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PHILADELPHIA — Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate Tuesday, choosing someone she believes can connect with White working-class voters in Midwestern swing states while championing a strong liberal record.
The choice of Mr. Walz, 60, to be the Democratic vice presidential nominee puts into place the final piece of the election puzzle after President Biden bowed out of the race more than two weeks ago.
At their first campaign rally together on Tuesday night in Philadelphia, Ms. Harris underscored Mr. Walz’s Midwestern, working-class roots. Before the raucous, largely Black crowd of roughly 10,000, Ms. Harris hailed Mr. Walz’s working-class background as the “son of the Nebraska plains who worked on a farm.”
Mr. Walz went on the attack against the Republican ticket of former President Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio on abortion, noting he was the first governor to sign bills protecting abortion rights after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and their personal choices that they make. Even if we wouldn’t make the same choice for ourselves, there’s a golden rule: Mind your own damn business,” he said.
A relative unknown until just a few weeks ago, Mr. Walz was thrust onto the national radar after he repeatedly criticized Mr. Trump and Republicans as “weird” in cable news appearances. The Harris campaign quickly adopted “weird” as a key line of attack against Mr. Trump, which rattled some Republicans. It demonstrated that Mr. Walz could prove an effective attack dog for the campaign.
SEE ALSO: From football coach to VP pick: Walz blazes unusual path to nomination
At the Philadelphia rally, Mr. Walz said of Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, “These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell.”
He said Mr. Trump “froze in the face of the COVID crisis” and drove the economy “into the ground.”
The Trump campaign immediately cast Mr. Walz as “dangerously liberal” and a “West Coast wannabe.” It argued that his liberal bona fides make the Harris-Walz tickets too far left for working-class Americans.
“He is the double-down choice for failed leadership,” Mr. Vance said. “Kamala Harris selected him. I don’t know why, but I think it’s because she’s fundamentally radical herself and she wants a partner in crime.”
“It just highlights how radical Kamala Harris is,” he added.
Born in Nebraska, Mr. Walz worked as a teacher and football coach before he was elected to Congress in 2006. He has served as governor since 2019.
Ms. Harris boasted that she and Mr. Walz are “two middle-class kids” with the same values. She said their “underdog” ticket is fighting for America’s future.
She described Mr. Walz as “a leader who will help unite our nation and move us forward, a fighter for the middle class, a patriot, who believes as I do in the extraordinary promise of America.”
In his debut speech, Mr. Walz touted his small-town background, saying it taught him a “commitment to the people.”
“I was born in West Point, Nebraska, and lived in Butte, a small town of 400 where community was a way of life. Growing up, I spent the summers working on the family farm. My mom and dad taught us to show generosity toward your neighbors and to work for the common good,” he said.
Mr. Walz took a jab at Mr. Vance’s background. The Republican vice presidential nominee has also labeled himself a champion of the working class from his poor background growing up in Kentucky.
“Like all regular people I grew up with in the Heartland, J.D. Vance studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community,” he said. “Come on. That’s not what Middle America is.”
Democrats are betting Mr. Walz’s story will help boost support in the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. All three states were longtime Democratic strongholds that Mr. Trump flipped in 2016 but Mr. Biden flipped back in 2020.
Those states are Ms. Harris’ best path to victory, but the polls show the race is a toss-up.
After the Philadelphia rally, the pair will spend the next four days campaigning across the country, visiting battleground states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada.
Mr. Walz’s selection energized Democrats ranging from party moderates to the far left-leaning members of “the Squad,” such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. The Harris campaign raised at least $20 million on Tuesday after her vice presidential pick was announced.
Mr. Biden praised Mr. Walz as a “strong, principled and effective leader” who will join Ms. Harris as “the strongest defenders of our personal freedoms and our democracy.”
Ms. Harris selected Mr. Walz over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona. Mr. Walz is less known than the other two finalists but was viewed as a safer choice for the campaign.
Democrats were nervous that if Mr. Kelly were on the ticket and won, it would jeopardize control of the Senate. Arizona would have had to hold a special election to finish Mr. Kelly’s current term, and in a purple state like Arizona, a Republican could win.
Mr. Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat, had the potential to deliver Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes, but his pro-Israel stance could have hurt Ms. Harris with pro-Palestinian young liberals. In the past few weeks, a group known as “Genocide Josh” emerged to dampen his chances of joining the Democratic ticket.
Just hours before the selection announcement, Mr. Vance said Democrats’ antisemitism would likely sink Mr. Shapiro’s chances of being picked.
“I think they will not have picked Shapiro, frankly, out of antisemitism in their own caucus and in their own party. I think it’s disgraceful the Democrats have gotten to this point where it’s even an open conversation,” Mr. Vance said.
Still, Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Kelly had the potential to deliver their swing states to Ms. Harris. Minnesota hasn’t supported a Republican for president since President Nixon in 1972, and Ms. Harris has a roughly 6-point lead over Mr. Trump in the state, 48.7% to 42.3%.
Now, with less than 90 days before the election, Mr. Walz faces the task of introducing himself to the country. Among his most essential tests would be a potential debate against Mr. Vance, which both men said they are eager to do.
Before that, he needs to define himself before the Trump campaign can define him as a “radical” Democrat. An NPR poll released Tuesday morning found that 71% of voters have either never heard of Mr. Walz or are unsure how to rate him. The same survey found that 17% of voters have a positive opinion of him, while 12% have an unfavorable opinion.
The Harris campaign introduced Mr. Walz, highlighting that he and his wife used in-vitro fertilization to conceive their daughter, Hope. Ms. Harris has made the fight for reproductive rights, including abortion access, a centerpiece of her campaign.
In February, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos outside the womb are children, citing an 1872 law. The ruling could be the end of in vitro fertilization in the state.
A second-term governor and chair of the Democratic Governors Association, Mr. Walz spent 12 years in Congress, where he earned a reputation for bipartisanship. More than half of the bills he co-sponsored were introduced by Republicans.
As governor, Mr. Walz implemented a bonanza of liberal policy accomplishments, especially during his second term, during which Democrats controlled both chambers of the state legislature.
Mr. Walz also legalized recreational marijuana, restricted gun access and provided legal refuge to transgender youths by increasing access to gender-affirming medical care.
He signed legislation giving illegal immigrants access to state-funded health care, free college tuition and driver’s licenses. The stance contrasted with his position in the House, where he voted for stricter screening of immigrants.
A gun-owning Democrat, Mr. Walz spoke about his love of hunting in his campaign speeches. While in Congress, he was a darling of the National Rifle Association, which endorsed him and donated to his campaigns.
After the February 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Mr. Walz began championing tighter firearm restrictions. He has spoken out in favor of an assault weapons ban.
As Minnesota’s governor, he signed into law several gun control measures, including one increasing penalties for someone acquiring a weapon on behalf of someone who is not eligible to own firearms.
Mr. Walz also enacted laws expanding the social safety net in Minnesota, including expanding paid family leave and providing universal school meals for students. These are legislative wins Democrats have been trying to adopt at the national level. Most of those programs were paid for through tax increases.
Critics have also recently pounced on his governing record, including delaying calling in the National Guard as businesses burned in Minneapolis during the riots after the death of George Floyd in police custody.
The Trump campaign quickly pounced on the fact that the biggest COVID-19 fraud case happened under Mr. Walz’s watch.
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