As Vice President Kamala Harris was landing on her choice of a vice-presidential candidate, a few things about Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota brought him to the front of the pack.
Here are five key reasons he was chosen:
His plucky dad vibes
Mr. Walz, a balding 60-year-old former high school football coach with a thick Midwestern accent, has become a liberal favorite on social media precisely for his off-the-charts levels of uncoolness.
During the vetting period, a year-old video he had filmed with his daughter, Hope, while they visited the Minnesota State Fair went viral. It showed Mr. Walz screaming on a ride called the Slingshot and cheerfully admonishing his daughter for her lack of interest in eating corn dogs.
“I’m vegetarian,” his daughter said.
“Turkey, then,” the camouflage-hat-wearing Mr. Walz said.
In other resurfaced videos, he seems to enjoy doting on the family cat, Honey. Denizens of the internet, a place that is popular with cat lovers, have responded with fulsome support.
A person close to the selection process said that Mr. Walz’s previous career as a high school teacher and football coach also appealed to Ms. Harris, who has gained the support of the nation’s teachers unions.
The American Federation of Teachers, a powerful broker in Democratic politics, last month became the first labor union to endorse Ms. Harris. And the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country, announced its support for the Democratic ticket on Tuesday after Mr. Walz’s selection was revealed.
His populist policies.
As governor, Mr. Walz championed a host of liberal policies in Minnesota that are popular with Democratic and independent-leaning voters.
Ms. Harris and her team believed that these measures, including a statewide child tax credit and a paid-leave program, focused on helping lower- and middle-income Americans. A Harris administration would try to enact legislation like this on a national scale, according to two people directly familiar with the vice president’s decision-making. In 2023, Mr. Walz signed into a law a bill that gave schoolchildren access to free meals, making Minnesota the fourth state in the nation to provide free meals.
Beyond economics, Mr. Walz also signed a bill in 2023 that codified the protections of Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion, into law in his state. Abortion rights has been a cornerstone of Ms. Harris’s advocacy work as vice president.
Mr. Walz also has a personal story about in vitro fertilization, which has been targeted by conservative groups who say frozen embryos could be considered “extrauterine children.” To conceive his daughter, Mr. Walz and his wife, Gwen, had gone through treatments for the procedure that stretched over seven years.
Of course, the selection of Mr. Walz as running mate does not guarantee that any of his work at the state level could be replicated nationally should Ms. Harris win election in November.
President Biden has called for an expanded child tax credit. He has tried to add a paid-leave initiative to a far-reaching social spending bill. And he has all but begged voters to elect more Democratic lawmakers who could help him get the congressional majority needed to get the protections once afforded by Roe passed into law.
None of that has happened yet, and it would remain an uphill battle should Ms. Harris become president. But Mr. Walz was a House member for over a decade before he was elected governor, and he has the support of several House Democrats — a conduit that would be useful to Ms. Harris, who was in the Senate for only three and a half years, if she wins the election.
On foreign policy, Mr. Walz has not spoken extensively about the war in Gaza, one of the thorniest issues facing the Biden administration. On immigration, Mr. Walz has said he supports a pathway to citizenship for people brought to the United States as children, which is in line with the current administration’s policies.
His potential to speak to rural voters
Raised in rural Nebraska, Mr. Walz is the son of a homemaker and a public school administrator. He enlisted in the Army National Guard at the age of 17.
A post from Ms. Harris on Instagram ticked off more facts about his past: “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.”
If that sounds like a checklist of biographical items that could appeal to Midwestern voters, that is exactly the thinking of Ms. Harris and her advisers, who believe that she needs someone with political pull in Midwestern states — including Michigan and Wisconsin — that are considered must-wins for her.
Mr. Walz’s potential appeal to Midwesterners — and to Ms. Harris — goes beyond his stylistic approach. He is a hunter who has spoken of his gun ownership and past “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. In 2016, Guns & Ammo magazine included him on its list of top 20 politicians for gun owners. But after a teenage gunman killed 17 people at a Florida high school in February 2018, Mr. Walz spoke out in favor of an assault weapons ban.
In 2023, he signed into law a bill that would require people buying firearms to undergo background checks and allowed law enforcement officials the ability to intervene if a person owning a firearm posed a risk to themselves or others.
His contrast with Trump’s running mate, JD Vance
Ms. Harris and her advisers believe Mr. Walz will match up well on a debate stage against Senator JD Vance of Ohio, former President Donald J. Trump’s vice-presidential candidate and a fellow Midwesterner.
As they watched Mr. Walz closely during a breakneck vetting period, Ms. Harris and her team liked his straight-talking style, including when he called Mr. Trump and some other Republicans “weird.”
After Mr. Trump chose him, Mr. Vance, 40, had an awkward rollout, notably by doubling down on his years-old assertion that some childless people, as he put it, had no “direct stake” in the country’s future. This ended up being a gift to Mr. Walz, who hit the cable news circuit armed with a response that made the Harris team take notice.
“You know there’s something wrong with people when they talk about freedom: freedom to be in your bedroom, freedom to be in your exam room, freedom to tell your kids what they can read. That stuff is weird,” Mr. Walz said during an MSNBC appearance on July 25.
Mr. Vance likes to drink Diet Mountain Dew, a soda he has tried to adopt as an unofficial refreshment of the Republican ticket. But Mr. Walz is a fan of the green-hued drink, too.
In the end, it came down to winning — and chemistry
Several people close to the decision-making process said that Ms. Harris held in-person interviews at the vice president’s residence with several hopefuls, including Mr. Walz, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. In the end, they said, Ms. Harris simply connected the best with Mr. Walz.
Over and over again during the selection process, loyalty was emphasized as one of the most important criteria for Ms. Harris, who did not have a close and trust-driven bond with Mr. Biden, at least not immediately.
Her selection suggests that she trusts Mr. Walz not only to help her win but also to help her govern.
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