Walz

Vice President Kamala Harris named Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, bringing to the ticket a skilled executive with folksy charm who has shown he isn’t afraid to embrace policies that lean on the government’s ability to improve people’s lives.

Walz, 60, is, in many ways, the perfect counterbalance to Harris. He brings deep experience as a governor, House contacts from his six terms as a congressman, and an everyman back story that made him stand out amid the usual elite lawyer candidates.

With a single word — “weird” — Walz pulled off something few candidates for the job have ever done. He reframed the entire Democratic message. Gone was the casting of Donald Trump as some dark lord threatening democracy. Instead, Walz tried an old schoolyard tactic — casting the bully and his gang as weirdos. But Walz brings far more than quips. He has a strength that Harris is wise to tap: a strong record of accomplishments that proves to voters that he can deliver.

More importantly for Harris, Walz knows how to sell that message in a way that resonates with Middle America — and across the country. “It’s not about banking political capital for the next election,” he said after signing several pieces of historic legislation last year. “It’s about burning political capital to improve lives.”

In a recent CNN interview, Jake Tapper noted that under Walz, Minnesota had legalized recreational marijuana, passed background checks on guns, expanded LGBTQ protections, implemented tuition-free college for low-income Minnesotans and approved universal free breakfast and lunch for school kids. Would that record be an asset, Tapper asked, or just allow Trump to label Walz another big government liberal?

It was the type of question that has left many Democrats stammering. Walz just grinned. “What a monster!” he said. “Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can learn, and women are making their own health care decisions… And we’re a top-five business state. … I’m more than happy to take the label.”

Walz talks, acts and dresses like a regular guy because he is a regular guy. I’ve covered him since he first ran for Congress in 2006, fresh out of the classroom at Mankato West High School. Fast-talking, idealistic and excitable, he managed to unseat a longtime Republican incumbent and flip the district from red to blue. Preaching a message of “One Minnesota” that blurred perceived divisions between urban and rural, he rose to governor and was reelected.

He grew up in a town in Nebraska that was so small his graduating class had 25 students. Soon after high school, he enlisted in the Army National Guard, working in heavy artillery and retiring after 24 years, having reached the rank of command sergeant major.

Walz is the son of a teacher who became a teacher and married a teacher. While Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance pushes private vouchers, Walz is steeped in the ethic of public schools and knows that schools are the lifeblood of a community, especially in rural America.

When he was still in high school, Walz’s father was diagnosed with lung cancer and died soon after. The governor recalls his family’s struggle to get by on survivor benefits and the years it took his mother to pay off the medical debt that insurance didn’t cover.

All of this combined to make Walz someone who makes no apologies for the government’s ability to level the playing field for the average American and those down on their luck. He will bring vulnerabilities, too, as would any running mate.