When Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris hit the homestretch in picking her running mate after a quick, yet intense bout of vetting, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was still the dark horse. The two leading candidates were Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. The reasoning was that Shapiro could deliver his home state—a must-win battleground for the Democrats—and Kelly, with his military background and moderate appeal, could help win Arizona and also flip independent voters. Walz came third in the pecking order. But after personal meetings with all three candidates on August 4, Harris went with the 60-year-old Walz, chucking the ambitious Shapiro and the arrow-straight Kelly.
Despite having little relationship in the past, Harris connected with Walz during their one-on-one meeting; their chemistry clicked. A consummate politician, Harris realised that Walz’s biography and his midwestern folksy charm could be key assets for her campaign. Moreover, she wanted someone with reliable executive experience and, more importantly, someone who would not overshadow her on the campaign trail. And Walz fit the bill perfectly.
During the vetting, Walz said he would perform the job whichever way Harris wanted him to. Harris and her team were pleasantly surprised when Walz told them that he did not have any presidential ambitions. The equations would have been completely different with Shapiro, who clearly wants to be president someday. At the moment, the Harris team would prefer not to have any such conflict of interest. So, after her personal meeting with Walz, Harris was convinced that she had the best personal rapport with him and that he would not let his personal ambitions get in the way of her campaign.
Walz is serving his second term as Minnesota governor and also heads the Democratic Governors Association. He had served 12 years (2006-2019) in the House of Representatives, representing a conservative heartland district which voted Republican both before and after his term. As a white man from the midwestern heartland, he balances the Democratic ticket led by a black, liberal woman from California.
He is well-liked within the party, enjoying the support from almost all factions, and is known for tactfully navigating controversial issues like the Gaza war. Walz’s cross-party approval was evident from the quick endorsements by far-left leaders like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and far-right leaders like West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who recently changed his political affiliation to independent because he felt the Democratic Party had veered too much to the left.
Harris introduced Walz as her running mate at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on August 6. And he was an instant hit. “We’ve got 91 days. We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” Walz told the raucous crowd. “Over those 91 days, and every day in the White House, I’ll have Vice President Harris’ back every single day—and we’ll have yours.” He tore into the Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, calling him an “Ivy Leaguer floated by tech billionaires and other rich guys who then published a best-seller trashing his own rural roots”. He talked up his credentials as a former high school teacher and National Guard member, and portrayed the Republican candidates “as the country club and the sell-out”. His speech showed that he planned to run on his biography and the ‘average Joe’ image.
Walz was not a nationally known figure till a few days ago. He rose into prominence from a field of candidates who had better name recognition and more politically advantageous home states, helped largely by impressive cable news appearances in which he declared that Republicans were “weird.” It was a novel way of telling the voters why they should not support Trump and Vance, and it caught on fast and turned the spotlight firmly on the Minnesota governor.
“Weird” came up in a Harris campaign news release two days after Walz used it, and soon Harris herself started using it, making it the signature meme of the Democratic campaign.
While Minnesota is not a battleground state, the Harris campaign is eyeing Walz’s midwestern appeal in swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan, which, along with Pennsylvania could decide the fate of the Democratic ticket. As the quintessential meat-and-potatoes middle-American guy, and as a former high school teacher, football coach, and veteran, he could appeal to the centrist conservatives in the Blue Wall states, according to his supporters. And by winning a Republican-held House seat, Walz has shown the capability to win over rural, centre-right voters.
Timothy James Walz was born and raised at West Point in rural Nebraska, before moving to Minnesota in 1996. His father was a public school administrator and his mother, a homemaker. He joined the National Guard when he was 17. He lost his father to cancer when he was 19, and his family relied on social security benefits to pay their bills. After serving in the National Guard for 24 years, Walz used his GI Bill benefits to go to college and become a teacher.
Walz enjoys fishing and hunting and has spoken of his gun ownership and “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. TheGuns & Ammo magazine once put him on its list of top 20 politicians for gun owners. But he has supported a ban on assault weapons ever since 17 people were shot dead by a teenager at a Florida high school in February 2018. As governor, he signed into law a bill that would require people buying firearms to undergo background checks.
