Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Waltz as her running mate on Tuesday, picking the progressive and plain-spoken Midwesterner to help win over rural white voters, US media reported.
Walz, a 60-year veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard and former teacher, was elected to a Republican district in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 and served 12 years before being elected governor of Minnesota in 2018.
As governor, Waltz pushed a progressive agenda that includes free school meals, climate change goals, lower taxes for the middle class and increased paid leave for Minnesota workers.
Waltz has long advocated for women's reproductive rights, but has also shown conservative leanings, representing a rural district in the US House of Representatives, defending agricultural interests and supporting gun rights.
Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, adds a popular Midwestern politician whose home state votes solidly Democratic in presidential elections but is close to Wisconsin and Michigan, two important battlegrounds.
Such states are seen as crucial in this year's election, and Waltz is seen as adept at connecting with white rural voters who in recent years have largely voted for Republican Donald Trump, Harris' White House rival.
Harris' campaign is hoping that Waltz's storied career in the National Guard, combined with a successful stint as a high school football coach and humorous videos with his father, will draw in voters who are not yet set on a second Trump term in the White House.
Harris, 59, revived the Democratic Party's re-election hopes after becoming its nominee after President Joe Biden, 81, dropped his failed re-election bid on July 21 under pressure from the party.
Walz was relatively unknown nationally until Harris' “VIP bets” heated up, but his profile has risen since then. A popular member of Congress, he reportedly had the support of influential former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in convincing Biden to drop out of the race.
In the Nov. 5 election, Harris and Walz will face off against Trump and his running mate, Jay D. Vance, also a Midwestern military veteran.
While attacking Harris, sometimes wearing a camouflage baseball cap and T-shirt, Walls called Trump and Vance “weird,” a catchphrase that was picked up by Harris' campaign, social media and Democratic activists.
THE UNICORN
In an interview in late July, Waltz gave Harris' nascent campaign a new line of attack: “These are weird people on the other side: They want to take the books. They want to be in your exam room,” referring to book bans and female reproductive consultations at doctors.
Waltz also attacked Trump and Vance's claims of middle-class empowerment.
“They talk about the middle class all the time. A real estate robber baron and a venture capitalist trying to tell us they understand who we are? They don't know who we are,” Waltz said in an interview with MSNBC.
That approach has struck a chord with young voters, whom Harris must win over. David Hogg, co-founder of the gun safety group March for Our Lives, called him “a great communicator.”
Walz is “something of a unicorn,” said Ryan Dawkins, a professor of political science at Minnesota's Carleton College, a man born in a small town in rural Nebraska who can carry Harris' message to the Democratic Party's core voters and those the party has failed. achieve in recent years.
Dawkins praised his ability to connect with rural voters. This is a group that the Biden administration has tried to reach with infrastructure spending and other pragmatic policies, but so far has shown little success in messaging.
In the 2016 election, Trump won 59 percent of rural voters; in 2020, that number rose to 65 percent, even though Trump lost the election, according to Pew Research.
In the 2022 gubernatorial election, Waltz won with 52.27 percent to his Republican opponent's 44.61 percent, even though a large portion of rural Minnesotans voted for him.
While Walz has supported Democratic Party orthodoxy on issues ranging from legalizing abortion and same-sex marriage to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, he has also achieved a centrist voting record during his congressional career.
He has been a staunch defender of government support for farmers and military veterans, as well as gun owners' rights, earning praise from the National Rifle Association, according to The Almanac of American Politics.
He subsequently registered a failing grade with the NRA after supporting gun control measures during his first campaign for governor.
Waltz's transition from a centrist representing the only rural congressional district to a more progressive politician as governor may have been in response to the demands of voters in big cities like the Minneapolis-St. Pavel. But that leaves him open to attack from Republicans, Dawkins said in a phone interview.
“He risks amplifying some of people's worst fears about Kamala Harris being a liberal from San Francisco,” Dawkins said.
Waltz has a ready counterattack.
“What a monster. Children are eating and their bellies are full, so they can go to school, and women are making their own health care decisions,” Waltz said in a July interview with CNN. “So if they want to label me there, I'm more than happy to accept that label.”
As the state's top leader, Waltz mandated the use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic and signed legislation making marital rape illegal. He presided over several years of budget surpluses in Minnesota en route to his 2022 re-election bid.
During that campaign, Waltz touted the support of several influential unions, including the state AFL-CIO, firefighters, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), teachers, and others.
His tenure was marked by the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer who was found guilty of murder. Waltz directed the state's attorney general to lead the prosecution of the case, saying people “don't believe that justice can be served.”
