( Spanish) – Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, chosen as Kamala Harris’ running mate, spent more than two decades in the Army National Guard — he deployed overseas after the 9/11 attacks — and worked as an educator and trainer. and surprisingly defeated a six-term Republican congressman in 2006. Who is Walz, what has his career been, and why did Harris choose him?
Walz is currently in his second term as governor of Minnesota and chairs the Democratic Governors Association. He previously served 12 years in Congress, representing a rural, conservative-leaning district that, both before and after his term, has been largely dominated by Republicans.
In the run-up to his selection as Harris’ running mate, Walz had first been an outspoken supporter of Joe Biden following his disastrous debate performance, as calls grew for the president to abandon his re-election bid. When Biden dropped out, Walz endorsed Harris the next day and has since emerged as a reliable, forceful and sharp defender of the Democratic candidate.
Before working in Congress, Tim Walz was a high school teacher and football coach, and served in the Army National Guard. During more than a decade in Congress, he achieved a fairly centrist voting record. In his first campaign, he opposed the ban on same-sex marriage and supported abortion rights. And once in Congress, he balanced that stance with comparatively more conservative ones on gun rights, earning him the endorsement of the National Rifle Association. Walz has since fallen out of favor with the gun lobby for his support of gun safety measures as governor.
Walz ran for governor in 2018, emerging victorious by a double-digit margin. He was re-elected in 2022 with 52% of the votes. As governor, Walz had to deal with divided government and slim majorities in the state Legislature. But in 2022, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (as the state Democratic Party is known) took control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, giving Walz’s party a “trifecta” of legislative control .
This allowed Walz to enact a series of sweeping social welfare programs, such as free lunch for public school students, increased access to Medicaid, expanded protections allowing workers to unionize, and expanded paid family and medical leave. .
Through this trifecta, Minnesota Democrats also managed to codify abortion rights into law, increase protections for transgender rights, pass a marijuana legalization bill, and implement new gun safety laws. . Progressives praised the work as an example of everything Democrats can accomplish. Former President Barack Obama wrote in a tweet praising the last legislative session that it was a “reminder that elections have consequences.”
Walz’s six years in charge of Minnesota have seen a remarkable series of political and social upheaval. First came the Covid-19 pandemic and then, in the midst of it, the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer, which sparked global anti-racist protests. Walz managed to navigate all of these obstacles (in addition to the more common complaints about waste) well enough that, by early 2023, he would be leading that Democratic trifecta in state government.
Tim Walz, the chosen one of Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party
The selection caps the short but rapid rise of the Midwestern Democrat from a relative unknown to one of the main drivers of the party’s attacks on Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda.
The election of Tim Walz also underscores the Harris campaign’s focus on a path to victory that prioritizes the “blue wall” states of the American Midwest. Minnesota is slightly outside that sphere, but Walz, a former high school football coach, has become something of a progressive populist folk hero during his tenure, the exact kind of voice that Democrats taking on Trump are willing to give. to highlight.
In the last week he has delivered a handful of memorable attacks on Republicans, though his most notable contribution has been his determination to label the Republican Party and its presidential and vice presidential candidates, Trump and JD Vance. Walz has referred to the duo as “weird” before addressing their political agenda.
The phrase has caught on, becoming a central meme of the new version of the post-Biden campaign, a fact that is delighting Democrats and, it seems, frustrating many on the right.
Speaking recently at a “White Dudes for Harris” fundraiser, Walz broadly defended the vice president to potential donors.
The phrase was well received and made headlines almost immediately. For many Democrats, at least, virality on the internet It was the kind they have longed for in recent years.
Tim Walz also has a personal history in keeping with the spirit of the times: a family history, as he commented last month, of infertility problems, with his wife of three decades, Gwen, which allows him to speak with some authority against opponents or skeptics of in vitro fertilization, or IVF.
“My oldest daughter’s name is Hope. That’s because my wife and I spent seven years trying to get pregnant, we needed fertility treatments, things like IVF, things that (MAGA Republicans) would ban,” Walz told Harris supporters. “These guys are the anti-liberties.”
And to draw a bright, cheeky line under his own childhood experience, Walz—not for the last time—said that he “grew up in a small town: 400 people, 24 kids in the class, 12 cousins.”
“I think he was a solid Democratic member of the House of Representatives with some nuances: focused on agriculture, farmers and rural areas,” said Democratic strategist Jeff Blodgett, a former aide to the late Sen. Paul Wellstone. “I think he wanted to protect rifles and things of that nature as a rural congressman.”
With reporting from ‘s John King, Jeff Zeleny, Jamie Gangel, MJ Lee, Daniel Strauss and Gregory Krieg
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