While Walz has a background which is tailor-made for centre-right and moderate voters, his record as governor has been largely progressive, called “prairie populism” by his allies. He launched expansive social welfare initiatives like child tax credit and paid leave, which continue to help lower- and middle-income Minnesotans. He has also introduced free lunch for public school students (Minnesota is the fourth state in the US to do so), improved access to Medicaid, increased protections that allow workers to unionise, codified the abortion protections offered by Roe versus Wade into law, augmented transgender rights and legalised marijuana.
Abortion rights is another area where Walz could work together with Harris to create an impact. He has a personal story about in vitro fertilization, which has become another target for the far right, who argue that frozen embryos are “extrauterine children”. Walz and his wife, Gwen, required IVF treatments for more than seven years to conceive their daughter. “My oldest daughter’s name is Hope. That’s because my wife and I spent seven years trying to get pregnant, needed fertility treatments, things like IVF, things MAGA Republicans would ban,” Walz told supporters at one of his first campaign rallies.
Walz can also attract union votes, aided by his impressive track record of labour issues. He is a former union member who still shows up at picket lines. Last fall, he joined a picket line alongside striking auto workers, earning him praise from the United Auto Workers union. Meanwhile, the National Education Association, which is the largest labour union in the US with three million members, has claimed Walz as one of its own.
As governor, Walz has worked to expand collective bargaining rights. Under him, Minnesota has become the first state to establish a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers, despite fierce opposition from rideshare companies. Minnesota has also made noncompete agreements—contracts that prevent workers from going to work for a competing business or starting one of their own— unenforceable.
Another advantage for Walz is that among the Democratic circles, and especially among Harris loyalists, he is seen as an affable team player who came up through the military and the classroom, not entirely through partisan politics. They don't think that he would “sabotage” her, by leaking information or by talking behind her back. In fact, White House officials had acknowledged that he was one of the few people who were prepared to publicly defend President Joe Biden after his meeting with Democratic governors, necessitated by his debate debacle. In top Democratic circles, the adjective most frequently used to describe Walz is “loyal.” And when Biden quit the race, Walz endorsed Harris the very next day.
Despite the advantages Walz brings to the table, it can be argued that by picking him, Harris and the Democratic think tank have shown that their poll strategy is somewhat defensive; they believe that this election will depend on how their base will turn up. Trump has also adopted a similar strategy by choosing Vance. It is all about firing up the base, and hoping that their increased turnout will carry the ticket across the finish line in November.
On the flip side, it discounts the possibility of persuasion, the ability to win over enough number of independents or moderate Republicans. For instance, Shapiro or Kelly, who are to Harris’s political right, would have appealed to more centrist voters. But they are not exactly close to the fervent base and the progressive/activist wing of the Democratic Party. And Harris did not want to create any sort of discord within the party, especially since she rose to the top as a result of this year’s peculiar circumstances, without a primary contest. And with Walz being branded as a progressive, his selection is unlikely to assuage concerns about Harris being too far to the left.
The Trump campaign has taken note and many surrogates have already expressed relief that the Democratic pick is not Shapiro or Kelly. Walz is being painted as a "dangerously liberal extremist" and a “far-left lunatic”. By picking Walz, Harris “bent the knee to the anti-semitic, anti-Israel left and chosen someone as dangerously liberal as she is,” said a Republican operative.
In the days to come, the midwest Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan can expect a surge of Republican attack ads focusing on Walz’s left-wing social programmes and political outlook. For instance, some have blamed him for not doing enough to control the demonstrations that broke out after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police four years ago.
Finally, Minnesota is unlikely to be competitive in November and Walz’s presence is not really needed for the Democrats to keep the state. No Republican has won Minnesota since 1972, giving Democrats their lengthiest winning streak outside of Washington, DC. So, Walz’s contribution should ideally come from the three Blue Walls in the midwest, and the Harris campaign hopes that he will energise the base sufficiently and attract at least a section of the independent voters, helping them cross the finish line ahead of Trump and Vance.