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PHILADELPHIA – U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris introduced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate Tuesday, turning to an affable longtime politician who Democrats hope can keep newfound party unity alive in a presidential campaign barreling toward Election Day.
The two made their first public appearance at a rally in Philadelphia just hours after Harris announced Walz as her vice-presidential pick to take on the Republican ticket of former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
“Since the day that I announced my candidacy, I set out to find a partner who can help build this brighter future,” she said. “I’m here today because I’ve found such a leader, Gov. Tim Walz of the great state of Minnesota.”
In choosing the 60-year-old Walz, Harris is elevating a Midwestern governor, military veteran and union supporter who helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state, including sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families.
It was her biggest decision yet as the Democratic nominee and she went with a broadly palatable choice — someone who deflects dark and foreboding rhetoric from Republicans with a lighter touch, a strategy that the campaign has been increasingly turning to since Harris took over the top spot.
“He’s going to be a great vice-president,” Harris said while boarding Air Force Two.
Walz is joining Harris on the ticket during one of the most turbulent periods in modern American politics. Republicans have rallied around former President Donald Trump after he was targeted in an attempted assassination in July. Just days later, President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign, forcing Harris to scramble to unify Democrats and decide on a running mate over a breakneck two-week stretch.
Harris hopes Walz will help her shore up her campaign’s standing across the upper Midwest, a critical region in presidential politics that often serves as a buffer for Democrats seeking the White House. The party remains haunted by Trump’s wins in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016. Trump lost those states in 2020 but has zeroed in on them as he aims to return to the presidency this year and is expanding his focus to Minnesota.
Since Walz was announced, the team raised more than $10 million from grassroots donations, the campaign said.
Walz is far from a household name. An ABC News/Ipsos survey conducted before he was selected but after vetting began showed that nearly nine in 10 U.S. adults did not know enough to have an opinion about him.
This combination of pictures created on August 2, 2024, shows U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, D.C. on July 22, 2024, and Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz in Washington, D.C., July 3, 2024. (Photo by JIM WATSONCHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP via Getty Images)
Harris, the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to lead a major party ticket, initially considered nearly a dozen candidates before zeroing in on a handful of serious contenders.
Trump has focused much of his campaign on appealing to men, emphasizing a need for strength in national leadership and even featuring the wrestler Hulk Hogan on the final night of the Republican National Convention. Harris’ finalists — all white men — marked an acknowledgement of the Democrat’s need to at least try to win over some of that demographic.
She personally interviewed three finalists: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Walz. Harris wanted someone with executive experience who could be a governing partner, and Walz also offered appeal to the widest swath of the diverse coalition.
His selection drew praise from lawmakers as ideologically diverse as progressive leader Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and independent Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a moderate who left the Democratic Party earlier this year.
A team of lawyers and political operatives led by former Attorney General Eric Holder pored over documents and conducted interviews with potential selections. Harris mulled the decision over on Monday with top aides and finalized it Tuesday morning, according to three people familiar with Harris’ decision who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations.
Shapiro, an ambitious politician in his own right, struggled with the idea of being No. 2 at the White House and said he felt he had more to do in Pennsylvania, according to one of the people familiar with Harris’ decision. There was also public pushback to Shapiro for his stance on Israel from Arab American groups and younger voters angry over the administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.
The other contenders threw their support behind the ticket Tuesday, as did Biden, who said the pair was “a powerful voice for working people and America’s great middle class.”
Walz has made a name for himself in recent weeks by coining one of Democrats’ buzziest campaign bits to date, calling Trump and Vance “just weird,” a label that the Democratic Governors Association — of which Walz is chairman — amplified in a post on X and Democrats more broadly have echoed.
During a fundraiser for Harris on Monday in Minneapolis, Walz said: “It wasn’t a slur to call these guys weird. It was an observation.”
Harris, second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Walz are set to appear together for an evening rally in Philadelphia. They will spend the next five days touring critical battleground states, visiting Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Detroit on Wednesday and Phoenix and Las Vegas later in the week.
Vance, for his part, planned stops in some of the same cities. He said Tuesday that he called Walz earlier in the day and left a voice message.
Putting Walz on the ticket could help Democrats hold Minnesota’s 10 electoral votes and bolster the party more broadly in the Midwest. No Republican has won a statewide race in Minnesota since Tim Pawlenty was reelected governor in 2006, but GOP candidates for attorney general and state auditor came close in 2022.
Biden carried Minnesota over Trump by more than seven points in 2020. The Trump campaign on Tuesday immediately tried to tag Walz as a far-left liberal.
“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 Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign press secretary. “Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide.”
Walz, who grew up in the small town of West Point, Nebraska, was a social studies teacher, football coach and union member at Mankato West High School in Minnesota before he got into politics.
“Growing up, I learned to be generous toward my neighbours, compromise without compromising my values, and to work for the common good,” Walz said in a post on X that accompanied a campaign video. “@kamalaharris and I both believe in that common good — in that fundamental promise of America. We’re ready to fight for it. And like she says: when we fight, we win.”
