He might not be as well known as others who were in the running for the Democratic vice presidential candidate, but Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is a military veteran and union supporter who grew up in a small Midwestern town and could help Vice President Kamala Harris win support in the key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
And Walz, Harris's choice as running mate, has been at the forefront of the attacks on Republican Donald Trump, labeling him “weird” during a July appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” NBC News noted. The characterization stuck among Democrats.
Harris announced her pick Tuesday, a day after becoming the official Democratic nominee for president.
During a fundraiser for Harris on Monday in Minneapolis, Walz said, according to The Associated Press: “It wasn’t a slur to call these guys weird. It was an observation.”
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Walz, 60, has worked to enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state, measures that included protections for abortion rights and funded with a $17.6 million budget surplus. At the same time, he has appealed to voters who voted for Trump in 2016.
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Trump won Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016, and although he lost four years later he is focused on the states again during this campaign. And he is eyeing Minnesota too. The area is seen as critical to a presidential win for Harris.
He has both a progressive record and proven appeal to white working-class voters in the Rust Belt states, NBC News noted.
As governor, he also had to respond to sometimes violent protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. Republicans said he was too slow to deploy the National Guard after requests from the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
A Nebraska native, Walz has a folksy style that matches his background as a former high school social studies teacher, football coach and Army National Guardsman. He served in Congress in an agricultural district in Minnesota and won re-election in the district even as it swung to Trump in 2016.
Walz said, “What I know is that people like JD Vance know nothing about small-town America" speaking about Trump’s vice presidential pick in July.
"My town had 400 people, 24 kids in my graduating class, 12 were cousins," Walz added. "And he gets it all wrong.”
Among Walz’s legislative accomplishments, besides abortion rights: restricted access to guns, tax credits for families with children intended to cut childhood poverty, protections for trans youth, universal school breakfasts and lunches, and a cap on the price of insulin before President Joe Biden enacted one nationally.
They are progressive laws his backers say could play well across the country, and which his legislative experience could help get passed.
