Written by Grace Panetta and Amanda Becker, The 19th
This story was originally published by The 19th, your trusted source for contextualizing Election 2024 news. Sign up for their daily newsletter.
Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate for the 2024 election. Walz wasn’t initially at the top of the list of vice presidential contenders, but his candidacy surged with television appearances where he honed a message of calling Republicans “weird.”
Harris announced the pick, first reported by CNN, in a post on X, writing: “I am proud to announce that I’ve asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate. 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.”
Harris and Walz will campaign in several battleground states this week, beginning in Pennsylvania, with a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening. The pair will hold additional events in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada.
Walz, 60, is a former high school teacher and football coach, Army officer and member of the U.S. House. He was elected as the state’s top executive in 2018 and again in 2022.
He is a strong supporter of abortion rights, called to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy related to LGBTQ+ people serving in the military in a speech delivered several years prior to its repeal and has advocated to legalize recreational marijuana.
Walz wrote on X that it was “the honor of a lifetime” to join the ticket.
“Vice President Harris is showing us the politics of what’s possible,” he said. “It reminds me a bit of the first day of school.”
On July 21, President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Harris to replace him on the ticket. Democratic delegates formally voted to nominate Harris in a virtual roll call before the in-person Democratic National Convention, set to take place August 19-22 in Chicago.
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Shortly after Biden stepped down, observers began speculating as to who Harris would choose as her running mate. Most of the names floated as contenders were White men and most of them governors.
They included Walz, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. There was also a woman among them, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. Most of them endorsed Harris within hours of Biden announcing his decision to withdraw.
Harris interviewed Kelly, Walz and Shapiro in person at the Naval Observatory on Sunday. A team at the law firm Covington & Burling, led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, coordinated the vetting process.
Within hours of Biden dropping out, the Democratic Party apparatus quickly coalesced around Harris, with nearly 200 Democratic elected officials and major advocacy groups endorsing her. Harris raised $81 million in the first 24 hours after she launched her run, the campaign said.
It’s unclear whether Walzwill face Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance in a televised debate. Before Biden’s exit from the race, Harris had accepted CBS News’ invitation to participate in a vice presidential debate in July or August.
Brian Hughes, a senior campaign adviser for former President Donald Trump, responded in a July 17 statement: “We don’t know who the Democrat nominee for vice president is going to be, so we can’t lock in a date before their convention. To do so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate.”
Minnesota last supported a Republican presidential candidate in 1972, when the state backed Richard Nixon for a second term. Even still, it was one of the states Democrats were worried about potentially losing this year, given polling after the first presidential debate, when Biden was still running for reelection.
In the 2022 midterms, Minnesota Democrats won a trifecta in the state legislature, paving the way for Democrats to pass a slew of progressive bills, including those expanding abortion rights. Because Walz serves as chair of the Democratic Governors Association, he has a national platform to advocate for governors and tout his state’s accomplishments.
In office, Walz has expanded abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights. The PRO Act, which he signed into law in early 2023, insulated the right to abortion in the state from future changes by the court. He also signed additional legislation expanding funding for abortion services, reducing coverage barriers and eliminating restrictions on the procedure, including an informed consent requirement and a 24-hour waiting period.
In 2023, he signed legislation to provide free lunch and breakfast to Minnesota’s K-12 students regardless of household income. Additionally, Walz and Minnesota lawmakers have passed laws giving more funding for Minnesota schools, expanding the child tax credit to an annual $1,750 per child at the state level and making public colleges tuition-free for families earning less than $80,000 a year.
In March, Harris and Walz appeared together at a Minneapolis abortion clinic, marking the first time a vice president made an official visit to a center providing abortions. Abortion rights group celebrated Harris’ selection of Walz while the anti-abortion SBA Pro-Life America lamented it, saying that the pair “make up the most pro-abortion presidential ticket America has ever seen.”
Walz had been on the job for about a year when COVID-19 hit the country. Then, in May 2020, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by kneeling on his neck. Widespread protests followed Floyd’s murder, first in Minneapolis, then nationwide. His dying words — “I can’t breathe!” — were invoked as a movement slogan. Walz quickly denounced Chauvin’s actions, saying the day after the murder, “The lack of humanity in this disturbing video is sickening. We will get answers and seek justice.”
However, his initial response to the protests was criticized by Republicans and the criticism led him to admitt some shortcomings. As a result, he called on the state legislature to reconvene to pass police accountability legislation, an effort that failed at its first attempt, but passed at its second. The bill the legislature passed had a partial ban on police using chokeholds, ended a training program that had been criticized for potentially encouraging aggressive behavior and required training on how officers should deal with those in a mental health crisis. Walz quickly signed it into law.
Walz has nominated several women to Minnesota’s top court and if he is elected vice president or steps down to campaign, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan would become the nation’s first-ever Native woman to serve as governor.
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Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe on Tuesday,” praised Harris’ choice of Walz, with whom she served in the House. She called him “a heartland of America Democrat,” pushing back against characterizations of him as being on the left wing of the party and pointing to his military background.
“Really it’s mystifying to me to see someone that I worked with, shall we say right down the middle, characterized on the left in this regard. He has her confidence, obviously,” Pelosi said of Harris. “I respect the decision.”
