Gov. Tim Walz for VP

Harris taps Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for VP

The governor caught everyone’s attention when he called Trump and Vance “weird.”

By Elena Schneider, Holly Otterbein and Eugene Daniels

Kamala Harris named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, elevating a Midwestern governor, veteran and former schoolteacher to help shore up support among blue-collar, white voters in the Rust Belt.

“As a governor, a coach, a teacher and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his,” Harris said in a statement announcing the selection.

Walz, 60, led a progressive overhaul of Minnesota during his second term as governor, when Democrats took full control of state government in 2023 — a template for what Democrats hope to do nationally.

Walz was on few people’s shortlist in the immediate aftermath of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race, but he became a quick favorite from different sectors of the party for a spot on the ticket. Democrats hope that what they see as Walz’s folksy relatability will help with working-class voters — a constituency that connected with Biden, helping the president win back the “Blue Wall” states in 2020.

In the brief tryout period, Walz, who is little-known on the national stage, proved to be an effective communicator on behalf of Harris, according to her allies. He landed clear, cutting criticisms of former President Donald Trump and his vice presidential nominee JD Vance that went viral in recent weeks.

Significantly, Walz helped Democrats hone a new messaging frame, casting Republicans as “weird,” a put-down now regularly deployed by the Harris campaign.

“We start out as underdogs,” Harris said in her statement. “But I believe together, we can win this election.”

Walz has deep ties to communities Democrats have been bleeding support from for years. He grew up in a small town in Nebraska. He served more than two decades with the Army National Guard. He won a rural, conservative-leaning chunk of southern Minnesota in his 2006 bid for the House and held that battleground seat for over a decade, running as a moderate and bipartisan reformer focused on veterans’ issues.

But he’s also evolved with the Democratic Party, leaning into a progressive profile as governor and shifting his position on guns. When he first ran for Congress, Walz received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. But after the Parkland High School shooting in 2018, he denounced the NRA in an op-ed. As governor, he signed universal background checks and red-flag bills into law.

During his first term as governor, Walz confronted two major challenges: George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis and the coronavirus pandemic. He faced criticism in his handling of both crises, including failing to deploy the state’s National Guard sooner to respond to the Floyd protests that set a police precinct ablaze and prolonged school closures during the pandemic. Republicans have already signaled that they plan to use Walz’s response to the pandemic against him.

Walz also pushed through a raft of progressive policies, aided by Democrats’ full control of the state Legislature in 2023. He signed a bill codifying abortion access into state law, restored voting rights for the formerly incarcerated and funded universal free school meals. His efforts drew an approving tweet from former President Barack Obama, who told voters to “check out what’s happening in Minnesota” last May.

Walz turned his focus to the national party in 2024, when he took over as chair of the Democratic Governors Association, responsible for helping to elect and reelect the party’s state executives. Last December, he told POLITICO that the stars of the party are in the states, acknowledging that he’s “biased towards governors” because “they’re proven.”

Harris and Walz do not have much of a preexisting relationship, overlapping for only two years in Congress in opposite chambers. As governor and vice president, the pair did appear on the campaign trail together, including a visit to a Minnesota abortion clinic in May of this year.