Harris Picks Minnesota Gov. Walz as Running Mate

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris has picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate in the 2024 election, choosing a plain-spoken Midwesterner who could boost her appeal among rural voters.

Harris’ selection was first reported by The Associated Press. Shortly after 10 a.m. Tuesday, she made it official.

“I am proud to announce that I’ve asked Tim Walz to be my running mate,” she said in a post on the X social media platform. “As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. It’s great to have him on the team.”

Walz, 60, grew up in the small town of West Point, Nebraska, and, after a move to Minnesota, was employed as a social studies teacher and football coach at Mankato West High School before jumping into politics.

In 2006, Walz was elected to the first of his six terms in Congress. He successfully ran for governor in 2018, and was reelected in 2022.

He also served 24 years in the Army National Guard, rising to command sergeant major, a distinction that led to his being the highest-ranking retired enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress.

Considered to be slightly left of center philosophically, during his tenure in Congress, Walz supported efforts to raise the minimum wage, voted in favor of allowing Medicare to negotiate pharmaceutical prices and advocated for pay-as-you-go budget rules, requiring that new spending or tax changes not add to the federal deficit.

He also voted in favor of the Affordable Care Act and to continue funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2017, he was ranked the seventh-most bipartisan House member during the 114th Congress in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy.

The index scores members of Congress based on how often their bills attract cosponsors from the opposite party and how often they cosponsor bills by members of the opposite party.

As governor, Walz has signed several significant reform bills into law, including a paid leave law, a ban on non-compete agreements, cannabis law reform, increased spending on infrastructure and environmental issues, codifying abortion rights, universal free school meals and universal gun background checks.

After the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, Walz also called for and later signed major reform legislation that included a partial ban on police using chokeholds, revised police training methods, requiring, among other things, training on how to deal with individuals in the midst of a mental health crisis and de-escalation of situations that could turn volatile.

It also created a special independent unit at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for investigations of fatal police encounters and a community relations advisory council to consult with the Police Officers Standards and Training Board on policy change.

In regard to voting rights, Walz last year signed the Democracy for the People Act, which, among other things, allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote, permitted voters to opt in to a permanent absentee voter list and expanded language access in voting materials.

Since then, he’s restored the voting rights of over 50,000 Minnesotans on parole, probation or community release due to a felony conviction. He signed the omnibus Minnesota Voting Rights Act providing Minnesota voters with a “private right-of-action” in state law to sue against racially discriminatory voting policies, protecting voters from voter suppression and vote dilution, and making it easier for voters experiencing discrimination to fight back in court and through collaborative non-court processes.

The legislation also requires courts to interpret all election-related laws in favor of voters and their equal right to participate in the political process.

Though Democrats were mum on Harris’ selection of Walz ahead of the official announcement, the Trump presidential campaign wasted no time in deriding it.

“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate — Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” said Trump Campaign Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a statement emailed to The Well News.

“While Walz pretends to support Americans in the Heartland, when the cameras are off, he believes that rural America is ‘mostly cows and rocks,’” Leavitt said. “From proposing his own carbon-free agenda, to suggesting stricter emission standards for gas-powered cars, and embracing policies to allow convicted felons to vote, Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide.

“If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare,” she said.

An average of recent national polls shows Harris and Trump in a virtual tie, each garnering the support of about 47% of the electorate.

Those same polls also suggest the two contenders are tied in the battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin (knotted at 49% each in both states), while Trump has a slight, within-the-margin-of-error lead (49%-47%) in Pennsylvania.

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