(States Newsroom) — Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate Tuesday, in a move meant to boost the Democratic ticket’s appeal in key Midwestern states and with blue-collar voters, according to media reports by CNN, Bloomberg, The Associated Press and others.
Walz, a former social studies teacher and Army National Guard veteran who won challenging elections in a rural U.S. House district before running for governor in 2018 and winning reelection in 2022 balances Harris geographically and demographically while bringing a history of campaign wins in purple-to-red areas and a governing record among the most progressive of any contender to join the ticket.
Walz was seen as the preferred vice presidential pick of the party’s progressive wing, especially as an alternative to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Harris interviewed both governors and U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona in Washington Sunday as she whittled down her shortlist.
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Little known until recently outside his home state to all but the closest political observers, Walz’s laid-back style and approachable demeanor — and straightforward attacks on Republican rivals Donald Trump and J.D. Vance — over weeks of consistent national TV appearances won praise from Democratic officials and strategists who have struggled to break Trump’s hold over white voters without college degrees.
Walz, 60, emerged in recent weeks as one of the party’s top communicators through the power of a single adjective for Republicans and their policy goals.
“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said in a July 23 interview on MSNBC. “They want to take books away; they want to be in your exam room … These are weird ideas.”
Despite the best efforts of President Joe Biden’s abandoned reelection bid to describe Republicans under Trump’s leadership as a threat to U.S. democracy and reproductive rights who couldn’t be trusted to responsibly govern, the attacks didn’t stick and Trump continued to climb in the polls.
But shortly after Biden’s July 21 exit from the race, Democrats embraced the succinct message that has been credited to the Minnesota governor.
“I am loving Tim Walz on TV,” Rebecca Pearcey, a Democratic strategist, told States Newsroom in a July interview on potential vice presidential picks for Harris.
“I love that he’s just so down-to-earth and so pithy and that he’s like, ‘These guys are weird,’” she added. “That’s exactly it — we are overcomplicating what this message has to be.”
Communicating rural values
Walz, who grew up in a rural community in Nebraska, has slammed national Republicans for a relentless focus on cultural issues. He’s trained that criticism recently on Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio whose rise to Republican vice presidential nominee was built on his controversial book detailing the lives of people in impoverished rural areas of Kentucky.
Vance and Republicans have “obsessions” with taking away rights, Walz has said, especially related to reproductive rights and education that includes discussion of gender and sexuality.
“The golden rule that makes small towns work so we’re not at each other’s throats all the time in a little town is: Mind your own damn business,” Walz told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki on July 25. “I don’t need him (Vance) to tell me about my family, I don’t need him to tell me about my wife’s health care and her reproductive rights, I don’t need him telling my children what books to read.”
Walz instead projects a pragmatic vision of Democratic governance.
“They scream socialism, we just build roads and we build schools and we build prosperity into this,” he told Psaki.
Working-class message
As governor, Walz has notched a series of policy wins he can boast to the party’s progressive wing about. He signed laws to offer free meals to all public school students, expand abortion access and legalize some recreational uses of THC.
But the bespectacled former high school teacher and football coach, who has donned t-shirts and hunting caps in national TV hits, also projects an image of Midwestern pragmatism.
That may help balance voters’ views of a Democratic ticket led by Harris, who would be the first woman president, the first president of South Asian descent and the second Black president, and who is seen as more liberal than most in the party after climbing the ranks through Democratic primaries in California.
Christopher Devine, a political scientist at the University of Dayton, said Walz’s appeal is not unlike that of Harris’ last running mate.
“Walz has a message that kind of reminds me of Joe Biden’s appeal, kind of a working-class focus,” he said. “He can speak from a rural background, he’s been a teacher and a coach and has a military background as well. He seems to me like he’s someone who could maybe help with kind of a working-class message.”
The campaign will depend on Walz to carry that message to neighboring Wisconsin and other crucial Rust Belt states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.
