Vice President Kamala Harris will break barriers when she enters the United Center as the first woman of color to lead the ticket of a major party as the Democratic nominee during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this month. As she works to best position herself for this historic moment, she has chosen a safe, incumbent history-lover to be by her side. Tim Walz was the ideal fit.
A former social studies teacher in the Mankato, Minn., school district, Walz rose to national prominence in the past two weeks as Harris narrowed down her choices to three representatives. Walz, the 41st governor of Minnesota, could help Harris secure support in one of the most competitive swing states: his own. From 2007 to 2019, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota’s first congressional district, a rural area on the border of Iowa. To date, Walz is the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress.
“As Governor, he’s been a strong, principled, and effective leader,” President Joe Biden posted on X on the morning of Aug. 6. “The Harris-Walz ticket will be a powerful voice for working people and America’s great middle class. They will be the strongest defenders of our personal freedoms and our democracy.”
Walz’s term helped rewire state representation for the Democratic party when he defeated Gil Gutknecht, the six-term Republican incumbent. Earning the support of voters far and wide, Walz was reelected five times before moving on to the elected office of governor.
“Right now, Minnesota is showing the country you don’t win elections to bank political capital—you win elections to burn political capital and improve lives,” Walz told supporters in June 2023, six months after being re-elected to the governorship.
His proudest accomplishments while in office include groundwork to get Minnesota to 100% clean electricity by 2040, cutting taxes for the middle class, and expanding paid leave for Minnesota workers.
Former president Barack Obama also offered his approval of Walz in a post on X, stating, “Governor Tim Walz believes that the government works to serve us. Not just some of us, but all of us. That’s what makes him an outstanding governor, and that’s what will make him an even better vice president.”
During the pandemic, Walz’s campaign team was said to secure more than $100 million in loans and grants to help restaurants, cafés, barbershops, and other small businesses weather the pandemic. He is a strong advocate of the Child Tax Credit, which Minnesota leads the nation in implementing.
“Minnesota has the strongest Child Tax Credit in the nation,” Walz posted on X, and that the “credit of $1,244 per child [is] going straight into the budget to help with the basics—like gas, groceries, and child care.”
In their state, nearly 440,000 children benefit from the credit, which Harris has promised to expand nationwide.
Walz is the father of a daughter named Hope, who was conceived after seven years of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a treatment Republicans have been fighting to ban. The governor said those leaders are “anti-freedoms” and that he looks forward to improving women’s reproductive rights. Harris has adamantly affirmed this stance in regard to access to quality medical care.
“We care about the people as opposed to the richest billionaires, which is who the former president gave a tax cut to and then created one of the largest deficits our country has ever seen,” Harris told voters at Essence Fest this year.
She later hammered down by adding facts about achievements during the Biden administration: “We capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month. We have finally allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the big pharmaceutical companies to bring the costs down…I say look at what we’ve done to know that when you voted in record numbers—people voted in record numbers in 2020—this is what was able to happen. And when everyone votes in those numbers again in 122 days, we can see it through.”
Harris is hopeful her pick of Walz will add to the ticket and bolster confidence in her ability to lead the nation through 2028.
“How often in 100 days do you get to change the trajectory of the world? How often in 100 days do you get to do something that’s going to impact generations to come?” Walz said on a White Dudes for Harris call, making clear his belief in Harris shortly before he became the VP pick. “And how often in the world do you make that bastard wake up afterward and know that a Black woman kicked his ass, sent him on the road?”
