Progressive values and Dad jokes: Who is Harris’ running mate Tim Walz?

Kamala Harris has announced Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate.

Walz is a 60-year-old US Army National Guard veteran and former teacher.

“I’m all in,” Walz said on X. “Vice-president Harris is showing us the politics of what’s possible. It reminds me a bit of the first day of school.”

Harris chose Walz over Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. 

Political background

Walz was elected to a Republican-leaning 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 for tackling climate change, tax cuts for the middle class and expanded paid leave for Minnesota workers.

He has long advocated for women’s reproductive rights but also displayed a conservative bent while representing a rural district in the US House, defending agricultural interests and backing gun rights.

The popular Midwestern politician whose home state votes reliably for Democrats in presidential elections but is close to Wisconsin and Michigan, two crucial battlegrounds.

Such states are seen as critical in deciding the November 5 election, and Walz is widely seen as skilled at connecting with white, rural voters who in recent years have voted broadly for Republican Donald Trump, Harris’ rival for the White House.

Harris, 59, became the Democratic Party’s standard bearer after President Joe Biden, 81, ended his re-election campaign under party pressure last month. Since then, she has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and recast the race against Trump with a boost of energy from her party’s base.

Harris was expected to appear with Walz at an event in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening. They will face Trump and his running mate JD Vance, also a military veteran from the Midwest, in the November election. 

Abortion, gay marriage and the pandemic

While Walz has supported Democratic Party orthodoxy on issues ranging from legalised abortion and same-sex marriage to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, he also racked up a centrist voting record during his congressional career.

He was a staunch defender of government support for farmers and military veterans, as well as gun-owner rights that won praise from the National Rifle Association (NRA), 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.

As the state’s top executive, Walz mandated the use of face coverings during the Covid-19 pandemic and signed a law making marital rape illegal. He presided over several years of budget surpluses in Minnesota on the road to his 2022 re-election. 

The George Floyd incident

Walz’s tenure as governor was marked by the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer who was later convicted of murder.

Activist Al Sharpton, founder and president of National Action Network, said Walz had heard calls for justice for Floyd by tapping the state’s attorney-general to lead the prosecution in the case. The officer was convicted of murder and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.

“I learnt then that he was a man who will listen and do what is right by those he represents,” Sharpton said in a statement. “We can count on governor Walz to take that same kind of open approach as Kamala Harris’ vice-president.”

At the time, the Trump campaign officials and surrogates quickly went to work trying to define Walz as a hard-core leftist whose values are out of touch with most Americans. 

Run-ins with Republicans

Walz has attacked Trump and Vance as “weird”, a catchy insult that has been picked up by the Harris campaign, social media and Democratic activists.

Walz gave the nascent Harris campaign the new attack line in a late July interview: “These are weird people on the other side: They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room,” referring to book bans and women’s reproductive consultations with doctors.

Walz has also assailed claims by Trump and Vance of having middle-class credentials.

“They keep talking about the middle class. A robber baron real estate guy 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 re-engage.

The Harris campaign hopes Walz’s extensive National Guard career, coupled with a successful run as a high school football coach, and his Dad joke videos will attract rural voters who are not yet dedicated to a second Trump term in the White House.

Walz was a relative unknown nationally until the Harris “veepstakes” heated up, but his profile has since surged. A popular member of Congress, he reportedly had the backing of powerful former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in persuading Biden to leave the race.

In the 2022 governor’s race, Walz won with 52.27% to his Republican opponent’s 44.61%, though swathes of rural Minnesota voted for the opponent.

Reuters