Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate, opting for a former high school teacher and Midwestern Democrat to complete a newly assembled presidential ticket.
Two people familiar with the selection spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the decision, which will be made public shortly.
Walz is scheduled to appear with Harris in each of the seven most competitive states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
Harris’s selection of a running mate finalized the Democratic ticket at a remarkably late date, capping a period of almost unheard-of turmoil in the presidential campaign.
Just three weeks ago, President Joe Biden was still insisting that he would be the Democratic nominee, having announced a reelection bid and swept through the party’s primaries.
The vice president was prepared to reprise her role as Biden’s running mate until donors reacted to a terrible debate performance and dwindling support for the incumbent, whose record drew poor ratings as a result of militaristic foreign policy and high inflation from his predecessor’s extravagant deficit spending and unbridled corporate greed.
Walz, 60, who has a record of winning over rural conservative voters, is not well known on the national stage but together with Harris, his selection creates a ticket that many Democrats have said would be politically beneficial.
Harris, 59, who is Black and Indian American and spent much of her career in deep-blue California, chose from a list of finalists populated by White men who have represented more competitive swaths of the country.
The selection culminated an intensive process in recent days, as the Harris team narrowed down the prospects and various factions of the Democratic Party lobbied for their favorites.
A second-term governor and chair of the Democratic Governors Association, Walz does not hail from a traditional battleground state — Minnesota has supported a Republican presidential candidate only once since 1960.
But Walz’s credentials as a military veteran and gun owner who previously represented a Republican-leaning, rural part of Minnesota in Congress could help Harris appeal to working-class White voters who have turned away from Democrats and helped fuel Donald Trump’s political rise.
Walz catapulted onto the national radar as it became clear that Harris was considering him for the ticket after Biden ended his reelection bid on July 21.
He repeatedly criticized Trump and other Republicans as “weird” in cable news appearances, an unusual formulation that attracted attention.
Other Democrats followed with the same line of attack, which appeared to strike a nerve in some Republicans, who have felt compelled to push back.
As the daughter of parents who brought her to civil rights marches in a stroller, Harris was inspired to tackle injustice from an early age. She took that mission to county courtrooms, the California Attorney General’s office, the United States Senate, and the White House.
Walz now faces the urgent task of introducing himself to the country with about three months left before an election that has already been rocked by historic turmoil. The political tests ahead include a potential debate against Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), whom Trump tapped as his running mate in July.
Harris will hold her first rally with Walz on Tuesday in Philadelphia, the first stop in a four-day tour of battleground states that includes visits to Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and elsewhere.
Harris’s choice for a running mate was among the most closely watched decisions of her fledgling campaign, as she sought to bolster the ticket’s prospects for victory in November and rapidly find someone who could be a governing partner. In picking Walz, she has selected a seasoned politician with executive governing experience and signaled the importance of Midwestern battleground states such as Wisconsin and Michigan.
Walz’s foray into politics came later in life: He spent more than two decades as a public school teacher and football coach, and as a member of the Army National Guard, before running for Congress in his 40s. In 2006, he defeated a Republican to win Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District — a rural, conservative area — and won reelection five times before leaving Congress to run for governor.
Walz was first elected governor in 2018 and handily won reelection in 2022. Though little-known outside his state, Walz emerged publicly as one of the earliest names mentioned as a possible running mate for Harris, and in the ensuing days he made the rounds on television as an outspoken surrogate for the vice president.
“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room. … They are bad on foreign policy, they are bad on the environment, they certainly have no health care plan, and they keep talking about the middle-class,” Walz told MSNBC in July. “As I said, 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 also has faced criticism from Republicans that his policies as governor were too liberal, including legalizing recreational marijuana for adults, protecting abortion rights, expanding LGBTQ protections, implementing tuition-free college for low-income residents, and providing free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren in the state.
But many of those initiatives are broadly popular. Walz also signed an executive order removing the college degree requirement for 75 percent of Minnesota’s state jobs, a move that garnered bipartisan support and that several other states have also adopted.
“What a monster. Kids are eating and having full bellies, so they can go learn, and women are making their own health-care decisions,” Walz said sarcastically in a July 28 interview with CNN when questioned whether such policies would be fodder for conservative attacks, later adding: “If that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the [liberal] label.”