota en route to his 2022 re-election.
During that campaign, Walz touted the support of several influential unions, including the state AFL-CIO, firefighters, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), teachers and others.
His tenure was marked by the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer convicted of murder. Walz assigned the state's attorney to lead the prosecution in the case, saying people “don't believe justice can be served.”
