Kamala Harris Picks Minnesota Gov Tim Walz for VP

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate on Tuesday, choosing a progressive policy champion and a plain speaker from America’s heartland to help win over rural, white voters.
Harris announced the selection in a text message to supporters.
“I’m pleased to share that I’ve made my decision: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will join our campaign as my running mate,” she said. “Tim is a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families. I know that he will bring that same principled leadership to our campaign, and to the office of the vice president.”
Walz, a 60-year-old U.S. Army National Guard veteran and former teacher, said he was honored to join Harris on the ticket.
“I’m all in,” Walz said on X, formerly Twitter. “Vice President Harris is showing us the politics of what’s possible. It reminds me a bit of the first day of school.”
Walz was elected to a Republican-leaning district in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 and served 12 years before being elected governor of Minnesota in 2018.
As governor, Walz has pushed a progressive agenda that includes free school meals, goals for tackling climate change, tax cuts for the middle class and expanded paid leave for Minnesota workers.
He has long advocated for women’s reproductive rights but also displayed a conservative bent while representing a rural district in the U.S. House, defending agricultural interests and backing gun rights.
Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, is adding a popular Midwestern politician whose home state votes reliably for Democrats in presidential elections but is close to Wisconsin and Michigan, two crucial battlegrounds.
Such states are seen as critical in deciding the Nov. 5 election, and Walz is widely seen as skilled at connecting with white, rural voters who in recent years have voted broadly for Republican Donald Trump, Harris’ rival for the White House.
Harris chose Walz over Josh Shapiro, the popular governor of Pennsylvania, who had been seen as helpful to delivering his crucial battleground state.
Harris, 59, became the Democratic Party’s standard bearer after President Joe Biden, 81, ended his reelection campaign under party pressure last month. Since then, she has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and recast the race against Trump with a boost of energy from her party’s base.
Harris was expected to appear with Walz at an event in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening. They will face Trump and his running mate JD Vance, also a military veteran from the Midwest, in the November election.
Walz’s tenure as governor was marked by the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murder. Images of a white police officer kneeling on the neck of an African American, who then died, exposed deeper grievances and gave rise to protests over strained race relations in the U.S. and abroad.
Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of National Action Network, said Walz had heard calls for justice for Floyd by tapping the state’s attorney general to lead the prosecution in the case. The officer was convicted of murder and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.
“I learned then that he was a man who will listen and do what is right by those he represents,” Sharpton said in a statement. “We can count on Governor Walz to take that same kind of open approach as Kamala Harris’ vice president.”
Trump campaign officials and surrogates quickly went to work trying to define Walz as a hardcore leftist whose values are out of touch with most Americans.
They criticized his handling of violent riots in Minneapolis following Floyd’s death.

“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,” the Trump campaign said in a statement, a reference to California, Harris’ home state.