PHILADELPHIA – Democratic Gov. Tim Walz is not a household name outside of his home state of Minnesota.
So, in the hours after Vice President Kamala Harris named the former longtime congressman and two-term governor as her running mate on the Democratic Party’s 2024 ticket, the Harris campaign instantly began working to showcase Walz.
His biography was blasted out on social media platforms including Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter, and the Harris campaign spotlighted the governor in a new video.
And the vice president and Walz on Tuesday evening in Pennsylvania’s largest city kick off a jam-packed campaign swing through the key battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of their 2024 election matchup against former President Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS NAMES MINNESOTA GOV. TIM WALZ AS HER RUNNING MATE
The arena scoreboard at the Liacouras Center, the site of Vice President Kamala Harris’ first rally with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 6, 2024 (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
The introduction to Walz is needed, as seven in ten Americans didn’t know enough about the governor to form an opinion, according to a new poll by Marist College for NPR and the PBS NewsHour.
As she boarded Air Force Two on her way to Philadelphia, Harris touted that Walz “is going to make a great vice president” when asked why she chose him over some of the other front-runners in the veepstakes – Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona. Shapiro was expected to address the crowd at the rally.
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The Harris campaign on Tuesday afternoon touted that they hauled in more than $10 million from grassroots supporters in the hours after the vice president announced her running mate, which they said made it “one of the campaign’s best fundraising days this cycle.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks with reporters at the White House, after joining other Democratic governors in meeting with President Biden, on July 3, 2024. (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)
The naming of the 60-year-old Walz was not a shocker, as his name was instantly thought to be in contention in the 16 days since Harris succeeded President Biden as the party’s standard-bearer.
Walz, a former high school teacher and coach who spent nearly a quarter-century in the National Guard, was elected to the House in 2006 and re-elected five times. He represented Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, a mostly rural district covering the southern part of the state.
Having the plainspoken Walz on the national ticket not only helps Harris in Minnesota – a state that leans blue in presidential elections that the Trump campaign has been aiming to flip this year – but it also benefits the vice president in the two neighboring Midwestern battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan.
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The governor will also be able to showcase a slew of progressive policy victories in Minnesota, including protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and restricting gun access to curb shootings. And the naming of Walz over more moderate Democrats such as Shapiro and Kelly will please the progressive wing of the party.
“As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his,” Harris said in announcing her choice.
Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves as she boards Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrew in Maryland on August 6, 2024. Harris is attending a campaign event in Philadelphia after unveiling Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her vice presidential running mate. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / POOL / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Harris said that “one of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle class families run deep.”
“It’s personal,” she emphasized. “He grew up in a small town in Nebraska, spending summers working on his family’s farm. His father died of cancer when he was 19, and his family relied on Social Security survivor benefit checks to make ends meet. At 17, he enlisted in the National Guard, serving for 24 years. He used his GI Bill benefits to go to college, and become a teacher.”
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It was a very different take from the Trump campaign, which instantly targeted Walz.
“Kamala Harris just doubled down on her radical vision for America for tapping another left-wing extremist as her VP nominee,” the moderator in a new Trump campaign video charged. “Tim Walz will be a rubber stamp for Kamala’s dangerous liberal agenda.”
GOP running mate Sen. JD Vance criticizes Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz at a Trump campaign event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
And Vance, in Philadelphia hours before the Democratic ticket arrived, called Walz’s record as governor “a joke” and claimed that he was “one of the most far-left radicals in the entire United States government at any level.”
Vance is tailing Harris and Walz with small-scale events this week as they hold rallies in the key swing states.
